When do you know it's time to do a house declutter?

[heartbroken22]

House is overflowing everywhere. I tend to clean on my own. Feel guilty about getting rid of things.

When DH is not working from home and I have a day or two on my own, and on school days only.

I'm going back to working full time in September and I'm panicking at the lack of time for jobs like decluttering!

When it takes longer to today than clean.

For your sanity you need a good clear out. I find taking it to the charity shop makes me feel less guilty.

*tidy

Read A Slob Comes Clean blog. It's brilliant. I thought I was good at decluttering but her method is no stress and makes a huge difference. (There is a book too if you like her style- Decluttering at the speed of life)

Harder when it's other people's things and I'm still trying to persuade my DH that he doesn't need spare spare gardening shoes (what if my shoes and my gardening shoes and my spare gardening shoes are all wet? What will I wear?) But we are making progress.

Don’t feel guilty, just start one area or room to start with. It feels amazing afterwards, so much lighter! (My brain and my cupboards). Go for it, OP!

And yes to charity stuff, this helped me get rid of the baby stuff I was holding onto emotionally- felt like giving it for someone else to use was okay, when I couldn’t bear to get rid of it.

A slob comes clean says: Your house is a container. So are all of your cupboards, drawers etc. They can only contain a certain amount. Once the container is full, something needs to go.

This has been the game changer for me!

Stop seeing decluttering as something that happens once/annually etc. It is a constant process, particularly with kids who outgrow things all the time.

I hand things down, charity shop them, offer for free on FB, and as a last resort I recycle things. Life is so much less stressful with less stuff.

Also, another thing I find is key is not buying things in the first place. So really being disciplined about what you need.

We want to move house so for the last 2 years we have been sorting through everything. The loft, house and shed. Omg 20 years of crap. Still have a little bit more to do but the house feels so much lighter and brighter. DH says I'm a hoarder and I must admit the things we have sold or thrown away haven't been missed. DH is ruthless but it helped when it comes to getting rid of stuff. The money we made from selling stuff we used as spending money for our holiday😁

When it causes me stress eg. Looking for sellotape or an envelope. So I make containers and label them. Teddy overload needs sorting this week.

When I run out of storage space, basically.
Or move home.
Or a partner moves in.

Clothes and shoes should be regularly checked. Toys too, if you have children. Good stuff goes to charity.

Having said that, for clothes and bedding, vacuum bags can work wonders.

When the day of the week has a "y" in?

When do I know? When I realise that I can't put things away because there is no room in away for them to be put!

On the very rare occasion that DH and DD are both out of the house I run round with a bin bag and gather up all the crap they have ignored or forgotten about and hide it in my car boot. If no one asks about it over the next week I send it to the charity shop.

I live by 'everything should have a home' so I tend to know we need to have a sort out if I find that things are sitting on the side for a while because it doesn't have anywhere to go or when the house just feels a bit cluttered & it makes me a bit anxious😳

Try to be ruthless and take it one cupboard at a time. It can be overwhelming to get everything out of every cupboard at once so you could always take it one drawer or corner of the house at a time.

With my ever growing step kids, they give me their clothes that don't fit straight away and I either donate to charity or sell them this way we don't have to have big sort outs.

I love decluttering so for me it is just whenever I've not done it in a little while, and most definitely anytime that I find I'm trying put things away but there is just no room or no natural place so they end up wedged in.

Absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, these things are better off with people who might use or need them or making money for charity/the household- whatever you choose to do with it.

Get rid of something every time something new comes into the house.

We just got new wardrobes in both childrens bedrooms. We had to remove the old ones and and take everything out and oh my god I cannot believe the amount of absolute crap I had in there. A week later and I'm only starting to get through it. I'm actually ashamed of myself for all the waste that's there. A friend called and took a black bag and a half for her dc and I've currently three black bags for recycling. I'm going to get the childrens rooms sorted now and then do the hot press and then start on toys. I'm determined to stop the constant feeling that I'm drowning in clutter