Another year has made its way around and January has begun: a fresh start for many. I promised myself that this year I am going to keep my home clear of clutter. That I am going to put the whole weekend aside, roll up my sleeves and donate to the Salvation Army with reckless abandon.

Through exhilaration and abhorrence as well as the occasional avoidance, I have decluttered my house. It wasn’t the weekend cleanup I was hoping for and I was tempted to shove it all in the closet, but I kept my resolve and I finished up properly, driven by the promise of taking myself out for a well deserved ice-cream afterwards.
Here’s what I learned from my three-week decluttering experience:

Everything should have a place.
I know we have all been told this before, but it's true. The easier it is to get to, the least likely it is to be left out. The harder it is to get to, the more likely you are to procrastinate putting it away. After leaving a few items sitting around, you already have the beginning of a small pile in danger of expanding. Oops.

You can overuse storage containers
I love storage bins! Anything to help with organization. The container store is my go-to place, and let’s be honest, who hasn’t benefited from a few well-placed storage items? That said, storage containers are an aide, not a crutch. It is easy to start using storage containers as a way to hoard instead of organize. Using organization as a way to make everything fit is a temporary fix to clutter. Once again, if it is hard to get to then it will be hard to put away.

Learn to let go and keep it in check
This brings me to my last and possibly most productive strategy to keep clutter at bay. Keep the amount you have in check. Set limits. Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking that I might need this someday. I understand the want to not waste. But if the clutter is wasting space or is causing stress, it may be better to let go.

After getting rid of all this clutter, it is a breeze tidying up. With everything in its place I can sit down and eat a pint of ice cream, because I keep my promises.