How Long Will It Take To Organize My Home?
As you contemplate decluttering and organizing, you may want to plan your project. You may want to schedule decluttering sessions with yourself, a friend, or a professional organizer. You may want to budget your time over the course of weeks or months to clear out an attic or garage. If you’re curious how much time to invest, we can help!
In over 20 years of mindfully organizing, we have found that the answer to the question “how long does it take to declutter a house” varies quite dramatically. A few of the factors that can affect the length of time it takes to declutter and organize are your willingness to make hard decisions, your skill level with organizing, how rested you are when you begin your project(s), and how easily you become overwhelmed.
Organizing involves making many decisions and many experience decision fatigue quite early in the decision-making process. Others have “made up their mind” and can be very efficient, even ruthless, in their commitment to their vision of a clutter-free life.
We’ve gathered average timetables for decluttering spaces with the support of a professional home organizer. Once again, each situation is unique! We find that as we work with folks and learn which strategies work best for them, the organizing process goes much more quickly and joyfully than when they first began. We hope that this chart can help you set reasonable expectations for your decluttering journey.
If these numbers seem daunting, never fear! They’re not meant to intimidate you, but to illustrate that organizing isn’t a sprint but a marathon. Malcolm Gladwell suggests that it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient at a sport or an instrument. Thankfully, it takes much less time than that to create an organized and decluttered home or master one new habit to support you in your goals!
Is Organizing My Home Worth The Time It Takes?
When you think about decluttering and organizing, the fear of not having enough time often rises to the surface. Mindfully going through your possessions is an investment of your time and energy, Is organizing worth the time it takes? Yes! Of course, it is worth it! The process of decluttering and organizing is an investment in yourself. Like honing a yoga practice, learning to play an instrument, or making art, the decluttering and organizing process is a gift you give yourself and requires patience, love, and creativity just like other life-enhancing practices. There are many things we learn to do because they support us and make us feel good in the end. Organizing is like that (and actually requires much less practice and skill than mastering many other activities!)
Creating and maintaining spaces in our lives to fill us with joy, ease, and happiness is sacred work. Because clutter affects your energy, decluttering and organizing can have a tremendous impact on how energized, motivated, and comfortable you feel in your home or office.
How to Speed Up the Decluttering Process
You can jump-start your decluttering process and maximize your time investment by working with a qualified virtual organizer.
Organizing Timetable Sources
- Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
- How to Start a Home-Based Professional Organizing Business by Dawn Noble
- Rightsizing Your Life: Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most by Ciji Ware
These titles are available through the local library and at Amazon. If you purchase one of these titles on Amazon, we receive a small percentage of the sales price as a member of their affiliate program. We delight in sharing the knowledge and applying the tried and true principles in these books to the common challenges that you, our followers, face.
Please let us know if this chart or another of our free resources has helped you to reach your decluttering goals!
Discover more ways to mindfully DECLUTTER your home or office here! >>
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