How to create your Plan & Win! Kicking clutter to the curb is a possibility with this approach

So did you kick off this year with big plans to organize and declutter, do the whole house from one end to the other, and have you found yourself one month in, Things are a little bit stalled? Or are you. Do you feel a little bit stuck? If you do, don't worry. You're not alone. A lot of people are in the same place. So what I have for you today are some tips and tricks on how to get you unstuck and get you rolling along with your projects. So let's get started. Okay, so the first thing you want to do is when you look at this plan that you created, or maybe you're drafting one from scratch, which is great. What you want do is first identify the type of decluttering you want to do. Do you want to be the type of person who does a big project on the weekend, or do you want to have the type of plan where you do a little bit each day and that adds up along the week? It's important for you to know this so that. That way you can factor that in when you're creating your plan. I, for one, am the type of person where I just tear into, you know, like a linen closet. I tear everything out and I just go after it in that day or maybe a weekend, depending how much work it is. But I definitely know a lot of they would be like, no way. That is too intimidating. They don't want to approach it that way. So what they like to do is. And how they've been successful is they then take. We'll take each day. They'll take one shelf at a time. They'll pull everything out of a shelf, OR declutter it. Think about how they want to organize it, put it back right temporarily, and then do another shelf and another shelf and another shelf and then do a final pass through the whole thing once everything has been decluttered. And that plan works really well. And to be honest, it's not as messy because when I pull things out, I create such a disaster. If you just pull it out shelf by shelf, it's not as disruptive for you and your family. So there is a bonus to doing a little bit at a time. But there's no right or wrong answer to how you do this. It's what works best for you. How will you be motivated? Are you motivated, knowing, hey, I'm committing to just 15 minutes and put your 15 minutes in. If that works for you, that's perfect. If you're the type that wants to do it on the weekend and you don't want to be bothered with it during the week, that's great as well. Figure out what your style is. That way you can use it that as we look at how to build the plan out. Now that you know how you want to approach your projects, you need to get very real right now and be honest with yourself on how much time you realistically have to work on them. You can designate the first weekend of the month if you're the type that wants to do these projects on the weekend. Or you can do, you know, every Saturday you're going to be working on decluttering and organizing. If you like going during the week. Every morning after breakfast, you're going to do 30 minutes or after work. In the evenings after dinner, you're going to do 20 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever it is that works for you. Be realistic, be real, and have a minimum. I like to have a minimum that says, okay, you know what my minimum is? I'm going to do 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes of decluttering. I'll have an area I'm working on at that particular time, and let's say it's a linen closet. I'll spend 10 minutes working in that area on Monday, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and throughout the week. And whenever I finish, I finish. But the important thing is, is I'm keeping up with my commitment and I'm giving the time that I allotted. Make sure and just be realistic with yourself and be real so that you're successful. Set a minimum. If you end up doing twice as much that day, that's fine. But just make sure you show up on your next plan time and you do the minimum again. Okay, now it's time to create your plan. And you know, don't worry, you don't have to have a whole house decluttering plan. This can be iterative and you can work on it over time. My suggestion would be to take it one to three months at a time. The best places to start are the places that you spend the most time or the most high, high traffic areas. So your entryway, your dining room room, your kitchen counters, your kitchen itself. You know, you can chunk it up. Your living room, a bathroom, wherever you feel the most stress and anxiety. I would start there and just chunk it up and slowly start making your way through it. When you're looking at your plan, prioritize the areas that you feel will bring the biggest win to your life and your household's life. And once you do that, you will be amazed on how great it feels and how much momentum you'll have to continue on throughout the rest of the house. Okay. Once you figure out the different areas you're going to work in, you need to now chunk up the work, because I will assume that most of these areas are probably pretty large, and you can't get them done in one sitting or one weekend. So if we use the A kitchen, for example, let's say you want to declutter your kitchen and you want to go top to bottom through it. So what you would want to do is chunk it up. And by that, I mean start with drinking cups and mugs and then utensils and then spices, small appliances, and just work your way through there. You know, you'll eventually end up at the refrigerator and the pantry. But make a list of everything and organize it and order it the way that you want to so that you can start to tackle it. And then you'll be able to. Now look at. Okay, how long do I think it'll take me to get through the utensils? For example, I just did utensils. It probably took me hour, maybe two hours max to get through all the utensils. If you were to look at. Okay, I want to do utensils in the kitchen. You then look at how much time you've allotted and then put that on the calendar for you're going to focus on utensils during that time. And I loved have themes. I love to say, you know what? For the month of March, my theme is going to be kitchens. And we're just going to be decluttering and organizing the kitchen. And for the first week, we're going to do spices and pots and pans. The second week, we're going to do utensils. The third week, we're going to do cups and plates. Whatever works for you. I'm just kind of giving you examples. I love to have themes because it just makes it a little bit more interesting, and you can kind of share it with your family, and they know where you're at and where you're working. Working. Definitely look at how you can chunk things up and start to place them on a calendar. So you know how you want to sequence everything when it comes to organizing. Make sure that when you start to store things that you store them where you use them, that is the best thing that you can do for yourself. It makes everything easy and efficient. So put your makeup where you put your makeup on. Keep your spices close to the stove where you're cooking, so they're nice and handy. Right. Then where you're Using them. Keep your knives in a drawer and or on the counter, but keep them where you use your knives, where you, where you do your cutting and your chopping. Keep your drink cups, you know, where you get your drinks, where you get your water, you know, keep it close and everything is nice in hand for both getting it to use it as well as put it away. It's really important that you think of function and how you want the space to work and you think about how you can make your life a little bit more efficient by putting some good organization practices in place. Okay. As with any goal, if you have accountability, your chances of success and the speed at which you complete your is greatly magnified. You should definitely try to find somebody who wants to go on this journey with you and somebody who has share similar goals. You don't have to have, you know, somebody who's working in their kitchen. You can be working in your kitchen and your accountability partner can be working in their garage. If you share your goals with each other, you know, and share, you know what your plans are, you can hold each other accountable and you will get to the finish line so much faster. And it's fun to have somebody to bounce ideas, ideas off, talk to them about your struggles and where you're having a hard time. I see this works so great for people. So I really encourage you to try to find accountability partner. Another thing to help keep momentum going, look at challenges. There's a lot of challenges and Facebook groups out there that have a lot of fun ways of going about tackling this. The minimalist.com I love their 30 day challenge. They have a 30 day decluttering challenge I've done, I even videoed it. It's so much fun and it makes getting through the process easier and kind of gives you a little bit of structure that maybe some people. And lastly, if none of those options work, I also have programs where I can help you put a plan together, help you create homework and a timeline and then I'll check in with you weekly to make sure that you're getting what you need to done. You're able to accomplish what you need, help you get unstuck if you get stuck along the way. So I'll put a link in the description below if you want to look at that. Whatever method of accountability you use, definitely don't skip this part because you'll thank yourself later. Okay. As you're working through your plan, make sure to keep your family up to date on what's going on and make sure they know where you're working. I know they're probably not as excited about you and I about decluttering an organization, so that's fine. But letting them know where you're working will help. Give them a heads up and then they'll. They won't wonder what's going on, and they might have some input on what they want to keep. And that just helps you because then all the decision fatigue is on your shoulders. I like to sometimes set things out on the counter, let everybody know, hey, these are the things I'm thinking about getting rid of. And every once in a while, you know, maybe my husband will pick up some kitchen gadget that I didn't think anybody was using, but he actually uses. Anything left behind I'm going to donate or get rid of. I did the same things with mugs. We had 30 or 40 coffee mugs the other day. I pulled them all out. Everybody picked their favorites and then we donated the rest of them. Letting my family know what's going on, getting them involved when I can helps make them be a little bit more supportive. Hopefully appreciate the work that goes into it because there's a lot of work and, you know, hopefully they'll also support whatever new solution you put in place at the end. Definitely keep your family and your roommates or whoever lives with you abreast of what you're working on. Okay, this is a small thing, but make sure you celebrate your wins. Take time. I'm not saying throw a party, but hey, if you do a big project, throw yourself a party. I'm all for it. Make sure and take time to celebrate. Look at the pictures, look at how great the space feels and how efficient it is and just enjoy it. I think it's all too often that we check the box and we move, move on to the next thing. So just take a moment to celebrate your wins and, you know, really be proud of the work that you've done. Okay, I think you're ready to go. You should have everything you need to get started. Be aware, once you start and get rolling, it is something that's so exciting and you're just going to keep wanting to go on to the next one and next one. It's sort of addicting. So you'll make your way through your house in no time. So here's a video on the screen that will help you over avoid the top five mistakes that people make when they're decluttering and how you can avoid them. See you next time. Bye.