How To Start Decluttering When Overwhelmed (13 Easy Tips)

13 Tips for how to start decluttering when overwhelmed

Now that we’ve covered some common barriers to decluttering, let’s dive in to 13 tips for how to start decluttering when overwhelmed and how to make the entire process easier.

1) First, a secret about decluttering

The more decluttering you do, the more decluttering you want to do.

Letting go of things that we don’t need feels good.

It feels like less of a chore, and you might even find yourself excited to start another project.

2) How do you want your home to make you feel?

We so often focus on how we want our home to look, but I suggest you concentrate on how you want your home to feel.

When you walk through the door, do you want your home to stress you out more, or instantly calm your nerves?

Look around the room you’re in. Visualize how you’d feel if this was an uncluttered space.

Measure your progress by how each space makes you feel. Pinterest perfection doesn’t have to be the goal.

3) Have a plan

You don’t have to approach decluttering with a military precision, but it’s great to have a loose plan of what area you’d like to tackle first.

Here’s a reminder of starting points, with some more examples:

• Start small - Instead of feeling overwhelmed by your entire wardrobe, just concentrate on a small category first, e.g. socks.

• Start big - I always recommend that people start with my 2 hour capsule wardrobe, and then my 10 minute toy rotation, as they’re big, quick wins!

• Prioritise your pain points - if you want to pull your hair out every time it’s time to make food, you could tackle the kitchen first.

• Prioritise where you spend most of your time - if you spend most of your time in your bedroom, tackle that space first

• Prioritise items out in the open - concentrate on your kitchen counters first, then move on to the hidden areas inside of cupboards and drawers.

• Do the worst, first - finishing a giant project like your basement, attic or junk room first will make you feel invincible!

• Do easy things first - if you’re feeling overwhelmed with going through your wardrobe, maybe start by letting go of out of date food first? If the thought of wasting food stresses you out (like it does for me), consider sorting through your old make up first.

4) Do you have to do it now?

Sometimes overwhelm can be fixed with a reassuring blog post (hi, that’s me), but sometimes it’s a sign that you really don’t have capacity for another project right now.

Decluttering will make life easier, but be kind to yourself and don’t take on anything that you don’t have the energy for.

I’ll be here to help whenever you’re ready.

5) Just focus on one thing at a time

Like I said, a vague plan is great but don’t overwhelm yourself even more by getting too caught up in all you still have to do.

Just take it one drawer and one shelf at a time.

6) Skip areas if they feel too hard

If you find yourself spiraling deeper in to overwhelm at any stage, just skip whatever it is that’s stressing you out.

There are no rules and no minimalism police, so feel free to skip areas as you please.

I promise you that you’ll feel more ready to tackle them at a later stage.