I would love to declare a war on paper! That may sound exaggerated but I truly believe we are being inundated with paper, and although we do not need to hold onto the majority of it, most of the time we seem to do just that. I think that’s partly a factor of not taking the time to decide in the moment whether a piece of paper is really necessary or not. And partly the fact that paper acts as a magnet, if you already have a pile or two of paper clutter then it just becomes easy to add to it.

Stacks and stacks of paper around the house do become overwhelming though, and will make any area of your home look and feel cluttered. Here’s a fairly simple plan for cutting through the worst of it: [Read more…]

Before I begin any decluttering project, whether it be a home office, kitchen or bedroom, I first stand back and assess the room. Let’s say you want to start with your bedroom, here are my suggestions on how to put together your plan to achieve your vision of how you want the room to look and function.

Stand back in the doorway of the room and get a good overall picture of it. Notice if there is clutter over every surface and the floor, or do you just have a few little problem areas. Here’s what to make a note of:

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You may be thinking, as I often do, ‘Yikes I have no space in my laundry for anything except the washing machine’. Or you may be one of those very fortunate people who have a lovely spacious laundry room complete with shelves, cupboards and a folding table. I don’t know anybody that lucky, but I’m sure they’re out there.

The main thing in a laundry is to have adequate shelving and storage. If your laundry room doesn’t have any built in cupboards, then shelves or a free-standing metal shelving rack will work equally as well and will store a variety of items: [Read more…]

This is a tough one for most of us. I’ve spoken to many people in the close to 7 years since I began my decluttering business who have stacks of sealed boxes of their parents’ belongings; they struggle with storage in their home, and often with being able to let go of Mum and Dad’s things.

Let me tell you how it was for me and my family when we had to make these difficult decisions. Perhaps it was a little easier for us because when it came time to pack up their house our Mum had already been in care for over two years with advanced Alzheimer’s. When the time came that Dad also needed full time care and had to move out of their home it was crunch time. We had to clear out a house that our parents had lived in for over 35 years. In the end we kept very little, it boiled down to just keeping what was precious to us. Everything else we gave away to charity. [Read more…]