I also read the Magic of Tidying book - the author definitely came across as single-minded in her passion re: tidying (which I can respect), while also a bit kooky in a way I couldn't fully get behind, but I really enjoyed the book. Over the last several years, I've been decluttering my belongings and trying to simplify things. I came to know about myself that I really prefer bare (or mostly bare except a few decorative things) surfaces and space. Like for other posters, having lots of stuff out is over-stimulating and distracting and chaotic.
We keep our bedroom and living space (small apt) relatively streamlined and bare and minimal. And yet, there's a bunch of stuff in various closets, and we don't use all of it regularly. I went through my clothes again and filled a 13 gallon trash bag to donate to Goodwill - my clothes all basically fit in a small closet, the amount isn't excessive. Though to be fair, a lot of my clothes are meh and don't bring me joy. Meh. I convinced my husband that the 2nd bedroom ('his' room) would be better if he got rid of a bookcase to create space - surprisingly, he agreed and actually went through his stuff and culled a bunch of electronics. I definitely pushed him on getting rid of TV cables and the like (haven't had a TV in 2 years, neither of us feel a need to get one, we watch everything on our laptops anyway). But it was basically all him, and he got to re-position his desk/computer setup so he had more space. And the bookcase we put outside on the street got snapped up within a few hours. (Yay!)
My other small victories were gathering some mini toiletries, as well as unopened office/school supplies, and a bunch of loose leaf tea that I don't drink much (all gifted - I'm a big tea drinker so theoretically it was a good gift, but I'm not picky and find the bagged tea more convenient), and donated it to a local domestic violence shelter/organization. I also went through the 8 textbooks my husband refused to donate (8 left after he did donate a bunch) and for 6 of them, found PDFs of that or a newer edition of the book, which meant husband was fine with getting rid of the physical textbooks. I feel somewhat crappy about illegally downloading the PDFs, but oh well. Half are going to Goodwill, and half we'll sell for $60-70 each on Amazon. One already sold (after being listed yesterday), as well as an old Roku I bought for my husband >3 years ago, and his old T-89 calculator. Yay money.
I keep sporadically looking at housing in the Boston area (our endgame location, and where I grew up) and wanting to kill myself. We'll be moving back in 3 months or 3 years, and considering buying a few years after that. And the prices are horrible. Not going to lie, I really want to have little stuff and be able to happily live in a 2 bedroom with 1 kid in the future. But that's all very far away. In the meantime, I just keep realizing how generally non-necessary and sometimes also crappy the clothes and things I've bought over the years are. That's kinda depressing.