Everyone that knows me understands that I’m a “Do as I say rather than do as I do” type of person. The other day I woke up and wondered if I should change.

I’ve been helping people declutter before they move house for years, and although I’m not moving, I thought it was time to declutter my own house.

Before you start to declutter:

The best advice I can give anyone is not to declutter on your own. Get a friend or a professional in to help. It’s more fun, it keeps you focussed, keeps the momentum going, and less exhausting (there’s also someone else to help bag up clothes for the charity shop or to hang or to fold). So, I invited one of my Homemover colleagues round to keep me on track.

When decluttering a whole house, it needs to be split up into bitesize bits. I like starting with clothes.

Give yourself time to think about it. Try to go through your cupboard in your head and picture what your less cluttered cupboard is going to look like. For me, I wanted to be able to open it and only see things that I actually might want to wear rather than a whole of load of things that made me feel guilty about not wanting to. If that meant only a few things survived then so be it.

Where to start

I suggest starting with your tops. Get them all out, and put them in a big pile on your bed/floor.