Time spent removing the rubbish/decluttered items will be included: hopefully this will help as I often find actually getting stuff of the premises is what is slowing me down. I'm gunning to go room by room, section by section if necessary and not stop until I've done a complete sweep of the house.
So true, I have lots of stuff that psychologically I said goodbye to, eons ago... yet they still linger in the house! We must just set our jaws and give items the old heave ho. Good luck!!
In addition to my own unbanished clutter, the aftermath of emptying my mother's house last month continues to disrupt my own home... while we upgraded a lot of our own items, three rooms in my house are still cluttered almost unusably with items that I couldn't bring myself to toss or donate, like family memorabilia and expensive items like two sterling silver flatware sets, one of them completely unused (value probably $3000). I actually ended up giving away her fur coats to a friend of her house cleaner, to give an idea of the type of things I did let go.
Our garage is still half full to the ceiling with boxes and furniture as well, though this is an improvement from where we were last week. I got poor Mr. Poundwise to deliver our old hutch to one of our refugee families... delighting the wife but I'm afraid many bad words were said by my husband and her husband as they wrestled the furniture into her home. Mr. P thinks he now knows Syrian for, "WTF??" Welcome to America!
Over the weekend, I gave a box full of my mom's everyday dishes and glasses to a friend who is a neighbor... this way, I get to visit with them on occasion, without having to actually own them myself. This morning I woke at dawn and decided that if I wanted space again on my kitchen counters, I could start by giving away my slow cooker (just learned that the Instant Pot will slow cook if I use a different lid).
I spontaneously gave away our family tricycle and scooter to the neighbors across the street. Have been trying to find more refugees to take housewares as well. I have been just spewing stuff at people!
So I slog on. The only way I can really tolerate it is to pick one end of the mess, and try to progress as a moving front from one end of a room to the other.