The BEST Decluttering Tips for Anyone Feeling Overwhelmed

well if you're feeling overwhelmed I understand that you also then don't have any motivation you don't have extra energy to declutter but here's the problem you know you need to declutter right it's very chicken or egg my space is cluttered it lends itself to me feeling more stressed out and more overwhelmed but I don't have the motivation and energy I need to get it decluttered right it's like this vicious cycle and we get caught up in it we feel bad we feel guilty uh but yet we don't necessarily have the energy to do anything about it so today I have good news there is a way to manufacture motivation you can do it we're going to use our five FS my friend Cindy calls it The Fabulous Five because sometimes F can have a negative connotation right super simple steps to create motivation and energy and to make some real progress in your home when you absolutely do not feel like it well hi I'm Don from the minimal mom if we haven't met before I'm married to Tom and we have four kids ages 9 through 14 and I'm like you some days I I feel motivated maybe I watch a YouTube video and I'm like yes I am going to tackle my house I I also noticed like today the sun is shining here in Minnesota and I'm like I can do anything I can like what can't I do today right and then as soon as it's cloudy again and the Sun goes behind the clouds I'm like I couldn't care less about anything I don't whatever you know it'll still be there tomorrow so I understand how motivation comes and it goes ml Robbins will say we can't rely on it it's fickle like we just can't rely on it so there are days where we have to manufacturer motivation but it's super simple so here are the five FS that we go through Focus 5 minutes so we set the timer for just 5 minutes we start with the floor and then from there we go to flat surfaces we force everything to fit into one of just three categories there are only three types of stuff in every space in your house and then we finish and that feels really good that final step of finishing feels awesome so I want to demonstrate uh these five steps on a space in my house I would encourage you to work alongside me you don't have to you can do what you want to do but if you're able set the timer for 5 minutes we're going to do a focus 5 minutes and see how far we can get all right so first we're going to do a focused 5 minutes it very well might not be realistic for you to complete a whole Space today you might not have the time you might not have the physical energy or the motivation that's totally fine a full space might be unrealistic today but 5 minutes that's practical for everyone so set your timer for 5 minutes and we know when we have a short amount of time where we're really focus we actually get a lot more done okay so that is the first F and next we are going to start on the floor why do we start on the floor because when there is stuff on the floor that actually evokes fear in our brains it makes our home feel unsafe we feel unsettled and you've experience this when you get the floor cleaned up in a space even if you don't get the other stuff done it feels really good so whether it's a dining room a bedroom an extra storage space if you will start with the floor and get the stuff up off the floor it's going to make your brain feel a whole lot better in this space and we all know how it goes we're going to start to feel like okay there's possibilities maybe I can do this maybe it's not quite as scary as I was building it up to be so let's work on this together if you're in a room that has a door I would recommend starting right by the door um like kind of work your way into the space or look for what's the easiest so uh my friend brought me these new pot holders they just need to get put away and so that's one of our other FS is that we're going to force it into a category you're going to find that there are only three categories of stuff in any given space there's just garbage and trash like these I'm going to put away and then the bag can get thrown away there are things that have a home and then there's things that don't have a home good news for today you can skip over the things that have a home we're going to deal with the easy stuff the trash and the garbage and the things that have a home so they're beautiful po holders and I told her I'm like you know what the problem is they're too pretty I'm not going to want to use these she's like no these are meant to be used I'm like fine I'm not going to let Adeline and Tom use these right they're so pretty they're meant to be used so they have a home they just need to get put away in our poth holder drawer and then like I said this can just get thrown away so let me go do that real quick all right and then this is a box of tortilla trips from my friend Carol so this past weekend we did the donation drive at the grace and Glory thrift store and so it was so fun for those who came thank you it was awesome also for those of you who are not local and you donated we were able to bring them a check for $2,000 and they felt so encouraged and it was just it was so much fun so uh so thank you for your support and Carol was so kind these are tortilla chips that they make their organic tortilla chips from their farm and in the past I did not have a storage space for these but because of our new storage we added in our spare bedroom I actually have a spot for stuff like this now so when I'm looking at my three categories garbage has a home doesn't have a home these have a home I know why they got put here it's easier to set them here than to bring them to their home but this isn't hard I just need to take a second and go put these where they go now so that's what I'm going to do oh this is awesome can you see this what did we uncover under the box a sock of course why wouldn't there be a sock there right sock just needs to go to the laundry room there's a little piece of garbage here too um and then I'm going to look for anything else that like I can bring with me so there's a sweatshirt on the floor that can go to the laundry room as well Tom's dress shoes um these let's see these actually go to that closet so this again when I'm looking at my three categories garbage has a home doesn't have a home this is all stuff that has a home that just needs to put be put away so it's not hard it's kind of annoying it's a little bit tedious but I can do this especially if I'm only working for 5 minutes right now all right and then one more thing here too our mop and some cleaning supplies it has a home the mop bucket goes in the basement the cleaning supplies go under the sink so again not hard has a home just needs to be put away oh what are you doing here sorry didn't mean to scare you I think you forgot to mention that there's also a printable with these five steps on it you can find the link Down Below in the description or in that top comment okay now here's what's so cool let's say your timer goes off and this is where you want to stop for right now you have made no bigger mess it feels better in here and sure you didn't get the top of the table decluttered and there's still plenty more to do but you're going to feel more encouraged and motivated because you made progress you didn't make piles uh you didn't make the space any worse you made progress doesn't that feel so good all right so the last step is to finish so with each of these things I was finishing as I went I was putting stuff away as I was going I was using Dana's method to to completely put stuff away you can do that or you don't have to let's say that your timer goes off and you've made a couple piles of stuff that need to get to go places the last f is to finish so make sure if you have made any piles or set stuff aside that you go ahead and you complete this 5 minute decluttering session you put those things away because again that's how we're going to feel good that's how we get a dopamine release reaction where the cluttering now it actually feels really good so I finished 5 minutes I finish what I set out to do this face feels better that feels really good to me and it keeps decluttering to be a positive experience so if you're willing we can do another five minutes and we can work together on the top of this table okay now I skipped over an F when we were going through our 5 fs and that is the flat surfaces so it's good to start with the floor cuz again stuff on the floor makes us feel unsettled a little bit anxious and then we go to our flat surfaces cuz what does stuff on flat surfaces feel like to us stress right clutter releases stress hormones and again I know you know that so I don't need to uh blabber that point but once we get the floor cleaned up then we want to turn our attention to the flat surfaces so if you're working in a bedroom it might be the topes of dressers nightstands a desk that you have the flat surfaces are next okay so now I'm always going to start with the easy stuff so if there's things that just need to get put away do that first like again look for the easy things things that already have a home or are garbage get rid of that cat those two categories because you're going to reduce the amount of inventory on here uh by like 80% we think all of this stuff is like scary projects and things I don't know what to do with it's not actually true so keep going through looking for the stuff that has a home that's really easy but again let's say now I'm going through this and I come across something that is a project or something that I have to do so I actually got this cake sand um at the grace and Glory secondhand store if you want to donate or support them in any way I'll put that link down below i b two cake stands when I was there so yes I should probably declutter some but I'm probably not going to it's fine but this is a project because I want to make the base like a bronish goldish color so it matches our kitchen and I'm going to put on our open shelves so this is something that I need to do so again if I'm looking through my three categories and we're Force fitting everything into our three categories of garbage things that have a home and things that don't have a home where do projects live in your house what I like to encourage you you can have a dedicated spot for projects that's totally fine or if it's something you need to do you need to add it to your task list to your to-do list and we don't want to have these visual reminders so if I add it to my task list then I'm not going to forget about it and for now I could put it either on our open shelves I could put it on a shelf in the basement I could just leave it here on the table it was kind of just like my centerpiece here on the table but I don't want to have to every time I see it be like oh right I was going to paint the bottom of it so um we or do unfinished projects live in your house now again if you're like I don't have the capacity to think about that today remember Don I'm overwhelmed that's fine then skip over it because again there is so much easy stuff here let let's just look for things that I can deal with really easily extra egg cartons this isn't where these live so this just needs to go um back in our our spare bedroom this is extra contacts that I ordered they just need to get opened up and and put away uh this is a birthday card that I need to send out this is a calendar our family calendar that just doesn't belong here so already I'm finding lots of things that I can just deal with really quickly and it's going to reduce the inventory on the table and feel so much better so I'm going to go put these things away really quickly so the reason I like to say that there's only three categories of stuff in any given space is that it helps to break down the mental barriers again we look at a mish mash of stuff and it all feels overwhelming and scary but if we can deal with the first two categories we're actually left with very little so if you come across something that doesn't have a home then we have to ask oursel do I want to create a dedicated home for this often we keep things cuz we think we should it's extras it's leftovers we might need it someday but this is a great opportunity to ask ourself do I actually want to create a home for this now if the answer is yes then we think of the most logical place that we would store it sometimes we get to that location and we have to remove some stuff from there but isn't it amazing all of the things we forget that we have and that we're not actually using but I know you're looking at stuff differently now so stuff you might have kept in the past now it it hopefully is a little bit easier to let it go and make room for these things that we actually want to keep and are using now again I want to remind you that if when you are feeling overwhelmed your brain isn't feeling motivated or thinking well just remember 5 minutes matters that's totally normal when we are feeling discomfort when we're stressed we're overwhelmed our brain is just seeking to get back to comfort to a place where things feel easy and most often the easiest place to to get there is not to continue to declutter our house because we know it's going to pay off in the end the easiest way to get there is to go on this right we offramp this vicious cycle and we just go here and we just go on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube thank you for watching right that is logical it that your brain is doing what it's designed to do it avoids discomfort at all costs so there is nothing wrong with you your brain is working fine but we do have to kind of like hack it sometimes or manufactur motivation because we do know it's going to pay off and we do know that unfortunately spending a lot of time on here it usually just leaves us feeling worse but if we can figure out some way to get going again and get in motion again after doing even just 5 minutes we do feel better and like I said when the timer goes off you can quit or you can decide to keep going and we know often we do keep going once we get the ball rolling again and so I wanted to share this uh from my friend Lisa she's in our mentorship group she said I think the biggest aha moment for me was 5 minutes matters I have so SL decluttered the majority of my house in just tiny chunks at a time I knew that I was making progress because my house stays clean or is easy to pick up in a short amount of time that's when I realized how much my 5 minutes have added up and so that can absolutely be the case I know I'll I'll often hear people say like five minutes I need like five years to get my house back in order but the magic is in the five minutes because it gets us going again it re familiarizes us with what's here I had built up everything on this table to be hard and scary and overwhelming and I don't know what to do with it the truth of the matter is most of the things just needed to be put back away or thrown away right so I'm guessing that's the case in your house too doesn't that feel so much better I know you know right you know your house feels better when it's picked up tidied up it doesn't have to be perfectly clean but we know clutter makes us feel stressed it makes us feel anxious it keeps that just kind of like sense of feeling off or like something's wrong or we just can't fully let our guard down so how can we use this throughout the week well just be aware of stuff that lands on the floor try and get in the habit of just picking stuff up you don't have to put it away but keeping stuff up off the floor and then throughout the week working to keep your flat surfaces tidy and again I know how we build them up to think oh the stuff that lands there it doesn't have a home it's scary it's stuff we don't want to deal with but as we continue to work on it and it as we work on it every single day it doesn't get to the point where it gets to be built up to be quite so scary and so it feels more manageable as we stay on top of it a little bit every day so again that's the grandiose plan that's kind of the ideal and some weeks we do better than others and that's totally fine one other tip hack that I really like is there's nothing wrong with wanting to go on our cell phones on social media right it usually means we want some human connection and I I fully understand that but use it as a reward so one idea is to tell yourself okay I'm going to set the timer for 5 minutes I'm going to do my 5 minute pickup tidy up and then I can go on my phone guilt-free I don't even have to feel bad about it right I've earned it and that's a really good feeling okay well I'm going to link to one of my other favorite videos uh I have a video where I I went around our whole house in 5 minute chunks so I'm going to link to that cuz that can be kind of motivating and inspiring as well like I mentioned uh there is that printable down below and could I ask one final favor if you haven't done so would you consider subscribing it's really fascinating only about half the people who watch are actually subscribed and it would be kind of fun to hit a million subscribers this year it helps us to reach even more women I it's so fun to hear from you how decluttering and simplifying has had such a huge impact on your life and so every woman needs to hear this message right as we grow in those kind of numbers it helps others to realize hey there might be something to this so if you haven't done so I would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe as well all right well I love you I hope you have a really good day I hope the sun is shining where you are and I will see you again soon

Channel: The Minimal Mom

Views: 307,414

Keywords: minimalism, family minimalism, minimalist, the minimal mom, the minimalist mom, minimalist home

Id: xyvRU44IvSc

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024