Dilly Carter shares top tips for decluttering kitchens, lounges and clothes

A 2025 survey estimated that 18.8 million UK households need to declutter. Dilly Carter’s advice, shaped by BBC One’s Sort Your Life Out and her new audio extension of the format, addresses the duplicate purchases, lost time in daily searches and friction in rooms meant to feel restful.

Decluttering was popularised by Marie Kondo’s 2011 book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Michelle Ogundehin says, “Visual clutter is more exhausting than we realise.” She adds that our brains keep processing chaotic surroundings, which is why a messy room can leave the whole household feeling drained before the day even begins.

Stop letting the kitchen counter do the job of a cupboard

Carter treats kitchen clutter as a space problem, not a character flaw. Her rule is simple: kitchens are “prime real estate”, and everything in them has to “earn its place”, which means daily-use tools stay close at hand while rarely used gadgets move off the worktop. In the current clutter cycle, bread makers, slow cookers and sandwich presses often sit in the open all week, turning a prep area into a holding zone instead of the place where cooking actually happens.

The weekend fix starts with one counter zone, such as the stretch beside the hob or the window ledge, and clears it back to the appliances used every day. Carter’s logic is blunt: if something is seasonal or only useful a few times a year, it belongs in a cupboard, drawer or loft, not in the room’s busiest traffic lane. That single move immediately gives back chopping space, plating space and a surface that is easier to wipe down.

Cut the gadget pile before it cuts into your budget

The second mistake is buying a separate device for every small task. Carter favours multi-use tools over single-purpose gadgets, which is why she points out that a blender can do more work than a juicer and that a smaller set of versatile appliances is easier to store and clean. The financial leak is easy to miss because each purchase feels justified on its own, yet the total effect is duplicate ownership, crowded cupboards and gadgets that lose their appeal long before they earn regular use.

There is also an environmental bill attached to that habit. The UK government tracks household waste electrical and electronic equipment, and industry data put household WEEE collected from January to September 2024 at about 375,000 metric tons.

Give the lounge one clear job

The lounge becomes cluttered for a different reason. It is where mail lands, chargers gather, remote controls disappear, and school papers and craft supplies wait for a decision, even though the room’s actual purpose is to sit, read, watch television and relax. Carter’s point is that a living room should not double as the household’s sorting station, because every item left on a side table or sofa arm becomes a visible reminder of an unfinished task.

A useful weekend reset is to create one landing spot for the things that genuinely pass through the room, then clear the rest back to their proper homes. That means choosing where papers go before they are dropped, where chargers stay plugged in, and where remotes live when no one is using them.

Stop storing clothes for a future you never wear

Wardrobe clutter often comes from hesitation rather than lack of space. Carter says wardrobes fill up with pieces kept for a smaller size, a different season or a vague future occasion, while laundry baskets and chair backs become temporary storage that never quite leaves the room. That is where time gets lost: choosing an outfit becomes a search through clothes that no longer match the life you are actually living.

Her clothing fixes are practical rather than sentimental. Carter advises folding as small and neat as possible, using a folding board to keep items uniform, and file-folding clothes so shirts and jeans can be seen at a glance instead of buried in a stack. High shelves are for occasional items, such as seasonal pieces or going-out shoes, which keeps daily wear visible and reduces the chance of buying duplicates because the original pair was hidden away.

WRAP’s 2025 research on clothing donation and disposal says people’s decisions are shaped by emotion, practicality and convenience, and warns that the UK’s used textile sector is under pressure. Parliamentary evidence has put around 650,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing collected each year through donation and collection channels, while about 300,000 tonnes still enter household bins annually, a stream that local authorities and recycling systems have to absorb.

BBC’s Sort Your Life Out uses that same logic. The show, which launched in 2021 and has reached at least a fifth series, sends a household’s possessions to a warehouse so the family can decide what to keep, donate, sell or recycle. Carter’s new podcast, Sort Your Life Out Unpacked, extends that method by unboxing three mystery items from celebrity guests’ homes.