5 Simple Steps to Help Clear Your Home of Clutter

Jenny Albertini takes a mindfulness centered approach to decluttering your life.

Jenny Albertini / Birch Thomas

Kickstart your New Year alongside SI Swimsuit with 31 Days of Wellness! This January, SI Swimsuit will unlock exclusive offerings with SI Swimsuit models, wellness experts, fitness gurus and others, who will guide you through 31 days of rejuvenating workouts, recipes, self-care rituals and more.

I’ve always been deeply affected by my surroundings. I love how a well-designed space can inspire a sense of calm and clarity. Jenny Albertini, author of Decluttered: Mindful Organizing for Health, Home, and Beyond refines this idea even further, explaining, “I really believe that the environments where we spend our time shape our feelings, habits and intentions. So as part of this practice, it’s a wonderful opportunity to ask, ‘How do I want my day to flow?’”

As we’ve spent this month exploring different aspects of wellness—including physical fitness, nutrition and budgeting—I wanted to take a closer look at how our homes and the objects around us can either support or hinder our efforts to live a more intentional, wellness-focused life.

What is clutter?

Albertini defines clutter in the way we most commonly think of it: “A collection of things that aren’t useful, aren’t wanted, and are taking up space in our homes.” But she expands this definition beyond just material possessions. “It’s also all the ideas, priorities and perspectives that get placed on us—things we don’t actually want or need. I like to think of clutter as both tangible objects and the more ephemeral things that affect us.”

The link between mental health and clutter

Albertini’s career began in the field of mental health before she pivoted to focus on organization and home environments. She trained under the renowned Marie Kondo but brings a unique perspective, drawing from her background in public health. Throughout her previous career, she helped design and manage global women’s health and HIV programs. When she shifted to working one-on-one with clients, she naturally applied a systems-based approach to clutter.

Her research led her to a striking realization: clutter isn’t just about physical space—it’s often tied to brain-based conditions such as ADHD, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. This led her to see a strong link between well-being and a well-organized space. 

Birch Thomas

5 simple steps to help clear your home of clutter

Give yourself a deadline

Albertini stresses the importance of giving yourself some parameters for your project and setting not only a deadline but also a schedule. “You want to give yourself time on your schedule to meet that goal, like any other goal you might set for yourself,” she says. “You know, a common one we would equate this to is if you're seeing a trainer to achieve physical fitness goals. You might see them once a week. Well, we want to look for at least a once a week window on your calendar where you could dedicate some time to going through that decluttering process.”

Identify the cause

Try journaling. Spend some time identifying the root cause of the clutter in your life. “Where is that clutter coming from?” Albertini prompts. “Do I have an Amazon Prime subscription and so I'm getting 30 boxes a week of stuff? Or is it coming from an in-law who's sending toys and books every week to my kiddo? Those are very different reasons why clutter might perk up for people or or grow.” Identifying the root cause can help you create lasting results.

Try a spending pause

If you’ve set your decluttering period as a month, for example, try not letting yourself add anything new into your space in that month. Not only does this help break spending habits, but it helps you see what you really need in your space. “What's the base level of volume that you need and use on a regular basis?” Albertiniti questions. She recommends starting a list to help track the purchase desires you have as they come up. 

One exception to this spending pause might be organizational items you discover you need as you are working through your home decluttering. Say, for example, while organizing your closet, you realize you need a different bin for bathing suits. Albertini allows some flexibility with things like this in her recommendation for a spending pause.

Find an accountability buddy

This can be someone in person or even a virtual friend, but no matter the task, nearly everything is better in community. Albertini recommends you could even set a weekly Zoom meeting with a friend. “You'll do decluttering on your end, and she'll do it on her end,” she says. “But you're helping each other.”

Pair your decluttering with a mindfulness practice

Because our root goal with decluttering is to improve our overall well-being, try pairing your decluttering work with another practice that will make you feel better, like going for a walk or starting your decluttering session with 10 minutes of mindful breathing. “The better you will feel going into decluttering and frankly, everything that you're trying to do in your day.”

Overall, I can’t recommend enough exploring Albertini’s book, Decluttered: Mindful Organizing for Health, Home, and Beyond , that both shares education around these topics but also serves as a practical guide, including journal prompts and exercises that you can use to guide your own decluttering practice in your space. We closed the interview with some rapid style questions our team had to see how Albertini would tackle these commonly cluttered areas in our homes. 

Rapid Fire Organization Tips

Best tips for organizing cables?

“I love a cord wrap.. [and] this is a good use for a label maker. I'm not an over labeler, but so often people have so many different types of cords, so when you're organizing them, put a label on them… like iPhone headset…TV cords,” Albertini explains. “That will save a lot of stress later on.”

What is one clothing item that most people have too many of?

“Pants,” Albertini states. “You know, we collect them. They mean certain things to us in terms of how we view our bodies. They're the marker of when we are different sizes, and if we are interested in changing our body shape, what we're going back to.” Albertini recommends no more than 10 pairs should be in your wardrobe. 

What is your take on hotel toiletries? Keep them or toss them?

“Depends on how often you travel,” she says. “So I think that they're good size. If you're someone who travels regularly, you're like, ‘Oh, I just want to use them,’ but don't ever keep more than you're going to go through in the next three months. So make that a limit.”

Best tips for organizing Tupperware?

“I like to nest the containers… inside of one another, and then stand the lids upright and place them next to the containers,” Albertini shares. “ …I'll use a drawer divider so that the lids will stand up straight, and then the containers are next to them.”

Favorite hack for organizing jewelry?

“Pick a jewelry organizer that you enjoy looking at and using, because you are more likely to wear and look at your jewelry regularly if you like the way that it's presented,” she suggests. “So that's really the number one. And then I sort by type.”

Tips for keeping a tidy entryway?

Simplicity. Albertini recommended one bowl for things like keys and hooks for jackets and bags. “The biggest tip is to only keep the pairs of shoes by the entryway door that you're using on a daily basis,” she says. “ … Everything else should be put away in your closet, in your bedroom or somewhere else.”