10 Common Items To Get Rid Of In Order To Declutter Your Home

Maximalist decor might be en vogue right now, but there's a major difference between leaning into the trend and simply having clutter everywhere. Even if you have tons of hidden storage in your home, it's hard to avoid those closets from overflowing every now and again. Every household needs a regular deep clean that helps ensure the buildup of things doesn't start to feel messy and out of control. And, by focusing on one item category at a time — like cleaning products, shoes, and gardening tools — you can declutter your home in no time. 

Segmenting out cleaning is actually a psychologically backed life hack. As Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, put it: when our cleaning focus isn't streamlined, we can feel overwhelmed by the task of cleaning and begin to think we won't ever be able to finish. By targeting one category at a time, we get the satisfaction of completing a task on each new step, so it makes the entire project feel attainable. Scientifically speaking, finishing one tidying up category at a time will give you a rush of dopamine, which will help you stay motivated. 

Let's be real: there are probably at least a dozen kitchen utensils that you don't use on a regular basis. You might have gone overboard on getting spatulas, or maybe you impulse bought a vegetable dicer because of a TikTok advertisement that you used once and then shoved in the back of a cabinet. Grab a big box and start sorting through your utensils and appliances, and throw out anything that hasn't been used in the last six months.

One particular thing to look out for is the category of kitchen items that only have one single, specific use. Chef Alton Brown warned against these items, which he calls "unitaskers," because they take up space in the kitchen and aren't ultimately that helpful. Some examples are an egg-shaped frying pan, a device for peeling apart cooked meat, and an avocado slicer. Instead, stick to the basics, and your wallet (and drawers) will be happier. 

Declutter your bathroom, mud room, and closets by gathering together all of your cleaning products and discarding the ones that are expired or unimportant. You can start off with bottled cleaners, condensing any duplicates into the same container. If you have products that are still full or untouched and simply aren't used around your house, consider donating them to local charities.

Once you've gotten rid of these superfluous products (and maybe felt guilty about the amount of plastic waste), you can make some easy lifestyle switches so that you avoid this type of clutter in the future. Moving forward, consider using all-purpose cleaners that have multiple uses so that you don't need to store so many separate bottles. You can also locate a refill store near you and regularly refill the same container with all-purpose cleaner each time it runs out; that way, you never end up with two bottles at the same time and nowhere to store the extras. 

Tackle your overwhelming garage storage area by first going after recreational items. Maybe you've got basketballs that have been flat for too long to ever fully inflate again, or roller skates that are now too small for anyone in your family; it's important to spend some time evaluating if you really will pick up these sports again, or if you're just adding stressful clutter to your home. And, recreational items are pretty easy to sell on second-hand sites for a little extra cash. 

Used bicycles, for instance, typically sell for about 50% of their original retail price, but you should lower the asking price if it's been around for more than a few years. Used fitness machines are also worth listing on resale sites: There are even online retailers who will buy your used equipment directly. You can also consider donating old sporting goods to your local thrift store so that another family can enjoy them. 

Yard and gardening tools are the seventh most-sold category on resell sites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace, and for good reason. Every gardener knows the struggle of needing a hyper-specific tool for a project and then barely touching it again, and you can help mitigate that issue by reselling your manual garden tools that are no longer of use for you. That could include lawnmowers, hoes, rakes, pliers, and many other outdoor tools that might be taking up too much space in your shed or garage. 

To figure out what's worth keeping, think about what your upcoming garden projects are and put aside the tools that will be absolutely necessary within the next year. If you have tools that you use infrequently, you can also consider joining a local tool share program or looking into local rentals. For instance, Home Depot offers tool rentals so that you can use a high-quality leaf blower a few times a year without storing one for the other 360-plus days a year you don't need it. 

Reusable grocery bags are vital in states that have banned or restricted single-use plastic bags, like Colorado and California. However, the inexpensive reusable bags have become so popular that it's all too easy to amass many more bags than you'd ever logically need. We would certainly never suggest getting rid of all of your tote bags, but you should spend some time considering how many grocery bags you need at once, and get rid of the extras. 

The average shopper uses 2 to 3 shopping bags per person per trip to the grocery store. You should multiply that by how many people you shop for: So, a family of 5 would need 10 to 15 shopping bags. Go through your reusable bag storage (if it's just a giant cabinet stuffed with bags, we are not judging!) and put aside the ones that are higher quality or offer more storage. For the lower-quality bags or surplus ones that would take you above the number you need for a grocery trip, you can donate or recycle them. 

These days, just about every electronic item comes with its own unique cable, so the black, white, and gray wires can tend to stack up pretty quickly, creating an eyesore that's also a tangled mess. There are plenty of affordable hacks to tidy up all those messy charging cables that take up too much space near outlets at your home, but you first need to begin by getting rid of cables that aren't useful anymore. Luckily, many devices use similar charges, like a USB-C and USB-A, so you can select a few of each category to keep handy and discard the rest. 

Apple recently transitioned to using USB-C chargers for all new devices, thanks to a European Union law mandating that all devices use USB-C to minimize electronic waste. Most Android phones also use USB-Cs, so hopefully your entire network of friends and family can all stick to the same phone charger and get rid of the old lightning chargers that past iPhone models required. Once you've discarded old phone chargers, go through the rest of your stored charging cables and try to find a "home" for each of them. You'll certainly spot some other patterns in the chargers — like similar USB-A chargers for kitchen appliances, for example — so you can again discard any multiples. And finally, while it might be nerve-wracking to toss out chargers that you cannot find a device for, remember that you can typically find a replacement charger on Amazon for under $10. 

Imagine this scenario: You have a storage closet dedicated to holiday decor, like Christmas trees and spooky Halloween inflatables, and they gather dust for eleven months a year before it's their time to shine. But even when those holidays roll around, you don't find yourself using everything you've got in storage (or maybe you skip a few years, because you don't have time to put them up, anyway). Sound familiar? It might be time to change those habits, then. 

Tackle your seasonal decor storage holiday by holiday, starting with the most recent one. If Halloween just passed, go through the Halloween category of your decor and discard anything you didn't put up around the house. Do the same after Christmas, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, and any other decor-worthy occasion in your life, and suddenly you'll find you have much more storage space — and more peace of mind. 

While a built-in bookshelf can add comfort and coziness, it's easy to take things too far. Your reading nook could probably use a tidy-up, and the best way to go about it is by donating the books you don't see yourself or your family picking up again. With each title on your shelf, consider whether or not you'd actually sit down to read the book. Sometimes, we hang onto books we got as gifts or bought on a whim just for the idea of someday getting to them, but that potential isn't enough of a reason to overcrowd your space. 

When it comes to getting rid of excess books, you can donate your stash to thrift stores and take some of the best ones to leave around residential neighborhoods through the Little Free Libraries program. There are over 175,000 Little Free Libraries across the world, all composed of small wooden cabinets (often adorned with cute decorations) where people can take and leave books. This way, you'll be spreading the love of reading and contributing to your area's access to literacy, all at once.

Although a medicine cabinet is an eyesore that's pretty easy to keep out of plain sight, it's still likely causing you some extra stress if your bathroom is full of unusable products. Spend a chunk of time compiling all of the drugs and medications that you no longer need, including expired cold medicine, outdated prescriptions, and those supplements you thought you'd start taking daily but forgot about. Then, you can responsibly discard your stockpile so that it's no longer on your hands, and is also not harming your community or the environment in the aftermath. 

There are plenty of medication "take-back" programs for prescription drugs you can no longer use, including National Take Back Days every April and October. These days help to ensure that unused prescription drugs do not end up in the wrong hands, because simply throwing them away means they can land in the hands of others in your household, or anyone who might have access to your trash. Pharmacies like CVS also offer medication drop-off boxes during store hours and will dispose of any unused medications on your behalf. These programs will also recycle the medication containers, so that there's not a negative environmental impact of the waste. 

Even if you've implemented some genius shoe storage hacks for your closet, there's no way to permanently get around the problem of having too many shoes — this is especially true for families with children who grow through multiple shoe sizes in a calendar year. It might be time to go through all of the shoes in the house and think about whether or not they actually fit your family, both in terms of literal fit and aesthetics. A good rule of thumb is that if no one has worn them in the past year, or if you have a similar pair that you prefer, it's time to toss them. 

Getting rid of old shoes can be beneficial for your health, because the wear and tear can lead to less protection and support. You should get into the habit of replacing workout shoes pretty regularly so that your walks and runs don't end up causing injuries from worn-down soles. Running shoes should be changed every 300 to 500 miles, which can mean 6 months to regular runners. Similarly, walking shoes should be discarded every 3 to 6 months based on how much you walk per day.