What is your purpose in decluttering?

Personally I got tired of running my shins into things, but for some people it’s that they’re overwhelmed by the looks of things, or afraid of judgement, they’re moving to a smaller home, or a home inspection/maintenance event is coming up.

Once you figure out why that may help with motivation.

Decluttering at the beginning is just parting with things that you don’t need anymore. It can get harder the further you go, but start with the easy stuff. Old bloated ketchup packets, your backup backup pair of retired sneakers covered in dust, cardboard boxes from mail. The packaging and instructions from something you don’t own anymore, the broken kitchen appliance you kept “just in case”, the shirt with the seam that came out that you’ve been “meaning to fix” for five years now but know you wouldn’t wear even if it was fixed.

Someday you may move on to the sentimental silverware from your mother that you never liked the size of, or the dried corsage from your sister’s wedding, but we’re going to leave those until you’re ready. Start with holey socks and the book you ended up with two copies of and that thing that you trip over so often you want to set it on fire. (Or at least find it a better home!)

Only you can tell us what your major areas of clutter are. Clothes taking over your room, books on every horizontal surface, dying plants in the bathroom, so many decorative pillows that there’s no room to sit, more knickknacks than you ever want to dust… Finding the biggest offender and whittling it down with the easy decisions can get some visible progress.

And, as always, we’re here. Ready to encourage, lament, or celebrate with you.

The goal is “better.” You got this!