I used to be you. I had piles everywhere. I read all the books, signed up for flylady, clean home, etc. and none of it worked.
I was able to turn it all around through.
What I did was a HUGE declutter, one room at a time. For example: my living room had stacks of stuff on the end tables, our pretty display shelves were overloaded, our TV armoire was overflowing with videos, etc. I RUTHLESSLY went through and got rid of about 75% of what was in the the room. I filled bags and bags of trash. This was before freecycle, so I had a big pile for goodwill and a lot of trash. What I left in the room: 2 couches, 2 end tables (only lamps on them), a coffee table with nothing on it but the clickers, a TV armoire with nothing but the TV, Tivo, DVD player, most-watched DVDs neatly stacked, and on the shelves, *one item* on each shelf lovingly and prominently displayed.
It's now 3 years later and I've cycled out the things on the shelves (but still have only one on each shelf), and added some artwork to the walls, but it's been incredibly EASY (yes, EASY!!!!!) to keep it neat when the underlying clutter was gone.
I did this for every room in the house over an exhausting 2-week period. When I was done I felt like a new, taller, happier, less-weighted person and my mind fog really cleared too. It felt amazing, and it STILL feels amazing to come home to my house and find it this way. And keeping it this way is really not difficult. I totally still have my slovenly tendencies, but since it's so obvious in our clutter-free space when things start to encroach, I can fix the problem before it gets out of hand.
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