A graphic showing 2 women cleaning a room with a banner in front saying 2020 a great year for decluttering
Episode 117 – Review of 2020

In today’s episode we are doing a review of 2020, the year that everything changed for everyone, and our lives were put on hold.
Episode 393 – How a Clutter-Free Home Strengthens Relationships – A Valentine’s special
Episode 392 – The clutter advice I'd give my 30-year-old self
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter of podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your hosts professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:32  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 117. If the declutter hub podcast, I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley, if you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. And Lesley, I want to say Merry Christmas to you. And to all our listeners, because this podcast is coming out on Christmas Day. Now, listeners, full disclosure, we are not recording this on Christmas Day. It just coming out on Christmas Day. But how exciting is that? Do you think anybody's listening to us on Christmas day? Maybe when they're preparing that Turkey?

Lesley  1:11  
I know. Exactly. Don't know whether I like that idea or not people listen to it on Christmas Day. I feel like there might be better things you can do on Christmas Day. But if you choose to spend your Christmas day with us, then thank you so much. Because I think that's a lovely thing, isn't it? Ingrid? I'm gonna look at our statistics today to see whether anybody actually downloads and listens on Christmas Day. Just see it just to see whether people do or so, of course, a lot of people who don't celebrate Christmas and so normal day normal day, so yeah, if you're listening, Merry Christmas, have a fabulous, fabulous day. If you want to finish right now then we completely understand that and go and enjoy yourself

Ingrid  1:52  
with your

Lesley  1:55  
Oh, you can listen to us later in the week also absolutely fine. Episode 117. Ingrid, it's been quite the journey in 2020, hasn't it?

Ingrid  2:05  
Well, you're saying that I mean, it's like it's been the weirdest year ever. And that's what we're going to talk about today, we are actually going to talk about 2020 Because it's the year that everything changed for basically everybody in the whole wide world, isn't it? It's just been the weirdest year. So we're not going to go back all the way to January. But kind of I think we should kind of pick it up beginning of March, when kind of COVID hence, how it was it was such a strange time. I mean, can you believe it's nine months ago? It's not it's such a funny old year.

Lesley  2:45  
The interesting thing is Ingrid that we are going to come in a debt with a different light to a lot of people in their reviews of 2020. Because for us in the decluttering world 2020 has been positive for the most part, hasn't it? Just that little bit. I know there's been a lot of sort of not quite so nice things as well. We're just gonna skip over those, aren't we? And we're going to talk about decluttering, which is what we're here to do. But 2020 It allowed people the opportunity because of all the rubbish things about COVID and Coronavirus, to stay at home. And what that meant is that people were very much focused on their surroundings, on their environment, on people instead of stuff. And a lot of people got really fed up with the houses that we're living in and decided to take action.

Ingrid  3:30  
Yes, I mean, decluttering suddenly became on everybody's agenda. At the beginning. It was like, we've got to declutter, and then we had the whole process of all the charity shops are closed. What are we going to do now? So it's just been this really funny site. It's been a bit of a roller coaster. Let's let's be honest, it's been a bit of a roller coaster. But decluttering wise, it's been so interesting to see all over the world what's been happening? And yes, people have taken that decluttering level and not sharp, haven't they?

Lesley  4:03  
Now, the interesting thing for us was just around the time that COVID Hit the UK, we were in the middle of our for today's 40 items challenge that we do every year. So we started off in earnest at the beginning of Lent in February, didn't we with our 40 Day Challenge. And then very soon into the challenge, it became clear that we were going to get locked down. And obviously that was a shock to a lot of people. People were staying at home life change pretty much overnight for people. And we were really uncertain what to do with our for today's 40 items challenge. So I'm good. And now we're having all these meetings and stuff, which is like, what are we going to do? We can't talk about something like decluttering when the world is just completely on its head overnight. So what are we going to do? So we asked you guys and we were like, What do you think? Do you want us to carry on? Do you want to start what do you want to do? And so everyone was like, no, we want the release of decluttering we want something positive to focus on to take us through So in actual fact, the 40 days, 40 items challenge was even more successful than it normally is, wasn't it? Ingrid? Yeah, it

Ingrid  5:07  
was we were very like, we thought about we talked about it a lot, because we're like, can we really talk about decluttering? When there's like a dish, worldwide epidemic going on? And everybody's like the world is like, on its head? Can we really talk about what it is we're going to declutter. And we just didn't want to come across as like, Oh, we don't care about what's going on with you, we're just going to keep talking about decluttering. But the feedback that we we got from everybody's like, we really want something positive to focus on. Because every time we turn on the television, the news, read the paper, it's all so negative, and that your daily video with just an item and why you're decluttering it really cheers us up or that photo you're posting or a story that you're telling it cheers us up, and it gives us something else to focus on. And it was a very positive experience for a lot of people. And we were so mindful that we didn't want to kind of be not in the right place at the right time. You know what I mean? So we really kind of took your comments on board, and we're like, okay, if it brings people so much happiness and joy, let's continue and just see how we go. We don't know what's going to happen. And it was a tremendous success. And it really kind of propelled people to declutter much more than they even envisaged when they started the 40 days, 40 atoms challenge. Yeah. And

Lesley  6:35  
of course, we learned from that, didn't we, as well. And so we knew that people, there was a chance that people were going to be locked down for, we didn't know how long did we, but we had a suspicion that it would be at least a couple of months. And so we set to and we wrote and created our eight week declutter boot camp. And so under normal circumstances we are we don't necessarily believe that decluttering can be a quick fix. As you all well know, after Listen, listen to us for so long. We consider decluttering to be a process, not a project. But we knew that a lot of people were like, I want something to do, I want to tackle my clutter. I want to do it quickly, while I'm locked down at home. And so we created our eight week room by room bootcamp, which was again was a huge success, wasn't it? We took people one room every week we get so this is the room for this week. This is the room for next week. And so many people joined us in did that eight week boot camp, didn't they? Which was different for us different the way we would normally do things. But life was different. And so we created something that was different. And now we will adapt it again to probably not to be eight weeks. But for those people who want to do a quick fix. There are people out there who want to do it quickly. And that's absolutely fine. And we need to provide that for people. And so the room by room boot camp was a huge success, wasn't it? Ingrid?

Ingrid  7:58  
Yes. And it's so funny, Lesley, because it was back in kind of May time. And on the one hand, it seemed like yesterday, but on the other hand, it seemed like so long ago, it's really funny how the time has either gone quickly or slow. It's really strange how, how the months have developed and then we kind of came out of lockdown a bit over somewhere in that and now we're back in lockdown. And but other parts of the world are completely different. So we were talking to our members in our membership, and they're like, Oh, you're out of lockdown. We're still we're, we're now in an extended lockdown. We still can't go anywhere, and, and what do with all my stuff? And it's been just? I don't know, it's just been strange and good and interesting and kind of everything at the same time. I can't really describe it actually.

Lesley  8:51  
No, you're so right. It's so difficult to describe. But I guess we needed to jump in and do what we do best, which is inspire people to declutter, because that's what the world wanted. As you rightly saying, when we had to get over this barrier of the charity shops being close people were like, because we didn't want people to be like, well, there's no point in me decluttering because there's I can't take my stuff anywhere. We were very much think outside the box. I think this year things like freecycle Eagle giving things away. Those kinds of things have really gathered momentum this year, because the normal outlets for stuff have disappeared for large parts of it. So people have had to share things within the community rather than charity shops. So that's been a really interesting shift in 2020 as well, but we were trying to put we put a podcast out one of our most popular podcasts was all about 10 things to declutter when the charity shops are closed, which was a really useful podcast for us to do and people absolutely loved it, didn't they? Because we were like carry on with your decluttering don't stop just because the charity shops are closed. Keep on going think about other things. Think outside the box in terms of things that are smaller. They Things are digital. All of those things can be done while you've got this fantastic opportunity was not a fantastic opportunity. But let's say unique opportunity, that's probably a better way to focus on decluttering. At home.

Ingrid  10:14  
Yes, I know. And you can see it. I mean, we had a look at like, what podcasts did really well this year, and also the one decluttering doing locked down did really, really well. 10 things to declutter from your home immediately was the was the best one from this year, I think maybe it's the 10 things that people really liked the 10 area to 10 things I think it to kind of spurs people on, we really had to make that mind shift, because normally, we're always like, Oh, he had to put it in a bag and bring it to the church show. But that couldn't happen. And we had to kind of go, don't stop your decluttering keep going, you just need to create some space somewhere where you're going to put the items label the backs properly. So you know, you've already sorted this is already for the charity shop when they are the op shop or goodwill or whatever it is when it reopens. And yes, I mean, definitely older, the giveaway groups, I freeguild, several things from my house when we were sorting out the garage and doing up our loft this year. And we found stuff that we thought, okay, that's actually not very handy to bring to a charity shop or store for until they open. But let's see if we can figure off recycle it. So yeah, that was really good, really good.

Lesley  11:28  
And that is a good thing. You know, sharing things within the community and finding these different outlets is a fantastic thing. And I think that's something that's happened this year, because it's hard to because of course, even when the charity shops open back up again, they were completely inundated with people taking like 20 bags of stuff there. And so they were like we can't take any more. And even now even even when you're out of lockdown, the charity shops are operating with pointment only only on certain days of the week. They've been very choosy about what they sell. And so even now, we're not back up to full pelt with the charity shops are away. So it's been a tricky year in terms of that barrier of getting rid of the stuff, which is an integral part of the decluttering process, isn't it?

Ingrid  12:09  
Yeah. And it's it wasn't only the charity shops, Lesley, I think it was also the recycling centres or the tip as we call it here in the in the UK. Those were closed for a while and now work with appointment systems. I think we all had to adjust that we suddenly have to make appointments for everything we can't just show up. And that's kind of, I think that's what helped people as well being more decluttered and having less clutter, that they were more prepared to kind of go Okay, so what's the next step here? And that's what we've been trying to teach our listeners as well. Think about the next thing that needs to happen. So you can prepare for it one of our favourite things preparing for a decluttering thing that you're doing.

Lesley  12:50  
Yep. So we've had a lovely Yeah, haven't we, Ingrid? We the nice thing for us, even though it was really sad, because we couldn't work with our one to one clients is that we could completely 100% work on the declutter hub, on the podcast, on the membership, on the bootcamp, all of those things. We had the time to devote to try and get things right. So we've spent more time with each other this year. And ever before ever, we we've seen each other quite a lot like eight hours a day for when we recorded our bootcamp. For example, it was literally like, Yeah, that's probably 36 hours that we've clocked up screen time this week was quite good fun, though, wasn't it? And then we'd have wine o'clock at five o'clock on a Friday night after a busy week.

Ingrid  13:37  
Honestly, it's a amazing that we could still have stuff to tell each other. Be I think I've seen you more than my husband. Like it's and see, we still have a great laugh together. And it's I think is what your daughter said the other day I hear you guys constantly laughing you're like working but you're like constantly laughing and having a great time. It's absolutely amazing. And so thank you my lovely partner in crime for making the year so special because it could have been very dreadful.

Lesley  14:07  
I know exactly, exactly. We just went down the work route didn't we're sharing it with a partner in crime. Yeah, exactly. What is such a nice that even though it's not Christmas, I'm going to I'm going to propel myself to Christmas day and say how nice it is that we've actually seen each other on Christmas Day as well. Merry Christmas, Ingrid.

Ingrid  14:25  
Merry Christmas, Lesley.

Lesley  14:28  
All right. The task in hand. Let's talk about our podcast because we broke some barriers this year, didn't we? Ingrid? How many podcasts did we break this year? How many downloads? I mean,

Ingrid  14:39  
oh my goodness. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. First of all listeners, you guys are like, awesome. Thank you for being here every week. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for your reviews and your positive comments and letting us know how Our podcasts have have impacted you so much in your day to day. I mean, apparently we are in your ears when you are exercising and when you are decluttering. And when you are doing the washing up or walking the dog, apparently, people listen to us before they go to sleep. So at night, they dream about us. I mean, we get the most loveliest emails and messages about the podcast. And we are just so grateful to you for being here every week and to listening to us chat about a half an hour about just random things, but and it's working for you. I mean,

Lesley  15:35  
excuse me, excuse me. Do you think that what we chatted about is random? Is that what you're saying about organisation that we're just randomly talking? Yeah, we're gonna talk about today that's random, controlled and organising. With Johnson. It's not random.

Ingrid  15:54  
No, you're right. You're right. You're right. But I mean, I don't even know how many downloads we have. It's like, it's like insane. We're like 250,000 downloads or something I don't even know. You tell me you're the numbers, woman.

Lesley  16:09  
It's something like that, for sure. And that is lovely. Because I suppose it's just something that we can look at, that tells us how we're doing. But actually, in reality, it's the emails and the reviews and the things that you're saying on the Facebook group. They're important, it's not about the numbers. It's how we're impacting people on an individual basis. But it is really nice, obviously, to see those numbers going up. Because that means that we're impacting loads and loads of people. And that's what we love. And it's a very little niche podcast, we're in the top 20% of podcasts worldwide, our little decluttering podcast, who knew? And so many people give up so many people start podcasting, and then give up because it's hard, it's not easy to put a podcast out is it Ingrid, it's quite a lot of work. To be fair, it's probably about seven or eight hours a week to put a podcast out just to put it into context in terms of planning it and recording it and editing it. And because honestly, we definitely need to edit it. Otherwise, there will be things, the amount of times that we just start laughing, that would not be good to, to hear all our laughter in the middle of it. And all our little things that we get wrong, you definitely don't want to hear that we leave some of it and but for the most part we had to set out. So it's quite a lot of work. And so you know, we're really proud of ourselves, aren't we that we keep on coming up with great topics that resonate with people, and that we're able to deliver that and inspire you every week. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts for listening every week, because it's well, it's just love learning is what makes us tick, isn't it England? Yeah,

Ingrid  17:37  
yeah, for sure, for sure. And now we were talking kind of more about pockets, I want to do a shout out to all of our guests that we had on the show. I mean, we we do a lot of the pockets ourselves. But once or twice a month, we have either a in a guest experts. And we also have some of our members who've been brave enough to share their stories. So thank you to everyone who's been a guest this year, it's just been absolutely wonderful.

Lesley  18:04  
It's not easy when you're going through a decluttering journey to share your backstory. And that's what we were lucky enough that five of our members have been on the podcast this year to share how they were feeling about their clutter. And how this journey through decluttering has helped them and has helped and change their mindset. And I think that's really powerful stuff, isn't it? We can sit here all we like and say this is going to change your life. This is going to change your life. But actually you need to hear it from the horse's mouth. And different people have got diff completely different journeys. And that's what's really interesting about the guests that we've had on our podcast, so a big shout out to Timnah who's episode 89 If you want to listen, Josephine, who's Episode 95, the lovely Tracy at 99, Jeanne at 104 and Sue at 112. All those people that have come and share their story. Thank you so much for being here. Some of our most listened to podcast, people love to listen to other people's journeys.

Ingrid  19:00  
Yeah. And we even have been speaking to our own clients. I mean, I've spoken to the lovely, my lovely client, Julia about the bereavement. You've been talking to your client, Jill about her journey into Horning. That was a really well listen to podcasts as well, Lesley?

Lesley  19:14  
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's brave. That's the thing. It's really brave to come on and share that for other people to learn from.

Ingrid  19:21  
We've also had some really lovely fellow professional organisers chat to us this year, right? I mean, gosh, we had Sarah who did two podcasts with us all about ADHD. They were really well listened to and also Allison Allison lash with chronic disorganisation to cope podcast really well listen to both of them. So thank you both as well. And of course we didn't have Allison and Sarah they both did Tupac because but we had some other fantastic guests too. So thank you Juliet shoe Lena Lindsey from access for lofts we talked about with about lofts and boarding lofts, etc. Kelsey Feldman we did a podcast with Amy pain about digital organising. And right at the beginning of the year hand with Helen Rebelo. So, wow, such lovely diverse guests. It's amazing are so many different topics. Fantastic.

Lesley  20:15  
And of course, the ones that we've missed out actually that were guests was was quite interesting. I'm not gonna lie, was when I invited my children onto the podcast to talk about their experience of living with me as a professional organiser, which was quite insightful. If you have not listened to that one. Tune in well, I have learned from my mum. And they were super honest when they and it was, well, it was quite funny. So I didn't quite know what I was letting myself in for anyway. So thank you to loot Lea and Nathan for being on the podcast as well appreciated.

Ingrid  20:47  
Yes. So gosh, 52 episodes, Lesley 52 episodes, it's like, and we haven't run out of ideas yet. We're already we're already way ahead. We're preparing for 2021. We've got some fantastic topics coming up. It's every time we think, can we really think of something else to chat about, but we still have a very long list. So if you're thinking, if you're listening, now you're thinking, Oh, I actually would love to know this and that. And I've never heard a podcast talking about it. Send us an email fire. Hello, at Declutter. app.com. Because maybe you've got an amazing idea for a podcast that we haven't done yet. Please email us and email us. Right.

Lesley  21:29  
Definitely. It's good to know, because we do forget things. And sometimes it's the obvious things, isn't it? Of course, we'd have done that. So yeah, do let us know, do let us know.

Ingrid  21:37  
Yeah. Now, besides our bootcamp, our podcasts and our 40 days 40 I'm sure once we've done two other challenges, haven't we, Lesley this year?

Lesley  21:47  
We have we have and so we did our reset your Home Challenge, which was to introduce our the methodology that we use within the declutter hub called the reset your home system. So we did the reset your home challenge back in September, and it was amazing, wasn't it? Nice. So nice to see those light bulbs going on with people. That's what we do our challenges for, we try and encourage you to look at decluttering in a different way. And it certainly hit the spot didn't Ingrid

Ingrid  22:17  
is same with the recent your wardrobe challenge actually in back in November, so many light bulbs, so many positive outcomes, mindset shifts, insights, that that are our challenges never had realised before. Lovely emails of people sharing stuff with us both in email, personally, but also on the group. Fantastic posting in the Facebook group as well. And just progress positivity. I think being kind to yourself was very, very important, especially in this year, that really resonated with people.

Lesley  22:58  
So what did you learn this year and Ingrid about yourself?

Ingrid  23:02  
I learned a lot actually, I think I learned that I realised, I mean, I knew my family was important to me. But I think by not seeing them, I realised even more how much I miss them. Of course, they're not here in the UK. They're most of my family are all in the Netherlands where I'm originally from. So that's been quite hard. I also learned how much I love holidays. We haven't been on all of them. I really miss my holiday, Lesley. I mean, I did go away in August, of course, when we come when we came back, I had to go to quarantine for two weeks because in the middle of my holiday, the government decided we all had to quarantine if we came back from France. So that was interesting. I learned how incredibly proud of my children I am how to deal with COVID. And were and being at home and having to do school from home. And and now it all changed. It's Oh, yeah. And how and I learned how much I love working with you. I mean, I knew that already. But it's really kind of reiterated. I mean, we joke about it that we actually showed you the data, but we really have. 

Lesley  24:04  
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I just think it's a really interesting time, isn't it to learn, I think it's just about stopping. I think that's what you know, just stop in and be evaluated and spending the time to, as you rightly say, spend time with your family. It's so interesting. When you go out for walks at the moment, really the only thing that we can do is go out for walks. And so we're going out with our family much more and it's so lovely to see teenage and grown up children out with their family walking every weekend because normally that wouldn't happen normally there you might do that once or twice a year, but not every weekend. And so it's lovely to be able to spend the time I feel desperately sorry for the youngsters because I do think they're the ones that have really, really been impacted, you know, in terms of parts of their lives that are being taken away that they'll never get back because it's such an important part of their growing up. I learned that there are so many people that are giving so much for other people People, you know, health care workers, care workers, nurses, doctors, all of that kind of thing, giving so much and putting other people that are not part of their families first, which is really, you know, it's a real message isn't it's a real learning points. And so I think it's been an interesting year. And we all know what COVID is, and how that's impacted as on a personal basis, I consider myself to be lucky at this moment in time, because I have not been adversely affected. from a medical perspective, there's not, you know, I don't know anybody who's died from COVID. I don't know anybody who's been seriously financially impacted by COVID. And so I consider myself very lucky in that regard. But if we take it back to the decluttering level, which is what we're here to talk about, I'm grateful that people have been able to do and see what we see week in week out, which is that decluttering, and having the home that reflects the current you with things that are useful to your life right now is very, very impactful, very positive, and meaningful and can change your life and your whole outlook.

Ingrid  26:07  
I think for me, as well, I've had the realisation to really think about what's important to me. And how do I want to feel my time? And with whom, and which people are important, and which people do I want to spend my time with? And which things do I want to do that make me happy? And kind of that kind of, I think that happened through COVID? Because we couldn't go anywhere. We kind of started to realise Oh, wow, okay, let's figure this out. What makes me or you happy? You

Lesley  26:39  
are so right. And so let's leave this podcast there for today. Yeah, I think that's, that's awesome enough of 2020, everybody's version of 2020 has been completely different. I hope that so many of you out there have had the positive sides to things that we've seen through 2020. Because that's super important. I think the important thing for me is the people, our family, then we've got a little declutter, well, a big, actual decluttering family as well have a way. And so spending time with our members, spending time in the Facebook group is so important to us, because that's what's got us through, we've dived into our work, because life has allowed us to do that. And we felt that it's important. And then it's giving back to you guys to create some positivity in a tough year. And so I feel hugely grateful for that.

Ingrid  27:28  
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And if you're now listening to yourself, and you think, Wow, I did, I worked through COVID, I was a key worker, I did not have the time to do my house or I was so overwhelmed by all the information about all the changes. I did not put my house first that 2021 is going to be the year that I do want to do that because I am listening to you listening but But 2020 wasn't the year for me. But I'm going to use 2021 Now everything has calmed down a bit. We're getting slowly but surely used to the new normal or whatever that means. Why don't you come and enjoy it and join our challenge. On the fourth of January, we are starting the brand new year with a brand new challenge in school to reset your home challenge it's going to be absolutely fab is going to be a great way for you to start 2021 Get motivated, get inspired, with lots of other people Declutter. hub.com forward slash R ry haitch. Reset your home hyphen challenge. So r y h hyphen challenge. So come and join us come and enjoy and find out that the cluttering really is a lot of fun when you're doing it together with a whole bunch of other people. So we really hope you're gonna join us there. Let's close off this podcast by saying Have a wonderful Christmas Day. We will see you in 2021 for our next podcast on the first of January. I think it is the first of January.

Lesley  28:59  
We were definitely we live in New Year we knew we love a New Year's resolution because decluttering is always high on people's list. And so that's our chance to shine, isn't it and to encourage people to wait for our New Year's Day podcast. I didn't want it it's gonna say.

Ingrid  29:17  
So that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to stay inspired over the holiday season, come and join our Facebook group the declutter hub community. And if you're not subscribed yet to our podcast, subscribe to us so it will pop into your notifications each Friday. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Outro  29:45  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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