This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I make a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Disclosure here.
Here are 24 things you can declutter in 2024.
I shared this list in a video on Instagram a few weeks ago, and things got heated. I never thought it would be this controversial.
The video got over 5 million views, and over 1,000 comments.
Many many people loved it and found it helpful, but there were also some people who thought it was ridiculous, couldn’t relate to this, or were just triggered by it.
As you’re going through this list, if you feel like there’s something that makes you go, ‘No, absolutely not. I cannot get rid of that,’ that’s absolutely fine.
You can definitely keep that. We all have different things that mean a lot to us.
So if you feel like, ‘Oh, she’s talking about books… But I love my books, I can’t get rid of them,’ then that’s fine.
If keeping them works for you, then simply do that.
This article is just meant to give you ideas of where to look for things to declutter. Most of the time, we’ve been living in our homes for quite a while, and we’ve gotten immune or ‘blind’ to all the clutter that’s around us.
The whole point of this list is to give you ideas on things that you might not even notice anymore but that are taking up a lot of space in your home.
Ideas of things that might not mean a lot to you, might not bring value to your life, and you can absolutely get rid of.
And if you find something on this list that you don’t agree with, that’s okay.
And no, I won’t take it personally, but I’d love to hear from you in the comments below if you disagree with something. I’d also love to hear from you about how you’re getting on with your decluttering.
Now let’s go ahead and get started with 24 things to get rid of in 2024.
Feel free to keep reading below or watch the video:
24 Things to Declutter in 2024 for a Clutter-free Home
1. Books you won’t re-read
The first thing on this list is books you won’t read again.
Books can be very controversial.
Yet I do think we have so many books in our homes that maybe we didn’t even really like in the first place, or maybe we thought were okay but we know we’re not going to read them again.
Those are the books we can get rid of. There’s no point in keeping them.
Of course, there may be a few books that you love and want to share with your friends or want to browse through them again or reference back to.
You should keep those.
I know I have some like that, one is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. I’m keeping it because I know I want to look through it again.
But I bet you have loads of books that you probably don’t really like, or books you don’t intend to read anymore. You can let go of them. This way, you might free up a lot of space in your home.
And the way I declutter our books is either by selling them on Vinted or another marketplace, or by using Ziffit, which is my favourite way because it’s quick and easy.
You put all the books you don’t want anymore in a box, Ziffit comes and collects it, and you get a little bit of money for it.
It’s not a lot, but it can add up.
This is not a sponsored article, I just really love Ziffit.
2. Kids’ books that they have outgrown
My 6-year-old son had lots of books that he wasn’t reading anymore, like baby books or books he wasn’t interested in anymore.
We got rid of those.
We just kept a few for my daughter, as she’s still a baby, but I’m not keeping mountains of books for her.
We prefer and enjoy going to the public library quite often, so we get books from there.
This helped me remove the pressure I was putting on myself to have this massive bookcase of books for them to keep them entertained.
The public library is free, and it has a variety of books we can borrow, without cluttering up our home.
3. Unused kitchen gadgets
I bet you have loads of little kitchen accessories or appliances that you probably don’t use anymore, and they are stuffed away in the drawers.
I used to have things like that, random little accessories that I didn’t even know what they were for anymore.
If it’s something you don’t use anymore, maybe it might be a good time to let it go.
4. Extra spatulas
I never expected this to be controversial, on the contrary, I thought this would be quite a chill one.
I found it quite funny that people disagreed with this.
You might have the spatulas that you need and use frequently.
But there’s only so many dishes you’re probably cooking at once, right?
So maybe you don’t need all of the spatulas that are in your kitchen. I know, there are different spatulas and they have different purposes, but I bet there are some that you’re not using.
Some that are just sitting in a drawer and taking up space.
Just have a look through, see if there are any you don’t need anymore, and then maybe you can let them go and make some extra space in that drawer.
5: Coats you haven’t used this season
This applies to me as well.
I have to go through my wardrobe, as I know there are some coats in there that are cute but that I haven’t worn this season, and that’s probably for a reason.
I think I can probably let those go. So yes, I definitely need to take my own advice on this.
6. Shoes
I promise you, you don’t need 30, 40, or 50 pairs of shoes. This is something I learned for myself too.
I had so many shoes, and I’m still paring them down because I don’t want to have as many shoes. They take up so much space.
I think that if we’re honest with ourselves, we probably have a rotation of about 10 shoes that we use regularly, maybe not even 10.
Maybe you have 3-4 pairs of shoes that you gravitate towards daily.
I’m not talking about dressy shoes that you keep for special events.
I mean the shoes that you are wearing frequently this season. All the other ones are just there in case you need them, right? Maybe you can let go of some of them.
7. Handbags
A rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used a handbag in the past year, you probably don’t need it.
In my case, at the moment I’m only using one bag.
It’s a big backpack in which I can put all the things for my baby. And I came to realise that I do not need a different handbag for every single outfit in every single colour.
Obviously, if handbags are your thing, keep them.
But for me, I find that if I have something like a brown or black bag, it can go with pretty much any outfit that I wear, and I’m perfectly fine with that.
8. Plastic bag of bags
This is one that people on Instagram actually loved.
Hands up if you’ve ever had one of these or if you currently have one. Leave that in the comments below.
I know I used to have this big plastic bag full of other plastic bags. I never really used them.
I would always just take my reusable bag with me to the shops as it’s more sturdy and fits more.
Nowadays, I no longer buy plastic bags, and our house is pretty much plastic bag-free at the moment. Yes, sometimes we still get random things that come in a plastic bag, but I take them to be recycled at Tesco.
They have a section for recycling soft plastics like this.
9. Hats
Honestly, we had so many of these! Hats are just one of those things that are cute to wear, especially for children, and we end up accumulating more and more until we have this big pile of hats.
So go through your hats and purge the ones that you don’t wear anymore, you don’t like anymore, or you just don’t need.
10. Toys that are ignored by your kids
If you’re a parent, I know you have that in your house too, and I still have that as well.
I have to go through them on a regular basis, and ask myself, “Is this something my kids play with, or is it something they just chuck out of the basket because it’s there but they don’t really care about it anymore?”
If it’s the latter, it means those are toys that I can easily get rid of. And so can you.
If you’re not sure about this, you can have a box that’s a “decide later” box. Put all of those toys in there, put them in storage, and in a few months, if your kids haven’t asked for any of those toys, that’s a good sign that you can easily sell or donate those toys.
I did that multiple times, and my kids haven’t even noticed those toys were gone.
See here how I decluttered 70% of my kids toys and my best tips for toys.
11. Skincare that you don’t love
Skincare and beauty items are also things that are so easy to accumulate.
You go into the shops, and everything looks so pretty on the shelves.
You simply feel like buying more and more (I know I did) because they have all these beautiful promises, “making your skin look perfect”, “getting wrinkles to go away”, and so on.
We end up accumulating so many skincare products.
But since I’ve simplified my skincare, I found that my skin looks so much better and it feels way better too. I think that, because I was testing all of these products on myself and constantly changing them, I was actually doing myself a disservice.
My tip? Find a few products that you stick to and are just part of your routine. That’s what helped me a lot.
Declutter any that you don’t truly like.
12. Mugs
You don’t need 30 mugs in your cupboard. They’re probably taking up a lot more space than you might realise.
I used to have this big cupboard full of different kinds of mugs for different purposes.
Nowadays, I think we have about 10-ish, and that’s plenty for us (family of 4).
We often think we need more because when they are in the wash, it’s easier to grab a clean one. Yet if you have more than you actually need, then it’s easy to have a pile of dishes around your sink as you’re just going to go for a clean mug rather than wash a dirty one.
Getting into the habit of washing them or putting them in the dishwasher straight away is actually what’s going to help your kitchen not be so overwhelmed by clutter and dirty dishes all the time.
13. Extra tumblers and different cups (eg. travel cups)
I know we had so many of those, but how many water cups does one person need?
Now we have one travel water bottle for each of us, plus an insulated one for hot drinks, and that’s about it.
14. Decor that you no longer love
Sometimes we have pieces of decor that we bought years ago, or maybe they have sentimental value for us.
But more often than not, we have around our homes a lot of things that we are not fond of. We just keep them because they’re there.
Did you know that visual clutter is an actual thing?
When you look around the room, if there are a lot of things that catch your eye, they stimulate your brain and make it feel more stressed and overwhelmed.
Obviously, it depends on the person. Everybody reacts a bit differently to this kind of thing. But for me, visual clutter is definitely something that affects me a lot.
So I try to keep my home more minimal. That’s just what feels relaxing to me.
And decor items are one of those things that can make a room look more cluttered, even when it’s all tidied. It can still make it look like it’s not quite finished with tidying.
15. Decor that you have stored away
If you have decor that’s in storage boxes, you probably don’t need it, right?
Because if you’re not using it, if you don’t have a place for it in your house, if you don’t love it enough to put it up, then you can let it go.
16. Extra throws and blankets
We used to have so many of these on the sofa and the beds.
Nowadays, we have two blankets downstairs and a couple maybe upstairs in the bedrooms, but that’s about it.
17. Overflow pillows and cushions
This is something that we definitely used to have a lot more of. Now we only keep a fair few.
I still love decorative pillows, and I feel like they do add a little bit of texture and something to the room. So I love having some, but not a lot of them.
Plus, having fewer makes the process of tidying up and making the beds so much easier too.
18. Old cables
Declutter especially cables that you don’t even know what they’re for – we all have those, don’t we? It’s time to get rid of them.
19. Old phones and gadgets
These are things that we sometimes have in our storage or we have thrown around in our shed or garage. But if you’re not using it, what’s the point of keeping it?
I know some people think, ‘Well, I might fix it someday’ or ‘I might need the parts from it someday’. But the thing is, if you’re just keeping it, it’s going to deteriorate.
And if you haven’t fixed it yet, or if you haven’t used it yet, you probably won’t do it one day either. You can easily recycle it or sell it and get a bit of money back for it.
If you do need a certain part for something one day, it’s really easy to go and buy it. And it might not be that expensive anyway.
20. Bedding sets
We definitely had way more bedding sets than we needed.
Now we have two for each bed: one that’s in use on the bed and then a spare one. That’s it.
So we have two for our bed, and two for my son’s bed.
For the baby’s crib, we have just two sheets, plus two sleeping bags for her.
I find this a sweet spot for us.
21. Too many towels
Our linen cupboard was overflowing with towels that we weren’t even using. They were just stored there, and we were using the same few towels over and over again.
Now we have two per person, that’s all.
So our linen cupboard looks the best it’s ever looked, and that’s not because I have this amazing organisational system.
It’s because we have a simple basket in there, and the towels are folded up, and that’s about it. And because we have less stuff, it’s very easy to keep it organised.
22. Papers and artwork
You know when kids come home from school with a piece of white paper that’s got a line on it?
It’s so easy to accumulate those kinds of papers around the house, isn’t it?
Go through your house, grab these papers, and put them in the recycling. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to miss them.
23. Unwanted gifts
I’m writing this article at the beginning of 2024, and I know that many of us have unwanted gifts that we got for Christmas or maybe birthdays.
I know it can be hard to let go of those things, especially because it’s usually from somebody that you love or you care about.
But getting rid of a gift like that doesn’t mean you don’t love the person who gave it to you, and it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate them.
Honestly, I would never get offended if somebody regifted or gave away a gift that I gave them.
And I think it might be the same for you: if you gave someone you love a gift they’re not keen on or they know they’re not going to use it, then it’s absolutely fine if they give it away.
It’s nice to say thank you and to appreciate the gift, appreciate the gesture, but then what you decide to do with the gift afterwards is up to you.
24. Cardboard boxes
I used to keep cardboard boxes from all of the things that we would buy, thinking ‘Oh, maybe I want to store the item one day in that box, or maybe I want to give it away in that box’.
In reality, these boxes just take up so much space and clutter up our homes.
So now I just recycle them, and you can do that too. You don’t need that many cardboard boxes to clutter up your space.
___
I hope this list of 24 things to declutter in 2024 was helpful and gave you some ideas.
Let me know what things you agree with, and what you don’t agree with. I would love to hear from you in the comments below.
Happy decluttering!
