Clutter free help please

Take a room at a time and then a cupboard/area of the room at a time. make sure you have some bin bags/ storage boxes/ a label maker or sticky labels and a pen. Put anything you know you can do without into the bin bag this will be for the charity shop, maybe eBay or chuck.
Anything you wish to keep,make sure it is in a labelled drawer or box on a shelf so you know what's in it. IKEA is a good source of clear or pretty storage boxes and getting a few of these maybe an impetus to start - don't try to do everything at once - it's too overwhelming. Make it your target to do a small sections n at a time. I enjoy decluttering - once I get started , maybe you have a friend or family member who could help you? It's quite often indecisiveness/ inertia that stops us throwing things out and it can be difficult. But once you get started it can be therapeutic!

Read Mari Kondo's book on clutter-free living, it's completely changed how I look at possessions.

Good luck!

Good advice from suzie and I would just add - make sure you do something every day. On days when it all feels too much, just do, say, one drawer, but do it. "Eat the elephant in small bites" is a good motto. As you begin to see what a difference it makes, you will feel more energised to do the rest. Good luck!

Now I need to convince DH to make a start on sorting out the garage.

Hi keylove - Gransnet had a Q&A with Mari Kondo. Good luck!
www.gransnet.com/forums/webchats/a1206347-Keep-calm-and-declutter-Q-A-with-tidy-expert-Marie-Kondo

Buy a shredder, hire a skip and be ruthless.

i once did this, putting good items at the end nearest the street and I put a sign on the skip saying ' You can TAKE anything out of this skip but DO NOT put anything in it!'

That way anything worth salvaging will go to a good home. Then in about a week all your junk will simply be taken away.

There are also a lot of useful ideas for free at www.flylady.com

I have given up trying to declutter, so many things have sentimental value and if not sentimental then guilt , I wish I could toughen up

I am going through all my CDs today, and charity shopping the now boring ones. Including Especially the Rod Stewarts.

A lot of charity shops will pick up your unwanted goods. I always call PDSA (Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals) and they come and collect. So, not having a car will no longer be a problem in recycling your clutter.
Good luck and happy sorting!

Hi, Key of Love. I'm Maxine from Darlings Who Do. As part of my business I offer a bespoke decluttering service for people who want to get rid of clutter that is overwhelming them and starting to pull them down psychologically. I'm not suggesting that you need that kind of service here, but I'd like to push you one step further here, when it comes to making decisions about what to get rid of and what to keep - and ask you to think very carefully about WHY you might want to keep certan things. Your justifications for keeing stuff may be a little off kilter (its a very common thing among those who have a lot of mess to deal with), and sometimes those kind of perspectives need to be addressed before a decluttering process starts. The last thing anyone wants is to get rid of meaningful things, where appropriate forms of storage could be explored as an alternative. However one of the biggest reasons for clutter accumulation is a reluctance to part with things, and in those cases its not appropriate to simply take things out of the house, which a lot of "professionals" (like the ones on tv) advocate. Very often, that can do more harm than good psychologically, and it usually - at best- results in just another accumulation of clutter! The root cause is the important bit, and it can be a long process getting to and addressing it. If it's just a simple matter of you having too much stuff lying around and being happy to get rid of it, however, all the suggestions here will be helpful for you. Good luck xx

De-cluttering has been the bane of my life for almost a year now.

We're still at it!!

DD is also chucking out loads of stuff so we're going to hire a skip between us. DH reckons it's a needless expense but I bet he'll be chucking stuff in it when nobody's looking.

We found EMMAUS a great help for taking saleable stuff. They collect for free if they are in your area. DD bought a second hand wardrobe from them and when they delivered it we begged asked them to take a load of stuff back with them.

It only cost us a cup of tea

I've managed to declutter my house moderately successfully - but it's all migrated into the garage, from where it's supposed to be sold on ebay, or given to the charities whose plastic-bag-through-the-door will take it. Unfortunately very little of it has gone on ebay... I'm finding it takes more time than I'm willing to put into it to take photos and write listings.

I now need a way of decluttering my garage.

Have you looked on Facebook for local sale groups you can post anything you want rid of and buyer collects

I don't believe in de cluttering in little bits like a drawer a day. You don't see the results which make it an incentive to do more. I dedicated 2 days last week to sorting out our garage. 3 trips to the dump - a large box of cooking utensils & crockery to our homeless charity. A week off & then next week have scheduled 2 days on my calendar to clearing the loft. That will add spare duvets, washed, & surplus bedlinen & towels to go the homeless.

I don't buy storage boxes anymore - some of those have gone to the charity shop!

I am now ruthless - only keeping one thing to remind me of a person & this is not necessarily the most valuable item. For example - remembering my grandmother I have a brass money box made from a WW1 shell case. Lots were made. She taught me how to polish it with Brasso when I was 3.
I only have one dinner set, which is a non patterned white Thomas set that I received from friends when we married 23 years ago & one set of cutlery.
My parents had 3 dinner sets which my hoarder sister now has.

My aim is to leave an orderly house for my daughter so I do not add despair to her grief.

Keyoflove - if you are in West Sussex pm me! I am now an expert & come free!

I "decluttered" the upstairs last summer when we had new carpets fitted. I'm still looking for things now.

Keyoflove9 .
Hello. I can help remove some things. If you have any spare wool, mugs, single toiletries, small ornaments, teddies of any size, I can use them for the Tombolas I do for the Cats Protection.
I will in return take anything you want removing to the Council tip and/or charity shops.

I am also a wizz at de cluttering, if you want some help.
Also any old clothes, bedding or out of date food I can take to the homeless shelter.

p.s. I am in Peterborough.

We spent about a year de cluttering before we downsized but we still had too much stuff after we moved. I looked at every piece of furniture, divided into yes,no and maybe. We took the yes' and maybes. We ebayed, asked around, gave lots to friends children who were setting up home and became some of the best donors to local charity shops. I really enjoyed giving stuff away knowing it had another life, so didn't feel too extravagant when we bought new more fitting stuff. We also went through the photo albums and gave each child a set of photos to keep with family tree stuff, nothing worse than not knowing who is in which pic. It's very relaxing having done it, we felt a little like newly weds again, we can tidy the house in half an hour, the garden likewise and spend our time on hobbies, going out and entertaining. I sometimes have a pang about my old house but not when I visit a friend in a large draughty and cluttered similar house. Really like double glazing and ensuing!
There's a very good long essay/ short book by Linda Grant called How I murdered my library.

I don't need de-cluttering, more like a fire!

You need to decide whether you want to make money out of your clutter, let other people make money out of it or send the lot to landfill. Unless you want to pay to declutter I suggest that the little and often route is the most practical without a car.

Keep an eye out for recycling bins in shops. There is a charity clothing bin in my local TKMaxx. I usually have a plastic bag on the go and I tidy clothes into it and take it in when it's full. Anything which is a size too small gets chucked now as I have been the same size for some years now.

The DGD's school has occasional charity fundraisers which need unwanted nearly new stuff, so I drop in the bric a brac that I know will just take up shelf space in a charity shop but will be eagerly snapped up by my DD's friends.

Rescue animal charities will take clean but shabby bedding and towels. You can drop that off a bag at a time.

There are quite a few places keen to take books - often not charity shops, but some community cafes or doctors surgeries have a small bring n buy book shelf.

If you want to raise a bit of cash, why not organise a table top sale at your local community hall or church? A bit like a car boot sale but without the car! Most halls have tables included in the rental hire and if you link in with a fundraising group you could get them to offer home made cake n teas.

Should read ensuite

I have a timer and I set it for 15minutes, I have 3 bags or boxes and label 1 throw away, 1 put away and 1 give away. ( I got the idea from FlyLady.net) I do the decluttering until the timer goes off then have a break - I learned "Don't take out more than you are able to sort before the timer goes off!"
If you feel up to doing more then after a break set the timer and do another 15minutes. If I tried doing it all at once I'd be so scunnered I wouldn't want to go back to doing it for again! If you put on some good music while you do it than can help.
And as FarNorth said "There are also a lot of useful ideas for free at www.flylady.net/
Good luck!

decluttering is not for me!! i've spent YEARS building up the collection of things i have and i'm not letting them go easily.

i moved house from devon to dorset about 30 years ago and it took me a month to empty the loft - and quite a lot of it went straight from that loft to the loft of our new house.

when i left my husband and moved half a mile away we went through the loft and, you've guessed it, my "share" went straight from that loft to the loft in my new house.

when i had the loft insulated, my daughter and son in law emptied said loft and i gradually got around to sorting things ......... couldn't do it quickly as i had an operation to replace my knee.

after the sorting out, i chucked loads of stuff out, gave stuff away on freecycle and sold one or two things BUT the rest of it all went back into the loft!!

there are things up there that i don't use but don't want to get rid of - a stool i made at school when i was 11, a set of mugs brought as a present by one of the foreign students i used to have, christening outfits that both my children wore, my teething ring, etc, etc including my text books and files from university.

all the surfaces in my house are filled with "things" - things which give me happy memories. i don't want to sell, give away or chuck anything. i'll leave that to my children to sort out when i'm gone.

I have found that it's easier if you have someone to help. Even if they don't do anything just being there is good. My daughter and I often work together. There is always one of us can do the charity shop and council tip run when we are done.