A messy home is an uninviting home. Your home does not need to be amazingly spotless at all time. However, to reduce stress, reduce stubbed toes, and improve the overall enjoyment of your home space, Learning how to remove clutter can dramatically improve many areas of your life, not just your home.

There is no manual to learn how to declutter. For many people clutter can actually be very similar to a security blanket. It seems absurd for those that do not need to know how to declutter, but for others, it's a lifelong struggle that stems into emotional attachments a garbage bag can't fix.

For whatever reason you came here wanting to know hot to remove clutter, here are some helpful tips to remove clutter. 

Make a commitment to choose one of the following to remove the clutter invading your home. Either, set aside 20 minutes each day to tackle one area of the house, or set aside an entire day, maybe an entire weekend to declutter and remove the mess in the house.  

Decluttering your home of Laundry is one of the easiest tasks, and one that most of us despise the most. You are accustom to doing your regular loads, the whites, the colors, towels, jeans, etc. But there are piles of laundry that just never seem to get done. Make a committment that while you are working to declutter, the only laundry you tackle are the piles that never seem to get done.

Laundry takes the longest if only because of the actual washing and drying, but needs the least amount of prep time. Before starting to declutter anything else, go through your cluttered house and seperate all of the odd ball laundry that never gets done into similar piles. Stick a load in the wash and get it going. As soon as it is done in the wash get it in the dryer immideatly and reload the washer. Nothing else goes into the washer until the load in the dryer is done, and is ready to be folded.

Place the dried load onto a bed and cycle another load into the wash, the wash load into the dryer. Stop whatever decluttering your were doing and go fold and put away the load that was put on the bed. You HAVE to get this load put away or it will become just another cluttered pile of laundry on a bed, eventually moved to the floor. PUT IT AWAY. Continue. Inbetween cycling the loads and folding, attend to your other decluttering tasks.

On the day you set aside to declutter, you should already have prepared to have either an empty garbage can, or a trip to the dump planned out. You must already have a game plan to get the clutter OUT OF THE HOUSE.

Set out garbage bags for decluttering. If you have a bunch of plastic bags from the grocery store, by all means, here is an opportunity to use these and get them out of the house.

Pick a room and depending on the amount of clutter, find a small area to start. If floor clutter is a problem, sit your bottom down on the floor with a bag. Grabbing from a seated position is a whole lot easier then bending down over and over. 

Grab all of the obvious garbage. Make a commitment to reconsider somethings that previously, you would not have thought as garbage. If you aren't using it and it can't be given to someone else, it's garbage.

Throw things away. Recycle when at all possible. Seems easy enough but not for everyone. Out of 5 things you are having trouble throwing away, put 3 in the garbage bag. Used candles still with wick can be used later, but a shelf with 10 used candles is excessive and is CLUTTER.

The hardest part of removing garbage is accepting what is garbage. There is the obvious, and then there is the not so obvious. DVD cases for movies that have been long lost, are garbage. Nail polishes that are more then a year old are garbage, broken picture frames are garbage. Odds are, you are never going to make it to the hardware store to replace the glass in that picture frame. Buy a new one later if you need one. 

Let your clutter become someone elses. Donate Donate Donate. We all have the things we can't throw away because they have value, but don't really have a use for in our own home. These are the things you should be donating. If you can give it to a friend today or tommorow, then by all means do so. But, you are decluttering your home today. Which means we want it out of the house today. Later in the afternoon, in addition to the trip to the dump, make a plan to take bags and bags of STUFF to whereever locally donations are accepted. Goodwill, value village, salvation army. Whereever. Someone will find use for your things, someone who needs it will get some charity, and you will get a tax write off and some extra space in your newly decluttered home.

Just like you went through for the garbage now its time to go through and remove things from your life that you really don't need. Go through an area and eyeball 5 things. Grab at least 2 of them and put them in the bag. Anything sentimental keep, everything else should go.

Make a pile of things you are considering donating but aren't sure yet.

Do NOT make a pile for things you know you are going to donate. Put this stuff immediately in a bag. Once in the bag, it does not come out. As soon as the bag is tied, it is to be put out of sight, out of mind.

When you have cleared an area and decluttered it. Go through once more and grab 10 more things you don't really need. they go in the bag. Now approach your maybe pile. Pull out ONLY 5 things. The rest goes for donation.

You have been working on the laundry. The garbage has been removed, and a good chunk of what was once your clutter is now going to be someone elses treasure/problem.

Now it is time to go through once more with 2 garbage bags. 1 MUST be filled to the top with garbage. The other MUST be filled to the top with clutter. You WILL be able to find enough to do this. If you can't, walk through to another room and get a jump start on the process.