Your bedroom is supposed to be a place of calm, somewhere to relax and recover at the end of the day. Remove any items that don’t allow for that. Try and put clothes away at the end of the day instead of leaving them on a chair or the floor. If you have wardrobes that are bulging at the seams, have a clothes declutter. Remember that you probably only wear around 20% of what’s in your wardrobe.

Our rooms are no longer the single-use areas they once were, so the first step is to determine how you like to use your living space. Is it to entertain or to relax after a busy day? Does it have multiple uses, such as being a workspace, a play space and a relaxing space? Once you’ve determined its use, declutter by removing all items that don’t belong in this area. If they work their way back in again it’s most likely either because their intended home isn’t easily accessible, or because they’re actually being used in your living space. In this case you need to create a home for them here, too.

Some rooms have doubled up as our offices during the last couple of years, so it’s especially important that these areas are kept tidy. For example, if you have lots of stationery, be realistic about how much you actually use and give away the rest to charity, a local community center or your neighbours.

Make sure you keep paperwork to a minimum and have a good filing system that’s easy to maintain. If you can, have a dedicated storage solution for all of your filing, stationery and any other work-related items. If you’re an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of person try open shelving with nice box files, magazine files or drawers that are labeled (otherwise you’ll forget what you have and where it belongs).

We spend a lot of our time in the kitchen – for many of us it’s the hub of the house. So it’s important to make sure it’s easy to navigate and doesn’t feel like a dumping ground for random things.

Start by grouping like-for-like items together so you can assess what you have and get rid of any unnecessary duplicates; after all, there’s no use having 20 storage boxes if you only ever use 10. If you find items that you’ve been ‘meaning to use’, factor them into your meal planning for the next week and actually use them.

Make cupboard space easy to reach by placing items in baskets or clear boxes that can be easily pulled out. This also means you can see exactly what you already have, which should help to cut down on duplicate buying.

Make sure there is a home for everything and clear away those piles of paperwork, homework and anything else that regularly finds its way onto the dining table or island, so that they don’t build up and become a burden.

The bathroom is one of the first and last rooms we enter each day, so it needs some element of order and calm. Try to have only the items that you use daily out on display. If you have storage in your bathroom, keep like-for-like items together.

Be sure to assess what you have and what you actually use. Realistically you only need two towels per person, and some spares for guests or taking outside of the home. The same goes for toiletries – you’re unlikely to need items that have sat unused in your cupboard for years.

Cupboard space and drawers can be the two areas that people struggle with the most. Sian regularly finds clients saying their house is tidy, it’s just the cupboards that are a nightmare. But this is easily fixed. Clever use of internal storage options and labelling can help those cupboards and drawers of doom become a delight.

As with all areas in your home, make sure you know exactly what needs to be in the cupboard or drawer. Use old storage boxes, or buy new ones of a style you like, to section out the drawers and cupboards and help to compartmentalise items to make them easier to store and find. Labelling is another way of helping to keep everything in its place.

Make sure everything has a home and a place that’s easily accessible for when you need it. It’s OK to have more than one home for something if used in multiple rooms. You don’t want to have to go searching for a pen, for instance, from one room to the next so have a small stash in each room that you tend to use them in. As with everything, ascertain its purpose and need and you’ll start to find it easier to declutter and sort.