What's the most sensible way to clear one very messy room?

[eurogoose]

My house is quite messy in general because I'm very untidy, however one room is now unmanageabl.
Spare bedroom, started off as a room to put things that weren't used very often(exercise equipment ). It's gradually become so bad that now I can barely open the door and can't see the floor.
I need to declutter it and organise it but don't even know where to start.
Any advice please.?

Not really, sorry, but am in the same situation so can sympathise! We should be using our loft but dh hasn't boarded it out and we can't put a lot of stuff up there. It's a vicious circle. He complains about the mess, I remind him of the loft boards and he says he's not keeping all the crap which I don't want to get rid of!

Start at the doorway and have plenty of bin liners handy.

Take rubbish bags, get in that room and start throwing stuff! If you haven't used something in the last year you probably don't need it so either throw it in the bin or give it to charity
Then you dust etc..

Spend half an hour in there with a bin bag. Fill the bin bag. Then later on or tomorrow repeat. Getting started is the hardest part.

Start in a corner, or by the window, or some other defined place, and declutter/clean from there outwards. Don't be distracted from anywhere else in the room, try to deal with each item as you touch it rather than just moving things from one place to another.

I find it less demoralising when dealing with a big job to see that at least a small portion of it has been done properly rather than the whole thing done superficially.

Bags for rubbish, box for charity shop, anything you can ebay or put on Gumtree put together.

Pick up one thing as time, decide what you are doing with it. If keeping, whee in tbe house we will utilize go, and put it away.

Aim to do a bit at a time, don't get overwhelmed. Every one thing you chuck is a step closer to clearing out. Good luck.

I had this recently with the spare room (now housing an intern for a few months).

I started at the doorway with lots of black bags but also gave myself 15/30 minute time-slots. Eg after those time-slots I could have a cup of tea etc.

I did it all in a morning like this.

also included hoovering, washing down windowsills etc.

Very helpful, thanks everyone.
Am heading up there with a handful of bin bags and two boxes.
I'm planning to do 30 minutes, then have a break for lunch, but worry I'll never come back out

I have a box for each of the following:
Put away
Charity
Bin
Recycle

Only keep anything that is very useful or makes you very happy. Chuck everything else

You are going to have to throw things away and probably find this hard, so spend some time envisaging what you want to use your room for. Really picture it. This helps you be more ruthless with stuff that no longer should be there.

I agree re things. if some of them are clothes etc sometimes you can think too hard about them…

You may want another input especially re clothes to ensure you don't throw away anything nice. (I've been guilty of the latter!).

I must admit - you will see this too - as the floor gets clearer, cupboards get tidier you have a sort of elation in doing this, very cathartic!

Start at the door, as you pick something decide if it is keep (put it on the bed for now), bin (black bag if rubbish, white if textiles/clothes), charity (cardboard box). Then take the rubbish to the tip and probably the textiles as well, most have textile recycling bins and take the charity stuff. Then sort through the keep pile and see how long it is since you used it or if it gives you pleasure to have it (and if so, why was it in the spare room?) and if it's more than a year or it doesn't then get rid.

I had a spare room like that but we have just finished decluttering it. I took 5 boxes of stuff to a car boot sale as we hadn't unpacked it since we moved 10 years ago, we made £100 and have a lovely spare room now :)

Do it with a friend with a cold eye who will help you chuck stuff away, which is what you probably need to do a lot of.

The less you have, the tidier it will remain

Don't make it any worse, so don't put anything else in there until it's sorted. If you find yourself running out of steam some days just force yourself to deal with 10 things, which can be 10 things for the laundry or bin etc..

Ok, I did 30 minutes but then got fed up so left it to do some more tomorrow. But the thing is, it's amazing how much I did get done in just 30 mins. I thought it was going to take me days to sort it out, but I reckon by Wednesday afternoon, doing a 30 min session each day, it will be de-cluttered, drawers tidied, and cleaned.
Thanks again for all the great suggestions.

OP - just make sure that you do do your session and don't get sidetracked. I used to get sidetracked either with other chores, reading stuff etc or getting sentimental knocked the latter 2 on the head pretty damn quickly!

My main worry/hurry was because I have an intern come to stay now (albeit for 3.5 months) and paying rent and I wanted to get the room nice for her.

Well done!!