Ep #08: Clear the Clutter
episode summary
If your home is cluttered, chances are your mind is, too. In today’s episode, I will teach you the simple steps for decluttering any space. Decluttering your entire house may sound very overwhelming, so I recommend that you start with a small space, like a sock drawer, and spend 30 minutes or less.
I’ll also cover the reasons why you shouldn’t keep clothes that don’t fit you, or hold on to items you no longer want but spent a lot of money on. I’ll help you lovingly let go of your great aunt’s table cloth that you never liked in the first place.
Join me and start letting go of what you DON’T want to create space and freedom in your home and your life.
I created a free decluttering guide that you can download and use for reference as you work on clearing out your space. Grab it here.
For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.
If you are sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed, I can help. I coach clients 1 on 1 on how to create a more calm, relaxing, intentional life. The first step is to set up a complimentary discovery session right here.
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What You’ll Learn:
Clutter is a major cause of overwhelm. 0:04
Welcome to the overwhelmed working woman podcast.
Thank you to everyone who has written a review or given a rating for the podcast.
How to declutter a small space. 3:16
How to declutter a small space.
Steps to decluttering a space.
What to keep and what to give away. 4:56
What to keep.
The bane of buying and returning.
Decluttering is a healthy way to exercise control. 6:56
The importance of decluttering.
How to declutter in a quick and efficient way.
Choose a specific area to declutter.
Take a before picture
Take everything out
Sort into keep, toss, or giveaway piles
Organize the “keeps” and put them back neatly
Take an after picture
Should I keep it? 11:06
Four questions to ask yourself when deciding to keep an item.
Does it fit?
Do you use it?
Is it a duplicate?
Do you love it?
Do you have to keep it because it’s a gift, or you paid a lot for it?
How to get started with decluttering.
Two one-on-one coaching spots are open.
listen to the episode:
Featured on The Show:
Link to set up a free consultation with me for 1 on 1 coaching.
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier, and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
Hello, friends. Welcome. And thank you so much for joining today. Today we are going to be talking about clutter. Clutter is a major cause of overwhelm. I think a cluttered space affects everyone differently, maybe to different degrees. But I also think it's safe to say that almost everyone will feel more calm and less overwhelmed if their space is free from clutter. There are lots of studies that support the idea that when you have a stressful life, your house is often cluttered. And when you have a cluttered house, you often feel stressed. So it's sort of a cycle of one building upon the other. That's why I think this is such an important topic for us to talk about. So today, I will teach you the exact process for how to declutter any space. And we are going to start small with something like your sock drawer.
I even created a decluttering guide that you can grab and print, it's actually in the show notes. So I will give you all the details on that and the full scoop on decluttering in just a minute.
But first, I have to mention a couple of things. Number one, I want to send a huge thank you to everyone who has written a review or given a rating for the podcast. I'm so happy that you're enjoying the podcast and are learning useful tips from it. That was my whole goal in creating this podcast. So I am delighted that it is working. So to love the show is one thing, but to take the time to read review and write it is an extra step that I really appreciate since so many of you did that in the first couple of weeks of the podcast. The podcast has been consistently rated in the top 200 shows for mental health. And there are like 20,000 Mental Health podcasts. It changes every day, the ratings go up and down every day, but we've been as high as number 54. So thank you so much, because when this podcast is highly rated, it's shown to more people. And since my goal is to help all the overwhelmed working woman feel better. This is really important and essential. And yes, I know that's a lofty goal, but I am going for it.
I want to read you one of the reviews. This was written by “overwhelmed in New Braunfels” and I just want to share what she had to say. She says “I really don't feel like I'm a professional working woman because I don't have a big corporate job. See where I went there. My thoughts took over in a negative way, because I'm just a teacher. I feel like I'm stealing every Monday morning because Michelle offers such valuable information every Monday to make my week productive. This podcast is only a couple episodes in so go back, listen to them all and make your week amazing, perfect way to spend my 45 minute commute.”
So thank you so much overwhelmed in New Braunfels for taking the time to send that message. And I'm so glad you caught yourself on that thought that you aren't a professional working wound because you're just a teacher, I often think how teachers have some of the hardest jobs that there are. So thank you for being a teacher. Thank you for listening. And thank you for that great review.
Okay, now that our business is complete, let's talk about today's topic. Clutter is a huge topic and one I really like to talk about because I think it's so important and such an essential part of having a calm and intentional life. I'm going to do more than just one episode about clutter because there's so much to cover. But for this particular episode, I'm going to focus on exactly how to declutter a space. And as you know, in these episodes, my goal is to give you small actionable takeaways that you can do to make your life feel less overwhelming.
Therefore, this episode is not going to be about how to declutter your whole entire house in life, that's just way too overwhelming. Instead, we're going to focus on decluttering, just a one small space just to get you started. And the good news is, the process that I'm going to explain to you today is the same no matter if you're decluttering, your bathroom drawer or your whole basement.
Once you know the process, you can just apply it again and again until you have declutter your little heart out. And also I said this earlier, but it bears repeating. I made a free guide that recaps everything I'm going to tell you in here today, it lists every step, it lists all the questions to ask yourself about when you should keep something or when you should give it away. So to get that just go to the show notes wherever you're listening to this podcast, and you'll find the link to the PDF, go grab that.
Okay, at a high level. I'm going to give you each one of these in detail in just a second here but at a high level. These are the summary steps that you take for decluttering number one, decide on the area. I'm going to give you some ideas for small projects. Number two, take everything out everything. Number three, sort them into three piles. There's the key pile, there's the giveaway pile and there's the throw away or recycle. Then number four, toss the trash, donate the stuff you want to donate and neatly organize the rest and put it back in. Sounds pretty easy, right?
It actually is a really easy process but What I find is that people get very caught up on the what to keep question and a lot of times guilt comes in about they feel like they should keep things. So we're going to cover all that too.
For me personally having only what I need, and having those things that I need in a very organized way where I know where everything is super important, because I'm not naturally orderly, you can check with my close family or friends. I'm forever leaving cabinet doors open, I leave my dirty clothes on the floor, I'm always moving on to the next thing. It drives me crazy about myself, actually. So in order for me to know where things are, which makes me feel calm and in control, I need to keep it very organized and get rid of the things that I don't need.
If you think about your personal situation, how does the clutter in your life make you feel? Can you picture a room or an area in your house that you try to avoid because it's cluttered. I always noticed that I gravitate to my office or my bedroom, because they make me feel relaxed. They're both clutter free and full of color. And they just make me happy. And funny enough, as I was writing this podcast, I had to stop because I kind of kept getting stuck. And I paused to figure out what was going on. Why am I feeling stuck on a topic that I talked about all the time, and I feel so passionate about. And I noticed there was a little pile of crap in the corner of my office. It's basically all of my returns. Do you do this to yourself? Do you buy things without trying them on or order things on a whim online, and then you have to return them. It's like the bane of my existence, this buying and returning process. Anyway, I had that little return, you probably have like a little return area in your house too. If you're like me, I bet little return area and a corner of my office and I realized, oh, that's what's making me feel blocked.
So I had to go online and process all the returns, and get them boxed up and out of my office so I could feel peaceful and concentrate. As soon as I did that, everything started flowing again. That's how much decluttering plays an important role in my life.
And also, if you'd like to control things, this is a great healthy way to exercise control over something that you actually have total control over, I did a whole podcast on what's out of control versus in control in your life. Lots of things in our life are out of control. But the stuff we keep and how we organize it is totally in our control. In fact, when I was married, my ex husband was in the military and he was deployed to Iraq and he had been gone about six months. And it was time for him to come home. But he was traveling, sometimes a lot of times he get deployed with a whole group of people, but he was alone. And so he was in Kuwait trying to get home waiting at the airport for the next military plane to come in. And then hopefully, getting a seat on that plane. It wasn't like a scheduled, you know, commercial flight. So he called me wasn't really known when he was going to come home. So he called me and said, I'm on my way home, I hope I don't really have a way to get a hold of you. I'm just going to sit here until I can get on a plane and I will call you when I get to the US. And then it was just complete radio silence for like two days. So I did what every normal person would do. And as soon as I got off the phone with him, I just took every item out of our kitchen cabinets and decluttered and organized the whole thing. It just felt like such a good way to be in control of something for a situation over which I had no control. So I didn't hear from him for a few days. And then finally I got a text from him. I'm in Maine. I was like yes. Oh my gosh, you're back.
Anyway, let's get down to business. Let me tell you how to do this for yourself here is exactly how to declutter in a quick and efficient way. Again, get the free guide with all these details. So you don't have to remember this off the top of your head you have enough stuff in your head. Number one, choose a specific area. Don't make the area my whole house or even my kitchen or my bedroom start really small. For example, one cabinet in the kitchen. Your goal is to spend 30 Minutes or Less soup to nuts start to finish 30 minutes on this one.
So consider these as potential projects to start with your wallet, your purse, your car, or even just your trunk. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I've been driving my kids around a lot and take them to their various activities. My trunk looks like you could live in it. There's like water bottles and snacks and shoes and blankets and chairs and heaven knows what you might find in there. So anyway, that might be a good place for you to declutter a bookshelf or even just a section of a bookshelf, your silverware drawer, your sock drawer that weird place above the fridge, the pile of papers on your counter or wherever you've stashed them your spice cabinet, your T shirt drawer you get the idea just choose the place make it small.
And then next step is take a before pic. It takes two seconds and it's so satisfying when you compare it to the after picture. So definitely take the before pic and
Number three is take it all out. Don't skip this step, it really doesn't take as long as you think. And it's really helpful to get everything out into a space where you can evaluate what you want to keep and what you want to give away. Once you've got it all out, sort all the items into these three piles.
Number one is keep number two is giveaway. And number three is throw away or recycle. This is a really important part, probably the most important part of this project. If you want to be more organized, you have to get rid of stuff. It's possible if you just took everything out of your space, and then you organize it neatly and put it back in it would be organized, but it's not decluttered. Because you still have a bunch of stuff in there that you don't want or need. And if it was a mess before and you don't get rid of anything, it's just eventually going to become a mess again.
So focus on the giveaway, what can you give away? Let's just talk about what you should keep. And I've got a quick and easy way to evaluate this. I've got four questions that you can ask yourself. The first one is does it fit? So if it's clothes, if we're talking about clothes, I mean, this literally does it fit you right now in this moment, if it doesn't do not keep it. Keeping clothes that don't fit just sends a message that your body should be different than what it is. And it makes you feel badly every time you see the item. Just let them go. If you're thinking, Oh, these will fit me again later. If they do fit you again later, they'll probably be out of style. Just give them away and let someone else enjoy them for now, if we're not talking about clothes, this is still a valid question because you want to think about if this fits in with your current life. For example, I no longer need kid plates or kids silverware because my kids are big and they just use the same stuff as I do. I no longer need business suits, because I have zero need to wear one ever have a lawn service. So I really don't need to own a lawn more. So even items that were important at one point in your life, like for example, those kid little kid plates where everything's all separated in the tiny little forks and stuff. I use those every day, like five times a day. They used to be really important in my life. But they're not anymore. I don't need them anymore.
The next question is, do I use it? So if we're going back to the clothes, maybe have a pair of jeans that fit you or a pair of socks that fit you but you just absolutely never wear them? Goodbye item? Why keep something that you don't use? Next question is duplicates. Do I own another one of this item? And if so, do I need more than one? If I do need more than one? How many do I actually need? For example, you don't need two toasters, you might need more than one pair of jeans, but you probably don't need 10. So what's the number that you want to keep? I usually try to keep like four to five pairs of jeans. And if it gets to be more than that, I think which one of these do I wear the least or do I least like the fit of and then the last one is do I love this item. My example of this is my Nana's tea cup. So it doesn't fit into my life because I don't drink tea. I don't use it because I don't drink tea. I have plenty of other cups. So it's not a duplicate item. I don't have more than one tea cup. But if I wanted to ever drink some tea or coffee, I would just use one of the many coffee cups I have. So it doesn't fit in any of those first three questions. But I love this item because it just makes me think of my Nana. And when I see it on the shelf in my office, it makes me happy. So this falls into my cup category, even though it doesn't fit, I don't use it. And I have other ones just you know, not as special to me, but I have other coffee cups. So those questions are pretty straightforward. And in my experience with myself and my clients, they work really well with a few exceptions. For some reason. If the item is a gift, or it's handmade, or It used to belong to someone you love, or this is another big one, you paid a lot of money for it. People tend to just skip all those questions and just keep the item for no reason. I encourage you to apply the questions no matter if it's a gift, or homemade or how much it costs. And here's why. Let's say the gift is from someone you love. You can still love the person and give the item away loving a person and loving an item they gave you are two totally different things and the happy memories that you have with that person will not be enhanced by keeping their old tablecloth and your bottom drawer for seven years. That's a true story that I really did that one. My great aunt Helen gave me a tablecloth of hers and I loved her and she was such a delightful person and I didn't like the tablecloth. It didn't fit with my style at all. I absolutely never used it. Every time I would go through and clean things out. I'd see it and think oh, I can't give that away. And I thought why not? I still love her. I still have fond memories of her. I'm certainly not doing anything Special by keeping it in my bottom drawer. And the memories I have won't be diminished by giving it away. In fact, they might be enhanced because now I can think, oh, yeah, it's out there. And hopefully someone found it and they love it and they're using it. If the item is a gift, just in general, a gift should be given and think about this as the gift giver and a gift receiver with zero strings attached. Your responsibility when you get a gift is to thank the person for the gift, and appreciate the time that they took to select it or buy it for you. End of story. It could be true, because a lot of times people will say, Well, I just know that they'll expect me to keep it and cherish it forever. That could be true, maybe they do have that expectation. But that's their thoughts, and there's nothing you can do about it. So again, just remember, your only job is to thank the person for the gift. If you've already done that, then you get to choose what you do with it if you keep it or if you give it away. And if the item is handmade. I don't know about you. But I have a lot of like my mom is a great seamstress. My grandmother was a great seamstress. There's lots of creative people in my family. My brother is an artist. So lots of the time, I have beautiful handmade items that I love. But sometimes I've had them for a while and I don't want them anymore. And so what I've decided is that I'm just going to treat them like every other item in the house and run them through the do I keep questions. An example of this for me, my mom, who is an amazing seamstress used to make all my Halloween Costumes by hand when I was little. And then she made my kids too. So I have years of costumes times two, because she'd make one for each one of my kids that she made by hand. So when I run through the questions about do they fit? Nope. My kids don't dress up for Halloween anymore. And they are long from actually fitting my children. So that's a no. Do we use them? No, we don't use them. Do I have others? Are there duplicates? Do I need more than one of these items? I think you could actually argue that you don't need any Halloween costumes. But do I love this item. This is just like my Nana's tea cup. Yes, I love these I love thinking about the happy memories I have with them. I love thinking about them. My mom made them sometimes when my niece and nephew come over, they'll put them on and I seriously want to keep them for my kids kids. So this is an item that I am going to choose to keep.
On the other hand, my mom made me some pillows once to match something. And I did at the time I loved it. And I was so grateful for them. But as I changed my deck or they just didn't go anymore. So when I got to the do I love them question. I was like, Nope, I don't love them, I don't use them, I have other pillows that I can use, I'm going to pass these on to someone else. So really try to use those four questions that I am telling you about and that are in the Guide to drive your decision whether to keep something no matter where you got it, who it came from, if it's homemade, or even if it's really expensive. Something about the idea that we've spent a lot of money on something makes us think we need to keep it but it's kind of ironic, because if you spent a lot of money on it, and you keep it, it's not like you get your money back, you don't get a refund after a while. In fact, I think giving away something that is nice. Like, let's just say I take a Kate Spade purse to Goodwill and give it away. It makes me happy to think that somebody's going to score that at Goodwill that they just found it or I'll give it away to my friends or my family. Anyone who's listening who's been part of one of my bag giveaways, they know that I love purchases. And then I also happily give them away when I don't want them anymore. Okay, so hopefully that little sidebar, increase the number of things in your giveaway pile. Now, next, throw away or recycle the items that were designated in that pile, put the giveaways into a bag or a box or whatever and put it in your car. And for bonus points, just go drop it off at Goodwill or wherever you like to donate. You know, sometimes those end up sitting in your car for like a month, please, that happens to me sometimes. So try to actually get rid of it. If you're a person who likes to sell stuff online, that's fine. But if you're trying to get the job done, giving things away is the fastest way to finish the project. It's good to think about will the amount of money that I sell this for be worth the time and effort it takes for me to do so.
Okay, now you're just left with your keep pile. All you have to do from here is put it back in an organized fashion label it if that suits you show your family so they know where things go and then take your after picture and pat yourself on the back. Good work. You did it. Alright, I think you're ready to get started. Pick your space, set your timer and get to work. When you declutter, I'd love for you to post your pics your before and after pics and tag me on Instagram. I am @Michellegauthiercoaching.
As I mentioned, I'll be doing additional episodes on decluttering so as you're going through this, if you have questions, email me, or send me a message on Instagram, just send me a DM on Instagram or my email is Michelle@Michellegauthier.com. And I'll do a little q&a and address them in the next clutter episode.
The other thing I want to add before we close today is that right now I have two one on one coaching spots open. This is not always the case, I limit the number of clients that I have, because my whole goal is to have a balanced and calm and organized life. But I have two openings right now if you're interested in learning more about coaching with me, there is a link in the show notes to set up a free discovery call. I would love to meet you and talk to you and hear what's going on with you, tell you about coaching and see if we're a good fit. Okay, friends, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for rating and reviewing. If you haven't done it yet, I would love if you would take a minute to do that. And I will see you next week. Happy decluttering Thank you for listening to the overwhelmed working woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at Michellegauthier.com. See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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