How to Declutter Your Home Quickly (Without the Stress)

Ready to start decluttering your home and your life? Do you wonder, “What should I get rid of when decluttering?”

If you were to ask someone what their perfect home includes, they would most likely say they want to live in a home that looks neat and tidy, reflects their personality, and makes them feel warm and comfortable.

An inviting kitchen that feels bright and open. A clean and tidy bathroom that has a slight spa-like atmosphere. A peaceful bedroom that welcomes you back at the end of a long day. An organized closet makes picking your outfit for the day an effortless task.

But if your home currently doesn’t feel this way, how do you get there? How do you start decluttering when you feel like a hoarder?

In this beginner’s guide, you’ll learn how to declutter your home quickly and effectively so you can truly enjoy the time you spend in your space. It outlines the best approach to decluttering your home, includes room-by-room quick tips for cleaning out, and provides answers to some of the top questions about decluttering your home!

Want to clear the clutter in your home and reclaim your space? You’ll find everything you need right here! Let’s start!

Decluttering Your Home Reminders. For the reader to save for later.

Why Decluttering Your Home Is Worth It

Let’s be real. You already know your home would feel better with less stuff in it. But here’s what the research actually says about why decluttering your home matters beyond just aesthetics.

Clutter Keeps Your Stress Hormone Elevated

Studies have found a direct link between a high density of household objects and elevated cortisol levels, especially in women.

This decluttering and stress research confirms what most of us already feel: a cluttered home keeps your nervous system in a low-grade state of stress all day long. It’s not you being dramatic. It’s biology.

Your Brain Can’t Relax in a Cluttered Space

Princeton Neuroscience Institute research found that visual clutter actively competes for your attention, suppressing focus and draining mental energy. When every surface has something on it, your brain never fully gets to switch off. That’s why a tidy room genuinely feels like a breath of fresh air.

Decluttering Makes You Happier and More Productive

It’s not just about stress relief either. Research on the mental health benefits of decluttering from Utah State University found that clearing out clutter increases self-worth, builds healthier habits, and boosts productivity.

Less stuff means less to manage, less to clean, less laundry piling up, and more mental space to actually enjoy your home.

With the science of decluttering your home out of the way, let’s get started.

How do You Declutter Your Home

What does decluttering your home involve? How do you do it?

Decluttering is the process of removing unused and unwanted items from your space. It can be done monthly, semi-annually, or yearly, and with regular purging habits, you can really change the way your home feels.

Often, clutter accumulates in the form of clothing we no longer wear, old, broken, or excess household items, sentimental items, and even garbage.

Where to Start When Decluttering Your Home

There isn’t really a right place to start when it comes to decluttering. However, it is often easiest to start by decluttering areas that contain the least number of sentimental items. Especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed by clutter, you’ll need to build up momentum, and that can be hard if you start by trying to let go of old memorabilia.

The easiest place to start is in your kitchen, bathroom, or closets. You’ll be less emotionally attached to the items in those spaces, which will make it easier to let go. Once you’ve made it through some of these spaces, it will be easier to approach decluttering items with more sentimental value.

“Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor – it’s anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.” — Peter Walsh

What is the Best Approach to Decluttering?

To start decluttering your home, you’ll want to set up boxes that are labeled: sell, donate, trash. As you move through each area of your home, you’ll decide which items you will sell (Facebook Marketplace is hot right now!), donate (to local thrift stores), or throw away.

Selling your clutter is a great way to get motivated and can be really rewarding – you can sell anything from home décor to clothing to toys! Donating is the easiest and fastest way to get rid of clutter because you can drop off an entire trunk full of stuff in one afternoon and be done with it!

It’s also much better than tossing usable items in landfills. Try to throw out things that really can’t be used, like broken items, and remember to recycle paper!

Can You Declutter Your Home in One Day?

Yes! It is possible to effectively declutter your home in one day if you have a plan in place.

Grab some friends, pump up the tunes, and make it happen! By using the sell, donate, trash approach, you can easily move through each room of your home and reduce the clutter in your home.

Ready to start decluttering? Let’s go room by room with tips to help you declutter your home quickly.

“Cleaning and organizing is a practice, not a project.” — Meagan Francis

Beginner’s Guide to Decluttering Your Home (Room by Room)

#1. Decluttering Your Kitchen and Pantry

The kitchen is the heart of the home, and we spend much of our time here. Having a kitchen clear of clutter can really change the atmosphere and can allow you to relax as you make your morning coffee, grab a mid-day snack, and enjoy a family meal at the end of the day.

Here are some quick tips to help you declutter your kitchen:

Always start with a clean kitchen
Remove everything from one cupboard at a time and put items where you can see them, like on the counter
Select anything that is broken and throw it away
Decide what you want to donate and add to a donation pile
Empty out your pantry and food storage, throw out expired food, and donate what you don’t eat
Sell any kitchen gadgets and appliances you have not used in years
Decide what you want to sell, take pictures, and list right away
Put the remaining items back

Don’t you just enjoy cooking more and spending time in your kitchen when it’s tidy? A tidy kitchen might even save you from spending so much on takeout.

“I don’t have to declutter; I choose to declutter.” ― Lisa J. Shultz

#2. Clearing Out Your Bathroom

Bathrooms are prone to accumulating clutter in the form of excess products – remember when your favorite body wash went on sale? Keeping only what you will use and purchasing only when you need things will help keep your bathroom from becoming cluttered.

Here are a few easy ways to reduce clutter in your bathroom:

Always start with a clean bathroom
Remove everything from one cupboard at a time and put items where you can see them, like on the counter
Empty and rinse old product bottles and recycle if possible
Check for expiration dates on makeup (most makeup should be used within a designated time frame after opening)
Consider reusing towels that are ratty or have holes in them as rags
Donate excess hygiene or hair products (consider giving to your local women’s shelter)

Use cute baskets to organize your vanity and reward yourself for all the hard work with a candle-lit bath!

#3. Decluttering Your Bedroom

Got a junk drawer in your nightstand, or a pile of unopened shopping bags in your closet?

Bedrooms aren’t the worst offenders when it comes to clutter, but there are certainly some “hot spots” that clutter is known to gravitate toward.

Here are some simple ways to cut down on clutter in your bedroom:

Start by picking up your room – clothing on the ground, etc.
Go through your night table drawers, and only keep what you need close by at night
Use cute trays to organize small items on bedside tables and dressers
Hang up hooks for clothes that are too clean to wash but not clean enough to fold and put away
Don’t let clutter get away from you – commit to a quick 10-minute declutter once per week

To key to keeping your bedroom free from clutter is putting everyday items back where they belong at the end of the day.

Get in the habit of putting clothes right into the basket, or on a chair. Making your bed in the morning can also set an atmosphere of tidiness.

“Having a simplified, uncluttered home is a form of self-care.” — Emma Scheib

#4. Clearing Out Your Closet

While the closet is one of the easiest places to avoid decluttering (because you close it and it goes away), this also means it can be the easiest place for clutter to build up. There are so many great ways to declutter your closet, by doing large purges, but also by regularly assessing the items you have.

Take everything out of your closet and decide what gets to stay
Get rid of anything that no longer fits (if you lose or gain weight – go shopping)
Turn all hangers the opposite way. At the end of 6 months, donate any items that are still hanging that way
Sell higher-end and good-condition clothing you no longer wear
Only keep clothes you FEEL good in – stop yourself from wearing things that don’t make you feel amazing
Organize the clothing you have left by color

With your closet organized, you’re more likely to shop your closet in the future instead of spending. Plus, you might feel inspired to start a capsule wardrobe of the pieces you love.

“Owning less is better than organizing more.” ― Joshua Becker

#5. Tidying Up The Kids’ Toys

There’s no denying it, kids cause clutter. But that doesn’t mean you need to let toy clutter take over your home. Like every area of your home, toys also require regular decluttering to maintain a peaceful and happy home.

Here are some simple ways to reduce toy clutter:

Make sure your kids are on board with decluttering, especially if they are older
Consider using a toy rotation system to cut down on toy clutter
Limit the number of kids’ books you own and make regular trips to the library
Work at decluttering toys one room at a time (main living area, kids’ room, playroom)
Declutter old toys right after birthdays and Christmas, while kids are still excited about their new toys

Plus, teaching your kids to keep only what they use and love is a great life lesson. It’s also important to get the little ones involved in decluttering the home.

#6. Decluttering Sentimental Items

The hardest category to declutter is sentimental items. Why? Because we have an emotional attachment to them, and it often requires a lot of mental energy to sort through things that mean something to us.

Here are a few ways you can cut down on sentimental clutter:

For babies and weddings, keep a small shadow box to hold your keepsakes
Take pictures of things you want to remember, but don’t want to keep
Digitize photos, diplomas, certificates, and other sentimental papers
Limit yourself to one or two storage boxes for sentimental items

Remember that there’s a memory attached to every item that you have; even though you get rid of the item, you still have the memory.

If you’re struggling here, go read some Marie Kondo quotes to help you let go.

"The more things you own, the more they own you." — Unknown

Start Decluttering Your Home Today

You don’t need a free weekend, a label maker, or a Pinterest board to get started. You just need to start.

Pick one drawer. One shelf. One corner of one room. Set a timer for 15 minutes and see how far you get. The momentum from finishing even one small area is genuinely motivating, and before you know it, you’re moving on to the next.

Decluttering your home is a process, and it takes time and practice to learn how to do it effectively. Make it a habit to regularly purge areas of your home by setting up a donation box in your closet.

If you’re feeling too overwhelmed to know where to begin, this guide on how to start decluttering when overwhelmed will walk you through it step by step. And if clearing out your home sparks something bigger, it might be time to explore the benefits of minimalist living and what owning less could actually do for your life.

Either way, a cleaner, calmer home is closer than you think. You can also use the season as your push and spring clean your entire life while you’re at it.

It’s all you, boo.

How to Declutter Your Home Quickly (Without the Stress)

lydia, author of how to declutter your home quickly

More About the Guest Contributor

Lydia is passionate about helping others on their minimalism and personal growth journey and has created a blog to do just that. On her blog, Make Your Life Beautiful, you’ll find inspiration to simplify your life and become the best version of you!

Last Updated on April 15, 2026