We all could stand to do some decluttering, even if you’re the minimalist-iest minimalist that ever minimally lived. Stop feeling bad about the mess in your home and get to work. Grab a box or garbage bag, walk around the house, and ditch these things taking up space in your life.
Don’t start now, start today. I promise you’ll feel way better!
Here is a short list of things to purge:
- Boxes from products
- Socks You Don’t Wear (or don’t have matches)
- Millions of Receipts
- Little screws and nails
- Every piece of clothing that doesn’t make you feel beautiful
- Colored in coloring books
- Mail, bills, coupons you won’t use
- Email subscriptions (use unroll.me to quickly purge them)
- Pillows and decor that you don’t love
- Any item that is sparks more frustration than joy
- Expired food
- Food you don’t see yourself using (not expired? Donate it!)
- Little Dumb Toys
- Missing Puzzle Pieces
- Kids’ clothing that is stained or damaged
- Legos (oh the Legos! Your feet will thank you.)
- Craft Supplies for “That Craft” you never did
- Every Little Paper Your Kids Drew On
- Broken Crayons
- Clutter Collector Furniture (i.e. ones with drawers you’re not utilizing)
- Clutter Collector Bins
- Dollar Store & Dollar Spot Crap
- Extra Trips to the Store
- Things collecting dust that you have no use for
- Furniture that just takes up space
Reader Suggestions:
You guys are good.
- Pens that don’t work or don’t work well. They are not going to be miraculously healed in the drawer.
- Envelopes. All envelopes. If I need the return address I enter it in my phone or snap a picture.
- Make up samples
- Extra buttons in little plastic bags from every clothing item ever purchased.
- Pencils with crappy erasers, pens that don’t write, the 900 tiny character erasers that your kids bring home from school for every holiday.
What did I miss?
Add your suggestions in the comments, or join the discussion on facebook! I’ll keep adding them as you suggest them.
Pencils with crappy erasers, pens that don’t write, the 900 tiny character erasers that your kids bring home from school for every holiday.
Yes!!! Good suggestions, I will put them on here.
Tupperware without lids! Free mugs/water bottles that you don’t like or use. Chargers and power cords for phones and electronics you don’t have anymore. Expired Medications. Excess sheets… just wash them and put them back on the bed.
You nailed it!
Awesome!
Hi, not all drugs should be just thrown in the trash nor flushed down the toilet. Be sure to check here for Authorized Collection Locations near you https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_disposal/takeback/index.html
And in general, her’s what the FDA recommends: https://archive.epa.gov/region02/capp/web/pdf/ppcpflyer.pdf
There’s an increasing problem of many types of prescription drugs that are showing up in the water we drink due to improper disposal. So gather up those expired human and pet meds, and drop them off at an Authorized collection center or be sure to follow proper disposal guidelines. :-)
Dying plants. Now I need to take my own advice ;)
This was great and all so true!
Uncomfortable shoes…life is too short!! :)
We agree on all points save one: Legos. Ours are captured by trays during use, and divided plastic drawers when resting. It is understood that I do not agree to pick up missed Legos while vacuuming, but the kid does so well picking them up, I always stoop and have mercy when I find them, those darn clear headlight ones are hard to spot.
Magazines….Oh the magazines!
I let all my magazine subscriptions expire. When I need mag fix I check out a bunch from the library, browse through them for a week or so and bring them back. Such a relief to not have stacks of beautiful magazines that are so hard to part with.
Great suggestions! Decluttering is so freeing!
Books that were read to pieces…I have a few of these gems that I need to just let go of. They’ve been taped back together and falling apart many times over. If my kids miss them I can buy them another, intact one. But I doubt it! We have plenty newer ones that are more age appropriate in their closet.
Clothing that’s too big/too small for your body now. If you haven’t been a certain size in three or more years, let that stuff go.
pots/pans or bakeware you never got around to using since you registered for them 15 years ago.
Old combs, hair brushes, and other hair accessories. Either toss them all or pare them down.
kitchen gizmos and all those cooking things you thought would be useful and only used the day you bought them. You will free up some drawer space for those items you know you have but can’t find because of all the unnecessary things. I got rid of all the various mixing bowls too and use pots (they are bowls with handles right?). However, warning, guests will think you are weird.
haha! Well then those guests can have the bowls and figure out where to put them. ;)
Great suggestion, Yvonne!
Free Samples! They aren’t free if they take over my bathroom counter. It used to be fun getting little pieces of joy in the mail until they make clutter and a mess.
yes!! Along with conference or company “swag”. Think about your house’s price per square foot and the space taken up costs money in the grand scheme of things!
Great suggestion, Lalia! Thanks for adding it to the list.
magazines
Plastic cups from restaurants, etc
Broken toys
Almost empty bottles of anything in the bathroom (lotion, shampoo, etc)
DVDs you will never watch again
Books you will never read again
Worn out shoes
Plastic and paper bags
Stuffed animals (especially the non name brand ones)
all great suggestions! I always forget about the DVDs and books. Thank you, Lori!
Paper, of all sorts, is my #1 enemy. Still haven’t figured out a way to weed it all out b/c I’m too sentimental about kids’ art & greeting cards.
Other than that… I recently counted that we had almost 30 spoons in our house and only about 12 matched one another. Freed up our silverware drawer of all the odd utensils.
Stuffed animals: we used a rectangular laundry basket to play “Noah’s Ark” and told the kids (ages 9 and 6) to save their favorites first. Any that didn’t fit after the basket was filled were going to be donated in a week. After a couple days, the girls didn’t seem to care and found the extra space in their bedroom very welcoming.
I’m still working on the paper too. It’s tough! For the kids artwork, each of mine has a bin with their name on it near the art supplies. They can save what they want and go through it regularly every few months. From there I’ll choose to save certain pieces, take pictures of it, or if they want, toss it. Above all, if it makes you happy, it can stay.
The Noah’s ark idea is so cute! We’ll have to try that when we reach our stuffed animal limit… :)
These were great, Anne! Thanks for chiming in.
For all that paper, here is one idea:
Go to your favorite Pizza place and ask for a large pizza box.
Cover it in whatever fashion you wish.
Put the year on the front and fill it with that year’s mementos.
Attach a piece of paper to the underside of the lid with a description of each item and why you decided to keep it. (Why that particular hair ribbon? What is this supposed to be a picture of anyway?)
Kids’ certificates, artwork, and report cards. Same thing for business cards and receipts for tax purposes or warranties. Snap a picture using Evernote. Instantly removes 90% of the paper clutter.
My girl’s had unfinished scrap books that I have turned into the holder of school pictures and the very few papers that will fit in the one sleeve per grade. This has worked well for us.
These are some great ideas! I could definitely stand to declutter old papers, bad pens, old receipts and my “junk drawers.” There are some other great ideas in here, thanks for sharing!
Shonee
http://www.hawthorneandmain.com
All those pretty journals you may write in “someday.”
Small electrical appliances that “almost” work.
Old batteries
That 15-year old game system (and its games)
Sports equipment no one uses
That cracked plastic sled
Pretty journals – guilty! Great list, Sandy.
Amending “pens that don’t work well” to also include pens with missing caps.
Magazines/Catalogs…I feel guilty for all the paper wasted but it wastes so much of my time reading all of them.
Hotel sized soaps, shampoos, shower caps??? Donate them to troops overseas…or trash them. They don’t last forever in your medicine cabinet, nor should they!
Or send them to homeless shelters.
When you dust it but don’t love it let it go! I am up to a combination of 14 garbage bags, boxes & totes being picked up in less than a week ( by the Vietnam Vets http://www.pickupplease.org ). My goal is to have 25 before the pick up date. In my stash are: decorative unused plates, excess cups/glasses, books, clothes, Christmas decorations I haven’t used in more than 2 seasons, stuffed animals and board games that we have outgrown.
My downfall – papers :( There are little piles everywhere!
Just an fyi for those of you worried about the wastefulness odd throwing out paper. Most schools have a paper recycling dumpster, and they get paid for what goes in there, by weight. Take your recyclables there and not only have you decluttered, you’ve made a donation to the school’s budget!
There you go, great idea!!
Throw away or donate those books, don’t buy anymore. Teach your kids to use the library!
Wedding gifts you haven’t or have rarely used in the first nine years of marriage. Yes, even the red Pampered Chef stoneware–it screeches when you scrape it out, and I can’t stand the sound!
The 10 different types of post its you own, dead batteries( I tend to put them back in the battery drawer in case they would have enough energy for something smaller) Bunch of thumbtacks, extra cutting boards (how many do you use at once) extra medicine dispensers, duplicate kitchen gadgets…
Yes yes yes! Need to ditch all of those. :)
Especially the dead batteries. Why do we do that? Haha.
Sigh…guilty! Craft projects that never happened, someday clothes, trash to treasure ideas/supplies that are still trash, all those extra throw pillows on the couches, chairs and beds that only I love and end up on the floor everytime some one sits down, the junk drawer junk, still packed stuff from the move 3 years ago…so much more. Last year I went through a tough phase where I lost my storage unit, it was actually freeing to lose all that stuff I didn’t need but was paying to store! Now I have to do the same in my garage.
Holiday decorations that you don’t put up anymore.
Greeting cards (just cut the fronts off ours from the year and we are sending them to the kindergarten class at our local elementary school).
Leftover Halloween candy.
Socks that have been single too long.
Expired catalogues
Those are all great!
All those menus that end up on your front door or from take out. Expired coupons.
Expired makeup, make up that you don’t use or like, body products that are expired and you don’t use and or don’t like.
If you have used something once and you don’t like it but cannot return it, women’s shelters at least in the DC area will take it as a donation as long as its not mostly used and not expired.
Expired canned or bagged food.
Pretty much anything expired needs to go!! haha
The huge pile of outdated magazines that you either haven’t read, have read and don’t plan to read again, or have no use for keeping around. Take a picture of the one or two things you like in it and recycle it.
It feels so good to get stuff out of the house.
old keys that i have no idea where they go, the many pieces of leftover hardware, screws etc from putting anything together, old drawer knobs-after all I changed them out for a reason, so many empty or almost candle jars-I mistakingly imagine I will use them for something, old tarnished jewelry, single earings, old electronics-they were expensive purchases but no longer have value, old fire extinguishers. old curtain rods and hangers. Old spices or cookie decorations. Also, I hate all the free coffee cups and water bottles-I donated them to the coffee area at work to help eliminate styrofoam cups. I am shocked at the things I accumulate.
To all the ladies out there who have Jewelry to get rid of: earrings with no match, broken beads, findings, clasps, bits n bobs…post on craigslist or offer up for a jewelry artist…we use that stuff like crazy!!
Don’t forget about Pet toys that are ripped to shreds and can go in the bin too!! Pet treats or food that your pet didn’t like can be given away to the Aspca, or a local pet store that takes donations.
Also you can donate perfumes, colognes, body sprays, oils etc. if they still smell right. Perfumes have a shelf life and won’t last forever..smells bad? Goodbye!
Yay decluttering is great once you get over the hump!!
extra towels or bedding…..
(take them to your local shelter or vet’s office..)
dying plants you are TRYING to resuscitate….throw them away….or put the soil out in the garden, recycle the pot.
All good ones!!