How to Declutter Your House! Follow through with your New Year's Resolutions!

With the end of January approaching, this is the perfect time to discuss New Year's resolutions and follow through on them. Most people surrender their New Year's resolutions just 8 days into the new year. But not this year. This year, we are here to help you stick to one big daunting one: decluttering your home. Decluttering your home can feel impossible because of the size of the task, but we want to help you break it down so it seems more achievable. Whether you are decluttering a one-bedroom apartment or a six-bedroom house, these tips will help you find a starting point and make it less of an intimidating task.

There are a multitude of ways to go about decluttering your house, but we wanted to highlight a few that we think are winners.

The first is called the “Ski Slope Method”. This involves going room to room and moving side to side as you would on a ski slope. This helps you focus your energy on one area at a time and makes you finish one before you start on another.

Another method is breaking everything up into categories. Start by grabbing everything you have of one category, like jackets, and putting them all into one area. This allows you to see every option you have, and really puts into perspective what you need and what you don’t need. After you have gone through and gotten rid of what you have decided you don’t need, now it’s time to put it all back. Don’t just put everything back exactly where it was, because this creates the opportunity for more clutter. Come with a system to keep things organised. Once you finish one category, you can move on to the next. It’s important to fully finish one category before going to the next one, or else it all just becomes one mess and loses all organization. When you decide to get rid of something, fully take it out of your everyday life so you can’t see it. Leaving it somewhere you can see it all the time can make you rethink the decision to get rid of it. Different categories to declutter by include: clothes, books, magazines, toys, and technology-related items.

A slightly more fun approach to decluttering is called “The Minimalism Game.” This has recently become a trend on TikTok, and for good reason. The way it works is you get rid of a certain number of items depending on the day of the month. For example, if it’s the 15th, you would get rid of 15 items that day. Doing this method is an easy way to make it a daily task, and keeps you constantly getting rid of unnecessary items. To switch it up, you can put all of the days of the month into a hat and choose one each day.

Now you may be thinking, I have a method of how I’m going to declutter, but I still don’t know how to determine what to get rid of. Don’t worry, we have more tips for you! For any of the methods above, you can also use the Four Box Method. This involves having four boxes set up with the labels: keep, donate, sell, and throw away on them. Using the four-box method makes you have a decisive option on everything you go through and what you are going to do with it. If you find yourself putting most things in the keep box, you may need to re-evaluate everything and start again.

If you have a hard time deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, invite a friend! Having someone else there with you helps get a second option from someone who is not attached to random things. You may want to keep a shirt that has holes in it for sentimental value, but your friend can help you see that it is not worth keeping. It’s easy to want to keep things because of the memories we attach to them, but that doesn’t mean we should keep them.

After reading this blog, you may be so inspired and want to start decluttering your home right away, but it’s important to set a timeline first. Without a timeline, it can easily turn into a project you started and never finished. Your timeline should be specific to you and what you realistically have time for. If you are someone who has more free time in your day-to-day life, aim for a one-month plan. For the one-month plan, you’ll dedicate 20-30 minutes a day to one small portion, whether this be a drawer, closet, or something else. If you are someone who has some free time on the weekends, aim for a one-two month plan. This plan consists of decluttering one room a week. And if your schedule is constantly changing, and free time is scarce, aim for the two-three month plan. This includes focusing on one area every other week. Whichever timeline you go with, be intentional with the time you dedicate to decluttering. Put it on your calendar and to-do list to really commit yourself to finishing it.

Once you finish decluttering, it’s important that you set up systems to keep your home clutter-free. Make homes for everything within your house. Have a bowl next to the door for keys, and a basket for mail. Giving everything a home allows you to determine things you actually need. If you find something that doesn't have a home, you can either determine you don’t need it or find a home for it. A good rule of thumb to follow is that everything should have a space that has four walls. This helps keep items together and gets rid of clutter. Having these landing areas makes everyday tasks easier and helps you in the future if you declutter again. It’s also important to keep surfaces clean and commit to tidying them at the end of the day. While decluttering, you may determine you don’t have enough space for everything, and may need additional space. Storage units are a great way to help declutter your home, and here at ClearHome, we have options for every type of need.

Lastly, we have some tips to leave you with that will help you keep clutter out of your life after decluttering.

Create One Clutter-Free Space

Whether it’s a counter or a table, dedicate one space to always be clutter-free.

Make a Junk Box

Make a space for you to get rid of things that you can’t decide on. Put it in this box and hide it. If you go 30 days without thinking of the item, get rid of it.

Get Rid of Expired Things

There is no need to keep something that is expired, so go through a purge of your food and any beauty products. If something has expired, toss it.

Flip the Hangers in Your Closet

Flip all the hangers in your closet backwards. Every time you wear something, turn the hanger in the right direction. Give yourself a date, and by that time, anything that never got flipped, get rid of.

Buy With Intention

Going forward, don’t buy things with the mindset, “I’ll find a place for this”, buy it with the intention of putting it somewhere. Know where it’s going to live before you buy it.

We know that the thought of decluttering your whole home is a lot to process, but we hope with these tips and tricks, it seems more manageable. Start 2026 off on the right foot by getting after something you have been putting off for way too long!

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