Decluttering your home: How to decide with stays and what goes

This is part 3 of a 3 part series. If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out Parts 1 and 2 as well:

How to start decluttering your home when you feel completely overwhelmed
Decluttering checklist: How to declutter any area in your home
Decluttering your home: How to decide what stays and what goes (that’s this page!)

And don’t forget to grab my free decluttering guide:

Free decluttering guide

I created a free, 3 page decluttering guide to go along with this series:

Page 1: My decluttering plan (getting started)

Page 2: Step-by-step decluttering (what to do before, during, and after decluttering)

Page 3: Sorting it out (how to decide what stays and what goes)

GET THE GUIDE HERE!

Today is all about making those tough decisions about what to actually do with all the stuff that you’re decluttering and organizing.

I always recommend starting by taking every single item out of the space that you’re decluttering, and then sorting it into 4 piles:

Trash
Donate
Move
Keep

It helps if, before you ever start decluttering, you grab a container for each of these piles. For example, grab a trash bag for the trash, and two cardboard boxes- one for your donate items, and one for everything you need to move. Laundry baskets also work well.

Today I’ll be sharing how to decide what goes into each pile.

1. Trash

As you’re going through your items, throw away/recycle any trash that you find.

An item belongs in the trash if:

It’s broken or worn out
It is not usable
It has no value

In other words, not only do you not want or need this item any longer, but no one else would want or need it either.

2. Donate

I put everything in this box that I don’t want or need anymore, but someone else might.

Items belong in your donate box if:

You haven’t used it in a long time
You don’t really like it
It doesn’t add any significant value to your life
Or if you have other similar things that you like more

Note: You don’t necessarily have to drop this box off at Goodwill… you could try selling these items on Facebook Marketplace. Or offer them to friends who might enjoy them.

The important thing to remember is that this box is for items that are leaving your home to go to someone else’s.

3. Move

As you’re sorting through your items, you’ll probably find some things that you do want to keep, but that don’t belong in the space that they’re in. They belong in some other location in your house.

Here’s how to tell whether something belongs in the move pile:

You use this item in a different location in your house
It doesn’t fit in the same category as other items in this space
It already has a home somewhere else

For now, just put these items together in a pile, or in a box. After you’re done decluttering, you can return them to their correct locations around your house.

4. Keep

These are the items that you are planning to keep in the space where you are working. You know an item is a keeper if:

You like it and use it
It has value in your life
This space is the best space to store it
You don’t already have too many other items like this one

These are the things that you’ll be putting back neatly in your space. And hopefully, with the other 3 piles gone, you’ll actually be able to see and use your keep items much better!

What do you think? Is there anything you would add to this list? Which pile is the hardest for you and why?

Thanks so much for reading, and happy decluttering!

-Laura