I feel this in my soul! I do the same! I have a few pairs that I just can’t wear because they will might get dirty! But I can’t get rid of them because I might wear them!
Irrational behavior to the max!
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I need to do this too. I have 2 areas that have potential arts and craft stuff piled up. I mean to filter it out everytime tho, I get overwhelmed and give up.
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I feel like I’ve been doing this for a year and have a couple areas that get decluttered and I turn around and then it’s cluttered again! I blame the fact that my house is tiny, but ultimately I need to determine dedicated places for things. I keep hearing my dad’s voice say, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Hush up, dad! But, yeah. Working on it. I did make some awesome progress this summer and took a few trash bags of clothes and about 15 pairs of shoes to goodwill, so my shoes are sorted now. The basement lurks…great thread. Maybe we can explore organization tips.
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My wife says that and apparently that place is on the floor 
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One thing I do is categorize the clutter so that I can focus on the problem areas.
My big problem categories are:
- Clothes
- Dishes
- Toys
- Corporate swag
In all cases, we take in more than we let go. I know where to start and know what needs to be done, but my biggest hurtle is getting EVERYONE on board, i.e. my wife 
(she has an emotional attachment to everything)
We are getting there tho, baby steps.
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This weekend I will go thru my stuff and make a pile to part ways with. This thread has inspired me to do so, thank you for that! It also reminds me of George Carlin. Funny ‘stuff’!
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Bumping this thread after talking about it!
My big dilemma right now is arts and crafts supplies. It is very hard for me to part with any of it because I “could” use all of it. The last few times I moved houses I did manage to eliminate some things by giving them away. I think I need to take a serious look at what I’m likely to use in the next year and go from there.
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I decided that my home needs to go on a spiritual journey to find itself; and by that, I mean we need to clean, throw away, and reorganize. I’ve always been a clean and orderly person until my life went to shit. Now I’m just dealing with the aftermath of having not been present in my own life.
Last November, I went through all the cupboards in my kitchen, got rid of some dishes, bought some shelves to organize other larger shelves, and bought some things to store stuff on the walls, on the inside of the doors, and on the fridge.
While I was thinking what I wanted to work on next, I realized I didn’t really have a good plan. So after a lot of consideration, I decided that I would begin a house-wide campaign that would start in my master bathroom and move through the whole upstairs, then downstairs.
What I'm currently doing under the arrow because of length--expand to read.
The goal was to deeply clean and organize each room, and all I needed to do was keep up on the rooms I went through while moving on to other ones. When I started on the master bathroom last month, I broke that room down and only did one little part a day. So one day, all I did in there was pull the light bulbs down, clean them, and put them back. It wasn’t much, but it looked really nice.
Right now I’m working on the master closet and I give it about an hour a day. I’ve pulled a bunch of clothes out and they’re hanging in other places around the house, or there are some piles in the master bedroom. It looks like a disaster. 
So far, I’ve bought some fairly cheap suitbags for some items I’m keeping, and then those will go in a large box that I will pack away in the garage. These are homemade items that were made for specific things, and I’m not quite ready to give them up yet. Some things will be donated or thrown away. With half the closet space open now, I rearranged the clothes we’re keeping, and purchased some hangers for suits, belts, ties, scarves, etc. I already had some, but not enough.
I’ve always tried to just work with what I have instead of forking the money out for things that could help me achieve my organizational goals. I know it came from growing up poor, and having to make due with what we had. But when I did the kitchen, I realized spending a little bit of money was worth it as long as I was 100% sure I knew what I wanted and what I’d do with it before buying.
Thus I’ve been doing this with my current closet project. It is a good sized walk in closet, and I’m not really making the most of this space. I’ve since bought some drawers and other items, and it has been extremely helpful in having spots for groups of items.
I’ve also been getting rid of stuff. I have recently been feeling over run by stuff. Part of it, I know, is that I don’t have places for things. During my years of addiction and internal chaos, things came into the house without much consideration, and ended up getting thrown into this closet or that drawer or some random corner or whatever in the name of keeping the place clean.
I find myself wanting to hold on to things that I don’t need or have any real emotional attachment to, so I’m going through the emotional/mental process of asking myself questions and trying to find what psychological fear or hurt is fueling my external desire to keep these things.
So that’s kind of what I’m doing now. At the same time I’ve been working on my part of the office, but I’ll leave that to another post. I’m trying to just focus on the smaller pieces of what I’m doing so I don’t feel overwhelmed by the scale of what needs to be done.
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I try to keep my home clean and delcuttered as much as possible but sometimes it gets cluttered cuz life is busy. I literally still have moving boxes full of stuff from my old place back in winnipeg. I have not even unpacked some thing from 8 years ago. I find I get overwhelmed easily having to try and sort things… figuring out if it is worth keeping. My rule of thumb is that if I haven’t used it 2 years or if I wouldn’t even miss it if it’s gone, I toss it or donate it or sell it. That being said… I do have an issue getting rid of all my old clothes from my skinnier days lol thinking I will end up fitting them one day. But by then… they will probably be out of style haha I tidy up and clean everyday to keep things organized. I have a checklist on my phone of what task i need to do. So cleaning stove one day, cleaning fan blades another day, washing bedding another day etc. But I usually do a really good delcutter of our home like once a month. So like socks that don’t match I will toss them. I’ll go thru mail and papers and stuff and get rid of what I don’t need. I go thru 1 of my many moving boxes and get ridf anything I don’t need anymore like books or whatever else. I’ll usually just give them away to someone else. I like keeping a clean home… it helps me mentally and emotionally. Living In a home that to me is messy and unorganized, causes chaos in my life. Idk what it is about it. And then having things to clean and do each day keeps me busy too. It can certainly be overwhelming. The dollaratore is great for little containers and what not to store stuff in 
and there are always space saving ideas on the internet also that can be cheap to do
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I also get overwhelmed with the sorting. Or maybe more the what to do with it once sorted. I want to avoid waste if I can but then I get so muddled with what should go where.
I’m not so bad with clothes. I buy most of them second hand so I don’t feel overly invested in them. And know that if I do change size my wardrobe will be super cheap to replace! Ha.
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Don’t have a move date yet but expect it will be about a month away.
Made a start in my bedroom this evening. I have done a bit of sorting out over the last couple of months so clothes were done and it wasn’t a massive job.
My plan for now is to separate what is good to be donated and just take the rest to the tip and sort what can be recycled when I am there. I have got much better at not accumulating stuff but I have a bit of a backlog of avoidance to get through!
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I’m doing better at decluttering, but I still have some issues.
One major issue is storage. I’m sitting here, looking at my kitchen counter. I’d share a picture but it’s embarrassing. The last 2 feet of my kitchen counter is piled high with crap.
I’m sitting here thinking, why not put that stuff away in the cabinets below it? But therein lies the problem, the cabinets are full of stuff that used to be on the counter before. It’s a terrible cycle.
I know that there’s nothing in the cabinets that we’ve used in the past several years, I don’t know why I can’t just get rid of it, the S.O. insists she goes through it, but never does. It’s frustrating.
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Hope no one takes offense. I’m all for decluttering. I did just happen to see this thread and this meme at the same time so I thought I would include it. It’s just for smiles
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Yep . Alcohol usually you less effective !
I don’t really count arts and craft supplies as clutter as long as it’s not totally crazy and you’ve got room for it, just organise it and rehome the stuff that you have multiple excess of (say if you’ve got a million buttons, just keep 30 or something).
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That looks like my ever growing “to read” pile
I really need this thread though. I am on Day 7 and have been frantically cleaning, but that hasn’t been enough. I think I need to tackle a room at a time (although not the books yet…)
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Same for me but with music gear. I have things, like the powered speakers, that take up space and are rarely used, but I might need them!! 
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That’s great
I know I have way more than 30 books, but I buy books with purpose. Like, if something horrible happened in the world, if I was unable to use the internet or anything electronic to read, what books would it be important for me to have.
About 85% of my books are non-fiction, 10% are my favorite fictional novels, and the other 5% are graphic novels and doujinshi (mostly in Japanese). My husband also has some books, mostly graphic novels, fantasy fiction, and non-fiction books and textbooks about various programming languages and math. I also have a few dictionaries.
And yeah, sadly, right now, those that are not tucked in a bookshelf are in stacks around the house. 
@Phoebe Thank you. 
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There’s a website called Flylady that helps work decluttering, etc. She’s gotten a little too Christian lately, but if you ignore that, you’ll find some great tips.
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