Declutter Without Creating an Obstacle Course

Tip Tuesday — Episode 47

Hello, and welcome to Tip Tuesday, episode 47.

You may have heard that when you're decluttering, you're supposed to pull everything out, take everything out of the closet, empty the drawers, put like things together, see everything you have, and then figure out what you're going to keep.

And that might work really well if you have a whole crew of people helping you.

But if it's just you, and life starts lifing, now instead of having a cluttered closet, you have an obstacle course in the middle of your home.

And then somebody calls, you have to leave, you get tired, or you just don't feel like doing it anymore, and now you have an even bigger project sitting there waiting for you.

So today, I wanna share a few ways you can make decluttering a little more manageable without creating more overwhelm in the process.

Check In With Yourself First

Yesterday for Momentum Monday, we talked about making your starting point small enough that you can have a win.

And today, I want to take that one step further because once you start, we also want to make sure that you don't do so much that you completely drain yourself.

Before you start decluttering, check in with yourself.

How much energy do you actually have today?

Because we don't show up the same way every day.

One day, you might have the energy to declutter for thirty minutes.

Another day, ten minutes might be plenty.

And there may be a day when you look at five things, and you're done.

That's okay too.

The goal isn't to see how much you can push yourself to do because if you push yourself all the way to your limit, you might get a lot done that day, but your body is going to remember how that felt.

And the next time you think about decluttering, you might remember how exhausting it was and not want to go back to it.

So don't measure a successful decluttering session by how exhausted you are when you're done.

You want to make progress, but you also want to be able to come back and do it again.

Give Yourself Two Limits

Once you know how much energy you have, I recommend giving yourself two limits: a time limit and a space limit.

So instead of saying, "Today, I'm going to declutter my closet," maybe you say, "Today, I'm going to work on this one shelf for twenty minutes."

Now, you have a boundary around the space you're working on, and you have a boundary around how long you're going to work.

Because even one shelf can take longer than you think.

You might open it and think, "Oh, this will only take fifteen minutes," and two hours later, you're still sitting there surrounded by stuff.

So give yourself both, one space and one amount of time, and if your timer goes off before you finish that space, that's okay.

You still made progress.

Make Cleanup Part of the Time

And here's another really important part.

If you have twenty minutes, don't necessarily spend all twenty minutes pulling things out.

Give yourself some time at the end to put things away or at least contain what you haven't finished.

Maybe you work for 15 minutes and use the last five minutes to reset your space.

Because we don't want 20 minutes of decluttering to turn into another hour of cleaning up after the decluttering session.

The cleanup is part of the time.

That way, when you're done, you're actually done.

And when life starts lifing, you're not leaving yourself with an obstacle course to come back to.

Pick a Number of Items

And if a timer and a section still feels like too much, you wanna make it even smaller.

Pick a number of items.

Maybe today you're going to look at seven things.

Maybe it's five, maybe it's three, maybe it's just one.

You get to decide what feels manageable for that day.

And once you've done that number, you did what you said you're going to do.

Anything you do after that is a bonus.

Take a Before Picture

And one more thing I recommend is taking a before picture, because when you're right there in the middle of it all, it can be really easy to look at everything that's still left and completely miss how much you've already done.

So before you start, take a picture, then do your 20 minutes, do your one shelf, do your five things, whatever you decided you had the energy for that day.

And when you're finished, take another picture.

Look at the difference.

You may have made more progress than you realized, and celebrate that.

Don't look at everything that's left and think, "Ugh, I still have so much to do."

Look at what you did and say, "Look at what I got done," because that's progress.

Your Tip for Today

So here's your tip for today.

Pick one small space you would like to declutter.

Check in with yourself and see how much energy you actually have.

Decide how much time you want to give it, and take a before picture.

And remember to leave yourself a few minutes at the end to put things away or contain whatever you didn't finish.

Then take your after picture and celebrate what you got done.

And if today isn't the day, that's okay too.

Maybe your action step today is simply deciding what small space you want to start with.

And you can come back to it when you have the energy for it.

The goal isn't to push yourself until you're completely drained and exhausted.

It's to make the task manageable enough that you can make progress and still feel like you can come back to it again.

Little by little still moves you forward.

Until Next Time

Thank you for spending a little bit of your day with me.

Until next time, I'll see you for Real Life Wednesday.

Until then, I hope today's episode helped you create a little more clarity, feel a little more calm, and have a little more confidence.  💜💚