Start a room at a time and resist the temptation to just move stuff from room to room. I have a lot of plastic boxes (from the Really Useful Box Company ) and I sort things into them. That's how I discovered that we have 18 screwdrivers of assorted sizes, scattered about the house. We had 3 dustpans and 5 brushes. I shudder to think how many batteries we have around the place... there are 27 just on the desk here!