Being surrounded by clutter can affect your physical and mental health. People who live in cluttered spaces often feel increased levels of stress and suffer from allergies due to the accumulation of dust and mold particles. The idea of decluttering may seem overwhelming, because we often get ahead of ourselves. While it’s great to envision the outcome, it’s important to stay present and start small.
Keeping your space clean, tidy, and free from clutter, will not only improve focus, but you’ll have more time for things that matter. You’ll be able to find things quickly without rummaging and even re-evaluating future purchases, which will help you save money. Here’s a simple list to help you get started.
10 Quick and Easy Ways to Declutter
1) Set aside anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour to work on a single area.
2) Focus on one area to declutter. This can range from small jobs like a single drawer to bigger jobs like a closet.
Your home is a living space, not a storage space.
francine jay.
3) Listen to an upbeat playlist or to your favorite podcast while cleaning. Decluttering doesn’t have to feel like a chore, enjoy yourself while you’re doing it.
4) Visualize the outcome. What do you want your space to look like? How can you make it more functional? For inspiration, you can refer to websites like Pinterest.
Clutter is a manifestation of a) holding onto the past and b) fear of what might happen in the future.
leo babauta.
5) If you haven’t touched an item within 1-2 years, get rid of it!
6) Stay organized by creating piles for items you wish to keep, recycle, give away to friends and family, sell, or donate.
Clutter is the physical reflection of a disorganized mind.
joshua becker.
7) Before you think of purchasing storage bins or containers, look around for old cardboard boxes, gift boxes, or even shoe boxes. Save money by using what you already have.
8) For papers and documents that don’t require the physical copy to be saved, consider scanning and storing them on your computer and encrypting it.
Decluttering is infinitely easier when you think of it as deciding what to keep, rather than deciding what to throw away.
francine jay.
9) Shred and recycle old paperwork such as bills, receipts, and junk mail.
10) Speaking of junk mail, there is a way to opt out. Visit your post office’s website for more details. In my city, a simple sticker inside the mailbox stating “no advertising mail” does the trick.
Decluttering may seem like an overwhelming task, but it can be tackled with just a few simple steps. I hope these 10 easy tips inspire you to spend a few minutes decluttering your space today. Do you have any decluttering tips of your own? Share your thoughts below!
Great post. I’d like to add that digitizing all the photos in your albums is also a good way to declutter. You can either scan all your photos or take pictures of them from your cell phone and arrange them in albums on your phone. You can then shred the photos and recycle the albums.
This is another great tip! Thanks for sharing!
Hi! Great tips. I absolutely agree with starting small — and in fact I am a HUGE proponent of that. It makes the job much more manageable when you can start with a small area and work from there. I also love your tip about visualizing the final outcome — definitely need that help you see where you want to go so that you can get yourself there. AFter all many of us are visuals and so we need that imagery in our minds lol
Thank you so much Helen! Visualizing things helps a lot!
Yup absolutely.
Amen sister! 😁 I love me some decluttering! You’re 100% right – if our space is cluttered, so is our minds. Plus, like you point out, our health can suffer too because of all the funky dust and other contaminations.
Your point of, “if you haven’t touched it in a year – get rid of it,” is spot on. Just because it has been ‘rediscovered’ doesn’t mean it’s worth keeping. If it was that easy to forget about in the first place – it’s either donate or toss! Someone else might really NEED that item and we can bless their lives by giving it.
Visualizing is definitely another great tip. Not everyone enjoys cleaning and decluttering like we do, but ‘seeing’ the newly created space before it happens keeps that motivation high. Once it’s all finished – there’s nothing like the feeling.
Thanks for sharing! I hope your week is going amazingly well. ♥
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Holly! It made my day! It’s amazing how much decluttering does for our wellbeing!
It can be really hard to let go of things, but I love your perspective! We know we should be getting rid of things we no longer use, but sometimes we keep it around “just in case.” Changing our perspective to think about how it could help others is a fantastic way to look at it. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!
Amazing and helpful tips!
Thank you so much Ashish!
🙂😊
We had a big declutter earlier today and my mood has just been totally lifted ever since – sometimes its just SO necessary! x
That is the best feeling! Thank you for reading!
I love the idea of discarding items that you haven’t touched in a year. I use the same kind of thinking when it comes to organsing the apps on my phone. If I haven’t used the app in the past few months, I’ll just get rid of it because it’s obviously not something I need or use. I really need to start applying this to physical items in my house too!
I haven’t gone through my phone to delete apps, files, or photos, in a while. Thank you so much for your comment Kate! I’ll be doing that tonight!
Decluttering is so good. It’s good to get rid of things that no longer bring you happiness.
I agree! Thank you for reading!
Great post! I definitely need to work on decluttering haha – I love the idea of starting small and also having digital copies instead. Thanks for sharing x
Starting small is so important! Thank you for reading!
Great tips! Wardrobe decluttering is on my to-do list for a long time now but because of time constraints, I am not able to do it. Thank you for sharing this at right time. Gotta declutter soon!
Thank you for reading Harsha! Good luck with decluttering!
Love this post! I really like organising and having a declutter. I recently reorganised my bookshelves, dressing table and desk which has made my mindset so much better <3
I’m glad to hear you’ve recently been organizing and decluttering already! Thank you for sharing Caroline!
I love decluttering – so good for my well being!
I agree! Thank you for reading!
This is definitely the motivating post I need to tackle some of the clutter around my home! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’m happy you found it helpful! Thank you for reading Anika!
Lovely post. This is right up my alley right now! I told myself I would need to declutter and organize my whole house this weekend or I wouldn’t be able to have much fun in the summer haha! Right now all my closets are shoved with stuff. Thanks so much for sharing x
Lynn | https://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com
I just cleaned out my closet last month and it’s been wonderful having so much space! Good luck decluttering. Thank you for reading Lynn!