There’s decluttering by the book, and then there’s realistic decluttering. Too often we follow the experts’ advice and end up unhappy with the result.

Clothing styles run in cycles. Pant legs go from wide to skin tight, and shirt hems go up and down. While it’s likely that your fairly new pair of wide leg pants might come back in style soon, the 2-foot-wide bell bottoms of the ‘70s probably won’t make a reappearance.

You thought you would like that magazine subscription you got two years ago. You read three issues and the other nine are in a stack that keep sliding off the coffee table. Out they go.

And what about that coffee table that you threatened to take to Goodwill ages ago because it’s

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