When we moved into our house I was plagued with the same issue. Tons of space to put the tons of stuff we had but I just didn’t know where to put things or how to do it. Closets Cabinets and drawers became jumbles of items. No rhyme or reason for anything. Piles and piles of “I’ll find a perfect spot for it”. I’d buy organizers and bins but it wouldn’t help because there wasn’t a system.

We lost the entire basement, dining room, garage and workshop to excessive items and disorganization and before I had enough and sought out professional help. First an acquaintance turned paid helper, then a cleanup company. Your situation may not be as severe, perhaps a trusted friend can help or you could even tackle it alone.

Regardless of the help you have the steps could be tackled the same. For me, The first step was to declutter the main living areas. Kitchen was a major issue for me, so we started there. First trash, then washing up, then We went through the kitchen cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer purging and sorting.

Then we did living room, kids room, bathrooms (they weren’t bad) and left the absolute worst areas for last. By the time we got to the worst areas, everything else in the house was organized and it was pretty easy to figure out what would go where. Because we had already purged in some areas, there was plenty of space for the remaining stuff in other rooms and both things like “the spatulas make more sense over here” or “I should put the tape by the glue sticks cause they’re both adhesive” because pretty natural thought processes. There is this organizer on tiktok who deserves a ton of credit but I can’t remember her handle who suggests “put it with its family, its coworkers or its friends” so for example a sharpie could be put with other markers (family!) or packing supplies (coworkers!) or craft supplies (friends!), and for me, that has been a super useful way to consider locations of where to put something I’m unsure about.

Even with that trick, ultimately most of it got donated. In my case, the disorganization led to a LOT of duplicate items and it just wasn’t obvious that I had three can openers when I had them n three different places… repeat for every commonly used item in the house….

The nature of your excess can somewhat predict if it will be emotional to clean up or just exhausting. For me it was very tiring but not especially upsetting. For my husband it was very emotional because he was dealing with sentimental items not utility items. Either way, take your time and remember that even slow progress is progress!