- Well, most of us have a room
in our house, or multiple rooms, that get out of control. They
become the dumping ground. It's that place you put everything
that you don't know what to do with, and it's very easy to close the
door and try and ignore the space. The only problem is that it
still hangs over our head. We still know that it's there,
that it needs to be dealt with, and that we're not really going to have
our house done or under control until we get this space tackled. So today let's talk about how we can get
through an overwhelming space quickly. For most of us, we just need a game plan. Well hi, I'm Dawn from The Minimal
Mom. If we haven't met before, I'm married to Tom and we have
four kids ages six through 11. I haven't said that recently, so
I thought I would throw it in, in case we haven't met before. We love sharing tips to help
you simplify your house. We call ourselves minimalists, but
just because you watch these videos, you don't have to go that far. You
stop wherever you feel comfortable. But no matter who you are, where you live, most of us have a room that
has gotten out of control. It is that place that we put everything
that we don't know what to do with, or when we're speed cleaning
when company is coming, it just gets shoved in this room. And that's kind of what's
happened to this room recently. So this is our guest room,
our foster care room. We haven't had any foster care placements
yet. So this room has been unused. Actually we did have one guest, so the bed got unmade and then
it needs to get made again. But today I want to go through a few steps
of how you can tackle an overwhelming space. We're going to break it down.
We're going to make it so much less scary. It does not have to be a scary space. We just need a plan and then
you just follow the steps. You will work your way through
these spaces. And most importantly, you're going to feel really good
about yourself when you're done. That's the goal, right? That this is
not hanging over our head anymore. So let's get started. Alright, so step one, never start decluttering unless
you have a donation box and a black trash bag. I know
it's easy to think, oh, I'll run the donations out to the car.
I'll make a pile and then I'll move them. I'll just throw stuff in the garbage as
we go. I don't have black trash bags, I'll use a clear. I'm telling you, if you will equip yourself
with these two items, it is going to make this so much easier. There's a lot of stuff that we will
donate if it's very easy to donate it. So by having a donation box handy, that makes it so much easier to actually
follow through with donating something that you're not going to need anymore.
And of course the black trash bag, we're going to be throwing stuff away. We don't want to second guess ourselves
by seeing it through a clear bag or have other members of our household
second guess us. Please, please, please have these items with you
anytime you go to declutter. Alright, next we have to put a
parameter around what it is that we keep. So there's two main ways
that we can go about this. One is to ask if it's container worthy, and the other is to ask if
I want to inventory this. So I want to break this down
to tell you what I mean. So often when we go into a space,
like an overwhelming room like this, we kind of just work our
way in from the door. And we start by holding up
items and we just ask ourselves, do I want to keep this?
Do I need it? Do I use it? And that is very subjective. We have to
use emotion. We have to think about it. Like when was the last time
I used it? I don't know. Could somebody use it in the future? And this is difficult because
there's no parameters around it. There's no guideline. I'm not weighing this
against something else. So it's kind of just floating.
Like, do I use it? Do I need it? But what we need to do instead is we
need to have some kind of guideline or parameter for the stuff that we
keep. So one question we can ask is, is it container worthy? This comes
from Dana from A Slob Comes Clean. She says you can use the Container
Concept to declutter your whole house. So what it means is that in any given
space, like our guest room here, we have containers that are
meant to hold our stuff. So in this room we have this wardrobe. So in here we keep Tom and I's
dress clothes or hanging clothes. And then on top is my
out of season clothes. I still really like those canvas bags
for storing things that are off season or that you don't fit into anymore. Put
it in there. They're easy to store. And then over here, let's close this, we just have electronic stuff. And then this shelf I've been reserving
for when we have a foster kid or if someone would stay with us, that
clothes, their clothes can go in there. And then we just have some extra
food supply in the very bottom. And so my thought is if we had
foster kids that were older, I could clear out more of this stuff
easily to make more room for them. This is kind of flexible. If
we need to move stuff, we can. But that's also why I don't want to
fill it up with other stuff in here. So it really has to be something we use
all of the time for it to take up space in this container. Otherwise I just want to get rid
of it or store it somewhere else. So this is our container that's
meant to store stuff in this room. And so now if I'm going to
use the container as my guideline, and I'm going to ask myself,
is it container worthy? That gives me something
to measure this against. So I'm going to hold this up
and I'm going to say, okay, this is a backpack that we use when
we travel or are out and about. So do I use this frequently enough? Does it have enough value to me that I
want to take up valuable space in this container? And I would say, yes, we
use this very frequently. So yes, I think that this is container
worthy. Okay, but now let's look at another backpack we have in here.
This one gets used less frequently. It's more like if we're going on an
airplane and we're all doing carry on, then we might use both of these, but this one does not get used
frequently at all. So if I say, is this container worthy?
Uh, no, absolutely not. So then from there I can decide, okay, do I want to store it
elsewhere in the house? Should I put it in the basement
with our other luggage? Or should I put it in my donation box? Because I have it right here and it's
super handy. So for me, for this, I'm going to say, I'm going
to put it in the basement. I'm going to put it
inside our small suitcase. So it's with all of the other luggage.
I'm keeping that stuff together. And then I'm going to take a tip from
Dana from A Slob Comes Clean again here, and I am going to go bring this
to the basement where it goes, because I want to make progress in this
room. I might only have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour. When I'm done, I don't want this space to be worse off
because I pulled everything out and I undid everything in here. No, I want this space to feel at
least a little bit better. So I'm going to take this down to the
basement right now. Before I go, though, I'm going to look around and see if
there's anything else that needs to go to the basement. So I just noticed we also
have this bag and this used to be my overnight bag, but I recently upgraded. I gifted myself this bag. So this is my new overnight bag. So I can actually donate this one
now because I don't need it anymore. And there's nothing in it that I
need. So I'm going to donate this one. And then I can decide, okay, do I
use this frequently enough, again, that I'm going to take up
real estate in this wardrobe, or could this also get stored in
the basement with our other luggage? I'm going to say that this
also could go in the basement. So I'm going to take
these two things with me, and then I'm just going to make one
more quick pass around to see if there's anything else that needs to go down
there. I actually, you can't see it, but I think there's been a random piece of trim in
here still, when we redid this room. So I'm going to take
this down there as well. And then I think that's pretty much
what we have to go in the basement right now. So I'll be right back, and then we're going to talk
about the other question. Alright, so honestly, I actually, I just
walked back here and I'm like, oh, this room already feels
a little bit better. I've gotten some stuff up off the
floor. I got some stuff out of here. And so the container question
is awesome. And again, the container could be a closet,
a wardrobe, a dresser, a shelf, a cube shelf, anything that
holds stuff can be the container. If you're in more of a storage space, like if I'm organizing or
decluttering or cleaning the basement, for me down there, the container is we have those plastic
shelves down there and anything I keep in the basement needs to fit on there. That is the parameter I've
put in place for myself, because I know if I keep more than that, it's more than I need. It's more than
I can manage. It's more than I use. I forget about stuff that's down there. And so by just using that as
my parameter, as my guide, I never have stuff that's going to
waste, that I'm forgetting about. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still forget
about stuff that's down there. But way less than when we had
a ton more storage than that. And I know some of you are thinking,
yeah, your space is kind of overwhelming, but mine's really overwhelming. Like
I have boxes stacked to the ceiling, or I can't even walk in the space. And I want to encourage you that
the process is still the same. By asking these questions, it's
causing us to rank the stuff. Like what stuff is really
the most important in this
space and what is the other stuff that's just, it just isn't?
Because when we just look in the room, it all looks the same. But when
we start asking these questions, it causes us to let the stuff that
truly is important rise to the top, get a spot in the container. And then the rest just has to go
because we don't have space for it. Alright, so let's move
on to our next question. Do I want to inventory this anymore? So what's so important to remember, that every item in our house is
something that we have to inventory. And so, especially if you have a bigger house
or lots of storage space in your house, it can be easy to keep stuff for just
in case, because we have the room, it fits in our storage spaces and we just
kind of close the door and it's there. But we have to remember that this
stuff is still weighing on our mind, as like on our invisible to-do list,
like we've talked about before, but also at some point we are
going to have to handle it. So even just this morning I was getting
ready and I'd gotten this Young Living facial oil. It's really nice. I like it. You're supposed to shake
it up before you use it. And then I put it on the back of my
hand and use it with my moisturizer. And sometimes when I use the dropper to
put it on, I put the dropper back in, but I don't screw it back on right away
because I have this hand occupied and I'm trying to mix it to put on
my face. Does that make sense? And so what has happened sometimes is I
catch myself going to put it back in the drawer, but the lid is not on, and I'm
like, oh no, that would spill all over. So that happened this morning. I
opened the drawer and I'm like, oh no, the oil had spilled all over
the entire drawer. And I was like, darn it. That is super expensive. And it also made a huge
mess in that drawer. So now everything in there I
had to take out and wipe down. And because it's oil, I
couldn't even just wipe it down. I had to use soap and water
to get everything clean. Now luckily I have simplified that
drawer and I don't keep a ton of stuff in there. And so I'm like, in the past that actually would have
taken a really long time to clean up. But luckily I've simplified that drawer. So it was still an inconvenience and it
really bummed me out that I wasted so much of it, but it wasn't a huge
deal. I got everything wiped out, wiped down and put it back and
went about the rest of my morning. But that's like a really tiny example.
I had a friend, just over the weekend, post a picture saying that they came home
from vacation to their basement being flooded. And she showed a picture
and it was full of storage stuff. Boxes and totes and all kinds of
stuff. That's devastating, right? That takes hours and
hours to recover from. So any time that we're keeping
something or storing it, we have to remember that I'm
still inventorying this item. I still am going to have to
care for it at some point. And so really asking ourselves the
question, when we hold something up, to say, is this worth my
time and my mental energy? Do I want to continue to
inventory this item? Okay, so let's go through a few more examples. So these are what we moved our toys into. So we have these bins
that work really well. My intention was for these to go in the
bottom of this wardrobe so that that's where they could be stored and live. There are definitely
container worthy to me. So I'm going to slide
those into there. Okay, so what happened over here was that
there was stuff that came in from the camper. If you recall our camper
packing and organization video, we had tons of napkins and paper plates, like way more than we'd
ever use on one trip. And so I brought them in the house
so that we could use them here. I also had been on a
soda water kick lately, and I was trying out different flavors. I know I actually just really like plain.
And so I should've stuck with that. But then I was in the store, and do you ever walk by and you see
the new flavors and you're like, watermelon, that sounds fantastic. And so then I bought the watermelon
and then I tried it and I'm like, I don't even actually really
like the watermelon that much. I wish I could give it to all
of you that like watermelon. I did think about giving it to Diana,
actually, so I might need to do that. But anyways, so I have all of this extra
stuff right now of soda water and napkins and plates and
coffee. The problem is, is if I say like, okay,
is this container worthy? Do I want to take up valuable
space in our storage in here? The answer is no. I don't want to
keep this much extra inventory. We do have some extra food storage that
we keep in the bottom shelf and also in the basement for emergency food storage. But none of this stuff is stuff you
would need in an emergency, right? Like soda water. You could
probably live without. I mean, yes, having water stored, but not
like flavored watermelon bubbly. We wouldn't need it. And
so what I want to do, because there's not room in
the kitchen for this stuff, and that's why it got in here
is that I want to use it up. And I don't want to keep this much
inventory of this stuff anymore. Again, because it's not worthwhile to me to
have storage spaces dedicated to that. I would rather keep the extras for this
at the store and get it when I need it. So what I need to do is
I know the soda water, I'll only use it if I can see it. So I'm going to put these cases
just at the end of the bed so that I reload the fridge as I use it
up, and I work through this. Because I know if I stick it in the
closet here or the wardrobe here, I'll forget that it's here
and I won't use it up. So I do want to keep it someplace visible. I'm going to use it up and I am not
going to stock up like this again. So I'm going to get
that stuff out of here. I'm going to take it to
the basement right now. I'm going to move these where
I'm going to store them. I don't think this is ideal
with the soda water, by the way. So I'm going to move this stuff
around and then we'll keep going. Alright, so we're making
progress. So that feels good. So these I had brought in from the
camper because I was going to ask Tom if he needed a set. So with our last camper, we inherited a bunch of extra stuff,
which was very kind of the people. And so these came with it and then I
put them in the next camper and then realized we don't ever use stuff
like this when we're camping. And then I was gonna
ask Tom if he needed it. And then I realized he has
a set out by our grill. So now what do we do with this? What
do I do with an extra set of stuff? It could be useful if his current
set broke or something happened. Then we might be like, oh, I'm glad
that we have an extra set. But again, if I ask myself, do I
want to inventory this? Do I want to keep track of it? I'm going to have to put it somewhere
where I would remember where it is, so that if his other set failed, I
would know, I'd be like, oh right, we have another set. It's in
the basement or in the garage. But knowing myself now, I
will not remember it's there. I could put it in the most clever spot
that makes the most sense where I would look for it right now,
if I were to look for it. And it would not occur to
me that we had another set. We would just go buy another set. And then the next time I go to clean
the basement, I'll be like, oh, darn it. We had another set. So if I ask myself,
do I want to inventory this anymore? I don't because I don't trust that
I'm going to remember that it's there, even though it's perfectly good. Right?
Perfectly useful. Nice heavy duty set. I just, I know myself and I'm
not going to remember it's there. So do I want to inventory this
anymore? No, unfortunately I do not. And I know some of you are thinking,
yeah, your space is kind of overwhelming, but mine's really overwhelming. Like
I have boxes stacked to the ceiling, or I can't even walk in this space. And I want to encourage you that
the process is still the same. By asking these questions, it's
causing us to rank the stuff. It causes us to let the stuff that
truly is important rise to the top, get a spot in the container, and then the rest just has to go
because we don't have space for it. Okay, but lastly, let's
talk about motivation. How do we get motivated to
tackle a space like this? I recently did a survey in
my Facebook group and I said, what is the thing that stands in your way
the most from you getting decluttering done? And I honestly thought
that it was going to be time. Or having commitments to family
members or other people or jobs that take a lot of extra time or
energy or things like that. And it wasn't. The thing, by far, that most people said holds
them back is motivation. So an interesting thing happened the
other day. Well, not that interesting. We got an Amazon box in the mail.
This is a regular occurrence. And it was sitting on the table. I knew what was in it so I
hadn't even opened it yet. Adeline walked by and she said,
"Ooh, can I open that?" And I said, "It's not for you, like
who cares?" And she goes, "I still think it's fun to
open the boxes." And I said, "Do you know why that is, Adeline?"
And she's like, "Why?" I'm like, "Because you get a dopamine rush
from it." When we open something, it's like a present. Even though it's
not even a present, it's not for her. We still get a dopamine rush opening
it, seeing what's inside, taking it out. And so when it comes to motivation, I think the idea of
motivation is very elusive. We try to find tricks and tactics, but I think we need to recognize something
that's very powerful in our life, and that is the dopamine response. And so this is a very powerful
motivator in our lives, that I think most of us
aren't taking advantage of it. So when I wanted to get back in the
habit of walking every day and getting my 10,000 steps in every day, it was
winter. I was not feeling motivated. I just like, I really
didn't care that much, but I knew it was important and
I wanted the benefits of it. And so I made a deal with myself that
the only time I would watch a YouTube video was when I was
walking on the treadmill. And so I paired that activity
with a dopamine response. Plus you're also getting the feel
good from activity or whatever. So it was like a double whammy
or whatever. But I knew myself. I was motivated by getting some time to
watch YouTube videos or watch something else online. And so I would, the only time I'd allow myself to
do that was when I was walking. So what if we said, you know what, I don't allow myself to go on Facebook
or Instagram or YouTube unless I'm working on something.
I'm decluttering, I'm playing it in the background while
I'm tidying or I'll reward myself. If I do five minutes of tidying or
picking up in this room that horrifies me and scares me. I only
have to do five minutes, and then I can spend that same amount
of time on Facebook or on something else that I enjoy. If we would start to do
that, I think we would feel motivated. Because we all know that we just
have to get the ball rolling. Most of us are very much alike that
if we can just get in there and get a little bit done, we're going to
keep going. We'll say five minutes, but before we know it, it's been an hour and we've made some
progress and we're feeling a whole lot better about ourselves. And so I really want to encourage
you to try and use things that give a dopamine response. And
maybe from time to time, it is buying something. I was very motivated when we originally
finished this room to get it done, by buying some new bedding and a few
decorative things to really make this room feel complete. Like that really motivated me and spurred
me on to get everything done in this room. And so maybe from time to time, it is buying something and
rewarding ourselves with that too. But there's other ways to do it as well. But I think if we would
pair that with decluttering, that we could really start to see
some good progress in our house. Okay, so here's the room put
back together, completed. And we have our soda water here. We have our donation box
and our black trash bag. I'm going to go take those out right now
before anybody rummages through them. And we got the bed made
and put back together. We also have the wardrobe
nice and organized as well.
So this feels much better. And for those who have
asked, these containers, you saw them in our camper
video too, they're from Target. They're in the Dollar Spot for $5. And then I also found them back
in the storage containers too. So they were in both locations
at the Targets that I went to. So know that you're not alone if you're
ever completely lacking in motivation. You're actually more normal than not. So you're definitely not
alone. And hopefully too, while you're watching our videos, you can be working in the space
that we're talking about as well. So I'll link some helpful
playlists down below too. Still one of my all-time favorite videos
is the five-minute video on what you can get done in five minutes, so
I'll definitely link to that one. But otherwise I really
want to encourage you. Keep putting these parameters around
your stuff. Is it container worthy? Do I want to inventory it? Keep
asking yourself those questions, so we have something to weigh it against, and I think you really can make a ton of
progress in your house. I know you can. You're totally capable. You can do
it. I hope you have a really good day. I love you, and I'll see you again soon.
