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If you’ve heard of Western Minimalism or Japanese KonMari, you know that these are principles that promote happiness through living with fewer possessions and eliminating clutter. These intentional lifestyles allow only items that make you happy and are useful to live in your home. By eliminating clutter, or things that don’t bring you joy, you’ll experience less stress and have more time and money to spend.

The applications of “less is more” to home ownership and home selling are obvious. With less clutter, your home will be cozier, easier to navigate, show better to homebuyers, easier to keep straight, and easier to pack up when you sell.

The most disorganized areas in your home are typically closets, countertops and drawers. Here are a few tips to make decluttering faster and easier:

1. Start small, one closet or drawer at a time.
2. Assign a home for every item in the appropriate room.
3. Organize so that you can see at a glance what is available in every storage space, from kitchen cabinets to dresser drawers.
4. Fold sweaters and socks vertically so you can see every item.
5. Use marked containers for small, miscellaneous or boxed items.
6. Keep only beautiful, favorite or currently useful items.
7. Don’t let guilt force you to keep anything you don’t want, such as gifts or expensive items you don’t like. Instead, offer these items to people you know or donate them.
8. Remove donations and discards from the house the same day.