Several months ago, I spent some time decluttering my house by going through papers, clothing, kitchen stuff, personal items—everything Beyond creating a more satisfying space, I discovered some surprising effects on my psychological well-being. Along the way, I was able to cultivate inner resources such as gratitude, satisfaction, mindfulness, non-attachment, and other qualities that emerged from this process.
I’m not alone. In fact, research on decluttering reveals some positive effects on one’s well-being. One study found that during the pandemic, decluttering helped to increase a sense of situational control and was associated with reduced fear and lower reactance levels among women. In another study, reflective decluttering of clothing led to increased awareness of consumption habits, greater satisfaction of what one owns, more appreciation of the value of clothing, and more alignment between consumption habits and needs. And being in an organized versus messy space increased the likelihood that volunteers in a study would contribute more generously to charity and make healthier food choices.
Here are six steps for decluttering that can also help build personal inner resources to support you in daily life.
1. Pick a starting point that will have impact
It can be easy to get overwhelmed with so many potential places we can put our attention. This can lead to decision paralysis, distraction, or going down a rabbit hole with the first thing that grabs your attention—and getting stuck there. I once spent an afternoon untangling all the cords in our garage instead of getting to the main spaces in my house that I look at every day!
Being mindful and intentional about where you put your focus as a starting point can have helpful consequences. To do this, you might ask yourself: What is one thing that, if I accomplished it today, would bring the biggest reward/sense of accomplishment or would have the biggest impact on my well-being?
For decluttering, you might pick a space that you use often (e.g., your desk, your kitchen drawers, your bathroom counter), or a space you walk past daily (e.g., the corner where the shoes are piled at the front door). Or you might pick a pile that you’ve been avoiding that has important papers you need to go through.
This idea of mindfully prioritizing and being intentional in advance of one’s actions can be a helpful antidote to our more habitual automatic pilot mode, or avoidance mode, that many people commonly experience. From here, make sure to move on to step two.
2. Start small, build momentum
While we may have lofty goals, if we try to take on too much all at once, this can feel overwhelming. At the level of our autonomic nervous system, this overwhelm can be read as a “threat” response that can put us into a state of freeze or immobilization, where it is hard to move forward toward our goals. Breaking things down into small, bite-sized pieces is often more “digestible.” Small steps can act as cues of safety for the nervous system, dialing down our stress response and making things feel more approachable.
Importantly, this step also invites us to cultivate feelings of satisfaction and of “taking in the good” (as Rick Hanson offers as an important antidote to the negativity bias and noticing everything that is wrong). By taking small action steps and then pausing to appreciate what you’ve done and how it makes you feel (e.g., I can see my desktop again, and that brings a sense of ease into the body and clarity in my mind), we can build a sense of intrinsic reward that feeds a natural momentum to continue moving forward.
3. If you don’t use it, lose it
We often cling to things without examining this clinging energy and what might be underneath it. For many people, there may be a sense of “I might use this someday,” even though things have sat 10 years unused and gathering dust.
Importantly, we can ask, “What might it feel like to let this go?” and notice what comes up. Is there anxiety, worry, tension? Go further underneath this—what is this really about? Often, we just stop at the anxious feelings and let that dictate our behavior. Cultivating the art of mindful curiosity and deeper inquiry allows us to notice the gripping in a new way. Is there a sense of loss underneath that you are guarding against? What are you really holding on to? How much does having excess take you away from enjoying what is here in the present moment?
I’m not saying never to save things you might use in the future, but this self-examination can help loosen the grip of old patterns that unconsciously drive our behavior. Until my recent decluttering, I hadn’t even thought twice about the 20 extra toothbrushes sitting in my bathroom cabinet. Keeping a few toothbrushes and letting go of the rest felt freeing and created precious space both physically and mentally.
4. If you’ve outgrown it, don’t own it
This one is a close cousin to step three above. While the above step focuses on usefulness, this step invites us to reflect more deeply on our emotional attachment to things. While there is nothing wrong with saving things for sentimental value, bringing consciousness and choice to this process can allow for more mindful living.
We humans can become attached to things that often become, unwittingly, part of our identity (whether objects or labels we identify with, such as I’m a mother/writer/psychologist, or even old beliefs that may no longer serve us). In the attachment to things, especially in the American culture in which I live, I find there is often an unspoken desire to have more, and to hold on to things even after their time has passed.
The opportunity that decluttering brings is one that allows us to look underneath these tendencies and to ask, “What am I really holding on to?” Mindfulness inquiry invites me to recognize the ultimate impermanence of everything, and to notice the holding on tightly as a way to not face that impermanence. In the letting go and non-attachment, this makes space not only for more psychological freedom, but also for greater generosity (see step five).
5. If it’s something you’ve outgrown, find it a home
One of the things I discovered in my decluttering process was the opportunity to focus on the joy that someone else might get from things that I have outgrown.
That dress from 15 years ago? It has special meaning to me from the event I wore it at, but keeping it in my closet just to hold on to that memory also means that someone else can’t get use and enjoyment from it. That collection of board games from when my kids were little that had been accumulating dust was a reminder of fun and playful times I longed to hold on to; but finding Candyland, Checkers, Sorry, and other such games a new home was a way to pass that joy forward.
Giving things away with the intention of helping others find joy and usefulness helped to build a sense of generosity and kindness that became fuel for me to keep going, and helped loosen the grip of attachment and holding on.
6. If you love it, keep it in sight, and if it’s useful, give it airtime
One of the things that surprised me in my decluttering process was discovering things that I loved that I had forgotten about because they were buried amidst so much clutter and “stuff.”
Once I was able to get rid of or give away what I no longer needed, I had space to display and see the things that I truly enjoy. In her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo inspired this principle for me. I made an intentional effort to lay things out in such a way that I could see everything I have. What came along with this was a deeper sense of gratitude and appreciation for the things that I do have, and an opportunity to practice gratitude daily for these things.
Additionally, seeing what I have, giving it a permanent “home,” and making it accessible and easy to find and use helped to cultivate contentment and fulfillment, as well as greater ease in moving through the day.
Using these six steps to declutter invites the opportunity not only for cleaner spaces but also for growing inner resources helpful in life: letting go of clinging, craving, and the need to have more; feeling more satisfaction (and recognizing our human tendency to overconsume in many areas of our life); practicing gratitude and appreciation, non-attachment, impermanence, and generosity; prioritizing what is truly important; and approaching tasks in a way that builds momentum and intrinsic reward.
In this process of decluttering, what I discovered is that, sometimes, less is more—much more.
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