Best way to quickly declutter and organize the house

[NotWhoYouThink]

Kondo's methods only work if all the owners of the clutter want to eliminate the clutter. If you have one household member who could de-clutter with or without Kondo, and one who enjoys being surrounded by stuff, Kondo is of no help.

[auntie]

Thank you all for this thread. After reading it through I got up and grabbed a large trash bag and filled it with clothes I have been keeping for years that I might wear some day, and some things cluttering the bathroom that I know I will never need. I've tied the bag and put it out on the porch. I promise to toss it and not retrieve anything from it.

[stoptothink]

No quick or easy answers, but I find that a certain amount of things that I save are related to "identity" and "memory." For example, certain textbooks and reference books that I haven't used in year but keep because I think of them as part of my (former) "identity." Or equipment for things that we no longer do, or planned to do but no longer did.

When I decluttered prior to moving last year, I discarded almost all evidence of my two college degrees, except the diplomas themselves. I recycled all the course notes, term papers, computer printouts, many textbooks, and more. It took a bit of time to go through it all, and I struggled to avoid reminiscing about every single course I took, and every professor or classmate's name that appeared in my notes. I laughed at much of the now-obsolete stuff I was taught 40+ years ago.

Moving is not a perfect solution! We have just moved, and I must tell you that we moved a lot of stuff because it would have taken several hours to sort through some chunk of stuff and it was faster to let the movers pack and move it than to make the necessary decisions.

Yep, I still ended up moving a bunch of obsolete textbooks that I didn't have time to properly recycle and didn't want to just toss into the trash. They're still in the moving boxes, waiting for the day I finally have the time to recycle them.

Interesting what people will hold onto; the only thing I have from 11yrs of higher ed are the three diplomas (and it has crossed my mind to toss those). I'm not sentimental, at all. We helped my wife's grandparents declutter to move into a smaller home last year and my wife's grandmother had an entire storage unit full of old handwritten letters, wedding announcements (for people she didn't even remember), church flyers, etc. Several hundred pounds of paper. They were paying $150/month to store this stuff and she was wrecked watching us toss it.

[GreatLaker]

An acquaintance has a uniquely creative way of dealing with the eventual need to disposition all the stuff. Two story house, basement and garage, all packed. Does not want to deal with it. The house and contents are bequeathed in the will to a needy cause. Someone else will have to deal with it.

Probably not what OP wants, but thought I would toss it out there if only for the entertainment value.

[alinna]

If you’re on Facebook, find and join your local Buy Nothing group. I have gotten rid of so much that otherwise would have gone in the landfill. It’s a truly great thing

https://buynothingproject.org/
Drill down and find your community. It’s hyper local, meaning your smallish town may still have several groups.

Agreed - I've gotten rid of so many things through Buy Nothing. Best of all is that people come to pick it up!

It's also a great way to get items for children, especially items that are only used for a little while. As a bonus, I find it much easier to get rid of things that I didn't buy in the first place, so once my child outgrows something, it goes right back to the group and doesn't become clutter.

[quantAndHold]

An acquaintance has a uniquely creative way of dealing with the eventual need to disposition all the stuff. Two story house, basement and garage, all packed. Does not want to deal with it. The house and contents are bequeathed in the will to a needy cause. Someone else will have to deal with it.

Probably not what OP wants, but thought I would toss it out there if only for the entertainment value.

Also not what the needy cause wants to deal with. Presumably they will disclaim it, and the family will be stuck cleaning it out.

[quantAndHold]

I am in the slow process of doing this now. Last year I had a bad health scare. My adult daughter knows that she is my executor when I die, and she also knows that the burden of sorting through all my possessions - which could possibly be viewed as clutter by some people - will fall on her. She told me that if I die without getting rid of my stuff, that she will simply burn down my house, so I need to get rid of things now. The result is that now each week I try to take at least one box of treasures to Goodwill or another charity. I ask myself 'Do I really want my daughter to have to deal with this?' and that serves as a big motivator. So far I have emptied out the attic and one closet and gotten rid of some nice furniture that nobody in the family wanted/needed.

Good luck!

Sleepwell

I had the health scare and started doing this last fall so that my wife wouldn’t be stuck dealing with all of it. And quickly realized that the clutter is all of her things, not mine. I’m not sure what to do with that bit of knowledge. Probably just burn the house down if she passes first.

[GreatLaker]

An acquaintance has a uniquely creative way of dealing with the eventual need to disposition all the stuff. Two story house, basement and garage, all packed. Does not want to deal with it. The house and contents are bequeathed in the will to a needy cause. Someone else will have to deal with it.

Probably not what OP wants, but thought I would toss it out there if only for the entertainment value.

Also not what the needy cause wants to deal with. Presumably they will disclaim it, and the family will be stuck cleaning it out.

Yeah, it does not seem well thought out to me. The person does not appear to recognize it as clutter. I've learned to not say much in this type of situation. Glad it's not a bequest to me.

[uaeebs86]

The best way for us to declutter was to move three times in the last 4 years (long story), and into significantly smaller homes.

Looking back I think this is the only way I could get my wife to declutter. She has some health issues and could not possibly have kept up with our possessions and a big house over the long haul. I am happy the heavy lifting (pun intended) is over and our 2 kids won't have a massive problem upon our passing. Now if I could just get the last bunch of stuff from my daughter's out... (she and SIL are finally getting a house this summer).

[ColoradoRick]

I am in the slow process of doing this now. Last year I had a bad health scare. My adult daughter knows that she is my executor when I die, and she also knows that the burden of sorting through all my possessions - which could possibly be viewed as clutter by some people - will fall on her. She told me that if I die without getting rid of my stuff, that she will simply burn down my house, so I need to get rid of things now. The result is that now each week I try to take at least one box of treasures to Goodwill or another charity. I ask myself 'Do I really want my daughter to have to deal with this?' and that serves as a big motivator. So far I have emptied out the attic and one closet and gotten rid of some nice furniture that nobody in the family wanted/needed.

Good luck!

Sleepwell

+1! After being the "de facto" appointee of going thru multiple parents' (wife & I) possessions we learned the hard work going through others' possessions is. When we downsized from 4600 ft home to 2100 ft home (very liberating) we put everything in the family room, and actually "merchandized" it.

You will be AMAZED at how little your adult children will actually want of your stuff. I also remember my dad offering me his car (8 mpg) and suits (smoke smell) and his being shocked that I didn't want his "good"

stuff. Because of that I was not shocked by my childrens' reaction. Donate/recycle/pitch it. As some blogger said, the bad act isn't NOT recycling, the bad act is BUYING THE THING IN THE FIRST PLACE. Become a minimalist. You need very little "stuff" to navigate life. You don't own your stuff, YOUR STUFF OWNS YOU.

[RudyS]

My experience, posted in a previous thread. The estate sale route works well. We moved from a 2 story house + basement to a 2 BR Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) 3 years ago.

viewtopic.php?p=6519773#p6519773

[tunafish]

^^^

Target a place to attack daily. Plan to clean out something small like a drawer on busy days, & something large like a closet on days when you have lots of time.

Don’t spend a lot of effort trying to get paid for your stuff(junk). Donate, donate, donate.
Keep the stuff to donate in your trunk or bags in your backseat. Drop it off at your donation spot as soon as your car is full.

A lot of places really don’t want your old junk. I try to recycle as much as possible rather than send stuff to the landfill. I’m struggling with what to do with hundreds of vinyl records — could be over 1,000. Hate to put that much plastic in the landfill and no place I know recycles PVC.

There are stores that buy some vinyl records.

[hvaclorax]

Flamethrower. And good insurance, just in case.

+1. I was going to say the same. Stolen thunder.

[Fallible]

The xkcd cartoon below is offered in jest, of course, but when I saw it some time ago during my own home de-cluttering (never found a way to quickly de-clutter, but never gave up till it was done), it made me laugh and relieved some of the pressure.

https://xkcd.com/1077/

[SunRainSnow]

Agree with previous posters that moving and downsizing is a great way to get rid of a lot of stuff. We'd initially planned to move and downsize soon after we retired and worked towards that. We got rid of a lot of stuff in a very short space of time. We sell what we could, donate to various charities depending on the items, take it to the curb for free pickup and lastly recycle/trash.

We're now taking our time about moving so can do a second sweep of what's left to see if we can reduce our possessions further. The house is really tidy and it is very liberating. We've learnt a lot about what brings value to us and what doesn't.

Moving on your own dime (as opposed to corporate relocation) is expensive so it really forced us to think hard about keeping things.

I'd not say we were minimalists now but we've got a lot less stuff now and plan to keep it that way.

[pizzy]

Many posts here are focusing only on how to get rid of stuff. Good suggestions but equally important is to stem the inward flow.

If you find water in your basement, before installing a sump pump you need to understand where it is coming from. Often simply stopping or diverting the flow solves the problem in the long run and a sump pump may not solve the problem if the source of the water doesn't get addressed.

I agree. Get the dopamine hit through an activity that isn't shopping.

I actually hate shopping.

Did you throw away all the clutter yet?

Plan to start going through this weekend. Will set up the give-away, trash/recycle, and keep bags. Will be a team effort and I'm sure we'll have other things we'd rather do.

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!

[Dregob]

^^^

Target a place to attack daily. Plan to clean out something small like a drawer on busy days, & something large like a closet on days when you have lots of time.

Don’t spend a lot of effort trying to get paid for your stuff(junk). Donate, donate, donate.
Keep the stuff to donate in your trunk or bags in your backseat. Drop it off at your donation spot as soon as your car is full.

A lot of places really don’t want your old junk. I try to recycle as much as possible rather than send stuff to the landfill. I’m struggling with what to do with hundreds of vinyl records — could be over 1,000. Hate to put that much plastic in the landfill and no place I know recycles PVC.

Take the vinyl to a record store. They might give you a very small amount of cash but at least they aren't in the landfill.

[zlandar]

If you have not used something for a year throw it out.

I made my wife through away a ton of useless crap. No regrets.

[ProsperGoalzz]

I am slowly decluttering by area. One day a drawer, another a closet. Time permitting. If I don't use it anymore, it drags down my energy just looking at it. Instead, I free it up for someone else to enjoy.

I really hate putting things in landfill, plus my frugal nature hates throwing away useful things. I am a member of a wonderful buy nothing group in my area. I love that my trash is another's treasure. I can almost always get rid of stuff there. Clothing gets donated to goodwill. There is a little outdoor toy area in my neighborhood where I can put things kids may find fun.

Admittedly, my approach takes more time than putting things in the garbage. But, I am who I am.

After I'm done, wow. Looks and feels great!

[uaeebs86]

Moving on your own dime (as opposed to corporate relocation) is expensive so it really forced us to think hard about keeping things.

Agreed. One of the big contributors to our clutter was we had a move that was full service, fully paid for by my company, and I was out of town at the time. So every single thing got wrapped and thrown in a box. No decluttering whatsoever.

[NotWhoYouThink]

Most of your donations and half-price book store "sales" and record store "sales" go to the landfill anyway. Someone filters them first for anything that might bring in money, but tosses most of it. Some of the books first go to the local library before being tossed.

I've convinced myself for the most part that the savings in fuel of not having my trash go through multiple hands on the way to the landfill is worth sending a few books and records there that might have been purchased.

I have had no luck convincing my spouse of any such thing, so off to Goodwill and the half-priced book store I go.

[ThankYouJack]

I agree. Get the dopamine hit through an activity that isn't shopping.

I actually hate shopping.

Did you throw away all the clutter yet?

Plan to start going through this weekend. Will set up the give-away, trash/recycle, and keep bags. Will be a team effort and I'm sure we'll have other things we'd rather do.

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!

Yep, one room (and a lot of trash bags) down! Plan to tackle another kids bedroom tomorrow. Bird by bird.

[pizzy]

I actually hate shopping.

Did you throw away all the clutter yet?

Plan to start going through this weekend. Will set up the give-away, trash/recycle, and keep bags. Will be a team effort and I'm sure we'll have other things we'd rather do.

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!

Yep, one room (and a lot of trash bags) down! Plan to tackle another kids bedroom tomorrow. Bird by bird.

Nice!!! Happy to hear.

[tunafish]

Here's another vote for the local facebook buy nothing group. With my local one people post photos of individual items, but you might declare a day free stuff and at the end of the day have a trash hauler remove what's left. Pick a day with a good weather forecast.

[punkinhead]

About 10 years ago my wife started bugging me to add a closet and some additional cabinets. So every morning as I left for work I'd take one item to the outside trashcan. Miraculously after a few weeks we had plenty of closet space. My wife is on a 2 week visit to her mother's so I've been doing some drywall repair and painting in our laundry room. Last night I filled up our 95 gallon trash can for the 3rd time since she left. There were jugs of cleaning products that had dust on them that has to be 15 years old.

[Elsebet]

My method is:

1. First step is prevention - don't buy things you don't need.
2. Declutter regularly - I take a bag/box to the thrift store at least once a quarter
3. If it's bad, take everything out of one room, clean the floors/walls, then sort and rigorously evaluate whether you need each item before you put it back in the room
4. Live the motto "A place for everything and everything in its place"
5. Learn to love Craigslist and/or Facebook Marketplace for giving away or selling unwanted items
6. Keep boxes in the garage for recycling/spring cleaning events - for example we have an electronics junk box we fill all year and then take it to the annual electronics recycling event in our area.

[truenorth418]

Get a packet of sticky notes. Walk around your home and place a sticky note on every item - furniture, small appliances, clothes, shoes, etc - for every item that you have not used for the past year.

Then call Goodwill Industries or the Salvation Army and have them come and take every one of those items you haven’t used. Don’t make any exceptions.

In other words, if you haven’t used an item for a year, donate it so that other less privileged people can use it.

[jackholloway]

No quick or easy answers, but I find that a certain amount of things that I save are related to "identity" and "memory." For example, certain textbooks and reference books that I haven't used in year but keep because I think of them as part of my (former) "identity." Or equipment for things that we no longer do, or planned to do but no longer did.

When I decluttered prior to moving last year, I discarded almost all evidence of my two college degrees, except the diplomas themselves. I recycled all the course notes, term papers, computer printouts, many textbooks, and more. It took a bit of time to go through it all, and I struggled to avoid reminiscing about every single course I took, and every professor or classmate's name that appeared in my notes. I laughed at much of the now-obsolete stuff I was taught 40+ years ago.

Moving is not a perfect solution! We have just moved, and I must tell you that we moved a lot of stuff because it would have taken several hours to sort through some chunk of stuff and it was faster to let the movers pack and move it than to make the necessary decisions.

Yep, I still ended up moving a bunch of obsolete textbooks that I didn't have time to properly recycle and didn't want to just toss into the trash. They're still in the moving boxes, waiting for the day I finally have the time to recycle them.

Interesting what people will hold onto; the only thing I have from 11yrs of higher ed are the three diplomas (and it has crossed my mind to toss those). I'm not sentimental, at all. We helped my wife's grandparents declutter to move into a smaller home last year and my wife's grandmother had an entire storage unit full of old handwritten letters, wedding announcements (for people she didn't even remember), church flyers, etc. Several hundred pounds of paper. They were paying $150/month to store this stuff and she was wrecked watching us toss it.

Funny story from a family member: they carefully saved all their college notes, textbooks, and homework in file boxes. The parents agreed to keep them in their basement until the family member had their own basement to fill with old junk. Then, the parents had a sewage backup. The parents even offered to send any sewage-covered books to the family member in a plastic bag.