A graphic saying Happy New Year and looking back on 2024
Episode 327 – New Year new you or New Year same you?

2025 is upon us and as always a new year provides a fresh impetus for change, so as we contemplate our homes and our lives in January, do you buy into a new year new you, or are you in more of a new year same you mindset? In this podcast we’re going to chat through how you can make sure you work through 2025 in a positive way.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
2025 is upon us, and as always, a new year provides a fresh impetus for change. So as we contemplate our homes and our lives in January, do you buy into a new year, new you, or are you more of a new year, same you kind of mindset in today's podcast, we're going to chat through how you can make sure you work through 2025

00:28
in a positive way.

00:37
You're listening to the declutter Hall podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Ingrid Jansen,

01:00
hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find the 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 you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast. It all takes place in our free Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm and supportive community. Go to the clutter hub.com, forward slash group to find out more. Well, I think happy new year is our starting point for this podcast. Lesley, third of January. Happy New Year. Everybody then. Happy New Year to you Ingrid as well. Are you okay? Are you ready for 2025, and what it's gonna bring? Well, yes, we've got a lot of good stuff coming, so I am absolutely ready for action. So let's get down to basics. Okay, so everyone's like, Oh, New Year's resolutions. We're going to get started 2025 is going to be different. These things are around New Year. New Year is everywhere. And then we've got the kind of counteractive, kind of, you know what? New Year same you and it can go down two different routes with that. So New Year same you, for a lot of people, is like, you know what a new year is, just another day on the calendar. There's no reason for me to suddenly start changing everything, because actually, everything's ticking along quite nicely. Or new year same you is a bit more like, oh, well, I'd like a new year new you, but I pretty much know that it's going to be a sort of new year same you mentality, ie I'm going to carry on doing all the things that I did before and not do anything new and not make any progress. So let's get down to basics inward. Are you a new year, new you person, or a new year same you person?

03:00
Ooh, wow. What a question to start a year with Lesley. I do like to kind of set, sometimes a bit of a New Year's resolution, but I think I'm not doing too bad to be honest with you. So I don't, I'm not. I'm not a person who's gonna go, Well, this year, everything is going to change. I'm gonna change my diet and my life and sport and exercise. I'm trying to kind of more do it a little bit more one thing. I'm better at one thing at a time. You know, we've known each other for a very long time now, Lesley, I'm not very good at doing like 20 things at the same time. I'm more like, Lesley, can we just finish this one thing, please? Because you're like, your brain is like, whoo. We're kind of this. And then, and then, and I'm like, can we just finish the thing that we were just talking about first? And I think it works like me in life as well, the same. So last year, I was like, Okay, I really need to just work more on Well, the year before, hold on, let me. Let me think. I'm confused now about the years when does okay? So the year before, I kind of thought, I really need to start doing some more exercise. So I kind of brought tennis into my life, which, you know, I absolutely love. And last year, I was a bit like, Okay, I'm just completely overloading myself all the time. I need to build more resting hit and miss, less hit and miss, I'm going to be honest, but I'm still working on that. So I haven't really thought this year about, personally, what my My thing is, but I think, I think I need to keep, especially, working on the let's do one thing well and in kind of, you know, just, let's put some rest in. Keep the walking up. Keep the How about you? I think 2024 actually, for both of us, if we look back, it would be interesting to listen to last year's podcast and say, Well, what we said we were going to do in 2024 because I think I at the beginning of 2024 mine was, you know, both of ours is kind of health and well being related, mostly. So I'm.

05:00
Obviously we're going to talk a lot about decluttering later. So obviously we're going to go down that route English, and I typically don't need to do decluttering. So we're focusing on other things, on other areas of our lives that we want to enhance. And so for us, it was definitely a kind of health, well being, sport, whatever you want to look at that, and more rest, more balance, all of those kind of things. And I think, to be fair, for me, that continues through in 2025 you talked about hit and miss. You know, definitely hit and miss. There are a lot of things that I would have wanted to have done. I would have liked to have taken more time for myself, but it kind of, you know, I was still at the stage where doing sport, sport, I didn't do any sport, like I went in the gym and all that kind of stuff. Whereas it definitely has become part of my life. It's become a consistent part of my life. It's definitely enhanced my well being. But it's kind of just become an another thing. It's a very important thing, and it's one that I want to continue, but I'd like to just chill a little bit more and put it not to be Oh, because sometimes it's like, Oh, there's another thing to do. Do you know what I mean? And so you've got to, kind of like, shoehorn it in. And so I think this year it would be, it's definitely to continue what I consider to be Good work, good consistent work that I'm still was doing at the end of 2024

06:14
you know, still doing what I set out. I started it in sort of January time. So that's a win in itself, right? But what I want to do now is really start to focus on the sort of balance side of things. So, yeah, so I think we, we both need to take a leaf out of our book, though we Lesley, because we are both, you know, so passionate as business owners, as you know, we want to be good, you know, to our family and to our friends, and we love both laroquire and we both put, you know, our wellness and health. But I think I don't know. I think it's really important that we really kind of keep each other accountable, and I think that's what we really been trying hard to do, right? Because as business owners, we both run two businesses. You know, you run the clutter ferry, I run organize your house together. We run this amazing thing called the declutter hub, with all the different things that we do, and I think we really have to work hard to keep each other accountable to go.

07:14
Are you okay? Are you? Do you need an afternoon off? Have when was the last time you just you know, started a bit later. Why don't you go for a walk? Because we know how good it is for us, and we get so passionate about everything that we do here in the declutter hub that work, you know, regularly takes over, and we just have to really, I think, think about how can make sure that we keep it balanced, that we keep it fun. And you know, we, let's be honest. We've been doing this podcast now for 330 episodes, or 300 This is episode 327,

07:53
we still love hanging out with each other, right? Well, I do it.

07:59
I'm saying nothing. I'm saying no,

08:02
of course, we just worked out. We're now into our eighth year of podcasting, which, like crazy. I can't even believe that's the thing, but yeah, no, it's really it's really interesting. It's important, and it's and it's very good, of course, to reflect as well as looking at looking forwards. I think it's so important to reflect back on what worked and what didn't. So for us personally, in 2024 there was a lot that worked, we made big strides forward, more than I'd done for the previous five years in terms of that consistency. And I think for us, it's always very ironic, because where we struggle, the things that we struggle with, are the very things that we are talking about every single day, to you guys, to listeners, to our members, and so it's like we can, we know what needs to be done. We can just, you know, you can attribute it to decluttering, to health and wellness, do anything that you want to do, to diet, to, you know, all of those kind of things. But sometimes we struggle ourselves, because you can get it right in one area, we can tell people. It's easy to tell people what to do and to try and encourage people along, but it's more difficult to do it yourselves. So that takes us neatly into decluttering, which is why everybody is here to listen to this podcast all about not our general ramblings, although I think it's important for us to, you know, to say how we feel, you know, yeah, I think we can be forgiven for thinking that we've got everything sewn up and nailed. We have the same, you know, busy lives and the things that are thrown out as everybody else, and we struggle with things as well. So that's our thing. That's our focus for 2025

09:38
you know, is balance. You know, I think it's probably going to be on my list for forever and a day. Do you know what I mean? But equally, there are things, there are projects that I want to do in the house as well. A little bit more decluttering, a lot changing here in the at home in terms of the transitions that are going on. And so decluttering might rear its head back into my life this year as well. So.

10:00
Know, decluttering, yes, which we love? We

10:06
don't love it.

10:08
We've had it, haven't we? Really, yeah, but, I mean, people are like, sometimes, Wow, can you still talk about decluttering? And I think I just wholeheartedly have to say, we love it, don't we? I mean, how we've been professional organizers both since, well, there's a job since 2011 I think it's so long ago, I've actually lost track now Lesley, but we've been organized people our whole lives, right? But to be able to do this as a job here and do a podcast about it, and, you know, do the challenge that we're going to talk about in a minute, and all of those things that we're doing that are coming up in 2025 as well. How lucky are we that we can talk about something that we're so passionate about, that we love so much, that we have a lot of knowledge about, let's be honest, right? We've been doing this for a long time. We know a lot, and we just love sharing that knowledge with other people, here on the podcast, in our Facebook group, and, of course, triple overtime in our membership, because it's just we can really see the difference it makes in people's lives. You know what? I just want to talk actually about a few things that happened at the end of 2024 so we got several, and I mean several emails with pictures from members, former members, podcast listeners, with pictures of their Christmas decorations, right with their living rooms decorated at Christmas and just sort of saying, I've done Christmas for the first time properly for several years, and I'm walking into my room and I'm absolutely loving it, and that just wasn't possible because of all the clutter before, or it would be kind of, I would put some Christmas tree lights up and try and, you know, so one of our members used the term, it was like polishing a turd. And she's, I don't just think we'd know that. Do you know what that is? Yeah, polishing a turd. Yeah? Like, just glad you made me laugh, Lesley, because I'm nearly crying already again. I mean, it's just wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And I just think, you know, because we can, we can get lost in the busyness of, like, try and do this task, and try and do that task, and do this room, and do that room, and explaining the nitty gritty of how decluttering works. But when somebody just sends you an email and goes, Do you know what I've done Christmas, and I'm so proud of this room, that's what it's all about, and that is the consistency of having worked throughout the whole of 2024 probably maybe even years before that, to get to a stage where you fall back in love with your home, and that's what this is all about, and that's why we love it so much. Anyway. It's also Lesley, I think the sorry, I think it's also the fact that they were like, I've learned so much in your membership. It's made such a difference. Who knew that the resets that you guys bang on about all the time could make such a difference. And

13:04
yes, my house is not 100% yet, but there's so much good stuff. Indeed. I can put a tree up. I can decorate. I knew where everything was. It's just phenomenal. And just, you know, that email with just thank you because you, you've helped me so much. It's like, I know.

13:28
Anyways, so don't start crying. We're going, we're going into New year, new

13:33
okay, we're going to all refresh. We can't start crying straight away, right? Okay, so let's get down to nitty gritty. So those lovely people, listeners, members, declutter graduates as well, sent us those emails. So how can we make sure? How can we help people this year to try and do things potentially a little bit differently, to look at things in a slightly different way, to make sure that they, too, have the consistency that you and I have had with diet, exercise and health and wellness. Let's call it that. Let's all wrapped up together, and that those people had with their homes last year.

14:13
That's what we're here to talk about today, and we really want to encourage you to reflect so in the same way that Ingrid and I have reflected back on 2024 look back and go what worked and what didn't work, because that's a great starting point. There will undoubtedly be things that you're doing incredibly well at home, and there will be some things where you wanted them to be different. You tried, you tried a different certain strategies, but it just didn't work. You lost momentum. You gave up. It all became too overwhelming. It was too difficult. Life got in the way any number of things that can throw curve balls at you, and we all know what the different curve balls are in life. So how do we get our decluttering to be something that becomes a normal part of our.

15:00
Life and doesn't, isn't this huge, mammoth undertaking, right? That's what we want to avoid. We want decluttering to just be, oh, you open a drawer as part as you go about your daily business, and you go, Oh, do you know what that leads a little bit of titivation. Let me just do that right now, because I've got the skills, I've got the knowledge, I've broken it down. I know how to do that. That's where we want you to get to. We don't want you to be like, oh, gotta do my whole house, and it's gonna take me weeks or months, and it's gonna be hard and blah, blah, blah, we wanna, of course, there's an element of having to do a little bit of that, you know, to get to the point where you can get to where ing i are with, with our homes and a little bit with our wellness. So there's still work to be done, and there will always still work to be still be work to be done right Ingrid. What can we suggest for anybody who here, who's new, potentially, or anybody who just wants that refresh, who's been with us for a while? What do we do at the declutter hub to help people get there?

15:54
I think what is really important is that we have a system Lesley, and we kind of have tweaked this system over the years. It's not like when we started the declutter hub podcast eight years ago and our membership six ago, we kind of said, Okay, well, here you go. We have molded our own system over the years, and we call it the reset your home system, because what's really important for people to know is that when people think about their homes and their clutter, they think about the stuff. It's always about the stuff where I'm going to put, the stuff, where I'm going to give it to, where am I going to donate? How am I going to sell it? Who am I going to give it to? Why have I got so much Oh, stuff, stuff, stuff, all the time. And we've actually realized over working with 1000s of people in their homes, with 1000s of people in our membership, it's never about the stuff. It's about the emotions that sit behind this stuff. So in our system, which we call the reset your home system, we say, okay, when you want to understand and make changes in your house, you need to do first look at the thought by thought part of our system, which is understanding the emotions that sit behind this stuff. Then you're actually going to look at the rooms in your home, which is part of our room by room, part of the research home system. And then to keep on top of these things, you need to do things daily and weekly, and maybe bit seasonally as well. And that's part of our day by day, part of the research at home system. So that's why our research at home system, when we kind of show you a picture of it, it's a circle, because it's a circular motion, you're going to start thinking about the emotions first, then you're going to do the room work in the rooms, and then you're going to do work day by day to keep on top of these rooms that you've done. And then you're going to start back over. You're going to go around that cycle the whole time. Do you know what Ingrid? I think it's really interesting, because we've, we've worked with the reset your home system for so long now, and we've had so many people work through it and try and understand it, and, you know, make progress throughout it. It's it's always interesting for us to look at where the learning is, where the light bulb moments are for people. And invariably, most of the light bulb moments are in the emotions, part in the thought by thought, part of the reset your home system. Because I think that people do have a basic understanding of the fact that emotional, your emotional connection to stuff, is the thing that's holding you back, but it's at a much more basic level. For most people, I feel guilty about that, so I'm not letting it go. I've got a kind of I might need to keep that, just in case I feel sentimental about that item. You know, all those kind of things, you know, money, all those kind of things come into play, but actually in the reset your home system, we delve much, much deeper. So I would say there's probably 3040, 50 emotions. I don't know. We've never counted them. Maybe we need to do that, but we can't, because it keeps evolving, right? So we'll add more in as we find more stuff out. Life evolves as so do does our emotional connection to stuff, but I think that's where the real light bulbs go, go on, and that's where people are, like, I'd never really thought about it that way. And once you understand that, you can go but why am Why am I keeping that kitchen item? Because it's an aspirational item, for example, which is a real light bulb. For a lot of people, I can let that go. You know, the knowledge that is there allows you then to make a sensible decision on it, and that's when it becomes much easier, so you don't get bogged down with the stuff. You know, if you if you've not thought about your emotional connection to stuff, you get an item, and it's as hard today as it was two years ago when you tried it. You've got to have that learning in the middle to try and give you the kind of strength.

20:00
From the empowerment to let it go, and then it becomes much more straightforward. Of course, in the reset your home system, we talk about process, we talk about planning. We give you a structure. Because a lot of people do it in a slightly, in a slightly kind of the wrong way, almost. And, you know, don't set themselves up for success. So in the room by room part that's much more practically led while we're still obviously looking at the emotional side of things, and then introducing things like daily resets, routines, all of those kind of things that we talk about in the day by day. Part of the reset your home system is also it just makes sure that you can maintain all the hard work that you've done. How many times have people gone well, I declutter my house, and then three weeks later, it's about the way it was before. You know, that's what we're trying to avoid with the day by day part of the reset your home system. So that's our framework. It works really well, particularly for people who have a real struggle with letting go. So if that's you, and you are a struggler, and you're like, Oh, this is too hard, if you if you've got a feeling of feelings of struggle overwhelm you know, this is the system for you So, and there are many things within the declutter hub that we use to reset. Well, everything pervades the reset your home system pervades everything that we teach here. And we've got something cool coming up to that you can get involved in, and you can start to work out the basics of how our system works. So let's go for a break and talk about that afterwards. So Hi everyone. Welcome back now. Lesley mentioned before the break that we've got something cool coming up. And for those of you who've been here for a while, you know what's coming up, but for those of you who are listening in for the first time, we want to tell you about our fabulous challenge that is coming up our reset your home challenge. We're starting on Monday, the sixth of January. So get your skates on and sign up for this challenge, and we're going to teach you lots about the reset your home system in our reset your home challenge. So get involved. Sign up and join us for this completely free challenge. Yeah. So how does it all work? So every day we go live for an hour a day, and we, of course, talk about the emotions related to clutter, the first day we do the kitchen, the second day we do the living room. And that is a new, brand new room for this year. So we've swapped out the bathroom for the living room. So that's this year's edition. Then we've got what's next stop Ingrid. Then we go into clothing, yeah, clothing in the bedroom. And then on the Thursday, we talk about resets and routines, which is the day by day part of our reset your home system. And then on Friday, we know lots of people got loads of questions about different things that they've struggled with in the past. So we do a live Q and A so every day we're live for an hour, just over an hour, it's all available on replay. So if you can't watch us live, then no problem. You can watch on replay and catch up. And we have little bits of homework. We have bonuses every day, so we have additional material that you can watch, which is really super helpful. We have little bits of homework every day,

23:02
and it's all good fun, and you do it alongside a community of people who are just like you. And that is very empowering to start the new year. It's completely free, so give it a go. So we would love to have you with us. It's been this, you know, it's been the start of a fantastic journey for so many people, and we would love to have you alongside us. Yes, we would love for you to join us for our reset, your home challenge. Go to declutter help.com forward, slash, 327, to find out all the details, all the information. And you can sign up there. And we can't wait to see you, starting on Monday, it's Friday now, one weekend of relaxing, a tidying up, maybe, maybe already ready to to take down your Christmas tree. From Monday onwards, we want to see you, and we want to hang out with you, absolutely so. So that's our challenge is coming up. We also do loads of other stuff with the reset your home system. We have a wonderful membership where we have reset your home road maps. We have the room by room road map, and we have the day by day road map, and that is where it's on kind of on steroids, right? The reset your home system on steroids in our reset your home road map. And, of course, exciting for 2025 which is why Ingrid and I may struggle a tad with the balance this year. In 2025

24:21
is that we have our first book coming out, also called reset your home. See what we're doing here. We're literally reset your home. Reset your home challenge, reset your home book. So yeah, reset your home, unpack your emotions and your clutter, step by step, is coming out in February, so a little while to wait. But that's exciting stuff, which may, as I say, slightly impact on our ability to have balance right Ingrid, because it's going to be a busy time. Yeah, we'll kind of have a kind of very busy start of 2025 hopefully it will calm down a little bit after that. But, yeah, how exciting is that lesson? You know what? Though, Ingrid, we've got the we're gonna have the craziness of the book in sort of a.

25:00
Um, February. I know that that's going to be a crazy time, an exciting book, crazy time, but I think it's really nice and grounding for us. We love starting the new year with the challenge, don't we, because it starts the New Year on on a real hack, doesn't it? So let's ignore the book for now, and let's although it is available on pre order, to be fair, so don't ignore it completely if you want it. But I think it's so important to have some practical you know, you know, we need to go, go now. Don't we say, You know what? Lesley, it's no secret, we've done this challenge several times, right? But we love it, because we really can see the difference it makes to people, whether they've been in our in our communities for a while, whether they're new to the challenge, maybe whether they are coming back, because they were like, Yeah, I did it last time, but I still I need more. I need to have more information. It didn't really sink in the last time, and now I'm much more ready to start to take on board all the fantastic information you're sharing with us. And we love it. We absolutely love it. Do you know what? One of the, one of the things that is interesting as well England, whenever we talk to people, you know, we have lots of lovely members who come on the podcast and talk about their decluttering journeys and things like that. One of the things that some of them say all the time is, I listened to the podcast for quite a while, and I heard about the challenge a few times and didn't do it, and then eventually I did it, and I wished I'd done it sooner. And so I think that if you have been listening to this for a while and like, Oh no, no, that's not for me, give it a go. Give it a go, because honestly, um, people absolutely love it. So enough about the reset your home challenge. We we've already spoken about, um, signing up decla, com, forward slash, 327, which is the number of this podcast, to sign up and we're ready to get cracking on Monday. It's only a couple of days away if you're listening to this on release day. So yeah, exciting times. I know. Great start to 2025 I can't wait. And of course, Lesley, we're going to be hanging out again for like, loads of times. We are just looking forward to another year of reset your home challenge, reset your home system, decluttering our book, but mainly hanging out together and having lots of fun on the podcast. So if you've been here for ages, thank you so much for tuning in to this first episode of this new year. And if you're new to our world, welcome. We can't wait for you to tune in every week to listen to what we've got to say about decluttering and organizing, because, yeah, we love it. So thanks for being here so much. We appreciate you and we'll see you next week.

27:44
thanks so much for listening to the declutter hub podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Episode 358 – Ingrid and Lesley go hypothetical

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Reset Your Home

Unpack your emotions and your clutter, step by step
