How to Declutter Your Home: Easy Decluttering Tips

Is your home totally disorganized and your wondering where to start decluttering? Stop feeling overwhelmed and let me show you how to declutter your home with my simple room-by-room decluttering tips.

It’s easier than you think with these stress-free tips on decluttering your clothes, kitchen, toys, office, and the whole house,

You’ll learn where to start decluttering, what you should get rid of, and how to get organized. Plus our a free printable decluttering your home checklist.

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How to Declutter Your Home When You’re Overwhelmed

Where to Start Decluttering

Pick One Space to Start

Step one on how to declutter your house is picking which space to start working.

Don’t get overwhelmed with trying to do the whole house or even a whole room at one time. Break it up into sections. For instance all the bottom cabinets in the kitchen or one closet at a time.

What Should I Get Rid of?

The decision of what to get rid of is the hardest part of decluttering.

As you go through the rooms, drawers & closets have a bin for keep, donate, and throw out. This will speed things up as you go and give you a spot to categorize each item.

When you’re done dividing things up reorganize only what is left in the keep box.

Tip: When deciding if you’re going to keep an item think about if you have used it in the last 6 months and if you will miss the item when it’s gone.

If the answer is no then it goes in the donate or throw-out outbox. Try your best to keep your emotions out of it to help you “let go” of more items.

Have Storage Bins Ready

Have storage bins and shelves ready to reorganize the items your keeping. I find if I put the items I keep back right away I feel like I have accomplished the task. Your space is reorganized and you can move onto the next room.

I like to use clear storage bins with tops so I can stack things but still see what’s inside. These are great for closets.

I also love to save money on storage bins shopping at Dollar Tree.

You’ll be amazed at how much you can get for $1. Check out these easy Dollar Tree Organization Hacks and head there before you start decluttering.

Before & After Photo

Take a before and after photo so you can look back at all the hard work you did.

Ask a Friend to Help

If you are too attached to your things and having a hard time putting items in the donate or throw away bin have a friend help. Sometimes having someone who is not attached to the items can make it easier to get rid of stuff.

Clean Your Space

Once you’ve completed decluttering a space take the time to clean and scrub that area. It really won’t take much time to do and it will help finish off the whole space.

Find simple ways to clean your home effectively and really make it a space you’re proud of. Then use our weekly cleaning checklist to keep all the rooms you decluttered from getting messy again.

Save money on the cleaning supplies with our favorite Dollar Tree cleaning supplies. You’ll be amazed at how well they work!

Decluttering Your Home Checklist

Don’t you love checking things off your to-do list? It always makes me feel like I accomplished something and helps me get focused.

Help yourself by creating a decluttering home checklist of all the rooms you want to organize. The checklist will keep you from getting overwhelmed by taking one task at a time.

Don’t feel you have to do it all at once just work through your list.

Use this free printable Decluttering Checklist to track each room to organize.

I also love the printable decluttering checklist and monthly declutter list in Fantabulous Home Binder. This is the binder I keep on my kitchen counter with 45 pages of everything a mom needs to stop the chaos at home and get organized. Make your life less stressful by having everything you need in one place.

Decluttering Tips for Your Kitchen

So let’s begin with how to declutter your home starting with your kitchen. This is a good area to start as it affects every meal you cook at home. Use these decluttering tips to get you started.

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Kitchen Drawers

Start easy with just a kitchen drawer. First, do the silverware and see if there are any broken or unused/non-matching utensils you can throw out. Add in a utensil divider to keep the drawer organized.

I organized my snack drawer so the kids could easily grab their own snacks and even pack their own lunch. Find out how in my Easy Pantry Organization Ideas.

Junk Drawer

We all have that terrible junk drawer in our kitchen. The one that is the catch-all for everything. Go through this drawer and throw out what you don’t need.

Then add back in dividers to the drawer to organize the paper clips, scissors, coupons, and other items that need to stay in the drawer.

Pictured above I used Dollar Tree storage containers to get my junk drawers organized.

Do you Hate Cleaning the House? Make it easy with Genius DIY Cleaning Hacks for Lazy People. You won’t believe you didn’t know these before!

Cookbooks

Look at all your cookbooks and ask yourself – Do you need all of them or do you mostly get recipes off the internet now? Keep the ones you love and donate the rest. This will also help free up some space in your kitchen.

Under the Sink

The area under your sink usually is all your cleaning supplies just piled up. Go through and see which ones you actually still use and are full. Keep those and throw out the rest.

I like to then add a two-tiered shelf system in the cabinet so I can see all the items under my sink.

Tupperware

Go through and match up all your Tupperware with tops and bottoms. If you don’t have a match then throw it out.

Keep the ones you have left organized with a divided storage bin for Tupperware. This is the one I used pictured above. It’s worked great for us.

Kitchen Cabinets

This is the big area to declutter. Start with one cabinet and move along. Here are some questions to ask yourself as your decluttering this area.

• Do you have plastic kids cups and plates that you’re done using
• Are all your pans still in good condition?
• Do you have plates that are chipped or cracked
• Do you actually use all your glasses & plates on a daily basis? Are some just for holidays or when guests come over? If yes can you move them to a closet in the house to make more room in the kitchen?
• Do you need all those mixing bowls, sheet pans or baking dishes?
• Do you have small appliances like Mixers that could be moved somewhere else?

Once you have decluttered this area keep it organized with Kitchen storage hacks. Check out these 25 Cool Kitchen Organization Ideas to help you.

How to Declutter Clothes

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To keep from getting overwhelmed start with just a dresser drawer or part of your closet.

Keep / Donate / Sell / Throw Out

Before you start sorting your clothes create a bin to keep, donate, sell, or throw out. I have added sell because there is a market online for used clothes. Might as well make some money while your decluttering.

Socks & Underwear

Go through your sock and make sure they all have a match. If not throw out the unmatched sock. Then look through your underwear and bras to see if you find any with holes or that don’t fit and throw them out.

Put everything your keeping back in your drawers neatly with one side being underwear and one’s side being socks.

You can use a drawer divider to make it easier to find the socks or underwear and bras you want. Better storage will help your items last longer too.

Clothes

Once you have a box filled with clothes you want to keep try them on to see how they fit. If it doesn’t fit well add to the donate or sell box. This will help you declutter more items.

Also if you haven’t worn it in the past 6 months and it’s not a special occasion outfit get rid of it. This will leave more room in your closet to see the clothes you really want to wear.

To organize my sweaters, jeans, and t-shirts I started folding a year ago with the Marie Kondo method. I know it seems like a fad and I was skeptical at first too, but it really has made a huge difference in keeping my closet & drawers organized.

I have found it’s easy to maintain with the use of small cubes in my drawers and closet to hold my newly folded clothes.

Top of the Dresser

Go through all the papers and other clutter you throw on the top of your dresser and side tables. See what you need, what needs to be stored elsewhere and what can be thrown out.

How to Declutter Toys

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Now head to the kid’s playroom and see what you can get rid of. This might be something you want to do when the kids are not at home. I find they have a harder time letting go of items they don’t play with.

Broken or Missing Pieces

Go through and look for toys, books, and puzzles that are missing pieces. If you can’t find them then throw those items out.

Keep / Donate / Throw Away

Make your boxes again for Keep, Donate or Throw Away. Keep the toys your kids play with on a regular basis. The items they hardly play with add to donate and throw away anything broken.

Donated Toys

Put in a separate box any toys you are questioning whether your kids might still want. Keep these hidden in another room.

If they don’t ask for them over the next month then go ahead and donate this box. This gives you a buffer in case you get too excited about getting rid of toys.

Reorganize the Toys

To make sure the kids play with the toys you keep they need to be reorganized so the kids can easily see them.

I love to use the storage bins below that are on an angle and easy for kids to see. Keep up with the organization by labeling the boxes with pictures of what should be in the box.

Another way I like to organized toys is to use clear storage drawers. You can see the ones I used above to collect all their legos, action figures and puzzles. I label each drawer so the kids know what is inside.

Kids can then just pull out the drawer or bin of the toys, they want to play with instead of everything.

Then for clean up, they just toss everything back in the drawer or bin. It really has made a huge difference in the mess level when I started using these systems.

Organize Your Books

Do you have tons of kids’ books on shelves and boxes? Go through the books and see which ones you can donate and which ones the kids are still reading.

Then put them in a bookshelf that displays the books forward so kids can easily see the books they want to read.

Office Organization

Now it’s time to declutter your home office or desk where you throw all your paperwork, mail, files, and general clutter. Use these decluttering tips to be productive working at home.

Junk Mail & Bills

Sit down with a pile of your mail and sort through which is your junk mail and which is important. The first step is to throw out all your junk mail. It’s amazing how this can pile up.

Next, create files for your bills. Pull out any bills that need to be paid and add to a paid file. Then create files for each type of bill and place the paid bills in the correct file. These files can then be organized in a file system like the one below.

Or something that could hang over a door or cabinet if you’re short on space.

Going forward when you received mail go straight to your new filing systems and add everything in the right file. This way you never get overwhelmed or lose important bills again.

Tip: Make sure to shred any paperwork you are throwing away that has personal information on it.

Receipt

Do you keep all your receipts too? Go through your pile of receipts and see what you need to keep and what can be shredded.

Expired Coupons

Go through your coupon drawer in your desk and see which ones have expired or your not going to use. Throw those out then start a file to add to your bill organization area for coupons.

If they are grocery store coupons add them to a coupon organizer you can bring to the store with you. I love this cute one below with dividers to section off your coupons and it attaches to the grocery cart for easy use at the store.

Paperwork

Do you have a stack of paperwork you don’t know what to do with? Go through and sort it into piles. For example, Household, Travel, Medical, Kids, etc.

If you don’t have a lot you can just use an accordion file with sections for each item. Otherwise again create a folder for each topic.

Bigger Storage for all Your Files

If you find that you now have too many files use a larger filing system that can sit on your desk or floor. This will keep all those papers off your desk and easy to find when you need them. Here is an example of a tabletop file.

Did you learn how to declutter your home? I hope you are inspired now to get started decluttering and organizing your house. If you take it one room at a time it really won’t be overwhelming and once you start you’ll want to keep going.

Plus the organizing tips and free printable decluttering checklist will keep you on track and your rooms tidy.

Don’t forget to download your free printable Decluttering Checklist

More Organizing Tips & Tricks

Check out our Organization & Cleaning Pages to get more ideas to help get your house in order. Or look at some of our favorite links below.

• 25 Clever Kitchen Organization Ideas, Hacks & Storage Simple tricks to help find what you need in your kitchen again without stress.
• 17 Easy Dollar Tree DIY Organization Hacks – Save money and get organized with these simple storage solutions for only $1!
• Do you Hate Cleaning the House? Make it easy with Genius DIY Cleaning Hacks for Lazy People. You won’t believe you didn’t know these before!
• Easy Pantry Organization for Kids Snacks & School Lunches – Quick & cheap pantry hacks.
• 45 Top Cleaning Supplies at Dollar Tree – Tested and approved to save you money & clean your house.
• Home Management Binder – 45 Printable Pages to Get Your Organized at Home

Do you have any great tips on how to declutter or questions? Share them in the comments I love to hear from my readers.

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