With the school season back in full swing, now is the time to declutter and organise your kids toys and clothes, whilst they are not around to stop you! Decluttering is a great way to get rid of items that are not used or worn anymore and to allow you to find space to put the new items that they will need as they grow. Here are a few easy organisation tips to calm the clutter and bring order to your kids’ rooms.
1. Use kids furniture
Adult furniture and organising systems don’t work well for children’s needs. Drawers can be difficult to open, closet doors can close on tiny fingers and the rails in the wardrobe can be too high for them to reach.
Shops such as Ikea, Home Centre and Pan Emirates create fantastic units for kids including closets and drawers which are easily accessible plus toy storage units with bins which can be easily labeled.
2. Declutter clothes
Sort out clothes so that you can create space for the new clothes you’ll be buying as they grow. I recommend that you review your kids clothes every six months. Go through each item and remove anything that doesn’t fit, has seen better days or was never worn. If you have 20 t-shirts and only 3 are worn, donate the remaining ones to charity.
- Divide the “remove pile” into these sections: donate, sell and trash.
- Store out of season clothes, such as winter gear needed for trips to cooler climes in plastic boxes and store at the top of the wardrobe.
- Sell any clothes that can be worn again using apps such as Melltoo Marketplace
- Donate clothes to charities such as Dar Al Ber, Dubai Cares, or speak with your school or nursery to see if they ever arrange for a clothes collection.
3. Clear the Toy Clutter
After a certain period your children grow out of their toys and it becomes time to declutter them in a systematic way.
- Sort through the toys and take a picture of the ones that you hold especially close to you. A photographic record of the toy will bring back all those precious memories with less space taken.
- Sort the toys out into piles – broken, donate, sell and keep
- Throw the toys that are unusable in recycle bins.
- Place the toys you are keeping in storage boxes/bins and label them.
- Donate toys to charities such as Dar Al Ber and Dubai Cares.
- Sell toys using Melltoo.
4. Build a maintenance routine
Create a routine together with your kids – to clean up in the morning and the evening so that they start to learn how to be organised from early on. Building routines into your family’s schedule will keep clutter and chaos from becoming overwhelming. For example, every morning ask your kids to help straighten their bed sheets/pillows and put any dirty clothes into the laundry hamper. In the evenings, ask them to put away their books and toys.
To learn more about decluttering and how to go about it, tune in to the “Ask the Expert” podcast series brought to you by Decluttr Me and Melltoo Marketplace.
Website – www.decluttrme.com
Email – contact@decluttrme.com
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Twitter – @decluttrme
Shelina Jokhiya is the founder of Decluttr Me, and is dedicated to help the people of the UAE create a relaxed, productive and sacred home environment by clearing the clutter and junk lying around everywhere in your home and organising what is left into proper manageable systems. The systems are in proper storage units, which will be labeled so that it is easy for you, your family and staff to locate items quickly and easily. Spending one day with Decluttr Me to clear an area and create proper systems will ensure that you do not lose time in the future trying to locate items. You can spend time doing what you love and spending more time with your family and friends.