How to Declutter your Home in 30 Days

I am going to share with you the one thing that I know you’ve all been waiting for,
direct from your favorite Home Organizer: How to Declutter your Home in 30 Days

Before You Start

Decluttering an entire house can easily feel overwhelming, but with a few considerations you can combat overwhelm and set yourself up for success. I happen to be a decluttering expert, so you are in the right place for tips!

Set Realistic Expectations

It’s important to have realistic expectations. Each room is a mini-project and comes with its own set of challenges, which becomes a bit easier to manage when you go systematically room-by-room. If you have kids or other people living with you, then you might feel like you can never keep up, but progress is always progress and each room you declutter will continue to become easier to reset.

Items Without Homes

There’s a simple rule in the world of decluttering, “If something doesn’t have a home, it’s clutter and needs to be removed so cleaning can happen.” This can be a hard rule to live by and the decisions this forces us into can be quite rough. One method to make this a bit easier is to use bins to help sort through your homeless items. Once you’ve gone through a room, revisit this bin and see if there are enough useful items that you could make a home for, but be careful not to simply create more clutter by keeping items you don’t really need. 

One takeaway in this section is to be ready to make hard decisions as you declutter.

Sorting Items

As mentioned above, it can be very useful to designate bins to categorize your items. Having these bins at the ready can help keep you in the flow of decluttering. Instead of taking that rogue toy to the playroom, just toss it in a designated bin and take those items to their home when you’re done decluttering the prioritized room.

Some good categories for your bins could be:

• Keep – for items you’d like to keep, but can’t find the best home for just yet.
• Move – for items that have a home, but need to be moved to another room.
• Donate/Sell – for items that are still in good condition, but you haven’t used enough to justify keeping.
• Trash or Recycle – any remaining items

Keep Momentum

Practice keeping your momentum by breaking each room into smaller segments. This can help you feel the progress you’re making and avoid discouragement when you don’t have time to complete a full room. As we all battle for time, set yourself up for easy wins by starting simple with a table top, a small cabinet, or a category (like shoes) that can be completed in a short amount of time. If you don’t have time to continue, then you still made some progress. If you have time to continue, then use the momentum you generated to keep going.