Here in Australia we’ve had extended lockdowns on and off over the past year, and I’ve spent more time than ever at home!
In this short video I share some of my favourite tips of how to simplify and declutter your space so it works for you, especially if you’re stuck at home.
- Declutter your home. Dispose of trash, organise your spaces and store donations and other things out of sight. If you’re at home a lot of the time, any clutter will often cause stress on an unconscious level.
- Go through your clothes. Take the time to go through your wardrobe! Throw out anything old and torn, sell the things of good quality online, give some stuff to friends and family if they are of good quality and finally donate the rest. It’s so much nicer to only have clothes you actually like in your wardrobe!
- Do some deep cleaning. I’m good at keeping the house tidy, but deep cleaning the oven, fridge, shower and other things are NOT my favourites. Tackling one area at a time (per day/week) helps you do the things you know you need to, but often push out into the future. 🙂
- Learn to cook something new from scratch. We do a lot of cooking and meal planning in our house, but we often stick to our tried and tested recipes. During this lockdown both Paul and I have upped our cooking game and learned to make a few more complicated dishes. It can be really fun to experiment with something new and continue to finesse the recipes!
- Do a digital declutter. Photos, apps, emails and documents have a tendency to pile up in our digital space too. In my digital minimalist series I share a bunch of free tips on how you can declutter and organise your digital space so you can easily find things.
- Re-live holidays and fun memories. Once you declutter your photos, I bet you’ll find a bunch of pictures and videos from past holidays and other fun times. We’ve really enjoyed taking ‘mini holidays’ on our couch during this lockdown by putting up some of our favourite holidays as slideshows on the TV and re-living the great times we had in the past.
- Move spaces in your home to work for you now. Being stuck at home is often something temporary, but you want to make sure it works for you. For example, I used to have my desk in the bedroom as a temporary solution, but as lockdown kept getting extended I realised I found it stressful to wake up and see work the first thing I did every day. So we decided to move my desk until lockdown finished, and I feel so much better for it!
- Find non-screen time fun! With a lot of our workday spent on computers, I’ve really enjoyed switching off at the end of the day with good old fashioned jigsaw puzzles, board games and card games. It’s also a different type of quality time with family members and housemates, which is super fun.
- Explore the small streets and areas around where you live. We’ve been allowed out for very minimal time every day for exercise, and we can only go maximum 5 km from our house. This led us to challenge ourselves to do different little walks and explore as many parks and little streets in our allowed radius as possible.
What are some of your favourite things to do when you are stuck at home?