How to declutter your home in stress-free 21 days
Updated January 2022
Easy 21-Days-Declutter-Challenge or How to declutter your home in stress-free 21 days. Just try it, you can’t do anything wrong.
Yes, you can have a decluttered and organized home without the daily overwhelm. Yes, you can come home to a tidy and clean entrance and feel good about your house. And yes, you can walk into your kitchen and start cooking without cleaning dishes before you can even get to your pots and pans.
I learned this daily routine which made my life so much easier. And you can do this too!
It only takes a couple of weeks to adjust your routine, but will give you so much freedom and stressless time in your home.
Start with this easy 21-Days-Declutter-Challenge and get in the rhythm of keeping your home tidy and organized.
Why do you want to live in a tidy place?
Living in a place you love has a lot to do with how you feel as a person. You want to come home to a tidy place, a place you enjoy hanging out with friends and family, a place that doesn’t stress you out because all you look at is clutter.
YOUR HOME IS A SELF-REFLECTION OF WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON!
What is the first step to a tidy home?
The first step to making your house look great is to make space and to get rid of clutter. You need space in order for your furniture to shine. If you get rid of the clutter, old furniture, storage boxes, and piles of stuff you will be surprised how much space you actually have.
Space on the shelf or the table to display your cute treasures and re-arrange fresh flowers or new paintings and pictures. Imagine how great that is going to look.
So walk thru your home and look at every piece of furniture, decor item, pillow, artwork whatever you have in your rooms but doesn’t really spark joy anymore. Get rid of it if it doesn’t make you happy and you don’t really have any use for it. Just let it go.
Take a picture of it and sell it on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist, whatever is easy for you to do.
Make space for fewer items, sell furniture you don’t need, or find a better place for it in a closet, garage, basement.
Get rid of as much stuff as possible, stuff you don’t really need anymore.
How to get started:
Check your basement or garage if you find 3 bigger boxes. Label them:
Box 1 = TRASH
Box 2 = DONATE
Box 3 = STORAGE
If you don’t have any boxes, get these boxes with lids. They look cute and you can use them afterward for storing items in an organized way.
Get ready for the 21-Days-Declutter-Challenge
Everybody loves to live in a pretty home. This is why I created the easy-to-follow 21-Days-Declutter-Challenge. Everybody can do this without any excuses because it takes only about 30 minutes away from your day.
And if you are serious about getting rid of stuff, then 30 minutes of decluttering will be possible during your busy daily schedule.
Maybe you want to get up a little earlier or add 30 minutes after dinner to do this challenge before you sit down and watch TV. I am sure you will find the time somewhere in between. It all depends on you and if you really want to.
Pro Tip: If you are really serious about organizing your home, stop watching TV. It takes away so much time – time you could actually use for getting stuff done.
Do you want to get the 21-day Declutter Challenge? Fill out the form and receive the download instantly.
Prepare the Challenge 1 day prior
- Just one day before you start with the challenge prepare a trash can, a donation box, and a storage box. Make it easy for you to sort things out and put it away.
- Get your mindset ready. Imagine how a tidy and organized home will look and how happy you will feel when you are done.
- Get a timer so you can set 30 minutes every day to start with the challenge.
- Do not watch TV before you have finished the 30 minutes of decluttering.
Start with a really easy task:
Day 1 – empty out one junk drawer.
This probably doesn’t take longer than 10-15 minutes. Also check if you have some small boxes which fit into a drawer and you can easily organize pens, pencils, rulers, scissors or whatever you have in your drawer. Be prepared so you can start right away. Look through everything and decide if you have used this in the last 6-12 months. If not, you definitely don’t need it anymore. Put it in your donation box.
Before you put the things back you want to keep, wipe the drawer or cabinet out. Put the items you need and want to keep neatly back in your drawer. If this took you only a couple of minutes, move on to the next drawer.
Simply throw the items you don’t need anymore in the donation box until it is full.
As soon as the donation box is full, drive by your Thrift Store or your favorite donation place and drop it off.
Empty your trash box every day so it is gone and nobody can re-think and drag stuff back into the house again. (Which happens, I promise).
Of course, you can also switch days, you don’t need to follow the challenge day by day, but you need to do every single one of them. Also, some day’s challenges will take less than 30 minutes and maybe some will take a little longer, so plan accordingly. Just be strict with yourself.
Be serious about decluttering
When you are working on your closet challenge, be serious about it. Deciding on which clothes to keep and what to donate is the hardest thing for me. But I am getting better every year.
If you haven’t worn pants or some blouses in over 2 years, you will probably not wear them again. The shoes look great but they are so uncomfortable? I can promise you, you will not wear them again. Donate them and just think that somebody else will be happy wearing them.
Also when looking at your clothes get rid of the items that have stains, tears, or are just worn out. You won’t wear them anymore, they are just using space.
Sell it and make money
If you have a lot of very expensive clothes you don’t want to donate, bring them to a
- Second Hand Shop and make some money out of it.
- Or sell your stuff at a flea market or
- go to a shop & sip event.
First of all, it is fun, second, it is environmentally friendly and third you can make money. Can’t beat that.
I just sold a rug that didn’t fit into the new house anymore. Made some money that went straight into the vacation savings.
Have your items picked up
There are a lot of people who would love to use the stuff you don’t need anymore and a lot of donation stores depend on you. I cleaned out my son’s closet and collected a lot of clothes he grew out of. I sold a huge batch of clothes (shirts, pants, jackets) for 10 Dollars and made somebody really happy who was definitely in need of it. I found out that if you give clothes away for free nobody wants them. But paying a small amount works wonders.
Also when donating bigger items, they will come by and pick them up.
Of course, there is also Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace where you can sell your furniture and people will get it the same day from your house.
How does the 21-Day-Declutter-Challenge work?
The 21-Day-Challenge has 3 parts, each part is seven days long. Start with your first week and see how easy it is going for you. You only need about 30 minutes a day – concentrated without any distractions – and you will see how much you can achieve in so little time.
The first week will go by really fast.
Don’t stop now, but be proud of yourself that you are already done with 1/3 of the challenge. Move on to the second part! See how easy your rooms are transforming and you will feel so much better. If you can, have your children participate in the challenge.
Treat them to something fun to do on the weekend.
All of a sudden there is so much more space in your rooms. Don’t you feel so much better now?
Here comes Part 3 already
Part 3 is no big deal for you anymore. Also, you have a rhythm now and you know exactly how and when to do this challenge during your day.
Are you done with everything you wanted to do? Do you still have a basement or a garage or a kid’s room you need to work on? Then don’t stop now, add another 7 days and concentrate on the tasks you want to get done.
And now get into the routine of daily cleaning and tidying up
Start with a thorough room cleaning and keep the 30 minutes per day to tidy up and clean.
- Day 1 – clean your kitchen
- Day 2 – clean your bedroom
- Day 3 – clean your living room
- Day 4 – clean your bathroom
- Day 5 – clean your entrance and hallway
- Day 6 – clean your porch, add a flower box
If you need to be challenged, here is my 6 Day Spring Cleaning Challenge
It definitely helps me to stay on track and have my house clean and tidy. Stick to the 30 minutes daily routine of tidying up and cleaning and gain back control over your house.
Start the declutter challenge tomorrow
There is no excuse for not starting tomorrow with the 21-days-declutter-challenge. I am sure you will be able to check off a task from the challenge list every day.
And just imagine how great you will feel when you are done. Easy job for you!

Do you need storage options?
If you need options to organize your files, craft items, toys… check out various boxes which are stackable and easy to store.
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.
And now, decorate your home
Make your rooms pretty. Leave some white wall space so your rooms don’t feel overcrowded again.
Rather use only one bigger centerpiece on your table or on your wall than 5 little tiny pictures. You get the idea.
More related articles for you: If you need some inspiration to decorate your home, or if you want to update your living room on a budget
Do you need help updating your kitchen?
Another big topic is updating your kitchen cabinets. I know a beige and brown-looking kitchen can be very daunting. So why not update it? Check out some cool color combinations and join the workshop where I will show you how to paint your kitchen cabinets.
I hope you went through the ’21-Days-Declutter-Challenge’ and you are so proud of yourself now. Send me some pictures, I would love to see your home.
See you on the blog with a lot more decorating and DIY ideas.
Conny xoxo
Want to remember this? Pin this ‘Easy 21-Days-Declutter-Challenge’ to your favorite board.
Would you e-mail me the challenge so I can print it out? I can’t print from my phone.
Thank you so much for your guidance.
Hi Sherry, just sent it to you. Enjoy and keep going.
Ok. I AM going to try ur 21 day challenge. The 30 minute a day rule works well for me b cuz I go to work in the morning(usually zero time to do ANYTHING but get ready for work) ..
So after work I have St least an hour of sunlight(living outside at the moment) to accomplish this challenge. I’m excited. I WILL take pictures b4 and after To update results w my 21 day challenge. A little nervous..hope I can do it. Thanks so much. I look forward to receiving the check list u had mentioned. Thanks for ur time.
Samantha Meyers
AKA : Sam
Sam you can do it. And if you need more time, just add another 7 days to it. The download link for the challenge is in the article, I am sending you the challenge also by email. Good luck, Conny