Early fall is the perfect time to prepare your home for the holiday's. It's time to clean, winterize, and remove clutter to make room for décor, guests, and winter fun. Stay tuned for my 30 day challenge for the month of October if you want some extra accountability and structure!
No matter when you are working on preparing for the holiday's, there are some important spaces/categories you should consider decluttering. Read through the following and make your own "Declutter for the Holiday's" list. I recommend only picking 4 long projects (one per week) or 8 medium size projects (two per week), especially if you are going to try to conquer this list in one month.
Entry Way, Living Room, & Dining Room - These are probably the most important areas to declutter for the holiday's. No matter how small your holiday gathering, I'm sure you'll at least use the main living spaces in your home to entertain. Remove clutter from these spaces now to make hosting a breeze. Plus, pack away summer decorations to make room for fall & winter wonder. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If your home is a complete mine field of piles and boxes, focus on getting just the entry way and front living room under control. Make sure the coaches are clear for people to sit on and there is room to put up a little Christmas tree. Do what you can, and then just enjoy the season. MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your main living spaces are minimal already, go the extra mile and consider each item and if it is still bringing lots of value to your life. Maybe declutter some décor that is not longer important to you (make dusting easier) or even declutter a piece of furniture if you aren't using it. Every item we have has an impact on our lives. Remove the excess and make more room for joy.
Guest Rooms - If you are having guests over for the holiday's, it's definitely time to get your spare room(s) cleared out. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If your guest room is a full on storage room, just get it to a point that your guests can use the bed and put a suitcase down somewhere. MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your guest room is decluttered already, challenge yourself to get everything out that is not guest related. Maybe even create a little gift basket of toiletries and clear the closed so they can hang their clothes up in there if they want to.
Kitchen - If you are going to have other cooks in the kitchen during Thanksgiving or Christmas, now's the time to declutter your kitchen so everything is clear, neat, and easy to find. Plus, don't forget to declutter your pantry and fridge to make room for holiday cooking & leftovers. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If your kitchen is a complete disaster, just get it to a point that you can easily cook in it. Then plan to not have other cooks in the kitchen as much as possible. MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your kitchen is well organized, challenge yourself to do a thorough declutter and cleaning session. Take everything out, decide if you really need each item, clean, put things back in logical places, maybe get some new organizing containers/drawer organizers, and get crazy with the labels. Labels on everything will make lots of cooks in the kitchen less stressful.
Your Closet - If you have a winter and summer wardrobe situation, today's the day to do that swapperoo! Plus, why not declutter a bit while you're at it. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If your closet is overflowing, work on decluttering it to a point that you can at least put your winter stuff in and find things relatively easy. You can always come back to this project after the holiday's are over (New Years Resolution maybe?). MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your wardrobe is minimal, but you still have a winter and summer swap you have to do twice a year, challenge yourself to do away with the two wardrobes and fit all your clothes into your closet (except for maybe your ski gear and big winter coats). Of course, for some people this is not appealing at all. But if you are trying to seriously simplify your life, making yourself limit your clothes to the size of your current closet, can be a great way to do that.
Summer Fun - While you're prepping for winter, don't forget to declutter and put away summer items. If you have water toys (kid or adult), swimming suites, or lawn care items that have not been used this year, it's time to let them go. Then put what you did love and enjoy this year into labeled boxes in the garage or storage room for next summer. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If you are way too overwhelmed to even find a place for this kind of stuff, just do your best. Maybe your summer box has to stay inside for now (if your garage is full) or maybe it's time to declutter the of your summer fun items because you just don't have a place to store them. Just keep your absolute favorites for when you get your home under control (hopefully by summer) and let go of the rest. MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your summer items are easy to put away. Maybe do some extra garage organization as well. Get matching quality bins with pretty labels or build that shelving unit you've been dreaming about.
Car - Heading out of town for the holiday's? Why not get your car organized. Put your ice scrapper and chains in your trunk (before you forget and regret it) and remove all the trash. IF YOU'RE BURIED: If your car has become as bad as your house, today's the day to conquer it! In all of the "If You're Buried" sections above I took it easy on you. But this area is important to get under control now! So I challenge you to take EVERYTHING out of your car. Shove things in the garage if you have to. Then only put the essentials back in. Finally, go get your car washed and vacuumed and enjoy the bliss of having an immaculately clean and organized car. Take this feeling and let it motivate you to conquer your home next. One piles, category, or room at a time. MINIMALIST CHALENGE: If your car is already clean and organized. Make sure to do any maintenance you've been procrastinating now. Need some snow tires? Time to change the oil? Got a check engine light on? Go and deal with that now before you're stuck in the snow somewhere!
Paper - End of the year paperwork is coming up soon and after that, tax season. If you want to get ahead of the game, declutter and organize your papers now. For more detailed help on paper clutter, you can check out my 10 Step Paper Declutter or my post on Decluttering for Taxes.
Kid's Toys & Clothes - Before the gifts arrive is a great time to declutter kids' items. Read my 10 Ways to Get your Kids Decluttering and make sure to read tip #5 specifically about pre-Christmas decluttering.
I hope whether you have some clutter, way too much clutter, or very little clutter, you found this helpful. If you are completely buried in clutter, I recommend you also go read my "Advice for those Buried" article. Or if you are pretty minimal and want to take it to the next level, you may enjoy my 8 Lessons on Eco-Minimalism.
Let me know in the comments which rooms/categories YOU are going to be tackling before the holiday's!
And, if you need help conquering your home before the holiday's, you can book a free first session with me here or contact me to get all your questions answered.
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