Where to start when there is too much stuff

The mistake almost everyone makes is starting in the room with the most stuff in it. That room is usually the basement, the garage or the spare bedroom, and it is where motivation goes to die.

Start somewhere small and finish it completely, so that by the end of the first hour you can see a result. A single shelf, a single drawer, one box. Finishing beats volume.

The four-box method, with one change

Put four containers down: keep, sell, donate, throw away. The change is that nothing goes into "sell" until it has passed a second test — is this thing worth the photographs, the messages, the waiting and the trip to the post office?

• Keep: it is used, or it is genuinely wanted.
• Sell: it is worth more than the effort of selling it.
• Donate: somebody will use it, but nobody will pay for it.
• Throw away: it is broken, incomplete or unsafe.
• Undecided: a fifth box, dated, and allowed to sit for one month only.

Take the photographs on the way out

Photograph sentimental things before they leave — the school projects, the children's drawings, the letters. A photo takes up no space and settles most of the arguments about keeping the object itself.

For anything going to a family member, photograph it with a note of who it is going to. The note prevents the same argument twice.

Do the paperwork first

Before anything leaves the house, find the documents: deeds, wills, insurance, tax returns, military records, birth certificates. Put them in one folder in one place, and tell one other person where that place is.

Do not shred anything with a current legal or financial purpose. When in doubt, keep it for now and sort the documents in a separate session with better light.

When to stop

Stop for the day when your decisions start getting worse — when you keep things because deciding is tiring rather than because you want them. Tired decisions are the ones you undo later.

Two hours with breaks beats six hours with none. This is a project of weeks, not a weekend.

Practical note: the guide is deliberately generic. The local directory currently covers Buffalo, NY only.