A graphic of a man on a ladder ontop of a pile of clothes with a sign saying Decluttering during lockdown
Episode 78 – Decluttering during lockdown

In this podcast, we discuss what positive projects we can do whilst at home in lockdown and what decluttering during lockdown might entail. We discuss in particular projects we can do with the whole family that are fun and enjoyable.
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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  0:30  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 78 of the Declutter Hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. 

Lesley  0:36  
And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:37  
if you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. Now, Lesley, what a week have we got behind us? Well, what a month or what a week. But let's just stay all week. So much has happened. And we're going to we had to change tack, haven't we? Because we had something completely in mind for this week's podcast. But we've changed completely right? We have Yeah, it

Lesley  1:02  
was not unbalanced. It was not the most sensible podcast ever to put out this week, because it was all about travel guides, maps, and leaflets. And so we spent quite a lot of time because we recorded it a few weeks ago, talking about our travel plans for this year, which obviously, are no longer in existence, sadly. So we thought, You know what, we better not put that out there. So we need to talk about something different. But to be fair, we wanted to talk to you all anyway, in this week of craziness about what everyone's up to and what everyone's doing and how plans have changed. And so I think it was good that it was the travel guides, maps, and leaflets that and had to go and that's something to look forward to later on in the year. Hopefully not too much later in the year. We'll we'll watch what goes on. And we'll put it out when we think it's an appropriate time where we can all start booking holidays again.

Ingrid  1:54  
Yeah, for sure. Because we were actually really pleased with how that episode went. But when we listen to it thinking, we really cannot put this out when everybody's kind of locked in doors and is self isolating. And oh my goodness gracious. So we had to change. Second. Normally, we record a little bit in advance to give us time to, of course, edit the podcast and to make sure that everything is completely perfect for our listeners. But now we're only recording this on the Monday while it goes out this Friday. So, of course, lovely listeners, we don't know what's going to happen between now and Friday. But at some point, we had to press record for this podcast because we want to stay with you. And we want to as always have a new podcast out like we do every Friday for the past 77 episodes. We are here for you. And we want to talk about decluttering and organising for you. So Lesley, before we start talking about our topic for today, which is all about decluttering. When in self isolation, we have so many new listeners that we wanted to introduce ourselves a little bit.

Lesley  2:57  
Yeah, I think it's really important. Some people are like, oh, here is the declutter podcast. But who are these ladies that are talking to us about decluttering all the time. So we have got lots and lots of new listeners, I think a lot of people are interested in decluttering while they're in self isolation, so that what that means for us is our listener numbers are going up. And so which is great, but who are we so we're two professional organisers from the UK. I'm from the north of the UK, as you might hear from my accent, and Ingrid, do you want to introduce yourself?

Ingrid  3:26  
Yes, I am living currently in southeast London. But Originally I am from the Netherlands, hence my really funny accent. In case you were wondering, like, oh, I can understand her, but I can't really understand what she's saying. We like

Lesley  3:41  
to have a laugh. We like to make decluttering reasonably light hearted as much as it can be. Whilst understanding that it's quite a serious business. For a lot of people. It's important to keep the fun, there isn't Ingrid? And that's what we try and do. You've got to laugh, haven't you? You've got to laugh. And certainly in times like this, you have to find something that's more positive and lighthearted everyday, don't you?

Ingrid  4:02  
Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm a liberal myself. So I'm a bit between laughing and crying all the time. But yeah, having a good chat and giving hopefully some very sensible information to you. But we want to give it with a smile on our faces and so that you feel that you're part of our decluttering world. What we've

Lesley  4:25  
been finding over the past couple of weeks within our Facebook group is that people are loving the idea of a challenge and community and positivity and having a focus. That's definitely what we're going to talk about in our podcast today, isn't it? And if you're not part of our Facebook group, I think it's a really good place to be. And I don't say that just because we want you to be part of our community. I say it because people are loving the positivity of it all out then it's really important to have something to focus on. When your life is completely changed upside down which for most of us it is you know for some It's much worse than others. What we don't want to talk about is a Coronavirus. And the impact of that what we want to talk about today is, right, okay, so this is our reality for the next few weeks or months, we have no idea how long, what can we do in the decluttering world to get your Kickstarter to focus on your homes, I think we're all sitting around, aren't we, at the moment, looking at all looking at our homes every day, we can't escape from it, we're stuck there, whether we like it or not. And so for many people, they're looking around, and they're disappointed with what they see, our home is not a sanctuary more than ever before. That's what it needs to be, and decluttering. And organising. And getting some kind of control back into it, is what this is all about.

Ingrid  5:42  
And we know, because we've been professional organisers for such a long time. And because we've been running the group for two years, and we've seen how wonderful decluttering is for people's minds, and people's whole intention of how they're feeling in their home, how positive it is to have less stuff around you. And that's why we really think it's important that although we're exactly as you're saying, Our worlds are upside down in the moment that decluttering is so important to stay a part of that. And that's exactly what the group is telling us. This is the highlight of our day, we can't wait for you to go live. I'm so glad you're still doing the challenge. And it's keeping me focused on a positive thing that I can do. So it's so beneficial. And that's why we're sticking with it. And that's why we want to do this podcast about what now we're all self isolating. What kind of decluttering can we do?

Lesley  6:36  
I think over the past couple of weeks, we've all gone through a huge range of emotions. I don't know about you, Ingrid, but from anger, to denial to focus it energy to try to be positive to adapt to try to change routines, to get an upset by the news. But generally more than anything else, it's being distracted. I think that's that would be the adjective that I would use more than anything else. I'm not working at full capacity in the way that I normally do. Other things take precedence. And so even though I'm working from home and actually, on the face of things for many of my days in the week, when I'm working on the declutter hub, we do work from home Ingrid and I do work virtually, we have zoom meetings all the time. So this is not unusual for us this method of working. But what is unusual is that we've got our children at home, we've got to think about school got to think about routines. For me, I've got my husband at home, he normally works away, we can't go out. There's no escape is there, really. And so I declutter all the time, but I'm still Right. Right. Okay. I feel like it's a kind of almost like a nest in a similar thing that people talk about when people are pregnant, and they sort of prepare for what's coming. I feel like there's a little bit of that going on. What do you think Ingrid?

Ingrid  7:46  
So yes, I mean, like, you literally, I've been on an emotional roller coaster as well. You know, one moment, I think, okay, let's just get organised, make a list make a schedule to share an utter panic, like, what's going to happen? And can I see my mum and dad in the Netherlands at some point again, you know, because they're elderly, I'm worried about them, and all of those things that are going on. So yeah, lots of stuff mentally going on, and trying to wrap your head around everything that's going on, not only not only here in the UK, but worldwide, basically.

Lesley  8:17  
And my situation is very standard. Really, yes, my daughter is in isolation for 12 weeks. But that's fairly standard and fairly common. Now. You know, we've got the food situation, which is a little bit crazy. We've got this social distancing going on. But let's not forget that there are people in much more serious situations than ours, people that are going out, but a saving lives, people that are real people have got people that are ill in the family, very, very worrying times. So what we're talking about here, we're trying to keep things reasonably light hearted, understanding the gravity of the situation that we're in. Absolutely. And so for some people, you will not be able to focus on decluttering. But if you can, and if you're able to, that's what we're here to talk about today.

Ingrid  8:58  
Because us being at home is also a shift in how you can declutter because normally a barrier can be Oh, we don't have enough time, or I need to make decisions with my husband or partner and he's away for work a lot, or the kids need to try stop form. But when they come in from school, they're really tired, or I don't want to see what games board games they want, if they have got lots of clubs going on, and all of those things. And now we're all of a sudden all at home. So maybe this is a good time to see if you can get some people in your family on board to get some of those things done. Because for example, I had my sister on the phone, and she said, I know we're all at home. But we also have Sunday a lot more time because my husband suddenly doesn't have to drive to work and over an hour each way. So he's nearly one, two and a half hours a day of time he didn't really have before during the week. So she's trying to search for the positives in the situation. And I thought that was really helpful when she told me that that's true. really, really true. And it created a bit of extra time that she's never had before.

Lesley  10:04  
Yeah, so she's got a little bit more time, there are some people who probably are finding themselves with less time or a different time. Because if you've got kids at home, and you're having to educate them at home, and you're trying to keep that kind of momentum going a little bit, if you work from home, normally seven, eight hours a day, and then all of a sudden, you still got to do seven or eight hours a day work. And then you've got to find some time within that day to look after your children as well, you might find that you've got less time on your hands. But I think what we're talking about is, at the moment, what we've got the opportunity to do is we've got the opportunity to get the whole family involved. So whether we like it or not, we tend to declutter pretty much on our own, and maybe enlist the help of someone else at certain points. So we tend to manage it ourselves, and then say, what about this? What about that? We've got an opportunity to do this as a whole family. And that's a real shift, isn't it? Ingrid, as you mentioned before, all of those barriers that we tell ourselves that we the stories that we tell ourselves about why we can't do something, why we procrastinate in decluttering, a lot of those for a lot of people, not everybody are gone. And all of a sudden, we've got time, we've got opportunity, we're looking at the stuff around us, we're in our homes, and it's like okay, so actually in the decluttering world, we're quite positive about the whole thing, aren't we? Trying to get closer? This is amazing.

Ingrid  11:20  
Lesley, I completely agree. We are like, yes, the nation can start decluttering. But I think we need to make sure that a lot of the people who are educating the children at home, get their head around the schedule a little bit. And then I think we can get everybody on board to to get decluttering with us.

Lesley  11:39  
I'm not sure how people are going to come out at the end of this, you know, because trying to get your partners involved. Not always the best thing in the world. But we can say here, our job is to be hopeful, isn't it that this is going to forge great relationships with your loved ones? May not be the case, but we're going to go for the positive angle, aren't we in grid?

Ingrid  11:55  
Yes, of course. And I think that is what's really, really important is to stay positive. And and it's exactly like one of our members in our Facebook group said, I suddenly feel I can do it. And I think that's such a wonderful feeling to have to take forward into the stand that we're all going to not exactly know what's going to happen to take the winds take the winds.

Lesley  12:19  
Exactly. And we can take it one step at a time. Normally, when we've got everything else going in a week, we have very small pockets of time that we can devote to this, we've got the opportunity now we're in it for the long haul, let's just spread this time out, take it at a suitable pace. And just to give you an example decluttering and organising can be quite exhausting. So I know both Ingrid and I, we will never work with one client more than one day a week because we know how physically and mentally exhausting it can be making decision after decision after decision. So we don't advocate you know, what GFI decluttering do it seven days a week you get your whole house done. That's never what we advocate. So we said take it one step at a time, then give yourself a break and enjoy what you've done. And then come back to it next week. We're very much about that, aren't we Ingrid. And so it's not something that you should just go for. Because you'll get fed up really quickly. It can be quite hard work. So take it slow, break it down, take it one step at a time, one room at a time, one item at a time, whatever suits you. So what we thought we would do, because what we can't do is tell you how to declutter your whole house in a 30 minute podcast possible. So today is all about trying to motivate and inspire you to take things while you've got a little bit more time on your hands at home.

Ingrid  13:36  
Yes, for sure. I mean, with 77 podcasts, there's a wealth of information that you can listen to. And we wanted to just pick out a few that we thought would be very interesting for you. And projects you might be already planning and thinking to yourself, you know what, this is the time I'm going to work on my email box. I have 80,000 emails, or 20,000 emails in my email box. And we already have a podcast about that. So if you're thinking about doing that as a project over the next couple of weeks or months, have a listen to episode 48. And get lots of tips and advice on how to do that.

Lesley  14:14  
Yeah, definitely how to do it well, and how to do it so that those emails don't keep on coming in. So unsubscribing and all that kind of stuff will give you step by step guidelines on how to do that. So that's a really good one. And certainly in the for today's 40 items challenge. Digital decluttering has been a big part of it hasn't it angered a lot of people when they haven't got the time today to do any physical decluttering digital is the way to go. Whether that's we've had people decluttering pins from Pinterest, emails from the inbox, photographs from the photo apps, all those kinds of things. It's been brilliant, hasn't it to see what people have been doing along the same lines as well. There's a lot of people saying you know what, now's the time to do those things that I said I was going to do when I retired. Some of us won't be at retirement age yet but some of us are fast approaching. And so photograph organising is definitely something that I've heard bandied around from a lot of people recently. They're kind of like, now's the time for me to look through my photographs to organise them into albums, to put them into frames, and to do that photo project that you've been putting off and off and off, and you never get round to, because it's a big job. And the nice thing about photograph organising, is the positivity that that brings with it. It's a lovely, lovely job to do. And it's a lovely job to do with your family. And so in terms of getting the whole family involved, photograph organising, is a fab one to bring that positivity along. We do have an episode we have, we've got a photo organiser friend of ours and colleague Joe Jacob did a brilliant podcast with us, giving us an idea how to declutter and organise photos. And that is episode 37. So have a listen to that one. If you want some inspiration, how to declutter your photographs. Yes.

Ingrid  15:55  
Excellent idea, Lesley. And also, maybe now it's March, it's starting to get a bit warmer. maybe now's the perfect time you're thinking to yourself, you know what I'm going to venture open the loft. Or maybe if you have a basement in the basement, it's kind of the place where all this random stuff kind of collects itself. And especially here in the UK, we don't really have basements. So we have lofts, where we put lots of stuff in. And we actually did a series of three podcasts, Episode 5152, and 53. All about decluttering and organising a loft and how you need to tackle that enormous project and what zoning is and how you to categorise and how you can find out what you want to put in there and what not anymore, and all of those things. So since it's a bit warmer, and it's not so cold up anymore in your love, maybe this is the perfect project with your family or with your partner that you can dish you can do.

Lesley  16:51  
Yeah, because Lofts is definitely not a one person job is it, you need somebody at the bottom of the loft ladder to get the stuff. So again, perfect one to get the family involved in. And one of the things that people are saying is that by listening to the podcast, while the decluttering that certain areas of the home really gives them motivation to continue. So do have a think about listening to the podcast while you're actually decluttering to give yourself some fresh ideas, always a good idea to know what you're going to do before you do it. So listen to the podcast, maybe before and then maybe again, join.

Ingrid  17:20  
Now also, another one that could possibly be very good to do at the moment is paperwork because we've got paperwork lying all around our homes, and that is quite a time consuming thing to declutter. So we've done a paperwork podcast, it's episode 15. It's one of our older ones. But that might be really, really helpful to start listening to if you're planning a paperwork, declutter and maybe want to venture into your filing cabinets or look at your lever arch files or maybe decide on what you want to keep and what's important or maybe you're now finding out that you need to find a certain important documents that you don't know currently where it is. Maybe now is the time to do a paperwork projects.

Lesley  18:05  
You know, when you said it was episode 15 I'm a little bit nervous about what episode 50 might sound like. Did we even know what we were talking about when we were doing it? Everybody else can listen to it. I don't know whether I want to go back. But you know, episode two and three and four. I think oh, I can't even go there and listen to them in case it's so bad. Come and tell us if you've just started listening and you've started episode two, three and four. Come and tell us whether we're vaguely coherent. We probably to be fair, we probably are more coherent than we are now because we were probably much more serious than episode two, three and four than we are now. Oh my right, Ingrid, have you listened to it? Episode Two, three and four. You're scared to.

Ingrid  18:53  
Maybe that's our job, Lesley. Remember self isolating is to listen back and cringe at ourselves.

Lesley  18:59  
Yeah, exactly. I'm sure it's absolutely fine. Right. Okay, another one absolutely brilliant thing to do at the moment, not necessarily something that you're going to do with your family per se is organising to reduce food waste more important than ever before to get a handle on what we've got in our home. So we've got Zoli stories out there about people bulk buy in and I saw going crazy. Let's not talk about that. But anyway, but we know that we only need to buy what we absolutely need at the moment and so it's really important to get a handle on what we do need. Somebody land one of our Canadian colleagues did a fantastic meal planning episode for us, which is episode 54. And then we'd Ingrid and I did one as well which is all about organising your cupboards to reduce food waste as well. So it's a good time to get a handle on those kitchen cupboards so that you can shop with intent knowing exactly what you need when you go out there.

Ingrid  19:50  
So yes, Lesley organises reduce food waste and meal planning are great podcasts to listen to. So those

Lesley  19:56  
are all absolutely fantastic projects that you can do get in the car gets involved getting your partner's involved and lovely positive things to do you know, memorabilia photographs, well, maybe not paperwork quite so much. Not quite so positive but photos that anyway and things like that and leave a loft, you know, because you find nice things like that. But we've not really talked about room decluttering. So how to tackle your whole house, the rest of your house, there's a little mini projects almost startling. Granted, they will take quite a lot of time once we start tackling emails and photographs and that kind of thing. But what we've not talked about is room Declutter. So full rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, that kind of thing. For the past couple of weeks, England had been watching really carefully what people are asking of us. So we're professional organisers, we're here to spread our expertise with you. So how do we do that in the current climate? And so what we have worked out is that people want that face to face interaction. So that's what we're going to offer in our decluttering bootcamp. Now, it sounds very scary, doesn't it? Call it a decluttering bootcamp. But the whole idea of it is that Ingrid and I are going to walk you through and talk you through room by room, pretty much every room in your house, what you need to do, how you need to prepare, what kind of decluttering questions you need to ask, how to organise what kind of storage, you need hints and tips, that kind of thing. And it's all going to be delivered face to face.

Ingrid  21:15  
So yes, Lesley, people have indeed been asking us to keep them focused. And that's why we're really happy that we are going to be offering the room by room declutter boot camp. And every room will have a video for people to listen to. And we're also going to get him involved, because we're going to do a live q&a When we answer questions that our boot campers are going to have for us. So we're super excited about that.

Lesley  21:43  
So the whole idea of this is that you sort of feel that you've got someone by your side while you're doing the decluttering. And the only way that that's going to happen is by interacting with Ingrid and I. And the way to do that is definitely in the live q&a, submit your questions, you can go on the chat and ask us questions while we're actually doing it. If you can't catch it live, you can also watch on replay. So that's not a problem. And we'll also have a forum so almost like a Facebook group. But it's an internal forum that you can post your progress post before and after pictures. If you want to ask your questions, get inspiration from other people, that kind of thing. And so that community element of it is going to be so important going forward. So that's why we put together the decluttering boot camp. We also thought it was really important for us to go week by week for the reasons that we mentioned before we want you to take it at a manageable pace, break it down into manageable chunks. We also want to go week by week so you can follow along at your own pace.

Ingrid  22:37  
So listeners if you are thinking about decluttering your home a you would like a help and you see you know what this room by room a bootcamp sounds amazing. Come and check out members dot declutter help.com forward slash room hyphen, bi hyphen, room hyphen info for all information. And of course, you can also join a facebook group did declutter hub community. And we'll keep you posted in there as well.

Lesley  23:05  
So let's see if we can't make a positive difference in our own homes. while everything else is going crazy all around us. We would love to see you in our declutter hub Facebook community, we'd love for you to listen to our podcasts and get a little bit of inspiration about what you can do. And we'd love to have you as part of our declutter boot camp, we think it's going to be a really positive thing. And the more the merrier. We'd love you to be on board.

Ingrid  23:29  
Yes, we have just also realised ourselves how important the group has been for us. And we've absolutely loved being in the group every day in the challenge. Getting the support of our members, getting the support of people who are listening and leaving us is sending us emails and messages saying you're keeping us sane, keep going, what you're doing, it's so important. You're the highlight of our day, and we feel exactly the same thing about you, our listeners. So we appreciate you. We appreciate you hanging out with us. And we just really hope that all will be much better soon for everyone all over the globe. But thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. And maybe if you've got a bit of time now you can leave us a review about the show. Maybe you really enjoy it and you want other people to find and listen to our show as well. We appreciate it. And of course you can find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as at declutter hub. And of course, we would love to see you in our Facebook group if you're not there yet. If you don't want to miss the next weekly episode, please subscribe to declutter hub podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. And it will pop into your notifications each Friday. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Outro  24:49  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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