Alright, so if you have been feeling at all
discouraged in your decluttering efforts, know that you're not alone. I've heard this from many lately that I
had been doing well, I lost my momentum, or I had done all this work, but
now it's undone. That's the worst. So how can you get some big wins,
get that momentum back, that energy, and finally get your house
simplified once and for all? Because it doesn't have to take forever, but we do have to figure out
how to get there more quickly. So today I'm going to share five
tips that will help you fly through decluttering and they
are not hard. I promise. Okay, so tip number one, if we
are going to declutter quickly, is that you're going to have to have
a mindset shift because right now, if we are having a really hard time
getting rid of stuff in our house, usually it's because we're putting
stuff up here and our own peace of mind and time and energy down here.
And so we need to flip flop these, and I've often recommended that you
actually put this on a Post-it note and you could just write out Me and
then a line and then your Stuff, because you are more important than
all of the stuff in your house, but your peace of mind is
more important, your time, your energy is more important than
this stuff, but it gets messed up. We can't always see that clearly when
we're just looking at the stuff in front of us and we're holding it up and trying
to decide if we should get rid of it or not. And so we have to first and foremost
have this mindset shift and I've done a couple of videos recently that
I think helped to support this. The Four Burner Theory that
we talked about last week, this idea that we can't do it
all, we can't do it all well. And so something has to give, and really the stuff is the easiest thing, because we don't want to cut
out our friends or family, certainly not our health, right? And so the stuff is actually the easiest
stuff to get rid of and to get some of that time and energy back. So I
know in the beginning, it's tough, but I do hope that as you keep going, and if you do put some kind of note in
front of you to remind you as you're decluttering, that it
can make it go easier. Okay. I'm going to show you an area that has
completely gotten out of control in our house. And that is our homeschooling area. So tip number two is that if it
is not a clear, YES, it is a NO. So as we look through the stuff, we
are going to say, is it a clear yes? And if so, I'm going to keep it.
And if I at all waiver, hesitate, am not sure about it, that
means it's a no. Again, we are trying to figure out
how to declutter quickly.
And so let me, let's just, I did not pre-plan this, let's just
go through this real quick. Okay, John Eldredge, Get Your Life Back, this
is a clear yes to me. I love this book, I'm going to keep that. Actually another really good book I've
read lately Breathing Through Foster Care. Clear yes. This one, though, I got because somebody recommended
it and said it was so good. I got this three years ago
and have never used it. So, this is not a clear yes, right? Because what's going to change in the
next week or month that I'm going to use it? So that is a no. What else is
on here? Huh, see another book. It's a beautiful book, but I've never
used it, looked at it, anything. I thought a guide to creating a natural,
low-waste home, isn't that beautiful? It's not the right season. So
that's a no, and that needs to go. Now again, quick decluttering,
right? If it's not a clear yes, it's a no. This is getting
kind of hard squatting down. But here is why I feel
confident saying this to you, because in the beginning I
decluttered my house down to just the yesses and we lived like
that for a little while, and then I realized I wanted to go
even further and I decluttered yesses because then at that point they
weren't Yes, like capital Yes. They were like, yeah, you know, and I realized that I wanted to go even
further with simplifying to get to a point where our house was
very easy to maintain. And so if I can share my experience
with you, it's that if things, especially when you're
in these initial stages, if they are not a clear yes, you're just going to end up
getting rid of it down the road. So why not part with it now
instead of waiting for two or three other passes through your house where
you finally get rid of it, right? Like this cookbook, I could say, no, I'm going to go put it in the kitchen
and I'm really going to try and use it this week. And then what
am I going to do? Uh, in a month when I go to declutter the
kitchen and be like that darn cookbook, I'm still not using it. And then I'm
going to feel the guilt all over again. Instead I could just say, I don't know. I don't have the space right
now to try new recipes, to learn new recipes. I am
sure it is a great cookbook. I'm going to part with it now so I don't
have to declutter it down the road. So basically what you're
doing by embracing this,
that if it's not a clear Yes, it's a No, is you're skipping
ahead two layers into your house. So if you want to go slowly and
take your time through each layer, that is totally okay and
I respect that completely, but if you want to move
quickly for your house, then I encourage you to embrace this rule.
If it is not a clear Yes, it is a No. So, should we find a few other things? So these are Corbin's next
readers, he's doing so, I've been talking about him reading
lately because I am so proud of him, I could cry. So these are, we
need these. These are a clear Yes. These are extra envelopes that,
these have gotten shuffled around. We do not go through this many envelopes
in a year and I have another box of them upstairs. So instead of
trying to find a place for it, these are going to go. What else? This is my Message Bible, but honestly, I don't ever read this. If I
do want to look up The Message, I always look it up on my phone. I don't go to this because I have an
NIV Bible that I use just for daily stuff, and so... Does it feel weird getting rid
of a Bible? Yeah, 1000%. I actually got this when I
was in my early twenties, but it never was my main Bible. So even though it looks really
cool with this leather cover, and it's nice to hold, I don't ever use
it. So it looked pretty on our shelf, but now I'm going to pass this on because
I would really like for someone to actually use it and read it. This is... I talked about, it's empty. My organized
house tour a little while back, and one thing I wanted
to mention was that, don't buy organizing containers
just because they're cool. I saw these at Ikea and I like the lid
and that they stack, I have two of them. Never used it. I need
to just pass this on. I thought it would work well for
the shelf. It doesn't. Again, I don't want to force things to
work in my house. Like that just, that's how things sit around
and get shuffled around. It was a mistake purchase and
I need to just pass it on. Okay, well hopefully that's
enough examples from here. I am going to finish this up
so at the end of the video, I will show you how much better this
looks. I need that accountability. Ooh, that leads us to our next, this is
perfect. That leads us to our next step. Alright, tip number three is to
tell a friend and if possible, get that friend to come over and help
or even FaceTime or Zoom with you. So there's something about accountability,
right? If we tell somebody, Hey, I want to get a ton of
decluttering done this weekend, then we kind of feel at least a little
bit like we should follow through with it, right? So let somebody know,
what is your goal for the weekend? My mom does this all
the time and we love it. She'll take a picture of under
her sink and she'll be like, I'm going in and she'll text it Diana
and I, and then we're like, yay, can't wait to see the After picture. And then she'll text us an After picture
and we celebrate and we send emojis and we say, that's so awesome, Mom, that
must feel so good to have that done. And so is there someone in your life
that could help hold you accountable? It could be someone in your
own household and if possible, could they come and help? I've said
this before, but even, Adeline's 11 now. She's great for accountability.
She's a great helper. I know too often I've thought, well,
this is my mess. I got myself into it. I need to get myself out of it,
but that's just not the truth. It happens to all of us.
We were never taught, most of us were never taught how to
manage this much stuff. And so, it's okay. Your friends and family probably have
messes too. They have clutter too. So don't be embarrassed by it. Just
be brave and say, will you help me, or will you at least hold me accountable? Tip number four is to donate
more. Now this can be tough, especially if you're frugal
or could really use the
extra money which most of us could. So where's that line between what we
should sell and try and recoup some of our sunk costs or just donate it and move on? So this is going to be different
for everyone. For us, it was $50. And I put Tom in charge of selling
anything that we were going to sell. But honestly, when I look back, well, probably because we didn't
have very expensive stuff, it was really only a handful of things
that we actually ended up selling, and I donated the rest. I mean, really, it had to be fairly worthwhile
for me to go through it because I just, I had to get the
stuff out of my house. And I know this can be tough if someone
else in our household wants us to sell it or they want to sell it,
so if there's a way to say, okay, well, we're going to designate this
spot for things that we need to sell. And when it's full, it's full and we
can't keep any more stuff to sell. And so at least there's some kind of
limit or container around how much it is that you're going to sell and then
set a deadline for selling it. So if we don't have this stuff
listed by the end of the month, then we're just going to donate it. But
really looking back now, like I said, we donated almost everything, but
we didn't have very valuable stuff, but I see how much money I save now, just not making the impulse
purchases, having more bandwidth, meal planning, and so I save so much money
with our simplified lifestyle, that that also makes it easier
for me to encourage you to just get rid of this stuff, trusting that
you're going to make your money back. And then tip number five is
to create some separation. So if you have some stuff that's
just really giving you a hard time, especially maybe sentimental
stuff, and you just don't know, go ahead and put it in a box so that you
can create a little distance from it. Often once something's been in a box
and it hasn't been in our house for a while, we haven't seen it for a while, it actually does make it a little
bit easier to get rid of... with this caveat. We can't
do it with everything, right? So limit yourself to how many
boxes you're willing to keep. So you're going to quarantine
them, set them away, and just see if you miss
them. I mean, most often, most of us forget what's in the box
by the time it's time to go back. So put a date on it, put what's
in the box, and if possible, I always like to pack up these boxes
in a way that the whole thing could be donated without having
to look through it again. So if at all possible try
and use cardboard boxes and make it so that the whole
thing is donatable once a
certain amount of time has passed. Okay, so I want to work on this area for
just a few more minutes with you. And so I have my black
trash bag and my donatable donation box. And so of course,
especially in an area like this, I just find a black
trash bag to be the most practical. And again, we don't want
anybody to second guess my decisions, right? So this is just collected
stuff for various reasons. Books, homeschooling stuff just
gets thrown on here. The boys also have areas
where they keep stuff, but that was because they didn't use
to have an area in their bedroom, but now they do. So I'm going to have
them bring this stuff up to their room. They can keep all the treasures
they want underneath their beds. So that's why we created that. And then I want to keep this more just
for homeschooling stuff so that it's simple and functional and I don't have
to search everywhere for stuff. So again, the filter that I'm using is that
if it's not a clear Yes, it's a No, because otherwise there's just more stuff
than hours in the day. And so these, I have these two jars. They were sand we got in Texas and I
used this for an illustration in a video, but we don't normally keep sand
from places, so I'm actually... I have two of them. I'm going to have
the boys go empty these in the sandbox, and then I'm going to donate the
jars because we don't need them. So those can get out of here. We have some extra readers that we're
done with and so I'm going to donate these and pass those on. This
is a sticker thing, and they're all almost all gone. So
that's just going to go in the garbage. This was a book I really thought, like
a little journal I thought I would use, but I just, I never use it. So I
only filled out one page in it, so I'm going to rip that out and
then I'm going to donate this. Another tactic from Marie Kondo is
that we always group like with like, so this basket had been for markers
and obviously it's not anymore. So I'm going to go ahead and put
all the markers back in there, and then I'm going to
put a label on it too, cause that was probably part of the
problem. It didn't have a label on it. And there's just a lot of stuff
that's just not in the right spot, so I going to put that stuff back.
This book we're kind of done with, so I'm just going to donate that.
This was cool. We needed a dictionary, and I was like, Oh, we
need to get a dictionary, but I try to wait and not
just go straight to Amazon. Our neighbor came over and was like,
Hey, do you need a dictionary by chance? I was like, yes, yes we do.
Oh, now I remember, it doesn't, it's too tall to stand up though, so
I have to lay it down. Spider ring, I think we can be done
with that. So again, in the beginning when I
started decluttering my house, the question I often asked myself
was, do I use this, will I need it? But now I ask myself a different question.
It's but can I get by without it? Because I want to manage as
little inventory as possible. So if I can get by without it, if I can get by without having to manage
this jar or this three-ring binder, then that's what I want to do. I want to manage as little as possible. So I can actually get through this really
quickly because that's the question I'm asking, but can I get by without
it? And so I was actually able, I did this whole shelf
in 15 minutes. Again, once you get your house decluttered and
organized, it's so much faster then, to go back and go through it again,
just make quick adjustments. Alright, so again, I know this isn't always easy, but simplifying our house is still one
of the most worthwhile things that we've ever done. So keep going, push through
the discouragement, the tough decisions. I mean, really my favorite tip and rule
is if it's not a clear Yes, it's a No, and it really does get easier. So be
tough on your stuff. You are worth it. And if you haven't done so already, I hope you subscribe so we
can spend more time together. A thumbs up is the best
compliment that you can give us, but otherwise I hope you have a great
day and I will look forward to seeing you again soon.
