Before starting my slow year, nothing made my heart race like emptying the dishwasher. I’d zoom around the kitchen stashing plates and utensils in their designated homes, only to get stopped in my tracks by an overflowing cabinet. There was never enough room for the last clean cup! If the hair on your arms just stood up, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But I’ll share the ultimate solution here and now: learn how to start decluttering.
It worked for me! My “jam-packed” anxiety symptoms went away when I gave myself permission to get rid of all the unnecessary things around my home.
Unfortunately, my overflow problems weren’t limited to the kitchen. My drawers and closets were overflowing with clothes, and my pantry was teeming with foods I’d never eat and cooking gadgets I’d never plug in.
What’s the deal with people (myself included) living among piles of hidden, forgotten belongings for longer than necessary? Of course, nobody wants to be wasteful! But the truth may reach even deeper than that… rooted tightly in a chaotic, fast lifestyle.
What Is Slow Decluttering?
Slow decluttering is different for everyone. Some start their decluttering journey in the kitchen, while others can’t picture life without their seldom-used, but favorite egg pan (even if it’s difficult to clean and doesn’t quite fit in their cabinets). You have to define your mess before you can explore how to start decluttering.
Your instinct might be to dive in and tackle every room in your home in one fell swoop. The quicker you declutter, the sooner you’ll feel better, right?
Absolutely not! Moving quickly to resolve your mess might make you feel in control for a short time but, sadly, that feeling of accomplishment won’t last forever. Rushing causes unnecessary mistakes—you’ll likely regret some of your rash decluttering decisions long-term.
On the other hand, slow decluttering gives you the chance to move at a sensible pace. You can look at each item in your home and decide if it still adds value to your life. If not, you get to research and decide where your once-loved and gently used items should go. Hopefully, you’ll find them a good home, which will make you feel much better about getting rid of them in the first place.
Why Is Knowing How to Start Decluttering Your Home Important for Slow Living?
Imagine embracing every other aspect of a slow and healthy lifestyle, but falling asleep next to a pile of books that don’t fit on the shelf. (Maybe that’s what you’re doing now! Hey, I’ve been there.)
Clutter is a disturbance, to say the least. When you know how to start decluttering your home, your slow life takes on more meaning—with a clear, unobstructed vision.
Clutter Causes Stress…Which Is Not Conducive to a Slow Lifestyle
It’s simple: the more stuff you have, the more stuff you need to think about. But you want to reserve your thoughts for the most important things in your life, like your health, family, and passions. Excess clutter doesn’t fit into any of those superior categories!
The very essence of slow living is to be strategic and purposeful. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a perfect slow living motto! You have to eliminate “the small stuff” from view to live slowly and meaningfully.
When I began my slow lifestyle journey, learning how to start decluttering was pivotal to my success. I gave myself plenty of time to assess my surroundings. It didn’t take long to realize which items in my home were truly important and which caused me unnecessary stress and headaches.
It Helps You Be More Mindful at Home
Once you discover how to start decluttering, weighing the value of the items you live with becomes part of your daily routine. It influences everything, from how you shop to how you organize the things in your closets.
For example, I used to load my online shopping carts with the ultimate, trendy purchases. I felt the constant urge to try new things, only to discover I didn’t like them. The result? A home that was overly crowded with mostly unusable items.
After decluttering my home the first time, I gained a new perspective on what constituted something important and necessary, versus a fleeting curiosity. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy some temporary oddities now and then, like a back scratcher shaped like a long pencil or a hand-lotion warmer. (Hey! I had to see for myself.)
Now I recognize when the period of enjoyment has ended. I get rid of things more readily by passing them on to friends or organizations. Or, I rotate them to the back of my closet to resurrect another day!
Knowing How To Start Decluttering Your Home Will Free Up Energy For Your Passions
With a designer fork and hand-embroidered napkin from Etsy off your plate (unless you adore those things!), you’re free to better enjoy your food, stare out the window at a gorgeous view, or plot your spring garden ventures. Less clutter yields more energy and focus for the things you love.
Picture this: you’re unwinding on your couch at the end of the day. You love to sketch and the best idea just popped into your mind for a drawing! Excitedly, you rush over to your end table to grab some paper and colored pencils, tripping over unworn shoes and pet toys along the way. But your end table is cluttered with coffee cups and old magazines—you can’t find what you need, so you return to the couch empty-handed.
Unfortunately, we all grow tired of sifting through our brains and our actual clutter. It’s hard to focus your enthusiasm on the things you truly care about with a million little obstacles in the way.
Whether your passion is drawing, cooking, reading, or yet to be discovered, you can’t possibly get the most out of it with stuff in your way.
Slow Decluttering Is Easy to Maintain as You Transition to Slow Living
What better time to declutter than right now? You’re already invested in the process of a slow year (welcome!), so you know you’ll be able to slowly maintain the items in your home with the skills you’re learning.
Figuring out how to start decluttering lends itself to your lifestyle transformation. The odds of you letting clutter get the better of you again are slim to none! And if piles of overflow sneak up on you sometime in the future, you’re acquiring the tools you need to tackle them slowly and strategically.
Living without clutter becomes a way of thinking and being. You’ll get used to experiencing each day with an appreciation for the things you need—that bring you joy or satisfaction. When you come across something unimportant, you’re more likely to recognize it and move past it.
Related: How to Start Your Slow Living Journey: 12 Simple Steps You Can Take Now
It Gives You Space to Consider How Each Item Fits Into Your Slow Life
You’ve heard it here the most: slow and steady wins the race. Organizing your home is no different.
Figuring out how to start decluttering slowly is far better than jumping in hastily, urgently, or frantically. After all, you don’t want to throw away or donate things you’ll regret living without. This ultimately builds a poor relationship with organization and resentment for the process of decluttering.
Slow down! Slowness leaves room to make good decisions about your stuff and correct mistakes before they’re too far gone. At one point or another, every item in your home was something important, interesting, or necessary for your survival. It would be foolish to discard any of them in the blink of an eye, without any consideration.
Decluttering is really about identifying the things you’ve outgrown and making a strategic plan for their next destination. When you plan at a steady pace, you’re better able to explore solutions that make you feel good, and ensure you’re truly done with the items you’re passing along.
If something you find has been dormant simply because it went missing amidst other rubbish, you have the option to put it aside until you can figure out a more logical storage location. There will be loads more room to choose from when the unnecessary clutter subsides.
How to Start Decluttering Your Home Slowly
I know how it feels to start a colossal project when your days are full and you’re already spread thin. But decluttering your home is actually fairly simple… when you do it slowly. Keep your eyes on the prize (which is a slow, more purposeful lifestyle) and you’ll be done before you know it.
This is the right place to figure out how to start decluttering!
Start With Just a Few Minutes or a Few Items a Day
Don’t look at your whole house at once—even a whole room is too much, too fast. You run the risk of skipping over important items to declutter, or removing things you actually need when you bite off more than you can chew.
Knowing how to start decluttering begins with one secret, simple strategy: do it one piece at a time. (It’s like taking baby steps.) If you see an item that’s in your way, expired, or useless, set it aside in a box or bag for removal! It’s that easy.
You don’t have to stop your life or interrupt your daily momentum by clearing out entire closets or shelves every day. This can make more mess and chaos than you were previously living with and create unnecessary frustration.
Instead, set aside five minutes to find a handful of items to get rid of (more or less) before you go to bed at night. You may be surprised… it adds up pretty quickly!
No More “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”
If you want to figure out how to start decluttering, you have to stop hiding your unwanted things. There are no secret nighttime waste-removal trolls who clean out under the bed, in the back of the closet, or behind your sofa when you’re not looking.
The mess stays where you put it—waiting for you to deal with it!
Put an empty box in the areas of your home that catch the most clutter: inside your closet, on your bathroom counter, by your dresser. See something you don’t want, need, or use (but is still in good condition)? Toss it in the box to donate. You could even challenge yourself to add one item to the donation bin every time you’re next to it.
If you’re unsure about something, try putting it out in the open for a few days. Let it sit in the corner beside the donation box for a while. The constant reminder will help you decide if you want to find a new place for it or donate it with the rest of the box.
Simply creating the rule “no more hiding” works wonders for your decluttering mindset.
Let Go as You Go
Whether you decide to let a basket, box, or bag fill each week (or just collect items in your car day after day), be sure to actually get rid of things as you declutter. The garage or the back of your car is no place to store your troubles!
Keep the ball rolling. There are a few things you can do with your unwanted items:
- Give them away to friends and family (be sure you ask if they want them first!)
- Donate to a charity. Some organizations offer to pick things up from your address and others have drop-off stations around your community. It’s quick and easy no matter which route you choose.
- Sell them! Host a garage sale or post valuable treasures on an auction website. I only recommend this avenue for the things you know are worth a lot of money. Otherwise, the time is hardly worth it.
- Throw away or recycle things that are broken or useless (if you don’t want them, why would anyone else?)
You may be surprised how your chosen methods of letting go become part of your routine. And don’t worry about the time it takes to plan and execute each removal. As long as you keep up the forward momentum, slow is best.
Move At Your Own Pace
The second that decluttering begins to feel stressful or burdensome, take a break. Leave it for a day or two and come back to it when you’re ready.
Decluttering has loads (laundry loads!) to do with your relationship to the items in your home. If you start to feel rushed or overwhelmed, your perspective toward different items will change. You might end up throwing away things you actually still want, then regret it later.
For example, an old photo album that seldom gets looked at might feel like a waste of space in the heat of a stressful decluttering moment. But later on (when the pressure’s off) you may realize how precious those photographs are.
Better to take the time you need to process every decision!
Shift Your Perspective
Have you ever noticed how much you don’t notice when you walk through your home? Random piles, stuffed cabinets, and overflowing drawers become a normal background when you pass them day after day.
You can shed light on your mess by pretending you’re someone else or somewhere else. Look at your space as if you’re a new friend visiting for the first time, or like it’s a vacation home you just walked into. Then, it may seem odd when so many surfaces are covered with stuff! You’re better able to notice and address things that are out of place.
Plus, you’ll be more enthusiastic about clearing away excess and making your environment more welcoming once you let yourself see the clutter through someone else’s eyes.
Take Time to Think Carefully About Each Item
Think back to when each item you have first entered your home. Was it a gift you felt too guilty to return or exchange? Did you purchase it thinking it would get tons of use, but you never took it out of the packaging?
Remembering why you have an item (and your early intentions for it) can help you decide if you want to hold onto it or pass it along. It also helps to illustrate how readily available a replacement item is if you need another one down the line.
The good thing is, most items are totally replaceable. You can feel at ease with the decision to get rid of small things, knowing you can always get another one if you miss it.
But other items are irreplaceable, like an old t-shirt from your childhood or a lamp your grandfather made. Those things deserve deeper consideration! The answer might not be to get rid of it—even if it sticks out like a sore thumb. Instead, think about how you can incorporate it into your life differently.
Related: 10 Best Daily Habits to Help You Start Living More Intentionally
Ask for Help When You Need It
We’re all familiar with that Hollywood movie scene: a bunch of friends or loved ones sitting on a couch, holding up “keep” or “trash” signs as the lead character tries on every outfit in their closet. Looks like fun, doesn’t it?
Some members of your inner circle probably know a thing or two about how to start decluttering. Why not slow down, make things a little more fun, and invite them over to weigh in on your process?
Extra opinions can be especially helpful when you’re faced with tough decisions. Think: a family heirloom you might pass onto another relative or clothes you like but don’t love.
Remember, you don’t have to do what your friends say! But sometimes it’s helpful to hear another voice besides the one in your head.
Give Yourself a Trial Period
If you rate all of the items in your home on a 1 to 10 scale (1 being “not important” and 10 being “can’t live without”), the things that fall between 4 and 6 are likely hard to sort. For most items, it will be obvious whether or not you should get rid of them. But those “on the fence” articles require a little extra time.
Allow yourself a modestly-sized “maybe” pile when figuring out how to start decluttering. Give yourself a few months to prove if they’re useful or not!
But beware… not everything belongs in this category. It’s crucial you keep moving forward with your decluttering process so you can enjoy a chaos-controlled lifestyle sooner. Those things that land low or high on the “importance scale” need to be put away or removed immediately.
Switch Directions
Once upon a time, my home was cluttered and my brain was usually overwhelmed! But I was still organized about certain things. For example, I was always very particular about the direction of books on my bookshelf—spines facing out and all letters oriented the same way.
Can you relate? Use those organizational patterns to sort things you use a lot from things you barely touch (in case you can’t already tell). Switching the direction of certain items saves time and space as you’re sorting.
The system works for books, cups, hangers, shoes, and anything else that sits uniformly in storage. Change the direction of items after you use them(flip a cup right-side-up or put a book away backward) to demonstrate when it’s been used.
Time will tell what’s useful and what’s just taking up space. And don’t worry! Once you’ve decluttered, you can put everything away how you like again. Phew!
Be Purposeful With Each Room
Certain things belong in each room of any home. Yes, only you can make the right decision about what goes where in the place you live. But following certain norms can help you identify things that need to be decluttered.
For instance, if you want to know how to start decluttering your living room, begin by removing items that belong in the kitchen or bedroom so you can see more clearly.
Trust me, I’m not attacking your morning routine! I want you to enjoy a cup of coffee on the couch in your bathrobe. I’m only suggesting you bring your cup back to the kitchen and robe back to your bedroom before trying to organize what’s left: the stuff that actually belongs in the living room.
We’re all guilty of mixing up each room’s contents now and then. Just take a few minutes to weed out the things that don’t belong so you can clearly see what there is to work with in each space!
When you figure out how to start decluttering your home, you unlock the key to a healthy, less chaotic lifestyle. Imagine walking through your front door without distraction or dread—and nothing lost or hidden in the mess.
It’s no secret that you think more clearly when your views are unobstructed. You’ll be able to tap into different parts of your mind and soul once your home is organized and free from excess.
