How do I declutter a whole house?

Decluttering a whole house stalls for two reasons: starting with the worst room, and decision fatigue. Working by category means you see all of something at once, which makes deciding far easier, and starting easy builds the momentum you need for the hard categories.

What you'll need

• Boxes or bags for sorting
• Bin bags
• Marker for dating boxes
• Car for donation runs (optional)

Step by step

1. Work by category, not by room.All the books, then all the clothes, then all the kitchen equipment. Seeing everything of one type together makes duplicates and excess obvious.
2. Start with the easiest category rather than the worst room.Momentum matters more than logic. Early visible progress is what carries you through the difficult parts.
3. Do the categories in rough order of emotional difficulty.Kitchen equipment and toiletries first; photographs, letters and inherited items last. By then you have had a lot of practice deciding.
4. Handle each item once and decide immediately.Putting something down to think about is what turns a weekend into six months.
5. Sort into keep, donate, sell, bin and relocate.Five physical containers. Sorting into vague mental categories does not work.
6. Use a dated box for genuine maybes.Write a date six months ahead on the lid. If it is unopened by then, you did not need any of it.
7. Take donations out of the house the same day.A donation bag left in the hall gets unpacked. This is the most common failure point.
8. Be realistic about selling.Selling takes time and effort. If items have been in a 'to sell' pile for a month, donate them instead.
9. Only buy storage after you have finished decluttering.Buying storage first means sizing the system to the clutter rather than to what you are keeping.

Tips

• If you are keeping something out of guilt about what it cost, the money is already spent — keeping it does not recover it.
• Photograph sentimental items you have no room for. It preserves what most people actually valued about them.
• Anything you have duplicates of is an easy decision, which makes duplicates a good place to build early momentum.

Common mistakes

• Starting with the worst room — It is the hardest and most demoralising place to begin, and stalling there ends the whole project.
• Working room by room — The same category is spread across several rooms, so you never see how much of something you have.
• Leaving donations in the house — They get unpacked. Same day, in the car, gone.

Questions people ask