How to Declutter Your Home Without Getting Overwhelmed
How to Declutter Your Home Without Getting Overwhelmed
These days, it is so easy to be overwhelmed by our stuff. Well meaning grandparents buy way too many gifts. You stocked up on towels because there was a sale and now your linen closet is overflowing. Your husband has twenty too many baseball hats. Having more kids means more things in general. When it is time to declutter your home, you have no idea where to even begin.
I get it. You never meant for your house to be bursting at the seams, but here we are.
So what are you supposed to do when your home is stressing you out and you don’t know where to start? Try this easy guide to declutter your home without getting overwhelmed.
Before Decluttering
Assess the Damage
Go room by room and see which areas are the biggest stressors. Make a list of what rooms are the most important to you to declutter in your home so that you can map out a plan of how to tackle the mess.
In each room (including closets!) try to identify the biggest culprits. This may be too many small appliances in the kitchen or an overwhelming number of toys in the playroom. You can use this to look back on when you start attacking the clutter.
Make a Plan
Now that you know where your biggest obstacles are, you have two options: you can tackle the largest mess first, or start small and build up to the larger ones.
Be aware that you will not declutter your home in it’s entirety in a day. Or a week. Maybe a month if you are incredibly dedicated and have no other commitments. But as a toddler mom, I can assure you, things will come up and this is going to take some time.
Make a goal to accomplish one area in a certain amount of time. This could mean completing the kitchen dining and living rooms in one month or all of the bathrooms another. It could also mean that your only goal is tackling one room this week, and another the next.
As you work through your home, make sure you are not relocating items to another room to deal with later. I’ll talk more about how to declutter your home below.
How to Declutter
Start Small
Choose either a small project, like a closet, or a small area of a larger project, like your side of the master sink. By chipping away at the clutter, you will see noticeable progress without becoming overwhelmed.
Be Mindful
Don’t throw stuff away just because you need less stuff. Make sure you won’t miss it later. It is tempting to just chuck everything in the trash bin without looking at it when you feel like the clutter is consuming you. But that won’t work when you realize you threw out something you needed and now have to buy more of it.
If there are items that you are continually waffling on, put them in a box and store it for six months in a closet or attic. This seems counterintuitive to the process of decluttering, but it will help you realize what is really important to you. If six months have gone by and you haven’t needed anything in that box, donate it without even opening it. This will keep you from being tempted to keep the contents.
Work in Stages
When decluttering a room, sort the contents into piles: one for stuff you are definitely getting rid of, one for maybes, and one for stuff you want to keep. Once they are sorted, focus on the pile of stuff you are getting rid of first.
Keep
These items need to be organized and put back neatly immediately. Don’t leave a mess for your future self to have to deal with. Go ahead and organize everything right away.
Maybes
These are items you are on the fence about. Use my six month box method from above or leave those items until the following day. You can reassess then without losing your decluttering momentum. Don’t leave the maybes for longer than a day or two, or they will find themselves sneaking back in to clutter up your space again.
Discard
Sort this pile into two categories: for donation and to throw away. Toss anything broken, not working, or missing parts. This includes items that are technically salvageable, but that no one is going to want to buy, such as bent or torn party decorations or a half used box of postpartum pads.
Put everything else from the discard pile into a box and donate it as soon as possible. Don’t leave it in your house where you will be tempted to put it back! March that box to your car and take it to a consignment shop the next time you leave the house.
Repeat this process for each room or area in your home until you’ve completed the entire house. Be mindful that it took you years to accumulate all of this stuff, and it will not go away overnight. Make sure that you are continually removing these items from your home and not just moving them to another location for later.
Include the Whole Family
Your kid is likely to get upset if her stuff just goes missing or she sees you tossing out her beloved happy meal toy. Make it a joint effort. Explain what’s going on. Need tips on getting your toddler to clean up? Click here for my how to!
What to Declutter
- Multiples (kitchen utensils, toys, comforters, etc…)
- Broken things you didn’t get around to fixing
- Outgrown Items (baby toys, place settings, children’s clothing, etc…)
- Clothes that don’t fit
- Toys that bring you stress (loud toys, smelly toys, messy toys, etc…)
- Decor You Don’t Love or Use
- Just in Case Items – I’m not talking about extra lightbulbs (that will get used eventually) or an emergency prep kit (that hopefully won’t get used.) This includes items like that box of cables you’ve been lugging around since college or that third set of dishes in case you have a large dinner party. If you haven’t used it in the last year, it is worth considering whether it would be more useful being donated or sold.
After Decluttering
Buy Quality Over Quantity
Buy products that are made to last so that you don’t find yourself with three cheap mops or fifteen towels that pill and tear in less than a year. It will save money and you won’t be bringing more into your home.
Seek Experience Gifts
This means that when buying birthday presents, think about activities over tangible items. This can mean a membership to a museum, a bounce house, or batting cages. It could mean going on vacation instead of buying toys. It could mean going to a hockey game or an art studio or a million other activities that don’t involve bringing more junk into your home.
Create a Standard
One thing in, one thing out per room/area. If you buy something new, choose something already existing in your home to donate. This keeps your from undoing all of your hard work when you declutter your home.
TWO WEEK DECLUTTERING GUIDE
Below, I’ve set up a two week decluttering program to help guide you to declutter your home. This program works through your home from top to bottom, tackling small projects each day. By the end of each day, you will have decluttered another space, taking back your home.
Before You Start
Before you get started, write a few things down. First, write down how much you want to get rid of. This could be a trash bag’s worth of clutter from each room, or enough to fill the trunk of your car, or anything that your family no longer uses. Whatever the goal, make it realistic. If you live in a 5000 square foot house full of stuff, it is not realistic to make a goal of removing half of your possessions in two weeks. It IS realistic to set a goal to get rid of any clothing that no longer fits your body or makes you feel good.
Second, write down specific items you want to get rid of. This could be any toys that your child has outgrown or no longer plays with, or it could be that old printer in the office you never got around to removing.
Each day, go into the room listed with a trash bag, box, or basket, and set a timer for twenty minutes. Start gathering items. You don’t need to make a decision on each item yet, just gather it all in the middle of the room. Work until you are done or the timer goes off, whichever comes first.
Once you have your pile of clutter, start going through it, using the tips above. When you have your discard pile sorted, be sure to remove it from the room. Go ahead and put it in the trunk of your car to donate, or leave it by the front door to take with you the next time you leave the house.
On the last day, walk through your house with a trash bag room-by-room. Grab items you missed on the first decluttering and discard those as well. You may need more than one bag. The more often you do this, the better able you will be to let go of the clutter and simplify your home!
Week 1: Bedrooms, bathrooms, closets
- Day 1: Master Bedroom
- Day 2: Master Bathroom
- Day 3: Master Closet
- Day 4: Kid’s Rooms
- Day 5: Kid’s Rooms
- Day 6: Kid’s Closets & Bathrooms
- Day 7: Linen Closet & All Other Closets
Week 2: Kitching, living, dining, garage, outdoor, and miscellaneous
- Day 1: Kitchen & Pantry
- Day 2: Living & Dining
- Day 3: Garage
- Day 4: Outdoor Spaces (Porches, Sheds, Storage Bins, etc..)
- Day 5: Storage Closets & Mudroom
- Day 6: Basement
- Day 7: Extra Rooms (Offices, Playrooms, etc…) & Whole House Once-Over
Using this guide will help you create a home you love being in. By decluttering your house, you will make more time for yourself and your family. You will spend less time cleaning and maintaining your stuff and reduce the stress surrounding the state of your home. Need extra help with decluttering? Check out my quick guide on decluttering in a hurry!
Have you ever gotten overwhelmed when trying to declutter your home? What tactics did you use to overcome and tackle the mess? Let me know in the comments below!
