Feel better immediately after a speed decluttering session

Have you ever done speed decluttering? No? Let’s try it today.

Many people fall into a “winter depression” with the festive season over and weather being grey in grey. A speed decluttering session can make you feel better immediately. Are you ready?

Speed decluttering takes only a few minutes. Set the alarm on your phone to track your time. Pick a small area or item you want to tackle.  Off you go! Here are 3 suggested areas which will leave you with a big impact:

Your handbag

Empty out everything that’s in your handbag. Throw out old tissues or wrapping papers. Take out all the receipts and enter the spend into your budget tracker, if you use one. Then throw them out, too, unless you need to keep a receipt for reimbursement or tax reasons.

Now, let’s look at the other items. How many lipsticks do you need to carry with you every day? Put only the one (or two) you use that day with you. Keep the others in your make up container in your bathroom or bedroom. The same goes for every other piece of make up!

Don’t forget to look at your lotions and hand cremes! How many do you have? How many do you really need in your handbag?

Tackle your glasses, jewellery and other accessories. Will you really wear 4 different sets of earrings when you’ll go out? I’m going to take a wild guess: No! So why carry them with you? They may not weight much, you say, but it’s the collective that drags you and your shoulder down. Keep one pair of sunglasses and, if you need, a different set of spectacles, like your reading glasses.

Got any electronics in your bag? Your phone, maybe a separate work phone, iPad, chargers, external charger, external drives? Ever noticed how heavy these things can be when you add them up? Don’t bother putting back the items you don’t use or need. Your iPhone can replace your iPad, one thing less to carry.

What papers are you carrying in your handbag? Magazines, newspapers, ripped out articles, school notifications, calendar print outs, office documents for your review… During this speed decluttering session, ask yourself whether you really need to have all these in your handbag all the time? Only put the ones back you need for the next day.

What else do you have in your handbag? Your kids’ toys? Give them a small bag that they can carry themselves. It’s a fabulous way to teach them responsibility and you’ll see their proud faces when they can carry it themselves!

Your car

Next time you’ll drive somewhere, take a rubbish bag with you. Throw out all the empty cups or left overs from take away or drive thru food. Used napkins or issues on the floor? Pick them up and also throw them out.

Got plenty of coins all over the car. Put them in one of the cup holders, for example, or better, in your wallet.

Are your kids taking over the backseats? Get them involved in a speed decluttering session. Have them pick up their toys, crayons, stuffed animals and drawings and put them in a bag to be taken inside your home. You can now store them in their respective “homes”, e.g. the toy container or the pen holder.

Do you play CDs while driving? Pick your favourite 3 and keep the others at home. You can rotate your CD collection after a few days.

What about hand sanitisers, lotions, cremes and other toiletries? How many have taken up residency in your car? Remove all unnecessary ones (6 lotions don’t need to live in your car!) and throw out the empty ones.

Shoes, shoes, shoes. How many pairs do you have in your car? Do you drive in a different pair than you walk in? If so, only keep one pair of these driving shoes and take out all other shoes!

Also take out all extra clothing in the car. Get it washed, if needed, and put it into your wardrobe.

Recycle or shred old papers, magazines, outdated maps or printed out directions you no longer need.

You can do a separate speed decluttering session for your trunk.

Your magazines

Despite living in the paperless age, a lot of us still love holding a magazine in their hands. I’m no different and magazines are one of the easier areas to attack in a speed decluttering session.

Throw out the magazines where the pages are glued together or which are washed out. Throw out old magazines next and take all the paper to a recycling bank.

For current magazines, go through them quickly. Don’t start reading the articles! Instead, rip out the ones you want to read and put them in a reading binder. This practice easily decreases a 90-page-long magazine to just a few pages. Once you’ve read the ripped out article, remove it from our reading binder and throw it out.

When a new magazine comes in or you buy one, go through the old one as described above.

You can also apply the above to newspapers, catalogues, brochures and other printed materials.

Which area or item have you decluttered in no time today? Leave a comment or, even better, send us a picture of your results! I’d love to see what you did!

Until next time,
Agni