There are three basic methods to declutter your home. Some techniques work better than others. The strategy you use depends on the type of clutter, where it is located, and your own working style. I’ve listed the three best methods to declutter and how and when to use each type.

Declutter Room-by-Room

The room-by-room method of decluttering is one of the best methods to declutter, and organizers suggest this method most often. One of the reasons it is so popular is because it takes place in a defined space. Typically that space is a room, but you can focus on much smaller areas such as a single drawer or shelf. Because clients remain in one spot while decluttering, they can keep focused on the task.

The main advantage of room-by-room (or area-by-area) decluttering is that it has almost immediate results. The clients can see that they are making progress – and they are! However, there is one drawback to this method. If you find items in other parts of the home that belong in the area you just cleared, you can end up with more clutter. For example, you declutter the bookshelves in your living room. Then, when you declutter your bedroom, you find books that belong in the living room. When you return the books, the shelves become cluttered again, and you must restart the process.

Category Decluttering

In this method of decluttering, you group everything from the same category and declutter it all at once. Sorting and purging by category is the best method to declutter if one type of item is out of control or if the items don’t take up a lot of space in your home during the process. For example, you could concentrate on photographs or your baseball card collection. You might have a few bins in a corner and spread them out on a folding table for a few days with minimal disruption to household functioning.

Category decluttering becomes difficult if you have a copious quantity of items that take up a lot of space. This decluttering method is particularly disruptive if you live in a small household (condo-apartment-type). A specific reality television program often shows an entire bedroom clogged with piles of clothing that the homeowner must sort through. But what if the clothing pile is on your bed and you don’t declutter by the time you want to sleep? Well, you might be bunking on the living room sofa.

Declutter by System

This last method is a bit more complicated. Instead of focussing on a room/area or category, you think about how items come into your home, how you use them, and where you store them. Zeroing in on the systems is one of the best methods to declutter when you want to stop the mess from building up in the first place. It works best for routine processes such as laundry, grocery shopping, garbage/recycling, etc.

For example, if dirty clothes pile up in your children’s rooms, think about how to make it easier for them to transport their clothes to the laundry area. You could have a laundry basket in each bedroom and designate one day per week for each child’s laundry (e.g., Every Tuesday, you launder Kelly’s clothes, bedding, towels, etc.). The disadvantage of this method is that it doesn’t work for one-time clear-outs of areas or rooms, so you may feel you are not making any progress toward decluttering your home.

Which Method Does Out of Chaos Use?

The team at Out of Chaos uses all three methods. Our philosophy is to customize the decluttering method to our clients’ needs.

For most of our clients, the room-by-room strategy is the best method to declutter. Often, we’ll incorporate some category decluttering at the same time. If we are decluttering a living room, and we know the client wants to store all the books there, we would gather them from around the house and sort them in the living room. Sometimes we’ll see clutter accumulating in a specific area of the home due to an inefficient process such as inaccessible recycling bins or poorly designed entryways. In these cases, we’ll use the System Method to help the homeowner reduce clutter.

Check out more of our decluttering articles or for hands-on help with home organizing, contact the Out of Chaos team.