The Biggest Decluttering Mistake
Once you’ve put in all the effort to declutter, you don’t want to make the biggest decluttering mistake. If you’ve ever gone through a big burst of decluttering, with carefully organized bins of stuff, and then never done anything with that stuff, you might have an idea of what I’m about to say.
The biggest decluttering mistake:
Here it is, the number one biggest mistake people make when they are decluttering: letting your items linger once you’ve made a decision.
Once the decision has been made, take action
Do it now:
Do you have a pile of stuff to donate? Put it in your car right now and add “dropping off donations” to the top of your to-do list.
Planning to sell something? Go ahead and post it on Facebook Marketplace or Poshmark or wherever you are planning to sell it NOW (and give yourself a deadline—if it doesn’t sell by X date, it’s getting donated).
If you are storing it, go ahead and move it to your storage area (and don’t forget about the container rule).
If it’s something you want to keep, put it back where it belongs. If it doesn’t have a space yet, go ahead and find it a home.
Don’t undo your hard work
When we let our piles of stuff linger, they inevitably slowly get sucked back into our home—making all our hard work for nothing! Once you’ve made a decision, go ahead and take action.
Read more in my decluttering series here:
I Spent Good Money On That · What if I Need it Someday? · Getting Rid of Stuff: Emotional Attachments · 32 Days of Decluttering Kickoff · Clutter is a Thief · Clutter Makes it Hard to Find What You Need · The Container Rule · Decide Before You Start · The Pareto Principle · How to Sort When You Declutter · Where to Donate When You Declutter · How (and What) to Sell When Decluttering
