5 Biggest Clutter Causes In Your Home & How To Prevent Them

Here are the top five things that cause clutter in your home and how to stop them in their tracks before things start to pile up.

You never really notice clutter until it gets out of hand. A few things sitting out of place in your home just feels like stuff we need to tidy up when we have some free time. But as more and more out of place items pile up, all we can see is clutter. And sometimes it’s too late for a quick cleanup and we get stuck spending a whole weekend decluttering, purging, cleaning, and organizing.

Today I want to open your eyes to the five biggest clutter causes that professional organizers notice every time we walk into a client’s home. Once you know what to look for, you can be more mindful of staying on top of them so you can keep spending your weekends doing fun things instead of housework.

1. New Purchases

Wait, that Amazon haul just came through the door, how could it possibly be clutter already? Unless you bought something to replace an item you already have, those new items don’t have a home yet. And those new items are just more inventory to your already full house.

A lot of times we don’t even unpack a shipped package for a couple of days, so boxes just hang out in the floor by the door. And even more frequently we make impulse purchases for things we don’t even need and they get shuffled around from surface to surface until they are eventually stuffed in the back of a drawer.

The Fix:

Limiting our purchases is technically the correct answer, but it’s not entirely realistic. My best advice is to open up your order history and look at the things you bought over the last few months. How many of them were impulse purchases? How many were things you already owned and you just bought “another version” of it? And what about all those items you haven’t even touched since they arrived? This reality check helps you be a more mindful shopper.

When new items come through the door, make it a priority to unpack and find a home for them immediately. Recycle the packaging, break down the boxes, put the item where it goes, and throw away/donate any old items your new purchases are to replace.

2. Things To Sell

Isn’t it so thrilling to declutter a space and find some items that are actually worth the time and effort to resell? It’s like getting paid to tidy your house! But unless you are really on top of listing items for sale, they can pile up quickly and become a whole new clutter spot.

Decluttered items aren’t really decluttered until they’re out of the house, so that stash of furniture, electronics, and handbags sitting in closet corners and the back of your garage are just clutter you’ve moved to a different area. And just listing them isn’t enough either. Until you’ve heard from a hundred hagglers, dealt with a few no-shows, and finally traded stuff for money, those items are still space hogs.

The Fix:

Don’t wait until you have a bunch of things to sell to list them all. If you decide you want to sell something, list it immediately. Once the item is listed, set yourself a deadline. It can be 7 days, 10 days, 3 days, whatever you want. Just try to keep it under two weeks (because two weeks is too long for clutter to hang out). If it hasn’t been claimed, paid for, and picked up by your deadline, take it straight to the donation center. It’s not worth your time to keep holding it.

3. Mail

It’s 2024, why do we still receive so much mail? No matter how many times we select the “paperless” option and opt of junk mail lists, the envelopes just keep coming. It’s easy to stay on top of for some households, but it becomes a big mess for others. If you don’t have an incoming mail system, or if your partner stacks it all on the counter to avoid trashing something they shouldn’t have, that stack can get out of control in no time.

But it’s not just junk mail that can be a problem. Coupons we cut out from the paper with good intentions of using, magazines we meant to cancel last year, bills that need to be paid, bank statements, even notes from your kids’ school that get thrown into the mix. By the time we have an afternoon to go through it all, the coupons have expired, the bills are late, and the field trip note never made it back, so your kiddo is stuck at school doing worksheets while the rest of the class is at the aquarium.

The Fix:

First things first, don’t let the junk mail touch the countertop. Sort the mail as you’re walking from the mailbox and toss the junk right into the recycling without a second thought. The rest of the mail needs a system. But not just any system—one that will work for you and your family. For some people, mail hidden in a basket works well, but for others, out of sight means out of mind.

Whatever system you end up going with, make sure you set a recurring reminder in your phone to go through the mail stack once a week. Pick a day when you don’t have a lot going on (It’s Sunday at 4pm for me) and have your phone play an audible alert. This will train you to go through the papers, take action on what needs to be done, and file what has already been dealt with. And keep selecting “paperless” every time you are able.

4. Clothes

Anytime my teenager’s room gets messy and he’s overwhelmed at where to start when cleaning up, I always remind him to just pick up the clothes. Dirty clothes don’t always make it to the hamper, clean clothes sometimes don’t get put away properly, and then there’s the not-clean-but-not-dirty clothes that end up being piled onto the corner chair. It happens to everyone, not just teenagers.

Clothes and shoes make a room look and feel messier than it is, but luckily, this is the easiest clutter problem to fix. Our clothes and shoes already have a home; they likely just didn’t make it there. If you find yourself with a lot of clothing clutter, it could be that you just have too much, or your current organization systems aren’t working for your lifestyle.

The Fix:

Take notice of the clothes and shoes that aren’t where they should be and ask yourself why. If the shoes are piled in the corner because you don’t actually have a place to keep them, your next project is to buy a shoe shelf and give them a proper home. If the corner chair is covered in clothes that just didn’t make their way to the closet yet, it’s time to make a conscious effort to change your habits and take the additional thirty seconds to put them away instead of dropping down to clean up later.

And if you simply just don’t have enough room for all your clothes and shoes, consider downsizing your wardrobe or packing away out of season items to free up some space. Slim hangers and hanger extenders can also allow you to fit more on the rod. Usually the problem isn’t you or your habits, it’s just that you don’t have the right storage system yet.

5. Unfinished Projects

Shoutout to all the crafty people, parents of young children, content creators, and multi-hobby friends out there, because this one is for you. We always get excited about new projects, but a lot of them can’t be finished in one day or sometimes even a week. In the meantime, our unfinished projects take up dining room tables, kitchen islands, and craft tables making our home look so much messier than it really is.

And I’m just going to call you out on this. Sometimes those projects never get finished. Inside cabinets and drawers are where projects we got bored with go to die, and they just stay in their dark, dusty grave until we finally clean them out. But usually, you hold onto them “just in case” you decide to pick up cross-stitching or watercolors again. I call this “dream clutter” because we keep things we don’t have time to use just because it sounds nice.

The Fix:

For actual unfinished projects you are actively working on, it’s a great idea to have an “in progress” bin. Put the project and all the supplies inside the bin when you’re done working. Scissors, paint brushes, gloves, basically everything you were using. This makes it easy to start again because you don’t have to hunt down all your supplies, and you’ll be more likely to finish it faster. And since it’s all in a bin, you can still eat at your table in the evenings.

For “dream clutter,” it’s time for a reality check. Why did you stop cross-stitching in the first place? Was it because you didn’t have time for it? Or you didn’t enjoy it as much as you thought you would? It’s hard to let a new hobby go that didn’t work out because we spent time and money on it. We just aren’t ready to eat that loss and call it quits.

But the space that unused stuff takes up could be used for things you will use and will have time for. It’s okay to quit a project without finishing. No one will judge you, and you’ll feel so much lighter when you let it go. The money has already been spent, the time has already been used, and it wasn’t a waste at all. Think of it as an experience that taught you what you do and don’t like to do with spare time. Now you can donate the supplies to someone who enjoys it more.

What Are Your Biggest Clutter Offenders?

Now that you know what to look for, take a walk around the house and just look at the most cluttered areas to see what is causing the pile-up. When you look at your “stuff” with a critical eye, you’re more likely to see things more clearly.

You’ll notice the cat toys everywhere that could be solved by adding a basket. You’ll see the mound of clothes in the laundry room and realize they’re there because you ran out of hangers. And you’ll point out the stack of boxes blocking the door in the garage and instantly know that a dedicated recycling can would keep them out of the floor.

It’s like a scavenger hunt, and the prize is a more simplified home. And we could all use a little more simplicity, right? If you need some extra motivation to downsize your home’s inventory, check out this post for how to start decluttering when you’re overwhelmed with stuff.