"Dejunk Yourself" Course Week One: Learn from My Mother
Welcome to Dejunk Yourself, an 8-week course dedicated to decluttering EVERYTHING.
This is a paid subscriber-only course. Free subscribers - I won’t normally send teasers but because this is the first week of a new course I wanted to give you a little taste. If you want to read beyond the synopsis, subscribe here with a 7-day trial, free e-book, simple living courses, and weekly waste-reducing recipes for $5 a month / $50 a year ⬇
So why have I started our 8-week courses with one on “dejunking” yourself (aka decluttering)?
One, curated possession ownership feeds a simple life. It’s hard to live simply and sustainably when your stuff overwhelms you.
Two, decluttering is freaking hard. Pretty much everything in modern life is conspiring against even the most earnest of decluttering intentions. It wants you to buy more, to hoard more, to fill your life with more because that’s what makes the modern world go around. Thus, the more decluttering information you can arm yourself with the better.
With Dejunk Yourself, we’re going to take eight weeks to focus on as many areas of your life as we can. We’re going to figure out how to decide what gets thrown out, how to tackle what may feel insurmountable, and how to offload your junk sustainably and ethically with as little friction as possible. We’re talking practical, actionable steps here.
There will be (optional) homework as well as some useful resources.
Here’s a rundown of what to expect over the next 8 weeks:
Week 1 - Listen to my mother. Practical tips and tricks to start getting rid of your stuff.
Week 2 - A capsule wardrobe without the capsule. How to figure out the age-old problem of clothing.
Week 3 - Dejunking out the best room in the house. Otherwise known as your kitchen.
Week 4 - Emptying the drawers. Because they’re too easy to fill with Just In Case items
Week 5 - Mid-course mindset. How to keep fighting the good fight when everything around you says it’s dumb.
Week 5 - Misc spaces. We’re talking gardens, garages, offices, cars, attics, and more.
Week 7 - Kids = crap. Not a slight on your kid - more a comment on how much stuff comes with their existence (and what to do about that).
Week 8 - Stop the re-buy impulse. How to break the buying habit to stop you from re-junking yourself.
Free subscribers, this is where I leave you. Paid subscribers, read on…
Let’s get this party started. This week I want to throw down some of the most useful tips I’ve ever received when it comes to decluttering your home.
1. Listen to my mother
Lord knows she’ll be happy someone listens to her.
My mother is an excellent declutter-er - we call her the Great Tidier-Upper.
Her one big tip? Focus on one corner of a room before moving onto the next.
Don’t do what I do which is to flit about, decluttering one item from here, one from there. Instead, start with one single part of a room and do it all before moving onto the next.
How do you decide where to start? That’s tip number two:
2. Focus on what you can do in one single session
How long do you have to spare today? 5 minutes? 10? That’s your session length. What can you focus on in that session?
I would suggest spending no longer than 30 minutes a session (an hour tops). It can be tempting to go longer but honestly, you’ll likely get bored or distracted and piles of semi-decluttered stuff could sit around for weeks at a time, making you feel guilty every time you pass it.
Best to keep your sessions short and sweet.
3. Focus on the room you spend the most time in first
It’s always tempting to tackle something big like the garage first, but one, you need to work up to that beast, and two, why prioritize decluttering a space you don’t see much of?
Instead, focus on an area you spend the most time in.
It could be your lounge, your kitchen, your office space. Even better, declutter the part of that room you use the most. The coffee table is a good example, the kitchen table is another, as are kitchen counters.
It’s far better to focus on somewhere you’ll see the fruits of your labor day in, day out, giving you a nice, healthy hit of positive reinforcement to motivate yourself further.
4. Sell stuff (because money is an annoyingly good motivator)
I once made $400 in one hour’s declutter session. I turned my attention to what was sellable in my house. Books read many years ago. CDs. Unwatched DVDs. Computer games that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. My husband’s guitar from when he was a teenager. We even found a bag of useless currencies from our travels that we exchanged for pounds.
Although I’m a big fan of gifting or donating unwanted stuff, sometimes the little push you need to go the extra decluttering mile can be found in the dollar dollar.
5. Everything in your house should have a place
I’m not very good at visualizing space so back in the days before I traveled, I would buy items and have no idea where they were actually going to live. It made for really cluttered spaces.
My sister-in-law on the other hand, was a big fan of “everything should have its own place.” If she couldn’t think of a place for the item, out it went.
Considering where an item is going to live in your home is a good way to not only disrupt unintentional spending habits (ask yourself the question next time something catches your eye) but also in jettisoning what you already own.
6. Gamify your decluttering
Humans love games and decluttering is no different.
The Minimalists have a pretty good one called the 30-day Minimalism challenge. Starting on the first of every month, they suggest throwing away one item on day one. Two items on day two. Three items on day three and so forth.
By the end of 30 days, you’ll have thrown away 465 items.
7. Throw away unopened boxes (without opening them)
I moved house three times with three boxes that I never opened from one move to the next. They would go in a cupboard only to be pulled out the next time I moved.
When I finally got serious about decluttering, I realized how dumb that was. For the sake of the environment, I didn’t want to literally throw the boxes in the trash so I gave them to a friend who ethically disposed of the contents. I pretty much knew what was in the boxes (cables, it’s always cables) and I did ask my friend to let me know if they found something particularly important, but I didn’t rummage for fear of keeping it all Just In Case.
I’ve never missed anything that was in that box.
8. Don’t be afraid of space
As someone who both writes about and lives a simple life, I hear EVERYONE’S opinions on minimalism. A stumbling block many people find is that they’re scared their house will look sparse and “not homey” if they get rid of too much stuff.
Something I’ve noticed by living out of Airbnbs for so long is that it takes a LOT for a space to look sparse. Right now I’m sitting in a fairly generic modern apartment, a couple of pieces of hotel wall on the art, and very little in terms of decor and furnishings. But even this place doesn’t look sparse. It looks spacious, bright, very light, and tidy.
It’s calm, not spartan.
In other words, don’t worry about your place looking empty, and certainly don’t let that worry deter you from jettisoning stuff you don’t need.
9. Beware of the sunk cost fallacy
One of the reasons it’s so hard to throw away stuff - even stuff you’ve not used in years - is because of that sunk cost fallacy. You remember buying The Thing, how much The Thing cost you. You think about all the good times you and The Thing have had together, if you throw it away does that mean The Thing meant nothing? Argh, the guilt!
Sunk cost fallacy is a swine at the best of times but when it comes to decluttering, it can de-rail you faster than almost anything else.
Beware of it. Think carefully about whether you’re holding onto The Thing because it’s still useful, or just because you feel bad about parting with it. If it’s the latter, out it goes.
10. Responsibly offloading your stuff feels super good
Although it is very tempting to throw everything in the trash and be done with it, I truly believe we as humans have a responsibility to throw away our unwanted goods as ethically and sustainably as possible.
It can be a pain in the ass but it does come with one very happy upside. Jettisoning stuff in a responsible way feels hella good. See the resources guide below for more information on how to responsibly offload your excess stuff.
Resources
Downloadable chart - 100 Super Easy Items to Get Rid of Today (stick it on your fridge)
Resources for offloading ethically - What’s the Best Way to Get Rid of Stuff so It Doesn’t Become a Problem for Our Planet?
Your homework
Your assignment this week is simple - take my mother’s advice. Choose the room you spend the most time in, choose a corner and declutter it. Even if that’s the only thing you do this week, you’ll notice the difference.
Great places to start:
Clear the coffee table
Declutter the kitchen worktops
Find a home for every single one your clothes (even if that home is the donation box)
Use the comments section below to tell everyone where you’re decluttering and how you’re getting on.
Last month I finally finished the full declutter of art supplies I had gathered over several years. Took me a year to do it (in batches here and there.) My city has a couple places that are like Goodwill but just for arts and craft supplies, so that's where I take these things. I finally know what I have and where it is!
Next up this week: sorting through quilting, sewing, yarn, and fabric supplies I inherited from a beloved aunt when she passed away over five years ago.