Spring is just around the corner here in Denver! As the cold weather fades, many start thinking about the piles of boxes in their garage or the packed attic they haven’t touched in a year or two. Spring cleaning has become an annual tradition for many families around the nation. Here are a few quick decluttering tips to Marie Kondo your home!

Tackle the closet.

Have you sorted through all of your clothes and feel like you have donated everything that you no longer use? This decluttering technique takes a little longer, but it truly shows you the items you no longer use or need. Better yet? Once you have it all set up, it makes cleaning out your closet relatively maintenance free!

In your closet, flip all of your hangers around backwards, then, when you do laundry and are hanging clothes back up, return the hangers for your newly cleaned clothes back to the normal position. After a year, any clothes that are still on a backwards hanger can be donated. You’ve gone a full year without using these articles of clothing. Do you truly need them?

You can run a similar experiment with your shoes. Store all of your shoes facing the opposite way from which you would normally store them. As the year goes on, and you use certain shoes, put them back away how you usually do. At the end of the year, any shoes that are still facing the opposite way can be donated.

It gives you real insight into which items you use, and which ones you never touch.

Garage Sale.
In good weather, yard sales are still a very popular option. Price your items low and advertise the event days prior on sites like Craigslist, Facebook marketplace or even in your local newspaper. But don’t stress if you forget -  the ‘sign at the end of the street’ option is still very effective. All you need to grab is a sharpie and a pack of small stickers to make labeling a breeze. Want to do double trouble and make the sale extra special for your neighbors? Help your kiddos put together a lemonade stand or a small snack sale. Then use those extra funds towards items you really want and use!

Go paperless.
Let’s face it… with bills, advertisements, and letters from granny it’s easy to let paper overwhelm the household. Use the ‘store it or trash it’ method - when you check the mailbox, immediately open your mail and decide, “does this get stored or trashed?”. Once you decide that, place it in an organized file folder or mail bin for future reference. When possible, go back through your recent notices and find the online site where you can opt for paperless billing.

Storage everywhere.
To declutter a home, you really need to embrace the idea of storage. Hooks, boxes, bins, baskets, drawers… keeping things organized and hidden is the secret to decluttering. Target and Amazon have wonderful options for home organization products.

There’s no one right way to declutter, but there are dozens of successful techniques you can apply to your spring cleaning schedule to effectively and quickly clean your home!