Decluttering Tasks
Imagine waking up to a home where everything has its place—sounds dreamy, right? The truth is, decluttering tasks can be your secret weapon in creating a serene environment that boosts productivity and happiness. This article presents 30 engaging decluttering tasks that will empower you to tackle the mess once and for all. Whether you’re a seasoned organizer or just starting, you’ll find practical tips to help you streamline your space and elevate your everyday life!
General Decluttering
Let’s start with the easiest one – Clear out one junk drawer. Do you have a drawer that everything gets tossed in? We have one in our laundry room. My hubby and I spent 15 minutes and cleaned out that one drawer. Mind you, we do have quite a bit of decluttering still to do but it felt good getting one done!
I recommend when you declutter, you have a few bags – one for trash, one for donate, one for resell and one for re-location to an appropriate spot. Anything else can go back in the drawer.
Declutter your nightstand – For me, I had magazines and books cluttering my nightstand. So, I used an Insta-Crate and placed it in the corner of our bedroom. Try to keep just the essentials on your nightstand.
Remember to also clear out your drawers in your nightstand as well, if you have that option.
Organize & Minimize items on your Kitchen Counters – If you have drawer space, put those appliances that you rarely use in the drawers or your pantry. For us, we use the Instant Pot, air fryer, and soda stream every week so it’s easiest for us to keep them on the counters. But the KitchenAid mixer is placed in the pantry as it’s rarely used.
Now, if you have appliances that you never use, consider donating them or reselling them.
For the cooking utensils, they are so handy to have right by the stove. Use a crock to hold them; we got ours from a thrift store.
Sort through your mail & paperwork – Do you have piles and piles of mail sitting in a corner? Take a few minutes and quickly sort them into what you should look at now and what can be looked at later. If it is junk mail, immediately toss it. Bills should immediately be looked at and put in a prominent spot so you can ensure to pay it.
Purge old receipts, warranties & manuals – Do you keep old receipts? I certainly do. But do you really need to keep the fast food receipt? Most likely not. Generally you’ll want to keep receipts for at least 3 years. Warranties and manuals – only keep the ones that you actually still have. We purge ours every couple of years.
Go through your books and donate ones you no longer need – Books are so easy to collect and hoard in your home. Definitely go through what you have and decide what you want to keep. For me, I have the entire Harry Potter series. Do I need it? Probably not but it’s a nice collection to keep.
Declutter your purse or wallet – How often do you clean out your purse? Sometimes for me it’s right before I travel (rarely). But you never know what you may find, perhaps some lost cash in there! Keeping your purse and wallet clean and declutter makes it lighter hopefully.
Get rid of expired food from the pantry – Definitely check your pantry; when was the last time that you truly cleaned it out. You may be surprised that there are some expired food in there. We clean ours twice a year and we still find expired food. If it’s a little expired, we tend to keep it a little longer but if it’s more than 6 months, we toss it.
Organize your refrigerator & toss expired items – Is your fridge filled to where you can’t find anything? Start with one shelf at a time and decide if it’s expired. We tend to go through our fridge everytime that we bring a huge grocery haul home.
Declutter your coffee table and side tables – Do you have mounds of magazines and toys sitting on your tables? Place those magazines on a shelf (if you plan to read them). The toys – consider putting them in a toy chest.
Clothing & Accessories
Go through your closet and donate items you haven’t worn in a year – We recently did this with my hubby’s and mine closet and donated quite a few items. A few of them were worthy for resale on eBay. We did keep one size of clothing that we hope to fit into again though.
Declutter your shoe collection – My father in law (has dementia) had so many shoes when he lived with us. We told him that he needed to declutter his shoes. Well, he didn’t want to part with any and purposely made a point to put on every shoe to show that he wears them. We ultimately started to pair down his shoes, especially the ones that were extremely holey and worn down.
If you have a ton of shoes, definitely check out the soles and condition of them. If they are falling apart, toss them.
Organize and minimize your jewelry & accessories – Do you wear a lot of jewelry? Do you have a lot of belts? Consider getting a jewelry box to display all your jewels. For belts, use a belt rack to keep everything organized. My dad had made me a wall display where we hang our necklaces, and belts.
Sort through your socks and undergarments – discard old or mismatched ones – Raise your hand if you always have missing socks!! I tend to keep the single sock on top of my dresser to find it’s mate. After a few weeks, I’ll throw that sock away if its still on top. Undergarments – if they are losing their elasticity or are getting holey, just toss them.
Declutter your seasonal clothing & outerwear – Getting into summer, you probably have swimsuits stored away in drawers. Get them out and see if they still fit. If not, consider selling them or donating them. If you have multiple swimsuits, decide if you still need to have all of them.
Bathroom & Personal Items
Toss expired makeup & skincare products – I used to get FabFitFun, which is an awesome subscription health & beauty, fashion, etc box. In the past, you weren’t able to choose what you got in your box so I would get so much makeup and skin care products. I would place them in a cabinet in the bathroom.
I recently decluttered that cabinet and found items from 2017. Those were immediately tossed. Few of the items I plan to resale and kept the items that I still plan to use. I went from 3 shelfs down to 1 shelf and it feels so good!
Declutter your medicine cabinet & dispose of expired medications – Definitely toss expired medications (if you have a store that takes expired medications, that would be a great option as well).
Organize hair products & tools – keep only what you use – Do you use all your hair products and tools that are lined up on your sink? Consider getting a turntable to put your hair products, skin care products, and perfume. I have one and just love it!
Digital Decluttering
Delete unused apps from your phone – Are there apps on your phone that you’ve used once or never enjoyed using but they are still on there? It’s easy to remove and you can decide if you want to remove from the home screen or delete the app. If you find that you deleted the app but you miss it; you can easily re-download the app again.
Unsubscribe from emails you don’t read – This is definitely an easy one to do and I tend to do this often. If you are constantly deleting a person’s email, just unsubscribe. Most often, you can always re-subscribe later in the future.
Organize and delete unnecessary files from your computer – Are you one of those folks that loves bundles and downloads everything that you possibly can? I’m definitely one of them. This decluttering process is an ongoing thing. Truly look at the file and decide if you can live without it or not.
Clean up your desktop & arrange important files into folders – My desktop is pretty clean as I have put several items in folders, like a Hubby PC Tools (he’s a computer tech) or a Food Recipe photos.
Declutter your photo gallery by deleting duplicates and blurry pictures – Do you have a surplus of photos? Consider putting your photos in folders, like family, or by year. Definitely delete blurry photos and duplicates.
On my phone, I delete my photos often as I take photos for eBay. The one time that I had kept my photos on my phone was back in the day when I first got engaged. We took so many photos and unfortunately, we weren’t able to download them when my phone crashed. I was devastated that I lost those photos. Now, because of what happened, I remove the photos and put them in folders on my computer.
Home & Storage Spaces
Declutter your linen closet – donate or repurpose old sheets and towels – Do you have a surplus of towels? When my father in law left to go to memory care, we found quite a bit of towels in the bathroom. We donated the best ones, tossed a couple out and a few of them we made into shop towels.
Go through your garage & donate or dispose of unused items – if you have a lot of hazardous items (and you don’t use them), check if your county has a place to dispose of them properly. If you find several items that you don’t use, consider donating them or selling them at a garage sale.
Organize your entryway by reducing shoes, bags, & random items – Consider getting a shoe bench that will hold your shoes and random items. We have 2 of them – one by our front door and one by our garage (it’s more like a nightstand but we use it for shoes, etc.)
Tidy up your car – remove trash & unnecessary items – My car is pretty clean but my hubby’s van is not so clean. He has so much stuff everywhere. It’s best to grab a trash bag and grab another tote so you can bring items that are meant to go back in the house (like lunch bags). One way to keep trash at bay is to get a trash can for your vehicle.
Declutter your kids’ toys or pet items – One fun activity for your kids is to have them help you declutter their toys. Perhaps have them donate to another child or sell them for a little extra cash. Pets are so much fun that you can buy toy after toy. But do they need so much of them? Watch your pet and see what toys they pursue. The other ones – donate or toss. If you have a surplus of pet items, consider donating to a local animal shelter as I’m sure they would appreciate it!
Purge excess kitchen gadgets and utensils – Do you have multiple kitchen gadgets, like 3 can openers? Try to keep only a couple of your items and it keeps your drawers looking clean and organized.
Minimize sentimental items – keep only what truly holds value to you – This one may be a hard one and definitely use your own judgment. I have a few sentimental items that I just can’t part with yet. Like soup bowls and platters – I bought them during a swap meet with my grandma (not here anymore) and they do not go with my color scheme at all. I did try selling them but kept getting low balled so I decided to keep them a little longer.
As you go through these decluttering tasks, I hope that you feel so much better with how your place looks. Remember, it’s okay to not go full minimalistic; just go with how much you are comfortable decluttering.
