THE FLAT SURFACES TRICK
If you struggle to see results with your decluttering, then I have a trick to share with you. It shouldn’t be used alone, but doing this will have the biggest impact on how your home feels when you’re decluttering. watch the video or read the content below.
Flat surfaces are major, major, major clutter magnets. If you have a look at some of the most beautiful curated homes on Pinterest, on Instagram, and in magazines, you will notice that the flat surfaces in those homes are intentional. They don't have accidental clutter on them or piles of shit.
So, we're not aiming for minimalism here. I'm not aiming for you to just completely have absolutely nothing on all of your flat surfaces, although sometimes just before you put things back, there's something really delicious about a really, really beautifully clear flat surface, like it's empty and full of possibility!
You can love colour and lots of objects. My point is that your flat surfaces should be intentional as much as you can within the reality of your life.
So my challenge for you today is to clear off one small flat surface. This might be your coffee table. This might be your bedside table. This might be one shelf, one surface in your home.
Follow CCSA rule: clear it off, clean it, sort it, and arrange it. For the sorting you should have two boxes, 1) stuff that you know needs to be donated (and do so quickly to avoid boxes hanging around!). And 2) stuff that has a question mark to be dealt with after this challenge.
If you have more time today, the task for you is to move on to more flat surfaces. If you've started in, for example, your lounge, then maybe tackle another flat surface in your lounge just to slightly minimise the chaos. Side note: There will be mess and chaos in the middle of this, that's natural.
If I ask you now which flat surfaces in your home need to be cleared, you might just straight away think of somewhere that needs to be dealt with. It might be your desk or your kitchen. Clear it off, clean it, sort it and then arrange it.
Does it need to be on there?
One thing to ask yourself about your surfaces is does this need to be on there? If possible and this is actually something from Marie Kondo; use your built-in storage as much as possible to store your belongings. And if you if your things don't fit into your built in storage to reduce your items so that they can fit in the built in storage. I don't necessarily recommend something quite so extreme. But generally, I recommend, for example, in the kitchen keeping the surfaces as clear as possible. If you've got appliances on your kitchen surface that you don't use daily, then could they be put in a cupboard? If you do use it daily, could it still be put in a cupboard?! And then it becomes just something that you bring out on a tray when you're using it.
What have you got on your desk at the moment? Does it need to be there? Would your desk feel clearer if actually, you put your stationery and pens in a little filing cabinet next to your desk or in the drawer Similarly on your hall table, what have you got on your hall table? Could things go away? And could you create some shoe storage so that things aren't just in a big pile?
It's just about considering what is on your flat surface and make sure that what is on your flat surface is intentional.
For today, it is just about trying to clear as many flat surfaces in your home as possible. And yes, that can include a floor space like, like if you know that you've got a room where you can barely even get in there because it's the floor so covered in stuff, then, yes, you can, you know, by all means. But it's the flat surfaces in our home that attract the most clutter.
The first job on in any styling project has to be sorting through everything and making sure that the things you've got left are either things that you absolutely love or serve a purpose. And if not, could someone else benefit from them? Could you fix something? Could you change the location of it? There's no point in trying to style loads and loads and loads of things if you don't even need them in your home. Be quite ruthless in that questioning process.
