I’ve recently moved back in with my parents. Of course, I am very grateful to have that option but, at the age of 36, it does feel like I’m dicing dangerously close to Norman Bates territory. Not that my mother would be seen dead near a motel. She is a firm believer in 4-star establishments and will literally laugh you out the house at the mere mention of camping.

She also likes to purge stuff. Within 24 hours of moving back into the family home, my mum had entered human moth mode and attacked everything in sight, shouting at regular intervals, ‘you have SO MUCH STUFF’ while holding my Edgar Allen Poe night light precariously close to the ‘c*** to throw away without asking’ bin bag.

I don’t consider myself a big spender. I buy new clothes once every 27 years like an unfashionable Pennywise the Clown from IT. And yet, I never realised how much STUFF I actually have.

To my mother’s undiluted joy, moving home was the ideal opportunity for some decluttering. Perfectly aligned with the world’s natural declutter season, spring. That time in the calendar where it’s out with the old and in with the new. So, here are some tips on how best to do that. Let’s start with the main clutter culprits.

We all wear clothes. We’d be cold and arrested if we didn’t. The problem is, with the introduction of fast fashion into our consumerist, capitalist society, lots of people have accumulated enough clothes to dress wildlife the world over. It’d look like Zootopia everywhere. And most of these clothes don’t even leave the wardrobe. Apparently more than 50% of Brits admit to keeping clothing they never wear.

You know what I’m talking about. Our homes may differ greatly, but I’ve never known a single person to keep their biscuit tin under the sink. No. It’s a universal rule that we save that place especially for the dozens of random cleaning products – ‘who knows, maybe one day I WILL clean the roof slats’ – including multiple bottles of the same product, all sat half-used. According to research, the average Brit stores 16 different products under the sink, with 52% admitting this space is overfilled with unnecessary cleaners.

Before my partner and I moved out, we had a dedicated ‘unopened letters seat’ in the kitchen, upon which we’d carelessly chuck an assortment of envelopes in between coming in from work and going out again then ‘forget’ they existed. Letters addressed to previous residents, bank statements, bills, desperate ‘PLEASE COME BACK TO HELLO FRESH’ coupons, and random bits of paper saying things like ‘don’t forget the thrush cream’ would pile up until they were scaling the ceiling, with the addition of the inevitable follow-up letters we’d get after not responding to the original. 38% of Brits also admit to this. Not the thrush cream part. Although they could be lying.

Cards are a difficult one because they’ve been given as a kind gesture, so throwing them away can induce high levels of guilt. Unless you’re a sociopath. Birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Congratulations on your Hair Transplant, Sorry You’re Leaving cards; all of them come from a nice place. But seriously, the ones that say ‘Dear (your name), Happy (occasion), From Jon’ are bare minimum effort. That is purely acquaintance behaviour, not a mate. Get rid of them.

Now, what to do with all these things that have outstayed their welcome? And how do you avoid it happening all over again? Well.

If you can turn decluttering into a habit that you do little and often rather than thinking you have to blitz the entire house in one fell swoop, it will make it less overwhelming. That way you’re more likely to be proactive with decluttering rather than avoiding doing it all together. A small place to start could be your sock drawer, getting rid of all the tatty, old, and odd socks.

Or you could go full-on Mary Poppins – ‘In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and SNAP. The job’s a game.’ If you want to try turning decluttering into more of a challenge, why not give the Minimalism Game a go?

It’s a decluttering game created by bestselling authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus who go by ‘The Minimalists’. In it, people get rid of a few items a day depending on the date of the month. So, for the first of the month you get rid of one thing – that giant panda you won at knife point at the local fair – on the second you get rid of two things, and so on and so forth, so by the end of April you’re getting rid of 31 items on the last day of the month. It’s like the opposite of the 12 Days of Christmas. By doing this, you can end up decluttering close to 1,000 items a month. And potentially be left sleeping on a cardboard box.

Decluttering seems like one of those things that is pretty straight forward, but if you go in without a plan you’ll end up dressed up in the 1920s trilby you bought six years ago after watching a BBC period drama and have never worn, distracted by boxes of old photographs, and crying over the good old days. Eventually, you’ll weep yourself to sleep with zero decluttering completed and 20-year-old stuff all over the floor. To avoid that, here are some methods you could try:

The Ski Slope: Created by therapist and interior designer Anita Yokota, the idea of this one is to imagine a messy room like a ski slope. I’ll let Anita explain.

‘If you try to go straight down, the steep angle feels scary and overwhelming. But if you traverse the slope — skiing from one side to the other — you lessen the angle and make it down the mountain without even noticing. Instead of looking at the room from front to back, look at it from corner to corner.’

In other words, declutter the room in small, dedicated zones, working your way across it rather than sporadically. Be organised in your organising. It makes the task feel more structured and less overwhelming because you have a clear direction throughout your process.

Swedish Death Cleaning: Put on some Slipknot and SHRED IT ALL. No, I’m kidding. Clothing is not good for shredders. This one was introduced by Margareta Magnusson:

‘The idea is to remove the burden of decluttering for your loved ones after you’ve passed away, so you’re left only with the essentials and those items that have the most meaning. While it was initially intended for those later in life, it can be relevant at any age when clutter has started to accumulate. It’s a mindset designed to help you consider the true worth of items as you sort through them.’

Don’t try and do everything at once. Unless you live in a cave where your only possession is a stone for a throw pillow, it’s not an achievable goal. And when you try and achieve an unachievable goal it can leave you feeling like a failure and with more mess than you started. Which can be dangerous ‘I’m going to buy a sit-on mower to make myself feel better’ territory.

Think about the size of the decluttering area before starting and set yourself reasonable time to do it. Not ample. Saying ‘I’ll make sure to declutter the utility room by 2027’ is stupid. But also saying ‘I’ll make sure to declutter the utility room before I go to bed tonight’ is putting unnecessary pressure on. Schedule set time for the task here and there or on a free day and give yourself breaks.

If it’s a big project that’s going to take time, make sure you don’t start it when it’s going to disrupt everyday life. For example, don’t dismantle your chest of drawers on a Sunday night when you'll need it during the week.

If you haven’t worn it in 5 years, you do know. Get rid of it.

Decluttering might not be the most enjoyable of tasks for a lot of reasons, but it can be liberating as well as rewarding. If you end up donating items, books, and clothing to charities or local organisations, it means your things aren’t going to waste by sitting gathering dust in a cupboard and could make someone else’s life easier or even happier. Think Andy giving away his toys in Toy Story 3.

If you still find yourself struggling to find motivation to declutter, email me. I’ll send you my mum’s number so she can come around and bin everything without your consent.