30. Declutter Your Home to Reduce Stress and Anxiety Using This One Simple Method

So what I thought might be a good thing for us to do, and I'm just gonna spring this on you Starkey. Didn't know that I was going to do this but we have the 100 day checklist that we did as part of a free giveaway for for that challenge. Do you want Sparky and I to upload our 100 Day Challenge checklist every day as a form of accountability. So let us know if that's something that you are interested in. And then what we'll do is we'll post probably on tick tock Instagram, just a little snapshot every day of our challenge. You

the water at the moment. Yeah, like I keep saying it's really difficult when I've got somewhere to be so if I'm outlet social event or I'm moving between one thing and another. When you drink in that volume of water, it's got to go somewhere. And I'm just finding it really inconvenient. With ad to pay all the time. So just about everywhere, after like strategically found by water, so like after I drink a lot in the morning, because then I know that I mean you won't be able to drink as much in the day and then drink a lot in the evening. So I'm probably cheating slightly, but I have managed to do the 100 Day Challenge. So

I was gonna do it next week. So next week, I'm going away. We're going to holiday with my sister's family too. There's going to be a lot of adults there so I should be able to some domain reason I've been struggling with the digital detox is because I always want that lifeline now as my daughter in case something happens. I don't want to commit to a day of no technology. But when we're on holiday, there's going to be a lot of adults there. So it should be possible to do. So yeah. One of the days of holiday. I haven't decided which one yet. I'm going to do digital detox it's going to be so dark but probably helped by the fact that there'll be very little signal where we're going anyway. So

Okay, so today we're gonna talk about decluttering and why that's super important. So for I declutter, so I'm someone who previously I have loads of stuff all over the place I collected things I didn't really need to collect I hoarded like stuff that was sentimental to me, even though it was pointless. And I just felt like I was constantly cleaning. I was really frustrated because everywhere I looked there were just like, bits scattered everywhere, especially things like the kitchen counters in the bathroom were spent a lot of time or I would have like a junk drawer that everything was just thrown into everybody's got a job. And yeah, it was just causing me a lot of stress. Like I just never felt like I was Zed in the house. And I can't I just wanted the kind of house where it was guest ready. So like a friend could just pop over at any time and I wouldn't have to spend an hour frantically cleaning. So I went on a decluttering spree. And I'm much happier with the state of the clutter since then. So we're going to talk through today, how I did it and hopefully that will inspire you or help you if you're struggling to declutter yourself.

going to be in that room. It just so it's one of those rooms where it's just like it's everywhere, you know, and I know it needs to clean in but I think I've just got into the habit of WoW, I'll do that later. And it's it's just all been shoved in there and yeah, it really does need to declutter. So this episode is going to be good for me as well. But I do like being clean. I do like being tidy. I do like things being in its place. So I do do that in most areas of the house. So it's not like a completely alien to decluttering the space but I still do have children was it just annoys me so much. Opening a drawer and just not being able to pick what you want. I've got my little baskets and stuff and then just

Just think moralising just because you see that you eat something isn't that's again. Okay, well, we're gonna hopefully help address that. So, before we get into it, let's talk about the science but as always always like to have our our advice backed up by science. So the study that we've got for you today is called Office clutter and its influence assessing engagement, satisfaction, tension, stress and emotional exhaustion. So as always, we'll put a link to the study in the show notes but basically, the study found out that having a lot of clutter in the office does negatively impact your mental health, your mood and your productivity at work. So implementing a clean desk policy, actually, although the participants were initially not too impressed, eventually they did all report really significant benefits. So back to the science, less clutter,

happier life. Also as well. We know this because when your desk is clear, you do feel much better. Because otherwise you're just worrying about things. You're scanning the room, you're saying I need to do this, I need to do that. It's almost like a weight on your shoulders. So definitely, definitely, definitely a clean desk is a great way to start being productive, especially if you're working at a computer or you work from home. It's a great way to sort of get you into that mindset of ready to go rather than bogged down in distress.

Say the method that I use for decluttering is called the full box or the fallback method. So I'll we'll go through what's in each of the four boxes. Full box that was across between the back of the box. I just stick to the opposite. Saying you can use it back if you want to. But to make it easier, I'll just stick to boxes. Okay, so you got four boxes. The first box is going to be a box of rubbish. So this one should be fairly easy to sell. So when you find your space, you want to declutter, so you're going to tackle the kitchen. In your rubbish box or your trash box, you're going to put broken things. So this includes broken items that you've been hanging on to for months thinking that you're going to fix you're not going to fix them, you would have done it by now. Put them in the broken box. Things like expired food, junk mail, sentimental items you've been hanging on to for years that don't really hold any value. I'm awful for that. So I'll keep like the pen that somebody gave me once there's like a 16th birthday present or something

I'm good. I'm not good. I'm not good. So the second box is going to be your recycling box. So this is your chance to bid for the planet. We all know that. Small consistent changes go a long way to reducing overall waste and impact on the environment. So consider if there's anything in your trash box that could go in your recycling box. And then yeah, so those two are sort of similar. They're both things that are going to be thrown away. It's just how you're going to dispose of them. And a lot of people think

So the third box is going to be your charity box. So this is going to be things that you're going to take to the charity store. And you know, potentially there might be someone out there struggling for things like clothes, furniture, books, and then they can buy it at a reduced rate because of your donation. So something that's, you know, can go a long way to making you feel a lot better about decluttering because it is emotional to declutter, like when you're getting rid of your stuff you do feel that emotional pool and I think if you if you know that it's you know, going to a new home where it's going to be used and loved by someone else then it's easier to give away. If you don't want to give things to charity if you know for a bit strapped for cash then potentially you could consider making your charity box your sell box. You could sell things like eBay or spark but I would say the key here with that is there's got to be quite a quick turnaround because what you don't want to do is put it all in a box put it somewhere like Sparky six months later come across it and then all that clutter free enters your life. So there's got to be a short timeframe on it, which is why I haven't given it to charity is maybe a bit easier because you can just get rid of it all that day rather than than selling it. It's a bit more of a process

So it depends on how disciplined you are. So you'll be the best judge of that. And then your final box is your key box. So this is things that you're going to keep and you're going to put them in that right place. I need to be ruthless here absolutely brutal. Anything that's going in your key box has got to have a permanent home. If it doesn't have a permanent home, it gets moved into one of the boxes and try and remember as well that the aim of this is to reduce your clutter. So everything you're putting in the key box, think to yourself, is this something you genuinely want to keep? Does it truly belong in your home and you know, do you need it? If you do why does it become clutter on the sides? So yeah, that's that that is the only box that you should have left by the end of the day is that kickbox I'm just thinking of

Okay, so I think that's all we've got time for this week. So we'll just leave you with our little kicker. So our little kicker for this week is a podcast so the podcast is called The Art of decluttering. It's amazing. It's by me revel and Kirsty purusha. And they're professional organisers, and they talk about both their own homes and their clients experiences. So what I really like about it is it's really good for dealing with like the shame involved in decluttering because I think there is a bit of a shame isn't about hoarding and that sort of stuff. You don't want to feel like a slob. So it's quite reassuring to see them sort of talking about the things I've seen in the clients houses that they've seen, makes me feel better about my own cluttered states. So yeah, we'll put the link to that in the show notes as well.

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