Decluttering my 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

Decluttering as a reboot. Why am I scared?

clutter organized house put things in order psychology

Decluttering is such a fashionable and at the same time such a frightening word. If you easily part with things, you can safely consider yourself a happy exception, because for many it is very difficult. What is the matter and how to deal with your fears? Space organizer Elena Larina will help you sort things out, as well as answer the eternal question “what if it comes in handy?”

To begin with, let's figure it out, but what is decluttering?

I know from experience that at the word “clutter” in most people, somewhere on a subconscious level, everything shrinks inside and fear appears. The fear that you will have to throw everything away and there will be nothing left. Fear on an emotional, intuitive level. And I understand why. I myself come from the Soviet Union, and in the Soviet Union nothing can be thrown away. We only save, we only add, we only store. For the future, for dowry, for a rainy day, and for much, much more. Cleaning on weekends (more often on Saturdays), and it was always practically general cleaning, because it was necessary to vacuum, wash the floor in all rooms, wipe the dust (remember those huge lacquer walls along the entire wall of the room, all life was in such walls), water flowers, be sure to wash and many other important things. Now I remember and even goosebumps, it’s so scary to remember it, heavy duty and nothing more.

Today, times have changed radically, and today we spend less and less time on cleaning, weekends for the family, for ourselves, and more and more people think that the important is not stored in our things, but the important is inside us. In our children, parents, husbands, the possession of things fades into the background and we increasingly want space and comfort in our home. Decluttering is the first step towards modern and fast cleaning .

So what is decluttering? Decluttering is the removal of unnecessary unused items from the organized area.

Decluttering doesn't mean throwing everything in the trash. Something you no longer need may be useful to someone else. But more on that later.

In the meantime, let's talk about why we are afraid, why we are so afraid of this word - "clutter". How do we feel when it's time to unwind.

From experience, I have identified several the most common and strong feelings that prevent us from starting to free our home from unnecessary things.

• And suddenly I will regret, suddenly it will come in handy for me.

• Guilt “I spent time and money on this thing. ”

• Fear of the future.

• Sentimentality of a thing.

• Desire to recoup your expenses.

• value to another person.

• Fear of the time that has appeared (a person simply does not know what to spend his time on) and therefore unconsciously keeps a mess in his house, not daring to change.

Sometimes we are attached to things not physically, but emotionally - we are sorry to part with things, we once treasured them, or things that a loved one gave us, or simply with those that evoke pleasant memories and associations. But think about it, you can store memories, not a thing. Emotion for a thing is a pleasant memory in yourself, and no one will take this emotion away from you, regardless of whether the thing is kept at your home or not.

All these are emotional, psychological barriers that prevent you from freeing the house from unnecessary things.

How to litter your house, how to understand that there are unnecessary things in the house, what things are needed and what are not?

Answer a few questions for yourself:

• Does your space seem crowded?

• Are you trying to put things in order, but there is no result?

• Do you often look for things?

• Do you store things somewhere other than at home?

• Do you want to purchase an additional wardrobe / chest of drawers for storage?

• Do you have horizontal surfaces littered? Does it bother you?

• Do you have “what if it comes in handy, lose weight, gain weight, etc.”, do you have things for creative projects that you intended to use a long time ago, but never did?

If you answered yes to most of the questions, then YES! Your home needs decluttering.

But what about the feelings described above?

Let's figure it out!

Guilt: “I spent so much time on this thing, it costs a lot of money, it was a gift from……., my son/daughter did it for me, it’s my parents’ thing.

Guilt is our internal barometer when protecting other people's feelings is more important than our own goals.

Let's think: do you have a place to store these things? Will this thing actually be used? Over time, the value of things fades, as well as expiration dates. Do you have time to take care of this thing? Are you willing to continue sacrificing your comfort and space in favor of guilt or fear?

When it comes to money, it is important to understand that a thing without use, without a real purpose, simply takes up useful space that could be used to store something really necessary. Just because the thing is in your house, the money will not be returned; a thing is worthless if it just sits in a box or on a shelf. But you can sell the item at an online or garage sale.

Present! Having received another gift, it may be that you do not like it or do not fit in some other way, and you again begin to feel guilty. But let's think, did the person who gave you a gift want you to experience this feeling? Just think about it, you can imagine yourself in the place of the giver. You found out that your gift is not needed (not liked), and the person feels guilty; fearing to offend you, he simply does not know what to do with this gift. Don't you tell him "God be with him, with this gift, no need to suffer, just get rid of him."

We are grateful to the donor for the emotions that we experienced at the moment of giving, but I am sure that the donor did not intend to add problems to you or your home with his gift. No one but you can decide what will be stored in your home and what will not.

To reveal the whole topic at once is as unrealistic as to litter your house in one Sabbath.

But I want you to understand: decluttering is not about throwing it out, but about deciding what is important to you and finding a place for it.

Where do you start if you're scared?

Ask yourself questions:

Do I really need this item? What is the likelihood that I will need this item? Think about the situation in which this can happen? What is the likelihood of this situation occurring? What can you replace it with if you need a thing? And what's the worst that can happen if you don't have this thing? If the thing reminds of good things, think about the fact that memories are stored in our hearts, and not in things. Imagine that you are moving to another country, for example - what will you take with you?

Weigh the benefit of owning this thing against the harm of taking up usable space because it can be used to store something that you use regularly.

For example:

You have a closet in the kitchen full of items that you bought (because your neighbor, girlfriend, mom, every hostess has it . .. etc.). Items that were given to you, which may someday come in handy, which “I bought, I don’t use, well, don’t throw it away” - from this series. And there is nowhere to place the items that you use daily, and here they are on your countertop and every day you have to disassemble it before starting cooking to make room.

Or another example: You have been dreaming of running or going to the gym for several years, but you just can't bring yourself to go out for your first run. Just because you have running clothes in your closet won't make you want to go outside. These clothes just take up valuable space. Until you have motivation, you won't start running or go to the gym. Live for today and finally get rid of this form! Every time you open a closet, you may reproach yourself for the fact that you have been dreaming for several years, but nothing has changed. Stop it! Live for today. But! If tomorrow you decide to start running, if you have a DESIRE, then believe me, the lack of form will not stop you, no matter how it stops the rain outside, or anything else.

Set priorities for yourself: mentally put free space on one hand, and clutter and daily mess on the other. What is more important to you?

Elena Larina , space organizer, Yaroslavl

Instagram: @vsepopolochkam76 (there is a link in the profile header)

Website: vsepopolochkam76.ru

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My decluttering and organization of space: anuta — LiveJournal

This is what my "storage system" looked like before organizing the space...


... and after

Broadcasts about decluttering ( "Caught in Unnecessary Things", "Crazy Cleanliness", etc. ) have long been as popular as programs about beauty and style ( "Fashion Sentence", etc. ). But these programs are somehow built on psychological violence, when the participants of the TV show are deliberately divided into "stylish" and "wretched", into "clean" and "sluts". Agree, few of us would agree to participate in such a TV show, knowing in advance how much shame and humiliation awaits us on the set. To be honest, when I invited a professional space organizer into my house, I was ready to put her out of the door at the first incorrect remark a la "throw away all your old notes" or "burn this terrible closet. " I even had a farewell phrase prepared, something like "You will have to admit that I have every right to live in a pigsty if I so desire"))) But it was not needed, because Ksenia and I surprisingly quickly found a common language and we still communicate (Ksyusha, hello!). My today's post will show you the result of our joint efforts.

"You've never been in order, although you seemed to be, you just have your own desperate method. You are constantly trying to hide all the mess that surrounds you" (c) my husband about me

Mess, known to hide mostly in closets and other dark places. But one has only to remove all unnecessary things from the house, as in the closet there is suddenly a place for a huge vacuum cleaner.

Wardrobe: left photo before, right after organization

Children's
Many say that with the birth of a child, you can say goodbye to order in the house. Some say it with disappointment, others with warmth. Indeed, Eva brought a huge amount of changes into my life. Including an increased need for order, so as not to look for a variety of children's little things around the house.

Children's dresser top drawers: before and after
The children's dresser's top drawers now have convenient baskets for medicines and baby cosmetics. More precisely, these baskets were always there, but they became convenient only after Ksyusha and I halved the number of items in them :)

The second drawer of the children's chest of drawers: before and after
The second drawer of the children's chest of drawers first featured cardboard and then plastic dividers. In my ideal world, all children's panties / bodysuits should be folded Konmari, but for now, there is, that is.

The third drawer of a children's chest of drawers: before and after endless chaos, creating the illusion of order. The third drawer of the chest of drawers is often subject to daughter raids, so socks, hats, baby diapers and towels are stored there. The first photo is before, the second photo is immediately after the organization, the third one is a month after the end of the project.

Fourth drawer of children's dresser: before and after
Drawer for clothes for growing up. The first photo is before, the second photo is immediately after the organization, the third one is a month after the end of the project.

Drawer under the bed: before and after

It was decided to give the drawer under the cot completely for toys. In the photo above, the megablocks constructor is folded overly neatly, so this is not a very "fair photo". During the day, our toy box usually looks like the photo below.

By the way, Eva and I are in the process of cleaning.

Parents' bedroom
There will be no "before" photos in the parents' bedroom. Yes, it was SO bad.

Top chest drawer: cosmetics and care products

Second chest drawer. jewelry and stationery.

Drawers for underwear
In the drawers for underwear, I decided to use comfortable rigid compartments. Now each piece of clothing has its own place and you can immediately see how many pairs of clean socks I have in stock (:

Chest of drawers
This is my husband's estate. His clothes: sweaters, T-shirts and jeans are folded in three folds. This is very convenient when you need to get "that same T-shirt" and not destroy a neat column of clothes.

Wardrobe and my workplace: before and after
My husband is a minimalist, his wardrobe is like Tom Sawyer's. In the depths of our closet also hangs a suit, which "was called "the one, the other" - and this gives us the opportunity to judge the richness of his wardrobe." My "minimalism" has other roots and the number of things I wear is even less than my husband's (:

For me, the most difficult thing about organizing a space was getting rid of old habits and making new ones. Getting rid of the habit of storing things on the office chair and desktop is not so easy, but it's nice to know that my impulse "to work now" I no longer find excuses "I'll just tidy up here a little bit."

Kitchen
In the kitchen, I will show only a couple of drawers for now. I will show the results of the organization of jars of cereals, spices and my tea-herbal collection later, when I buy all the missing units (:

Cutlery box
It turned out to be the most convenient place for a container of vitamins to remember to drink in the morning.

Drawer with crockery
Only the bare minimum of mugs and plates were left. The drawer is on the same level as the dishwasher. Now the latter is very convenient to unload.

Kitchen mezzanine: before and after
Would you know with what surprise I found that most of the things from the kitchen mezzanine will not be useful to me, most likely, NEVER!

There are quite a few photos in the post, because I'm not ready to arrange a full room tour of my apartment for you yet. But in the future, everything is possible (:

Results

• I used to live the way I live, but now I live the way I like it.


• Things are no longer lost, as each item has its own place.


• As a result of decluttering, I threw it away, gave to my parents, friends and Daruda residents 20 (!) Ashanov bags of various useful and not very things: clothes, dishes, decorative interior items™ and other things. , in the lower cabinet on the left you can see the last three bags for the Darudar project.To date, there is only one left.Soon this drawer will be completely empty (:


• Many visual stimuli disappeared. Only now do I realize how much I was visually annoyed by some things, for example, a vacuum cleaner in the corner of the hallway or eternally dusty vases on the windowsill.


• Created a safe space for baby Eva. They put protection from children on all drawers and lockers organized with such difficulty (with the exception of the nursery).

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