You can look at decluttering as a cleansing ritual to eliminate the messy stuff around you. For Janine, it’s also a way to clear your mind. 

As she told Bored Panda, “It is amazingly freeing to know that you can find what you want when you want it. It just makes life easier.”

If you feel daunted by the mere idea of spring cleaning or decluttering your home, Janine offers this tip: break the task into “small bites” or single out a particular task. This applies to all chores, whether cleaning the countertop, clearing trash, or loading used plates into a dishwasher. 

“Thinking about individual tasks, rather than one giant project, can make any clean-up feel more doable,” she said.

Here’s another pro tip from Janine: leave the lids off your often-used containers. As she explained, a lid adds an extra step to the process because of the need to take it out and put it back in. You can also be tempted to set items on top of it, which creates a new mess to clean up. 

Having a system also makes your cleaning and decluttering efforts more efficient. As Janine explained, “There is no right way to organize.” Professionals like herself can help create these systems tailored to specific needs, which covers establishing habits and routines to maintain order.

Whether you’re trying to remove the rust from a wall fan or the mildew from your bathroom tiles, other experts recommend doing so in a specific direction. Adriana Aziz of Australia-based cleaning company Maid For You advises moving clockwise to avoid missing a spot. 

As Aziz told Southern Living, the strategy helped decrease their customers’ re-clean requests by 80 percent. That’s a hack you can try out today.

Feather dusters have been around for a while, but the harsh reality is that they don’t do much to keep your home dustless and allergen-free. Author and cleaning expert Leslie Reichert recommends using a microfiber cloth instead. 

In an interview with Reader’s Digest, Reichert explained that microfiber cloths have an “exceptionally huge surface area.” Specifically, you’re looking at 40 times more compared to cotton fibers. They also hold up to six times their weight when submerged in water.

Cleaning your grill grates for your upcoming cookout can be taxing. The process can take a long time, leaving you tired when you start the fire. 

ProHousekeepers Chief Hygiene Officer Jennifer Rodriguez recommends ditching the brush and using lemon halves and salt instead. As she explained to Southern Living, the acidity in the citrus sterilizes the grill and cuts the grease off. 

To do this, mix the lemon and salt and swipe the halves through the grill’s grates. Make sure they are heated. You’ll see the lemon return it to its old form right before your eyes.

We may be tempted to delay wiping off a sauce spill on the kitchen counter while cooking. But as Dan Deonarain of New York-based cleaning company Galaxy Maids advises, cleanup becomes less daunting if you do it right after meal preparation. 

Deonarain recommends using a soft sponge or microfiber, a drop of dish soap, and some warm water for fresh spills. Doing this avoids leaving scratches.

We’d also love to hear from you, readers. What decluttering tips do you have that you think are unique to you? How effective are they? Share them in the comments below!