To ask for your top decluttering strategies

I wanted to add that the keeping something 'just in case' is a fallacy. Loads of clutter means it's hard to find things and chances are if you need another you just go out and buy a new one anyway!

How to deal with someone who wants to keep 250 items because they MIGHT need one of them at some point in the distant future.

Get rid of them all, anyway, and if one day you need something you threw out, buy a new (or secondhand) one.

This is what I did and guess what? Five years later I still haven't needed any of the 200-plus items I threw out!

Oh you have so much more patience than me, I could never!

I’d just get rid of it all and face the music afterwards if he wanted to argue about a load of old tat.

I think you have to come to terms with the fact that occasionally you will throw something away that you will later wish you hadn't. It hurts and is annoying but is only a small minority of things thrown away and a price worth paying for decluttering.

I would also sack off the sell pile. Save yourself the time, feel altruistic and just donate it all to charity if you can afford to.

Oh gawd you are putting way too much emotion into this

You mentioned you have external storage full of items - do this in reverse:

Get a black bag and keep what you want - then hire an external contractor to clear out the rest and take it to the tip.

Do this when he is not there and don’t even tell him about it - how often does he visit these external buildings anyway?!

For the stuff which you think is junk like broken electricals gather it all up and lay it on the lawn, ask him how long it'd take to mend, why hasn't it all been mended, why you need 3 broken kettles instead of 1, can he choose 3 things to keep to mend and get rid of the rest, etc.

It's much harder to justify when it's all together.

Stop buying storage. If you have nowhere to store stuff, you will stop buying more.

I’m rubbish at getting rid of things and need a good clear out too. I saw an interesting new technique online the other day: ask yourself “Would I wash this if it was covered in poop?” If the answer is “no” then get rid! I’ve managed to both donate and bin a pile of stuff using this technique!

I’d hate the blitz type method… I don’t think I could stand the mess! 😄 Too stressful and complicated. And I wouldn’t bother with a maybe pile or selling pile either - it’s just complicating the issue. Make a decision and either keep it or bin it. I did think briefly about selling some stuff recently but nope, I threw it away. Best to get it over and done with.

I like to gather up the same categories or groups of things. Then decide how many I need to keep. Duplicates not needed.

1. Gather up all coats and jackets. Keep 1 raincoat. 1 denim jacket. 1 winter coat. And so on.
2. Two or three sets of bed linen. 1 in use. 1 in wash. 1 possibly for emergency.
3. How many pots and pans? Rationalise.

The Stacy Solomon programme might provide some inspiration before a tidy up session. They use that approach too. And show the benefits of a useable and functional home.

Good luck.

@OrigamiOwlsyes this is what I mean! The route out of the house swiftly is a big part of the process

I would forget about sell. Just donate!

Personally, I would do some of the getting rid of whilst he’s not around. If there really are broken things that he keeps when the replacement has been bought then he’s going to be a nightmare to deal with. But like a child when you get rid of toys, the toy that they haven’t played with for two years becomes their favourite one ever as you look to get rid of it.

And if there’s one experience I do have - from renovating and putting stuff in storage - it’s that when you don’t see something for a while you often forget you ever had it.

Be careful of having a "to sell" pile (unless you have anything proper valuable). Are you actually going to sell it, or is it just going to loiter around the house?
If it's listed on Vinted for a couple of quid - be ruthless - if it hasn't sold in a fortnight then take it to the charity shop.

Genius

Try the podcast "a slob comes clean". Its a very useful resource for People Like Us who have a clutter problem. She gets it. There's also an excellent book that is an easy read. The problem with Hinch and pals is that they are fundamentally different types of people. She has an excellent no mess declutter method - it takes time and feels counterintuitive but its more practical than a huge blitz which creates more piles of mess/bags by the door/boxes of stuff "to sell".

I'm ruthless when it comes to getting rid of stuff. However, when I started I was looking forward to getting it done and moving on with my nice slimline environment.

It didn't quite work out like that. I found that you are never really "finished", it's a cycle, a process - but that doesn't matter. Once you get down to a sort of "clutter baseline" it becomes much easier.

Last month i decluttered the shed (well, my half. STBXH can deal with his own crap and I drew a line down the middle). I planned to go straight to the recycling centre and made lots of space in the boot. I only half filled it because actually most stuff was gone already. It gets less onerous.

I read something somewhere that addresses the "maybe" pile. If you are unsure but can replace said item at under £20 within a 20 minute journey, then bin it. It's not foolproof but not a bad start.

My best advice to begin with is sort out the route out of your house before you even start. For example when can you next drive to the chazza? Maybe that’s on Wednesday next week? So if you don’t need the boot space in between you can start filling the car boot. What are you putting the chazza stuff in? I always buy a roll of white bin bags then there’s no confusion with actual refuse. My kids know the routine so well - black bin liner actual rubbish, white bin liner chazza. Full the white bags and put them straight in the boot. When the boot is full stop because the bags all over the house are too stressful. Then plot your next drop and do it all again.
if there isn’t a clear point when all the staff you have sorted through will leave the house in the next few days it becomes too stressful before you get going.

the other thing I keep threatening with dp is to buy some dot stickers and put one on every item he insists he needs. Then in 6-12 months if he hasn’t used them he will have to let them go.

lastly I find decluttering easier to get going if I start with something easy like lidless Tupperware - Marie Kondo suppprt this - you start with unsentimental and work up to emotional items.

keep posting op xx