Like many of you, I’ve resolved to making goals rather than resolutions in 2015. Over the Christmas period I only spent three nights in my own bed, and frankly for much of last year I found myself in a variety of different towns and cities. As I alluded to yesterday, my husband James and I want to spend more time at home this year.
I mentioned in my first decluttering feature last August I am a self-confessed hoarder. Although I am looking forward to spending more time at home I know I need to get on top of the clutter before I drive myself insane.

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{The Declutter List}
  • Bathroom cupboard
  • Dressing table
  • Make-up bag
  • Handbag
  • Fridge
  • Kitchen cupboards
  • Kitchen drawers
  • Accessories
  • Underwear drawer
  • Jewellery
  • DVD’s, CD’s and media
  • Electricals
  • Books and magazines
  • Receipts an paperwork
  • Craft and hobby

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Therefore I have set myself a Declutter Challenge. The idea is to take a few minutes every other day to declutter one area of the home. I have seen many downloadable printables with 30 or more different elements to tackle and quite frankly this seems unachievable for me. I don’t want to spend every single day of January scrambling about in cupboards and I’m sure you don’t either so I’ve chosen to limit my list to 15 aspects. As you may have noticed the ‘few minutes’ notion is rather optimistic when it comes to working through reams of paperwork but very achievable when it comes down to sorting through the cutlery drawer.

Week by week I plan to approach one domain at a time starting with my beauty products, working through the kitchen, on to my office, nipping in to the wardrobe and ending in the lounge. The grey box details the areas I personally plan to tackle but obviously you may have other rooms you want to deal with so please do feel free to create your own list. I’ve chosen to leave out a huge wardrobe clear-out as I did this last summer. Please take a gander at the post if you’d like some ideas on streamlining your closet.
I’m hoping to share a few ideas along the way of the best ways to dispose of your unwanted stuff. My preferred option is always bundles of bin bags packaged off to the charity shop but there are multiple ways to get rid.
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Week 1 – Beauty

First up, my array of beauty products. This week I’ve already tackled the bathroom cupboard and dressing table trove, tonight I’ll be scrambling through my make-up collection and then I’ll end the week with a good old handbag clear-out. No word of a lie I have seven lipsticks sat in the bottom of my faithful tote and an eyeliner without a lid which likes to tattoo me every time I nip in my bag to get a pen. I also believe you can get immense satisfaction from clearing your purse (and a few shocks too when you uncover bar receipts from forgotten nights out).

On clearing out the bathroom cupboard I found a bath elixir I’d forgotten I owned so rewarded myself with a well earned lounge in the tub, which took far longer than the time it took to clear the clutter!

Rather than bin all my unwanted toiletries I did consult the packaging to see if any of it could be recycled. I’ve stashed a pile and will nip along to my recycling centre when the decluttering mission is complete.
I have a few eyeshadows I’ve never even used as the colour wasn’t right for my skin tone. Instead of throwing away I’ll be passing along to a friend who is now one Chanel quad richer.
It’s also worth checking if you can return empty packaging directly to the company. Brands such as MAC, Lush and Keihl’s offer returns programs to deal with waste disposal. If you return six empy MAC items you even get a free lippy for your trouble!
If you’re unsure if any of your make-up products are out of date then do have a read of our cosmetic expiry post from last year.

So who else would like to join me in a decluttering quest? What are you going to tackle first?