Anyone decluttered their whole house & when did you find time to do it?

[Littlemiss74]

House is chaotic which makes my mind feel chaotic. So much stuff but alot of it needed. Probably too many clothes for us all. Kitchen cupboards never been properly organised since moving in a year ago. So much stuff received by dc’s for Christmas.
I’ve spent the last few days off work tidying, sorting and washing. And then I go back to the room I started in and it’s a shit heap again!

Has anyone managed to declutter and organise their house and keep it that way? If so, please tell me how and when you did it around working and dc’s. TIA

Selling stuff you don't want?
I'm an expert in this...

Good name brands - Monsoon, John Lewis clothes - put on ebay. Look up the prices of similar sold items. I prefer a buy it now price to an auction - more reliable way to get what you expect.
Furniture or things like toasters - put on facebook (price higher than you want as people often offer less.
Books - textbooks often sell well on eBay, but paperbacks and CDs are really worth nothing. If you have shedloads you might get £20 or so on Music Magpie type sites, but I prefer to donate to charity shops as they really aren't worth the time and effort.
Household/kitchen things that are useful/pretty go well at car boots. Even unwanted toiletries. Also do cheap clothes (Asda, Primark) especially if you hang them on a rail. Keep a box handy for stuff like this and just do one car boot.

The other thing with the marie kondo method is that if you've only got a short time available, break down the 'pile' into smaller piles, so rather than all your clothes, which could feel overwhelming, just do coats. Then next available time slot, do jumpers. As long as you gather ALL your items under the headline banner (e.g. coats or jumpers), then it'll work.

I've been going through the kitchen cupboards this last week getting rid of really out of date stuff & bringing out what needs used.

Agree about decluttering everything-cutlery & utensils etc. I also highly recommend getting kickboard drawers in the kitchen. My next job is to work out how many tubs I can accommodate in the freezer from batch cooking & get rid of the rest of the Tupperware type stuff. I've got loads of sample size stuff that I will go through & donate to women's aid. All t he nice stuff that I was going to beat, have given to bro for dn.

I'm starting TOMM cleaning routine & think that will help a lot

DP and I took a week off work and sent DC into nursery. We got the whole house done in 5 days, but only just!

Speakout you sort of do have to scoop out all the items in the category for it to work using the Kondo method. I mean, you have to gather all YOUR coats (if you're doing coats), that way you really focus on which ones you want to keep. If you're de-cluttering for someone else, a child for example, then gather all their coats and get them to help decide which ones to keep. If you have hundreds of books, then divide them into categories, so all books about The Spanish Inquisition, then all books about Religion, then all cookery books, etc etc.

@speakout
Sure, it's about finding what works for you. And you can still do the full scoop out on all your personal possessions, which might make you feel a bit more in control of something at least!

I am fortunate to get generous leave.

We were stuck in a time warp. So much stuff we didn’t use or need.

I had three piles: keep, charity shop and bin. Do a room at a time and expect it to take days.

Sometimes if stuff is good enough you can flog it at a car boot. Lots of baby clothes and toys were got rid of this way. We also flogged our DVDs and books, knocking them out for a bargain price. Some people still want CDs too.

We cheat too. We live in a flat but rent a nearby garage for all the stuff we don’t use but still need like Christmas decorations suitcases and paint. Not an option for everyone but I only have a little cupboard and got fed up of storing shit all over the place.

Biggest space saver was getting rid of the bookcase. My dd has her little bookcase in her room but we Kindle now. Most of the games we play on consoles can be downloaded straight from the online store so we plan to sell more computer games and get rid of the unit in which it’s housed.

My husband is a terrible hoarder which I cannot abide. I find great therapy in chucking stuff out. I hate chaos.

Look up FlyLady...declutter 15 mins a day.

Read Marie Kondo! I think once you get into that mindset it’s easier to be ruthless and think really critically about what you need. I chucked loads of stuff and don’t miss or remember any of it.

I reorganised the whole house about a year ago using her method, it still gets messy but is so much quicker to tidy up because everything has a place, so I’m not trying to cram things into random cupboards and drawers.

I have not finished it, so not a good recommendation sorry

But I did start the Marie Kondo method. I would say you need to read the book. It's not especially long or expensive. The key thing that makes it useful is the idea to declutter by category rather than by area, because this effectively means that categories stay decluttered even if you only have say an hour a week to dedicate to it (and you probably have more than this).

With normal decluttering - you might clear off a table on Wednesday, but by Friday things have started creeping back onto it again. And the stuff you've moved off it will start to find its way around the house as well. You'll find yourself moving that same jumper to the back of a chair, to the washing basket, wearing it, finding it discarded on the stairs, etc. So it feels like a constant never ending cycle and while you might get things out of the house, nothing actually feels sorted.

When you declutter by category, you decide to do (for example) stationery, or perhaps an even smaller category: pens. The first step you do is to scour the entire house for every scrap of stationery/every pen you can find. At this point you ignore every item in your house which is not a piece of stationery or a pen. Once you are confident you have them all together in one place, you go through and decide how many you actually want/need, throw out anything damaged or no longer working, and see what you actually have. Instead of tidying three pens on the table and five on your desk and two in the kitchen and seven in the kids' room and one on the noticeboard (and this going on in an endless cycle where they mysteriously vanish every time you need one), you can just see in one pile 32 pens, and decide from there how many to keep and where to keep them.

I'm doing Declutter Like A Mother, it's 30 mins a day for 2 weeks, like a kick start. Lots of motivation and support.

Most importantly dont buy more storage , its less stuff we need not more storage .i donated loads and chucked loads just before Christmas , i have so much more to clear out

I desperately need to declutter, I can't seem to keep ontop of the house and I think it's mainly because we have too much stuff.

But I'm skint, I changed jobs recently to a dream job but it's meant I have much les disposable income.

This is making it so much harder to declutter because I'm afraid to throw anything useful away. So for example, I know I have too many socks, PJ, woolly hats but I want to hang onto them because then I won't need to find the cash to replace them in the future.

Can anyone who is also not well off persuade me to declutter- please 🙏🏼.

Wow so many replies and great ideas, thank you all so much. I am going to have another read through and make some notes tomorrow of all the suggestions. I have tried to do it in the past but the main problem I face is that DH and DC’s don’t follow my systems and either leave things all over the place or don’t put things back in the places I might have assigned for them. I think it’s hard to keep on top of it all when there are 3 other people in the house who aren’t thinking in the same way as me!

I think when things are easier to put away (because they all have a place and the cupboards aren't overflowing with stuff), then people are more likely to do so.
But if they are resistant, i have, on occasion, used the box method and just gathered all the stuff I've found littered around the place and left it in a box. When they can't find whatever it is, i suggest they put the box of stuff away and there it is.

Oh I love that idea HairyDogsOfThigh I can imagine I would need quite a big box!

Cupboard under the stairs was yesterday's project. Half the contents are piled up in the kitchen, where they will now stay until next weekend I'd imagine. It should only have taken half a day, including painting the inside of the cupboard. Ho hum.

I've done this over Christmas.

Gone through each room - with toys, put everything into huge boxes to clear to room/clean, then go through box sorting into keep/bin/charity. And taken charity/bin stuff out straight away.

Sorted out clothes by emptying everything into the bed & only putting stuff that fits/suits me back on the rails/drawers. Again taking the rest to charity straight away.

It feels good! Just have my shoes to sort now...

I've been decluttering for the last few years. I was a bit of a hoarder anyway, then DCs came along with all the crap they bring with them. I lost my DM a few years ago, and my F last year. Both deaths saw a huge influx of stuff into the house (I didn't have time to fully sort through at their houses, so had to bring back any 'keeps' or 'maybes' to sort at home). With work (I'm self-employed) , running around after the DCs, and MH issues as a result of all the changes it has been a huge and ongoing battle with the clutter, despite hitting the tipping point of 'I just need everything gone from my house' a year ago. It is still massively cluttered after many many boxes of things leaving the house.

What has made the biggest difference to how I feel about it, is concentrating on getting the rooms/areas I use the most done first. I had been doing the areas that were worst first (eg spare room, utility, garage, loft), when actually making sure our bedroom, the living room, and kitchen/dining room are clear is better. Obviously the other spaces still need doing, but it has less impact on me and now I feel more positive about dealing with them. This was my CBT counsellor's suggestion, it had never occurred to me before!

I broadly agree with not buying storage now, but it is worth it for things that aren't going anywhere. For example, I've bought a lidded box for all the confidential paperwork we burn in our fire over the winter, a little caddy to keep the DC's hair braiding stuff in and another for all the different types of tape in the office, some fabric bags for all the small bits of cycling crap DH keeps by the back door, and an organiser for the hall to stop the jenga-like pile of things we kept there. They shouldn't make as much difference as they do (esp the tape box!) but it all just looks neater.

The ruthlessness has been the hardest to learn, but it gets easier the more you do. Particularly with my parent's things I have found it easiest to do several passes. I felt too much guilt and attachment to get rid of loads in one go. I also struggle with the feeling of waste as a lot is perfectly useable, but not quite good enough for charity so into the bin it goes. I'm not sure how to get over this, so just try and block it out

If anyone struggles with this, I highly recommend a podcast called "A slob comes clean."

It's really fantastic, I often listen to it whilst I'm cleaning/decluttering as it gives me the gentle kick up the bum I need to get going.

We have recently decorated upstairs and the DDs swapped rooms, with one going away to uni.

So we emptied, decluttered and redecorated DD2's room one DD1's room was empty and able to be used as a dumping ground. She had some new storage and has a lovely room.

Then we emptied our room into DD1's room and recarpeted, redecorated and decluttered. We got rid of an over the bed set of shelves, so a bookcase downstairs needed decluttering too to make room for the books I couldn't part with. We ditched DVD cases of those we wanted to keep and put them in multi DVD holders as they take up so much less space. DH is a complete hoarder but he made a massive effort to cull his clothes and his other things. He's still got far too much, but we haven't bought the ottoman bed we want, which will allow him to hide away some things. He managed to get rid of a shelf as well as a chest of drawers that was making the room look cluttered.

When DD1 came back from Uni we bought her a new bed with better space for storage underneath.

So we have done most of upstairs. With the swap around we also managed to sort out all the towels and bedding.

We still need to tackle downstairs. I'm up against DH's hoarding tendencies. But every now and again he will have good intentions, like when we replaced the fridge in the pantry, redid all the shelving and got rid of anything out of date as well as numerous gadgets (cupcake makers, candyfloss machine etc) that the dc had been given but that they didn't really use.

There's lots more to do, but upstairs looks a lot better for it. ALthough we are still in chaos from all the upheaval after CHristmas and I need to retackle my clothes and find a home for anything new.

It isn’t easy and I’ve only managed this recent bout with annual leave over Christmas and a supportive partner cooking the majority of the time. I tend to focus on an area at a time, accept that this may mean another identified area becoming messier until I can give my attention to it but everything must have a place it lives in permanently.
I’ve taken pictures of any school work or keepsakes I don’t need a physical version of.
I also worry about paying to replace items but have been brutal ie if not recently used what is the chance I will truly need it again (usually unlikely) and I feel much lighter as a result.

Just view it as a work in progress
Do what you can even if a short space of time - a few mins in a kitchen drawer while on hold on phone that sort of thing.

I'd say go for low hanging fruit first to make you feel a bit more in control and less overwhelmed. Honestly a quick sweep of wardrobes will probably yield a carrier bag in a matter of minutes.

It's a great feeling when you get stuff to charity shop or the dump.

I have realised that i feel so much guilt watching all the stuff going into landfill that part of me just puts off getting it out of the house at all because “at least it’s not going to landfill”. It’s stupid really because, even if the stuff stays in the house till I die, when the house is cleared when I’ve gone, it’ll end up in landfill anyway. So I’ve realised that I just need to get rid of it.

I’m pretty good now at not buying “stuff” or buying on a whim. DH on the other hand buys stuff online when he is bored, I feel. We decluttered a bit over Christmas and he’s just brought other stuff into the house instead. Don’t even know what he bought now so we can’t have needed it that much.

I know exactly how you feel Op.
it's so hard especially when you live in a house were no one puts anything away.
I've been doing a cupboard or a drawer a day while I've been off. Still got a long way to go. A very long way. 🙈 x