We are selling the family home as it is too big and expensive for me to maintain on my own. I’ve slowly been going through 21 years of accumulated family stuff and have to let things go, but I’m more of a maximalist than a minimalist, and instead of finding letting go joyful, I sometimes find it painful.
Knowing that I have to get rid of at least 50% of the stuff we have is a powerful motivator for decluttering, but why does it feel so hard? So I thought, there must be a way to make this fun and easier, and lo and behold, there is. You can break it up into micro projects and do it bit by bit, day by day, and turn the whole project into a game.
Letting go feels difficult, but it isn’t impossible, and it can be cathartic. Whether it’s the tea set from Aunt Pearl or the stacks of school artwork my kids brought home, every item seems to whisper, keep me. But here’s the truth: clutter costs us more than we realize. It drains our energy, clutters our minds, and— worst of all—blocks our happiness. In my case of needing to downsize in a divorce, it feels like I’m giving up so much, so it helps to focus on what I’ll be gaining –a smaller, easier house to maintain that has only our most cherished belongings.
1. The Emotional Weight of Stuff
Every object in your home holds emotional energy for you. Some pieces spark joy, but others silently weigh you down with guilt, regret, or obligation. A friend once said, “You’re not just organizing or decluttering things, you’re sorting your entire life.” That hit home. Clutter is often a symptom of unmade decisions. And now, I had to make a lot of decisions and fast.
To make it easier to let go, I find putting things in a box in the garage first helps loosen the grip. Once it is in the garage, boxed up, it feels easier to take the next step of taking it to donate. Things can live in this halfway house for a few weeks, and then oddly, they aren’t so attractive to me, and I can then take the next step of taking them to donate. It’s almost as if I needed a cooling-off period before I could take the final step of letting these items go. If, however, once boxed you can take them immediately to the donation center, that is great, but if you can’t, try this gentler method and see if that works for you.
On The Minimalists Podcast, they point out the danger of ending up with “Clutter Coffins” of stored stuff and never taking that final step of getting it out the door. So far, that hasn’t been a problem for me. My trick is to put it in a cardboard box that I can take directly. Don’t put it in a plastic storage container or any container you want to keep. Experiment and see what works best for you.
2. You Only Need Half (or Less)
The reality? If you haven’t used it in the past year, you don’t need it. I started asking myself: “Would I take this with me if I were moving into a tiny cottage by the sea?” That little question cut through the emotional noise. Suddenly, the rarely used coffee grinder and my daughter’s tiny ballet shoes became easier to part with.
3. Decluttering Is a Path to Freedom
Clutter isn’t just physical. It’s emotional clutter, too. Every drawer full of old cables or duplicate baking pans holds a bit of indecision, a delay in moving forward. With letting go, the more space I had—not just in closets, but in my mind. I felt lighter. Clearer. Calmer. Happier.
I was helping a friend declutter and realized that her house was full of projects to do. She had a stack of paintings and old frames and thought she would match them up one day and frame them. Discussing this, we realized that she would need to take these to a framer. We paired up the paintings, and now she is excited about taking them to be framed so she can get them out of the dusty corner and onto the walls to enjoy them.
If there is a project waiting to be done, either complete the project or admit to yourself that you are never going to do it. I finally admitted that I’m not a seamstress and took the pile of clothes to be mended to a tailor. Project complete at last. I highly recommend delegating all projects that have been sitting around for over a year to someone else to finish or donate them as is. If you aren’t going to do it yourself, then get someone else to do it. You’ll feel instantly unburdened.
4. Give It a Purpose
Instead of tossing, I help each item find its new home. Someone out there might need that extra set of sheets or blanket. Donating helped me release things with love rather than regret. I feel better about letting go if I imagine someone else can put my things to good use.
5. Set Rules and Play a Game
To make letting go fun, I turned it into a game. “Twenty-one things a day,” I told myself. That’s 7,665 things in a year! A timer helped—15 minutes to clear one shelf. And when it was done, I gave myself a little reward: a walk, a book, or a cozy cup of tea in my newly uncluttered kitchen.
Let’s face it—decluttering can feel like wading through emotional quicksand. You start strong, and five minutes later, you’re clutching an old college sweatshirt, reminiscing about your ex and wondering how you ended up sitting on the floor in a pile of junk. That’s why I needed rules—clear, firm, simple rules to guide my decisions. Without rules, I was sunk.
Rule #1: Keep only your favorite two. For each bed, I decided to keep only my two favorite, highest-quality sets of bedding. The rest—no matter how “perfectly good” or “maybe useful someday”—went to charity. Let someone else enjoy them now. They’ll be thrilled, and your linen closet will be easier to manage. (My mom’s trick: store the extra set of bed linens in the bottom drawer of the dresser if you don’t have a linen closet.)
Rule #2: Every bookshelf benefits from breathing room. Bookshelves are a container for your books and have natural limits. I used to cram mine full until they bowed under the weight of wisdom. Now, each shelf must have space for new books. If I wouldn’t read it again or recommend it to a friend, out it goes—to a little free library, a friend, or the local bookshop donation box.
Rule #3: Clothes must fit now. Not someday. Not “when I lose five or ten pounds.” If it doesn’t fit and I love it, then it goes to the tailor, pronto. If I wouldn’t pay to alter it, I shouldn’t be storing it. Simple. This helped me eliminate quite a few items that just didn’t fit comfortably.
Rule #4: One category, one day. No all-day, weekend-decluttering marathons. That’s how you burn out before you even begin. Instead, try picking one area a day, just one. The hall closet. The pantry. One bookcase. The sock drawer. Small wins build big momentum. If you do decide to do a marathon day, invite a friend over to help so you don’t exhaust yourself. No one is attached to your stuff the way you are, so they’ll easily be able to see what should stay and what should go.
Rule #5: Bring in reinforcements. If I hit a wall or couldn’t decide, I phoned a friend. And in some cases, I use my radical decluttering method: the Coin Toss. When faced with an area or category that needed a 50% reduction in stuff, I flipped a coin. Heads, it stays. Tails, it goes. And here’s the magic—if I had a sudden pang of “Oh no! Not that!” then it was clear: I wanted to keep it. But I had to sacrifice something else in its place. If one stays, something else must go. This is speedy and ruthless and guarantees a 50% reduction in things. Ideal for reducing any area by half, whether that is an overloaded bookcase or a closet, and especially helpful if you are short on time because the decision-making is eliminated.
There’s something oddly freeing about letting a coin decide. Most of our stuff doesn’t matter as much as we think. If it did, we wouldn’t need a coin to tell us. Try it. You might laugh—and that’s worth it right there.
Ready to Declutter Your Life and Make Space for Happiness?
If you’re finding it hard to let go, that’s okay. Start small. A single drawer. One shelf. Just start. And if you want a gentle, structured way to build your ideal life as you let go of what no longer serves you, join the Online Coach Yourself to Success Course. I walk you through it step-by-step as you change your entire life over the course of a year. Decluttering is just the beginning of living your ideal life.
Or dive deeper into the emotional side of clutter with the Raise Your Emotional IQ Course. You’ll uncover the emotional needs behind why you hold on—and how to finally let go with peace.
