Do you ever get the itch to declutter?
Or maybe it’s the shakes.
I usually get this icky feeling right after I’ve been frantically searching for something that should have been easily found.
I feel a sudden desperation to declutter. To declutter FAST. As if my life (more likely my sanity) depends on it.
In these moments, I DON’T recommend starting a huge project like the one I undertook in my master bedroom. Because these moments come and go so quickly (unfortunately), I find it helps if I can scratch the itch or calm the shakes by focusing on an area that will look significantly better with just a few minutes of decluttering. That small success helps me gain momentum to tackle more (and bigger) projects.
1. Books
A quick and purposeful look at one of my bookshelves often reveals quite a few books that I’ve passed over multiple times. If they haven’t appealed to me yet, they likely never will. Getting rid of five books on an overcrowded shelf can make a big visual difference.
2. Empty Containers
In the shower. On the bathroom counter. In the pantry. On top of the dryer.
I seem to end up with empty containers in various places where empty containers really shouldn’t be. If I can focus on just pitching empty containers in a specific space . . . that space looks better in minutes.
3. Paper Piles
Paper overwhelms me. But when I face a pile head on, it rarely wins.
Rarely.
I’m always amazed at what I can accomplish in five minutes of focusing on a single pile. If I have a trash can at my side, the pile shrinks pretty quickly. If there’s still a pile and I can’t keep going after five minutes . . . a straightened, SHORTER pile will definitely look better than when I started.
4. Medicine
Medicine isn’t visible if it’s put away, but since we keep ours in the cabinet, it becomes visible when it breeds and begins to push other things out of their space. Medicine is easy to purge because it has an expiration date. Five minutes isn’t long enough to analyze the facts and determine whether you will ever have back pain again, but it’s long enough to reduce the amount of medicine in your cabinet by getting rid of anything expired.
5. Pens
I don’t know about you, but I find huge amounts of pens all around my house. Basically, I find them everywhere except where I need them.
Then half (or more) don’t work when I find them. Taking five minutes to go through the house gathering pens, testing them quickly to be sure they actually WRITE, and then placing them (ONLY the ones that write) in a defined container will make a visual difference in the spaces where you gathered the pens, and a mental difference in you when you realize the computer on the other end of the phone has already started spouting off the confirmation number you need to write down.
What things you can declutter in a hurry?
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My kitchn table and countertops are a mess. If I spend a few moments just throwing away trash and putting things back where they belong it really helps my sanity. Especially since I’m almost sure to loose the lid to my oil or my spice lid every time I cook.
Another big helper is to get the clean dishes out of the diswasher first thing in the morning.Then the dirty dishes go straigt in the dishwasher. A clean sink makes your whole kitchen feel cleaner.
Emptying the dishwasher. Yes! As I always say, it’s even more important than running it!
And for whatever reason, so hard to do! I even run it when not full since I live alone and it can take a week to fill, at which point I’m running out of spoons or something,
Whatever works.
Why is it so hard to throw away pens that don’t work? I don’t mean that I don’t want to part with them – it’s just that I set them down to throw away later. But then later I end up putting them back in the pen container. Why do I do that? I’ve been picking up the same black empty pen for three days. I still haven’t thrown it away. Dumb, dumb, dumb!
NOT Dumb… YOU ARE NOT DUMB. Yes, it’s annoying and yes, it’s a habit to change. But having a bad habit doesn’t make you dumb.
HA! Empty containters…so glad it’s not just me. I think the problem here is that I need to empty the recycling more often. We don’t have curbside so it means a trip to town. I have genuine guilt over not recycling so if the recycling can is full, I just quit getting rid of stuff… Also rinsing those shampoo containers is a major pain!
Recycling guilt is a very real thing! Totally understand!
You can get atleast 2 more shampoos by using that rinse water on your hair. That should make it less painful! 🙂
Just a tip (and totally with you on the recycling guilt thing) when you get to the end of the shampoo bottles, rinse them in the shower, INTO your hair! One last shampoo, for “free” and the bottle’s already rinsed 😀
Yes! Totally do this!! (But usually because I keep forgetting to buy more shampoo!!)
We keep a recycle collection bin under our kitchen sink, which gets emptied several times a week. We have several regular sized garbage cans lined with bags for recycling… one for paper, glass, plastic/cans, aluminum cans ans aluminum foil items… We wait till each is filled, then take them to the recycling center or buy back for cans. Cardboard boxes are stored in bigger boxes. Even with two of us in the house, we still have a can full of plastic/cans every 2 weeks! We also have a wood stove to burn old bills and things with our personal info… or we shred and recycle them.
I love this comment!! Why do the simplest things seem so hard! We keep our big recycling bin in our kitchen and it takes up sooooo much space. This is a great idea. I can’t wait to try it.
I tackled the (mostly) paper piles in the dining room yesterday! Well, so maybe I missed the one on the bookshelf…my oldest’s Kindergarten papers…yeah, she’s only in 1st grade, so it’s not THAT bad, right?
I feel bad about throwing away those pens that you can put a refill in. Even though I’m not going to go to the store and figure out what kind of refill to buy. And it wouldn’t do any good to donate them, since no one else wants to hunt down refills either!
I swap full refills to nicer pens which feel better to write with and toss the leftovers.
I think those refillable pens would be fine to donate. Could put into a small baggie and write “refill needed” on the baggie, or just on tape on the pen. If it’s a nice pen, someone on a budget would probably be happy to buy the refill after getting the pen much less expensively.
Make up make up make up.. I have 4 girls.. cosmetics for sure.. lol
Newspapers! I still like getting the paper every morning, but they end up mostly in a big sloppy stack in the living room, with a few scattered around. Every couple of weeks I bundle them up to be recycled, and that makes a big difference fast.
Some people need extras for moving. If you see local ads for moving boxes…ask if they need paper, too!. Some of us stopped getting papers. We use them for starting fires in our wood stove, so we have people collecting for us.
My husband, son, and dog’s clutter. I can go room to room and grab their junk. I put it on their beds (well not the dogs), then it is out of my sight and they have to deal with it if the want to sleep! So much easier than dealing with my own!
Books. My son stayed with me briefly last year. One day he went through the house and picked up all the books that weren’t in bookcases. I went through them – plus the books in bookcases. My son made a trip to a used bookstore that pays cash (I got nearly $50), then to the used bookstore that gives credit only (I think I ended up with nearly $100 credit), and what was left went to goodwill. A couple months later I went through my books again. It was a big help. I’m glad my son got that started for me. I was too overwhelmed.
I completely understand being overwhelmed. Baby steps will help you. You don’t have to complete big tasks every day. I take my books to half price books and don’t usually get that much for them, but it is great to get a little something for them and be free of some clutter.
GREAT tips! And de-cluttering is like making a snowball–you get started rolling, and it gets bigger and bigger (the pile of stuff you can toss!). Love your website!
Please remember that expired prescription medications should never be thrown into the garbage or flushed down the toilet. Drop them at your local fire station or call your pharmacy to find out where to dispose of them. Not to slow you down, but keep it safe!
I was advised not to flush pills, but liquids were okay since they are cleaned out of the water (a friend works for the water company), You can add them to your used cat litter or sloppy trash, so they will break down or get contaminated for disposal.
I have garbage containers in most every room. One is for paper recycling and I usually use the large paper bags I get from the supermarket that doesn’t give out plastic bags anymore. The other is a plastic grocery bag I hang on the doorknob so that I can throw old pens, plastic items, wrappers — anything non-paper that won’t smell if it sits there more than a few days (TMI — “too much information”???). If I don’t have that non-paper-item bag, the non-paper items get put randomly down on a surface to throw out the infamous “later”.
OK, just when did you visit my house and see the cluttered bookshelves, the empty containers, the paper piles, dried-out pens, etc. etc.! And while you were here, why didn’t you do something about them! 😉 This post really got me up and doing some easy decluttering–THANKS!!
Thanks for the inspiration and the laughs. I just decluttered my kitchen drawer in about 7 minutes. I put the straws and take out silverware in a vase in the cabinet. Not pretty but I can now find the spatula!
Oh, the empty containers! Yep, they definitely pile up here too. Not even going to mention the paper…. Feeling the need to declutter!
I took some expired prescription medication to the pharmacy for disposal after a de-cluttering and the pharmacist looked at me like I had two heads. He finally did keep the bottle but I’m not sure that I really was successful in communicating what I was asking for. Any tips on what to say?
I can totally see that happening where I live. Not sure what to say . . . .
My DH is on a lot of medications and when we empty any medication bottles, we remove the gummed label put on by the pharmacy, that gives the prescription information, name, Dr’s name that prescribed it. When I remove it, I put it inside another sheet of paper or restick it to another sheet of paper and shred it, discarding the empty container but sometimes if the container is clear, I might save it to keep some small items in..like extra buttons, beads, safety or straight pins, etc.that can go inside my sewing box easily. Removing the label prevents Identity theft.
We take old meds to our pharmacy a few times per year. I just say “I have some expired meds that need to be disposed of” never a problem. Also if it’s not expired but I have extra they will repackage it for me instead of using my current Rx. Hubby often forgets to take one at night time. So when they redo his packs/change Rx I take the extras in to be repacked or destroyed.
Good to know! Thanks!
I would NEVER break the law and ask those around us who I know are on the same meds as what we have left over (from med changes etc) who don’t have a good of insurance as we do…
Wouldn’t ever… nopenopenope…
Our local police department keeps a drop box in their lobby for expired prescriptions meds (and has a big publicized, drive-by, drop off event twice a year also). If you have a recycling coordinator in your city, or the water and sewage department might check with them (or even your police dept). Good luck!
I am still working on decluttering my bedroom dresser and night stand drawers. Took a day off and tackled the garage. While it’s not the way I want it, it is neat, clean and when the handyman can get to me, I want to have more shelves made for inside of a large wall to wall cabinet we built when we moved here. Our son lost his house and had to move in an apt. where there was no room for all the tools he has. Guess where they ended up? If you guessed, Mom and Dad’s, you’re right! It was a nice cool day for cleaning the garage and my daughter dropped by to pick up something I wanted to give her and helped too. She’s a good organizer. I still need to go through a lot stuff but some items need my husband to sit down and look through and discard or if small enough and he wants to keep it, see if it can’t go into a plastic storage shoebox that i can label on the outside for easy access.
I cleaned out one of my night stands the other night but we have 4 or 5 King James Version Bibles. One I got when I was 7 years old from a neighbor and the leather binding is brittle and breaking off. Some of these Bibles have genealogy data(vital records information)in the middle of the Bible.
What would be the best way to remove those pages with pertinent information without tearing the entire Bible up..I thought about a box cutter but one would have to be very careful so you don’t cut the printed chapters next or behind it. I don’t think you’d be able to remove the pages with scissors because of the binding of the Bible would be in the way. Does anybody know an organization that accepts Bibles?
Many thrift stores will take Bibles… Some even give them away free.
You’ve probably tackled the getting information out of the Bible. I was just thinking that you can use the box cutter when you put some thick paper or a piece of cardboard between the pages you need to cut out and the following pages that need to remain intact. Just a thought.
Like the other post, I would use a razor blade and a thin cardboard, like one surface of a cereal box.
The St. Vincent de Paul stores, Salvation Army, homeless shelters, churches, Christian schools, or libraries (for the book sale to raise money for the library) would all take them around here.
Love Packages is a ministry that takes Bibles and lots of other Christian books (not romance-novel types), etc, and sends them all over the world to places that need them. They have headquarters in 2 states, and drop-off locations. It’s a good organization! https://lovepackages.org/
I cleaned out my purse. Found the gift card I was hunting over the house for. Also tossed random artwork from my 4 yr old at the same time. Shhh don’t tell her ! My New Years resolution is to toss the scribbles asap. I keep it for ages and it just makes a pile of messy wrinkled paper all over!!
I had a similar issue with my kiddos creating a ton of artwork. I would keep it for a week and then have them pick one to take a picture of. A digital file is a lot easier to store. It’s still a project, though. But I named the file with the date and initial of who drew the art. If there was something else to know I added that to the file name, too. (like the big gray blob: 10-7-00_S_Squirrel.jpg) Hope it helps someone. (I’d usually stick a label on the back and write it so that then I could do several photos at a time)
Makeup and beauty products. I have so much stuff that I don’t use but I find it so hard to part with those things because of the money I have spent on it or I tell myself I’m going to start using it.
I got tired of junk drawers in my kitchen! I had two and was moving in on another drawer as well… I was tired of having so much stuff that had no use or was being overlooked! I emptied the drawers into a 10 gallon bin. The bin is FULL!!! How did all that stuff fit in there?! But the drawers are now useful and mKe my kitchen much less cluttered… Now I need to go through the bin ‘o junk.
I’ve been struggling so hard with just do the dishes. I did the dinner ones but then needed to cook my dogs special breakfast and didn’t wash them. Ugh dishes in the morning.
Augh! Change (coins) in random places. Moving it to clean makes me crazy. Now we have a change jar in the linen closet and take it to be converted to “real” money once a year.
Good ideas! I also like to tidy up the living room and kitchen often… things seem to just collect in these spots, so sending them back where they belong sure helps. We have a big family, so lots of activity here and lots of people to set something down “for right now”. sigh. 🙂
I am beginning to deal with “clutter blindness.” Last week I did a 10-minute declutter of paper and random stuff like empty boxes and packaging, toilet paper rolls, etc., and suddenly focused past those things. I am embarrassed to share that there is a gift bag containing something (I don’t even know what) from a friend for my last birthday (which is in October, so it’s been 11 months now) sitting under a dining room chair. And three bags/boxes with the remains of Christmas gifts from last year that I never found a place to put away, on my living room floor. I have been walking past them for NINE MONTHS.
I just cleaned out the medicine cabinet this morning and it was quite quick. It helped me to see what medicine we never really used after buying either.
Oh jeez. I just love you, I must say. I needed this post. Just today I got overwhelmed… so what did I do? Naturally, I pulled out every single article of extra/donation/sellable baby clothing in the house and dumped it all in the living room. It’s now well into the a.m. hours and I finally have it sorted… ish. But sleep probably would have been the better option after an already long day as the first time mom of a three month old.
Next time maybe I’ll just throw out some papers lol.
The stairs! Every damn time I declutter them, it takes about five minutes to get them from ‘irritating mess’ to ‘one small pile of stuff that is my husband’s problem and looks vastly better anyway’… and suddenly walking into our hall means walking into somewhere reasonably neat and nice, not a horrible mess.
This is a bit more complicating than a ‘quick declutter’, but when I have letters or cards come in the mail, I rip of the return address, if I think it’s an address I don’t currently have, then I slide it QUICKLY into the clear front pocket of the 3-ring binder I use for addresses.
Because I’ve done that, I will know EXACTLY where to go, when seeking an address.
I keep my addresses in a three-ring binder. Every address is usually typed out in a list of family members or friends.
When I get time, I will add that new address to the list, but meanwhile, placing the torn off address label into the clear front pocket of the binder, ensures that I will always be able to find it without the whole….”Hmmmm, I know I put it SOMEWHERE!” drama.
Just did a quick pass on the nursery bookshelves. I didn’t even look at the books… I just pulled them off one at a time and did a sniff test. If the book smelled bad or musty, it was gone. (We’ve a lot of old, withdrawn library books on our shelves.) Then I did another look for grubby books. Managed to fill up two boxes of books that way in less than five minutes
Thanks! Good to add another method to how I can declutter books! Musty or perfumey books are not nice to read! Sometimes I want to keep them anyway because they are cool, old editions, but for what?? Thanks for the reality check.
Loved this post! I am starting a challenge to get rid of 2,020 things in 2020. Sounds crazy, but it’s only 5-6 a day. I already started packing up for donation quite a few pieces of glassware: the wine glasses that are too tall for the dishwasher, the highball glasses I can’t get my hand in to wash, etc. I’ve noticed as we are getting older, we go for the plastic anyway – lighter and doesn’t break. I also added 5 baseball caps – neither my husband nor son wear them, and I had them on a hat rack in the laundry room that I brushed into every time I passed to let the dog out. I have to re-claim the prime real estate from clutter! To 2020!
Hi everybody!
I know this will sound NUTS to everyone who reads this, but it hit me one day that some of the books that I have for years could be CLUTTER!!!!!! Now, it’s not as if I have never gone through my library before—I have! But I was thinking of all the books that I still have that I haven’t given away because “I’m going to read that SOMEDAY!” We’ll, I decided a few weeks ago that SOMEDAY had ARRIVED!!!!!! So, I have been reading through the SOMEDAY books. IF they are worthy of keeping, and not too expensive as a Kindle book, I buy the digital book and give away the physical book. If the Kindle book is more than I paid for the physical book, but it is still worth keeping, I keep the physical book—the Kindle price will probably go down in the future. So far this year I have decluttered FIVE bags of books to our local library. I feel as if donating a book to the library is like giving EVERY person in your town a gift!!!!!!
About the pens. I have a pen problem. When I’m using a pen, it will appear to run out of ink. I’ll scribble and scribble and NOTHING. But can I pitch it? NoooOOOOooo. My kids or husband will take it out of my hand and MAGICALLY the ink will start working again. Like….EVERY time. It drives me whacko. So now, I have to check with my family before I toss. lol grr.
I LOVE the comment about putting someone’s stuff on their bed so they have to put it away before they sleep. My son might just put it back on the floor a few times, but eventually he will realize he’s putting up the Same stuff over and over and could save the effort by just putting it where it goes the first time 💜
Expiration dates. . . . Hahaha. . . . haha . . . ha . . . .ummmm . . . Yeah. . . . Expiration dates. . . .🤦🏼♀️
In response to “kindergarten” papers……. One thing I’ve learned and I’m using for anything similar- take a picture it will last longer!!lol! In this day and age when we have the capability to take a photo and store it forever why are we keeping things that we have to “store” like kindergarten papers!? I’ve even done it with articles of clothing of my children or a deceased relative! Just take a photo because all you really want is a visual to remember or spark a memory that makes you feel good☺️ Even household items of a deceased loved one bring back a memory but it doesn’t mean I want to store them forever “in case” 🤦🏼♀️ my great grandchildren would like to use them-ALL!! This system works for me! I also print them and place in a “palm sized” album where I can just look through occasionally❤️
Don’t believe I could do #’s 1 or3 quickly. Books and papers are probably going to take WEEKS!
I usually keep up pretty well with empty containers, so # 2 is a non-issue.
Maybe could do pens (# 5), but would not be quickly. I have containers of pens in strategic places all over my house, with specific types in each location, so would need to do each one separately and replace non-working special types, like red pens or permanent markers, in each place.
Purging meds might be quick, as we do that fairly often already.
Just thinking, one person’s “quick job” can be another person’s MOUNTAIN!