And why should you care?

In This Post, You Will Find Out Why You Should Be Focussing On Spring Clearing Rather Than Spring Cleaning, And How To Set Yourself Up For Clearing Sucess.

Cleaning is simply removing dirt. Which is great, because it gets rid of grease, dust, mites and all manner of nasties that can make us sick.

But cleaning is hard if you have a lot of stuff. You need to pick things up, move them out of the way or clean on, over and around them.

Clearing is about getting rid of excess stuff. Once you get rid of what you don’t need cleaning gets much easier.

Clearing Has Other Benefits Too. Think of Clearing As Creating Space.

Any artist or graphic designer will tell you that space around elements is as important as the elements themselves. 

Consider how peaceful an image is that has a lot of sky, an expanse of beach, or a minimal background. As opposed to one that is full to the brim with shapes or colour.

The same principle applies to your home.

By clearing decorations, knickknacks photos and pictures you reduce visual clutter. And you instantly create calm.

A mix of artwork spread out will look more cluttered, as your eye is pulled in lots of different directions. Group your pictures for more visual impact and a less cluttered look.

Matching frames and picture sizes will give you an even cleaner, calmer look.

The same is true for other objects in your home.

Lots of small elements create visual clutter. Bring them together for a bigger impact and more clear space.

Clear Your Counters To Instantly Reduce Overwhelm In The Kitchen.

The more your eye can see, the more overwhelmed you can feel. Especially when things start to get messy.

So store as much as you can out of sight. And for items you need to have out, group them together by size or colour for a calmer look.

So Instead of Spring Cleaning, Focus on Clearing

• Check your counters. Do you use the things on them daily? If not, can they live elsewhere?
• Check surfaces. Should the things on them be there, or do they need a home?
• Check your decor. Do you still love it?
• Look at spacing. Are things spread out? Can you group them to create less visual clutter?

More clear space will make cleaning much quicker and easier.

How To Set Yourself Up For Success In Your Spring Clearing

Can setting out to clear your house actually be setting yourself up for failure?

You know your house needs clearing, and you know you have too many things. So what’s the problem in setting out to tackle it?

Well, if you are:

• Short on time.
• Have a lot of other commitments.
• Run out of steam quickly.
• Struggle to make decisions.
• Have a hard time organising.
• Have ADHD.

You could actually be setting yourself up for failure.

Why is that? 

Well, going in with the expectation that you are going to get your whole house sorted is a pretty lofty goal. Especially if you are setting out to do this on your own.

I mean, your actions and habits have led to the way the house is now. Changing ingrained patterns is a long process. It doesn’t happen overnight.

You also need the right toolkit to make big changes in your home. And by toolkit, I don’t mean mops and pretty storage boxes. I mean the right decluttering and organising strategies that work for YOU. Not the organisers on TV, but for you personally.

So How Can You Actually Have an Effective Spring Clearout?

• Break the goal down. Clearing the whole house is way too broad and big. Break that down into much smaller chunks.
• Check if any chunks depend on something else happening first. For example, you might want to get the carpets steam cleaned. But actually, to get to the carpets you need to remove a lot of stuff from the floor. Which means decluttering each carpeted room first.
• See which of those chunks can be delegated or outsourced easily. Booking in a window cleaner, carpet cleaner, handyman(person) gardener or cleaner could be the absolute best use of your time and money to really make a big difference in your home.
• Now, look at your list and highlight which areas are the most important to you. For example, the kitchen might be very important as you use it daily. And the garage less so, because you don’t use it as much. 

You may also enjoy this post, 12 Ways To Start Decluttering When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed

Now you know what your highest priority is. But that’s not enough. You need to set yourself up for success.

• Take a look at your calendar and see when you actually have time for these spring cleaning tasks. You might need to book a babysitter, take a day off work,
• Check if there is anything you need to arrange ahead of time like a charity pick up, a skip or a pair of helping hands. Book this in.
• Make your goal obvious. If it just exists in your head you are likely to forget and not get it done. Print out a checklist to hang in an obvious place, write your steps on a large chalkboard or post it in an accountability group online.
• Then go one step at a time. Share your wins with an accountability buddy, support group or coach.

When your house is really messy, working on just one small area may feel like rearranging deckchairs on the titanic.

And for those of us with ADHD, well, we want it all done, and we want it now!

But hang in there. Even if it takes you a whole month to do one room, just think, you will easily get through your whole house in a lot less than a year. Progress is better than perfection.

But what if you need to clear your house faster? I can help! Check out how on my Services Page HERE.

The post Forget Spring Cleaning, Start Spring Clearing Instead appeared first on Go Win at Life.

You want to start tidying, but you just don’t know where to start. Or you start but end up switching from task to task and never actually getting anything done.

“I have today to clean for the first time in ages. I don’t even know what to tackle first. I will start something then walk to another room to put it away only to find something there to tackle. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed in my life. Where do I start first?”

I found this comment on a social post so relatable.

When you are overwhelmed by mess a lack of will to deal with it is rarely the problem.

The problem really lies in having clear, actionable steps that you know are going to lead to your desired outcome.

This is particularly problematic for those of us with ADHD brains. We can see the end goal. A tidy house. But the steps to get there are so many, so jumbled or so insignificant that we just can’t see how to get there.

And if we can’t see a clear path we will get lost or take a wrong turn on the way.

So you can find yourself with a mountain of stuff to do, but instead of doing it, you are zoned out on the couch, scrolling TikTok or just hiding under the covers.

(You may also like The Best Decluttering Questions to Ask to Overcome Overwhelm)

Having too much to do is overwhelming and can paralyse us into not doing anything at all.

I experienced this in a big way when I was pregnant with my daughter.  We were due to be moving soon. Our lovely flat, though large, was on the top floor of a walk-up building. Not ideal with a small child.

The plan was to buy a house in a green and family-friendly neighbourhood.

So this was the perfect opportunity to declutter old furniture we had inherited and clutter we had amassed and knew we wouldn’t need any more. And that was my plan.

But although I wanted to go through this stuff in the evenings and at weekends, it just wasn’t happening. 

I’d find myself doing anything but. Scrolling property listings. Researching baby buggies. Pulling out a box to sort and then realising an hour later that all I’d done is look through old photos and search the profiles of old school friends on Facebook.

So why, even something is important, do we find ourselves so paralysed or distracted that we can’t get it done?

“Your brain doesn’t just see a to-do list; it sees a threat. It sees the threat of scarcity: not enough time, not enough energy, not enough magical ability to fit everything into twenty-four hours. Or it sees the threat of failing, the threat of disappointing others, the threat of feeling incapable.”

– Ellen Hendriksen, PhD

This freeze response is a common symptom of ADHD. Paralysis comes from other sources too, including depression, anxiety, fatigue or hormonal changes. Or simply the from the feeling of powerlessness when facing an enormous task.

Whatever your cause, you need some simple strategies to break out of the cycle and move forward.

Beat Paralysis and Avoid Procrastination

Prioritising and planning are executive function skills that ADHD brains struggle with, so you can easily end up so overwhelmed that you just can’t start at all.

Follow This Simple Method to Beat Paralysis and Avoid Procrastination:

Divide and Conquer

To break out of Overwhelm Paralysis you need two things:

• A task that is small enough not to be overwhelming
• A clearly defined end point. Again, to reduce overwhelm, but also to give you the dopamine reward of completion.

To overcome distraction you need:

• A clearly defined task
• A location you don’t need to leave
• A short enough time frame to maintain focus.

KC Davis demonstrates how this looks in practice in her “5 Things Tidying Method” which you can watch here:

You’ll see her cleaning a really messy kitchen and lounge by breaking it down by task:

1. Trash
2. Dishes
3. Laundry
4. Things with a place
5. Things without a place

Breaking it down like this makes each task smaller, lets you complete them quickly, gives clarity on what to do, keeps you in one space and breaks down the time.

But What if You Have a Big Job? (like decluttering the whole house before a move)

That’s not a small task, it has multiple rooms and a long timeframe. And this can throw your brain into full on panic mode.

With a big task you need to break it down into smaller milestones. And if it is a job with a fixed deadline, you’ll need to give each milestone a deadline too.

Once you’ve broken your job down into smaller chunks you can use the tips above to tackle each task one at a time.

Make sure you track your progress too. I like to think of a fundraising progress bar. The church roof fund does not expect to get to their goal in one, big donation. Instead, lots of small ones eventually colour the bar till they reach their goal. 

What if you still can’t get started?

Sometimes Setting Tasks Alone is not Enough. You may need external sources of motivation.

Here are some more ideas to beat procrastination and paralysis:

• Talk the task through with someone – A friend, family member or a coach.
• “Coach” yourself – What would you tell a friend to do?
• Accountability buddy – Share your goal and set a time to report back on your progress.
• Accountability post – Post your goal in a group, then report back on your progress.
• Motivational background – Put something that inspires on to watch or listen to. Youtube, a podcast or even energising music.
• Hire an expert. The fastest way to beat procrastination and paralysis is to get professional help.

Conclusion – Beat Paralysis and Avoid Procrastination

So if you are finding yourself in tidying overwhelm, and battling either paralysis or distraction, remember that first of all this does not make you a bad or incompetent person. Your brain is simply looking for ways to protect you from the threats you are facing.

Remember to:

• Look for ways to break the task down into smaller steps,
• track and celebrate each step as you complete it to reward yourself along the way,
• and look for external sources of support and motivation.

You may also like 12 Ways to Start Decluttering When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed.

The post Beat Paralysis and Avoid Procrastination to Finally Declutter Your Home appeared first on Go Win at Life.

If so, you are in the right place, as I will be sharing tips to make your home easier to manage.

I had never been brilliant with housework, but when my daughter was born the overwhelm hit another level. Suddenly even the most basic tasks like taking a shower, preparing a meal or putting away laundry became an overwhelming challenge.

Later I had bouts of fatigue which made it hard to get off the couch, let alone do any housework.

A diagnosis of ADHD went a long way to explaining my challenges. But there are many reasons that can make maintaining a house overwhelming.

So if you are struggling with your home you are not alone.

Here I will share the systems I use to make my home easier to manage and avoid the stress and overwhelm.

A lot of problems can be avoided with a little careful planning and the right systems.

So for every household task you need to do, ask yourself the question:
“How can I make this easier?“

Once you get creative about making things easy, you’ll be amazed by how much you can reduce your workload.

Here Are a Few Ideas That have Worked For Me, And May Work For You Too:

1. Declutter

Clutter not only looks messy, it makes everything you do in the home more difficult. 

• If your cupboards are full you can’t put stuff away. 
• If things are mixed up it’s hard to find what you need
• When things are buried you loose time pulling them out
• Seeing clutter can distract your focus from what you should be doing

What you can declutter to make your home easier to manage:

• Check in with your values. How do you want your home to look, feel and function? Declutter whatever doesn’t support that vision.
• Declutter duplicates for the same task. Keep the best, donate the rest.
• Streamline the extras. Keeping lots of sets takes up space and effort. For example, keep just 2 sets of linen for each bed. One on, and one to wash.
• Declutter items that take a lot of effort to look after. There is more to life than dry-cleaning fancy napkins.

2. Be a Savvy Shopper

Managing your home starts with the things that you bring into it. Make sure you bring things in that will make your life easier and not add to your workload.

• Avoid single task items. If an item only does a single job, it doesn’t really save you time. Searching for that heated butter knife, animal waffle maker or cheese melt pan only adds to your workload, not reduces it.
• Avoid seasonal items that will be clutter for the other 11 months of the year. Yes, by all means keep some holiday decorations, but don’t feel obliged to go all-in for every holiday. your family can live without heart bunting for Valentines Day or an Easter Egg door wreath.
• Stick to one colour scheme for dishes, linens and towels. If they are white, even better as it will be easy to replace missing or broken ones when needed.
• Avoid age, gender or person specific items. Make it easy to mix and match.

3. Design for Ease

Where you keep things in your home will make the difference between a frantic search and a speedy exit.

• Store things near their point of use – Like dishes within reach of the dishwasher, your keys, purse and phone in a landing zone near the door, jackets and shoes by the door.
• Keep like with like. Avoid storing the same type of item in multiple locations, keep them together.
• Use labels. They remind you where things should go, and help your family get on board too.
• See more tips in Hack Your Habits for a Clutter Free Home.

4. Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks

The most impactful thing you can do to make your home easier to manage is to reduce the number of things that need to be done. Here are a few ideas:

• Don’t over-launder. If you are washing every item after wearing once then you could be making unnecessary work for yourself.
• Outsource what you don’t like to do. Cleaners, gardeners and nannies can be a great investment in your mental health.
• Declutter to reduce the amount of things you need to deal with.
• Go with systems that work for you. Don’t enjoy folding clothes? Keep them in storage bins. Don’t like ironing? Buy clothes and linens that don’t need to be ironed.
• Do grocery shopping online to save the time and effort of going to the store.
• Sign up for a meal plan delivery service.

5. Reduce the Amount That Comes Into Your House

Every item you have in your home needs your attention. You will store, clean, maintain or make decisions about these items, so reduce your workload by reducing what comes in.

• Say no to freebies
• Plan your purchases
• Shop from a list
• Ask for gift experiences rather than things
• Go paperless for all your accounts

6. Have a System For Getting Things Out of Your House

Advertising, media and even well-meaning friends and family tell us what we should bring INTO our homes. But there is very little support for getting it back out.

• Link donating to a task you already do, like dropping off donations on your way to do the weekly shop
• Set a reminder and search your home for rubbish, recycling and donations before bin day
• Join local free cycle groups and post any unwanted items on them
• Have a “one in, one out” rule, or if you still have clutter, one in, two out till your home is at a manageable level
• Set reminders to regularly go though categories in your home, particularly for things like kids clothes, toys and paperwork, which build up fast.

7. Reduce Decision Making

Every decision you make, from what to wear to what to make for dinner takes mental energy. Make your life easier by reducing decision making.

• Have a daily uniform or capsule wardrobe
• Rotate a list of dinner options and have theme days
• Save a grocery list of basics to copy and paste

8. Enlist Your Family

Everyone over the age of 2 in your household should be contributing to looking after the house. Make sure you are not carrying the burden alone.

• Even young children can be given tasks to do to help around the house. By starting young they will build good habits and can make a significant contribution to reducing your workload as they grow up.
• Give responsibility for a given task to the person that cares most about it being done. 

Over To You – What Will You do to Make Your Home Easier to Manage?

This is by no means a finished list of all the ways you can make your home easier to manage. I’m sure that you can think of many more.

Some will be useful to you, others may not be. Regardless of how many of these you can implement, I encourage you to really look at the tasks you do in the home and keep asking yourself “How can I make this easier or eliminate it entirely?”.

By focussing on ease you should quickly get to having a home that is much easier to manage.

You may also enjoy 12 Ways To Start Decluttering When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed.

Make sure you sign up for my newsletter for more practical tips and a weekly declutter challenge.

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The post 8 Ways to Make Your Home Easier to Manage appeared first on Go Win at Life.

Unfinished projects can be a major source of clutter, and those of us with ADHD brains can be particularly susceptible to them. 

In this post you’ll see why you may have the clutter of unfinished projects, and what you can do about it.

The problem with unfinished projects is that they are often left out, to be worked on, which causes mess and clutter. Or if they are put away they take up valuable storage space so other things may end up being left out.

And if they are stored they may be forgotten about. They can also cause us feelings of guilt and frustration, as they are a constant reminder of something we set out to do but failed to complete.

Unfinished projects are definitely my clutter Achilles heel.

I used to have so many things on the go at the same time. I’ve trained myself to be better, but I must confess, it can still be an issue.

I’ll often jump into what seems like a good idea, do the bulk of the work, and then allow it to slide down the list of priorities till it’s almost forgotten about.

This might be a DIY project, like tiling a kitchen backsplash. I’ll start out with good intentions (doing it myself to save money, I have the skills, I have the tools etc.) but the task never becomes the most important priority at a given moment. There is always something more important to do.

So I end up with a stack of tiles and a bucket of tile adhesive sitting in the kitchen for months.

Or it could be driven by a need. I’m looking at you, pile of clothes that need mending.

And sometimes it comes from distraction. Like the stack of books I took out to sort through and forgot to finish.

It’s perfectly normal to start a task with enthusiasm, only to flag halfway through. But this happens even more often for those of us who are easily distractible or ADHD.

Why Might ADHD Lead to Unfinished Project Clutter?

#1 Problems getting started

We may have a simply brilliant idea and rush out to buy the tools and materials for it. Like me with my tiling project. But the reality of actually doing the work may be less attractive than our vision of the end product. Other tasks seem more important, or we can struggle to plan out and sequence the process, putting us off from starting in the first place.

#2 Distractability leads to unfinished projects

To stay on task, our brains need to filter out all the things around us that are not part of the task. Like a barking dog, a child calling for attention, the ping of an email, the letter that lands on the mat, the growl of a hungry tummy etc.

And whilst we are filtering these things out, we are all good, we are on task.

But focussing for a prolonged period of time takes effort. And at some point we get tired and our attention starts to wander.

That’s when we notice the distractions, and they can take us off course. And with poor working memory, we may lose track of what we were doing, to begin with.

#3 Flagging stamina leads to unfinished projects

“Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms associated with ADHD — and one of the least talked about.”

Our brains use 20% of our energy. Thinking is hard work! Staying on task and switching between tasks both require mental energy and if these processes are hard for us they can drain us quickly.

According to Dr Steve Copps, we have to “work twice as hard for half as much.”

So we may simply run out of energy before completing our task.

#4 Lack of a deadline

I am very conscientious and reliable when doing projects for someone else. I know that I have someone to be accountable to. But when it comes to doing projects for myself, there is no deadline or accountability. And because there is no defined endpoint, the task keeps getting put off.

Can you relate?

ADHD brains need external motivation and deadlines to help us get things finished. We are great at last-minute sprints.

#5 Problems with comprehending time

A very common issue with ADHD is time blindness. We simply do not perceive time the same way that neurotypicals do. This makes it very hard to estimate how long a task will take. And it can lead to us taking on things that are unrealistic to do in the time we have available.

So Now You Understand Why You Might Have Unfinished Projects, Let’s Take a Look at What to do About Them.

What’s the problem with unfinished projects?

The problem with unfinished projects is that they create a visual “to do” list. We see all these things that need to get done, which can distract us from focussing on what we should be doing at a given moment. 

Or they could be stressing us out, making us feel inadequate for failing to finish these projects.

And they simply clutter up our homes, taking up mental and physical space.

Do Unfinished Projects Actually Have to Get Done?

Productivity advice for neurotypicals usually focuses on strategies for getting things done.

In fact, even though blogs aimed at ADHD brains may describe the problem, any solutions simply focus on how to get the tasks done.

And if you do a Google search on unfinished projects, you will bring up loads of productivity tips for getting them done.

Now, this is great advice for the tasks that we really need to complete.

And for getting things done, check out this post: Hack Your Habits For a Clutter-Free Home.

But it doesn’t address the real issue.

What if you shouldn’t actually be getting these things done at all?

An ADHD superpower is generating ideas and seeing potential. 

Starting a project gives us the dopamine hit of doing something novel. But it also allows us to reality test the idea and figure out if it is worth pursuing further.

And actually, many of those unfinished projects may simply be ideas that are not worth taking through to completion.

So instead of beating yourself up about not finishing them, consider, are they actually worth finishing? They may not be.

And if not, give yourself permission to abandon them.

Before Attempting to Finish Your Unfinished Projects do This.

Action Plan:

1. Grab a clipboard and take a tour of your house. Make a list of all the unfinished projects you find.

2. Now cross off any that don’t need to be done at all. 

3. Also, cross off any that are not essential and you don’t really want to do any more.

4. Highlight in red any that need to be done but can be delegated to someone else (a cleaner, a tradesperson, a repair shop etc.)

5. Next, pick a colour and highlight any that can be done in 10 minutes or less.

If there are only one or two of these, do them right away. If there are lots, pick a daily time that works for you and set an alarm to remind you to do them. By tackling one a day you’ll quickly clear out these small projects and the associated clutter.

6. Now take a different highlighter, and highlight up to three bigger projects that you really want to do and commit to doing within the next 30 days.

7. Make a note in your diary, set an alarm, or get someone reliable to check in with you in 30 days to follow up on the projects that you highlighted to do. 

8. For all the projects that you have crossed out, see if you can sell, donate or throw away the project materials.

9. Repeat this exercise monthly and you will soon blast through the clutter of unfinished projects.

Conclusion: Eliminate the Clutter of Unfinished Projects

Now that you understand how your ADHD could be leading to the clutter of unfinished projects you are in a better position to prevent it.

So if you are struggling with clutter, take a good look around to assess whether unfinished projects are to blame. 

If there are a lot of unfinished projects, use the tips above to eliminate or blast through them.

And armed with this knowledge, you should be in a better position to avoid taking on more than you can handle.

To eliminate the clutter in your home, make sure you grab my handy clutter checklist here.

And sign up for my newsletter, in which you get a weekly declutter challenge.

The post Unfinished Project Clutter – The ADHD Achilles Heel? appeared first on Go Win at Life.

If you’ve been trying to declutter, but no matter how hard you try, you never seem to make any progress then this post is for you. 

Feeling overwhelmed by clutter or unable to focus on working through it is no fun.

But the answer may be simpler than you think, and it could boil down to asking yourself the right questions while decluttering.

In this post, you’ll be introduced to the key question categories that could help you fine-tune your decluttering skills so that you can get your home organised once and for all.

For years I struggled with clutter. And not for want of trying to get rid of it.

But I hadn’t figured out the right questions to ask. Instead, I kept pulling the same items out over and over and then putting them back again, thinking that I needed, wanted or liked them. 

I kept asking myself “Can I use this?”. Well, for anyone with a creative or an ADHD brain, the issue with that is that we can ALWAYS think of a use for something. So I kept coming up with ideas for my items.

I can upcycle this, I can mend it, I’ll wear it for a special occasion, this will work for fancy dress etc. I’m sure there isn’t a thing on the planet that I can’t think of a use for.

The problem is, that in most cases all of these uses exist purely in my imagination and rarely translate to the real world.

So I set out to compile a list of questions that would actually be useful in deciding what to keep and what to declutter.

And in my research, I found that there is no one-size-fits-all with the questions that work. A question that resonates with you might seem trivial to someone else, and vice versa.

So I have put together a checklist by category so you can pick and choose depending on what themes really resonate with you.

Below Are the Main Decluttering Question Themes

You can download the full checklist here.

Practical Decluttering Questions – Do I use it?

The average American home contains over 300,000 items. I can’t imagine being able to use that many items in a day, a week, a year or at all really. So that suggests that most of what we own we don’t actually use.

This is the most straightforward category of questions, designed simply to identify whether an item is actually useful to you. Not whether we can imagine a use for it (ADHD brain I’m talking to you!) but whether it is truly, genuinely useful.

Emotional Clutter Questions – Does this bring me joy?

Let’s consider quality of life here. Not everything we own has to have a practical use.

Some of the things we hold on to purely because we like them. And that’s OK. But what you do want to be mindful of is the balance between the practical items and the ones you keep just because you like them.

So be honest with yourself as to which items you actually love and which you are holding on to because of the emotions they evoke for you.

Sentimental Clutter Questions – Do I have this for it’s value or for the memory it evokes?

If this category is challenging for you, you are certainly not alone. In fact, sentimental items are usually the hardest for most people to declutter. And because it can be hard, it is also often a category we shy away from dealing with. But asking yourself the right questions can help define which of these items you should keep.

Firstly, some things bring back bad memories. Do you really want to be reminded of negative experiences? If not, let them go.

For the items that hold valuable positive memories for you, consider if there are other ways to preserve your memory that might not require holding on to say all of grandma’s dining chairs.

Guilt or Fantasy Self Questions – Do I feel I should use this, but actually don’t?

I used to love skiing and would go usually several times a year. But after I moved back to the U.K. opportunities for skiing became far more limited. I kept my ski gear for the first few years, hoping for a winter holiday abroad, but in reality, I had other priorities.

So I gave in and donated the ski gear. Now I’m glad I did, as if and when I do go skiing again I am not going to be excited to pull out 20-year-old ski clothes.

So this category is all about getting real about who you are and what serves you now. Not in the past or for some future fantasy self.

Giving Questions – Can someone else benefit from this more than I can?

If you are not using all the things in your home, could they be put to better use by someone else? Holding on to them might mean missing the opportunity for another person to use them whilst they are still functional and current. Once things become old and dated they may become a lot less useful.

Time and Energy Decluttering Questions – Do I want to deal with this item?

This is often overlooked when we consider our things. Yet everything in your home requires your time and energy to look after it. Even if it is simply to move and dust it.

So consider whether the things you have are worth your time and energy to look after. This is especially important when you have a lot of demands on your time and energy, or when your time and energy have been limited by physical or mental health factors. Less bandwidth for managing stuff = a need for less stuff.

Money and Scarcity – Am I paying to store this item?

The most obvious way you might be paying for excess clutter is in storage fees. But also consider the hidden costs. Like the size of house you live in to fit all the stuff you have. Or how it impacts your ability to earn if you have a chaotic home. Or the extra things you may be buying because you can’t find the ones you already have.

You might also be holding on to things because you don’t want to spend money buying them again in the future. This is so common and makes a lot of sense. To a point.

But we often forget to weigh up the cost of holding onto the item against replacing it later down the line.

Last summer we went on a family camping trip and my mother came along too. She needed a camp bed to sleep on and dug my old one out of the attic, which I had used decades ago in Girl Scouts. This bed had been sitting in the attic for over 30 years. And after all this time it was no longer in useable condition.

When I ran a calculation based on the cost of property in the area and the space that this bed was taking up, over those 30+ years storing that camp bed cost around £12,570 at today’s prices! You can hear me tell the full story HERE.

So beware of the hidden costs of holding onto clutter.

Family and Friends – Am I saving this for someone else?

Time for a reality check on whether your loved ones actually want the stuff you are saving with them in mind. The simplest way to get the answer to these questions is to ask them. And if they say “No thank you”, release yourself of the burden of storage and honour that request.

Projects – When, exactly, am I going to tackle this?

Ok, this one is my Achilles heel. An ADHD brain is wired to seek novelty and gets easily bored. So projects are easy to start but much harder to finish. Which inevitably means a lot of unfinished projects being stored for later. The thing is, for many of them, later never comes.

So if you, like me, have unfinished projects taking up space, it’s time to ask some hard and honest questions and get rid of the ones that are destined never to get done.

In Conclusion – How to Use Your Decluttering Questions

Even if you’ve struggled with decluttering before you can become a master organiser of your own home by asking the right questions.

By considering which of these categories is the most meaningful and relevant to you, you can make sure that you are asking yourself the right decluttering questions.

If you haven’t already, you can download the full clutter checklist here. Pick the ones that really resonate with you. You may even find that one is enough, as Marie Kondo demonstrates with her one question “does it spark joy”?

For me, that question is too subjective. I need something more concrete and practical.

So I encourage you to go through and see which ones resonate with you because asking the right decluttering questions can lead to a home that brings you joy.

I’d love to hear your feedback. Which ones resonate with you? And what did I miss?

The post The Best Decluttering Questions to Eliminate Overwhelm appeared first on Go Win at Life.

For decades my home was plagued by clutter. No matter how often I cleaned, sorted or donated, the clutter kept creeping back in.

Every time I moved (which was a lot!) I vowed that in this fresh, new space things would be different. But soon the clutter crept back in, and the pile of unopened boxes that travelled with me on every move continued to grow.

So clearly the problem was not the space I was living in. The problem had to be me. Or more specifically, the habits and behaviours I was subconsciously repeating that were leading to clutter.

It’s taken a long time to break this cycle, and I am still learning. 

But I’ve picked up a lot of useful strategies along the way.

So in this post I will share with you how habits are built, and how you can use your habits for a clutter-free home.

My favourite book on habit change, by a long shot, is Atomic Habits by James Clear. In it he describes the four stages of a habit:

Cue, Craving, Response, Reward

The cue is the trigger. The craving is what we want. The response is the action we take. And the reward is what we gain.

Habits can be good or bad, depending on whether the reward is a helpful one or not.

So the reward of a dopamine hit from drugs, alcohol or caffeine can reinforce a bad habit. And the reward of a dopamine hit from exercise or a lovely space can reinforce a good habit.

The trick is to be aware of the cues and rewards to steer them in the direction that you want.

For a deeper dive into the psychology behind the 4 stages of a habit you can read here.

What are habits, and how can they help us?

A habit is defined as:

“something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it:”

Cambridge English Dictionary

If your house is very cluttered your first task will be to identify the negative habits that have led to it becoming this way. No amount of cleaning is going to help if the cause of the problem is not addressed.

Your next stages will be to declutter and then to organise. These are bigger, one-off projects and not habits. You need to get to a point where you can maintain the space for new habits to truly serve you.

So how can we use these habit stages for a clutter-free home?

Let’s look at each of these habit stages in turn.

Clutter-Free Habit Stage 1 – Cue

If all we need to start on a habit is a cue, surely our homes should be immaculate? Because if you have a messy house you have cues all around you. All the mess you can see should act as a cue to declutter or tidy up.

But it doesn’t.

Why is that?

Well those of us with messy homes, particularly if we have ADHD, struggle with filtering and prioritising these cues. 

And if we don’t know which of the cues to pay attention and respond to, we can end up ignoring them all.

These cues are also usually not urgent, so we put off the task for later. Which can translate to never.

So to actually cue a desirable action we need to be intentional in which cue we respond to and when we respond.

This is where starting small is key. 

How to successfully trigger clutter-free habits with cues:

First, you need a plan. Pick just one cue to trigger one action.

This cue should also be time-specific and linked to something you do already.

So for example, if you would like a cleaner, more organised kitchen start with the habit of washing and putting away all the dishes. And set a specific time to do this. 

How does this look in practice?

We have breakfast as a family in the morning. So the first habit to a clean kitchen is to have every family member clear their own plates and cups from the table and take them to the kitchen counter. The cue for this is finishing breakfast and getting up from the table.

Then my husband takes our daughter upstairs to help her get ready for school. That’s my cue to load the dishwasher and wash up anything that needs hand washing.

I do the school drop off, then come home to work. Before heading upstairs I step into the kitchen to fill my water bottle. That’s my cue to check that all the washing up is done and that counters are clean and clear.

By breaking this one task down to three stages I’m giving myself a much better chance of getting it completed. If my only cue was my daughter getting ready for school I would have to clear the table, load the dishwasher, hand wash and clean the counters in a very small time window. If I didn’t make it in this time the leftover mess would sit there till lunch. And then I’d be annoyed at failing at my goal.

So having staged cues gives you more opportunity to get the task finished.

When there is a lot of mess in the house doing the dishes may feel insignificant. You have plenty more to deal with.

But building a new, tidy habit is about training your brain, and like any new habit takes time to learn.

For more on this, check out this post How to Reach Your Goals Faster With Habit Stacking and get your habit stacking workbook here.

Clutter-Free Habit Stage 2 – Craving

If something truly doesn’t bother you, you will not be motivated to act on it. Our actions come as a result of wanting to satisfy desires (cravings).

So if you are not bothered by the state of your kitchen, you won’t crave the outcome of a tidy kitchen. But as you are reading this post I am assuming that you are bothered by things in your home.

So really connecting with your craving (your “Why”) will help motivate you to move towards a successful outcome.

Nobody wants to start the horrible jobs. In fact, your brain is wired to move you away from pain and towards pleasure. So it’s no surprise that you don’t feel motivated to start a task that feels like it will be unpleasant. That’s OK. And perfectly normal.

We don’t crave the action that leads to a positive outcome. We crave the outcome. There aren’t many people who crave the process of cleaning a kitchen. What many of us do crave though is the enjoyment of a beautiful, clean and uncluttered space.

This is why habits with quick outcomes are much more likely to stick than habits with rewards far off in the future. 

So although you may crave a clean and tidy home, don’t pick that as your habit goal. It’s going to take far too long to get to the reward for it to be motivating. Start small. With consistency, you’ll get to that clean and tidy home before you know it.

Now have you noticed that although you might normally put off cleaning, if someone is due to come over you suddenly find yourself very motivated to clean? That’s a cue and craving in action. You suddenly start craving a clean space to avoid embarrassment in front of your visitor.

How can we use cravings to motivate ourselves to declutter?

Keep connecting with your “Why”.

What is motivating is different for everyone, but here are a few ideas:

• A vision board of your ideal space
• A motivational quote in a prominent place
• A reminder in your diary
• A cleaning buddy coming over
• Booking a cleaner
• Inviting guests
• Putting on a decluttering video or podcast

Clutter-Free Habit Stage 3 – Response

So you are motivated and craving a tidy space. But motivation is useless without action. 

Now you need to make it as easy as possible to respond and take action on your cue.

If you want to get your dishes under control, but you don’t have enough storage space to put them away, you are going to struggle to respond. If the drainer or the sink is too full of other stuff then you are going to struggle to respond.

So a bit part of making your desired action a habit is making it as easy as possible. 

This is why I am a big believer in decluttering first, before you try to organise or maintain cleaning routines. You need to give yourself the space in which to organise and clean.

So before setting out to start a cleaning habit, make sure you have mastered your decluttering habit first. 

Decluttering is a bigger task that requires more thinking than routine tidying. But the principle remains the same. Start small, and give yourself specific cues to start it. This might be a weekly window when your family is out, or a nightly routine when you have time to yourself.

To make decluttering easy prepare your tools first. Grab a box and label it “donate”. And then a bag for trash and one for recycling. 

As you declutter, leave cues for the next response. So you might stack the trash bags by the door ready to take out to the rubbish. You might take the charity box straight to the car ready for taking to the charity shop.

And make sure you have an incentive to keep up the momentum. You might set yourself a timer to work against the clock. Or set a specific number of items to declutter. Whatever motivates you to keep up the momentum is good.

Clutter-Free Habit Stage 4 – Reward

This is a big one. So often we race on to the next task, forgetting to congratulate ourselves for what we have accomplished.

But for your new habit to stick you need to take a moment to enjoy the reward of your behaviour.

A clean, decluttered space can be a reward in and of itself. Even if that space is just a tiny part of your house.

So take a moment to enjoy the fruits of your labour. You might give yourself a high-five, do a happy dance or tick your win off in a habit tracker.

Before and after photos are a brilliant reward system. We even get a dopamine hit from looking at other people’s transformations (that’s why makeover shows are so popular). So take your own before and afters to remind yourself of what you’ve achieved. 

Take it a step further and share your wins on social media or by bringing a friend over. 

Using Habits for a Clutter-Free Home When You Have ADHD

The cue, craving, response reward sequence is even more important for ADHD brains. We have a hard time getting started and are easily distracted. So any break in the sequence can take us off task.

Firstly make the cues really obvious. Out of sight is out of mind, so at least when starting out with a new habit you may need to be utilising a lot of reminders of your cue. 

Reminders include:

• Post it notes
• Phone or app reminders
• Alarms
• A habit tracker
• An accountability buddy to check in with
• A support group
• A coach

My habit stacking workbook has some more ideas.

If you have a tendency to procrastinate by focussing on something other than your desired task give yourself a little menu of options. Now I don’t recommend taking on too many habits at once, but a few small and varied options might be just what you need to stay interested.

Remember too to focus on the reward. You might need to vary the rewards to keep things interesting and maintain the habit.

ADHD brains are great at starting something new but much less good at follow-through and consistency. Which makes the motivation part of habit formation even more key. 

So to make sure that your habits for a clutter-free home stick, make sure you are planning your cue, craving, response and reward.

An accountability partner is the fastest way of making your new habit stick.

For personal support and accountability check out my declutter coaching services.

The post Hack your Habits for a Clutter-Free Home appeared first on Go Win at Life.

In this post you will find out how being more eco-friendly can reduce clutter in your home.

It’s hard not to notice all the climate change and environment headlines lately. From forest fires to floods, from ocean garbage islands to turtles with plastic straws embedded in their faces, cataclysmic images hit us daily.

Most of these problems seem so vast that we as individuals are powerless to do anything about them.

But that is not necessarily the case. And an unexpected side effect of an eco-friendly lifestyle can be a simplified, decluttered home.

There Are A Few Key Elements in Making Your Home More Eco-Friendly

These can be summed up in the 4 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.

The first three you may be more familiar with. And the key to reducing clutter and being more eco-friendly is to apply them in the right order.

Reducing your consumption will make the biggest impact on both the environment and the clutter in your home. Buy less and you’ll be consuming fewer resources and bringing in less clutter. It will save you money too.

Reusing what you already have also reduces the need to bring in more.

Recycling is less helpful as many products (like plastics) degrade each time they are recycled. Below you will see ways of ensuring that what you do need to recycle has the best chance of maintaining it’s quality.

And the final, less often mentioned step is rot. Otherwise known as composting.

Read on to find out how these principles can help you be more eco-friendly and reduce clutter in your home.

Money is Power, Vote Wisely

To have a clutter-free, organised home you need to have a balance between the amount of stuff that comes in, and the stuff that goes out.

So one side of that is being conscious in your buying decisions.

The most powerful tool we have in voting for the kind of world we want to live in is the cash in our pocket. (Or more likely the money in our bank account, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it).

Every item we buy creates demand for that product. So if we spend our hard-earned money on cheap, poor quality products, guess what? That tells manufacturers to make more cheap, poor quality products.

On the other hand, when you make a carefully considered purchase, valuing quality over quantity, then that is the kind of product your purchase creates a market for.

And you get to have items in your home that truly add value to your life, rather than adding to the clutter.

Buy One, Buy Once to Reduce Clutter

On the same theme, choose the best you can afford. Buying quality is actually better for the environment. It takes a similar amount of resources to produce a cheap object as it does a more expensive one. Except that a cheaply made one may break and need replacement much quicker than it’s better quality counterpart.

Look for products that are made of quality materials that will stand the test of time. Plastics break and degrade quickly and are difficult if not impossible to repair.

On the other hand wood, metal, glass and ceramic can last much longer. Most metals and glass can be infinitely recycled without loss of quality.

I keep my cooking utensils in an earthenware jar that is older than I am. 

And if you are reducing the amount that you buy, you can spend a little more on the few items that you do buy.

A Clean and Healthy Home

An area a lot of clients struggle with are the cascade of cleaning supplies under the sink.

I see lots of posts with organising solutions for these cleaning supplies. But what if you were to get rid of them altogether?

Now I am not suggesting you ditch cleaning and live in a filthy home. But it may be worth reconsidering what you use for cleaning.

For a while, I had a cleaner who was really trigger happy with the Viakal (a limescale remover). We live in a very hard water area, and any splashes quickly build up to unsightly limescale deposits.

But my home office was right across from the bathroom, so I’d be sitting at my computer, gagging at the chemical smell burning my throat.

I was really not happy with the idea of filling my home with these toxic chemicals, so I switched to using just what was in my pantry.

Surprisingly, white vinegar does just as good a job at removing limescale as the branded product. It also makes an excellent glass and mirror cleaner. And it’s anti-bacterial too.

Now, instead of lots of bottles of glass cleaner, limescale remover, multi-surface cleaner etc. I have one large bottle of white vinegar, one jar of baking soda and dish soap.

I mix up my own spray cleaner into glass bottles, one of which is kept in each bathroom, and one in the kitchen. No more nasty chemicals, and no mess under the sink.

The Bathroom Cabinet

Once you switch to a more sustainable and minimal lifestyle it can be easy to forget how much stuff can be “normal”. I saw a post this week in which a girl had hung these cute rails and storage baskets on her shower wall to hold all her shampoos, conditioners and shower gels.

There must have been 20 bottles in the photo. All the comments complimented her lovely storage solution, and only one questioned the number of bottles there.

Perhaps the solution is not in adding storage, but in reducing the amount of product? You have one head. You do not need multiple shampoos. Perhaps you like to alternate between a couple. That’s cool. You do you. But I’d encourage you to take a good hard look at any multiples, and ask yourself if you really need them.

Each bottle is adding to the plastic waste accumulating in the environment. And each bottle is a vote for manufacturers to produce more.

So you can help reduce clutter and help the environment by using up your shampoos, conditioners and body washes and then opting for more sustainable options.

If you have a zero-waste store nearby an excellent option is to buy a refillable container and take it down to the zero-waste store for a refill.

If that’s not an option in your area, look for bulk-size products that you can decant into regular bottles. Some of the big brands, including Baylis and Harding have started to do this. One large package uses a lot less packaging than lots of small ones.

An even better option is to switch to entirely zero waste products, like solid shampoo bars and conditioner. It may take a couple of attempts to find the right one for you, but once you do, they are such a great alternative that you’ll never go back. 

The one I currently use and love is from The Kentish Soap Company.

Clothing

Textile production contributes more to climate change than international aviation and shipping combined, consumes lake-sized volumes of fresh water and creates chemical and plastic pollution. Synthetic fibres are being found in the deep sea, in Arctic sea ice, in fish and shellfish.

UK Parliament Publication

The textile industry is not good news for the planet

But you can still be well dressed, reduce your impact on the environment and enjoy a less cluttered wardrobe by using the tips below.

With clothing, quality really does matter. Poorly made pieces will stretch and wear out very quickly. Well made, quality garments can outlast you.

One of the tops I have in my closet is a jersey from the 1970’s that used to belong to my mother. It is still going strong. Whereas some pieces I have bought recently have only lasted a season.

A great starting point is a capsule collection of basic pieces that fit well and you love. Make sure that the colours and silhouettes all go together and you’ll have a great foundation to dress up or dress down.

Go for classic silhouettes rather than fashion fads and you’ll get a lot more wear out of them. 

How often do you wear an evening gown? Probably not so often, right? But if you buy one for a special night out, It’s going to sit there, unused, taking up space in your closet probably for years.

Consider renting one instead. You can get a trendy great looking gown for a fraction of the price of buying new. You’ll save yourself the clutter and know that you won’t be seen in the same outfit at every night out.

Lastly, consider buying used. Charity shops, thrift markets and online communities are a goldmine of great clothes that you can give a new lease of life to.

Should you Declutter Your Furniture?

This is usually the last thing people think of when decluttering. But actually, furniture has the biggest impact on your home as these are the biggest pieces.

And here, contrary to what you might think, bigger is better.

Now I’m not suggesting you put a king-sized bed in your kid’s room. That’s definitely going to make it look and feel crowded. But having fewer, bigger pieces can give you a more streamlined, decluttered look than having many small pieces.

This is particularly the case with storage furniture. A mock mid-century console on legs will look great, but won’t hold much stuff. One floor to ceiling cabinet, on the other hand, will offer a lot of storage space without taking up much of the room.

Whilst the size of your furniture may not make much difference from an environmental perspective, what it’s made of and where you get it will.

The cheap flat-pack furniture sold by many high street retailers is made from laminate veneer particleboard. This stuff looks decent in a photo and for about 5 minutes afterwards. But when assembling, screws will rip into the particleboard, making it impossible to take apart and reassemble. And any movement will loosen the screws, making the whole piece unstable. 

So go for pieces that are well made and sturdy, from solid wood rather than imitation.

And if you are on a budget, or looking for a great, classic piece, look for second hand and vintage. Lynne Lambourne’s home is proof that budget and upcycled can look fabulous.

And for vintage style and glamour, nothing beats Jay Blades designs at Jay & Co.

The kitchen can be a real clutter-magnet. But here, being eco-friendly can reduce clutter in your home.

The two key areas to look at in your kitchen are appliances and food.

Let’s start with appliances.

Be honest. How often do you really use that pasta maker, ice cream maker or bread machine?

If the answer is not very often, (or never!) reduce the clutter by donating them.

If there is an appliance you think you’d like to have, try it out first. See if you can borrow one, rent one, or buy one used. You’ll get to try it and see if it works for you without consuming additional resources.

And you won’t have the guilt of having to declutter an appliance that you’ve spent good money on if you find that you are really not that into breadmaking after a few weeks.

And now on to food.

Food production is a the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world. So it makes sence to take a look at the impact of our food.

In terms of environmental impact, meat and dairy are the most polluting and resource intensive. Making even just a small reduction, say one meat-free day per week will make a difference. And if you can go vegetarian or vegan you’ll be making a big reduction in your household impact on the planet.

What you eat will also impact the clutter in your home. There is far less waste from fruit and vegetables than there is from meat and dairy. And the waste from vegetables is far easier to recycle (rot).

How you buy your food will also have an effect both on clutter and the environment. Processed foods are heavily packaged. Meaning that you have trays, films and sleeves to reuse or recycle.

Storing processed foods also takes up a lot of space. Just do a google image search for “pantry” and you’ll see shelves stacked high with the technicolour packaging of processed foods.

But you’ll also see more clean, minimal images with dry goods in pretty glass jars. By swapping out some of the processed foods for raw ingredients you’ll be reducing the number of products you need to store. You will also be doing the planet a favour by reducing packaging, and yourself a favour by eating healthier food.

What steps will you be taking to a more eco-friendly, decluttered home?

Keep in mind the 4 R’s of reduce, reuse, recycle and rot and you will be on your way to creating a better home environment for yourself and for the planet.

And if this sounds good to you in theory, but you need more practical help, then do message me about my declutter coaching. I can meet with you virtually, over Zoom and help you get to a home that serves you wherever you are in the world.

The post How Being More Eco-Friendly Can Reduce Clutter in Your Home appeared first on Go Win at Life.

You are feeling overwhelmed by all the mess. Every room has issues. Every closet is overflowing. You want a clean and organised space, but it all just seems too much. Where do you even start decluttering?

Here are 12 ways you can start tackling clutter which are easy to begin with and will help you build momentum for lasting change.

1. Start Decluttering by Making the Bed

Overwhelm is hard. Even the smallest task can feel like an insurmountable mountain. So to break free of the overwhelm you need to push through and get started. 

When things are really chaotic you’ll want to start with easy wins that get you into the right mindset to tackle the rest of your home. You want a win that can give you the momentum and courage to carry on.

Starting your day with a win gives you that quick victory that sets you up for more wins. Making the bed, irrelevant as it may seem, is actually a key element in Navy Seal training, as Admiral William H. McRaven explained in his commencement address to the students of The University of Texas.

Here is what Navy Seal ADMIRAL WILLIAM H. MCRAVEN said about the importance of making your bed: 

“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

Admiral William H McRaven

You can read the full transcript of the speech here

2. Start Decluttering by Doing Laundry

It’s hard to sort, organise or put away clothing when it is dirty. So start with an easy win and do the laundry.

Round up all clothing, towels and bedding from all parts of the house and run all dirty items through the wash. That way, even if you will ultimately be donating some of them they are clean.

Now all your clothes are in a fit state to put away, or if they no longer serve you, they are clean and can be donated.

3. Start Small and Short

This is great for when you are feeling really overwhelmed, or perhaps limited in what you can do by illness or fatigue. You can always do something, and something is better than nothing.

Tasks you might start with could be your purse, the top of a bedside table, one shelf or a desk drawer.

The key here is to start with something that will be pretty easy for you so you don’t hit any emotional blocks right at the start.

So don’t for example start with family photos or sentimental mementos.

But instead chose something that will make a difference in your day to day life. That way you get to enjoy the win. There is no point starting with for example a box of old school books in the attic. You don’t see them day to day, so you won’t be able to enjoy that quick win.

Set a timer for 15 minutes, and go through your chosen small area. Discard any rubbish, pull out any duplicates, remove anything you don’t actually use. 

You’ll be amazed how much you can accomplish in 15 minutes. And if you do that daily, over the course of a year that will be over 90 hours dedicated to decluttering! In 90 hours you can make a massive difference in your home.

4. Start Decluttering With a Category

The category method is what Marie Kondo recommends in her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying.

The problem with her method, if you are overwhelmed, is that she tackles large categories at once. Like all your clothing. Or all paperwork.

This is great for doing a thorough job, but if you don’t have the energy or time to commit to massive sorting sessions this can simply leave you with a bigger mess and more overwhelm as you have big mountains of clothing, books or paperwork to sort through.

So as with the previous example of starting small, when you are organising by category I also recommend picking a small and easy category.

It could be as simple as “socks”. The key to the category method is to round up ALL the items in this category, from every part of the house. 

There is no point sorting all the socks in your bedroom, only to find that there is the same amount again in the laundry. So make sure you have them all before you start.

The category method is great for reviewing the volume of stuff you have in a category. Do you need 21 pairs of socks, 6 pepper mills or 4 colanders? Compare them, keep your favourites and get rid of the rest.

5. Start With Rubbish

Sometimes you might find that if your space has been neglected for a while, the easiest place to start is with the rubbish and recycling.

Keep it simple and don’t overthink this. Just round up everything that is clearly rubbish.

Getting these things out will give you the breathing space to tackle more meaningful decisions.

So grab a garbage bag and a recycling container, and go for a tour of your home. Do a quick pickup of all the obvious rubbish. Grab cardboard boxes, break them down and take them out to the recycling. Round up all plastic bags and wrappers and recycle if possible, or add them to the trash bag. Grab any food packaging, tissues, envelopes or old newspapers.

Do this fast and you’ll start to build momentum to tackle items that need decision making.

6. Start by Cleaning

Most of the time you should declutter first, then clean. But occasionally a space will simply be too dirty for you to want to go through.

In this case it makes sense to start with a general clean. The goal here is not perfection. Deep cleaning a cluttered space is a bit like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t deal with the root cause of the problem.

But what it will do is give you a space that is more pleasant to tackle.

Start at the top. Take a duster and go through every room, starting with light fittings, ceiling cobwebs, shelves, windowsills and baseboards. 

Dust the tops of any piles of stuff.

You might wash the windows and frames.

Then pick up as much as possible off the floor and vacuum or op the floor.

Starting with cleaning is especially good if you have dust allergies. It will get rid of the worst of the dust and clear the decks for going through things properly.

7. Start Decluttering by Room

Any of the strategies above can be applied just to one room. The whole house might simply be too much to tackle. It may be easier to work through one room at a time.

Start with an easy room which won’t involve too much strenuous decision making.

A bathroom could be an easy place to start. The entrance hall could give you a quick win and set a pleasant tone for when you enter the house.

8. Start With What You Can Easily Get Rid Of

For some people, a declutter challenge is a great way to get started. You can do this as a 30 day challenge. So on day one you get rid of one thing, one day 2, two things, on day 3, three things. And so on. Keep going and see if you can take it all the way to 30 in a day at the end of the month. 

Or you could simply pick spaces in your home and start looking for things that you can donate, sell or pass on. Keep moving on to the next space daily until you’ve been through your entire house.

9. Start Decluttering by Focussing on What You Want to Keep

Some people struggle with letting go. If this is you, focussing on what serves you rather than looking for things to let go of may be the better strategy.

This works like a house move. You could call it a packing party. Simply, you will pack up all of your belongings except what you are certain you will use in a given week (or month, the timeframe is up to you). See how long you can go with this smaller number of possessions.

You are likely to find yourself managing just fine with this smaller number. So you can either let go of all the rest or slowly bring things back in just a little at a time, focussing on having only what really adds value to your life.

Now packing up your entire house in one go is not going to be practical for most people. So perhaps try this one by room or by category. You could for example choose your clothes, make-up and accessories as if you were going on a two week holiday in your own home. And pack all the rest of your bedroom stuff into suitcases or boxes. 

This will give you a taste of living with a curated collection of your favourite things, without actually having to let go. And then you can choose what to let go of once you’ve been managing without it for a while.

10. Start Decluttering Your Own Things

Your kids, husband partner or parents are the messy ones. The house is full of their clutter and your are feeling overwhelmed. No matter what you say, they refuse to clean up.

In this case start with what you can control, and that is your own things. You can declutter, clean and organise your own belongings. Create a calm oasis for yourself. 

You won’t have solved the problem of the other messies in the house, but you will have set an example. They may even be inspired to follow your lead when they see how much nicer your space is.

11. Just Start

Where you choose to start doesn’t really matter. And which strategy you pick doesn’t matter either.

What matters more is that you do start.

By starting you start to build momentum. You’ll get small wins and then bigger wins.

And the more you do, the easier the decluttering process gets.

12. Start with Help

Decluttering and organising is not easy, particularly when you are feeling overwhelmed. The job becomes far easier when you have a helping hand.

You can enlist a trusted friend to help out and hold you accountable.

But sometimes it may feel too embarrassing to involve a friend. That’s when the support of a professional is invaluable.

You can get support in starting, working out the right strategy for yourself and the accountability to help you on the journey with my declutter coaching. And if you haven’t already, make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter to get weekly tips and declutter challenges delivered to your inbox.

You may also like Need to Declutter Fast? Try This.

The post 12 Ways to Start Decluttering When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed. appeared first on Go Win at Life.

In this post, you’ll see the top 7 New Year’s resolutions made last year and find out how your home environment can help you keep these resolutions.

Why do so many of us set out with great intentions, only to fall off the wagon shortly afterwards?

Whether it is keeping fit, eating well or decluttering our homes, our resolutions can be long forgotten come February.

So I am going to show you how you can set your home up to help you succeed in keeping these top 7 New Year’s resolutions.

Set Your Home up for Success. 

“…motivation (and even talent) is often overvalued. In many cases, the environment matters more.”

James Clear

If you’ve been relying on motivation to achieve your New Year’s resolutions, you may be setting yourself up for failure. Instead, you should be looking at the design of your home environment and how that can help your success.

7 Most Popular New Year’s Resolutions and How to Set Your Home up to Keep Them

1. Exercise More and Improve Fitness

Who doesn’t want to be fitter? But although this is the most popular New Year’s resolution, it may also be the hardest to keep. And that’s probably why it keeps coming back in at the number one spot. So how can your home help you with this one?

If exercise is your goal, but you have to spend time looking for your exercise clothes or equipment, it’s not going to happen. So make space and make it obvious. Here are some ideas:

• If you plan to run in the morning you can keep your running shoes near the door and put them on the doormat the night before. 
• You can keep your workout gear next to the bed so you can put it on first thing.
• You can keep a yoga mat right where you plan to use it. And make sure you have a clean, clear space to use it in.
• Set up one dedicated drawer for your workout gear so you always know where it is and don’t need to spend time looking for it.
• You can keep your workout outfit in your gym bag. Put it straight in there when it comes out of the wash.
• Keep your TV remote upstairs and your TV downstairs so you get a workout to turn on the TV!
• Declutter and clean your house. This is physical work and can be a great workout!
• Sell your car and ride a bike instead

2. Lose Weight

All the points in the exercise and healthy eating categories will apply here as well. But did you know that a cluttered home can contribute to you gaining weight too? That’s the theory put forward by Peter Walsh, in his book “Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight: The Six-Week Total-Life Slim Down.” Why is that? Well, studies have shown a clear link between clutter and stress levels. “Once the stress increases, hormone levels increase. Now, the result of that is that you start to overeat,” Walsh said.

Another effective strategy is to switch out your current plates for smaller plates. This might sound bizzare, but has been shown by a Cornell University study to be a surprisingly effective way of feeling full while eating less.

Set up your home to help you lose weight:

• Reduce your stress levels by decluttering your home.
• Get rid of most processed foods and store any remaining in hard to reach places.
• Keep only the items that make you feel great and add value to your life.
• Use smaller plates.
• Get rid of clothing that doesn’t fit you. Your goal is not to keep old clothes that taunt you by being too small. Your goal is to reward yourself with new, well fitting clothes as and when your body shape changes.
• Focus on having clear, open spaces on your floors, storage and walls. This makes for a less stressful environment.
• Be mindful in your purchasing habits. Plan your purchases ahead of time to avoid bringing in new clutter or unhealthy food.

3. Eat More Healthily

Your kitchen is the key to your diet and healthy eating resolutions. No one is motivated to cook in a messy kitchen. If your counters are cluttered, cupboards are overloaded and the fridge is full it’s going to be far easier to reach for a takeout menu than to cook a healthy meal from scratch. So ironically, having too much food in the kitchen can be a barrier to healthy eating.

• Keep things in view that remind you too eat healthily. You can keep a fruit bowl on the counter or images of healthy fruit and veg framed on the wall.
• Put all temptation out of sight. If you have sweets on the counter, guess what you are going to be reaching for? Yep, sweets. Store them out of sight, ideally on a high shelf that requires a step stool. The harder they are to get to, the easier you make it to resist temptation.
• Declutter your pantry. Throw out all expired food. 
• Declutter your fridge. 
• Menu plan. This helps you shop smart and make good food choices.
• Declutter rarely used kitchen gadgets. You may thing that they help you cook, but actually having too many gadgets can create a barrier to cooking.

4. Save Money

Saving money works really well alongside decluttering your home. First of all, by decluttering items you no longer need you will directly confront past buying decisions. This can help you shop more mindfully in the future.

Decluttering will also help you identify what brings joy to you now so you don’t waste money on things that don’t serve you. You are likely to also find items that you had forgotten about, saving you from buying them again. For more on decluttering you may like Need to Declutter Fast? Try This. And for more on saving read 21 Things to Stop Buying to Save Money Fast.

The more intentional you get with your spending, the more you will save. And the more intentional you get with your spending, the less clutter you will bring into the home.

• Declutter your home
• When you want something new, put it on a list first. Wait at least 24 hours before buying from your list.
• Organise your bills and set up auto-pay. Setting up good systems for bills and paperwork will prevent overdue fines
• Declutter unused subscriptions
• Dedicate a time and a space to reviewing your finances. Make your files easy to find, whether they are paper or digital.

5. Pursue a Career Ambition

With more of us than ever before working from home, it stands to reason that a tidy home and workspace will help you be productive in your work, or even support you in starting a side hustle or career switch. But working from home can also mean a lot of distractions.

• Set up a dedicated room, desk or area solely for work
• Remove all non-work related distractions from this area
• If you can, dedicate your computer to work tasks only. Use a separate phone, tablet or laptop for Social Media and browsing.
• Create a vision board and hang it where you see it daily.
• Have a clean, tidy restful oasis that you can relax in when you are not in work mode.

6. Improve Social Connections/Spending Time with Family

How comfortable do you feel inviting someone into your home? If the answer is not very, and the reason is a mess, then decluttering is going to be great for social connections. Your home should be a restful oasis for you, and somewhere you can feel proud and comfortable to invite people to. If it’s not, you may find yourself losing touch out of the fear of having someone over.

• Declutter the items that do not add value to your life.
• Implement a cleaning schedule and/or get a cleaner to help out.
• Take care of any outstanding maintenance or home decorating tasks.
• Make sure the furniture you have works for the amount of people you like to have over.
• If you have a guest room, clear it out and set it up ready for guests.
• Get professional help.

7. Take up a Hobby

Hobbies require stuff and space. Make it easy to do your new hobby and you’ll be more likely to succeed at it. Dedicate space for your hobby. It doesn’t have to be much, but it has to be easy to access. Your hobby gear should be as close as possible to where you want to use it. So if you are starting knitting, and you knit on the couch, keep a basket with your knitting supplies by the couch.

Also, be mindful of not keeping stuff from hobbies that you don’t do anymore. That may get in the way of what you are doing now. Having to dig through clutter before you start a project is going to detail you from even starting.

• Set up a dedicated area for your hobby. This can be as large as a whole room or as small as a basket to keep supplies in.
• Keep your hobby supplies as close as possible to where you will use them.
• Declutter any hobby supplies you no longer need.
• Don’t keep other items on top of your hobby supplies (looking at you, clothes horse/treadmill!)
• Focus on just one hobby at a time.

Your Home Can Help Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

In summary, setting up your home right can make you much more likely to succeed in your New Year’s resolutions. Consider what it is that you really want to achieve and make sure that your home is set up to make it as easy as possible.

Need help with decluttering? Make sure you are signed up for my weekly newsletter. And for more support, check out coaching services here.

The post 7 Ways Your Home Can Help Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions appeared first on Go Win at Life.

We are in the Christmas season, so it’s a good time to reflect on how we handle gifts.

I posted recently about giving clutter-free Christmas gifts. Now let’s consider the gifts we receive ourselves.

The first step in receiving a gift is gratitude. 

When you are given gifts, chances are that you’ll like some of them and not others.

You may be working on decluttering your home, and perhaps some of the gifts you have received for yourself or your children don’t fit with your vision and values. 

You might have asked for no gifts, or you may have suggested experience gifts instead. Yet some people will always prefer to give a physical gift. It is their way of expressing love for you.

So the moment of receiving a gift is not the moment to judge or educate on the joys of minimalism.

The moment of receiving the gift is a time for gratitude. You are fortunate to have people in your life who care enough to give gifts. So thank them with joy. 

Once the gift is with you, it is yours to do with as you wish.

What should you do with the gifts that you like?

Seems like a silly question, right? Surely if you receive something and you like it, you keep it?

Well, there is more to it than that. 

To keep a tidy home you want to have a balance between items coming in and items going out. Any time a larger amount of items comes in, that balance will get thrown off and can lead to clutter and overwhelm.

So now, when new gifts arrive, is the perfect time to take an inventory of what you have.

You have received some lovely new items that you are happy to keep. Don’t make the mistake of just putting them away. Use this opportunity to check your inventory and declutter.

Ask yourself these questions about your new gifts:

• Do you already have one of these? And can this new item replace an older one? If so, this is your opportunity to pass the older item on.
• Do you already have something that does the same job? In that case, keep the one that will do the job better.
• Do you have something similar? Keep the one you like best.
• Do you actually need and want one of these? Something can be pretty, but if it’s not useful it might just end up as clutter.
• Will you use it? I’ve received lovely bath products in the past. But I am not a bath person, so they just sat gathering dust. Now I know to pass them on.
• Does this align with the vision I have for who I am and who I want to be? It might just not be a great fit for you.
• Do I have the space for this item? Anything you don’t have space for will start to crowd your home.
• Do I have the capacity to care for it? Everything we own makes demands on our time and attention.

By applying these questions you can evaluate whether these new items should become part of your home.

Now what about the bad Christmas gifts?

No matter how well-meaning your friends and family are, sometimes they will simply miss the mark.

So what do you do with the gifts that you don’t want to keep?

If you have a gift receipt, you can return the item or exchange it for something you’d like better.

If you haven’t been given a gift receipt but the item has labels or store packaging you could return it for store credit.

You could sell the item on a site like eBay, Vinted or Facebook Marketplace.

Or you could give it to someone who will enjoy it more than you.

And you can donate the item to charity. There are many people in need who would be very appreciative of a new gift.

Remember, just because you received something as a gift, that does not mean that you need to hold on to it forever. At the moment that you received it, it became yours to do with as you wish. And that includes the option to give it away if you chose to.

What if you fear being judged for giving something away?

You might hold on to a gift for fear that the giver might be offended if you give it away. 

I encourage you to drop that mindset. If a gift has been given with consideration for you, then the giver will have your best interests at heart. And that includes understanding if you chose to pass it on when it no longer serves you.

If they do get offended, then that is evidence that there is a different agenda at play. And you might be well advised to review the relationship you have with someone who is judging or condemning you for living in line with your values.

Secondly, people are unlikely to be going around your house checking for that vase/photo frame or cardigan they gave you. Most likely, they will never know.

So go ahead and evaluate these good and bad Christmas gifts the same way you would any other item in your home. And keep only what serves you and aligns with your values.

You can sign up for my newsletter to get weekly decluttering and simple living tips straight to your inbox.

Declutter coaching – Instead of buying items that may end up as clutter, gift your recipient (or yourself) a declutter coaching session and reap the benefits all year round, not just for Christmas.

The post How To Deal With Very Bad Christmas Gifts appeared first on Go Win at Life.