A graphic of a woman in a cape standing on top of a mountain of books and clutter with a sign saying we're celebrating your success in 2019
Episode 65 – Looking back at 2019

In this podcast, we are looking back at 2019 and what we have learnt from our listeners, members and each other.
As the end of the year approaches, we are looking back at 2019 and choosing our favourite podcasts, challenges and reflect on the community within The Declutter Hub.
Prefer to read rather than listen?
Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host, professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:30  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 65 of the declutter hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. 

Lesley  0:36  
And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:37  
If you have clutter and want to short it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Lesley, now we'll be talking about everything we have been up to in 2019. And what we've learned about our journey in the declutter hub, and Lesley, it's her last episode of the year. Can you believe it?

Lesley  0:55  
No. Where did that year go? Such a busy year. And now we're at the end of it. It's crazy.

Ingrid  1:00  
I know. I know. It's so like, we're all like looking forward to 2020 but I'm like, can we please recap? 2019 We've done so much. And we've learned so much. It's just been an absolutely fantastic. Crazy wonderful and everything in between year hasn't it's not been easy year. I'm not gonna lie. It's not been an easy year. But it's been just so fabulous, isn't it?

Lesley  1:24  
Yeah, absolutely has anyway, how was your Christmas?

Ingrid  1:27  
My Christmas was wonderful. Thank you very much. had a lovely time visiting my family. And how about you?

Lesley  1:33  
Lovely. It's nice this listen at this kind of low in between Christmas and New Year. This is my kind of lazy time of the year, if I'm truly honest, they always have these great intentions to go out for long brisk walks every day and do all these amazing things. And I tend to be a little bit on the lazy side, which I think is good. It's good to have a little bit of a reset, isn't it before? What 2020 brings next week? Can you believe that? 2020 next week?

Ingrid  1:57  
I know, you know, that's just the end of a decade as well. You know what I mean? The decade has gone

Lesley  2:04  
on we're just getting older. That's good. Let's not get to it. Let's not talk about decades passers by, because that will get away too depressing.

Ingrid  2:13  
That is true. So but can we please look back on 2019? Because we've done some amazing things if we say so ourselves, haven't we?

Lesley  2:21  
I know we never knew that we would be able to kind of pull this off really this way. Okay, so you know, all of those podcasts, and we've delivered a podcast every single week haven't weighed that people have absolutely loved. You know, the nicest thing about 2019 is all the feedback that we get from you guys and hearing about your journeys and how it's affected you and how we've inspired you to take action. And that's what this is all about really. And the podcast is the first way that we found wasn't to talk to you guys directly. It was what we realised is Ingrid and I like to talk as you may have gathered, we like to talk together and to chat together. And it just seemed great. And it seems that a lot of you are loving what we're saying. So that's good, isn't it?

Ingrid  3:05  
Do you think it's the actions Lesley, it should be actions that people love.

Lesley  3:10  
I can't believe anybody likes my accent. But apparently so apparently they're quick in individual. So let's see. Well, that looks like I'm just glad that people can understand me, because I talk at 100 miles an hour. So I think that's a bonus. I've learned to slow down over the course of the year. And I hope everyone appreciates that.

Ingrid  3:28  
That is definitely true listeners. I mean, in the beginning when Lesley and I just became friends the first five minutes I couldn't understand a word she was saying because that was like, Okay, let me adjust my headspace. I can understand what you're saying. So, but I think we've enjoyed the podcast so much as well, haven't we? We tried to cover everything, you know, emotions and decluttering and organising. We also tried to have a laugh and we try to share as much information with listeners as we can. But we've loved it. Let's be let's be honest here.

Lesley  4:00  
We definitely have you know, and just recapping, we were talking when we before we came onto the podcast about what our favourite podcasts have been. And that's a really tough one, isn't it? So if we go back to the beginning of 2019, the world was talking about decluttering wasn't it? Because Marie Kondo Netflix show came out in January, and everybody was really really interested in her methodology. And as professional organisers then we were getting asked for our opinion, you know, I went on radio for we did radio, we wrote blogs about things. It was an interesting time. And so we did a podcast quite early on and what episode 18 It was, that was all about our thoughts on Marie Kondo. And it allowed you and I then to evaluate the way that we work and how that differs to the way that Marie Kondo works. It's sort of cemented a little bit, the way that you and I definitely are very similar in terms of the way that we work. And so I think that's our most listened to podcast, isn't it? It's been a very popular one. So if you've not listened to that, have a listen.

Ingrid  4:59  
You We'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. And for me, what I really enjoyed was the wardrobe series we did episodes 2223 and 25. It was all about organise your wardrobe like a pro how you can declutter your wardrobe? Why it's so difficult to declutter wardrobe items. So that series that we did really enjoy doing that, and I think it was really well listen to as well.

Lesley  5:25  
Definitely, the lovely thing about the wardrobe series really was that we were able to go into it in quite a lot of detail when we because we split it over several podcasts. So it's a really useful one. Because when we are restricted by the amount of time that we've got to chat, we could talk for hours about all these things couldn't be. We have to keep it you know, you don't want to listen to us for three hours at a time. So yeah, I really enjoyed that wardrobe. One, and again, it was one of our most listened to ones, wasn't it?

Ingrid  5:49  
Yeah, I really, really enjoyed that. How about other podcasts you really like to do, Lesley?

Lesley  5:55  
And we've had some really inspirational guests from the professional organising world, haven't we talking about photo organising and routines and looking after kids and you know, different things. We've had some fantastic professional organiser guests. But I think there's two that resonated with me in 2019. And those are the two where we had clients of ours individually talking about their journeys and their stories. So I spoke to Cheryl, who was one of my clients few years ago, three or four years ago that I worked with Cheryl now and she talks about her journey. And it was so insightful, in terms of a lot of the issues that people have when they've got a cluttered home, wherever these habits and behaviours come from, and stuff that there was so much insight into there and absolutely loved it. And it was life changing for Cheryl. And so I think it's so lovely to be able to go back and revisit that. And I think it was very inspirational for for other people. Because a lot of the time when we have clutter in our homes, we feel like we're the only ones don't worry. And so it's so nice and to hear about all the people that are also overwhelmed and also going through the same thing. And that's what I really loved about that one. So I think that was one was was Cheryl McGowan and that thing that was episode 42. So if you've not listened to that, go back and take a listen, because it is really lovely. And there are tears. There are

Ingrid  7:10  
Yeah, and my one of my favourite ones was that was the one that did put Julia about making space to grieve. And there was also tears, but for me, so that was really strange. I have everything you would have expected our guests to cry. But no, I can really overwhelmed by emotion in Episode 58. It's a recent one, but very, very dear to my heart. And it's just been phenomenal during the podcast. Actually. It's been so fantastic. And we are nearing 100,000 downloads, Lesley. I mean, that's a scary fact in itself, isn't it? So people love listening in. And we just see that we look at the statistics every once in a while we think oh my gosh, we are nearing $100,000 I'm really proud of that actually.

Lesley  7:52  
Exactly. I'm really proud. Gosh, that's that takes us really we're really high in the podcast charts as well. So there are podcast charts that are saying that we're number 10 in the home and garden podcasts. And I think America, the UK, and Australia, which is huge. We're in the charts.

Ingrid  8:15  
I know I know. So yeah. So listeners, we just wanted to say a very big thank you for for tuning in every week. And we love seeing the message Oh, I can't wait for you for the podcast to come in on Friday. And because we know you all enjoyed it so much. We didn't take REG this year, we didn't put we did 52 episodes of us chatting away and just absolutely loving every minute of it. Thank you so much for listening. We really, really appreciate it. But besides the podcast, Lesley, we've done loads of other stuff as well.

Lesley  8:47  
Yeah, it's been a busy year. But I think one of the other things. So the podcast is definitely us, sharing our sort of knowledge and expertise. But the other thing that is a bit more interactive, where we're definitely hearing from you is the challenges that we've run this year within the declutter hub community. And so there we've done three challenges, three main challenges, haven't we which have all been fab and people have really, really loved in their own individual ways. So we started off earlier in the year in lens with the for today's 40 items challenge. And this is when we were just getting going, wasn't it Ingrid? Really. And so we were going live on Facebook every day, talking about one thing that we have decluttered from our house some way. And I think that really got people going and people were talking about it all the time. And there's nothing as nice for our sister, as hearing people say, oh, you know, you inspired me and I just did my station withdraw or whatever that is. It's really, really inspiring for us. That's what we're here for at the end of the day. So we absolutely love doing those challenges as well. So we did the 40 day 40 items challenge then we did the wardrobe challenge. Do you want to talk about the wardrobe challenging? Yeah,

Ingrid  9:52  
one of my favourite things was when I admitted or finding a bathing suits were actually the And the last thing was creaking outside of the mud drawers. And I hoping it really makes our listeners laugh as well, because we're normal people, you know, we're not, I don't have like three things in my cupboards, I have a cupboard with clothes and stuff as well. So to find the swimsuit that actually would creaking the last day inelastic, and that made everybody laugh so much. And the fact that I bought a summer hats, and actually really wondered why on earth, I actually even thought about that buying the summer hat was a good thing in the world. And we cut the feedback back from the people who are doing a challenge, like, Oh, if I do that, too, thank you so much of bringing that up, I'm going to really pay attention next time I want to go shopping. I'm not going to do that, because you've made me laugh and think about it. And the five days were just absolutely brilliant. And we had so many people joining in. And for that challenge, we actually did a pop up Facebook group as well. So besides our normal declutter hub community, we did a pop up Facebook group, and we had so many people invested in joining in, posting about the hashtags, posting their before and after pitch, it was absolutely brilliant.

Lesley  11:04  
We really kept people waiting didn't wait as well for the wardrobe challenge. And so we're like, Nope, you can't declutter yet. No, you've got to think about things. You've got to prepare things. And so because that's very much the way that we would work. And so we didn't want people to just jump in and fail, we wanted people to think about what they were doing, to explore the emotions that they've got, and then to to go into the decluttering at that point. So it was really interesting. So it was I think it was an interesting challenge for a lot of people. Yeah,

Ingrid  11:29  
yeah, I think a lot of people got a lot of very good insights from the challenge. And you could see that in the comments. And you can see people coming back with questions and, and their own stories. And we have some 100. Somebody said, Oh, I just, we can't wait to you know, we were so excited. My husband wants to know who you are. Because for the first time in forever, I was really committed to decluttering and being on board with your challenge. And oh, my gosh, that was just lovely, wasn't it?

Lesley  11:57  
Yeah, absolutely was. And then the final challenge that we did in 2019, was our random acts of decluttering, wasn't it? Where we tackled specific areas in the home, that have a habit of breeding, let's call it that kind of find themselves in different random piles all over your house. That was a different type of challenge. We did it on purpose. We did smaller areas, didn't we? Because we knew that we were approaching this kind of crazy holiday season. So we couldn't go all out in terms of decluttering. And that was hugely successful as well. So we hope that you enjoyed that.

Ingrid  12:27  
Yeah, we really think about, you know, we just don't kind of go oh, well, let's just kind of think of something we really put a lot of thought into how we're going to do the challenge. What is best for everybody? How do they learn the most? But I think for us both, we realise it's not about the quantity of items that leave we're not saying you have to declutter 100 items, it's more about the quality, because we want to help you think about what you go to declutter how you're going to declutter it, and how you can make those changes to keep long lasting, good habits in place. And yeah, the random x was great as well. And oh, my gosh, I was trying to film the videos for that, for the challenge when I wasn't was actually had the flu, which is very, very rare for me. And I've videoed them all the wrong way. And oh, my gosh, I if I didn't get back to that I'm like, I'm so I'm so glad I was better than a week later, I could just do it without kind of having to blow my nose all the time.

Lesley  13:27  
The technology's been quite the, you know, we talked about it being quite a year. So the technology for you and I, you know, we're used to going out talking to people, encouraging people to let go of things exploring why that we're not used to sitting behind a computer all day worrying about live streaming, and Facebook Lives and getting the videos, right, and portrait and landscape and statistics and podcast hosting companies. And so it's been quite the year in terms of us learning, but we're kind of getting there aren't we, you know, we've had help along the way. But we're definitely getting there. And we feel that we're making progress with every, every, every next step. So because of the technology that was one of the things that slowed us down in what we wanted to do in 2019. And I think that was a lesson to us, as well as Ingrid that even though you've got great intentions to do something, sometimes things stand in the way of getting things done, whether it's clutter, or whether for us it was a launch of our membership site. We wanted to launch our membership site early in 2019. Then we put it back, then we put it back then we put it back again. Finally, we launched in September. So we were a whole sort of seven or eight months behind where we wanted to be. And as we look back now, that's fine because we learned so much in that nine months. And we worked out what our members wanting that nine months, much more. We learned what we are, you know, in terms of doing more on the podcasts and things like that. We know where our strengths lie. You know, we are not these perfectionist type people and I think that's why people are encouraged by what they hear on the podcast and want to join us as members because they're like they're real people. And so keeping it real, I think keeping it real should be our strapline really shouldn't matter. But I think it's someone's already got that. So I don't think so. But yeah, so I think we've learned an awful lot. And we've learned and we finally launched a membership site in September, which we were delighted about when we

Ingrid  15:19  
oh, gosh, yeah. And I will tell you, listeners, Lesley is the techie one of the two of us. So for me, that learning curve has been just about the horrors of a vertical line, just not like gently gradients, no, no, boom, 90 degree line upwards, Ingrid, come on, you can do all this tech stuff. And I'm going, Oh, my gosh, I've got so much to learn. But I've got other things that I love to do. And I love to do all the videos, and I love to do that the lives and, and those kinds of things that really, really floats my boat. But definitely Lesley Tikki, one of us. And without her and our wonderful web site guy, we wouldn't that membership site, probably wouldn't still haven't been launched if it was up to me.

Lesley  16:05  
Exactly. So we want to thank, of course, want to thank all our lovely members, we've got loads of members who joined up this year. And we're so happy to have you there. And it's brilliant to see your journeys within the membership. So how is the membership different to what we offer in our free community? Then Ingrid,

Ingrid  16:21  
there's there's a bit of course, there's a big difference. Because in our Facebook group, we do lives and we we post lovely things and quotes and some photos and inspirational things. But I'm in a membership, we actually teach people how they need to declutter. What's the process? What do you need to take into consideration? What emotions come into play? When you want to declutter? How do you need to organise what storage works really well. So all of those things, we give you our knowledge and our expertise, and we teach you how to declutter at home.

Lesley  16:55  
It's very thorough, isn't it? I think what we talked about is, it's almost like a complete brain dump of everything that you and I have both learnt in the last 10 years. And then we formulate that into a course, we try and make it a nice, easy course. You know, the tech, even though the tech on our end has been really complicated. The reason why that is because we want it to be really simple at your so don't waste, we want it to be really easy. We don't want you to have to be downloading things and doing complicated things and uploading applications and all that we just want you to go on the website, click play, and off you go. So that's that's been our aim. And we definitely have achieved that, I think. So we've got our step by step courses. You know what we don't want it to be as just a course. We want it to have us in it as well. Obviously, we write the courses in with voices over the course is I feel like I don't do anything. It's like I don't do anything. Because you're the you're the video person. You're the voiceover person. It's like as if I don't do anything. I'm like the one right. And so I do do things they always said, look, again, with the face of the declutter hub. Sorry, I am doing something, honestly. Yeah, so we didn't do a live q&a every two weeks. And that is all about you saying, You know what? I've gone through your course. But I'm still really struggling with this bit of it, or you talked about specific storage solutions. But actually, my house is not like that. And I've got this scenario. Have you got any advice for us? Why is it so hard? Why do I find it so difficult? Personally, you know, so this is all about the live q&a is definitely all about really personal stuff, where you submit your questions to us, we answer them for an hour, don't we every two weeks. And so that's the kind of personal input that we that we give to you, as well as the community within there where we're always around to answer questions. We've also got quick wins in the membership group as well. So not everything is right, let's do your bedroom this week, because that's a huge job. We drill down on much smaller areas of the home as well, a little bit like our random acts of decluttering challenge, we focus on one really, really small, much smaller area, don't worry as well.

Ingrid  18:56  
Yeah, I think it's true, Lesley, because we we started with writing the courses. And of course, when we did the write the courses and we voiced him over put started putting them unknown, we realised there's actually also lots of smaller areas that you can do a smaller of projects. And that's how we thought about the quick wins, because that wasn't originally the plan to be in the membership. But we when we were in the membership, and we were working on all the courses and items, we thought and thought, oh, you know what, we should actually make smaller decluttering challenges. And that's how the quick wins came about. So that was not something we thought of before. But I really enjoy them because the courses are voiceover and you do a great job in in writing them and we'd write them together and they you do all the scripting for it. But the quick wins really is me being on the video doing a lot of demonstrating and and showing what in my house is the situation and yeah, I really, really enjoy that.

Lesley  19:51  
Yeah. And the interesting thing is well about the membership that we've changed and so this is all about what we have learned this year, when we first did our first free Challenge, we thought, well, the members won't want to do that. Because all of the information in the free challenges is sitting there in the membership site in much, much more detail. But what we learned is that camaraderie of lots of people going through the same thing at the same time, is also really important. So all of the challenges that we do, are there, ad infinitum, and the membership area as well. So that was something that we learned this year, wasn't that?

Ingrid  20:22  
Yeah. Oh, it's just been, it's just been a brilliant year. And it's just so enjoyable to see all the comments and read everybody's journeys. And when people send us pictures, you know, on the Facebook group, or in our in our forum, is like, yes. Love. Yeah, the motivation, you know, that we are able to create a movement that that is, I think, so fantastic.

Lesley  20:48  
Yeah, definitely what a fab year has been, and I'm really delighted with the progress that both we have made, and that everybody in the declutter community as made as well, you know, members or non members alike. Everyone's doing fantastic work. And even if we couldn't just get one or two more items of clutter out of your home and get a little bit organised, a little bit more organisation, and clarity at home, that's what this is all about. So we hope that you've really, really enjoyed that. Yeah,

Ingrid  21:13  
for sure, for sure. And I think for us, we really enjoyed going up to Newcastle, then we did some posts on the on the Facebook group at that time in September, it was right after we launched our membership, we actually went to a membership conference. And we just had a fabulous time. And we learned so much there as well, didn't we, Lesley?

Lesley  21:32  
We did, because I think memberships in this country, you know, in the UK are still quite a relatively new thing. Whereas I think in other areas of the world are a little bit more established. And it's something that people are sort of committed to, and see the value in. Whereas in the UK, it's a little bit different here. And so it was nice for us, wasn't it to go to people and that membership conference was people from all over the world. And everyone was like we want to buy into your membership site. We're like, okay, so yeah, we definitely made our mark there. That's for sure on that membership conference. So at what a fab time, it was lovely to go up there. And, and we'll be going there again, the year after next, hopefully, won't we?

Ingrid  22:10  
Yeah. And Lesley, let's be honest, we've really enjoyed working together as well, haven't we?

Lesley  22:16  
We definitely do. We honestly, it's a good job. Let me tell you that we have editing software for our podcasts, you don't hear the things that get cut out, you know, the kind of laughter on the ridiculous nurse and they kind of, we've got no idea what we're saying next. Sounds on the end, the edited version of it all flows beautifully. But actually, there's quite a lot of cuts, isn't there?

Ingrid  22:39  
Yeah, we do. And I think, you know what, that's what makes it fun as well. And I'm really looking forward to 2020. And keep working with you, Lesley because it's just been absolutely so much fun. And when you are running a small business like we both do, and you're doing that by yourself, and you're behind us, it's just so great to be able to kind of we I mean, we talk to each other at least once a day normally. But it's just I really enjoy our talks. And I learned so much as well. So it's just been.

Lesley  23:09  
Yeah, that's all I learn isn't there. Now, if we do, you know, we knew that didn't we, when we decided to do this, which was about 18 months ago, we knew already that we'd work well together, because we can get on grade together. And I hope that that comes across to you guys is that we just have a lot of fun doing that, you know, we're very serious about it. We know that this is an important life changing journey for a lot of people. And we want to be there to handhold and to guide you through that and to get to the end of it in the least painful way possible. That's why we have a laugh. That's why we joke about because actually, you've got to have humour in there because it's a tough whole journey. And we get that completely. And if we can make one little iota of difference to your life, and make things a little bit clearer for you. That's what we want to do. And Ingrid and I knew that we wanted to do that together. As we said, we're great friends anyway, we have a right laugh, we have not fallen out halfway. But you know, everyone always says, you know, you're gonna fall out with your business partner. We have not fallen we've been a bit grumpy sometimes. Mostly me or sometimes Ingrid, probably mostly me. But yeah, we have been a little bit grumpy on occasions. You know, there are times when we've had to reset and say, Okay, let's bring, let's bring the fun back to here. But ya know, it's been an absolutely fantastic. Yeah. And I'm very excited about what 2020 brings.

Ingrid  24:28  
I know because we are going to do another challenge. In January,

Lesley  24:33  
going to twin, of course we are we can't go into 2020 Without a challenge. Can we New year, new year, but what we want to do this year, so we want to make sure that if you've got a New Year's resolution to declutter that it actually happens this year, and that two weeks into January, you're not like Well, that was rubbish. That's not going to happen. We need to be there and you need that inspiration. You need that motivation and so on to make that work. So whether that's listening to our lovely podcasts and writing reviews and sharing that whether it's posting in our free Facebook group, or whether it's joining our membership, wherever that is, we really want to make a difference to you. So thank you so much for everything that you've given back to us this year because we've absolutely loved it. And let's 2020 be the year of a clutter free home.

Ingrid  25:19  
Here here, Lesley, I feel we should have champagne now and gotta go. Cheers. Happy New Year. And yeah, also, for me a very heartfelt thanks to all of our listeners all over the world for your lovely comments. We couldn't do it without you honestly. And it makes me bet you don't me. I always cry. And I'm trying really hard not to, because it's just been fab and we love hanging out with you. So thanks so much for taking the time to listen today. Don't forget to leave us a review. We love your review, and to let us know what you think about show. And if you'd like to get more tips and advice. Come and join us on social media. We are everywhere Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook group that declutter our community. We'd love to see you there. Have you signed up for our random acts of decluttering challenge starting on January 6, you can find it on declutter hub.com forward slash random dash x dash jam. And if you want to declutter and start afresh in 2020 Take a look at members dot declutter hub.com To find out more about our membership. And if you don't want to miss our next weekly episodes, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. And it will pop into your notifications each Friday. Have a wonderful new year. See when 2020.

Outro  26:48  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The declutter hub podcast. Check out declutter hub.com for more inspiration. Don't forget to tune in next week.
Subscribe now so you don't miss an episode
Listen on
Apple Podcasts
Listen on
Amazon Music
Listen on
Spotify
Watch on
YouTube
Prefer to watch rather than listen? Watch on YouTube