Clean Fast: A Room by Room Guide to Conquering Clutter in 10 Minutes

Filed under: Storage & Cleaning, Storage & Organization

Pick a room, take a few minutes -- that's all you need! -- and tackle the clutter.

It's early February and many resolutions have already fallen by the wayside, but that doesn't mean you can't meet your goals to get organized in 2011. One of the key steps to achieving organization at home is to tackle you clutter. Don't worry, you don't need to address the whole mess all at once, just pick a room, take ten minutes and weed out some excess stuff.

Get a head start to your de-cluttering: Gather every member of your household for an initial sweep through the house. Set a timer for ten minutes and tell everyone to go through the house looking for items that aren't in the appropriate rooms. Toys go back to children's rooms, the stack of cookbooks on the coffee table go back to the kitchen, etc. In just a short amount of focused time, you'll have everything back into its designated room and you'll be better able to sort through clutter with this done.

ENTRYWAY/MUDROOM:

Remove the non-essentials. If you don't need an item to get out the door, find another place to store it.

Hang small hooks next to the door, and hang up your keys every time you come inside. Once you get in the habit, you'll never waste ten minutes searching for lost keys again.

Store seasonal items. If field hockey is over until next September, there's no reason your daughter's shin guards and stick should be in the entryway.

Create an inbox. Place a bin or a letterbox near your entry for incoming mail and place mail there until you have time to sort through it.


LIVING ROOM:

Recycle every old magazine or newspaper -- if you haven't read it yet, you're probably not going to. Trust us, you won't miss them.

Buy a bin or basket to hold new magazines. As soon as the bin fills up, it's time to do another purge.

Lose the CD and DVD cases. The packaging for CDs and DVDs takes up a ton of space, especially if you have a large media library. Toss all the plastic cases and put the disc into CD sleeves in a binder. Say hello to your newly cleared shelf space.

Designate a home for all of your remotes -- a basket or even a small bucket -- and train your family to put them there!

Donate excess toys. This one is hard -- we know. Explain to your child that he'll be giving his old toys to a child who is in need; it may help him part with that Lego set he never liked anyway.


KITCHEN:

Eat through your pantry. Intentionally run your pantry "dry" by eating everything -- even dry items like pancake mix and pasta. It's a great way to give your cupboards a fresh start. Plus, you'll save money in the weeks you are creatively eating what you have on-hand.

Toss the plastic bags -- once and for all. Everyone has it: The bag of bags. Get rid of all those plastic bags you have been "saving" and start a new stash, but limit it to just a half a dozen plastic bags at a time.

Eliminate duplicates. Yes, kitchenware is always useful, but there's no need for two vegetable peelers or four paring knives. Narrow down your tools to one of each item to get your drawers in check.

Store rarely-used items. If you only use your food processor once in a blue moon and you're short on counter space, consider storing it elsewhere to free up space. Ditto the bread maker and the panini press.

BEDROOM:

Remove non-sleep-related items. The bedroom is for sleeping. Clear out anything that doesn't relate to your nocturnal life. Give it a try. You'll probably sleep better once you do.

Give yourself a hook (or two or three). If you're guilty of throwing your clothes on the floor (or over the Nordic Track machine, chair, etc.), hang a few over-the door hooks to catch your garments instead.

Optimize your bedside storage. If you don't have drawers or shelves on your bedside table, consider placing an attractive, covered box beneath it to hold books and magazines.

BATHROOM:

Get rid of products you don't use. All of them. Most people have dozens of skin care and beauty products that never get used. Toss them or find a friend who might want to try the lotion you weren't crazy about.

Streamline the formulations you do use. There's no reason each family member needs to have his or her own set of shampoos, conditioners and washes: Get your brood to agree on no more than two types of each item, and don't buy any new ones until the old ones run out.

Invest in organizers. Makeup, hair clips and other small items can easily get disorganized, invest in small bins, dividers and or containers so that every item you are planing to keep has a designated spot.


Hungry for more advice? Take a peek at ShelterPop's Storage & Cleaning archive!

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