Out With the Old, In With the New. How to Declutter So You Are Ready For the Holiday Season #078

Ever wish your holiday season could be blissfully free of clutter and stress? KonMari Consultant and mom of three, Caroline Thor, is here to turn that dream into a reality! With Caroline's expert advice, we dissect the art of decluttering, giving you the tools to create a serene, inviting space for your loved ones this festive season. We delve deep into the KonMari method, sharing practical steps to organize your living room, dining room, and kitchen, ensuring these common areas are ready for holiday festivities.

But we're not just about the festive season; we want to help you maintain an organized life all year round. As part of our conversation, we introduce the Clutter Free Collective, a membership that's all about keeping your home and life clutter-free. By becoming a founding member, you'll get to leverage the motivation and support within the group to stay on track. So if you're feeling a bit lost or overwhelmed, or simply looking for a fresh way to streamline your life, this episode is an absolute must-listen. And remember, an organized home is not only calming but can also save you time and money in the long run. Don't miss out!
As mentioned in this episode JOIN THE CLUTTER FREE COLLECTIVE FOR FREE HERE

Thanks for listening! For more organizational motivation, support and free resources:
Join my podcast Facebook group Living Clutter Free Forever Podcast: KonMari® Inspired Organizing | Facebook
Visit my website www.caroline-thor.com
Come and say 'hi' on Instagram @caro.thor
Follow me on Facebook @carolineorganizer
Join my online membership Clutter Free Collective

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organizer, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganized and desperately trying to carve out some time for me amongst the nappies, chaos and clutter. One day, one small book called the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying changed everything and I began to learn strategies for making everyday life easier. Today, I have the systems in place that means life can throw almost anything at me, and I want to share them with you. If you're an overwhelmed mum struggling to keep it together, then this is the podcast for you. Grab a coffee and settle in for a quick chat with someone who gets your reality. Hello and welcome back to the latest episode of the Living Clutter Free Forever podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:29

I am so excited to share something with you today. This is something that I have been working on for a very long time, and today is the first day I'm actually talking about it. You may have seen a couple of posts on Instagram or on Facebook, but today is the first time I'm actually going to be talking about this. As you may be aware, I have my online course, clutter Free Ever After, and it's currently coming to the end of a six week block for the people that signed up for the last session, and what has become very clear running the course is that what lots of people would love is some accountability, some motivation to actually get on and do the organizing in their own homes themselves. So I have created a membership and it's called the Clutter Free Collective and it is going live on December the 1st, and I would love for you to be part of it. I would love for you to be part of it so much that I am offering you the first month for free to try it out, see how you find it, and then you can make a decision if it's something you want to continue with or not. So what are we going to be doing in this membership? Well, I am going to be giving you daily inspiration. I am going to be there to answer your questions. You can post photos and ask my advice. There will be once a month alive with me in a Zoom call, where you can talk to me, get some training on a certain area of decluttering and organizing, ask me your questions. If you can't make it to the live, you can ask questions in advance, and you can also then have the replay to watch, and every month, we will have a focus challenge that everyone in the group is working on, so that we have got accountability, and we are going to get your home decluttered, organized and, more importantly, we are going to win you back some time. We're going to save you money and we are going to create a home environment that helps you feel calm and less stressed.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Now, if that doesn't sound good, I don't know what is and, as I said, I would love to have you there for the first month to join me and see what it's all about for free. I've got nothing to lose. If you decide at the end of the month that it's not for you, you can cancel your subscription. One thing I should add is that the price of the monthly subscription is going to be for founding members, and you would be a founding member if you join now. It will be 22 euros a month. All of that for just 22 euros a month After the 31st of December. So in January the price is going to be going up, but your price would stay at 22 euros a month. So I thought you might like that bit of information, because you would be one of the founding members of the clutter free collective. So go to caroline-thorcom, forward, slash clutter and there you will find all the information you need. It's lots of detail and it will show you how to sign up, and I'm really hoping to have you there with me on the 1st of December when we kick off the Clutter Free Collective.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Now, talking about getting homes organized, today I would like to talk to you about decluttering and organizing ready for the holiday season, because I would love for you to feel in control and ready when the holiday season comes along. In the past, before the Konmari Method you may have heard me talking about this in previous episodes I literally would be flying by the seat of my pants, I would have guests coming over and my home would be in chaos I think is the best way of putting it and I would be running around with a washing basket, collecting together all the stuff that was just lying around everywhere and then hiding it somewhere. Thank God I don't have to do that anymore, because it was so stressful and it used to take me days to get the house to a point where I actually felt happy to have visitors in, let alone clean it. So what I would love for you with this episode and next week's episode, which is gonna follow on from it is. I would like to help you get prepared in advance so that you don't have to feel like I used to when the holidays come along. So why is it important to prepare your home for the holiday? The bottom line is so you can enjoy it. The last thing you want during the holiday season is to be feeling stressed and overwhelmed and like everything's last minute and spending all your time in the kitchen. That's not what we want. So that's the reason why it's important to prepare your home for the holidays, and if you declutter and organize before festive gatherings, there are so many benefits. So I would like to talk you through some of those today, give you some tips and hopefully it will mean that you will go into the holiday season owning it like a boss. So let's talk about decluttering for the holidays.

Speaker 1: 7:29

The Konmari method, as you have heard me banging on about many times before, works on the premise of decluttering and organizing your items by category. Now I'm gonna take a little bit of a twist on this for the benefit of the holiday season, because very often, what we need is specific areas of the home to feel organized and for you to feel like you have control of them in order that you can enjoy the time, and the common areas would be the living room, the dining room, the kitchen and then potentially a guest bedroom or a bedroom where guests may be staying if you are putting people up over the holiday season. So let's have a think to start with about each of these areas. If you have got family, then the best thing you can do is to organize a day and a time, preferably to weekend, when everyone's feeling a bit more relaxed. Gather everyone together and say okay, I need your help. I would like everyone to go through the living room, the dining room and the kitchen and I would like you to find for me anything that belongs to you. Now I very often, when we do this, will give my kids a washing basket to take around with them, or I will give them an empty Amazon box perhaps something's being delivered in a slightly bigger box and then they can go around and collect their things into there and then ask them to all come back to you with their box or basket full of their stuff. So if you've got younger kids, they're gonna need some support with this. You may be one of you.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Go around with them and sort of point out things that you know belong to them. So like, oh, look, there's Teddy is lying on the sofa. Oh, look, you've left a book on the coffee table. Oh, look under the sofa, there's a few of your cars have rolled under there, whatever it happens to be, and get them picking them up. For older kids, they maybe have left sports stuff lying around. There may be coats and shoes that really shouldn't be where they are. So get them to pick everything up and then ask them to join back with you in a central place and then explain to them that these things now need to go back to the right place.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Now, that might be a bedroom. If a child has their own bedroom, maybe some stuff needs to go back there. Maybe they've found some clothes that belong to them that they've left lying around, so there could be a discussion about where might be the best place for those to go straight into the laundry. Or if the stuff is clean, maybe it needs putting away in a drawer somewhere. Coats maybe need hanging up in a specific place. Shoes need to go back somewhere. There may be a central bookshelf in the home, so books need to go back there.

Speaker 1: 10:29

So help everyone to see that just taking the basket or box up to their room and dumping it on the floor and bringing you the empty box back is not the solution. Otherwise, things are never going to improve. So help them. This is a teachable moment. Help them understand that putting things back in the right place will save them time in the long run, and that will mean that you have decluttered your living room, dining room, kitchen or things that were lying around that perhaps didn't need to be there. Then you maybe have got things in the living room that have been bothering you for a while, and now might be a good time to have a discussion about if there is anything that someone can see that they think the family no longer need. In which case, could it be donated or does it need to be stored somewhere else during the holiday period, because you don't need it in that room during that time?

Speaker 1: 11:30

And during this whole process, it's really important to emphasize this Konmari approach to what sparks joy. You want to end up with things within those living spaces that you all love, that are going to serve you during that time and that you are all in agreement with need to be kept. So that would be my top tip for those common areas. If you have got a guest bedroom which has turned into a dumping ground, as is very often the case or perhaps, like in our home, it is also an office space, then you could ask someone to go with you and help you look around the room and work out. Is there anything here that actually we never use, that we could get rid of and donate? Now is an amazing time to be donating things. Somebody somewhere will be so grateful to be able to pick up that item, either for free or at a very cheap cost if you've passed it onto a thrift store, and they will be super happy to have it for the holiday season. Maybe they will even gift it to somebody else. So it's a great time to be sorting out and donating or storing items that you are very clear you no longer need.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Another thing that it makes complete sense to do at this time of year is organize the holiday decorations. As you are getting your holiday decorations out, be thinking about whether they are decorations that you are ever going to hang up or display ever again. We all have seasons where there are certain decorations that we love, and then we perhaps move on and we buy something new or we have a new color scheme and the old ones then never come out of the box again. This is the time to donate them. Somebody somewhere will be very, very grateful for some new Christmas decorations. So Think about, as a family, what it is you want to keep and then think as well about how you want to store them when you put them back away again. So, for example, we have got one of these large IKEA plastic boxes which has only lights in it Anything to do with lights and then we have one other box that has all the tree decorations in it, and it's a really good idea to label the boxes very, very clearly so that when you are wanting to get decorations out the following year to decorate, or when you're putting them away at the end of the holiday season, it's really easy and clear how they need to be put away and where. It just makes life so much easier.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Okay, so, moving on to the hub of the home kitchen, it's really important to have an organized kitchen if you want to have a stress-free holiday season. It's really where so much of the action takes place, and I don't know how many times I've heard all the best parties happen in the kitchen. It's really true. Everyone tends to congregate there and you want it to feel like a calm environment where you feel in control. I would highly recommend, before the holiday season, if you haven't got time to do a full kitchen declutter, have a look through your main drawers and cupboards that you use and just see if there are any utensils in there that you know you never use. Let's streamline things a little bit.

Speaker 1: 15:27

I, very often in previous episodes, have used the example of the sharp kitchen knives that we perhaps use for chopping vegetables. We end up with so many of them in the drawer and yet we always end up taking the same one to use because we like how it feels in our hand and we know it's the sharpest and it works really well. You may have someone else in your family that would migrate towards a different chopping knife to you. So have a talk with everyone, see which of the utensils everyone loves to use and then see what's left over. You don't need 10 wooden spoons. You only need three or four maybe, so that if you're in the middle of preparing lots of food, you have got some spares. You don't need to wash up in between.

Speaker 1: 16:13

So have a look at how many things you really need for the holiday season or just in general life in general, and have a box in the kitchen where, as you're working in the kitchen over the next week or so, if you find something in a drawer or in a cupboard you know you never, ever use, put it in a box to donate. The same is true of pantry items. Perhaps go through your pantry or your food storage cupboards and have a look. Are there items in there that I have at some point bought and I know I am never, ever going to use them? If there are items like that, put them in the donation box, because you need all the cupboard space you can get. In the run-up to the holiday season, you're probably going to buying in more food than you normally do, especially if you're entertaining larger numbers than you normally do, and therefore you need space to store these things, and having things in your cupboards that are never, ever going to get used anyway is just a complete waste of space.

Speaker 1: 17:24

And then the third tip I would give you when it comes to kitchen organisation is to really think about meal planning and preparation in advance. I, every week anyway, write a meal plan so that I know in advance what I'm going to be cooking on what day. So I don't have to give it any thought. I really don't like having to think about food. It's a complete waste of my time. So I've planned it in advance. I do the same for the holiday season. I will be very clear what meals I would want to cook on what day.

Speaker 1: 17:56

If I'm going to be at home and entertaining during the holiday season, I will, from that plan, create a shopping list and I will try, when I go shopping to be really strict with myself, that I only buy the things that I need in order to prepare the meals that I know I'm going to be preparing, and that way you don't end up buying excess of things that are just going to stand around and not get eaten and are perhaps items that are not so healthy. So we have lots of sweet treats around the Christmas period. What we don't want is, come January, still having our cupboards rammed with Christmas sweet treats that we feel we need to consume because otherwise it's a waste. It's not going to do our waste lines any good going into the new year. So really think about meal planning and preparing in advance what it is you need to have in, and that way there's going to be less waste as well. So I hope there are a few things there that will mean that your home is feeling calmer and more organized when the holiday season comes along.

Speaker 1: 19:05

One thing I haven't yet mentioned that I actually think is probably key to the whole thing feeling great from the moment you walk in the door is your entranceway. Try to have it decluttered so that you only have hanging in the entranceway coats that you are definitely going to be using during this season. Try to find somewhere else to store coats that don't belong to this season. Or if you have got a couple of really warm coats but you know you always choose one then consider whether to donate the other coat or store it somewhere out of the way, the reason being if you've got people coming over. It's great if you have a bit of capacity in your storage in your entrance that you can hang people's coats up or put them out of the way or have somewhere for shoes. I have like a free standing shoe rack in the hallway so that if guests come around they can put their shoes up on those. Our shoes are all then away in a cupboard and again, I've removed from the shoe cupboard and stored in the cellar all of our shoes that perhaps we would only wear in the summer, so like sandals, flip-flops, that sort of thing. They're all gone long, gone out of the way, so that we just have enough space for all our boots and our shoes that we would wear during the autumn, winter season.

Speaker 1: 20:37

So, having your entranceway tidied up, having somewhere where you have got hats, gloves, scarves for everyone as it starts to get colder, just one of each for everyone. If you have got spares, then try to store them somewhere else so that it doesn't get overwhelming in the morning You're not pulling through piles of all these things. Just have enough of one for everybody of each thing, either in a box or a drawer or whatever solution you have in your entranceway so that as you come home, everyone can put their stuff away and it feels calm and organized. And as visitors arrive, you can take their coats and hang them up without having to start moving things to try and create space for them. That is my last bonus top tip for you. So next week I will talk about how to maintain it during the holiday season so that, come the special festive days, you can sit back, put your feet up and relax and not be feeling like you need to run around doing last minute jobs.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Now, if you have found this inspiring, but you know that you're the sort of person that has every intention of doing the work and then never gets round to it, you need to join me in the clutter free collective.

Speaker 1: 22:02

Our focus for December is going to be getting our homes ready for the holiday season, and that will be free for you, because if you join the Clutter Free Collective now as a founding member, your first month, december, will be completely free.

Speaker 1: 22:20

So you've got nothing to lose. Why don't you join and let me help you get your home holiday ready, and there will be so much motivation and accountability within the group. You will go into the festive season feeling the calmest, the most organized, the most chilled you ever have, and I think as well, it will probably be the best holiday season you've ever had for saving money, because when we are organized and we're intentional about what we're doing, we automatically save money. So go to caroline-thorcom forward, slash clutter and I will see you in the Clutter Free Collective starting next week. Until next time, if you've enjoyed this episode, please send the link to a friend you know would appreciate it, subscribe and leave a review. I look forward to bringing you more organizing tips next time, but if you can't wait until then, you can go to my website or find me on Instagram, at carothor, or on Facebook, at Caroline Organizer. Thanks for listening and I look forward to guiding you on your journey to find your Clutter Free ever after.