My House is so Cluttered I don't know where to start (..Declutter 80% in 4hrs!)

Completely decluttering your entire home takes months, sometimes years.

It’s a slow, frustrating and emotional process …but it’s also one of the most rewarding and worthwhile things we can do for our home, family, and ourselves.

Imagine it as a marathon – slow and steady (here’s how to get started if you feel overwhelmed, and then how to declutter every room in your home)

But what if I told you that you could cheat a little to skip ahead in the process?

This post will teach you how to de-clutter 80% of your mess in just a few hours.

Imagine this as a sprint – speedy and sweaty!

If you’re ready to make big changes in a short amount of time, you’re in the right place.

It’s going to be intense, so do some stretches and stay hydrated!

Playing the Rocky theme tune on repeat is optional.

This post is part of my Minimalism Race series, which helps people declutter at their own pace:

• How to do a minimalism sprint (this post)

• How to do a minimalism 10k (1 month)

• How to do a minimalism marathon (1 year)

Hour 1 – Quickie Toy Rotation

You can take a deep dive into the simplest toy rotation method or keep reading this quick summary.

The toy rotation concept is a huge help even if you don’t have kids (skip to the non kid stuff).

Toys are a huge cause of the clutter and chaos in our house. Willow had over 100 books before she was even born. I felt completely overwhelmed by her toys by the time she was just a few months old, so I was so relieved when I learned about toy rotation.

If you’re not familiar with it, toy rotation is the practice of only having a few toys out at once. Everything else is stored away. This has huge benefits for everyone involved:

• Less clutter

• More time playing

• More independent play

• More creative play

• Increased focus

• Quick & easy to tidy up

• Reduce stress

• Little ones are more likely to help tidy

• Easy to see what toys don’t get played with

• More space to play

• Toy rotation day is super exciting

This video explains the sheer magic of toy rotation better than I ever could. Look at how much more focused 13-month old Willow was with her “new” toys, on the right hand side.

I made the mistake of over complicating toy rotation for far too long. I categorized toys, kept a spreadsheet to log when toys were last out, experimented with how many toys to keep out and for how long, and beautifully arranged her toys for her. I researched different methods for weeks before planning out how I was going to start.

I eventually tried every method and I’m here to tell you the best toy rotation is the toy rotation that you’ll actually do – keep it simple by following these steps:

1.       Grab some storage boxes

2.       Shove all but (any) 10 toys into the boxes

3.       Put the boxes away (we pile ours in the corner of her room)

Err. That’s it.

Keep subsequent toy rotations just as simple by following these steps:

1.       Pull out (any) ten “new” toys from the boxes

2.       Put the original ten toys into the boxes

Kid-free aspiring minimalists can learn a lot from toy rotation too. We can have all of the benefits of decluttering, without letting go of anything, just by rotating our collections.

Do you have a giant collection of decorative plates? Try separating them into groups and bringing out a new collection for each season.

Is your bookcase bursting with unread books? Try packing some away in small boxes and bringing them out in rotation. Maybe taking a break from seeing them for a while will revive your motivation to read them when they come back out.

Is your record collection taking over the living room? Curate 12 record sets and rotate them monthly. You’ll save space in the living area and be much more excited to play your “new” music.

Does your family have an impressive collection of board games? Rotating them will revive everyone’s interest in forgotten games.

You get the idea: we all benefit from having less clutter, and can revive our interest in our possessions by periodically changing things up.

Hour 2 – Plan capsule wardrobe

After toys, the next biggest mess is usually having too may clothes. Imagine having all of the clothes that you need, and none of the clothes you don’t. An MMM capsule wardrobe is the quickest and easiest way to work out the perfect number of items for you.

Here are some of the benefits you can expect with a capsule wardrobe:

This free MMM capsule wardrobe guide will walk you through the full process step by step. If you’re not 100% sure on what a capsule wardrobe is, here are my favourite capsule wardrobe definitions.

In this hour, we’re just going to concentrate on steps 1 & 2:

Step 1 - PLAN

Step 1.a) Identify your style

Step 1.b) Choose a colour palette

Step 1.c) How often you do laundry

Step 2 – LIST

Step 2.a) List out life categories across the top of a piece of paper

Step 2.b) List out types of clothing items that you wear down the side

Step 2.c) Fill in numbers

Top tip 1:

Save time by sharing your

email below & receive an

example year round

capsule wardrobe list

sent straight to your inbox:

​

     Yes Please     

(Psst… I also offer this fillable capsule wardrobe list template if you don’t have time to make your own)

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Top tip 2: save even more time by using this free capsule wardrobe calculator

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Hour 3 – Reorganize your wardrobe

You’ve done the hard part, this is the fun bit– shop your closet!

Full details can be found in step 3 of the the MMM Capsule Wardrobe Guide, but here’s a quick summary:

1. Gather all of your clothes together and start sorting them in to the following piles

2. Favourites - If your form says you need 2 pairs of work trousers, pick out your favourite two pairs of work trousers – easy :)

3. Donate - anything that you’re happy to let go of

4. Sell - anything that you’d like to sell

5. Recycle - anything that’s too worn / damaged to donate

6. Maybe - anything that isn’t your favourite, but you’re not ready to let go of yet. Box this pile up and label it with a date three months from now to review.

You’re against the clock remember, so remember to keep the momentum going. Use the maybe pile if you’re at all unsure.

Hour 4 – Gather items with no home

You’re on the home stretch!

You should be feeling incredibly proud of yourself by this point.

In just a few hours you’ve managed to tackle two major causes of clutter: toys/collections, and excess clothes.

The third and final big ticket item to tackle are items with no allocated home.

Mess is easy to tidy away when things have logical and labelled homes.

Here’s why labels are more important than you think

In an IG story poll, 75% of people said they remember where everything belongs in their home. So that means only 25% of us need to label homes, right? Wrong :) 86% of people admitted that no one else in the household knows where things go. Labelling encourages everyone in the home to put things back in the right spot.

You don’t need a fancy label maker, I used painters tape and sharpie for years.

Labels avoid any confusion and cut down on the brain power needed to tidy up. Imagine the less processing power used to read a label vs. remembering the organization schematics of your home every time you go to put something away.

The easier it is to put things away, the less mess there will be

You’ll finalize and finesse your home organization in the coming weeks / months by following these principles:

1. Items you use more often are front and centre

2. Things are easy to get out and put away.

3. You’ll ensure that items are where you actually need them

4. You’ll make sure that storage containers are the best fit for the space

But for today, the biggest win will be to remove items with no logical and labelled home from the tidying process.

Imagine that you need to tidy the coffee table.

Some things have homes:

1. A dirty bowl

2. Three books

3. Some toys

4. A dirty sweater

   Some things don’t have homes:

5. Your daughter’s homework

6. An unpaid bill

7. Medication

8. Dog leash

Items 1-4 are quick and mindless. You barely have to think about where to put them. This is what tidying should be like!

1. You load the dirty bowl into the dishwasher

2. You return three books to the book shelf

3. You throw toys into the toy box

4. You throw the dirty sweater into the laundry basket

   Items 5-8 take more brain power and waste time.

5. You shove your daughter’s homework on top of the fridge

6. You add an unpaid bill on top of the same paperwork pile

7. You put some medication in the main bathroom cabinet

8. You tuck the dog lead onto a shelf by the front door

For items 5-8, there are two type of people. For argument’s sake let’s call them Ema & Sean (…which just happen to be my husband & I’s names).

Ema is an overthinker. She will hold these items and slowly turn in circles trying to think of a logical spot to put them - it is of UTMOST importance that the MOST optimum spot is spotted. She will thoughtfully pick a place and then promptly forget where it was.

• This process takes ages, she gets distracted, and never finishes tidying.

• On top of that, no one can ever find these things so much frustration and time wasting ensues.

Sean is a shover. He will quickly scan the room looking for spare spots on shelves / in drawers to shove things.

• The process may be quick and easy, but you’re left with the same result - no one can ever find these things so much frustration and time wasting ensues.

(Typing this process out has highlights that my husband’s technique is actually slightly less wrong than mine. Let’s hope he doesn’t read this!)

Guessing where things go wastes time and causes things to get lost

Donna D McMillan says that if you can’t find something within 30 seconds, it’s in the wrong place.

So what should we do with items 5-8 in the above coffee table example?

Create a dump spot …aka a DOOM pile / drawer / box / bag (you can read all about DOOM piling, and how it’s actually really positive - here)

For the last hour today, walk around your home and collect any mess that doesn’t have a logical and labelled home.

Here are the benefits:

• You’ll have less clutter because these tricky to tidy items usually sit in place for longer than their easy to tidy counterparts

• Anything still left out will be easier to tidy because it will have a home

• You save time when you are tidying up because there’s no guessing where to put things

• You save time when we are looking for things. Does it have a logical home? Yes – great, go look there. No – no problem! Go look in the dump drawer.

• Everything that needs a home is kept together for when you’re in the zone and ready to organize (find logical and labelled homes for things)

Conclusion

Congratulations!

You have officially fast tracked your decluttering journey. Or, at least read about fast tracking your decluttering journey, which is nearly as impressive, so well done :)

You’ve just got two more things to do moving forward:

First up is to follow the ‘One in One out’ rule.

This is the easiest way I’ve found to maintain all of your hard work. If you want to buy some new trousers, go for it, just pick one existing pair to donate.

Second is to keep working through the process until you have a lovely, low maintenance home.

• Minimize things you don’t use / love.

• Organize by finding logical and labelled homes for anything that’s left.

• Tidy little and often. Our goal is to be able to tidy each room in 5 mins or less!

If you are feeling overwhelmed and need a helping hand, I have a free 60 day challenge to help you:

• Part 1 - How to become a minimalist in 30 days

• Part 2 - How to organize your home in 30 days

Whatever your goal is, I wish you the best of luck, and hope that these quick wins today help to get you there.

If you enjoyed thinking outside of the box with me today, check out this messy person clothes storage hack that finally got my bedroom tidy!

Further reading:

• How to start decluttering when overwhelmed

• You need to read this if you’ve ever called yourself messy or lazy

• 65 Positive mindset quotes

• How to stop buying things online

• How to become a minimalist with clothes

• Stop doing these things when you tidy

• 121+ clutter free gift ideas

• Doing this once a month saves us $2k a year