While you may think that there’s no need for a guide to decluttering, why don’t you go and tell that to the boxes in the spare room that you still haven’t unpacked or the couple of drawers in the kitchen that have nothing but string, drawing pins, old batteries and a leaky ballpoint pen in. Decluttering really is an art form in itself. We like to think of ourselves as organised life forms with the ability to throw junk away and keep our homes streamlined and efficient, but the reality can be very different. For numerous reasons, we can find it difficult to cut the ties with old items, even though we may have zero need for them anymore. Take a look at this essential guide for decluttering and see if you can implement any of the following steps.

Decluttering cannot happen overnight or even over the course of a weekend. Committing yourself to declutter is like taking on a whole new lifestyle. Firstly, you need to assess each room and make a list of those spaces that are the most cluttered. Don’t use a scattergun approach and instead tackle your home room by room. Work methodically through the items in each room and stick to two simple rules: if you haven’t used it or looked at it in twelve months, it can go and if you are keeping it, find a place for it to be out of sight. One of the major pitfalls of having lots of stuff is knowing where to put it all. Storage solutions like the bookcases available at Old Charm Furniture can add a touch of organisation to your menagerie of ‘stuff.’ Use the shelves for books, DVDs, ornaments and any collections you might have. Just because you are keeping something, doesn’t and shouldn’t mean it has to be on show all the time. There is a myth that decluttering means living frugally with minimal things around you. This is not true. Decluttering is merely the organisation of the things that are essential to maintaining your quality of life. Furniture can help you with that organisation.

You may be more motivated to declutter your interior as you begin to find pieces that you no longer wish to keep but that you might be able to sell. What is one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. List your unwanted stuff on eBay and watch the pennies roll in. Anything that you deem as unsellable can hot foot it to the charity shop allowing you to bask in the warm glow of doing something good for the world.