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Getting ready for fall and winter, or perhaps looking to get your home in shape for the holiday season? Then you might love our Fall Decluttering Checklists, which go room-by-room, come with plenty of tips along the way, and can be a great way to prep for fall and holiday cleaning too.
We even followed things up with even more helpful tips and habits at the end, which might help you out even more with the decluttering process, preparing for it, and working towards preventing it from getting out of control in the future.
Not sure if you even need to declutter? Then you might like reading our post on 18 Critical Signs It’s Time to Declutter Your Home first, or even once you’re finished here (new tab).
Don’t want to go through every room’s details? No worries! Just use the accordion feature under each room’s heading or click the arrow to the right of it.
1. Kitchen
The kitchen can be one of the biggest hotspots for clutter in the home, especially when food items have expired or aren’t being used. Clutter can also lurk in junk or utility drawers, under-the-sink, and throughout the rest of our drawers and cabinets too.
Many people tend to be in the habit of accumulating extra cooking utensils, while others may be in the habit of storing one too many like items that they don’t even use. Excess or unused items might include anything from that one handy-dandy kitchen appliance or gadget that sounded novel when we bought it, but we never seem to use it. It can also include having one too many strainer spoons, mugs (raises hand), damaged pots and pans, pizza cutters, and so forth.
Quick Fall Kitchen Decluttering Tips
2. Dining Room
The dining room can be a great place to start when decluttering for fall since it’s usually one of the least cluttered areas in many homes. And you’ll likely want to focus on decluttering and getting rid of items that you never use, like, or feel might do better in someone else’s home.
Any items you keep can then be tidied up and organized accordingly, whether immediately after decluttering or later in the season.
3. Living Room
Living rooms, like kitchens, function as part of the heart of the home. Because of this, they also tend to accumulate a lot of clutter, whether due to adults, kids, pets, or overly enthusiastic shopping and/or hoarding habits.
Either way, decluttering the living room area in the fall and throughout other times of the year can make for easier cleaning. It also makes for a more inviting and relaxing environment, thanks to having less visual stimulation and fewer things to tidy up after.
This can be ideal during the holiday season as well, since people often bring out even more decorations, which can add even more clutter and visual over-stimulation to the space, potentially raising cleaning efforts and stress levels without proper decluttering beforehand. And what better time to declutter than when you’re getting those holiday decorations out to enjoy.
Quick Fall Living Room Decluttering Tips
Give Items a Home
Find a home for it – things such as throw blankets, pillows, DVDs, video games, controls, and the like can often add up and go unused, or they might even have a tendency to get strewn across the room more than stay where they belong.
You can eliminate a lot of living room clean up later by making sure to get rid of what you no longer use, such as old game consoles and games, and by making sure to find a good home for items you decide to stick with for when they’re not in use.
For instance, you can instantly eliminate a lot of clutter not only by donating DVDs and games that you don’t use and by putting what you do want to keep in one tidy DVD binder vs. having a ton of individual holders to deal with. However, if you plan to sell the items later, make sure to keep the sleeves or holders that they came with.
Another example would be blankets and throw pillows, which can pile up over time or get thrown across the room whenever they might otherwise be in the way. You can give items such as this a temporary or stealthy catch-all kind of home in something like a tall, woven basket, inside a bench or storage ottoman, or some other hiding spot for when they’re not in use. This will also help to keep them clean later on, too.
Make Decluttering a Year-Round Task
You can also eliminate a lot of the hassle and clutter year-round by routinely making sure that recurring items, like magazines or books and mail, that frequently come into the home are purged a few times throughout the year. We love to set reminders to do this once every quarter, just to make sure that it’s not already been taken care of already.
Tis the Season
If you find that you have a lot of decorations that you don’t want to get rid of but feel can be a bit overwhelming while out all at once, then you may want to consider putting them on a rotation. As an example, you could have certain pieces out during the spring or summer, even if they’re not necessarily spring- or summer-themed.
You can then switch to other items throughout the later seasons of the year. This way, you reduce the amount of visual clutter in the room and the number of items to clean on a daily basis, making things a lot more inviting and manageable.
4. Hallway/Entryway
Hallways and entryways can accumulate a lot of clutter, too, making it important to keep up on things throughout the year. And as the warmer months start to wane into the colder seasons, it can mean even more clutter in the future than usual. Therefore, it’s good to work on decluttering whatever is present beforehand and to even work on decluttering those colder weather items as you start to bring them out for use.
And even if you have items that you may want to hold onto, you can still try to put away what you won’t be using for the next few seasons. For instance, many people find it useful to store away summer and springtime items and even decorations to make way for fall and winter ones. It not only helps to free up space while reducing clutter, but it can make your environment easier to maintain and more comfortable to be in.
5. Bedroom(s)
Like the living room and kitchen areas, bedrooms tend to accumulate a lot of clutter–especially when it comes to clothing, gadgets, bedding, decorations, books, and even things that might belong in other rooms.
Try to work towards purging items you no longer use, need, want, or love to free up the space and make your bedroom more inviting. Plus, if you struggle to keep on top of cleaning your room, making it look like your ideal space can work as an excellent motivator to keep things tidy—or at least neat-ish.
If you can’t or don’t want to get rid of items, consider storing away seasonal items, clothing, and gear that you won’t be using any time soon. Having time away from things can also make it easier to discern what you might need to keep or could do with getting rid of later on.
To make things a bit easier, we’ve broken the bedroom down into three parts: bedroom, closet/dresser (fall/winter time), and closet/dresser (summer/springtime).
Bedroom
Closet and Dresser Decluttering – Warm Weather + Misc.
Closet and Dresser Decluttering – Cold Weather
6. Bathroom
Bathrooms can be a mega hotspot for toiletries, makeup, hair products, shaving products, and even toys and clothes that don’t belong in the space, have expired, aren’t used, or need to be thrown away. Because of this, it can be ideal to declutter the area during the fall and springtime, if not every single season.
If you struggle with decluttering your bathroom, work on an area or two at a time each day or as you see fit. Do what works best for you. That might mean working on expired or throw-away items only or even working on one or two bathroom drawers or cabinets at a time.
Quick Fall Bathroom Decluttering Tips
7. Garage
Garages aren’t just prone to being a hotspot for clutter, but they also tend to be a hotspot for bugs, critters, and other messes. And they often tend to be one of the more neglected spots within a home, too. This can make it all the more important to ensure that the garage is organized and appropriately decluttered. You can find a few tips for this below.
Quick Fall Garage Decluttering Tips
8. Exterior
The outside of the home can get cluttered, but it can be more about winterizing it more than anything else.
Fall is a great time to work on getting rid of anything that might be broken, doesn’t suit the space, no longer fits your needs, might need to be repaired, or needs to be stored in preparation for the colder seasons.
Want more outdoor fall preparation tips? Check out our Ultimate Fall Cleaning Checklist + Tips | Prep for Winter & Holidays post next (new tab).
9. Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous items to declutter in the Fall season can include personal files and gadgets to holiday decor, car clutter, pet supplies, kid-related items, office-related messes, and financial records.
While these may seem basic, keeping on top of some of these items year-round won’t just help your home feel neater, but it can also help your life run more smoothly in general. And having set times throughout the year to tackle them is a great way to stay consistent.
Conclusion
This post covered many items you can work towards decluttering through the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, entryway or hallways, dining area, outdoor space, and garage.
We also included a few miscellaneous items, from holiday decor to personal files, car decluttering, and more. Some sections, or rooms, also feature a few of our quick fall-related tips to help you along. And, as promised, you’ll find a few bonus tips on how to declutter in the fall season and year-round.
Final Tips on How to Declutter in the Fall
- Entertain Yourself – If you find yourself lacking motivation to decluter, try to entertain yourself by listening to music, audiobooks, podcasts, or anything that might make the process more enjoyable but without distracting you too much.
- One Step At a Time – If you have a lot of items declutter, don’t feel you have to get it done all in one day. Break it down into more manageable chunks so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Maybe that means spending a few minutes a day working on it, or even an hour or two on one day out of the week. Decluttering is a year-round event that you can work on each season, not just fall or during spring cleaning time.
- Plan Ahead – Rather than diving into the decluttering process, have a good idea for what you’ll be tackling for the day or session. It also helps to move in a systematic fashion, such as counter-clockwise throughout the room, inside cabinets before the exterior of the room, from top to bottom, etc. You can also have tools you’ll need to make the process easier, such as a donation box or bag ready, a trash or recycling bag, etc.
- Research – Even tasks like cleaning and organizing can take practice and can be aided by doing a little research. If you find yourself unsure where or how to start, looking for decluttering videos on Youtube or check out some popular decluttering books, such as Marie Kondo’s best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
- Make Decluttering a Habit or Mindset vs. a Goal – Instead of making an effort or goal to declutter a few times out of the year or whenever things start to get out of control, consider working it into your daily, weekly, or even month or quarterly cleaning routines and schedules. You can also incorporate it into you shopping habits, such as by asking yourself why you need an item before you by, can you live without it, are you willing to add it to your cleaning routine (i.e., washing, dusting, etc.), and if there’s something you can get rid of to make room for it in your life.
- Pay Attention to Your Mood and Environment – If you find that certain areas of the home are getting harder to clean or that don’t feel very relaxed while in them, it could be a red flag that the space has accumulated too much clutter.
We wish you luck on your fall-time decluttering and hope you found this post helpful. If you’re looking for more fall-related tips to help you get ready for the fall and winter seasons, then you might love our post, Ultimate Fall Cleaning Checklist + Tips on Prepping for Winter & Holidays, next. You’ll also find other related posts and topics listed below.
Our Fave Clutter-Busting Gets
Happy Decluttering and Holiday Season!
2 Comments
I’m in Australia so we’re opposite seasons, but these are some great decluttering tips! Thankyou! 🙂
Aww! Thank you! While I can’t take total credit for all of them, I love using a lot of them year-round, regardless of the weather or time of year. Hope they help you too! 🥰