Episode 16 – Guest expert Anne Blumer discusses her 5 Steps to Organising Process

We welcome our guest, Anne Blumer, working in Portland, Oregon, USA. Anne is the owner of Solutions For You, creator of the 5 Steps to Organsing process and author of Mastering The Business of Organising. She helps her clients downsize and move home.
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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  0:29  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 16 of the Declutter Hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, we're talking to Anne bloomer, owner of solutions for you working in Portland, Oregon, USA. She is a certified professional organiser and she's the creator of the five steps to organising process and started her company solutions for you back in 2003. And she's been helping her clients to downsize and move home. She helped small businesses set up systems, worked with families in their homes, and specialises in working with clients with ADHD. She has trained hundreds of professional organisers worldwide, and is a sought after speaker in the world of professional organising. She's the co author of get organised today. And recently launched her latest book mastering the business of organising, I had the pleasure of hearing and speak at the 2015 conference of the UK Association. We've become great friends since thank you so much for being on the show, man.

Anne  1:36  
Thank you, Ingrid. I'm so excited to have our conversation.

Ingrid  1:40  
I know. You know, what, if even if it weren't recording a podcast, I love talking to you. So I'm really great. It's so nice to see you. And thank you so much for being on the show. Really? Appreciate it.

Anne  1:54  
Oh, it's my pleasure.

Ingrid  1:56  
Um, can you tell our listeners how you ended up being a professional organiser? And can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Anne  2:03  
Sure, I'd love to. And it was kind of an accidental happening. I, I was working in corporate America for decades. And my most recent position was with a high tech company. And I was the benefits manager in the human resources department. And the company, it was back in the.com time, and the company was acquiring lots of little companies along the way. And with each company that was acquired, I would need to go and meet with the employees of the new company and communicate them their new benefits package, and also work with the staffing department on you know, transitioning them into our company. And one year we did 24 acquisitions. Wow. Yeah, it was a lot. And like everything I do, I have to have a process for it. And so I had this notebook, on exactly how to do an acquisition of a company from the benefits perspective of the company. And one day I was at one of the acquisitions, and the CEO was there of our company. And he saw me with this notebook, and he said, Yeah, what is that? And I said, Oh, this is kind of my mergers and acquisitions Bible. It's just, you know, I'm extra. It's everything we need to do to onboard the new employees. And it's kind of like a Policies and Procedures Manual for acquisitions. And he's, he was so impressed with that, that he decided that what the company needed was to have a mergers and acquisitions team. And he wanted me to head up that team. And he wanted me to work with each department in the company to develop the policies and procedures for mergers and acquisitions, so that it would go much smoother, much faster, we had kind of a, you know, a boilerplate of how we were going to do that. And in that course, I just kept hearing from people, they would just say, You're the most organised person I've ever met. Do this. And yeah, my manager at the time, he would come in, and he'd asked me for something and I would just kind of pull it out of my drawer and hand it to him. And he goes, How do you do that? How do you know exactly where that piece of information is? And how can you find it so quickly? I'm like, what, it's just what I do. And so I kept hearing about this thing about organising. And I thought, what is that? I mean, does everybody think this way? And I started to realise, no, they don't. And somebody once said to me, and another co worker said, I would just love to have you come organise my kitchen. And I thought to myself, well, isn't everybody's kitchen organised? And what do you mean? What do you mean by organise your kitchen because Oh, it's just a mess. Everything's in the wrong place. And so I thought, What is this thing about organising so one day I and I was still working at the company. I just don't think it was Google then I just In the internet, however you searched back then I don't even know how we search. But I did the search. And I think I put in like organising and Up came the National Association of Professional organisers, and they had a website and I went there and I went, Oh my gosh, there were like 1000 people, members that are doing this for a living. So I kind of tuck that back in my head. And then I went through a personal life transition. And I had the opportunity to have I stopped working at the company to finish my bachelor's degree. And then I got done with that. And my new husband at the time said to me, just take some time off and enjoy the kids, you know, do you know they're young, go on field trips with them, and then you'll figure out what you want to do eventually? Yeah. So in that process, I've learned very quickly after a year, I didn't want to be just a stay at home mom, I've done all the field trips I really wanted to do, I need to do something that was more engaging. And my husband decided to start a consulting business. And he said, I'm gonna start this consulting business and you can do your organising thing under it. And I'm my organising thing. What do you mean my organising thing, I think goes to, you know, working with people and helping them get organised. So I said, Okay, so that's kind of how I got started in this. It was very accidental, I never would have started a business, that kind of that whole thing about starting a business seemed a little bit scary to me. But my husband did all that. So he, he, he started this business. And he said, Here you go.

Ingrid  6:39  
Yeah, it's so it's, I know, so many people that I speak to big are accidentally become organisers, they come across it and find out they've, yeah, they've always loved doing that. And but I was realising it's actually you can really be of immense help to clients who are not organised and help them right. organised, right? So it's 15 years now. And you've been a professional,

Anne  7:03  
high? No. Well, the irony is, and so my husband started this business. And he did consulting for this one company for six months, and they hired him. And he now he's been with that company ever since. So he hasn't even been working under the company solutions for you. But he said to me, you need to keep it alive. Because eventually I am going to want to go back to consulting, probably, you know, when I semi retire, so you need to keep the business alive.

Ingrid  7:33  
So did you did you I mean, you, you work we know, it's families, and you work with people who want to downsize? And so how did your your five steps to organising process? How did that come about? Yeah, what happened?

Anne  7:49  
Well, what happened is, as I mentioned, I didn't understand that people didn't know how to be organised, you know, because it's how my brain works. And so you want to only understand how your brain works. And you kind of think, well, everybody's brain works the same, right? Yeah. And so I would be working with clients and, and all of a sudden, I would just see this, look, come over their face of confusion. And one day, a client said to me, I just don't know where we're going. And I said, What do you mean, it goes, I don't know, when we're gonna get to being organised. What how does this? How does this flow? And I thought, oh, so she doesn't understand the Organising process. And it's in my brain, and she can't, you know, see what that is, or hear what that is. And I thought, Oh, that's a really good, great. So I tried to articulate to her at that time, how we were going to move through the process. And so ever since then, I just made kind of notes as I was working with clients of what I was doing, and how you get organised so that I could communicate it to them and teach them that and they would have that information after I got them to the point of being organised so they could maintain that organisation, or if they decide to organise another area in their home or their life, they could refer to that so it's kind of that transference of organising skill which we all as professional organisers aspire to do with our clients. Yeah, yeah.

Ingrid  9:21  
So your five steps let's let's do the bullet points first and then delve deeper into so what are your main five steps then? Okay.

Anne  9:31  
So the five steps are strategize. Prioritise, localise, containerize, and maximise. I tried to come up with an acronym and I just couldn't get an acronym. And then I decided, well, I'll try to make them sound somewhat similar so people could remember it. So I have every word and with the IAC is ISC, as you would do in the UK.

Ingrid  10:03  
Excellent. So let's then delve into the first one strategize. So what does that mean? In your five steps?

Anne  10:12  
Okay, so strategizing is getting a sense and understanding of what you want to accomplish. So it's looking at the space you want to have organised, and asking yourself some key questions such as what you call the space. So for example, you know, one room is the living room. Well, we live in every room, right? Yeah. So it's, it's not just living that takes place in that space. What do you do in that space? What's the purpose of it? And what are the activities that take place in that space? So you want to come up with some very specifics about that? And then asking, Well, do you have everything that you need in that space to support those activities? And if not, what, what's missing? Or do you have things in that space that don't relate to that purpose or activities at all? So coming up with the purpose in the activities, it's going to be key in the next steps that are in the five steps, you need to have that information? Because it comes into play with the remaining four steps. So that is coming up with a plan? What are your goals? What's your vision? How do you want the space to look and feel and function when you're finished?

Ingrid  11:40  
Good point, because I have got a main room, which is basically a living room, a dining room and an home office all in one. Right? Because I don't unfortunately, I would love to have a home office, but my house is not big enough. And I value my spare bedroom, because have regular guests more than creating that into a home office. So my office is actually in my living room. So your point is very well made that things that have to do deal with the home office need to be here. Right, but are the things that are not happening in this room? Should not be in this room. So I get you. I got you. Yeah. All right. So yes. So everything that is not supporting? What's happening in that room should live somewhere else. Exactly. So that's why it's so important to find out from each room in the house. What's happening here. What's what's going on, who's mainly here, what are their activities here, so we can find the right stuff for the right place. Right, right. Oh, gotcha. Right. Okay. So is that strategize covered? Yeah, right, basically covers strategizing. So let's move on to prioritise then. Okay.

Anne  12:56  
So this is the meaty part of the Organising process. And you recently you and Leslie did a podcast on on decluttering, organising and tidying. Yes. So for your listeners, if you haven't listened to that podcast, go back. And let's do that. Because I'm going to translate that into the five steps a little bit as well. So it'll give you a couple of approaches to how the Organising process happens and why you need to do one before you do the other. Because in your podcast, you talk about well, what do you do first? decluttering, organising and tidying and and is there a flow to that? So there definitely is. Okay, so the prioritising step is, that's the decluttering process. It's looking at that space again. And do you know what the activities are? And then you're looking at everything that's in that space? And you're asking yourself, does it relate to the purpose, or activities of this space, that's their first criteria for helping you decide if it's, you're going to keep something particularly in that space. So you may come across something and say, Oh, this doesn't pertain to this space at all. But it does pertain to the other space in my home, that's where it needs to go. Or it just, you may come across something and say, Oh, this doesn't relate to the space, and I don't use it anymore. I don't love it. I don't need it. It needs to leave. So prioritising is looking at what you're making decisions about everything in the room that you're decluttering and deciding if it has a purpose in the space, or if it even has a purpose in your life anymore. It may have had a purpose in the past, but it doesn't anymore, or you may have been holding on to it thinking it's going to have a purpose in the future. And that hasn't happened either. So you want to be really clear on what's important to you today. That's the purpose and then the purpose of the space. So it's prioritising it's you know, make Getting decisions and prioritising in your life where that fits in and in the space where it fits.

Ingrid  15:06  
I think that's really true what you're saying there. And because I think a lot of what we found out over the years working with clients is that a lot of clutter is delayed decisions. Exactly. Clients, people have not decided what is going to happen with this stuff. Am I going to keep it and we're going to let it go? Does it need to go somewhere else? It just has ended up somewhere.

Anne  15:32  
And it's forgotten about? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, that's a really important point that you're making in grid is that when something comes into your home into your space, and it's new? And if you find yourself, oh, I'll just I'll decide what to do with that later, and you set it down later is not going to come? So you need to make that decision right there in the moment. What does this item relate to? In my space? Which area of my home? does it relate to and get it in that space? Might not be in the perfect place yet, but get it into the place where it does have its purpose? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. In fact, when we I think we might talk about this a little bit later in the podcast. But there's one principle that I have that, you know, as you're if you're out shopping, and you, you see something and you think, Oh, I love that I have to have that. Be really cautious and think about and decide before you even bring something home, where it's going to go in your home. And if you can't figure that out in that moment, then you might want to delay that purchase, because it's just going to become clutter.

Ingrid  16:42  
Yeah. Perfect example was happened today, I was working with my client in our home office. And we found a beautifully wrapped present. So I thought it was a present. So I said, Is this depressing? Because it's wrapped, beautifully wrapped. So I thought it was a good day or something. And she's like, No, it's actually a gift that was given to us, nine years ago. And I'm like, Okay, do you know what it is? Because it's still beautifully wrapped? And she's like, Yes, I do know what it is. It's a wine opener. And I'm like, okay, so shall we then unwrap it, and see what it is what it looks like, and then decide, actually, if we're going to keep it or not, right. And if we're going to keep it, it needs to go downstairs to the kitchen, because that's probably where you would open a bottle of wine. And she's like, it's been lying around here for nine years. I've got no idea. Why

Anne  17:43  
am I my God?

Ingrid  17:44  
I know. I know. So.

Anne  17:45  
Yeah. Yeah. So and that's just forgotten.

Ingrid  17:49  
This is the perfect example of something that's been lingering around somewhere. Right? me thinking it was a gift for somebody. Right? And, and actually, oh, we opened it. It was indeed a wine opener. Any techniques had a booklet of 2009 in it. So she was spot on with her dates. I mean, it was, it was amazing. I mean, she's got a fantastic memory. Yes. But I'm like, well, let's just take it out of the box. And as you put it in the kitchen, as you can use and she's like, Yeah, great idea. Perfect example of stuff that was in the wrong place.

Anne  18:22  
Yes. Yes. About

Ingrid  18:24  
Yeah, forgotten about it shouldn't have been there at all. Okay, so prioritising What else is important when we talk about prioritising Is there anything else we need to add to that?

Anne  18:35  
Well, before you start the prioritising process, or the decluttering process, you really want to prepare for that project. Because sometimes people dive in and they really aren't prepared. And then they get confused, and they get discouraged, and they get overwhelmed. And they stop. Yeah, the whole process. So you know, preparing for that might be the very first thing you do, you might just take a day and get yourself prepared for the project by gathering some supplies that you'll need and setting up an area where you can do the decluttering. Oftentimes, it's really helpful to do the decluttering outside of the space that you're organising or decluttering because you can set you get a different perspective on your things when they're in a different area, you just see them differently. And it also helps to clear the space so that when you bring things back in, it's not as much of a jumbled mess. So if you can find, you know, if you can move things out to the dining room table or into a spare bedroom that you know, you aren't using, and it can be a little bit messy for a time that might be the place to do the decluttering. So, getting some boxes to do that sorting, you know, a box for things to donate a box for things to sell, having some trash bags, and a really important box to have is one that I label when I'm working with clients called me Move. And it's for those things that don't relate to that space, but they need to go somewhere else in your home. So you put them into a move box. And then, you know, at the end of your decluttering, you take and you get those items into the space that they need to go into.

Ingrid  20:16  
Yeah. Excellent. All right, perfect. That sounds really good. Let's talk I have some more questions about practical questions that you can ask yourself, but I will touch back on that a little bit later. Let's go on with the five steps. So if we then look at localised, so what would that be?

Anne  20:35  
Okay, so, localising is the beginning of the Organising piece. So you've gone through the decluttering. And now you're moving into the Organising of the things that you are going to keep. So localise is finding the best place for each item. And usually, that's you want to take your space. And as you get an example of your living room, it's the living room, it's the dining room, and it's your home office. So you're going to have things related to your home office right there at your work surface, they're not going to be on the dining room table, and you're not going to have your dishes near your work surface. So it's getting things in the right zone is what I call it, you kind of zone out your room, by the different types of activities. So each activity equals a zone, and the things that belong to that activity go into that zone.

Ingrid  21:25  
So for example, if you look at old fashioned DVDs, I mean, I know people watch you much more Netflix now and things are but if you look at old fashioned DVDs, they should be close to a TV and a DVD player. Not in a bedroom upstairs where there's no TV. Right?

Anne  21:42  
Right. Right. It's a box under your bed.

Ingrid  21:46  
Yeah, so it's plugged, it's almost an old fashioned seeing a place for everything, everything in its place. Right Start to find homes for things.

Anne  21:54  
Exactly, exactly. Right. So and this is, I call this kind of localising or placing so and you always want to place first and then you perfect afterwards if you have time. But it's important to get things in place, and then you can get it in the perfect place. You know, eventually, but getting it in the zone is the first first localising or placement?

Ingrid  22:16  
Yes. It's It's almost kind of creating categories, isn't it?

Anne  22:22  
Exactly. Yeah. So it's and you want to put things that you access frequently, you know, what, in what we call prime real estate areas. So you don't want to have something up on a shelf in a closet, if you're getting in. If you need that item every single day. You want to have it easily accessible.

Ingrid  22:39  
Good point, definitely. So I have for example, a stapler on my desk because I use it all the time when my staples are in a drawer or in a book somewhere else. Because I don't need to fill up my staples everyday. But my stapler I love, and it's on my desk next to my computer, because I grab it and use it all the time.

Anne  22:58  
Exactly. That's a great example. Okay.

Ingrid  23:01  
Right, because I want to give some examples for our listeners as well. So they understand, certainly, what is prime real estate. So prime real estate is things that are close to you. You need all the time. I heights, so you don't have to reach up or bend down. Exactly. So that's the primary. So listeners, that's what we're talking about here. Things that you need all the time you want to have at hand. And things you don't need as often can go higher up lower down or behind something. Right. Okay, excellent. I'll gotcha, I gotcha, good. Okay, so then we're gonna talk about containerizing

Anne  23:39  
containerizing.

Ingrid  23:42  
Like containers, that's my favourite bits.

Anne  23:45  
We all love containers, and we often will go and buy containers to solve our organising dilemmas, right. And they often just wind up sometimes being clutter, because they aren't the right container for what we need to contain things. So that's what the containerizing your step four is about. It's looking at the things that you now have in place, and maybe perfecting it a little bit more by taking a category of items and putting them into a container. And then putting that container on a shelf, or in a drawer, or wherever that makes sense. And so you need to know, you need to know where that container is going to go. So let's say it's gonna go onto a shelf, you need to know the length of that shelf, the width of that shelf and how much distance there is between the next shelf to know what containers are going to best fit on that shelf. So that's really important. When you're going out and buying containers. It's you need to know where that container is going to go and is it going to fit there? And is it going to fit there the best that it could fit there.

Ingrid  24:49  
So if you talk about containers, just for clarity sake for our listeners, what do you mean with a container?

Anne  24:57  
So a container or container can be a lot of things, let's say exactly on a shelf, it might be a bin that has a lid. And you might have several of those bins on a shelf containing different items, especially in say, a home office, you might have a bin for your stationery, you might have a bin for your office supplies, backup office supplies, so it's extra staples and writing instruments, you might have a bin for your printer ink. So you categorise those things and you don't want them to go all jumbled up together. So you have different bins for them. And when I had them on a shelf, because you don't need them on your desk surface. And if especially if you're in an open space, like you are in grid in your living room, you might want them to be decorative, and attractive. And so you might have some pretty containers that have lids. Yeah, yeah.

Ingrid  25:49  
So containers, listeners can be everything from bins with lids to cutlery dividers in a kitchen drawer, to open baskets where you can put your socks in for to put in a drawer. So it doesn't necessarily have to be only baskets, it can be loads of different stuff can be containers. So that's why I think I agree so much with adds five steps to organising. You don't start off with buying the containers, you first need to decide where stuff lives and declutter it and decide actually what you want to keep. Before you can decide where does it need to live? How do I categorise it and how big do my containers slash bins or however you want to call it need to be? Because otherwise you end up with loads of wrong containers, right in the wrong sizes in the wrong places. And we ended up decluttering containers because they're not the right containers. So I don't know how about you end but I actually find a lot of empty shoe boxes in my clients houses. So I love using those as kind of temporary containers. Yes. So at least we can start to categorise stuff together, I put it in all these little shoe boxes that I find it can be kits, two boxes can be adult, it doesn't really matter. And then later, you can look at the pretty boxes, the perfect size boxes, but at least you start to categorise stuff and put it in the right place. And then later you buy the all the pretty stuff. Right? Well done. Okay, thank you. But so I'm completely with you with your steps. And I think that's also one of the things that Lesley and I say as well, that it's so important to note the difference within decluttering and organising. And that you can't buy your containers when you start because a lot of our clients say to me, I just want to get organised, I bought all these bins and it's like, Okay, well that's that's the let's, that's the last step you need to do. I know I need to first decide what you actually want to keep and decide where it lives before you can decide what container it lives in.

Anne  28:06  
Yes, yes. And, you know, I hear it all the time from clients, they'll say I thought the containers were going to solve my organising problem or that that would, that's how I would get organised as the containers would create that organisation. But it's really you know, about getting some systems in place to and that's about getting things in the right place where you're accessing them. And then in containers that can help you find things later. So then it's also important sometimes if you do have bins, especially if they aren't clear bins, if you have a shoe box, for example. And you have different looking shoe boxes you might want to be you might want to put a label on that shoe box to tell you what's inside to help you remember, and also if other people are accessing those shoe boxes or containers that they know where to find things and more importantly, where to put things back after the yes unused

Ingrid  28:55  
Yeah, don't put it down, put it away. Yes. I'd be less I love your five step progress. I'm completely with you. So let's then look at the last step. Which is maximise.

Anne  29:11  
Yes. And I think this is probably the most important step. If you stop at that step four, you're going to have the opportunity of what we call backsliding, and becoming disorganised again. So maximising is about coming up with how are you going to keep yourself organised? Now that you've gone through that, the four step process, so it's coming up with a maintenance plan for keeping yourself organised, especially if this is unfamiliar to you a lot of people who are learning how to be organised, it's a new skill, and it takes practice. And it's about changing your behaviours, with your stuff, and repeating those behaviours until they become a habit. And then you don't think about it any More. So that's where a maintenance plan can be very helpful that you come up with what you're going to do at what frequency. So in some areas, it's going to be what are you going to do on a daily basis. Others that might be a weekly, you know, others that might be monthly, like your garage, it might be, it's not going to be probably a daily thing that you need to maintain your garage, but your kitchen, you definitely need to maintain on a daily daily basis. So what are you going to do to keep that up?

Ingrid  30:29  
Yeah, it's all, like I said, kind of wrapped before it's all about don't put it down, but put it away. That's part of the maintenance plan, isn't it? Right, if if there's something that you find downstairs that needs to go up, your maintenance is the next time you go upstairs, you hold it in your hand, and you put it back where it belongs, right instead of leaving there and leaving it there, and then other stuff comes on top of it.

Anne  30:52  
Yes, clutter is a magnet for more clitoris

Ingrid  30:55  
Yes, and especially flat surfaces are for for stuff to be returned back on. And if you don't have that maintenance in place, I mean, it's the same with that I talk a lot with my clients about something as simple as the dishwasher, right mobile or the washing up the dishes, they have to be either put in a dishwasher, or they need to be washed up. And when it's done, they need to be put away. But if you, for example, are unloading your dishwasher, and you get sidetracked four times, but other things, right, it takes a tremendous amount of time. While if you focus on that one job, unloading the dishwasher is probably going to take you five minutes. But if you get sidetracked by I'm going to do this in between that in between endeavour, when half a day later, you still have not finished unloading the dishwasher and your your structure. So I'm I'm also talking to my clients. And that's why I want to talk to the listeners here as well to try to finish a job because some jobs don't take that long, but they only take long because she gets sidetracked by for other things.

Anne  32:06  
Yes, yes. And

Ingrid  32:09  
I think that's really, if you start to talk to people about that. They kind of go Yeah, I do that. I do that all the time. And then by the time It's six o'clock, I actually want to load stuff because we finished dinner, but then I still find clean stuff from the morning. Right? And then. And so it's really important to get that right, isn't it? Yes,

Anne  32:29  
that it's so easy to get distracted. And another thing is we oftentimes try to multitask. And multitasking is just not getting anything done well at all. And it usually will take you longer to do multiple tasks, if you're doing them at the same time. It's a kind of It's a proven theory that you need to do one task at a time, if you try to do multiple tasks. At the same time, it takes much longer to do it.

Ingrid  33:01  
I once read some research somewhere, that if you actually think about hoovering your house three times, it would have been quicker just to do it the first time you thought about it. That is interesting. I read it somewhere. I don't know when I read it once, but I find it so fascinating. I was like, Oh, wow. So bad. I really need to Hoover the downstairs of the house. And the tutor says, Oh my gosh, you still have to go to run, I really need to put that on the list of things to do. And in a certain hour, you would have been quicker to get the Hoover out actually Hoover didn't it would have been done from your list.

Anne  33:37  
Right? Right. Well, that's probably is taking brain energy. It's, it's distracting in your brain, because you keep thinking you need to do that. And so you're not able to do other things as effectively either because of that distracting.

Ingrid  33:49  
Yeah, that's it? Definitely, definitely. All right. So we've now gone through your five steps of organising if completely following you. So I wanted to ask you if our listeners need to decide what they want to keep and what they want to let go of when they're decluttering in that kind of the prioritise step. Right. Right. Right. So what kind of questions? I know you have a whole list of questions, but can you share with us some of the questions they can ask themselves if they want to keep it or not?

Anne  34:25  
Absolutely. Well, as I mentioned, the very first question you ask is does it relate to the purpose of the space or the activities that you're going to do in that space? So that's the first question you want to ask. And other questions to ask are, is it useful? Is it something that you use frequently or will use frequently or is it something you never use at all? Or is it something you know, maybe you can borrow from somebody else later? Is it is it beautiful is it do you love looking at it? Does it bring you joy to look at it or does it make you kind of sad or feel bad? Saying to clients, I said, if it makes you feel mad, bad or sad, it doesn't need to be in your life

Ingrid  35:10  
like that. It's kind of the opposite

Anne  35:13  
of Does it spark joy? Yeah, no, it's the opposite. So that's you can just say, Does it spark joy? Does it make you happy? Or, conversely, is it making you feel bad or sad or mad? I mean, that's those are negative emotions that you just don't need to have bumping up against against every time you see it. And think about when was the last time that you use the item? Back to that? Is it useful? Would you buy it again? Is this something you would buy again? If not, then you probably don't enjoy it as much or need it? Does it take more time and effort to manage than it's worth? You know, I think our stuff in the more stuff we have, it takes a lot of time to take care of stuff. Yeah, and we're always saying we don't have time to do the things that we really want to do in our life. And and a lot of it's because we've got all the stuff to take care of. So think about that. Oh, and I love this one. If you were moving to a new home, would you move it with you? Is it something? Is it something that you would pay to have moved? Where do you think you would put it in your new home? Because if you if doesn't have a place right now, in your home, we did have a new place somewhere else? And if not, then you're probably done with it? Yeah, yeah. Think about what does it cost to keep or to store it or to maintain it. And a lot of people have storage units, I was driving down the freeway the other day, going out to the airport. And I said to my husband, I said, Oh my gosh, I think we need to invest in storage business. It was like, that's all I saw going down the freeway was one storage place after another. And I thought, you know, people are spending so much money to store their stuff. And so think about that costing and what you could do with that money, that would really bring you joy and happiness.

Ingrid  37:24  
Yeah, great questions listener. So I'm hoping that's helpful for you. And had some really good questions for clothes as well. Do you feel great in it? Does it match with anything else? Does it fit? Well? How many have you got of this? T shirt? Or taupe? Or do you need all the different colours? Or do you have a favourite that you wear over and over again? So those might be helpful with with clothes. Now why, and I want to ask you is memorabilia so hard to declutter? Why is it so hard?

Anne  38:08  
Because it has, that's such a great question in grid and I was really see a lot in working with my senior clients, they have great difficulty letting go of memorabilia, pictures, mementos from their travels. And it's primarily I think, because it has an emotional response when they look at it. So it's either it's either connecting them with a person or a special memory. And they feel they need to hold on to that object. Or they'll or they'll lose that memory or they'll lose that connection with that person. And what I found to be a very effective technique that has helped a lot of people is they want to tell the story about the object. And so I will capture their story for them. And take a picture of the object, maybe a picture of the object with them. And they're able to pass that down to their family. Because what they're also experiencing is their the family members don't want their stuff either. And that makes them sad. And they just, they want to somehow preserve what was important to them. But they don't have the space anymore for it.

Ingrid  39:27  
And how do you get to the store? Do you have videos recorded for them?

Anne  39:31  
Yeah, yeah, usually I video before video is so easy on your phones, I would I would write it and then I would type it up for them and send it to them in an email so they have

Ingrid  39:43  
a great idea. So and I think also, if if memorabilia is everywhere, which we see in cluttered houses, I think a lot of times they want to hold on to it because they think they don't have anything but what When you start putting the memorabilia together, that's a really good point. Because I've seen it with one of my clients when early on in my Oregon in my own organising she said, I had a lovely lovely client it should England my dad's passed away everything that we find from him I want to keep. And then when fine, absolutely fine because I had I have just started working with her. I had no idea yet. So I said, I really want to assign a drawer in your living room. And every time we find something of him, we're going to put it together. We're going to put it in the drawer. And then what happened at one point, the drawer could not close anymore. And I went, I think we need to look at this drawer. And she was like, Oh, I find it so hard. I said, but I really want to have a look because now it's getting so full. And then we started categorising into papers from him and pictures of him and and she was like, I have so much stuff of him. I had no idea. Yeah. So then we I went, well, let's just divide it up. And let's pick out all the stuff you really, really love. And she's like, oh, I want to keep this war metal that he got in the Second World War. I want to keep this picture with the queen. As she said this my favourite picture of my dad, I said, but we have a drawer with frames that you still want to find photos for. Found the frame, we put the picture of her dad and the queen in there, and we put it on her board. And she's like, This is the happiest thing that's ever happened to me. So wonderful. Can she let go have actually quite a lot of stuff because she's like, I don't need his papers from back in the 70s or 80s. Right? Because it doesn't mean anything to me. But she went to it because she thought she had nothing. Right?

Anne  41:45  
Well, it was it was something of her father's and there was the emotional attachment

Ingrid  41:48  
course, of course, but then she realised that some things were very important. Other things weren't important at all.

Anne  41:56  
That's great. That's a great story. But it's so

Ingrid  41:58  
hard, isn't it? memorabilia is the hardest, I think of everything.

Anne  42:02  
That's usually what we'll want to save to the last in working with clients start off with something that isn't as emotionally charged. And so to your listeners, if you're starting on a decluttering and organising project. Start on something that's not emotionally charged for you. Yeah,

Ingrid  42:21  
yeah. I completely agree with that. You want to do your photos and your letters and your memories last, you really want to start if you haven't decluttered in a long time. You want to start with stuff that's easier for you. Okay, right. Right, right. So you already mentioned an organising principle earlier in our in the podcast, but you've got actually 10 organising principles. So I would like to I know he has a list listener, she has a list. So can we talk through the 10 organising principles? And so what does that mean?

Anne  43:01  
Sure. So these will pertain to step five, maximising and maintaining if you follow these principles, they will help to keep you organised and not get cluttered again. So the first one is the one in one out of principle. So for anything that comes one thing that comes into your home, one thing needs to leave your home, it doesn't have to be like for like, it doesn't have to be a pair of shoes for a pair of shoes, but it just helps keep your home in balance. I think I read somewhere. I don't know if this is the correct statistic. But it's like we have over 300,000 items in a household is like the average now. 300,000 items. Now I don't know if they have like you have a box of 100 paper clips if that's you know, each paper clip but 300,000 items, so you don't want to keep adding to that. You want to keep that balance. Yeah. Or reduce it. Yeah,

Ingrid  44:00  
well, you have much larger houses as well in the US. So I think maybe for us it will not thank goodness not be 300,000 but I accept I know what you're trying to say here. It's like, you don't want to just keep adding to an already cluttered and disorganised house. This cycle is if stuff comes in stuff has to leave. Yes. Okay. Right.

Anne  44:23  
I talked about this one that's the before you buy so that's it before you buy something you want to know where you're going to place it in your home. Otherwise, you know pass on the purchase. And we talked about this also containers but containers you don't want to purchase them until you know what's going to go in them otherwise they're gonna just add to your clutter. Yeah, and to label those containers once you do bring them into your home so that people can easily find things then that can help to maintain your organising system. Yeah. Principle number five I call it don't zigzag and this pertains more to when you are organising, but it can also pertain To when you're doing your maintenance, and that is that you choose an area to organise and stick in that area. And that's why that move box is so important or to have a bin that you can really put things in that have become nomadic, that need to go back to where they do regularly live. And so it's, you don't want to go from room to room, you want to just stay in one room, get that one decluttered and then move on to the next room. But to have a vessel with you that you can put things into that need to go into the other areas of your home. Good point. Yeah. Because often what happens is you get distracted, if you start decluttering in one room, and then you go to put something away another room, then you start doing something in that room, and you're just totally distracted. So it gets back to that distraction. Yeah. Principle six is that second step of the Organising process, which is prioritising and that is, if you keep everything, then nothing is important. So decide what's truly important to you in your life now. And that will help you focus on what to keep and what to honour. Yeah. We talked about this a lot in grid ants, principle seven is be decisive. So when you bring something home, don't drop it, put it away. So be deciphered, be decisive, make a decision about where things are going to be in your home.

Ingrid  46:28  
Yeah. And not only when you're decluttering. But also then when you are on your decluttering journey. And if you feel like you're moving forward. Also with the stuff that's coming in. Yes, yes, very important. Okay.

Anne  46:44  
This is probably one of my favourite other principles in number eight set a limit is works really well, especially with children, and it to put boundaries around how much of something you're going to keep, or where you're going to keep it. So, for example, people like to hold on to their magazine subscriptions. So set a boundary of I'm going to keep a year's worth of each magazine subscription. And as that next month comes around, you cycle it out. So because typically what happens with magazines is this, they're just regurgitating the same information year after year, it's just an updated version of it. So just say you're going to keep one year's subscription, or say, for books, you're only going to have one bookcase filled with books, and that they're not going to you know, you're not going to keep adding bookcases to contain your books, you're going to set a boundary. You know, with children, it could be I'm only going to, you're only going to keep as many stuffies that can fit on the shelf. So it's setting a limit.

Ingrid  47:51  
Yeah, yeah. Very important. I love that one. That's great. Yeah.

Anne  47:57  
One of the areas that people really struggle with his paper. So principle number nine is is thinking about, is the paper that you need to keep or is it the information that's important. So oftentimes, you can get that information. Again, it's not the paper that you need. It's the information. So can you keep it digitally? Or can you just give it later off the internet again, if you need it. So one of the statistics is 80% of the paper that we find a way we never touch again. So just be really clear about why you're keeping the paper and it's usually the information and can you get it somewhere else?

Ingrid  48:35  
Yeah, good point.

Anne  48:37  
And the last principle is Step five, which is the maintenance plan. So recognising that, you know, once you're through with your organising and decluttering you're not done. It's an ongoing process. It's not a one time event. You need to have a plan for keeping it up.

Ingrid  48:57  
Yeah, yeah. I agree with all of your principles, and but it's so good to hear them again, you know, and also remind ourselves about the things we see and we advise and, and share with our listeners that you know, it really these all these principles really, really work. And that's what we do in our own lives as well. We are not I am not always super tidy, super organised. I'm not a minimalist, I have not nothing in my house, but I need to tidy and I need to maintain and I need to keep doing that on a daily basis. Because otherwise, you know, it gets chaotic as well. And of course, you know, when when my two kids are doing an art project or are in the middle of building a massive Lego City. I'm not going to in the middle of it. Okay, we have to tidy everything away now because you're like, No, you know, after two days in the living room, I'm like, Yeah, right. I've had enough Go back to where you know. So setting boundaries and limits on on. Everything is really important.

Anne  50:07  
Right? You touched on a point I just want to close the loop with is. So you talked about decluttering, organising and tidying. So these principles and Step Five maximise is that tidying piece? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that for your listeners.

Ingrid  50:27  
Lovely. Well, of course and our declutter, hub community is all about motivate motivating people to get started on the decluttering journey. So, to kind of close this podcast, what would your main tip for them be? For our listeners?

Anne  50:42  
That's a great question. And I think it is, if you don't have a home for everything, then that is where I suggest to start is identifying where everything in your home belongs. And so to help you with that, as you know, looking again, at the purpose of each room in your home, and those activities, and that will help you guide you to where all of your belongings need to be placed. I think often what we see in grid when we go to work with people is they don't, they have not designated a place for everything and everything in its place. So that is key. Yeah, and to start and just start small. Sometimes it's just getting that organising muscle working. And so you might start with, you know, sort of organising all of your clothing. So you're going to start with your sock drawer. And get that done. And just then add on the next door and the next door and then go into your wardrobe and start there. Sometimes it's best to start small. Yeah. And small steps will lead to big progress.

Ingrid  51:53  
Yeah, yeah. It's better to do 10 or 15 minutes on a little organising drawer or on your herb cupboard in your kitchen, or looking at your coffee or emacs or in your pantry or something, then try to do a whole kitchen on a Sunday. Write too much. It's too much different listeners. Listen to our advice listeners, because start small, very, very important. Now and I fabulous advice. Where can our listeners find out more about you if they would like to know more about you and solutions for you? Where can they find you?

Anne  52:34  
Well, the best place is my website, which is solutions for you.com. And it's fo r y o u not the number four and the letter you do that. It's all spelled out correctly. So solutions for you.

Ingrid  52:50  
Okay, perfect. And do tend to follow you on social media and

Anne  52:56  
Oh, sure. And so I'm on Facebook. There's the solutions for you Facebook page, I'm on Instagram. It's an bloomer. I'm on Twitter as an bloomer.

Ingrid  53:08  
Wonderful. So listeners if you'd like to know more, follow me on social media. And make sure you click those links. So I think that's it for this episode n so much fun. I know. I know. And you know, it's it's the time has just flown by but I think it's such a good stuff for our listeners. So listeners, we hope you've all enjoyed listening are inspired to take action. Thank you so much, Anna for being our guest. I've loved talking to you and finding out more about your five steps for organising process and your 10 organising principles and listeners. I hope you have learned a lot today as well and it ends examples will be helpful for you, and you can implement them in your own home. Thanks for taking the time to listen today. If you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. And if you don't want to miss the next episode, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.

Outro  54:06  
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Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

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Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

Episode 258 – The transition from young adult to home-maker with guest Penny Moyses

Episode 257 – Dealing with friends and family on your decluttering journey

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Kea Michelle says:

25 January 2019 at 9:30 PM

One suggestion I would offer my clients regarding memorabilia… you could suggest that they purchase a treasure-chest type box and keep all the memorabilia in that one space. You can advise them that it will always be there to open, lie a magic room to the past, whenever they are feeling nostalgic. So, for me, I have an old 1940’s suitcase that belonged to my Mother when she was a teenager. And I keep all hers and Dad’s belongings in it on a shelf high up in my bedroom. About three times a year I will open it up and sift through it as if for the first time. I think of it as a treasure chest… as it does indeed hold personal treasure.

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1. Ingrid Jansen says:
  
  27 January 2019 at 9:24 PM
  
  What a lovely idea! I create memory boxes with my clients all the time. Sometimes it’s just a box at first until the right kind of box is found, sometimes there already is a nice box or chest in the house that we can use. I’ve used a blanket box in the past and it worked a treat. Thank you for commenting. Ingrid x
  
  Reply
Kea Michelle says:

25 January 2019 at 9:23 PM

Very helpful advice!! Thank you.

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Episode 16 – Guest expert Anne Blumer discusses her 5 Steps to Organising Process

Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

Episode 258 – The transition from young adult to home-maker with guest Penny Moyses

Episode 257 – Dealing with friends and family on your decluttering journey

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