hi all, I’m in a bit of a rut with decluttering. I have this thing where I have to see the items in front of me or I forget to use them. eg I have to have my creams serum lip balm on my bed side table otherwise I don’t remember to use. it’s like a visually trigger. I also have loaddddssss of medication and I need those visible too. the other day I realised I’d put one tablet in a pouch and because I hadnt seen it I had forgotten to take if for 4 days. things like face masks too or books I’m reading I only read it if I leave it out. and I do use them

any tips? I feel like this never lets my house look clean and tidy. it’s visual clutter but that’s how my brain works. also I don’t feel like I have a lot of stuff but at the same time I think I do. I find clothes particularly hard to part with as I cycle through and go through phases or wearing things

any tips for a newbie!

I'm a single male (62) who is finally seeing some success at decluttering. I think I might have a touch of A.D.D., which has always made all the recommendations to go a room at a time or gathering everything that's in the same category and decluttering difficult for me.

I'm living in a house that has not only my things, but some left here from when it was my grandparents' home, plus all the things I have from my parents' house when they passed away.

My living room looks more like an episode of Hoarders to me, so I am avoiding it for now It's the one filled with highly sentimental items and large pieces of furniture. It will be the most time-consuming and difficult for me.

Three other rooms have basically become storage rooms, each basically filled with different categories. Tools, kitchen and dinnerware, and collectibles.

So here's what I'm doing: I'm not working on one of the rooms. I am working on all three storage rooms at once. I find my attention drifts when I work on one room too long, but switching to a new one with a different type of items seems to refresh me.

I made the decision not to sell anything in the initial round of decluttering. I donate what can be and trash the rest. Anything I find that I want to display gets displayed. Anything that gets a 'I wonder if my niece/nephew might want that' stays in the room for now. Once the first round is done, I'll have room, I plan to upload pics of things I wondered about, and let them claim anything they want, making it clear that it needs to be picked up or arrangements made for shipping within a certain time period. Otherwise, there is either a yard sale or a living estate sale in the future.

This room switching has been the most successful I've been at attempting to declutter. Sorry for the length of the post. Hopefully, someone will find something useful in it.

Failure is part of life. Share your decluttering challenges and failures here. Examples include:

• Emotional clutter
• Not enough time
• Getting overwhelmed
• Routing (recycling, donating, trash...)

If you're just venting, or don't want advice, please let us know in your comment.

This is a low-stress place to share challenges and failures for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

Help - lots of sentimental items- overwhelming

I have a 2nd bedroom that I don't really use as a bedroom (though I could possibly use it as an office at this point, but not there yet). I'd pulled the sheets off the bed in there so a family member could use them for a trip to a local lake and they recently returned them. I hadn't put them back on the bed yet and finally got around to doing that but had to pull all the "stuff" I'd had moved around (or stacked in front of the bed) out of the room to actually GET to the bed in order to make it up.

I can't believe how many BOOKS I'd shoved in there. I knew I'd had SOME, but not nearly as many as I did. I'll have to go through them and see what I can add to the 2nd hand book pile that, despite staying out of the thrift stores for the most part, seems to be growing. I can't wait until they're all gone and I can see what space I actually HAVE again. The other good news is I can start going through the ones I have and add them to Libib so I can see what I have and NOT duplicate things. I tend to get duplicates and triplicates because I don't remember/can't find the books I have.

I am going to have to put some things back in that room, but only to get them off my own bed. I'm going to go through what's there tomorrow and see what I can get rid of and what I can keep for now. I HAD planned to do more of that today, but I slept SO hard last night, I felt a bit . . . hungover this morning (and slept later then I have in a while).

I have OCD (clinically diagnosed) so I struggle with attributing emotions to inanimate objects. I feel scared and guilty getting rid of things. I also get stuck on the what if I need it, what if I forget the memory associated with it, but I spent money on it so now I’m wasting my money, or the I’ll try to sell it first loops and end up never getting rid of anything. I feel overwhelmed by how much stuff I have. I am good at keeping things organized so it’s not like it’s something people see on the outside but it’s a lot for me to deal with. Anyone with similar experiences that could give some helpful tips? Realistically, I know a lot of it needs worked out in therapy but therapy isn’t cheap and now I’m suddenly convincing myself to sell stuff to pay for therapy lol

As with most people I have a bazillion photos.

A few years ago I successfully decluttered my hard copy photos but the expensive acid free plastic boxes I’ve stored them in are falling apart.

I have read about a lot of photo books apps. My son has done a number of them for his partner and they are thin, easy to store, wonderful to look through and very organized. She has loved them.

I’m thinking about doing this but want to be able to add text to identify people and places. The end result will be less digital clutter, my hard copy photos will be digitized and stored in the cloud so they can be shared. There will be less on my shelf.

The advice request: have you used any of these apps? Were you able to add text. And if so, which one was it and how easy did you find it to use?

Thank you!

I don't know if people remember me and my old post, so I'll copy the text from around I don't know 1-2 months ago. In short I have hobbies that take a lot of space, we are 2 adults and 3 kids in a 74 sqm apartment.

Here is some progress, however I still feel like I need advice.

I have sold one big CRT ( I still need to sell more ). I have sold some video game consoles, drawing tablets. I also have put some stuff from my video game collection up for auction and they have already bids on them, some of the stuff will clear up significant space for example I have a PlayStation Mini up for sale. I have around 75 games that I sell. I have sold a Crock-Pot. This is all I can remember right now, I think I have sold other things.

So even though I have made a lot of progress in my personal opinion, I feel like it's really hard to declutter and not stop the inflow. For example I have noticed that Xbox 360 games are cheap so I started to buy some which lead to inflow ( they are now going to be sold ), obviously not as much inflow as outflow since I sold a lot of stuff but still. Just the other day I wanted to buy some games and consoles, however I didn't because my rational brain just told me to stop until I can find a system that works. I feel like we have this sort of mentality in this family, we sell stuff and then we feel like oh yeah we did good so let's buy stuff.

Has anyone been in this situation before where they eventually just stopped the inflow until everything started to look okay? Maybe started to put rules on themselves like after everything started to look okay for example one item in then one item needs to go?

Any insight and advice would be greatly appreciated 😊.

Underneath you can find the text from my old post, I thought it my give light and perspective on our situation.

I have written on this Reddit/community before.

We are 2 adults and 3 kids, the apartment is 74 sqm. Literally there are 2 bedrooms, bathroom, really small hallway, storage room that right now functions as a room for our middle daughter.

There is also an open room that functions as both a kitchen and a living room. We have no storage room at all, no attic, cellar or something like that. All our season clothing is 24/7 in our apartment, same with christmas tree etc, it is not a big American Christmas tree, I know americans love christmas.

My oldest daughter probably has ADHD, we are waiting for her to be investigated. My girlfriend probably has it too, maybe the other kids too, I don't know.

I won't lie I have hobbies that take a lot of space, music instruments, music production, retro games and CRTs/OLD TVs. Obviously I have watched decluttering videos on youtube but it's always a big home that has space that is being decluttered or someone who lives alone or maybe with their loved one.

I started my decluttering journey maybe idk 2 years ago with breaks and simply my family is not on board. I have maybe decluttered 300-500 ( I didn't take pictures in the beginning ) items of my own, books, camera gear etc.

My oldest one has a really hard time decluttering, imagine someone who can't not throw away a drawing that has juice spilled on it. My girlfriend has a hard time throwing away old toys, clothes etc, she has been throwing away some stuff but it's not a lot.

I just don't know what to do anymore, I feel extremely defeated and have given up. I feel like I either have to give up all my hobbies to have a clean corner or whatever and be miserable or that I have to keep my hobbies but be miserable in a messy home.

Does anyone else use FocusMate for decluttering/everything? I love it 😭 and always want to comment it on people's posts but I don't want to sound like a shill (I'm not, just a normal person). I've brought it up a few times and people have come back and told me it's really changed their lives.

You have to be on video but I love that because I feel like someone's watching me, and I only do it with the same gender. Apart from decluttering, I actually started using it to brush my teeth/do my night routine. I made a friend who I regularly book with and now I feel guilty if I want to miss one of our sessions, which helps me stay accountable. Just wanted to bring it up and see if anyone's also using it regularly! (I mentioned this in the weekly thread but went ahead and made this post because I really would love to discuss this with others).

Had professional help clearing out my parents' house, and I don't regret it at all. Construction starts the 16th, and I'm starting to think I might be ready for it. Even from beginning in January when I was more 'must keep' to today I was 'just trash it' a lot more. Hopefully a good foundation for better habits for myself and my future, too.

The corner of the laundry room has been piled of junk for years. granted the master became a dumping ground after they died and cleaning started, so that was all me. Now it's back to how it was :)

both their closets are empty with just a few tears, 1/4 inch layer of dust on the laundry shelves gone, the last 100% of Dad's caregiving stuff trashed... Clothes, office supplies, records, few electronics all heading to a good cause next week. 8 pieces of furniture picked up by another good cause. Someone came to pick up the 400+ records today as well, which is big because they didn't exactly like popular music.

found a chess set I was hoping to find, two vintage trumpets, two vintage rifles, and food that expired in 2020 lol.

If I can do it, you can do it :)

ETA: My goodness you guys are so encouraging. thank you <3

I read something that resonates with many posts and comments we've had here. It's from the novel "The Museum of Second Chances" by Jo Leevers.

"She knew that an object’s meaning never stopped with its first owner or maker – that was only the start of its story, which could continue like ripples from a skimmed stone."

I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book, but I'm curious to see where the story goes.

Share your wins here - big or small. What did you declutter this week? Examples include:

• Digital Clutter: emails, digital photos, digital music or video collection...
• Storage: cupboards and closets, drawers, storage boxes...
• Toys: ether for your child, or your own that you've been hanging on to.
• Spaces: kitchens, workshops, hobby rooms, storage lockers...
• Routing: sending items to where they need to go, like donation centres, trash, or recycling

This is a low-stress place to share wins for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

I genuinely enjoy rehoming things that are still perfectly usable but are just sitting around unused. I’ve given away quite a lot of my stuff over the years, like perfumes, clothes, silver jewelry, makeup, and so on to Family and Friends or on my local free stuffs FB group. It genuinely warms my heart to see other people enjoy things that were just sitting idle in my closet, and to see those objects being loved and used again.

I bought a bag secondhand because the color was an absolute favorite of mine. The leather is beautiful and good quality, yet somehow, it is still the lightest leather tote I’ve ever carried. So, in theory, it checked almost every box for me, except for one thing: it doesn’t have a proper closure. There’s a magnet, and that’s basically it.

I’m anxious and clumsy, and I fall a lot, so the thought of my stuff spilling all over the place freaks me out. It also rains a lot in my country, and an open tote is basically a recipe for disaster if it suddenly starts raining while my laptop is inside. On top of that, I ride my motorbike to work every day, so a shoulder tote has never really been my first choice.

My sister basically has the same lifestyle as me, but she absolutely adored the bag. She loved it to the point that she asked me if she could use it long-term if she passed her probation at her first job. So I gave the bag to my sister permanently.

The frustrating part is that I know I probably wouldn’t have used it nearly as often as my sister does. Realistically, giving it to her was probably the best decision. She gets to enjoy a bag she absolutely loves, and it isn’t sitting unused in my closet anymore.

So even though I know my sister is getting much more use out of it than I probably ever would, a part of me still thinks that it was a catch in a lifetime. Why did I give it away..? Kind of the one that got away feeling…

It's Labor Day weekend in the US. I am halfway through day one of a four day weekend and all I want to do is go through every drawer and cabinet in my house and empty it all.... within reason, of course.

So here's my dilemma.

1. I'm down 20 lbs, yay! I have zero interest or desire to go back to my previous size. While some pieces are fitted and need to be donated, I can still fit into my leggings and shirts, they are just a bit roomy.

How long do you hang onto them? When you put on thr pants and hit your ankles because they won't stay up or when they start getting baggy?

1. Kitchen appliances and spices. I love to cook but weeknights are a lot and I don't want to cook every night. Currently in a situation where I have more appliances than cabinet space. Here's the thing. I use everything regularly, so no need to let it go, but my house is a 50s ranch and not much cabinet space to store things. Where else do you store frequently used appliances in your house so you don't use up all your counter space?

2. Media. I have decluttered over 1000 books and kept 100. I don't regret it. I kept only what I would re-read, but CDs and movies have me in a chokehold. I don't want to part with them as I do not want to deal with the ads that run every 10 minutes on streaming services or pay a upcharge for ad free. Have you ever downloaded all your media to a hard drive so you can access it from your TV.

I, 63F, let my hair go natural during the pandemic and kept it that way. For about four years, it was my brown hair with grey temples. Lately, my brown hair has turned dark pewter. In addition, I've been really sick for about ten years (thyroid cancer, gradual heart failure leading to open-heart surgery a few months ago). I'm recovering well and want to go out...but my clothes are mostly pre-2020-- and nothing looks good. I decluttered last month, but I felt I still had nothing I wanted to wear. A closet full of 'meh'.

So I took everything out of my closets, dumped the clothes and scarves onto the middle of my bed, and I held each fabric up to my face, one by one, and took a selfie. Every 'yes,' I put in a pile to the left of my bed on the floor. Every 'No' went in a pile on the right--out of sight. No looking back. With all of the selfies side by side in my phone, I could see what colors work and which don't.

What I learned: I've gone from an Autumn palette to a Summer (gray hair + skin losing pigment). The 'No' pile was really big. Going through my collection of linen scarves was excruciating because I bought each one of them after oncology/cardiology appointments. I'd go straight from the hospital to the store with the nice stuff.

I grabbed it all and took it downstairs, really fast, without 'but...but...' and I left it in a pile out of the way. I will eventually go through and fold them and try to find them, homes.

I was exhausted by the end of it, and emotionally scarred, lol. It felt like a cataclysmic event. It was more than a declutter. It was a reset. Now I can go shopping and buy some things I can actually wear and feel happy about.

Which is great to know! Now, when I go shopping for the new wardrobe, I'll know what colors to look for.

I let go of jeans I'd had since 2010.

I let go of a giant, apple-green hoodie from the hip-hop era!

And my poplin bathrobe, from...1999!!

I was chatting with some friends about decluttering. One friend said she loves decluttering a specific area, such as a single cabinet, because the Before and After gives her so much satisfaction. But another friend said she can't handle that kind of concentrated decision making, and does more of a random picking up of things, like instead of emptying a drawer out, she'll open it, see a few things to declutter, close it again for another day. Stuff is always leaving but it maybe doesn't always look like it...and then on Instagram, I was watching some videos of people who do it all by category or color. Like, just the blue shirts.

None of these are bad approaches! I think I tend to fall on the more random approach side of things. But given any option (and assuming you're not decluttering due to a life change like needing to move), how would you prefer to declutter?

EDIT: And this is meant to be more of a discussion than anything, but Discussion wasn't a flair option, so I went with Motivation, lol!

I’ve spent over 10 years decluttering the basement. Still I have at least 75 boxes of stuff. I’ve thrown away a lot. But now I’m getting to items that I don’t want but are too valuable to throw away. I’m talking about 1960’s Mickey Mouse dolls, 3 broken trumpets, 3 grandma’s set of dishes, 2 100 year old paintings I was told not to throw away, Disney VHS, 30 photo albums of my late husband (kids want this), 2 violins. Selling items take a lot of effort, as well as scanning photos, old books.

I’m overwhelmed. Any advice on what to do with the more valuable stuff that I inherited?

Let me preface this by saying I have lived in the Midwest my whole life in Tornado Alley and I am used to multiple times a year sirens going off and we head to the basement. We have always had an emergency kit in the basement and the kids have always been told no matter how messy their room is, they MUST have a clear path to the door and window in case of fire/emergency.

The last 4 weeks we have been brutal in declutterring and putting things away. Way more aggressive than we have ever been in the past. And it paid off. This morning at about 1:30 am the sirens went off. It was very wicked looking outside and the trees were bent sideways from the winds.

My husband and I were able to get up, he went to get the kids up and I was able to fully remember where I put my pjs from last night (been putting them in a new spot and away, so out of sight, nothing to trip over). I was able to put on my robe, grab the pjs, go to one end of the hallway, my husband was at the other end, wake up all the kids and grab the animals and get downstairs. Absolutely no fear or panic of not getting downstairs in time because everything was put away and not trip hazards. Didn’t have to worry about stubbing toes in the finished basement (that is where are family room is and we spend the most time, so it’s always the biggest mess).

Never in my life have I ever felt more prepared for a good ol’ Midwest storm. Except I forgot my glasses upstairs and did go back to them so I could see the tv/radar.

I have a long 5 day holiday weekend starting tomorrow and I am going through every room again for one more pass of “is this item sitting on my floor worth me tripping over or not getting out in an emergency” clean through.

We were fine, no damage here, didn’t even lose power, but reports have that we had 80-90 miles per hour straight line winds which causes more damage than tornadoes.

I hope this post helps someone find their motivation or their ‘okay’ to declutter and let things go.

So I am the type of person who doesn’t see the point in putting something away when you’re going to need it tomorrow anyways (I’ve since learned the keeping within arms length rule), but there’s the spot I sit in the sofa then next to me on the sofa is things like my purse, mail, paperwork, Kleenex, hairbands etc. and to the other side on the side table I have all of my daily medications, lotions, prn medications etc.

I’ve had a hard time with decluttering this area specifically because it’s all of my “daily use” things but I’m wondering what you have found success in to clear areas like this while keeping it in arms reach and either out of sight or organized in sight.

Should I look to buy a side table with lots of storage?, a coffee table with storage?, how do you guys find a home for needed things that don’t have a home 😭

I have two big bags of paperwork that I probably don't need but have a hard time getting rid of it. it's taking up precious under desk space but I can't get myself to go through it. I know I'll want to keep some of it. Any advice on how to get started?

Hi Everyone - Happy Hump Day! I'm cleaning out the very deep, very wide junk drawer where old tech goes to die. Save for my precious ancient Palm Pilot and beloved Crackberry, it's all wiped and ready to go to the e-cycler. Does anyone know of a resource for old cases before I bin them? I have cases & screen protectors dating back to the first Pixel or before. It seems like most cases are too device-specific to donate but damn I hate sending all this plastic crap to the landfill. While I'm asking, are chargers e-waste or trash? Edit: I am in the US

I'm not asking if I should, for the record. Please do not suggest other avenues for donating or giving away these books - we're talking out-of-date materials for specialized fields, outdated science textbooks, guides to using obsolete software, stuff like that. Though even if I weren't- books are a mass-produced item like a CD or a plush toy! Not a sacred object. I love books a lot but I don't think they're a protected class.

I've seen people here talk about recycling books, but I always get hung up on the method. We have city recycling where I live - do I just chuck them in the blue bin as is? Rip the covers off? Do the spines present a problem? Can you recycle children's board books, or picture books with glossy pages?

Curious if anyone else does this as Youtube seems to be a major trigger for me. The cycle is so familiar at this point; new item is released, a bunch of reviews flood my feed, I convince myself I need it and all of a sudden I'm planning my purchase. I obviously need the latest and greatest.

Rather than spiraling down more and more reviews for that item, I may watch one from a source I trust then I pull up old reviews for the item I'd be "upgrading" and it rekindles my interest and love for that item and remind me why I bought it in the first place. Reminds me that most improvements, if they are improvements at all, are marginal at best year over year.

If after a week or two, the upgrade feels significant and worth the upgrade price then I'll start the process again.

i completed the challenge! more than 500 items have been decluttered. i will probably keep decluttering in the following days to throw away anything i might have missed, but i already feel so much better, house feels cleaner and emptier (good thing) it's also really easy to locate my things and put them away because everything has a place and i put 1000% the effort to make sure that things had their place in the path of least resistance (or the path with less friction) i actually like being in my home now, so i highly recommend doing it!

all items have been either trashed or gifted to friends and family