A graphic of ingrid and lesley with the words 10 decluttering tips you can't live without part 2
Episode 301 – Decluttering tips you can’t live without – Part 2

We asked you, our lovely listeners, to ask us your burning decluttering and organising questions so we can help you out. Last week we covered part 1 with the first 5 questions and here we are this week for another 5.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Last week we were in celebration mode celebrating 300 episodes of The declutter hub podcast. We asked you our loving listeners to ask us your burning decluttering and organizing questions so we can help you out. Last week we covered part one with the first five questions. And here we are this week for another five.

00:31
You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips, advice from the leading experts decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

00:54
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.

01:13
If you'd like to get involved in conversations related 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. Well, hello, Lesley,

01:33
this is part two of 10 decluttering Tips You can't live without because we thought we all tried to put them in one episode, people will probably switch of listening because we will be here for hours.

01:45
I know. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good shout English like Yeah, normally when we answer questions, that would be like two hours of content. I'm like, yeah, maybe we need to split it into two parts. Very sensible. Ingrid. By the way, we're in Episode 301. That means we're now on our way to 400. And by the time we get to Episode 400, that means we'll have done eight years. It will still be here in a yes. Well, yes. Yes. Yes. Still with stuff to say?

02:14
Well, I would hope so.

02:16
might just get to a stage where we're just talking about our day and not talking about decluttering at all right?

02:24
Do people want to know what we're up to every day?

02:28
You want me to tell you what we're up to every day sitting at this desk. Anyway, less about us. I'm more about listener questions. It was exciting last week, right, Ingrid? Yes. I

02:43
really enjoyed last week, Lesley, and I'm happy with the five questions we are covering today. So let's get started with question number one. From anonymous, as well, as we agreed, anonymous writes,

02:58
Anonymous has been busy. Yes, it's been very busy.

03:04
I have very deep shells in my wardrobe and all my clothes are constantly in a mess. How do I sort this out? Good question

03:14
from anonymous. Good question. I know how I sorted out.

03:18
Oh, tell me

03:22
two ways it depends. So first of all, and I think you probably know this from other podcasts that we have done in the past. I favor hanging clothes over folding clothes, because I am more. I mean, I'm not that messy, really. But I am not really sort of driven by attention to detail. And folding is definitely somebody for people who love attending to the detail. So if I have an opportunity, I will hang my clothes rather than fold my clothes. But we don't always have that option. We have to work with the space that we've got. So I've got plenty of hanging space by design, and less folding space. Ingrid has got more folding space, probably not by design to be fair, but she's got more folding space, but she loves a fold. Right? Yeah, but let's talk about how you would do that. So we're not talking about meticulous folding people. If your clothes are constantly in a mess, then that means that you're not being driven by the act of folding, but you need to find a solution to that. And so the way to do that is shelves are notoriously difficult or they inward because you can put things vertically, but you still got to get things from the bottom and then it makes it all messy or you could try and do something sort of, you know, side by side or you could try new shelf dividers, there's loads of different options. But ultimately for me, it's about containerizing that shelf and shells are not very containerized by their nature. So for me I would find a container that fits that shape. I'll perfectly that almost you know that you can slide it in and out, it takes up more or less the whole space of the shelf. And I would vertically fold or roll into that box, so that every time that you need to get something out of it, you can lift the box out of the cupboard rummage through for what you want, and take things out much more easily. That would be the and then put it back. That would be the way that I would do it. But he was going to talk a little bit more about actual folding.

05:26
Yes, because I think that I think it's especially tricky with deep shells, right? Because if you've got a shallow shelf, you can actually, when you fold the same and quite nicely, it can look quite nice. The problem is when the shelf is deep, and you can have kind of things disappear behind your folded clothes. And that's when you don't see it. And if you don't see it, you don't wear it because you forget that you got it. So I think that is one of the problems with a deep shelf. And people have all different kinds of wardrobes, walk in closets, you know you you have what you have. So you need to think about how can I make it work for me. If you are somebody who likes to fold, I think what's really important and I think if you fold, you need to fold a little bit neater, because that will make all the difference. So if folding is your go to, don't just fold quickly, quickly, quickly. Because what happens then is that you don't have the same kind of weight of the clothes, the arms are different all the time. And then the piles where you stack them on top of each other get wobbly. So that's the trick with folding, it's indeed Yes, you need you can if you need to fold because that's the space that you've got spent a little bit more time and I'm talking honestly 510 15 seconds, just to fold it a little bit neater and the same. So I like folding because I don't mind it, but I have to because I've got a lot of shelves and drawers. But I spent about every week 25 minutes on when I fold my laundry This is not ironing this is only folding for four people. So it's doable, right, it's five loads of laundry every week, half of it probably or a third goes into the ironing pile, the other half gets folded. But I fold everything the same whether it's this T shirts, all the same, the underwear all the same, the bras all the same, the pajamas all the same, because when it's folded the same, whatever kind of category it is, it will look neater in your drawers and in your shelves. And I think that's the thing.

07:48
You'd be so disappointed with my phone. So disappointed I can't even tell you how disappointed me disappointed face on. Because I'm just not got that attention to detail. I'm not saying that I can't fold. And actually when I'm filling in for clients, it's actually quite good. It's just for myself, but 25 minutes a fold and just seems like, like a lot, you know, compared to just putting things on a hanger and hanging them up. Yeah, I mean, it's five minutes to do that.

08:14
I know. I know. We'll have we have a

08:16
battle and might ever fold in hanging battle. Well, let me ask you a question about your island. So you said that a third of it goes into the island and the rest of it gets folded? Yeah. What about the island that needs folding?

08:31
I do that while I run. So

08:33
you do that while you iron. So you iron and then you fold on your ironing board. Yes,

08:39
or, or IRA and then hang it on a hanger. So if it's like I like iron T shirts, that's just me, I like T shirts being so when I've ironed them, I really fold them exactly the way I would fold them all the same. And then if it's something that does hang like a shirt or a blouse or top like what I'm wearing at the moment, that would be immediate this hour bring all loads of empty hangers down from all the different people in this house. And I make sure that everything gets on the right hanger. Nice.

09:09
Thank you for the explanation and good. Okay, it's good question. But mainly, the question was really about deep shells. And for me, you know, the folding needs to happen, but I would fold into a container that you can lift out of your shelf. Yeah, that's really the key to making it all happen, isn't it? Yes,

09:28
definitely. Let's move on to question number two. Oh, I feel I feel for this person I feel for anonymous, even though they don't say anything. I know my friends talk about me and my clutter with each other. I'm so proud of what I'm doing. And I'd love to be able to share with with them. So how do I deal with this? So I have a feeling that anonymous is actually decluttering but she and she's kind of doing a little steps forward. But she doesn't want to say anything to her friends, because they've always been kind of judging her for her messy house. And now she's like, well, I'm actually trying really hard here, but I'm not gonna say anything, because I'm gonna be getting all these nasty remarks possibly.

10:15
Hard, isn't it? If If only we could take other people out of the equation when people in our communities go on a decluttering journey can be so damaging, but equally, it can be so useful. And so, but mostly at this stage in a decluttering journey, it has been more negative. So people have dealt with judgment. And you know, people talking about them behind the back. And on the unsaid quite often it's unsaid, you know, it's what people don't say, Isn't it as well. So you know, people are talking about, so she says here, even though it might not be a she might be He, even though they don't say anything I know my friends talk about me. And so that's the thing is kind of what they're not saying as well. And so you're probably building it up in your mind to be more than it is as well, potentially. So there's a whole load of psychological things going on here, isn't there? Yeah. But ultimately, you have to try to your own pathway. So what what people do, I think it's really important for you to, at this stage, do what's right for you and go, you know, what, I don't care what anybody else thinks at this moment in time, I'm going to do this for me. And I'm going to get to a stage where I prove them wrong, do not mean because a lot of people, particularly people, so these are friends, but particularly partners, kids, parents, those kinds of people have been like, Oh, we've been there a million times, and you've said you're on a decluttering journey, and you never do and you always say you're going to do and you never stick to it. And you know, I'll come back when it's actually all done, or is this just another kind of, you know, another attempt that's going to fail, and it's so demotivating, particularly, if you find something and this is what we find, isn't it in the people in our communities, if you find something that you feel is going to work for you. So here it will be an emotion, space decluttering methodology, which all of a sudden flips it on its head, from what you've been, where you've been focusing on the stuff before, I think you can really see it, you know what, I think I'm gonna get it this time. And all you need is that reinforcement from the people that you care most about to buy you up. And if that then ends in them doing the complete opposite, it can be quite demotivating. So but I think it's important to just go, Okay, I'm just gonna ignore everybody else. This is important for me and me alone at this moment in time, and I'm going to tread my own pathway. And when I get to a certain stage in my decluttering journey, people will start to notice because that's what happens, right? Ingrid, people all of a sudden will start to make those positive comments instead of negative ones. And you'll you'll hear it you'll you know, people come into your house, oh, have you been tidied up? And it still might feel quite judgmental at that stage? Because it's almost looking at, you know, it's almost like when somebody says, Oh, have you lost weight, and all you're thinking in your mind is jeez, they must think I'm fat, right? Yeah, that's the thing. And so they intended to be a nice statement, but it kind of becomes negative just because they're referring to what came before. It's so so hard. So you could either do that, which is trade your own pathway, or the other option is to kind of appeal to their kindness and say, Look, I know that I've done this lots of times before, I know that perhaps it's, it's failed before or I've failed, or whatever, we'd always use the word failure. But in principle, that's how you will feel about it. But actually, this time, I really think that it's going to be different. And I could really use your support in this. That's another way of going down it and only you know, the people this is about people, and people are complex beasts. And so we can't sit here and say, do this or do that. I think it's about knowing the people that you're interacting with, and knowing how they might react to either a request for help, or for you to kind of ignore and tread your own pathway. And you will know which is best. What do you think Ingrid?

14:08
Yeah, I think I think it's sometimes not even only comments, Lesley, I think it's also just the the eyes or the rolling of the eyes or the or the look that goes to the other part of the room that you maybe have not done yet. You know what I mean? It's all just really kind of, not kind of, oh, have you tidied up but kind of like, Oh, yeah. And it's like, wow, okay, I thought you were coming here from me and not from my house. But nevermind, because people are really can be very harsh, don't they? So I think it's really important that sometimes she also just have to be, you know, white kind of go, I'm just not going to listen to that and let it just run past me. But it's hard because it really cuts to the core and it cuts into your heart doesn't need it. If your friends are already saying that. I mean, how do you how do you deal with that? And I think it's It's really important if you decide you want some help from your friends, if you want their support, be clear what it is that you want that support to be. Because if you say, You know what I'm really a found, I don't know, the culture of membership, I'm loving it, I'm changing my ways. I'm changing my mindset. I'm doing a little bit of decluttering here and there, and I absolutely love it. And I would love your support, and I love your help. Be clear what that help is. Because help can be different things to different people, right? Because your friends who might be super organized think well, okay, well, we're gonna help you sort out this room and you're like, Whoa, I just wanted to ask you, if you know, a good place where I can donate items, or something, or do you know, with a nice charity that we can support or so help is a different thing for everybody else. So be clear what it is you want support? But is it just, oh my gosh, you know, let me know the next time you've done something and I'm going to treat you for a coffee in the local Costa or Starbucks or something, you know what I mean? Or, let's, let's do a movie night, let's go to the cinema or let's do a movie night at my house. When you've done your living room? Well, whatever it is, you know, it doesn't have to be necessarily something that is is stuff based, but it can more, you know, that kind of support as well to to treat yourself. Yeah, exactly.

16:25
I think the other thing I think that's important England is sometimes when you feel like sometimes you can feel as well, like the, you're the only person in the world who has got this problem. And that's why I've been in a community of people who get it like in the, you know, articletop Facebook group 40,000 people in there, all so supportive, because they all completely get it. So there's an empathy there. That is just very, very motivating. Because all of a sudden, when you realize that you're not on your own, and there are other people who feel this way, and other people who can go look at a look at a picture of your messy in inverted commas, room before and then see how much change you've made. And God that's amazing progress and see the progress in that it's so motivated. So if your own sort of circle of friends are not giving you that motivation and support that you need, reach out to a community like the declutter hub, Facebook group, and share your photos and share your wins and ask for help. Because those are the those are your people aren't there that completely get it, we were always completely blown away by the kindness that there is in that group. And it is, it is because and we've got a lot of people in there now. So this could go horribly wrong, you know, once you start to widen the net a little bit, you know, it could go wrong, but still, you know, we were quite fierce about only allowing people in who who are kind and show kindness in there. And so it's just so so important to find a community of people who understand the journey that you're going on?

17:59
Yeah, I think so too. Because I think if you are realizing that you can't find it with your friends, you know, you've tried either not telling them and just plotting on your own or ask for the support, and nobody's really kind of doing that for you. Say, Okay, you know, I've tried, my friends are at the moment, they're not the people. For me, that doesn't mean they cannot be helpful in other ways. Or you still you can't have with them anymore. But maybe for the whole decluttering you need a Facebook group or membership, just to kind of give you that boost, and that support and that motivation, that accountability to move forwards. And maybe later when you've got less clutter in your house, you feel more on top of things, then you can kind of go back to your friends and go hey, guys, this is what I've been doing. I've been doing it on my own. I've had some wonderful help in other areas. Because, you know, I just I didn't feel that I could share this with you. But I'm really proud of what I'm doing now. And hopefully you see the differences. Well, definitely.

19:03
It's a really, really good question and one that resonate with so many people when you've been at the receiving end of hurtful comments. It's a tough thing to to get past, isn't it?

19:13
Yeah. And you know what Lesley make shorting a house decluttering organizing, sorting tidy and cleaning a house is is a big job, you know, and the more clutter you have, the harder that job is. So I can completely imagine that that a lot of people are like, You know what, I actually really need less stuff because it will change so many things around me as well. So, yes, I hope that's helpful. Thank you so much for submitting this question. Let's do another one before we go to a break. Somebody sent in and says I get so much mail about hospital and then health appointments and things that I need to get to refer back to how do I organize this all because the paperwork Work is absolutely just insane. Basically.

20:05
It is insane, isn't it? Yes. So I think it's a completely bespoke system to you and your health conditions is the answer to that. So, whereas there are many people lucky people who will have one file folder that says health on it, if you've got multiple things that you're dealing with, then it's really important to have separate categories for each of those things. You know, and depending on how much of a problem it is, and whether it's long term, whether it's going to be with you for life, whether it's a short term issue is going to dictate what you keep and what you need to keep going forwards. But for me, I think it's mapping out, Okay, where am I in my life? And what am I kind of having appointments for? And then you do need to do like a bit of a kind of Mind Map almost don't you include on like, how is this gonna work? Because I think you've really got to think about what your categories are Ingrid, right. And so you might have one, you might resonate with cardiology, you might resonate with heart, or you might resonate with Dr. Smith. Yeah. And so you need to work out what makes logical sense for you, based on the way that your mind works, and what life is throwing at you at the moment. And some people have got 10 or 15 Different doctors that the same for different things, there might be different cardiology doctors, you know, so you might want to split that sort of categorize that. So it's really important for you to think about what your categories are, that's the most important part of it, and know that you need more than just health. Right? Yeah. Then I think after that, you need to start looking at the types of information that's coming through and going, what do I actually need to keep long term so and we we, the NHS here in the UK, amazing, but send out so much administration, that would, whatever, we can't go into the NHS now. But there's so many things that it's all a bit crazy, isn't it? So every time there's a letter for a hospital appointment, you will get instructions, very important instructions and directions on how to get to the place that you need to go to in these mammoth hospitals. But you don't need to keep that long term, you might not need to keep that at all, if you're confident, go online and find it if you want to go to the to the Help Desk, or whatever, or you've been there before. But these are the kinds of things but because when we're in when we are, when our health is compromised, we get a little bit more panicky or anxious about things. And so we want to hold on to things. So it's really about looking at those things and going, what do I need to keep long term, it might be that you need to keep that appointment letter as it's happening, but then you might be happy to let it go once that appointment has gone. Or you might decide, actually, I want to keep a chronology, of all of the appointments that I've had, so that I can refer back to it. You know, particularly if you're nervous about whether or not the administrative body that sits behind your doctors are doing what they need to do. Yeah, so you know, and that's gonna depend on you, I'm a little bit more throw caution to the wind, I am a little bit more risk, you know, I'm like, it'd be fine. I'll find the information from somewhere. But some people want it to be much more documented, right? For obvious reasons. Maybe you've been falling short before, or there's many, many reasons. So it's about working out what do you need to keep, but the one thing that you do need to think about is that you don't need to keep everything. Ingrid.

23:34
I completely agree. I think, you know, we all start off quite simple, right? With just doctors and dentists, and possibly iser, as you know, immunizations. But the older we get, the more complex normally things get, because, you know, we get things and, and some paperwork is also painful and hard. And you know, especially if there's been fertility problems can be very hard, you know, to keep the paperwork, but sometimes you want to keep it although it is hard to keep it there's a lot of emotion that sits behind paperwork, but especially health paperwork, because normally when you have to go to the hospital or the doctor's or whatever, that's you know, something is not right. And that can really shake your whole life just up and down. And you it's very uncertain time in your life. So it's very Yeah, it can be very hard to kind of especially the beginning see the wood for the trees and what information do I need and what what's happening here I can't even get my head around that I've got this illness now. So let alone dealing with all the paperwork, but I think it's really important to stay on top of it especially you know, with with so many people now and needing to go to hospital and we're all getting much older than we were before. So we have to really be organized about it because if we're not you can really kind of go off track and I've seen it with seven by clients who've got a lot of health paperwork, and it's this like, it's like a part time job, staying on top of all the appointments and all the paperwork, so you actually have to be almost super organized just to make sure that you don't miss anything and that you don't lose anything. But like it like I agree with unless he says, the envelopes can go all the explanations of the maps of the hospital and all the frequently asked questions and all the other things they send you every time, filter that out immediately and only keep the appointment letter or the reference letter or the report from the from the appointment. And then make sure you indeed categorize that in the different suggestions that Lesley said,

25:44
I think it's also important to recognize that things are more complex elsewhere in the world, we have a fantastic NHS system, which is free. Not that we can't have access to private health, because we can, we can have insurance here, but most places in the world, there's the health side of it, and then there's the insurance side of it as well. So you need to work out how you're going to split that down. So you're going to keep the insurance documentation with your actual health information, or you're going to separate those out to be completely different. So as we say that it's really what I've what I found, particularly now when I've worked with clients with multiple health needs, it's almost like a completely separate system in its own right, isn't it in a completely separate place. And I think also, the last thing that I wanted to say about this as well is that quite often, people who are going from for appointments with on a regular basis, have a little folder of the most important bits of health documentation to take with them to appointments as well, just in case that information is not on some computer or whatever, when you get there. So you might want to splinters some of it out into kind of very current stuff that you might need to take with you to appointments. We could go on for a long time about health paperwork. The one thing that I would say is it's so so important if you've got multiple health needs to get this part of your life, right, because it just causes so much more anxiety if you don't

27:06
Yeah, absolutely. So we hope that is helpful. And yes, let's go for a break, because we've got two more questions after the break. So see you soon. Bye, everyone. Welcome back for your last two questions in this podcast. We have gotten another lovely question for you. And it says I'm confused about when I need to do my daily resets that you talk about all the time. All my time is focused on decluttering. But when do I fit in those daily resets?

27:41
Yes, it's a great question.

27:43
So first of all, Ashley, I think we need to explain what a daily reset is briefly before we kind of explain how you fit it in because people might be here for the first time ago, a daily reset, I've got no idea. So basically what Lesley and I say, it's nice that you declutter your house, and that you're organized and get it all done and over time. But daily, you need to do a little bit of tidying up and organizing, because if you don't do something every day, then you fall back to a chaos again, so you need to stay on top of things. So once you for example, if decluttered your kitchen, it's really good to daily make sure you do the washing up or load and unload the dishwasher. It's really good to regularly empty your recycling and your bins in your kitchen. You don't want to leave it until it all piles up and spills over you probably daily once or maybe several times per day, wipe your kitchen counters in your kitchen table. If you've been having breakfast, lunch and dinner there, you probably daily want to kind of give your cooker or your your hope a quick wipe over. Because if you do these little jobs that take a couple of minutes every day. It stays much tidier. So when you've done all the hard work in the decluttering, you have to do something daily to kind of keep it ticking over and then over the weekend, you normally do a little bit more, you might also mop the floors and do extra bits and bobs or everybody's daily resets are different, right, Lesley? Yes,

29:24
absolutely. But I think it's important to recognize that it's not only once you've done the decluttering that you do the reset. Okay, so, in answer to the question, how do you fit in, I'm spending all my time decluttering we're not doing the research, you've still got to do that. So all of the things that Ingrid's mentioned, you know washing up or like taking the recycling out that needs to be done regardless of where you are on your decluttering journey. The nice thing is as you start to do more decluttering the daily resets will get so much easier, but you can't leave The resets until after your job is done. The reality is that you will have been doing those things, you know, you've been doing some kind of reset every day, every week, whatever that looks like already. And so, but when we talk about resets, we obviously talk about fine tuning it a little bit more and really drilling down. But sometimes, if you're faced with clutter, all of your work surfaces, you're like, Well, I'm not even going to bother wiping because I can't even get to the work surfaces sort of scenario. But you do need to do some basics as you're going along. So basically, in terms of where it fits in, it fits in in the same way, regardless of where you're on your decluttering journey. But as you progress, you might want to build more into your daily resets, as you get more comfortable with it, as more space opens up and things like that, exactly the same in your bedroom, where you know, we're big advocates of making your bed smooth in your bed, throwing your bed back, whatever that might be for you in terms of your bed and opened the window, opening the curtains, putting stuff in the laundry every day. And that needs to happen. Even if your bedroom is in complete chaos, there still needs to be some sort of delineation between the laundry, the clothes that are dirty, and the clothes that are clean. And so it's important to do that as you go on. And then but the nice thing is, as you continue down your decluttering journey, you're really gonna love the results of those daily reset so much more, because it feels like you're not getting anywhere with your daily reset when there's still lots of clutter around. But as the clutter starts to dissipate, then all of a sudden, the the fruits of your labor start to unfold, right and grid. I think

31:34
it's a game changer. And I think that's what we see in our membership as well. And we have a whole course about doing daily resets and what they are and when you do them and why you do them and what your non negotiables are, and all of those things. And I think the members who really take on board that they watch the daily reset scores and do them every day. And yes, occasionally, there's a crazy busy day, they can't do it. And then later, they think, Ah, I didn't do my daily resets. And I regret that now. And it shows me how important those daily resets are. But it's a game changer. And the daily resets honestly get easier. We hear it all the time. In the beginning, they're hard because it's just not something that you're used to. It's creating a habit of doing certain tasks every day at a certain time, you just build it in around your around your schedule. And I think once you do that, and once you then do that in combination with decluttering. So you start to declutter your kitchen cupboards, for example. And suddenly the stuff that's in the dishwasher doesn't end up on the worksheets, but can be put back in the cupboards, what what we want, suddenly, that wiping of the kitchen side is much easier and only takes two minutes instead of picking things up. And oh, gosh, that's quite dirty behind there, and I need to move it and all you make your future self so much happier. But it's a definitely a combination of things. But indeed, whether you're decluttering or not, your daily resets still have to be done. I mean, at some point closely to go into the washing machine needs to be hung up and dried and put back somewhere, you know, your bins need to be emptied at some point, you know, so, but we just say do all of these things a little bit more in a pattern, a little bit more in a routine a little bit more as habits, because it will really help you with feeling more in control and feeling more organized. Yes, absolutely. Game Changer. Game Changer. All right. Well, let's see, let's go to the last question that we're going to answer. And it is Do you think a gift cupboard is a good idea?

33:49
Um, sometimes put on the spot. I'm nervous about the gift cupboard? Because that sounds like a lot, right? Isn't it a gift cupboard seems like a lot of space to give over for gifts. So I think you know this the listener who sent this question in, and for the people who are like what's a gift cupboard? So basically, if you love to see things as you are shopping and think, Oh, that would be a great gift for someone or that's a bargain. Let me buy it and then I can use that at Christmas to give somebody or whatever. What we see in the in the normal dance in the decluttering world is that there's an overabundance of that kind of gift buying in advance, which leads to clutter sometimes. Because people are because we like stuff and we see kind of purpose in stuff all the time and there's always Oh, that would be a great gift that would be great. So what we try and encourage further down the line was people started to change their clutter mindset is that if you do and there's no Problem with that because you can get bargains, you can pre plan in advance, you know particularly good for like children's birthday parties and stuff like that. Or ultimately we we typically we buy gifts for people, when we'd love people to buy experiences more than actual tangible objects to be fair most of the time. But that's not always possible. Pete, you need to buy gifts as a matter of course. And so whether you buy them in advance or on the day or last minute is kind of up to you. But it's important that any purchase that you made is fully intentional, you need to have an inventory. So you need to have a full idea of what you've already got at home. Number one, because people just buy and Buy and buy. And we find them in those deep shelves in the back of wardrobes that we were talking about, don't we encrypted. And then they're like, Oh, I forgot that I bought that because you just squirrel it away. And if it's a gift, and you don't want somebody in the family to see it, you hide it away, and that it never comes out three years. And so there are big downsides to a gift cupboard. But there are upsides to

36:03
Yes, I think if you are a person who's got gifts scattered everywhere, a gift cupboard is a really good idea. Because then it gives you visibility of what you have. You can kind of butcher but you need to find a place somewhere where you can put it all right. So I mean, I think worked with a client once he she had like a cupboard in a spare bedroom that was a bit small. And we're like, okay, that's like a good gift cupboard. So we put all of the things that we found everywhere in that gift cupboards. And she's like, oh, what and exactly what you said, I completely forgot that have this and blah, blah, blah. So then later, we looked at those same gifts again. And at first it was more of a gathering exercise, but later was more like, do I really want to gift these gifts to people still, because I bought them two years ago, three years ago, four years ago with the intention of it might be a good gift for somebody. And she actually realized that half of the stuff was actually something that she now in this moment would not gift any more. So we actually donated a lot of those items and machines an amazing gift giver. So I think it really kind of almost opened her eyes a bit like, okay, hold on a minute, I need to show up far more with precision, and not just pick something up because it looks nicer, it's a good deal, or might come in handy one day or something like that, because then it's money that it's lost. So and I think of course, you know, I agree with you, I used to have a shelf where I kind of put because especially when the kids were small, you'd have lots of birthday parties, and they get invited all the time to to parties, then it was really handy. At this moment, I do not at all have a gift shelf anymore. Because first of all, I've really cut down on the gifts that I give, I'd rather get experiences or go out or do a meal with somebody or anything like that. And I find that, you know, after maybe after being professional organizer for so long, and seeing so much clutter everywhere, I'm like, I'm don't want to have gifts, I'd rather do something else. So and I feel I'm not always the best gift giver anyway. So I just feel the gift is just not my thing. And we've really eradicated it in my family as well. So with Christmas, we rather all do something together, then give each other gifts and try to think of stuff that nobody wants to have. So and and maybe for some people that sounds really mean, but I'm like, I don't know, it just works for me. So absolutely fine with that. So I don't even have a gift shelf anymore. But for a time, it was really, really handy. But now for me, I'm like no, I don't want to have that in my house.

38:47
Yeah, so I think but if you are a person that's got a gift cupboard, I've got gifts scattered letting go, it says I think you've got to come up with a plan. So first of all, you need to gather gather, like with like, know what you've got, and then really analyze it and go, Who am I going to give this to and when and it might get down to the that if you've got a Birthday Calendar or if you've got something in your digital calendar for someone's birthday, that you make a note and go present already bought for that person, this is what it is, you know, it might you might need to go down to that granular level of detail. But you need to make a real commitment to yourself. Same with cards. People are always buying cards for people as well. That's a nice card. That's a nice card. When are you going to actually give this card it's so so important to take it to the next step. And how am I going to make that happened to make sure that over the course of this year, those gifts are depleting in my gift cupboard stop. And the same with the cards. And so it's a really good question. And so it is a problem in a lot of people's homes because we are shopping or that might be good for a gift as opposed to that will be good in May for anti gene. That's where we need to get to. Yeah,

39:54
I think it's you touched upon a card there Lesley I think that's so true. I mean we are we have the stationery and notebook and card lovers that can't pass a show with a lovely birthday card sets and are like, Oh yeah, pick that up, pick it up. And honestly, not even five or 10s. But hundreds of cards. And it's like, you've had this now for so long is nearly now crumbled and damaged because you've added so long your house. And you know, of course it makes sense if you're in a shop to get a couple for things, but you don't want to have cards for the next five or 10 years because they're expensive. And so a lot of money that's just sitting there as well, that might then be not useful. So yes, but tempting. so tempting to do this. But yeah, we hope that was helpful.

40:47
Oh, yes. I think that was the end of our part two.

40:51
Yes. This was all the five questions. Lesley, I've enjoyed talking about all these things. So did you

40:56
know when do we not enjoy talking about decluttering? I can see the kind of energy coming up out of us when we're answering questions. And I think it's really nice to be able to answer questions that people have submitted themselves as well. It's something that we do every two weeks in our membership, and we go even deeper sometimes. And we have done today on those absolutely love answering any questions that people have got, because we you know, that's what it's all about. We want to, you know, break through these barriers that happen where we're like, oh, I don't really know what to do about that. You know what I mean? And so it's important to, to hear it from the horse's mouth think a little bit as well. So I've loved it. Yes. And it was a nice celebration of our 300th episode.

41:35
I know 303 101 less the word like you said, we're on a roll now to 400 in another two years. So listeners, let us know did you enjoy this, this this kind of session where we do? where we answer your questions. And if it is, maybe you've got a question you would love us to answer or maybe you're like, actually, do you do this every two weeks your membership? That sounds awesome. I'm gonna come into the membership. And I want some less than Ingrid advice every other week. And not just an odd after 300 episodes on the podcast. I want to ask them questions all the time because we love it. And we do

42:13
give advice. We do give advice on the podcast, but I know the week's as far as

42:18
I know, but not listener questions.

42:21
Do we just tell it said Say say things that people don't want to hear? No.

42:24
Well, I hope not let our listeners

42:28
know. Don't let us know. throw the towel in at 301. Yeah, never come by sigma

42:34
No. done now. 300 episodes said we've had enough. Exactly. Anyway, we appreciate honestly, we appreciate each and every one of you who's listening every week. tell other people about this amazing podcast, leave us a review. Send us an email, join our membership come into our Facebook group. I mean, the possibilities are endless. So thank you so much, and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.

43:09
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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Recent Posts
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Episode 301 – Decluttering tips you can’t live without – Part 2

Episode 412 – When Summer Throws You off the Decluttering Track

Episode 411 – When Creativity Breeds Clutter with Inner Hub member Lori

Episode 410 – 10 Things you Don’t Need this Summer

Episode 409 – Is TV Decluttering Helping or Harming?

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