Clean out your car, broken into 5 small steps
Cars collect things slowly: receipts, bottles, the bag you meant to bring inside. Then one day it's embarrassing to give someone a ride.
It's a short job when you do it in passes: trash, things that belong inside, then a quick vacuum.
Start here · under 2 minutes
Bring one trash bag to the car.
Under two minutes. Keep it in the car after this.
The rest of the steps
- Step 2:
Pick up all the trash.
Front seats, back seats, door pockets, under the seats.
- Step 3:
Take everything that belongs in the house inside.
In one trip, in a box or bag.
- Step 4:
Shake out the floor mats.
And vacuum if you have one nearby, or at a gas station.
- Step 5:
Wipe the dashboard and the inside of the windshield.
One cloth, two minutes, big difference.
Why this one stalls
You only notice the mess when you're driving, which is never a moment you can do anything about it.
If you get stuck
Do the trash pass every time you get gas. Two minutes then saves a big clean later.
What “done” looks like
No trash, no stuff that belongs elsewhere, and clean floor mats.
These steps follow the same rules as the method in our task breakdown guide: the first step is physical and takes under two minutes, and every step after it is something you can see yourself doing. Got a head full of other things too? Start with a brain dump.