When you begin decluttering, it makes sense to start with the most obvious areas—places you can see or things that will have an immediate impact. Once the low-hanging fruit is out of the way, many more opportunities to declutter and simplify remain. Today’s post looks at 7 areas you may overlook when decluttering.
This post was originally published in September 2022 and republished in September 2025.
52-Week Decluttering Challenge
In 2021, I did a 52-Week Decluttering Challenge where I decluttered a different area of my home every week and shared tips and progress in a weekly blog post.
If you missed the challenge, here are some links to help you get started on your own decluttering.
- 52-Week Decluttering Challenge – Free printable
- Week 1 – Easy decluttering checklist
- Looking back on a year of decluttering
- And, if you just want to jump in and declutter a specific area, you can find links to all the weekly tips and posts on the main Decluttering page.
As I’ve repeated the challenge and continued to declutter, I uncovered some areas that weren’t on my original list. Let’s have a closer look at some areas you may overlook when decluttering.
7 areas you may overlook when decluttering
When we last got a new car, we were faced with cleaning out stuff that had accumulated in our old car over the previous 12 years. It dawned on me that the car is just one example of areas we never think to declutter. As I thought more about it, I came up with a list of 7 areas you may overlook when decluttering.
Car
Even though I drive my car most days, it’s something I never thought to include on my list of decluttering tasks. I was amazed at what I found when clearing out our old car.
Here’s a sampling of some of the things that were in our old car. It turns out you throw a lot of stuff in your car and then forget about it.
If you haven’t decluttered your car lately, it’s probably worth a look.
Garage
Speaking of cars, do you park your car in your garage? A 2021 survey by the RAC in the U.K. revealed more than half of drivers with garages don’t park their cars in the garage. Why? The number one reason is they’re using their garages to store other things.
The garage is another area that we often don’t think about when decluttering, mainly because we don’t spend a lot of time there.
With our harsh Canadian winters, parking our car in the garage is a priority for us. Since retiring, my husband has been on a mission to declutter and organize our garage. It’s amazing the junk that accumulates there.
Garden shed
Before we go back inside the house, let’s talk about the garden shed. At our house, we have a large shed where we keep our lawn mower, snow blower, and other gardening items. It’s also where we store the outdoor furniture in winter.
We don’t clean out our shed often but, when we do, I’m always surprised at the things we find in there.
Freezer
For years, we had a chest freezer. When we had to replace it a few years ago, we found things lurking in the bottom that were almost unidentifiable. We have since replaced the chest freezer with an upright freezer that makes it so much easier to stay on top of what we have.
If it has been a while since you went through your freezer, it may be time. Check out this post for tips and ideas on keeping things organized.
Emails
Email is another out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing that you may overlook when decluttering. But our digital footprint comes at an environmental cost—not to mention the time it wastes.
For tips on controlling your email clutter, check out this post.
Medicine cabinet
I always laughed when I would see “expired medication” on decluttering lists. Then, I decluttered my own medicine cabinet and was a little sheepish about what I found.
If you haven’t decluttered your medicine cabinet lately, it might be time well spent.
Fridge door
As part of last year’s decluttering challenge, I decluttered the contents of my fridge, but I totally ignored the fridge door. Ours is full of magnets, notes and all sorts of other things.
Take a few minutes to declutter the fridge door. It will instantly make your kitchen look less cluttered. Here’s a before and after shot of our fridge door. I kept the magnets that are useful or spark special memories, and got rid of any that didn’t have any special meaning or purpose.
Call me a decluttering nerd, but I’m always excited when I get to do a little bonus decluttering on top of my weekly challenges. It’s a good reminder that even when we think we’re done, there’s always something else to declutter.
Can you think of other areas you may overlook when decluttering? Tell me your thoughts below.
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I need to work on our medicine cabinet. It’s packed with all kinds of stuff, probably expired. I think I’m good in the other areas. The 33.33% of our family (me) is organized; the other 66.67% is not. 😂
Haha, Edward. Your statistics are oddly familiar to me. With our younger daughter now moved away, it’s 50/50, although my husband is showing signs of hope. 🤣
😂 Excellent!
The email clutter is very real and so therapeutic to clean up the inbox!
Right. And it’s such a simple thing to do really! That unsubscribe button is so powerful!
Good tips, Michelle. The only time I declutter my car is when I go to the trouble of cleaning it because someone else will be riding in it! (Not as bad as it sounds) And my email, that’s just too much. At my corporate jobs, I stayed on top of it, but now that I work from home, I (open and) delete very few emails. Thanks for leading the way for those of us who need more decluttering in our lives! ☀️
My pleasure, Lisa. Email is such a challenge. When my workplace implemented a 2-year retention limit, I saved what I could and then said “Oh well” for the rest. The world didn’t end! 😂
Love your nudges…and I’ll join the chorus about needing to tidy up my email…I start and then get bored, bored, bored! 😜
Ha ha. It’s a scourge. My best tip is to create a Temporary folder for emails you know you don’t need to keep long term. It makes cleanup so much easier.
That IS a good tip…thank you, Michelle! 💝🥰💝
I’m still not great at keeping my emails clean….i almost want to delete my email and start fresh…. But I realize that’s not realistic
I did that when we changed Internet providers earlier this year so I am determined to do a better job. I keep things I know I won’t need long term in a Temporary folder and clean it up regularly. It helps a lot!
I have to unsubscribe to more things. I get overwhelmed easily
Unsubscribing helps a lot. I’ve unsubscribed from all marketing emails other than stores I shop at regularly.
My problem is things like the NY times. I subscribe to many of their newsletters, as if I had all day to just read the articles. I have to be discerning
I subscribe to a lot of news newsletters. I tend to skim and read articles that pique my interest. Same with blogs. There’s just too much content to read it all!
I get about 15 different ny times newsletters. I really only need 5 tops
These are great suggestion. Like Andrea, I probably need to get on top of cleaning up my email inbox. 😅
Thanks Erin. Yes, those emails do accumulate, don’t they? Another area is digital photos. I’ve been working through mine but there are just so many of them!
Great post
These are some very good suggestions on places people tend to overlook. Another suggestion would be your phone. As photos, old contacts, messages and all things get cluttered up! Thank you for sharing your suggestions.
Lauren
Thanks for dropping by Lauren! Oh yes…decluttering your phone is a good suggestion. How often do we download apps, use them once, and then forget to delete them?
I’m currently going through my emails to declutter. Another area I want to tackle is my photos stored online. I’m sure there a bunch of pics there that I don’t want.
The problem with digital photos is it’s so easy to take many shots of the same thing, and then we often end up keep them all. Just deleting duplicates would save so much space.
Ah yes, emails. I constantly ignore them and all my tech when it comes to de-cluttering. But perhaps now that the nights are getting longer, I might sit down and finally go through them all.
Thanks for dropping by. I have found that putting emails I don’t need to keep longer than a few months in a folder named “Temporary” has really simplified my email cleanup.
This is a great list! Especially with digital decluttering like emails. The one I found I really need to stay on top of is sorting, deleting from my downloads. I had so many random PDFs to file, graphics for work, etc and stuff that just needed to be thrown away. Very helpful suggestions here, thanks!
Thanks Andrea. Yes, the downloads folder can really explode if we don’t stay on top of it. I try to clear mine out once a month.
I always love reading your decluttering posts! The car is definitely one that we never bother to tidy – unless it’s getting serviced. It’s amazing how much stuff can be stored in there haha
I know! I couldn’t believe the stuff I found in our car when I cleaned it out. Thanks for dropping by Caroline.
I definitely over look almost all of these areas you mentioned! Thanks for the reminder!
Yes, some areas just aren’t as obvious when you get started with decluttering. Thanks for dropping by.
Great list! We have a teeny tiny car so I’m always on top of the clutter in there, especially because we go camping and I like to keep things ready to go!
Good for you. I could learn a lot from your approach!
I don’t have a car, garden shed, or garage, but I could definitely do with decluttering the other areas! We could do with decluttering the fridge door, as we have a habit of leaving notes on the door under magnets.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for dropping by! It’s amazing what accumulates under those magnets. The minute my daughter walked into the kitchen, she commented “What did you do to the fridge?” — Proof that little decluttering tasks do have an immediate effect.