Declutter and organize your home

How to Declutter Your Home: 6 Best Room-by-Room Methods

Set the overwhelming feeling aside by starting with small steps

By

Elizabeth Larkin

Elizabeth Larkin

Elizabeth Larkin is a professional organizer with a strong interest in productivity, time management, and process refinement. She used her organizational skills and effectiveness to pen articles with helpful information on cleaning, organizing living spaces, and decluttering.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 09/27/22

Reviewed by

Katherine Picott

Reviewed by Katherine Picott

Katherine is a professional home organizer, certified KonMari consultant, and member of The Spruce's Cleaning and Organizing Review Board. She launched her own professional organizing business, Tidy Milso, in the summer of 2020, to help reorient those feeling overwhelmed with both clutter and disorganization in their homes.

Learn more about The Spruce's Review Board

​The Spruce / Letícia Almeida

Whether you're downsizing or just trying to simplify your life, figuring out how to declutter your home is a big job. The best way to start decluttering when you're overwhelmed is to do it in stages. Make a "declutter your home checklist" to prioritize clutter areas. Focus on one room, or even one zone within a room (e.g., kitchen cabinets), at a time. And complete each job fully before moving on to the next space.

Before you start to declutter your home, have containers defined for the following purposes to sort items:

• Put away: Items that have crept out of their designated storage spaces
• Fix/mend: Items that need something before they're put away, such as a shirt with a missing button
• Recycle: Items that can be recycled
• Trash: Items to throw away in the household trash
  
• Donate: Unwanted items that are still in good condition and can be donated to a charitable organization or another person

Here's how to put these containers to use while decluttering each room in your home.

Click Play to Learn How to Get Rid of Stuff With These Pain-Free Strategies

Creating a Decluttering Timeline

If you don't have a lot of stuff, it might be possible to declutter your house in one day or on a weekend. Or you might want to create a longer timeline to declutter your house in 30 days, for example. You can also plan a decluttering schedule just for the weekends you have in a month if you wish.

Keep your goals realistic and attainable, so you can declutter your home without feeling overwhelmed. Break down the spaces you need to declutter, estimating how long each will take. And then organize that into your overall timeline. Give yourself some buffer time in case something doesn't go according to plan.

What you should not do when decluttering is pull out all of your stuff without a plan for how you're going to sort it. If you do that, you'll likely just waste time wading through all of your disorganized items. In addition, it's often best to clean first before you declutter, so your everyday items are tidy and out of the way.

Consider starting in a room or space with only a small amount of clutter. That way, you can get it done quickly and feel like you're making progress on your overall decluttering timeline, which should in turn motivate you to keep going.

• 01 of 06

  The Bathroom

  The Spruce / Erica Lang 

  Start with your medicine cabinet. Take everything out, and discard outdated medications, makeup, and skincare products. Put everything you're keeping immediately back into the cabinet, storing the items you use most often at eye level.

  Next, move onto any cabinet drawers. Remove everything, and do a quick evaluation of what you're keeping and what you're tossing. Put the items you're going to keep back into their drawers, with the items you use most often in the top drawers. 

  Now, do the same routine with your shower/tub. Finally, pull everything out from below your bathroom sink, and declutter the items there.

  Lastly, everything that did not have a home can be quickly sorted into the five bins you have staged for the purpose. 

  10 Quick Tips to Organize and Declutter a Bathroom

• 02 of 06

  The Bedroom

  The Spruce / Letícia Almeida

  First, make your bed. It's hard to feel any progress decluttering a bedroom while an unmade bed stares you in the face. 

  Start with your nightstands. Remove anything on them that doesn’t belong there, and put it in your put-away bin. This may include books you’ve already finished reading, pens and paper, and mail. Throw out or recycle anything that you no longer use, such as empty tissue boxes, pens that have gone dry, or chargers that no longer work.

  Do the same with the tops of your dressers, chests, and/or bureaus. Pay careful attention to any clothing that is strewn about. Anything that needs folding or hanging goes into the put-away bin. If you're afraid it may wrinkle further, you can lay clothes on your bed.

  Go through each bureau, drawer by drawer. Take everything out. Pull out anything that is no longer worn, and put it in your donation bin. Fold and store the clothing you're keeping. 

  If you keep a desk or vanity table in your bedroom, tackle that next. Resist the urge to shove things back into drawers; instead, put them in your put-away bin. Toss or recycle any garbage or anything you haven’t used in more than six months.

  Return items to their proper places. Fold or hang and store any clothing. If you're now eyeing your closet, we'll tackle that next.

  9 Bedroom Organizing Tips to Use Right Now

• 03 of 06

  Closet and Clothing

  ​The Spruce / Letícia Almeida 

  OK, deep breath. It's time to declutter your closet. The easiest way to tackle a closet is to first declutter your clothing by type. That means start with shoes, then boots, then dresses, then denim, etc.

  It’s much easier to decide to toss or keep a pair of jeans if you’re looking at your entire jeans collection at once. So start pulling out different types of clothing, and decide what you'll toss and keep.

  Once you’ve gone through each type of clothing, you will have four piles to deal with:

  • Put away anything that was simply in the wrong spot. Example: If you had a pair of socks in your closet, put them in your dresser.
  • Put any dirty laundry into the hamper, or bring it to the laundry room.
  • Anything that needs to be repaired should go to the tailor or dry cleaner.
  • To get rid of clothes, take them to a donation center or consignment store.

  How to Declutter the Clothes in Your Closet

• 04 of 06

  The Entryway, Mudroom, and Foyer

   

  The Spruce / Christopher Lee Foto

  You may not have a traditional mudroom or foyer, but you definitely have an entryway. No matter how small it is, the best way to make an entryway most functional is to declutter it regularly.

  Start with any desk, console, or side tables you have in your entry. Go through each drawer, removing the contents, and make a quick decision to toss or keep each item. Go over the tops of each desk or console as well. Do you have a space for your keys and other important items? Make sure everything is accessible and not too crowded. This will make it easier to leave the house with what you need each morning.

  The hall closet should be decluttered like any other closet: Start with shoes and boots, then jackets, followed by accessories.

  The entry is another area that picks up a lot of clutter from other rooms. Spend time putting away things from other rooms that have made their way to the entry.

  7 Essential Design Elements for a Stylish and Organized Entryway

• 05 of 06

  The Kitchen

  ​The Spruce / Letícia Almeida 

  Keeping your kitchen clutter-free can be a challenge because so many different activities occur there—cooking, eating, and socializing. As a result, the kitchen has many different types of items stored in it. You can choose to declutter your kitchen by focusing on one category of item at a time (cutting boards, glassware, utensils, or bakeware, for example) or going by zone through each part of the kitchen.

  The first step is to completely empty each space, assess each item, and put everything back where it belongs. Start with your powerhouse storage spaces first, such as the pantry and upper cabinets. Then move onto the lower cabinets, drawers, and the space under the kitchen sink.

  The 11 Best Under-Sink Organizers of 2023

  Finally, concentrate on your countertops. Move as many items as possible off of the countertops and into storage spaces. Keep only what you use every single day on the countertops.

  Finally, take your put-away bin, and return anything that doesn't belong in the kitchen to its rightful storage space elsewhere in the house.

  8 Ways to Declutter a Small Kitchen

• 06 of 06

  The Living Room

  ​The Spruce / Letícia Almeida

  The living room is one of the hardest rooms in your home to keep neat on a daily basis. That's because it gets a lot of use, and living rooms don't usually offer a lot of storage features. You may have some bookcases and a TV console, but they don’t hide much. The key is to:

  • Decide on permanent storage spaces for commonly used items, such as remote controls, magazines, and books.
  • Declutter this space regularly.

  Start with bookcases, console, and side tables. Then move on to your coffee table and entertainment center. Empty them, assess the items they store, and then return them to their proper storage spaces. Put books away; reduce paper clutter, such as mail; return remote controls to their proper places; fold blankets; etc.

  Move on to electronics. Remove everything that is not connected to your television or home theater system. Are you using it? Does it work? Store items such as chargers and gaming equipment where you use them. 

  Finally, tackle the toys. Assess every toy for wear and tear. Does it still function? Do your kids still play with it? Recycle or store each toy.

  Grab your put-away bin, and return everything that belongs in another room to its proper storage space. 

  How to Organize a Living Room

Where to Dispose of Clutter

For the items you aren’t keeping when you declutter your home, you have some options regarding how to dispose of them. This is where it can be extremely helpful if you’ve already sorted appropriate items into recycle, trash, and donate bins.

Make sure you are aware of your local recycling guidelines, as certain items, such as electronics, often can’t go in the regular recycling. Keep a separate bin for those items to bring them to an appropriate recycling center. Moreover, if you know you’ll be undertaking a major decluttering project, you might want to rent a dumpster in advance for unusable items that must be thrown away. 

Remember that items in good condition can be donated or sold. Besides a donation bin, you also might want to start a collection of items to sell in a garage sale. Furthermore, if you plan to give away certain items to friends and family, it can be helpful to start bins for each person to fill as you declutter.

Watch Now: 8 Easy Things to Get Rid of Now to Declutter Your Home

14 rules of order in the house. How to put things in order in the house (apartment) - 14 Effective ways to keep things in order

Actually, you don't have to be an expert to free yourself from the bondage of cleaning (sorry, Mary). Just follow the 14 rules for creating a tidy home and you yourself will not notice how the terrible pictures of the Sunday 6-hour trash sorting disappear from your memory, and the hoarding and procrastination reflex disappears by itself.

1. Throw away clothes that have not been worn for more than a year

Of course, we are not robots, we want to keep the memory of a person or an important event. But try not to get carried away. Leave one thing, and do not litter all the closets with children's suits and grandma's dresses. The same applies to your personal belongings. What lies in the closet idle for more than a year should be sent to the trash.

2. Don't put things on the floor - put them in their place!

This pernicious habit of putting bottles, bags and everything that should not lie on the floor. Remember: using the floor as a horizontal cabinet is ugly, inefficient and, moreover, unhygienic. So, get rid of the desire to build figures from all sorts of things, and if you still sinned, dismantle the installation within an hour.

3. Keep your car clean

Get rid of the trunk of unnecessary containers, rags and anything that might “suddenly come in handy”. Be sure to clean glove boxes, side door pockets, and cup holders. If you can’t get rid of the trash in the car, at least tint the windows so that no one confuses the interior with a trash can.

4. Make your bed every day

Why, if you get out of bed, go to work, come back and fall back on it? Experts recommend! Foreign cleaning consultants and even psychologists still advise not to succumb to temptation and fill your bed. This ritual disciplines and helps to maintain order in the room.

5. Don't keep gadgets that you no longer use at home

Donate to a charity or recycle - there are better uses for them than keeping them in a drawer.

6. Use the 5-minute rule

If a task can be completed in a few minutes, do it now, not later. Sometimes very lazy, but be patient! Five minutes today will save you hours of long and tiring cleaning tomorrow.

7. Get rid of waste paper!

Discard old magazines, stickers, clippings from notebooks. A new issue of your favorite publication has been released - the old one frees up space for it and goes to the trash. And nothing else!

8. Create storage systems for the whole family

This rule will seem strange to some. How can you make equally convenient storage systems for yourself, children and, for example, elderly parents? Keep shared items in one place. For example, family photo albums or bathroom textiles.

9. Solve a problem before it appears

Do you feel that perfectionism in cleanliness and order is not your forte? Excuses! With a little discipline, you can call yourself a cleaning forecaster.

Just before you throw your clothes on the sofa, imagine how you repeat this harmful ritual for another 5 days and no longer see the sofa behind a mountain of things. Like? If not, think and reconsider the automatic action.

"What's with the hangers?" - you ask. Given that the use of the same clothespins and hangers is the basis of order in the closet and ease of use, by the way, too. An important point: do not skimp on hangers! If a black evening dress hangs under layers of sweaters and shirts, it will have to be found first and then put in order. Faster and cheaper (time is money) to buy individual coat hangers.

11. Sort your mail without leaving the box

Do not bring a bunch of unsorted letters, otherwise something from the unnecessary will definitely settle on the nightstand. We carry bills to the corridor, letters from relatives and friends to the living room, advertisements for miracle supplements and clairvoyant courses to the garbage can of the entrance.

12. Get rid of paper reams

See rule #7 with the caveat that it's about any paper, even printer paper. Everything has its place. The necessary paper and magazines you have not read remain in the places provided for this. And what is already considered by the brain is ruthlessly destroyed.

13. Try not to be guided by the rule - “out of sight, out of mind”

Do not shove your belongings into nameless boxes, cabinets, and especially mezzanines. Sort what you need, sort it into categories and send it to different boxes and boxes with a signature. And unnecessary (well, you already understood).

14. Spend 15 minutes a day doing a quick cleaning

Spend 15 minutes every evening (or morning) preparing your home for the new day. Put away clothes, wash dishes, arrange chairs so you don't have to double work the next day.

In summary, no one is perfect. Even people who have devoted their lives to the study of order and organization of spaces, surely sometimes leave socks under the bed or a dirty cup in the sink.

But now, after you have read this article, it will be easier to strive for cleanliness, and a little cleaning lover will settle in your head, who at the right time will remind you of the 5-minute rule or will not let you buy a new magazine before the old one is thrown away .

Share the results of your work on yourself in the comments. Together we will keep order!

Innovative cleaning method - INMYROOM

Do you view your home only through the lens of functionality? Divide it into a series of rooms where you eat, sleep, wash, work, communicate with household members? Think broader: the house is the center of your unique life, which requires order in all areas. We read a new book about cleaning to learn how to start living more consciously and stop cluttering the environment. We share our impressions with you.

The book “Breathe Freely” was published in Russian by the publishing house “Mann, Ivanov and Ferber” in 2015. Its authors - Lauren Rosenfield and Melva Green - wrote it for those who want to get rid of the clutter in their home and soul. Dr. Melva Green is a registered psychiatrist who combines scientific knowledge with the power of intuition. Lauren Rosenfield is the mother of four restless teenagers and a master of spiritual cleansing.

1. Start cleaning in the entryway

The entryway is the first place you enter when you come home. Therefore, restoring order should begin with it. Enter your home as if you were a first-time visitor. What immediately catches your eye? What things seem redundant? Remove them without hesitation - give them to someone or throw them away.

Fill your entryway with just the right things and nice accessories. Put a vase with fresh flowers on a chest of drawers, hang a cheerful picture and a poster. Keep everything in its place, and throw out flyers, checks and other garbage before you get home.

"Before you start clearing out the trash, it's important to remember that the process of clearing out requires patience, pliability, and sensitive introspection."

2. Create an atmosphere of relaxation in the living room

The living room is a place for the whole family to gather: here we share the day's events, impressions, spend time with children and receive guests. Someone has a whole room allocated for these purposes, for someone it also serves as a bedroom. One thing unites them - the mess prevents you from completely relaxing and relaxing.

Take a picture of the interior of your living room, look at the photo and think about what is bothering you. Perhaps a pile of unnecessary magazines has accumulated in the corner, flyers lie between the books, and clothes hang on the back of the chair - remove unnecessary things. Do the manipulations several times and the only thing left for you is to invite guests here.

"Physical rubbish is just an expression of the emotional disorder we carry within us."

3. Set up a place for home dinners

The dining room is more than a room where people just eat: here people communicate and exchange news. It doesn’t matter if you can allocate a full-fledged room for it or have dinner at a small table in the kitchen - there should be order in this area. Often in the dining room they work at a computer, do their homework - they use it as a full-fledged workplace. Therefore, meals become more like a quick snack in the company of a laptop or TV.

As you clean this area, write down a list of things you do here: school lessons, office work, needlework. Allocate a box for each activity: put extra things in them and put them out of sight - let nothing distract you while eating.

“You will have to look at rooms not just as a place for furniture, but as an outward manifestation of emotional and spiritual life.

4. Free the kitchen from unnecessary things

The kitchen is often called the heart of the house - it is here that the hostess prepares food for the family, guests first come here for a cup of tea. In addition to groceries, it stores dishes, cooking utensils, cookbooks and more. But are they all in their places, do you use at least half of the things?

Get rid of pieces of furniture that prevent you from moving freely around the kitchen and making the most of the space. Grab your favorite cookbook and plan your dream dinner. Pull out all the tools you need to prepare such a dinner: pots, pans, bowls. Repeat the manipulations with different menu options: everything that is left aside - feel free to throw it away. And, of course, do not wait for a special moment - cook your dream dinner now!

"Getting rid of rubbish - giving up unnecessary things in order to get in return the space, time and positive emotions that you lack.

5. Teach your child to clean by example

While the child is still small, you are responsible for the order in the nursery. But the kids grow and change, the nursery transforms with them - it is filled with toys, personal items and hobby attributes. Remember that children do not see the disorder - for them it is a natural result of development and self-knowledge.

The best way to teach a child to put things in order is not to ask him, but to show how this is done by your own example. Give him one small task at a time: sort out one drawer, throw out old clothes, put away toys. And of course, do not forget about promotions.

"The goal is to enjoy the process and feel the joy of the work done."

6. Get rid of distractions in the office

Some people like to work in open common areas: at the dining table, at the coffee table by the sofa, in the bedroom; others choose a secluded spot next to a window. Both of them are similar in one thing - the workspace easily turns into a real pile of rubbish.

Psychologists say that this is connected with a feeling of anxiety and fear of responsible work. To clean up your office, first sort the things that you are indifferent to, then those that cause fear or stupor. As a result, you will not only clean up the space, but also understand what type of activity to pay special attention to.

“Always start by identifying a purpose for the room or area you have chosen to clean up. You have to look for things that are inappropriate for the purpose: they will go into the box.

7. Make room for relaxation in the bedroom

The bedroom is a personal space in which we are especially vulnerable. The bedroom is a place of love, rest and recovery, and any clutter will get in the way of complete relaxation. Take a close look at the room, pay attention to which of the things cause pleasant emotions, and what you would like to replace. If you need to, feel free to toss out extra accessories and highlight what you like.

“We are big fans of before and after shots.

8. Take the time to clean your bathroom

The bathroom is where every morning begins and every evening ends. It is here that we can be alone with ourselves, smile at the reflection and tune in to a new day. It is difficult to do this among unwashed linen, chaotic shampoo bottles and a dirty sink.

Get rid of all the things that spoil your start to the day and cause discomfort. Sort the bottles and jars - are you sure you need them all? Feel free to throw away those that are already covered with dust - love yourself.

“The idea of ​​three gates is good to use when cleaning the house. We suggest the following control questions: Does this item meet my goals? do I use this item? Is this thing good for my soul?

Opinion InMyRoom

If you have never traced the connection between your emotional state and order in the house, then this book can be a real discovery for you.

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