Common Places We Forget To Declutter

I’ve been on a decluttering journey for a while now and regularly clear out places like my wardrobe and pantry. However, there are places I often forget to declutter, and I thought if I do then maybe you do too! Here are some of the most common, but I’d love to hear your ideas too!

Common Places We Forget To Declutter | I Spy Plum Pie

Bags & Wallets

It’s amazing how many things we can fit in our bags and wallets! But it’s not until you sit down and clean them out that you realise how much of it you don’t need! Old receipts, leaky pens, lip balms that have lost their lids, snacks, you name it. You’ll feel so much better when you have cleaned them out though!

Medicine Cabinet

Forgetting to clean out our medicine cabinet/storage can actually cause us problems down the track, so it’s a good one to focus on regularly. What you really don’t want is to need a particular item in a hurry and find that what you have is expired, or that it’s such a mess you can’t find what you need. Go through regularly and remove anything that is past its used by (in Australia you can take them to most pharmacies who will safely dispose of them) and create a system that means you can find what you need whenever you need it.

Bookshelves

Bookshelves are an easy place to forget to declutter because they are usually pretty organised. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have things on them that you don’t need any more. Go through and remove any books that you know you will never read again, and then you’ll be making space for more books (if that’s your thing!). Either way, you’ll have a tidier space with room to display other things you love.

Common Places We Forget To Declutter | I Spy Plum Pie

Underwear and Sock Drawers

I don’t know about you, but I definitely have socks and underwear that I gravitate to them most, but often my drawers are full of many more options than that. I very rarely think about clearing them out though! Like every decluttering task though, when I do sort through those drawers I’m left feeling much lighter and it’s so much easier to find my favourite socks!

Jewellery

This might seem like a strange one, but that’s probably why we don’t declutter it very often! Over time our tastes change but we very rarely go through and re-assess our jewellery collection. Obviously keep anything that is important to you, but I’m sure you’ll find items that are broken, you’ve lost part of, or you just no longer wear. Lots of things can be donated too!

Kitchen Container Drawer

Most of us have that drawer or cupboard full of reusable containers, but how often do we actually go through and sort them out. Half the time there are containers with no lids and lids with no containers, and yet we keep them anyway! Pull everything out, check that they all still have a pair, the seal still works and they aren’t so stained they are past it, then dispose of everything else! You’ll thank yourself the next time you are trying to open the drawer and find a container!

Spice Rack

It’s not uncommon for us to buy spices for a particular recipe and then not use them very often, but it is common to forget to declutter our spice racks! Like all foods, spices have a best-before date and maybe equally importantly they can lose their flavour over time. When clearing out places like your pantry don’t forget to also go through your spice rack and dispose of anything past its best, and make an inventory of spices you need to use more often.

Makeup and Skincare

Like our medicine cabinets, expiry dates are one of the key reasons we need to clear out our makeup and skincare regularly, but many of us forget to. For things we put on our skin, and often in very sensitive spots like our eyes, ensuring they aren’t past their best is critical. Our tastes and skin needs also change, so we can be left with items we will never use again, so all they are doing is taking up space. I find it really useful to set myself a reminder a couple of times a year to go through and clean things out – it’s gotten much easier over time because I have a lot less to go through than I used to!

Desk Drawers

Desk drawers can be like a kitchen drawer – the place we just put things that we don’t know where else to put it. However, we often forget to declutter them! When you do, you’ll probably find pens that no longer work, papers you stashed in there, cables for technology you haven’t had for years, and who knows what else! It’s usually a very satisfying spot to declutter!

Are these also spots you often forget to declutter?

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