3 Quick Decluttering Tricks You Can Do Right Now
Life moves at a fast pace, and all sorts of things can cause stress in your life. From your job to your relationships or even your finances, you have plenty of ways to feel stress.
If you’re trying to cut down on the anxiety and stress, take a look around your home. If it’s cluttered and messy, you may not realise how much stress and strain this could be causing in your life.
Rather than let your space continue to cause you stress, follow our list of 3 quick decluttering tricks to get your living space looking great – and get you feeling better.
- Adopt the 12-12-12 Principle
In many cases, clutter is an inevitable consequence of accumulating too much stuff over time. When you live in a space for any period of time, you’ll end up stockpiling much more than you realise.
The key to decluttering is fighting back against this so-called “stuff.”
To do this, follow the 12-12-12 Challenge as discussed by the site becomingminimalist. The 12-12-12 Challenge tasks you with the following while you’re cleaning:
- Find 12 Items to Throw Away
- Find 12 Items to Donate to Charity
- Find 12 Items to Put Away Where They Belong
This challenge is so great because it gives you a straightforward and tangible goal that helps you both clean and declutter simultaneously. You can even apply this to specific areas for targeted cleaning.
For example, open up your closet or your linen cabinet and see if you can find 12 donations, 12 throwaway items, and 12 articles you need to return. After only a few sessions of this practice, you’ll be amazed how much cleaner and organised your whole home will become.
- Take 5 Minutes to Clean Up
5 minutes is the perfect amount of time to spend cleaning up. It’s short enough that you don’t feel like you’re committing to some enormous or overwhelming task. But a solid 5 minutes can also give you enough time to put a solid dent in your cleaning tasks.
You can take 5 minutes to simply tidy up a room, straighten up your laundry cabinet, or gather up the dishes. Better yet, you can make a numbered list of all the areas in your home, randomly choose a number, and spend 5 minutes cleaning that space.
- Get Your Organisation Organised
Oftentimes, our stuff spills out into clutter because our shelves or closets aren’t properly organised. Take some time to clean out and reorganize your kitchen pantry cabinets, bedroom closets, home office, and other storage spots. Use the 12-12-12 challenge to help get you through the task. Once your storage space is organised, it will be so much easier to keep the clutter from creeping up in your living space.
One Step at a Time
As these tips show you, the key to decluttering isn’t letting the end-result overwhelm you. Instead, it’s about approaching the process one step at a time. Follow these principles to get your living space in much better order. You’ll quickly see how much this can help decrease your stress and anxiety while you’re at home.
What’s your top decluttering tip?
You would be amazed at the number of unwanted items that you can also sell rather than donate. From baby car seats to clothes. Worth considering as well. Adds another 12 to the equation though 🙂
That is very true – we are putting by things to do a car boot with at the moment as well :)x
Makes perfect sense. Now if I can only stick to it!
Hahh good luck – that is one of my issues as well. x
My house is one big clutter at the moment -I have two teens who leave devastation as they move from room to room and when I get them to tidy -it seems to get worse not better.
Ekk not good – hopefully they will manage to get their heads around cleaning at some point 😉 x
Ooh I rather like the sound of the 12-12-12 routine – The 12 things for charity would be fairly difficult as we have just donated a huge sack but the rest is definitely achievable.
I love the 12-12-12 idea, thats definitely on my list now!
It is a really interesting concept isn’t it. x
I love the five minute idea the best out of these three. I find myself leaving it too long and its a 30minute job which I soon get bored of and do something else, but a quick 5 minutes here and there wouldn’t hurt.
Could even squeeze it in the Advert break
I’m such a terrible hoarder! I’ve recently decluttered my wardrobes and now I’m on a decluttering mission across the rest of the house… nothing is safe! The 12-12-12 idea is a really good one, I might just have to give that a try 🙂 x
Brilliant tricks! definitely love the idea of 12-12-12. Have to apply it for more organised me. 🙂
Some brilliant tips. Clutter can become so annoying over time, I’ve not heard of the 12 12 12 rule, but heard of similar techniques before.
These are brilliant tips – considering how much clutter annoys me, I’ve still never heard of the 12 12 12 rule! H x
Brilliant tips I am sure I can find more than 12 thinks to give away!!! 🙂
I did a bit of a decluttering of my drawers the other day. It only took 10 mins and I was just ruthless. I had clothes in hem that hadn’t seen the light of day in years and I’d forgotten about them therefore I didn’t need hem so put them in the charity bag!
I’m loving the 12-12-12 principle. I’m going to give that a try. I definitely trend to the cluttered side and I hate it!
Great tips! It’s really overwhelming to do something like at first, so it’s good that there are simple tricks out there 🙂
These are so simple! I love the idea of the 12-12-12 challenge because it will really help declutter our house. Trying that today when we clean!
We are having a big clean up at the moment in preparation of the baby and it’s amazing how much junk we have been keeping.
What a great idea, I need to start decluttering how so much of Darcy’s old clothes to go through. Would love to donate some of them to charity
Lovely post with handy tips. I declutter quite regularly. I hate junk.
I like these tips, I’m going to give it a go this weekend.
Oh dear. That 12-12-12 challenge would be terribly difficult for me to complete!
Ooh this does make it a bit easier. Great idea!
I really needed this post! I have to give my closets a good cleaning, the 12 rule would really help.
umber 2 is my favorite and i literally do this everyday! I spend about 5/10 minutes cleaning up my room earlier. I just needed to get things off the floor, back in their home, bed made and such. Simple and quick!
I need to declutter my house soooo bad!! Your post has the perfect timing!!
These are great tips.. We just moved into a new house and still rearranging our stuff
These are some great tricks. Our house could use some attention to clutter. I can’t believe how fast it piles up.
I love this! In fact, before commenting, I just did it! I took the 12 things, and all of your suggestions, and I seriously feel great about it! thanks!
I love decluttering a space and seeing how neat and organized everything is when I’m done. The satisfaction cannot be beat! These are great organizing tips for everyone.
I like the sound of the 12-12-12 principle especially since I have so much stuff and not enough room to store it. I always give clothes away but since I am short on cash I might try selling clothes again.
I am going to try the 12-12-12 idea before I move but probably on a bigger scale, more like throw away 120 haha ;D x
I’ve never heard of the 12-12-12 principle but I like it. When I clean and declutter, it’s always nice to have a specific guideline to go by.
These are amazing ideas. I’m definitely doing some decluttering today so I can start vacuuming and cleaning everything.
I have never heard of the 12-12-12 rule before. We have listed our house for sale so we did a TON of decluttering. Once we unpack some boxes I am sure there will be more.
For me decluttering means to get out of the house LOL. My family is not always happy when I do it but I house is too small to keep clutter. The stuff I do keep I have in drawers and in closets so that we’re not stepping all over the place on it.
I try and do little bits at a time so one night I might say I’m going to clean the bathroom, the next day I might do some hoovering. I find it doesn’t feel as much than if you try to do it all in one go x
I’m with you that, if you stick to doing little and often it is definitely no where near as bad. x
I seriously need to do this this weekend I have been putting it off for to long because I have been so busy lately. But i already made some time this weekend to declutter .
I’m bad when it comes to decluttering, it’s like I can’t ever throw anything away. I’m pretty sure I’m a hoarder deep down inside. 🙂
Haha I think I am as well sometimes – we are decluttering at the moment it is going to take a while I am sure! x
Very great post. i had never heard of the 12-12-12 that is really interesting. I hate clutter and right now its starting to drive me nuts on my fridge!
It is an interesting way to do things isn’t it and something I’m definitely going to try and myself more often. x
My kitchen counters need decluttering right now. Never heard of the 12-12-12 thing but I’ll try that out, in my closet.
Great post, I need to declutter. I’m going to give it a go withthe kids toys which I will donate to our school fete.
Good luck with your decluttering! Great idea to donate them as well. x
I love the 12-12-12 idea. I have never heard that one, but I think I might give that tip a try!
Good luck if you do give it a try – it is definitely an interesting way to tackle things. x
These are perfect tips! I so desperately need to declutter. Working on it, one charity shop trip at a time!