One thing that really holds people back in their decluttering process is having an all or nothing mentality.
This is one simple strategy that I teach inside of my course Decluttering Simplified. It is an inside peak and just one small taste of what you get inside as far as training and support in learning exactly how to declutter your home as a mom. And it’s called the half it method of decluttering!
But first, let’s talk about a few more reasons you might struggle to start decluttering. Or think it won’t work for you, and you can’t do it.
- You don’t think you can finish in time – what even is “in time”. Or you think you will start, and not be able to finish.
- If you declutter, you have to be a minimalist. And that sounds really intense and restrictive.
- You will not have enough stuff, and will be deprived.
When we think in black and white like this, we are setting ourselves up to fail.
The half it method that I teach is one solution for this, because it allows you to declutter without a black and white mentality. Rather than explain what this decluttering method is, let me show you.
Here are some examples of how to use the half it decluttering method:
1. Legos. Or if you don’t have Legos in your home think dolls/Barbie’s and accessories, shopkins, calico critters, arts & crafts. Any toy you have that has a lot of small pieces and parts.
We think that we need all of them for it to be fun. Or if there is less they won’t be as imaginative or that somehow now having every single option available is a form of deprivation.
The reality? Everyone will be just fine with less. You just need to declutter some of it. And most often with these kinds of toys, none of them are truly essential and much of it is just duplicates and slight variations of the same things.
All you need to do is reduce it by an amount.
It doesn’t have to be half.
But say you have 6 bins of Legos. And it’s overwhelming to you. You can just reduce it down to 4 bins.
Or doll clothes, reduce it down to half of what you originally had.
The second example is clothes.
Especially clothes that you might be saving for future children, or you purchased in advance. If you have 3 bins of baby clothes, consider reducing it down to just one. That is still plenty.
I go more in depth in exactly how to do this in the toy + clothes courses.
You can enroll in these right here!
Get the full transcript for this episode, and closed caption option here.
0:26 – Decluttering simplified https://motherhoodsimplified.com/declutteringsimplified
1:34 – what holds people back from decluttering in the first place
3:14 – what is the half it method?
7:51 – Toy Decluttering 101 – https://motherhoodsimplified.com/toys-101
Clothes Decluttering 101 – https://motherhoodsimplified.com/clothes-101
8:21 – August 2021 is the last chance to get the toys and clothes 101 as bonuses with decluttering simplified. After this you can only purchase them separately.