Here comes Santa and you only have 54 days to declutter your home before it’s covered head to toe in tinsel and turkeys! The most wonderful time of year brings more mess and chaos than lockdown did, so let’s not indulge just yet.

Read below for the 10 best tips and tricks to declutter before you hoard on the happiness that is Christmas.

1. Create a decluttering checklist

Let’s start slowly, write a list room by room of objects you can get rid of! For example, glassware in the kitchen. Keep this up with all the different types of objects in each room and then start going through them. If this is too much you can do a room a week/month and just start slowly. This visual representation will help envision how many items you have in the house and/or room, making you want to get rid of them.

2. Give one item away each day

If you work 50-hour weeks, the last thing you want to do when you get home starts tidying and why should you? You deserve to get those ridiculously huge, fluffy, slippers on and snuggle into a sofa with hot chocolate and marshmallows.

If you drive past a charity shop on your commute to work, donated an object or give an item to a neighbour, every single day for 1 year. That removes 365 items from your home. If you did this twice a day that’s 730 items gone that you no longer need. This is simple, easy, and effective without interrupting your busy schedule.

3. Start with 5 minutes a day

This is for all the newbie de-clutters, yes you should have done this years ago but at least you are making a start! This tip will slowly build momentum and is great to add to a strong routine. Spending just 5 minutes every day decluttering can revolutionise your home. If you committed to this, you would spend more than 30 hours in one year getting rid of that rubbish.

4. Take before and after photos 

Let’s use our 4K iPhones for good, not for another selfie. Take a quick snapshot of your bookshelf. Immediately clean the items in the picture and take another. Once you see how your home could look, it becomes easier to start decluttering.

5. Use the Four-Box Method

Label four boxes: bin, donate, keep, and re-locate. In each room place every item into one of the boxes. However, significant they are, still do it! This trick will show you how much stuff you really have.

6. Get help from a friend

This hack really helps, with an impartial point of view taking away the emotional attachment to the objects, you can see what you do not need! This person must suggest items in your home to ditch, if you defend and come up with a legit reason why you should keep it and they agree then you can.

If not, it must go!

7. Give everything a “home” 

Design a place for every item this will help keep things in your home tidy and show you what you don’t need and should bin.

8. Have a “one in, one out” rule

Create this rule in your household if you buy something you must get rid of something. This keeps you on top of tidying all year round.

9. Vertical storage to reduce clutter

Vertical storage boxes can be purchased at any local store or online.

10. Baskets save time!

If you do have little things that get lost and can clutter your desk, then put things into little or large baskets. It keeps those annoying, easy-to-lose bits tidy. They also come in loads of different colours and patterns keeping your home fun and vibrant.

Now you have read all of Relo’s de-cluttering tips and tricks you have no excuse to not have a perfectly clean and mess-free home.

Getting ready for all those Christmas glittery decks!