How to Declutter Quickly When Life Forces Your Hand

If you’ve been a reader of this blog for a while you are familiar with my philosophy of decluttering in midlife: for the best results, make the effort small and consistent. I stand by that philosophy, it effectively removes the overwhelm and helps you build the decluttering muscle you need to tackle some of the harder stuff. It’s what I practice in my own home.

But sometimes life throws you a curve ball.  A forcing function such as a sudden move to a smaller home, a health event or a divorce takes away the luxury of small, consistent decluttering efforts. You have to declutter quickly because time is a factor.

My recent stay in the ICU due to a massive pulmonary embolism put some things in perspective for me. I should note that my health event did not precipitate the need to declutter as I have been taking the slow and steady approach for years. But it did validate two things that I coach all the time with clients.

1. When it comes down to it, people are way more important than things
2. The things that are important are the ones you use frequently

The people were what I missed most when I was dying to get out of the hospital. And when I finally did arrive home I was happy to see my ‘every day’ things, 

These truths can serve as guiding principles when you have to move quickly. When your timeline for decluttering gets shorter, your decision-making framework needs to evolve to meet it. Let’s explore what that looks like.

1. Let the Deadline Change Your Standards

When you’re on a deadline and need to declutter quickly you cannot deliberate over every item. You cannot make the ‘perfect’ choice every time. And you won’t. What you can do is set your bar high for what has earned the right to stay in your life. Here are some common themes you don’t/won’t have time for:

‘Could I possibly use this someday?’

‘Keeping it is the right thing to do’

‘It’s wasteful to get rid of it’

‘I’ve had it forever’

Keep your focus on what is relevant in your life today. All of the other noisy thoughts can take a back seat to that. If it isn’t currently relevant, it’s not worth deliberating over. Yes, this means being more ruthless – but ruthless is appropriate for the circumstances.

When I was in the hospital and desperately wanted to come home, I missed the things I see and use on a daily basis. My glassybabies, for one. My Dutch Oven for another. What I didn’t miss and wasn’t thinking about at all was the random stuff in the downstairs hall closet, the collection of my grandmother’s figurines sitting in a box in our storage area, or my kids’ lacrosse sticks that still linger on with a bunch of other sports equipment we no longer use.

If I had to turn on a dime and downsize, my number one decision filter would be this. Does it bring me joy and/or serve me in my life today? Everything else is secondary to that. Stay away from hypotheticals and lean into the evidence.

Which brings me to my next recommendation for decluttering quickly, the inside-out method.

2. Work From The Inside Out

One of the most exhausting aspects of decluttering a lot of stuff fast is decision fatigue. Because decluttering on an urgent timeline is inherently overwhelming in its size and scope, an inside-out approach is a smart way to avoid it. 

How does inside-out decluttering work? By flipping the process on its head. Instead, you pull out only the items that fit your priorities.  Then you get rid of the rest of the stuff without actually going through it piece by piece.

Inside out decluttering is ‘pull’ vs. ‘push’. That means you need to spend a little brain time with pen and paper to compose a list of things you know you want. This may feel like a waste of precious time when you’re on a deadline but in fact it’s the exact opposite. Once you’ve assembled a list of the non-negotiable keeps, everything else can be left largely unscrutinized and that’s the big unlock to time-savings.

It may seem unrealistic if you’re mentally applying it to a whole house, but if you’re talking about a single room it becomes a lot more doable. Trusting your knowing is key, that’s the voice of reason that helps you drown out any unhelpful thoughts.

3. Trust That You Won’t Miss Most Of It

Speaking of trust, don’t stress if it feels like you’re leaving too much behind. You may regret a thing or two because of how fast you’re moving but mostly you won’t miss it. And the greatest gift of a declutter like this is that you now have the physical and mental space to appreciate the things that really matter. The things you kept with intention.

And those few things you regret leaving behind? You can likely replace them, borrow them or frankly, live without them! Try it out and see how quickly they fade from your memory.

When you have to declutter quickly you’ll make a few mistakes, but it’s worth getting the job done with the least amount of stress. Overall you’ll be happy, and the mistakes end up being a pretty good trade for that happiness.

When Life Forces Your Hand

Reminder, this approach is for specific circumstances only – when there is an acute event forcing you to declutter quickly. If you have six months to declutter, take six months. Better yet, play the long game and do it over years, like I am. There’s no prize for decluttering your house as quickly as possible. 

But if life gives you six weeks, you can do it differently. Give yourself permission to make faster decisions, lower the bar for how perfectly everything leaves the house, and trust yourself. A crisis has a brutal way of clarifying what matters – I can attest to that. I wouldn’t recommend learning that lesson the way I did—but I absolutely plan to keep that lesson in my back pocket!