Use the ‘365 Less Things’ Method to Declutter Your Home

You know that adage, “The time will pass anyway?” A little over two years ago, I was applying to grad school and telling my friends that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be 30 years old in a classroom. Someone told me, “The time will pass anyway,” meaning I could either be 32 with a Masters or 32 without one, but I’d end up being 32 either way. I graduate in three weeks, but that lesson will stick with me forever. It applies to many things: Thinking about what you want in the future can be a little demoralizing because there’s so much space and potential work between now and then—but the time will pass anyway.

Looking around your home, you might imagine how you want it to look in a year. And whether you start working toward that goal or not, the time will pass anyway, so you might as well spend the next 365 days contributing small efforts towards the decluttered home you want. Here’s how you can work on decluttering your home every day for a year, building the space you want and habits that will last. 

Use the ‘365 Less Things’ method to declutter your home

The technique is called 365 Less Things. It comes from Colleen Madsen, who decided in 2010 that she wanted to make an impactful New Year’s resolution and set out to get rid of one item in her home every single day. She ended up turning her year-long experiment into a system of decluttering that has grown into something pretty major in the 14 years since it started. And, of course, you don’t have to start on January 1. The real trick here is just committing to getting rid of one thing every single day. You can, of course, get rid of way more, but the primary goal is to just make incremental progress each day. 

How the ‘365 Less Things’ method works

To start decluttering your home one day at a time, it might be helpful to set a recurring reminder in your phone as you start to develop the habit. The beauty of this method is that while it takes time, the time is actually beneficial: Eventually, it’ll become second nature to find and get rid of one thing in your home every day. Plus, decluttering so incrementally is a lot less overwhelming than other methods of home cleaning and organization. Decluttering a whole room in a day, as some techniques call for, can be so daunting that some people can never bring themselves to begin, but one item a day is an easy habit to build and maintain. 

That said, you should focus, generally, on one area or room at a time. While you totally can use a more free-wheeling approach and just pick up one item every day when you see one that could get tossed, it’s better to move through your home in waves. A few days can be dedicated to the hall closet, a few to the kitchen, and so on. In the course of a year, you’ll certainly end up doubling back on some areas, and that’s fine—something you might not have been able to part with early on in the process could be a little easier to let go of once you’re in the habit. Going space by space will also help you see results a little quicker, which can help keep you motivated, too. 

Decide what to do with your unneeded belongings

As with most decluttering methods, you’ll need to make some decisions beyond “keep” or “get rid of.” For the things you’re getting rid of, you’ll need to decide if they get thrown away, donated, or sold. It might be more useful to adapt this method a little, vowing to throw away one thing a day and, ideally, find something to donate or sell a few times a week, too. 

Because this method is almost entirely about getting rid of clutter, whereas other techniques also make space for reorganizing and putting away the things you’re going to keep, you could even consider adding another adaptation that allows you to find one thing to toss, one to sell or donate, and one to put away every day. While you’ll be down 365 items, at least, by the end of the year, the home won’t truly be decluttered if a bunch of your stuff is still where it doesn’t belong.

It’s probably unreasonable to think you’ll make a single trip to the donation center or post office every day, and you might want to save up a pile of things to put away until you have a sizable amount. Using three bins could help—one for what you’re keeping, one for what you’re donating, and one for what you’re selling—so even when you’re not throwing something away, it’s still out of your space. Every week or so, empty them out in accordance with whatever they’re holding. 

There may be some days you feel more inspired to do a mass decluttering than others, but to the best of your ability, try to toss one thing every day, even if you don’t feel like it. It can be small, but just make sure you do it. After a year, your home will be transformed and you’ll have built up a solid habit of getting rid of what no longer serves you.