I was helping a client with her home office this morning. She said, "I can't wait till I'm finished with this so I can forget about it." I said that clutter busting never stops becomes our living space is always in transition. New things come in all the time and they need to be taken care of or find an appropriate place in our home. Then there's the stuff that was useful but outlives its use and needs to be tossed.
It's common to think that once the space has been clutter busted that it's done. But then it gets cluttered again and the frustration returns. I'm encouraging you to begin to make this a regular part of your routine. This way your awareness gets attuned to your home and you know what it needs. You're learning how to treat your living space with flexibility. This will help you avoid the feeling of defeat and disappointment that comes from the presence of stacks and piles of stuff.
My client said she liked the idea of what would come from regular maintenance of her things. She said, "That's how I want it to be - operational." She's a swimmer and said there's a term in swimming called streamline that relates to clutter busting. It's flowing steadily without turbulence, and being free of excess baggage that would normally disrupt the flow.