Decluttering your house is a superficial goal.
Yay! You want to clear clutter from your home! First of all, I am so here for this. I would LOVE to be your decluttering hype girl and help you throw all of your stuff away (that’s dramatic, but really, let’s get rid of a lot!).
Be honest – is part of why you want to declutter so that you can have a clean house? One that looks good when people walk in without having to do a lot of work? If yes, GREAT. That’s worth pursuing. And that’s just the surface level reason moms need to declutter in my opinion.
What I want you to know is that you might have a lot of enthusiasm for this right now, but it probably won’t stay. It’s not your fault, it’s just the nature of how we operate as humans.
We get a peak of excitement, and then it fades and we re-calibrate. Don’t feel bad about it, just be ready for it.
Find something less superficial than a clean house to motivate you.
When I first decluttered out kids were 7, 4 and 2.
I knew it was powerful and impactful for me then because I saw how easily I was able to parent and be with them. And I saw how easy it was for them to exist in our home after we decluttered.
At that point I just assumed this was something that was useful to me with small children.
When I started Motherhood Simplified in 2018 I had one baby, another on the way and the 3 older kids. I was still deep in the throes of being a mom to teeny tiny kids and assumed still that the benefits were only for when my kids were young.
Everything I did to declutter my home, and now teach is inside of this course Decluttering Simplified. Join now to clear clutter from your home quickly, effectively and keep it a clutter free home forever.
Now, with 3 teenagers I can assure you my clutter free home is even more essential now.
My teenagers require less physical care like the young kids need, but they require so much more emotional care.
The clutter in my home ate up ALL of my mental and emotional bandwidth that I cannot imagine raising teens in a cluttered home.
This is the beneath the surface level motivation I want you to find for yourself.
I declutter so I can be the best, most present, emotionally stable mom I can be. Does clutter cause all of my problems, insecurities or personality flaws? No. But it definitely amplifies them, AND makes it harder to resolve those issues.
I declutter, and stay clutter free so that anything standing in the way of me living out my purpose as the best mom I can be is out of the way. Laundry piles that make me angry and get all yelly at my kids? No thanks, I’d rather just have less clothes.
Toys that make my kids feel like they’re always in trouble because they can’t keep them organized? Nope, not worth it. We’ll just have less toys.
So how do you clear clutter from your home?
You can start with this 🙂
I am queen of throwing everything I own away.
Yep. In 2013 my husband and I cleared out not one house, but two houses and moved from Alaska to Florida with only one suitcase for each of us.
One of toys for the kids, the rest with clothes and things like birth certificates, hair dryers and… that’s about all that can fit into a suitcase.
We got rid of all their stuffed animals and got them one special one from build-a-bear to bring with us.
Now, I know that’s not a very relatable decluttering journey. But here’s what you need to know…
- I decluttered by accident. I did not set out to make some life changing way of living. I didn’t even have the word declutter in my vocabulary until about 2017 when I started telling my friends about how my home stays clean.
- It took me a long time to make the connection between less stuff and an easy to clean home. Like… 4 years and then a whole group of my friends telling me I should teach them how to declutter, and keep it decluttered.
- I went through all the same worries, emotions and struggles any other moms goes through when decluttering. I worried about “what if I needed it”. I died a little inside when I saw all that stuff (and money) go to waste. I tried to sell every single thing that realistically no one was ever going to buy – and our local thrift store wouldn’t even take because they couldn’t sell it either.
- I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment after decluttering because we had so little. I felt like the weird friend or like people just felt bad for us because we didn’t have a lot.
What I realized though is I have a deep intuitive ability to simplify everything, especially environments.
When I was a kid I was always building forts, inside and outside and was curating spaces in those forts to be functional and inviting. I loved to play house in the literal sense. Like just let me set up the house.
Not only did I get rid of everything, I kept it that way.
This is important. There are a lot of people who declutter but then RE-clutter it just as quickly.
This happens for a lot of reasons, but ultimately comes down to becoming conscious of your spending and consumption habits and creating an intentional life.
I am not good at a lot of things, but I am good at decluttering and keeping my home simple. Once I experience that freedom after decluttering in 2013 my subconscious mind was never going to let me go back to that overwhelm in my home again!!
The conditions of my decluttering journey.
Most people assume that if you are going to clear clutter from your home, you have excellent conditions.
Your kids are perfectly behaved, you have a lot of time, you have babysitters and support, don’t have to work, have a lot of money, endless energy, etc.
That’s not true. I have never met a single person, or mom, who has decluttered and had ideal conditions. In fact they are usually pretty inconvenient.
When I decluttered this was my reality:
-3 kids ages 7,4 and 2.
-Owner of a small preschool, and no staff. I was open from 7am-5pm and had a 30 minute commute each way.
-My husband was living across the country from me, I was in Alaska he was in Florida.
-I was letting go of my income, to the tune of $7,500 per month.
-We were moving across the country, Alaska to Florida.
-I did not have family nearby to help with my kids.
-I was exhausted from my daily life, but also EXTRA from the move, decluttering and existing day to day.
I didn’t know how to declutter, so I did a lot of it straight up WRONG.
And it was really, really hard.
It’s going to feel hard at first.
No matter what, decluttering is probably going to feel hard for you at first.
Hard to start, hard to stick with. Hard to finish. That’s okay.
It’s also going to feel hard because you’ll likely worry about needing it again later. Being wasteful. Feeling the pain of lost money, or NOT making back your money because it won’t sell.
Plus it’s just going to feel hard to find time for it in between the cracks of your day as a mom. With work, kids, relationships, school, sports, all of it. It’s just going to feel hard.
Oh, and I didn’t even touch on how it’s going to feel to undo mindsets that were instilled to you from childhood. Things like saving ALL the ice cream and yogurt containers, or living in poverty, or with hand me downs, etc. It’s a lot, and that’s to be expected.
Then it’s going to feel like relief.
But once you start to clear clutter from your home, it’s going to feel like a breath of fresh air. You will feel start to feel lighter in your own home.
You won’t even remember what stuff you had, or what you got rid of! It will feel EASY to be in your home again, or maybe for the first time ever. And you’ll wonder why you waited so long to declutter.
