A graphic of a pile of boxes saying 'to do' on them and a clipboard with a check list on it
Episode 97 – How to keep your house tidy

Keeping your house tidy is something that many of us struggle with. It can be a constant battle to get this right and we can find ourselves tidying day after day and getting nowhere fast.
Incorporating maintenance and routines into your day are going to be a critical component in keeping your house tidy after you have 'finished' your decluttering project. In this podcast we discuss what you need to do to stay on top of things.
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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  0:31  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 97 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:37  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:39  
If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about how you can keep your home clutter free. Once you finish decluttering organising your home. Now Lesley, you and I both know that you don't just Declutter Your Home once and then the clutter never comes back. Right? We will have to keep decluttering and organising our homes your whole life because we will keep buying stuff. And we add to our homes and of course our lives change. And so our homes change with the face and life that we are in. So it's kind of a myth that you can declutter your home once, and it will stay there that way the rest of your life. We are both professional organisers and we constantly declutter our houses all the time. So today, we wanted to talk to you about routines that you need to put in place to keep your home clutter free. And it will be much easier to keep your home clutter free once you've done a proper short out, but you will need to keep working on it. What do you think about that? Lesley? Do we have to always keep decluttering?

Lesley  1:44  
Yes, basically, you do, but it's never as bad. And so once you've done what I would say is, once you've done that initial huge sought out if that's the way you choose to do it a your whole house or not in one go. But as a sort of big six to 12 month project, let's say and you tackle everything, what you have done at that point is you've established a place for everything so that you can put everything back in its place. So as well as the doing doing the decluttering, You've obviously done the Organising at that point as well. You've looked at storage, all kinds of things. So you know, it's not just ever about decluttering. Now that the organisation and the storage is such a critical part of making your house work for you. So once you then go back and look at that a second time, the basic principles are in place. And so it's never that hard to it's just kind of skimming off the surface, unless you completely neglect to do anything. And then it can go back to square one again. So that's what we're going to talk about today really is to make sure that you you do kind of chip away at it regularly, so that it never builds up to the same stage that it was when it was overwhelming.

Ingrid  2:50  
Yes, a little and often really wins the race here, doesn't it? And we're going to talk about that. Definitely some more. But yeah, I agree. I mean, you and I, we both declutter on a very regular basis, but it's not super overwhelming, because our houses are decluttered and organised. But we need to keep on working. Because you and I both buy stuff, you know, our kids buy stuff that people get presents, we want to change rooms around we are lifetimes you don't worry, you need to put an extra deskin and some other things have to go. So it's a kind of constant flow of stuff coming in. But then of course, stuff needs to leave. And I think when you've got those routines, in your kind of system, of I'm going to do this on a regular basis, then you're gonna that's the only way to stay on top of this,

Lesley  3:41  
it's very key to remember what you just said there really, which is that we change. And so for me, there's been very sort of general things I would say that happened in my 20s, my 30s, my 40s. And now my 50s that have changed significantly. So what made me tick in my 30s, you know, it was all about, you know, renovating my home, sort of building a home. And now I've got that home. And I'm very lucky to have a lovely home that I've worked on for many, many years. But I'm not quite as bothered about it as I used to be. So my priorities have shifted the kinds of things that were that I would jump on when I was in my 30s. Now I'm like, fine, it'll be fine, just me. So I'm not as bothered about doing those big projects as I used to be. A lot of things have changed certainly from the 20th century into the 21st century as well. We're not as consumerist as we used to be. And so we really our mindset completely shifts anyway, and so with it our attitude to stuff and that's what we've got to constantly work with and think about. And you know, as you say you want to repurpose rooms. You have a playroom for the children when they're at home. Once your children have flown the nest, all of a sudden you can make that into a craft room or a hobby room or a reading room or whatever that might be and along with those repurposing of rooms comes decluttering because you need to take the stuff and bring it in Wouldn't stuff in there,

Ingrid  5:01  
or you might think yourself, you know what I'm going to change one of the kids bedrooms into a guest room, because now I feel that my friends and I have more time or my friends have more time to travel and visit each other. So I'm actually going to have more people staying than I've had, when the kids were little. And everybody was kind of more staying at home because they got their clubs and their things in their sports that they're doing. So you change with life in your house changes with your life, too, doesn't it?

Lesley  5:32  
It does. I mean, my, my son has moved out been moved out now for a year, I think, finally, obviously came and went back and forth while he was at university, but he's still kind of at home. And then he moved out finally, then last year, he's been very calm about the whole thing in terms of mama don't live there, I'm not coming back, I'm quite happy for you to get rid of my not to get rid of his stuff. That was a that's a whole nother story because he was not as massive tank tampering with these things. But because of lockdown, we needed a second office. And so I've got an office at home, but my husband didn't have an office. So it did have a space to work. But it wasn't a nice space that you would want to work in for three months, which is what's happened so far. And it looks as if it's probably going to continue. And so we've repurposed Luke's bedroom into Steve's office. And again, with that comes a complete change. Because you don't want a bed in there, you don't want a wardrobe in there, you know, you want it to look like a nice office. So that's an exact case in point. So as well as having to look at the space that you've got and repurpose rooms and shift that you know that why they're there and how they work for you. This constant cycle of things coming in and things having to go out. So let's talk about the basics of decluttering. First, so, you know, we talked about repurposing, so again, those are quite big projects to repurpose rooms. But let's talk about taking it back to basics, the rooms in your house and more or less staying the same as they were. So what kinds of things do we need to do to keep on top of that clutter?

Ingrid  6:59  
Well, I think for me, and that's something that I have in my own house, and I know you have a to Lesley, it starts with a donation station, doesn't it, you need to have a place in your home, where you're going to put the items, you've decluttered what we see a lot of what I see a lot is that when I go to when I work with clients one to one, and I come into their homes are like I would love to have a tour of your home. And they then start to kind of see their their homes through their my eyes. And then they say to me, Oh, well that has to go. And that can go to the charity shop and have to return that to somebody else. And I no longer need that. And it's all this stuff scattered around the home. So one of the first things I normally do is say, let's set up a donation station, where the stuff you no longer want you can put because sometimes it's not always possible to go to the charity shop. That same day that sent out of course, it's ideal, but it's not always possible. And you're not going to go to the charity shop with one toy, or one box or one you want to kind of go when you have a car full of stuff or car booth full of stuff a couple of bags. So you need to create a space somewhere where you can kind of gather up items. And you might want to get I don't know, two plastic tops. And one is for maybe clothes and fabric stuff. And the other one is for kind of other stuff. But then you can already start to divide it a little bit. Or maybe you're like, I don't care. As long as I can all bag it up in one go, I need to have one book somewhere where I'm going to put it in my house. That is that I've got a little cupboard next to my kitchen, a very random cupboard with very random things. But one of the shells in that cupboard is my donation station. And every time I think, Oh, I no longer need this, this can go to the charity shop, I can put it there.

Lesley  8:54  
Yeah, and it might be a while. I mean, I'm at the charity shop all the time for clients. But it's a rarity for me to pull one of those bags out of my donation station or pull all the stuff out of the donation station and take it that probably happens once every four or six weeks, because I've not got loads and loads of stuff going in there. So like you, I'll wait until there's a bag or two bags or something or when I know the stuff in the back of the car that needs to go or whatever. So it's really critical to get I mean, I love that term as well, donation station. It sounds like cool, doesn't it? sound of the term anyway. So it's always really, but it's a fantastic thing to have. Because what happens is people do put things into bags for charity, but then they forget over time, and they're like, Oh, I think I think that was a bag for charity, but I can't remember. And what that means is then that you've got to go back through the bag and just double check because, you know, we never know when we're working with people. If there's any doubt as to what's in a bag or what's in a box. It gets checked, just to make sure and so what you don't want If it's there, I mean mine's in my laundry room. If it's there, then you know that sucks. Luckily what it is, and we don't need to look at it again. So donation station, Number One On The List of keeping on top of things at home, one designated spot in your house where you put stuff that needs to go to charity, you can also include stuff that's going back to other people in there, if you want to make sure you can tell the difference between what's going to charity, and what's getting returned to other people.

Ingrid  10:20  
Yes, that's for sure. And it doesn't really matter where it is. I mean, in Lesley's case, it happens to be in a laundry room. For me it's a, it's a cupboard next to my kitchen, it can be utility room, it can be in your spare bedroom, it doesn't matter where it is, as long as it's one place.

Lesley  10:38  
Yeah, and if you're tight on space, you are going to need to go to the charity shop more often, I've got quite a big space for my donation station. So therefore, I can leave it for six weeks. If you haven't got a big space, you know, do go when you've got three or four things, that's fine, too. Or if you're if you're on foot quite a lot. I know a lot of people do take one or two items, but because we're in the car, we're not going to make a special trip with two or three things. So yeah, donation station number one on the list. What about number two, then Ingrid? Well,

Ingrid  11:04  
that's kind of actually the going to the charity shop, because people put it in their car and drive around for weeks, or months in their car. And it's like, no, you actually have to schedule a trip and is exactly what you're saying, Lesley, we are in the charity shop all the time with items from our clients. So for us, it's just Oh, I'm just gonna, you were there two or three times a week. So for us, it's easy. But if you are not there because you don't have to, you need to schedule the trip, can you maybe, if maybe you need to think to yourself, if you have to do quite a lot of driving and think, Okay, it's actually next to my dentist or it's next to my dry cleaners. Or if I'm on my way to school, I pass it or if I'm on my way to work on the way home, it's still open. So you need to think about when can I schedule this in my diary. And then actually maybe even put a reminder in your car in your phone. When it pops up when you finish work and have a reminder pop up, for example, five o'clock, go past the championship on the way home so you don't forget, and you don't drive around with it for three weeks in your car, because that is really annoying. When you want to put something here booth, and it's full of charity shop. I think my husband will tell me off because he he does the shopping on a Saturday. And when I forget to go to the charity shop, he's like, Seriously, I've got like, seven bags with shopping and I bought it in the booth because you forgot to go to the shop. I played

Lesley  12:33  
a blinder yesterday with my charity shop wrong. So of course, we're kind of coming out of lockdown, things are opening back up again. But the charity shops are fraught with complications at the moment, aren't they, because we've got this quarantine situation. And we don't know whether they're accepting. So what I did was I waited for my daughter to come back from university and then sent her with my son and said, just just drive around and look at the different charity shops until you find the ones that are taking us like, if you want to use my car for the whole of the summer, you can do the charity shop run and you can go from charity shops charity shop until you find one that will actually actually accept the stuff. So yeah, I will source the charity shop runs also a great idea, I think.

Ingrid  13:16  
Yes, delegating task is also a great way to stay on top of things in routines. And I mean, that's not on our list for the day. But delegation is definitely on there. If you want to stay on top of things, Lesley,

Lesley  13:27  
then I got that. Honestly, I've got so I've got two sons and a daughter. My daughter is like when she comes back. She's like my little PA. She's just like brilliant. Anything I asked her to do, she just does it just kind of like a mini me. You know what I mean? But all the things that I can't be bothered to do, like, we just do that we just turn the car down to get washed. We do this we drop this off. We do that we probably some free psychische Like yeah, done, you know, where's my son? We asked him like three months ago to do one thing, no chance not that I'm being sexist in any way. But that's just the way that it works in my family. The two boys have other skills but being productive and having a lot of common sense is not what they're blessed with. Labour on the other hand is the opposite. So thank you, Lee, if you're listening for being my little mini PA and doing all the jobs that I don't want to do

Ingrid  14:13  
you know what? That is so funny that you say that I actually see my daughter. She's, she is so so organised. It's so funny. I think she'll, she's because she will make a great professional organiser at some point in her life because she's like, she's on it. You know, she's like, yes, she's a bit like Leah, you know, if you ask her to do something, she'll go, okay. And she'll just do it. He's like, This is amazing. So I can't wait for her to be a bit older, they start to outsource some of my jobs to her as well.

Lesley  14:39  
It's like the best unless I cleared like half of my To Do lists just she's only been home two days, but she's going away again. So it's kind of like Okay, right. I'm gonna do my jobs. Anyway, we digress. Yes.

Ingrid  14:50  
Yeah. And also, let me let's go back quickly to this charity shopping because actually, one of our members in our VIP VIP membership was telling And last about it because she's been in our VIP membership for a while now. And she's done her whole house as in she. And she's now really she's changed her mindset. She's changed her shopping habits, but she's also working on her routines. And this house. This is how this whole podcast came about, because she said, You know what, ladies, I am now actually scheduling my charity shop runs. So I don't end up having a whole mountain of stuff again. And I that way I stay on top of it, she created the donation station, which she loves. And she's now scheduling those charity shop runs on her way to other things. And she said it's changed my life, it's so much easier. So she was really inspired by the courses and by our quick wins and everything that we have in our VIP membership. And it's working brilliantly for her. So her idea of scheduling the championship run, definitely, we wanted to mention because she's doing great isn't cheap.

Lesley  15:55  
She's doing fabulous. He's doing really well. Yeah. So one of the most important things really, that we've got to think about when we're talking about keeping on top of things is what we love to call a reset. Yep. So Ingrid, what is it reset? What's it all about?

Ingrid  16:12  
Well, basically, we tidy up her house twice a day. So we after breakfast, and I know you do this as well. And I do this and we didn't even know that we were doing it until we started talking about this lots were like, Oh, you do this too. So after breakfast, I make sure I leave and before I leave my house to go to work or to a client or do errands or whatever, I make sure my house is tidy. My washing machine is only a load of laundry, my wash, my dishwasher is unloaded. I tidy up my house so it is tidy when I come back in. And the same in the evening after dinner. I put all the plates in the dishwasher I put the dishwasher on, I wipe the sides in my kitchen, the kids put the recycling away in the recycling our books outside, and I make sure that the table is white. So I don't leave stuff to do later I do twice a day in a random pair of shoes that's in the wrong place. I quickly put it back I hang up a coat that somebody threw over the bannister. If somebody's bought some toiletries and they're on the stairs to go back up. The next time I go back up, I pick them up and I put them in the bathroom. Those little bits and bobs. Like my mother always said to me never walk empty handed upstairs or empty handed. So if you're in the living room, you're on your way to the kitchen, you see an empty mug, you take it unless you're planning to drink from it. But if it's empty, you probably need to go to the kitchen anyway to fill it up. Take it with you. When you do lots of those little actions all the time. You're gonna shake yourself mountains of work later. And that's I think, in my house would a reset it. How about you Lesley,

Lesley  17:51  
it's exactly that it's resetting at a time that suits you. And the reason why you and I have the same reset times is because we have the same schedule, you know, we get up, our kids are kind of teenagers and they can manage themselves like say getting off to school, yes, we're going to be there for breakfast and things but in general, they're fairly self sufficient. Then we go off to off to work we come in make dinner with follow a very similar pattern. And then Saturday and Sunday, then is our time to, you know, clean or sort the rest of the house. You know, I definitely do a bigger tidy on a weekend. But for some people that reset might be a completely different time. So say for example, if you're someone who takes your kids, you got younger kids, you take them to school, and then you come home after the school room, your reset time most likely will be once you come back from the school run because you haven't got time when you've got three little ones under eight to be washing up and putting laundry on and all that kind of stuff, you've got no chance of doing those things. It's a battle to just get them out of school. So you might then want to do it but then if you are if you've got little ones like that that you have to do and then you've got to go to work all day you probably gonna have to find time and that's when people are gonna get up earlier in the morning and all that kind of thing because it's tricky to do all of those things and manage it. The thing is you don't want it to build in the evening time so mornings it's going to be different depending on what your situation is and whether you're leaving the house to go to work on up and in the evenings. It depends on where you're at with your it might be if you've got children that you're putting into the bath say at eight o'clock or half seven. You might do a reset after the children have gone to bed and spent half an hour doing then if you've still got the energy to do that that is but for me it's straight after dinner and then once I've done done it I'm relaxed and then if there's a few cups and plates you know it's not going to be a full meal it's just going to be an odd thing that we've had a drink a glass of wine a plate that we've had something on I'm fine leaving that to tomorrow morning I'm not worried about that being on there till tomorrow morning to like rabbit problem I've got at the moment is everyone's at home routines are completely you know my son's not going to school. My husband's here is normally going to work and working from home Boom. So those reset times are changing, because normally it is okay, this is the way it works, I go out to work a combat, there's no one there in the middle of the day. But at the moment, there's people coming down at 10 o'clock for lunch at one o'clock, but it's just so there's a buildup. And so the routines have kind of gone out the window a little bit, because my routines are not exactly the way they were. But the key to a reset is, it's definitely if you if you live on your own, or there's just a couple of you, you may get away with one reset a day, if you've got a bigger family, it's going to be at least two, if you've got little ones, it might be three or four, this is the kind of depressing thing you're going to have to be, you know, we all know we've got little kids, we're picking up constantly throughout the day, and you need to incorporate that into your routines with your children. But it's as soon as you take your eye off the ball in terms of those resets and leave some washing up until the following day, or leave a load of coats over the bannister. That's when it really starts, you really start to struggle, it starts to build and build and build. And then it becomes this mammoth task that takes four or five hours to actually tidy the house. So spending 10 or 15 minutes a day, it becomes completely second nature. So I don't even think about it. Yeah, I wouldn't even come down in the morning without having put a load of washing up my laundry rooms upstairs. So I wouldn't even come down from my breakfast until my beds made. My clothes are put away. My laundry is aren't there and I come down for breakfast. And so that's second nature to me. It just happens because it's habit.

Ingrid  21:26  
Yeah. But you're so right, Lesley, it really depends on the situation. I mean, when the kids were smaller, and I was a couple of years at home, taking care of the kids, I would do my reset from when I came back from the school run, you're so right. And, and then after dinner, they would be allowed to watch a little bit of television. And that would be my time where they were like relaxing on the sofa watching the telly. And I would kind of zip zip around the house going with my room. Let me just do it here. And not leaving until later when I was tired to get that whole bedroom bedtime routine behind you and the reading of the book and putting them in the bath. Because then I was tired too. So when they would be watching television, that will be my time to go right this is my chance to do a bit of tidying up here and there.

Lesley  22:07  
And if you've got a little baby, it might be when your baby's napping, you know, there's different times and you've got to and again, that's going to evolve over the years as it as it has for us. It's going to change. But ultimately the point is do a reset, do some tidying up little and often and it's going to really help.

Ingrid  22:23  
Yeah, one of our members as think said that she was using a timer, she puts a timer on for like, I think 25 minutes to just kind of go in when she came back from the school run or when she came back and say okay, I'm gonna put a timer for 25 minutes. And I'm going to, so I'm kind of aware of that time is ticking away, that I'm not going to just sit down and have a coffee and read the paper gets signed by Facebook and social media. But no, I'm going to first do something set the timer. And one of our other Facebook members send the whole playlist through reasonably with all our favourite songs. So if you like a bit of music, if you can give motivation to get going yourself, have a favourites playlist or maybe a kind of genre that you love. I recently found a lovely radio station with lots of 70s music Lesley I was in my elements. I do love a bit of disco, I tell you

Lesley  23:16  
the image that I've got in my mind of you bopping around your lounge? I'm not sure whether I think. But yes, music can work 70s music, whatever, but hip hop,

Ingrid  23:30  
no, that will really help you to kind of keep going, keep going. And it's, it can be a lovely thing to think you know what I'm gonna do five songs. And I'm going to try and do as much as I can within five songs or set that timer. So those are our top tips for getting getting stuff done.

Lesley  23:48  
It's hard, though, isn't it? You know, managing a house is not easy. It's a continuous process of work. You want to get your house nice bottom line is you've got to work harder. And that sounds really depressing. But it is yeah, you know, but oh, I've got such a tiny house. It's so easy. And yes, there's loads of things that you can do having less stuff is a huge deal in terms of keeping your house tidy. But it still takes maintaining, you know, you have to maintain it and you have to work harder if you want to tidy house.

Ingrid  24:15  
Yeah, yeah, those chores, those cleaning chores or daily tasks need to be done on a daily and weekly, monthly basis. Otherwise, you know, but the thing is, if you do it daily, it gets much less work.

Lesley  24:28  
So do we think now halfway through this podcast and our listeners are going to be sort of like, oh, this is so depressing. I've got to do all this, or energised into doing resets every day. What do you think Ingrid?

Ingrid  24:42  
I think is realising that running a house is is work. Yeah, there's no magic fairies. I'm sorry for anybody who thinks that there's magic people who tidy up after you. If you make the mess yourself. Somebody's got to tidy and back up again. And of course the more people in The house the more mess. So and of course, yes, outsource and delegate some stuff if you can. But yes, if you want to have a tidy house, it's it is a lot of work. Yeah, that's that's true. And the bigger the house, the more work it is.

Lesley  25:15  
Exactly. But anything else that we can do it any, any exciting things, any any positive things. I mean, these are all positive things to be fair, but they all involve probably more work than when we started the podcast. So anything else that we can do to kind of cut down on that workload?

Ingrid  25:31  
Well, I think I touched upon it briefly. In the beginning, I think it's really important to do little, but often, you know, do do your your jobs daily and weekly, because if you don't do that, you give yourself a massive backlog. And I remember, you know, when I was just had my first house, I would absolutely loathe to do the washing up. I just didn't enjoy it at all. I was like, Oh, my gosh, and then the weekend came, and there's this mountain of dirty watch watching dirty dishes in my kitchen, and I would go Why did I not just do this every day for 10 minutes.

Lesley  26:09  
And Christiansen, that's a shocker.

Ingrid  26:11  
I know. I was young, I had my first bit of flat, you know, a beam like work all day. And you would think, Oh, it's just a couple of plates and a couple of sources. But then over time, the weekend came I was like, oh, so I learned my lessons. I just learned my lessons. And I think it really made me aware that if you do a little bit, you know, if you spill something, wipe it up. Don't just leave it because later it's going to be a far bigger job to sort it all out. And we have actually got a daily, weekly and seasonal cleaning schedule. Haven't we listed in our free checklists on our declutter app.com website? So I want to know, what do you actually do? And what do I need to do? Every day in every every week and every season, we've we've created some downloads for you, you can download them for free, because it might inspire you. And even I'm used as a little tick list to kind of get you, you will trust us. You it will become easier and easier. When you do these little things on a daily basis, it really, really helps. And then you don't have a backlog in the weekends of jobs that you didn't do throughout the week. So in the weekend, you don't have time to do something that's a bit bigger, and then go okay, actually, now I've got time because you haven't spent your whole Saturday morning running seven loads of laundry and doing five days of washing up and empty the recycling bins which going to take you 20 minutes, because it's so much you have to walk through back and forth four times, then you've got time to go, you know what, I'm actually going to short out my Nikka drawer today or I'm going to look at my shoes or because you've got a bit more time than in the weekend, you free up some time. So we'll go

Lesley  27:52  
for lunch. You could go for lunch, yes, but

Ingrid  27:56  
I'll go for lunch.

Lesley  27:59  
You could do this in the week. And then you can do some more declaring on the week. And I was like no, like I want to do something fun.

Ingrid  28:05  
That's allowed to you know, I try. And that's what I did. Last weekend I spent my Saturday morning I did some things around the house in the city everyone was like, You know what, I've done a really good job this morning. I'm just going to shamelessly watching television and stuff that I really want to look over the whole weekend. And I really enjoyed it because I had my work behind me and I wasn't sitting on a shelf or feeling guilty of all the stuff I have I still had to do.

Lesley  28:32  
It definitely is the key to enjoying yourself, it's very hard isn't it to relax when you know that you've got this mountain of stuff that you need to do, whether that's work stuff, or whether it's household chores, and I think I think that's the key you know, just doing a little bit is definitely going to help you to relax and enjoy yourself more and go for lunch or go for dinner or go to the cinema or do whatever you want to do. And

Ingrid  28:54  
now let's see the last thing I wanted to chat to our listeners about is be more critical of what comes into your home in the first place. Because I think that is part of routine some maintenance as well. You know, everything that doesn't come in doesn't have to be decluttered later. So it is you know unsubscribing from the catalogues coming through the post not accepting freebies when you go out buying less stuff but better quality so it lasts a little bit longer. And those things will help as well in in your in your routines and your maintenance you know if you suddenly decide I want to you want to pick up a new hobby don't get all the gear and everything all at one go first buy a couple of debates and see do I actually enjoy doing this? Is this something that I want to do in my life? And if you then go wow, this is amazing. I should have done I should have started this new hobby years ago. Then you kind of go you know I'm gonna get a few little extra bits and bobs to to make this happen but don't get all the gear in and then realise after three weeks like wow Oh, this is not what I thought it was gonna be. So it's a bit about being smart. And we did a whole podcast about it, didn't we?

Lesley  30:07  
Yeah, it's all about sabotaging your decluttering efforts really, isn't it you know, you're doing so well in your decluttering journey. But then you can't help but pick up free samples from shops or if something's on offer, buying something that's on offer when you don't need that volume of stuff. So really, really try and avoid that kind of stuff. With as you said, we did podcasts 87, avoiding self sabotage when decluttering So take a listen to that one we did it quite recently didn't mean grid.

Ingrid  30:34  
Yeah, yeah, it was only only a couple of weeks ago. So it's really a good one to listen to, if you want to have some more ideas and some more inspiration on that. So Lesley, routines, a maintenance, we do love a bit of routine, don't we? We are creatures of habit, aren't we? We are

Lesley  30:53  
and I think I think nothing for you. And that is I don't feel like it's work, because it's just something that I do every day. Just one of those things that just happens. And so I don't really see it as a chore. Because I do it before I do anything else. And it's done. It's really important to get into that mindset. And that's why we talk about this decluttering journey starts with decluttering thinking about your own relationship with stuff and really changing up the way you think about stuff and buy in and retail therapy, and all of those things. So decluttering journey is not just about filling a bag with stuff that you no longer need. That's just the sort of tiniest bit of it. I mean, that's the bit that sort of makes the biggest impact visually, but actually all the other stuff is the really, really important stuff, isn't it that kind of learning and understanding.

Ingrid  31:43  
Well on that bombshell, ladies and gentlemen, I think that is our podcast done for today. We really appreciate your listening and we hope you are inspired to take action. And if you have enjoyed this podcast, feel free to share it with others. Maybe your friends and family would love our show too. On our show notes page. On our website, you can find all of the sharing buttons. If you want more handy tips and advice from Lesley now you can find us and lots of places. We have a fab supportive Facebook group called to declutter our community, which is a great starting point. And we have Instagram Twitter and Facebook too. And you can find this at declutter hub. We'd love to see you there. Take a look at members dot declutter hub.com To find out more about our VIP membership. If you don't want to miss our next podcast, subscribe to the declutter podcast and they will pop into your notifications each Friday. We have been asking for reviews which makes a huge difference to us. So if you have enjoyed today or any other podcasts, we would love you to take a couple of minutes out of your day and leave us a review. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time.

Outro  32:53  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration. Don't forget to tune in next week.
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