A photograph of a man smiling into the camera - Matt Paxton
Episode 289 – Matt Paxton shares his 5 best quick tips to get organised

In this episode we welcome Matt Paxton. We will chat about his 5 top tips to stay organised throughout the year, his TV shows Legacy List and Hoarders and downsizing your life.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
In today's episode, we're delighted to welcome back Matt Paxton on the show, we will chat about his five top tips to staying organised throughout the year. His TV shows the legacy list and hoarders and about downsizing. So we can't wait for you to tune in and listen.

00:27
You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts decluttering and organising your home. Now, here's your host, Ingrid Jansen.

00:49
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 declutter help.com forward slash group to find out more. Hello, Matt, welcome back to the show. Can you believe it's been two years

01:31
last spoken? That's crazy. Thanks for having me back. And I cannot believe it has been two years. God I know. I know. And you know what, this morning, I listened back because I was like, I kind of knew what we talked about. But

01:45
110 episodes ago. So I thought, let's just listen in. And have you ever listened to what we chatted about. I love that.

01:53
Good. Good. Luck. I'll talk all day. So like I never know. But I hope it was fun. And I hope it was inspiring. It was it was a really, really enjoyed our chat. And it kind of really get me up for for recording today. And I thought, Oh, I'm looking forward to to chatting with you again. Because we had such a great conversation. And at the time, two years ago, I think you were starting your two second season. And now you're on season five of your show the legacy list. It's incredible. It is it's a man we've gotten we've traveled the entire US helping families go through their attics and hearing stories from loved one. It's been really, really cool. And I tell you since it's funny, if we haven't talked in two years, I've really, really kind of just hung into the power of the stories. You know, I just written my book. Yeah, just started this TV show. And I will, I've had all this feedback now from you know, hundreds of 1000s of copies of the book sold. And people are really embracing the theories of of telling their family stories, and it's helping them Declutter. And it's been really fun because I get to hear all these incredible, incredible stories. And it's just been really, really fun. I love it. Amazing. Amazing. Well, we'll definitely get going to talk about your show a little bit more later in this podcast. But I first wanted to kind of go okay, you know, we have an opportunity to ask you questions. And so I thought, Okay, let's start a bit more general, before we kind of dive into downsizing and, and legacies and all of those things. Can you share with us maybe five things that people can do now to stay organised throughout the year? What are your things be? Let's spend some time talking about that. So this is one thing I've been trying to focus on this year is like, Alright, how do we get because everyone just comes to me, and they're paralyzed, they don't know what to do. And they're like, I don't know where to start. And it doesn't even get 100 tips, but they don't know where to start. So I'm gonna give you five places to start. Yeah, and all of these really should be you should limit yourself to 15 minutes. There's an old, there's an old law, I believe that was an economist coming out of college. And so I studied economics. And there's an old economic law that says you will use I don't remember the name, but it says you will use whatever time allotted to finish the task you're trying to achieve. You give somebody three weeks, they'll use three weeks, if you give them 30 minutes, they'll use 30 minutes, right? So now I'm not saying you're going to clean your house in 15 minutes, because I said you only have 15 minutes. But this digital task, it's meant to be short. And it's meant to prove to you two things. One is you're supposed to visually see a difference, you should immediately visually see a difference. So you should have that visual,

04:26
excitement and positivity. And then secondly, it's proving to yourself that you can get something done, right? That's the emotional side of this I want you to prove to yourself because because at this point, most of us think we can't do anything. And we think it's stuck. And so these exercises going to show you that you can visually and emotionally. Alright, first place I want you to start and this is silly, but I want you to start in the bathroom. Right, the blue whatever we're going to call it.

04:51
You've got to go in there and I believe 75% of the bottles in the bathroom are 10% Full

05:00
Most of the items in there are 10% full. So when should you go in there anything's got less than 25% stuff in it. That except for the perfumes and colognes get rid of everything else, right? If you are not wearing any, if you are not using these items with your current partner,

05:16
I also want you to get rid of I cannot tell you how many people are going to the Ratterman. They're like, Oh, yeah, that's my cologne from eighth grade.

05:25
And it's like, Oh, why are you planning on wearing that? Well, no. And then the holiday items. There's so many like this, the fancy holiday soaps and the towels and the items that we can't, we can only use like once a month, get rid of them. That's ridiculous. We don't need them anymore. It's just taken up space. Right? So very quick, three things. I go in there, get rid of the items that are 75% empty, get rid of the items that you no longer use realistically with your current life. And so benchmark on that is your current partner. Yeah, we have a partner.

05:58
Is it from which I mean, like my favorite one is that oh, this is my child's medicine in the bathroom like great. You know, he was my child's poison ivy medicine. Great. How old your son? Oh, he's 46. Yeah.

06:10
Well, I don't think we need that medicine anymore.

06:13
upon where you live, there's lots of different rules of disposing of prescription medicine. But a lot of creams, a lot of the maintenance, a lot of the things we keep just in case, you don't need them anymore. Yeah, so believe it. Or if you just run to the bathroom in 15 minutes on all these topics, you can then pull out the stuff you're gonna keep. And I want you to clean out the drawers. I know that sounds crazy. I want you to literally scrub out the drawers and get all the old nasty, dried up creams and the hair stubbles and all this stuff. That's I'm talking about my bathroom at this point.

06:48
Get rid of that stuff that you really truly don't use now, right? That's it? Currently, can I use it? Because we don't need it. And then if you do that, I promise you, you're gonna see about a half, but 50% of the stuff in your bathroom is gonna disappear. I know. We talk a lot about indeed using it up, just use it up. If you find indeed all these three, or four or five or 10 bottles with a tiny bit, use it up, get rid of it. So let's talk about why you don't get rid of this stuff. Or why you don't use it up because you spend a lot of money for it. Yeah, I don't care, your sanity and your time is worth more than whatever that item cost. And I've really that is since we last spoke. I'm gonna tell you that's the most important time I think is the most valuable thing we have. Yeah, I'm almost 50 My son's that my 12 year old son said to me the other day he goes dad, I was reading in school that the average American only lives to 82. And he goes you're almost 50 Dad, he goes, so you've lived more years than you're going to.

07:46
He was just impressed by the math, right? And he's, but he goes, How does it feel to know that you're that you've got more years behind you than you do in front of you?

07:58
I'm like, Oh, God, he's right. You know, and by the way, and I'm like, do I really want to spend time shaking out trying to get the last 2% of my shampoo? No, right? And if I do that 100 times a week. Well, that's 100 minutes. That's a that's an hour and a half like and I could have been an hour and a half doing something more enjoyable. I know that sounds silly. But I hear I hear you met I turned 50 last year. And after after that, after the party and all the fun and all the things I suddenly thought, Wow, I'm this in my head. I'm not 50 but 50 I mean, look, I sure wouldn't want to be 4030 or 20. I mean, I love my life and 50 I'm living my best life and I've never been happier. That being said, Yeah, I don't have I got what 25 good years. 30 good years ahead. And let's use that time wisely. Right? Yeah.

08:51
Like, I can't stress it. Don't spend your time in the bathroom going through shampoo, right? That's right. So if you're gonna 15 minutes, if it's not half, if it's 25% or less, get rid of it and just dump it and get rid of all the holiday stuff. You don't need it. And then wipe it clean. Wipe it out, spent five minutes, just spray it down, wipe it clean. And then once it dries, put everything back in, and you're gonna see that it's reorganised, and you're gonna have at least half of your space back. I know this sounds silly but the bathroom is easy. It's very unemotional. Remember all my clients are heavily emotional cleanouts because it's hoarding and it's a state cleanouts or downsizing like life has happened to you if I'm in your house cleaning with you something not great has happened, right life hasn't you make some decisions. And so I just want us to do this quick and easy so we can go out and have a good life again. Yeah. What's the second Spanner you don't even have in front of me? What's the second statute?

09:45
Clothes and shoes, clothes, shoes? All right. Clothes and shoes are tough. I'm very aware that my audience is mostly female. All right, my Facebook audience is 94% female. Yes. Let's assume that the audience here is the same as well. I get that

10:00
Some shoes come back into style. I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal my wife's tip here. You know, my wife is a pretty well known minimalist. Her Instagram is raising simple if you want to follow her. In fact, I read her book, that's how I met her. Her book was called minimalism for families. And her number one tip, and it's something that we've we've really envisioned in our life, which is choose your standard your your real life over your fantasy life.

10:24
And so with clothes, I go into that real quick, there's a whole different things you can do in clothes, but the picking reality over fantasy, do I actually use it in my real life today? Right. And so for me, I had to go through and sizes, I had to get very real on sizes. Here in the States, you know, sighs our pants go 30 to 36. Yeah.

10:45
I'm a 36.

10:48
I don't need to save my 28.

10:51
And my 30 twos. And I know this sounds silly, but it's time to get brutally honest, like half of your closet is filled with stuff you can never wear and you never will wear again. And we're both brutally honestly aware of it. And so what you're doing yourself is you're actually kind of putting yourself down every single day and you're setting yourself up to fail every day that you wake up, you walk into that, that closet and you see half the stuff that you will never physically fit in again. Yeah. And it's when you thought you were better. By the way you weren't, you're better now life is never better behind. It's almost always better now and ahead. Maybe we're 20 pounds heavier. Maybe we're two stones heavier. I don't know. But I'm happier. I have a better life. And so I want you to get rid of those relics from the past that you're holding on to because they absolutely, they take as much space in your brain as they do in your closet. Yeah. So incredibly quick and donate, donate, donate, I cannot stress we'll talk a lot about that today. You do have some vintage clothes that can be sold. If they're good, high quality clothes that could be sold. There's lots of websites to use for that.

11:53
The real real I mean, I do a lot of purses and bags, and not myself, but obviously for my clients and boots and things like that. I had one client that had 20 pair of Frye boots, and they were going through a divorce and their partner obviously didn't want those boots anymore. And he's like, I'm gonna guess I'm going to donate these. And I was like, Dude, there's about three grand in boots here. I was like, let's put them up one. We put them on what was that website?

12:19
Document anyways, but we put them on a on a clothing website sold on real quick, and he was able to give three grand to his kids. Yeah, I know. So I do want you to I mean, be smart about that. But go through be very real about what you're wearing now. Pull everything else out. It doesn't mean I'm not saying you have to get rid of all your gowns. I'm not saying you have to get rid of all your dress clothes, but be realistic on the day to day and it should get rid of half your stuff. I didn't talk about this tip. I don't I saw it on the internet. It's not mine. The clothes hanger tip everyone talks about it. But I think it's very effective. What I do on either your birthday or on on the first of the year, okay, all right. Number You know, either on your birthday, or on the first a year, I want you to turn all the hangers going one way, right.

13:04
I've never I've never tried that. And I always think oh, I don't know if this is gonna work totally works. And so it's funny. I was I was like I always gave that tip, but I never did it. And two years ago, I'm like, I want to do it. Right, I want to do it. And, and I'm a minimalist now. So I literally have five shirts.

13:21
I have no clothes. And I don't my closet is four feet wide. And that's it. And I love it. I have no clothes, and I absolutely love it. But when I had a lot of clothes, I finally tried this tip. And when you put all the hangers going one way, and then everything, you wear it, you turn the hanger the other way. So, same day, the next year, you see what you did and didn't wear you. It's very clear. It's very, you'd be amazed how much you don't wear. And so I was able to donate all the stuff that I didn't wear because I proved myself I hadn't worn it, except for one shirt, this one pink shirt that I love. And I was like, Nope, I'm gonna keep it because I love this shirt.

13:57
And it was on my birthday. And it made it just like, but I got rid of like 25% of the stuff and donated it. So I felt good. So I turned them all the same way again. And then the next year, I came back and I still had not worn that pink shirt. years that I had not worn that awesome pink shirt. Right. And so and then when I tried to dry it on, I realized the collar was too was too tight. I've gained too much weight. And so I was like, All right, it's time. It's time to get rid of this. And so I had a rule I didn't want to I two times I did not want to use my rule, but I'm telling you, it is an effective tool because it lets you see what you are and you aren't wearing Yeah, yeah, but the other one is a fashion show and fashion show sounds really simple. But if you've got grandkids or kids, they will be brutally honest with you. And so if you're not sure if you should keep something or not try it on.

14:44
Your kids reaction will tell you either either you can't put it on, it doesn't fit or they're gonna laugh at you like your kids are laughing hysterically. Well, I do it differently. When I buy something new. I go to my son and my daughter and I put it down whenever

15:00
bought something new and I don't take the time off just yet. And I get the either the thumbs up or I get the look like, what were you think by this? And normally, they're saying that it goes back filter is your your child's brutal honesty, right? That's gonna let you know what's good and what's not. So if you trust your own size, brutal honesty of your kids or your friends, and then the reality of Have you wondered or not, there's three ways to find out should you get rid of? I think that's

15:26
fantastic, fantastic. What can we do in the kitchen? That's another area that we need to do some work on. Right? So this is very unpopular. I'm going to start with the biggest issue water bottles, we've got too many daggone water bottles, man, especially here in the States. All right, you can use one you need one a water bottle for each person in the house. Yeah, that's it. And I'm just gonna need there's no other way you could add one. All right. Now my family, we been nine people in our family, right? So we have, you know, we have, we have seven kids and myself and Zoey. And so with nine plus one is 1010 water bottles is still a lot. Yeah, I gotta tell you, they were absolutely taken over, we just took a wine rack, and a nine bottle wine rack, and we put all the water bottles in there. Yeah. And so that was really, really easy. I put it in the in the, in the hamper room, you know, in the mud room, because I don't get it. But that cleared out an entire rolling shelf for us because we had about 30 water bottles, because everybody picks up an extra water bottle somewhere and you don't want to get rid of it. Donate all the water bottles. If you got four people in your family, I honestly think four or five water bottles is enough. But we've spent a lot of money on these water bottles. It's a crazy economy, honestly, the water bottles, and there's lots of different versions, it's a waste of time and space. And specifically in your wall in your dishwasher like it fills up your house. Just you don't need them. So that's my number one mission is to rid the world. Water bottles, secondarily, get rid of all the faces, right? That's what most of the faces that people give us flowers. And they're like, Oh, I love that vase. Oh, my boyfriend gave me those flowers. Great. Is that your husband? No.

17:10
No, I'm going to ask you this to the women listening. If your husband was keeping something from an ex girlfriend in your house, would you want him to be sad item?

17:20
I can tell you the answers now. So do we can do the same thing in the kitchen, get rid of all the bases. If your husband didn't give it to you get rid of it right? And you need one or two really nice bases, the rest of them can be donated. And then the food storage containers match them up. If they don't have a match if you don't have a top or a bottom, get rid of it. And that, again, this is meant to be done in 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah. Oh, you know, you know, breaking it down is crucial. It's a blessing. I talk about that all the time. You need to have that end goal inside, like, where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve here? But you can't just say I want to tidy up my house or I want to tidy up my whole kitchen you need to break it down. It's impossible. But you said you can't go? Well, we need to go from from from all to nothing overnight. If clutter is built up over a long time. You have to break it down into small manageable chunks and exactly what you're saying that you start with 15 1015 minutes every day you do a little bit. Honestly, that was three tools. That's three goals in the kitchen. That's three separate days. Yeah. I mean, water bottles is one day storage containers the same day. Right? bases and extra bottles. That's what I do. Excuse me, and then I would do the I would do the actual refrigerator in one. Yeah. Go through all the spices. And this is more of an American topic. But then we have sold these massive refrigerators and we just fill them with stuff.

18:40
If you don't remember buying the sauce get rid of it. Yeah, I do. I do go by the expiration dates. Not everybody does. I get that. No judgment here. Judge reason? Do you want to eat expired food? That's cool. We have all the right to do that. I'm not gonna get in the way of that. But pull everything out of the fridge, wipe it all down clean. Yeah, I know. I always say

19:00
that's four days. I agree. I agree. And I have the same thing as you i if it's, if I see it's expired, or when I see it's nearly coming up. And I'm like, will I still eat it or not? I do not eat expired food either. But there are other people like it's all good old fine with me. But I always say you know what, if a if a spice is already expired for two years, that means it has been in your cupboard for at least two years. And probably it was manufactured one or two years before that. So my youngest kid is tanned. And I always say if I've had this, this if I'm in the kitchen, and I've had this item longer than that kid's been alive. I think oh, do I really need that? Yeah. Yeah. Do I really want to eat this? Do I want to and it's the same as well in the bathroom ride with creams and stuff. It's like okay, how long has it been in your cupboard? But I really want to use it and I actually going to put it on your face. Well, you don't even know how old it is when you bought it. If it's been in your cupboard for 12 years. Is this a good idea? Let's let's remember we

20:00
Do these activities areas, not the clothes, not the closet, but the bathroom in the kitchen, we're starting in those areas because they're non emotional. And I really want to, it's easy. The whole point of this exercise is to find an easy way to do this. And so it's knitting yourself to 15 minutes in a non emotional room. I think that's really important. I thought of as we were talking, if you have kids helping you, and I love it when the kids are involved,

20:22
eight and above getting involved heavily. You can't say Go clean. It's it's not. It's absolutely too big for them. Right. So with seniors, and with aging Americans are aging people and your kids. So over, I say over 70, understand, you have to give them a very small finite number. So you say, hey, go find me. Two toys that you can donate, find me your favorite water bottle that you don't need any more that we can donate, give them a very small number that is achievable. Because if you say Go clean, it's too big, it's too big. It's not a concept they can grasp. And then they quit and they start to feel like they failed. Yeah, God given me a very small number. So for you, whoever we are, if you're having a hard time, even with water bottles, then just pick one or two, I'd say Okay, today, I'm gonna do two items I can donate. And you just pick two items. And that's it. Yeah, it is a win. That is absolutely a win, you know what you can and can't do. The goal is to do and to achieve. So if all you did today, after this podcast was go and get rid of one water bottle you haven't used in a year, then that is a win, go donate it, follow it all the way through, get rid of it. That is a win. I agree with you so much. Positivity, right, celebrating the wins and celebrating what you achieve, and build look back at everything that you haven't done, but really go you know what, they had a bad day today. But I did that one thing. Sometimes that one thing is much more important and a bigger win than figuring an entire room out. But most of us, I thought that was just an American feeling. But most of us here we focus on what we didn't achieve, versus what we did achieve. And I'm asking you all to flip that. What did you achieve? And if you get focused on that, and you believe in that every day, all of a sudden your house doesn't feel as overwhelming. Yeah. It's interesting because in our membership, we have something gold, Golson accountability, and we say, Okay, write down what you want to achieve this month.

22:20
And also, midway through the month that check in and I go, Hey, members, how are you doing today? How's it going with your goals? And even if you're not, haven't done the ones just you you wrote down? Right? The other stuff that you have done, write it down, because we always are so hard on ourselves and everything we haven't done, and we beat ourselves up and are negative about it to ourselves. While it goes oh, well, actually, Oh, I did do that. And that happened. So I was sidetracked for a couple of days. But then I helped my friend or my mom or whatever or work was blah, blah, blah, you know, something happens, but write down the things you have done is amazing. And I don't mean to be sexist here. But that is a female trait. Right? Women will tend and I'm speaking generally here, my clients are mostly women, women will focus on what they didn't get done. Men will focus on what they did. Just the other day. My wife's like, I cooked dinner. We did this. We took all the kids to this and this I didn't get anything done. And she worked all day, right? And she's like anything done. And I was like, Well, I shaved

23:21
right here. I'm over here wanting credit for shaving. Right. Like give me credit. I did something like guys tend to look on the positive side women, always and so I want you guys to dumb it down. Come over to our side. Be proud of whatever you achieved. Whatever you achieve, because it's more than you achieved yesterday. Yeah, exactly.

23:43
Junk Mail. Let's talk about that. Matt. Throw it all away. We're good. Grades.

23:49
If you owe somebody money, they're gonna find you.

23:54
All right. Be the last the most recent statement. That's all that you need. For the counts everything else. I do a poor man shred. I shred it up, rip it up. Now. Now I'm very diligent about this. I don't even put my mail down. I believe that when you walk into the house, if you put your mail down, it's gonna stay there. Yeah. And so what I do is I go right to the recycling bin, I open the mail and I shred it right there. And I put it in anything I have to keep goes to my office.

24:23
But for the most part, if you have like five years of junk mail, and it's sitting in a room and it's overwhelming, don't even look at it, go straight to the shredder. And people will say well, what if there's $100 bill in there? What if What if you left it from a birthday party? You don't know if it is or isn't there now? Yeah. And your time is still worth more than whatever's in there. If it's a check, it's already expired.

24:46
Like Just stop already.

24:49
Time, get rid of it, shred it, be done with it. I know. Those daily habits are so important that immediately when it comes in, you handle it and you go right okay, I have to do so.

25:00
Something with this or this need to keep and the rest all boom in the recycling in a lot of my clients are older. And so in that situation I actually I encourage people in their trunk of their car, that was the boot. Yeah, you put a box, I have a donation box and I have a shredding box in my car.

25:18
Not everybody does cars. But for some people, I've noticed that you have too much paper in a box, no one's going to pick it up. And same thing with donation. They don't pick it up. And it's like, Oh, it's too heavy for me. Now I can't pick it up. They've done the act of donating. They've done the act of shredding. And they've released the item but it stays in their home because the box is too heavy. So I put it right there in the trunk of my car. I fill it with donate once that trunk, once that box is full, I go by the Donation Center, and I let those guys the guys will pick it up, they'll come right to it. Same thing with shredding. And so I don't even I don't even give the shredding pile of space in my home. I actually leave it in my car. Oh, interesting that it goes away.

25:54
Interesting. Last topic before we have a break. You also said you need to look at your garage, or your mudroom or whatever maybe utility room whatever you call it. Important to to have a look at to stay organised. I think it very realistic becomes temporary storage. And that's the place where you just got to finish the tasks.

26:14
Take one each day, there's a task in there. Oh, I'm doing this to put my holiday decorations away. Great. Just do the holiday decoration that day. That's it, finish that task. Move on. This is not a room that will be finished in a day. But there's probably 1020 minute tasks in there. Yeah, not asleep. I love the garage that you told her. And I say that's a Friday like that should be a Friday morning, that you finish it before the weekend starts. And that way you can go and relax and feel like I did something I accomplished something. Right. But it's a 10 minute, 15 minute and then each week, you're going to finish that up and by before the next holiday, that area is clean and go get one more car in the garage. Yeah, yeah. I think you guys have a lot of garages. Not all of us have here. We're parking on the street. But we have sheds and and lofts and things. It's all these things. But again, you don't want to see it as a whole project in one. It's like how can you break this down into small jobs. So you can see movement? And you see actually I'm moving forward here. I'm see I'm starting to see space. My list of jobs is getting smaller. And then I do this with my kids and I'm started doing it myself. I actually will. I've got say 10 tasks in that room. I absolutely will make them I will absolutely make a sheet and I'll block off 10 squares and when I get to the 10 Square, me and my kids walk up the street and get ice cream. My reward is ice cream. But I mean it used to be for my kids and now it's for me I love it.

27:43
I put a silly little menial, not expensive, you know,

27:49
go get a Walker's Christmas and Lucozade right, like that was my favorite when I my mom was in England and I would go and get that that grape. What was it was that flavor that Lucozade like Robina or something? Did you ever beat?

28:01
The version of America is great, but it was like a it was a really good it was I loved it. And it was walkers. Those ready walkers. Kristen? Yes. Yes. red bag that's done that already salted, they're the best. Yes. So if I finish something, that's my reward, right? And I go, it's a it's not even $1. It's not even apparent. It's just, it's just a small middle road. But I did it. I achieved it. And I went and got it done. And that is what we're we're there to enjoy life, not punish ourselves for we didn't finish a great time. I know there's a long talk on those five. But I'm telling you, that's the little stuff that weighs us down. And if you do those five, and you commit, there's that six months of work, y'all that is not, you know, one or two days a week, 610 minutes each time. But at the end of six months, you're like, Man, I really did something. I did it. And you accomplished it. And that's what this is about. Yeah,

28:47
definitely. Let's go for a break. And then after the break, we'll talk more to Matt about his TV show The legacy list. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We're talking to Matt Paxton before the break, he gave us some fantastic things to do to stay organised throughout the year. But now of course, I want to talk to Matt about his fantastic TV shows the legacy list and I want to talk about downsizing first met because I've been reading unfortunately here in the UK but can't see the legacy list. But the legacy list is all created for people who are downsizing or are people also staying in their homes and just wanting to have less stuff. Well, when we started the show is for people leaving their home and the reality is downsizing now includes aging in place and so more people are staying in their home. So a lot of times we're cleaning out a garage, or an extra bedroom to make space for grandma to move in. Right? Or we're making space for some time. I mean, a new one now is that the oldest child is now moving back in with their family right housing is expensive around the world. And downsizing has different definitions now but the reality is we're getting rid of stuff to make space for someone new to come into our house or for us to leave this

30:00
entire home and start someone new. A lot of my business is cleaning out homes that people have been in there for 3040 50 years. And it's a family, and they're moving away from it. So those are highly emotional cleanouts. But the fun ones now are like cleaning out, you know, an extra room so that grandma can move in and be an active part of this family. I love that those are really fun because you're cleaning out grandma's old house, and then you're cleaning out the adult kids house, and you're moving everything. So if you need to, if you could give us just a couple of tips for people who are downsizing, what would your top two or three be? Well, my top one is you've actually already said it. It's funny, you said it earlier with your system. For me, it's knowing where you're going, right? What's your destination, what's your finish line, I don't start need to ask anymore on downsizing. If you don't know the very pureness of what you want to achieve. There's really no point in starting.

30:53
Otherwise, your finish line moves each time. So you're never going to have to You're never going to be content. Alright, I take it a little further. I write that down on a piece of paper. I literally say like, I want this room clean room empty. For you know, I put the number 75% And like whatever. But I put it on a piece of paper and I tape it on the wall. So I have to see it. Yeah, you can't lie to yourself. When you do that. You have to see it. It's really important. So that's that's for me. I say it starts very small. We talked about the whole last segment was about starting small. If you take on too much, you will absolutely quit. Yeah. decluttering is the easiest thing to quit. Absolutely.

31:32
Number three is this the legacy list. And I'm really big on creating a legacy list. That's the name of the show. And what a legacy legacy list, if you will, we went deep into legacy list on the last episode I was on. Yeah. But to really, if you haven't heard it, Legacy list is a list of the top five items in your home, that tell your family story. And I want you to pull those items, right, if your house is gonna burn down, these are the five items you got to have, and they're often from loved ones from family members are no longer with us, I want you to grab those items, I want you to take a picture, whatever it is, I want you to record that story. I happen to use an app called artifacts, AR T i f CTS artifacts, it's pretty awesome. You take a picture of it, the item, and then you can either hit record or video, and then you tell the story. And I think it's amazing. And so what I do is I actually give it to our clients and I say alright, grandma, here's a picture of your face. Tell me about this face. And then grandma, we have grandma story and grandma's voice.

32:30
And the more you tell those stories, the easier to let go the items. So creating that legacy list and then telling this following through and telling the stories and sharing the stories with loved ones that honestly is the most important tool of downsizing

32:43
by far as the story is it because that's where we hold on to the things it's because of the people in the stories.

32:50
And in your in your TV show. I mean, of course what we see on television, and we don't see all the behind the scenes, but don't most people know, which are their five favorite items or because in in TV world, you know, it's not they, you know, you've got like 25 minutes or 45 minutes for a show. And they immediately go here's the thing, but yeah, so I filmed 10 items, here's the behind the scenes, alright, I fill in items, and we only show five, right? We never know what we're gonna have time for it. And sometimes they don't even know where they're like I my grandma's diamond ring. I don't know where it is, I hope you find it. Right? You gotta go find it. Sometimes we find it sometimes we don't. And you never know. But we try to really, really, in the real world I try to get I try to get five. Yeah, I will say most people are certain on two or three. And then they're like, they got a lot of maybes on the other five. And what happens is when you start telling the stories of certain memory or person will rise to the top and you'll find that you've maybe an item that you thought was never five isn't because you find something else that's much more important. When you start telling the stories, that's where you really, you realize what's so important. I had a family that had a list of five. And then once we started cleaning out they actually replaced four of them. Really, it was horrible. They were like yeah, no, I didn't realize we still had this this is more important. In the end. It was it was really important memories and so that's okay. Yeah, but he was fine. Some amazing treasures, right? I mean, not not always in financial value, but just the storage behind them must be amazing. We do find a lot of financial value items, but they're not ever important. Honestly, if they're really valuable, people tend to want to sell them. And I'd be like, how, how important is it if you're willing to sell it? Yeah, I mean, like, I love my kids. I love my kid, but I'll sell them for five grand, you know, like, it doesn't really add up. So the it's always the super emotional ones. You know, like

34:50
I'm trying to think of some of the mean like we find a lot of historical items too, but like,

34:55
gosh, I'm planning of a really really good one.

34:59
I feel like we I mean

35:00
In one lady, we found her.

35:02
Just the other day we found her grandma's welding mask. And we found out that her grandmother was a welder during World War Two. And she was this like intricate, like she would be though she was a welder for the World War Two biplane, that guys would go in, and you know, in, fly off of war two ships, I mean, and she, she had always heard that her her grandma was a Rosie the Riveter. And she had heard that, but didn't have the actual item. And this is just a beat up all metal mask, you know, and if you don't know the story, it's just a piece of metal. Yeah, but you find that and now this woman is, uh, she ended up being a very successful

35:43
entrepreneur, a very successful businesswoman. And her grandma was the first one to have a job and go to college, in her family. And NASA was a much bigger symbol than just a welder's mask, right? If it had been others. While there's an ask, nobody would have cared. But because it was grandma's, it created a whole nother storyline. And we're like, oh, this is like the coolest thing I've ever seen. Yeah.

36:06
And then for the next generation of girls in this family to see that and not even under you remember, the girls, the granddaughters now don't really know anything about World War Two.

36:14
They missed it, you know? And more if you say war to them, it's Vietnam. Right? Yeah. And, but for the rest of them, you know, for me, I mean, all my clients, the first 20 years all were world war two people. So I just think it's really fascinating the special items that we find and and what it tells about our family, your work ethic and who you become. I mean, I will tell you the items I find in grandma's house now, it absolutely tells you the kind of people the third generation are going to be. Yeah, really, really cool. Yeah. So in your show, of course, I think you identified those five, super important legacy list items. What happens with all the other items that you got? How do you help your people to sell and to donate? But what do you do with this stuff? I mean,

37:03
how do you know if it's valuable? That's where it already starts. Okay, so let's start with air. Do we sell it? Do we keep it? First thing we know is if you actually know you want to keep it, let's put that that's a separate pile that goes out. Like it's automatically keep it goes somewhere else. If it's automatically give, we know it's gonna go to a loved one somewhere else in the world. And it needs to be shipped that goes to another pile, right? So we take the automatic keeps we take the automatic gifts, and get them out of the way. And that makes the pile smaller. And yeah, we decide, Okay, do we sell it or then, of course, the trash and recycling as well, that's automatic. So we get rid of the automatic trash and the automatic recycling, and we try to recycle as much as possible. And we go pretty quick. And then we put tarps in the yard tends up and we go boom, boom, but we've tried to knock it out pretty because we're doing an entire houses in like five days. I know. But we're getting rid of trash recycling, that's obvious, then we get rid of the key and then get rid of the gift right now you're down to what's left is is it? So? Is it donate? Or is it I don't know. Right? I don't know where maybe. And so if we automatically my team, we I mean, we have 25 years of experience. So we know what's going to say look this will sell for that this will sell for that and we start to go on websites to look. Yeah, and the key on the websites is you got to find out what it's sold for. Not what it's listed for. Right. Biggest mistake people watch listed right here on eBay for a million dollars and they go great hasn't sold No, yeah, it's gonna sell for $3 Because that's what something is only worth when an independent third party will pay you. Yeah, we're talking financial value. Okay.

38:36
Here in the States, I tell people it's 10% Whatever you think it's worth, it's probably worth 10% So if you think it's worth $100 It's probably worth 10. Okay.

38:47
I want you to this is this this is the most important thing I'm gonna say today. You got to include your time what is your time worth? Your time I say 20 bucks here in the States. I mean say 20 pounds if you want for you guys 18 pounds, whatever the I don't know the conversion but you want to make sure you're valuing your time because say something is worth you can sell it for 500 bucks, but it's gonna take you 10 hours to sell it to pick it up to pack it to list it to market it to then follow through with the person and then have it delivered right or ship it. You're talking 10 hours. Alright if your time is worth 20 bucks an hour. Will your $200 and you only sold it for 500 All right now you only got 300 You got to pay taxes on it. That's another 58 and 150 bucks. Was it worth your time to make 150 bucks? I don't know that's up to you to decide. Yeah, you're better off just donating it. Yeah, much better off don't any I would argue majority of the time you're better off donating unless it's a high ticket album. Yeah. But on the selling side go find out what it sold for. I can give you websites but I mean I use ebth Everything but the house. I do use Facebook marketplace for big furniture being sure because that's not going to sell for a lot of money. The furniture doesn't sell

40:00
Oh, so I listed for like 100 or 200 bucks just to get it out of there because somebody else will come to the house and pick it up for free. So I saved,

40:08
I've saved quite a bit of money, not having to deal with it, right? He doesn't actually make money, you just want to get it out for free. But the small stuff, always get it on an online auction. That's really the key thing when you're selling a local auctioneer is going to be limited to their viewers, right, who's going to be there. But if you get an online national auction house, that is going to get the most viewers, and that includes eBay. But eBay is very complicated. It's not for everybody.

40:35
But I don't use Craigslist. I don't think Craigslist even have it over there. It's just not safe. But Facebook marketplace, you can least see the person. And be very careful with all the different scams, right? Yeah, yeah.

40:47
With the exception of furniture, I'll have people meet me somewhere else, but not my home.

40:52
Or something. But if I don't know, but I like this marketplace, because if it doesn't sell on the first day, I take it right over to the Buy Nothing group, and people can pick it up for free. Yeah, that's what we do. That's what we do a lot here in the UK, the UK, fantastic giveaway apps, like free cycle and free gum and olio. And it's like it's all these things that you kind of think it's it would be a shame to throw it away because somebody else can still get some life. But I don't want to go to this charity charity show because it's not close and not shoes and not kind of the things that you almost know, a charity shop likes. But it's so fantastic not to have to throw things. You're some weird person on the other side of this app that is going to love specifically that I believe right? Yeah. Got it whose item was it wasn't your mom's was his dad wasn't yours? It oftentimes, we have a lot of guilt when we're donating things we're trying to get rid of. And we think, Oh, it was my mother's she'd be so upset if I gave this away. Actually. Actually, I can argue against that your mom would rather it go to someone that would truly appreciate it. Yeah. And sitting on a, you know, on a shelf at Goodwill. Yeah, go ahead and a thread at random thrift store. So go ahead and use those apps and get to the person that truly appreciates it. Exactly. So Matt, we've just talked about legacy lists. What is next for you? Well, you know, I was on hoarders for 15 years, and I thought I got away from hoarding. I've been really focused on downsizing. But I got brought back into the mix. And I've got a major network here in the States has asked me to come back into a fun positive hoarding show.

42:28
You're wanting to clean out the biggest message you've ever seen. But we want it to be funny. We want it to be positive. They said, Can you do it? And I was like, yeah, actually, that's all we ever do. Right? Like, let's do it, man. So we're casting right now if you go on my any of my internet sites, you'll see it. We're looking for really, really big collections. We're helping families that have people that have collected large amounts of things, everything from Star Wars, to Hummels to, you name it, the cars, if you've got a big collection, it's overtaking your house, we're going to come in and help you clean it up and help you sell a lot of the items and make space for whatever new life you want. And the fun positive way. And I'm really excited. We start filming next month actually for that, and that'll come out in the fall. And you'll see it worldwide. It'll be streaming and on cable, and I'm really, really excited. Oh, congratulations. Congratulation. That's amazing. So we can't wait for I hope we can see it here as well. But I'm sure I can assure you to be able to see it nation. We're around the plastic fantastic.

43:25
Public Television. You can it's hard to it's hard to get, you know, Legacy list is hard to find. You can go on NPT, no pbs.org. Sometimes you ever see it internationally there. But for the most part, I mean, I made the best show I've ever made was on isn't legacy list. And no one's seen it. Because you can just it's hard to see. So I'm excited to get back to cable and whether anyone in the world can see it. Lovely. Oh, congratulations, Matt. That's fantastic. And I know so many of our listeners are going to be so excited because the last time you were here on the on the show, the podcast, I've listened to so many people so many people come in touch is that Oh, I love that episode. And it's been fabulous. So thank you so much for being our guest. So listeners, as this makes you think about what items have I got in my home? What would be my top five or 10 of really, really, really special items that I would want to make sure that my family knows the story of let us know in the comments share with us. We would love to hear from you. And for now, let me say thank you to Matt for being here. We really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you so much. And good luck to everybody on let's see those legacy lists. I want to see you. I know. Thank you so much. See you next week.

44:43
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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Episode 420 – 10 Small Clutter Problems that Create Big Stress

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