Keep calm and declutter - Q&A with "tidy" expert Marie Kondo

Boy do I feel better, now I know there are so many others out there who can't let go!! I blame all those trash for cash/car booty/hidden treasure daytime TV programmes for my clutter - old telephones, clothes from the 70s, vinyl records, typewriters ... the list is endless!! One day they will be worth a lot of money and then I'll be the one laughing! And how can you throw away any photographs, soppy Valentine cards, school books and reports, or a hundred other memories? I know one day someone else will bin them - so help, what is the answer???

I regularly start to declutter but my husband puts everything back. How can I get him out of this habit without grievous bodily harm being committed? "we might need it one day" is his motto, mine is "if I haven't used it in the last year ....get rid of it". Tidying is a nightmare in our house,please help me.

And healthier too!

At the age of 71, getting rid of something pleases me more than having something new. Although I love the feel of a real book, owning a Kindle has changed my life as I no longer trip over piles of paperbacks and keep the bookshelves for quality illustrated ones. To empty my under-the-sink cupboard, I'm thinking of buying a small steam cleaner which, I hope, will replace the dozens of cleaning potions.

We seemed to wait for years to become grandparents, and it only happened when we decluttered the old cot and the (newish) carrycot and wheels!

I identify so much with so many of the comments made here. in my forties I moved home five times in 4 years and developed a loathing of packing of all sorts , and became better at deciding what to hang onto and what not: there`s nothing like packing the same ornament that you are not-really-in-love-with-but-hang-onto-because-someone-gave-it-you for the 4th time to make you think of putting it in the charity shop bag . I usually try to have one on the go - usually 2 supermarket bags one inside the other for strength hanging on the back of a door (!) and pop bits in as and when i think "Why the dickens am i giving this house room ?" i try to imagine what good the money the charity shop will do , for example to children`s hospice charity shops , and imagine someone who can`t afford to buy new presents being pleased with their charity shop bargain . Have come to the conclusion that if I have an enormous clear-out and am faced with bin bags full , the logistics of getting it out of the house to wherever is too enormous , but taking a bag into town with me when i go shopping is no big effort ! However , in case you think that all sounds a bit GoodyTwoShoes , I will add that as i get older the reasons for hanging onto things seem to multiply, for example having got rid of lots of books, i am now starting to collect them again as inspirational tools for our new business , and having got rid of bags of toys from my days as an infant teacher and given up hope of grandchilden ,i now find i AM to be a granny after all - so i will be dawdling round shops looking for kiddy things again !

Galen that made me chuckle.

Why bother? It only gets cluttered again!

Reminds me of the times we have cleared out the loft, shoved it all in the garage. Few months later, decide to clear out the garage. What to do with this lot? Oh, shove it in the loft for now.

Tegan - Ha Ha, love the stair basket idea! Yes, I shuffled stuff around from one part of the room to another as well!! I'm also terrible at just putting stuff straight into the crate/box without re-reading it!

The crates I use are the collapsible ones that you can get in the DIY stores or Wilko etc. I bought several before we moved here, so I could pack some things myself and they could be folded away until they were needed again - the house here needed a lot of work done, so I knew I'd need to shift things around again!

In my head I'm such a tidy person . . . . .

MiniMouse; that is a brilliant idea [the crate one]. Itend to just move thigs to another position in the room and they stay there till I move them to another position. What do you mean by a crate, though, cause I keep seeing lovely wooden crates in National Trust shops but they're not for sale. I have got one of those stair baskets in which you put things that are to go upstairs but it isn't there for that reason; it's to hide a threadbare patch in the carpet .

I love decluttering, but DH is a book and paper hoarder. He has his own study but still leaves piles of papers on the coffee table and in the kitchen. It drives me mad. I can't tidy it up as I'm accused of hiding important things! What can i do?

There's nothing wrong with you, petra (at least, not to my mind!) - but it's obvious you don't have an OH of a hoarding nature!

Having sent two boxes of crockery/china to the charity shop I am now counting up how many dinner plates I have left, hoping there will be enough for a family gathering at the weekend. (I suppose I could have bought disposable but am doing a hot meal.)

I think there must be something wrong with me. I can't relate to any of the stuff above. I HATE clutter with a deep and utter loathing. Why do people keep more than 6 plates/cups/ same with cutlery. Unless you do a lot of entertaining. I would never have more than 6 people at the table, that's enough for it to be enjoyable for me.
Same with clothes. One double wardrobe and two chest of drawers. I have a rule with clothes, something comes in, something goes out.
I never thought that I could give up books. Then kindle came along, and I have bit by bit given them away.
There is only one book that will never go: An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan.

Ps some of my china is sitting in the window of the local charity shop - I feel very wistful when I see it and am tempted to buy it back.

I buy cleaners and stain removers and household goods in the hope they will magic some order and cleanliness into my life. I've bought a packet of yellow dot stickers which I add to each cleaner I use. By August 1st if they haven't got a sticker on them then they are out. (Started in January) also I read that if all your clothes are on hangers one way round,as you wear them put them back the other way round and then cull the ones at the end of the season that haven't been turned round. I am going to try that. I think that may have been Marie Kondos idea? How do you shed things which have happy memoriesMarie? Handbag my daughter gave me a scarf from my mother,a birthday card from my father? They will mean nothing to others and go into the skip when the house goes.

I will allow 'fed up of' as she is perhaps not a native English speaker (and I may make a grammatical error myself in this post).

We cleared out our attic completely when we had extra insulation installed.
We vowed not to put anything else back up there - so why oh why is it more full than ever?

Much of it belongs to DD2 who will have to make a decision about what to keep at some point. A lot of it is from my MIL'S house (and she was a Hoarder!).
Toys may come in useful for DC. Shall we need the cot, pram or pushchair again? (For a GC I hasten to add.)

Books, books and more books. Or will they all have kindles or some futuristic device?

I should be interested to know if Marie is single and carefree or has a large family who think of DPs as handy storage agents.

I'm hoping to move this year and I have been de cluttering for months. I throw out as much as I can from a cupboard then go back a few weeks later and tackle it agin. I have sorted my children's old school jitters and memories into separate folders for them as I know that one day they will want to show their children. I now have lots of toys for my grandchildren and when I move to a smaller house I'll have no place to put them and there will be more clutter.

Well I hate clearing out paperwork, but I had lost a hospital letter for DH and as the appointment is Friday I was pushed into looking. I have three tidy drawers but didnt find it, then picked up a handbag I dont use very often and there it was ...after DH had phoned the hospital to find out the time. Who puts letters in handbags!!!!!

I've just [in the past few days] thrown away a pice of paper with a name written on it that I now need to know; this is what happens every time I throw anything away. I now have to go through pages of gossip on another forum because I know I mentioned the name on there. My cunning plan is to tidy the house up as best I can and then move into a caravan in the garden.

Oh it's SO good that there are others out there like me! I keep things that 'might come in useful' some time - which of course they do the day after I have finally plucked up the courage to part with them. I also hung onto stuff thinking that my offspring would find it useful when they set up home, but of course most of it was unwanted! I'm trying to convince myself that the grandchildren probably won't want it either . . . . .

One trick I use (just to tidy up rather than get rid of) is to go into a room with a crate and just stick anything in it that doesn't belong in that room and then go round the house doing the same (possibly more than one crate required here!!). This serves to at least make the rooms look tidier and you feel you've achieved something. Then I plonk the crate on a bed - saves bending! - and sort stuff out. Of course, this still leaves you with the 'sorting issue', but at least all the cr** bits and pieces are only in one place!

Is it because we're from the 'make do and mend' generation, do you think? Recycling isn't new, is it??!!

Here's one I posted earlier. (The house is still a tip)

Am I the only one finding it terribly hard to declutter? I start off determined to have a good clear out, but I don't get very far. I end up going through everything then carefully putting things back where they were. For gods sake what's wrong with me that I want to hang on to everything?
Let me just add I'm not one of those extreme cases where it's impossible to even enter the house because of piles of junk, old newspapers etc. no, I'm not that bad. Yet!!

I'd love to declutter my own stuff but the thought of having to do something with it puts me off! It would just be moving it from one area to make a pile in another - until I can 'go to the tip' (which I can't see myself doing), or 'taking to a charity shop' which I can't see myself doing either. Any suggestions welcome please.

Ana Its a s* isn't it. I know others have this problem but it is really getting me stressed and angry right now and I don't know if its just me getting it all out of proportion.