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Episode 275 – How NOT to declutter your home

What about the decluttering advice you might have heard in the past that doesn’t work? This week in the podcast, we’re talking all about how NOT to declutter your home.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
It's the start of a new year. And we've got lots more decluttering advice coming to you on the podcast in 2024. But what about the decluttering advice you might have heard in the past, that doesn't work. This week, we're talking all about how not to declutter your home.

00:28
Your listening to the declutter home podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering, and organising your home. Now, here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

00:51
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. If

01:11
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.

01:31
Happy New Year. Welcome to 2024.

01:35
I know how very exciting another year can't believe it. So this is actually like another year that we've been doing the podcast now. So 2018 1920 2122 2324. This is our seventh year of doing the podcast now, which is kind of crazy stuff. But here we are again, and we still got things to talk about. Well,

01:57
you Lesley, yes, we're back with a brand new episode super excited about it. And our listeners might expect a podcast at the start of a new year, telling them how to declutter their homes. And we've actually turned it on his head and when we need to talk about how not to declutter your home? Yeah,

02:18
I think it's about going through all that advice that's out there and going, what's gonna work and what's not going to work and we have our own opinions on these. So we thought that we would start 2024 to try and get you off on the right track by not doing the wrong thing. We don't want you to make the same mistakes that you have made in the past. So it is kind of positive, although it sounds negative.

02:44
Well, of course, you know, I mean, that what we want is for you to move forward with your decluttering journey. But there's a lot of advice out there. That's like, I don't know how people think about these things, but we disagree with it. So maybe we should tackle the year and tell our listeners, please don't do this. We know from experience. This doesn't work. Please listen to us. We know what we're talking about.

03:08
Yes. So we are going to talk around how not to declutter your home. And the first thing that gets bandied around all of the time, is, if in doubt, throw it out. What do we think about that? I want

03:23
to have one of those buzzers that you see on television and no, wrong, please don't do this. If in doubt, you need to keep it because you're just not ready to let it go. And what we don't want you to do is just throw it out, have massive amount of regret about items and then go well, I decluttered. Last time, I threw lots of stuff out that I'm regretting now that I'm missing that shouldn't have done. And I don't really want to declutter now, because I'm afraid of making the same mistakes again, then that's not a good thing. Because we want decluttering to be positive.

03:59
We do want decluttering to be positive. And the most important thing when you're decluttering your house is that you have a journey, where you feel completely 100% in control. And if you are doubting your decision are ready, this is where we're going with this and so you need to know what you're doing. You need to be ready you need to have done the work on yourself before you even get to the stage of making a decision about an item. You need to push yourself out your comfort zone a little bit of course you do. But you need to go okay, this is the item this is the decision that is facing me right here right now how comfortable and confident that I feel that this is the right decision to make for me right here right now with all of the learning that I've done before I came into my decluttering project. And if you are not 100% confident in that decision, then that is when it all unravels and becomes unstuck and you go backwards and that's what we're trying to avoid. So we are bigger advocates of if in doubt keep it which is An alternative kind of viewpoint of that. The other thing might work. In some instances, you know, maybe it just depends. There's so much more to it. But it just gets thrown around by people who are in control of their Deek of their clutter and can make decisions easily. I think that's the point. So we have to think about who we're talking to in this podcast, we're talking to people who are nervous about making the right decision about clutter, who have got themselves into a little bit of a pickle. And so for you guys, we're saying, push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit. But if in doubt, keep it because we want you to feel 100% in control. That was interesting, Ingrid, because we talked about this in a podcast. I can't remember the podcast was about it was think it was like the keeping up momentum type podcast that we did back in like October, November time. And we did talk about this very thing in that podcast, didn't we? And we invited alternatives. We were like, if in doubt, keep it doesn't really roll off the tongue. Right? Yeah. And so along that vein, we invited listeners to make alternative suggestions. And they did.

06:13
They did. We got lots of comments and emails, and our members got involved, and everybody had really good suggestions. So we we put a couple in a little list because we thought you listeners might enjoy it as well. So Laura says, If you can't decide, put it aside. Nice like that.

06:33
I know. You can't decide. Put it aside. Yeah. Thank you.

06:39
And Elisa said, If you hesitate, it can wait.

06:45
Nice. I know. Like it starts really nice. Yeah, thank you, Melissa. Yeah. Severine

06:50
and Mary cello and if in doubt, don't throw it out.

06:55
Yeah, that could roll off the tongue. Same principle. If in doubt, don't throw it out like that. Like that. Because that kind of plays into the if in doubt, throw it out. Yeah.

07:05
Sarah Ray said, If in doubt, keep for another bout. Like that. Like

07:12
thinking of decluttering is about as well as other bowels think it's like it what does it mean bout

07:20
another maybe another spell of time? That's kind of how I read that. Yeah,

07:25
I mean, it's one of those words that I do use sometimes, but I'm not entirely sure. hollows What does bout been? Yeah,

07:33
I know. I don't know. Do you know? For me, it feels felt like a more of a like spell of time about

07:39
Yeah, maybe. And for me I think it means fight. Oh, or like stint medicine? Didn't Yeah, that was a similar similar. Yeah, we kind of know but yeah, if in doubt keep for another bout like that. Sarah, but we don't know what about means but we think

07:57
see for Alaska said when in doubt. Wait it out? Yeah, no, no, wait,

08:03
wait, wait. Yeah, I feel like people might think Wait, wait, wait. Wait it out? Yeah,

08:14
yeah. And, and the last, I mean, there were tons more but we had to stop with samba. But another one we'll get like, it's also from Elisa. She was probably on like a nice wording thing going on? If you falter. Holter

08:27
I like that. Because I like the idea of faltering which means kind of struggling, right? Yeah. Yeah. False means to struggle if you falter. halter. Yeah. Hello, Tony love language.

08:40
I know. It's fantastic. It's actually I had a whole conversation with my husband this morning. Because I was doing preparing for a presentation. And because I'm now so English, English, five

08:52
and my size, and angular file files, like in

08:56
my head. So I even I dream sometimes now. And he said, I bet you could not do this presentation in Dutch. Because there's so many words that we the language that we use that are so specific to our job, I would actually struggle probably to talk about it in another language. I mean, I could do it, obviously. But I would probably have to find words all the time. But anyway, going off on a tangent.

09:18
Yeah, but I do love language. And so thank you. So thank you also for sharing your poetry, your thoughts, your ideas, and we're going to go out on a limb and decide which one we're going to use as our mantra. Wow, Ingrid doesn't think about these things. And then she goes Oh, what have you said that I know. I'm gonna go with I'm gonna keep it simple. I'm gonna go if in doubt, don't throw it out. Okay,

09:43
yeah, I really like If you hesitate it can wait. Yes, I really read but I mean,

09:52
do you think we can copyright it and make millions of pounds you know, like that. Does it spark joy? scenario? The Marie Kondo thing do you think we can go? If in doubt, don't throw it out? AKA, Ingrid and Lesley from the Declutter. okay, not okay.

10:13
I think we'll probably have to talk to Severina. Marcela first. Exactly. Right. Okay. Yeah, if you're here, for the first time listening, you're probably going what is going on here? This is what happens sometimes the podcasts we kind of start, we kind of go off on a tangent somewhere. But at some point, we will come back to the original list and the list is about decluttering. Things you should not do. So let's move on to

10:38
the list is not about decluttering things you should not do that you got you mixed up with the last podcast that we recorded. Last, the last podcasting know about 10 things you should do. This is about how not to do.

10:56
Yeah, well, let's go to number two, they'll do

10:58
the number two, we're not doing a 10 things was wrong with you. We're not doing 10 things and we're not doing 10 things to declutter, we're doing how not to declutter your home and we're not doing it number one. And number two,

11:11
my brain is all fresh old after Christmas and New Year, Lesley, you need to kick me into shape.

11:18
I am doing I'm telling you, okay, don't me to just do it on my own nervous about where this goes. Let's just close off what we're talking about. So what we're saying, amongst all this nonsense, and mayhem is, if in doubt, throw it out may work for some. But we're saying the people that are in our communities that are really struggling with their clutter, the most important thing is for you to feel in control. And the very suggestion that if you're doubting you just willy nilly throw it away to us is not right, because it means that you're not in control. Yeah. So if in doubt, don't throw it out. If you hesitate, it can wait. That is what we are leaving that with. And now we are going to go on to our next point, which is not number two of 10 things.

12:02
Yes. I'm glad I'm back on track back on track. Declutter. decluttering is all about stuff.

12:12
Yes. Now, we have said this 5 million times in our 270 Odd podcast seven way. Yeah. And you know that we believe this. But I think that there's so many pieces of advice out there that talk about things. So they talk about, you know, I mean, that's rich coming from us when we do a 10 Things podcasting every month, but they hone in on specific things like numbers of things. These are the things that you can ditch out of your home. It's all about the things and that does work. It works as a as a as an aside. So we're not saying that I was doing a 10 Things podcast and saying, here's 10 things that you can focus on is not a good idea. But that is not the crux or the basis on which to declutter, you have to go much deeper than worrying about, you know, throwing away a candle deal. It's mean, it's like, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get you to take us 10 steps backwards and go. But why do I struggle with this? What is it about me, and the way that I think and my connection to stuff and my emotional reaction to these things, which my head is saying, don't be ridiculous, and my heart is saying, but it's too hard to let go. So what is it about me that makes this very, very difficult? So that's what we're saying. We're not saying that you're not going to focus on stuff, we're not saying you're not going to get rid of stuff or let go of stuff. But what we are saying is, in order to have a sustained mindset change with your decluttering, you really need to understand yourself before you start focusing on stuff.

13:46
Yeah, and I think you know, what a lot of people forget, the general advice is all about the stuff, let's see, but everybody's got different homes, different families, different things that they love to do different things that they enjoy. And I mean, you can't say to a book lover, well, you know, you can have one bookcase with 50 books and that's it, pick your 50 it's too hard a book lover is gonna go but I've got like 12 bookcases, I can kind of go do that, or somebody will loves clothing and fashion and they love to change their outfits all the time and, and change their accessories all the time. You can't say well, you know, you need to go back to a minimalist wardrobe and only half the stuff you wear all the time. They love being creative, things like that. Everybody's got different things that they love to do, and putting a number on it. It's just not going to get you anywhere.

14:41
It can be a tool, it can be a tool, right, a running alongside everything else, but in general, it's not really going to work. It's interesting, Ingrid because, you know, we've just come out of out of December where it's like a crazy period of for most people access buying or receiving right. And so the The interesting thing for us is talking to people that we've worked with for quite a while and seeing how their emotional response to stuff and getting stuff, buying stuff or other people, asking for gifts or giving people ideas on gifts, or buying things for the festive period has really changed. And that's where we get the most joy from the job that we do when people go, yes, I've decluttered X number of bin bags of stuff out of my house, and my house is now orderly. But what I didn't do was I didn't go out there and buy things that I didn't need. I also knew that when I was buying gifts for friends for Christmas, or whatever that was, that I didn't, you know, I bought something that was disposable. That was an experience, because I've realized that stuff is not the crux of everything. And so that's where we were trying to get you to and just focusing on getting rid of 50 things is not going to get you to that point. So that's what we're trying to say we're trying to say reshift your focus, and that's everything that we teach in the decluttering is about really shifting that focus on the emotions away from the stuff.

16:02
Yeah, it's all about changing that mindset, isn't it? It's changing that mindset, and then you can make long lasting, sustainable change. It's not only about I need to get stuff out of my house, so there's so much more to it. And that's everything that we teach here in the declutter, hub. You're so right, right out there. Number three. Now I know. Now, let's see, the next thing I think we would like to talk about is that decluttering is seen as something that you do once as a projects, like I'm going to set aside a weekend for it. That's when I'm going to declutter, and that's me done for the year. Me done. It does. Yeah, it doesn't work like that, does it?

16:38
No, not really, I mean, all linked into what we were talking about before with it all being, you know, connected to emotions and things. The bottom line is, we buy things, we do buy things, we have to buy things, we bring things into our house, we get given things all the time, we need to find a way to to deal with those things. And so decluttering is a process, not a project, you know, you Yes, of course, you can do these big projects where you go, I'm going to declutter my garage. But then the real key to this is sustaining that progress that you've made in your decluttering project. And making it into a process where you will continually fine tune in tweaking, looking at your lifestyle, very important to look at your lifestyle, because what you needed in your garage in your 20s. And what you need in your garage in your 60s is very different, right, because our life changes and evolves. And with our ability to declutter, and our focus on how to declutter and the type of things that mean a lot to us, and that we need in our current life change. And that is why decluttering is a continually evolving process and not a project. Yeah,

17:49
yeah. And I think as well, once you've done that decluttering project on a certain room or an area in your house, then it's easier to stay on top of everything with your daily, weekly seasonal resets and kind of you tweak, you do a bit of maintenance on it. So it doesn't become that massive, big job again, but you can't say, Okay, I'm going to declutter my living room this weekend, and that's me done. And then you need to tidy up every day, you know, put the put the stuff back in the kitchen, the plates back plumped your pillows, put your remotes to where they belong, and kind of tidy it up along the way. You can't just leave it and leave it a little bit all build up again.

18:27
Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, it's about decluttering is that's one of the other things that kind of became really clear last year, you know, particularly in the membership was the light bulbs going on about how decluttering organising, and tidying or resets have to sit side by side, to make your home what you want it to be. So you can't just look at things as decluttering. You know, you can't just organise stuff, you have to reset as well as that you have to do declutter and organise and you also have to do cleaning. And on top of that, and you have to do resets. All four need to work in tandem. And you need to understand which when is the right time to do each individual one, right. Yeah. So it's understanding the difference between them. That was our very first podcast that we recorded the difference between decluttering organising, tidying and cleaning. And so because they get all get meshed mashed up together, don't they? Ingrid?

19:20
Yeah, yeah. And I think if you're trying to clean something that's not tidy and declutter is very hard to do, and it takes a lot more time. But when there's stuff everywhere, and you haven't even put your empty plates back in the kitchen, and you're trying to declutter something then it's hard to so you have to kind of chip away at it from the different angles and then kind of when soon as the clutter goes down, it does get easier to do. Yes,

19:47
so should we go for a little break and then come back and discuss more ways not? What is it? What is it how welcome On. Thank you, Ingrid.

20:01
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to your how not to declutter your home. I think we finally nailed it after we've gone through the first half of the podcast. So let's keep giving you some more sought advice. Because what we also see out there is, is this thing saying, well, just declutter 10 minutes per day, and then you're going to be fine. Feminists per day. That's all you need to declutter your home.

20:28
The tricky one, right? Because we got to find the balance. There are there are times when we would say break things right down into small manageable chunks, and set a timer and do things in small bouts. So in some instances, we sit behind the kind of small manageable chunk goal. Yeah, yeah. So but I think the problem is, is there's a suggestion that that is enough to do a whole house and that you can do that. Because if the bottom where we sit is, the whole idea of doing it in small manageable chunks is to start there. And to then build it up from there, right, to a to a kind of place where you know that that's enough for you. So the idea is start with 15 minutes, and then you've got a very sort of tangible goal that you can work towards. And then you can stop after 15 minutes. And you can make a decision whether you want to continue or whether that's enough for the day. So we do set behind breaking things down into smaller goals. But we don't want anybody to think that if you've got a house that is full of clutter, that to just do that for 10 minutes a day, is going to get you to where you want to be it will get you to where you want to be to it'll get you to where you want to be in 10 years. Yeah, it's the bottom line.

21:46
Yeah, I think the thing is, I think the 10 minutes comes in when people have not been allotted for a long time. And they feel super overwhelmed. And it's just just trying to get started, which is 10 minutes. I think that's where it comes from. But what it gets changed into is you can declutter your whole house in 10 minutes. And we know that it's not true, it does take a longer sustainable effort. If you haven't recorded anything for the past eight or 12 or 18 years, with 10 minutes a day, that's not going to be able to cut it. But you have to start somewhere. And if you struggle a lot with energy, and that kind of thing. 10 minutes is better than nothing. But we want you to start feeling positive about your decluttering. Because if you do 10 minutes, you can go, Ah, I'm so happy. I'm so proud of myself, I did 10 minutes, and we can Okay, now challenge yourself and do 11 or 12 minutes tomorrow and gradually, slowly but surely build it up. But I think the 10 minutes also comes in again, when you want to do the daily resets, when you do a little bit of maintenance on your home, you know, in the morning, even just 10 minutes tidying up after breakfast, putting the plates in the dishwasher, you know, wiping the sides, those 10 minutes a couple of times per day can really help you maintain your home. But if your whole house is full of clutter, if you then read somewhere, oh, I just declutter 10 minutes per day, it's not going to be enough, you're gonna be disappointed again with yourself and go I even I can't even do 10 minutes. But the messaging around it is wrong. I think

23:27
the messaging around it is not necessarily wrong. But we we take what we want to from this advice. So if somebody if it's like a diet thing, and somebody said, Oh, you can just do 10 minutes on the treadmill, what three times a week and you're gonna get thin, we'd be like, Oh, I'm all over that. us though, does the version I want you not to me No way, you know, when actually we kind of know deep down that it takes long, sustained effort to get there. But we kind of cling on to these ideas that we can do it. Somehow we can cut corners. Yeah. And so what we're saying is, take the 10 minutes, take the timer and use it well. But know that that is a basis for you to build on. Yeah. And then that's going to get you there don't think that there's a quick fix to decluttering because it absolutely isn't for the reasons that we've spoken about before. We want you to feel controlled. We want you to look at the emotions we want you to you know have a journey that is sustained and leads to long, long term mindset change. Now I'm gonna go out and I want to ask you now Ingrid, right. So there's 10 minutes a day thing. So you and I are not cluttered. Okay, not saying we don't have any closer because we probably do. We were we just managed to find so every time we do 40 things for it. What's it called? 40 days, 40 items challenge. And we still managed to find things to declutter, don't we? Yeah. How long would you say in a week that you spend on let's split them up into four things? decluttering organising, tidying and cleaning? Wow, cleaning? Okay, so you've got a cleaner right? Okay. So you can that would, you would spend the same amount of time Have as they do, and then there's gonna be stuff that you do on top of that. Yeah. Same for me. We both got a cleaner, thankfully. Yeah,

25:07
thankfully I'm grateful. Yeah. But I still, of course, you know, I still clean my shower on a Sunday morning because she comes every two weeks. She doesn't come every week. So I still spent about 20 minutes on that, I would say, and then I'm

25:20
gonna go Yeah, I think I would go for about I think, you know, she does four or five hours. And so I would say, I'm gonna go seven and a half to eight hours a week cleaning. Yeah,

25:30
yeah, I don't think I don't think I've got that much. Because my, but my house is considerably smaller than your house. So yeah, I would say yeah, probably, I would say probably two hours a week. On top of that, just the indicates help is included in that as well as your day who from what my kitchen floors on a Sunday evening and that kind of thing. But kind of all added up. I would say that resets. resets. Oh, at least twice per day, sometimes three times per day, between 10 and 15 minutes. So I would say about half an hour, a day seven. And then I was extra time at the weekend. Yeah, extra time on the weekend,

26:08
I would do an hour. On a weekend extra.

26:12
I would probably do half an hour extra on the weekend organising I tidy as I go the whole time. So if I see something, I can't put a time on it. If I see solid waste is here, the wrong place or pick it up and put it back?

26:26
Yeah, not what you would consider it to be part of your reset. So you're not going into full organising mode? No,

26:31
no. And then decluttering. On average. If I look at the whole year, oh, wow, maybe half an hour a week. But I would more I do like I break it down. So I would do like three hours twice a year on my wardrobes. And then I would an hour and a half on the kids and an hour and a half of my son's room and then three hours on his room once or twice per year. So I I don't do it. i Yeah,

26:55
it's definitely not weekly for us, then I would say I'll probably spend, I'd say probably three hours every month. Yeah. So

27:06
about the same. Yeah, yeah. That is

27:09
in a in a in an orderly home with Yeah, average things thrown at it. But what? And that probably seems not that much. I don't know. Some people will be thinking, Oh, that sounds a lot. And some people say it doesn't sound much. But I guess the point is that keeps our homes the way that we want them to come over. So it's kind of completely irrelevant to everybody else. But I just thought it might be an interesting, I think that's really helpful. Anyway, we need to move.

27:36
Yes. Another piece of advice we see. If you're not sure about something, here we go again, if in doubt, you know, throw it out. Or if you're not sure, put it in a box. Close the box, write a date, if not opened in six months, throw this whole books away, or donate it to the charity shop or give it to a donation station or goodwill or whatever. I think that is actually one of the craziest things I've ever heard lately.

28:07
100% It's like the worst advice

28:12
I know. Ever. I know. It makes no sense to me. What Why would you want to do that? Yeah,

28:18
it makes no sense. It's, it makes, I don't really think I can speak about it. Because I'm so incensed by that piece of advice. But that is advice that you will see all the time from people on social media decluttering groups, you'll see in magazines written by people that are not professional organisers, magazine articles, you'll see it's everywhere. It makes me cross every single time I see it, why does it make us crossing red, right? It makes us cross because the whole idea of decluttering is that you make a decision about an item, we've already spoke about the fact that you delve into your emotions a little bit, you understand what it is about you that's making you keep hold of things, you look at something. And if you're not sure about that item, then you keep hold of it. We've already said that. So the principle that you're not sure, or you're they're not sure about something, you keep hold of it, but then you take it out of sight out of mind. So in that next six months period, you're never going to see that item again, to be able to evaluate its usefulness to you at that point. And to give it a second look, you know, because the chances are if you keep hold of something, you're going to look at it again and go, Wow, I kept that. But if it's in a box somewhere, you've never seen it, then you're never going to get the opportunity to keep constantly evaluating it or to look at whether or not you did use it in that six month period when you gave it a second go. Yeah, because you've already made a decision but all you're doing is you're procrastinating about taking something to the charity shop. Yeah.

29:45
It's interesting because we have hold discussions with our members in our membership, right Lesley about being cluttered blind. That's what we see a lot. And what we see is that members who are declined Trying following our roadmap, our strategy, our program, and the culture goes down, they start to see things that they had not seen. And it's not because it wasn't there, it's because it was buried under lots of other clutter. It is added, never clocked it. And they suddenly got actually, I saw something today in the corner actually wondered what that was and why it was there. And why I hadn't declared it before. Because the voice of clutter slowly but surely go down. But if you then follow this advice, just put it in a box of stuff. And then a loft somewhere in an attic or a basement. You're just moving your problem from one roof on one area, one room to the next. And then suddenly you have to donate his whole books are stuck, you don't even know you're leaving. Remember what is in there. And it has to go. And then a year later, you're gonna go I didn't even I had this item once. But I've got no idea now, because it's not consciously left your house. We're going to be a read about this advice Don't do

31:04
this. I'm glad that we included that. But yeah, that let's just say how not to declutter your home. This is the number one piece of advice that you absolutely 100% should ignore. Yeah, if you've got things going around your house with a six month date on them, bring them down, open that box up, try to declutter them if you can, and if not, bring them back into general use, and at least you'll have an opportunity to see and to make a valued, you know, decision about whether or not that's useful. Yes,

31:34
exactly. Exactly. Oh, gosh, right. Unless you will, let's go to the last how not to declutter your home advice we have. And that is, please do not start with your worst room. Do not go. Okay. My whole house is cluttered. But there's one room that's really really annoying me. And that's it's the worst room. That is where I'm going to start. And we say, please don't do that.

32:02
We do. Did we say in a nice, friendly way?

32:06
I hope so.

32:09
than the previous one when we were on? Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a reason for that. I think, you know, all these things are subconscious kind of reasons, aren't they? So our minds automatically take us to the most difficult place. So when we think about decluttering, we, we think about the difficult stuff, we think about the dumping ground that's getting that's bothering us, every time we walk into it, we think about the books that we would really struggle with, we think about the letters, we think about the Christmas cards or sentimental things. That's where our mind takes us because we want to cling on to things that the other people or the society or ourselves are saying now it's time to get rid of those things now. And so you need to go through a process of learning how to test yourself a little bit. And so you need to start with the easiest rooms first, if there is such a thing as an easy room, because it's they're all quite difficult. But there are certainly rooms or areas are types of items that are much more difficult. The problem with a dumping round, a dumping ground room, which is what we were talking about, like a room of Doom or whatever is that is probably become a room of doom because there's no place for it in the home anywhere else. And so you've not decluttered the rest of your house. And so all the stuff goes in there that you can't fit anywhere else in your home. And that's where it how it becomes a dumping ground, it doesn't have a natural home. The reason why it doesn't have a natural home may not be because you don't need it. Because quite often in a dumping ground, there are lots of things that we do need and we do love. But we put it in there because it doesn't have a home anywhere else. And it's very difficult to find a home until you've decluttered the rest of your house and found openings to put these things in. That's why those are difficult, aren't they? So they're difficult, because they're logistically hard. And they're difficult because they're very full. And they're difficult because they don't have a natural home.

33:56
Yeah. So what we're saying is you need to make space elsewhere in your home first, build up your decluttering muscle along the way, get more braver with the decisions that you make stand behind the decisions that you're making. Be proud of what you're achieving. And then when you've decluttered and made some space elsewhere you can go okay, now I feel ready to do this very full room and actually if I find items that have to go into the kitchen or in my utility room or in my hallway cupboard or in my bedroom, there is now space for those items to go. And I don't keep moving stuff from one area to the other because it can't go anywhere because she had then you just churning stuff around the home without actually making decisions on them.

34:45
Yes. I think we now need to come off our soapbox Ingrid. And finish this lovely podcast. We could literally go on I know. I'll do you know what actually we are going to go on because next week we're coming back with how not to organise your home, right? Yes,

35:04
yes. I feel another show book scenario coming up and that podcast as well. So let's, let's give each ourselves and our listeners. Let's close this podcast now and say, Okay, we hope you've enjoyed this. And is there anything here that you're like, Yes, I've heard this before, I can't even believe it. And I've listened to that advice. And that was wrong. And this hap, tell us, we would love to know we have our own YouTube channel where you can leave us comments. And as you can see, from the start of this podcast, we actually read everything that you tell us, and you might hear it again in a future podcast, you never know. But thank you so much for being here, and we look forward to seeing you next time.

35:51
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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PaulaJ says:

5 January 2024 at 2:20 PM

Another bout is another round. As you said, it’s a fight term. So keep it for the next go around of decluttering .

Reply
1. Lesley says:
  
  5 January 2024 at 7:13 PM
  
  Thanks for the clarification – I was doubting myself!
  
  Reply
Episode 275 – How NOT to declutter your home

Episode 422 – Time for a September Reset?

Episode 421 – Why an Organised Freezer Changes Everything with Kate Hall

Episode 420 – 10 Small Clutter Problems that Create Big Stress

Episode 419 – Why repairing is better than buying new with Martine Postma from Repair Cafe

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