When you have accumulated a lot of stuff, decluttering your home can feel really overwhelming. But decluttering is just about putting new systems into place in your life. Once you start decluttering, you realise how great you feel about it, and you want to keep going. It’s like a domino effect.

Getting rid of things gives you time to look after yourself. When you’re not always tidying great piles of stuff, or looking for the potato peeler – because everything has a home and you know exactly where it is – you’re free to spend that time on yourself and your family. It’s liberating.

Don’t expect to declutter everything overnight. It has taken you a long time to amass everything, and you won’t be able to get rid of it all straight away. If you’re pushed for time, there are easy ways of introducing decluttering into your life. Spend 10 minutes a day decluttering or, if that’s not manageable, declutter three items a week.

Have three piles: one for things you’re going to keep, one for things that are a maybe, and one for things you’re going to give away. You will also need some bin bags, for rubbish. A revisiting pile is important if you’re struggling to get rid of things: you can leave things there for a few weeks while you think about whether you need them. More often than not, you end up saying, actually, I don’t need that.

Unless you have an overwhelming amount of stuff, I advise against getting storage – it’s expensive, and you’re probably not utilising all the storage you have in your home. An extreme case where storage might come in handy is if you have suffered a bereavement. You need to give yourself some time to grieve, and reflect on what you want to keep. Don’t do anything rash.

Start the decluttering process before you move in with a new partner. You will need to compromise on what you decide to keep, and get rid of any keepsakes from former partners. You will end up having duplicates of things such as kitchen utensils, which you can get rid of. I don’t have duplicates of anything in my house.

People often get sidetracked when they’re trying to declutter. They start trying on clothes they had forgotten about, or looking at old photos. Stay focused. Another common mistake is to just move things from place to place, instead of getting rid of them. If you realise that you own six wine openers, don’t just put them all in the same drawer: keep only one.

A lot of my clients have an eBay pile. Most of the time, when I revisit the house a few months later, the eBay pile is still there. So I encourage people to give back to the community as much as possible. There’s no use in thinking, I spent a lot of money on that, why should I give it away? The reality is, you have purchased something you don’t use, so you have lost your money. Why not give it to someone who needs it?

You only ever wear 20% of your wardrobe, 80% of the time. If you put all your clothes in the wardrobe facing one way, then as you wash and wear them put them back in facing the opposite way, after a month or two you will be able to see what you wear, and what you can give away. If you love to buy new clothes, I recommend the one-in-one-out rule: if I buy a jumper, I must give a jumper away. And if you haven’t worn an item in six months, get rid of it.

Kids also play with 20% of their toys 80% of the time, so rotation works well. Put some toys away, and swap them out every month. Involve children in the decluttering process. Say: “We’re going to sort through your toys and give some of them to children who are less fortunate.” Kids respond well to that, and it also teaches them empathy and to live with less stuff.

You don’t have to be an extreme minimalist. I still have sentimental items, such as things that belonged to my granny. But I just have a few things that remind me of her and make me smile.

Sally Walford is the author of children’s decluttering handbook The Clutter Monster.