The Cosy Home guide to decluttering

2. Don’t stop

Once you’ve started the good work, keep going! Even if you only spend an hour a week, you’ll get it done in the end.

Set yourself goals for motivation, such as ‘This weekend, I’ll clean out the garage before I go out for dinner/go for a walk/go to the cinema.’

3.  Enlist some help

Rope in the rest of the family as well and make it into a game, competing to see who can fill the most boxes to donate to charity.

Engage children’s interest by asking them to choose which charity will receive the donation.

4. Be tough

Many of us have drawer and corners stuffed with items that we feel emotionally attached to but will never use or even look at again.Good examples here are gifts or legacies from relatives, clothes and shoes with special memories or childhood paraphernalia.

No-one would suggest not hanging onto things with a genuine emotional attachment such as baby shoes or wedding dresses, but often we keep things such as gifts because we don’t feel quite right about getting rid of them.

Hiding something you’re not that keen on in a drawer is a waste, both of your space and the object itself. Put aside a pile to sell online, and use the money to buy yourself something you do love – you’ll think of the giver every time you use it.

If you have photographs of you wearing your special clothes, you don’t really need to keep the clothes themselves, especially if they no longer fit you – selling them online or giving them to charity will mean they have a second lease of life, and someone else will have a chance to love them.

The mantra here is ‘you don’t need the objects themselves if you’ve got the memories’.

5. Keep it clean!

Once your home is a haven of tidiness, try not to let the clutter creep back in.

Things like opened post can quickly spread over hall tables and kitchen counters until you’re back where you started, so buy an in-tray, find a home for it and put post that’s waiting for attention straight into that. Keeping flat surfaces clear goes a long way to creating a feeling of space.

6. Dress down

Wardrobes tend to be a clutter blackspot. Empty everything out and lay it all on the bed while you give the wardrobe a good vacuum and wipe out.

Then, take each item of clothing in turn and ask yourself the following questions. Does it still fit? Is it still wearable (i.e. in fashion)? Have you worn it in the last year? Put any garments that don’t get a resounding ‘yes’ to one side.

If you haven’t worn them recently, why not – do they need cleaning or repairing, or have you just gone off them? Make a pile of anything that needs a little TLC (i.e. buttons to be replaced, dry cleaning needed), and bundle everything else up for the charity shop or for selling.

Do the same with shoes, and be honest – how many pairs of black court shoes do you really need? Most of us tend to wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time, so do some serious sorting.

By Sara Walker