Yvonne Glasgow
Stacey Koziel
Whether you’re a collector, or you’re just too busy with work and chasing kids around, keeping your house clean can be a real challenge. Even when it’s clean, it might look cluttered if you own a lot of stuff. These cleaning TV shows can help you get your decluttering mojo back.
Research has shown that cluttered spaces can impact your productivity, creativity, and even your mental health. Too much clutter can potentially cause more stress or anxiety. A cluttered bedroom can even make it difficult to sleep because your brain is unable to fully relax.
So, take the time to get some tips from these popular shows. A little clutter here and there is normal and not something you should beat yourself up over. But, if you’re trying to keep things tidy and as clutter-free as possible, these organization shows can offer a motivational boost.
Tidying Up with Marie Kondo
A recent phenomenon in the clean home TV show category is Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. While people aren’t talking about the KonMari Method as much as they were a year ago, there are still plenty of folks implementing the things they’ve learned from it.
On Tidying Up, homeowners learn how to choose what to keep and what to let go of, by reflecting on whether each item brings them joy. The basic idea is that a happy, clutter-free home comes from filling your place with stuff that makes you joyful, while also adopting a more minimalist lifestyle.
When I first watched the show, I pulled everything out of my closet and dresser drawers and tried it all on to see what gave me joy. I ended up gutting two trash bags worth of clothes—that’s how good this show is.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Clean House
If you feel like your home is a mess, and you want it to look clean, Clean House is the show for you. It aired for 10 seasons, and, for a long time, actress and comedian Niecy Nash was the host.
Probably best known for her role on Reno 911!, Nash brought fun and quirkiness to Clean House and made the show motivating and easy to watch. Nash goes to people’s homes and helps them get rid of stuff they no longer need.
They also sometimes renovate the rooms they clean out, leaving the homeowners with something to be proud of. My favorite part is they sell the stuff they decide to get rid of, and then use that money (the amount of which is matched by the show) to redo their home.
If you’re tired of the clutter, you can watch Clean House to get some cleaning and redesigning inspiration. It’s available on numerous streaming networks, including USA, Oxygen, NBC, and SYFY.
Where to Stream: NBC
Clean Sweep
Clean Sweep only aired for two seasons, but it helped people learn to let go of clutter. In this show, the homeowners are encouraged to go through all of their belongings. They then separate them into three piles: stuff to keep, stuff to sell, and stuff to toss. Of course, people often put everything in the keep pile, and then drama ensues.
Like Clean House, once everything’s sorted and gone, the show remodels those rooms and places the “kept” items back in the home. The homeowners are always surprised and delighted by their new, clean home.
Unfortunately, this show kind of fell down an early ’00s rabbit hole. TLC doesn’t stream episodes on its website, nor is it licensed anywhere. You can’t even get it on DVD.
Fortunately, a bunch of people have uploaded some of the more popular episodes to YouTube, so you can search for it there.
Hot Mess House
If you know you need to get organized and you have the desire to do it but just don’t know how, Hot Mess House is for you. Originally airing on HGTV, the host of the show, Cas Aarssen, helps people learn more about their personal organizational styles.
What works for one person might not work for you. The more you understand about your organizational style, the easier it will be to find a system that’s easy to stick to when it comes to deep cleaning, decluttering, and keeping things tidy.
Cas also offers plenty of tips online with a quick search, so if you’re always looking for a few simple ways to organize specific areas of the home, you’ll find bits of information from this HGTV pro. The idea behind this program is that once you know your organizational style, you’ll have an easier time keeping clutter at bay, so you won’t have to stress over tidying up a big mess as often.
Where to Stream: Discovery +, Hulu
Get Organized With the Home Edit
The Home Edit started as a service designed to come into people’s homes and help them organize and tidy up their belongings. As the website/service began to grow, it was acquired by actress Reese Witherspoon, and essentially exploded in popularity.
So much so, that the ladies behind The Home Edit got their own show in 2020, enjoying two seasons so far.
Most people look to The Home Edit (and the show) to learn more about tidying and reorganizing their closets and wardrobes. The ladies use a rainbow method to help people organize their clothes according to color. But, they also offer plenty of general home organization tips both on the show and on their website. They’re big proponents of container organization, so if you’re trying to tidy up a pantry, basement, or garage, you’re likely to find some useful tips from the show!
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Minimalists: Less Is Now
The minimalism movement is more than a trend. While it’s grown in popularity over the last few years, people who have chosen to adopt it as their lifestyle tend to enjoy benefits like reduced stress and fewer financial issues.
Minimalism is a great way to get rid of clutter and find peace in your home. Unlike many cleaning TV shows, The Minimalists: Less is Now focuses on how to adopt this kind of lifestyle through a documentary approach. While it certainly offers plenty of cleaning and organizing tips, it will also educate you on how to be happy living with less. If other organizing TV shows haven’t scratched that itch and you’re interested in the minimalist movement, this is likely to inspire you.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Whether you feel like you can’t keep up with the clutter in your house or you just want to learn new ways to tidy up and stay organized, these organization shows will give you plenty of tips and tricks you can start using immediately. Once you see how easy it is to keep things clean, you’ll be more motivated to utilize even more tidying tips.
