How to Declutter Fast: A Quick Way to Get Started

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start decluttering, here’s a tip for how to declutter fast.

I haven’t yet read the book How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, but I’ve had it recommended to me and heard a lot of good things about it.

A post I was reading from Lifehacker explains the basic philosophy of the book, which gives you a guideline for how to declutter fast when you don’t know where to start:

  • Pick up everything that’s obviously trash and throw it away.
  • Pick up all the dirty laundry and put it in an appropriate place (same for clean laundry, I suppose).
  • Put all the dishes in the sink.
  • Gather things that do have a place and put them where they go.
  • Collect things that don’t have a place and decide what to do with them.

What to Do with Things That Don’t Have a Place

Of course it’s that last category that trips most people up, because if you don’t have a place for something you can’t really put it away. And most of our homes are filled with things that don’t have a place they are supposed to go.

This is what turns decluttering or clearing a space from a quick process into something hard, stalled, abandoned.

And when it comes to decluttering craft supplies it can be particularly difficult because we often buy supplies beyond our capacity to store them. So it’s not as simple as “just make a place for them.”

A lot of evaluation needs to go into whether you keep the thing, where it goes and how to store it. None of which is a quick process. But there are things you can do to make it go a little faster and hopefully easier, too.

How to Declutter Fast in a Craft Room

Talking specifically about craft supplies since that’s what we’re here for (though this works with anything you need to sort), you can start in the same place mentioned above and get rid of anything that’s clearly trash.

Here trash might also be defined as things you know you don’t want and won’t use. Of course you don’t need to literally trash them, since there are lots of ways to get rid of supplies you don’t want.

But they do need to be removed from your space in some way so they aren’t constantly catching your eye and sapping your energy.

Then I like to organize items by type. It’s so easy to just stuff things in random places — in a craft room and elsewhere — so things end up together that don’t really belong together.

So, all the yarn goes together, all the fabric, all the embroidery supplies. Whatever categories make sense for you and the crafts you do.

As you are doing this rough organization you might find more things that are easy to get rid of, like that second grommet maker you bought when you couldn’t find the first one. If that sounds like speaking from experience, well, you’re right.

Decluttering and Organizing Your Space

And as spaces get cleared you might begin to see how a new organizational structure might take shape. Those shelves would be great for fabric because they’re next to the sewing machine, while that awkward space in the closet is perfect for knitting needles. Or whatever.

I hate to suggest that you keep what you have room for, because that makes us tempted to cram in as much as we can regardless of how we feel about it or when or if we expect to use it.

But knowing how much space you have for a certain type of supply is helpful when you’re trying to declutter because you can say “do I really want this to take up precious space in that drawer?” It’s sort of like playing the moving game.

Learning how to declutter fast doesn’t get you all the way there, but it is a good way to start the process of clearing out craft supplies or any other space in your house.

Image by Лариса Мозговая from Pixabay.

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