Decluttering is about more than an annual trip to the bring centre. It is about what you allow over the threshold.

Having said that, we all like a sense of innovation and something new.

If you are bored of your life and your trusty Summer jacket, retail therapy may not be the answer. These tips show you how to lively up yourself without having to spend and store. Whatever "it" is, you've already got it.
 
1. Posture
Your spine wants to be supported by your musculature. It does not want your body hanging off it like a terry towel dressing gown on a hook. Emerge from your hips. Push forward the sternum. You might discover you have a rack.
 
Use the petrol pump, your dance partner and your core to support your newfound frame. Posture turns more heads than any other commodity.
 
There are more tricks and flicks out there. For optimum poise, some suggest picturing a diamond between your thighs. Others (including Jack Nicholson) say it is all in the nose. Get that right and all else will follow.
 
These ruses will impress 90% of the population. 10% of people will see through it. Those numbers are acceptable.

2. Be warm/cool*
I was hacking back from Kilkenny on a muggy day when I realised I was in rare nice form. It turns out my passenger had put on the air con. A cool body temperature improves your mood – quelle revelation! After that, I vowed to stay the right temperature forever more.
 
This means finding socks and shoes, putting on a thermal vest or crossing to the sunny side of the street. It means gauging jacket weights. Or expelling the duvet and sleeping with a duvet cover.
 
Sweating and shivering are distractions. When you are cool, people pick up on it. You are more available. Hence the phrase, “She’s cool”.
 
3. Be comfortable*
‘If it’s not comfortable, it’s not luxury,’ said Coco Chanel. This is a maxim to live by, even if you don’t spend four figures on a jacket.
 
In a posh restaurant recently my sister was not comfortable. It turned out it was her Spanx. “Just take them off,” I said to her, when we were in the loo. She ditched them and became the life and soul of the evening.
  
4. Money is no object
As an exercise, think about what you might wear tomorrow. Now, imagine how you would look tomorrow if money was no object. You might want to wear a white two-piece suit or look a tiny bit Pocahontas.
 
Here’s the news: you can approximate this look from what you already own. You might have to be willing to go to the dry cleaners afterwards or take something out of the laundry basket, but it is doable. Your wardrobe cooperates with you, not the other way around.
 
You can use the money-no-object exercise for lots of life’s conundrums.
 
5. Red Letter Days
Red letter days give you a certain energy. Coveted meetings, birthdays, whatever. You use the dregs of your fave perfume and exude possibility. These are the days you wear the dress that takes a week to wash and dry.
If you have not had one of these days in the last ten weeks, conjure one up. Or at least dress accordingly.
 
6. Sharpen your black eyeliner
Your face is a marbley mush of white and red with maybe some blue thrown in. That statement may be ethnocentric. Black eyeliner makes sense of these colours and balances your face. It frames your eyes. It just makes you feel good - it's the natural yogurt of the cosmetic world. Even if it goes on a bit wonky and smudges everywhere. This is the only thing you can buy if you don't have one.
 
* Exercise: Choose a day where you neglect colour and silhouette and dress solely for comfort or temperature.

1. Smaller statues
If a team of chappies win, they should each get an Oscar that is a fraction of the size. Small is beautiful.

2. Have one set of envelopes
There were obviously two cards flying around this year declaring Emma Stone Best Actress. Apparently they have two sets of envelopes for all categories. This is called duplication. The way you might have two bike pumps or four Christmas tree stands. Sure, one envelope might go missing. But there are multiple ways to deal with that. There is about one way to deal with the wrong envelope being read out.
 
3. Do away with the ceremony.   
When the Academy have voted, post the results on a website, or in a national newspaper. Have the awards collected or delivered. Or, see point 4.
 
4. Statue optional
Award winners can decide whether they want the figurine or whether the honour is enough.
 
5. Best Actor
Actor is now used to describe male and female actrons. So why not merge the acting awards?

Come on Hollywood - you know you want to...

Whether you work from a van, the kitchen or the 23rd floor, the chances are you have clutter around you. Extra things, faulty gear, old materials. Here is a rundown on how to spruce up the average workspace.

Start at home. Home takes precedence. Group things together – clothes, tools, paperwork, cosmetics and reduce what you need to what matches your life and your goals. You can then take the momentum into the office.
 
Depending on your workplace, you may want to bring in an apron, a face mask and some rubber gloves. You can discuss a company-wide declutter with your boss or colleagues or work your own corner. Clutter is everything from the dust in your inbox to the filing cabinet in the courtyard. It can also be people, plant and property. The thing is, decluttering doesn’t have to be as drastic as ordering a skip and checking who was “last in”.  It is about loosening your hold on belongings and committing to change and new outcomes. Decluttering types believe that what goes around comes around. What you let go of will be used elsewhere and will be available when you need it again.
 
We are all compelled by the computer, so start by cleaning your computer desktop. Delete what you can from folders. You may need to get permission for this or create a company policy.  My recent post has more on this.
 
Paperwork is persistent and floaty and is a good place to continue. Lump everything together – reports, junk mail, your passport. This will encourage you to process it quickly. Paper is either active, archive or recycling.
 
Like any area, decluttering the office requires a lot of decisions. Whether to email an ex-colleague about his water bottle. Whether to swivel your desk. Whether to eat the two pieces of Dairy Milk at the back of your drawer.
 
The best thing to do is plough on. If you have a company strategy, you can use it to make decisions with. For example, does the spare desk fit our strategy? What about the phone on top of it? And the nifty invites to our barbeque last year?
 
All going well, your office will be clearer. You will get rid of things and find other things and negotiate along the way. Now, it’s time to clean.
 
Most offices have cleaners, but the cleaner will probably move through set tasks – polish the brass plate, hoover the carpets and put out the bins. She won’t get behind your archive files.
 
In any case, staff should clean more. Sitting is the new sugar and a run around with the hoover is good for the body.
 
Take ownership in your workplace. At a certain level, you will probably have cleaners and plant waterers, but things will fall through the gaps.
 
Be the one to sort out the dressing room. Get your colleague and muck out the van. One can spend 25 minutes designing and laminating a bitchy sign, or one can spend five minutes doing the dishes.
 
Finally, bring something personal into the office. It doesn’t have to be a photo of a handsome spouse. That is a Hollywood devise to give biographical details about a character.
 
It can be a baseball, a little basketball hoop or a photo of you with a five-foot marlin. Hang a paper globe above reception.  Stick a photo of your dog on your computer. Actually, bring him in.
 
These things can be little ice breakers. Don’t be afraid to update them every once in a while.
 
This should make you a lean, mean, whatever-it-is-you-do machine. Rest and repeat.

There is a tricky relationship between decluttering and resourcefulness. They are kind of frenemies. Decluttering is about simplicity. Marie Kondo says it involves coping with a lack of something, Resoucefulness, meanwhile, is the pursuit of the perfect tool kit.

With decluttering, you want the right set of things for the present. With resourcefulness, you want and the right set of things, perhaps just beyond your fingertips and some extra stuff just in case.

Decluttering is decadent.

Resourcefulness is keen, grasping and awesome at times.

Recourcefulness is seen as conjuring up the thing you need - ​the ideal 2017 diary; a labeller; a meeting with whoever. But there is another type of resourcefulness - using what you already have - the tail end of this year's diary; sticky labels; a phone call.

The good news is, there is a surprise resource on your doorstep.  I give you - the teabag.

Teabags make a variety of refreshing drinks. Then they are usually binned or composted.

However, a teabag does at least three more things very well:

1. Cleaning the beginnings of the grill pan (or any greasy tin). 
2. Headache buster - hold the teabag as close as you can between your eyes.
3. Dog facial. When cold, you understand. I can't speak for all dogs, but my sister's dog didn't mind having the sleep swabbed from his eyes with a cold squeezed-out teabag.

Furthermore, Happy Christmas!

​

Many of us are not in control of our houses, yet we walk down South William Street looking absolutely gorgeous. We have three clothes horses groaning under the weight of the laundry and the tumble dryer is put on once a day.
 
Laundry makes us think that we are doing housework. Put it is not virtue; it is vanity. It allows us to leave our house feeling good. But then we have to look at the ceiling while sitting on the loo to avoid the other tasks we are not doing.
 
Laundry is actually not housework. Like cleaning the sliding doors, it is a treat. It is a light task. It pushes us outdoors.
 
So, in future, you can only do laundry after you have hoovered your bedroom, cleaned the fridge and marinated a steak.

Some experts say that you shouldn’t bother decluttering computer files They don’t take up any physical space after all. Following a recent review of my computer files, I have to say I disagree with this position.

I kept one draft of anything nice or important and binned everything else. Hundreds of photos and .pdfs were deleted. The benefit of the purge was that it has made me more decisive about what I do with current documents. How can I process them quicker? How can I avoid keeping them? 
 
Even files that were valued or took ages to write have been binned and I feel leaner and meaner. Multiple drafts are an indulgence. Just get it right.
 
If I hadn’t done the purge, I would never have opened these documents again. They would sit there as I looked for files that were actually relevant. I got the chance to relive a couple of successes and failures before.
 
One’s computer desktop should not have more than eight items on it – say three permanent folders and five temporary bits and bobs. You cannot open your computer and be deliberate if there are 20 photos of your new puppy, three reports you downloaded and never read and a myriad of mysterious things.
 
Keep your desktop clear for the latest version of your CV, the photos of the hi-fi you are giving away online and your college notes for tonight. It is ok to have clutter on the desktop. If you know it’s going to move. Delete and file with frequency.
 
Similarly, with a smartfone, keep your main screen clutter free. Delete apps you don’t use. Move lesser used ones off the main screen.
 
At the risk of spending your life deleting, delete old texts. There is a certain energy that can only be spent on screen. Deleting stuff is a good use of that energy. Just easy does it. Don’t burn out your zoggabons.

Extentions are a big undertaking. They use up a lot of time, energy and materials and they are expensive. Nevertheless they are a big part of our culture.
 
If you have truly outgrown a property, expanding might make sense. But if you are just fed up with the same four walls and the oversize letters suspended on them, an extension might not be the answer.

Extensions often render part of the house dead space. This area inevitably gathers clutter – bikes, a two-seater couch, a three-seater couch (clutter if they are not used), weights, granny’s bureau.  Not the ingredients of a happening house. The new square footage might contain more storage. Cue more stuff.
 
At the risk of stating the obvious, they also reduce the garden size. This creates more density and less lovely lawn drainage. As we age, we might value gardening over mopping the extra square footage in the kitchen.
 
Of course, not everybody has the prospect to extend, i.e. apartment dwellers or tenants. Many new houses are kind of pre-extended. You simply could not develop the patch of garden. But if you get your hands on a three-bed semi-D from the 1950s, think twice about extending.
 
Identify your goals and values. Declutter accordingly. Work within your existing footprint.
 
Space and light are probably the two biggest reasons given for extending. Consider small shifts in the layout. Light can be increased by bigger windows, bay windows, glazed interior doors, less walls, light shafts and sky lights. Work with sunshine/daylight. Review the artificial lighting.
 
If you decide to extend, maybe extend less. Again, a good first step is to declutter and then reassess your needs.

Certain things stop us getting to the bottom of the laundry basket. For example, a white top we don’t want to endanger, the jersey dress we want to keep at knee length and the winter jumper that we won't be wearing for ages anyway. Other items get moved around, but never leave the basket - bikini tops, convict tops or a raincoat.

There are also behavioral issues on the part of the launderer. I do prefer lying down and sticking my feet in the air than separating lights and darks. But leave it too long and you find yourself going to the supermarket in a ballgown. If you undertake to do other people’s laundry, it’s more complicated still.

Ultimately, dirty laundry is clutter. The clothes are not in a useable state and are occupying space. Of course, laundry is part of everyday life. But there are ways to create less and process it quicker:

1. I Lamh Laundry
Hand washing is physical, but worth it for tricky items and clothes you love. This includes cheap tops that age in the wash. If there are items lingering around the bottom of the laundry basket, it means they do not fit in to any of your regular washing machine washes. You could look for special cycles on your washing machine, but I think that hand washing is safer – as long as you are careful with your water temperature.

You will need: a bathtub or sink, hot water, rubber gloves, hand wash detergent and several vessels to get your clothes to the line. You can often move from lights to darks so you don’t have to change the water too often. Soap flakes are kinder to wool garments.

2. A retreat
If your laundry has really got the better of you, you could go to the launderette. These days, you mostly hand over the laundry and collect it three hours later, which is a shame. However, in some launderettes, you still run the machine yourself. And when else can you sit on your backside for an hour, reading a magazine, in the name of housework?

3. Keep it clean
Avoid the laundry basket altogether by not getting your clothes dirty. Change into a tracksuit when you get home and hang up your fine threads. Also, wear an apron.

4. The Reds Wash
Red clothes can also linger in a washing basket - ready to undo a lights wash or be dyed by darks.
I spent a long time thinking about this problem. Then, the stars aligned. I found myself with a bunch of red clothes in my laundry basket. I had an epiphany – The Reds Wash. To the pyjamas, sheet and t-shirts, I added, a hot bottle cover, some cushion covers, an apron and the jumper from my Fiefel teddy.

5. Care label caveats
If you are buying more stuff, be mindful of the laundering it requires. Caitlin Moran suggests that if you see something is ‘Dry clean only’, put £20 in the pocket and leave the shop. I approve of dry clean clothes because they are normally really… nice. They may be expensive from a “cost per wear” point of view. Then again, you may wear them for a lifetime. Just don’t sweat in them.

6. The production line
Remember, your clothes horse likes the garden, weather permitting. Use your clothes pegs to secure everything. However, don’t have more than one clothes horse – they gobble space, are unstable and are rarely put away. Clothes dryers are expensive beasts but can be good for tackling nearly-dry clothes.

Wear well.