The One Where I Convince You to Have a Declutter Plan
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[00:00:00] Going in blind and trying to clear the clutter from your entire house, Without a strategic plan of action is a recipe for disaster.
And I know because that is exactly what I did at the start of my decluttering journey. And it is exactly why it took me so long to clear away my clutter and take my entire house from cluttered to calm.
Hey there, I'm Nicole from The Maximizing Momma and I am obsessed with creating a home that gives me more peace of mind, more time to myself, and more time with my kids. I teach you the tried and true secrets to clearing your clutter, getting organized, and managing your household in a realistic and sustainable way.
This show is where we talk about things like motherhood, decluttering, organizing, creating routines, mindset, energy, and everything in between. Our homes are the foundation for the rest of our lives, [00:01:00] and it's so important to have a calm, relaxing household so you can have the time, the peace of mind, and the freedom to truly enjoy motherhood.
So sit back and get ready to take charge of your home.
Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Take Charge of Your Home Show. My name is Nicole, also known as the Maximizing Momma. And today we're going to be talking about why you need to have a declutter plan. So if you haven't heard the story, I will share it with you very quickly. We downsized into my late mother's home in 2018 and prior to that I had spent about two years trying to get organized and always tidying up and cleaning up after my kids childhoods and then whenever we downsized, all of our belongings truly would not fit into that house.
And a big part of that was because, yes, we had too much stuff and it was a downsize, but also because we were combining all [00:02:00] of our things with everything my late mother had owned and all of my childhood things.
So when my mother was still alive, you know, she had all of my childhood things stored in her garage, kind of like on the bottom layer of the garage, and then all of her holiday decor and her random, you know, temporary use items would be kind of stored at the top layer of the garage. Then, when I moved out when I was 19, she cleaned out my bedroom and turned it into an office. And everything that I owned, basically, she didn't throw anything out. She just took everything, she boxed it all up, and she kind of just moved it into the garage. So the layers of stuff inside of her garage were my childhood things, like my baby items, like my first shoes, my first haircut, things like that. And then, um. Like her holiday decor and stuff, and then on top of that was kind of like my teenage stuff. Then, fast forward [00:03:00] 10, 12 years later, my mom passed away. And so when I cleaned out her house, I took everything that she owned and, you know, I, I threw a lot of it away in a dumpster, but everything of hers that I wanted to keep that she had owned in the main areas of her house, I just moved them all to our garage. And so that kind of got added to the top layer of her garage. Then, the day that we moved in, and that is another story in and of itself. From when we moved out of our townhouse until the day that we moved in, some time had lapsed because when I turned the water on and started cleaning her house, a pipe burst and the master bathroom flooded.
And so It had to be restored. There was mold, it was a big old mess, so we ended up moving into a hotel for a couple of months and during that process, we had to put our things into a storage unit. So fast forward, like, 6 months later, the day that we moved in, my husband went and got a, um, [00:04:00] a U Haul and started, um, Literally, like, dumping the storage unit of our belongings into the U Haul, drove the U Haul to this new house, my late mother's house that I had inherited, and started emptying the U Haul into the garage.
And I remember standing there, screaming at him, begging him, please, please, please, like, put things in different areas in the driveway so then we can strategically move it all in and group things into certain rooms and whatnot. And I remember this like it was yesterday, even though it was like five years ago, he said, no, I want to hurry up and do this as quickly as possible, because I'm tired of paying 140 a month for the storage unit. So, I'm going to dump everything out of the U Haul, and then we will organize and group it all later. And I remember my response to that was, No, it doesn't work like that, that's never gonna happen. But, he didn't listen, and, [00:05:00] Sure enough, everything just kind of got thrown onto The other layers of stuff that was already in the garage. My childhood things, my mom's holiday stuff, my teenage stuff, everything my late mother owned, and then everything that my family of six owned got added on the very top.
So if you ever hear me mention how my garage was stacked to the ceiling, That is the reason why. So, my point in sharing all of this with you is that we moved in around August of 2018 and I had really finished unpacking the bulk of our stuff around December of that year and that is when I realized That there was just no room in any way, like I had to go out and buy plastic three drawer units and keep them in our kitchen to store my kids toys because their closets were literally filled to the brim with their toys.
So their bedrooms were [00:06:00] full of toys, their closets were full of toys, the garage was stacked to the ceiling, we had no room to store clothes, and so there was just stuff everywhere. And you know, looking back when I realized that the only option was for me to declutter and clear away some of this excess stuff, it never even occurred to me that I should have decluttered somewhere else, because I didn't have a declutter plan, I didn't even know what a declutter plan was. I just realized one day, I need to let go of this extra stuff. I'm going to start decluttering and get rid of as much as I can. And it seemed like the most logical solution to start in our garage because there was still so much stuff out there that we had no idea where it was, like things that our family of six owned. We didn't know where that stuff was because of, again, the stupid way my husband had unloaded the U Haul. So I started in my garage. I did not have a plan, I basically went in blind. I would decide one [00:07:00] day, you know, kind of on a whim. Typically, it was a Saturday. The day before, I would say, Okay, I'm going to go out there and declutter tomorrow morning when I wake up. Let's have one of our friends come over to help with the kids. We'll order pizza, you know, and then I would go lay down and relax in bed so I could rest my swollen legs the day before. And that was really, you know, the extent of my plan. Any type of planning ahead of time to clear away my clutter.
So, I would go out there the next day and I would just kind of dive in. And I had one of those marathon sessions, maybe once or twice a month on a Saturday for about four to five months until like June that year maybe.
So typically what these marathon sessions look like is I would go out there, I would pull all the boxes out into the driveway, I would choose something that I wanted to sort through, [00:08:00] I would start deciding what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to let go of. If I wanted to let go of something I would chuck it into the driveway,, and I had all these different piles of like I'm going to donate this, and I'm going to sell this, and I'm going to move this back into the house, and this is a maybe pile, and this is stuff that I can throw away, and this is stuff that's going to go back into the garage, and it was just, there were so many piles going on, and it took so much time, and it was so exhausting, and so tedious, and so overwhelming, that by the end of the day, when the sun would start going down, I would literally have, like, no physical energy left, and then I would be left staring at this huge pile of stuff that was pulled into our driveway, knowing that I had to move it all back into the garage before I went to bed that night, because there was no way I could leave it out like that in our neighborhood.
So, then I would spend the next two hours Trying to categorize everything [00:09:00] and, and arrange everything and pull it back into the garage and then at the very end I was left to deal with all the different piles I made. I had to decide and finalize and do something with the maybe items and the trash and the relocate and the things that needed to go back in the house and the things I wanted to donate and the things I wanted to sell.
Oh my gosh. It was, it was a disaster. It was It was totally unnecessary and I realized pretty soon after that, a couple of months later, that I was not going to do that again. So yes, the marathon sessions in and of themselves is definitely not something that I recommend, but that's an episode for another day.
Today, what we're really talking about here is Going in without a declutter plan because you can have a marathon session. But without a declutter plan it makes a huge mess, It takes a lot of time, and it [00:10:00] really leads to overwhelm because you don't know where to start, You're trying a mix of different strategies, you have no clue what to do with anything, and then you end up leaving your decluttered items sitting there for months on end.
And if you're trying to take charge of your home without a declutter plan, what almost always ends up happening is you'll haphazardly clear away your clutter whenever you have the time or whenever you're fed up with the shape of your household.
But on the other hand, when you have a strategic declutter plan, you will know exactly where to start decluttering, and exactly what areas to prioritize in your home based on your specific household and your specific goals. You will have a decluttering method and a strategy that works for your lifestyle and your circumstances, which means that you can immediately focus on what works as [00:11:00] opposed to going in blind and trying everything under the sun because that just takes up way more time and energy. And you will know what to do with your unwanted items, which means you can easily get them out of your house as quickly as possible.
If there is One thing that I would say makes the biggest difference in being able to take your entire household from cluttered to calm, it would be 100 percent without a shadow of a doubt for you to have a declutter plan.
And this is because a declutter plan will tell you exactly what areas you need to be prioritizing in your home based on your goals and what you're trying to achieve. A declutter plan will tell you which methods work best for you and your lifestyle. A declutter plan will tell you exactly how to get the clutter out of your house. And it will give you a step-by-step play by play plan of action so that way you're not left wondering what to do next [00:12:00] and feeling lost and confused. You can just follow along every step of the way as you clear the clutter from your entire house.
So, if you have been trying to take charge of your home and clear and demolish your clutter before now, without having a plan of action. This is your sign to go ahead and create one as soon as possible.
And it's very simple. There's not really a whole lot involved. All you need to do is write out a list of the areas that you want to target and focus on in your home, you want to choose which method works best for you, and then you want to write out exactly what you plan to do with your unwanted items. And then every time you have a free couple of minutes to declutter, you can pull that plan out, choose one of the areas on your list, decide how much time you have available, choose a decluttering method, and start taking action. And then once you [00:13:00] finished decluttering for the day, you can reference your plan, figure out what you're going to do with your decluttered items and then quickly take action and get them out of your house.
And so if you are ready to create a declutter plan for your household, I have shared a link down in the show notes where you can download the exact plan that I share with my clients and students.
All you need to do is click on that link, enter your name and your email, and then you can print out the workbook and start filling it out and you'll have a simple, strategic, powerful declutter plan that will help you make incredible progress in your home in half the time without the overwhelm and the frustration.
So that's all that I have for you today. I really wanted to convince you to have a declutter plan, because it is a very powerful way to make progress in your home and start taking charge of your home as soon as possible.
Thank you for listening to the Take [00:14:00] Charge of Your Home Show. I would love it if you could leave a review and a rating and let me know what you think about this podcast, because we have some really big changes coming this year and I would love to hear more about what you would like to see on this podcast. I'll chat with you soon. Bye.
