Decluttering is one of those tasks that you either love or you hate. But having a few decluttering hacks up your sleeve benefits everyone—whether you love or loathe the task.
Depending on your home, decluttering (in a normal fashion) can be a chore that takes either a few hours or a few weeks. And if it takes more than a few hours, it’s pretty easy to lose steam.
Besides, who has the time or the mental energy for weeks-long decluttering? We’ve got better things to do!
And even if you have the time, where do you begin?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set out to do a big declutter of my home, or even of one room, and I got so overwhelmed with not knowing how to start that I just ended up not starting at all.
So I figured out the little things that make decluttering feel less daunting, overwhelming, and time-consuming. And now, decluttering feels so simple!
If you want the decluttering hacks you can use to have a stress-free clean, here’s your guide!
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Decluttering hacks for your approach
How you go about your decluttering matters. So below I’ve outlined a few of the decluttering hacks that will help you feel less overwhelmed with getting started, which for most of us, is the hardest part!
Take it one drawer at a time
Or one cabinet, or basket, or shelf. Instead of committing yourself to ‘I’m going to declutter this entire room today’, pick a smaller task like ‘I’m going to declutter this drawer today’.
This feels waaaay less daunting, and chances are once you get done with that one drawer, you’ll keep going onto the next drawer.
But if you don’t feel like doing more drawers? That’s okay. You still accomplished something!
The corner method
Back in my college days, I remember looking around my first apartment, overwhelmed by the piles of stuff everywhere. All of the childhood items I’d moved with me along with the mounds of things I’d purchased with my newfound freedom and a desperate urge to decorate an apartment so it felt like mine.
Overwhelmed is actually an understatement. I desperately needed to declutter, but had absolutely no clue where to begin.
Then something in me just said “pick one corner”. So I did.
One corner at a time, I decluttered that little apartment. Something about doing it that way felt much more structured and controlled then just bouncing from area to area in the room.
So here’s what you do: pick one corner of one room, and work your way around. And if you only get one corner done today? You still got 25% of the room cleaned. Unless you have some weird 5+ cornered room, of course. 😄
The gradual declutter- one thing/day
Chances are you’re a pretty busy person. And you likely don’t have the time to declutter for 8 hours per day, every day.
So what do you do if you need to declutter A LOT, but don’t have the time to do that?
Answer: the gradual declutter.
If you have an ‘all or nothing’ mindset, this one might frustrate the heck out of you. But hear me out.
If you can take 15 or 30 minutes each day to declutter ONE THING, then you’re chipping away at the task without letting it overtake your schedule.
So here’s your action steps with this one:
Step 1: Take 30 minutes and walk around your house, writing down every little surface or storage vessel you see individually.
You can also do this on an app like Google Tasks so it’s in checklist format that you can easily check off. Here’s an example:
Step 2: Each day that you can spare 15-30 minutes, pick a task off your list and declutter that area! And if you have time to do more than one, great!
Using this method helps you make steady progress without getting overwhelmed or undertaking such a huge task.
Decluttering hacks for goal-oriented cleans
Sometimes the best way we can get ourselves to do something we need to do (but maybe don’t want to) is by setting goals. So let’s go over a few ideas for fun goals you can set for your decluttering sessions.
Set an item amount goal
If your reason for decluttering is more “I have too much stuff” and less about specific areas feeling overly cluttered, setting a goal like this can be a genius decluttering hack.
It takes the stress out of decluttering a bit, because you aren’t necessarily needing to go through every area of your home at once, you’re just trying to reach a goal for items to declutter.
Here’s how it works: You set a goal for how many items you’d like to declutter. So if you want to get rid of 50 things, you can go through your house and declutter until you find 50 things to say goodbye to.
You can of course do this a few different ways if you want. For example, if you have certain rooms with overwhelming clutter, then maybe you aim to get majority of your items from those rooms.
Or you can even set an item goal per room. Like 10 items from the bedroom, 10 from the kitchen, 5 from the living room, etc.
Set a time goal
A time goal is a simple concept that can make a big difference in our motivation levels when it comes to cleaning and decluttering.
And this doesn’t have to be crazy, like ‘declutter for 8 hours’. It can be simple and as small or large of a time amount as you’d like.
When we go into these tasks telling ourselves ‘today I need to declutter’, it can feel like an endless endeavor. I mean sometimes ‘today’ feels so long.
But saying ‘my goal is to declutter for 1 hour today’, feels much more attainable.
So figure out a time goal you have for yourself, even if it’s only 5 minutes, and work toward that.
And often, if we set a small goal, we’re likely to keep going even after that goal has been met.
The ‘days of the month’ declutter bingo.
This one is really fun. Here’s how it works:
There are roughly 30 days in each month. So every day for a month, you’re going to declutter, and for the amount of items you’re able to get rid of, you’ll mark off the day of the month with that number.
So if today you’re able to find 14 items to declutter, then you’ll mark off the 14th.
Then if tomorrow you declutter 3 items, you’ll mark off the 3rd.
The goal here is just to mark out every day of the month by the end of your 30 day period.
Some people do this where they start on the 1st of the month, and each day they’ll declutter the number of items of the day that it is (so on the 1st you would declutter 1 item, and on day 30, you’d declutter 30 items).
You can pick whichever method you’d prefer, but I think the ‘bingo’ way is a lot more fun and somehow feels like less pressure?
I’ve created a printable calendar you can download here for marking off your declutter items!
A monthly declutter challenge
If you want something more structured that guides you through decluttering your home (and life), then a monthly declutter challenge can be super helpful!
I’ve created a monthly declutter challenge for this very purpose.
In this free 30-day email challenge, you’ll get a short email each day with a simple action step of something to declutter.
And this even goes beyond your home- we’re also tackling decluttering outside of the home, our bags, our digital lives, and so much more. But we’re doing this in simple, actionable ways that don’t feel overwhelming.
If you want to join the challenge, which starts October 20, 2025, you can do that below!
Using the decluttering hacks we’ve talked about today, you’ll be on your way to a tidy home (without the stress) in no time.
Got any decluttering hacks of your own? Drop it in the comments for me and other readers!
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