At this point all the building blocks should be in place to de-clutter your life in an effective, sustainable way. The first chapter covered why we clutter, and in this chapter I revealed several techniques and attitudes you can adopt for effective de-cluttering. Being clear about what you are working on by breaking your home down into projects and next action is the critical first step. Then, implementing buckets to capture incoming stuff means you can de-clutter rooms without worrying about them becoming a mess again as well as keep track of what’s coming in and out of your home in an organized fashion. Then, keeping the Pareto principle in mind whenever you decide what to keep or throw away allows you to make smarter decisions and makes sure you focus your energies and time in the right places. Finally, as you start to de-clutter focus on how you will store and organize what is left so you can make the most of your space.

With all this in place it’s time to put it to practise. In the next chapter I will look at individual rooms, describe how you can apply what you’ve learned and cover any problems or hurdles you might face on the way.