Are you busy? Do you do your cleaning and decluttering only on the weekend? A lot of us do, depending on our days off and our work schedule. A while ago, one of my friends asked if I had written a piece on Sunday decluttering, ‘No, I haven’t – but I will’.

The benefits of Sunday decluttering

There are some great things about decluttering on the weekend because we have the time, the space, and often even the energy to do some work. However, with these benefits are also a few negatives. You do not have oceans of time, realistically, you just have 4-6 hours. Even if you have more time, you will run out of energy because decluttering is taxing. We have to make decisions, move things, think about things and we will be pulled in a range of different directions. It is therefore not humanly possible to work for 8-9 hours two days or one day straight on decluttering. Besides that, weekends are traditionally meant for rest and relaxation - we should honour at least part of our day in that manner.

Suggestions for Sunday decluttering

So what is my suggestion for the “Sunday Declutters” amongst us?

Firstly, rest up.
Make a plan, you need to have a clear goal on what you are trying to achieve on this day, in this particular session. No goals like; I’ll declutter the garage, it is too broad and you will set yourself up for failure.
Pick a specific area or a specific form of clutter. Examples could be, this weekend; you will remove all cardboard boxes, and you will drop items to the tip. Or you will photograph all the items for eBay, download the pictures, and create the online ad.
All the above suggestions could easily take you up to three hours. After we have done this, you might think “Now what?” Well, you rest.
Finish on a high note, grab yourself a coffee or tea, read a book, or this newspaper.
If you want to do something more, only do this after you have rested. Again, make a plan, make it either space or task-specific and complete it to the end.

This way you’ll have a technique that you can use over multiple weekends and hopefully have both a productive and relaxing Sunday.