We hate to break it to you, but a cluttered, chaotic space doesn’t tidy itself overnight. You can buy all the drawer dividers and storage bins you want, but the real magic happens when you finally decide to declutter.
Whether you accumulated a lot over the years or are simply hanging onto pieces for pure nostalgia’s sake, offloading your belongings can be a difficult (and emotional) endeavor.
But if you ask the pros, purging comes with plenty of payoffs. “Decluttering isn’t about having less, it’s about making space for what actually matters,” says Kenika Williams, founder and lead organizer of Tidied By K in Georgia. “A well-organized home should make your life easier, not more restrictive.”
Still, looking at a pile of stuff and having no clue where to start can be overwhelming. To help, we tapped professional organizers to find out the top questions you should always ask yourself as you declutter. With any luck, the answers hold the key to a tidy space. Magic? No, just a little bit of soul searching.
“What do I want this space to do for me?”
If you want to organize your home—and make sure it stays that way—it’s important to set an intention. “Decluttering without a clear vision leads to feeling like you’ve wasted your time,” explains Joanna Wirick, a lifestyle organizer based in Omaha, Nebraska. “You typically make random decisions and get inconsistent results.”
Wirick says when you define an intention for a space—be it streamlining your morning routine or offering a chill place rest after a long day—it becomes a lot easier to suss out what belongs and what doesn’t.
“How much time do I have?”
Organizing your home can seem like this big, intimidating endeavor that needs your full, undivided attention; however, Williams respectfully disagrees. As she puts it, it’s a good idea to start smart smaller than you need. “Most people burn out because they take on too much too fast,” she says. “Momentum is built through quick wins.”
Instead of conquering one room at a time, break your space down into smaller, more manageable zones such as your junk drawer, pantry, or linen closet. “Give yourself 15 to 30 minutes, finish one contained space, and stop there,” she says. “Consistency will outperform intensity every time.”
“On a scale of one to 10, how much value is this item giving me right now?”
Most of us can justify keeping every birthday card, CD, or that hair clip we haven’t touched since 2002, which is why open-ended questions like “should I keep this?” often fall flat. Instead, Wirick recommends assigning value to a belonging. If you’re using an item often or it’s a complete game-changer in your home, it’ll likely rank higher than, say, your old soccer cleats. “If you answer below a five, remind yourself someone else could be getting a nine or 10 value out of the item,” she says. “This can help alleviate guilt when parting with something.”
“If I didn’t already own this, would I buy it again today?”
Parting with sentimental items can be such sweet sorrow, but Williams says it doesn’t have to be that way. “The memory isn’t in the item, it’s in you,” she says. “Once clients understand that, it becomes easier to keep a few meaningful pieces instead of everything.”
Williams would rather you hang onto things you really love and use, which is why you should focus on items you’d actually buy again. “It removes history and forces you to evaluate the item based on present value, not past decisions,” she explains.
“What is the cost of keeping this?”
When some people purge their home, they often think about the cost of replacing a discarded item. After all, you may not need 10 white T-shirts right now, but someday? You’ll need to get a new one. However, Wirick encourages you to change your logic. “Every item you keep takes up space, time, energy, and attention,” she says. “When you factor in those hidden costs, it becomes much easier to let go of things that are quietly adding friction to your life.”
Does an item take up too much space in your closet? Require a lot of maintenance? If so, it might be time to give it the heave-ho.
Kelsey Mulvey is a freelance journalist who has over a decade of experience in print and digital media. She covers interior design and lifestyle content for a breadth of publications, including Good Housekeeping, Country Living, House Beautiful, Veranda, and more. Her hobbies include themed spinning classes, Netflix, and nachos.
