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There’s no doubt that the past year has opened many of us up to our homes.
If we were to roll the clock back 12 months, most people spent almost limited time in them. After all, most of the week was spent in an office or other place of work.
It means that not only are we spending more money on them than ever before, but also that we are becoming more aware of what currently exists within them.
As you may have gathered, clutter falls into such a category. We’ll now mull over some quick tips that can keep your house clutter-free and ultimately, make a happier home.
Are you able to segregate your living and workspaces?
In the early days of working from home, this was something that probably wasn’t thought about much. After all, we were only meant to be working from our homes for a matter of weeks, possibly months, weren’t we?
As we all know, the landscape has changed and will drag on through much of 2021, and longer for some companies. It means that more permanent solutions are essential in your quest to drive down the clutter. Having your office in your kitchen is now barely acceptable; papers will be flying around, and there’s too much of a work-life blend.
Instead, try and segregate your own workspace, away from the everyday areas of the house. It might be a spare bedroom, or an office if you are lucky, but getting away from those high-traffic areas can prevent clutter building there and stop work from taking over your home.
Have you used the items in question in the last twelve months?
It’s a simple question, but it should dictate exactly what happens with some of the items around your home office. Whether it’s a document, or a once crucially important piece of stationary, ask yourself if it has been used over the last twelve months.
If it hasn’t, it’s a candidate to be removed from your house. This doesn’t have to be as cut-throat as the previous sentence might indicate; for example, you might turn to office storage options to help you along your way.
The point of this exercise isn’t about ‘how’ to get rid of items that are causing clutter, but more about the ‘what’.
Does everything have its own home?
This final question is one that some people might struggle to contend with. However, the working from home saga has now gone on for some time and you subsequently need to adapt your home to accept this.
In the past, if you were occasionally working from home, documents and other work equipment would probably live in a laptop bag – ready to be transported to the office at the earliest opportunity. Now, such opportunities don’t exist.
It means that you need to find places for this work equipment to live. If you rely on temporary homes, clutter will accumulate. Instead, find cupboard space or anything else which can accommodate your working belongings for this new way of life.
You may also like: Decluttering Ideas for Your Home Office
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