Thinking you might order something "someday" is not a good reason to keep heaps of mail order catalogs around the house. Ask yourself how many more issues of that catalog you are likely to receive between now and "someday." If the answer is more than "none", you don't need to keep it. The next issue will arrive in your mailbox soon enough.

Most catalogs now have websites, too, so there's a good change you can ask to be removed from their mailing list entirely and do your shopping (when "someday" finally comes) online.

"Someday" is not an eighth day of the week! Clutter-clearing helps you live in the "now."

"I have given away quite a bit this week, and work on my mail clutter a little bit every day. My son must have caught the fever because unbidden he cleaned out his closet and added to the give-away pile."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member

Getting rid of clutter is a way to honor yourself and your family. Find one cluttered area (as big as a room or as small as one shelf or one drawer) that shows you are NOT honoring self and family, and get it cleared out by the end of the week.

"I have been able to go through the pantry and throw away stuff that has been in there for over a year. Found lots of things I couldn't even remember buying."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member

The dream is not to live clutter-free just so your house will be tidier -- it's to live as the best possible expression of your truest self, which is easier to do when you get all that clutter out of your way.

There is no "failure" in clutter-clearing. Each day, each moment, just start where you are, and see if you can become one little bit freer and clearer in whatever way is appropriate to your day. So what if you have fallen a little behind where you were last week? If you can make a small step forward right now, that's progress today.

"I've been working at organizing my patterns into a format that will be easy for me to find them. I was able to take over 6 file drawers worth of craft patterns and drop it down to just 2."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member

Make an effort to move stuff out of the house within 48 hours of the time that you decide to let it go. Too often clutter moves from the drawer or closet only as far as the back hall or the garage, where it sits for weeks waiting for someone to get around to taking it to the dump, recycling center, or thrift store.

Making lots of smaller trips to local charity shops may not be the most time- or energy-efficient, but it will help you see progress more quickly and will free up the energy in your home a lot faster than waiting until you're "done" (whenever that might be) so you can handle it all at once.

Keep up the momentum.

"I filled a huge dumpster and four trash bags with junk and toys from my daughter's room, and I loaded three years of scrapbooking magazines into the car to drop off at the scrapbook store."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member

Calendar and schedule decluttering to free yourself from unnecessary commitments is tremendously powerful! Especially when it's done with the intention not just to free up more time, but to enable you to focus your attention and energy on the things that really matter to you. I suspect it's easier to do this after most of the physical clutter has been cleared away from your home or office. By creating space and clarity in your physical environment, you support the kind of mental and emotional clarity that makes making appropriate decisions about commitments and activities possible.

"My life has changed greatly with all of the clutter clearing - I realized how 'out of control' so many things had become; my emotions and how I was feeling about myself were greatly affected."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member

A yard sale is a great way to get rid of stuff and recoup some money from your clutter at the same time... but it's also a huge amount of work. Before assuming that a yard sale is a good idea, consider donating all that stuff to charity and claiming the tax deduction instead. In addition to the deductible claim, the lightness and energy you will feel as a result of making a generous donation will more than make up for the money you would have received through the yard sale the time and effort saved is considerable.

Make sure you are clear about what you really want. Is it the money you would get from a yard sale or the energy shift that you will get from releasing all that unnecessary stuff?

Stay focused on your goals.

"The e-book has helped me [make wiser decisions]. I was going to have a yard sale to sell all the "stuff", even if it's just a few dollars, and I suddenly thought, 'GIVE IT AWAY, help other people, stop giving yourself more work to do, just get it out of here.' So, I am taking a truck load to the Humane Society Thrift shop today."
~ Clutter-Free Forever! support group member