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Episode 14 – Ten top tips to start your decluttering journey

Happy New Year from The Declutter Hub. To start 2019 with a bang, here are our top 10 tips to start your decluttering journey. You have lots of New Year's resolutions and this is going to be the year when you're going to get decluttered and organised. Fantastic! We have put our 10 top tips together so you can start your decluttering journey right!
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Ingrid  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The Declutter Hub Podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen and Lesley Spellman.

Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 14 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:33  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:35  
If you have clutter and want to sorted out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Lesley and I will be talking about 10 Top Tips To start this new year's decluttering with a bang. Oh, I know. Happy New Year let's we want to wish all our listeners a very happy new year. And to start you off, right, Lesley and I have created 10 top tips to help you on your decluttering journey.

Lesley  0:59  
We are going to go through how to declutter a room with everything that you need to know. Obviously in other podcasts, we're going to delve a little deeper. But this is a summary of certain things that you can get started. Now if you want to start on your decluttering journey and your New Year's resolution.

Ingrid  1:14  
I love it. Yeah, so

I love it. So let's get started. What's your number one? Come on, bring it to me.

Lesley  1:20  
My number one is have a plan of attack. This is all very positive, isn't it? So you've got to have a plan. So every project needs a plan. So the plan for for this is where am I going to declutter? Is it going to be a room a drawer, a wardrobe, a garage, a loft? In so have a plan, we're not going to you know, the plan is not going to be I want to declutter my house this weekend, you know, it's going to be I'm going to tackle you know, break it down into realistic chunks, have a plan, and then don't deviate from that. So once you've decided I want to do my bedroom, or my wardrobe, or my chest of drawers or my makeup or whatever that might be, don't deviate from that until that job is done.

Ingrid  1:59  
Yeah, I know. Because what happens is that you find something that should be in another room. And you might think, Oh, I'm just going to quickly put that away in the other room. And then you get sidetracked by completely something different that catches your eye. And then you've completely forgotten what you were doing in the first place. So it's better to get an empty bag or an empty box and write on it. This is for the other room. And it doesn't matter what other room it is. And then you put the stuff in and at the end of your decluttering. If it's the half an hour, if it's two hours, if it's 10 minutes, then you walk around and bring stuff back to where it belongs.

Lesley  2:34  
Absolutely. Really, really, really important point that because that's that's where a lot of people get waylaid and kind of get distracted and fail and decluttering journey and it's about keeping focus. Yeah. So we have decided what we're going to declutter, and we are going to think about how we're going to do that. And so it's very psychological, isn't it? You know, so we've got a thing, there's three very basic questions when decluttering which are, do I use it? And that means, you know, am I using it regularly? Is it something that I'm you know, yep. Basic, do I use it, like a cattle or like a item of makeup or lipstick or whatever? Do I need it. So there's some things that you don't use all the time, but you need them so that maybe the things that would fall into this category would be Christmas decorations, or things like that, or camping equipment that you're only using seasonal cleaning.

Ingrid  3:26  
You might not want it or use it, but you do need it.

Lesley  3:30  
Fair enough. And finally, then we've got the sort of sentimental items that fall into the kind of love category, so I don't use it or need it particularly. But I do love it. And I'm keeping it for sentimental reasons. And so there's a lot of things that fall into that category as well. So if you ask those three questions, you're not far off the mark. Really, obviously, some things are more complicated than that. But those are the three. Definitely the basic questions that you need to start asking to get yourself started on that decluttering journey. Yeah. Okay. Do I use it? Do I need it? Do I love it? Yeah. If only it was that simple. I know. But yeah, that's gonna give it there's gonna give you a good head start. Yeah. I think it's really important that you are realistic. You know, we're big advocates of realism here at the Declutter. Think, yeah, we're

Ingrid  4:18  
very honest and direct. And I think that is really helpful in in helping people be realistic about their stuff. And let's be honest with each other, it's something that's built up over five years time, you're not going to declutter in 10 minutes, or in half an hour, you know, you need to be realistic and schedule some time for that. Or maybe if the job's too big and too overwhelming, do five half an hour's, but nothing that oh, you know, something's he's been here for five years. I'll just take a Sunday morning, two hours and it will be sorted. It can be done.

Lesley  4:53  
We can be forgiven for thinking that something is going to be as straightforward and simple and easy because that's what's kind of I'm done arthritis a little bit in glossy magazines all the time, you know, just do 10 minutes a day and your house will be clipped in 10 minutes a day to a clutter free home and that kind of thing. And that's fine. But that's more when your house is already clutter free, for the most part, and that's about maintenance. Yeah, but if this is clutter that's built up over several years or months, then it's going to take a little bit of a while to get through that. So it's about you know, that realism, really in terms of how long it's going to take. And that's something that people really struggle with, I mean, we are professionals, we look at cluttered rooms all the time, and evaluate how long that's going to take. But even then, it's not an exact science, no, you know, because the type of clutter that it is, obviously, paperwork is going to take a lot longer than clothes, for example. And if you've got lots of cardboard boxes in your loft appliance boxes, then they can go fairly quickly, which is quite nice, you know, and create a lot of space very quickly. So it's, you know, different types of clutter, take different amounts of time, and to sort through. And also, the other thing is that people take different amounts of time to make decisions. So some people can make decisions very quickly, you know, once they're actually on that decluttering, kind of once they've got the Mojo with that, they can be like, yep, that can go that can go that can go or that can stay. And other people are going to take much longer over over those decisions. Yeah, for different reasons. And neither one is right or wrong, is just knowing how long and being realistic about how long it's going to take you to make a decision, because that's going to have a definite impact on the time that it's gonna take.

Ingrid  6:31  
Yeah, good point. So what will be your next thing on the on your list, Lesley?

Lesley  6:37  
I think you need to know before you even start decluttering, where things are gonna go at the end of the day, is a really, really important point, isn't it to what we don't want is 27 bin bags of stuff sitting in your hallway for the next two weeks until you decide where it's going to go. And equally, you know, we don't want to think that everything is going to go to our sister in law, or whatever, you know, if it should be going to a charity shop, or it should be going to the tip. And so you need to be very clear, like where is all this clutter that I'm going to declutter today. Because you're gonna get rid of lots and lots. And and so where is it all gonna go? And so you

Ingrid  7:11  
need to think about, where's the chair to show up? Which charity do I want to support? If stuff is broken, and it needs to go to the tape or to the recycling centre? Where's your nearest recycling centre? To kind of have that information at your fingertips. So it's not you don't drive around with the boot in the boot of your car for four months? It actually has a destination of where the stuff is going.

Lesley  7:32  
Yeah. Okay. So so far we've we've decided, where we're going to tackle we know what questions we need to ask ourselves, do we use it? Do we need it? We do we love it. We're going to try and be realistic about the amount of time that it's going to take take to declutter, we've got a good feel for where that's gonna go at the end of the day. So now we just need to start. Yes, yes, yes, started. And that's something that some people find really hard, isn't like, Where do I even start, that's a big thing. I just don't know where to start, I am struggling to get started, and is just getting there. And there's no right or wrong way of getting started, you just need to do it. And what I would say is, if you've got a very cluttered room, it's good. You know, we need to think about health and safety. When you think about your, you know, making sure that you're not going to trip over things as you're working. So if you've got lots of visible clutter on the floor, or on a table and so on, give yourself some space to work so clear the floor or the table first so that you can lay out some boxes or somewhere or beanbags or whatever. So really, you know, declutter visible surfaces first. And then, you know, don't get started in the biggest, most cavernous cupboard in your room. But I am a big advocate of just starting at one side of the room and going around clockwise, clockwise until I get to the end of it. Yeah. Oh, anti clockwise is fine.

Ingrid  8:49  
Yeah. And I think also what a point that I really want to make to our listeners as well. If you know you're going to go out in an hour to meet your friend or pick up the kids or go to the dentist or whatever. You don't want to start half an hour before you actually have to leave your house. So be smart about when you start to declutter a cupboards, you're better off starting that when, for example, in the morning, you've woken up, you've had your breakfast the kids have gone, you've dropped him to school, and then say when you still have a couple of hours ahead of you. I'm going to do something today and this is where I'm going to get started and not wait to the last minute then think right? I haven't done anything I want to do it now. And then gonna go after half an hour. Oh, but now I have to go and then it's almost too late.

Lesley  9:37  
Yeah, cuz you need to factor in tidy up time as well. Yeah. decluttering you need to make it safe. And you know, if you've got boxes that are still need to be sorted through and so on, you need to sort of powers that ready for the next session. Yeah, so you need to factor that M Yeah. And what's also

Ingrid  9:50  
I think, very helpful is if you start your decluttering to use different coloured beanbags, in the grocery shops you can buy different colours you got blue and see through and green, and just your normal black bin max. So it's helpful to have a couple of different colours. So you can put the stuff at a charity shop in one and put your recycling in one and stuff to go to other people in one and stuff to go into the bin into one. So it helps you, you don't have to think constantly Oh, which beanbag do I have to use?

Lesley  10:22  
I think it's important for you to know that you're in control of what's going on as well. So if you, you know if you can say right, those are all white bones, and they're gonna go to the tip. And those are all clear or green. And when I use the I use the rubble sacks like the I don't know if colorable slacks or dry sacks, but you can definitely get from a supermarket. Yeah, I use those things like box and pay because those are heavy. Yeah, yeah, I use black for the for the tech because it just strikes me as obvious. And then a another colour. You know, you've got the green. Yeah, regularly get those garden sacks.

Ingrid  10:55  
Perfect. I love those. Yeah, yeah. So

Lesley  10:57  
you know, it just gives you that feeling of control really. So different colour bin bags are really a good thing. Because if everything goes into black, then you lose control of what's going where you don't know what's going to charity shop, what's going to the tip. And hopefully you've got someone helping you at the end of the day to take that stuff away.

Ingrid  11:13  
Yeah, yeah. Because make sure that you get it out of the door. Like we said before, you don't want have 27 bin bags in your hallway, or drive around with it for four months in your car. So have a plan to get it out of your house, maybe schedule some time, either that day or the next day to actually drop all this stuff off. Yeah, definitely not stuck with it.

Lesley  11:37  
Yeah, it's really important, I think psychologically, because you need again, you know, we talked about getting to the end and feeling motivated on to the next on to the next session. You need to see the end result. Yeah. And if you still got 27 beanbags moving in very helpful here with 27.

Ingrid  11:53  
But just to, to

Lesley  11:57  
yeah, don't be scared. Don't be scared off by us talking about 27 beanbags. But yeah, and so it's important for us to, to get to that end result where all that is gone. Because that's when you get that huge feeling of a weight being lifted, you get that cathartic feeling. There's something very satisfying about putting something into recycling or dropping something off at charity shops, good, it does feel good. Absolutely. And I still feel that for my clients every single day, and give

Ingrid  12:23  
yourself a massive pat on the back when you even if it's a half and back, it doesn't really matter. You've done it. And that's great. That's awesome. And we're really proud of you.

Lesley  12:34  
Absolutely. And so I think, you know, it's really important to visualise all the time while you're working. Because let's face it, decluttering can be quite hard, emotionally and physically. So what you've got to do is keep firmly in your mind the whole time, a vision of how your room is going to look at the end of the session or the end of your, you know, a week or however long it is that you're going to work on this. So keep that vision in your mind. And that's going to that's going to be what motivates you forward to finish.

Ingrid  13:02  
Yeah, good point.

Lesley  13:04  
I think one of the things and one of the, it's probably one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they're decluttering is, right, okay, this weekend, I'm going to declutter my kitchen or my living room or whatever, I'm gonna go to Ikea, I'm going to buy a load of boxes. Yeah. So, you know, people are buying boxes to put clutter in rather than getting rid of the clutter in the first place and put it into the storage that they've already got. And so to be fair, I mean, I've been doing this for nine years now. And the amount of houses that I've actually bought new storage for is probably five to 10% of the houses, people have got adequate storage, they've just got too much stuff to go into that storage. So it's not about tackling the storage is it to be fair, it is in some houses. So sometimes I can go in and I can see, actually, you've not got adequate storage for what you need, or you need to go more vertical or you need something slightly different or, you know, we need more boxes, or whatever that is. But for the most part, people have got adequate storage. So don't make the mistake of going out and buying storage before you declutter. Even if you want to box stuff up temporarily into sort of, you know, temporary boxes, shoe boxes, cardboard boxes, and then buy the storage afterwards. But you need to know what needs to go into your storage before you go out and buy it. And then you can really be very precise about the type of storage that you buy. So save your save your storage solutions to last.

Ingrid  14:30  
Yeah, yeah, very true. It's so nice to see that when you actually know where stuff needs to live, you can actually buy the right storage for it. And that is really then you are really on your way instead of randomly just buying boxes that you think might come in handy at some point. It's far better to decide to declutter it First, decide where it's going to live. And so then you can actually measure the shelves or the cupboards or and go right this type of storage box fit tear. And this is what I'm going to put in it. And this is how big it needs to be.

Lesley  15:03  
Yeah. And often you don't need to often. I mean, the amount of times I use shoe boxes, the box lids, Tupperware containers that are hanging around. Yeah, you know, really, as I say, it really is something that most people don't need to do. You don't need to buy a new storage.

Ingrid  15:18  
Okay, so what's your last top tip there, Lesley?

Lesley  15:21  
So I think one, I'm talking about mistakes. And it all sounds very negative, really. But I think again, because we're so used to looking at organisational things on blogs, and in magazines, and so on. And on Pinterest, and Instagram. You know, we're used to seeing these beautifully laid out kitchens that are all labelled within it to within an inch of the life and sort of really sort of macro organised. Many people that have that level of organisation are super organised people to start off with. So you have to organise for your lifestyle that you've got. So if you know that you're not going to be able to keep it, you know, something like, you know, people's liquor drawers and folding things and rolling things. If you know that you're never going to do that. It just needs to be just good enough or better than it was before. It doesn't need to be perfect. Yeah. So don't over organise things if it's going to be a system that you're never going to be able to maintain. Yeah,

Ingrid  16:13  
I think it's true. If, if you start out with I want, I'm only going to get started with organisation and with decluttering. If it can be perfect. I think that's not a good news resolution. I think you should aim for if it's in the right place, and I can find it. And if I know where to find it. And if other people in my house can find it as well. And let's start with returning items once we've used them. That's it. That's good enough. You're you're you're you're more than halfway there already. And that's really I think something we really want to share with you as well listeners that we're not aiming for perfection here. That is not what this is all about. Good enough is good enough.

Lesley  16:52  
Yeah, absolutely better than before. Oh, that kind of thing. It's just about being able to find what you need when you need it. That's the most important thing. And that's where the organisation comes in. Yeah. And once you've decluttered a decent amount of stuff, it makes the organisation much simpler, I can find because it's less stuff to go through. Yeah. So that's a really whistlestop tour of a day's decluttering isn't it and the things that you need to think about, obviously, we're going to go deeper in other podcasts into certain areas, we'll talk more about storage and different things and micro organisation and etc, etc. But as its new year, and as we thought everybody's going to be fired up to declutter their homes, we wanted to give you some handy tips so you can get started. One of the things that I wanted to mention as well is that we've got a decluttering guide on our declutter hub.com website that you can download that's got loads of other great tips on there similar tips, and you can, if you're a visual person, you can go and read that. So and

Ingrid  17:49  
of course, we've got the Facebook group, the declutter hub community, we'd love to see you there as well.

Lesley  17:53  
Yeah, I think it's really important. You know, a lot of people are going to be starting on the decluttering journey in the new year on, come and join us in the in the declutter hub community and get motivated accountability and motivation and support from other people is such a big deal. Because as we said, it can be really quite hard, emotionally, physically. And you need a little bit of somebody to give you a little bit of a little bit

Ingrid  18:14  
more to you and cheer you on and give you a big pat on the back. When you have success and motivate you when you feel a bit lost. You don't know how to move on. So we're here for you.

Lesley  18:23  
And as well as motivation and support. The whole idea of Ingrid and I is that we are there with expertise. We've been doing this a long time. So a lot of things that we know about decluttering and what works and what doesn't in different homes. And so we're there. So if you've got specific questions, come along and ask us, and we'll try our best to answer them.

Ingrid  18:39  
So listeners that is it for this episode, and we hope you've all enjoyed listening and are inspired to take actions. And it's been great that you were here today. So Happy New Year, Happy 2019. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen. And if you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. And if you don't want to miss the next episode, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. See you next time.

Outro  19:10
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The declutter hub podcast. Check out declutter hub.com For more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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Recent Posts
Episode 363 – Before you blame the clutter are you doing these 10 things?

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Karen says:

4 January 2019 at 9:26 PM

You both talk so much sense – bite-sized chunks of decluttering is the way that words for me – one drawer at a time!

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1. Ingrid Jansen says:
  
  6 January 2019 at 9:27 PM
  
  Thank you Karen for your lovely comment. Glad to hear you’re enjoying our podcast episodes.
  
  Reply
Episode 14 – Ten top tips to start your decluttering journey

Episode 363 – Before you blame the clutter are you doing these 10 things?

Episode 362 – The Roots of Clutter: How Britain became a nation of stuff with Professor Jane Hamlett

Episode 361 – Decluttering for yourself – why Swedish death cleaning might not be for you

Episode 360 – Gretchen Rubin – The secret to happiness in a cluttered world

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