My Plan for Conquering Clutter

My favorite site for dealing with clutter is Flylady. She seems to have a great system in place, based on the principle of taking 'baby steps' toward resolving clutter. However, as great as it is, I cannot make the system work for me. The primary example is the 27 Fling Boogie. Flylady recommends taking three containers - one for give away, one for throw away and one for put away. You take them into one room or area and put nine items in each bin. When you are done, you throw away the stuff in the throw away container, you put the give away container in your car to be dropped off the next time you are out and about, and you put away the stuff in the put away container.

The problems I have with this system are as follows. First, our house is so cluttered that many items don't have a proper home. Thus, they cannot be put away. Second, it is hard to put away stuff in other rooms when those other rooms are extremely cluttered. Third, I have trouble deciding what to give away and what to throw away when the house is cluttered, particularly with toys. Our house is such a mess that the majority of toys are scattered in pieces across the house. If I come across part of a toy, I need to know if we have the rest of it. If not, I will throw it away. However, if we have the complete toy, then I can decide if we will keep it or not. I don't like to give away parts of toys. Yet since these things are scattered across several rooms, I won't know what is complete and what is not until ALL of the junk is picked up. Thus, I can't 'fling' many of the toys. This may or may not be a symptom of my ADHD.

So - here is my idea. I am going to take several dozen Avon boxes and just start packing the toys and other items in them. I'll still do 27 items at a time, but if it's not a throw away, it will go into the box. Another problem I have had with decluttering is kids getting into the boxes and pulling stuff out. To solve this, I will put packing tape around the boxes and put them in a storage area. Once I have sufficiently reduced the clutter, I will open the boxes and begin sorting, probably on a big white tarp in the backyard.

Any other thoughts or suggestions on this are welcome.