Some decisions are easy, even when it comes to decluttering. The list below includes 49 common types of household things you don’t need. Stuff we never use. Stuff we won’t miss. Therefore, it should be a no-brainer to to get rid it.
But wait, no-brainer decluttering gets even easier…
You could take this list and go through it room-by-room, but if that sounds like too much work there’s a simpler way to tackle the clutter: As you go about your day keep an eye out for these items and dispose of them as you run across them. How simple is that?
Every step counts. Every time you let go of things you don’t need it’s a small success. So find one thing on the list you can get rid of today.
49 Things You Don’t Need and Won’t Miss
Bedroom and clothes closet
- Bedding or clothes with crispy elastic
- Bedding or clothes with rips, frays, or stains
- Old, flat, lumpy pillows
- Lonely or holey socks
- Free giveaway T-shirts with advertising that you don’t want to wear
- Free giveaway totes, sling sacks, or luggage you don’t use
- That gift item in the back of the closet that you bought three years ago and never gave to anyone
Bathroom
- Expired meds
- Expired facial care or bath products
- Half-used bottles of products you don’t like
- Perfume you don’t like
- Old toothbrushes (You don’t need more than 1 or 2 for cleaning purposes.)
- Old towels (Again, you don’t need more than couple for cleaning.)
Den, living room, family room
- Movies you don’t want to watch again
- Movies you acquired but never plan to watch
- Music you no longer listen to
- Books you never plan to read again (ditto for audiobooks)
- Books you didn’t like or never finished
- Books you (honestly) never plan to read
- Books related to hobbies you no longer pursue
- Books you are keeping for the grandkids that are too brittle or battered
- Books you are keeping for the grandkids that neither you nor your kids particularly loved
- Old technology you can no longer play/view, such as VHS tapes, cassette tapes, and record albums
- Storage units designed to hold said old technology
- Freebie toys that don’t work or aren’t fun to play with
- Games nobody likes to play
- Puzzles with missing pieces
Office
- Gummed-up tape, labels, envelopes, etc.
- Pens, markers, etc that don’t work
- Print cartridges for a no-longer-working printer
- Old power cords or connector cords from who-knows-what
- Old software disks (Does your current computer even read them?)
- User manuals and assembly instructions for items you no longer have
Kitchen, Pantry, and the junk drawer
- Leaky water bottles or travel mugs
- Freebie cups, water bottles, koozies, etc that you don’t use
- Containers without lids (or lids without containers)
- Containers that are cracked or leaky
- Food your current diet bans/avoids
- Used twist ties
- Crispy or gummy rubber bands
- Kitchen gadgets whose purpose you can’t identify
- Musty, mangled, or stained paper goods
- Duplicate or out-of-date take-out menus (do you use the paper kind at all anymore?)
Garage and storage closets
- Household chemicals encrusted with a thick layer of dust (which means you haven’t touched them in years). Please dispose of these items correctly.
- Rusty, bent, or broken hardware
- Spare parts for things you no longer have
- More than two pairs of old shoes for dirty jobs
- Locks missing the key or combination
- Tangled blobs of string, wire, Christmas lights, or misc doodads.
How many of these 49 things you don’t need to you have in your house? Maybe it’s time to pitch a few.
Get a printable copy of the no-brainer decluttering list here.
