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Hi i’m tasha from one big happy life on behalf of the financial diet and this is the lifestyle fix brought to you by a skill share with spring right around the corner a lot of people have been bit by the cleaning bug myself included one of the quickest ways to increase my appreciation for my living space and improve my general outlook on life is to declutter i
Have a whole series of videos over at one big happy life where my family and i declutter various parts of our home from a large hallway closet to the entire basement which took multiple days of work to finish there our whole industry is built around managing cleaning and decluttering your living space there are so many different philosophies and methods that have
Greatly improved people’s lives and relationships with their belongings and it’s great that you can try out those different approaches to figure out what will work best for you and your lifestyle i’m not gonna go into any of those frameworks today personally i love taking a long leisurely afternoon to completely empty out of space touch everything and do a massive
Purge it’s so satisfying but sometimes you just don’t have time for that instead i’m gonna walk you through my quick and dirty method for decluttering any space in 15 minutes or less the first thing that i want to emphasize is that you don’t have to set aside several hours or multiple days in order to make serious progress on decluttering your living space you
Can make a huge impact on your surroundings with a solid plan and just 15 minutes of focus work the first step in creating your plan is to define the area that you want to declutter does your kitchen pantry need help is your hallway closet overflowing when was the last time you went through your medicine cabinet in your bathroom do you still want to read or watch
Everything on your bookshelf or in your entertainment center or all of your office supplies in good condition and do they serve your current needs can you remember the last time you looked in the boxes that are stored under your bed pick a specific area in your home and commit to it for an entire at 15 minutes if you plan to work on your kitchen pantry resist the
Temptation to start going through your kitchen drunk drawers success in a 15 minute declutter spree is going to strongly depend on your ability to define your goal and stick to it you’ll see the greatest and most dramatic declaring results when you stay on task instead of following the urge to wander in other areas this declutter ring spree is a targeted deep
Dive into one specific section of your home not a broad sweep across every surface now i want you to be realistic here if you’re only working with 15 minutes you might be able to do one drawer in the kitchen or a few shelves in the pantry you will not be able to declutter and clean your entire refrigerator so pick a space or a section of a space or you can make
Some real progress in a short amount of time or get comfortable with the idea of taking multiple passes through a space so you can declare it in several 15-minute intervals over a period of a few days next you’ll want to gather you’re declaring and cleaning supplies i recommend having a garbage bag a bin for donations and one for things that belong elsewhere you
Might also want to consider bringing along your cleaning caddy for the ride just in case you want to wipe things down but this is optional you don’t have to clean and declutter at the same time especially if your time crunched now that you’ve chosen your target and all ready to get started go ahead and take a before picture of your space in fact take several so
You have solid proof of what the space looks like before you singled it out for those 15 minutes of decluttering i really love looking at the before and afters of my declared spaces it shows me just how much progress i’ve made on a project which makes me feel accomplished plus having that visual proof also makes it more likely that i’ll keep the space in its new
Organized condition and be inspired to tackle other spots in the house now that everything is ready to go it’s time to start your 15 minutes of physical work set a timer on your phone and then get started it’s crucial that you go through your space systematically go from top to bottom or left to right whatever makes the most sense to you and the space that you’re
Working in you want to ensure that you’re being thorough about it instead of hunting and pecking through the space which can lead to distractions and less progress as you take everything out of the space you’ll want to immediately sort it all into four categories this would be your keep pile your donated pile your it goes somewhere else pile and your get rid of it
Pile it’s important that you trust your gut at this stage keep reminding yourself that you don’t have to keep broken expired or never used belongings in your space no matter how much it cost you or who gave it to you it’s okay to part ways with belongings you no longer need or use it’s okay to give away possessions that you no longer want or that doesn’t fit your
Current lifestyle however if you still find yourself hesitating over whether or not to keep something go ahead and keep it when you have time for a longer more sedate to cluttering spree you can spend more time evaluating all of the maybes you run into right now your 15 minutes are best used to sort out all of the definite i don’t want to keep these items rather
Than spending time doing a more nuanced analysis of the pros and cons of everything that you will once you’ve pulled everything out of the space and you’ve declared and sorted everything into their appropriate piles take a minute or two to clean the space wipe down the shelves sweep or vacuum the floor dust off the baseboards do whatever it is that you need to make
The space look nice again don’t be tempted to skip this step taking a few moments to clean the area your declutter in’ will really help the look and feel of the space when you’re finally done you want everything to look nice when you put your possessions back where they belong now that you have a clean empty space to work with it’s time to fill it back up with
The items that you’ve decided to keep put the items that you use the most in your daily life in the places that are the easiest to access and put items you don’t use frequently in those harder to reach places that way the things that you use the most will be right at hand when you’re looking for them try to group similar items next to each other so you can help keep
Everything organized in the long run if you have small children or pets make sure that you put potentially hazardous or dangerous items well out of their reach one important thing to keep in mind when you work is that the places where you’re putting things now don’t have to be a permanent decision if you find that after a few days or weeks you don’t like your new
Arrangement you can always change it later as you figure out what does and doesn’t work best for you for now the important thing is to get a better idea of how much stuff you’ve decided to keep and how well it all fits in your newly declared space as you put away the items from your key bit pile go ahead and make a mental note of any organizational supplies that
You think might enhance the functionality of the space in the future like basket boxes wall hooks and so on it’s more practical and more financially responsible to wait to make a run to your favorite home organization store until you have better idea of exactly what it is you’re going to keep and what you’re gonna get rid of then go ahead and give yourself some
Time to test out the spaces new arrangement and see whether or not it fits you needs after all of the hard work you did decluttering you don’t want to accidentally replace some of that clutter with organizational supplies that you don’t actually need but if it turns out that you really do need containers or dividers or other gadgets in order to make the best use
Of your newly declared space go out and get what you need guilt-free once everything you’ve decided to keep is back where it belongs you’re declaring spree is over now you can take a quick run around the house to distribute the items in your belong somewhere else pile and take your donation bin straight to the car dropping off your garbage bag full of trash or
Recycling along the way now that you’ve spent 15 minutes decluttering cleaning and rearranging the space it’s time for you to take your after pictures so you can compare them to your before pictures there’s something really exciting about actually documenting just how much you can do with 15 minutes of dedicated focused decluttering work imagine what you could do
If you had more than 15 minutes in fact one of the best things that you can do if you want to cut down on the clutter in your home is to incorporate these 15 minute decluttering sprees in your normal weekly or bimonthly cleaning routine tackle one closet one cabinet one shelving unit one junk drawer at a time you can work your way through your home piece-by-piece
Area by area and it won’t take long for you to improve the look and feel of your living space dramatically this process will also help you become reacquainted with the things you own so you won’t have to spend so much time looking for specific belongings and it means you’re less likely to forget you own something i can’t be the only person who’s bought some kind
Of gadget only to get home and find out that i already owned one but had hidden it away in a drawer mi-hwa regularly doing 15-minute – cluttering sprees is something your future self will definitely thank you for not only will it improve the look and feel of your living space right now it will also be that much easier on you the next time that you move or clean
Learning to declutter is a skill just like any other which means that decluttering is something you can practice and get better at with time make a plan for yourself set aside a dedicated 15-minute block for it and then get to work i promise you’ll be surprised at just how much you can accomplish in such a short amount of time when you go in with a plan and stay
Focused now that i’ve shared my steps for decluttering any space in 15 minutes or less let’s talk about another great place to learn some other important life skills skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design business technology and more premium membership gives you unlimited access to high-quality classes on essential
Topics so you can improve your skills unlock new opportunities and do the work you love looking to brush up on your lifestyle photography skills so you can deck out those empty walls of yours check out mark murray forts bert’s class lifestyle photography capturing inspiring visual stories where she teaches you how to capture stunning stories in a style yet natural
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Transcribed from video
How to Transform Your Messiest Space in 15 Minutes or Less | The Lifestyle Fix By The Financial Diet
