I'm a professional organizer, and my easy 'Clear the Corners' weekend decluttering challenge will bring instant impact

I've spent years helping clients transform their homes and have noticed the most common hurdle for the majority isn't a lack of motivation, but task paralysis, where the job feels overwhelming.

That's why I created my 'Clear the Corners' weekend decluttering challenge that requires minimal time and effort but delivers near-instant gratification.

Rather than trying to declutter your whole house, here's how to do my easy, weekend decluttering challenge and transform three key corners of your home.

What is the Clear the Corners weekend decluttering challenge?

This challenge is a simple, time-bound method designed to create big visual impact with just 45 minutes of effort each day over a weekend, starting on a Friday.

We all know that visual clutter can be a source of stress. This weekend decluttering challenge is ideal for anyone who struggles with the feeling of being overwhelmed by clutter, or for those who are decluttering with health challenges, or those with ADHD.

The magic of my method lies in its focus on highly visible areas that commonly attract mess – or 'clutter corners' – providing instant wins and a much-needed emotional lift.

Forget pulling everything out of a closet or getting stuck midway through a huge project – this challenge is about small, doable bursts of action that bring a real sense of achievement by Sunday night.

Here's how to do it:

Day 1: Entryway elegance

Let's begin on Friday after work and tackle the area of the home where most people's daily hustle often starts – the entryway. Also known as the landing strip, this space is a notorious clutter magnet for bags, mail, receipts, random toys, and those mystery items that seem to appear out of nowhere.

Your task for today is to set a 45-minute timer and sort this cluttered corner of the home as best you can. I chose 45 minutes because it's long enough to make real progress but short enough to prevent burnout. However, how long you dedicate to this can, of course, be tweaked to suit your capacity.

This might be a particularly useful mindset if you are decluttering with health challenges and want to avoid injury, flare, or fatigue.

Why not play some music while you go, and work as a team, turning decluttering into a family bonding activity? This taopodo Cell Phone Stand with Wireless Bluetooth Speaker from Amazon is small and affordable.

Grab a few clear, stackable bins for sorting – such as this Vtopmart 6-pack from Amazon – along with a trash bag and a donation bag. Quickly sort everything into categories: keep, toss, sell, donate, or relocate. Don’t overthink this process – the goal here is progress over perfection.

I recommend using an over-the-door organizer near your entry for grab-and-go items, such as umbrellas, dog leashes, or keys. Then label a few small bins for other categories, such as hats, scarves, or a box of shoes per person.

How to overcome decision fatigue becomes so much easier when you give your stuff a permanent home, as you don’t need to re-decide where things go every day.

For support over the longer term, delve into Homes and Gardens' ADHD-friendly cleaning checklist.

Day 2: Countertop clarity

Countertops are the focus for Saturday in my weekend decluttering challenge. Whether in the kitchen, bathroom, or living room, most homes have high-traffic surface areas that become 'clutter magnets', and have a sneaky way of sabotaging your focus.

Countertop clutter not only looks messy, it makes cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the bathroom, or cleaning the living room both tricky and time-consuming. Sometimes it may even put you off doing it at all.

For today, pick just one of these 'clutter magnet' zones and set your timer for 45 minutes. Feel free to get some tunes on too,

Your first step is to remove everything from the surface and ruthlessly toss any trash.

Next, carefully select only what you genuinely use on a daily or weekly basis to keep. Use small trays or bins to group related items, and then break out your label maker to make it official and solidify the new system.

This trio of seagrass-lidded bins from Amazon instantly gives surfaces a tidy appearance. They work well with the desire-path decluttering method, where a catch-all storage solution is placed wherever clutter keeps accumulating.

The 'No More Than 4' rule is another really effective method for dealing with clutter magnets.

Day 3: Bedroom bliss

Sunday's final zone is incredibly personal for so many of my clients, and often the last 'frontier' of clutter.

The bedroom should be a true retreat, a sanctuary for rest, but you can try all the relaxing bedroom design ideas you like – they're not going to work if it's constantly becoming the overflow zone for laundry, books, or miscellaneous items that didn’t quite make it to a dedicated home.

Whether it's the infamous 'laundry chair', a nightstand stuffed with old receipts, or that one corner where clutter goes to quietly die – today we clear it.

Set your 45-minute timer. Grab a laundry basket, a donation bag, and your trusty label maker.

Focus on putting away or folding anything clean, and remove any items that clearly don’t belong in the bedroom. This zone is your ultimate reset button for winding down at the end of each day.

So your laundry doesn't spill out across your bedroom every day, use clever laundry organization hacks, and swot up on the things people who are good at laundry always do.

So there you have it: My 'Clear the Corners' challenge works because it's realistic, not rigid. It’s designed in small, manageable steps that lead to low stakes and high impact, giving you tangible results that you can see and feel right away. Give it a try, and enjoy your calmer, clearer space!

Struggle to part with stuff? Check out these tricks to be more ruthless when decluttering.