Declutter ยท Spare room & storage
How to declutter a spare room or storage
The short answer
The spare room is usually not a room but a holding pen for decisions avoided everywhere else, so how long it takes depends on what is in there. Open boxes rather than moving them: moving a box to another room is laundering the problem. Send each box's contents to the room it belongs to.
What order should I declutter the spare room in?
- Recognise what this room isIt's where decisions go to be avoided. Almost nothing in here is here by design.
- Open boxes, don't move themMoving a box to another room isn't progress. It's laundering the problem.
- Send each box's contents to its real roomA box of kitchen things joins the kitchen decision. It doesn't go back on the pile.
What will I find, and where does it go?
Every spare room declutter turns these up. Each has its own page, written for Australian Capital Territory where the answer changes by state.
- Sentimental thingsDon't sort someone's belongings while you're grieving, and don't let anyone rush you into it. Put the box aside with a date on it and come back when you can.
- Paperwork & documentsDon't scan everything just in case. You'll spend a weekend digitising paper you'd never have looked at again, and end up with digital clutter instead.
- Kitchenware & glassPyrex, ovenware and window glass are not bottle glass. One heat-resistant dish in the recycling can downgrade an entire load.
- Clothes & textilesNever leave bags outside a closed op shop. Overnight rain or a passing scavenger turns a donation into a dumping fee the charity pays.
Stuck on one thing?
Run it through keep or go, or read the eight thoughts that stall everyone. If it's going and it's big, need it gone in Canberra.
The pile by the door is progress. Just don't let it live there.