Addendum to Time and Space - Observations from an Uberslob:
Observation #3: The "What if I moved house?" test works. It probably works better if you're actually moving house, but it puts the value of your junk into perspective.
Observation #4: If, like me, you're a little bit geeky and prone to obsessiveness, making your house-cleaning rule-based also works, provided you stick to it. For every item you bring into the house (excepting food), make yourself throw out two items of equivalent weight or volume. Throw out stuff you haven't used for X years - I like a very large value for X because I'm also a penny-pinching cheapskate who wants to squeeze every bit of use out of his belongings, but any value will do.
My mother and my aunt are both big fans of that last rule, by the way, although they didn't get into it until after I'd become set in my piggish ways. Oink.
