Sort Your Life Out’s Dilly Carter says you should ask one "crucial" question before decluttering - here's why

She’s the professional organiser with a thriving empire, so when we sat down with Good Housekeeping cover star and Sort Your Life Out expert, Dilly Carter, we couldn’t help but ask her for a little bit of decluttering advice. And it turns out we should all be asking ourselves one crucial question before we get to work on any space.

“Just start small. One cupboard, one drawer, one area at a time,” explained Dilly. “But the most important thing to have before you organise is a vision. You need to ask yourself, what do you want that space to do?”

Why that question? Well, it turns out it won't simply make the whole process a lot easier as you'll know what you need where, it also means your clutter is far less likely to come back. And the proof? Dilly herself, who spends her working days sorting people’s clutter out and, thankfully, comes home to a nice, clear space of her own.

“Oh, I’m good!” she said of her own decluttering habits. “Our stuff might fill a quarter of a warehouse. We’re very minimal as a family. I’m very good at streamlining everything. I love buying stuff, but I’m equally good at letting it go. I invest in good-quality stuff and rotate things. If it all disappeared in a fire tomorrow, it wouldn’t bother me.”

She honestly wouldn’t save anything? “Only Charley, Nelly and the dog. Maybe one thing, actually – a necklace that belonged to my dad,” she said. “Our memories are in our head, not in possessions. I’m constantly convincing people to let go of unnecessary belongings because life is about moments.

“Often people hold on to things because they’re grieving, but I never expect people to make rash decisions. Hopefully, as time passes, the grief will ease and it will be easier to let go of things.”

Dilly's mantra is that “our memories should be in our head, not in our things” and she believes material possession have very little part to play in true happiness. “Is this item what we think of when we think of someone we love, or do you remember a day at the zoo, a holiday, the time spent a night on the beach?", she said.

“In other words, memories should be about experiences, emotions, feelings, not a red tracksuit. I talk to my clients about learning to enjoy a moment, to saviour those special times. We don't need to be surrounded by things to make us feel good.”

She think there’s far more peace to be found in an empty space than one full of possessions. “I often talk about that feeling you get when you walk into a hotel room and think, "Oh gosh" - that feeling of serenity,” she explained.

“Your shoulders drop, you feel relieved. Why does a nice hotel room make us feel so good? Because there's nothing in that room apart from what we've packed in the suitcase. It's confirmation that we don't need this abundance of stuff that we seem to convince ourselves we need.”

The key is to resist the temptation to spend and splurge. “We're constantly being told to buy this, buy that,” she added. "It's bank holiday weekend - spend, spend, spend! The sun is out - spend, spend, spend!

“It's lovely to have stuff, but it can very quickly take over our lives. Very quickly the spare room becomes a dumping ground, the kitchen island is overflowing with paperwork, kids' toys are all over the house. That's when it starts affecting our mental health and our relationships. We're drowning in stuff and we feel miserable.”

Read the full interview in Good Housekeeping’s September issue, on sale from 23rd July. Dilly’s Perfectly Packed range for The Contents Bag is available at thecontentsbag.com.