“Get rid of the trash to make room for the treasures. Let the things that are important take center stage.” —Peter Walsh
Decluttering can be tough work.
We spend years and years collecting and accumulating more and more things. We should not be surprised then, if it takes considerable time to make decisions about what to keep and what to remove.
But it’s always worth the effort. Possessions weigh us down and add extra burden to our lives. Owning less results in more freedom.
If you are feeling overwhelmed about where to start or experiencing frustration with your progress, consider some of the ideas on this list to jumpstart your decluttering process.
7 Helpful Tips to Speed Up the Decluttering Process
1. Start easy with a clean sweep. Rather than attempting to declutter your home room-by-room, try going in “waves” instead. You will find this method to be far more impactful—especially at the beginning. Grab a box and walk around your home room-by-room. Fill your box with anything you find that you no longer need. No hard decisions, just noticeable impact. Once completed, try a second wave. But be advised, it gets a little more difficult each time through.
2. Find motivation with built-in deadlines. When we first began the process of minimizing our possessions, I did a lot of the work in the early morning. My kids usually got out of bed at 7am, so I would begin at 6am. Because I wanted to be there when they got up, I knew I had 1 short hour to get as much done as I could. This helped me find extra motivation to accomplish as much as I could during that hour. I also found some extra motivation the night before garbage pick-up.
3. Donate more. If you don’t need the money, you can declutter your home much quicker by deciding just to donate everything. The extra income from reselling your possessions can be nice, especially if you need the money. But selling items can really slow down the process and add extra burden to the journey. If quick impact is more important to you, dropping a few boxes off at Goodwill is far more efficient.
4. Include some help. Contrary to what you may think, you don’t need to do all the work yourself. In fact, if you have a family, you’ve got extra help built right in. You might not be able to convince them to declutter an entire room with you all-day on Saturday, but you can surely find some creative opportunities for them to help. For example, ask everyone in your family to find four things from their room that can be donated. Try again in a few days. The work adds up quickly with 3+ people involved.
5. Find freedom in temporary storage. I know a lot of people get hung up on hard-to-remove items. These vary from person-to-person, but common examples include sentimental items, books, kitchen gadgets, or toys. To keep from getting slowed down by these things, try an intermediate step of packing a box, labeling it with a date, and storing it out of sight. It will be easier emotionally. Six months later, revisit the box. You may be surprised how much easier it is to part with these items after not seeing them for six months.
6. Tell a friend and invite them over. Telling others about your decision to declutter/minimize is an important step. In our book, Simplify, we even included it as one of the most helpful principles in the simplifying process. Sharing your desire brings accountability and forces you to articulate why you made the decision. To add extra urgency to your decluttering progress, invite your friend over for dinner or coffee. Give yourself a few days to prepare the house before their arrival. Trust me… you’ll find motivation real quick.
7. Don’t confuse intent with action. With all things in life, it is important to not confuse a desire to change with actual change. Thinking about decluttering or talking about decluttering won’t result in any positive benefits. These benefits can only be experienced when the excess clutter has been removed. Remind yourself today that talking about change is not the same as implementing change. And take one small step in the right direction because of it.
Decluttering can be tough work. But it’s always worth the effort. If you have been struggling to find momentum, I hope these ideas will encourage you to find some today.
Additional Resources:
I worked for Goodwill as a teen. They were one of only a few organizations that participated in summer job programs for teens in my city. I actually worked in the office of where they provided job training. I learned office skills that helped me get a much higher paying job right out of high school. I will always give to Goodwill.
Very helpful! Decluttering as it were can be so tedious a times, but it as to be done. A lot of items tend to end up in a frequently used space at home. You start by returning each item to their rightful position.
Once am overwhelmed with clutter, one of the principles that you can use to speed up decluttering is to gather and sort all objects that are not in their rightful positions or useful again. After sorting them out, you can keep, donate, sell, recycle and trash depending on the state of each items. This tip can be of great help.
Another tip I would like to add is being discipline. It is good idea to discipline yourself to avoid any accumulation of clutter especially in those areas that are susceptible to clutter. You can inspire yourself by taking a photograph of decluttering sessions before and after decluttering process.
How do you start to de-clutter with four children and a husband that loves to hold on everything!!!!
Hello! I hope you’re having a great day! So, one of the things I do with some of my clients who are having a more challenging time de-cluttering is setting up the 3:1 rule that eventually works its way down to the 1:1 rule – that is, for every three things they keep, one has to go to donation or to toss. When we’ve gone through a whole pile of things using the 3:1, or even more than one pile!, then we do another pass, or wave, with the 2:1 rule instead – for every two things they keep, one has to go to donation or to toss. Eventually, and it might take a few days in between waves to get there, it goes to 1:1. Then we agree that, at the very least, the 2:1 rule stays in place for any non-consumable brought into the house. I find that my clients become more open to passing things on when they don’t feel compelled to make drastic decisions about every thing initially. More often than not, the client initiates going to the 1:1 rule after they see and feel the impact that the 3:1 and 2:1 rules make! I hope this helps!
I have finally started on my attic – I saved all of my boys crib sets and clothes as well as all of the school work that was ever sent home.
I took the clothes – except for one or two outfits to a consignment shop – even they didn’t want most of it bc it had small stains or was out of date – which means I would never use it again!
My next goal is to sorry through all those math worksheets and toss those out saving only the cute arty pieces or written work that shows their personality – I have no need for pages of text books that show my son got 100% on his addition test in kindergarten! I’ll keep report cards too and make them into a keepsake book that can be stored and easily revisited :0)
I feel your pain re: keeping every paper and art project our son did in elementary school. Dread that cleaning out day, but he will soon celebrate his number 40! It is time to get rid of those things.
I am in the same boat with 5 kids who produced prolific amounts of artworks…we now take photographs of them before donating them to the recycling bins. I also find each year we revisit kept items, they become a bit more ruthless in tossing past treasures. A few of them have been framed but I have found taking photos are a great way to document some of those memories ?
I have been de-cluttering my life for the past 3 years, from 4200+ sq ft house to 200 sq ft home. I feel like I’m down to the fine-tuning stage finally. Do you have ideas and recommendations for fine-tuning specifically? Thanks!
You’ve already achieved so much, so at this time consider what you love and what you like. Keep what you love and release, bit by bit, what you like.