Mini Declutter Week Day 3: Ten minute bedroom sort-out

It’s time to get decluttering again for Day 3 of our mini Declutter Week challenge (full declutter schedule here if you need it). Get ready for a 10-minute bedroom declutter and organise.

In most homes, this room can become an absolute magnet for all kinds of mess, but we still need to be able to sleep there. It’s also where most of us keep our clothes, jewellery, makeup and so on. There’s plenty of scope for chaos here, and that’s why we’re about to pick a small spot to make it calmer and more functional.

A tidier, more organised bedroom has direct benefits for your health and wellbeing, so it’s well worth making an effort to sort the room out properly.

Which bedroom area to choose

Which little clutter-related improvement would help you right now? Is there anything you’ve been putting off?

Here are some examples of a small area you could choose today:

• Sock drawer
• Underwear drawer
• Exercise clothes
• Workwear
• Jumpers & cardigans
• Jeans
• Sweatshirts & t-shirts
• Shoes, trainers, boots
• Bedside table (top of, or one drawer)
• Bags, belts, other accessories
• Jewellery, watches
• Makeup and/or perfumes
• Bedlinen, blankets, spare bedding
• Towels, bathmats, facecloths
• Ironing equipment
• Things at the bottom of the laundry hamper
• Luggage & travel items

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking, and I’m sure there are plenty of other things that are specific to your individual home too.

What do you most want or need from this declutter? Decide your intention and purpose properly before getting started. This could be anything from a more comfortable, relaxing place to sleep to a purge of odd socks to streamline getting ready in the morning.

How to do your mini bedroom declutter

Once you’ve chosen something you can complete in around ten minutes, get started on your decluttering in this order:

• Clear out the chosen space (remove physical clutter from a shelf or drawer, empty a makeup bag, take clothes out of the wardrobe)
• Clean the area (dust, wipe, etc) and dry it well
• Sort through the clutter (keep here, keep but move, add to seasonal storage, put on mending pile, recycle, donate, sell)
• Add structure if needed (boxes, vacuum bags, under-bed storage, drawers, hangers) – you may need to use something temporary here
• Add other items if you like (trays, trinket dishes, jewellery boxes, pictures, ornaments)
• Put the ‘keep here’ things back, grouping them together with the most-used items in easiest reach
• Other immediate jobs (put ‘keep but not here’ things away elsewere, bin, recycling)
• Choose timeframe for other tasks (sew on a button, go to charity shop, clean or mend shoes, list it on Vinted)
• Make a shopping list (what do you still need for this space, if anything?)

If you’ve chosen a small area, it should be fairly easy to avoid getting sidetracked. Clothes and shoes can bring up quite a lot of nostalgia though, so remember things need to fit, make you feel good, and be in wearable condition.

One important thing to remember about clothes and bedding is that you might need to do some laundry or ironing. For example, if anything’s been in storage for a while, it could benefit from a wash to freshen it up. Likewise, shoes, bags or jewellery sometimes need cleaning or other care.

Most clothes, accessories and blankets are seasonal, so a bedroom organise and declutter often calls for some extra storage solutions. If you’re on a budget you can find cheap storage boxes and baskets at places like Ikea, B&M stores and Matalan.

I also have some particular favourites for reliable, effective bedroom and clothes organising that I always recommend:

• Lakeland – really good vacuum storage bags, moth protection and more
• John Lewis – attractive baskets, quality hangers & wardrobe organisers
• Oliver Bonas – pretty trinket dishes (example shown below), jewellery hangers and ornaments

What’s happening at Golightly Gardens

I’ve done a few bedroom declutters recently, working around the room bit by bit. Progress is definitely being made!

The first one was my sock drawer, or more accurately my sock box which is a storage box in the underwear drawer. I finally admitted to myself that those two random odd socks were no longer part of matching pairs, and got them into the recycling. They were getting in the way.

I’ve also tidied up my ‘handbag drawer’ where I keep gloves, sunglasses, foldaway shopping bags etc and moved out a load of bits and bobs that really didn’t belong in there. Also took nine pairs of old prescription glasses to Specsavers for recycling, because they were just useless clutter that made it hard to find the ones with the correct prescription.

It’s not uncommon to find the occasional random, probably useless item during a decluttering session, but this weird metal thingamajig (pictured above) had me stumped. Any ideas, anyone? It was hiding in with my gloves, and nobody in the house has claimed it or knows what it is.

The most likely suggestion that this is a hole punch for belts. Well, it’s gone in the recycling anyway. It hasn’t ever been used, plus it didn’t look important and even if it is then I’m sure it won’t be hard to replace it.

The other thing to ‘look out for’, even though it won’t exactly be visible, is missing items. For example, I was looking through my stockings and tights box last week, and realised I don’t have enough warm winter tights. I got rid of a few worn-out pairs at the end of last winter and forgot to replace them. Something for the shopping list next payday, I think.

Are you feeling inspired to do a quick bedroom declutter?

Where do you think you’d like to start?

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