In the past several years, the concept of “decluttering” has benefitted from a massive surge in popularity. Gurus and experts in a range of disciplines have enumerated the advantages of decluttering, from creating more space in your house to producing psychological benefits.

Most of us have at least some experience decluttering a home, whether we’ve bought into modern philosophies on the subject or not; after years of accumulation, you have to get rid of items you no longer need. But how can you prevent clutter from accumulating in the first place? Wouldn’t that be better?

The Advantages of Minimizing Clutter

Minimizing clutter and preventing clutter are, in many ways, better strategies than decluttering every time the clutter accumulates. While decluttering may always eventually become necessary, you can greatly minimize your effort and keep your home cleaner.

Consider the benefits:

• Cost savings. Part of your job while minimizing clutter is buying fewer items that you don’t need. Over time, this can help you save money, allowing you to divert your funds to more important things (like saving and investing).
• Time savings. If you take a few seconds to put items in their proper place, you could save minutes of cleaning later. On a large enough scale, you could end up saving yourself dozens, or even hundreds of hours.
• A cleaner house. Policing your own clutter accumulation will result in a more consistently clean and tidy house. Your clean house isn’t a temporary reward after a rare decluttering event; it’s a new normal.

So what does it take to see these benefits?

Rethink How You See Furniture

Furniture takes up a lot of space in your home, whether you realize it or not. Making a handful of changes to minimize your accumulation of furniture and make the most of your space can provide a host of psychological benefits — and keep your home as open as possible. 

One way to do this is to invest in furniture that serves multiple purposes simultaneously. For example, Innovation Living sofa beds are compact, lightweight, and comfortable — and they can be used as both sofas and beds. 

Improve Your Storage Options

First, you can improve your storage options. You won’t have to deal with piles of shoes spilling into the hallway if there’s an efficiently organized shoe closet where you can store them more conveniently. There are many options here, including:

• Shelves and drawers. Adding specialized shelves or drawers to a room, or to a closet, can make it easier to take advantage of vertical space – while reducing the tendency for clutter to “spill out” into main living areas.
• Compact storage. You can also take advantage of spaces that aren’t being used for anything else. For example, investing in an under-bed storage system could help you store several items using only space that was otherwise unoccupied.
• Organizing structures. It’s also beneficial to use more obvious, surface-level organizing structures. For example, you can have a slotted mail organizer to conveniently sort and store your incoming mail.

Create a Place for Everything

Next, make sure you establish an official resting place for everything in your home; don’t just let your items fall where they may. For example, you might have a miscellaneous “junk drawer” where you keep everything from batteries to paperclips to scissors. But what truly “belongs” there and what doesn’t? Where should your coats go? Where does your mail go? Where do you put your car keys when you come home after work?

There are no right or wrong answers here. What’s important is that you have an idea of where things should be stored when not in use.

The next phase of this strategy is to consistently ensure that each item you use or come across ends up in its respective assigned location – and ensure your family members do the same thing. If you return each item after using it, you’ll never have to worry about making a clean sweep to get rid of items that have accumulated over time.

Reduce Acquisition of New Items

After that, you can start practicing a kind of minimalism. Oftentimes, clutter accumulates because we end up acquiring items we don’t really want or need. If you stop acquiring those items in the first place, clutter will never form.

Here are some ways you can accomplish this:

• Set a strict budget for yourself. First, set a strict budget for yourself and be careful not to go over it. If you want to splurge on something, consider splurging on an experience like a meal at a nice restaurant rather than some tangible item.
• Give yourself time before buying anything. If you feel like you want to buy something, take a moment before doing so. In fact, take a day – or even a few days. If you still want it after that waiting period, go ahead and buy it. But you might find that most of your time, your will to buy disappears.
• Consider donating or repurposing gifts. You can’t help what’s gifted to you. However, you can choose to donate or repurpose gifts you receive that you don’t want or need.

With these strategies, it’s a near certainty that your home will accumulate less clutter – and accumulate it at a slower rate. Stay consistent with your goals and your tactics, and the quality and cleanliness of your home will improve.