10 Things To Declutter In Less Than 5 Minutes

You sometimes feel discouraged about decluttering everything you accumulated over the years. You see all these things sticking out of your closet, lying on the floor. All these beauty products you won’t use. There are too many things, and you don’t know where to start.  

But today, I’ll help you to declutter all these little things in 5 min max. The result is guaranteed! 

And if you’re struggling to put yourself to work, think about the 3,2,1 rules! 

3,2,1, let’s go! 

Expired food

First, you can clean your fridge and get rid of all your expired food in less than 5 minutes. 

Easy. When you’re cooking your pasta, you can get all the food out of the fridge, wipe it inside, and one by one, look at the expired date and get rid of the food that doesn’t look great, like your fruits and vegetables. Don’t forget all the sauces because we tend to forget they also have an expiration date. 

The mail

You know, this little pile you have in your entryway.. You think you’ll deal with it soon, but this is not a little pile at the end of the month. So take a sit and open every letter. Around 75% is not important, so get rid of it and classify the rest. I like to do it once a month because I don’t want to classify my files daily. And most of the time, the mail is mostly ads so I recycle the paper. 

So your entryway is not a mess, and you immediately feel better. 

Expired medication 

As for the food, take 5 minutes to check your expired medication. I do it every 6 months, and it helps me to know what I’ll need to replace the next time. So that I’m not in a situation where I need something and the drug is expired. I don’t have a lot of medication because I try as much as possible to wait until it gets better, yes, even for a pharmacist! But yes, sometimes I have one or 2 boxes that need to be recycled. In France, we bring expired medication to the pharmacy to recycle or destroy the drugs properly. 

You can also check the date for the cream or the lotion. 

Newspapers and magazines 

If you’re still receiving newspapers at your house and don’t have time to read them all, check the date, and get rid of those that are no longer relevant. It takes up a lot of space, and it could give you some mental clutter for nothing. 

I had 3 magazine subscriptions at a time, but I had no time to read them all. I decided to cancel them, and now, I buy magazines when I need to take the train or at the airport. 

The bulbs and batteries you keep to throw them away 

Ok, so if you keep them, it’s already the first step. It’s great not to throw them away in the classical bin. But, if you’re like me, you keep them in your entryway to think about them when you go to the grocery store to recycle them but every time, you just forget. So take 5 minutes to put everything you need to recycle in a bag that you put in your tote bag, so that the next time you run errands, you have them with you! 

Buttons of clothes you keep in case you want to fix them

I think you have an entire box of these buttons you keep, just in case. It’s great if you really need them to keep a cloth but let’s face it when you notice that a button is coming off a cloth, you fix it right away without needing another one. 

I decided a few years ago to throw them away, all of them. Because during all these years, I didn’t need them. 

You can do it like me, or you can keep the specific ones, the ones you know you won’t find easily. 

Apps on your phone 

Take just 5 minutes to delete all the apps you didn’t use this month or even in the last 6 months. I like to do it every 2-3 months when I feel slightly overwhelmed by what I have on my screen. You’ll realize that most of the time, you always use the same apps. 

You can also take 5 minutes to check your subscriptions on your phone and I assure you you’ll have some surprises. It happened to me like 2 or 3 times to have yearly subscriptions renewed without realizing it for something I didn’t use anymore. And it was like 100 euros each time! So now I like to check my subscriptions to be sure not to have a bad surprise anymore. 

Missing socks

I don’t know how it’s possible, but we always have missing socks. And we also have a box with all of them. So what I do like every quarter is to put every sock I have, even those that are in the drawer, to find pairs of socks. Most of the time, I find them but sometimes, even by doing that, there are one or 2 socks that have no match. So I throw them away… Do the same in less than 5 minutes and you’ll feel so much better. 

Unused or half-used candles you don’t love

Sometimes you receive a candle as a gift or you buy a candle thinking that the smell would be great but when you light it up, the smell is too important and you have a headache right away. I know, it’s hard, it’s like throwing money out the window but you won’t use it. I bought a candle last year that was supposed to smell like Christmas trees but not at all and I think it’s time to get rid of it. 

Beauty products that don’t match your skin type 

Sometimes you tend to buy beauty products because you thought you had normal or oily skin. But in reality, you always have dry skin, and some of these products are detrimental to your skin. Or you bought a concealer that doesn’t match your skin tone. Please get rid of them, you won’t wear them. 

You can also decide to declutter beauty products with some toxic ingredients. I haven’t done it yet, but I think I’ll do it someday. 

You can also declutter all the nail polish you didn’t use in the last 2 years. I was guilty of storing them because I spent money on them, but I use like 2 or 3 colors a year. When I use nail polish! 

Alright, I hope this blog post will help you to declutter things in your home. It’s also a great relief to make space and declutter things you don’t use anymore. If you really want to declutter more, you can find my video about the 30-day minimalism game, it’s a game changer! 

See you,

Anna