11 Ways to Cut Clutter in Your Home

I strongly believe that the secret to keeping a clean home, is first to keep a clutter-free home.

Any room in the house could be spotless, yet if it’s cluttered, it just looks like a messy and dirty. I actually spend a lot of time de-cluttering, it’s amazing how much ‘junk’ a family of five can accumulate. Also, we tend to hold onto the strangest of things, especially when you have children that like to have little collections everywhere!

11 Ways to Cut Clutter in Your Home

 

Here are 11 Ways to Cut Clutter in Your Home:

 

  1. Purge! Your first step will be to go through your home without any particular tasks in mind, and start getting rid of things. If you don’t use it, it hasn’t been seen in a year or so, or your children have grown out of it – it’s out the door. This will get you started on the right path to de-cluttering.
  2. Make sure that everything has a place. It doesn’t matter what the item is, every single thing in your home should have a place or a ‘home’ as i like to call it. Absolutely everything should should go back to that designated place as soon as it’s done being used. This will ensure that you don’t have those little problem areas that seem to collect items over time.
  3. Have a designated area for paperwork. Keep the paper clutter at bay by having a designated homework station as well as designated areas for parents to do work such as bills and finances.
  4. Don’t let anything get to the point of frustration when it comes to cleaning. Clean things before you dread it. It’s hard to think about, but instead of getting frustrated while cleaning, make sure that things are clean as you go each day, and avoid those big messes.
  5. Get rid of the duplicates. If you have things in your home that are doubles, triples, or quadruples, get rid of them {not the kids though, twin-mom humour}. Think about it: Why do you have a cupboard full of cups? Do you ever need that many at once? We have a hard time with not being able to get rid of things like this! You don’t need that many of anything, so keep enough for your family and a few guests, and then toss or donate the rest.
  6. Pay attention to those closets. Closest are where many people hide clutter, admit it. Get in there and get it cleaned out asap! You’ll find a lot of duplicates there as well. 
  7. Figure out a good cleaning schedule. A schedule will help tremendously for cleaning your home and keeping it organized. Set certain days for specific tasks and designate chores to those in the house.
  8. Clean out your fridge and pantry often. Instead of trying to figure out where that smell is coming from, or where those fruit flies are hiding, clean out you fridge and pantry at least every other week. Fridges and pantries scream for clutter attention! Better yet, each time you do a big grocery shopping trip, make sure you are getting rid of things past their expiration dates and using up what you have first when meal planning.
  9. Make a toy rule for your children. Make this one a rule: When a toy gets taken out, another toy can’t be played with until the first one is put back in its place. This rule is a lifesaver for families with children, since toys can literally take over an entire household!
  10. Make sure to continue getting rid of things. Don’t go through once and think you’re done. Every few weeks go through and get rid of items or at least make sure it’s all organized if there is nothing to get rid of.
  11. Be sure to enforce the everything has a place rule. Even adults don’t put things back sometimes, enforce this rule with the entire family as well as frequent guests to aid in keeping your home clean and organized with little to no clutter. Not just designating that home as I said above, but making sure the rule is enforced by everyone. 

By using these simple Ways to Cut Clutter in Your Home, your home will look more put-together and clean. As well, when it is time for a house cleaning – you don’t have to waste a lot of time de-cluttering if it’s done regularly. 

How often do you declutter your home?

 

 

15 Comments

  1. “Make a toy rule for your children”. – Right. One of my friends thinks that I’m too strict to impose that on my kids, that kids should be let to do what they want and play as they wish and clean up later and if she is the one to end up doing that (which is happening all the time, because her kid doesn’t bother with clean up too much) she genuinely doesn’t mind…

  2. First I do a cleaning every Sat morning from one floor to the upper. and yes even the pictures are cleaned. I do a clean out every month at the beginning of each. I start in a room and in the hall, I have two bags waiting to be filled. One for garbage and the other donate. As I am done in one room the bags get moved to the next! This work very well as the kids know if I see something on the floor or wherever it will find a home! I will put the bag of donate right in the car (this way nothing gets taken out of it!) The Soup Kitchen loves it when we dropped off great useful item as well as household products!

  3. With a family of six in a small house, I am decluttering daily. If I find myself picking up the same things over and over, they get ‘decluttered’! Thanks for the great tips!

  4. I do 2 good cleaning a year Spring and Fall one room at a time . I remove everything from the room wash down walls and scrub floor and return everything after it has been cleaned,anything i have not used recently nor want anymore is added to a donation basket.Less is better I no longer keep knick-knacks in my house to collect dust and dirt. Now a dusting and a mop over keeps everything in order till Spring

  5. I am so bad at this 🙁 Seems I get attached to stuff for some reason??! But it is true especially with kids toys!! Less is so much better.

  6. I just did a major purge before moving and love the new clutter-free place. I will continue to purge once per month, though.

  7. This is really great advice…I hate cleaning and breaking things down into steps is helpful!

  8. I find that donating to Diabetes or Kidney Foundation (they both pick up about once a month in my town) helps to keep clutter down. They take clothes and household goods, so I’m always purging.

  9. thank you for this article. I have 4 kids and a messy husband and I feel like its an every day fight to keep things arganized… sometimes I win, sometimes not lol

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