No matter how vigilant we are, clutter always makes a comeback. And it resurfaces all over the home: rogue shoes dotted around the entryway, abandoned clothes in the 'floordrobe' and expired medicine gathering dust in the bathroom cabinets, to name a few. It’s near impossible to keep up with! But there are decluttering methods that can help.
I’ve been testing many over the years, and with each approach I find a fresh perspective, but none like this. This week, I tried the ‘declutter like a tourist’ method to see what kind of a dent it would make in my bathroom clutter. Here’s what happened…
What is the ‘declutter like a tourist’ method?
Unfortunately, despite the name, there’s no travelling included with this method (except maybe to the charity shop!). In fact, decluttering like a tourist involves approaching your clutter as if you were a tourist. It’s imagining what a stranger would think were they to look through your cupboards and drawers – simple as.
There are no other explicit rules involved, but if you'd like some help getting started, asking another family member or friend to come over would give you the actual feedback you’re looking for. Just try not to be offended – this feedback is what you need! It allows you to look at your clutter with a fresh pair of eyes and make an unbiased judgement. You could even invite someone to do a swap where they look around your home and you look at theirs and then make notes for each other on particular ‘clutter hotspots’.
Remember, you’re not just looking at surface-level clutter – the point is to look in the places where we tend to cram and slam the excess. Just think; if a tourist were staying in my home right now, what cupboards would they access and what would they think? The technique eradicates your ‘clutter-blindness’ which has built up over the years and allows you to make decisions much easier as there's no longer a personal attachment.
What happened when I tried the ‘declutter like a tourist’ method
I focused on my bathroom with this method, where the cabinets contain an inordinate amount of creams, liquids, medicine and bath bombs, and the shower cubbies are filled to the brim with forgotten products. Meanwhile the bath itself has cleaning products stacked around the rim, so the room was crying for a declutter, and I think any guest or tourist would have had this at the top of their list.
Beauty products
I started the timer and set off. It took me a minute just to pull everything down, but it was all soon scattered over my bathmat. I channelled my inner mum, and I knew the process would be brutal. To start with, I’d held on to many unopened bottles of body milk over the years which I felt bad getting rid of; high-end products which had come with nice perfume sets and gift boxes. But I don’t use them and had many duplicates, and I think a stranger would judge me for hanging onto them all. So into the donation bag they went.
I also came across products I had opened but never finished, like a bottle of dry hair shampoo that had served me well in years past but it was well past its period-after-opening date. I’d also be pretty embarrassed if a guest stumbled upon that, so it was good to go.
Then I picked up a hand sanitiser which had a sickly, sweet fragrance (I think it’s designed for kids). The team couldn’t help but giggle at it in when I brought it into the office, and I wasn’t using it at home because the fragrance was just too much. I’d offer it to my sister, who has children and may not mind it so much.
I only kept the obvious things I would use: shampoo, conditioner, day and night creams. I also created a little section on the shelf just for my travel products, which would be easy to gather when needed (and guests would appreciate). The shelf was transformed in four minutes in total; I’d say half of the clutter was gone in that time.
Medicine
I was dreading sorting through the medicine because the shelf really was overloaded and stacked to the brim; something a tourist would definitely judge. As I tried to pull the boxes out, loose blister packs spilled down the side of the toilet – it took two minutes just to get everything down.
Sorting took longer than anticipated, mainly because the first step was reading the expiry dates, which is often tricky to see – especially on the blister packs! But I persevered and removed what had expired within a couple of minutes. That included a couple of old bottles of suntan lotion, which I realised was well past its best and needed replacing!
Empty packaging was cleared and recycled during this phase too; I found empty medicine boxes as well as a huge box for replacement toothbrush heads (there was only one left in the pack!).
I then categorised the medicine: paracetamol, ibuprofen, nose, eyes, hay fever etc, and stacked in reverse expiration order, so the oldest gets used first. Ideal if a guest was looking for medicine. Loose blister packs with one or two pills left in sat on the very top, to encourage their use. This area took eight minutes to sort in total, but I was relieved it was under control again, and thankful to have found the hay fever tablets!
Note: Expired medicine should be taken to your local pharmacy to be safely disposed of.
Bathtub
Only a few items were dotted around my tub, but it still looked overly busy and chaotic. The first thing I removed was nine face masks. This was another type of product I’d been hanging on to and amassing in the hope that I’d find time for them one day. But, in my entire life, I think I’ve worn one mask, so the tourist voice in my head told me to let go.
I also found a ‘still-boxed’ candle sitting in the corner of the tub. It was coated in dust, so had been here for some time and was was never likely to get used, no matter how well-intentioned it was. It was one of the items in my bathroom that was wasting space according to my tourist voice, so it moved to the donation pile.
My limescale and mould cleaners would be moved to a new home under the kitchen sink; not something you really want guests seeing anyway. And with the many bath bombs which had been gifted to me for Christmas 2024 but were never used, I’d set a deadline in the calendar to use them by – and find them a new home if I can’t meet it.
Again, only the essentials remained; shampoo, conditioner, a squeegee and a huge layer of dust which goes to show how little I rotate the products here. I moved some of the products over from my freshly decluttered cabinet to make better use of them. This area only needed three minutes to work through.
Verdict
Decluttering like a tourist is simple and effective, so long as the tourist voice in your head is stronger than the niggling one telling you to hang on to things! I quite like that it takes a leaf out of the Swedish Death Cleaning book, in that you’re considering what others would think, were they to go through your possessions.
It’s quite relaxed, given there’s no timer or pressure involved, even though I timed myself! Very different to the 5-minute clean routine in that respect. But, still I managed to declutter my bathroom in just shy of 15 minutes, so it's speedy to say the least.
However, it’s not without flaws; the main one being that if you sort through items with which you hold a strong emotional attachment, your feelings would be discounted. So, you could easily declutter things which still have meaning for you, and you later regret. It’s also quite difficult to maintain this outside perspective as you declutter, especially as you tire – so breaks are still essential.
This mindset is handy for everyday clutter though and for spotting the hotspots, so I do recommend decluttering like a tourist wherever there’s no sentimental attachment, e.g. the bathroom, kitchen and hallway. Overall, it’s a fresh perspective that can speed up the process and help you to let things go.
Handy storage solutions
