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

What can blindness teach us about mindful living? Wisdom from a KonMari organizer on navigating the world without sight #138

• Caroline Thor - Professional Organizer - KonMari® Consultant

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How do you navigate a cluttered world when you can’t see it?

It’s a question most of us never consider. But for Sarah Miloudi, a blind KonMari consultant, it’s a daily reality—and she’s thriving.

In this week’s episode, I had the privilege of sitting down with Sarah to uncover her unique perspective on decluttering, tidying, and creating a clutter-free home despite having less sight than the average person . Her story is packed with wisdom on intentional living, overcoming overwhelm, and finding small wins in everyday organization.

Ever wonder how you’d declutter your life without relying on vision? Or what strategies could turn your limitations into superpowers?

Sarah reveals it all—how blindness shaped her approach to home organization, why the KonMari method is more than “sparking joy,” and the simple declutter strategies that can work for anyone, with or without a disability.

This isn’t just about keeping a tidy home. It’s about rethinking how we interact with our space, designing systems that support us, and embracing the possibility of change—even when it feels impossible.

👉 Ready to transform your home and your mindset? Listen now and discover how Sarah turns obstacles into opportunities for a more mindful, peaceful life.

Sarah’s journey to simpler living began more than a decade ago.  After being diagnosed with a rare disease that caused sight loss, the benefits of living with less became clear. 

By building a year-round capsule wardrobe and applying an approachable version of minimalism to almost every aspect of her life, she curated a space filled only with the things that she loves and reduced stress and consumption along the way. 

Sarah created Edit & Reset after giving up a career in the City and she uses her training in the renowned KonMari Method® combined with her background in cognitive psychology, finance and behaviour change, to take clients on a handheld and supportive journey towards simplifying their space and changing their relationship with money.

Website: www.editandreset.com

IG: @editandreset

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

Get your home tidy in just 15 minutes a day! Grab my FREE 15 Minute Declutter Kickstart Guide HERE!

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Speaker 1:

hi and thank you for joining me on the living clutter-free forever podcast. My name's caroline. I'm a professional organizer and konmari consultant, mum to three amazing kids and six fur babies, so it's all go. In our house. There is never, never, a dull moment. If you haven't already listened to episode 132, I highly recommend you do.

Speaker 1:

It was an interview I did with an American, walt, who is a dad and father of two and who is blind, and he talked to me about how it is to keep your home organized without sight and the difficulties that creates, and also when you throw two young kids into the mix as well. It was an amazing conversation, and today I'm sharing with you another amazing conversation I had back in December with Sarah, who is a KonMari consultant, and she is also blind, and I thought it would be really interesting for you to hear from her side of things as well, how she works with clients with very limited vision. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. I loved having it with Sarah and I'm very sure she will be back on the podcast soon. Welcome, sarah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me. It's great serendipity that we have met. We were both together in London for the in-person KonMari consultant trainings that were happening. I'd flown over from Germany and I happened to be telling the KonMari team that I was very excited about a new episode, because I was going to interview someone who is blind about how they organise their home in order to cope with their disability. And they said to me you have to meet Sarah Sarah's here as a trainee consultant and she's also blind. So thank you for agreeing to talk to me. It's just such an amazing coincidence that this sort of all ties in. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so absolutely, I'm blind, as you've touched on. Like a lot of blind people, I have some level of useful vision that's preserved, so I'm not somebody who's totally blind, which is actually very rare. In terms of career, I used to be a financial journalist before moving into the city to work as a compliance officer, so holding a regulatory role, and I have long been very interested in spaces, minimalism, living a life of, I suppose, less and particularly so exploring the kind of interaction between things like clothing and spending and what you have around you and your finances, with living what feels like a good life, one that doesn't have too much overwhelm, one that doesn't have too much stress, and one that doesn't have too much overwhelm, one that doesn't have too much stress and one that doesn't have too much excess. And that led me to consider a career change once I was in a position to be able to do and, yeah, set up my own consultancy in this space, Amazing.

Speaker 1:

And where are you living now? Because I know we were talking before you've moved out of London now. So where are you based now? Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2:

So I moved out of London, coming up for two years ago now, and I now live in a place called Hastings Old Town, which is at the seaside in East Sussex in the UK.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful. I have visited there and it is absolutely stunning.

Speaker 2:

I have seaside envy there and it is absolutely stunning. I have seaside envy. I must admit I love it here, while I do miss London and aspects of London. Yeah, I can live a peaceful life here and I really love that and having access to the hills and the sea every day.

Speaker 1:

It's great so you've already touched on what inspired you to become a KonMari consultant, in that you were very interested in a more minimalistic life and the lifestyle and how that makes us feel. But how did you first discover the KonMari method?

Speaker 2:

I always think it's really interesting that what the first time people heard about it and got introduced to it yeah, I think that's a great question and I might be about to give you an answer that maybe isn't so typical for people who have been through the training, like ourselves. I discovered the method many years ago, like a lot of people did. I heard about Marie Kondo's first book and about the sort of joy focused approach, and very much picked up on the sort of the approach that you hear associated with KonMari in the media, which is very much does this item bring you joy? And, in all honesty, I felt that's not for me. While I really liked the aspect of reducing consumption, what I didn't like about it was the focus on joy.

Speaker 2:

Now, at this point, I hadn't read the books, I hadn't interacted with the method any more than the headlines and things like that, and really just left it to one side, even though I could absolutely acknowledge that there were benefits of it.

Speaker 2:

And it wasn't until quite a few years later, after I'd read into lots of different methods and practice lots of different methods, that I actually learned what the method is really about. And I also learned that there are many ways to practice it as well, whether you're doing that professionally or as an amateur, without any training whatsoever. I think, as you've probably come across yourself, not every consultant uses words like oh joy, that doesn't feel particularly authentic to me, but what really does is focusing on what you value and using your space, using your things and curating them in a way that can really help you live in a way that is comfortable and better and that helps you have focus on what you enjoy, far more so than the stuff you're letting go of. So it's been a bit of a long-term journey and now I'm really comfortable with the method, having done a lot of reading into it, having used it myself and, of course, having studied it as part of the professional course.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that answer. That's amazing, and in fact you're the second person this week who has told me that when they first discovered it they just thought, nah, not for me. Someone in my membership had bought the book and then had immediately sold it or donated it. She can't remember and thought no, and four or five years later had got it again and had a rethink, had some time to digest it. So very interesting. So how has being blind shaped the way you approach decluttering, because it must come with its challenges so I'm a really practical person.

Speaker 2:

As we touched on when I introduced myself, I do have some level of useful vision. What caused me to go blind or to start to lose my sight and that happened for me when I was in my mid-20s didn't actually know what was going on, just thought I was getting a few dodgy prescriptions from the optician, and I was in my 30s by the time I received a diagnosis. So I went. I passed into the medical and legal thresholds for blindness within the space of about 10 years following my diagnosis. But I do have some useful sight and I'm able to use that in all aspects of my life really well. That being said, I also utilise this practical aspect of myself and I think the fact that I'm blind and I think this is true of anybody who has a disability, actually, or a difficulty that they're trying to overcome and very much need to overcome, because there's no choice is that focusing on what's practical for you and what is realistic based on your surroundings, based on your situation, based on the design of stuff. That's something that, unfortunately, the world isn't designed for. Disability in many ways and blindness is no different means that you have to problem solve and focus on what works for you in quite specific terms, and I think you'll start to hear why I began to enjoy the KonMari method. Particularly, having a space for one type of category of things that wasn't polluted with any other category of things is something that's really useful for me, because you always know, okay, this is where my plates are, this is where my tea cupboard is, this is where my mugs are, and I live on my own, so nobody interferes with that, unless I've got guests, and I think all those things are actually very useful for anybody.

Speaker 2:

I don't disability, blindness or not. I tend to keep quite a clear sort of floor on each of the levels in my home. It removes things like trip hazards, but again, that feeds very much into the practical side of me, and that's existed before I started to lose my sight. When I set up my last home in London and when I hadn't yet gone blind, I still had a clear floor.

Speaker 2:

I still had spaces for everything, maybe not to quite the same extent, but those strategies were very much in place and I thought about okay, how hard is this space going to be to use If I buy this or if I have these things, whether that was the specific item or volume of things. How easy and quick could I do my cleaning, which sounds really boring, but it's not. It's really useful and it's those types of things that, whether you have a disability or not, will make a big difference. And particularly for me as a blind person, it's really handy to know where I can go to locate things, to be able to do things like my cleaning on my own because I can. I can see I things like my cleaning on my own because I can. I can see I can run my home on my own because of the strategies that I have put in place.

Speaker 1:

Largely, I love that because my ideal lifestyle meant that cleaning was going to truly no time, because it's something I find I just think it's a waste of my time. Quite frankly, if I could pay someone else to do it, I would so totally get where you're coming from with that, because it does make such a difference. It just makes life easier, as you say, whether you have a disability or not and I see this with all of my clients that I work with that just knowing where things are, that everything's got a place to go back to, that your flaws are clear, that in my case, I can just let my robot vacuum run without having to worry that there's anything there that it's gonna suck up, that it shouldn't. Things like that just make life so much easier and quicker, and when you then put disability into the mix with that as well, then it's a huge bonus absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2:

I could not agree with you more. I live in one of the typical sort of seaside townhouses, so it's three floors and if I am doing a big clean so everything, including dusting windows, you name it in the drawers I'm done in 45 minutes, which is which, yeah, and it's time for other things.

Speaker 1:

I do love it, so I'm. It's one thing to have a disability and, in your case, to be blind and dealing with your own home environment, but how does this work when you go as a consultant to other people's houses to help them? Because I would imagine you have to get used to the environment first. So how does that work? That fascinates me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I, to be honest, I haven't actually had challenges on that front. I think that a lot of people who practice in this space professionally I do the usual thing of having a bit of an intro call with somebody sometimes a couple of intro calls if their situation requires that. So I'd say that I know quite a lot about what I'm walking into from that perspective. The amount of useful vision that I know quite a lot about what I'm walking into from that perspective, the amount of useful vision that I've got, is awesome. That that's really helpful for me because I can use that and I have. Since I started losing my sight quite significantly, I used a rehabilitation coach to help me make the best use of my available eyesight and it works wonders. To be honest, people could pass me in the street and if I am not using my white cane and people don't know me, they actually wouldn't know I was blind. It's often something that they're just like oh, I forget that. And, of course, using the KonMari method and that approach where you focus on specific categories in quite a specific order as well, that is really helpful when you're working, as I think lots of people like ourselves probably find that really helpful because you know that you know on that first session, when you are either walking in person into a person's home or if you are having a virtual consultation, you know that what you are going to be looking at is a pile of clothes. That pile that might be massive, it might be smaller, but you know, the chances are it's clothes that you're going to be dealing with or else those clothes will still be away, because the person that you are working with really needs even they need hand-holding to be able to almost break the tension with that specific category that you're working on and there might be a need to just simply begin the session with removing all of the items from that particular category. So that's awesome. Usually have relatively clear floor space and, of course, you'll also know as well that we very much encourage people to have ring fenced the time to ring fence the space because that's really important. Encourage people to have ring fenced the time to ring fence the space because that's really important for them to be able to do the work that they do and to be able to focus on on the task at hand. So that typically means that the room is not crowded with other people. We've collectively thought in advance. What does the space need to be like in order for us to have a productive session? And that's that I don't typically tell clients about my blindness unless it happens to be relevant to the situation.

Speaker 2:

I've certainly found that people who come to me or who express a bit of an interest in the subject area will quite often tell me that they've got something going on for themselves, and I think what you find in those situations is that having a disability is a real asset in those types of situations, because it does mean that people feel much more comfortable saying I have ADHD and I'm really struggling with a. Do you think there would be scope to do something with my space in a way that I can manage and that is not going to overwhelm me and it can lead to some quite good conversations. So, yes, there's a practical aspect around knowing what you're going into in the different environments, whether that's physical or whether that's virtual, but there are so many tools in the toolkit that I honestly haven't run into any difficulties. Touch wood, things remain that way. However, as everybody who has a disability knows, is that people who have disabilities are usually great at problem solving, and I like to think I'm one of those people.

Speaker 1:

That's really interesting, and I do think the level of empathy that you then bring to your clients is probably even greater than it is with most consultants, because you get the difficulty and you get that there are struggles. I have two kids with ADHD and one kid with autism and I find that I also can relate really well to those clients that are having specific issues at home, and I think it does make it easier and support them and create a space that works for them and not against them, alongside everything else that's going on in their lives. So that's amazing. So what advice would you give to people who feel overwhelmed by clutter but think and this is the important thing think that their circumstances, so like a disability or other limitations, just make it impossible for them to get organised?

Speaker 2:

I suppose it's a two-pronged bit of advice. I would say that it can feel very much like you're on your own whether you have a disability or not, but I think, particularly when you've got a disability or neurodiversity, something like that, that let's just be brutally honest about it, the world is not always kind to you and that there could be some history there that is also playing out and playing into this sort of feeling of things aren't going to change, I'm not going to be able to get the help that I need and and those types of things aren't going to change. I'm not going to be able to get the help that I need and those types of things. I think. Just know that you're not the only person in the world that is feeling stuck, overwhelmed, judged like things aren't going to change or there's a barrier to that. Secondly, reach out and get help. There are professionals out there that can move the needle and can work with you, and the big thing for me is really giving handheld support to people and focusing on the practicalities and focusing on what works for the individual.

Speaker 2:

While I live a pretty simple, minimalist kind of life, I know that is not right for everybody, but I also know how to listen to people and to get to the nub of their challenges and to collaborate to work out okay, how can we make some level of change.

Speaker 2:

So I think do reach out to people and if reaching out to a professional isn't possible because sometimes that can be a constraint as well A friend or maybe some online resources and try to search specifically for your disability or, if you've got a neurodiversity, focus specifically around what resources are there, what help is there, what info is there for people like me? Because there are communities out there. I'm in one for people with Staggarts disease, which is the eye condition that I have and that caused my blindness, and you know what, sometimes just putting a question in there about what I'm trying to do, what difficulties I'm having, yields so many solutions. There are also quite a few communities for people with ADHD or parents of children who have ADHD, and I think that if you can isolate some targeted support or focus that search a bit, then that could probably help as well.

Speaker 1:

If someone is listening and thinking oh my goodness, I have to work with Sarah. Where can they find you?

Speaker 2:

They can reach out to me editandresetcom or hello at editandresetcom as well. I can give you those details. So, yeah, I'm contactable on either of those and absolutely love to hear from anybody who who does need a bit of help or who even just needs to have a bit of a chat about these types of things. You can often feel like you're the only person in the world that has your particular disability health condition, especially if it's rare, or you're just simply a little bit stuck, and I think a huge thing that the only person in the world that has your particular disability health condition especially if it's rare or you're just simply a little bit stuck and I think a huge thing that has helped me is finding a community with that and, I suppose, being a bit vulnerable to people. There are people out there who can and will help, so don't be shy yeah, that's amazing advice.

Speaker 1:

I will put all the links for you in the show notes. Really love that. You've said that it's important to ask for help. I think so many people keep thinking, yeah, I can do this on my own. I can do this on my own, and even if it's just our friends to come around and be there as a support, there's no shame in doing that, and I think more people really need really need to do that. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it and I have a feeling I will be having you back on as a guest at some point, because that was a very interesting chat so thank you, sarah, I'd love that.

Speaker 2:

thanks so much for um speaking. It was great to touch base, amazing Thank you, sarah.

Speaker 1:

Oh my goodness, wasn't that just a fascinating conversation. I thought Sarah's level of empathy for the people she works with and her tenacity at finding solutions to things was incredible, and I just loved talking to her. All the links for contacting Sarah can be found in the show notes. Now, if you have specific issues that make it difficult for you to stay organized whether that's a neurodiversity or a specific disability I would love to hear from you, because I can create episodes and find guests that may well be able to support you as well. So please drop me a line. You can email me at caroline, at caroline-thorcom, or you can very easily contact me at instagram at carothor. Okay, I will leave you with that Until next time.