DIY “Sort your life out”?

[DeclutteringNewbie]

“Stuff” has taken over our home. Have been watching Sort your life out (the Stacey Solomon show) with DH and DC, who are keen to do something like this.

Probably not feasible to hire a warehouse and removals but wondering if anyone has successfully broken it down into a workable DIY approach? Not sure whether to do it room
by room or item type (eg clothes, toys, bedding etc). Where to do it etc. I feel like once stuff is laid out it will be easy to sort, but the practicality of the clear space needed to look at stuff is challenging me. We have a decent sized living room so I guess we could move furniture out of the way and use that?

Grateful for any ideas/experiences.

Thank you. I reckon tarps down, DH and kids outside and I’ll just chuck stuff out the window at them! 😂

Maybe labelling containers/places would help.

On clothes, I try and have a wardrobe that I am wearing each season. I have an open hanging rail with a hanging drawer on it and that is where current clothes live. Everything else is in a closed wardrobe.

Its often just a case of nailing down a small improvement to an existing system and then you sort of get there.

Haha things I have labelled: shelves in the kitchen, glass jars in kitchen, fridge drawers, containers for meds, plugs and chargers, the box for chargers, the box for leads, stationary cupboard, shelves for work papers, in box, waiting for section on the notice board, a space for wallet keys and phone as I mislay them.

The spaces are labelled for PE kit etc.

I’ve realised that for the last 2 years I don’t really have seasonal clothes. Because the weather is so changeable I have sandals and jumpers and everything in between (yesterday was 30 degrees, today is 21 and raining). Usually one or other is in vacuum bags under the bed but now it’s all in my wardrobe or drawers.

Kitchen cupboards are pretty good. One for plates and bowls. One for glasses. One for mugs and tea/coffee.

One for Tupperware (wire drawers), pans in pan drawer, baking trays in another pan drawer. Baking dishes in a cupboard. Cleaning stuff in cupboard under sink. Drawer for cutlery, one for utensils and one for foil, food wraps, baking paper etc.

Keys go in a box by the back door. Shoe storage by the back door (but no “home” for wellies).

Stationary is all in a drawer under the printer.

I get a sense from your posts that you are frustrated by the constant chasing of your own tail that is trying to keep a home clean, tidy, and functional, when nobody else sees what you are seeing and nobody else seems a bit bothered by it.

To get a feeling of progress from a solid start, deal with the kitchen first.

Go through all the drawers and cupboards where you store non edible items. Throw out all the stuff that's worn out, doesn't work right, stuff that's rusted, crooked, requires a knack to make it work pots with wonky handles, that sort of thing. Wipe down all drawers/ cupboards.

Toss or donate any appliances you never use. Panini maker? Waffle iron? Ice cream maker? Cookie cutters?

Identify and donate any baking trays, muffin pans, cake pans, loaf pans, Pyrex, etc, that you never use.

Get rid of plastic storage / fridge containers that are damaged by microwaving, sticky even though they're clean, have no lids, are too big or too small to be useful. Do you have a stash of off cuts of tin foil or wax paper? Recycle/ throw out. A stash of plastic fridge bags you've used once or twice? Get rid. More tea trays than you use on a regular basis? Get rid of surplus. Tea towels, dish cloths - keep those in great condition and donate the rest. Aim to keep only 3-4. Microfibre cloths? Keep one dozen.

Cleaning supplies - keep only what you know you'll use. It's a good idea to switch to white vinegar, isopropyl alcohol, bleach, pink paste, and dish soap instead of a multitude of expensive and space eating brand name specialist cleaning potions.

Tackle pantry cupboards next - toss all out of date herbs and spices, sauces, and packets. Toss all sauces you never use (any once off recipe purchases, etc). Wipe down the shelves. Do the same for tinned goods and pasta. Do you have half a dozen packets of birthday candles? Winnow that down to about 21 candles. How about plastic packets of soy sauce, ketchup, or mustard from take aways? Throw them out.

Tackle the drawer of "useful bits and bobs". You'll likely find it's stuffed with rubbish.

You can do each zone in an hour or less each evening. Plan your attack on your calendar.

Don't try to get it all done in one fell swoop. Laying everything out on a table or counter will end up causing a mess that could be overwhelming and will trigger shame. Shame isn't a good foundation for work that's geared toward transforming your life.

Wrt beds being made - it's important.

It's harder for a hairbrush or whatever to find its way into a made bed.

A made bed can act as the inspiration for the rest of the room to be kept as tidy as the bed.

The kitchen already meets 90% of those standards, and the 5% is only because we still use out of date herbs.

Upstairs is main challenge.

My biggest thing is that this isn’t my issue alone to fix, so i need to find a way that it will get done by others, not just me.

Aren’t beds meant to be aired?

We're moving in 3 weeks and have been in this house 12 years, we have so much to declutter as I refuse to spend money moving shit we don't need/want. I'm ruthless and frequently declutter my own stuff, but DH has a garage and storage unit full of crap.

I'm following the thread as it's inspiring me.

I now have my granny’s voice screaming in my head that they do. 😂

Boxes. keep, charity and bin.

Take the three boxes into a room. Start in one area and literally into one box category. When bin box is full, take to tip. Charity drop straight off. Then your down to one box remaining to find homes for stuff

I would get loads of boxes and dedicate one weekend to you all starting. Bedrooms pretty easy each to start with clothes and stuff. Then full car with all and get rid off

Then do kitchen together another day.

Only when you have got rid of the excess then look at new systems for storage. As you don’t need more storage for stuff that’s gone.

There isn’t enough space in rooms to do this so stuff ends up on beds not sorted which affects us for ages until there is time to do more sorting. And I think the kids need supervising. The gaps we have are later in the day so we will have a lag on getting stuff out of the house.

i think the category thing and moving it to a better space may work better.

I’ve said a few times the kitchen is fine?

You keep mentioning needing the other people in the house to do their share. How likely is this? How do you plan to motivate them?

First paragraph of my OP:

“Stuff” has taken over our home. Have been watching Sort your life out (the Stacey Solomon show) with DH and DC, who are keen to do something like this.

They want to do it. I need to find a way for them to do it that has impact quickly so that they will want to keep going till the end. They like the SYLO approach so I’m trying to replicate the aspects of that that deliver the above……..

And ideally, do smaller bits of it without me needing to be there.

@DeclutteringNewbie - I don’t understand how a bedroom can’t be big enough to fit three boxes on a bed?
You just get three normal size. On bed.

Open first drawer and take items out one at a time, ie t shirt drawer. The item goes straight into a box. So T-shirts go into bin, charity or keep boxes. Once done, take all the keep t shirts out the keep box and back into drawer. Move onto next drawer

It’s the exact method you need to not make a mess pulling everything out into piles and then no space to sort or time. This way if you only have time to sort one shelf with child in their room, you take items one at town off shelf, keep go back on shelf tidy, and the charity and bin boxes moved to either car if full or floor somewhere to resume. This way it doesn’t matter if you only have 15 mins free or 3 hrs. If you pull out into piles it’s still in a pile unsorted if you run out of time

Because the bedrooms aren’t large and there are boxes/stuff piled up on the floors in front of the wardrobes and drawers. So they need sorting out first, but the reason they’re in boxes is because there isn’t a home for the contents currently. To get more than one person in there sorting stuff would need some decluttering to have already happened.

DH, for example, doesn’t have a t-shirt drawer. He just keeps his clothes all mixed up in his drawers.

And I don’t think doing it in the room would be helpful because it’s too easy to do what normally happens in there. Sorting out boxes of shoes in the living room is motivating because none of us want to keep shoes in the living room. And my kids seem to resort to lying down if in their rooms for more than 10 seconds at a time. It’s a mindset thing, possibly as a result of neurodivergence.

We have tried doing it in the room and it’s a disaster. As they have commented in the SYLO approach, I think it’s worth exploring.

It doesn’t have to be a T-shirt drawer..

I mean I would just get one of those boxes that are in the way, move it to living room if you must and still do three box method of sorting out what’s inside.

Otherwise you’re going to be knackered carrying everything to a massive pile and then daunting. You can just have three boxes in living room and say to kids to go get any shoes for bin and charity and bring them to those boxes. You and dh also. Then Chuck the broken shoes box and charity the no longer needed but ok ones. The keep ones don’t need to be lugged out. Then the shoes are all sorted in 15mins max one day. If you find shoes hidden later on then just repeat

I think if you have so much stuff you can’t get into your bedrooms then there’s no way you can do it Stacey style. If they fill a whole warehouse there’s no way you going to fit multiple rooms into one living room

@SaltyChocolate
That's a good list of tips

Agree that it's the systems that are important. Taken me ages to work that out and that's why things weren't working for me. And for things to be visible.

I think you’ve misunderstood me. We wouldn’t move multiple rooms to the living room. I gave examples in earlier posts.

eg DH’s clothes onto clothes rails/table in living room. He keeps 10 T-shirts, 3 jeans, 4 shorts, 4 pyjamas, 4 jumpers, 2 trousers, 4 shirts, 6 ties. Rest go into charity bags into the car.

or all the coats go into the living room and we all choose 3 (rain coat, smart coat, warm coat) each.

I found gathering all stationery / pens/ notebooks together quite a good start. It's not emotional. The dc can easily get involved. Then pick their favourites and donate the rest. That could be a quick win.

We've got 2 ADHD brains and two hoardy gift-giving families, so I feel your pain. The points above about systems are 100% the way to go because throwing stuff out is not even half the battle. You have to have systems or you can't know what you need and you'll never clear it and it just contributes to ADHD overwhelm. We have been inspired by SYLO and what we did was:

1. Identify a process which is causing a significant amount of clutter (e.g. DH clean clothes storage)
2. Think through a system which is actually workable for this storage (eg open shelves with everything hung up)
3. Remove all items of any kind from the space where this system is going to exist (e.g. DH wardrobe, empty it and the space in front of it, remove wardrobe doors, dump it all somewhere-anywhere- else for now)
4. Go through the items that might go into that system. Keep only what you will actually use and have space to keep the system functioning (eg donate or recycle anything he doesn't wear, make sure you can hang up or put away clothes so everything is visible)
5. Move on to next system

Things to bear in mind are you have to meet yourself halfway, there's no point in building systems on the basis that you should do things (this is why my clothes are still everywhere because I just won't put them away), and it will get worse before it gets better but as you keep chipping away and adding new systems you'll get the reward of things like finding socks just working and that will keep you motivated