14 Simple Daily Habits for a Clutter-Free Home - Life's Little Pleasures and Struggles

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So many of us are struggling to maintain our homes clutter-free and organized even after decluttering occasionally. Clearing out clutter once a year or once in a lifetime is one thing, but keeping our homes free of clutter and tidy is a totally different matter! You need to develop some simple daily habits for a clutter-free home. A clutter-free home is a home where you can allow anybody to come in anytime without feeling embarrassed or stressed out. It’s a place where you experience peace, calm, and comfort – where you can relax without being constantly distracted by mess.

Today’s modern and busy life brings clutter into our homes in various shapes and forms, which threatens to invade our homes and our minds. If you’re struggling to create a calm and peaceful home for you and your family to enjoy by keeping the clutter at bay, make the following decluttering habits a part of your daily life.

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1. Give Everything Its Own Place

One of the key habits for a clutter-free home is to give everything you own a place of their own. Whether it’s a nail-cutter, TV remote, school uniform, or physical mail, it’s always helpful to have a proper place for these items to be stored. Otherwise, they’ll just end up being clutter, and you’ll be moving them around to clean, or won’t be able to find them when you need them. When an item doesn’t have a home, it often sits out cluttering your surfaces and your home.

If an item doesn’t have a home or you can’t make room for it, either do some decluttering so you can find a home for it, or ask yourself if the item is worth keeping in your home.

2. Put Things Back in The Right Place

Don’t leave your stuff lying around if you’re done using it. Whether it’s craft projects, kitchen tools, toys or books, just remember to put things away when you’re finished and before you move onto something else. Every item needs to have a purpose and every item must have a home. At the end of the day, items should be returned where they belong. This is a daily habit you need to incorporate in your life and your kids’ lives, too.

3. Create Routines

Before you unwind for the night or before you go to bed, spend 10-15 minutes to reset your home quickly. Getting in the habit of spending just 10 minutes a day picking up, putting things away, and generally tidying your home will go a long way towards maintaining a clutter-free home. Make washing up or loading the dishwasher part of your evening meal routine. When you get up in the morning you won’t be greeted by the clutter of yesterday.

Remember, routines don’t need to be complicated. Just include a few small tasks that will help you start out your day on a more positive note.

4. Have a Donation Box Handy

Keep a donation box handy to help you with decluttering. During the day, when you come across something you no longer use, need, or love, simply add it to your donation box, or if it’s something that can’t be donated, throw it away right then.

When your donation box gets full with unwanted or unloved stuff, drop those items off at your nearby donation center and start the process again. Aim to put something in it every day or every week and deal with the stuff regularly. Strategically place it somewhere prominent that will remind you every time you walk past it.

5. Clear the Flat Surfaces Regularly

One of the incredibly important daily habits for a clutter-free home is clearing the flat surfaces regularly. Clutter always attracts clutter. The better we get at storing clutter out of sight, the less likely it is to accumulate. The kitchen counter is a good example. When countertops become an acceptable place to store things, more things begin to collect there. But a clean countertop communicates calm and order, promotes opportunity for its intended use.

Flat surfaces like kitchen counters, kitchen tables, coffee tables, night stands, bathroom countertops, etc. seem to be magnets for clutter. Go to any room that is cluttered in your house and carefully look around. You can easily spot at least one object out of its place which has made its way onto the tabletop or a furniture top or a countertop. The more frequently you stay on top of clearing off these surfaces, the easier it will be to keep your home clutter-free.

6. Put Your Clothes, Shoes, and Handbags Away

When you come home, put your clothes/coats, handbags, and shoes away immediately. Don’t just dump them in the living room or dining room to deal with later. If they’re dirty, put them in the laundry basket. If they’re clean, hang them up or fold them into a drawer for later use. Don’t hang them on the back of a chair, or throw them on the couch, or toss them on the floor!

7. Make Your Bed Every Morning

An organized, tidy environment leads to a calm mind, and when your bed is made, that calm feeling helps you prepare for the day ahead. Make it a regular habit and it’s a signal to your brain that the day is beginning and you’re ready for it!

Charles Duhigg explained it in his book, “The Power of Habit,” writing that “making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.” Allowing you to start your day with a sense of accomplishment and initiative. Making your bed is what he calls a “keystone habit,” something that kick starts a pattern of other good behavior. And since it happens at the beginning of the day, you’re apt to make better decisions for the remainder of the day.

8. Keep Your Kitchen Tidy

Making your bed allows you to start your day with a sense of accomplishment and initiative. It only takes a few minutes, but instantly transforms the way your bedroom looks and feels. It makes the whole space look tidier, cleaner, and more inviting. This small habit can have a domino effect that helps inspire other small habits to keep your home tidy.

The kitchen tends to be the center of our homes. It is often the place where we gather and spend time with family and friends. Some people spend most of their times in the kitchen – doing all kinds of work. For example, in our kitchen, we gather as a family, cook food, and have our meals, my kids do their homework, and also I work on my laptop. Since it’s such a dynamic and well used room, getting in the habit of keeping your kitchen clutter-free and organized will impact the feel of the whole house.

There are many simple ways to get in the habit of keeping your kitchen tidy. You can try cleaning as you cook or prepare food, quickly cleaning up kitchen table and dishes after each meal, sweeping the kitchen floor and wiping the kitchen counters before switching the lights off. Even advanced meal planning can help keep food items from creating clutter in your kitchen pantry or refrigerator.

9. Declutter as You Go

Decluttering isn’t something you do once a year and you are done. It’s a continuous process, especially if you have a family. You can’t stop the process. It’s like mowing the lawn: after a while the grass keeps growing, and you need to trim them again and again. Our needs change, our priorities change, and the season of life we are in changes, too. Also, the more you declutter and see the amazing benefits of living with less, the more willing and excited you become to get rid of more of your stuff.

Make it a habit to declutter on the go. Whenever you enter or leave a room, take a quick glance to see if anything is out of place. If you find something, put it back in the right place. Whenever you come across something that’s no longer used or loved or valued, add it to your donation box or throw it out right away.

When you are done using something, put it back in the right place immediately. Clean the kitchen counter as you leave the kitchen. clear the dining table after each meal. Straighten the pillows, keep the books and TV remotes in their places when you leave the living/family room. Do this for every room.

10. Handle Paperwork Immediately

Paperwork can pile up fast. So staying on top of it is very important if you want a clutter-free home that is tidy. The best way to keep paper clutter from piling up is having a good system in place to deal with it before it has a chance to pile up.

Physical mails, letters from the school, billing papers, random notes, school works, art projects – these are just some examples of paperwork that build up in our home. Instead of dumping it here and there throughout the home, come up with a system to keep it neat, tidy, and organized.

Immediately discard junk mail and process the rest. Mail that requires action but can’t be handled right away can easily be placed in a To-Do Folder out of sight.

11. Follow the One in One Out Rule

The one in one out rule states that for every new item that you bring into your home, you need to get rid of one item in the same category. It’s a useful rule of thumb if you’re trying to keep the clutter at bay.

So, if you purchase a new shirt, you need to get rid of one shirt that you already own. If you buy a new purse, donate an old one that somebody else can use. If you buy a new kitchen tool, throw away an old one.

12. Follow The 2 Minutes Rule to Avoid Procrastination

Clutter is often a result of procrastination or delayed decisions, or small jobs left unfinished. Counteract this procrastination in your home with this simple rule.

According to the two-minute rule, if a task takes less than two minutes, do it now.

Many of the tasks that we procrastinate on is easy, but our minds make it seem difficult and time consuming. Remove the clutter from flat surfaces, take the garbage out, toss the broken toys away, return the remote control, or put away the laundered clothes immediately after folding.

Deal with snail-mails immediately when you receive them, either put them in the paper organizer or toss the junk marketing mails in the dust bin. Every time you see a task all the way to completion, a source of clutter is avoided.

13. Buy Less Own Less

One of the simple and effective habits for a clutter-free home is simply owning less stuff! When you have too much unnecessary stuff, decluttering and organizing your home becomes harder. To keep your home clutter-free, tidy, and functional, getting rid of extra stuff that are unnecessary, unloved, or unwanted is important.

Also, make a habit of not buying anything that you don’t need. And never buy an item if you don’t have a space to store it. You should not only get rid of the excess that you already own, but also need to be mindful of what finds a way back to your home.

Mindless shopping, online or offline, adds clutter to your home. Shop intentionally, buy only what you need, and accumulate less stuff. Otherwise, it’ll be really difficult for you to maintain a clutter-free home.

14. Have a Clear Purpose for Every Room

Having a purpose for every room is like a system and one of the key habits for a clutter-free home. When every room in your home has a specific purpose to serve, you know which items belong in that room and which items must go from there. As for example, the purpose of a kitchen is for cooking, eating, entertaining, and possibly homework. That means toys, clothes, craft materials, DIY tools, TV, paper piles, etc. should not be there.

When you know the purpose of the room, it’s easy to keep the excess out. If an item isn’t used in a room, it simply doesn’t belong there.

By implementing some or all of these simple daily habits you really can keep your home clutter-free. The best part is that none of these simple habits take more than a few minutes a day. Make getting rid of things you don’t use, need, or love part of your daily routine, and you’ll reach your decluttering goals even faster! With a little bit of consistency, these daily habits will give you a tidy, clutter-free home that you and your family can truly enjoy.