Cluttered Home? Toss These 13 Things for A Cleaner Feel
Feeling stressed by all the mess? Tackle your cluttered home one step at a time. Start by throwing away these things, and you’ll feel instant relief.
It happens all the time. Horizontal surfaces become magnets for a random collection of clutter. Then, they start to grow and multiply. Piles become taller, and what was once a tiny job starts to feel overwhelming.
Thankfully, it’s really easy to conquer the clutter and create a peaceful place. Turn your cluttered home into a peaceful palace by throwing away these 13 things. These baby steps will put you into cleaning mode, motivating you to keep organizing and cleaning the rest of your house next.
1. Paper Bills
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This is the most common way clutter becomes a problem. Bills pile up on kitchen counters, home office desks, and bedroom dressers. It makes sense—they’re important, and they need to be paid. Instead of keeping stacks of bills and envelopes, take 10 minutes to set up a bill payment system.
Snap a picture of the bill and add the photo to your reminder app or favorite calendar app. Set an alert for you to pay the bill a week before it is due. Then, throw the bill away. It’s that easy.
Keeping paper bills isn’t efficient. They get buried under other mail and papers, and it’s way too easy to forget to pay them. Either pay the bill immediately or create a system to pay it soon, then don’t keep the paper.
2. Extra Clothes
Next, go through your closets. Throw away anything stained, ripped, or stretched out so much that it is embarrassing to wear. Then, go through the clothes a second time. Donate anything that you don’t wear and that doesn’t have emotional signficance.
After you get rid of all those extra clothes, you’ll have more room to store what you actually love and wear. An overstuffed closet looks messy and chaotic. This one step can make your closet look cleaner instantly.
3. Product Packaging
Cardboard and plastic food packaging rips and crumples, making a pantry look disorganized and messy. Plus, food spills out when they tear, creating an even bigger mess.
Get some plastic food storage containers and organizing bins and transfer everything. Then, throw away (or recycle) the product packaging. This one step only takes a few hours and sets you up for years of organized bliss.
4. Broken Things
Do not keep broken appliances, pens without ink, or anything else that you promised to fix but still haven’t. Toss them. Replace them with something that works.
Before you throw away electronics, look for places that will recycle them. The EPA has a handy guide that shares how to recycle electronics. Anything else—that umbrella that won’t open, the kid’s coloring book that’s all used—pitch it.
5. Duplicates
By now, you’re probably already noticing a big difference. Keep the momentum going. Now go around the house and scout out duplicates and donate the backups that you don’t use.
What does this mean? What about that backup pair of hiking boots you don’t wear because you bought a more comfortable pair? Or the windbreaker you haven’t worn in years because you prefer jackets and hoodies?
Storage is valuable. Only keep what you use and love; your house will feel and look cleaner.
6. Unused Kitchen Gadgets
Speaking of valuable storage space, peek in your kitchen cabinets or pantry. Which cooking tools and gadgets have you not used in a long time (or ever)? Did you use the Instant Pot once, get overwhelmed, and then shove it into the bottom of the pantry, hoping to forget about it?
Pull out all the gadgets—big and small—and donate the working ones, and recycle the broken ones. This includes things as small as silicone baking cups that have sat untouched for years or as big as a bread machine. Even donating a handful of wooden spoons and can openers will make your drawers look cleaner.
7. Expired Food or Medicine
This is one of the easiest things to do. If you need a quick win with instant payoffs, go through your pantry, refrigerator, freezer, and medicine cabinet. Throw away all expired food and medicine.
Remember to go through the spice cabinet, too. Yes, even dried spices expire. They might not rot, but they lose so much potency that they are basically useless.
8. Old Laptops and Boxes
Broken or outdated laptops are also basically useless. Many people keep them because they don’t know how to wipe them clean and don’t want their information falling into the wrong hands, which is a valid fear.
That’s why it’s important to wipe the hard drive before selling or recycling the computer. Whether you have a Mac or PC, Nord VPN details how to wipe a computer clean.
If your computer won’t turn on and you don’t want to pay someone to fix it, it might be worth removing the hard drive and physically destroying it before recycling it. It’s way too easy to create a collection of old electronics, and getting rid of them will make the storage areas look a lot better.
9. Condiment Packets
Are you a fast food fan? If so, those condiment packets are so easy to collect. This is another super-easy win with instant payoffs.
Go through the refrigerator, counters, and pantry. Throw away all of the tiny packets of ketchup, mustard, and dipping sauces. They’re difficult to store and make everything look messy. Toss them.
10. Mismatched Food Storage Containers
Does every food storage container or food prep plate in your cabinet have a matching lid? Take some time to match them up. Then, toss the bowls and lids that don’t have matches.
Keeping only the ones with lids will instantly tidy up your cabinets or drawers, making them look cleaner.
11. Power Cords You Don’t Use
Boxes of unused power cords are another all-too-common mess that’s easy to clean up. Throw away or recycle anything that doesn’t currently work for your belongings. It might help to organize and store USB charging cords in their own bin and start going through laptop or HDMI cables.
If you’re worried about throwing away something you might need, do a quick price check. If you can find a replacement charging cord for less than $15, then get rid of it. If you ever need one, you can get it. But if you haven’t used it in years, chances are you won’t use it in the future.
12. Old Calendars
Just like paper bills, wall calendars take up space on counters or bookshelves and make things look really messy. Some people keep calendars because they use them like memory books.
If that’s you, here’s a better solution: Scan the calendar pages and store them on your computer. Create a folder called “Wall Calendars” and a subfolder for each calendar you scan, with the title “YEAR Wall Calendar Pages.”
Scanning wall calendars is smart because you can search for the calendar you want and find it in seconds. That’s much better than sorting through a pile of paper calendars that are getting torn and wrinkled.
13. Eyeglasses With Wrong Prescription
So many people get their new eyeglass prescriptions and then keep the old pair, just in case, as a backup. If they’re old prescriptions, it won’t do any good to wear them anyway, so toss those old glasses. There are a lot of places that accept eyeglass donations. Find one near you or mail your glasses to them.
If you find glasses with broken frames, toss them. Only donate frames that are in wearable condition.
