Decluttering

There is endless advice in the world about how best to declutter your home—some of it is helpful, a bit of it is masterful, and much of it is inconsistent. “Keep only the things that spark joy” they tell you… but, I mean, you need to keep your screwdriver and vacuum, no matter how boring or frustrating their utility may be. Point is, the “rules” don’t always work.

The kitchen is the biggest workhorse room in almost every household. It’s not only the place where we store our food and prepare our meals, but especially in the age of the open concept home, it’s also a hangout spot and maybe even a homework or work area. With so many things going on in the kitchen, and so many people in and out of it constantly, it’s easy for our kitchens to become cluttered, and fast.

Decluttering a space is a gargantuan task, no matter how small the space itself might seem. That’s because the real challenge isn’t how much stuff you have, or how messily it might be lumped around. The really tough part of decluttering is when you pick up a single object in your hand, knowing you have no good reason to keep it, but finding it impossible to let the thing go.

There’s a hard way and an easy way to deal with a big mess of clutter. The hard way is trying to commit to tackling it all at once, mentally planning for a weekend project you know will never come, as you once again sit and dawdle and tell yourself it’ll be easier when the weather’s better, or when things aren’t as crazy in your life. The easy way is to chip away at the mess, little by little until it’s in a good place.

Kitchen clutter is like a gas: It’ll expand to fit the space allowed. If you have a small kitchen, you probably feel like there’s never enough space for your stuff. Well guess what? Big kitchen people have that same problem, too. No matter how many cabinets you have, or whether your countertop is better measured in inches or acres, your kitchen can probably use a little slimdown. So that’s what we’re going to do today. Do a 20-minute decluttering sweep of your kitchen.

Emotional attachment to an inanimate object is one hell of a drug. It makes sentimental clutter especially difficult to say goodbye to. And for me, a writer who makes a living helping people with their homekeeping, it’s a very difficult thing to help you with. So I’m not going to tell you to get rid of anything at all. At least not yet. First, let’s open up the closets, drag out the boxes, and let’s find your sentimental stuff. What counts as sentimental stuff?

Keeping your home clean around the clock isn’t the work of wizardly magic. It’s just an exercise in focus. You have to commit to give every single thing at home a place where it belongs, even if that place is kind of a zoo. That’s why, if you want to keep your home clutter-free, you don’t need a junk drawer… you need several. Let’s face it, not every object you own is easily categorized.

One of the biggest reasons writing is so powerful is that it removes the swirling thoughts from our heads and puts them into a space where they’re far from lost. From the insights and resolutions that come from journaling to the highly practical peace of mind that comes from jotting down that new appointment on our calendars so we don’t have to not forget it, once pen is put to paper, something magical happens.

There’s clutter that’s obviously clutter: junk mail in stacks on the counter, toys with missing or broken parts, duplicate kitchen tools that never get used. And then there are the things that seem important or that aren’t as easy to get rid of as, say, tossing in the recycling bin or loading in the car for a drop off at the donation center. These things sit in our homes and take up valuable space in our drawers and in our minds when we encounter them.

A child’s relationship to books is one of the biggest predictors of their success down the road, and exposure to all types of print has a lot to do with early reading ability. So hang on to your well-worn “Calvin & Hobbes”treasuries, go ahead and subscribe to Highlights, and definitely send a book-loving message by keeping a fairly robust library, if that’s your thing.

If there’s one thing we can all hope for from the Marie Kondo “Tidying Up” craze, it’s finally saying goodbye to the concept of retail therapy—a notion coined by the Chicago Tribune in the late 1980s with the idea that we had started “measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills.” In her show and book, Kondo has us thank and then get rid of the clutter that is no longer serving us.

We’ve written a lot about downsizing over the years, sharing tips from experts and house tours, but sometimes the best ideas actually come from you, our readers. From how you let go of your things to the unexpected pros and cons of moving to a smaller space, you’ve shared it all with us. So, for those of you moving or looking to go the minimalist route, here’s a roundup of our readers’ best advice on downsizing, straight from the comments.

Channel the energy behind the change in seasons to feel more in sync with your home.

There are so many kinds of clutter: excess items you think you might need someday, clutter you’re so used to having around that you don’t even notice it anymore, piles of paper you have to go through, and things you feel guilty getting rid of because someone gave them to you or you spent good money on them. But there’s one kind of clutter you should never feel bad hanging on to.

Apartment Therapy Weekend Projects is a guided program designed to help you get the happy, healthy home you’ve always wanted, one weekend at a time. Sign up now for email updates so you never miss a lesson. As Apartment Therapy’s cleaning editor, my number one job is to help our readers take care of their spaces. It has been so fun connecting with all of you during our group projects (like the January Cure) and on Instagram (I’m always here for questions!).

Just like finding the right eating method or exercise regimen, finding the right decluttering motto can be the key to keeping your home clutter-free. Many find an admonition by William Morris helpful when deciding what to keep and get rid of: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” But this popular decluttering criterion could actually become a pitfall if you’re not careful.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Sometimes all you need to declutter is a fresh perspective. Once your things are yours, letting go of them can feel like a loss. A loss of money or preparedness or potential. And those are very real feelings.

Your personality can help you focus your efforts on a certain thing or category of items, so you can dig in and really start to make an impact in your space.

I wish that we could all hit pause on our daily responsibilities, welcome the prim and utterly delightful Marie Kondo into the most intimate recesses of our homes, and KonMari all the clutter out of our lives. But Kondo’s method of “tidying up,” popularized (and demonized) once again by her show on Netflix, might not always be accessible to everyone—no matter how inspired they are to speak to their belongings and make mountains of their clothing.

Nothing is worse than coming home to a messy apartment after a long day, but finding the time to clean in the morning can be equally daunting. That’s why we put together a list of micro decluttering tasks that can easily be incorporated into your morning routine. Read ahead for seven super small ways to organize your space in the AM, so you can start the day off productively (and come home to a tidier place when it’s over). If you’re anything like me (i.e.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. You already know your paper problem areas. Maybe it’s the kitchen counter, dining room table, entryway console, or the front of the fridge—or maybe it’s all of the above.

Wondering about the current KonMari craze? Here's our primer for all things Kondo.

Don’t worry bookworms.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. There are a few different kinds of clutter. There’s the familiar “useless” type of clutter that immediately springs to mind: clothes we don’t wear, tools we can’t use, papers we don’t need.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Decluttering is an industry. There are books, websites, and even television shows dedicated to helping people like you and me pare down and live with less.

Sometimes all you need to declutter your space is a new frame of mind. Sounds easier said than done? Not so fast. Take a look at some of the best lessons we learned this year about how to live with less. You need to purge, but you might need that gigantic waffle maker at some point. Stop playing that game; you’ll never get the job done. Find out how washi tape can help: A Brilliant, Regret-Free Way You Can Use Tape to Declutter Your Kitchen. A marathon cleaning sesh only leads to fatigue.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is usually a quiet one, so it’s the perfect time to go through your things and declutter. Between donating old pantry items and gently worn clothes, recycling gift boxes and catalogs, and tossing out old wine and leftovers, there’s plenty to clear out so you can make your home ready for the new year—and it’ll be conducive to helping you keep your resolutions.

A new year is about to start, and with that comes a new set of wardrobe needs with items that tend to be much bulkier and take up far more shelf space. If you’re hurting for storage, take a look around your closet and get rid of these items that you totally do not need anymore. If you haven’t worn that ketchup bottle getup since you bought it 10 years ago for your office Halloween party, it’s probably time to say goodbye.

We declutter mostly for ourselves. We yearn for the empty space and the room to breathe. So we approach our cupboards, closets, drawers, and garages asking ourselves whatever version of the essential question—do I need this?—that gives us the most clarity. That’s how we decide what to get rid of and what to keep most of the time. But there’s another way to think about it, and there are others to declutter for.

By taking a bit of time to go through everything in your bathroom today, you'll be able to shed things that you won't (or by this point, shouldn't) use.

When I told my husband that I was going to write an article about what to get rid of in the dining room, he said without out a breath of hesitation, “How about the dining room?” It’s a bit of “A Subject” at our house because I inherited my grandparents’ entire dining room (the only thing I didn’t keep is the chandelier), and we’ve been shipping it from home to home for a decade.

Clutter is just a fact of life. Stuff piles up, messes are made, and dealing with it all becomes one of many things on your to-do list. Easy enough to manage when life is calm and work is steady, but when things get hectic, it’s more and more tempting to let things slide and deal with them later. And eventually, all that procrastinating can turn into what feels like an impossible cleaning challenge. But, of course, that’s not the case.

Decluttering is not for the faint of heart—it can take some serious self-reflection, a discerning eye, and the type of discipline not made for a world where Target exists. Author and organization expert Marie Kondo often shares her wisdom about the four biggest hurdles that keep us buried in a sea of our own stuff: space, sentimentality, guilt, and money all make the list. Truth be told, she has a point.

There are two kinds of junk drawers. There’s the kind that you open with one hand and, with the other hand, sweep the contents of the kitchen countertop into and shove shut. Then there’s the properly curated, random junk stashing spot. Here’s how to keep your drawer of chaos in check and looking like the latter. There will be things you always find in a junk drawer, like a burnt-out lighter and three sets of old, mysterious keys.

Summer’s over and fall is here, and that can only mean one thing: it’s time to do some major decluttering. (What, you thought that only happened in spring?). The change of seasons is the perfect time to reset by going through your home room-by-room to get rid of all the stuff you didn’t use all season, not to mention all the stuff you know won’t get much use by winter, either.

In the end, decluttering is generally pretty satisfying. But in the process? It can be an emotional, guilt-ridden and stressful situation. You want your home to be a positive space, but if you’re holding onto things that you really don’t need, or even things that actively make you feel bad, it’s time to let go. It’s time to invest in and focus on the things that do make you happy.

Labor Day weekend isn’t necessarily the time you will (or should) say to yourself “Oh, this is the perfect time for housework!” But between BBQs and general leisure, devoting some of the extra time afforded by a three-day weekend to your home can give you the gift of a cleaner, happier home just in time for the coming busy fall season. Here’s a plan for doing a few strategic tasks a day so you can make some significant progress without sacrificing your entire weekend.

We go to great lengths to get things out of our homes, but there's one popular trope that will always work.

Junk drawers don’t always deserve their bad rap, since they can proffer whatever odds and ends we need at a moment’s notice. But when they’re choked with actual junk? That’s when they fail to achieve their usefulness potential, leaving this humble drawer to be little more than a ticking time bomb that will eventually require a massive and mind-numbing go-through.

Living rooms come in all shapes and sizes, and unfortunately, the smaller the apartment, the harder it can be to keep yours organized. Throw in a busy work schedule and a somewhat active social life and suddenly a tiny living room can turn into a cluttered disaster zone, especially when you don’t have a lot of extra room for storage. But fret not my busy, unorganized friends; we’re here to help.

You may have only heard of decanting when it comes to wine, but this technique is a game-changer for organizing your home. By moving everyday products into containers, you’re eliminating the visual clutter created by clunky shelf packaging—which was never meant to fit neatly on your shelves. This is also great for those who buy—or want to buy—in bulk. No need to store the extra-large box on your shelves, instead, decant into a usable jar and refill as needed.

I’m expecting a baby in late August and I’m in major nesting mode. It’s a wave I really like to ride to get things cleared out and in order in our home before we welcome a new baby. Lately, as I’ve been combing through cupboards, closets, and boxes of things I was sure I’d want to keep (but now just want to toss wholesale), I’ve been remembering a three-word phrase that’s become an extremely helpful decluttering mantra.

You’d rather eat glass than put your great aunt’s ugly statue on your living room shelf. But Jacquie Denny, co-founder of online estate sale company Everything But the House, says you may be making a serious (and costly) mistake. Denny declares that the most common misstep people face when cleaning is assuming that things they don’t like have no resale value.

Getting your sh*t together isn’t easy. Staying organized is especially hard when you’re a self-proclaimed “messy” person. Luckily, we know some amazing professional organizers to call upon for help. We hit up five of our favorite pro-organizers for the number one piece of advice they’d give “messy people” looking to get their homes—and lives—in order and here’s what they had to share.

My husband and I recently replaced our dresser, which spurred an event which I’ll be referring to in the confines of our relationship history as “The Great T-Shirt Eradication of 2018.” You see, between us, we own many, many tees. We could, as a couple, each wear a different shirt every day and maybe make it until Independence Day without doing laundry. At least, that was the case before “The Great T-Shirt Eradication of 2018.

This year, we’re on a mission to help you tackle spring cleaning on your time. Each weekday until April 13, we’ll guide you through a plan to clean and organize different areas of your home, but you’ll have the flexibility to choose exactly what to work on and how long you have to dedicate to the job. Sign up with your email so you don’t miss a spot!

We all know the benefits of making the bed every morning. Along with tidying up your bedroom in a pinch, this neat ritual helps set an orderly tone for the rest of your day. Clearing off your coffee table every day can be similar. As one Apartment Therapy reader put it: “Clearing off the coffee table is the making-the-bed of the living room!” Take a few minutes to clean up your coffee table each day, and you’ll enjoy a clearer mind and set the tone for a cleaner living room.

What’s the easiest target when decluttering fever hits you? The closet, of course. It’s probably overflowing with clothes you haven’t worn since college or things you’re not sure why you even bought in the first place. And sure, there are plenty of cliches out there about when to get rid of clothes.

It's smart — before you dig in on your spring clean — to minimize the stuff that needs to be cleaned and cleaned around.

“I have so much closet space I don’t even know what to do with it,” said nobody ever. I mean, even president Obama has a closet-space shortage, so for those of us wishing for just one more little nook to stuff our things in—we’re not alone.

Cleaning and organizing strengths and pitfalls for each type, as well as suggestions for how to tackle homekeeping and embrace your unique personality,

The pleasure of a perpetually less-cluttered house is worth the possibility that I might need to buy something again, someday.

Clearing clutter out of our physical spaces, and therefore out of our lives, has the power to refresh the space in our heads. While this alone makes any time a good time to declutter, there’s something about this time of year that puts us all in the mood to cozy up, buckle down and start over.

Each of us has personal feelings about cleaning and home keeping. But what remains remarkably similar across the board is the trouble spots that we all find tricky to solve. Which, by extension, means that those perpetually organized people who never seem to have the stuff explosions most of us fall prey to have found successful ways to address these very same sticking points. Nothing multiplies like paper piles.

New Year’s perpetually brings on the urge to purge, and with Mercury now out of retrograde and a pack of planets in Queen-of-the-Capsule-Collection, Capricorn, it’s a luminous moment to catch some serious stardust with your Swiffer.

Sometimes the biggest obstacle standing between you and a cleaner, clutter-free home is an unwillingness to just let go of unneeded stuff. When faced with getting rid of things, we can all turn into a bunch of hoarders at heart (“but what if I need it someday?!”). Luckily, your best weapon against a chronic case of “keep it just in case”-itis is a simple thing we like to call the outbox.

She's been cleaning out her attic on Instagram.

This time of year is one of influx and more, more, more. Layers of decorations, extra throw pillows and blankets, house guests, that second slice of pie — not to mention all the new items brought into the home as gifts. While everything is still contained in wrapping paper and ribbons, before the shiny new things enter the realm of official Household Stuff, take time to make some space by getting rid of these oldies you’ll never miss.

Decluttering—especially if you have a lot of stuff to begin with—can be an exhausting task. You can spend hours going through your things and realize you’re not even remotely close to being done with all your sorting. If you always feel totally spent when you’re done with a major decluttering session, the key might be in avoiding those giant, day (or weekend!) long clean-outs in the first place.

Here’s the thing about stuff—even when we don’t need it, it’s easy to become attached to it, assign meaning to it or feel guilt about getting rid of it. Gifts from loved ones or an expensive purchase you regret but can’t return can weigh you and your home down. So, what do you do when you feel like you can’t part with anything you own—even when you have multiples that you don’t need?

Whether you crank up the Christmas music the second Halloween’s over, or you restrain yourself and stick to fall decor at least until Thanksgiving, now is the time of year that your bins of holiday decor have come down from the attic or out from under the guest beds. Rather than waiting until it’s time to put it all back and bemoaning the amount of stuff you have that, once again, you didn’t use, go through it now.

Nothing turns a happy chef into a frazzled one like rifling through drawers or disassembling the kitchen to dig out the necessary tools. Don’t let this be you at Thanksgiving. For a smoothly running kitchen — and, more importantly, a smiling cook — eliminate everything that doesn’t need to be in your kitchen before the big day.