Top 15 Hacks For LAZY Decluttering

Here I go, letting you all in on a little secret of mine: I’m a pretty lazy person. I know, shocking! 🤯 This also means I know all the best ways for lazy decluttering.

I may not come off as lazy because of my passion for decluttering and finding motivation, but it is true!

In fact, I’ve engineered my home space to be as lazy-friendly as possible. That’s why I’m sharing these tips- to help all the lazy people out there (like me) who still want a clutter-free space.

#1. Focus On The Space

When most people declutter, they focus on the stuff- what should I do with this? Are these things still useful? What does this thing even do?

It can be super overwhelming and lead to looong projects with few results. Instead of focusing on the stuff, focus on the space. What do you want the purpose of a space to be? 

Determine those spatial constraints for each little nook of your home and then simply select the items that you want to go there. 

Don’t worry about the rest!

You’ll find that you save tons of time, energy, and headaches. Plus, things will look nice and organized when you’re finished 😉

#2. Heat Mapping

Personally, this is one of my favorite lazy decluttering hacks! 

Here is how it works:

1. Pick a space or a group of things. Some great areas to do this are with bathroom products, clothes, and spices, but you can really use it anywhere!
2. Move everything into one pile (or grouping)
3. As you use a product, move it off to the side to start a new grouping. Voila! For the closet, instead of using groupings,  flip around your hangers instead to indicate which items were used. 
4. Set a reminder for a week, month, or however much time you feel will reasonably assess that area.
5. Once the time is up, you can simply scoop up the things that weren’t used *chef’s kiss*. 

It’s wonderfully easy! I love it because of the simplicity and the undisputable data you get. This hack lets the data do all of the work, so you don’t have to. 

And if you come up with excuses and reasons why you need to keep random stuff you don’t use, I talk about how to move past that hangup in this other article!

#3. Donation Bag/Box

There is no need to make donating a daily event.

Having a designated bag or box of donation items allows you to “get rid” of things as you go about your day without having to go anywhere.

As soon as you think, “I never wear that shirt anymore,” it can disappear from your closet and into the donation bag.

We actually keep 2 ongoing bags in our closet – one large bag for general donations and a small hanging bag for electronics and cords. 

Pro tip: our bags are beige linen so that they don’t stand out like a sore thumb. We saved them from our duvet cover and sheet sets 😉

#4. Organic Decluttering

This lazy decluttering hack is something you may already be doing and not realize.

Here it is: when you get up to go somewhere, bring something with you. BOOM.

If you get up to go to the garage, take those tools with you that need to be put away. Decluttering doesn’t have to be a special event.

This is how you can declutter even when you can’t find the time.

#5. Work In Modes

“Multitasking” isn’t a real thing. Brains aren’t meant to focus on multiple things at once. What is really happening is constant distractions from one thing to another. Otherwise known as context switching.

Instead of working from room to room, or worse, bouncing all over the place- try working by category or task. This has been proven to save tons of time and energy. 

For example, work on all of the clothes, books, or dishes if you’re looking to work by category. If you’re wanting to operate by task then you might consider lumping your digitizing or “posting to sell” projects. 

The outcome results in more things getting fully done rather than multiple things getting half done.

#6. Water Bottle

Do you like doing the dishes? Me either!

I actually require everyone in my family to have a water bottle. It cuts back the number of cups everyone uses.

With kids, this is a saving grace. No more leaving a cup in their room, then getting a new one and leaving it in the living room. By the end of the day, there would be 5 cups spread around the house!

A bonus is that it means fewer spills, fewer trips to the kitchen for refills, and more drinking water!

#7. Dispersement Bin

When you go to declutter an area it can be nice to put everything a bin before deciding what needs to stay and what needs to be moved to a different place in the house.

The last time I needed to clean out my nightstand, I simply put everything that wasn’t staying on my bedside table into a bin. Then I eventually, in a lazy decluttering manner, dispersed the extra things to other locations in the house (aside from the things that were already been discarded).

#8. Shoes At The Door

Just leave the shoes at the door. It’s easy, and there’s no shoe pick-up ever needed. The beauty of lazy decluttering!

#9. Blanket Bin

It doesn’t matter how many throw blankets you own. All that matters is that you have a blanket bin to accommodate them. (I.e., spatial constraints to the rescue!). 

You don’t even need to fold the blankets if you don’t want to just toss them in. With most bins, you really can’t tell.

#10. Robovac

Super simple. Get a Robovac.

I use mine every day. Really, EVERY DAY. 

#11. Remove Unnecessary Furniture

Have what you want in your space. Not what you think you “need”. 

All of the furniture you’ve been holding onto because you think it’s too valuable to let go of or it was handed down to you… maybe the downfall of your living space.

I don’t have a coffee table in my living room. We have a small round table that can be moved around, and we love it that way! We like the space open to walk and don’t want an extra space that will inevitably collect random things.

Unnecessary furniture is really just more space to collect clutter.

#12. Organize Later… Or Less… Or Never?

There is such a thing as overly complicated organization. 

Not everything needs to be color-coded or given its own bin. When it gets that complicated, you just end up spending money on more things to manage your stuff.

That’s why I choose to have a home for items that allows for easy access and even easier organization. For example, my electric cords are all stored in a single bin—I can just toss them in. This leads me to the next hack for lazy decluttering: Velcro!

#13. Velcro Strips

A lot of cords already come with velcro strips, but they can also be easily found on Amazon. 

They keep cords neat and untangled!

#14. Reduce Resistance

Get your mind on board with the action you want to take.

This might look different for a lot of different people. It might mean you make a plan detailing how and when you are going to get things done. Maybe you chose to meditate and get calm before starting a new task.

What I’m saying is- building up a task and getting bummed out about it is going to lead to you procrastinating. At the very least, it’ll make the project take longer and feel like a slog. 

So create a mindset that supports you in getting what needs to be done.

#15. Accountability

Hello? We are lazy people (unless you aren’t, and you’ve read this far because you are an overachiever… we’re all jealous of you). Having another person or outside force that keeps us accountable for what we said we would do is necessary.

At the end of the day, you have to take action to declutter. 

Matt and I rely on each other for productive action all the time. We would only get about 50% of our projects done without each other!

You can totally find accountability in other ways, though. It could be from a social group, an external time pressure, or an obscene number of reminders and alarms.

 If you want to find more people doing just that, check out the comment section of my YouTube channel!