Home and hobby items

Week 7 of the #LYSdeclutterthon - where we’re sorting through every item in the home over 8 weeks – focuses on home and hobby items. Home items mean cleaning products tools, gardening stuff, etc, whilst hobby items can range anything from sports equipment, sewing stuff, guitars and music items – anything you do as a hobby (no judgement here!).

Cleaning

Let’s first address cleaning items (that's right, even your cleaning products need clearing!). Like laundry products, we can accumulate a lot of stuff we don’t – and wont – use. Having too many means it’s likely you’ll have duplicates. Clients swear they don’t, but I’m yet to find a client that didn’t have two half bottles of exactly the same product. Bring all cleaning products in one place and sort through. You’re not necessarily looking for products that spark joy, but those you use REGULARLY or OCCASIONALLY (but discarding those you’ll NEVER use). When putting them back, group those in the same family; kitchen (including oven cleaner), bathroom, etc and place those you use most in the ‘prime real estate’ locations (i.e. easy to reach).

Tools

Same approach applies; gather, sort, replace in optimum position. For tools, you might not discard many, but you can filter out duplicates AND ensure your tools are together in an obvious place, with the most useful being easy to reach.

Sport equipment

I find sports stuff is a category which can REALLY accumulate over time, and we end up with many items we don’t actually use. It can also be bigger, bulkier items mixed with some clothes items, so things often get mixed up and separated. Gather, divide into sub-categories of sports (running, biking, swim related) and then position in your home where it makes most sense. This means cycle stuff together. If you’re someone on the go, I recommend baskets that you can quickly pop your items in.

Other hobby items

From sewing stuff to musical items, the principle is the same; vision, division, position, love. How can you create a storage space that organises your items in a way that will helps you use – i.e. enjoy – them? If you can’t remember where your hobby items are, you probably won’t be inclined to use them and, at the end of the day, our hobbies are our way to enrich ourselves and bring some joy, so we WANT to use them. Clearly marked baskets or boxes for your hobby items are a good way to make it easy to gather and find your hobby items.

Some other items can include shoe polishes, light bulbs and other bits and bobs you might find in the garage.