Your best decluttering tips?

[ladycarlotta]

My house is an absolute disgrace but not actually bad enough for Sort Your Life Out to be interested. So I have two options: sort my own life out, or fully give up until it becomes TV-worthy.

I can absolutely see that we have too much stuff, and that our home is never going to be clutter-free until the volume of stuff fits in the volume of storage we have. I want a house I can tidy and clean quickly each day, but the amount of crap we have makes it so hard - instead we end up doing a gigantic panicked full-house tidy every 2 weeks or so during which the crap just gets shoved into cupboards and not dealt with.

The penny recently dropped for me that there's no personal belonging I value over having a nice usable home for my family... I just don't know how to tackle it all. I've kicked the family out today so I can throw out DD's 7000 beanie babies make a start unmolested.

Please. Tidy people. Or people learning to be tidy. What's your best decluttering/organisational tip for me? I need some motivation!

Join one of the decluttering threads on here.

Listen to slob comes clean as her system is quite good. If you use her system she doesn't pull everything out. She starts in one area and one item at time takes each object to its "home" once the home place is full you need to remove a item to go to make it all fit.

This avoids the Marie K method of pull everything out and get overwhelmed. You can't stop that method until it's finished.

I set my timer for 30 minute bursts. Donate stuff as soon as a bag is full

Is anyone else drowning in books? I have a compulsion to buy art books and exhibition catalogues as well as a lot of biographies (mainly on artists or writers, some actresses and actors - the Peter Sellers biography is riveting). I just can't seem to help myself and stop. I already have numerous libraries in the house, but it's the piles on the floor and on the coffee table that are so unsightly.

I also own thousands of films (on DVDs) but they were easier to manage by putting them in disc folders that can hold up to 400 at a time.

thread full of useful advice and then along comes this nonsense...

You do realise that other people might have different lifestyles to you?

I don't think I've owned a pair of 'walking boots' in my life, and hate flip flops.
Not sure what I'd wear to work, a wedding, or for a night out after I've "jettisoned" everything apart from your list...

You do realise that other people might have different lifestyles to you?

@latetothefisting - you do realise she was talking about children's shoes worth saving for the next one down, not adults shoes?

No need to get all pissy at the poor thing, she's trying to help.

That’s rather rude latetothefisting. We’re all trying to be helpful and positive.

I'm helping friend. Each week one bag is full of old clothes, bits of old whatever, etc

Haven’t RTFT and if you’ve got time, contact your local churches or Women’s Aid if you’ve got coats or kids toys. I also donated DCs old fancy dress costumes to my local primary school.

Hope you understand how silly you look.

I’ve had a good clear out today. We moved in February and I wanted to clear some boxes so just went through and was so ruthless. Kids school books from every year they were at school - I have 3 kids. Why oh why did I hang on to three crates of books?! Binned. Similarly got rid of sentimental trinkets that were just broken from storing or rotten! The kids made me these pots out of some sort of dough that are now 15 year old and have gone like sponge. I didn’t realise how much of a hoarder I was! My husband before he moved in with me had six old toothbrush boxes and the receipts plus about 20,000 Chinese takeaway boxes. It’s insane what we feel the need to hang on to!

Ugh, yes! Plus in my job I get TONS of proofs, which you are not meant to let out into the world as they're uncorrected - that makes it even harder to get rid of them as can't take to charity etc. I've passed on to friends, recycled, even used them as mulch 😬

But I'm getting more ruthless with books as I now sell them via sites like webuybooks dot com. You usually only get about 15p a book but it does add up and it's very satisfying to zap away at all the barcodes and watch the total go up. They even collect them from your door if you want.

My daughter and I take unwanted toiletries, clothes and toys to the women's local refuge.

Some might benefit from thinking it as not throwing stuff out but filing - so books go all tother, CDs all together, photos, paperwork again all in respective piles. But as you file it, or order it, have a bin bag handy cos you realise some stuff you just won't need again...

The late magician Paul Daniels said he picked up a tip from his wife - she said of a long unused item, oh, someone else can enjoy this now...

Finally it seems if you have a cluttered house you may be a creature of habit - after all, it's always like that, right? - so I suppose if you get your house in order, that might become a habit too. It can work like that.

Might be other issues involved... how much do you spend thinking about the past? Does the 'stuff' make you feel more substantial, or comforted, like comfort eating?

I’d love to donate more to charities that use items directly rather than selling them in shops, places like women’s aid or refugee charities, but have found it so difficult to get responses from them to find out what they want.

Start with something that has no emotional attachment. Something boring like a medicine cupboard, it might not clear much space but it will start the process and increase your motivation

I need to do this too- just been to visit my parents and their house is bursting with too much stuff. One thing I noticed was they have 5 fruit bowls, 3 in the kitchen-diner alone and all the fruit they have in them combined would fit in one bowl. I mentioned it to dad when he said he needed to do a clear out and he said something about putting a big pile together for a charity shop run but the only one in their village wasn’t accepting donations at the moment due to illness amongst their volunteers. And I remember the bag of things on my bedroom floor that have been on vinted for a couple of months unsold and another bag to go to my preferred charity shop which I’ve not have a chance to get to. Anyway, that combined with you lot have inspired me, I’m taking the unwanted vinted stuff off the site, bagging it all up and dropping it in the clothes donation bin when I walk the dog later this morning. Stuff needs to go.

Stuff that goes to charity shops is only going to be binned when the next person tires of it or if it doesn't sell so don't feel guilty for binning things. If they are mass produced eg mugs, there are already millions waiting on shop shelves.

I agree with this. As far as my wardrobe is concerned, I have a "one in, one out" policy. So, if I buy a new t-shirt it has to be a replacement for one that's been removed, otherwise it's not allowed in!

Now, all I need to do is apply the same rule to the rest of the house! 😂

I had a 5 year gap too and kept everything from toys to clothes to equipment. It's a lot. I had a bit of attic space so it was easy but vacuum bags and a good labelling system are the best solution. Toys and books are bulky but the best you can do it box and label everything, reduce the toys as much as possible by breaking them down or use stackable boxes. The good thing is the kids stuff gets smaller the bigger they get, get rid of the baby or toddler stuff the moment it's no longer in use. The amount of stuff naturally decreases over time anyway as they get a year or two out of clothing

Get enthused by the means to recycle various categories
Schedule 30-60 minute shredding sessions if you need those,
If you have a black/general waste wheelie bin concentrate on stuff you can't recycle in the run up to when it's emptied
Consider how you use your storage space
Consider what sort of storage receptacles you need and don't need
If you are feeling in a ruthless chuck it all away mood cancel all other diary commitments

I was talking about the kids' shoes as hand-me-downs, perhaps I should have said!

@ladycarlotta clicked 🤣

It sounds like you actually have some good strategies in place already. What changed things for me I think was realising that I didn't have to declutter and tidy the whole house in one day, that if I spent half an hour and did a small area that that was useful too. And just keep doing that. For a few years I did a Lent thing which was get rid of a bag a day and that was what helped me change my mindset. Perfect is the enemy of good!

Being ruthless definitely gets the job done quickly. I don’t think everyone has that in them though. I think not being ruthless is what often leads to accumulating stuff. Trying to be ruthless when you’re not is disheartening and makes the job harder.

So I have the usual rubbish bag, a box for eBay, a reusable bag for the charity shop plus an “unsure “ box. If I really am torn between disposing of something I don’t use but really don’t want to part with it goes in that box. I go back to it in a week or month. Chances are, as it’s been in limbo and I haven’t wanted to get it out of the box or found a use for it, I will be more decisive about what to do with it.

I realise that is just relocating clutter even if only for a while. But if all the selling, donating and dumping is done immediately you will still have a lot more clear space and tidiness. That one box won’t be a big deal. But I think getting rid of something you are unsure of can turn out to be a big deal and make you even less decisive.