To ask for tips on declutterring and keeping a tidy home?

[LadyLille]

I’m really struggling to keep my home organised and clutter-free. I start with good intentions, but I often find myself overwhelmed and falling back into old habits. I’d love to hear how others manage to declutter effectively and, more importantly, how they maintain it over time.

Are there specific strategies or routines that have worked for you? Do you have any advice on staying motivated and keeping on top of things? I’m open to any tips or tricks that might help!

Thanks in advance for your help!

I’m guilty of some full cupboards and a living room lined with bookshelves but, in terms of general tidiness, I find that very quick bursts can make a big impact. For instance get up when the ads are on when you’re watching television and put the newspapers you’ve finished with in the recycling and your tea mug in the dishwasher. Next ad break put the clothes you’ve just ironed away and everything looks better.

Don't live with an elderly family member. Or a hoarder. Don't buy loads of crap. I always say all I need is a couch, bed, clothes and food (plus functioning kitchen and bathroom).

I'm really bad at decluttering for a lot of reasons, but something I find helpful is 'quarantining' things. 'Level 1' is put e.g. clothes I no longer wear, but don't want to get rid of, in a bag and put them in storage, so they are no longer in my wardrobe. 'Level 2' is putting things in the charity shop bag. 'Level 3' is actually delivering said bag to the charity shop. I find letting go of things gradually helps me detach from them emotionally.

A couple of times a year I write the numbers from 1 to 30 on a piece of paper and stick it up in the kitchen.

Each day I challenge myself to cross off a number from the list. So if I'm cooking dinner I look for 10x old jars of herbs and spices, or 5x leftover jars from the bottom of the fridge with an inch of stuff left in them. If I'm upstairs it might be 20x books from the pile in the spare room that DMIL keeps bringing round, 30x items of old clothing or just 2x old perfumes that I never use.

It saves ending up with huge bags of stuff that has to go to the charity shop (another job!) and it's amazing how much you can achieve doing just a tiny bit every day.

Following with interest.
Lots of good tips!

Sometimes when I clear my bedroom I take everything of shelves and off top of cupboard and put in bed. Clean where they went and only put things back which go there and put other stuff in correct places also. Then I aim to tackle a drawer or cupboard at a time

Don’t sit down for the evening until everything is back in its place
don’t leave a room empty handed

if you’re tidying and everything is everywhere get a bag for life for each room - room by room put everything that’s in the wrong room in its respective bag and once you get to that room put it all away, it saves quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

Tidy from top to bottom then clean top to bottom.

it can help to do a job or a room per day:

bathrooms Monday
dusting Tuesday
hoover Wednesday
glass cleaning Thursday
etc

always do certain things everyday - clean kitchen and all dishes, do one load of laundry a day

for decluttering you have to be ruthless and never procrastinate - does it have a home, if not, do you want it and where will it live?

i keep a too small box and will put anything q that doesn’t fit the kids in there until the next charity bag comes through the door.

I feel your pain @BobbyBiscuits . My oldie used to be ok if I tidied the cupboards (but didn't throw away anything significant because It Might Come In Handy One Day). Now I can't reorganise anything either because they won't remember the new place it lives / to put it back in the plastic tub etc. Sigh.

@Movealongfolksplease thank you! gawd. It's weird isn't it. I think there's a wartime mentality. Also that stuff only lasts a year, whereas fifty years ago you had something and got it repaired. X

I do the keeping old things as spare too. I'm trying to get better at 'one in, one out'. DH is worse. He insists on keeping old holey t-shirts in case they're useful for painting or DIY (which he never does 🙄).

Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments, tips and tricks! You’ve given me some great ideas to try and I feel more motivated to tackle the clutter now.

Really helpful comments... I will plough on and try and apply!

This.

But to keep on top of this system I believe you need three things. These are a dedicated bowl of crap, pile of crap, and box/small cupboard of crap.

The bowl of crap is the place where you chuck little bits you find around the place, like hairbands, random pens, lost lego bricks etc.
When it is full, you take it around the house returning everything to their proper places (or bin!)

The pile of crap is for paperwork, letters, etc that can't be binned or neatly filed away straight away. Eg. letters you'll need to take to upcoming appointments, stuff you might need to refer to, stuff you need for a while but don't need to keep forever.
When this gets more than a few inches high, go through it all and bin what you no longer need and file away anything you have decided you need to keep.

Box/small cupboard of crap is slightly different - this is for stuff that needs to leave your house but won't be going immediately. Eg. clothes destined for charity shop, smaller items for tip, things you're going to pass on when you get the chance. It's also really useful for things you're wavering about getting rid of. Chuck them in the box of crap and if you don't miss them after a few weeks/months they're good to go.
As above, when getting full it's time to actually start getting rid of these things.

I can't believe I've actually written this out 😂
But anyway, that's how I stop the clutter taking over when I don't have time to deal with every little bit straight away!

Start on a small specific space.
one cupboard or shelf.
Have 3 bin liners ready...
Charity
Chuck
Recycle

If its not been used in last year then off it goes into one of the bags.
I put the charity bag straight into my car boot so I'm forced to drop it off next day.
Its an addictive process and the more you do the more enthusiastic you become.
Don't under estimate how exhausting the process is.

Ideas from PPs are great.

If you’re going to have a serious sort out, tackle your big storage areas first, or at least intersperse big and small area jobs.

This may sound counter-intuitive but…

Then you’ll have places for everything else to go.

So your under stairs cupboard, shed, pantry cupboard etc. Then as you do smaller cupboards/drawers you can reorganise them into other areas.

Also commit to the fact that this is an ongoing process, not an occasional one-off!!

@SkykidsspyI am wary of charity shop bags put through letterboxes. One, I have seen thieves taking them in clapped out vans. two, some charities never bother to collect them and three, bogus charities do this. Had a bag for a charity which I never heard of. Instead, it had a company number.

Went onto Companies House website and the company number was a mechanics about 150 miles away. Contacted Trading Standards and posted something on the local spotted FB about not to donate stuff to them.

I keep any charity bag, turn it inside out, fill it. Once filled, I take to a charity shop. I see my donations on sale 2 weeks later.

Also to anyone decluttering, never put your donations into charity bins in car parks. They are hardly ever emptied, are a magnet for fly tipping and contents are probably are ruined due to lowlife scum throwing things such as bottles with no lid, setting contents on fire. I do wish charities would do the decent thing and get rid of them. If anyone says, I don't have transport to carry these, get a friend to take bags and items to CS.

Another thing, do not put stuff outside charity shops when they are closed. Again classed as fly tipping to many charities. I would ring CS and say "Are you taking donations in?" as some CS don't take any more donations in as the room which they store overs (usually tiny) are bursting at the seams. One CS I was in last week, said to someone, we are not taking clothes, anything else - yes please. Better still, if there is one of those warehouse charity shops, take the items there. Hardly say no to donations.

About the poster with saying only keep up to 3 plates more than number in household. I had a friend who did that. A month down the line, her DH went through a dropsy phase. In a month, he broke about a dozen items, including 3 dinner plates. They had to buy a new dinner service!

Keep some spares in garage or shed, so if you have a dropsy phase, you have back up supplies.

I agree with an early pp - Dana K White is brilliant. I have been gradually working my way through the house using her strategies, and it is working! She suggests a ‘container principle’, so you treat whatever you have (eg bookcase or cupboard) as the natural limit for whatever goes in there, so you have to get rid of whatever won’t fit in there, and only keep your favourites. So no buying of additional bookcases or tubs or baskets to keep the overflow. Also, a key part of her strategy is to do a first ‘sweep’ and remove any rubbish first thing, then sort - and if you come across something you will keep, then you take it straight to its proper home, don’t put it in a ‘keep’ bag / pile / box. It means that the process itself is less stressful, as the room doesn’t become chaotic while you are sorting.

I watch Sort Your Life Out and always want to declutter after 😂

I try and tackle a room at a time. I use Music Magpie/We Buy Books to get a bit of extra cash for books/DVDs/CDs.

The Organised Mum Method (app) never lets me down.