We work hard all week long for the reward that is the weekend. There’s free time to do whatever we want, be it favourite hobbies, seeing friends and family or staying firmly glued to the sofa – all activities that are made much easier and much more pleasant without clutter.
While decluttering might not be your idea of a fun weekend, it’s a great time to do it. Slotting in just a couple of jobs while you have free time ensures they’ll actually get done properly, which makes life easier in the long run. A bit of decluttering now means less decluttering later!
But don’t worry, I'm not suggesting you lock yourself away all weekend-long – I’ve picked out a few quick and easy jobs that won’t take up your precious free time but will improve it! Here are the best things to declutter this weekend to clear clutter in minutes:
Digital clutter
While I’m certainly an advocate for getting off your screens over the weekend, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a little downtime on your phone. The trick is making a few minutes of screentime work in your favour before settling into the endless scroll.
Our phones quickly fill up with digital clutter, whether that’s thousands of forgotten photos, unread spam emails, duplicate screenshots or apps we downloaded once and never opened again. Set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes and tackle just one area. You’ll probably finish before the timer goes off, but the impact can be surprisingly satisfying.
In fact, not only will you free up valuable storage space, but you’ll also cut down on the mental clutter that comes with an overloaded phone. The next time you’re searching for an important photo, opening your inbox or looking for an app, everything will be that little bit quicker and easier.
Forgotten hobbies
Weekends are often a time when we like to indulge in our favourite hobbies and pastimes, so, this weekend, take a moment for the hobbies of weekends gone by. We’ve all done it – taken up a hobby that requires myriad apparatus only for us to forget all about it and move on to the next thing, whether that’s things like knitting needles or indoor exercise bikes sitting idle. I may or may not have a pickle ball bat or two staring me down every time I enter the garage…
Be ruthless: anything you know you haven’t picked up in a month should be up for debate. You can donate plenty of these items to your local charity shops or collection sites, so someone else can pretend they use them, too.
Food storage containers
Your future midweek self will thank you for this one! Food storage containers have a habit of multiplying over time, leaving you with mismatched lids, cracked tubs and stained plastic taking up valuable cupboard space. Spending just a few minutes sorting through them at the weekend means you’ll know exactly what you have when it’s time to meal prep or pack lunches for the week ahead.
It also comes in handy after weekend dinners or get-togethers, when leftovers can go straight into matching containers instead of being squeezed into whatever you can find. A quick declutter now makes storing food, packing lunches and cleaning up after meals much faster throughout the week.
Cookbooks
Don’t get me wrong, I love cookbooks, but they can also create a lot of clutter. They easily build up as we experiment with new cuisines and trends, but serve a purpose, right? Well, only if you actually cook from them. Go through your collection this week – if you know you haven’t cooked anything from a book in the last six months, then it’s time to reduce the stack.
The wrapping drawer
If you’re heading off to a celebration this weekend, now’s a good time to take a cold hard look at your wrapping drawer. Gift wrap has a way of quietly taking over cupboards, drawers and spare rooms. Half-used rolls of wrapping paper, crumpled gift bags and tangled ribbons often get shoved away after birthdays and celebrations only to be forgotten.
Spend a few minutes gathering everything together and be honest about what you'll actually use. Recycle torn gift bags, flattened bows and scraps of wrapping paper that are too small to wrap anything, then neatly store the rest in one dedicated place. You’ll free up valuable storage space and save yourself the last-minute panic of buying more gift wrap because you couldn’t find what you already had.
Takeaway menus
If you still have a drawer full of takeaway menus, now’s the time to let them go. With most restaurants taking orders online or through apps, those paper leaflets often end up becoming unnecessary clutter that gets in the way of finding the things you actually need.
Before ordering your Saturday night takeaway, spend a few minutes recycling old menus and keeping only ones that are genuinely useful. Clearing them out will instantly tidy up kitchen drawers and make it easier to find essentials like batteries, scissors or takeaway vouchers you actually plan to use. It’s a quick win that creates more space with very little effort.
The clothes chair
Every home seems to have one: the chair that’s become a halfway house for clothes that aren’t quite dirty but aren’t clean enough to go back in the wardrobe. Before long, it turns into a mountain of jumpers, jeans and jackets that’s impossible to sort through – especially after a busy working week.
Take a few minutes this weekend to clear it completely. Hang up anything that’s still clean, put dirty clothes in the laundry basket and decide what to do with the rest. Starting the week with an empty chair doesn't just make your bedroom feel tidier; it also saves time each morning by making it easier to find what you want to wear, instead of digging through an ever-growing pile of musty smells.
Handy storage solutions
