How To Declutter Your Home

Decluttering your home can give you more space, a more homely feel, and a higher degree of comfort. If you want to declutter your home but don’t know where to start, our new guide will walk you through a simple, step-by-step process.

When decluttering, expect your space to temporarily look messier as you sort through items. Embrace this necessary disorder as part of the process toward achieving a more organised home.

Step 1: Start Small

Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming knowing where to start when you want to remove clutter. To help you get moving, we suggest starting small by using the following approach:

Pick a room to focus on and put the rest of the home to the back of your mind for the time being
Choose a corner of the room to start with and make that your main focus for now
Set a 15-minute timer so that you can manage your energy and time without overdoing it

Pacing yourself by starting small is the smart way to get started because it allows you to gradually work your way into the decluttering process. Once you feel okay about this new daily habit, move on to the next step.

Step 2: Build Manageable Piles

Knowing how to declutter your home is about establishing a simple yet effective system. We recommend the 3-pile approach, where you have a pile for each of the following:

Belongings you know you definitely want to keep
Things you want to throw away and don’t want anymore
Items you can sell at a car boot sale or donate to charity

Because you will be focusing on one part of one room, your piles are always going to be compact and manageable. Ordering things like this is a fast and efficient way to get on top of the clutter.

Top Tip: Remember that the ultimate goal is to have more space to move around, allowing you to enjoy your home again. If you find that you are keeping virtually everything you sort through, picture yourself moving with greater freedom in a clutter-free home and then reassess your choices.

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Step 3: Start Organising

To declutter your home, you may need to reorganise parts of the home to accommodate everything you have decided to keep. Here are a few simple rules you can follow that will help you get started:

Choose homes for key items that make sense and ensure that they are always easily accessible
Browse shelves, containers, and storage bins online so that you can tidy away dozens of items while keeping them well-organised
Turn tidying into a daily habit with a quick 5-minute ‘put away’ time at a convenient part of the day
Consider secure self-storage for larger items and valuables that you may not have enough room for at the moment

The good thing about this simple 3-step process is that it is highly flexible and versatile. If you are moving home and need to declutter, you can easily adapt the steps above so that you can make quick and efficient progress.

How To Declutter Your Home Before Moving

Decluttering is a key part of the moving process because it will ensure that your new home is clutter-free and offers you plenty of space to move and relax. Here are our top tips on how to declutter your home while you’re in the process of packing up and moving:

Start by looking at your flat surfaces and decide whether you want everything you can see to follow you to your new home
Sort through old paperwork such as bills, appliance manuals, and housing contracts and decide whether you need all of it or not
Measure up your new home so that you can start adding storage solutions before you move in — if everything doesn’t fit, you may need to do some additional decluttering
Consider which items you can donate, sell, or recycle to reduce the clutter without increasing your environmental footprint

If you are moving to a smaller property, or if you have a large amount of furniture and other bulky items, it may be useful to look at your self-storage options. To make sure your valuables are protected, don’t forget to take a look at our self-storage packing tips.

We can also recommend a couple of proven ways to make decluttering seem far more achievable.

The 50% Rule For Decluttering

Another method for dealing with clutter is to follow the 50% rule. For this method you need to remove 50% of the items from your home so that you are left with twice as much space to move. Working in one room and focusing on one corner or even just a single flat surface is a great way to get started with this rule.

The 12-12-12 Rule For Decluttering

Pick 12 items you want to throw away, 12 things you are happy to donate, and 12 things that you can tidy away. Setting yourself a 20-minute timer and keeping count of each of the 3 categories will allow you to make real progress before you know it.

Things To Leave Until Later

Learning how to declutter is also about knowing which items will take more time to work through. These are the items you will want to leave until later on so that you can start making progress without delay:

Photos that hold a lot of sentimental value and require time to work through
Any kids’ toys that need to be sorted as your kids start to grow up and get older
Kitchen drawers and desk drawers where there is clutter that’s out of your eye line

Putting these three categories aside for the time being will allow you to make progress in other areas of your home.

Key Takeaways

Decluttering your home starts with simple daily habits that will soon feel like second nature:

Focus on one corner of a room and work out gradually from there
Motivate yourself by picturing all the extra space you will soon have
Consider using a self-storage facility as a way to store items you want to keep but don’t have room for within your home