Declutter in a DAY: 20+ organising secrets for a tidy home

Declutter your home in just 24 hours

Decluttering and organising your storage can seem like a daunting task, let alone if you attempt it in just one day. But, with the right tools and a little planning, you can have everything neat and tidy in no time.

Read on to discover the speedy ways you can get organised in less than 24 hours, with these easy storage ideas...

It's time to get organised

If you're going to try and sort out your storage in just one day, preparation is key. Make sure you invest in any equipment you might need, such as baskets and organisers, and ensure you have spaces allocated before you start to declutter all your items.

A personal planner or to-do list will also help you stay on track and tick one thing off at a time.

Featured planner poster available from Desenio.

Pick a method for decluttering

Before you start sprucing up your storage, you need to declutter your home for good. Do you go room by room? Item by item? Or even try clockwork cleaning?

Start by picking one of these methods and spend the morning clearing your home before the real work begins.

Featured storage boxes available from Orthex Group.

The Marie Kondo KonMari Method™

Marie Kondo, the queen of decluttering, advises you work by category, rather than room. To make the task of decluttering easier, she suggests you tackle them in the following order: clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous and sentimental.

The KonMari Method™ involves picking up each item and thinking about whether it sparks joy. Keep only those things that speak to the heart and discard items that no longer serve you. Thank them for their service – then let them go. Don’t be too harsh and start getting rid of everything, as being too extreme might cause you to panic and rush out to the shops to fill the gaps.

The four-box challenge

Similar to the Marie Kondo method, the four-box challenge makes sure that every single item you need to sort out has a place.

Gather four boxes and label them 'bin', 'donate', 'sell' or 'keep'. With the latter, you can organise them into a new storage system. The rest can be stored somewhere until you can part with them.

The clockwork method

Instagram superstar Mrs Hinch has gained millions of followers for her unique brand of cleaning videos and she advocates the ‘clockwork method’.

Start immediately to your left as you walk through the door (this will be your 12 o'clock), then split the room into 12 sections and tackle each one at a time, working from top to bottom to ensure you don't miss anything. The cleaning guru recommends carrying a basket of products with you as you go so you have everything you need to hand. To make the job even easier, she also suggests starting with a full run around the clock for tidying, then repeating for cleaning.

Featured baskets available from Orthex Group.

The 12-12-12 plan

If that doesn’t work for you, try the simple task of finding 12 items to throw away, 12 to donate and 12 to move to a new space in your home, where they can be fully appreciated.

It’s a quick and effective way to sort through 36 things in one fell swoop.

Give it 30

If you're short on time, then commit just 30 minutes a day to tackling a different corner of your home.

Set your watch, or an alarm on your phone, and do as much as you can before the beeper sounds.

Featured clock available from Black By Design.

Sorting a collection

To tackle collections like books or records, it’s best to work room-by-room, as there’s little point in hauling them all to one place if they naturally live in different parts of the home. Get rid of any duplicates and any that don’t hold sentimental value. They’ve served their purpose, so pass them on.

Whatever’s left should be able to fit onto your bookshelves and then you can organise everything alphabetically or even by colour.

Featured storage shelves available from Shelved.

Assign a place for absolutely everything

To get everything organised in a day, you need to make sure that absolutely everything has a space in your home. Don't worry too much about placing lots of different things together in a cupboard, just use baskets of different sizes and shapes to put away similar items.

So your hairdryer, brushes and rollers can go in one basket, while crafting materials might be in another.

Featured storage boxes available from Orthex Group.

The one in one out rule

After you’ve spent the morning decluttering, it’s good to have a mantra to stick to for the future. Continuing to collect will eventually lead to more clutter and chaos, so when you get a new item, make sure to remove an old version; either by recycling, gifting it or donating it to charity.

This works particularly well with clothing, accessories and kitchenware – after all, do you really need five wooden spoons and 20 ties?

Featured fitted furniture available from Sharps.

Start on the storage

Finally, after all that decluttering and clearing out, it's time to start on the storage. From sneaky cupboard hacks to some easy DIY, these super easy storage hacks will have you organised in no time...

Featured storage available from Joseph Joseph.

Optimise your kitchen space

The kitchen might just be one of the most fun places to organise. If you're looking for space-saving ideas, you can get creative by adding shelving in unexpected places.

A door rack works well in pantries to hold spices and staples such as cans. A modular system lets you move things around as you need and will free up cupboard space, so you can instantly find what you need.

Featured storage canisters available from A Place For Everything.

The hanging hack

It’s easy for kitchen cupboards to become a riot of mess. A great way to maximise your storage and to keep everything neat and tidy is by hanging things up to free the lower space.

You could install a rail beneath your kitchen cupboard to hang mugs and utensils, or even hang a vegetable rack or tiered baskets from the ceiling.

Featured hanging basket set available from Nkuku.

Remove extra cutlery

It's nice to own special cutlery for celebrations but those big heavy boxes can be a storage nightmare. Or, if you keep all your cutlery sets in one drawer, you may struggle with overcrowding and finding what you need.

Get organised by using a cutlery divider and remove any items that only get used a few times a year. The rest can be stored away. Take inspiration from chef knife rolls by creating a tea towel roll that will keep cutlery clean and protected, and that takes up a fraction of the space.

Featured cutlery tray available from GoodHome brought to you by B&Q.

Create an organisation station

Whether it be the inside of a cabinet door in the kitchen or on the wall in your hallway, designate an area in your home as an organisation station.

Here, you can store important information such as Wi-Fi passwords, memos and coupons. A pin board is a great option, but paint or stick-on chalkboards also look fantastic. They're easy to apply and will keep the whole family organised.

Featured chalkboard vinyl wall sticker available from Wallboss.

Sort your shopping bags

If you're always hunting the house for reusable shopping bags, then a hack from Polished Habitat will make your life a whole lot easier. Pop all your fabric bags in a storage basket, but for those pesky plastic ones, you can repurpose a tissue box and use it as a dispenser.

Keep it in the hallway or stick it to the side of a cabinet door using temporary adhesive strips, so you always have a plastic bag to hand. It's a good idea to have a canvas bag, or two, by the door, too.

Featured rail hook available from Umbra.

Sort your mail

So, you’ve finally decluttered all your paperwork. To stop it building up again, the best thing to do is to create a place to keep it neat, tidy and most importantly, organised.

You could invest in a stylish letter rack (like this one) or install cubby holes underneath a hallway shelf to pop any mail.

Featured letter rack available from Cox & Cox.

Double your clothes storage

After you’ve sorted through your wardrobe, you might find you need more space for hanging clothes.

Invest in some top-quality hangers for easy organisation and double your clothes storage by utilising hanger hooks that will allow you to hang two items together, freeing up valuable rail space.

Featured hangers available from Joseph Joseph.

Organise everyday essentials

When we're busy or don't have a lot of time, our underwear drawers can become a complex mess of loose socks. Create a neat drawer with items that are easy to find, by investing in a compartment organiser, like this one.

Group socks, underwear and ties together and your morning routine will start to get just a little bit easier.

Featured drawer organiser available from A Place For Everything.

Utilise under-bed space

A bit of a secret storage space, it’s easy to utilise that dark space underneath the bed with some extra storage boxes.

However, for the ultimate easy storage hack, buy boxes with wheels, or add some on, so you can simply slide them out. If you're starting from scratch, a DIY storage crate could be a great weekend project.

Featured storage boxes available from Orthex Group.

Organise kids' stationery

Let's face it, kids can create a lot of clutter. But you can get their homework area in order with IKEA's SUNNERSTA containers; they make practical wall-mounted pen pots, with a handy rail.

Craft supremo @kreativakarin jazzed hers up with decorative craft vinyl to add a splash of drip-effect colour to her space. For added interest and even more storage, mount a set above and below for other stationery items.

Sort out your charging cables

We all have a drawer somewhere crammed full of charging cables, but keeping them organised doesn’t have to be complicated. Save up some toilet paper rolls and simply write on each one what type of cable it contains and insert the neatly coiled cords. You can also customise them with tape.

For cables already in use, consider mounting an extension lead to the wall, so that the wires are not dragging on the floor and making your rooms look messy.

Featured extension lead available from VonHaus.

Hang a quick shelf

Need some storage in a kid's bedroom? Extra shelving could be the solution. If you're feeling like a spot of DIY, consider mounting several spice racks on the wall as makeshift shelves. They'll save space and you can paint them any colour you like to match the room.

Alternatively, invest in a solid, practical storage unit that will give you and your kids easy access to the things they love.

Featured shelves and cabinet available from Mustard.

Tackle the bathroom cabinet

Your bathroom cabinet is an ideal quick project for the day. Sort through and get rid of any old make-up, toiletries and medicines or pills that are out of date (safely, by returning them to your chemist or doctor).

With what you have left, split them into categories and store them in baskets or see-through containers. For the ultimate hack, use a lazy Susan. This way you'll always be able to find what you need without having to rummage through a packed box.

Featured storage containers available from Orthex Group.

Create a wrapping station

It can be hard to find a home for all the wrapping paper, ribbons and birthday cards that always seem to be dotted around the house. If you have a linen closet, utilise the space and create a wrapping station on the back of the door, using a simple wooden paper tray.

You could also buy a long storage box that will tuck under your bed, for easy access on holidays and occasions.

Featured storage container available from Orthex Group.

Store bed sheets in a pillowcase

This linen storage idea is a 'why didn't I think of that?' hack and couldn't be simpler. Fold your freshly laundered bed sheet, duvet cover and one pillowcase neatly and then store them all together inside the remaining clean pillowcase, for a perfectly organised linen closet.

Tidy your tiny things

Often scattered around random places in the house or kept in the 'junk drawer', batteries, safety pins and other small items aren’t often something you’ll think of organising and storing. If you have a spare drawer, grab some small containers and off you go.

For an easy and low-cost storage option, try using a heavy-duty metal muffin tin as an alternative to a drawer organiser. The individual pockets allow you to separate fiddly items like bolts and nails or small stationery such as paperclips.

Tackle your tools

If you find yourself rummaging around for the right tools when you need to do a DIY job, try attaching things like spanners and wrenches together with a carabiner clip.

This idea is great because you can slot different tools in size order, so they’re quick to navigate. You can pick up carabiners cheaply in lots of outdoor and bargain stores. If you have a garage, then consider something a bit more sophisticated, like this wall-hung tool storage unit.

Featured tool organiser available from VonHaus.

Tidy up sports equipment

Don't forget to tidy the garage during your declutter. If your household plays a lot of sports there is bound to be different pieces of equipment stuffed away in there. The nature of tennis rackets, balls and hockey sticks is that they can be hard to store together, but clever storage solutions have got you covered.

You can buy wall-mounted ball claws that grip onto any shape or size ball and storage carts on wheels where you can keep things orderly. Use wall tracks to hang rackets and bikes, and utilise large boxes for helmets, shoes and other sporting essentials.

Featured organisers available from Orthex Group.