Working through the steps of how to declutter your home when the clutter is overwhelming is no easy feat.  And, with a little bit of  focus and discipline, it’s totally doable!

The process of organizing and decluttering may come naturally to you; or you could be like me, where it does not come so natural.

My Clutter Story: The Beginning 

Five years ago, I went from a 9-5 corporate gal (of 14 years) to an entrepreneur. 

I used areas of our home for creating products, storing inventory and managing the day to day to-dos.  This helped save money on renting a studio.

This is also when the clutter started to rear its ugly head.  And where I eventually said enough is enough! 

Cully and I decided we were going to move across the state last summer, and I knew something drastic needed to be done.  

And so, the decluttering process began.

It tooks us about 3-4 months to clear out business inventory/supplies that we no longer needed (and didn’t want to move).

Then, it took another 3 months to declutter and organize our house. This was all quite the project!

Well worth the time and effort, below are the steps we took to declutter and organize our home:

Sold stuff like crazy!

Letting go of the business inventory was more straightforward.  I held a couple of moving sales and leveraged local vintage markets to lighten our inventory load. 

We also sold bigger items (or items sold in bulk) on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.

Other reading: 10 Tips for Selling at Vintage Markets  

We sold about 80% of the inventory we didn’t want to move, which was a huge relief!  

We did not make much of a profit on the inventory sold, but the weight lifted off our shoulders was well worth it and more important for us at that time. You can’t put a price on your sanity, right?! 

Created a decluttering plan, leveraging categories:

It was around this time that I was introduced to the Marie Kondo method.  

Adopting some of her methods, I focused on one room at a time and touched everything in that room before moving on to the next.  

Each room had 4 piles: give away, throw away, keep, and undecided.

The first 3 categories are pretty self explanatory. The undecided category included things that had sentimental value, or items I could not easily part with at the time.  I also wasn’t sure if I should keep them.

Once I was done with the room, I revisited the undecided items to see if I could move them to one of the other 3 categories. 

If I still could not decide, they were kept for the moment and I revisited them after the next room was done. 

I spent anywhere from 1-2 weeks on each room, carving out time in the evenings and the weekend’s to make progress.

Thanked the “let go of” items:

The most helpful tip I took from Marie Kondo’s methods was to say “thank you” to each item you were letting go of.

At first, it sounded a bit silly to me. When I started doing it, it truly made it easier to let go of that item. And it was the number one reason I was able to let go of LOTS of personal items.  

Having that tool made it so much easier to go through the whole process of decluttering and letting go.

For more on the Marie Kondo method, I recommend grabbing her book here.

Kept it organized!

After each room was tidied up, I used storage bins, baskets, and other decorative storage solutions to keep the room well kept and organized.   

You can find some of my favorite storage solutions on my Amazon list here.

The best resource for getting started:

Hands down the most helpful resource was Jenny Layton’s Get Organized program.  

I highly recommend her program if you don’t know where to start or if you just need a little help staying motivated. 

What I love most about Jenny’s program is that she “gets it”.  From the small business owner, to mom of 4 kiddos, she relates to each of our stories. Which also means she gets the everyday unique challenges we face.

Daily and weekly automation tips, organizational solutions and the guidance Jenny gives on your own self care are some of the reasons I find her program to be so helpful. 

There’s nothing better than the feeling of waking up in a clean, organized bedroom (and home!). 

Staying on top of these practices in our new house has drastically helped improve my mood and ability to create, which is what I love doing most 🙂 

You can sign up for Jenny’s 7 day bootcamp, or she has a full 6 week course that is perfect for those who could benefit from additional support and planning.  

What I also love about Jenny’s course is she offers a 90 day money-back guarantee. 

Trust me, you won’t need to take advantage of that guarantee, but it provided me a sense of reassurance that (if for some reason) the program did not work for me, I could get my money back.

Now, the biggest challenge we have is keeping our (dark — ugh!) floors clean with 3 dogs and a yard that is mostly dirt right now (double ugh!).

Anywho, our backyard project will be saved for another day and you bet I’ll keep you all updated with the progress.

Here’s to decluttering and organized homes!

XOXO,

Krista 

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