Episode 287 – 10 things to declutter from your hallway

Our hallway should provide a calm transition from the outside in. But more often than not you open the door to be greeted by little piles of clutter everywhere. In this podcast we talk about 10 things to declutter from your hallway that are going to turn that chaos into calm.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Our hallway should provide a calm transition from the outside in. But more often than not, you open the door to be greeted by little piles of clutter everywhere. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about the 10 things to declutter from your hallway that are going to turn that chaos into calm.

00:29
You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

00:52
Hello, and welcome, listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering. And if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening.

01:11
If you'd like to get involved in conversations relating to this podcast, it all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group go to declutter hub.com forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook, Lesley.

01:30
Today, we're going to talk about 10 things to declutter premier hallway, and our listeners might go and things to the club from your hallway. Why are you talking about that? But first of all, we love attending sportscast. And secondly, there is lots of clutter to be found in hallways, right.

01:51
I know, hallways are like different things. It's kind of like entryways. You know, for some people, it might be not much more than a coat hook and a mat, do you know what I mean? Or a tiny little vestibule at the front of your kind of house. And other people are lucky enough to have like sweeping staircases with lots of cupboards and, you know, places to sit, put your shoes on and coat hooks. So different people have got diff looking was like, Oh, I

02:13
know, I'm like dreaming. I need vestibule porch with like a coat rack of crud to the rest of wet stuff.

02:22
But the important thing is that when we open our door, when we come in from a busy day, or from a errands that we've been running, or whatever time it is, it needs to feel like we're coming home to some kind of sanctuary, right. And if the first thing that you see is little piles here, and little piles there and your heart sinks already, before you've even got into the body of data where you're going to see even more chores that you need to do, and even more work that you need to do. So we owe it to ourselves to try and make that transition as nice and as calm as possible. And that's why we don't need lots of little bits of random clutter dotted around. Now, of course, you need to go and declutter your hallway properly. But today's 10 Things are some typical things that we see that just hanging around trading grid.

03:11
Yes. And how brilliant is number one when we were preparing this list? Because we do we don't get to come up with this stuff off the top of our heads, we prepare our

03:21
podcasts, we do come up with stuff off the top of our heads. But that's the preparation.

03:26
I know I know. I know. Exactly. And you came up with one and I thought that's going to be our number one. And it is the number one of this podcast is umbrella covers. Not even broken umbrellas, Lesley. But umbrella covers. What is this all about? We find them we find them? We

03:50
do and they quite often separated from their little partner. So what we're talking about then was like What are you even talking about. So if you've got like a foldable umbrella where it kind of collapses in and it's kind of small enough to fit in your bag. They always come with a cover, which is designed for if you're out and about and you want to if it's been raining, you use your umbrella, you have to fold it flat because you're in a restaurant or wherever you are. And you then want to not have the rain go into your bag or the wet go into your bag. That's the idea behind it. So you're kind of putting it in there. But more often than not, nobody uses those covers like no one uses them. Because when you come home, you want to put you on brella to dry so you cannot typically leave out on your porch or in your hall or whatever or at least a little bit open so that the rain sort of drops off and it dries doesn't get moldy. And then you don't do that when you're out. Well, I mean, I've never done it. But what then happens is that the covers of the umbrellas are missing their partners. Yes. So what do we do with that? What do we do with that and we can eat them, they will let them go. What do we do in grid? Listen

05:03
to our idea of an umbrella coffee. It's like brilliance. But I think after decluttering for over a decade with people in their houses, I don't think I've actually ever seen a cover around an umbrella. They're always like, loose somewhere in a basket on the bottom of something like, Oh, there's the five umbrella covers of umbrellas that people don't even own anymore. Right? Because it's it's a fast to try and squeeze and Umbrella into a cover. I mean, even trying to get the little rope around it to kind of bunch it all backed up together is a little fact because they umbrella seem to jump open. I mean, it's like crazy, but I mean, of course we are talking about umbrellas because we're in England and it rains a lot here.

05:48
Like in Arizona, you're like I don't have an umbrella. And am I under an umbrella cover? Rain in Arizona, right

05:54
random Arizona help so? Probably not definitely

05:58
said Arizona. There are many other places around the world. But anyway, if you're in Arizona, let us know wherever it is. I'm looking

06:05
at so now let's see it's pouring it down here. So this is very valid topic. But yes, the conference lose their partners. And you know what, if you are a person who never ever put the cover back? Why keep the cover? Just don't you know? It's random clutter?

06:23
Yeah, I suppose you just holding out for us? It's, it's like it's almost aspirational writing, would you think that you want to keep the cover? You think that you should put it into the cover, but you don't. And so what you know, it's up to you whether or not you feel like you want to let go of that partner or not. But what we're talking about quite a lot is that the umbrellas break before you realize that the covers are gone. Does that make sense? No. So the umbrellas break, and you've still got the cover years after the umbrella is long gone. So you can decide whether or not you choose to let go of umbrella covers across the board. Because you may never ever use them therefore they are clutter, or whether or not you still feel that you want to help keep the umbrella intact with its cover. And just like the ones go where the umbrella is long gone, because those umbrellas that fit into your back. Don't really last that long, do they? Because by the nature there's a throughput of umbrellas, right? Lesley, we talked about umbrellas all day,

07:18
one gust of wind and your umbrella is ruined, right? A bit of a freak like a freak storm of a gust of wind that oh, it's called double and it's out and the whole thing is bending.

07:30
Flappy bear the side where the kind of frame of it is broken because we're holding on for it to Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe it's maybe it's just a British problem. But I'm sure it must have been elsewhere in the world. But we are very protective of our of our umbrellas because we use them all the time. So number one is umbrella covers. And of course broken umbrellas go along with that as well.

07:52
Yeah, yeah. Let's go to number two. This is also one I think that can be quite interesting. Because it is keys that you find in hallways kind of in these little bolts. People have like little hearts, right? With coins and other ended up but there's keys lurking in there, that nobody knows what they're for what they open or close are they from a property that you want owed from a house you bonds rented from all of that property that you actually mentally took home? There's keys and they're lurking in there and there's no label on them no nothing to identify them. It's looks familiar, but who knows? Yeah,

08:35
I know a lot about this, people think he's you know, I'm gonna isolate honestly, I've got a bigger fish to fry than a key in my hallway, do you know what I mean? So in terms of something that's going to make a huge impact on my home, a key is not that I've got literal piles of boxes in a room of doom that I need to worry about before my keys. Because a key project which is basically what you need to do if you want to identify these keys is a big job because what we're doing is we're saying you need to go through all the keys in your property and gather them all together. Look at what you've got so you can identify where they belong and you still feel nervous even though you've like exhausted all all options of where they might be you're still like I know it's going to be for something that I've got somewhere so you keep hold of them Yeah, but I think so know what you're going into when you do a key project but the benefit of it yes, you don't get a special benefit of keys of course you don't but what you get is a clearly identified key cupboard drawer hook whatever that is where you absolutely know exactly what you've got and of course you can return things because a lot of these keys are but other people's houses that like oh we just look after my cat while I'm away and here it is and all that kind of stuff and so sometimes the from other people's houses right

09:42
yeah, a key project like you settle as the is not to be underestimated. This is not something you can do 10 minutes before you run out of the door to go somewhere and meet someone. This needs to be you know, carefully considered. If you know you've got keys in different places besides the hallway, you need to kind of get them all together, make a place. And actually, I actually with one of my clients did a whole key thing around her house. And we took all these random keys and just went through all the different doors and all the different things and kind of went, Does this look familiar? That's and then was like, when we found one that fit well, we've made it so exciting. But it's not something that can be done on a quick turnaround that you need to take your time for this.

10:29
Exactly. So yeah, number two is keys. So umbrella covers and keys so far. So what's our number three angle? This is one. These are the kinds of things that Ingrid likes practical things.

10:43
Yes, it is gloves that have lost their partner. Of course, there are lots of places where you know, gloves might not be you know, Arizona there might not have gloves, Lesley, but loads of places in the world, exactly here in the UK, and also in the Netherlands loads of gloves around, but you lose them. They fall out of your pocket, you leave them somewhere. For some reason, one drops on the floor outside and it's gone forever. But we cling on hoping to find that other glove. It's a bit like socks that we think will return at some point, right?

11:21
Yeah, exactly. So okay. Are you a glove person?

11:25
Yes.

11:25
How often? Do you wear gloves, Stan? Like what sort of temperature does it need to be? So you do wear gloves all time old time?

11:31
Not in? Not in the summer, obviously. But when you're in the house? Yeah. I like typing away with my gloves. No, but I mean, when I go outside, and it's like anything below four or five degrees, I would say I would wear gloves.

11:49
Matcha. And what kind of want to do I mean, I know this is not relevant to podcast, I'm just interested. I don't want to send you with a glove. You say, Oh, no,

11:56
I've got these lovely kind of. They've got like the soft stuff on the inside and a kind of wood on the outside. They're like they're nice and comfy. I nearly once lost them when I left them in the train when I went up to to London. And I actually realized when I saw on the platform, I had left them in the train. I actually asked the coach, I will I will look to the conductor. And I live by gloves. And he went, you got time. So I ran back into in the train to grab my gloves. And I was like, best day ever, ever. Because they're like my favorite gloves. I would be absolutely devastated. If I lose the

12:31
day. I'm not a glove person. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've worn gloves this year. Really? Yeah. Which is interesting. I

12:43
why not? You live even more nor than I do. So am I just a whip? I was

12:51
like it's a habit thing. I mean, of course we get freezing I put a pair of gloves on. But I think you have to be below zero for me to put pair of gloves on. But that you know, like the code that I've got has got one of those, you know those things where it kind of goes over your hand. And so it's like a longer like cough. Yeah, you know, to me, and then I put my hands in my pockets, I think divots mean. So anyway, we digress, just wanted to know just out of interest. It's all about learning about each other, isn't it Ingrid, and about gloves that have lost their partner. So same principle as keys, we need to do a little bit of a project and a lot of these a lot of times and the perfect place to keep gloves, hats scarves is in the hallway, if you have space for those. It's not just gloves that have lost their partners. It's hats that are too small that you don't wear. It's gloves that you don't you know, England was talking about her favorite pair of gloves with, she will always choose those gloves over the gloves. And that's the thing. So you need to look at which are your favorites and which ones are you choosing. So which ones are past their best? Or have you moved on to something different. If you've got children at home, honestly, there will be gloves, hats and scarves from when they were like four or five years old, because all of a sudden you kind of grab the mat in your hallway like wow, literally the light 11 now and I'm still not a little tiny little things on the elastics through the coats. And so you really need to look at things like that and make sure that you have kept up with the passage of time, as well as obvious things like gloves that have lost their partner.

14:11
Definitely. Let's go on to number four, Lesley because we are just digressing constantly, which we always do in the book because so much we kind of love but with the 10 things podcast is not very helpful. Is it because we got a lot to talk about. Number four takeaway menus and flyers that kind of come through your posts books from like local tradesmen and people who want to clean your gutters or mow your lawn or paint your house or real estate people want to buy your house because it's apparently the right time at the moment to sell your house and all these things. But they kind of become a bit of a pile, don't they? They

14:54
do. Yeah. So I want to take a step back from this. And again, it's all about everything that we talked about in Any teaching that we do is all about taking a step back from what you're doing and the habits that you've got? And going, what do I actually do with that information? So our natural response to things like that is like, you know what? I think I will need the gutter cleaning next spring or whatever, or when you do you got as a donor, you got us now, yeah, after the autumn, right in the winter. And so I'm going to keep hold of that or chill what I do, there's a new piece of place in town, you know, I might order that pizza, as opposed to the pizza place that we've been ordering, ordering from for the past 15 years. And so we like the idea of what that represents sometimes. But we need to look back and go, but are we just gonna, it's almost like a cold color. So a leaflet through a door is almost like somebody who knows nothing about you that scattering the net wide, and sending a leaflet to every single house in your areas. It's not a targeted. And so you need to think about would you trust that person? Wouldn't you know? Are you going to take a recommendation from a flyer that comes to your door? Or would you go online, ask for reviews, recommendations go on to trust a trader, all of those kinds of things, you know, think about what your habits are in terms of looking for a, a pizzeria, or be a gutter cleaning person. And if you're never going to respond in the right way to something like that don't keep the leaflet. You also need to make sure that you've got a process in place for your junk mail, which is what this effectively doesn't have to be junk mail, but most of it typically is what are you doing, you need to grab that from behind the door wherever your post comes in, and have a quick and easy way to take that over your recycling bins and just get rid of it straightaway. Yeah, for England and I that is habit, we grabbed the post straight in to the kitchen to the recycling bin don't need don't need done any gone. Don't need to see it again, don't even look at what it is most of the time, it's just gone. So there's two things in there. Think about your behaviors, think about what you would do with that leaflet if you were to use it, and also have a process for dealing with junk mail. Of course, there are going to be some things in there. Sometimes you think, oh, that's quite interesting, I might do something. But then that needs to go somewhere where you proactively going to see it and use it. And then a hallway drawer that's not the place that's

17:12
exactly less the I think what people do, they grab it from the post, they put it down. And what we have in our system, we don't put it down because we know we because then it's another job for later. And that's how you get piles of stuff building on top of each other with with junk mail leaflets and things. While if you in that moment immediate pick it up. And indeed walk through your recycling bins or in your kitchen where you've got a recycling system in place and immediately tackle that that's another thing off the list that you don't have to come back to. And I think that's what it's all about creating those little habits that can really help you long term turn that that caught that clutter corner. Yes. Right, Lesley, let's go to number five. We see also in the hallway, lots of stuff. Sometimes in back sometimes notes of items that need to be returned to other people. Now it can be a book that you bought from a friend, it can be something that deter you need to return to the library, it can be something you want to return to a shop, it can be crockery from a party that you had at your house or a dinner and your friend made a casserole and she decided to she wasn't botched up that night to the next day you think oh yeah, that needs to be returned to my friend. And it kind of goes into the whole way. And sometimes it just stays there. And it kind of comes with this like, again, little pile of stuff that needs to go somewhere else.

18:46
And there's a behavior again, that sits behind that, which is what we call visible reminders. And so what you're trying to do is you're trying to create a reminder of to dues. And that's fine, if that works for you. But what what often happens with these visible reminders that we pop in the hallway on the hallway table to remind us as we're exiting the house, which is what it's there for, is that it grows and grows and grows, and we don't see it anymore. And so we need to be mindful that sometimes these visible reminders are not happening. And perhaps we need to do it in a slightly different way. It can be also you know, letters that you need to return to school, all of these kinds of things. So think about what you've got in your heart, when have you got this kind of collection of things that are waiting for something to be done with them. And is that process actually working for you. Because more often than not, it needs something more than just wanking it on the hallway table as a reminder. But that's probably the most stressful time of our day when we're trying to exit the house. And the last thing that we're thinking about is what have we got to do today all those kind of things. So just think about that, that process and whether that's actually happening. So Visual reminders, we've got them all the time in hallways, particularly people who feel like they're a little bit more chaotic or disorganized. But is that actually we're working for you is putting that reminder there working for you. Yeah,

20:06
exactly. Exactly. So Lesley, before we go to a break, can we do a little tally one of these things? Have you got come clean? Now for me? I'm having a look.

20:18
I think, you know, I think that I could do a little bit the bottom line is I don't really know, actually the answer to that question. But I am going to look this we can see because these things, you know, it's not something you've kept forever is it it's just you need to constantly review right? It's it's constantly is, it's constantly review like umbrellas and stuff. But I've got them all in separate areas. And so I've got I'm lucky enough to have like a little out sort of storage area where I've got my umbrellas in a little box in there. Are there any umbrella covers in there? Possibly did lots of mean even though I'd never ever use them. So maybe they now that we found it found this wonderful idea. Maybe I need to practice what I preach. Definitely no things that got to be returned to other people or the shop. Absolutely not. Definitely no takeaway menus and flyers that are long gone. I could definitely do with having a look at the gloves, hats and scarves and see whether there's any throughput there. Definitely could have a review of the keys on the umbrellas, so I'm not gonna admit it. I don't know. I don't think it's problematic. I think it's more it's time for a review game. So that's me. What about you?

21:20
I think I'm good. I think I'm good. I'm feeling smug.

21:26
I'm not sure I'm not sure. Are you saying you've got no I mean, I'd say they're under control, but I couldn't say 100% Can you say 100% That you've not got these things? Not

21:36
in my hallway? No, there's no I don't have umbrella covers because I don't like small umbrellas. So I don't have those covers either. Like small

21:43
umbrellas.

21:44
I only have a large umbrella.

21:46
I don't what do you do when you go out? I just leave it behind. Like if I had that I would just completely forget about I'm gonna leave small umbrellas but

21:52
I hardly like you never bring gloves I hardly ever bring umbrella so we I've got like so umbrellas his house

21:58
you do when it's raining? Just get wet.

22:01
Put a hood on my from my coat. Yeah. So yeah, no, not an umbrella person. Gloves? No, I did that already before the winter. So I do that twice per year. Take away menus of flies. Well, as you know, we hardly have takeaway so the flights immediately disappear. It's in the recycling bin. Don't have anything to be turned at the moment and Key said no longer work for houses you no longer live in? No, I don't think so. I think I've got the keys. I think I'm pretty but they're not in the hallway. There might be a couple of keys I need to check but they're not in the hallways. And I think that's what we're talking about. Right? Fair enough. Right. Ah, let's come back soon for for number six to 10 Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the 10 things to declutter from your hallway, we've done five were in pretty good shape here. But how are you doing? listeners?

22:55
I think you know, I think the list that we did before the breaking will is it just shows you that this is like clutter gatherers do not I mean they're like little tiny little things that are clutter that we just overlook and ignore. So what we're saying is when you go through this decluttering process, don't overlook the detail do not mean that the devil is in the detail while most and you feel so accomplished when you know that everything in your hole belongs there. And that's what's going to add to this calm feeling as we transition from the outside in which is what you know, in some ways, it's one of the most important rooms in the house you know, to make sure that we can go and breathe as soon as we walk in. That's what this is all designed for. So let's go for number talking about transitioning from the outside in. Let's go for number 16 grid.

23:41
Yes, it is bags of stuff you have used on a day out and then you came home after a nice day maybe at the park or the beach or uptown or whatever. You've got a bag of stuff and you think let me just put it here in my little hallway and I'll look at it later. So these might include umbrellas but they normally might include snacks or water bottles, things with tissues and tissue packets. Just random bits.

24:15
I mean the the thing is with these quite often so if you've got like a coat if you've got like a sort of standard scenario where you've got like coat hooks that you get coats what happens is that when we bring a bag back we feel like we want to be tidy so we put it on the coat rack right and often they start to become buried underneath coats because then as people coats and then you can't see the bags because the underneath the coats and so years later you find random bags of stuff and it can be booked bags from kids schools that can be handbag so you know I make a conscious effort every weekend because I will use different handbags I never have. I don't have one handbag that I use all the time because my handbags are always quite empty, to be honest. But when I go out on a We kinda might choose a different handbag, and I'll come back, I don't wanna throw it on the floor. So I'll hook it over my kind of hallway kind of coat, I've got a fur coat stand. And then they get buried on say the curves in the same way. So every weekend when I do my weekend reset that is when I take the bags, that handbags that I've got back to where I keep the handbag. So the next time we'll choose a handbag, I can see what I've got upstairs, you know, to mean and so, and I will then empty out the things that I've taken out with me. So I might take a perfume, I might take a lipstick, I might take an umbrella, I might say, you know, all of those things I would take out on me, I take them back out of the bag so that I don't have got my all my lipstick together or my perfumes together because you don't want these things buried in a bag because then you find them two years later, the next time you use the handbag, and then you're like, Oh, that looks just gone off now can't use that anymore. You have to mean and so it's things like that. So it's making sure that you've got this throughput of checking the insides of bags and rehome in the bags, right to get back to where they belong. Yeah,

25:55
very true. I see. I see the lot with children's backpacks or things that they've used for sports or an after school club. or, indeed, when you've gone to the library with the kids, you know, they kind of come in and your kids hang up your stops and everything gets if you can get hung up or dropped somewhere near the goat stand. And then other stuff gets buried on it. And it's like, that's when you get panicky right when you have to leave the house the next day or the next week for to go to that same activity. Where's the bad gone? And it's somewhere in the pile? So I think it's really good one, it's really important to kind of really look through that on a weekly resets. Where's the bad? Is the stuff still in it? You know, what do we need? Do we need to take stuff out? Do we need to repack it and all of those things, because you just don't want to find a bad with a lunchbox with moldy old bread from three weeks ago. It's no fun, isn't it? No fun.

26:51
But you know, it's all of these things. A lot of these things that we're talking about Ingrid are very much about resets, hallways are all about resets, daily resets weekly resets. And just taking the time when you're at your most tired or stressed out not to be fair, to actually go, I'm just gonna make sure everything is back where it should be. So you need to do the decluttering project to make sure you find home for everything in your hallway, make sure it's all ready to go because we're doing a lot of things there. But then it's all about these resets constantly looking and reviewing and taking things out of bags and putting things away and making sure the keys are in order and making sure that you've done that you've got the junk mail and you've taken it into the kitchen. All those kinds of things are very important. So with hallways, it's really important to think about resets. That's the thing that's going to keep the clutter at bay. Yeah,

27:32
yeah. Let's go on to number seven. Lesley. screenwash for cars. Od Eisah. The de ICER. Yes, yes. A lot. We find them a lot in hallways. But the thing is, how often do you actually refill your screenwash? A couple of times per year. So why is that gallon, they're never like small little bottles, which did huge garden of five liter kind of chunky bottles that are heavy. So we kind of got all this refill the car, and we just plunk it quickly inside. And then it just stays there for months on end until we have to kind of top it up again. Because it's just convenient. But it's messy. It's

28:19
messy. Yeah. And there's so many different scenarios of house, right? There's some people, people who live in flats, I haven't got a garage, I haven't got genomics, there's so many different ways. And so sometimes we've got no choice we kind of need to keep in these kinds of places. I mean, you know, screenwash is one as English that just gravitates back towards a kind of hallway or entryway to your house. De ICER is a good one. So why do we keep the ice and so for me the ice it really should be inside a car. But depending on where you are, we talked about Arizona and we're talking about, you know the depths of Canada when it's like minus 20, or whatever, you might not be able, even able to open your car to get the DI syrup to spray on the windscreen, even if you shall be using di C which I'm sure you're probably not really supposed to anymore, because I'm sure it's full of chemicals. I don't even know about that. But anyway, so I think it's we keep it inside because we feel that we need to put it inside because we can't get into the car because car might be frozen up. And that's where these kinds of habits, but do we do? Do we have an alternative? or alter? You know, if we don't have an alternative? Could we do something that looks intentional. So put it into a box where it looks intentional in your hall. You know, rather than it be a random thing, that's what's important. There are so many things in our hallway that just if you containerize them put things into a small drawer, you've got to be really careful with these dishes right because they convert become real clutter gatherers. You know, once you throw your keys in three coins into a thing, then three lips cilantro tissues, and you know, we don't want that sort of scenario. But there are certain things where just buy containerizing them into a hallway or put them into a box or basket or on the shelf or whatever. It just looks a little bit more intentional. So just think about that and think about whether actually have you got an alternative? place to put the stuff that's related to your car.

30:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I think the thing is less the especially with screenwash because the bottles are so big, you don't want to put them in your car either because it takes up a lot of space. So and you want don't want to drive around with them because they're heavy. So there's things to really consider, like, what's going to work for me and if you're somebody who's like, actually, I have a car I'm very you know, I take good care of it. I'm very proud of it. Maybe you are the person who goes Okay, once a month or once a quarter I'm going to make sure the tire pressure is fine and my screen wash is topped up and my goal is alright, I don't know. But maybe you can go actually then I'm going to take the screen which out of the garage or out of the shed and want to do it and I'm not going to have it linger year round in my tiny porch way because that's what happens

30:52
about English got a reminder on her phone to do No, I just I annual maintenance that you will

31:02
do that for sure. But I know I'm like yawn the screen is empty please stop it up. That's that's normally my go to.

31:10
I can't remember the last time I suppose I know. Because I think they do that when they I mean I was the car service, nothing to do that when the service and I think I've got quite a big car and I think they've got quite a big screenwash thing in it. And yeah. Anyway, I definitely don't have any screenwash or Ds are in my hallway

31:28
now. But we haven't had any cold weather it all here in the UK this winter.

31:32
Cold weather was like minus five.

31:35
I know I didn't I didn't need any de ICER here.

31:41
I'm just Yeah, well, I don't know. Well, it was cold an affair. On that day, not ideal. Yeah,

31:48
true. Anyway, number eight. I know we talked about junk mail and kind of takeaway menus Lesley. But this is what we see a lot as well. Mail that's actually not even opened, like proper meal not like junk mail or takeaway menus or leaflets but throw up our mail, unopened on the hallway table. And even Amazon or packages from companies that haven't even been opened. Mount Jaebum

32:21
Yeah, if we're getting to a stage there's two things really wrapped up in this you know, we need to action the things that are coming in, it's really important to keep on top of that, we need to keep on top of mail, even if it's only to put it in the place where we're going, we're going to deal with it on a kind of weekly basis. I mean, sometimes you can get away with a couple of weeks nowadays because most things are online, but we need to put it somewhere where it's going to at some point be actioned if we're getting to a stage with things like Amazon parcels or any other parcels where we're not opening them as soon as they come into the house and excited by that thing arriving then we need to really review those shopping habits as well and think Do we even know what's coming in you know, if you're like, oh, I don't even know what that is really think you know, it's not our job to tell you about what you should shop what you know what, how to shop, what to buy, but just it's something to question yourself if you've got things that are piled up and three or four Amazon parcels that you're not quite sure where they are. So these things should be action straightaway so you can then return them within the appropriate time scales that that doesn't then become clutter. But we see it all the time in houses England where there's parcels coming in and our clients don't even know what's going to be in those parcels which is a bit of a red flag right? Yeah. In terms of acquisition.

33:36
Yeah, I think you know what, I think it's chancel easier just opened a parcel but I think that's you know, you need to have some sort of scissors or something nearby to open a parcel where's the empty box gonna go? Do you want to use an ID roller to wipe out the address all of these things that can be a barrier for you to kind of go I need to open a sponsor and as soon as there's a couple there is suddenly feels like a job for some reason. You know, it's no longer like oh, there's a partial arrived. If these things start to stack up, it feels like a job and it's like oh my gosh, I need to now need to have time to do all of this and I think that's what makes it then suddenly hard work well when you do this daily, it's it's so much easier. Okay, let's look at number nine shopping bags. So bags that we take when we go grocery shopping. We have something called bags for life here in the UK. And these are quite sturdy shopping bags that we can use time after time after time but what happens they sometimes leave somewhere in the house they sometimes leave in the car but more than often than not they end up in no way with sometimes even some shopping destitute because we believe you forgot that you've gotten so it because it's like in the bottom of one of those big bags, or there's like a bag within a bag within a bag ready to take to the next thing but we knew nobody knows One that is, yeah,

35:01
we've got, we've got lots of bags hanging around in our hallway. First things. First, we need to get our bag situation under control, we need to take a long, hard look at the bags that we've got, whether they're tote bags, jute bags, heavy duty bags, backpacks, shopping bags, little plastic bags, paper bags, all of those things, and we need to go how many bags do we realistically need, because we see hundreds of them everywhere, because you just and particularly if that bags for life. So the idea behind the bags for life in the UK is if it does, if it ever degrades, which they kind of typically don't that the shop will actually replace that. And that's why it's called a bag for life. And so, but people have so many because of course what we do is we go shopping, we should take our bags, and sometimes we like forgotten my bags. And then you got to buy new bags, it's becoming less and less here because they're really putting quite a heavy levies on bags now as well. So it's like 25 P or something, I think it's even somewhere I've come up where it's a New Zealand or something where you can't even buy a plastic. I'm sure there's somewhere you can live in New Zealand, England where you can't even buy one, like you know, at all. So they've like out but they've got rid of plastic bags completely, which is great. And so but they build and build and build and build and we have two minutes, we really need to take a real you know, there's no point in having 25 plastic bags, because you're never going to be able to fit 25 bags of stuff even in your car. So we need to be sensible about how many and we need to let let these things go fantastic for donations to charity shop, start to make a conscious effort to let go of these bags. And we need that throughput of bags from the outside in. We need we need them to be in a place where we can grab the bags as we're leaving to go shopping. If we have a car and we show up typically in the car, we need to bring the bags in on pack the shopping straight back out in the car. So they're in the right place for you for next time. Yeah, so we need to do a bag overhaul I think don't wait. So so important because we're never wrong with the things. Yeah,

36:58
yeah, absolutely. I have come to the number 10 of this listlessly. This is an interesting one. Oh, I feel we might go on our soapbox on this one, Lesley. It is the stair basket at the bottom of the stairs. So of course, this is where you are in your hallway. And there are actually stairs to go up to the first or second floor. And there's a little basket there where you can kind of collect things that have to go upstairs where you can put them in your stair baskets.

37:36
Yeah, so I mean, I, for me, it's like one of the best things ever. So mine's not a stair basket. Mine's a kind of square basket, and it sits somewhere different to my stairs, the stair baskets are not ideal, because you can't fit that much stuff in. And as I said, you know, if a stair basket works for you, then that's absolutely great. But the point that we're trying to make is not don't have a stair basket. The point is that you can't just keep randomly throwing stuff in the stair basket and never putting it away. And so the stair basket needs to be reset on a regular basis. I mean, I you know, I've spoke about this before on the podcast. So why would things that get misplaced around the house that belonged elsewhere? You know, for me, my style basket now is mostly shoes, the handbags that I was talking about those in there. If I found a random lipstick or something like that, that needs to go upstairs, if there's something that belonged in one of my kids bedrooms, that's found its way downstairs, rather than going up a couple of flights of stairs to put it away there. And then because he's got time for that, I'll put it in the basket and then make a conscious decision. Can't conscious effort then to do that. To do the basket. And kids would do the basket every day, when three kids at home when they were little, we will be doing that basket every single day. Because there's a big movement of stuff around the house right? Now, I might do it once a week if that sometimes it might only be once every couple of weeks, you're not to make it it's not really that much getting moved around anymore. So you really got to think about that. But you can't just leave it in there. You know what I mean? You've got to empty it every now and again. And our suggestion would be that that gets emptied. If you've got little kids with a lot of throughput in your property every day, if not perhaps once a week. So pay attention to those catch all baskets which are brilliant, but are not brilliant if you never empty them. Yeah,

39:13
exactly. I don't have a stair boss because I don't have enough space in my hallway. I've got quite a tiny hallway. So I've always had to I can put some stuff on the stairs. But I have made the conscious decision that every time I walk up, when there's something on the stairs to be taken up, it gets taken up and it gets put away in the right room at that moment. Because I don't want to have a stair basket because I don't like them personally. And for me, it's a space issue as well. But indeed, I've seen homes with clients when there's one or sometimes more stair baskets. And then there's like a pile on top of this basket but because the stamp basket was too small to put all the stuff in and if nobody then takes action on actually picking things up and putting them away and That's when you get the problems and in the hole and that clutter magnets, as soon as it's like the like exactly what you said, the little trays of things that you people put on their hallway to put their keys in before you know where there is just paper clips and coins and, and buttons from shirts that have accidentally fallen off and all these things. And that's when it becomes more and more and more on top of it. And that's when it you get little piles of clutter everywhere that grow into big piles. And that's what we want to avoid. Yeah,

40:33
and that, you know, like, you're absolutely right and good. And if you've not got a step basket, if you look at your stairs, and you can see stuff on the first four steps that needs to go upstairs, it's been there for over a week, then that needs to be taken action on as well. Because that's not you know, it's impacting safety and everything as well. So really something that needs to be looked at. So a nice little list of ingredients. How many of you got out of the six to 10?

40:55
I think I have one. Oh, the screen wash? I think I remember seeing that image in the corner of my eye. Um, I think I recently did a tiny screen wash in my hallway because I think it's probably because my husband refilled it and left it there. But everything else No, but the screen wash I'm going to come clean about

41:18
Okay, fair enough. But that's because you've not got access to your garage from the front of your house right. Now, so I get that right. Yeah. And I have got none.

41:30
Do we good the Lesley so in some fencing sports gets real like, yeah, we've got six of these

41:37
things. Yeah. Do as we say not as we do all that kind of stuff. So yeah, nice little list today. Thank you so much for Enlighten me. enlightening me. I've learnt all about your glove wearing today. Yeah, let's put your little Achilles heel, which is your screenwash. And yeah,

41:54
yeah, no, it's been good. It's been good. And you know, what we love as well is when people and our listeners get back to us and go, here's the list. And this is what I have. This is what I don't have. So listeners, let us know. Make sure to hit that follow up subscribe button wherever you're listening in your player on YouTube. And tell us in the comments because we read all of your comments, and you need to tell us come clean and tell us which things you've got in your hallway. We can't wait to hear from you. So thank you so much for being here. We're gonna see you next week.

42:32
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hop 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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Episode 287 – 10 things to declutter from your hallway

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Episode 415 – A Declutterer’s Guide to Upcycling with Brenda Tasker

Episode 412 – When Summer Throws You off the Decluttering Track

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