I have never thought of this...

I confess I am a chucker anyway. But I found the unwinding and sorting of my parents house and other relatives I had to deal with both traumatic and therapeutic. As someone who is a compulsive recycler, we were able to make sure as much of our parents belongs were found new uses as possible. Both my sister, mt children and myself took quite a lot of stuff home, items of furniture, china and glass, table and bed linen. A lot went to Charity shops.

Doing it like this I found lots of small treasures. Half a letter my grandfather wrote to my grandmother. He died in 1919 on his way back from WW1 and it is the only tangible sign we have of his existence, no photographs or other belongings,just this one small note that shows a loving husband and father writing home. His job took him away from home a lot and he missed his 'little cherubs' and 'dearest Kate'.

Slowly unpacking and disposing of my parent's life helped DS and I come to terms with our loss and move on to a new normal.

The important part of the OP for me is "when we feel that our clock is ticking". When is that? I shall be 80 next year, but I don't hear the clock ticking yet.

My home is my home, clutter included. I do NOT feel like paring it down just in case I kick the bucket tomorrow - on average, someone my age will live another ten years to the age of 90, with one in four going on to 95, and one in ten reaching 100. I have every intention of being among the one in ten, which would give me another twenty years.

I cleared the house after Mum died. She wasn't a hoarder but she certainly had a big house full of "stuff" from all of her life. I never would have dreamed of asking her to get rid of her stuff before she died - that would have been awful, telling an old lady that I didn't want the bother of cleaning up her things, so would she please ditch all her precious belongings. Definitely not ! She was old and frail, and she needed to have her familiar things around her. When she died , all I did was to pick out the few things that my sister and I wanted to keep . We then asked our children if they wanted anything. After that I just disposed of everything else - some to charities and then the rest went into a skip. You can't hang on to it , so the best thing is to put your sentiment aside and do the job.

Its not a very nice process to clear out all the things which made the place 'home' to someone, but you have to be unsentimental and get the job done.

My mother was a hoarder and refused to allow us to clean or clear up her house. She had been like that since I was a child. In hindsight I realise my mother had mental health problems.
All the Christmas, birthday, Mother's day gifts were all stored in drawers, still in their original wrapping, while she wore old worn out clothes.
It was horrendous when she died, as the local council only gave us a short time to clear out her house.
I must confess to being a bit of a hoarder with clothes, (they may come back into fashion, I may lose weight, etc) shoes (by some miracle I will be able to wear heels again) and crafting materials. However, I am determined my children will not have to face what I had to do, so I am gradually trying to be ruthless.

Same for me. My stuff is only precious or useful to me whilst I'm alive. What happens to it after I'm gone doesn't matter.
Bin the lot, pass on anything which may do someone a turn, but just get rid of it.

I have told my younger daughter to hire and skip and just put whatever in it