Here's How To Declutter a Room in 30 Minutes, or Less!

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One of the most annoying parts about staying home with the kids, is that I keep staring at all the rooms in my house, feeling like I have way too much stuff.

With the kids homeschooling, I don’t have hours of time to focus on a deep declutter. It got me thinking, can’t I just learn how to declutter a room in 30 minutes?

Constantly having rooms feel “cluttered” is overwhelming and frustrating. So, I did a little experiment to see what decluttering I can get away with in the 30 minutes it takes for my kids to work independently.

Turns out, to declutter a room in 30 minutes, you need a solid plan and to manage your expectations about what absolutely needs to get done.

Let’s look into what worked, and my exact method for how to declutter a room in 30 minutes (or less!).

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Plus, if you love these steps, download your own Checklist, plus my Decluttering Bingo and “Where To Look” Checklist Printables for signing up to my email list!

30-Minute Declutter Checklist
Black & White Option for Easy Printing!

Declutter Bingo Printable
“Where to Look” Checklist with 50 places in your home where clutter is most likely to creep in

These printables will make the next steps on your decluttering journey FUN!

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Table of Contents

How Long Does It Take to Declutter a Room?

The amount of time it takes to completely declutter a room can vary greatly. It depends on a bunch of factors, like:

How much stuff you have accumulated in the room

How difficult it is for you normally to make a decision and stick to it
Whether you want to sell your useable stuff (which takes more time), or donate it
How much storage space you have, or can create, etc.

Another important factor to consider is how much uninterrupted time you have to tackle a room. If you had an entire day, or weekend of focus, it’s very likely you could go through every inch of a room, declutter, organize, and clean it afterwards while you’re at it.

Lastly, your attitude on decluttering in general will go a long way toward either getting it done efficiently, or dragging it out. If you are very emotionally attached to your things, or overwhelmed at the amount of things you have, it’s easy to feel frustrated at the process. This may cause you to take more breaks than you need, or even give up altogether.

For me, 30 minutes at a time is all I can manage, so organizing fatigue using my method isn’t going to be a problem!

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When Should You Do a 30-Minute Declutter?

When we need to keep up with the house on little time: There are times in life when you find yourself with a lot of to-do’s on your list throughout the day. Maybe you:

Have small children,

Have school-aged kids on an extended break or homeschooling,
Are a working mom, at home or outside the home,
Are the caregiver for a relative, etc.

The list of things to do for any one of those responsibilities is terribly long. Putting random things away around the house every day can easily drop to the bottom of the list. (And for good reason, you are busy making memories with your family!)

But, those random things start to multiply, and we start stuffing them into the closest drawer or closet for “later.” Now what was meant for those drawers or closet gets booted.

We can’t find things. We buy replacement things on Amazon, since it takes two seconds compared to searching the house. Those things get stuffed into baskets……you get the idea. Clutter-pa-looza.

Balancing your life responsibilities with your home organization and cleanliness is not always easy. So this method is going to be great for when life is moving and shaking, and you have a lot of balls in the air.

I‘ve found that a room will stay more or less un-cluttered for a full month, as long as I am keeping up with my “decluttering maintenance” (more on that below), before I have to consider another 30 minute interval.

Before a party or company coming over: This method works especially well when I’m expecting company, or before throwing a party. People will most likely gather in the same one or two rooms during a get together, plus a bathroom and kitchen. Taking some time to declutter and organize will help those rooms look polished with minimal effort.

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How to Declutter a Room in 30 Minutes Fast

How do you declutter a room quickly? Be prepared with a plan! Here’s the one that works for me every time….

Before you start, grab the following things, to make the decluttering process go much faster:

Big box or very strong bag to hold items you decide to donate or sell.
A few bread bag clips or twisties from your sliced bread, for organizing any unruly electrical cords.
Garbage bag for, well, garbage.

Laundry basket, or a few tote bags with handles, to throw in any items that belong in other parts of the house (much easier to transport).
A swiffer or microfiber cloth, if you know you won’t be able to leave the dust alone.

1. Set a timer for 30 minutes.

This is very important. You’ll be way more motivated to stay on track when you see the time ticking away!

2. Take out everything in the room that does not belong there.

Put broken and unusable items, and any trash, into the garbage bag.
Place items that have a place in a different room, into the laundry basket or tote bags.
Put any items that you don’t want to keep, but are useable, into the donation box/bag.

Questions to ask yourself when considering whether to keep or toss/donate:

Is this item useful now?
Will it be useful in a different season? (if so, can it be stored?)

Is it broken?
Do I have too many of these?

3. Untangle any wires.

Use bread bag clips or twisties to hold them together neatly. It’s surprising how much more organized an area looks when wires aren’t sticking out of electronics.

As a side note, here’s a tutorial on how to make a DIY charging station, in your nightstand! It’s a project for another day, but looks like a fun way to keep wires out of the bedroom space.

4. Take a look at the space now.

Can you donate or sell anything else? Do you really need five of those things in the drawer? Take a few more things out if possible, to go into the trash or donate bin.
Group like things together. Spend less than five minutes to LIGHTLY tidy up whatever is staying. No cleaning!

5. Take the trash bag to your garbage can.

6. Put remaining items that don’t belong in the room, in their place.

Take the laundry basket/tote bags and walk around the rest of the house, putting those items where they belong.

7. Donate any unwanted items that are in in good condition.

Call or email your nearest donation center and schedule a pick-up or drop-off of your donatable stuff.

You’re done!

Speed Tips:

Getting the family involved, or calling a friend to help, will speed up your decluttering time DRASTICALLY. Have them put the laundry bag items in their proper place while you take a few more minutes to tidy up.

Be as ruthless as you can with your decision-making. This means, go into that room with the goal of filling up your donation box or trash bag. If you haven’t used something in at least a year, toss it. If you have too many of something, donate the unnecessary items. Don’t over-think, give yourself a second to thank the item for its years of comfort and service, and let it go.

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Special Decluttering for Bathrooms & Kitchens

Bathrooms and kitchens need some special attention, because they house things that can expire. When you declutter the bathroom or kitchen, make sure to bring a notepad or cell phone notes app in with you. Check the expiration dates on any food, medicine, makeup and toiletries.

Toss the expired stuff, except for the medicine. Call your town supervisor to ask where to drop off expired medicine in your area.

If anything you tossed needs to be replaced, add it to your notepad. Or, even better, you can open your Amazon or Target app and add the items to your shopping list, so you don’t forget it, or (like me) lose the list.

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Make it EASY for the family to help with these Super-Fun Decluttering Printables!

Here are some new printables to help make your decluttering journey fun!

30-Minute Declutter Checklist

Black & White Option for Easy Printing!
Declutter Bingo Sheet – Mark off the boxes after each decluttering task, five in a row wins!
“Where to Look” Checklist with 50 places in your home where clutter is most likely to creep in

These printables will make the next steps on your decluttering journey FUN!

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What Should You NOT Do When Decluttering Quickly?

There are a few things that should NOT be included in your monthly 30-minute room-declutter.

Cleaning. Once you are in the middle of decluttering, it may be tempting to start cleaning too. But, you won’t realize how fatigued you are from all the moving around until you are halfway through cleaning. You’ll end up so exhausted that you won’t want to finish decluttering the room. We don’t want that.
Extensive closet overhauls. This is doubly true for bedroom closets. Going through clothing is a lot more emotionally involved than you would think it is. It takes a lot of time to try things on and debate with your reflection about whether you can pull them off or not.
Buying a bunch of containers. Too much work for what we are trying to achieve here. This method is for making your decluttering task easier and efficient, based on a short amount of time. It’s too easy to spend that precious time going down a rabbit hole of Container Store options.

“Accidentally” toss something you hate that you know another family member cherishes. Put it on your bed so you will remember to talk to them about storing it or moving it to a different room, preferably one less used by you.

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Decluttering Maintenance: How to Keep a Room Organized

Clutter creeps up on us when we aren’t intentional about what we bring into the house, and about having a place for those things. The more often you declutter, the less time it will take.

However, what we want is to NOT constantly be decluttering. So, it’s best to follow a few rules for your newly decluttered rooms going forward:

Make sure every item that you buy has a purpose in your home.
Always have a place for the things you bring in. If you can’t find room, either that new thing, or something else, should go.
Take a five minute tidy with the whole family each night, to run around and put things that are out of place where they belong. In fact, tell them it’s 5 minutes and set the timer for 7 minutes. That will give everyone time to find the CORRECT places for everything.

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Final Thoughts

There are times when I dream of taking an entire week and just KonMari attacking my entire house. But, when I think about how much focus that would need, I just don’t have it. I get pulled in tons of directions all day.

This method for how to declutter a room in 30 minutes is way more attainable and realistic for me.

Plus, once I have tackled each room, and I find myself with an extra 30 minutes, I can go back and concentrate on one small piece of the room, maybe a drawer or cabinet, that may need some extra attention. I can think about adding some extra storage, or moving some furniture around, without being overwhelmed by a mess.

I hope you try out my method on how to declutter a room in 30 minutes today. Let me know in the comments which room you conquered!

XO,

-Mina

P.S.: Here are some of my other blog posts you might find useful!

How to Eliminate Paper Clutter For Good

Here’s How to Easily Declutter Your Old Halloween Costumes

Ultimate Marie Kondo-Inspired Gift Guide

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