8 Items To Declutter in The New Year

Today I am sharing 8 items to declutter in the New Year. These items are not obvious things. As I have continued to declutter our home over the years I have found some items are never being decluttered.

Here are just a few things you might have missed when decluttering.

8 Items To Declutter in The New Year:

Declutter your Fantasy Self

What is a fantasy self? My fantasy self is when I decide to try something or try to be something that just doesn’t work out.

I might see a new trend or a fun-looking craft and decide I want to try it out. I invest in whatever products I need for this project and then quickly realize it is not for me.

Normally I will just store these supplies and tell myself that someday I will get around to finishing the project.

This is when you need to get real with yourself. Are you ever going to finish that sewing project?

Some of my fantasy self-projects have been sitting around for years. A few years ago I got into making beaded bracelets, but to be brutally honest I haven’t made any jewelry in years.

I was also into scrapbooking, but I quickly realized it gave me anxiety. Now is the time to realize these items are never going to be used and finally do some decluttering.

What are some of your fantasy self items? This could be clothes that you think you should wear and don’t or maybe a journal you are never going to write in.

Give yourself a break and get rid of anything that you are never going to use.

Make sure to check out my decluttering course to completely declutter your home from top to bottom.

Digital Photos

I never think of deleting digital photos because they don’t really take up physical space. The thing we seem to forget is they do take up space on our computers.

Photos and videos can slow your computer down. I also keep backup drives of my photos and videos and that is a physical thing that only has so much space.

If you don’t feel like dealing with past photos then just worry about the photos you currently have on your phone and camera. One tip I have is before you dump all of your phone photos onto your computer go through and delete all the terrible ones.

Just start now deleting any photos that aren’t needed. Your future self will be happy you started now.

Declutter Food

When we moved 6 months ago I went through all of our food. We had 3 options; eat it, bring it, or trash it.

As I was pulling cans out of the back of our pantry I couldn’t believe how many items were expired.

Spices are another thing that most people completely forget about going through. All spices have an expiration date.

If you haven’t looked at your spices lately I bet a lot of them are expired. I know expiration dates don’t mean the spice is bad on that day, but I found some marked to expire 5 years ago!

There is one more important thing about spices that I realized while on this minimalist journey. We don’t need to keep spices on hand “just in case” we might need them.

Normally we cook and bake the same things over and over. Keeping a bunch of spices we never used was a waste of space.

Artwork

I am an artist and so is my husband so we have a lot of art stashed around our home. There aren’t enough walls to hold all of the art, but even if you aren’t an artist you still might have some art hidden in a closet.

It might be a good idea to decide if you intend to ever hang the art. I just donated 2 paintings that I had painted for my boys, but sadly they were too old to enjoy any longer.

I realized there was no point in storing these paintings in my closet.

Kid’s artwork is another thing I like to go through regularly. My son is now in kindergarten and he comes home with 3 to 5 projects every week.

I usually go through them all and pick out the best to save for a while. It would be impossible to save it all.

Sports Equipment

For some reason, sports equipment seems to stay around way longer than it should.

I just found a box of table tennis gear and we don’t have a table for that game. When deciding on what sports equipment to keep I would ask yourself when is the last time you played that sport.

Can you rent the equipment? For instance, if you only ski once every 5 years I personally would just rent skis rather than store them.

Reusable Grocery Bags

For some reason, reusable grocery bags seem to multiply on their own.

A lot of companies give them out for free or we find ourselves at the checkout buying a $1. reusable bag. Go through and save the best bags and get rid of the rest.

I am suggesting this for 2 reasons. First, why keep more than you could ever use? Second, keeping a lot of extra bags has made it harder to keep them organized and know exactly where they are.

Keep what you can use and donate the rest.

Pens / Office Supplies

I have always stocked up on office supplies and now I am wondering why. It takes so long to go through a 50 pack of pens!

Now I am going through my office and deciding what I will actually use and what can be donated.

This is helping to keep my office drawers nice and organized instead of overflowing with extras.

When I am shopping I like to keep in mind how easy it is to go to the store. Most of us live near a store and therefore we don’t need to stock up on office stuff.

Now I am only replacing what I run out of.

Nail Polish / Makeup

Something that I always forget to go through regularly is nail polish and makeup. When I first started decluttering I had nail polish from over 10 years ago.

My rule of thumb with nail polish is if I haven’t used it in the last year then I will probably never use it.

Makeup can be something that we forget to go through. I have a small bag of my everyday makeup, but then I have a larger bag of my “once in a while” makeup.

The once in a while makeup was a bag that I just dumped everything I didn’t like into! Go through and get rid of anything you don’t use, odds are it has already gone bad.

Makeup that has gone bad will have a really odd smell to it, that’s when you know it’s time to declutter.

Have you decluttered any of these not obvious items? Let me know in the comments.

If you are new to decluttering or having a hard time finishing the decluttering process make sure you check out my Decluttering MiniCourse. I have helped hundreds of people transform their homes and I would love to help you TOO!

One Comment

Cheryle says:

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I have enough junk from my fantasy self to fill a dumpster. That’s such a good point to get rid of it if I’m never going to use it. No use trying to be someone you’re not, although self-improvement is a constant process. Thank you for sharing!!

8 Items To Declutter in The New Year