Top 10 Tips for Decluttering Success

Spring Courtright
Mar 14, 2024
9 min read

Updated: Sep 17

Clear clutter to make space for what you REALLY want to be doing!

I've been a professional organizer for 10 years, I trained with Marie Kondo, and I've decluttered and organized my once VERY messy home so thoroughly that I recently invited everyone I know to an open house to look through all my cupboards, closets and spaces...except my husband's man cave!

I started my decluttering/organizing journey where many of us do, by looking around and thinking, "I want to be an organized person, but there's TOO MUCH STUFF! I don't know where to start!"

Then I'd sit down and scroll and/or binge watch.

Here I'll share MY TOP 10 DECLUTTER TIPS - the exact steps I use to declutter and organize my own home, and how I've helped hundreds of other cluttered humans make space, get organized, and feel better!

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: decluttering comes before organizing.

I don't use precious time, energy, space and money to organize things we don't want, need, use or love.

First, we declutter. THEN we organize.

We find what we DO want, need, use and love
We clear out what we DON'T want, need, use and love
This makes space to organize and shows what we need organizing tools for.

So don't go buy new containers yet! You might find some as you declutter...

Declutter first, then organize.

Here are the 10 steps...

1 - LOOK AT YOUR CALENDAR + BLOCK TIME

Sometimes I just get in the mood to declutter and just jump in. There's nothing wrong with this! Whatever gets decluttering done, right?

But when we look ahead and see when we have chunks of time to focus on decluttering, we can prepare our minds and bodies.

Look ahead at your day, week and month.

Look at and think about the flow of your days.

Decide when you'll slip in decluttering...

Increments of time are great: 10-15 minute chunks here, a 30 minute chunk there...it all adds up...

AND - the more time you can devote at one time, the more you can get in the flow.

Sessions with my clients are 6-7 hours with a lunch break where I provide a whole food, highly nutritious, high protein meal to keep our energy up, and we drink a LOT of water.

These are some of my personal decluttering times I've developed over the years:

EVENING: Clear the kitchen counter after dinner and before watching a show, before a hot bath, or on a break between shows
NIGHT: pick up clothes on the bedroom floor before going to bed
MORNING: pick up clothes I didn't pick up the night before
MORNING: load or empty the dishwasher as coffee brews
SUNDAYS: laundry day (I try to get it done AND put away so it doesn't haunt me)
SATURDAY MORNING or SUNDAY AFTERNOON: a whole kitchen declutter that sometimes extends to other areas of the house.

2 - JUST BEGIN

It's amazing how often we think ourselves out of beginning. Our brains to freak us out with thoughts like:

It's going to take a long time.

It's going to be hard.

I don't know how.

I have other, more Important Things to do.

I challenge you to JUST BEGIN.

Telling myself JUST BEGIN over and over helped me declutter and organize my whole life - home, office, creative space, business, time, health.

JUST BEGIN is how I've created a life I love.

The closet above only took about 30 minutes with the tips below! The family had been avoiding it for a very long time.

Read on, then JUST BEGIN. And if you're still stuck at the end of this, reach out to me!

"You don't have to feel confident to do sh*t, you can still get the result for it."

~ Alex Hermozi

3 - 4Ss: START SUPER SMALL & SIMPLE

Choose one small, doable, contained space or ONE small category to get easy wins.

This is SO IMPORTANT!

When we get wins, we tell our brains - and the little kid inside us doing their best:

We CAN do this! This doesn't have to be hard! We're doing it! Good job!

Our brains might say, "But there's soooo much more to do! I hardly made a dent!"

Yes, AND tell that brain:

Every single step we take adds up to giant leaps if we keep going.

Every child learned to walk with small steps - now look at us go!

Choose ONE SMALL SPACE OR CATEGORY to begin with. Here are some ideas:

Spaces:

cozy corner (where you watch tv / sit to relax)
one kitchen counter
all the trash and/or recycling in one room
all the dirty dishes in a room or area
the kitchen sink
one kitchen cupboard
dining room table
a shelf in a closet
desktop
bathroom counter
around the bathtub
dresser drawer
night stand
one section of floor
top of the washer/dryer
one corner of the garage

Some ideas for categories:

what drives you crazy on a daily basis?
glassware
mugs
bowls
towels (you can break towels into hand towels, etc)
utensils
makeup
tooth care
sheets (pillow cases are a separate category)
medication/vitamins
pants
garden tools
(see where I'm going?)

4 - GET IN THE MOOD - get excited!

Elevate your mood before beginning and decision making will be SO much easier!

Boxers, dancers and soccer players (and Betty White) wouldn't sit around being Eeyore, telling themselves, "This is going to be hard, I don't know how to do this, there's too much to do..."

Listen to a happy song, do a little dance, take a brisk walk - get excited!

I also recommend tuning into your breath...

Take a few DEEP breaths and notice where the air is moving into and around your body. Hold them for a moment before doing a slooooow release.

This is your LIFE we're freshening up here, let's get pumped!

5 - GET FOCUSED + SET THE STOVE TIMER

Give yourself time and mental space to sink into your decluttering project and get in the flow.

Brains take many minutes focus again once we get off task so this is VERY important!

Look ahead and see when you can spend time decluttering and commit to it like you would a doctor's appointment.

Whether it's 5 minutes or 5 hours, honor your Self and your Future Self by being fully present in that time.

The more time you schedule for decluttering and stick with it, the more change you'll see, the more clutter you'll clear, and the better you'll feel!

~ Tell people around you (and your social media craving brain) "I'm NOT available right now! I'm doing very important things! I'm taking my LIFE BACK FROM CLUTTER!"

~ Turn your phone off if at all possible, or set in another room

~ Turn off notifications that will ding or otherwise distract you.

~ Commit to fully focusing on the small task you want to get done/space you want to declutter. Your brain can scream all it wants - just keep coming back to your commitment.

~ SETTING A TIMER can be the most helpful tip of all! Use your stove/microwave timer rather than your phone if possible so you don't get distracted.

Give your Self the gift of focused time - you, your Future Self, and everyone who cares about you deserves this!

6 - SET UP FOR SUCCESS

Whenever possible, I set these open-topped containers next to me when decluttering so I can toss things in and get in a flow (rather than opening a trash bag each time).

open-topped trash bin
open-topped recycling bin
box(es) for donations
take elsewhere container (see below)
trash bags ready to empty trash / recycling into when bins are full

The TAKE ELSEWHERE CONTAINER is very important and is for:

for anything that doesn't belong in the space you're working in
keeping you from leaving the room!
taking things around and put away AFTER the project you're working on
You can use a box, basket, laundry basket...or just a pile if you're on a roll

IMPORTANT NOTE: Don't let not having containers be an excuse not to begin! These aren't necessary if you don't have them, I just find them helpful.

7 - MOVE LEFT TO RIGHT/TOP TO BOTTOM + MAKE QUICK DECISIONS

MOVE LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM

It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the "stuff" - moving methodically helps!

Rather than jump around, start in one corner ( or another clear starting point) and move methodically left to right, top to bottom (or the other way around, it doesn't matter as long as you stick to it.)

Make a quick decision on EVERY SINGLE THING before continuing around.

When you stop, don't start somewhere else, go back to where you left off and begin there. Or go through the maybe pile with a fresh mind.

QUICK DECISIONS

The more we practice making decisions, the easier it gets. The more decisions we make, the more spaces we clear - and the more inspired and lighter we feel!

Practice making these quick decisions in your ONE SMALL SPACE or category;

Keep
Trash
Recycle
Donate
Take elsewhere
***Maybe

***Maybe Pile:

If you get stuck on something, set it aside right away in a clear pile and move on. When you're done with the rest of that category or space, go back through it - your decision making muscle will be stronger!

If the maybe pile gets big, reconnect to why you're doing this (the BIG why, like "I WANT TO TAKE MY LIFE BACK," etc), get your energy up again, then go through it.

NEW RULE?

Cas from Clutterbug has a rule I use sometimes: if you find something you didn't know you owned and haven't missed it, it gets donated without another thought! Tough sometimes, but VERY effective for clearing clutter.

8 - STAY PUT!

Don't leave the area you're working in until you're DONE to stay focused.

This is part of why it's so important to choose a small, doable task.

You know how it goes...

We're clearing a counter in the kitchen...

Then we go to put something away in the bathroom...

Then we notice the bathroom counter is messy...

Then we find something that goes in the bedroom...

...and the next thing we know we're sitting and scrolling on our phones or wondering what we were doing.

Oh well, I guess it's snack time!

(I see you - I've been there!)

STAY PUT and only leave AFTER you've made a decision about every. single. thing in the area or category you're working on. (This is why it's important to start small)

Put everything that need to go elsewhere together in a "take elsewhere" container.

It can take a LOT of talking to our brain, but I know we can do it!

9 - FINISH THE JOB

Give your Future Self the gift of completing the one small space or category!

Finishing the job means:

Clearing the things in the space you decluttered
***Make a home for everything you're keeping
Empty the trash and recycling
Take the "take elsewhere" items to where they belong (if they don't have a home, put them with like items, or at least out of the area you organized).
Put the donations in your car AND decide when/where you'll take them (or call an organization who will pick them up - contact me for a list)

***When making homes for things, I have two rules, in this order:

#1 Make it easy to put away

#2 Make it easy to find

Aldous Huxley said, "Reality doesn't always come up the ideal..." - we may want a space to look pretty so we want to put the thing over THERE, when in reality the place we'll ACTUALLY put it after we use it is right HERE.

Be honest with your Self when making homes for things. Think about where you'll actually put things away, not ideally. Let yourself play, try differing things and places until you really do put it away every time.

And if you can't find a place for it, re-evaluate and ask: do I REALLY want/need/love this?

10 - CELEBRATE!

When a child does a good deed, if we said, "There's so much more to do! You hardly did anything!" they probably wouldn't want to do that thing anymore, right?

But so many of us do that to ourselves in our heads. I urge you now to STOP IT.

I know from experience - stopping the inner critic is harder said than done. It can be really mean and tough! And it's been with us a loooong time, doing it's best to keep us safe.

We all have a version of it, and we all have MUCH bigger lives than that voice would allow if we let it keep us 'safe' all the time.

It takes practice, and I HIGHLY recommend the book Playing Big by Tara Mohr and good coaching to help with that inner critic.

But for our purposes, the first step is to tune in to what your mind tells you when you do anything regarding decluttering.

When you hear things that are mean, unsupportive and deterring (like most of us do!), imagine a little kid inside you and think of what you would say to them - then say it to your Self. (Because we're really just little kids running around in adult suits).

CELEBRATE EVERY. SINGLE. STEP! Itty bitty ones and big ones, slow ones and running ones. Celebrating trains our brains to LIKE decluttering!

Seriously, enjoying decluttering isn't just for kooks like me. It can actually become a joyful, fulfilling, regular habit and hobby if the critic learns we're making life BETTER.

It just needs proof, so that takes us back to #1: BEGIN!

You've got this! And you're not alone!

SO MANY PEOPLE around the world struggle with clutter - we're all figuring this out together and YOU CAN FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH!

Know in your soul that I'm here for you, and don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions, you feel stuck, or you want someone to celebrate with!

I've been doing this since 2014 and have been through it myself - I have zero judgment, only love and support, right where you are.

There's no need to struggle with clutter anymore...

Schedule a free call with me here - I'd love to help you!

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