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I’m a mom in her 30s, and I used to struggle with clutter. 

My wardrobe used to have so many clothes that I never wore. We had so many toys that would end up on the floor, but were never played with.

Then one day it hit me: all this clutter is getting in the way of living a calmer life where I can be more present with my kids. 

So, I decluttered.

I started asking myself, ‘Is this something I really want to keep, or can I let it go?’ I’ve learned some easy decluttering habits that have helped me a lot. I hope some of them will be useful to you, too. 

Keep reading below or watch the video:

1. Real life versus social media

I used to buy a lot of things that I saw on social media and I think many of us do the same.

I would sometimes buy an outfit—a piece of clothing or perhaps some shoes. And when I was trying it on, or wearing it outside, I would realise that actually, it wasn’t very practical. Maybe it was too tight or made me sweat a lot. Maybe it wasn’t really weatherproof at all. Or maybe the fit looked great, but it just didn’t feel very comfortable.

Or sometimes I would buy kitchen gadgets that sounded like a great idea. Things like banana holders, grape cutters, avocado holders, and all of these random little items. I used to think they were such a good idea and that they were going to save me so much time. But actually, they weren’t very practical. It would take me so long to clean any of them so I wasn’t even using them. If it wasn’t convenient, if it took extra steps to use or clean, it simply wasn’t worth it for me.

So I started asking myself, when I want to buy something or I see something on social media: ‘Is this made for real life, or is it made for social media aesthetics?‘. Because so many items are promoted by influencers, and they look great online. They sound like such a good idea. But once purchased, they turn out not to be very practical in real life.

Nowadays, when I buy an item, I really try to make sure it’s something that’s actually useful. Or that I am going to use a lot, and not just some gimmicky thing, or something that looks cute but isn’t very functional.

2. The Rightmove check

If you’re not from the UK, Rightmove is a website where people rent, buy, or sell houses. It’s basically where you go to find your next home. 

When we go to see a new place—whether renting or buying—many of us have a vision for it when we first step inside that flat or house. Maybe we imagine how we’ll arrange the living room or set up the bedroom. It looks so spacious, and we make lots of plans for the space. Naturally, we have a really positive vision of what it will look like, and we’re excited to move in.

And I did the same when we moved to our previous house. Then, a few years down the line, I realised that yes, things looked great on the surface. But actually, there were a lot of places that were really cluttered, and I was unhappy with them. So I tried to go back to my initial vision when I saw that house on Rightmove. What did I imagine the space would look or feel like?

So if you’ve fallen out of love with your house, this might be a good place to start. 

Just look around and think about what you initially planned for that space. And if it doesn’t fit that vision, maybe you can start decluttering some items and creating more space. That might help you fall back in love with the home you have.

Improving how we feel in our home isn’t always about having more space or a bigger house. Sometimes it’s just about creating space in the home we already have. Clearing some surfaces and doing little declutters can help us appreciate the space a bit more.

3. The ABC rule

This is a decluttering method that I find really helpful. When I’m going through a space, I can think about the ABCs—categorising items based on how much they actually mean to me. 

A is a top item, an essential thing we really need to keep. B is a nice-to-have item. It’s not something we necessarily love looking at or feel especially excited about. But it is useful and functional—maybe a spare item or a duplicate that we don’t wear a lot, but like having around. C is something we definitely don’t need or want to wear, making it an easy declutter.

I find that if I’m overthinking a declutter and have lots of items I can’t decide on, it’s really helpful to remember these ABCs. If an item fits into the A or B category, it can stay, or go into a ‘decide later’ pile. But if it’s a C, I can easily declutter it and I’m unlikely to miss it.

4. Use a checklist

When I first started decluttering, I had this urge to get rid of so much. It was as if a switch flipped in my head. I was so ready to get rid of all the things that were bugging me—the ones just lying on the floor and all the things in our garage that were piling up and serving as stressful reminders of all those unmade decisions. I was really ready to declutter.

But the thing is, with little kids—I have a two-year-old and an eight-year-old, and they were even younger back then—I didn’t really have a whole weekend to declutter, or a full two weeks to tackle all of these items. 

So, I started doing smaller declutters, and keeping a checklist really helped me. It didn’t mean I had to tackle everything in one go. But having a checklist of little areas of my home and categories I could work through was really useful.

If you do want some help with this, by the way, I have a free checklist you can download. You can grab it below.

5. The 10/10 rule

This rule has helped me keep my home a bit tidier, especially on a daily basis when we’re out and about with the kids. 

If you’re also a parent, you probably know how big a task it can be to pack everything and make sure you’ve got all you need when you go out. Then, when you come home, there’s all this stuff thrown around that you need to unpack and tackle. Sometimes it can stay there for hours or even days. That’s when things start to pile up. And later on, it can be hard to find things when you leave the house again.

So for me, this 10–10 rule has been really helpful. It’s just giving myself 10 minutes before we leave and 10 minutes when we arrive to tackle those items.

For example, before we leave, I’ll pack the things we need. And anything we took out but aren’t taking with us, I try to put back in their place—not leave coats on the floor or scattered around the living room. Just a quick 10-minute spruce and pack before we go.

And then, when we come back, I try to unpack the bottom of the buggy, which tends to collect a lot of things like coats, school artwork, snacks, or half-eaten snacks. 

Giving myself those 10 minutes to unpack and put things back where they belong, or in the bin if needed, has been really helpful. It stops things from piling up. Plus it makes it easier to find what we need the next time we leave the house.

6. The four corner rule

This is something I’ve started doing recently. It’s been really useful in helping me focus a bit more and not get distracted by all the random little things around my home. 

So, if I’m decluttering or just tidying the house, and I start in, let’s say, the living room, I follow the four-corner rule. Starting at the door, I tackle the corner to the left—or I can choose the right, it doesn’t matter. Then I move on to the next, and the next, all the way until I’m back at the door.

It’s just following the four corners and tackling the space in a bit of an order. Otherwise, I can easily get distracted, picking up a mug here, then a blanket there, then some toys, and it all feels scattered and takes longer. But if I focus on one little area at a time, the process is much smoother.

7. Don’t reduce to the bare minimum

I think when we start decluttering, it can be hard to know what the balance is. And we can end up doubting, ‘Are we getting rid of too much? Are we not getting rid of enough when we should get rid of more?’

It’s really hard sometimes to know what’s actually important to us. And there’s no right or wrong answer. It really depends on how much space we have available and also on our capacity to manage all of the stuff in our home.

For me, I’ve found that I’m more minimalist in some areas and less minimalist in others. On my YouTube channel and on Instagram, I’ve been called both—too minimalist, too extreme, and also that I’m not a real minimalist, that I still have too much stuff. And that’s fine. We’re all somewhere in the middle. As long as we find the middle ground that works for us, that’s great.

For example, we probably have more toys in our home than a strict minimalist would. And I’m perfectly okay with that because the toys we do keep, I know my kids play with and enjoy. So I’m not going to get rid of them just for the sake of calling myself an extreme minimalist. It’s a manageable amount, and we’re very okay with that.

But I’m a minimalist when it comes to my clothes. I have far fewer clothes than I used to. I’m also a minimalist with things like makeup and nail polish—for example, I only own two nail polishes.

This isn’t a contest anyway. It’s not about reducing everything to the bare minimum. Some things bring convenience to our lives or are just fun to have, and that’s perfectly okay, too. It’s just about reducing the amount we have to a level that’s manageable for us.

And sometimes people will say, ‘I would love to declutter, but I’m scared to start because I don’t want to get rid of my hobby items or my books.‘ And you don’t have to. You don’t have to get rid of anything that serves you or anything you love. Those aren’t the areas you want to tackle. Keep those items—maybe organise them a bit better—and focus on other areas that you don’t care about as much. Maybe you love your hobbies, but you don’t love clothes, or maybe makeup isn’t your thing. 

I think it’s important to keep the things that mean a lot to us and simplify the areas we don’t really care about.

8. Essential few, trivial many

This is something I learned from the book Essentialism, that there are the essential few and the trivial many. We have a few items that are really important to us, and they are the essentials. And we have a trivial number of other items that are kind of random, that we don’t care about. Focusing on the essential few can help us achieve a better balance in our lives.

9. Slow the inflow

When it comes to shopping, I’ve realised that before I buy anything, I really need to check in with myself: why am I shopping? That’s a question I ask every time I make a purchase. And it’s helped so much to reduce those impulse buys that I end up regretting later.

I also ask myself: is this a need, a want, or an item that’s been on my wish list for a while and I’m ready to purchase? Maybe it’s something I’ve saved up for, or I have the space in my budget for it—then yes, I can buy it. It’s an experience that feels good and adds value to my life, rather than buying something on impulse and instantly feeling guilt and regret.

But if I’m shopping out of boredom, or using shopping to handle stress or other emotions, that’s usually not a good place for me to shop from. That’s when I make impulse purchases I later regret. 

Or if I see something on sale and feel like I’ll definitely miss out if I don’t buy it right now. What I’ve learned is that things always go on sale. So it’s very likely I’ll be able to find the item later if I really want it.

10. The percentage check

I never used to think about this, but lately I’ve started asking myself: ‘What percentage of my wardrobe am I actually wearing?‘ I used to have hundreds of clothes in my wardrobe, and I probably wore maybe 20% of them on a regular basis. After a massive declutter, I’m now wearing around 93% of my clothes regularly.

I’m still keeping track of items and learning what I like and don’t like to wear. If there are items I’m not wearing, it’s probably for a reason—making them good candidates for decluttering. 

I think a lot of us keep items in our wardrobes that we just don’t wear and don’t need. If we’re not wearing something, there’s a cause for that. Clearing those items can free up so much space and help us appreciate the clothes we do have even more. It also makes it easier to find them, simplifies laundry, and just streamlines the whole process.

I have a friend in my Simply Decluttered group. When she moved house, she packed all of her wardrobe into wardrobe boxes. She had a friend helping her, and her friend mentioned, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but how come you have so many items in these wardrobe boxes, yet you always wear the same thing every day?’

I was exactly the same. I had so many clothes, but I always wore just leggings and a sweatshirt every single day. Since decluttering, I’ve actually rediscovered my wardrobe—the items I love to wear and the different combinations.

It’s much more fun to get dressed from a decluttered wardrobe than from one that’s stuffed with items.

11. Am I micro-organising? 

This is something I’m trying to ask myself because, for one, I love decluttering. And I also love organising things. But sometimes, if I’m organising too much, like trying to sort a drawer into all these tiny categories, it just feels counterintuitive. It takes up a lot of time that I don’t really need to spend doing that. Plus it doesn’t really stay that way. For us as a family of four with two small children, the drawers just get jumbled again, and having sorted it feels like a waste of time.

So if I find that I have way too many little items in an area and feel the need to micro-organise, I first check if I actually want to keep all of those items. I give it a good declutter, getting rid of anything that’s not needed. And then maybe organise a bit if I really want to.

I find that when I have fewer items, it’s so much quicker to organise. And I don’t feel the need to organise as much. It just makes things easier.

Let me know, in the comments below, what decluttering habits you have. I’d love to hear from you.