Latest / A Heart That Beats for Home / 11. Streamline Your Life Series / Week 3: The Joy of a Decluttered Home

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11. Streamline Your Life Series / Week 3: The Joy of a Decluttered Home · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats For Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still entangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, welcome back.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here for week three in the Streamline your Life series.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Today we're gonna be jumping in to talking about streamlining your home, and there's so much goodness in here that I'm excited to talk about.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I absolutely love organization and just all the things that have to do with systems and just getting stuff organized.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we always do it perfectly.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Around here, there is always a sense of I have to get rid of more stuff and there is pockets of clutter, and if only everybody would clean up after themselves.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We have a real life situation going on here in our home.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: But in the background, a passion of mine is absolutely organization and systems and just making things run well.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: We have tried a lot of different things over the years.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Some have failed epically, some have worked really well.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go into a lot of the nitty gritty as to chores and how we should do things with our children.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Everybody gets to figure that out for themselves.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: But what I wanna talk about today is just some basic ways specifically to get rid of excess.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I am a total believer that the accumulation of stuff is super heavy.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It's heavy on your soul, it's heavy on your eyes, it's heavy on your just your overall well-being, and there are so many studies that show the psychology behind clutter and how that affects not only mental health, how it affects physical health, how it affects productivity, how it affects joy.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of studies that would suggest and would prove by getting rid of excess and living in a decluttered place, you will find yourself in a better state of being overall, and so I'm excited just to talk about, as we're coming into the spring season here, as the flowers are blooming and the sun is coming out.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Just it's a fun time to be able to kind of do that purge.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: When we're feeling energized, we have longer days of light, it's not getting dark so early, we feel like we just have a little bit excess time in our day and it's a great time to be able to kind of go through the house and just purge a lot of things.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: We were on spring break this last week.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: We were able to go to the beach.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It was still a little bit of a chilly beach vacation in North Carolina in March, but my goodness, 70 and sunny sure beats 30 and sunny from the Midwest.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So we are back home, spent the day yesterday kind of getting undone from vacation, doing the laundry, getting stuff sorted out, getting groceries bought, and I am just itching and ready to go on my yearly decluttering sprint through my house.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Again, we're going to talk about different ways that you can do it, whether you do it as a sprint, because it's something that you do yearly, or maybe this is the first time you're going to kind of start to dig yourself out of some of the clutter.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: It might be something that is a longer season of time that you need to give to this to kind of get to a place where then it becomes more of a maintenance mode as opposed to a full project.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So a couple of things right off the bat that I want to talk about when we talk about our home.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Number one I think it's important, especially in the day and age that we are in, where everything is social media and it's edited and it's perfect and everything is curated to look a certain way.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: It basically makes everybody feel like my house isn't good enough, my decor isn't good enough, my kitchen isn't pretty enough or aesthetically pleasing.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: We can go through all of these different things when we think about our home and how it's such a comparison game so often to what we see on the internet.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: First of all, I want to remind you that it is exactly that it is curated.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It is not real life.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I myself am guilty, when I go to take a picture of something, to look in the camera and say, oh, there's that pile of clutter.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I want to move out of the way before I take this picture, and so all that's happening is that I'm moving that pile of clutter to a different counter out of the view of the lens of the camera.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that I live in a totally clutter free house.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that my dishes are always done in my carpet always has vacuum lines.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: It's important for us to remember that what we see is not always reality.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Another lie that we're believing is that if our houses are not perfectly put together and designed just to the max, to the T, that they are not worthy of the same level of comfort and retreat and serenity to the people that live in it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And I just want you to know that as a lie.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if your kitchen has the most outdated kitchen cabinets and for Micah countertop, or if you are living in the most beautiful kitchen with the marble slabs and the white beautiful cabinets.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: One home doesn't create more of an environment of home than the other, because the things that we're going to talk about have a lot to do just with getting rid of excess and then the atmosphere that's in the home that actually creates the feeling of wanting to come back.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but so many of us.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: If we think back to our memories of childhood, we didn't talk about how beautifully decorated grandma's house was right.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: We talked about the things in grandma's house, and we're going to get into that a little bit when we talk about the five senses and how it affects our memories and the feelings that we have around our home.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: But we are in a new age where we're always consumed with how everything looks, how it photographs, and so I just want you to put that out.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Don't believe that lie that your house has to be picture perfect in order for it to be a real haven for your family.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: The second thing is we could go through all of these things.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: We could have the most beautifully decorated house, we could have all of the clutter gone, we could have the most amazing systems, and, if our attitudes are awful, there is nothing about that home that's creating peace and serenity for the people that live there.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly, attitude trumps aesthetics a hundred percent of the time, and so, as a mom specifically, I think it's really good for us to do the gut check of what is the environment that I'm setting.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: We all know the saying if mama ain't happy, nobody happy.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: We tend to set the tone, what happens in our homes, and so it's important for us, as the thermostats the ones that control the temperature in the home To make sure that we not only are creating spaces that are comfortable for our family and clutter free and running well, but that we're doing it in a way that has an attitude of joy doesn't mean that that's a hundred percent all the time.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Obviously there's always Times where things come unraveled and issues happen and mama loses her cool just like every other human on the planet, but an overall sense of there is joy and peace and happiness here, and that is the ultimate thing that is going to draw people in.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: The things that we're talking about today on the episode about decluttering and just some systems, those are things that are just going to add an additional level of peace and enjoyment when the others have been taken care of.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So just remember that that the best way to streamline your home and to have it be a happy place Is to be a mama who exudes joint working.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Through this.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Today we're not going to talk a ton about design.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I am going to mention a couple of little things as we talk about some specific areas in streamlining your home.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: With my degree in interior design, I do think it would be super fun to do maybe something like the top five tips for making your home more beautiful, right?
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of us want those things.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: It comes more naturally for some of us than others.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: We all have our strengths.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I have so many friends that are like I don't have a clue, tell me what to do.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And then I have other friends that just have a natural knack for making their homes beautiful again.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: That's not what we're talking about today, but I do think that would be a super fun topic in the future, just to give some basic, easy, step by step principles for interior design in your home.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: But what I want to talk today about is just the accumulation of stuff.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: The accumulation of stuff, I believe, is heavy, and it's not just heavy for the drawers and the cabinets and the closets that are busting with too much stuff.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: There is so much science and psychology behind the fact that clutter and other issues like health issues and mental focus issues, procrastination so many of these things are tied together.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It is proven that where there is clutter, there is also procrastination, and where there is just order and free space, that that it is an environment that creates more productivity, and that's what I want in my home.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I totally believe that there is something psychological to walking into your kitchen and seeing all the kitchen counters clean to see, not bunch of piles of paper and stacks of stuff in the corners and toys all over the place.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: When there is a system and things have a place and there is free space, there is peace and joy, and so that's what we kind of want to walk through.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Today is talking through number one, what's really important to me in the spaces in my home, and number two what are some really practical things that I can implement to make those things a reality?
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So first of all, let's talk about just some questions that you can ask yourself in kind of a self analysis of how I want my home to work for me and my family.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: How do I want it to feel, what are the things that I want to accomplish in those spaces and then being able to work backwards from that.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So I took just three different spaces in my home and asked myself these same questions.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Number one what do I want from the space that is my master bedroom?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Because you've heard me talk in other episodes.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: My kids bedrooms are my kids bedrooms.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Close your door, do your thing, boo.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Whatever happens in there is your mess, your issue.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: What happens in my bedroom is a place that I really like to control.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Number one I want it to be peaceful.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I do not want it to have a lot of excess stuff.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I want it to have a minimalistic feel to it.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I want lots of empty surfaces.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I want things to have a romantic feel to them.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I want things to be soft and have great texture.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I want to have neutral tones that make me feel at peace.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I want to have the candles that I love.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I want to have just beautiful accessories and pictures that make me happy.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I want it to be a luxurious, peaceful, minimalistic and romantic space from my family room.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I want that to be a place that is calm and cozy and it has tons of soft couches and blanks and furniture that kind of just envelopes you into its its cushioness.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: It's where you want to curl up on the Sunday afternoon to watch football.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It's where you want to snuggle with your spouse.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: It's where you want to sit with your kids and watch the TV show or the family movie.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I want it to be casual, because I want to be able to have popcorn on my couch and I want to be able to bring my beverage in there.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I don't want it to be something that I'm afraid to live on.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I want my family room to be super livable.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I want it to create an environment where people are inspired when we sit around, where it feels good, there's lots of light.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It's airy, but I also want it to be able to be made dark in the evening if we want to watch movies or we're snuggling on an afternoon and we want some of that light not to be there.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: So what does that need to look like?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, in my kitchen.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I want my kitchen to be clean, I want it to be decluttered, I want it to be very easy to manage and to be systematic, because to me, when I have a clean, decluttered, easy to manage and a systematic kitchen, it's easy to put dishes away.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not shoving things in cabinets and hoping it's going to stay closed.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I know that everything has a place.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It is just easy to maintain because there's systems and there's not excess.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And so when you look at doing this through the different rooms in your house and you kind of get a blueprint for what it is that you want those spaces to provide for your family, then you can go back and kind of peel back some layers on what are the things that are in that space that are in direct conflict with what it is that I want.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: If you walk into your master bedroom and you have a chair that is just overflowing with goodwill stuff and old clothes and dirty laundry or laundry to be folded and you have stacks in the corner of boxes and things to go through, and then in the other corner there's a stack up to your hips of books and papers and a desk that's cluttered, it is very easy to walk into that space and identify the things that don't align with this mission that you want for that space to provide for you and your family.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It gives you a good starting point.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So do that in a couple of rooms in your home that you want to start with, and then also, I think it's really important to kind of get An overview of what is it that I want.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Then kind of do an inventory of what do I want my senses To see and hear and taste and smell when I come into my home, when my family comes in here.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: What are those things that I want?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I know that seems kind of silly to talk about when we're talking about our house, but it's important.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Let's just run through them really quick when you think about what you hear.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: When you think about when I'm in my home, what do I hear?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Now there's going to be normal human noises of Talking and chatter and maybe some fighting.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I'm talking more about is there an overwhelming amount of sound at certain times.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: For me, there have been times where I literally feel like my head is spinning, my eyes are popping out like a cartoon character and I stopped to think what the heck is going on.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Why am I so frazzled?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Why do I feel this level of anxiety?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And when I stop and pause I realize there's somebody playing a video game.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Right here in the living room I'm blasting my alexa with some kind of music.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: There is somebody else's got base coming from another area of the house.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Somebody else is talking on a phone in the room next to me.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: There is so much noise.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: What are ways that you can create periods of time maybe it's in the morning when everybody's waking up, or maybe it's in the dinner hour when you're getting ready and there's just a lot of activity happening that you can just create space to say this is how we're going to monitor the noise In the stages of the day that can feel really anxiety ridden or overwhelming For me, for our family it's.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: There are some levels of crazy time of the day where we're just only going to play praise music.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: A kid will come in and try to put on some, you know, crazy loud, obnoxious dance music which is fun and that's great at a certain time of the day when we're cleaning or when we're having a dance party.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: There are other times when I'm like, nope, I have to control the noise that is coming in here.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: It needs to be peaceful, it needs to be able to calm our souls and not ratchet everybody up and just having control over that.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And my favorite thing is when my kids, still to this day, will send me a text or something with a song and they'll be like, oh my gosh, this brought me right back.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: They have all these songs that they send back and forth and it's these different songs from back when they were kids and I would play music All the time.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: When they were little is before we had a lot of the other outside distractions that we have now, and ninety nine percent of the time it's these precious calming songs.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: The other day I will say that one of them sent to me it was usher.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, before he was on the Super Bowl.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: We were jamming out to that as little little kiddos in the kitchen fifteen years ago I don't know how old that song is, but when it came out we were jamming to it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But most of the time those things that they remember are those really sweet, just Bible verse songs.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I linked a bunch of those in the episode where we talked about cultivating seeds of Christ in your family.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for something like that, but pay attention to the noise.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: What are you hearing around your home?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: What do you want the noise of your home To be remembered as when your kids are gone?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: The second thing is the touch and feel.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: What is it about your home that people experience when they come to your house?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: For me it's.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Are my couches comfy?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Is the blanket super soft?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Is it an awesome blanket?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Are my sheets on my bed amazing?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: As far as the blanket goes, I don't know if you guys can relate to this, but there are favorites of different things in our house and there is a period when we had a specific blanket that everybody always went to in the basement and it dawned on me why would I not just go get four or five of that exact same blanket that everybody loves, and get rid of every other blanket that we have in the basement because they don't bring as much joy.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And I think there are just certain things we are like.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I just want that to feel good, I want it to be soft, I want to have great texture, I want that couch just kind of soak us in.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: What are the things for the touch and feel of your home?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: What about a smell?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: What are the things that you smell when you come into your home?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Is it good, is it bad?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: There are seasons when we have little kids that is not always good, right, but I think it's important to just kind of have these things that make our home our home.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I wear a perfume called santel.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: My kids love it and we literally will be out and about and they'll find a candle or a soap.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We were just at this beach vacation home and my daughter, who had came to meet us at the home for spring break, she saw a soap dispenser in the master bedroom and she was like, oh my gosh, I bet, just looking at this, it's going to smell Like the scent that we love.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And so she smelled it and she was like, yes, it smells just like the stuff that we have at home and it's that sandalwood sand tell kind of just good.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I burn candles like that.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I have different oils that I put in the diffuser that smell like that and I love that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: When we are out and about in, my kids smell that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: That makes them think of their mom, it makes them think of home and they like it enough that they put it in their own bedrooms.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: They put it in their own apartments or dorm rooms at school and it's also becoming their favorite set.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: That's powerful.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So what are the things that you're creating in your home that are that smell?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: That's like that reminds me of home.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And then what about site?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk a ton about eliminating clutter, but I think one really important thing here and this is where I'm going to give you one little freebie design tip is it is so important on the daily, especially if you live in the midwest, to be letting the light in for the hours that you have that beautiful daylight, the days that it's not cloudy, to just have open windows, lots of light coming in.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It is so good for the soul, it is so good for the mind, it's just overall healthy for you to have that sunlight coming into your home, and I know that a lot of people.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: If I could say one thing that across the board, as an interior designer, I see that people do wrong the most often and I say wrong as an opinion, but a professional opinion with some training and backing and a degree is that people hang their curtains and their drapery wrong.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to give you one quick little freebie tip here that if you feel like your house is dark and you want more light to come in number one, obviously you can lighten your walls.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: If you have really dark walls, if you have really dark cabinets, whatever you can paint those.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Bring that tone down to a white and off White, a light cream.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That is going to help, obviously.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: The other thing, though that's so practical is if you have yourself hung draperies, you most likely have hung them Not the way a designer would hang them if you hired somebody, and I will find a visual of this somewhere and I will link it in the show notes because I'm going to do my best to describe it to you all, but I will also try to put some kind of an image or a link to an article with some drawings that would show you this.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Always think when you hang drapery up and out.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: So the way that most people hang their drapery is they go to a store and they look at the package and it says eighty four inches or ninety six inches are my two standard options.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Almost everybody says well, my window is less than seven foot up, so I'm going to get the eighty four inch curtain, and they go about their day.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you that you always want to go to the ninety six or the one oh eight, depending upon your ceiling height.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But you want your curtain rods to go up almost to the ceiling.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: If you have a eight, nine, ten foot ceiling, even twelve foot, take that curtain rod all the way up within a couple inches of the ceiling and then take it out at least eight inches to a foot beyond the trim of your windows.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: The mistake that people make is they come and they take that curtain rod and they hang it literally inches above the top frame of the window and just to the same dimension as the window, the same width as the window.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Well, what happens is when you open your curtains, when you're, it's like it's daytime, let the light and you open your curtains all the way.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Even when your open curtains are stacked, they are stealing six to eight inches of glass or window because they're stacked on top of the window when you put your curtain rod up.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Number one putting your curtain rod up brings your eye up to the top of the ceiling.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It instantly makes your room taller than when you hang them lower and by bringing them out, six to eight, twelve inches.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: When you open your draperies and your drapery panels are stacked to the left and the right of the window.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: They are stacked over wall, not over window.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So now your room looks taller, your windows look way bigger because you're seeing the entire amount of the window, not just the part that's not covered by the draperies, and instantly you're getting your entire window full of light.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: If you need to make one change in your home, go change your curtains and hang them out and up and check and see what a huge difference.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: That is okay.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Again, check the show notes.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure to put some kind of a drawing Then.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: The last one, which is kind of funny when we talk about our home, is taste.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: What is it that you want your home to be known for?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And you go.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: That's silly.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Our home doesn't taste like anything.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: You're right, it doesn't, but there are tastes that remind you of home.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I know for my husband, when he went to his grandmother's house there was always certain candies that she had, no matter what.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: It's still why I put Thing of orange slices candy orange slices every year for him at Christmas, because that was something that he always had at his grandma.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I don't even know that he likes them, but it reminds him of his grandma.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It's just a fun thing that brings you back to a time, to a place, to a person.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: In that home I had a place where I would babysit growing up and no matter what, whenever I was there, the mom always had on the kitchen island.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I thought this was such a cool thing that she had a snack bowl out all the time.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: But there was always a bowl on the kitchen island that had raw almonds and dried pineapple.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: It was a mixture that she would just mix and put out.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It was kind of the snack that anybody was allowed to have if they were hungry.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It was healthy and, honestly, it's a delicious combo.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: If you've never tried it and I will never see an almond pineapple mix and not think of that home and that mom and something that was just probably her trying to create a habit that's like if you're hungry, here's a healthy alternative, you're not going to go into the cabinet, you're not going to grab other stuff.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: It was just something that she did that was special.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: We bought a lake house five, six years ago and I was able to meet the original owner this last summer.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: She pulled up to the house and I could see them kind of peeking around Out at the end of the driveway and so I went out there to talk to her.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: She came in, she toured the house just the sweetest woman and she said to me Is there any chance that when you bought the house we were, there was one owner in between the two of us.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: She said is there any way that when you bought the house there was a strawberry cookie jar that would have been in this kitchen that you still have?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: And I said no, I don't remember ever seeing that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: She's like OK, shoot.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: She said I didn't realize that it was super important, but all of my grandchildren are so angry at me that I didn't take that with me.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: When we left she said I always, a hundred percent of the time, had that strawberry cookie jar full of Twix candy bars and she's like.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I was just hoping that if I came you might still have it and be willing to give it to me.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: That is just an example of these little things that we do as mama that we don't even, maybe even realize we're doing.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And so what is it for you?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: For me, we have an herb garden in our kitchen, an arrow garden where I can grow basil and time and Just these different amazing herbs right in my kitchen, and so I am known for any random afternoon whipping up a real quick Platter of basil and tomato and mozzarella with a balsamic drizzle and some crackers or a good loaf of sourdough bread.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of my thing.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: People know I'm actually gifting that to some people for wedding gifts now.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of my thing.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: It's what my kids think of when they probably think of me whipping something up real quick in the kitchen.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And so what is that going to be for you?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: If you don't have that, maybe you find something.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have that thing that just is like that little memory piece For your home that ignites that take, that taste sense for your kids.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's Friday afternoon cookies, that you just bake cookies every Friday afternoon.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So when they're coming in from school or if they're home school, then it's lunch time they just know mom's making cookies On Friday afternoon and it's just a fun, fun thing.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So that's a little off track, but I think these are important things to when we're looking at really creating atmosphere that is meeting the desire that we have for our home.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Now let's just jump in to really basic decluttering and some thoughts on how we can do this.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Number one I love the fork method.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I saw this somewhere on the internet and I loved it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It made so much sense and it's a great thing to just kind of have a mental reminder all the time.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: If I found a fork in my home, no matter where I found it if it was in a kids bedroom, a garage, no matter where I found a fork I would look at that fork and go this is not where it belongs.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It belongs in the silverware door because everybody knows where the fork goes.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And when we use the fork method in our home and we know that every single thing that we have has a home that people know where it's home is the amount of decluttering that happens instantly because everybody knows this item goes here.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: There's not a ton of loose items that are all over the house that nobody knows where they go and we just shuffle them around, we throw them in bins, we shove them in a drawer, we put them in a cabinet.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: If we start to implement the fork method number one, we have to find space for everything and you quickly realize what you need to get rid of, and it makes picking up for the whole family super easy.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Another super basic tip that has worked for me for years is I have goodwill or donation bins in different areas in my house.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I keep one in the laundry room at all times.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: For me right now, it's just a shelf in my laundry room closet.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: If somebody leaves something here and I don't know who it belongs to, if I'm doing laundry and there's a shirt that I think uh, I saw my son in this yesterday.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It was way too small on him.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just get rid of it.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's something that I put on yesterday and I'm like I just don't love the way it looked on me.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I wore it anyways.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I was uncomfortable the whole time.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Why would I wash it and put it back in my room?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Nope, I'm gonna wash it and put it on the goodwill shelf right away.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: It's not even coming back into my closet.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: The other place I put these, specifically when my children were younger, was in the top shelf or on the top shelf of their closet.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: So as they were growing so quickly, as seasons were changing, as I realized I've got way too many of this one item.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It's just cluttering up their room.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I would be able to take that one or two pieces of clothing right away and not even have to think about it beyond taking it from the dresser and putting it up into the goodwill bin.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: That when that is full or when I do a roundabout in my house to collect from the different areas to take things out, it's already done so often.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: We think I have to wait to go through the kids' clothes until I have like a day to go through everything and you don't.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: That's awesome if that happens every once in a while, but you can each week be putting things into these piles slowly over time to get things out that don't need to be in your home.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It makes it then really easy to just go through, round it up and take it out.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: The other trick is backwards hangers, and I'm sure a lot of you have heard this.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: This works great for kids closet.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: It works great for your own closet.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: If you go today into a closet and you turn all of the hangers around so they're facing backwards, it's very annoying to look at.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Everything about it feels wrong, but there's a method to the madness.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: What you do then for both your kids or yourself or whoever you're doing this exercise for is, as you wear something on the hanger, when you put it back in your closet, you simply turn that hanger around to the correct direction.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: What happens then is you have a very quick visual picture in a month, two months, three months, however long you want to give yourself to see what you wear and what you don't you will be amazed that you probably are only wearing 25 to 50% of the clothes in your closet.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: The other 50% you didn't touch them for three months.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: You don't need them in there, unless it's that random off season thing that you know you love.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: You could do this twice this year.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: You could do it once now, as it's coming into spring and summer, and then once again fall and winter when you look at that closet and half of those hangers didn't get turned around.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: It's easy and safe for you to say these are things that I can get rid of.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I can bless somebody else with these because I didn't wear them in that time period.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna wear them in the future.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Get rid of it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: If you don't love it, pitch it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: That is my new kind of theme verse If you don't love it, pitch it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: If it's just okay, pitch it.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: If you put it on every week and you take it off because you don't love the way it hangs on, you pitch it 100%.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Right now, I am in a by quality over quantity stage.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: In my life I have bought a lot of cheap, random things over time whether it's the cheap jeans or the cheap leggings or the cheap dishes and you have to keep replacing them because they don't wear well or they're not super comfortable, and so you keep buying a bunch of the cheaper versions, trying to find the magic thing.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you ditch the cheaper stuff by one or two of a higher quality.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: For me, leggings.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: There was 10 or 12 pairs of leggings in my drawer.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I had found one pair that I absolutely loved.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: They were gifted to me for my 40th birthday.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I wore that one pair over and over and over, and the other 10 to 12 pairs were sad and lonely and never got used.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: One day I wiped the entire drawer out, I threw them all in the Goodwill bin and I went and bought four pairs of the ones that I absolutely loved.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: There has not been another pair of leggings that has come into my house in the four years.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: That is not this brand.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: When they need to be replaced or they need to be in a different size period.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Same thing with my sheets In my master bedroom.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I have bought cheap TJ Maxx sheets for 25 years.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: We have now been married 25 years.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I got my first epic pair of sheets for Christmas for my husband.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: They were an absolute splurge.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: They give me so much joy and so I am totally okay now to throw all of the other pair of sheets away and get one or two really, really nice pair of sheets.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Quality over quantity 100% of the time.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Eliminate things you don't love.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Do this with coffee cups, do this with dishes, do this with glasses, things that bring you joy just by that and get rid of the rest.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: The obvious rule of one in, one out.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: When I bring in a new pair of dress shoes, I should be taking a pair of dress shoes out, especially if it's bringing in a black pair of dress shoes when I already have six or seven.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I should absolutely be getting rid of another.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So practice the law of one in one out.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: What about talking about organizing paper and memorabilia?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: This is one that can really kind of get us loaded down and we can get a lot of excess.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: We talked quite a bit about this in some other episodes when we talked about streamlining your calendar, talked a little bit about paper mess when it comes to bills.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Last week, when we talked about streamlining your memorabilia and your photos, we talked a lot about that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But what about just the stuff that kids have that you do want to keep, kind of like the old school cedar chest right, that we would put stuff in what I have decided to do with my kids and having these random things around that are important, but I don't want them all over.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want them in 10 different places shoved in drawers or dressers.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I went and bought three different bins.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I'll link the bins and the show notes that I specifically got because they work great.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: They're clear, they're a really good size.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: They fit underneath the bottom shelf of our storage unit in our basement.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: They hold things like old sports jerseys or that special t-shirt from that event.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: They hold trophies, they hold oversized artwork or maybe those trinkets that your kids made for you out of clay in preschool and first grade, that maybe some of them are in your house on your shelves.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: For me, some of those are displayed throughout my bookshelves.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I absolutely love them, but they don't all get to be out all the time and so those are in those bins.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: A special, maybe baby outfit or a stuffed animal that was really sweet to them when they were younger.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Those are the things that go in those bins.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Each bin has a kid's name on it.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: It cannot overflow.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: If it gets to the point that it's overflowing, we need to go through it.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: We need to eliminate some stuff that maybe isn't as special as we thought it was 10, 15 years ago.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Look at it, decide what stays, what goes.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Everything must fit in that bin for memorabilia.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: The other thing I have is one 4-inch white binder per child.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So in these binders I have 100 page protectors clear page protectors and I put in these each one for each kid alone Things like their report card from grade school, some of their special artwork.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: That's your typical 8 1⁄2 by 11.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Their school projects that were precious, maybe when they were just learning to write and they wrote a story or something you know that you wanted to hold on to, or that self-portrait of their family that's just so cute.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: It would include their yearly school pictures that come in those darn Olin Mills or whatever it is that we get every year back in the day, and those envelopes of pictures would get thrown around places.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: We would never know where they are.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I took and put one picture their class picture and their actual picture from every year in that binder.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I also put those same sports pictures.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Now a lot of those are digital, that we receive them from those companies and those go directly into the forever online digital storage that we talked about last week.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in learning more about storing photos and VHSs and home videos and things like that, make sure that you listen to episode 10.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: But some of the things before we had all of the digital.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Those are things that I just put in those page protectors.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: That's where their awards from school, their special certificates, all of that stuff goes.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: One binder per child, four inches with those page protectors.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: It's one binder that I can hand to my kids.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I guess in a way it's kind of their baby book, their birth announcements in there that I sent out.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't really do a traditional baby book.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I did scrapbooks, which have been digitized now and are in our forever online storage, and I did these binders for them.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Of the extra stuff, we also have an adult binder, so we call it the Smith family binder in here.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Would be in that, in those same page protectors, a Christmas card copy from every year, the listing of when we sold our house, the job offer letters, the certificate, the things that are sweet and awesome for us, that we want to hold on to, but they're just things that like, where the heck do you even put them?
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Every single thing is in one four inch binder down in the TV cabinet.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Such an easy way to store all of that stuff.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And then, obviously again, that online storage that we talked about last week.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Great place that, even if you want to keep moving more and more out of your house, start taking photographs of your kids artwork and getting rid of the actual art and just uploading the pictures of the artwork to a safe place where you can enjoy them for years to come.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So where the heck do you start right.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Where do we start when we want to do these projects?
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Well, when we've identified what we want the feel and the atmosphere of our home to be, that helps.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: So maybe you know now like these are the three rooms I want to work on.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: You can also just pick a zone If you just feel overwhelmed and you feel like there is an area of my home that creates the most anxiety for me.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's your entryway and your mudroom, maybe it's just always pure chaos.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: What is it that?
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: If you just got into the habit of having that zone be clean every night when you went to bed, if you did it every single day, that zone got your attention so that it brought peace.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: What would that zone be for you?
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Every day, you just cleaned up that zone, stayed on top of it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a huge task after the initial purging and cleaning, and every day before you went to bed, that zone was clean.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: What zone would that be for you and how would that change your mental load when you're in your home?
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is pick one or two or three things for you that are non-negotiable every day to get done.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I saw it referred to on somebody's posts on Instagram as MITs.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: What are your MITs, your most important tasks?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: These are something you can be flexible in, but you need to shoot for the goal of having these things done, these MITs, every single day done.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: For me it was very easy to know.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: At minor, I have three.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: My kitchen sink is clean.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Every night, I get the dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher and before I go to bed, even if the dishwasher isn't 100% full, I like to run my dishwasher as I'm going up to bed.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: That means that when I come down, my kitchen is clean.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I can unload the dishwasher while I'm chatting with kids, getting ready for school, making breakfast, packing lunches, which means my dishwasher is empty all day, which then means every time a dish comes to the sink, it can be immediately rinsed and put into the dishwasher.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: It creates this flow.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: That's super awesome, that it's never two double sinks full of dirty dishes because we need to come do that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: It's not an overload of well.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I can't put stuff in the dishwasher because I didn't have time to unload it.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: It's a system of dishes clean at night, run the dishwasher, unload the dishes, start again the next day.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: The second thing is and I'm behind on this right now.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I need to get back on it is don't go to bed with laundry that is not done in the laundry room.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So, whatever that looks like, again, this is not going to be the case for everyone.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I don't have a ton of little kids right now.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: My laundry feels a little bit more manageable and I also am at the place that I wash and dry, but I don't always fold my children's laundry.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: It definitely helps with the speed of this.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: My kids are now old enough that I can take a pile of clean clothes onto their bed.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: They can choose to fold it, they can choose to live out of their laundry pile, but it gets it out of my laundry room so that when I look in my laundry room, I don't immediately feel like I'm going to have a panic attack.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: This is my goal in these things that I'm making myself do every day Avoid panic attacks, complete feeling of overwhelm or dread that there is so much to do and when I do just those three things the kitchen sink, we talked about the laundry room, and then the last one is I make my bed.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Every day, when I get up, it's one of the first things I do I make my bed.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: There's something that just creates peace and joy and I love it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So those are things that I have as my MITs and are great ones for you to adapt as well, if it's something that you're looking at.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So I am going to include so many resources for you in the show notes.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much more that we could talk about.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: This is getting plenty long and I don't want to spend too much more time here, but some of the things that I'm going to include for you are some websites.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: One is Fly Lady.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with Fly Lady.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I grew up with my mom always talking about the Fly Lady cleaning.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Her website and her resources are visually very outdated, but the concept and the principles are very great.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: She talks a lot about just the magic of the kitchen sink before you go to bed.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: There's another one, the three-day clutter buster.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: It's a free download by Jenny Layton.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I will go ahead and link that for you.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And then two different ones for people that kind of want to take a little deeper dive, want to run with this decluttering.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: One is a list that's 21 things to get rid of in your home that you would be told.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: This is the list.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: If a professional organizer or declutterer came.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: It's going to walk you through 21 areas in your home.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: You can do it one at a time each day.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: You can go through on a weekend and do it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: All but 21 things to get rid of in your home.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: And then the other one is a life with less mess.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I'll put the link in there, which is a declutter one area a day for 30 days.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: It's a challenge that's going to walk you through decluttering your home and just getting stuff out Again.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I like to do this every year.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: It is amazing to me that you can do this year after year and still have bags worth of stuff that you want to get rid of year after year after year.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: We are in an era where we are all about consumerism and so much stuff comes into our home even when we try not to, and it is just such a great exercise to go through and get rid of all the things that are not serving you and that you're not using.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Lastly, I'm going to include a couple of links to Audible books that I have really enjoyed.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: They're great to pop in your ear pods why you're actually decluttering.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: They keep you motivated and encouraged Again, you guys.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Our homes are a haven, and so much of what that haven is is dependent upon how we take care of it, the systems that we implement, the things that we allow to come in or not to come into our home and the way that we show up.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: My ultimate goal is that when people walk into my home specifically the amazing four people that are my children and my husband I want them to come in.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I want the door to close.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I want them to be able to breathe out a big sigh and say this feels like home.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Everything about this feels like my safe place.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I want my home to be a place of refuge, of escape.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I want it to be a charging station.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I want it to be a place where people have belief built into them, where words of hope and life and encouragement are spoken over them and where it's a place of security.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: We have the ability to create that space for the people that live here in our home.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Before we sign off, let me just ask do you have a friend in mind who also has a heart that beats for home like you do?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: You found us because of that, and we would love for you to share the content that we provide here on the podcast with your friends and family, whether you share it on your social media platform or you send just a quick link through a text message?
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Would you be so kind as to keep sharing a heart that beats for home with others who are looking for a similar community?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: It means so much to us and we're excited to watch this grow.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here, friends.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Until next week, take care.