July Declutter: How To Clear Out Hallways and Holiday Gear
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July is the month to ease off slightly. Depending on where you are in the world, it’s either peak summer or heading that way, and the energy for big decluttering projects tends to dip when the weather is warm and the days feel more expansive. That’s fine. This month is deliberately lighter.
The physical focus is on two smaller, often-overlooked spaces: the hallway or entrance area, and holiday and travel gear. Neither of these is a huge undertaking, which is kind of the point. Keeping the momentum going through July without burning out matters more than doing something dramatic.
On the mindful side, we’re looking at a mid-year review, a check-in on what’s working, what isn’t, and what the second half of the year might look like. And digitally, we’re going into work files and documents, which, for many people, have been quietly accumulating on hard drives and in the cloud for years.
The Physical Stuff: Hallways and Travel Gear
The Hallway and Entrance Area
The hallway is the first thing you see when you come home and the last thing you see when you leave. It sets the tone for both. And yet it’s one of those spaces that tends to absorb clutter almost magnetically, shoes that don’t fit anyone anymore, coats that haven’t been worn in two years, bags that got dumped there and never moved, and post that arrived and then just lived on the shelf indefinitely.
The hallway usually has less storage than it needs, which is part of the problem. Before buying more storage, though, it’s worth clearing out what’s already there. How many coats does your household actually need accessible at any one time? In summer, the answer is probably fewer than are currently hanging there. Seasonal coats can be stored elsewhere, in a bedroom wardrobe, a chest on the landing, freeing up hooks for the things you actually reach for daily.
Shoes are the other main culprit. A simple rule that works for a lot of people: each person in the household gets a set number of pairs in the hallway at any one time. Everything else is stored in the bedroom. This single change makes more difference to how a hallway looks and feels than almost anything else.
For post and paperwork that tends to land in the hallway, a small tray or folder with a weekly habit of actually dealing with it is the solution. Not a bigger pile. A simple action file to do, to pay, to file, to shred, positioned near the door means paper gets dealt with rather than accumulating.
Holiday and Travel Gear
July is peak holiday season in many parts of the world, which makes it a slightly odd time to suggest decluttering your travel gear; you might be actively using it. But it’s also the time of year when you find out what you actually need, because you’ve just packed it or you’re about to.
After any trip, there’s a natural moment to reassess. Things that got packed and never used are a useful signal. Maybe things that broke or performed badly on a trip are candidates for replacement. Things you wish you’d had are worth noting down for future reference rather than buying immediately.
Luggage deserves particular attention. Most people own more bags than they regularly use, often because bags are the kind of thing that accumulates through gifts and purchases over the years. The test for each bag: when did I last use this? Could I use a bag I already own instead? Bags in good condition that aren’t taking up their storage space can be donated to Goodwill (US), and most charity shops readily take bags.
Travel accessories are another category that quietly multiplies. Adaptors for countries you’ve visited once, travel pillows that compress poorly, water bottles that got replaced, tiny toiletry bottles for a travel format you don’t do anymore. A clear-out of whatever box or shelf holds this stuff takes less than an hour and tends to feel satisfying out of proportion to the effort.
Mindful Decluttering: The Mid-Year Review
We’re deep enough into the year now that a proper review makes sense, not a vague “how’s it going”, but an actual sit-down with yourself about what the last seven months have been like and what you want the next five to look like.
What’s Actually Changed
Start by thinking honestly about what’s different in your home compared to January. Not what you intended to do, but what actually happened. Which spaces feel genuinely better? Which ones didn’t get touched? Where did you get stuck, and why?
Most people find that progress was uneven. Some areas went well; others were skipped or only partially done. That’s completely normal. The point of this review isn’t to judge what didn’t happen. It’s important to notice patterns that might be useful going forward.
Why Some Areas Are Harder Than Others
If certain spaces or categories consistently didn’t get done, there’s usually a reason. Sometimes it’s the emotional weight of the sentimental items, things tied to difficult periods. It’s shared ownership spaces where other people’s buy-in is needed. Sometimes it’s simple exhaustion from the easier wins, feeling finished.
Gretchen Rubin’s writing on habits is useful here. Her framework around different personality types and how they respond to outer and inner expectations, which she calls Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels, can help explain why certain approaches work for some people and not others. If a strategy hasn’t been working, it might just be the wrong strategy for how you’re wired, rather than a character flaw.
Planning the Second Half
The second half of the year has its own rhythms. August tends to be slower. September brings back-to-school energy and a natural fresh start for many households. October and November start moving towards the end of the year. December brings the holiday season and, if you’re following this series, a full circle back to where we started.
With that in mind, think about what you want to prioritise in the remaining months. Are there spaces you’ve been avoiding? Categories that feel unfinished? The review isn’t about adding pressure; it’s about being intentional, going into the second half rather than just drifting through it.
The Emotional Weight of a Half-Finished Project
One thing that’s worth naming directly: a partially decluttered home can sometimes feel more uncomfortable than one that hasn’t been touched at all. You’re aware of what’s been done and what hasn’t. The contrast is more visible. If that’s where you are, it’s worth knowing that this is a common experience and a sign that the process is working, not failing. Continuing slowly and unevenly is still continuing.
Digital Decluttering: Work Files and Documents
This is one that tends to get avoided because it feels like work, which, of course, it partly is. But the state of your work files has a real effect on how easy it is to find things, how long tasks take, and how much mental friction you carry around when you sit down to work.
The Desktop and Downloads Folder
Most people’s computer desktops are more crowded than they’d like. Files saved in a hurry, screenshots, documents from projects that ended, things that were temporary and never got moved. The same tends to be true of the downloads folder, which collects everything ever downloaded and rarely gets cleared.
A good starting point is a simple rule: nothing lives on the desktop permanently. The desktop is a temporary workspace, not a filing system. Once a week, or at the end of each workday, anything on the desktop either gets filed properly or deleted. It takes a few minutes and makes a significant difference to how the computer feels to use.
The downloads folder can usually be cleared almost entirely. Go through it once, rescue anything that needs to be kept, and delete the rest. Then make a habit of either deleting or filing downloads as they arrive rather than letting them build up again.
Cloud Storage Organisation
Whether you use Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or iCloud, the same problems tend to emerge: poorly named files, unclear folder structures, multiple versions of the same document, folders that were created for a project and never cleaned up after it ended.
A folder structure that mirrors how you actually think about your work tends to work better than an elaborate hierarchy. Broad top-level categories include current projects, archive, resources, and personal, with more specific subfolders beneath them. If the structure is intuitive, you’ll actually use it.
Notion and Obsidian are both worth knowing about if you want a more flexible approach to organising notes and documents than traditional folder structures allow. Both offer free tiers and enthusiastic user communities with many shared templates and systems.
Old Work Projects and Finished Documents
This is the equivalent of the archive box in a physical office. Projects that are definitely finished don’t need to live in your active working folders. Moving them to a clearly labelled archive folder gets them out of your daily view without deleting anything. If you ever need to refer back to them, they’re still there. If you never do, they’re not cluttering up your working space.
For documents that genuinely don’t need to be kept, old drafts, superseded versions, and working files from finished projects, delete them. Storage is cheap, but cognitive load isn’t. Knowing that your working files contain only current, relevant material genuinely reduces friction.
Work Email: The Second Pass
We talked about personal email in January and again in May. Work email is its own separate situation and deserves its own look. Many people’s work inboxes have grown to thousands or tens of thousands of emails over the years of employment.
The principle is the same as personal email: the inbox is for incoming decisions, not a storage system. Emails about finished projects, old meeting requests, and notification emails from systems you no longer use can usually be archived or deleted in bulk. Most email clients let you search by sender or date range and select multiple emails at once, which makes bulk processing faster than going one at a time.
A Few Things Worth Adding This Month
Keep it light in July. The hallway and travel gear are deliberately manageable tasks. If that’s all you do this month, that’s enough. Sustainability over intensity is the whole point of a year-long approach.
Use holiday time if you have it. A rainy holiday afternoon or a slow morning before the day starts are actually good moments for the lighter digital tasks on this list. Sorting work files on a laptop while sitting somewhere pleasant is a perfectly good use of a quiet hour.
Notice what brings things in. July is a good month to observe your own habits around acquiring things. Holiday shopping, summer sales, impulse buys. Not to judge any of it, but just to notice. Awareness is the first step toward making different choices, if that’s what you want.
The second half starts here. Five months to go. The work done since January is the foundation. Whatever comes next builds on it.
Next month: August decluttering, we keep it minimal, look at children’s toys and back-to-school prep, and do a proper tidy of your music and podcast libraries.
