The Declutter Order That Makes Holiday Cleaning Faster

Cleaning a decorated house feels harder—there’s more to dust around, more to move, more to dodge. The trick is getting things out of the way before the tree goes up, and doing it in an order that doesn’t leave you chasing piles from room to room.

Instead of randomly grabbing things, work through this order. It sets your house up so regular cleaning in December is more like a quick reset than an all-day project.

1. Start with trash and obvious recyclables

Before you sort a single drawer, grab a trash bag and hit the main rooms. Toss broken ornaments, dried-out pens, junk mail, packaging, old school papers, and mystery cords. Recycling bin gets the boxes and catalogs.

Getting rid of straight-up trash first makes every other step lighter. You see what you’re actually dealing with instead of organizing things that should have left weeks ago.

2. Clear flat surfaces in main living areas

Next, aim for horizontal surfaces: coffee tables, counters, islands, nightstands, and dressers in the main zones you live in. Your goal isn’t perfection—it’s clearing the constant clutter that attracts more clutter.

Make quick decisions: keep, toss, move. If something belongs somewhere else in the house, drop it in a laundry basket instead of walking it to its spot right now. You’re creating blank space for decor and for life, not staging a magazine shoot.

3. Tackle “drop zones” at doors and entries

Entries collect everything—shoes, bags, packages, mail, random returns. If you don’t reset this area, every new thing that comes into the house this month will pile on top.

Sort shoes (daily vs rarely worn), clear off any table or bench, and give mail and keys one defined home. Even a small tray and one basket makes a difference. Once the base is reset, it’s a lot easier to sweep and mop without moving fifty things every time.

4. Do a fast sweep of bathrooms

You don’t need a deep clean yet; you just want less to work around when you do. Toss empty bottles, almost-gone products no one uses, ratty towels, and expired meds. Clear counters down to what you actually use every day.

A less cluttered bathroom is quicker to wipe down before guests come. You’re setting yourself up so a five-minute clean later actually feels like five minutes—not twenty.

5. Edit toys and kid clutter in shared spaces

Hit the living room, dining room, and any other common areas your kids’ stuff tends to explode into. Grab broken toys, outgrown things, and pieces no one has touched in months.

You don’t have to sort every toy bin. Just pull the obvious out of rotation and relocate some things to bedrooms. That way, when new toys show up at Christmas, they have somewhere to go besides the middle of the floor.

6. Declutter surfaces in the kitchen last

The kitchen sees the most action in December, so saving it for later in the cycle lets you work around what you’ve already moved. Now that trash is gone and flat surfaces elsewhere are clear, you can focus.

Put away appliances you rarely use, consolidate spices, and clear at least one main prep zone and a landing spot near the sink. Once the extra clutter is gone, wiping counters and sweeping floors becomes a quick loop you can run through without feeling buried.

7. Assign a “home” for overflow before decor comes out

Last step: decide where displaced things are going to live this month. That might be a clear tote in your bedroom, a labeled bin in a closet, or a corner of the garage.

Having an intentional spot for the stuff you pulled means it doesn’t just drift around the house. When totes of decor show up, you’re not stacking them on top of old piles—you’re actually trading clutter for things you want to see.