AIBU to think decluttering is fucking hard?

[messopotamia]

Trying to declutter the house. It’s a shit tip. A large shit tip. There is no room which could be described as presentable right now, and we’re in the middle of the world’s slowest renovation to boot.

I need a decent chunk of time to be motivated. But between everyday life commitments I seldom get the chance, or when I do I have to catch up on the everyday
chores so have zero motivation by the time they’re done.

If I do get the chance to do something, I find the mental load of making endless decisions exhausting. Then I have to figure out how best to store things. Our house is large but most of the storage is impractical. I do have diagnosed anxiety and depression which I know doesn’t help, but it would be nice to not be constantly tripping over things all the time.

I’ve tried Marie Kondo, Flylady, TOMM. Nothing seems to work as there’s just not enough time.

AIBU?

I should also say that I love some of the ideas in this thread and shall mark it as 'watching' so I can come back to it when needed!

Oh iborgia that resonates with me and I’ll try to keep that at forefront of my mind. Taking photos of ‘stuff’ is so helpful.
That’s for that thought.

The whole dynamic of memory is interesting. I once lost a camera sd card full of treasured photos. I remember this images and think of them and the people in them far far more than photos I have on my phone in my hand everyday which I rarely if ever look at !

Thanks not that’s.

YANBU. It's easy when you still have a reasonably tidy home and decent storage. I'd say it gets much harder when things reach crisis point and there seems to be nowhere to put anything.

Also "just bin it" is a non-starter for me, I'm too environmentally conscious. Stuff in good condition needs to go to charity, recyclables need to take it to the tip. I guess I could lug it out and put it in the car boot (usually parked some distance from home).

(Also, agree it's 100x harder when others in the house are against it or plain not interested.)

KonMari is a non-starter for me too. "Go through your possessions by category, not location. Gather everything in that category no matter where they are in your home." To do that I would have to search through literally everything. I'd utterly exhaust myself moving and digging through boxes.

We really are at crisis point clutter-wise nowadays.

YANBU
I'm just the same! I have hardly any motivation because the mountain of junk is just too hard to climb.
Every room is full of muddles. I just don't know what to do with it all.
We have a junk room and it really needs clearing, every week I think this will be the week I am going to make a start on it but I never get around to it.
I know I would feel so much better if I got it done but I can't seem to move past this mental motivation block.

safariroom your ‘crisis point’ resonates ! Can’t have bags everywhere - small flat and everything does have its place but I am now full (unless I don’t want to walk around !).
happy FULLY agree - can’t do categories for exactly the same reason.

It can help to do it with someone else - a fresh eye. Why not get together with a friend and do an hour at each house a week?

I find the divide and conquer method easiest for keeping things organised and tidy. My kitchen drawers are now filled with organisers keeping the contents in a reasonably tidy state rather than a big mixed mess of everything jumbled together. I have clear plastic boxes to sort the stuff in the cupboards. My bedroom drawers are deep old Victorian ones so I've got tensioned drawer dividers and slot together dividers, as well as layered subdivided ones, then I fold and organise Kondo-style; I got a wonderful gadget for folding things into neat rectangles the same size.

I'm spending a fortune on organising kit though! 😁

Op I thoroughly recommend a book called "Decluttering at the speed of life" by Dana K White.

@Pleasedontdrawonyoursister What a pain, when you've got stuff to donate! Some ideas, you could try your local Children's Centre. Someone took loads of clothes their DCs had outgrown to my local one and they put on an afternoon where anyone could have a look and take anything they could use. Or offer them on Freecycle - toys too. Or a women's shelter. Hospitals might take toys for paediatric wards/waiting rooms.

Some good ideas, thanks. I will check out the books and Netflix series recommended. I’m glad I’m not alone in this!

I am a little envious of those who can discard freely. Like other posters, I have a strong emotional tie to stuff and feel guilty or shamed that it needs to go. I do donate regularly though. It’s the decluttering process that’s hard. We are very careful people and rarely damage or wear out anything, which seems to make the guilt worse somehow.

There’s also the issue of it not being terribly convenient - my preferred charity shop is almost 20 miles away and the one that’s closer supports a cause I strongly object to. Plus you have to keep records of donations for tax (not in UK). It’s preferable to going to the tip though, which has limited hours, is still 10 miles away and you have to pay. Anything potentially hazardous (old paint, mercury light bulbs, batteries etc) can’t go in the bin. They have a semi-local collection point once a year, or you can go to the hazardous waste place (M-F 9-4, so not great hours), which is 35 miles away - almost an hour’s drive. So that stuff tends to accumulate in the garage until we have enough to make the trip worthwhile. It’s frustrating.

I have definitely had an overshopping problem in the past but am working hard on overcoming it. It feels never-ending though.

Separate the sorting and the disposing. Aim to fill one box / bag per week. Better to stack and store full boxes you know are going than have stuff everywhere. Can you pay companies to take stuff for you? I’ve had to do that sometimes as I don’t drive.

It’s so much easier if your dh is of the same mind. Mine is improving and actually getting rid of a few things from time to time. Also we don’t argue so much about my disposing of “valuable and irreplaceable” items but it has taken a long time (this year we will have been married sixty years.)

I have dealt with a massive attic room full of a mix of junk and important paperwork - 5 years of to be filed stuff plus assorted clutter. I even had a filing slot called "stuff I'm keeping no idea why"!

My method was to have a box for recycle, a box for shred then make 2 category groups and another box of "keep, sort later". So it might be bank statements, pay slips and everything else that isn't obvious rubbish/shredding.

My pile of boxes of shredding was ridiculous- 2 full height stacks!

This method worked well for clearing drawers - I'd have the bin and recycle boxes then have a target category and another general keep box. That way if interrupted I could quickly dump everything unsorted back in the drawer and have very little "out"

Can you just have one day a week where you forgo the daily chores and declutter a room instead? You have to be a bit savage about it, I find.

I can't declutter with DP about because he's like you - has an attachment to everything. So when he's not there I just chuck everything that I think "he will have forgotten that exists" or "he hasn't used that in the last year".

I find it incredibly easy, I just look at everything and if I don't love a particular item it goes to the charity shop or the dump, I don't understand peeople who have clutter everywhere.

Comments like this are so unhelpful. 🙄 Do you really think it helps the OP at all to make smug remarks about how easy you find it? She's struggling and needs help not smugness.

I'm trying to chip away at all the stuff in my house. I've decided that if I manage to get rid of something every day and don't replace it with anything then I am making progress. It might be slow progress but I try to view it positively. Mostly I am trying not to buy more "stuff" (and that includes more storage boxes! I don't need more storage, I need less stuff!)

It's not easy.

The rule I use is, if something hasn't been used for 3 months it's out the door and going to the tip. I can count the number of things on one hand we have on the fire surround and beside it, it's minimal and we like it that way.

My mum had a habit of getting us ornaments for presents years ago. We'd say thanks and never put them up as it's just clutter.

The 3 month rule works ok, although for anything that's my own, I make the rule harder, if I'm moving it into the garage, I don't need it, so tip it.

My youngest sons bedroom gives me a nervous breakdown, it's a clutter zone and I just want to attack it with a roll of bin bags.

It’s so hard. I’m overwhelmed with stuff. I’m too tired to tackle it. I keep falling asleep whenever I have time spare.

I'm struggling to get rid of childrens' toys. They are adults now, but I still have painstakingly collected cars, brio sets, a dolls' house handpainted by DH and me, lego etc.

I would love a big permanent family home with an attic that my grandchildren could explore. I imagine their excitement at finding these treasures. Sadly, modern life and limited funds makes this a pipe-dream. Need to get rid soon.

Decluttering is tedious and boring as well as difficult, but it's worthwhile when you get to it.

I've got renovations coming up and must clear at least one room, but rather than think of the entire huge task am doing an hour every day, a bit more at weekends. I think it's a job best done on one's own as you need to decide what's worth keeping and what should be got rid of.

When I've decided what's going to go I like it to go as quickly as possible as otherwise there is the temptation to keep just one thing - thin edge of the wedge.

There is only so much time in a day and a lot of energy needs to be devoted to other things, but decluttering can be done and regular small efforts will pay off.

@Boredisboring see if the children's ward at your local hospital will take them, or try and find a child in need. It might make it easier knowing someone else is making memories with them.

I find it really easy. Once I get started. Getting started is really hard because I'm inherently lazy and only do the bare minimum to get by/ keep the house looking respectable.

I'm fine if it's kept on top of, then for many months I just put a load of washing on, tidy and hoover, all is ok.

Once it gets too much I can't start. I've learnt this!

When I do start, I'm ruthless. I throw most away, recycle nearly everything, apart from .... 1 or 2 very important momento's that mean a lot to me. Then I eBay, take to the dump, which I find satisfying, car boot, and then what I can't sell I take to the charity shop.

Which bit of the process are you actually struggling with most?

I think people need to be really ruthless, and Bored please don't be too sentimental about hanging on to your children's' toys, when we had our DS my MIL was keen to pass on lots of my DH's old toys (we were in our 40s by the time we had a child so the toys were really 'vintage' ) and we didn't have space, or the need, for them.

And please be careful about what you give to a charity shop, I manage a charity shop and the amount of unsaleable donations we are given is depressingly high, I know I sound ungrateful but only this week someone gave us bags of stuff with the comment 'I don't want this going to landfill' .... I don't know what she thought I could do with broken toys, old plastic containers and books that had pages torn out of .

I feel your pain. I am aiming to clear at least one bag of recycling and one bag of charity shop per week.

Our house is large but most of the storage is impractical.

you need to sort that out!

Storage needs to fit with your lifestyle - not the other way round.
So things that you need everyday need to be accessible, and there should be a place handy to put daily things (post, school bags, shoes, whatever)

Pretend you are putting your house on the market and want it to look the best. Don't fill your loft or garage with anything that you don't use. It should be for seasonal items, papers you are legally obliged to keep, and that's pretty much it.

If it's a mess, you can't find things and they are wasted.
If they are not accessible, you can't use them and that's wasted too.
If you haven't got space for them, they need to go.

Having a nicely organised and welcoming house saves you so much time in the long run.

One room at a time, one drawer at a time. It's the only way.

Think about your lifestyle above everything.
I have read about people having ONE set of bedsheet, I couldn't live like that either, I need at least 2 per bed, so one can be in the wash but I don't have to stress for it to be dry by evening. I tend to have at least 3 per bed anyway, makes my life easier.