How to declutter your home in 15 minutes a day, Tips from a Professional Organizer in Cleveland, Ohio

First I'm going to talk about some inspiration for decluttering your home in 15 minutes a day. Then I'm going to share some pro tips on how to declutter in 15 minutes a day. And then lastly, I'm going to talk about some pitfalls to avoid as you're decluttering in your 15 minutes.

Why 15 Minutes a Day Can Make a Huge Difference

One inspiration that I love is on Instagram. The woman's name is Christi Newrutzen and that's her Instagram. She's pretty funny. She wears sunglasses and dances to fun music, but she also does this series and it says, “How long does it actually take?”

She had a bunch of Amazon boxes and stuff to break down and then she said, “How much time did it actually take? 11 minutes.”

So I love her stuff because so often we're procrastinating and if you actually time yourself, a lot of stuff is so fast if you just do it. You'll spend three hours or three days or three years procrastinating and then just doing it is pretty quick.

I did a little bit of math also before I made this video. If you declutter fifteen minutes a day, five days a week, for four weeks, that’s 300 minutes, which is five hours of decluttering. So that is going to make a huge difference.

And of course, if you did five times 12, 60, you'd have done 60 hours at the end of the year. And that's not every day, that's five days a week. Fifteen minutes. I think it's very reasonable and you can make a lot of progress over time.

I was just at a client's house the other day and he said, “We made more progress in these six hours than I’ve made in six years.”

It's not as much about the hours or the number of hours, it's about starting and making the progress. So I think with 15 minutes a day you can totally do that.

Tips for starting small when you declutter

I think I've shared that while 15 minutes sounds small, it's actually not and it really builds up over time.

If 15 is too much, start with 5. Do a week of 5 minutes, then next week do 10 minutes, then the third week do 15. It's still going to add up over time.

What you want to do is set a timer. We all have timers on our cell phones and a visual timer is great because it shows visually, with a picture, how fast it's going.

When my kids were younger, I had the little visual timers, like the little pizza pie, and it shows how much longer you have. That can be really helpful, especially if you do struggle with time blindness or timing issues.

You want to be sure to target a very small area. For 15 minutes, I would target one flat surface. Or it might even be half a flat surface or a small section of a flat surface. It might be one drawer. It might be one shelf. It might be half of a shelf.

Because it's 15 minutes, make sure you have a clear boundary on a small area.

I told my son this morning, “You need a sweatshirt,” and he has two hooks by the door and there are five or more things hanging on the hooks, but he had to go all the way upstairs to get a sweatshirt.

So I sent him a text message and said, “Your chore for after school is to clear up these hooks.” It should be holding a sweatshirt that you can grab and walk out the door with. I think it'll take him four minutes to do that project.

Really commit to working until the timer goes off. And once the timer goes off, feel free to stop. You don't have to keep going. It doesn't matter if you're halfway through the area. If you're consistent, just put it down and walk away because you're going to do it again tomorrow.

Easy Decluttering Wins That Build Momentum

Look for those easy wins. Sometimes people get caught up in their head. “I don't know what to do with this.” Okay, put that down and pick up something that you do know what to do with. Come back to that harder decision later.

Just start with the easy stuff. As you build up over time with your 15 minutes, you're going to get better and better at it and you're going to be able to address some of the harder things.

I love starting with a trash bag because that's usually a very easy win. Anything that you know is broken or has a hole or doesn't work anymore.

Sometimes that's the hard thing. Like, “I got this new coffee maker and then one of them works and one of them doesn't, I don't know which one.” So then your 15 minutes is figuring out which coffee maker works.

To combat that in the future, when the new upgraded item comes in, right away, if it's truly broken, try decluttering it or moving it, or at the very least labeling it clearly.

I would encourage being ruthless, as ruthless as you can be, especially with just in case items or items under the 20/20 rule.

Basically, we keep a lot of things that can be gotten within 20 minutes of our home for $20 or less. If you can replace an item that fast and that cheaply and it's something you're not using, let it go. That's when we're just living in warehouses. This is the 20/20 rule.

Some organizers ask the question, “Would you even know you have it?” Which is a fair question, especially for some of these little odds and ends specialty items.

You don't need to store everything just in case.

How to Stay Focused During Your 15 Minute Decluttering Session

If you have time, say you're working away 15 minutes on a drawer, decluttering, tidying it up, making it neat, sorting by categories, and then you have a couple minutes left, do one or two things in the next space that you're going to address tomorrow.

You don't have to do the whole space, but usually the hardest thing is to get started. It's taking that first step.

If you know tomorrow you're going to do the next drawer or the next shelf over, can you line those things up a little bit? Can you sort them a little bit? Put the like with like. Can you put any little trash that you see in your trash bag?

Any little first steps that you can take for the next space if you have time in your 15 minutes, that's just going to help you tomorrow and your tomorrow self will thank you for it.

I would encourage you to have a donation or to-go box or bag and then at the end of the 15 minutes either you're going to continue filling it tomorrow and then when it's full it goes in your car, or at the end of the 15 minutes you're popping it in your car if you're done with it.

Those are some of the real tips that I think will help you as you're decluttering your home in 15 minutes a day.

Decluttering Pitfalls to Avoid When Organizing Your Home

There are two pitfalls that I wanted to talk about.

One pitfall is don't get sucked into sentimental items. That can suck up your 15 minutes in a heartbeat. A good example is photos or yearbooks. When I hit pictures, I don't even ask people. I assume they're keeping pictures. So it's like, great, put it in the picture bin and move on.

Don't get sucked into the sentimental items. If you have a bunch of clutter in your home and a bunch of areas to address, I would have a sentimental tote or bin or area and you're like, “That's sentimental. That's sentimental.” And you just continue to put those items there for later.

So you're just doing a broad sort at the beginning.

The other pitfall that I've seen is like the books “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

People will be like, “Oh, this thing, I know where it goes,” and then they go over there to put it away. Which is good, it's good to put it away. But then they start doing a couple things there and then there's five minutes there.

Then they find something else that belongs in the laundry room and now they're doing a couple things in the laundry room. Then they found a glass and a plate and now they're doing things in the kitchen. And then your 15 minutes are up.

If you're like, “I'm going to do this drawer for 15 minutes,” do the drawer for 15 minutes.

If you have a couple things to put in homes in other areas, gather them. Here's the pile of things that I know have homes.

Maybe at 12 minutes, you walk around and just quickly put things where they belong. But don't get distracted doing little minutes here and there because then the 15 minutes isn't going to build up and give you momentum the way you want it to.

I'd love to hear if you're decluttering your home in 15 minutes a day. How is it going? What's working well? We’d love to hear how it’s going, and we're here cheering you on.