Find time to lift your spirits with a spring clear-out

Fiona thinks that following the advice of the old adage ‘a tidy house is a tidy mind’ could help most of us simplify our lives

N ow, I know it is probably not top of your worry list at the moment.

Indeed, by the time you read this, there may be more serious things to think about. Let us hope not. But if we have the time, wouldn’t it be nice to simplify life?

This week sees a trip to Glasgow to make a film about decluttering. Our interviewee is a professional organiser. Elaine Mckinlay runs her own “sort-out” company.

Taking folk from chaos to calm, this lady is someone who can help you start to see the wood for the trees in your house. A hundred yellowing plastic containers in the storeroom? No problem. Forty mugs in various chipped states in a kitchen cupboard? We can sort this. Dozens of dresses in varying colours and sizes – and some not even out of their packaging? We’re on the job.

Elaine’s aim is to get your burgeoning shoe collection into shipshape order. And, at the very least, allow your wardrobe door to close properly.

We find this woman of sense and sensibility through the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers. Because APDO has experts right round the country. Whose mission, if you wish to accept it, is to free you of “stuff”.

We have discussed it before. But most of us have way too much stuff. We may be hanging on to memories. We could be keeping things because they “could come in useful…” We might just be too busy to tidy up. Or even know where to start. Whatever the reason, we seem reluctant to part with possessions.

My grandfather was big into stuff. He had boxes and boxes of fuses, wires and washers. Bought at a sale and kept, because one day they would come into their own. They didn’t, of course. And when the house was eventually sold, they were thrown on to a skip.

Skip forward a generation or two, and the chief keeps books. Hundreds, nay thousands, of them. It is meant to be one in, one out policy. But as they spill out into the hall and on to the landing, I realise it hasn’t quite worked out like that. I, meanwhile, collect hats. Which are not always worn.

Oh, and proper tea sets, too. Delicate china given down the years by grannies and great-aunts.

And which, for sentimental reason, you understand, cannot possibly be disposed of. Not even though we mostly use mugs these days. For their part, the

My grandfather was big into stuff. He had boxes and boxes of fuses, wires and washers

Macnaughties hoard soft toys. Hanging on fiercely to a motley collection of ripped, squashed, rather grubby ducks and pigs. But then they are the animals. We should know better. Surveys show consumerism at an all-time high. We buy twice as many goods as people did 50 years ago.

Yet most of us would agree that a good old sort-out lifts spirits. As I say, a spring clear-out my not be uppermost in current thoughts. But when other matters calm down, perhaps it is something worth thinking about…

Most of us hold on to clutter in the belief that we will find it useful at some point. Picture: Shutterstock.