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Finally reaching the point of achieving a decluttered home is an amazing accomplishment! You’ve sorted all the things, put everything away, taken all the trips to the dump and thrift stores for donations, and can check decluttering off of your to-do list. It’s no easy feat!
However, if you’re noticing that your home simply won’t stay that way, that can be incredibly frustrating. Especially considering how much work goes into the decluttering process! It can be a time consuming task for sure, and probably not one you want to take on all the time.
It would be great if after your big decluttering overhaul it stayed that way right?! Who wants to do that on a regular basis?!
There might be a few things going on if you’re noticing that your home won’t stay decluttered, and we are breaking them all down below including how you can fix it going forward.
Bring on the permanently decluttered home!
You Kept Too Much
Definitely hard for a home to stay decluttered if it isn’t fully decluttered in the first place!
It can be hard to know if you’ve kept too much since there isn’t a one size fits all definition for “too much”. But a few things to consider to evaluate if maybe you did:
- Have you held onto things you don’t ever use?
- Did you get a little tired during one portion of the decluttering process and maybe didn’t do as good of a job as you know you could have? It’s an exhausting process, so it’s completely understandable if that happened!
- Did you keep duplicates?
- Did you keep the “just in case” items? Like just in case you end up wanting to bake mini bundt cakes, so you should keep the mini bundt pan. Even though you know you haven’t baked a single treat in years! (No judgement!) We all have the “just in cases”, but getting realistic about what you’ll actually use can be crucial in the decluttering process.
- Did you keep things even if you didn’t have a place for them or truly want them, but were simply scared to get rid of them.
Trust me, I get it. Decluttering is more of an emotional task than it is a physical or time consuming one. It’s NOT easy! It’s okay if it takes a few times to really fully declutter your house, there’s no rush here.
FIX THIS: Set some time aside to really go through the pile/room/area/whatever it is that you need to. Take the time to evaluate your stuff – especially items you hesitate on. If it’s not a definite yes or no, take a moment to think about why, and if it’s really worth taking up real estate in your home.
Not Everything Has a Place
Alright, so you figured out all the keepers! That’s a huge step, but did you take the next step of ensuring each one of them has a place? Not giving everything a place means you’ll end up with roamers – items that roam around the house, always in the way, and often hard to find since they don’t have a place to store them. Roamers = clutter!
FIX THIS: Locate all the roamers in your home and ensure they all have a home. Give everything a place so you can easily find whatever you need when you need it, and can easily put it away when you’re done! Also, be sure to tell any family members or people who live in your house with you where things are located as well, otherwise you’ll continue to deal with things being out and in the way.
You Aren’t Taking Time To Put Things Away
It can be all too easy to put things down rather than take a few seconds to put things away. Sometimes you don’t even think twice about it! Some change left out on the nightstand here, sunglasses by the door from when you last came inside over there, etc., etc.
But over time those little things here and there that we aren’t taking the few seconds to put away will pile up. You might not notice it at first, but slowly each day the clutter grows until it becomes an actual task you need to take care of rather than just the simple act of putting the thing away immediately. That’s when it can transform from something manageable to something that feels much too overwhelming to even get started with.
Once it becomes a pile of stuff to deal with it takes much more time than just a couple of seconds. And we all know how difficult those piles can be to tackle!
FIX THIS: Take those few seconds, or even minutes, to fully put something away in its place! I know it feels inconvenient at times, and we can easily think that we’ll get to it later. But then we forget and the more items we forget about the more likely it is to turn back into clutter.
If there are items that you aren’t able to deal with right away, set a designated time each day to take just a few minutes and make sure everything that was taken out is back in it’s correct place. It will only be a couple of minutes, but if you didn’t all of those minutes would add up big time, so it’s worth the effort each day/every other day/whatever time frame works best for you!
You Aren’t Mindful When You Shop
If you aren’t being intentional and mindful with your purchases, it’s really easy to bring items into your home that you don’t really need and make keeping your house decluttered much more challenging.
Think about the types of items that previously were cluttering your home, maybe it’s clothes, kitchen appliances, decorations, or whatever else it may be. Have you changed any of your shopping habits since your initial big declutter session? If not, you’re likely to fall back into that trap all over again and have to go through the process in the future.
FIX THIS: Start to really evaluate items before purchasing them and bring them into your home. Questions to ask yourself before buying:
- Do you have anything similar already?
- How often will you be using it?
- Where will this item go in your home – will it already have a place, or will you need to find/create one?
- How will you feel if you don’t buy this item right now?
- Is it possible to think about it for a bit to evaluate if you really need to get it?
- Is it a need or a want?
- If you were to not purchase it right now, would you regret it?
Be mindful and intentional with your purchases to eliminate excess clutter and filling your home with things you don’t really need.
You’re Falling Back Into Clutter Corners
This one is my biggest downfall! Are you guilty of the clutter corners as well? The areas in your home that seem to attract clutter without you even doing anything. A catch-all place where miscellaneous items just end up.
It goes hand in hand with not taking the time to put things away for sure, but sometimes the clutter corners just happen without you even realizing it. Maybe it’s the occasional items that don’t have a place within your home, or maybe it’s a general area where you store something but things aren’t put away well so the clutter starts to grow over time. There are a lot of reasons a clutter corner can happen!
FIX THIS: Similar to ensuring things are put away – set aside time on a regular basis to ensure things are put away. Be aware of the areas that maybe aren’t organized properly, and tidy them up so clutter doesn’t accumulate. Take note of your clutter corners and figure out why they tend to attract it, do your best to mitigate it!
Which of these do you think you’re guilty of?!
In case you’re curious, I think I’m guilty of all 5. Decluttering is an ongoing process for me! It’s something I’m always working on and improving as I get older. I think sometimes decluttering can feel so overwhelming because of the feeling that it needs to be 100% completed in one sweep, but it’s okay to take it slow and chip away at the stuff over time! Decluttering isn’t a one size fits all kinda thing!
I hope this gave you some insight on why your home won’t stay decluttering, and how you might be able to fix that going forward!
