Francis Bacon's Studio
*Inspiration.
Watch shows like 'Gok's Fashion Fix' and 'How Clean Is Your House' while your sorting your stuff. Really! They will honestly make you feel so productive for taking charge and sorting through your junk.
Gok takes people who have overstuffed wardrobes and helps them throw away all their useless, unnecessary clothes, while Kim and Aggie try to straighten out people who are literally sleeping on piles of clutter in their bedrooms. Excellent to give you incentive to de-clutter!
Kim and Aggie from 'How Clean Is Your House?'
*Be hard on yourself.
You need to be. It's tough getting rid of things you've held on to ... you've held on to them for a reason and that reason comes flooding back when you say "Aw, I remember this".
My sister says "if you haven't missed it or used it in 6 months then you don't need it" ... she's right. If you've forgotten about it once, then you'll forget about it again when it's sold or thrown out. YOU DON'T NEED IT!
*Make a point to use/wear the items.
Remember there's also a reason you put it away and don't use it aswell as a reason for it to stay. In the case of clothes, make a 'maybe' pile and commit yourself everyday to wearing/using something from that pile. You might find that a zip or tag digs into you the wrong way, the straps hurt, you don't feel comfortable in that length of skirt, the material itches, you just can't make that outfit work on you, you have nothing else to wear with it, you've gained/lost weight and it doesn't fit right anymore. Little things that you forget.
"Hmm, this dress is very pretty, but I never wear it. I don't know if I should sell it? Ok, wait, 10 minutes of that zip cutting the skin under my arm has made my decision!" .. you'd be surprised how much that happens with the clothes you think you're going to keep, so test them out. "Yes, this is a very expensive brand of lipstick, I should hold on to it. Oh wait, I remember that colour is horrible on me! Out it goes."
*Still not sure if you should get rid of something?
When I'm not sure what needs to go I put it in a box under my bed for a week or so and kind of 'pretend' I've sold it. If I've forgotten about it or haven't missed it by the time I go back to the box, it can go.
From here
*Less means MORE.
A very positive side effect about de-cluttering ... amazingly, I found it increases my outfits. Yes, really. I had alot of clothes I adore buried under clothes I only kind of liked. Now that the fat has been trimmed from my wardrobe I'm left with the style I want without any other useless, so-so clothes as distractions. All the clothes hanging in my closet only take up a third of the rail if I push them all together. But I've never had so many outfits work so well together, they were all hidden! (this is also pretty much Gok's mantra in his show 'buy less, wear more')
*Make yourself deal with items.
We all have items we never use, but keep anyway. Books are the worst for this. Don't get me wrong, I love reading, but I honestly forget a book is there if I don't use it and it eventually becomes clutter. I made a point to put the books I never use somewhere in my way. I put them on the floor between my bed and bedroom door so I'd have to step over them everyday. This either made me use the books, or get rid of them. Win, win either way.
From here
*Take things out of their hiding places.
Most of our clutter is there because we can't see it and have forgotten about it. Go through your drawers and shelves one by one. You'd be surprised how much useless clutter is tucked away and how mentally refreshing it is to know that your drawers and presses have alot less junk in them.
*What to sell on ebay and what to throw away?
If a top has a hole in it, but it's a good label, list it on ebay anyway .. you'd be surprised what will still sell, but be honest and mention the hole in the description and show a close up picture of the fault.
If there are too many defects to describe (hole, rip, thread missing, discolouration or stain) and you find yourself going 'urgh' at the thought of describing all those faults then don't bother, off to the charity bin it goes! As long as it's still wearable, just not sellable.
Selling on ebay is great! So far selling my useless clutter on My Ebay has paid for my flights to Vancouver and visa programme fee. Yes, that's a lot of money for stuff I would have just thrown away!
From here
*Use the Free Listing Weekends on ebay.
Obviously, good clothes/shoes with big labels will sell very well on ebay. Save the big ones for the free weekends. Ebay charges a fee to list if you start the auction over 1.49 euro (other countries vary) but the free weekends mean you can insert your item at any price for free!
Set it at a good price, if your happy to get 5 euro for the dress start the auction at 5, if it goes any higher that's great, but if not atleast you're happy with your 5 euro. Don't get greedy or it mightn't sell. Remember, if you're selling 80 things and they all sell for 1 euro, that's 80 euro for stuff you don't want anymore! If half that sells for 5, 10, even 15 euro ..well, you get my point.
Obviously, good clothes/shoes with big labels will sell very well on ebay. Save the big ones for the free weekends. Ebay charges a fee to list if you start the auction over 1.49 euro (other countries vary) but the free weekends mean you can insert your item at any price for free!
Set it at a good price, if your happy to get 5 euro for the dress start the auction at 5, if it goes any higher that's great, but if not atleast you're happy with your 5 euro. Don't get greedy or it mightn't sell. Remember, if you're selling 80 things and they all sell for 1 euro, that's 80 euro for stuff you don't want anymore! If half that sells for 5, 10, even 15 euro ..well, you get my point.
List the items you don't mind selling for 1.49 any old time. Remember, there might only be one person interested, so that could mean only one bid. Save your good labels for when you can list them with a fair price for free.
*Car boot sales...
...are also a great way of getting some cash for your clutter (though I wouldn't recommend trying to sell your genuine labels, as people are only there to spend a few euro on things) . Selling at car boot sales has paid for alot of my Canada stuff too, including my first weeks hostel stay.
Plain t-shirts and sweat-pants will sell great at car boot sales, but not so great on ebay. Remember, the person also has to pay for the postage & packaging, why would they spend an extra 3 euro for postage on a plain, worn t-shirt? Books, dvds, games, cds, so-so jewelery, plain clothes, figurines & very tacky shoes will go down really well.
I needed to get rid of them in bulk so I offered everything for 1 euro each or 10 items for 5 euro at my stall and I made a fortune! People were handing me 5 euro notes every few minutes and taking away giant clumps of my clutter aswell. Other weeks when I didn't need to get rid of so much stuff I sold everything for about 3 euro which resulted in not making as much and coming home with alot of my clutter still in the car.
Sarah from The Licentiate and Lorna from Lola Dee selling at a carboot sale in Cork
(Hope ye don't mind, I lost all my photos of Dawn and myself)
(Hope ye don't mind, I lost all my photos of Dawn and myself)
So, that's all the tips I can think of right now. If you have any questions feel free to ask! Or if you have other tips you found useful that would be great too. Hope this has been helpful? I will never, ever, EVER let myself accumulate this much clutter ever again :p
Aoife x
P.S. PurlsofColour tweeted this to me: "@KimDot_Handmade Loved your article on decluttering. A move is a great incentive to declutter -I keep pretending I move to sort out my mess!" ... What a great tip! Thank you.
Also, my friend Mia left this comment on my personal facebook page: "Your de-cluttering blog/posts have made me kick my own arse (was kinda awkward, lucky I flexible ;-)) So I am now in the middle of selling off all my stuff too - moved 3 times last year, too much stuff, I love it all so much, but I feeling flooded under it all.. so I would like to say Thank You Aoife.. for showing me the light (under all the stuff) ;-) x"
Mia sold her stuff on facebook to her friends. She put up an album of photographs with the price of the item and the first person to comment on the photo bought the item.
Selling on facebook! How clever!
Big huge thank you to all the responses from this post. I've received a number of e-mails, messages, tweets, even phone calls from people who have proudly told me how much they've de-cluttered because of my tips. So proud of all of you! And thanks for taking an interest. Feels great, doesn't it? :)
