​How to Create a Personalized House Decluttering Plan (with downloadable guide)

by Susan McCarthy

​Decluttering your home can feel overwhelming…but that may be because you’re viewing this as one huge task on your to do list. But, really, decluttering your home is a complex project with many steps. Creating a decluttering plan can help you see where you are (or could get) stuck.

Breaking down a complex project like decluttering your home can help you better see what you are trying to accomplish. And if you get stuck, you’ll be able to tell if you’re procrastinating the drudgery of the work or if you feel stuck because you don’t know how to move forward.
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You may be thinking that breaking out all the steps of a house decluttering plan will make this project seem even more intimidating. But consider that it’s easier to find time for a small task, like cleaning out a drawer, than a bigger project, like decluttering your kitchen.
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And which are you more likely to procrastinate, “declutter drawer” or “declutter kitchen?”

Create a Step-by-Step Decluttering Plan

Breaking the large project of decluttering your home into smaller pieces helps you better see what needs to be done. So, first off, list all the rooms and spaces in your home. (Spaces could be anything from the entryway to a hallway to the garage or attic.)

Now each room or space could be its own full-day or complete weekend task. Can you see yourself clearing your schedule for that many full days so that you’ll only focus on decluttering during those days?

You may be saying that you’re retired and have little else to do or that you’ll work more quickly than I’m suggesting (perhaps completing two rooms a day).

But maybe when the day rolls around to declutter your garage you realize you don’t have the physical energy or mental focus to give to the project. After all, the larger the project, the more daunting it will seem. And the more likely you’ll be to procrastinate.

Your next action? Take your list of rooms and spaces and break each space down into its simplest parts. This helps you better see what needs to be done.

So, for example, in a room, you might list each piece of furniture as a space to be decluttered. You could look for even smaller, more doable steps by seeing a piece of furniture as a collection of individual drawers or shelves.

You could also see the top as its own space. The same with underneath, behind, next to, and maybe even the space in front of that piece of furniture. If you have things stored in all these spaces, then these are all the steps that you’d need to take to declutter the room.

If you are decluttering a large space, like your attic, you could define spaces to declutter as areas along a particular wall.

Your House Decluttering Plan Checklist

By breaking a room into these smallest steps possible, you are creating a checklist. This checklist can help you track what you’re accomplishing. These Little Spaces can also show you that if you only have 10-to-20-minutes that you can still complete a step toward decluttering your house.

The checklist that you’ve created can also highlight other factors that will get in your way.

Decluttering is boring or tedious. Sure, looking at dramatic before and after pictures of decluttered rooms is inspiring. But the work involved in each step to get you there isn’t particularly exciting. Another advantage to creating a checklist of Little Spaces is that you can see the beginning and end of each of these small tasks.

You can cut through the boring qualities of each small task by –

• Setting a timer and playing beat the clock.
• Listening to upbeat music, or a humorous or lighthearted audio book or comedy.
• Alternating a non-physical task with one that involves movement. For example, after sorting through a drawer of papers, you take a few trips out to the recycling bin. Or after sorting through a drawer of cooking utensils, you empty a shelf in your pantry and begin grouping similar items together.
• Or declutter for 30-minutes and then move on to another task that has nothing to do with decluttering. Alternate decluttering and non-decluttering tasks in short bursts.

Each time you complete a task on your checklist, you get to cross it off, which creates a sense of accomplishment. Some days you may even have the time to work on several of these smaller tasks. And each one is a win.

As you see all those Little Spaces crossed off the checklists you’ve made for each room, you’ll see the progress you’re making. On the other hand, if you tell yourself that you’ll declutter an entire room in one day…and you don’t finish…then you’ll be discouraged and feel as if nothing is getting done.

Which scenario is more encouraging? ​

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When a Decluttering Project Seems Complicated
Some decluttering projects, like sorting through boxes and filing cabinets full of paper can also seem complex. Your brain freezes because you feel like you need more information but as you stare at those filing cabinets, you can’t even think of the questions you have.

Again, grab pen and paper so you can set your decluttering plan on paper. Sometimes, just making your thoughts visual helps you see what you’re caught on. You could list each file drawer or name each pile of papers, or even list each category of papers you need to go through. (For example, old utility bills, journals, school papers, etc.)

Next, list the actions you need to take. Yes, get really specific. In the example of sorting through your papers, one action could be, “withdraw one file folder from the top file drawer.” Since you might not think of all the steps in order, you could write out each action on a sticky note or slip of paper. This way, you can rearrange the actions.

Then, start with any action on your list and ask what needs to happen immediately before and after that step. Add those action steps onto new sticky notes. Working out of order might help you see additional actions you need to take.

As you break out the necessary action steps, when you come to something that you don’t know how to do, make a note that you need to learn how to do something, look up information online, ask someone a question, etc.

For example,

• Decide if I need the documents in the file folder. (Look up guidelines for document retention.)

• Shred papers. (Ask Alison how or where she shredded documents when she cleaned out her mother’s house.)

As you lay out the notes with all the actions you need to take, you may start to see actions that can be grouped together. For example, instead of dealing with shredding the contents of each file folder individually, ‘shredding’ becomes its own category. Here you could note what you’ll shred versus dropping straight into a recycling bin.  

You can put all these steps onto a piece of paper, and you have a checklist.

An extra benefit of listing out information that you (at least initially) need to research or ask someone about is that you’ll know you need to take these actions. These won’t feel like detours that require extra time and are sending you off course.
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You won’t feel frustrated that a project is taking longer than expected. And what felt complicated will be broken down into a series of smaller, simpler steps.

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Doing or Delegating Decluttering Tasks

Just as you can find different aspects of decluttering your home intimidating, so can other members of your family. When you talk about decluttering and organizing your family room, others in your house might be wondering what this means.

All those checklists you’re creating, breaking down the Little Spaces to declutter and action steps to take result in an easy decluttering plan. You’ll see what you need to do. If you attach your plan to attainable goals, then you have a great chance of seeing your home as a peaceful space instead of a chaotic one…within the year (or even less time).

The more clearly you can see what needs to be done, the easier it will be to communicate these actions to someone else in your home. Telling your ten-year-old that you’ll be decluttering their toys may have them thinking that they’ll be left with nothing.

Talking about sorting through puzzles and donating the puzzles they’ve already done will feel less overwhelming and intimidating.

With your decluttering plan checklist of simple actions, consider –

• Will you take this step yourself because you’re the person who knows what decisions need to be made?
• Can you delegate the action to someone else (a family member or someone you hire)? When you see the plan written out (and you aren’t making things up as you do the work), you can see the small, specific actions you're asking them to take. You still might need to provide guidance and check that the task is done, but you’ve defined it as a manageable action.
• Can you decide that a task doesn’t need to be done? The quickest way to scratch something from your to do list is to decide you don’t need to do it. Maybe you’re not in the habit of storing things beneath beds and other pieces of furniture. You can still acknowledge this as an organizing win.

Create a Decluttering Plan that Breaks Down this Large and Complex Project

No, you don’t need to hunt online for a free decluttering checklist…you can create your own personalized plan that’s geared to your home. The time it takes you to plan what needs to get done isn’t wasted time.

Instead, it can help you see how to make this large project more manageable by considering the smaller components that can be worked on without a large investment of time. Instead of waiting for some week or weekend that’s magically free of other tasks and events, you’ll be able to take advantage of 15-to-30-minutes and get things accomplished.

You can break down decluttering your home by –

• Little Spaces – drawers, shelves, cabinets, tabletops, and other small areas that you name and thereby define the task.
• Little Actions – listing the steps involved in completing a project. To make certain you aren’t missing any steps, randomly look at a step and ask what needs to be done right before that action and what action will come afterwards.

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Remember, creating a decluttering checklist allows you to track your progress and acknowledge what you are accomplishing throughout the process. 

More Resources to Help You Plan How to Declutter Your Home

• The Less Clutter Roadmap - the action plan for simplifying your home and bringing more joy to your life.
• Setting Intentions for Decluttering Your Home
• Decluttering Mistakes to Avoid so You Stop Wasting Your Time
• ​Decluttering Questions that Help You Decide What to Do with Your Stuff
• ​How to Set Achievable Decluttering Goals    
• Where to Start Decluttering Your Home