Daily Declutter Challenge:40 Bags in 40 Days-Does It Work?

Thinking about following a Declutter Challenge to declutter your home? For those feeling overwhelmed, the 40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge is a VERY popular way people are decluttering their homes slow and steady WITHOUT all those overwhelming feelings.

In short, you declutter a bag a day. That’s right – just ONE big or small bag of STUFF out of your house each day – that’s it.

Yep, it’s 40 days of clearing the CLUTTER one bag at a time – and it’s how I FINALLY got 40 bags of CLUTTER out of my house without feeling all stressed out about it because I only “let” myself declutter for ONE HOUR a DAY.

I really like the concept of the whole 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge concept, but I knew I’d need to revisit “zones” in my home more often than just ONCE.

So, I modified a 7 Day declutter challenge to help me pick zones and come back to them week after week throughout the whole 40 days (more on that below).

If you want to know how to decrapify your house, you might wonder ‘Does the 40 Bags in 40 Days Daily Declutter Challenge REALLY work? Will it work for ME?”

Let’s talk about that…and other challenge structures and systems you can try to finally get your clutter under control.

There are many reasons people decide to tackle their messy house and deal with ALL their clutter by following the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge.

Overall, I’d say the #1 reason WHY people do this clutter purging challenge is simply because they are OVERWHELMED with all their clutter and their messy home.

To be blunt – they’re drowning in clutter and ready to DO something about it.

There are MANY cheap and easy home organization hacks, but you really can’t ORGANIZE until you declutter first.

But…

What IF you might be a hoarder or a packrat and getting rid of your stuff brings about HUGE feelings of guilt of anxiety?

Will YOU still be able to be successful with the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge?

Before I begin…

Please know there is NOTHING wrong with you – you’ll just need a different set of skills and support than you’ll find online {{hugs}}

Alright, let’s move on and talk about the 40 Bags in 40 Days Daily Declutter Challenge and if it will work for those with hoarding tendencies (ie, perhaps a “packrat”) that DO want to get rid of their clutter, but don’t know **where to START decluttering**.

Here’s the beauty of the 40 Bags in 40 Days system….

You START by simply picking up one empty bag (even a little bag or box is fine), and put trash, clutter, and random junk you see in one small area of your home in the bag.

And then you THROW IT AWAY.

✅  Note: it is NOT a good idea to use boxes when decluttering… Here’s WHY.

Not sure WHAT to throw away?

Here’s a declutter cheat sheet to help you out…

Ask yourself those questions and then throw away STUFF.

By simply doing that first bag, you are already set for success!

It is inspiring and MOTIVATING to see the finished product on just ONE bag of trash and crap gone from even one TINY area in your home!

It WILL make you want to do more.

At that point, many want to do another bag that same day – so DO it!

On the other hand, some folks do that first bag of trash, are happy that they did it, BUT then look around their house as a whole and feel overwhelmed again.

And they stop trying.

If your house is a cluttered mess, you can NOT focus on the big, overall picture…

You need to be hyper-focused on one little SMALL area at a time.

For example, don’t look at your whole kitchen…

Focus on just the area around your sink… or

Focus on ONE drawer… or

Focus on JUST the small area around your coffee maker.

If you have WAY too much stuff and you’re drowning in clutter ALL over your home, the best tip for 40 Bags in 40 Days success I have is…

Don’t make a single “bag” a HUGE project.

Your daily cleaning bag should only take you a few minutes the first week or so.

Ideally, you only want to spend ONE hour each day filling your daily declutter bag.

You can simply walk in a room (or an AREA of a room) with your little bag, and fill it up with stuff to get rid of – and get RID of it.

Here’s the “Pick A Zone” challenge checklist I used to get MY 40 bags of clutter out of my house if you need help picking an area to work in each day like I did:

If an HOUR sounds like too much for you right now…

Try my 10 MINUTE declutter challenge (it’s MUCH easier).

I know that chart above is kinda hard to read, but in short, each day equals a room in your house and each room has a “zone” to work on (ie, the junk drawer, bathroom cabinets, **eliminating paper clutter**, etc.

So based on the day of the week, I’d grab my “get rid of it” bag, walk in to that day’s room or area and declutter stuff in one zone of that day’s list.

Like I said, I modified it for MY home and MY level of overwhelm and clutter so do the same for YOU.

Here’s another view of the checklist so hopefully you can read it better:

How to get started?

Simple!

Just start your coffee maker and fill one small grocery bag with trash stuff while your coffee brews.

Here is an example declutter challenge checklist to help you figure out where to go to purge YOUR clutter each day.

Just remember, make it simple and specific.

If you overwhelm yourself by taking on too big of a daily bag project, you’re really just putting yourself right back where you felt BEFORE you decided to try the 40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge.

It IS designed to break down a BIG clutter problem into small, simple daily bags of crap out your door…. and out of your LIFE.

If you keep it simple – and DO-ABLE – you WILL find that the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge WILL work for you.

No matter what decluttering challenge you choose to declutter your home, make sure you do NOT make these decluttering mistakes.

And YES, it’s perfectly ok if it ends up taking you MORE than 40 bags and MORE than 40 days…

The point is to start, be consistent…and feel crazy proud of yourself for getting it done!

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More Declutter Checklists

Below are 4 of my favorite checklists to declutter your home… and where to find them.

In The Picture Above:

1 – Decluttering Club Week 1 Room By Room Checklist found here.

2 – Declutter Challenge 30 Bags in 30 Days found here.

3 – 12 Areas To Declutter checklist found here.

4 – Home Decluttering Checklist found here.

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