Living Clutter Free Forever - decluttering tips, professional organizing, minimalist living

7 simple steps to a clutter-free home! (How to transform your space in a week) #113

• Caroline Thor - Professional Organizer - KonMari® Consultant

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Feeling overwhelmed by clutter?
Today, we're diving into something a bit different from our usual talks about decluttering and organizing. We're going to tackle how to transform your home in just a week. Yes, you heard that right! Seven days to a clutter-free, organized space.

 Wondering if you can actually achieve a tidy home in such a short time? Well, you absolutely can!
In this episode, I'll share 7 simple steps to declutter and organize your home quickly and efficiently. While I usually recommend the thorough KonMari Method, this is for those moments when you need a quick fix.

Here's the Problem:

Clutter and disorganization can leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed. It’s hard to enjoy your space when every corner is filled with stuff.

The Solution:

With 7 strategic steps, you can reclaim your space and sanity in just a week. I'll guide you through each day, focusing on high-impact areas and keeping things manageable.

What You'll Get:

  1. Clear Goals: Start with a vision of your ideal home.
  2. Decluttering Schedule: Plan your week effectively to avoid burnout.
  3. High Impact Areas: Tackle spaces that will make the biggest difference first.
  4. Three Box Method: Simplify sorting with Keep, Donate, and Sell boxes.

And more!

Imagine walking into your home and feeling calm and at peace. No more piles of stuff dragging you down. It’s not just about tidying up; it's about transforming your daily life. Ready to take the plunge? Join me as I guide you through this exciting, transformational week. Let’s declutter, organize, and conquer that overwhelm together!

Why wait? Your clutter-free home is just seven days away. Tune in to this episode and start your journey to a more organized, serene space today!

Don’t miss out—hit play now and let’s get started!
Links mentioned in this episode:
Organized FOR You! Get Caroline's eyes and expert feedback on your space in this special limited time offer. 
Episode 110  How to declutter sentimental items without regret in 5 easy steps

I would LOVE to hear from you. Text Message me here.

Thanks for listening! For more organizational motivation, support and free resources:
Join my online membership Clutter Free Collective
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

Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organiser, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganised 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 this latest episode of the Living Clutter Free Forever podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm Caroline, a KonMari consultant, and so what I'm going to be talking about today is a complete departure to how I normally talk about decluttering and organizing. I normally talk about how we should use the KonMari method, how we should spend time visualizing our ideal lifestyle and then, rather than going room by room, go through the home in categories, starting with clothes, then books, etc. So that by the time you have gone through all the categories in the KonMari method, your home will be completely decluttered and organized and everything will have a place to go back to. But what I often get asked by people is what if I want to do a quick fix? What if I want to get my home transformed in a week? So today I'm going to talk you through how you can do that. There will be a little bit of the KonMari method creeping in, because I just can't help myself, but it is possible to declutter and organize your home in a week if you go about it in the right way. And I have had clients who haven't wanted to use the KonMari method and have just wanted to quickly get spaces sorted out. So today I'm going to give you seven simple steps to get your home transformed in a week. So let's get started.

Speaker 1:

The first is that you really need to set clear goals. If you know what it is you're trying to achieve by the end of it, then it makes it much easier to keep yourself motivated, to keep yourself going. And this is where visualising the end result and how it's going to improve daily life which is a key part of the KonMari method actually is really going to help you. And it's important to discuss these goals with family members so that you get their buy-in and their support and it becomes something that you're all working on together. Let's face it if you're trying to do a whole home in a week, you're going to need support, you're going to need other hands on, and getting family members involved is the best way of doing that. So step number one set clear goals.

Speaker 1:

Step number two and if you're trying to do it in a week, this is really key and that is to create a decluttering schedule. So you need to set aside time dedicated each day for decluttering over the week. If you are still trying to work full-time while doing this crazy idea of decluttering your whole home in a week, then you're going to need to work out where you can find the time during your work schedule or after work. If you have taken a week's holiday to do this, fantastic. But you still need to work out a strategy, have a schedule set together, and I would highly recommend breaking down the process into manageable tasks to stop yourself from feeling overwhelmed. So perhaps on Monday you would say okay, we're going to start with the kitchen. Tuesday, we're going to do the living room. Wednesday, we're going to do the bathroom and the downstairs loo, if you've got it, etc. And break it down so that you know what you're going to do on what day. And if you can make it even smaller than that, what in the kitchen are you going to do first? Are you going to do food products first, or are you going to do kitchen accessories or machines or pots and pans? Really, break it down so that you know. Okay, I'm first going to do that, then I'm going to move on to this and it will help keep you moving and get you through the whole process. And I really suggest that, if you're involving family members, that you also involve them in the schedule and assign tasks to each person so that everyone knows what their job is, what they're going to be doing and when it needs to be done by, so that your decluttering schedule doesn't get stuck and you don't get behind. So that's step number two create a decluttering schedule.

Speaker 1:

Moving on to step number three, start with high impact areas. Ident, identify those areas in the home that you think will make the biggest difference once they've been decluttered. And for a lot of my clients, when I go to them and they don't want to follow the KonMari method with starting with clothes, nearly always the first place they say will be the kitchen or the living room, because that is the place that has the biggest impact on them. So tackle those areas first. You will create an immediate visual and functional improvement and that will really motivate you to keep going with the other areas of the home that perhaps are a little bit more icky to tackle, like the garage or the cellar, those places where we tend to just close the door and hope it might go away and encourage your family members to take responsibility for specific high impact areas to foster teamwork. So, for example, if you have got toys in the living room, get the kids on board with helping them to declutter their toys so that they can see the impact that the decluttering has on your living space. So start with high impact areas. That's step number three.

Speaker 1:

Step number four is I highly recommend you use the three box method. So always have three boxes with you. These can be moving boxes. They could even be washing baskets if you haven't got any boxes available to you, and they're going to have names One of them is going to be a keep box, one of them is going to be a donate box and one of them is going to be a sell box, so things that you want to keep. Try and collect them all together in one place. It probably will be too much for a box. But if you've done, for example, in the living room, you're looking at all decorations first things that are standing around as decoration you could put them all into the box just to keep them safe while you perhaps do some cleaning before you put them back. The donate boxes can be filled up and put straight into the car so that you can take them to a donation point, and the sell boxes need to be collected together so that when you have finished your decluttering and organising, set to and get things photographed and put online to sell them photographed and put online to sell them. So, as you go, if you sort things into these categories, it will mean that you are able to really keep an overview of how much you're keeping and how much you're letting go. So really, your donate and your sell boxes should be relatively full in most areas if you're doing a proper declutter as you go, and then you'll be able to see how much storage space you have left in that room and know where the best places to put things back are.

Speaker 1:

So step number five is to declutter room by room. Now, as you know, I don't normally advocate this approach, but if you're trying to do it in a week, it is quicker. So I would suggest that, having chosen which room is perhaps your biggest pain point, and that you start there. Always use categories within the room so, for example, if you find items of clothing in a room, there could be items of clothing lying around in the living room and kitchen. Let's face it things get left there. Collect those together. Then grab any books that you've got, collect those together. If you've got any papers, collect those together. Then look at your kimono within that room.

Speaker 1:

So, have you got decorations?

Speaker 1:

Have you got crafting things? Try and collect things together that belong to one category. So, for example, in the living room you might have still DVDs. You might have CDs. I went through ours again last week and got rid of most of them, because we're just using Netflix and Amazon Prime all the time to watch stuff and we just are not using them anymore. And I had them stored in boxes. We didn't have too many, but they've now gone. I don't need them anymore.

Speaker 1:

So go through each room by category and by keeping it to category, you can ensure that you're organizing as you go. And this is step six organize. Organize as you go. So if you organize your items as you declutter, you are avoiding creating new messes. And if you assume that while decluttering you are going to have this, what I call the messy middle, this total chaos, because you've pulled everything out, you've perhaps got your whole of your living room floor or your dining room table covered in stuff sorted in categories, but at least you can see where everything is. It gives you a chance to then clean the furniture and the storage spaces that they're going to go back to, and it means that you can use things like storage bins, drawer organizers. You can label stuff, organize as you go so that within that space, everything belonging to one category goes back into one place, preferably with a label, so that all members of the family can see where it now lives. And it makes it easier for you later with tidying up. And I would encourage you to get family members to take ownership of organizing their personal spaces. So if someone has got an office within the home, or the kids have got their bedroom, or you've got a man cave in your home, ie the garage or a room in the cellar, then Help that family member, do it together as a team, but encourage them to take ownership of the actual organization, because they're going to need to be able to keep that space tidy afterwards and put things back. So it's really important that everyone's on board and you're working together.

Speaker 1:

Step seven handle sentimental items thoughtfully. Handle sentimental items thoughtfully. One of the premises of the KonMari method is that you leave all sentimental items to the end, and I would highly recommend you doing this, even if you're trying to declutter and organize your home in a week. Have a box ready and, whatever room you're in, if you come across a sentimental item, put it into the box, because very often when we are decluttering and organizing and we come across sentimental items, we get stuck. We don't know what to do with them. We start thinking should I keep this, shouldn't I? And it holds up the whole process. If you know you've got a safe place to store anything that you find that is sentimental in the home while you're going through the whole process in the week, it means that they can later be gone through and you can thoughtfully decide what to keep and how to store or display these items in a meaningful way, and I would then sit down with the whole family and go through sentimental items together, because it's a wonderful way for you all to share memories and make collective decisions about sentimental items. I recently did an episode episode 110, which was all about decluttering and organizing sentimental items. So if you want more detailed advice and support for sentimental items, go and listen to episode 110. I will put the link in the show notes. Okay, so you're going through your home. You've got a week to do it in.

Speaker 1:

I am now going to give you some tips for maintaining your clutter-free home, because one thing that really annoys me and I'm going to get on my soapbox about this is that I see so often, especially in television programs about decluttering and organizing, that teams will come in, they'll declutter, or they don't even declutter, they just organize. They put everything back, it looks beautiful and off they go. And I always think and how are the family going to maintain this? It's really important that, if you are going to spend a whole week of your life decluttering and organizing, that you have some tips for maintaining it. So here are my practical tips for maintaining a clutter-free space. After the initial decluttering process, I would encourage you to do regular reviews of drawers and cupboards and quick tidying sessions to keep the clutter at bay. People in my online membership, clutter-free Collective, are learning how to build 10 to 15 minutes of tidying up into their day for the spaces that they've already decluttered and organized, and that way we stay on top of it and it means that it stays manageable. I also highly recommend, once a year, going through spaces and looking what's in that drawer or what's in that cupboard and are we still using it and has it been put away in the right place? So these regular reviews will mean that the clutter stays at bay and it also means that it becomes like a family habit, ensuring that everyone pitches in regularly, especially if it's something that you're doing as a family daily, regularly, especially if it's something that you're doing as a family daily. So that was a really quick guide to how to get your home decluttered and organized in a week.

Speaker 1:

Let me go back and remind you what the steps were. Step one set clear goals. Step two create a decluttering schedule. Step three start with high impact areas, the areas that you know are going to make the most difference. Step four as you go through, use the three box method keep, donate or sell. And then step five declutter room by room which you probably never hear me say again in a podcast, because I'm always going on about categories. But step six is organize as you go. So really try to think about categories in each of the rooms you're in so that you create an organized space that is useful to you. And step seven handle sentimental items separately, create a space to look after those while you're doing the whole home and sit down together and think about those at the very end.

Speaker 1:

I do believe it is possible to declutter and organize a home in a week if that's what you really want to do, want to do. However, it is not necessarily what I would advocate, because I think that when you take time to go through your home using the KonMari method and going through the categories, that you are much more intentional and you are much more likely to create an organizational system that will be maintainable because you've really thought about it. I worry slightly that doing it in a week, it's all going to be a bit too quick, but I do understand that for some people the overwhelm has just got to the point where all you want to do is just get the house tidied up and it might be a good place to start, and then you can always go back through at a later date and go through the categories of the KonMari method and you will already have less stuff. So it will make it a lot quicker for you. Now, if you are someone who feels overwhelmed by a room or your pantry or a space in your home and you would like some help with it, I have got my special offer organized for you, which is only available until August, the 14th, 2024. I've talked about it in this podcast before. You can send me photos or video of your space and I will then send you within three days a detailed video back telling you how to declutter and organize that space step by step, so that you can feel calm in your space and your home stops being a glorified storage unit. So I will link for that in the show notes organized for you.

Speaker 1:

And if you have decided and are inspired to now declutter and organize your home in a week, I wish you every luck. Tell me about it. I'd love to hear about it and if you've survived, I'll see you next time. If you've survived, I'll see you 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 organising 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 Organiser. Thanks for listening and I look forward to guiding you on your journey to find your clutter free ever after.