De-cluttering!

I've often written about how I'm sorting out and de-cluttering our house, but it never seems to last very long and within a short time is back to being cluttered up and driving me insane!! So I decided to hire a de-cluttering service to help me out! Today was our first day of working together. The first part was a consultation meeting where the De-clutterer asked questions about who lives here, what our average daily routine is like and what I would like to achieve with her help. I had to give her a tour of the house, which I was dreading as the clutter seems to be breeding and overtaking the place!! She was very non-judgmental and didn't make me feel any worse than I was already feeling about admitting how badly everything has got.

Once the consultation was complete and she had more of an idea of what she was up against, we started tackling the clutter! I decided to start with the lounge, as its where we all spend most of our time and getting that looking better would be a huge boost, and hopefully an incentive to me (and the rest of the family) to keep going and tackle the rest of the place. We started in one corner of the room and dragged everything out and questioned each item before it was either put back, thrown out, put in a bag for the charity shop or moved to another room. It was both exhilaration and extremely tiring to have to constantly make decisions about everything, but it has really made a difference. We didn't manage to finish the whole room, but the parts we did finish look and feel totally different and so do I :-) Knowing that I now have someone independent who will push me to get things sorted out and not let me say "I'll do that bit later" or give up half way through is a huge help :-)

I've even been left with homework!! And had to agree deadlines to finish the jobs I've been given!! The De-clutterer is going to get in touch to check that I'm sticking to the deadlines and not sliding back too. Its a fairly expensive way to tidy up, but I'm so fed up with trying and failing to get things straight, that its worth it!! And despite the fact that I'd tidied up and cleared out the lounge not so long ago, I still managed to fill a bag for the charity shop, throw out loads of rubbish and move lots of things to different rooms! The De-clutterer is encouraging me to be much more ruthless than I usually am, although her philosophy is that she advises and I make all the decisions, I'm finding it useful having someone there asking me if I really need something, if that is the best place to keep it etc. and quite a lot of the stuff that I got rid of today is stuff that has been hanging around cluttering up drawers and cupboards, that we don't use and never will use, but for some reason have hung onto!! The cupboards and drawers are more organised and it will be so much easier to find things, and the sorted part of the room feels so much nicer now :-) Hopefully that will keep me going to tackle the rest of the room on my own, which is a daunting prospect!! Wish me luck :-)