How To Declutter Fast

How to declutter fast

Here is the best advice on how to declutter a room fast!  It can be done, and I am going to give you some actionable steps to take right now.

I have decluttered my entire home and helped many others declutter their homes.

A lot of decluttering can be accomplished in 30 minutes!  If you follow these steps you will be able to declutter a room quickly and easily.

How do you Declutter a Room Quickly?

If you only have 30 minutes to declutter you need to be focused and prepared.  Pick ONE room you want to declutter.  Don’t try to declutter more than one room in 30 minutes.

This will only dilute the time you have.

Start by turning off all distractions.

Put your phone on silent, turn off the TV and music.  Think of this as a job that you are getting paid for.

Make sure you are wearing clothes that you can move around in.

With the tips, I am about to share you can easily declutter a room in 30 minutes.

me declutter

In this video, I am talking about how to help someone declutter.  These steps helped to transform my friend’s room from cluttered to organized and clutter-free.

Be Prepared to Purge Your Room

Start with a large trash bag.  Since I have no idea what your room looks like I am suggesting you remove all trash first.

Fill the trash bag as quickly as possible and remove the trash bag.  This way you will have more room to move around.

Remove any dishes or cups that might be sitting around.  This will make it a lot easier to see what you normally have in the room.

 

Basket Declutter Technique

Get a basket and start filling it with everything that does NOT belong in this room.  Run through the room and throw everything that is not meant to be in this room into the basket.

Do not worry about where these items go!

Remember you are on a time crunch.  You are just grabbing everything that is not meant to be in here.

Once everything is gathered into the basket, take it out of the room.  You can go through these items later and decide where they go.

Clear The Floor and Surfaces

Grab another laundry basket.  Pick up all the dirty laundry.  If you don’t have any dirty laundry in your room then you are ahead of the game.

Any dirty clothes are most likely something you want to keep.  How do I know this?

You just wore these items because they are dirty, so 9 times out of 10 you are going to keep these clothes.

Take the clothing basket out of the room to be washed later.  

Before and after kitchen declutter photos

Declutter a room in 30 Minutes Flat

As you re-enter the room, this time I want you to scan the room.  Standing in one place, take a minute or so and look around the room.

Search for obvious things that you know you don’t want.  Look on every surface.  Check out the dressers, coffee tables, or counters.

 

GO for the easy items that you have been thinking of getting rid of for a while.

 

Maybe you have 5 frames on your dresser, but 2 of them you never really liked.  We use to have 2 toasters! Look for duplicate items that you know you only need one of.

Anything broken or with missing parts can go right away without a second thought.

Grab the obvious items that you have never liked or don’t use.  Look at every surface area in the room.  What can you live without?

 

Decluttering Without Distractions

Make sure you don’t get held up on one item or distracted while decluttering.  Remember we are decluttering this room in 30 minutes!

Sometimes when I am helping someone declutter they will get stuck on one particular item.

If you feel yourself getting stuck for more than a minute trying to decide on something, just set it down.  You can always come back during another burst of decluttering to rethink it.

Try to avoid sentimental items during this fast decluttering session.  Decluttering sentimental items can take a long time and right now you are trying to finish in half an hour.  If you need help decluttering sentimental things check out my how-to declutter sentimental items post.

Now that you have found all the obvious items remove them from the room.  Remember you are sorting later.

 

Deep Decluttering

Now you are going to dive in and declutter everything else in the room.  Please take this advice because it is really important!

Start on one side of the room and work your way around the room.  This is very important because once you start digging through drawers it can get confusing.  It will also save time because you won’t have to walk back and forth tripping over everything.

Another great reason to start on one side of the room and work your way around is you will see where you left off in case you run out of time.

As you finish one section move to the right of that section and this way you will know you are not leaving any area out.

 

Declutter a Room in 30 Minutes, but stay ORGANIZED

Make sure you have a box, basket, or trash bag.  Pick what side of the room you are starting on and go top to bottom, again this will help in case you get interrupted.

Open a drawer or cupboard and analyze which option would work faster for you.

Declutter option one; leave everything in the drawer or cupboard and just pull out the obvious things you don’t need.

Decluttering option two; dump the drawer out and then sort through the pile.

Remember you are NOT sorting the items into the trash, donating, or selling, you are just putting all these items in the box to be taken out of the room.  All the sorting should happen later when you have more time.

 

Declutter Option One Example:

Let’s say I have a cupboard full of bulky sweaters that are stacked in a way that I can see them all.  In this case, I would use declutter option one.

I would leave all the sweaters in the cupboard and just pull out the ones I know I never wear and don’t want.

 

Declutter Option Two Example:

Now if I have a drawer that is very messy with a ton of little items that can’t be seen easily I would use declutter option two.

I would simply dump out the drawer and quickly pull out everything that I don’t need or want.  Returning everything I want to keep back to the drawer.

As you make your way around the room decluttering make sure you are returning all the items you want to keep right back to where you found them.

 

What Should I Declutter

As you are questioning what should be decluttered ask yourself a few questions.

When was the last time I used this item?  Do I really like this thing or is it just here taking up space?

One thing I did when we first decluttered was to get rid of any duplicate items or things that were given to us, but we rarely used it.  Try not to keep things out of guilt, just because someone handed something down to you does not mean you have to keep it.

 

Remove The Clutter

It is very important to remove the clutter that you don’t want from the room.  There are a few reasons for this.

First, you will have more room to get around and do more decluttering.  Secondly, you will see the open space in the room.

It’s very rewarding to see the room looking clean and clutter-free and it can be the motivation you need to finish decluttering quickly.

 

Don’t Organize YET

Organizing right now is only going to waste your decluttering time.  As I mentioned before, just put everything you want to keep back where it came from.

There are a few reasons you don’t want to organize as you go.  It slows you down.  At this point, you want to finish decluttering the room.

Another important reason to wait to organize is you might have a lot more space than you did before.  Maybe you even decluttered some furniture so everything could get switched around.

Wait to organize until you are done with your 30-minute clutter purge.

 

Wait to Clean

It can be so tempting to clean while you are in the decluttering process.  Again stopping to clean will slow this process down and it is much easier to stay on track by sticking with only decluttering.

You might want to move or declutter some furniture so again it would pay to wait on the cleaning so you don’t have to do it all again.

Batch working saves time and energy.  Focus all your energy on the decluttering process and then later you can focus all your energy on the cleaning process.

 

Don’t Forget to Declutter the Furniture

So many times we declutter everything inside our furniture and we forget to ask if we need all the furniture we have.  Once you have decluttered everything in your room decide if you still need all your furniture.

In a lot of cases, furniture will become unnecessary once you have decluttered everything that it once held.  The quickest way to get a room looking clutter-free is to have fewer bulky items in the room.

After I decluttered every room in my home I realized we didn’t need all the furniture we had.  I ended up selling a lot of the furniture which helped my home look clutter-free and we made some money.

 

Time to Sort Your Clutter

Now that you have decluttered your room in 30 minutes it’s time to sort the clutter.  This is easy and goes by pretty fast.  Sort the piles into donating, selling, or recycling.

When it comes to selling things I like to follow a few rules I set up for myself.  If I can’t sell it for $20 or within 2 weeks I donate the item.  The space in my home is too important to hold onto things hoping one day they will sell.

Try to get rid of the clutter as quickly as possible, this way you can reap the benefits of a clutter-free room.

 

Decluttering Gets Easier

If this is your first time decluttering do not feel surprised if you think 30 minutes flew by.  Decluttering is like a muscle the more you do it the easier it becomes.

This is why I always suggest looking for the obvious things to declutter and saving the sentimental items for last.

By getting rid of the obvious clutter you are working your decluttering muscle.  Things that were overwhelming to declutter at the beginning of the process will seem much easier with time a practice.

Set your timer and use the steps above.  If you run out of time write a note so you can remember where you left off.  The next time you have 30 minutes to declutter pick up right where you left off.

I hope you were able to declutter a room in 30 minutes with this quick decluttering advice.  Here is a similar article that goes over how to do quick clutter sweeps for every room in your home

 

I would love to help you Declutter!  Cleaning and organizing the same area over and over might be a sign that you need to declutter.

Check out The Declutter Your Home Minicourse This e-book includes easy-to-follow instructions to get your home clutter-free and organized.

This is the perfect course for you if:

  • Are tired of overflowing closets and drawers.
  • Sick of searching all day for missing items.
  • Can’t figure out why your home never stays tidy for long.

declutter course

If you need direction and motivation to start on your decluttering journey check out The Declutter Your Home Minicourse!

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HOW TO DECLUTTER YOUR HOME FAST

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