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Episode 238 – 10 one minute habits for a clutter free home

Today we're going to talk about 10 things you need to do every day to have an impact on the visual clutter in your home. The best thing about these 10 things is that they will take one-minute or less, so listen to a quick fire podcast and make a real difference to your home every day.

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Transcript of this podcast episode

[00:00:00] Ingrid: Today we're going to talk about the 10 things you need to do every day to make an impact on the visual clutter in your home. The best thing about these 10 things is that you can do them in one minute or less. So listen to this quickfire podcast to make a real difference to your home every day.

[00:00:23] Voiceover: You are listening to the Declutter Hub podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organising your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen and Lesley Spellman.

[00:00:53] Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. We're delighted you're here to join us as part of your decluttering journey. So whether you are brand new today or have been listening in for ages, we want to say a warm welcome and thank you. It means so much to us. You turn up every week to listen and support us while we talk all things decluttering and organsing. 

[00:01:17] Lesley: We'd love to help more people with their quest for a clutter free home, and our podcast is a fantastic way for people to be inspired to take action. We have a favour to ask. If you like what you hear, be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button on your podcast player and share us with your friends, or leave us a review. Go to declutterhub.com/review to see exactly how to do that.

[00:01:39] Ingrid: Well Lesley, we are back with a 10 Things Podcast and we like a 10 Things Podcast as well. So we're all happy here, aren't we? That we are recording this podcast with 10 things.

[00:01:51] Lesley: Always happy. And the nice thing about this podcast is we go and get our timer out and we had to test what we have said to whether or not it takes one minute or less. Now, some of them, we did have to do a little bit of running. I'm not, I'm but definitely, definitely under 60 minutes with a fair wind. That's what I'm going to say. 

[00:02:15] Ingrid: I hope you mean 60 seconds, Lesley, because otherwise...

[00:02:18] Lesley: what did I say?

[00:02:19] Ingrid: 60 minutes.

[00:02:21] Lesley: 60 seconds, fair winds. That's what I'm going to say. We enjoyed it. Getting our timer out. We need to practice what we're preaching. We don't, we're like, have we actually got this right? Are we being truthful when we say that, or are we making false claims?

So let's get cracking with number one.

[00:02:36] Ingrid: Yes. Well, this is definitely something that we can do under one minute. Just put your towel back on the rail. When you've had a shower, don't drop it on the floor. Don't drop it on your bath somewhere. Put it on the hook where your towel belongs. Put it on the towel rack.

[00:02:55] Lesley: Do you know what will take longer than 60 seconds? Ingrid

[00:02:58] Ingrid: What?

[00:02:59] Lesley: Telling your kids to put their towels back on the rail after they've had a bath.

[00:03:05] Ingrid: Yes. Yes.

[00:03:07] Lesley: So you can do yours, do you think? But then you've got to go around the rest of the house and pick everybody else's up or have the argument, right?

[00:03:14] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah,

[00:03:16] Lesley: Tricky.

[00:03:17] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, Lesley.

[00:03:21] Lesley: You do. So why is it so important to put your towel back on the rail?

[00:03:24] Ingrid: Well, I think there's loads of reasons actually. You might think, what are they talking about? A towel on the floor. I think towels on the floor create a lot of visual clutter. Normally, towels that are on the floor are damp, and when you leave them on the floor, they get cold and they get smelly, and when they get cold and smelly and damp, you can't reuse them again. And let's be honest, you can use a towel two or three times. You know, you don't have to throw a towel in the wash every time after you've used it. Although some of my friends who I know will disagree and they're like, I'm doing so much laundry. And I'm like, why have you got so much laundry?

Because I only use my towel once and we're with four people, and I'm like, wow, I'm not doing that in my house. A towel has to be reused. I'm sorry.

[00:04:11] Lesley: Exactly, but I don't know. I don't know whether I like the idea of the kind of cold and damp and smelly. It sounds a little bit macabre really, Ingrid, you know what I mean? 

[00:04:19] Ingrid: I know, but it does happen when the towel is damp. It's not good, especially when you leave it.

[00:04:25] Lesley: Yeah, exactly. So I think it's one way of making sure that first thing in the morning or last thing at night, or whenever you have your bath or your shower, the bathroom looks kind of nice next time you go into it and it removes that visual clutter. 

And when you go into your bathroom, you think, ah, that's nice, rather than, ugh. Which is what you're talking about. So really important to get in the habit and to try really hard to get the rest of your family into that habit of picking their towels up. Well, good luck with that because I've been in trying to do that for 27 years.

[00:04:55] Ingrid: I still have hope, Lesley. I still have hope.

[00:04:58] Lesley: Yeah, you're still hopeful. But anyway.

[00:05:00] Ingrid: Let's go to number two. Oh, this is one that I do religiously when there's stuff on the stairs to go upstairs to another part of your house. Take it. Don't walk past it 25 times and leave it, and then something else gets on top of it. Just take it up. Now in my house, I am the only person who does this, Lesley, but hey ho, I just live with that and I just keep doing it and it makes me happy.

[00:05:32] Lesley: There's a meme out there, isn't there? Like, there's nothing so hopeful or something as a Mum who leaves stuff on the stairs for kids to take or possibly, I can't remember what it is, but it's quite funny now. I don't put stuff on the stairs. We've talked about this and you, so we do things differently, right? 

So you have put things to go upstairs in the stairs and you religiously take them upstairs. I do things in a different way. I have a a basket, a whole basket, not a stair basket. Although some people love a stair basket, although, We're not convinced about the nature of a stair basket, because we think it's a little bit awkward in terms of what you can fit in there.

We'd rather have a normal square basket. And so what you can do with this basket is if things get put out of place that belong elsewhere in the house, and need to go upstairs. You can start to put things in this basket, and then at some point in the day, either you or your children in this absolutely was always a job that I made my children do. Do the basket. Do the basket. Do the basket. Firmly implanted in their minds. They would take the basket and they would know that they had to redistribute the stuff out of the basket into the room that it belongs. So, and that takes a minute to, I'm not saying the distribution of the stuff takes a minute, but I'm taking the, putting the stuff on the stairs to take up or putting stuff in the basket to take up.

So it's a bit of a halfway house. But if you get in the habit of doing that, it will remove the visible clutter from your work surface in the kitchen, from the hallway and things like that. So you've done half the job right? 

[00:06:58] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it can really make a difference. It can really make a difference instead of having stuff out of place everywhere. And then the thing is, You can't find it anymore, so then you spent longer trying to look for things because nobody can remember where it was left last. So putting it on the stairs or in the basket and then putting it in the right place can prevent so much aggravation in the future. You're helping your future self, Lesley.

[00:07:26] Lesley: You are, you know, when, uh, when my kids were smaller, there was more stuff that went into the basket, so there would be more stuff that went out of place than there is now. So there's not that much that goes in there, but if something is lost in our house and people are like, have you seen this Mum? I'll go, look in the basket because sometimes the basket doesn't get done for a few days now, whereas before, it would get done every day when there was, when it was filling up with stuff. But now it might only be once a week or something like that. So the basket is a place where, you know, mislaid things are lost things or things are out of place, gets put.

And so sometimes that's a great place to find things. So we love a basket in the hallway. If you've got space for one, or if you haven't, then do the hopeful pile on the stairs or do it yourself pile on the stairs.

[00:08:11] Ingrid: Yes. Talking about baskets le uh, Lesley, we've got another one on number three of our 10 things, and that is, just put your dirty washing in the laundry basket. Don't kind of have chuck it in the right direction so it lands on the floor just next to the laundry basket. Take the time, take that under one minute job and put the stuff in the laundry basket.

If you, like me, have a lights and a dark section, put it in the right section. My lights go on the left, the darks go on the right. That's always how it's been. Now since I have this laundry basket, everybody knows this and it's again,

[00:08:56] Lesley: When you say everybody knows that, when you say everybody, like, I don't know that

[00:09:00] Ingrid: Well,

[00:09:01] Lesley: like, you mean every, like everybody knows we've got lights on the left and right, darks on the right. Like do they like really, like it's a common, a commonly known thing.

[00:09:13] Ingrid: Well, in my house, it's a commonly known

[00:09:15] Lesley: House. 

[00:09:16] Ingrid: In my house. It's a commonly known thing, so everybody puts, because I have one laundry basket in my house, I don't have multiple. So because I don't have room to have multiple, so I have one larger one in my bathroom. So, The kids know this as well, and that saves my future self time when I would just wanna do a light load or a dark load.

I don't have to rummage through and go, oh, that's in the wrong place and stuff. This is also a little bit about saving time, actually. I'm realising more and more Lesley.

[00:09:45] Lesley: Yes. Put one minute in and you save 10 minutes back. Is that what you're saying.

[00:09:49] Ingrid: Yeah. I think so.

[00:09:50] Lesley: So do you, do your kids go from their bedrooms when they get undressed at night and put their things in? The lights on the left and the darks on the right section.

[00:09:59] Ingrid: Yes,

[00:10:00] Lesley: Oh my word. Like I be they, I'm, I'm going to ask those kids. I, yeah, I think you're just making that up.

They absolutely don't. I could show me a child who's going to do that at 10 o'clock at night.

[00:10:13] Ingrid: Yeah, they do that. Yeah.

[00:10:15] Lesley: Honestly, honestly. Well, well done you. Well done you, Mum.

[00:10:19] Ingrid: Or maybe they just all kind of secretly hate me because I'm so straight all the time. I don't know.

[00:10:25] Lesley: I just, I'd love to come in and see the kind of, you know, all the, all the clothes like stuffed at the bottom of the wardrobe. You know, when you, when you, when you come in in the room and they just stuff everything under everything else or stuff it under the bed or whatever, they don't do that. I bet you go looking, don't you, hunting for things.

[00:10:39] Ingrid: Well, they do. If, if they wear something once, they're not going to immediately put it in the, in the laundry basket. So there is of course a place where they put their half worn clothes and please, let's not go into that whole discussion, Lesley.

[00:10:53] Lesley: Because that is not, that is not, under 60 seconds.

[00:10:55] Ingrid: Yeah, exactly. So, but if they've worn something like underwear or socks or anything like, or a t-shirt that they've worn once or twice and it's now something, they put it in the laundry basket.

[00:11:05] Lesley: I don't think even I could be bothered to do that.

[00:11:07] Ingrid: I know you don't, and that surprises me.

[00:11:10] Lesley: Walk from my bedroom into my bathroom because your bedroom's not next to your bathroom either. You've got walk along a corridor. That's a lot a. of work. 

[00:11:18] Ingrid: I've got a tiny house. Just, can I clarify this? This is not like this corridor. I know, but I don't have a, you like talk about you have to walk alongside a corridor. People must think I live in some sort of mansion or something.

[00:11:36] Lesley: They're like, Downton Abbey . Yeah, yeah, exactly. But anyway, yes, it is really good. So I agree. I, you know, I'm surprised by the way that this is being executed on in your house, is what I'm saying. Um, but I agree that one should put your dirty washing in the laundry basket as soon as it comes off your body.

[00:11:57] Ingrid: Yeah, good idea. Let's move on to, we get so sidetracked with these things, Lesley, it's always incredible. We're like, let's do a quick fire podcast and then we end up talking about these things for ages. So let's move on to number four. Bring back mugs and glasses that have been distributed around your house, in your bedroom, or in your home office, or in the living room, bring them back to the kitchen when they're empty, don't leave them to build up this whole pile of stuff that you then need to walk back three or four times to get all the dirty crockery out. In the morning if you've had a glass of water next to your bed and you want that glass to go into the dishwasher in the morning before you go down, pick up the glass, bring it down less than 60 seconds, but you're not going to end up with piles. washing all over your house and washing up just to then fill a whole, uh, dishwasher full of stuff because you got nothing left because everything is everywhere.

[00:12:55] Lesley: I mean, I, I must admit, I had a bit of a no no plates and glasses in the bedroom for a while while the kids were small, but it, but since they became adults, I think once they become adults. You can't really enforce the same rules as you did. Do you know what I mean? And so, honestly, if I go into Nathan's bedroom now, and Nathan edits these podcasts, right?

And so Nathan is going to listen to this. It's like a student squat with like 15 glasses and plates and stuff. And Leah's is no better, to be fair. But it was never like that when there were kids at school because I'd go crazy at them and I would just let them be. 

So I think I've lost control. Have I lost the will to live? Have I lost control? Have I lost authority? I really need to, to look at this and start to get, get back to the kind of, you know, the way that I was when they were eight years old. I'm going to do that this weekend. New rules coming in this house now. No more mugs and glasses from the bedrooms straight back into the kitchen.

[00:13:53] Ingrid: Okay, well good luck with that. Lemme know how that goes.

[00:13:56] Lesley: Exactly. But one thing that I do do, I will say when I empty the basket, cause it's typically, it's now me that empties this basket that we spoke about before. I will then use the basket to take the empty crockery downstairs with the basket.

[00:14:14] Ingrid: You know what, like, like we said before, you have to pick your battle sometimes, don't you? I know. I mean, you're like, I really should not do this crockery. It's their job. But on the other hand, you're there anyway, so you, you know, sometimes you know it, you can make it easy for yourself.

[00:14:28] Lesley: Yeah, I just think I just gave up, I shouldn't really be saying that.

[00:14:33] Ingrid: I know you've heard it here first everyone.

[00:14:37] Lesley: A little bit like Marie Kondo. She's given up, hasn't she?

[00:14:39] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah,

[00:14:40] Lesley: Now she's got three kids. She's given up on the notion of tidying. Maybe that's me as well. Although, but I have my three kids and now they've gone. And now I've given up. Maybe that's it. Anyway,

[00:14:51] Ingrid: Anyway, right. Let's go. 

[00:14:55] Lesley: We need to calm down. We need to calm down. I'm going to calm. I'm going to be calm. I'm going to be calm.

[00:14:58] Ingrid: Okay, because we are going to be here forever otherwise, let's go on to number five. If you love magazines and newspapers, they can kind of scatter, just stack them neatly in a little pile. We know that you probably still wanna read some of it, you know, but if it's all open and scattered and next to three different sofas, you're not going to be able to find it. So gather it together, make a neat pile of stuff, and that is going to take you less than 60 seconds.

[00:15:29] Lesley: It is. Absolutely. And what I do, just going on from that is, I'm not really a magazine and newspaper kind of person. I mean, I have another one, do you know what I mean? But I've not got piles of them, is that I, I straighten up and neaten up my piles of notebooks and papers that I have in my office as well.

So I put those neats that when I come back to them in the morning, it looks all neat and tidy. She says, looking around her desk, but I'm in the middle of my working day.

[00:15:51] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've got stuff everywhere now as well, but I do the same at the end of the day. I do tidy up a little bit. I'm like, okay, let me put everything back in. Its in its place because it's just nicer to come back to a to a, I think to a tidy desk.

[00:16:05] Lesley: Definitely. So I think we need to go for a break. I think I'm going to go and get a chamomile tea or something. So I calm down and then come back after the break.



[00:16:17] Ingrid: Well, we are back for the second half of our 10 Things Podcast, and I think we've calmed down a little bit. Lesley's had her chamomile tea. I've had a sip of normal regular tea as well. So let's just stop laughing and just try and get some sense into this podcast, Lesley, because we, we are here for the serious business of decluttering. She says like half, half laughing already again, but

[00:16:42] Lesley: I think the problem is I've already seen number six and I know that it's going to make me cross again.

[00:16:47] Ingrid: Oh, okay. Well, you

[00:16:48] Lesley: The problem is with these ten one minute habits, if I'm really honest, is that no one else in the house does them. You know, then that's the problem. So, you know, I might do them, but anyway. Anyway, I'm going to be calm.

Number six is, as soon as you come into the house, put away your coats, you know, make your shoes neat and put your keys in the right place. Really important for loads of different reasons. It just means that the coats are in the right place to shoes and decently and tidying your keys away. You can find 'em the next day.

So just get into that habit of when you come in, because we come through the door. We're exhausted after a busy day or after coming in from wherever we've been, and we just want to flop. But spend those extra few seconds just doing the right thing with your coat, with your shoes, with your keys. And it will be much better for you tomorrow when you go out.

And it will also be much better for crazy mothers like me, who when they see people, we've got so many places where we can put coat, we've got a coat rack to put coats on. They don't go on banisters and the back of chairs, but where do they put them? Not on the coat rack? On the banister or on the back of chairs. So I then spend less than a minute, every time but times five, putting the coats onto the coat rack off the back of the chairs.

[00:18:07] Ingrid: Yes.

[00:18:09] Lesley: Are you with me?

[00:18:10] Ingrid: Yeah, Yes, I am with you. I'm just thinking, I am so religiously doing this. This is like the one thing when I come in, I hang up my, that's the first thing I do. I take, I hang up, take off my coat, hang up my scarf, and then I walk through with, I put my bag in the same place where it has my keys because I'm like, I, I can't do having stuff everywhere.

It's just for, that makes no sense to me. So I do this religiously. My family members, on the other hand, is a different story. So the other day I had a complete panic because I couldn't find the car keys because I always put 'em in the same place. And normally, I'm going to be honest, my husband's very good, but he put them somewhere and I didn't know where. So there's me running around the house, going, patting down coats, trying to look at his shelf where he normally keeps his random, like his wallet and things. And I'm like, it's not there. Nearly empty half of my purse because I think it's, it's put in the wrong place, not there.

And I'm like, I need to leave my house. Where's my key? I find it in my husband's coat pocket. Yeah, he did. He, he got told off for that one. I was not happy because I was like, I was going to leave the house and I was running late and

[00:19:22] Lesley: I know cause that's just very frustrating because you do leave it to the last minute to go, don't you have your timings and you go and you expect to find your coat, find your shoes, find your keys, find your phone where you want them. And that's the point. 

And so the reason, you know, talking about the difference between what we do, and I know that, um, your husband does that most of the time, or what my kids do or other people in the family. I think for you and I, all of these things that we've spoken about are habits, firmly ingrained habits, and so that's what we're talking about. Start to think about these things, and you will have to think about them. You're going to have to make a really conscious effort to do the right thing with your coat, to do the right thing with your keys, to do the right thing with hanging your towels up, um, when you have a shower in the morning and things like that.

And slowly but surely, these things will become habit for you in the same way that they are for Ingrid. And then you'll never look back and it just becomes a thing that you do. And the problem is that for other people who don't do that as habit, , you have to constantly keep telling them, you know, and they, and, and they're not invested in the habit.

And so I suppose today's podcast, even though it's a lot of very simple things, is all about you have to commit to making these little tiny things habit, and it'll save you so much time and energy and effort in the long run. That's what this is all about. It's about that commitment. So we've got 10 things on our list. We've not finished a list yet. If we think about those 10 things, if we weren't doing any of these, and I'm sure you will be doing some of them, but if we weren't doing any of these things, that would be an additional 10 minutes a day that we needed to do, and I, I bet you bottom dollar, that would save you. 20 minutes, 30 minutes trying to look for keys, trying to pick the thing, go back with the wet towel and put it in the wash and get a fresh one because you've not done that. You know, as Ingrid says, trying to find your keys. Yeah, all that stuff. It saved so much time and emotional energy. So that's what this very simple quickfire, although it's not too quickfire, because it's been a bit of a moan-fest for Ingrid and I, um, but you know, that's what this is all about is invest the time, invest the energy into it, and start to make these things habits, and then it's really going to reap dividends in the long run.

[00:21:27] Ingrid: Oh yeah, absolutely. So let's move on to number seven then Lesley, recycle your junk mail. So when you get your post out of your post books or out of your hallway or wherever your post is. Immediately fish out the junk mail and put it in your recycling bin, you will save so much time later. It honestly takes less than a minute to do it and you can then, you know, the post that needs opening and reading and looking at that can be done another time, but there's already taken out, sometimes half of that stuff in your post box directly into junk mail is just so satisfying. 

[00:22:08] Lesley: Yeah, junk mail is an absolute game changer. And just saves you time. You can put things you know away and then you can just tackle them when you want to tackle them. Makes such a lot of difference. We get so much junk mail through the door, don't we?

Now the next one on our list, depending on where you are in your life and what the makeup of your family is, may take a little longer than 60 seconds.

[00:22:28] Ingrid: Yes.

[00:22:30] Lesley: Are we right? 

But if you were really organised and had made plans for the exits that we're going to talk about in a minute, I think you could do it in 60 seconds.

This is where we had to put our jogging shoes on a little bit, right? 

[00:22:42] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. It is empty the car when you arrive home. So take out that little biscuit wrapper that you secretly snacked on in the car.

[00:22:57] Lesley: When you say one, when you say one , is it just one?

[00:23:01] Ingrid: It's just the one.

[00:23:03] Lesley: Well, not when I've been to IKEA with the Daim bars.

[00:23:05] Ingrid: I don't eat biscuits in the car because they're far too crumbly. But that's a whole different story. But, um, yeah, or like from like, uh, from a mint or something. You know, the wrapper put it in the bin. If you have a bag that needs to go indoors, When you get out of the car, take the bag.

If the kids have been swimming or have been to a club or have done an other activity, take the stuff inside. Don't leave it in the car because you're going to lose stuff. You're going to then run around your house in a panic because you are assuming it's inside your house, and then later realise it's still somewhere in the back of the car. Empty your car. The, the more regular you do this, the quicker you will get at this.

[00:23:49] Lesley: It's sometimes hard, isn't it, when you've got kids.

[00:23:52] Ingrid: Yeah.

[00:23:53] Lesley: You know, when you've got little kids, if you've got a little baby or something like that, or you know, if you are struggling yourself and you can't walk and you have a walking stick, things like that are a little bit more tricky. So there's always things that mean that it's not going to be as easy as perhaps we are making out.

But if you can try and get all things being equal, if you try and make this a habit and start to take out wrappers, I, I quite often if I, you know, , it sounds like I'm just like, snacking on all these things all the time, um, which I kind of am sometimes when I'm out and about. But I'll actually take the things out the car, cause it's next to my bins and so their next to my dust bins, I wouldn't bring it in the house.

You know, I empty the car and put it straight into the, into the dust bin. It's mostly to hide the evidence, if I'm honest, But I think it's really important to take things out. You know, equally it's important to put things back in. So if you, if you've done shopping and you've got shopping bags in your car and you've bought some shopping while you've been out, it's really important to put those shopping bags in the car so they're in the right place next time you go out shopping. So keeping on top of your car in whatever way that you can. And it might not be immediately if you've got to, you know, carry a small child in on your hip, you might not be able to empty the car at that point. Um, but really think about getting into that habit of emptying the car.

Cause the problem is that if you don't, it builds and builds and, and then it becomes a major project to try and fix, doesn't it?

[00:25:08] Ingrid: Then it's suddenly a Saturday morning job. Yeah. 

[00:25:10] Lesley: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:25:11] Ingrid: Oh, I've got a whole Saturday morning. And then you're like there from 9 to 12, and then you suddenly realise something is spilled and you need to get the hoover out and you need to get soapy water out. And there's stains and there's, and then it gets a whole thing, and then it's no fun anymore.

Well, if you would've done any just a little bit every day. It wouldn't have built up so much, but it's, it's, that's with everything, isn't it, Lesley? It's that little, but often that really helps here. 

Right. We've got another good one for you. Number nine, tear down cardboard boxes. How often do we get that in a client's houses and we see they get deliveries, they open the box, they unbox it. You know, if you want to call it a popular term and then don't. Tear down the cardboard box, so there's like loads of little boxes and remnants of stuff in their living room, for example, or in the hallway. And then you nearly trip over a cardboard box.

[00:26:10] Lesley: I think it's important to flatten these boxes down as well, because if you, if you want to put them into your recycling bin, what we, what we see quite often is people, Get a little bit lazy, don't they? And then kind of don't, you know, like you gotta kind of, it depends on where you get 'em from now. Amazon have done it really nicely. A lot of, a lot of places do it quite nicely and you can kind of, you don't have to go through the sellotape anymore cause you can kind of rip it down, can't you, without doing that. But sometimes you might need a knife or a pair of scissors to do that. And what that means is everything is nice and flat for you to then put into your recycling bin.

And I think that's what's what's really important because if you don't, then your recycling bin. I mean, you know, you're almost standing on it to try and squash everything down and get all the boxes in and it's quite tricky. So get in the habit of keeping on top of those cardboard boxes, if you've got a lot coming into your house, you know, really think a lot of people are like, keep the boxes for donations and all this kind of stuff.

If you are the kind of person that's got things coming into your house all the time from Amazon or from other delivery places, you're never going to be short of a cardboard box. So you don't need to keep excess and excess of them, you know, do yourself a favor and let them go and put them straight into recycling if you can or do something else with them.

But keep control of those cardboard boxes in the recycling and, and make them in a state that you can easily put them in your recycling bin.

[00:27:26] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Very helpful. Right. We've got the last one then, uh, listeners coming up. Huh. This, I think this can actually cause arguments between couples.

[00:27:40] Lesley: Yeah.

[00:27:41] Ingrid: When one of you does not put a lid back on the toothpaste. I mean, people I think might divorce over that, Lesley, like the final straw.

[00:27:52] Lesley: I know exactly. It would just be one of those bug bears, really? Wouldn't it have people like, because it kind of dries up and then it. goes on the side and leaves a mark and then someone's gotta clean it and all that kind of stuff. And so you really do need to keep your eye on all of those kind of things.

You know, toothpaste is a good example of it. It might be shower gel that you need to put a a top on. It might be putting the soap back into the soap dish and not on the side, you know, any number of things, but kind of generally straighten up your toiletries after you've used the sink in a morning. Think that's what we're talking about really, isn't it? Really, really, important to do that, spend that 60 seconds doing that, because the impact of that is when you go back into your bathroom later, it looks like an inviting space and it doesn't look like a tip.

[00:28:33] Ingrid: Yeah, I suddenly popped some suddenly pop, something popped into my head, Lesley. It's like, replace the empty toilet roll. Can we just please now do a shout out to whoever does not replace an empty toilet roll to please do this. It's so not nice to the next person who wants to go to the toilet. If there's no toilet roll, I mean it's an under a 60 second job.

[00:28:57] Lesley: But they will, they will spend the time taking the empty toilet roll, and throwing it on the floor.

[00:29:02] Ingrid: Yeah,

[00:29:02] Lesley: So the, the toilet roll that's empty can come off the thing and go on the floor, not in the bin, but not put a new toilet roll on, right?

[00:29:10] Ingrid: Exactly. So maybe that's our secret number 11 for today.

[00:29:14] Lesley: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, We snuck another one in there.

[00:29:17] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:20] Lesley: We got the off. Yeah, we got it off our chest, I feel like we needed to get that one off our chest or those 10 off our chest. A little bit of a whine fest. A little bit of a moan fest from us because not everybody else in our families have got the same kind of habits formed as we have, but we know that these are really important things, really little things, really obvious things.

I'm sure this is not rocket science to you, but this is about asking you to look at things, take action on them, think about them, write them down, put them in your phone. There's habit apps out there that you can try and help yourself with. Start to do it slowly but surely and start to make a difference in the visual clutter in your home.

That is what this lovely quickfire, not so quickfire podcast was all about.

[00:29:59] Ingrid: You know what, Lesley, and I know that some people, uh, in my family might not do all ten of them, but I will keep doing it because I note that I am helping myself, uh, my future self with all of these things. So, hey ho, you can't win them all, but progress, not perfection and that kind of thing, Lesley.

[00:30:18] Lesley: Still coming around to your house to, to seek out the washing stuffed under the bed of Max and Anne. I just don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Just making it up and they be scared to death of you. 

[00:30:28] Ingrid: You, you can, you can actually, yeah, I mean, they're going to be home soon, so you can ask them. 

[00:30:33] Lesley: They're not going to go actually, I've got it all stuffed on the bed, so, so that the wicked witch can't see them when she comes into my bedroom every night, they're not going to say that are they?.

[00:30:42] Ingrid: Oh my words. I'm a wicked witch now. Oh, we are listeners. We gotta stop this podcast. 

So thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast. We can't wait to see your comments. Go to declutterhub.com/238 and we can't wait to read what kind of habits you are going to implement in your home or which ones you are already doing. So thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week.

[00:31:06] Voiceover: Thanks so much for listening to the Declutter Hub podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode, and we'll see you next week.

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5 WAYS TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE TODAY

Day after day there are pulls on our time and energy. If you'd like to know some easy ways you can simplify your life and make your days run more smoothly, read on.

Would you like to make your life easier?
Are you tired of having a cluttered home?
Are you overwhelmed by the ever increasing list of tasks?
Would you like to know the secret to maintaining a tidy home?

Unload and load the dishwasher or wash your dishes by hand every day.

Of course you can leave one glass or mug in the evening on the kitchen counter, but don’t leave a whole sink full of dishes to do the next day. It will take you far more time since the old food will be stuck to the plates. At the end of the day after dinner, sort out your kitchen sink so you can start afresh in the morning.

Empty your indoor recycling bins into your recycling bins outside every day.

There is nothing more annoying than overflowing bins that you can’t put stuff into. Also, regularly check your kitchen, bathroom and bedroom bins to stop them overflowing.

Do a load of laundry every day, instead of saving it up and having to do 5 loads of laundry over the weekend.

Before you leave the house for work, school or activities in the morning fill your washing machine and turn it on. When you get back home take 10 minutes to hang it up or put it in the drier. You can even plan a laundry schedule. For example, you may decide to do towels every Wednesday and bedding every Friday. Or choose to do a dark load on Monday and Thursday and a white load on Tuesday.

Decide in the morning what you will have for dinner in the evening, instead of leaving that decision till right before dinner.

You will still have time to defrost something from the freezer or buy something you've forgotten.It's always much tougher to sort this out when everyone’s hungry. It will help if you do a weekly shop and decide on meals for the whole week. You can download our weekly meal planner to help you.

Open your mail daily.

Everything that comes through your door needs to be dealt with straight away. Does it need to be recycled, shredded or kept? If it is to keep, does it need to be filed or put into the action tray? Do this daily and you will no longer have stacks of unopened post lying around.

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Recent Posts

Episode 269 – 10 ways to keep momentum when decluttering

Episode 268 – How to break your shopping habits

Episode 267 – Creating a beautifully organised home with LIFE / EDIT

Episode 266 – How to declutter shoes

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Rebecca Catterall says:

22 April 2023 at 5:32 PM

Love the podcast and this one cheered me up. I’m already behaving and doing this 10 (and the secret number 11) tips. But I might send it to other adult member and grown up children as a subtle hint!

Reply
1. Ingrid Jansen says:
  
  24 April 2023 at 9:42 AM
  
  Thank you Rebecca and well done for doing all 10! Great job!
  
  Reply

Episode 238 – 10 one minute habits for a clutter free home

5 WAYS TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE TODAY

Episode 269 – 10 ways to keep momentum when decluttering

Episode 268 – How to break your shopping habits

Episode 267 – Creating a beautifully organised home with LIFE / EDIT

Episode 266 – How to declutter shoes

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