Simple Steps To a Simple Home

So how do we actually go about simplifying our homes? I can tell you one way that definitely DOESN’T work: come up with a complicated plan that involves a lot of time and energy that you may or may not have (speaking from experience here 😉). It stands to reason that if we want the results to feel simple, then the approach also needs to be simple. Here are the best strategies I have found to simplify my home:

• Give yourself permission to do a little at a time. There are some seasons of life that lend themselves well to big decluttering sessions, and if you find yourself with the capability to do one then absolutely do. But even if you can knock out a lot at once, I still find it best to practice small moments of decluttering. This helps decluttering become a routine rather than a project. The reality is that even if you could take two weeks and completely declutter your house from top to bottom, it will become cluttered again if you don’t have routines to prevent the clutter from taking over. Some ways to declutter a little at a time:

  • When you notice something with a hole or that’s broken, throw it away. I know this feels like a duh, but sometimes we just need someone to give us permission to let go of the things that are old. This isn’t wasteful; the things that have holes and are broken are probably the things that your family loved the most, which means you’ve already gotten your money’s worth out of them. Hear me loud and clear: if your kids’ clothes end up with holes, then you’re probably doing something right 😉. 

  • Make it a rule that you have to refill boxes that come into your house. Tell yourself that anytime you buy something new, you have to fill the box it came in with things to get rid of. 

• Learn to view your home as a container with limits. The same goes for each piece of storage in your home, from the biggest bookshelf down to the smallest storage basket. I’m finding that a big part of embracing simplicity is recognizing the need for limits. This means that you can’t keep everything. Dana White, author of Decluttering At the Speed of Life, says we should always start with our favorite things in a space, and once the container is full then we get rid of the rest. This concept will be life-changing for your home, but it can also feel painful, especially if your space is on the smaller side. I’d like to tell you there’s a magic fix for small houses that allow you to keep more and not feel overwhelmed by the clutter, but after living in a small house for a year and a half I’ve yet to find any solution that works EXCEPT purging down to the limits of the space. You’ll know you’re there when your home feels easy to maintain, when you can walk into a room and actually clean without spending hours moving and picking up stuff.

• Embrace cleaning habits rather than strict schedules and checklists. Work on one habit at a time and start with the things that need to be done daily. For me this includes laundry, dishes, kitchen counters, and picking up/sweeping the main rooms. Something magical happens when you keep up with daily tasks: when you have free moments during the day instead of spending them catching up dishes or working through a giant pile of laundry, now you can use that time for something fun with your family or to get ahead on your home goals. I find that there is usually a spillover effect from keeping up with daily tasks to getting deep cleaning and decluttering done. 

• Finally, look for the simple spots of beauty in your home. In a world inundated with Pinterest and Instagram photos of beautiful homes, it’s easy to look around at our homes and see everything that is missing or incomplete. But we CAN retrain ourselves to notice simple moments of beauty: the candle flickering on the counter. The sun pouring in through a window. The painting your child just completed. A fresh loaf of sourdough on the counter. A cleared off surface from your latest decluttering. A bouquet of flowers you grew yourself. Let’s stop overcomplicating beauty and recognize that it was already in our homes all along.