If you haven’t already started on your New Year’s resolutions, it’s time to get going! One that many homeowners may consider is the cleaning and organizing of their homes. Decluttering your home can free up space, get rid of unnecessary items, and help you rediscover possessions you may have lost or forgotten about. Here’s how to declutter your home quickly.
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly: Plan
Decluttering your home is a sizable task, and it can be a daunting one. That’s why it’s important to tackle this job with a plan. The Spruce suggested that, before you get started, you find five boxes or bins. Label them like so:
- Keep; you’ll put these items away later.
- Recycle; paper, glass, and plastic.
- Fix; you’ll address broken things later.
- Trash; some things you really shouldn’t keep.
- Donate; you can give these away to family or friends, or to a charitable organization in your community.
Determine which rooms you want to tackle first. Perhaps you want to get the messiest and most disorganized room out of the way first, or maybe you want to start small and ramp-up.
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly: Evaluate
Now that you have a plan, you can determine how you’ll evaluate each item. Here are some tips:
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly: Medications
When going through your bathroom, kitchen, or bedroom, you might come across medications and medicines you’ve acquired over the years. For each, ask yourself:
- Is it expired?
- Do I or my family members need this?
- Has anyone used it in the past year?
If no one uses that medicine if it’s unnecessary and especially if it’s expired, throw it away. Otherwise, put it back.
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly: Clothes
You’ll also want to consider your clothing. It’s easy to accumulate clothing that you don’t wear anymore. Your sense of style evolves over time, and you’ll outgrow some things. Other items may be gifted from well-meaning family members who simply don’t know your taste, or were purchased for a particular event that’s now passed. For each article of clothing, ask yourself:
- Does it fit me?
- Do I like the way I look at it?
- Is it comfortable (or at least comfortable enough to sport for a night)?
- Have I worn it in the past year?
If it doesn’t fit, if you hate your reflection when you wear it, if it’s uncomfortable to wear or if you haven’t touched it in the past year, throw it in the donate box. If it’s falling apart or is otherwise unusable, put it in the trash bin.
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly: Electronics
When you get a new gadget, it may be fun or convenient for a while, but over time it may get less and less use. Maybe it’s a device that you’ve replaced with a new model, or perhaps it didn’t fit into your daily routine well. Either way, you’ll need to evaluate the necessity of your old electronics. For each piece, ask yourself:
- Does it work (or can I fix it)?
- Do I like to use it?
- Does it make my life easier?
- Have I used it in the past year?
If it’s still functional, determine whether it makes your life easier in any way, or if you like to use it. If you don’t really like to use it, haven’t used it in the past year or it’s cumbersome to use, you may consider donating it.
Identify Storage Locations
Through your decluttering efforts, you’ll end up getting rid of some things and determining others are better off in storage. But, if your attic, basement, and garage are already full, or you don’t want to shuffle clutter to these areas, you might consider looking outside your home. No, not in the backyard – a self-storage unit can help immensely. You can house the items you need only a few times a year here, where they’re easily accessible yet out of the way.
Keeping Your Home Organized
One of the biggest problems with cleaning is keeping things organized and clean going forward. Sure, the house is clean now, but what about in a day? A week? A month? If you don’t stay on top of things, all that cleaning work will go right out the window. Here are a few tips to keep your home clean and organized all-year-long.
Toss Or Donate As You Go
See something you don’t need or want? Maybe something broke or ‘went bad. If that’s the case, ask yourself this question; “will I ever use this again”? If the answer is a solid ‘no,’ toss it! (Or donate it, of course, if it still has some value.) Letting stuff you don’t need, want or use pile up causes all sorts of clutter. To prevent it, toss, donate or give that unwanted stuff away right away instead.
Put Things Away Right Away
Life can get busy, it’s true. In some cases, so busy that you don’t take the time to straighten regularly. You toss clothes here or leave stuff there, creating clutter as you go. Better to take a few extra seconds (or a couple of minutes) to straighten up on the fly. Hang clothes up right away. Put away games, tools, or toys rather than leaving them out. (Or make your kids do it, they’re part of this too!)
Have Small Cleaning Sessions Rather than One Big Clean-Up
If you wait a month, two months, or longer between cleaning, you’ll eventually create a huge chore for yourself. Rather than that, set aside some time for a small clean-up once a week. (Get the kids involved if possible too!) Take 15 minutes to straighten, put away, clean, dust, whatever, so nothing gets out of hand. When it comes to how to declutter home quickly, this is our best tip. If you don’t let it get too cluttered, it won’t need to be decluttered!
How to Declutter Your Home Quickly
We hope you enjoyed this article on how to declutter your home quickly. If you have any storage questions, leave them in the comments below. Otherwise, contact us online. We’re glad to help! Happy decluttering.
This post was published 1/9/2018. It was updated 2/16/2021.