[PODCAST 286]: 8 Simple Principles to Guide Our Decluttering

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[PODCAST 286]: 8 Simple Principles to Guide Our Decluttering

24h ago 16:21

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What holds you back when you think about decluttering your life?

I asked members of our ARISE community what specifically was holding them back, and here are a few of their responses:

I don’t like putting useful items in the landfill that I don’t know the best place to donate.
Items that belong to other people bring my decluttering to a screeching halt.
Physical problems prevent too much bending over to arrange items.
I get stuck wanting to do the right or perfect thing with things.
Lack of energy, motivation, and mental bandwidth.
I underestimate time thinking what I’m looking at will take longer than I have.
It feels so overwhelming.
It gets cluttered as soon as I start the next project.
I get stumped with certain things–the emotional things like my grandparents’ dishes and books.
Wanting to dedicate too much time to it, and then never finding the time to do it.
In spaces that are completely cluttered, I shut down. I look at it all and think, “I just don’t even want to look at it.”

Can you relate to any of those sentiments? Today I’m going to share eight simple principles that can guide us as we’re decluttering. These aren’t the only eight principles, but they’re eight that I think highlight ways that we can actually move forward when we feel stuck.

We also have a video version of these principles if you’d prefer to watch that instead. Don’t forget to subscribe to our LearnDoBecome YouTube Channel (linked here)!

Principle #1 – Focus on your own space and your own things first.

I know it’s tempting to want to declutter everything that your family members have
brought in the house, but that’s a sure way to seed discontent and mistrust and
really make your family feel incredibly frustrated with you.

I’ve been there. In our family, each person has their own space for sleeping, getting ready, and things like that. There are some shared spaces in the house that we just keep generally clear, but when I’m decluttering, I’m thinking about just my space and my stuff.

Principle #2 – We’re going to be very, very careful about every decision we make bringing things into our lives in the future. We’re going to recycle, donate, and dispose of things as wisely as possible.

If we notice we’re always decluttering a bunch of really cheap knick-knack things, we’re going to commit to not bringing those into our lives in the future.

I don’t want us to keep things in our lives because we are protecting a landfill and so we therefore turn our homes into a quasi-landfill. That’s really not helpful because at the end of our lives, it’s all going to go into the landfill anyway and having trash or items and just holding them all around you is preventing you from doing the good in the world and being able to have that freedom and flexibility to go bless the world in the ways you’re uniquely created to do it.

So there’s obviously balance here because I don’t want to go throw a bunch of stuff away and I want to repurpose things and I want to be creative.

And just a quick example of using things creatively–our son had the cutest fire truck lunchbox in kindergarten and decided he didn’t want to use it once he got to first grade. I didn’t want to part with the lunchbox, so I turned it into the bag that holds all of my travel toiletries. Whenever I travel, I just open this up, and I think about how fun it was to have my little you know little kids and it’s been great. Sometimes if you’re not using something, you can repurpose, and I think that’s great. The point is that every time you use it you want to be something that brings you joy.

Principle #3 – Progress not perfection and see your decluttering as Projects with Next Actions.

The whole goal is to be able to make incremental steps forward because as we do that, we’ll get to a point where everything’s decluttered and then we can just be in maintenance mode.

I recommend having it set up as Current Projects and Next Actions is because if you just try to attack your house or office or whatever in the midst of working, taking care of a family, volunteering, living your life, self-care, all that, you’re just going to feel frustrated.

If you have a Current Project of “I’m going to declutter the kitchen,” you’re going to break that into little bite-sized Next Actions (10-minute microbursts) to clear one end table or clear one drawer or something like that. You’ll come back to this project and be able to make steady progress forward.

Principle #4 – This was inspired by Dana White’s book Decluttering at the Speed of Life. She encourages us to declutter and create the life we’re living right now, not to save everything that we might need in the future.

Waiting for that perfect opportunity to show up where you might need that one thing is just going to keep a lot of excess in our lives.

So instead, if we focus on the idea that we are going to only keep what we are actually using and that we need for this life, not for the life when we weigh something different or we have different hobbies or do other things, it’s going to help us to be able to keep it streamlined and focused.

And there can be a little balance here. For example, I do have dreams of playing some piano music that I’m not playing right now, but I have room for it and I’m just going to keep that music for when I can play in the future.

But let’s not keep all the what-ifs in our brains thinking, “What if I need 15 vegetable peelers all at the same time?”

Principle #5 – Work wisely.

Maybe it’s working in microbursts, maybe it’s scheduling time on your calendar
and saying this weekend, decluttering, or maybe it’s even body doubling where you
have another person come work with you to help you make decisions and move things
around.

The point is that you want to be very thoughtful about how you’re doing it so that as you jump in to declutter a spot, instead of getting distracted by all the psychological stuff going on or regrets or any of those other things that may happen, you’re just going to focus on completing a ten-minute microburst.

Principle #6 – Photograph sentimental items that you do not use, want, and have room to store.

This gets easier with time. I have a podcast I recorded with Julie Morgenstern who helped me to recognize that keeping an old makeup bag that my mom gave me was not the best way to remember my mom. It was okay for me to let that go and save things that were better memories.

Sometimes we inherit a lot of things from loved ones or we have experiences with
friends and we save these sentimental items. You don’t have to save every single thing.

Now sometimes people really want to save sentimental items and that’s great. If you have room for it, if it brings you joy to store it somewhere, awesome.

If you can just take advantage of the opportunity that we have now to take digital photos so easily and store them by keywords so you can go find them when you need them, it’s going to alleviate a lot of that physical pressure that otherwise could be all over your home and office.

Principle #7 – Recognize that the feelings that await you after you declutter are things like peace and joy and having more energy even though your brain is going to tell you differently.

For example, I went into the closet the other day because I know I need to declutter maybe 10 shirts or something like that that I have hanging.

Every time I think about decluttering them, I think I’m going to feel sad, guilty I spent money on them, frustrated that I didn’t wear that more often or didn’t turn out the way I thought, etc.

I have all these thoughts that as soon as I declutter, I’m just going to feel terrible. But I know as soon as I actually donate those shirts, I’m going to feel light and peaceful and happy. I know that because this is happening time and time again.

I want you to just visualize one pile of stuff that you know you don’t use, want, or need, but you’re like holding on to it for some reason. How do you think you’re going to feel once it’s donated?

Right now your brain is saying it’s going to be the worst. I’m going to feel so awful. I want you to just pause and maybe think, “Well what if I did take those things and I put them in a little incubation box for a couple weeks? If I don’t think about these things for two weeks they’re just going straight to donation. I won’t even open it again.”

You could do something like that, but I want you to recognize that it’s going to feel so good.

Principle #8 – If you get stuck, quickly brainstorm with friends, but go find a solution.

I was chatting with my daughter the other day because she had created this cute
little craft and it was done with yarn, kind of a needlework type thing, but it ran out of the color she needed right at the end. She said, “What do I do with this thing? It’s been just sitting here on my desk for several weeks.”

This is where having a community, an online group, a good friend, or someone you could text a photo to and ask is great because as you can come up with different options, then you can choose the one that feels best for you.

In this case, my daughter decided just to take a picture of what was unfinished and then she’s not going to worry about keeping it.

It gets easier as we go, but typically the reason why we want to hold on to all of these things or the reason when we have clutter is because we are compassionate, care about a lot of things, and there’s meaning in our lives and to our possessions. And that’s a beautiful thing.

But when it starts to overwhelm us and stops us from having that energy that we need in order to be with our people, do our best work, and thrive individually, then it’s time to let the clutter go.

I really want to emphasize the “why” is that I want you to wake up excited and go to bed content. I want you to step into this newer, exciting life that you’ve been dreaming about, knowing that clutter doesn’t need to hold you back.

When you can give space for the things that are important, you’re going to feel that lift. So glad you’re here!