Two rules keep your nightstand clear.

A small tray for daily essentials and a “one in, one out” rule for charging cables are the only habits you need to maintain a decluttered nightstand. The tray does the heavy lifting, and the cable rule stops the slow creep of junk.

The tray forces you to be intentional. Your nightstand should hold what you actually use before sleep: phone, glasses, maybe a book or a glass of water. Everything else is noise. A tray defines a boundary — once it’s full, that’s it. You can’t pile stuff next to it without it looking wrong, which is the point. Get a tray that’s big enough for your stuff but no bigger.

The cable rule is simpler. Every time a new charging cable comes into your life (new phone, new gadget, that freebie you grabbed), one old one has to leave. No exceptions. Cables breed in drawers and nightstands. The “one in, one out” rule stops the accumulation at the source. The nightstand drawer is not a retirement home for micro-USB cables from 2013.

That’s it. Tray for daily use, cable rule for everything else. Do this and you never have to “declutter” your nightstand again — it stays done.

A tray and a rule beat a weekly purge every time.