When working on decluttering and organizing a room in your home, be sure to take multiple boxes or bags with you to keep your process as tidy as your room will soon be.

Use 5 separate boxes:

1. Trash
2. Donations
3. Things that belong in another room
4. Things to give to a family member or friend
5. “Think it over” items.

What are “think it over” items?

Those are the things that you’re not quite sure what to do with at the moment. Put those “not sure” items all in one box and then put that box away. Revisit them at a later date and see if you’re ready to decide where they’ll go.

If you’re tired of your video game or TV controllers being left all over the place (and inevitably getting lost), then you’ll love this simple hack:

Place Velcro strips on the controllers and on the surfaces, you want to keep them, like the side of an end table. Hang them up when you’re done using them and you’ll always know where to find them!

Remove yourself from your environment for a few days (or more) now and then. Getting out of your cluttered space can give you some much-needed time away to reassess what it is you really want.

Being away from your environment takes away the clutter of to-do lists, and bills, and all of the things you know need doing, but you haven’t gotten to them yet.

When you return refreshed, you’ll have a new perspective on what is important and what can wait.

When decluttering your home, it can be difficult to let go of items when attachments to them are emotional and strong, even if they live in a closet or storage area. Try to think in terms of “things deserve to be used.”

You aren’t honoring your things if they’re packed away and never see the light of day. Re-home them to give some other owner the joy of using them in the way they were intended.

One of the biggest problems families have living in a small space is all the stuff kids have that seems to grow all by itself if you don’t constantly cull.

Try doing regular sweep through the house. Maybe every month or 2. Put every toy or craft item you haven’t seen anyone play with in a while away in an out of the way place like the garage or basement.

If the kids don’t notice after another few weeks, send it off for donation or into the garbage bin.

If you have kids, you probably don’t have large blocks of time where you get to declutter your life in one fell swoop.

More than likely, you encounter many useless items throughout the day.

By having a donation box in the home at all times, you now have a place to put that clutter, rather than just leaving it where you found it only to (not) deal with it later.

Do you keep special items in keepsake boxes or stored away like museum pieces to be admired but rarely used? If so, those items are clutter.

By using sentimental items regularly or finding a way to display them in a clutter-free fashion, you are switching the item from under-appreciated relic to useful life tool.

When clutter and mess have got out of control, the motivation to get started decluttering your home wanes.

Days or even weeks can pass, while you keep looking at the mess every day and getting stressed out by it. To get yourself jumpstarted or to reduce the overwhelm try to:

- Set a timer for 5 minutes at a time and use that 5-minute block to complete one task.
- Repeat three times, each time completing a different stage of the tidying process.

It’s something anyone can achieve, with only a few minutes a day.