Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with your house you dream about a giant dumpster being delivered in your driveway that you can fill with a bunch of the random crap that has somehow ended up in every room? I have SO been there and today’s decluttering hack gives you permission to let go of anything weighing you down in your house. 

This hack is simple and efficient. In fact this is something you can do in just 20 minutes a week.

Why the Trash Day Decluttering Hack Works

 I have been on my decluttering journey for going on 2 years now and have found that I need to see some change to keep me motivated. The trash night hack will help you gain momentum quickly. The night before trash day when you are taking the trash outside, grab an empty trash bag with the goal of filling it up with items to declutter. You can decide if you are decluttering trash or simply filling a bag with donation items that you will then put into the trunk of your car. The goal is 1 bag each trash night. Make this low effort and high impact so just start filling and try not to over think this. 

Ideas of places to start with Trash Day Decluttering

• Pantry (old and expired items are easy to toss)
• Bathroom drawer or closet (old or expired products=easy peasy decluttering)
• Playroom (look for broken toys or loose papers, broken crayons, etc)
• Mail pile (I can’t be the only one who has a mail pile that I’m always forgetting to declutter right?!)
• Junk Drawer (we all have one and it can pretty much always be decluttered)
• Art supplies (I usually find cut up scraps of paper, a dried out marker, and old play dough whenever I go into the art supplies. Enter if you dare!)
• Shoes/clothes that no longer fit you or your kids (I currently have a trash bag full of shoes and clothes to donate this week!)

Keep going and be proud of the changes you see

Once you do this for a few weeks you will feel major pride and success at how many bags of stuff you are moving out of your space. You can choose to do this weekly, biweekly, monthly, literally whatever works for you in this season. Sometimes I will even do this on a day where the mess is really getting to me. I grab the bag and tell myself I am going to spend just 20 minutes and walk around the house collecting the easy items to get rid of. This might even make you look forward to trash night!

Keep it simple, efficient and quick

Trash night decluttering is meant to be a starting point to declutter. By committing just 20 minutes per week you can begin to see the changes in your home by removing items that are no longer serving you and your family. Decluttering is a muscle so this weekly exercise is building that muscle making it stronger for next week. This gets easier as you go and will really help you to get started decluttering. If you do this weekly for a month that is 4 trash bags gone, 6 months is 24 bags and if you can commit to a full year your space will be 52 trash bags lighter! 

Let me know in the comments if you try my Trash Day Decluttering hack!