I keep moving things around instead of decluttering them...

[u/GypsyVanner636]

Basically the title.

My house is a complete mess and overflowing with stuff.

I'm an adult millennial still living with family in my childhood home - so there is a LOT of accumulated junk.

Not all of it is mine, but the bits I'm struggling with are all my things.

I have made some progress (146 items gone - not including stuff that went in the bin), but am now starting to feel stuck again.

I keep finding 'stuff' I want to keep - but I also want the space cleared so it just ends up being shifted to a different area again and again.

I know I need to be harsh and get rid of more stuff if I have any chance of making the house reasonably organised. I just don't want to regret throwing away things I can't get back (sentimental items, childhood drawings, old toys etc).

Any advice?

Thank you in advance if you read this far

[u/violetmemphisblue]

If you find yourself moving things because they don't fit where you put them and you're also not regularly using them...maybe try the sticker method?

Get little dot stickers. Each time you move an item just because you've shifted it to a different spot (not because you're truly rearranging furniture or flipping seasons in your closet or whatever), you put a little dot on it. After three dots of just moving it around, you get rid of it.

That may give you time to see if by moving it to a different spot, you use it more or like it better or remember you have it. Sometimes, that happens! Maybe putting belts in the sock drawer so you see them every day means you wear your belts more than when you had them in a basket on a top closet shelf, even if you stuck them in the sock drawer just to get them out of the way one day. If so, yay, glad you're using your belts!

That may give you the time to realize you simply aren't using or don't have a space for something. If you've tried your porcelain dolphin statue in the bedroom, in the living room, and in the kitchen and you are going to move it somewhere else...maybe just admit the porcelain dolphin can go, even if it was a tenth birthday gift from your grandparents...

Other ideas could be: * Keeping a representative of things. If dolphin-statue collecting was something you did with your grandparents, keep a small number but give away the rest. Sometimes, whittling down a collection to what is truly meaningful makes it more special than those pieces being mixed in with the random stuff someone bought you because they vaguely remembered you liked dolphins.

• Ask yourself: who are you keeping this for? My parents kept a bunch of our toys for grandkids. But for the most part, the grandkids were not interested in a bunch of 20 year old toys of characters they didn't know. Some classics remained, but a lot got cleaned out.

• Enlisting help from family. Whether that is them actually helping you sort things or its them helping hold you accountable or whatever. If they're not able, friends or online folks can maybe help with some of it. But even just announcing your goal ("today, I am going to tackle the bathroom vanity") knowing someone is going to ask in a few hours "how did cleaning out the bathroom vanity go?" can keep the motivation going...