3 Simple Steps to Declutter Your Entryway for Good, According to a Professional Organizer

From the moment you enter your home, how are you feeling? Calm and ready to plop on the couch, or anxious about the pile of shoes and bags welcoming you at the entry? If it’s the latter, we have an idea: Let’s finally organize your entryway. Or as Amanda Titchenal calls it, “the drop zone.”

“Homes are overstuffed, which means people are just dropping items at the entry,” explains the founder of full-service organizing firm Well Organized. “If you have to have a ‘drop zone,’ be intentional.”

Below, Titchenal reveals how to carefully clean up your entryway and maintain it year-round. 

1. Change Your Arrival Routine

“One part of it is just getting in the habit of putting things away right when you walk in the door,” Titchenal says. “We encourage our clients to put away everything.” This is particularly true with every organizer’s worst nightmare: shoes. Every day, Titchenal and her family remove their shoes and immediately place them in their closets. 

2. Replace the ‘Drop Zone’ with a ‘Command Center’

Homes with open floor plans or those without a vestibule or mudroom call for a little more creativity: “If there’s no ‘drop zone,’ right when you walk in, find a new location in your home,” she says. “Maybe your side door, backdoor, or a closet a few feet from your entry.”

For Titchenal, it’s a closet located next to her kitchen, which she refers to as her “command center.” You won’t find any shoes there, but that’s where she stores mail, keys, Amazon returns, office supplies, and so on. 

“It’s most of our household needs,” she says. “I have to walk into my house and over to the command center, but my entryway is clear.”

3. Find Functional Furniture for Extra Storage

Titchenal knows how difficult it can be to convince people to participate in her daily shoe routine, which is why she offers up an alternative: “It could be as simple as a decorative basket right by your front door for shoes, or hanging a hook,” she says. “Carve out a spot for each person’s shoes, a place for your everyday bag or backpack, or for your keys, and that’s it.”

Titchenal says there are plenty of options available on Amazon and IKEA, including a storage bench, an ottoman with a lid, or a wall-mounted coat rack. And while these can help conceal your clutter, you need to know your limit and edit your entryway accordingly. 

“When that starts to get too full, you have to start putting things away,” Titchenal warns. “Otherwise, it’ll become a total dump zone.”