All rooms carry a certain vibe, or feel. Some rooms can be peaceful and calming. Other rooms
can be stressful, or add anxiety or add activity into our days. And so today, I want to talk about
how to declutter your bedroom, because if there's any room where the feel or the vibe of a room
is important, it's the bedroom. I can't think of any place in my home that I want to be more calm,
and peaceful, and restful. So let me give you the eight step process to declutter your bedroom. Now,
how long each of these steps take is certainly going to depend on how quickly you work,
and how much you want to declutter, and how much you need to get rid of. But I think if
you follow these eight steps, one by one, you will love how your bedroom turns out. So here
we go. Step number one: clarify the purpose of the room in your mind. So, a bit theoretical, but
you're going to find this to be a super helpful tip: that every room in our home serves a certain
purpose. It's supposed to accomplish something for us. So when you think of the bedroom,
your bedroom is there really for two reasons: it's there for rest,
and it's there for intimacy. And so I think with that as the thought before you begin this process,
you can begin asking yourself what items in this room don't contribute to rest or intimacy,
and then this is a great place to start getting rid of things. The second step is this, and it's
the most important first step in any room that you go to declutter. Number two: relocate things that
don't belong in the room. So what things do you have in your bedroom that actually don't belong in
the bedroom? And I don't know what that's going to be for you. Maybe you've got old boxes piled up in
the corner, you've got old books that are lining up on your nightstand, you've got weights over in
the corner, you've got computer equipment. I don't know what it is that has gathered in your bedroom,
but if it's not supposed to be there because it doesn't contribute to the purpose of the room,
then go take those items- just grab them and move them to wherever they're supposed to go
instead. The third step is this: begin by clearing the floors. So begin looking in visible areas.
What are things on the floor other than furniture? Which I'm even going to mention in a minute,
but just look around. Where the boxes of things that have piled up, the clothes that
are laying on the floor, the toys that were never supposed to be there? Begin by clearing the floor.
Fourth step: clear surfaces. So, countertops, dressers,
shelves, uh- what has collected there that doesn't need to be there? Maybe we've got decorations,
or knickknacks, or a bunch of coins and receipts and keys have piled up on the countertop. What
are some of these things on the surfaces? So now we've done floors; we've done surfaces.
Your fifth step is to decide how you're going to use your storage spaces. So, closets and drawers.
What is going to go in this drawer? What's going to go on this shelf in this closet? And
again, go back to your purpose mindset. Like what items should be in this drawer? This drawer is
for my undergarments... this drawer is for my workout clothes, on this shelf of my closet is
where I'm putting my pants or my sweaters. Like be very specific and think through:
how much space do I need for any item? How much space do I have in this area? And assign
your closets and drawer spaces to what you're going to put there, and then begin sorting out
items as would be needed. Number six: pare down the decorations in your room. I know interior
design is very personal and everyone wants it to be a little bit differently than someone else,
but let me at least challenge you to consider are there some things hanging on the walls that don't
need to be there, or there are some decorations that have collected- I know when we first started
minimizing our bedroom we had like, um, in one of the corners of the of the bedroom there were just
like some shelves, and we had a bunch of things sitting on top of the shelves, and I don't know,
we got them at Target or something. Like, they didn't mean anything to us, and we thought "I
wonder what it would be like if we took those down?" And so we pared down a lot of decorations,
and it brought a lot of calm and peace to the bedroom. Number seven: let me really challenge you
to consider getting rid of some furniture. When you take furniture out of a room, it frees up
a ton of space and a ton of area. We started minimizing our possessions and decluttered
our bedroom - this was 12 years ago now - when we first did it and we got rid of a bunch of clothes,
and a bunch of other items, so much so that we had this entire armoire in the corner of
our bedroom that had a television and it was full of my clothes. Well, when we cleared out clothes
from the closet and from the drawer, suddenly the clothes that were in this piece of furniture we
could put in other spaces in the bedroom. When I looked at the television and thought to myself,
"well, that's not contributing to rest or intimacy in my life," we took the television out,
and suddenly we had this large piece of furniture that was just taking up space.
And so we took it out, and I loved how open it made our bedroom feel. We even got rid
of the nightstand on my side of the bed for many years, until I got a little bit older.
But i would challenge you, there's a lot of furniture probably in your bedroom that you can
remove, and so think about doing that. And then the eighth and the final step is this:
consider how you're using the under the bed space. Like it doesn't have to be empty, it certainly
shouldn't be full of junk. It shouldn't be full of stuff that's just collecting dust for years
and years and years. I often keep the books that I'm reading under my side of the bed. I think my
wife has a few boxes of sentimental things that go under her side of the bed as well. And so we can
be wise and thoughtful and we can use that space well. I hope these steps have been helpful to you.
We have an entire app called Clutterfree you can find on clutterfree.com and it offers a
step-by-step approach to every room in your home: how to declutter, it check off tasks as you go,
it keeps track your progress. It's kind of fun and it's pretty helpful.
But your bedroom should be a place of calm, and it should be a place of peace. You don't
need to hire an expert to come in and do that for you. You don't need an entire redesign for
that to happen. Oftentimes just by owning less, you can accomplish that. I know you can do it.