Get an extra hour of time by decluttering these 5 areas at your home

Here are five sure-fire ways to cut back and add an extra hour to your day right away. An hour a day means more than a day in a month! When you start thinking about it, it seems absurd that we even spend time looking for, moving, organising or cleaning stuff. Time that we will never get back. Read this article or watch the video on how to gain an extra hour of time by decluttering these 5 areas in your home.

Choices and choices: 24 hours a day, but for what?

Did you know that by choosing "don't buy", "I don't want this" or "no thanks now" you can get your influence back? Choosing not to own or do something can be the most powerful decision you make today? So not organizing, not a trial of new hacks - simply a decision to just choose "nothing". Binary, yes or no.

Every object we own physically takes up a strip of our homes, but they also consume mental resources and take up work, taking time and effort. We have 24 hours in a day - how much of that do we give to our stuff?

Big responsibilities need more space

I work full-time myself and have three young children and my own businesses. I used to think I needed MORE of something to cope with more complex responsibilities or caring for more children.

All the abundance fooled me into believing this: More means, more baskets, more gadgets, more tools. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that wasn't the case: less was the answer. I realised that sometimes Nothing is all I need.

I realised that I don't need more stuff or gadgets, but rather an extra hour in the day. So I cleared one. I figured out a way to stretch my days to 25 hours (well not really, but I feel like it - like I've discovered a big secret to create more time!).

Take a few minutes to read this article and I'll save you a whole day - starting next month.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO OWN ALL THIS

I remember standing in the kitchen, staring at the sink: it was full of dirty dishes and appliances we never used. It was as if the dishes were getting dirty all by themselves. All the time. No matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things.

I was exhausted - not just from the mess, but from the mental burden it caused. Of all the trying.

My child came to me, worried, and asked: "Mum, what are you looking at?"   and I replied instinctively: "I watch my life run away from me." Auts. It was a stopping moment. But I genuinely felt that way. Constant striving. The restless doing and the never ending to-do list.

I was using baskets, I had organised and moved things from one place to another. I had a calendar and time management tools. Still, nothing helped. The torrent of things and belongings was as overwhelming as a constant tsunami.

Then I remembered a phrase I had heard before from The Minimal Mom's Dawn"You don't have to own all this." The phrase came from a famous minimalist Joshua Beckerand was something his neighbour had told Joshua one day when he was cleaning the garage. The phrase began his journey into minimalism.

This was a turning point for me too. I had had enough. And then the Zero Rule was born!

The zero rule - less stuff, more life

I realised that the solution was not to clean more, faster or more efficiently. The solution was to free myself from all the maintenance work. I don't need five peeling knives. I don't need three set of dishes "just in case". I don't need things to remind me of what I am not or what I should be. I don't need these time wasters, I need my time back! I don't need stuff, I need space.

Every object takes up space - not only physically, but also mentally. Our brains register everything around us. Every object is like a small belonging to be controlled. And when there are too many of them, the load increases. Energy consumption becomes greater than what is available. The stakes are not enough.

Eventually it spills over everywhere: home, work, relationships. You can't escape it. You can't be effective and serene at work if your home is like an oyster garden. You can't be present when dirty dishes are breathing down your neck.

The good news is: You can choose otherwise. Less is not loss. Less is more: more power to choose, more time, more things that matter and more presence. The power to say: "I don't need this. I choose peace."

Declutter these five areas in your home and get an extra hour of time

If you're wondering where to start, here are five easy places to get started and quickly win back time for yourself:

1. Declutter kitchen utensils

Take a critical look at your kitchen - is there anything you haven't used in three months or even a year? Declutter these out!

Leave only those you truly love and which are worth your time. Don't save ideal you's juicers or bread machines. You can buy one again second-hand, if one day you really do turn into a juice or bread maker.

But right now, if you're not one, stop wasting your time hosting these devices! Easily save 5-15 minutes a day, when you no longer manage this unnecessary equipment.

2. Kitchen and cooking utensils

Pack away most of the dishes. One set or a couple of dishes per person is enough. Really? Yes! Most Finnish kitchens today suffer from a flood of multiple dishes clogging up the washing machine, sink and cupboards. Someone, often the Default Cleaner (Mum?), is then faced with this mountain of dish chaos.

If there are dishes, they are used. And because it is more convenient and faster to take a new one than to wash the previous one, the mountain of dishes grows. By eliminating excess units, we directly impact the flow, and minimize the amount of work from all angles. Easily save 15-30 minutes a day, as the amount of supplies to be organised and cleaned is reduced.

Read Minimalism experiment in the kitchen, if you need more inspiration for minimising your dishes.

The two-cup tactic - a minimalist experiment in the kitchen

3. Taking over the hallway

Ah the hallway, that eternal source of worry for all families with children! You can make your hallway work by focusing your attention on three things:

• Remove everything from the hallway except the shoes, clothes and accessories for the season. Create a storage space elsewhere in your home for these removals and dispose of the unnecessary ones immediately.
• Clear the hallway of any other junk that happens to be stored there. You can keep one junk drawer, but find a better place for everything else. If it's not going to be used in the next couple of months, it can be stored somewhere else.
• Create easy access points for goods, so that users can easily return goods to their place of use.

Easily save 5-15 minutes every day, when you're not trying to organise, tidy up or find things in the chaos hallway.

4. Clothing

Give up the "Some day" clothes and the extra lovely, but unused clothes. Leave only the ones that make you feel good right now, as you are now.

Don't let motivational clothes remind you of what you wish you were. They eat up unnecessary energy and space, and no one needs such party poopers. You're good just the way you are, so make room only for the clothes that serve you.

Pack clothes you're not using now (other seasons' clothes) to free up space in your wardrobe for the ones you are using. You won't have to search for your clothes and they'll be easy to move to their proper places after washing. This minimises piles of clean clothes and makes it easier to find what you want to put on.

You can easily save 10 to 20 minutes a day.

5. Children's toys

Introduce a toy rotation system. This gives you more space to play and less to maintain. Don't discard toys without your children, otherwise they'll cling to them even more fiercely. Explain that toys can be recovered by swapping the ones in the play with the ones in the resting capsule.

Teach your children to encapsulate and to play with less. It will serve them in many ways now and later. Children will learn how to manage their belongings and play time will increase with less.

How many toys does a child need?

If something hasn't been used for a month, it can go into the capsule to rest. The quality of children's play improves with fewer toys. Leave "open play" toys for play. You can read more about the toy decluttering in the previous article.

Save 15 minutes a day, when toys can be cleaned up in a few minutes.

There's just so much and it's hard to get started?

You can do this. I know this may seem overwhelming at first, but remember: it's not about perfection, it's about practice.

Taking the steps. One corner and stack at a time.

If the hallway seems overwhelming, start with one drawer. If you have five cupboards full of dishes, start with one shelf. One item at a time.

It's about starting to see your stuff and your time in a new light. You are cherishing your energy and the peace of your home. You ask yourself: "Do I really need this?"

I chose time over goods. I chose peace instead of possession and the shredding of my ego. And in doing so, I got my life back.

If this article was useful to you, please share it with a friend who is struggling with the same issues.

Contact me, if you need concrete help!

Watch this article in English as a video in Henna's @NordicLeanLife-channel.