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Eliminating surface clutter in your whole house can reduce stress, increase feelings of peacefulness, and improve the visual esthetic of your home. Learn how to declutter your house in one day. All it takes are the right tools, mindset, and a little planning.
I buzzed by, struggling to ignore it.
It was no use. I could see the peak from the corner of my eye. Still and silent, it seemed even taller than I remembered.
Dread crushed down on my chest. My head fizzled with bewildered stress.
They say faith can move mountains. In that moment, I wasn’t exactly feeling the faith.
More like frustration and disappointment over the fact that I STILL hadn’t managed to move Mount Clutter.
Why Whole-House Decluttering is a Good Idea
Research shows that clutter contributes to stress, anxiety, guilt, embarrassment, and frustration. It can even make you chronically late!
How would your home and life be different if you eliminated surface clutter throughout your entire house? If your kitchen countertops were clear? If your dining room table hadn’t given rise to Mount Clutter, like mine used to?
You’d feel more relaxed. You’d enjoy your home more. And maybe, just maybe, you’d make it to work on time because you could actually find your shoes.
Eliminating surface clutter in your whole house can reduce stress, increase feelings of peacefulness, and improve the visual aesthetic of your home.
With the right tools, mindset, and a little planning, you can declutter your home fast in one day.
Oh, by the way… decluttering is a whole lot easier with my free Whole Home Decluttering Checklist! You can grab your copy by signing up for my free weekly household management emails. As a subscriber, your get free access to my resource library, which is where the Whole Home Decluttering Checklist lives!
The Goal of Whole-House Decluttering
When thinking about how to declutter your house in one day, you should have one goal in mind: To clear surface clutter and eliminate any low-hanging fruit.
- Surface clutter consists of items that are out in the open and are not where they belong.
- Low-hanging fruit are items that you can easily identify as trash, things that belong somewhere else, or things you want to get rid of.
What the Goal ISN’T
There are a few things you definitely shouldn’t try to do when planning how to declutter your house in 1 day.
Cleaning
As you declutter, you might notice dust bunnies whisping around, or layers of grime underneath clutter. I recommend waiting to deep clean until after your whole-house decluttering is done. Otherwise, you’ll get sidetracked and as a result, you won’t be able to finish decluttering.
Until you have a chance to deep clean, you can use some quick fixes to make your house feel clean. Once you’ve deep cleaned, you can keep it that way using my 30-minute daily cleaning checklist, or create your own custom home cleaning plan.
Organizing
Decluttering is the goal, and organizing your house is a process in and of itself. Resist the urge to start reorganizing things while you’re decluttering. Otherwise, you’ll get distracted with organizing. As a result, you won’t finish decluttering the rest of the house.
Deep Purging
Surface decluttering definitely doesn’t include going through ALL of your stuff (i.e., opening every box in your basement, going through all of your Christmas decorations, etc). That kind of deep purging works best after surface decluttering, and on a room-by-room basis.
Resist the urge to deep purge while decluttering your house. Otherwise, you’ll spend a bunch of time on one room and won’t be able to move on to decluttering other areas of your home.
Purging and Organizing Clothing
Purging and organizing clothing is an involved process that usually takes time to do well. I recommend tackling your wardrobe on a different day. That being said, you can take some steps to declutter your closet. They’re included below.
How to Get Ready to Declutter Your House in One Day
When it comes to decluttering your whole house fast, a little prep goes a long way. In addition to gathering supplies, you should mentally prepare for decluttering.
Gather Supplies
- Gather and label boxes or trash bags for sorting items
- Trash (Optional additional box/bag for recycle)
- Keep/relocate
- Donate
- Optional additional category for “give to someone else”
- Staging/temporary storage for keep/relocate items that don’t have a home
- Repair
- Grab a timer so you don’t spend too much time in one room
Create a Plan for Donations
- Contact a local thrift store such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army for information on when, where, and how to donate items. Some organizations will even pick donations up from your house.
- Schedule donation drop-off or pick-up in your planner as soon as possible. You might even want to place items you’re donating in your car after your finish decluttering. As a result, you can easily donate your items the next time you’re near a thrift store or donation drop-off location.
Prepare Mentally to Declutter
- Understand that you’ll be getting rid of anything you don’t use, need, or love
- Wear comfortable clothes and shoes
- Turn on your favorite playlist, pull up a podcast, download an audio book, or listen to a favorite funny movie in the background (Don’t get distracted by watching it!)
Tips for How to Declutter Your House In One Day
I sound like a broken record, but remember that the goal is to eliminate surface clutter and low-hanging fruit. The goal is not to organize or deep purge your whole house. If it isn’t lying out and you don’t have easy access to it, skip it and schedule a deep purge day.
Move Quickly
You should aim to spend a maximum of 30 minutes on each room/area. Set a timer on your phone, or grab a portable kitchen timer. Once the 30 minutes are up, OR you’ve taken care of all the surface clutter and low-hanging fruit, it’s time to move on.
If you find that you’re spending a full 30 minutes on each room, you might need to decide if you’re straying away from the goal of clearing surface clutter and low-hanging fruit.
Do you find yourself trying to organize or deep purge? If so, keep yourself in check and try to move more quickly.
Categorize Clutter
As you move through your house, you’ll sort items into different categories.
- Trash (and/or recycle) – Actual trash, plus items that are unusable and unrepairable.
- Keep/Relocate – Items you don’t plan to get rid of, but that don’t belong in the room where you found them.
- Donate – Items you no longer use, need, or love, and that are still in good condition.
- Put Away – As you declutter, put away the items you’re keeping, and that belong in the room you’re decluttering.
In addition to the 4 categories above, there are some optional additional categories. Since we’re only going for surface decluttering and low-hanging fruit, you might not need these additional categories.
- Give to Someone Else – If you have things you know a friend or family member would like to have, you can set those items aside. This will probably be rare.
- Repair – If you have items you need to repair, you can set them aside. But, only do so if you truly want the item, and truly intend to have it repaired.
Order of Decluttering
The order of room-by-room decluttering listed below is designed to start out fairly easy, then tackle clutter-prone areas with easier areas in between. You don’t have to follow this order, and you can add or remove rooms as needed.
Declutter Room By Room
Hall Closet/Coat Closet
- Trash: Broken umbrellas, shoes caked in mud
- Keep/Relocate: Out-of-season outerwear and shoes (i.e., snow boots in winter or flip flops in summer); excess shoes and outerwear – depends on how you organize; I generally allow 1 pair of sandals and 1 pair of closed shoes per person; the rest can be stored in his/her closet etc; out-of-season items (Pool bag in winter, etc)
- Donate: Ill-fitting or out-of-style outerwear; outerwear that you don’t use, need, or love
- Put Away: Place the outerwear that’s left on hangers; arrange shoes and other items neatly
Kitchen
Focus mostly on the flat surfaces in your kitchen, such as the table and countertops. If your kitchen cabinets aren’t extremely cluttered, you can take 5 minutes or so and check for expired items.
- Trash: Old/expired food that is sitting out
- Keep/Relocate: Family members’ personal items – the things they tend to leave on the kitchen counter; bills and other mail/paperwork; quickly sort and corral these items into a few neat stacks or baskets, if needed; shred any sensitive items like credit card offers, if you have time; dirty dishes, gadgets, appliances you want to keep but don’t want sitting out
- Donate: Gadgets and appliances you no longer want; food that isn’t expired, but that you probably won’t use
- Put Away: Dirty dishes, gadgets/tools, food, spices/seasonings, out-of-season décor
Living Room
- Trash: Old newspapers, used coloring books, puzzles or games with many missing pieces, broken toys
- Keep/Relocate: Family members’ personal belongings, extra toys, extra books you plan to keep
- Donate: Books, movies, toys, games, and décor you no longer use, need, or love
- Put Away: Toys, magazines, books, movies, games, out-of-season décor
Dining Room
If your dining room table has become a dumping ground, keep your focus there. Declutter as much as you can in 30 minutes.
- Trash: Old candles, dingy/stained table linens, old paperwork on the table (Again, shred papers with personal info)
- Keep/Relocate: Anything on the dining room table that isn’t décor or isn’t needed for another necessary task (i.e., if you work on your laptop at the dining room table, etc)
- Donate: Décor you no longer love, linens in good condition you no longer love, dishes you no longer use/need/love
- Put Away: Linens you would like to keep, specialty dishes not currently in use (such as a gravy boat, fine china, etc), out-of-season décor
Linen closet
- Trash: Ratty, stained, or worn towels and bed linens; expired bath and body products; old cleaning supplies; any trash that may be present (Such as plastic wrapping from toilet paper packs)
- Keep/Relocate: Cleaning supplies that would be better stored elsewhere
- Donate: Towels and bed linens you no longer use/need/love, useable bath and body products you no longer use/need/love
- Put Away: Items sitting outside of their designated boxes, baskets, or shelves; re-fold towels if they’re un-folded
Bathrooms
- Trash: Expired or empty bath/body products, expired or empty makeup and nail polish bottles, empty toilet paper rolls, broken or moldy bath toys; old or soiled cleaning supplies (including plungers and toilet cleaning wands)
- Keep/Relocate: Excessive products, such as toilet paper, extra bath/body products, extra towels that could be better stored elsewhere (i.e., could you move those items to a linen closet for storage?), family members’ personal belongings
- Donate: Useable bath/body products you no longer use/need/love; hair styling tools you no longer use
- Put Away: Dirty towels, bath/body products sitting out on counter, bath toys
Bedrooms
Set a goal to clear the tops of your dresser, bedside tables, and the floor.
- Trash: Any trash present
- Keep/Relocate: Family members’ personal belongings
- Donate: Décor you no longer use/need/love
- Put Away: Clean laundry, dirty laundry, any other wardrobe clutter, anything else that doesn’t belong
Storage Areas (Basement, Attic, Other Closets)
Again, resist the urge to do a deep purge or start organizing. The goal today is to clear surface clutter. You can purge and organize another day. The decluttering you do now will make it easier to deep purge and organize later.
- Trash: Empty cardboard boxes, newspaper, other packing materials, broken items that can’t be repaired, old product boxes
- Keep/Relocate: Décor you’d like to use,
- Donate: Anything sitting out that you no longer use/need/love. Again, resist the urge to start going through boxes. Address surface clutter only.
- Put Away: Anything sitting out in the open. You might have lots of things that don’t really have a particular home, and that’s okay. Group like items together and line them up along the walls so there is space to move and walk. For example, group the Christmas décor together, out-of-season clothes together, Halloween décor, and so on.
Clothes Closets
I recommend going through your clothing on another day. Deep closet purging and organization are an entirely different project. Focus on surface decluttering for now, like we’ve done in the rest of the house.
- Trash: Tissue paper, shopping bags, shipping boxes, price tags
- Put Away: Pick up and hang or fold items that are on the floor or draped elsewhere; neatly line shoes up on the floor
Decluttering Wrap-Up
- Remove all trash from inside your house (Or place it wherever you keep it until trash collection day)
- Put away all keep/relocate items in their proper home, or place in a temporary storage container if they don’t yet have a home
- Place donations in your car or inside the door to your home
- Drop off donations as soon as possible
- If necessary, repair items you planned to keep, and deliver items you planned to give to friends/family
- Create good habits to declutter regularly going forward
How to Declutter Your House in One Day: Conclusion
Clearing surface clutter is important for mental well-being. It’s also an important first step for bigger projects down the road, such as deep purging and organizing.
Here’s a summary of the tips and ideas I shared today.
- Prepare to declutter by gathering at least 4 boxes or trash bags to sort items. There are 4 main sorting categories, but you might need more than 1 box or bag for each.
- Prepare mentally by pledging to get rid of surface clutter and low-hanging fruit (Things you can easily access and easily make a decision on) that you don’t use, need, or love.
- Sort surface clutter and low-hanging fruit into 4 categories – trash, keep/relocate, donate, and put away. Take care of “put away” items as you declutter the room you’re in.
- Focus on surface decluttering. Avoid getting sucked into organizing or deep purging your house, and don’t spend longer than 30 minutes on each room.
- Remove trash and donations as soon as possible after you finish decluttering.
- Declutter regularly from here on out.
With a little planning and a focus on clearing clutter and eliminating low-hanging fruit, it’s possible to declutter your house in one day. Have you ever spent an entire day decluttering? Where is the biggest Mount Clutter in your home? Let me know in the comments below!
Want even more helpful cleaning and organizing tips for working women? Join the ShowMe Suburban community and learn simple habits and routines to keep your home clean and organized, so you can relax away from work without feeling the stress of a messy home. Sign up below and grab your free copy of my Whole Home Decluttering Checklist printable inside my Resource Library!