What is the 1-3-5 decluttering method? I tried it before guests arrived and it cured my hosting anxiety

Given that I live in a small two-bedroom terrace, my rooms have to work hard and house a lot of stuff. Nowhere is this more true than in my home office, which is forced to double as a guest bedroom when we have people come to stay (and a laundry drying room the rest of the time).

It is perhaps unsurprising then that this spot quickly becomes backed up with clutter. It is my universal dumping ground, where I do all my work and spend a fair bit of my free time crafting. When I learned that I had a guest coming to stay for a night mid-week I knew I had to pull off something drastic to get it ready.

Tight on time, I started looking for quick solutions that wouldn’t leave me decluttering when I feel overwhelmed. That is when I stumbled across the 1-3-5 decluttering method – an approach helps cut clutter and keep it that way for longer, and I’m thankful to say it made the whole task 10 times more manageable.

What is the 1-3-5 decluttering method?

The concept of this '1-3-5' decluttering tip is straightforward – something I was incredibly grateful for when preparing to host guests without a guest bedroom.

1. Focus on one main task that will help you achieve your goal. For me, this was clearing visual clutter from my office to make room for a guest bed.
2. Set yourself three secondary tasks that are easier to tackle than the first (i.e. they do not require as much time or energy), but still help you achieve your goal.
3. Finally, do five much smaller tasks that take no effort at all to finish the space off and help to keep it neat.

I tried it

I gave it a go, and here is how it went in my home ahead of guests arriving:

I removed the bulk of my clutter

The first step was the biggest – removing all the visual clutter and sorting it into things that needed to go away, and things that needed to be thrown out. This felt a lot like doing the scary hour productivity method. To make this easier, I used my trusty ski-slope organizing method, working back and forth across the room with my laundry basket to collect anything that didn't belong in the space. I prefer this method, as it allows me to corral everything into an easily movable basket so I can walk around with it to put things away.

This means I can take everything into my bedroom and pick out all the items that live in there to go away, then the living room, etc. By the end, I am left with items that don’t have a home. These are usually trash items I can then toss out, or pieces I need to find a spot for, which can be sorted using the pile decluttering method. And, given that I need to use my laundry basket regularly to do laundry, I have no choice but to empty it completely each time I commit to a decluttering session.

This was the most time consuming part of the task, as I ended up having to also declutter and organize my drawers to fit all my essential items back in. Let’s just say a lot of items ended up going in the trash – from dried out pens to old note paper that had scrawled notes even I couldn’t read. The room was already starting to look far tidier, functional and presentable.

I did three medium tasks

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Before

I put away my crafting supplies after decluttering the collection

Even with everything put in their proper homes, the room was still looking a little busy to the eye. This is perhaps unsurprising, however, given the lack of closed storage and the fact that we’re stressed by the visual clutter of open storage. I took the time to identify three areas I reckoned could be improved before my guest arrived.

1. The bookcase: It's my only real storage in my office besides my office desk drawers and a storage basket beneath a chair in the corner. This is a massive source of visual noise in the room – which is something you want to avoid to improve sleep. To help my guest sleep better and feel at home during their visit, I decided to organize my bookshelf so that all the books were together and standing upright, rather than being laid down haphazardly on top of stacked books or in front of them. This also meant decluttering books, which I am going to donate to my local thrift store.
2. The drop zone: Whether I like it or not, my office is the main drop zone for items that don't have a home yet in my house. Because of the lack of storage, this is not something I can get around – but I knew it had to be improved upon. So, I sourced an underused storage basket from elsewhere in my home and popped it in the corner where I usually leave things ‘to be dealt with later’. It isn’t the ideal fix, but it helps keep everything together and look a little neater while we have someone staying over. This is a trick I learned when testing Desire Path decluttering.
3. Dealing with dirt: My home office is generally quite clean. I vacuum once a week and I keep a cloth on my desk to wipe up drink spills and remove dust whenever my desk is looking a little worse for wear. Since testing out (and falling in love with) the Scrub Daddy Damp Duster, I decided to make my third medium task dusting – making sure I targeted the newly organized bookshelves, the window ledge, and the side table my guests could use as a temporary nightstand.

I finished with five small tasks

The final five tasks were tiny finishing ones that would pull the room together with minimal effort. Having completed the main task and powered through the three medium tasks, I was easily motivated to get through the final five as I was on a roll.

1. I threw away all the trash I'd collected and emptied the office trash can.
2. I ensured the plug sockets closest to the bed were clear so my guest could charge their phone overnight.
3. I made the temporary guest bed and misted it with a linen spray, available on Amazon, to help my guest sleep well away from home.
4. I popped a copy of the Wi-Fi password on the temporary nightstand.
5. I moved the drop box basket out of the guest room and into my bedroom for the time being so it wasn’t in my guest's way.

My verdict

This method of breaking decluttering and tidying down made tackling the whole room in one go a breeze. Rather than thinking of the entire space as one big daunting pile of clutter, it helped me visualize the essential steps of my pre-guests cleaning checklist and achieve my goal. I also loved that I could pair it with my favorite decluttering approach to make it work for me. It certainly helped me get motivated to declutter.

While I powered through everything in just under two hours, it is easily a task you could break down into timed sections too, working on the one major task before taking a break and coming back to do the three medium and five small tasks as you have the time and energy.

Overall, I think this is a great method for completing any household tasks – be it decluttering or finding cleaning balance in your home. Better yet, it can be paired with the different day, different room housekeeping schedule to help you stay on top of all the spaces in your home – big or small.

It's also a good one to keep in your arsenal if you deal with fatigue, pain or chronic illness as it gives a structured approach to a large task to help you with adaptive pacing.