Mindful Living

Your personality can help you focus your efforts on a certain thing or category of items, so you can dig in and really start to make an impact in your space.

Kendra of The Lazy Genius is an expert on getting dinner on the table every night—and all the preparation that goal involves. One practice that she’s advocated repeatedly is asking yourself this simple but game-changing question: What can I do now to make dinner easier later? Once I heard it, that question lingered on my mind.

2019 is here and you’re probably thinking about your New Year’s resolutions. While for some, that might mean gym memberships and swear jars are on the horizon, others have goals for next year that are a little more home-oriented. So to inspire your own home design ambitions, we called on a handful of pro organizers to find out what their New Year’s resolutions were, and how they plan to achieve them.

Sometimes all you need to declutter your space is a new frame of mind. Sounds easier said than done? Not so fast. Take a look at some of the best lessons we learned this year about how to live with less. You need to purge, but you might need that gigantic waffle maker at some point. Stop playing that game; you’ll never get the job done. Find out how washi tape can help: A Brilliant, Regret-Free Way You Can Use Tape to Declutter Your Kitchen. A marathon cleaning sesh only leads to fatigue.

No matter who your guests are and how often they’ve been to your house, it’s rare, probably impossible, for a guest to truly make themself at home in your home. As cliché as the phrase may be, as hosts we definitely want our guests to feel comfortable enough to rummage through the nightstand, for example. But we absolutely don’t want them to feel uncomfortable, either.

We declutter mostly for ourselves. We yearn for the empty space and the room to breathe. So we approach our cupboards, closets, drawers, and garages asking ourselves whatever version of the essential question—do I need this?—that gives us the most clarity. That’s how we decide what to get rid of and what to keep most of the time. But there’s another way to think about it, and there are others to declutter for.

Decluttering is not for the faint of heart—it can take some serious self-reflection, a discerning eye, and the type of discipline not made for a world where Target exists. Author and organization expert Marie Kondo often shares her wisdom about the four biggest hurdles that keep us buried in a sea of our own stuff: space, sentimentality, guilt, and money all make the list. Truth be told, she has a point.

In the end, decluttering is generally pretty satisfying. But in the process? It can be an emotional, guilt-ridden and stressful situation. You want your home to be a positive space, but if you’re holding onto things that you really don’t need, or even things that actively make you feel bad, it’s time to let go. It’s time to invest in and focus on the things that do make you happy.

Labor Day weekend isn’t necessarily the time you will (or should) say to yourself “Oh, this is the perfect time for housework!” But between BBQs and general leisure, devoting some of the extra time afforded by a three-day weekend to your home can give you the gift of a cleaner, happier home just in time for the coming busy fall season. Here’s a plan for doing a few strategic tasks a day so you can make some significant progress without sacrificing your entire weekend.

We go to great lengths to get things out of our homes, but there's one popular trope that will always work.

Decluttering efforts tend to come in fits and spurts. There’s no denying that it feels awesome to go on a purging rampage and get bags of stuff out of our homes. Afterward, our physical and even mental spaces usually feel cleaner and clearer. But it turns out there are two reasons to sometimes put off decluttering (and not just in the way of going about the task more methodically).

When we declutter, our focus tends to be on getting things we don’t need or love out of our homes. But it never hurts (and often helps) to flip the script, turn our eyes away from ourselves, and, in this case, consider where our shed items are going. Turns out there’s a national day for that: July 15 is National Give Something Away Day, and it’s the perfect occasion to squeeze in some decluttering and feel extra good about it—on both ends.