If that big decluttering project feels too intimidating, you'll end up procrastinating. The way to get things done it to identify the small tasks that are part of the project so you can get things done.

For the longest time, I would list big projects on my to-do list. A couple of words that would represent hours of work. Too much work to complete in a single session. So, what would happen? I’d list the same words on the next day’s to-do list.
If it was a big project, this would happen for days … sometimes weeks.
The problem was, I’d feel like I wasn’t making progress since I was staring at the same words on my to-do list, day after day. This, of course, was discouraging (“I’m accomplishing nothing!”) and I’d focus on some quick (although usually less important) tasks.
I finally took that advice that I heard all the time, “break a project into small tasks to make it manageable.” This took some experimentation. However, if you can learn to break down a decluttering project, you can transfer this skill to other personal and professional projects.
All Big Projects Are Made of Small Tasks
I’m forever hearing complaints about small actions being a waste of time because they don’t complete a project. But even if you don’t break down a big project, you’re still taking it on in small steps.
Consider a pizza cut into eight slices. You eat the pizza one slice at a time. But even if that pizza wasn’t divided into slices, you’d still consume it one bite at a time. The slices make it more convenient to take those individual bites. Whether you eat one slice at a sitting or all eight, you’re still consuming that pizza in bites.
It’s still the same pizza. Breaking a big project into small tasks doesn’t change the project. The small tasks aren’t the project. Instead, you’re putting yourself in charge of your decluttering project. You don’t have to eat the entire pizza in a single sitting. You don’t have to declutter that entire room in a single day.
You can see that the room is made of small areas which break down further into individual actions.
But you may be wondering how big is too big and how small is too small. If it takes you longer to list the task than execute it, it may be too small. That said, a small task should feel easier to do than to ignore or put off until “later.”
And, as I’ll emphasize throughout this article, you can move from one small task to the next in the time you have available. Stepping out your front door isn’t walk for the day … it’s simply one step of the whole.
Small Steps Help You Start … and Finish
You walk into the room that you’ve been talking about decluttering for ages. You’ve finally set aside the time to work on it. And you know that you have to get it done.
You pick up an item and realize that it’s something you use, so you set it down. You repeat this a few more times as you wander around the room, trying to find a spot to start in. You decide to empty out the contents of the dresser.
But now you’ve added more stuff to the stuff that was already covering the surfaces of the room. You’ve added to your feelings of overwhelm. You compensate by moving around the room, doing a little something there and a little something here.
You’re busy. You’re getting things done. But in the end, you don’t finish decluttering the entire room. And because of this, you don’t feel like you got anything done.
It’s easier to start and finish small tasks because they are manageable. And just because you complete one small task doesn’t mean you can’t go immediately to the next small task.
Small Tasks Make Big Decluttering Projects Manageable
A big decluttering project is made up of small tasks whether you envision it that way or not. You can choose how many small steps you’ll complete in the time you have. There is no, “Fifteen minutes isn’t enough time to get anything done,” because you can stitch together four or eight fifteen-minute sessions and do multiple small tasks.
The problems that arise when you don’t view big projects as small steps is that all the work blends together. That means you get no sense of progress. No sense of things getting done because there is more to do before you’re done.
When you move from one thing to the next, you blur the lines between one task and the next. You see decluttering and organizing the entire bedroom as your start and finish. Even if you get through almost everything, in the scope of how you define “finishing” you’ve failed to complete the task.
You then may feel too discouraged to return to finish the room … or even to go onto your next project.
Small steps not only make a big decluttering project more manageable, but they also help you see that you’re making progress as opposed to focusing on what still needs to get done.
Breaking Down a Project Helps You Better See What Needs to Get Done
When you view an entire room as the project you are working on right now, you lose control of what you need to work on. Small tasks offer you a better understanding of what you need to do.
You get a better sense of the time required by a project. When you don’t finish, you feel discouraged. You also get hit with the Zeigarnik Effect which reveals that the brain focuses on incomplete tasks. Incomplete tasks feel more important and therefore are more distracting because they command our attention.
No matter what you’ve accomplished, you have this overwhelming feeling that nothing is getting done since all you can focus on is what you haven’t completed.
I know, some people don’t like to break down a project because they feel like they are giving themselves more to do by listing out all the steps. But when you look at that big project, as a whole, you have no sense of how time-consuming it will be.
If seeing 50 small actions on a to-do list is overwhelming, do a graduated breakdown. For decluttering, this would look like listing the main areas of a room. For example,
Bed
Nightstand
Nightstand
Dresser
Dresser
Floor
Then, when you go to work on one of these areas, that’s when you can break down the steps of that small area into smaller steps,
Top of nightstand
Nightstand drawer
Nightstand shelf
Dividing the room into small tasks can also help you see what you should work on first and then next. You may realize that cleaning off the floor will give you more space to set things you take out of drawers and cabinets … and you won’t be piling stuff on top of other stuff.
Breaking Down a Project Helps You See What You Need to Declutter
When you list steps, you can see that you need boxes and not trash bags. You see that you should give a call to the charity that picks it up at your home. Or you realize that you need someone to help you by hauling out those boxes of books and bringing them to the library for their book sale … but only after you’ve decluttered your bookshelves.
You see what steps will require high energy and which you can do when your energy is flagging.
Small Steps Add Flexibility
I’ve had a lot of people tell me that working on small tasks doesn’t work for them because they don’t get enough done. They’re looking at the small task method all wrong. You won’t make that mistake.
When you break a big project into small steps, this doesn’t limit you to one step at a time. You can complete multiple small tasks in one work session … or just one. This is about flexibility.
Instead of thinking, “I don’t have enough time to tackle that entire closet,” you realize that you could sort through the contents of one shelf in the time that you do have. Maybe you could even declutter three shelves in the time you have.
This means that when you do have the time to declutter your closet, you have a head start. Also, you’ve gotten around that procrastination bugaboo – starting.
What If You Don’t Know What Steps to Take?
One of the advantages to decluttering projects is that the tasks before you are so visible, unlike, say, writing a report at work. You can see the desired result that you’re heading for, but not necessarily how to get there.
This is one reason that watching videos of someone decluttering their home may not help you declutter your home because your homes look different, contain different types of items, and you use the items in different ways.
However, videos and photos can show you where you’re heading … say, a kitchen counter free of all but the coffee maker and toaster oven … or a counter that also holds a dish drainer, knife block, and container of cooking utensils.
You can also look up the steps online, or even ask an AI tool to list out the actions for you. And, of course, you can also ask someone who has decluttered (don’t ask someone who’s always been organized because they may not know how to take on a large decluttering project).
Small Actions Create Progress
Write down the tasks that make up your project, so you don’t keep rattling through the list. When you complete a step, cross it off your list. This helps you see the progress you’re making is very encouraging.
You may also look at each piece of furniture in a room as a milestone toward the project as a whole.
Small Steps Help You See How to Stay Organized
After you declutter, you want to stay organized. Unfortunately, after a major overhaul of a room things look so good that we don’t feel like we need to do anything else. Tidy it the next day? Seriously, how messy will it be?
However, the right time to switch into maintenance mode is the moment you’ve decluttered. It’s much easier to file one piece of paper than 50 pieces of paper. While decluttering a room takes hours, maintaining order takes moments.
Also, keeping things organized-looking encourages you to keep things organized. When clutter starts to build up, we switch into a decluttering mindset and think that we need a lot of time to bring order to the area. We then think that we need to find a block of hours to work. That encourages procrastination, which means more clutter will build up.
After all, if an area looks messy, it’s easy to excuse setting something down as opposed to putting it away. That’s why I said that keeping things organized encourages you to keep things organized.
So, the moment you declutter a room (or even while you’re still decluttering), switch into maintenance mode. This makes future decluttering irrelevant because you keep things tidy.
Make Any Decluttering Project Manageable
To review, breaking down a decluttering project into smaller tasks, makes it easier to work on and to see the progress you’re making. Small actions allow for flexibility. If you don’t have a lot of time or energy, you can work on one small task and see progress. If you have more time and energy, then you can string together small tasks, accomplish more (but save yourself from feeling like you didn’t finish everything because you only have to complete the small tasks, not all the tasks).
To make your next decluttering project more manageable, remember to -
Define what you will do. If you’re decluttering your bedroom, should you find yourself reorganizing the linen closet, you know you’ve drifted from your intention.
See the room as a series of smaller tasks related to the furniture or built-in areas of the room. Then breakdown those small areas into even smaller tasks (drawers or shelves) that can be done more quickly and strengthen the feeling of progress.
Determine if it makes sense to do one or several small tasks before other tasks. Will this make the work easier to do.
If you struggle to estimate how long it will take to declutter a room, seeing the smaller tasks will help you better understand what is involved. Can you declutter 20 small spaces in two hours? Can you completely declutter and organize each space in less than 10 minutes?
Checking off all those small tasks adds to a feeling of progress. You’re getting things done which encourages you to stick with decluttering. Also, knowing that you can work on a task in 20 or so minutes feels more doable than a project that you hope you can complete in six hours.
If you want to progress faster, you work on more small tasks more often. This could be a quick task in the morning, one before dinner, and another two after dinner.
Breaking down decluttering projects is encouraging because you can fit smaller tasks into your day. You don’t get left with a partially complete project after hours of work. Try this now by listing out the steps you need to take to complete that room you’ve been talking about decluttering and get started.


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