De cluttering - rule of six

I spotted a new charity shop yesterday and immediately took a bag of almost unused duvet sets out of the boot and donated them. Well, that's a start on the linen cupboard. What next?

Synonomous, the poster is framed that's the problem and I hate mirrors, don't have one, well have one very small one in a drawer , certaintly wouldn't want a 4 X 5 mirror stuck on a wall . My elder daughter bought it for me

I like your 6 rule DB and I will try it. I have been drowning in"stuff" since hubby left me. My DS has been here helping me so it is better but I find clutter overwhelming and not helped by my poor health and limited mobility

I moved house 4 years ago to downsize and so I was forced to declutter.I even had trouble filling all my new furniture cupboards and kitchen cabinets!Now though,everything seems to be full to bursting again-where does it all come from?Apart from being an avid book reader and wanting to keep all those books I really like,I am not a collector of anything.Yet,somehow,my "stuff" has expanded to fit and then outgrow my space.Baffling!

Just looked at flylady.com I like the list of routines for day and for week and job of the month. I will personalise it.

At the moment I have my decluttere once a year. Went through underwear, wardrobe etc. Relined drawers not done since 2007. so it looks like Ineed to add in a 10 year plan.

Took items to the Salvation Army bin as I thought they would use clotes that are OK and sell the rest for rag or what every.

Also 'found' 1 new bra and a silk vest!!

I try the " if it's not beautiful or it's not useful (or both sometimes)" then out it goes. I helped a friend de-clutter before she moved and we ruthlessly stuck to the rule. Later that night, she went out to the bins and retrieved some of the "stuff". OH how we laughed!
Another friend, whose house had teetering piles of "stuff" (rubbish) in cupboards, would occasionally put things in the bin. Her OH would come home from the office,go through the bins and bring it back in! A serial hoarder; we got him though, she would then put stuff in my bin - he couldn't search at my house. And, he never noticed that the stuff was gone. There's a lesson there somewhere.

My youngest's friend does cleaning, so she comes and helps me do the heavy work because of my back. We work together. One day I said I wanted to do a clean out of my wardrobe. Her rule was if I hadn't worn it in over a year (excluding a weather dependent item), then I probably never will. So if it was in good nick, it went in the charity shop bag, if shabby... dust rags or the bin.

Afterwards I saw I had more nice clothes that still fit than I remembered. Daily I wear jeans and a tee-shirt or a long-sleeve polo or flannel shirt. Working from home does that to you...

Most charity shop will accept textiles unsuitable for resale as 'rags'. If you're sure textiles are unsaleable mark the bag 'rags' so that they don't have to go through them. Some sell faded/ frayed towels as 'dog towels' too.

I've read that book, it's fantastic nearly all my clothes are folded as she said and are one easy to find and not squashed.

I work in a charity shop and one of our customers told us her strategy. At the beginning of every season i.e. it's nearly autumn so turn all your ' autumn ' clothes inside out in all drawers,cupboards,coatpegs, wardrobes, under the bed storage etc, and then any item the following autumn was obviously unworn and therefore not needed - send to the charity shop. Also don't keep items unworn with the thought of keeping it for best or a just incase day - wear everything you love to feel good everyday ! I think it's a brilliant way of dealing with clothes. It's just I haven't got round to actually doing it !

OP that's so strange because yesterday morning I thought I had invented the rule of three!! Well, eighteen actually... I decided on a whim that I might succeed if I approached my de-cluttering problems from a different tack. Rather than attempting an all out, energy sapping marathon on one particulsr section, I would remove for charity donation three items a day from each of the six main rooms in my house. I calculated that in a year there would be some six and a half thousand items less and I might have room to breathe...

The next problem of course, as I don't have my own transport, is getting them out of the house on a regular basis. Luckily a couple of charity shops in this small town will collect if there's a reasonable amount.

Now if only I can keep it up... I feel happier already!

I read that decluttering book too and even now my knicker drawer is neat and tidy with all my knickers neatly folded. I still have about 100 pairs mind you! Someone on another forum laughed at me for saying that I wear my old knickers on days when I'm not going out the house, lol.

I'm a shopaholic (there, I've admitted it), not so much for clothes (or knickers), but for household items and textiles. I collect Le Creuset for example. I can never resist revamping the bedrooms by season so have quite a collection of stuff. Fortunately I can pass some things on to my daughter and daughter in law so can still see it when I visit. I only ever buy things I love so it is very difficult to get rid of anything at all but I strive to do it.

Humbertbear I have room in my attic now if your daughter needs a new home!

I had to smile this morning as The Wonderful Man 'rescued' a picture I'd thrown out and has put it up on the kitchen wall. I often spend years (yes, literally) trying to persuade him to put pictures up and I now know that throwing them out is a sure-fire way of getting them on the wall. Hooray!

(I just read this post to him and he belly laughed - a good omen!)

I'm well impressed that you manage to throw away six items a day. I've been chucking one item per day for ages now, since reading about it in a magazine; but six? Not sure I can manage that. Well done you. I think I might increase it to two a day now...

My husband bought me a new wardrobe and I have decluttered all the upstairs and at the moment I know where everything is which iis lovely I hoard clothes they are my weakness but the heart foundation has,had loads of donations so feel as though i have helped. It is much easier knowing where stuff is I have my dear mums memory box for special things,and I just think I don't want my kids to have to sort out loads of junk when I go. My hubby is brill as he doesn't like junk either so get decluttering

Daphne - I promise you won't end up with a sterile house. But you will appreciate the things that you have decided to keep so much more because all of the ones that make it through the cull will be loved - AND you'll be able to see them so much better when they're not surrounded by things that aren't so great.

I read somewhere that when you are debating whether to get rid of something ask yourself-does it give me pleasure? If not then it goes!

I have come to the conclusion that, in order to declutter I need to get over the idea of certain unwanted items having monetary value. What I mean is this, I don't want the things any more, but I then think I should sell them, to try and get some of their value back. But if I don't want them, it's probably going to mean few others want them, or much less want to pay anything for them!! I just need to get rid!! Now the problem is having enough energy to sort out what I want to get rid of.........! A whole lot easier said than done! Oh well!

I felt a bit guilty taking my recently late husband's clothes shoes etc to a local hospice collection centre, especially seeing how little care they seemed to show them, but it had to be done. My stepdaughter lives abroad and told me before she left that she didn't now recognise it as her home, so I will have no problems declutterig items from DHs life before we met. It just takes time, so the rule of 6 may help, thank goodness for the charity bags that pop through the,letterbox regularly.

I'm quite good at de-cluttering but the husband is terrible. When we were clearing out the flat in Copenhagen when he was moving here permanently his lip was practically trembling at having to toss out his pile of videos (stuff he'd recorded years ago, not even bought films etc!) even though we no longer have a video player for him to watch then!

We threw out/gave away loads of stuff when we moved here 2.5 years ago, but the more than ample storage in the house has been amply filled up. My winter project is to de-clutter again as we hope to move house again next summer to our forever/old age home.

One thing that can help is taking pictures of those things that have sentimental attachment, then get rid of them. Make a memory book of the photos. Perhaps write a few words about why they mean something to you. It creates a useful memory jogger for you but also an interesting thing for family to look at some time - and easier for them to deal with later of course than boxes of 'stuff'!!

We are currently sorting our loft out. We've got rid of lots of stuff and what's left is in boxes, with labels, so we actually know what's in each box. This is a revelation to me! In 35 years we've never been this organised and it feels great!

Getting rid of things is easier if I think of it as passing it on to other people who could make more use of it. Whether we sell it or give it away, it still makes more sense for it to be with someone who can use it or enjoy it, rather than it cluttering up our house.

Someone said recently that the local charity shop can be thought of as free storage. Let them fill up their space with all the stuff I don't need right now. If I ever need it again, I could buy another one of the same thing again. But the chances are, once I've made the decision to get rid of it, I will never think about it again, let alone need it.

I am not a hoarder apart from sentimental things. I have a declutter in the spring and again in the winter always enjoy doing that

We started a major declutter last week and are trying hard to stay motivated - good to hear about other people's efforts/successes. We have quite a marathon task. When we built our own house nearly 20 years ago it had a lovely purpose built study with two desks and a big table where my DH could work from home, I could do all my school preparation and the children could do homework/crafts etc. Hah! It immediately became a dumping ground for all the boxes we could never be bothered to unpack from the move and all the items we 'inherited' from DM and DMiL when we had to clear their houses. Plus boxes of magazines, paperwork etc. It has never been used for its intended purpose and I even resorted to putting a curtain up at the glass doors so we didn't have to look at it! Now feeling very cross with ourselves at all that wasted space and the fact that we spent so much time trying to do our work on our laps or on the kitchen table. What a waste - no wonder our DC despair of us and now have much more minimalist homes (they left all their 'junk' here)!

Anniebach, why do you hate mirrors??

I subscribe to many magazines and I have to force myself to pass them on. Sometimes if there's a recipe I like I take a photo of it so I can make it one day but I rarely do. If I do and like it, I just write it into my recipe book.