183 How to Declutter With Your Partner Part 2: Get It Done With These 5 Phases

The previous episode was titled How to Declutter With Your Partner Part 1: Prepare With These Tips.

In this episode, we share the 5 basic phases we went through while we were actually sorting through and dealing with all the stuff, the clutter!

Hope these ideas are helpful for you.

Phase 1: Prep Your Buckets & Use Them

Toast here, in the middle of garage clutter.

You’ll need a way to keep stuff separate from each other as you decide what stays and what goes. So get boxes, bags, or even just designate areas on the ground to hold the stuff you’ll either


  1. Donate

  2. Throw Away (the ‘bucket’ that sounds like something that rhymes with bucket)

  3. Keep

  4. Unsure; the stuff you’re not sure about whether to keep or get rid of yet

Then do a quick start: do a broad, superficial first pass over all your stuff, and decide which bucket that stuff goes in. In other words, start sorting! Start decluttering!

During this first pass, you might start feeling like you need some supplies like organizers, or shelves, if you’re serious about continuing to live with less clutter.

Phase 2: Choose & Buy Supplies for “Decluttered Living”

It takes focus to make decisions about


  • What organizational or storage supplies you need

  • And shopping around for them

    There are a lot of things you need to juggle here. How tall, wide, and deep they need to be to work for your space, and of course, the considerations around aesthetics, durability, and cost. It’s a whole project in and of itself.

Phase 3: Clean

Dust, vacuum, heck, even disinfect if you want to.

Phase 4: Address The “Unsures”

There was an “Unsure” bucket in Phase 1.

Now’s the time to make decisions on the stuff in that bucket.

You’ll probably have more clarity on that stuff by now.

But if you still can’t make a decision, no problem.

Put them in a box, label it ‘Unsures’ and set an alarm or put it in your calendar to revisit the decision about them a year from now. Or six months. Or whatever timeframe feels about right to you.

Phase 5: Actually Donate and Throw Away


the appropriate things.

Get that stuff out of your living space.

And then, of course, find homes for all the stuff you’ve decided to Keep, putting to work any new Supplies for ‘Decluttered Living’ that you bought or somehow acquired in Phase 2.

Yay! You’ve decluttered!

Siena & Toast