Although cleaning up homes has been an age-old practice, the concept of decluttering has gone more popular, embedded in people’s consciousness just recently. Thanks to Marie Kondo, almost everyone is now into tidying up their spaces and going clutter-free. The KonMari method is simple: take an item and see if it sparks joy.
But of course, not everyone finds that helpful, especially when everything simply sparks joy. Fortunately, it’s not the only decluttering strategy out there. If you’re feeling the urge to clean up the mess in your bedroom or garage, here are some non-KonMari methods worth trying.
Minimalist Game
From the name, you can already expect that this decluttering tactic is supposed to add fun to cleaning up your Salt Lake City home. Introduced by popular, influential minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the idea behind the game is that you get rid of stuff, the number according to the day of the month.
So, on the first day of the month, you take out one, say, a mug or carpet that’s been sitting in your garage for a long time. On the second day, you toss out two, and then three on the third, and so on. By the 20th or 25th, you’ll have tons of items to remove from your space. It’s probably worth considering getting a garage door opener for a safe and hassle-free clean-up.
Since it’s a “game,” you’re doing it alongside someone, for instance, a family member, a friend, or a co-worker. Whoever stays on the challenge longer wins. If both of you make it to the end of the month, then good for you. You’ve managed to toss out almost 500 items in a short period.
Four-Box Method
One problem when sorting out stuff is that you could lose track of what exactly to do with those that you don’t necessarily want to put in the trash. Worse, you get stuck with sentimental items. In the end, you abandon decluttering altogether, postponing it to an indefinite time, but never really getting around it until your garage is bursting at the seams.
In the four-box tactic, you get to condition your mind from the get-go that each item you get from a pile goes to one of the four categories: put away, give away, throw away, and undecided. You get to organize your decision-making easily, and at the same time, give yourself a little bit of room for indecision, at least for the sentimental things.
Closet Hanger Tactic
Clothes make up for much of the clutter inside every home. So, it’s just fitting that there’s a dedicated decluttering strategy for it. The closet hanger tactic is simple. The first thing you have to do is arrange your hangers in a way that they’re facing the same direction. As you use clothes, put them back in the closet, but this time, the hangers will face the opposite direction. After a week or two, you’ll have an idea which items you’re actually using and which you should let go already.
You can apply the principle of this tactic on other items as well, but you may have to devise a way to mark the most-used. As you keep track, get yourself ready in disposing stuff you don’t use anymore.
The KonMari method is an effective decluttering strategy, but it’s simply not for everyone. If you’re part of that group, know that there are other equally useful methods out there. In fact, you may just create one yourself, while getting used to tossing out stuff every now and then.