From Chaos to Calm: How I Decluttered 1,000 Items in a Month

Can you imagine decluttering a thousand things in just 30 days? I took on this challenge and documented my journey to inspire you to take control of your living space. Join me as I tackle areas of my home from overflowing bathrooms to sentimental items, sharing my successes and struggles in the process of letting go.

I started this challenge by focusing on the visible high traffic areas in my home. In just a few days, I managed to declutter over 300 items and quickly gained momentum. As I moved through the house, I organized and donated hundreds of items, creating a more functional and organized space. Listen in as I discuss the container concept, which helped me declutter my master bathroom and let go of 230 items.

By the end of the 30 days, I decluttered an impressive 1,221 items, achieving my goal and transforming my home. This journey wasn't without its challenges, as I had to make tough decisions and confront my attachment to certain items. Tune in to hear my honest account of the emotional process of decluttering, and how it brought me a sense of freedom and peace. Whether you're considering your own decluttering project or just want a glimpse into my experience, don't miss this episode!

As mentioned in this episode, here is my favorite travel makeup bag. https://amzn.to/45RTYYf

Want to hear more about my sexy weekend anniversary getaway? Tune in to Episode 130 here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-media-influencer/id1490332908?i=1000613282875

Clutter Bug Podcast: Discover your Organizing Style https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/clutterbug-organize-clean-and-transform-your-home/id1098781682?i=1000470997599

A Slob Comes Clean Podcast with Dana K. White: The Container Concept vs. Clutter Threshold https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-slob-comes-clean/id703720000?i=1000595416314

Try my favorite Collagen! Use discount code JENNYP at checkout to save up to 25% OFF ! https://lddy.no/zgjh

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to another personal episode of the Social Media Influencer podcast. I'm Jenny Peterson and I had a beyond crazy, crazy idea. While I was working out today, i was listening to a podcast episode. It's actually a podcast show that I don't even follow. I was looking for something new. An idea was shared and I can't get it out of my mind. It was a decluttering podcast and the idea was shared 30 days, one K. The idea is to get rid of a thousand things in your home in 30 days. I was like sign me up for that, yes, please. What would that do to get rid of a thousand things in 30 days? I went to my social media immediately and I'm like is this a crazy idea? Does anybody want to do this with me? It was like 65%. Really, i'll do it with you. I'm like cool, i don't care if anybody else does it with me. Honestly, i just want to do it by myself. 100% said they wanted to see before pictures. I decided I'm going to document the entire thing. I'll be posting before and after pictures and this process on my social media, so on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok. I thought it might be different and cool if I recorded a personal episode Just over the next 30 days recording how it is getting rid of a thousand things. And can I actually do it Today?

Speaker 1: 1:25

it is the 28th of April and you better believe I do not want to wait until May 1st to get started. I'm going to start early. That means I'm going to have a couple extra days. It's going to be like 33, 34 days, but I'm going to get rid of a thousand things and I cannot wait. Today is day one and I'm going to start with books that I've been meaning to go through. I have lots of kids books. My children are grown now and they're not totally grown. I have teenagers and my boy is 10, but I have so many books and I thought, oh my gosh, each book that counts as one item. Another area I already know I'm going to tackle is my bathroom. My bathroom is embarrassing. Preston side of the bathroom is normally pretty clean. He has a lot less to manage. My side of the bathroom is overflowing. I have too much makeup. I have too much skincare. I have too much hair care. I have too much hair care tools. Hair care tools is nothing. Hair tools. There's too much stuff. I know it's not going to get better until I declutter it. The goal get rid of a thousand things in about 30 days. I'm going to be documenting this process. Here we go. It's the end of day one and I ended up getting rid of 89 things today.

Speaker 1: 2:39

I started with something that's been absolutely driving me bananas, because this is going to sound crazy, but just stay with me for a minute. The front room of my house. It's a weird wonky room. It doesn't have furniture in it. I don't really know what to do with this room. Anyways, my husband and my son play soccer in that room like every day. Yes, i let my son play soccer in the house. Okay, i'm very laid back about things, but honestly, everything in this house can be replaced and I love that. They are making memories and they have so much fun. But with playing soccer in the house, guess what happened? They broke one of my cabinet doors in that room and it just fell off the hinges. It needs to be fixed. My husband is not a fixer, so I'm probably going to have to. I don't know how to fix it, so I'm going to have to hire somebody to come fix this door, but I can just pop it back on there. I sound so ghetto right now. Nobody has to know. Nobody has to know. But my husband and my son have gone into this really bad habit of just leaving the door off of its hinges because they literally play soccer in that front room, like every night before bed. It is what it is And it just so happens that if you know me, then you know that I am a good hider of things.

Speaker 1: 4:07

I specialize in hiding things in cabinets and drawers and closets. Well, it just so happens that I am sick of looking at what I have hidden inside that particular cabinet. That particular cabinet is where I have stashed all our mailing supplies, which we never use, by the way. So that was the first thing that I tackled. That's the first thing that I decluttered. I'm talking like hundreds of envelopes in boxes. I'm talking like bubble mailers on all the things in boxes that you can mail stuff in. I never use it. So I got rid of all of that stuff. All of it was recyclable and there were 35 things in that cabinet. So at least now, if I have to stare at an empty cabinet with the door off of hinges, i can do that instead of having to look at the clutter that I hid Who knows how long ago. So that's the first thing that I started with. So I got rid of 35 things. Then I started cleaning my house because I just had some general cleaning that I had to get done.

Speaker 1: 5:04

My teenage daughters have the busiest social life you've ever seen. It's insane. They have more of a social life than I've ever had. They had friends coming over and I wanted to straighten up the house so it looked nice. So I started tidying up and because I knew I didn't have a lot of time to declutter, i just decided to kind of declutter as I went.

Speaker 1: 5:22

My son and I have been playing a lot of board games. He's 10 years old. I'll tell you why Because we've been trying to get him off of electronics. Literally He was spending way too much time on electronics, So we eliminated screen time for a while. Now he gets a little bit each day, but instead we were doing more things like riding bikes and playing board games.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So I put away one of our favorite board games and went to you guessed it the cabinet that I keep all of the games in, and I immediately thought oh my gosh, i want to declutter this whole cabinet. There's so much stuff in here. But I'm like you know I don't have time, so I'm just going to grab things that I know don't belong in here or that I can part with right away, because I don't have time to declutter this cabinet. So I quickly grabbed five random things inside that game closet Like I'm talking random like a huge tub of glue that my kids use to make slime, with which we haven't made slime since like 2020. So who knows how long that has been in there. There's a tiny bit of glue left at the bottom. I'm like that's got to go. There was a jar of marbles Don't know what that's for Halloween dish towels two of them. Inside there, a whiteboard, like a little mini whiteboard. I don't know why it's in there, i don't know how long it's been in there, but it's got to go. So five things I was able to grab from that cabinet and put in my donation box.

Speaker 1: 6:38

I finished up tidying the main floor of my house It didn't take me very long at all And I realized I have some extra time. I have some time to work on decluttering right now, and then I thought wait a second. I have done two random cabinets that nobody in my family is going to notice, and I remember Dana K White. She's one of the people that I follow. She's a decluttering expert And she says that you should declutter visual spaces, because not only are you going to see those visual spaces, but your family's going to see those visual spaces too.

Speaker 1: 7:05

And I knew exactly where I wanted to spend this little bit of time that I had to declutter my mudroom. Do you have a mudroom? It's the room where we we come in through the garage every day, and there's a room where there's hooks for the backpacks, there's cubbies for things. We keep our shoes in there. I took before pictures because a hundred percent of people said on an Instagram poll that they wanted to see the before pictures. I'm like, what the Fine? I took before pictures. It was a mess. It was an absolute mess And honestly, i was looking at it. I'm like I think we use all of this stuff, so I don't know how much I'm actually going to be decluttering. I was shocked. So we're in between seasons And I realized, okay, i need to put like the winter boots and winter clothes and all that kind of stuff away.

Speaker 1: 7:55

And while I was going through that, i decluttered 22 items that could be donated. I'm talking winter stuff that we don't use anymore. I also decluttered 18 pairs of shoes. 18 pairs of shoes. No wonder that room was such a mess. These are shoes that don't fit my kids anymore. I think it's I declutter. I feel like I declutter shoes and clothes all the time because my kids are constantly growing. These are shoes that don't fit them anymore, that they never wear. 18 pairs of shoes left the mudroom.

Speaker 1: 8:29

I also keep a basket in our mudroom with all of our sporting equipment, like soccer balls, basketballs, our frisbees We live right next to a frisbee golf park those kinds of things. This is not the normal place that I want to keep them, but I don't dare put them in my garage right now because I will never find these things again. So I decluttered a ball from there and an old baseball mitt that no longer fits my son. I also ran up the stairs I can't remember why, probably because I was putting away some of my kids shoes, because I'm like we don't need all of our shoes in this mudroom. I have bins to keep shoes in so I don't have to see them, but we don't need all of our shoes in this mudroom. We only need a couple pairs of shoes.

Speaker 1: 9:14

So I took them up to their room and while I was upstairs I just looked around. What can I grab that can go Saying goodbye to a cowboy hat that nobody wears, that somebody wore for a Halloween costume? I found a bag of Christmas stockings in the upstairs closet Like seriously, i don't know, but it's not like our Christmas stockings. I got nice Christmas stockings from Pottery Barn that are all matching, that have our names on them. These are just random Christmas stockings. Got rid of those.

Speaker 1: 9:45

A travel pillow caught my attention. I'm like, ooh, i hate that travel pillow. I bought it, tried it, hated it, it got to go. So anyways, 89 things total for today and I am like thrilled when I first thought, okay, got to get rid of a thousand things in 30 days. I'm like that's going to be really hard. This might happen a lot sooner than I thought it would and it feels pretty dang great. So I will check in on day two. It is the end of day two and I ended up getting rid of 329 items today. I can't even believe it.

Speaker 1: 10:18

I decided to tackle a big problem area in our house, which is our basement. In our basement we had a whole corner of the room that was just overflowing with toys, toys that my kids have grown out of. They no longer play with anymore. My kids are a lot older now. The youngest is 10. My girls are 14 and 15, and that's where I decided to really concentrate my time on. So some of the things that I got rid of included, like Barbies, barbie houses, hot Wheels, squishmallows.

Speaker 1: 10:49

My daughter's like a collector of things and she goes through phases, like she had a Barbie phase, she had an American Girl Doll phase, she had a Squishmallow phase, she had a Fidget phase and, like whenever she goes into a phase if something that she's really into, she goes like all in. In that phase She had 62 Squishmallows Squishmallows do you know what those are? They're like a stuffed animal, really, really soft, ranging from like really small to like giant Squishmallows 62 of them. She had it in her mind that she was gonna sell these Squishmallows because a couple of her friends, who also went through the same Squishmallow phase as she did, ended up selling their Squishmallows on like Facebook Marketplace and making money. Well, in my mind I'm like, okay, we could do that, but who's gonna end up actually doing that? Probably me, and it's going to take a lot longer And she's probably not even gonna get what she wants for her Squishmallows, because she thought they were valued at way higher than I knew people would pay for them. So I made her a deal. You can judge me all you want for this, i don't even care. So what we did is we organized her Squishmallows in piles based on size. So I said, okay, all the small ones I'm gonna give you a dollar for these, a dollar. The medium size ones I'm gonna give you $5 for each of those. And then the large ones I'm talking like giant ones that you can lay on I'll give you $10 for each of those. So I ended up paying her for all of her Squishmallows And she agreed to get rid of we're getting rid of them. And here's the thing she did not want to get rid of them, but I knew like if I gave her an incentive of, yes, we could sell these to strangers on the internet. It's gonna take a lot longer, they're probably not gonna give you as much as you want for it, but if we get rid of them today, i will make you an offer. I totally, totally bribed my daughter, but guess what? That was 62 things that we got rid of right there. I was also able to recycle over 100 cardboard boxes. Let me explain So.

Speaker 1: 12:39

When we started the U-Business in 2021, it was July 2021, we started it out of my house. We were shipping product out of my house And these weren't like large boxes that I could give to somebody for moving. They're really small, tiny, tiny boxes, and so I finally got rid of them. They've been in my basement for almost two years. We now ship all of our product out of a warehouse and shipping facility, which, oh my gosh, like I can't even tell you how much I love and appreciate that we have a warehouse that ships our product out for us, because when I was shipping it out, i was like I can't do this, but I still had these boxes from two years ago, so I recycled those. I also donated tons of Christmas decor And in total, it was 329 items that I got rid of, felt so good, put it in my car, drove to DI Desert Industries, which is like Goodwill, and donated it, and it felt freaking amazing. I actually love that.

Speaker 1: 13:42

I started this project, this challenge, on a weekend, on a Friday and a Saturday, because I'm only two days into this thing and I've already gotten rid of 418 things And when I first said I was gonna do this challenge, i'm like gosh, 1,000 things in 30 days, that's gonna be so hard. I'm almost halfway there and I'm only two days in. So I definitely recommend starting this on a weekend where, if you're like me and you have extra time on the weekend and you can really bang out, getting rid of a lot of stuff, totally, totally recommend doing that. I love that. I did that and I am feeling so accomplished right now. It is Saturday, may 6th, and I feel like I started this challenge overly confident, because I started on a weekend when I had more time and I decluttered over 400 things and I was thinking, oh, my gosh, 30 days is gonna be a breeze. I got this. I need like four days. I can do like 1,000 things in four days. Well, it's been a week. It's been a week and I haven't decluttered a single thing.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Today I tackled an area in my home that gives me the most anxiety, the most stress. It's a highly visible area that I see and my family sees every single day, and it has been out of control for far too long. Today I tackled my master bathroom. This is so embarrassing, but I did take before and after video and photographic footage of this space. But since this is a podcast, i'm gonna try to paint the picture for you so you can visualize what the space looks like in your mind.

Speaker 1: 15:13

So in our master bathroom we have two separate vanities My husband has his and I have mine. We have our own drawers, our own cabinets, our own mirror, our own sink and they're separated. And in between the two vanities is our master closet. Anyways, my side's always a hot mess express. I'm talking. The drawers are all open, overflowing with stuff onto the floor. The cabinet doors are also open, overflowing with stuff. You can't see the countertop. Are you picturing this? And then what generally happens is my husband's side is pretty clean. He doesn't need a lot, he doesn't take up a lot of space. So when my side of the bathroom gets out of control which is all the time then I get ready on his side and I make his side out of control. I know, i know, and here's what you don't see in the pictures or the videos My bathroom's the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1: 16:07

I work for a company called Lange, which is a hair company. I have every single hair care product. I have every single tool. It doesn't fit in my bathroom. So I have drawers and cabinets in my home office full of Lange stuff. I also have two big trunks in my master closet full of makeup.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Here's the thing. If you're like me, when you see a space that's completely out of control, i used to think, oh, i just need to organize it. But what I have learned is you cannot organize clutter. You first have to declutter. You have to go through it, you have to get rid of things. It's the container concept And I learned this from Dana K White from a slob comes clean Our bathroom. It has drawers, it has cabinets. It has a limited amount of space that it can actually store things. It's a container. The size of your container determines how much you're going to keep.

Speaker 1: 17:01

And so I knew I had way too much stuff. And when I tell you how much stuff I decluttered, i think you're going to be shocked. I'm embarrassed to even admit this, because it was so bad. I had way too much stuff And I knew I had to go through everything and declutter it. So that's exactly what I did. I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1: 17:18

This took me hours, but I went through everything And I made piles on the floor of here's all my makeup, here's all my hair stuff, here's all my face stuff, here's all my tools. And then I went through each thing And I only kept what I use and what I love. And I went through each thing And I'm like, ok, have I used this in six months? If it's a no, went into the trash. If it's a yes, this is one of the things that I use every single day. I have to stay. That's not like I would like to see. I'm looking at 30, 40 lipsticks, lip products, lip glosses, lip pencils, maybe more, and I'm like I don't wear this. Why do I have this? Just in case one day I want to wear this shade of red. I don't wear this on the daily. It needs to go.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And so I got rid of a ton of stuff. I'm talking 230 items, individual items. I got rid of, from hair care to accessories hair accessories that we don't use to makeup, to skincare, to that bath and body lotion somebody gave me six years ago. You know what I'm talking about. So much stuff left my bathroom. I got rid of hair tools that we don't love and don't use. Like, if we don't use it and we don't love it, it was gone. It was gone And I just kept a notebook by me and every time I put something in a trash can, most of it could not be recycled because it was used. Most of it was not donatable because it was used. If I could donate it, then I did, but most of it I ended up throwing away. And every single item that I threw into the trash bag I made a little tally mark 230 tally marks, 230 items left my bathroom. And then the most exciting part is then I went to the store and I bought new containers to organize the stuff that I kept.

Speaker 1: 19:09

I also got rid of lots of makeup bags. I have tons of makeup bags And you know what I realized? They don't work for me. And here's why they don't work for me I can't see what's in them. So if I'm keeping makeup bags inside my drawer, when I'm looking for something, i have to open up every single makeup bag to find it. So I got rid of all the makeup bags except for one, except for one that I use and I love, and it's my travel makeup bag from Amazon. It was not expensive. I'll link it in the show notes because I think everybody needs this makeup bag. You can hang it up and it unrolls and the pockets are clear so I can see everything that I need in it. It's waterproof, it's the best. I kept one makeup bag And then I went to the store and I bought organizing containers that fit the space. I measured the drawers, i measured the cabinet and went to the store and bought clear containers that I could see through.

Speaker 1: 20:02

I heard this genius idea from Cass from Clutterbug podcast. She said that she just throws her stuff in baskets And I'm like you know what? Instead of using a makeup bag, i'm going to buy two clear, deep baskets with handles that will fit inside my drawers. One will be for just face products, you know, like my foundation, my primer, my highlight, my contour, my setting powder, those things that I use every day. And then the other one is going to be for my eye products, my eyeshadows, my eyeliner, my mascara, my lip gloss. I think this is going to work so much better for me because it has to be just as easy to put it away as it is to leave out And instead of throwing it in a makeup bag that I'm not going to be able to see or remember which makeup bag I put it in, it's in a clear container I can see and they're sorted, so I can immediately know which one I need to go for and pull out the whole thing, then put everything back in and put it in the drawer. I think this is going to work beautifully.

Speaker 1: 21:00

I've also learned from Cass from Clutterbug my organizing style. I'm a hidden organizer. I don't want to leave anything out on the counters. I want the countertops to be completely cleared off. I don't want to see my stuff. I want it in cabinets, drawers and closets And that's why I think my clutter problem is cabinets, drawers and closets, because I just shove everything away. So I'm a hidden organizer. I don't want to see it.

Speaker 1: 21:23

Some people are very visual. I have a daughter that's very visual. She wants her stuff to be out, she wants to see it. She enjoys seeing it. It brings her joy. I don't want to see my crap. And I also learned that I'm a macro organizer. So some people are micro organizers. They're very detailed, so they might have different bins for each makeup section, but I'm a macro organizer. I just need a big basket to throw everything in. I don't care if the lip products are mixed in with the eyeshadow products. I don't care as long as I know which basket stuff is in. I will link in the show notes A podcast episode from cast from clutter bug if you're interested in learning your organization style.

Speaker 1: 22:05

I thought it was completely fascinating. She names them after bugs and, i'll be honest, i can't remember which bug i am. I have to go back and listen. I can't remember which bug i am, but it's very, very interesting to learn that Where different, we're all different and we don't have the same organization styles. I don't want to see anything. I want it to be put away. So after i clear off everything off my counter tops and put it back in the drawers and cabinets, the only thing i leave on my countertop Is my beauty fridge. That's the only thing that i leave out. Everything else gets put away.

Speaker 1: 22:37

After i tackled my bathroom, i was still feeling very motivated, very in the flow in the zone of let's declutter, let's organize, and so i went up to my daughter's room and i said, hey, you wanna declutter and organize your bathroom? And she was like, yeah. So i helped her go through all of her drawers in her cabinets and she got rid of 24 things and i also got her new organizing bins and drawers and baskets, and she loves the way that her bathroom feels now. So in total, between the two bathrooms, we got rid of 254 things. is that insane that i had that much stuff? And i'm like no wonder i couldn't shut my drawers, no wonder the cabinets were spilling out, no wonder there's stuff all over my counter tops, because what was happening was all the stuff i don't love, wasn't using, was in the drawers and cabinets. All the stuff that i do love and use on a daily basis was all over my counter tops. So by decluttering now, i made room for the things that i actually use and love, and i am obsessed with how the space turned out. It feels so good. This is a space that i see my family sees on a daily basis.

Speaker 1: 23:44

First thing, when i wake up every day, i go to the master bathroom and i immediately feel stress and anxiety And i have the thought in the back of my head of oh, i gotta declutter this, i gotta do this, and i've been putting it off for a really long time because i knew it was gonna take a couple hours. But i am so glad it is done and we got rid of a lot of stuff today and now i'm committing to myself to stop buying makeup. Stop buying like. Stop buying makeup. Like how many eyeshadow palettes do i actually need? how many lip products do i actually need? And for a while, i used to work for a makeup company and so my excuse was it's for my business. I need every shade of lipstick, i need every shade of eyeshadow, i need everything. And i'm not with a makeup company anymore. And then the problem after that was well, now i need to try different foundations to find out what i actually like. So i just keep buying stuff. But i'm like okay, now i know what foundation i love and use. I have a couple of eyeshadow palettes. I really don't need very many eyeshadow palettes. Now that i'm not doing makeup lives every single day. I pretty much wear the same eyeshadow every single day And i'm okay with that. So i just need to commit to myself to stop buying makeup. And i also need to remember the cabinets, the drawers, my bathroom. It's a container. It's only going to fit as much as it's going to fit and no more. So i really can't afford to keep bringing things in without getting things out, otherwise we're gonna end right back up where we started.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Next weekend i'm going out of town with my husband. We're going just a short trip to las vegas to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary, can you believe that? And so i know i'm not going to have the weekend to do a decluttering project. So i really want to be intentional with my time this week and try to declutter something during the week. So wish me luck.

Speaker 1: 25:48

It's Wednesday, may 10th, and i was doing laundry today, and while i was doing laundry, i was like you know what? what can i get rid of From this clean laundry that i don't wear anymore? i don't love? and i got rid of nine things. And remember i'm going out of town this weekend, so i'm trying to intentionally Declutter, and during the week is crazy. I work from home. I also am a mom of three. They have so many activities. It's the end of the school year, things are nuts, but i'm like you know, i can try to at least be intentional with my time and putting away laundry anyway. So this is a good time for me to go through My closet even and see what can go. So nine things left my closet today.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Something else that happened today i was doing the dishes and i needed to refill our soap container, so i looked under the kitchen sink and i immediately was like, oh my gosh, i need to declutter this. It's one of those areas that i have not touched yet. It needs to happen. But i thought, okay, i don't have time to pull everything out and declutter this space and organize it, but i do have a couple of minutes. What can i see? Just a glance that can go, that can just leave right now. And i pulled six things out and got rid of six things, and so that makes fifteen things for today and i'm really proud of myself for that. I know it's not a lot, but every little bit helps. And just being more intentional with the day to day things i'm doing, like laundry and dishes and decluttering as i'm going, that has really worked today.

Speaker 1: 27:23

Hey, it's sunday, may twenty first and i have been on a decluttering rampage today. So we got back from our trip from bagus and then the week was crazy busy, as usual, with the kids running around finishing up school stuff. And it's the weekend and i declutter on the weekend. And if you want to hear how our anniversary Sexy getaway went, i did do an episode, a personal episode, all about that. I'll link it for you in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 27:52

But today i know that the expert say, like, start in a visible place, a place that's going to make a big visual impact and your family is going to notice. That's not what i did today. I am not a visual organizer and i am also a lot of my. My clutter is not visual. I hide things in cabinets and drawers and closets And i don't think my family is even a notice what i did today, even though i did a ton. But you know what? it doesn't even matter if my family doesn't notice what i've done today for decluttering, because i know what i've done today And i am very proud of myself.

Speaker 1: 28:28

I tackled my front room and my living room, the cabinets and the drawers. We have a ton of built in cabinetry in this house, which i love, but it's a blessing and a curse because i hide all kinds of crap in there. We lived in this house for over five years and some of these drawers and cabinets i'm like why did i put this in here? how long has this been here? Let me just kind of paint a picture for you.

Speaker 1: 28:55

So my front room you walk into my house and on the left hand side is the piano room, which that has cabinets and drawers to, and i have not even touched that. I know they're all stuffed the max. It's all hidden clutter. On the right hand side we have this really stupid front entry room That, i'll be honest, i don't have any furniture in yet because i don't even know what to put in there. It is such a dumb room. It's small. I probably should make it into like a sitting room. I haven't put any furniture in there yet And i also want to paint the cabinets because they're dark cabinets right now in both of those rooms. Then you walk into the living room and we have a whole wall of built in cabinetry surrounding a fireplace. Let me just paint it out for you, okay. So our front room had six cabinets and four drawers and my living room has six big cabinets that surround the fireplace and the tv's above the fireplace, and all of these cabinets were stuffed to the brim with just random crap.

Speaker 1: 29:52

So we have lived in this house for five years And for five years i throw stuff into these hidden spaces. I don't know why i do this. Sometimes it happens when somebody's coming over and i'm like, oh my gosh, quick, clean, throw everything in the cabinets. You know what i'm saying But i have the most random stuff in here. One of the most random things i got rid of was a bird feeder that somebody had given me. I don't know why i kept it. I don't know why i stuck it in the top shelf of a cabinet. I also had extra school supplies in one of these cabinets, like extra three-ring binders and folders and extra erasers for your pencils And also things for my girls to decorate their lockers with in middle school, but they never used. So i just started throwing things in donation boxes. I donated books, i donated tons of decor, because when we moved into this house we brought all of our decorations from texas, our texas home, and i decorated the house and i had a lot of extra things left over and i didn't know what to do with them, so i just shoved them in these cabinets.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Naturally, it's like all of these cabinets were full of unmade decisions, like i didn't know what to do with it, so i threw it in a cabinet and guess what? That never is the solution, because eventually i'm gonna have to deal with that item and make a decision And i need to be better at just making a decision on an item right away instead of saying you know what i might use this bird feeder one day, throw it in the top of this cabinet. I i don't even remember how long i've had that or why i have that. Why would i throw that in the top of the cabinet when instead i should have just had the bird feeder and be like you know what? i don't really care about feeding the birds, so i'm gonna donate this or throw it away. Do you think i'm a terrible person now? or i could have said you know what? i do want to feed the birds. I'm gonna put this out for the birds right now. Make a decision, jenny, like make a decision. Why do we have all these unmade decisions inside these cabinets? By the way, before you think I hate animals or I'm a bird hater, i feel like I need to defend myself. There is a family of birds that has lived in this house as long as I have. Every spring, they come back. They build a nest right over my front door. They crap all over my front porch. They're sparrows, they're territorial, they dive, bomb us. They're the worst. I hate them. The last thing I want to do is encourage them to keep coming back and feed them. So no, i did not keep the bird feeder.

Speaker 1: 32:26

So after I opened up all of the living room cabinets and went through everything in there, then I went to that front room, that stupid room that I still don't know what to do with, and that room has six cabinets and four drawers and I started going through stuff in those. Oh my gosh, i have had stuff inside these drawers and cabinets for years. I had a ton of unique makeup in these drawers. I don't know why I kept it. I don't know. I don't know why I kept it Unopened makeup from when I used to sell Unique And it's probably expired. I haven't been with that company for a couple years, so I ended up throwing it away. But I had a bunch of mailers and things that I would send to my customers and just, oh my gosh, so many random things in there And I ended up, after going through both of these rooms, i ended up getting rid of 216 things.

Speaker 1: 33:27

I had a whole drawer full of receipts Receipts. There was so much stuff in these drawers and cabinets that I'm like why are these in here? This doesn't make any sense. Why did I put this in here? Half-burned candles. I had a beach towel that somebody had given me and I never opened that was inside that cabinet. I had a vase that I bought years ago with the receipt and I never returned it. But I wanted to return it And I ended up sticking it in a cabinet where I never saw it again And I honestly was like oh I forgot, i bought that, it's too late to return it. So, after decluttering all of the cabinets and drawers in my living room and this front room, i ended up throwing away two bags of trash, donating five boxes of things and one bag of recycling 216 things in total, and it's 216 things that are leaving my house that my family will not even realize or recognize that I've done this Because it's stuff that they can't see. I feel so much better. Most of the cabinets and drawers in that front room are now empty. There's nothing in them and there doesn't need to be anything in them. Why did I? why do I shove stuff in places like this? It just feels so good. So, even though my family is not going to notice, i notice And I now know that there's not a whole bunch of random crap stuck in these cabinets and drawers.

Speaker 1: 34:50

It's Thursday, may 25th. First of all, are you shocked. It's not a weekend. I know it's kind of this weird day. It's the last day of school And I found myself all alone at home and I'm like, okay, i have a little bit of time, let's declutter something. Preston and my son went on a father-son trip to Florida. I love that he does that with our kids. It's so sweet, they have the best time, and then both my girls are at summer parties. I'm getting towards the end of this challenge just one K in 30 days And I really wanted to finish it today. I knew exactly where I was going to start.

Speaker 1: 35:23

There was this big box full of books waiting in the upstairs hallway that has been there for months. Let me explain why. A couple of months ago, my husband started working from home full-time, and that became a challenge, because I work from home full-time. So it's like where are we working? I work in the home office downstairs, and so we decided to clear out the spare bedroom upstairs and make that his office. Originally it was like a playroom game room for the kids, but they didn't really use it. It was just kind of this like catch-all room for mess. It was always a disaster. So we spent a weekend as a family decluttering that room and transforming it into Preston's office. Keep in mind, we did that room a couple of months ago, so it doesn't count for this challenge.

Speaker 1: 36:06

But one of the things that we decluttered out of that room was there's this closet with floor-to-ceiling shelving, and it was full of books, my children's childhood books. I love books. I am a collector of books. Apparently We had hundreds of children's books, but my kids are all older now and nobody reads these books And they're just sitting in this closet taking up space collecting dust.

Speaker 1: 36:32

I told each of my kids to pick like five books that they absolutely loved, that I would hold on to when they had children. Okay, because, like my kids, whenever they go over to their grandma's house she has books. But I don't need hundreds of books. So they each picked out like five favorites and then we packed the rest of the books into one giant box. Do you see what the problem is here? One giant box, a rookie mistake. Never pack all of your books in one giant box.

Speaker 1: 37:00

I could not lift this box, so I pushed the box across the floor into the hallway and it has sat there for two months. I can't lift it. My husband walks past it every day. Keep in mind. I'm pretty sure he's clever, blind. I don't even think he sees it. I've asked him to move it down. So finally, i'm like today. I'm like today's the day, i'm going to get rid of those books.

Speaker 1: 37:24

I took three small boxes upstairs with me. Here's the thing I went through the books again Again rookie mistake I already decluttered these books and what ended up happening? I pulled some of the books out. Then I'm like, oh, why is this in here? I think my son would enjoy reading this. Oh my gosh, i wish I could have just taken the whole box down so I didn't have to go through it again. But I put all of the books into three smaller boxes so I could carry them out to my car Immediately, put them in my car so I could drive them to be donated. And I had 111 books. No wonder I couldn't move that box. No wonder that box weighed 1,000 pounds, it was so heavy. So 111 books getting donated. I am so excited.

Speaker 1: 38:09

Then, while I was upstairs, i walked past the linen closet up there and I thought I'm just going to take a peek inside and see if there's anything that I can just see really quickly that I can quickly declutter that doesn't belong here, that we can get rid of. I found the most random things inside this linen closet. The purpose of this linen closet is it holds all of the extra blankets, all of the extra sheets, the pillowcases. It's where my kids can get clean towels for their upstairs bathrooms And also that's where I keep all of the toilet paper and toilet trees.

Speaker 1: 38:40

There's three things that I could see right away that did not belong in this closet A grow light lamp, like a lamp that you use to grow plants inside a house I'll explain later. Cowboy boots and a ukulele. I can't make this stuff up. Three completely, totally random things, and I don't know if you do this. Tell me if you do this.

Speaker 1: 39:05

As I was pulling the things out of the closet, i found myself talking myself into keeping these things. Like what if this random scenario happens and I happen to need this particular item? Let me give you a real life example. Okay, so my daughter had a science project and her science project she chose to grow plants without using any natural light. So she grew plants in two of our closets at home One she grew plants with absolutely zero light And the other one she grew plants using a grow light that I bought off of Amazon. I think it was like 24 bucks.

Speaker 1: 39:40

And here was my thought. I have another daughter that's going to be in ninth grade next year. She's probably going to have to do a science project. What if she wants to grow plants? and I need a grow light lamp again? Like I almost kept this dang lamp, but then I caught myself and like, wait a second, what if she doesn't pick that project? What if she does a completely different project? Am I really going to hold on to this, this grow light lamp, for a whole another year, just in case she might use it? And if I do keep it, where am I going to keep it? Where am I going to keep it? where I can remember where I have it, because I know, in a year from now, if she does decide, hey, you know what I think I want to do a similar science project to my sister last year, i'll use that grow light lamp that we have. Am I going to be able to find it? Probably not. I'm probably going to be like where did I put the lamp? So I decluttered it and I told myself, if I ever need a grow light lamp ever again, i'll just buy another one. It's. It's worth $24 to buy another one and not hold on to this and just not remember where I'm keeping it or where I'm putting it, and we'll probably never use it again, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 40:48

The next thing I saw was a ukulele. Again, i found myself like playing out these scenarios like what if my kid needs a ukulele? Well, one year, one of my kids needed a ukulele for a music music performance that they had in school. What if my? literally I'm like what am I doing? Why am I talking myself into keeping this ukulele? It's ridiculous. Why do I do this? So I donated that.

Speaker 1: 41:12

The last thing was a pair of white cowboy boots, and these are nice boots. I think I paid like $50 for them. For my daughter to be a cowgirl at Halloween. She wore them one time. They're white boots with black stitching. They're kind of cute. They're my size And, just so you know, me and my three kids right now we all wear the same size shoes. So I'm like any of us could wear these cowboy boots And I started doing the same thing. What if somebody wants to be a cowboy or cowgirl this year for Halloween? What if we need? What if we need this. What if they have, like a Western day at school? I don't know, i can't make this kind of stuff up. But I kept the cowboy boots. I did because I'm like they're nice boots And I couldn't bring myself to declutter them because I had spent money on them. Whatever, i'm probably just going to have to declutter them later, but I couldn't justify it because I'm like there's four people in this house that could wear those boots. I don't know, it was probably a mistake to keep them, but they're still in my linen closet where they do not belong.

Speaker 1: 42:14

Walking boxes out to the car to put them in the car to be donated and I walked past my coat closet Again. I just thought I'm just going to take a peek inside and see if there's anything really quick that I can grab and I can donate. Coat closet is overflowing with stuff. I pulled out 12 jackets 12 jackets and coats that do not fit anymore. My kids have grown out of them. I also pulled out two snow outfits that are way too small and that's 14 things Right out of that closet. It took me literally like two minutes to pick out those items and throw them in a box. By this point I'm feeling pretty good.

Speaker 1: 42:51

I've decluttered quite a few things, but I decided I wanted to see what else I could grab in my garage, which my garage right now. Oh my gosh, it is just. It's getting better, but it's just one of those places that we throw everything. I grabbed six things out of the garage. I didn't even write down what I grabbed, i just wrote down that I grabbed six things out of the garage. I can't remember now. I can't even tell you. Put them in the car, because I'm going to go donate this stuff anyways. Then I saw these bags.

Speaker 1: 43:24

I have several bags of clothes in the garage, nice clothes that, instead of taking them to be donated, my daughter loves thrifting. There's this one store called Uptown Cheapskate and we like to take our clothes in. They pay us for our clothes and then I give her the money and she goes thrifting with it. Well, three of the bags I saw little stickers on them So I could tell I had taken them to one Uptown Cheapskate and these items were not taken. And yes, i could take them to another location and maybe sell some more items or go back to that location and see if they'll take the items now Maybe they weren't in season right then, or shopping for that particular item. But I decided, no, i'm like you know what? These bags have been sitting here for months, sitting here for months in my garage. It's time to go. So then I opened the bags and I started to go through them. But then I'm like, oh crap, i can't do this, i can't declutter these things again.

Speaker 1: 44:20

I already decided once that these things were leaving my house, whether they were going to be sold or donated, and I knew what would happen if I went through these bags again. I knew I'd be like, oh my gosh, why did I put this in here? This looks so cute on me, you know what I'm saying. Like I knew I would talk myself into keeping items. So I grabbed three of the bags and I just estimated that they had 25 articusal clothing in them each, which it could be more, it could be less, but I could not go through and count all the things because I knew I just know myself, i knew I would end up pulling things out of these bags. So I threw them in the car and that was 204 items today, 204 items bringing me to a grand total of 1,083 items donated in less than 30 days. I did it. I did it and it feels so good. 1k, 30 days crushed it. Getting rid of a thousand things in less than 30 days Oh my gosh, it feels like a weight is lifted off my shoulders.

Speaker 1: 45:21

There are places in my home that have been transformed through doing this process. My basement unrecognizable, completely transformed. I'm no longer embarrassed for people to go down there. The kids can go down there with their friends and it looks amazing. I'm not going to lie. Also, my master bathroom transformed. I can actually use my bathroom now. I can actually find what I'm looking for in my bathroom now.

Speaker 1: 45:46

I don't know if you remember, but one of the very first things that I tackled was my mudroom, and it has stayed clean and tidy this entire month. It's because I decluttered. I got rid of all of the extra things. There were 18 extra pairs of shoes in there that nobody was wearing. There was so much stuff and it has been clean all month long and it feels so good, especially because that's the very first room that I walk into every day from the garage. We see that room multiple times a day.

Speaker 1: 46:15

Then I did tackle some spaces that probably nobody else in the family is going to even notice except for me because they're hidden spaces, because I like to hide clutter into cabinets and drawers. But I feel really good going through those things. There has been stuff in those drawers for years and it just even though nobody else knows what's in those drawers and cabinets unless you went and opened them and you're like, oh my gosh, it's empty. I feel good because I know it's not stuffed to the brim with just junk. Now I just need to make sure that those cabinets and drawers I don't stuff them full of crap again, i don't stuff them in those drawers. Most of the things in those drawers were like unmade decisions. I didn't know what to do with something, so I threw it in a drawer, i tossed it in a cabinet.

Speaker 1: 46:58

Honestly, i finished this challenge early and I want to keep going. I want to keep going. So I'm not going to end this just yet. Let's keep going.

Speaker 1: 47:08

Hey, it's Friday, may 26th and I know I've already hit the thousand, i know I've already crushed the challenge, but I found myself alone again today because Preston and Stratton are still gone on their trip, and then one of my daughters is at work and one of my daughters is at a party and I'm home alone and I'm like, why not declutter? I decided to tackle my piano room today. So when you walk into the house, immediate to your left is a piano room and it has floor to ceiling cabinet tree, just like the other rooms in our house. The top part is all bookcases and then the bottom part there's six cabinets. I know they're full of crap, so that's what I decided to go through today. Truth be told, i only got through four out of the six cabinets before my daughter came home with some friends and I had to stop Again.

Speaker 1: 47:55

The most random things inside these cabinets I'm like embarrassed to tell you this. You probably think I'm a hoarder The most random things inside these cabinets I can't make this stuff up. So many books 34 books to be exact that I ended up donating a bag of Easter eggs, seven CDs that were all scratched or broken, 20 trampoline springs. Why do I have this in this cabinet? Tell you why. A few years ago my husband decided he wanted to replace some of the springs on our outside trampoline, so he ordered springs off of the Amazon. Turns out he ordered the wrong size and instead of returning them, like a normal person would do, or getting rid of them right away, i kept them, you know, just in case. It makes no sense. I can't. I don't understand why I do these kinds of things. I kept them and I threw them in a cabinet in our piano room to sit for years. I don't understand. I don't understand why I do these things. I also found 28 company shirts inside these cabinets that we have since merged with another company. We changed our name, so I ended up throwing these away because I don't want to donate them. They have our company, our old company logo, on them, but I didn't even know these were here. I don't even think my husband knew they were there, so they're serving nobody sitting in these cabinets.

Speaker 1: 49:15

I got rid of 26 U boxes. You know how. I said that we used to ship things out of our house when we started our U business. I have boxes everywhere, apparently, so I went ahead and recycled those. There was also boxes of paperwork, two boxes of company flyers, a box of blank contracts that had never been opened, and the thing is it's like why did we put these things here? We couldn't even use them. I didn't remember that they were here, so I ended up recycling those because it's all paper. I had wedding wrapping paper in there And in total I got rid of 138 things plus two bags of trash. So my new total is 1,221 items have left my house in less than 30 days.

Speaker 1: 50:04

I know I want to do this challenge again. I actually really enjoyed it and I liked keeping track of how much I was getting rid of, because it was actually really surprising to me how much has left my house and the difference that it has made in how my home feels and functions and just how it makes me feel, knowing that I don't have cabinets stuffed to the brim with who knows what anymore. And don't I mean trust me, there are still more cabinets in this house that need to be cluttered. There's still closets that I don't even want to touch with a 10 foot pole, but we're going to have to work on that later. Hopefully you don't think I'm a hoarder now.

Speaker 1: 50:42

Friend, if you struggle with clutter like I do, i challenge you to do the 1k in 30 days challenge. Tag me on Instagram If you do. I want to see your projects before and afters. Accountability right, And if that seems too daunting, just try doing like one small thing a day or one small project on the weekends. It makes a difference. Little by little becomes a lot, and I'm telling you that once you start to get out from underneath all your clutter and living with less, it feels like freedom to me. It feels like I have to spend less time cleaning my house, less time managing things, more time enjoying my space, more time actually being able to find what I'm looking for, and it is really changing my life, and I love the way it feels. I want that feeling for you, too.

Speaker 1: 51:33

Hopefully this episode has helped you. If it has, let me know over on Instagram. If you want to do this challenge with me and you think I should do it again, or if you want me to record another decluttering podcast, you got to let me know. I need your feedback. I need your feedback. If this bored you to tears, i need your feedback. Okay, i mean, if you made it this long to the end of this podcast and you are bored to tears, why? Why are you still listening? But you got to let me know.

Speaker 1: 52:01

Hopefully, this episode has inspired you to declutter something today. And I also want to just say, if you do struggle with clutter, i know how you feel. I know how you feel It's so overwhelming. You're probably looking around and you don't even know where to start. Friend, just start. Just do one small thing today. You're going to get there. You're going to get there and it's worth it, if you're like me.

Speaker 1: 52:25

It didn't become cluttered overnight and it's probably not going to get decluttered overnight either, and I really had to come to terms with hey, this has been years. We've been married for 19 years. Years worth of clutter, years worth of not letting things go, keeping things because I might need them someday, and it's going to take some time to get rid of all of this stuff, but a little by little does become a lot. Just start, even if you don't know where to start. Just start. You're going to feel so much better, even if you can just improve one area of your home, one space, and then stick with it, because there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you can conquer your clutter Real quick.

Speaker 1: 53:12

Before I let you go, please make sure that you're subscribed and you're following the show. That way, you will get notified every single time a new episode drops. And please leave a five star review. That really helps this podcast grow. It helps it reach new people, and I read every single review. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I love you so much and I will see you inside another episode.