When you're ready to ditch your clutter and transform your entire home by really getting rid of all your excess stuff, it's like learning a new skill or setting a big goal that you want to accomplish. I like to compare it to wanting to lose weight. If you wanted to lose 50 pounds this year, you wouldn't just hope for the best, right?
No. You would figure out what workout routine you're going to. You'd work on creating new habits, drinking more water, and eating more nutritious. Well, it's no different with decluttering. You need to have a plan. In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly how to create that plan, your very own decluttering plan, so you can fully grasp what you need to do in order to demolish your clutter and transform your home.
Hey there, I'm Nicole from The Maximizing Mama, and I am obsessed with creating a home that gives me more peace of mind, more time to myself and more time with my kids. I teach you the tried and true secrets to clearing your clutter. Getting organized and managing your household in a realistic and sustainable way.
This show is where we talk about things like motherhood, decluttering, organizing, creating routines, mindset, energy, and everything in between. Our homes are the foundation for the rest of our lives, and it's so important to have a calm, relaxing household so you can have the time, the peace of mind, and the freedom to truly enjoy motherhood.
So sit back and get ready to take charge of your home.
Hey there, I'm so glad to have you here with me for another episode of the Take Charge of your home show. Today we're chatting about how to create an annual decluttering plan for your home, for your household, for what you are wanting to accomplish. And this is so helpful because it gives you a full understanding of what you need to do to demolish your.
If you wanted to lose weight, you wouldn't just set a goal to lose 50 pounds and then just hope for the best, and it's no different with the cluttering. You need to have a plan. I'm going to walk you through what your plan should consist of, and then in a couple of weeks we have a free three day challenge where you will gain the confidence and the clarity to put your plan into action in your home.
And finally, if you would like to have the know-how for how to make it all happen, there's a brand new program opening in February that you should keep your eye out for. So let's get right into today's. now go ahead and grab a sheet of paper and a pen so you can write down your answers and create your decluttering plan as you listen to this episode.
So, as I said, a decluttering plan is like your guide for your home. It's the details and the specifics that you need to know. The very first thing that you want to get clear on is your intention for your home. This could be to raise a. To open your home to a lot of animals, to host parties and have friends come over every weekend or to shelter you for the time being while you save up enough money to sell all of your belongings and travel the world, or it could be any number of intentions.
Your intention for your home will drastically impact your decluttering plan, and it will be drastically. . So for example, if you plan to sell all of your things and travel the world, that means that you don't have any reason to hold onto dozens of boxes worth of hand-me-down clothing. But on the other hand, if your intention is to raise your family and you know that you're not done having kids, then that means it's perfectly acceptable to save hand me downs if that aligns with your.
So I want you to get clear on what your intention is for your home, for the very first step of your decluttering plan, and write it on your sheet of paper. Then for step two, determine your goals. These should be the areas or the projects or the milestones that you need to reach on the way to achieving your big goal of decluttering your entire house.
So if you want to, to clutter your entire. Start listing out what areas you need to declutter in order to achieve that. Jot them all down on your sheet of paper from a higher level view. Don't get too granular here. You really wanna avoid writing down things like declutter all the papers on the kitchen counters, and instead focus on the rooms or the zones in your.
So let's say for example's sake, that you need to declutter all of the bedrooms, the closets, and the main living areas. Well, those will become your decluttering goals. The list of areas on your decluttering plan, those are the specific areas that you need to declutter in order to accomplish decluttering your entire.
So once you've got your goals listed on your sheet of paper, the next step is to determine what the cluttering method you are going to follow. You could prefer to follow the big marathon decluttering sessions where you pull everything out, or maybe you would rather work through one category at a time, or you could even narrow it down further to focusing on one piece of furniture, one pile, or one box at a time.
This is gonna be different for everyone, and it really comes down to your personal preferences. There are. . There's several more specific decluttering methods that we could get really strategic with, but for now, choosing one of these basic methods will give you a pretty good understanding of how you want to declutter your home throughout the year.
Big marathon sessions, one category at a time, like all the clothes at once. This is kind of like the Marie Condo style. One room at a time, or one piece of furniture, one pile at a. . Now, there are pros and cons to each of these methods, and I do have a method of my own called the Clarity Method that I will be sharing in a future episode.
But for now, like I said, just choose the one that resonates most with you. And I will say that if you're typically feeling pretty overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in your home, your best bet is to focus on one piece of furniture or one pile at. . So jot that down on your sheet of paper, and then I want you to move on to figuring out where you're going to start the cluttering.
So look at your paper from the previous step and the list of areas that you wrote down, and simply choose one of those areas. It could be an area that's driving you crazy, or even a room in your house that negatively impacts your day-to-day life, like your. Again, just choose one and write it down for where you're going to start decluttering.
And then finally, the very last step in the process is to create your exit method. This is your plan for getting the decluttered, unwanted items out of your house. I want you to get clear on whether you want to donate, sell, or discard your decluttered items. . And then depending on your answer, you can jot down a few specifics.
So if you want to donate everything, do some research on what donation centers, shelters, and charities are in your area. Call around, find out what time they're open and what types of donations they accept, and then jot that all down for your exit. Now you may end up needing a couple of different charities in order to fully get all of your clutter out of your house.
Personally, I donate all adult clothing and household goods to our local homeless shelter. Specifically because they offer a service where they help people get their own apartment. And this apartment is usually supplied with household items like shower curtains, kitchen utensils, et cetera. So it works really well for me because I can donate clothing to the homeless shelter and household goods to their resident services.
And then I donate all of our kids' items to a local emergency children's service, and everything else that's left over goes to good. . So depending on the charities that are available in your area, you may find that you need a couple of places like I do, or you may prefer to just take it all to the Salvation Army or to just discard all of it.
Remember, this is your exit method, your decluttering plan. So really, I really want you to tune into what works best for you here and that. . Once you have fleshed out all of those points, you will have a complete plan to prepare you for both of the decluttering phases. You may have heard me talk about the different phases of decluttering before.
Well, the first phase is all about tackling the first layer of clutter in your home. Things that are easy to let go of, like the visible clutter. This is where you are learning the foundations. . Really just getting in there and getting started. Getting your hands dirty, getting your feet wet, dipping your toes in.
Then once you've uncovered that first layer of clutter, then it's time to move on to the second phase of decluttering where you are more thorough with your efforts because you've already got the foundations down. . So you're basically in the second phase, you're just adding more to your bag of tricks and working more through hidden clutter.
So some of those tricks that you could be adding to your bag of tricks would be like setting up a holding zone, tackling different clutter categories, letting go, getting your family on board and creating a lifestyle. , these two distinct phases of decluttering, they work really well and they really help you avoid the overwhelm because you're not trying to do it all at once.
Instead, you are just building your skillset, and as I said, your decluttering plan will sustain you through both phases because you have, you've created a complete list of all the areas that you need to. . So to give you a more detailed example, we'll use your master closet as an example. In phase one, you're going there in your closet and you are really getting rid of some of the items that are easy for you to let go of.
You'll go in into your closet and find items that you know you're willing to get rid of right off the bat. Then when you move into phase two, you're going back into your closet and you're letting go of. sweatshirt from your high school years, or you're letting go of your wedding gown or some sentimental items that you have packed away on the top shelf.
I hope you see where I'm going with this. Phase one is focused on the basic level of the cluttering the basic layers, while phase two is the more deeper hidden layers. Now, you know that I love recapping your action steps, so let's go over them very. . First, I want you to identify what your intention is for your home, what you intend to do in your home, what your home is used for.
For step two, I want you to determine what your general decluttering goals are, the goals that you need to accomplish in order to declutter your entire house. Then for step three, figure out where you are going to start declutter. And make sure to really tune into next week's episode for some tips on how to do this.
And then finally, for step four, create your exit method and come up with an exit plan for all the items that you will be letting go of.
Now, I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but my intention for this podcast is to give you a journey that you can follow to take charge of your entire home throughout.
A journey that is sustainable and realistic because as I was just kind of alluding to, there are several different categories of clutter and different types of messes that are contributing to the problem as a whole. And while ditching and demolishing your clutter will absolutely transform your home, in order to make long-term lasting progress, we have to take a step back and see the bigger.
because if I were to tell you, if I were to explain to you how to declutter your living room, that wouldn't really translate into long-term success because, let me put it, let me put it this way. I have been in this space. For a while now, and I have noticed over the years that there are some people who are unable to get started.
Even if I explain to them how to declutter their living room, they're still unable to get started for years on end, while other people may take action, but then they fall off track and there are others who are actively decluttering their. But they're just not seeing the kind of progress that they want.
And the reason that's happening is because a lot of the decluttering advice out there is for people whose homes are already decluttered. They just need to do some maintenance decluttering. Most of the advice that you can find online is not for people who are really starting from the beginning. So if that's you, if any of what I just said resonated with you, well, this is the beginning of a beautiful.
Because I am committed to helping you create a more relaxing home, I am committed to helping you create a home that gives you time back into your day, peace of mind, to show up for yourself and your family, and freedom to really enjoy life and do the work that you were meant to do in this world. So, with that said, Just know that every piece of content, every podcast episode, and every email that I put out there is like a breadcrumb where we're adding different tools to your bag of tricks, giving you different tips and ideas that you can use in your home busting myths and overcoming limiting beliefs.
Building upon your skills and really just building confidence and capability so you truly have everything that you need, all the pieces of the puzzle to transform your entire home, and I can't wait to help you put this all in place. Thanks for listening. I'll chat with you soon.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the take Charge of your home show. Go ahead and take a few moments to celebrate yourself for being here, doing this work, and really learning how to create a calm, relaxing home.
Don't forget to check out the show notes and feel free to leave a rating and a review so I can know what you want to hear more about, because you and your journey are what make this show a reality. I'll see you next time.
