If that’s what you want to do, I suggest requesting “Confessions of an organized housewife” from the library before you start. She has some cool systems for doing exactly that (mainly in the second half of the book).
I cast another vote for Flylady. She really changed my attitude about some of the things I was holding on to. I had boxes of beautiful yarn - that I would never use. I didn’t even want to use it. It was just so beautiful… After getting the Flylady emails for a while I sold them on ebay. You know what? The money was just as beautiful as the yarn!
Visit Ikea!
Not only will you get some great uncluttering ideas but you get a day trip to Ikea the best furniture shop ever 
Ikea is a fabulous place for storage items, I’ve noticed. Now I just have to actually go there and buy the stuff to put all the stuff in. I suspect the secret to an uncluttered house is lots and lots of specialized storage.
I found splitting up with my wife helped
Seriously, I moved from a 6 bedroom Victorian mansion into a 2 bedroom modernist Japanesey townhouse. Virtually not a stick of furniture from the old house would ‘go’ with the new one, so I had to buy it all. I made a vow not to buy anything, unless I discovered through ordinary living that I actually needed it.
Consequently the amount I’ve insured my contents for has dropped by 90% !
if you love storage containers “hold everything” is the place for you.
Pack away ALL knickknacks in a box labelled open in (date three months from now). Open it in three months and decide what you missed and what you forgot about. Chances are there will only be a few you remembered. Put those you forgot about away for another 3 months. If in that time you still forgot them, yard sale, e-bay, give them away to people you think want them, if they are ceramic smash them up and make a mosaic on your garden wall.http://www.jimmygnass.com/barcelona/four/seven.htm
I went on a knick-knack attack a few years ago. I finally realized that I didn’t need to validate my life with a bunch of souvenir crap, so I pitched the stuff that was worthless, donated the stuff that was useable (like mugs…oh god, the endless mugs), and sent the valuable stuff to my kids to deal with. I don’t miss any of it.
All clothes that don’t fit go to the Sallies, regardless of my intention to change my physique. When I lose weight, I’ll buy new clothes.
I only keep necessary records for three years, then chuck 'em. Anything I haven’t used in two years, regardless of what it is, goes to charity or into the trash.
hyperjes, thanks for recommending flylady. I just joined up yesterday and so far it seems really cool. I particularly like the way she breaks things down into small steps and helps you focus on small daily progress. My main problem with cleaning, dejunking, reorganizing, etc., is that I get overwhelmed and give up. The flylady approach seems like a great way to avoid the “overwhelmed” problem.
I had to bump this thread, because it got me involved with flylady, and I just had to tell you guys about it!
I’ve never been a good housekeeper. My mother wasn’t a good housekeeper, and when she did clean, she was a total bitch! I’ve made many, many promises over the years to get better at it, but never really knew how! I had decided that after my youngest started preschool (3 weeks ago, it’s been now), I’d start cleaning more, so this thread, mentioning flylady, came at just the right time. OK, some of her stuff seems a little silly (dress to shoes first thing in the morning? Shine your sink?) but I decided to do it anyway, because obviously the stuff I’ve tried didn’t work, I thought she might know what she’s talking about. Well, 3 weeks later, my house looks about 200% better, and I feel lots better about the house, and have a better attitude about housework than I’ve ever had before.
Her stuff does seem to be directed at a fairly narrow subset, but I fall into that subset, so all is well for me. She sends out many emails daily, and I’m given to understand that this annoys some people, but not me! I need to be nagged!
De-cluttering is about, to me, re-training your brain.
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Recognize you have a problem with clutter.
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Define what exactly that clutter is ( for us it is paperwork and toys. Paper work now is on …sorta…one credenza. Toys are bedrooms and basement.)
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Does this stuff need a central location ( either display or containment device)?
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Are you emotionally attached to said item or is your spouse?
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If you live in a high traffic area ( unlike us) you could set up a table and sell the knick knacks that you are willing to emotionally let go of for a low, low price. Neighborhood kids love stuff like this for Xmas for Grandman or Mama. Knowing that said peice is going to a good home sometimes is easier than a Goodwill or Ebay clearance.
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Do you decorate for all the holidays throughout the year? Does this stress you out because you have to have this stuff up by such and such a time and taken down by this time? Does the pleasure you receive from looking at your decorations always followed by…“I need to put these away by this date because…”
Then you might decide to just skip decorating for St. Swithin’s Day and stick to Xmas, Easter, Halloween. -
What are your hot button cleaning items. Things that must be clean for you because that is how you judge a clean house in others. For me, it is a clean sink ( not full of dishes.) and sweeping the floor. They can be OCD for me. Realizing I was obsessing over these things took up most of my day ( I kid you not.) and yet, I wasn’t making any progress. I just stopped all together and learn to do it at the end of the day.
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Don’t waste your entire life trying to live up to the Good HOusekeeping/ Architectual Digest/Martha STewart standard. These are model homes made to look like that. A select anal retentive few actually live like this.
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People who do live like this are fooling you. They either are extraordinarily anal retentive and cleaning and organizing is their only hobby/focus because they are all about Presentation. These people are afraid to be seen looking out of control and are massive control freaks. If they have kids, these kids usually turn out to be the opposite of the AR parents, which is always fun to witness. These poeple usually have a maid too.
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Remember, no one’s obit has ever said, " She kept a clean house."
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De-cluttering is the hardest part. Most (ok, all) of my purges have come during PMS mood swings. With a garbage bag in hand, I just throw out whatever the offending cluttering item is and sometimes the bag might make it to charity, other times, it goes in the burn barrel ( which is very, very theraputic.)
All the advice on this thread is good; however, this is the technique that works best for me. I stumbled across it several years ago when we were selling our first house.
I started packing right away, focussing on all of the knick-knacks and unimportant things. I got them all boxed up and into storage before we even got the house on the market, to help make the house look more spacious. For a variety of reasons, it took us almost nine months to sell the house, so we didn’t see any of that stuff for almost a whole year. And since we didn’t miss hardly any of it during that year, it was very simple to give most of it to Goodwill.
You know, your home isn’t just a display. You live there. Change the look if you want to, but not because you think you should.
I couldn’t agree more, Shirley. The reason I vowed to get in control of my clutter and start keeping my house cleaner is because it was really starting to get on my nerves. I dreaded coming home to the mess my house was; also, whenever I visit my in-laws, who have no more than a walking path through their home, I can’t imagine living like that. But that’s pretty much the general direction I was heading in, and I decided I’d better do something about it before it was too late. I don’t guess I’ll ever be immaculate, but it sure is nice not to have to leap tall bounds of junk to get from one place in my house to another.
One more factor was the fact that my house is dreadfully lacking in storage space; there is no linen closet, no coat closet, and only two bedroom closets (in spite of the fact there are three bedrooms); the two closets we do have are those old ones that are only about 12" deep, so you can’t hang anything in them! All these years I’ve been deluding myself that I don’t have enough space; I really just have too much stuff! It’s very liberating to get rid of a bunch of it. A couple of days ago, I put together a box of odds and ends, and set it on a public bench with a sign that said “FREE If you can use it, please take it”. I plan to put another box out on Monday. The neighborhood I live in has a lot of low-income families (we’re one of the wealthiest families here, and that ain’t sayin’ a whole lot), so a lot of the kids are thrilled to be able to get a little gift to take home to mom or something.