26 things in your house that a professional organiser would throw out

Toss the accessories and instruction booklets that go with things you no longer own, like the tiny bag with a spare button for the blouse you donated and the owner’s manual for the television you had ten years ago.

Even professional organisers keep odd things like those plastic clips from bags of bread or rinsed out glass jars. The key is to know when you are saving too many, and they are becoming clutter. For example, if you’ve kept every rubber band from every fresh produce purchase, then it is time to throw some away.

Try to resist bringing home one of every free item offered at street fairs, lectures and conferences. Professional organisers throw away extra wall calendars, promotional coffee mugs, water bottles plastered with logos, jar openers, pill organisers and the like.

If they’re meant to be mated up and you’ve hopelessly lost or ruined one, then why keep the other?

Professional organisers dislike cleaning tools that don’t get the job done. If the item is meant to help make your cleaning chore easier, but it makes it more difficult, then throw it out. This includes the cracked dustpan, the broken laundry basket, the broom with the handle that keeps falling off and the leaky bucket.

That bag of donations that’s been riding in the trunk of your car for a month, it’s time for it to go. Professional organisers have a standing pick-up scheduled, or they routinely drop things off at a donation location to prevent them from piling up at home.

Just because it has your name engraved on it does not mean you have to keep it forever. Professional organisers preserve the memory by taking a photo of the accolade, then they donate the trophies, plaques, or awards of excellence through sports medal recycling programs.

Dust collectors are without a doubt on any professional organiser’s throw it out list. These include photo frames without photographs inside, collections you don’t care about and knickknacks that lack a very special meaning.

The treadmill you used for a week that’s now a makeshift clothes rack or the green smoothie maker you tried once and haven’t touched since – give away those items you purchased with the hopes of making a change, but the change didn’t stick.

If you search online for culinary inspiration then you can let go of almost all, if not all, of your cookbooks. Recipes are everywhere and most times we end up falling back on our go-to recipes. See if your local library accepts cookbooks for their book sales.