11 Quick and Easy Tips to Declutter More Effectively

In today’s post, you’ll find 11 quick and easy tips to declutter to help you declutter more quickly, more efficiently and more effectively. Making the process of clearing the clutter faster, easier and less stressful!

Decluttering your home is usually a lot of work. Most of us have years worth of possessions in our homes. It’s taken years to accumulate all of that “stuff”. We can’t expect to declutter it all in a day. But it definitely doesn’t have to take years to de-accumulate the excess stuff from your life.

Benefits of Decluttering

These quick and easy tips to declutter more effectively allow you to start seeing the benefits of decluttering faster and easier.

These are just a few benefits of decluttering and simplifying. There are many more ways decluttering can have a positive impact on your home and your life.

Quick and easy tips to declutter more effectively

Use these quick and easy tips to help you declutter more efficiently and effectively. Helping you get more decluttering work done in less time, with less effort. And begin experiencing the benefits of decluttering sooner.

Sometimes small changes in the way you declutter can have a big impact on how efficiently you declutter. These tips and tricks are quick and easy to implement. But they can have a big impact on the way you clear the clutter. With the goal of helping you see the results of your decluttering efforts sooner!

These tips are great for when you’re just starting decluttering your home, if you’ve been decluttering for a while, or even if you’ve already decluttered and are living a minimalist lifestyle.

Wherever you’re at on your simplifying journey, these decluttering tips can make it easier to get rid of any clutter hanging around your home. As well as help you maintain a clutter-free home in the long term.

11 Quick and Easy Tips to Declutter More Effectively

1. Keep an ongoing donation box easily accessible

When you’re decluttering your home, you want it to be as easy as possible to declutter. A great way to make decluttering easier is to have an ongoing donation box somewhere that’s convenient and easily accessible.

Whenever you find something you aren’t using or loving, you can simply add it to your donation box. Making it easy and convenient to get rid of things. Rather than leaving items to declutter later, or having to make a special effort to get rid of things.

When the box gets full, drop it off at your local donation centre. Or plan to drop off the contents of your donation box at set intervals of time, say every week or every month.

2. Declutter as you go about your day

An ongoing donation box makes it really easy to declutter as you go about your day. When you come across something you don’t use or love, add it to your donation box or throw it away.

Instead of keeping things you don’t use or love, that add clutter, get rid of them as soon as you find them. Rather than picking something up you don’t use or love and putting it away, add it to the donation box. Instead of folding a shirt you don’t wear or love and putting it away, get rid of it.

Keep a critical eye out as you move throughout your home. Always be on the lookout for anything you don’t use or love that you can declutter. As you’re doing your normal household chores, or as you’re moving throughout your home using your stuff, be on the lookout for anything you can declutter.

If something isn’t adding value to your life, get rid of it right then. Then you’ll never have to deal with it again!

3. Declutter quickly and efficiently for 10 minutes a day

Life can get busy, and maybe you don’t have hours to spend decluttering your home. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do any decluttering until you have a big chunk of time to declutter. Small pockets of time spent decluttering, repeated consistently, add up over time and give you results.

Try decluttering as quickly and efficiently as you can for just 10 minutes a day. Pick a drawer, a cupboard, a section of a room, etc. and declutter it for 10 minutes. Try to find as many things as you can to get rid of.

You’d be amazed how much decluttering you can get done in 10 minutes when you set your mind to it.

4. Schedule regular times to declutter and stick to them

Scheduling and committing to regular decluttering times is another great way to make decluttering progress. Especially when you do it in addition to decluttering for short periods of time every day.

Decide when it will work best for you to spend larger blocks of time decluttering. Put it in your schedule and commit to it. Treat it like any other appointment you have. By scheduling and committing to regular decluttering sessions, you’re more likely to hold yourself accountable and actually follow through.

Decluttering is something that’s easy to put off, avoid or procrastinate doing. But if you don’t put in the work, you’ll never see results and begin experiencing the benefits of decluttering. Scheduling times to declutter and holding yourself accountable to those times helps you prioritize decluttering.

Make the choice to prioritize decluttering in the short term. Then you can experience the benefits of decluttering and minimalism in the long term. Even if that means you have a little less time for fun stuff now, while you’re in the midst of decluttering.

Do what you need to do now to declutter. Then you’ll never have to spend this much time managing and decluttering the things you own again. And you’ll free up so much more time and energy in the future to spend doing the things you love once you’re not spending so much time and energy dealing with clutter and “stuff” in your home.

5. Use the “one in, one out” rule

While decluttering, use the “one in, one out” rule to prevent more stuff from adding to what you already own.

Whenever you buy or bring something new into your home, find one thing to get rid of in its place. An ongoing donation box makes it easy to get rid of something whenever you bring something new into your home.

If you want to see more of an impact, you can try following a “one in, two out” rule. Where you find two things to get rid of for each new thing you bring into your home. Or even better, a “one in, three out” rule!

The goal is to make sure you aren’t accumulating more while you’re in the process of decluttering. And once you’ve finished decluttering, this rule can help you maintain a comfortable level of “stuff” in your home too!

6. A place for everything and everything in its place

A place for everything and everything in its place can go a long way to help you declutter. And help keep your home clutter-free.

As you’re decluttering, make sure you have a place to keep everything you’re choosing to keep. If an item doesn’t have a home, find a place to keep it before you move on.

Items without homes are usually the things that end up as clutter on your floors, counters, tables, etc. Make sure everything has a specific place to keep it. If you can’t find places for everything you want to keep, declutter more thoroughly until you can find homes for everything.

After finding homes for the things you are keeping, get in the habit of returning things to their homes consistently. This simple habit will really help keep your home tidy and clutter-free.

7. Get stuff out of the house asap

When you find things to declutter that you don’t use or love, try to get them out of your house as soon as possible. Don’t give yourself – or anyone else in your family – time to second guess your decluttering decisions.

Often, we make piles of things to get rid of, but don’t get them out of the house right away. Then someone comes along and wants to keep that long-lost item no one has seen or used for years. Or we even do that ourselves, and second guess our decision to get rid of something!

If you try hard enough you can probably find a reason to keep just about anything. But if you are serious about decluttering and experiencing the benefits of less, it’s important to ruthlessly declutter. If you don’t use an item regularly or love it, get rid of it!

Throw garbage away as soon as you’re finished a decluttering session. Put all donation items in your car to drop off at the donation centre the next time you’re out.

If it’s not feasible for you to drop off donations after every decluttering session, keep donations out of sight.

My favourite donation drop-off location is an hour away. So I box up donation items and put them in my “decluttering holding zone” in the basement. Keeping them out of sight, so no one will pull the stuff out, but easy to load up and donate when it’s time.

8. Take before and after pictures

Tracking the results of the hard work you’re putting into decluttering is a great way to keep you motivated.

But sometimes it’s easy to overlook all the progress you’re making. Especially if you’re decluttering in small pockets of time throughout your day. You might not notice what a difference your decluttering efforts are making because you’re working away a little bit at a time and don’t see a dramatic, instant transformation.

Taking before and after pictures is a great way to track your progress and stay motivated to keep decluttering. Sometimes you don’t even realize what a difference your decluttering efforts are making until you see a picture of how a space used to look.

9. Don’t organize until after you declutter

It can be easy to think getting organized will solve your clutter problem. But the truth is, if you organize before you declutter, you’ll likely end up wasting your time and energy. And maybe even money if you buy baskets, bins or other organizing products to organize clutter you don’t actually need!

There’s no point organizing stuff you don’t even use or love and isn’t adding any value to your life. No matter how organized that stuff is, it will eventually make its way out of your organized system. Again adding clutter to your home. And even if it’s out of sight, all that stuff is still there, weighing on you and burdening your life.

Declutter first and get rid of the things you aren’t using or loving. Only keep things that add value to your life, not clutter. Not only will organizing be significantly easier after decluttering because there will be a lot less stuff. But you also won’t waste your time, space, energy or money organizing stuff you don’t even need to begin with.

10. Use a “maybe box” for items you’re struggling to let go of

If you’re really struggling to declutter something, creating a “maybe box” is a great strategy to use.

Put the item in a box with a date marked in the future, maybe one to three months from now, for example. You can even set a reminder in your phone for the date to come back to the box. Put the box out of sight and leave it there. Then, if you haven’t wanted, needed or even thought about the items in the box when the reminder goes, get rid of the box and everything in it!

This is a great way to declutter something you’re struggling to let go of. Helping you let go of any fear or uncertainty that you might miss it.

Usually, when we struggle to let go of something, we know we should get rid of it. But feel attached to the item and are having a hard time letting go. Often giving ourselves some time and space away from the item helps clarify if we really use or love it.

The maybe box is like a decluttering safety net. Letting you experiment with being more ruthless as you declutter. But without letting fear or uncertainty hold you back.

11. Use the 20/20 rule for items you’re keeping “just in case”

If there’s something you’re struggling to let go of because you “might” need it or are saving it “just in case”, the 20/20 rule can help put it in perspective.

The 20/20 rule comes from The Minimalists and means if you can replace the item for less than $20 and in less than 20 minutes, don’t keep it “just in case”.  Because it’s easily replaceable if you ever truly need it.

This may seem wasteful at first, but here’s the logic behind it. It’s better to get rid of all the clutter and simplify your home and life, rather than keeping a whole house full of things you might need “just in case”. You’ll likely declutter hundreds or thousands of items, giving you so much more time, space and freedom. Even if there are a few low-cost, easily attainable items you might end up needing in the future and have to re-buy, it’s still worth it to experience the benefits of decluttering.

You can experience the benefits of a clutter-free home now and in the future. Rather than living with the burden of clutter and excess stuff that you probably won’t ever need or use but are keeping “just in case”.

And in all honesty, there are very few things I’ve ever needed to re-buy after decluttering. Most times, I either find something else to use or simply make do without it. It’s not worth the stress of living with clutter to avoid possibly, maybe having to re-buy something in the future.

And remember, this doesn’t always mean buying something new either. It’s often easy to find things second-hand if you ever really need them in the future.

Use these tips to make decluttering faster and easier

These are my favourite quick and easy tips to declutter faster and more effectively. I hope these simple tips will help you declutter your home in less time and with less effort.

There are so many benefits of clearing the clutter, use these tips to start experiencing them sooner!

If you’re looking for more guidance to help you declutter your home, my step-by-step decluttering guide, Your Clutter-Free Home, is just what you need!

Your Clutter-Free Home starts by giving you a strong foundation of decluttering tips, tricks and strategies so you can declutter like a pro. Then goes room by room through your home giving you detailed decluttering checklists you can use to clear the clutter from your whole home one stress-free, manageable step at a time!

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What are your favourite tips and tricks to make decluttering easier? Do you already do any of the quick and easy tips to declutter from this list? Have another tip or trick that’s made decluttering easier for you? Leave a comment below and let me know!