Here are a few tips to overcome the obstacles you face when you want to declutter and reclaim your home.

A short introduction… but I want to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible.

GETTING STARTED
Be positive: have a positive, realistic and achievable goal. The mess didn’t happen overnight and won’t go away overnight.
So don’t try to declutter your home in a weekend. Set yourself deadlines, appointments with yourself, write them down in your diary, just like those you make with your hairdresser.

Declutter for yourself: your objective should not be “I want my house to look like Mother-in-Law’s, and also like…” but “I want to declutter because I need to simplify my daily life” or “I want to save money…”.

Try to embellish your home with objects that are beautiful (beautiful for you, not in the sense of decorating magazines) and useful, and give yourself permission to part with others.

Ask yourself “Does this object make me feel good, is it useful, or on the contrary, does it remind me of a bad memory or is it a useless gadget?”. This will help you separate yourself from your objects.

Reward yourself regularly, by deciding in advance what you’re going to treat yourself to. This can be as simple as a walk in the woods or a sunbath. On the other hand, don’t go shopping just to fill up your cupboards again!

Don’t say “I’m throwing this away”, because we only throw away what’s unusable (broken, stained…), say “I’m giving it away”. It’s much more rewarding and guilt-free.

Set a limit to the memories you want to keep: it’s normal to keep certain memories, but only the positive ones (the doll I used to play with all the time, but not the vase your ex-mother-in-law gave you) and no more than the drawer of that beautiful chest of drawers can hold, for example.

WHEN YOU GO INTO JUNK-BLASTING MODE
Set a time limit for your decluttering sessions. A 15-minute session a day is a good average. You wouldn’t believe what can be done in 15 minutes. For example: your hallway junk drawer or your drawer of old underwear. At the end of the week, you’ll have spent 1h45 decluttering when you’d never have programmed 2 hours in a row on your diary… and you’ll no longer be saying “I don’t have time to declutter”.
Set a timer and concentrate on your task, no more phone calls, e-mails… during this time. Multitasking is a major obstacle to taking action.

Start de-cluttering with items that seem trivial but that clutter you up (like the ones on this list I’ve concocted… You know, the samples, the old advertising T-shirts…) before moving on to sentimental items, and those for which I can see you screaming “Help… not that vase Aunt Mary gave you in 1980, even though it’s really ugly”. You’ll begin to appreciate the benefits of decluttering before you get down to business!

TO FINISH WITH PEACE OF MIND
Make up your mind quickly to get those boxes of excess stuff out of your home. Make an appointment with a charity to get rid of the clutter. Or go to a recycling center or association to keep the junk out of the living room and into the garage, attic or cellar.
Remember, you’re decluttering to simplify your life, so give up the idea of having a garage sale or putting things up for sale online. Save time and energy by donating to an association.
Ready to declutter now that you know all my tips?

Don’t forget: reward yourself and declutter for yourself. The rest of the household will follow suit when they see the time-saving, money-saving and peace-of-mind benefits.