Fall Cleaning Is The New Spring Cleaning — Here’s How To Get Started

After this audit, you can do a quick declutter. As professional organizer Maeve Richmond notes, a lot of people may find that the things they previously held dear have lost some meaning since the pandemic began.

“I don’t know about you, but the pandemic taught me that I don’t need so much in life,” Richmond says. “If you haven’t already started letting go of things—it’s time.” For help deciding what stays and what goes, check out mbg’s comprehensive guide to decluttering, and remember this advice from McCubbin: If you haven’t used it in the last 18 months that you’ve spent at home, you’re not going to use it!

There’s no need to tackle your whole home in a day. But if there’s anything that immediately sticks out as something to sell, donate, or (responsibly!) toss, now’s the time to do so.

From there, you’ll want to take a good look at what’s left, asking yourself if anything can be reused or repurposed in the upcoming season. “This past year I turned to my own home to shop,” Richmond says, and in the process, she found “new vases for flowers, new boxes for office supplies, and even new home decor.”