The 20 Best Decluttering Tips for Cleaning Out Your Home

Inside: The best 20 decluttering tips and tricks to get organized and clean out your home for a tidy, clean living space.

In a world filled with excess, clutter can quickly take over our living spaces causing stress and chaos in our everyday lives. To counteract against this consumerism overload, decluttering has become a necessary part of home life trend as we seek to simplify and organize our homes.

However, decluttering doesn’t always come easy. One of the biggest hurdles with decluttering your home is often…where to start? It can be so overwhelming to see your home’s mess and know where to begin with when faced with piles of stuff and limited time.

In this post, we will explore the best decluttering tips to help you transform your space and create a more peaceful environment. From setting realistic goals to tackling one room at a time, these strategies will guide you through the decluttering process with ease. Say goodbye to clutter and hello to a more organized and stress-free living space by implementing these top decluttering tips!

Why Decluttering Tips Means Small Wins

Decluttering your home can be an overwhelming task, but with the right tricks and ideas you can easily tackle the clutter. The list below is of the best decluttering tips to give you ways to address clutter in a strategic, manageable way. It is straightforward, simple advice for getting started and making progress in cleaning out your home.

That is why you want small wins for progress, not perfection, as you pull yourself and your space out of the clutter.

Breaking down goals is what makes them doable. The decluttering tips laid out below are a way to breakdown the overall goal of clearing out your home so you can achieve the tidy and organized environment you crave.

The Benefits to Decluttering

You likely know the benefits to decluttering but it never hurts to review. Below are the awesome benefits you will gain with a decluttered home.

Save time

When your home is decluttered and tidy you save time by not looking for lost items or scrambling to locate daily essentials. You also save time with functional space inside your home such as cooking in an organized kitchen, getting ready for the day in a tidy bathroom or simply enjoying quality time with your family in a comfortable, non-messy living room.

Save money

By following decluttering tips and having an organized home you save money because you avoid buying duplicates of things you can’t find. You know what you have and where you keep it when your home is decluttered. You also see what needs to be used before replenishing consumable goods such as personal care products, pantry essentials or household goods.

Lower stress

Studies have proven that clutter causes stress. As Gretchen Rubin, an expert in happiness and human nature says, “outer order brings inner calm.” If you feel stressed out about your home’s clutter you are not alone. Removing the excess and having your belongings clean and where they should go does wonders for your brain, making you more clearheaded and even more motivated.

Healthier environment

An unkept home is more than just hard to look at, it is hard to clean as well. Having stuff and clutter everywhere makes it difficult to properly clean your home and maintain a healthy environment. Hoarding tendencies can quickly lead to unsanitary conditions. Remove the clutter by using the tips below to keep your home healthy and safe.

The Best Decluttering Tips for Cleaning Out Your Home

1. Don’t treat your home like a storage unit

Your home is meant to be a place for enjoyment, rest and retreat. It is not a storage unit. Remind yourself of why you love your home and what you enjoy doing there — being with family, entertaining friends, resting from the stress of the outside world or maybe working from home. Treat your home with respect, not a place to store things and it will be a place you love!

2. remember What clutter Takes from you

Another best decluttering tip is remembering what clutter takes away from you. It drains you of money, time and energy. Look around and see what you are holding onto and why. Ask yourself if all these items give more to your life or take away from it? Likely the excess takes away. Remind yourself of the decluttering benefits mentioned above and the value in having a clean, healthy home.

3. things are replaceable

Clutter is typically piles of physical items that are all replaceable: clothing, kitchen gadgets, home supplies, books, decor items. These are all replaceable if lost or forgotten. If you purge something and later want it back — you can replace it. Replaceable goods are not a priority in life — family, friends and relationships are. Shift your mindset to acknowledging it is just material goods.

4. Only touch items once

When you tidy up and start removing things from your home, only touch them once and determine then and there — can this be put in a proper place or the trash/recycle bin? This is especially true of paper clutter and mail. Only touch an item once, avoid just moving it around.

5. Use drop zones

Drop zones are designated areas to corral specific items. Oftentimes drop zones are used in entryways, kitchens or other central areas of the house. Use drop zones when you need a place for all family members to know where something belongs such as coats and shoes, mail and keys, homework and art supplies.

6. Keep a donation box in every closet

One of the best and easiest decluttering tips is to have a small or medium sized box in every closet in your house. As you sort laundry, hang up clothes, or get dressed for the day and come across an item you no longer need — in the box it goes! As the box fills you’ll see progress in your decluttering efforts and have items ready for donation.

7. only allow space for what brings you joy

Don’t hold onto items that have no meaning for you or your family — why keep yesterday’s newspapers, old Christmas decorations you don’t display anymore, wine glasses you never use or socks with holes? Keep what you use and love. Remember this as you look around at the clutter taking up space in your home.

8. a gift doesn’t have to be yours forever

Gifts can mean so much but remember it is the thought that counts. A key decluttering tip is learning how to let go of myths that hold you back from removing excess. Keeping gift items is a big struggle for many in decluttering their homes. You don’t want to be rude or ungrateful but the gift giver wouldn’t want something they gave you to cause stress. Re-gift, donate or recycle anything you don’t love…gifts from others included!

9. Follow the Three Month Rule

One of the best decluttering tips to apply is the three month rule. It’s super simple. Have you used the item in the last three months? Then toss it then and there or place it in a donation box. If another three months goes by and you haven’t thought about it, you can feel confident in knowing it can be gone forever.

10. Out of sight, out of mind

If you are stuck on an item when decluttering and unsure what to do with it, place it in an out-of-sight box such as in a corner of your garage or the bottom of a hall closet. Similar to the three month rule above, if you don’t think of the item or use it for the next 90 days, it’s time to donate or recycle it.

11. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure

A big hurdle people often have when it comes to decluttering is a sense of guilt over giving rid of something. It’s helpful to remember this classic line “another person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” While you may no longer have the need for something, someone else may such as clothes from cleaning out your closet or books from a toy room declutter. Gently used items can still have value, just for someone else.

12. Walk through your house with a trash bag

Using a trash bag to start decluttering may be the best and most simplest tip of all. If the clutter in your home is overwhelming, even bordering on hoarding, start with a trash bag. Go room to room with the bag and toss anything that is of no use.

Examples of items to trash/recycle

• Old magazines and newspapers
• Junk mail
• Discarded food items
• Carryout containers
• Broken knick knacks, home good items
• Expired medication

13. Ask yourself if you’d buy it now

When reviewing the contents of your home, ask yourself “would I buy this now?” If you never saw this item again, would you want to replace it? Would you run out to the store or to Amazon to purchase another one? This exercise is an excellent tip for knowing how you truly feel about something. If the answer is “no” then discard it.

14. Pretend you are moving

If you were moving and had to pack every single item you own, would you want to take the time and energy to box it, ship it and unpack it at the next location? Consider a house move and the effort this involves and you will look at your belongings in a different way. Anything that isn’t worth your attention or the effort to take somewhere with you is likely unnecessary to own.

15. Paper clutter has three options

When dealing with paper clutter you have three options: shred, recycle or keep. Only keep paper you can’t replace (ie., special cards, original documents, certificates). Many paper files are searchable online such as appliance manuals and warranties or such files can be saved in digital form. Recycle non-personal paper and shred documents that have financial or sensitive information.

16. it’s progress over perfection

Building up large amounts of clutter takes time, so it will also take time to remove much of it. This is about making progress, not having a perfect home worthy of Joanna Gaines or Martha Stewart. Any progress is helpful – one shelf, one drawer, one cabinet – can feel amazing.

17. consider what you are leaving for others

Do you want your loved ones to deal with your things upon your passing? While it is unpleasant to think about, it’s important to consider how your life will affect others when you are gone and the affairs that will need to be managed without you. Will your children or loved ones have mountains of clutter to purge and organize? Will they be stressed or overwhelmed (in addition to grieving) if you leave a house full of stuff for them to deal with? Consider decluttering as a gift to your family if nothing else.

18. Practice shopping restraint 

One of the best decluttering tips is to not have so many belongings. Do this by limiting what you bring into your home. Start with a “no-buy month” of one category you can live without, for example, clothing, makeup, home decor, Amazon impulse purchases and stop buying stuff you don’t need.  Challenge yourself to use up everything you have that is consumable or usable (i.e., shampoo, skincare products, home cleaning supplies) before buying it again (or a different version of it).

19. Avoid buying organizing products

Decluttering and organizing are two different things, so avoid buying all the organizing products that lure you in on Amazon and Instagram and declutter instead. The cute bins from Target and The Container Store will do you no good if they just sit on a countertop never used or your stuff is too much to be contained. Having lots of organizing bins and baskets can actually encourage you to keep things because you think they are “organized” when really you don’t need these items at all. 

20. Completely empty a room or closet

Some organizers may call this “quieting” a room or “backward decluttering.” This is removing everything from a room and only putting back in what you can’t live without. Let this room sit “quiet” or empty for 24 hours. Soak in the calm effect this will have and the instant gratification of a fresh space. Extra credit…give the room a good cleaning! Once you’ve allowed the room to breathe, then only replace what you truly love or need in that space.

Best Decluttering Reminders and Next Steps

Below are a few of For the Love of Simple’s basic principles about decluttering and organizing. Everyone is on their own decluttering journey towards making their home the warm, functional space they want it to be.

• Home is meant to be a retreat and place of productivity or rest – not a storage unit.
• Decluttering and organizing is about progress and perfection is not reality.
• A minimalist environment does not have to mean cold or boring.
• Items are replaceable, human connection and relationships with others is not.
• You can’t take it with you!  Think about what you are leaving for others to manage.
• Every home is different and each family has their own unique needs for function and organization. Finding what works for you is a process!
• Real living gets messy and a perfectly organized home is not possible all the time, so allow yourself grace.

No matter what step you take next, celebrate taking one! Ideas for your next step could be to download a free resource, consider purchasing one of our guides or implementing one of the tips discussed above. You can do this and get the home you love!