One of the first things people tell me is, “I can’t declutter, I’m just too sentimental.” I get it. We all have things that genuinely mean something to us. And when you’re in midlife it can feel like you are attached to everything – to all of it. So many stages of your life are represented in your home. How could you possibly part with things that mean so much to you?

Well, I have to tell you – after working with hundreds of clients, I’ve noticed something surprising. Most people dramatically overestimate how much of their clutter is actually sentimental. If we emptied your house onto the lawn and looked honestly at each item, I suspect only a small percentage would truly hold deep emotional meaning for you. 

Sentimental clutter is only a small piece of your bigger clutter problem. The majority of the stuff ended up in your home for much less romantic reasons. When you take a look at the three biggest ones your huge decluttering project will feel a lot less scary. Let’s jump in.

1. It Seemed Important at the Time

Let’s begin with the sentimental clutter that you actually kept for sentimental reasons…at one time. Let’s face it – we can’t always predict the future and if you are someone who is sentimentally-inclined, you probably saved a lot of stuff you don’t actually care about now.

Here are some examples: Your kids’ schoolwork, greeting cards, souvenirs, clothing you’ll never wear again. Everybody’s list will be a little different – but if you’ve saved things for decades that list is probably pretty long. You have been operating under the assumption that because you intentionally saved it at one time, you still feel the same way about it today. What you’ll realize when you actually come across this stuff again is that it doesn’t pull on your heartstrings the way it once did.

I’ll give you an example from my house (because, yes – I am a sentimental soul myself!) I intentionally saved most of my high school and college papers. I was an English major and got great grades on my papers, which is why I think I saved them. They came with me into my marriage, I moved them multiple times and I never reread them once. I just gave them sentimental value by default – even though it was clear I didn’t care enough to actually read them. When decluttering a few years ago I pulled them out and was honest with myself – I didn’t need to continue keeping them. And guess what? It didn’t hurt to let them go!

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel attached to your college papers (or any of the other things I listed.) However, I am challenging you to ask yourself whether you still are. In some cases the answer may be yes, but in a lot of instances you’ll find that things don’t often hold the same value in your heart once so much time has passed.

2. You Kept It for Someone Else

Okay, now for the sentimental clutter that isn’t really about you, per se. This one is sneaky because it feels like you kept it for sentimental reasons but it was actually someone else’s feelings that dictated the choice.

Examples in this category: Things that mattered to your parents that they gave you. Gifts you received over the years that you didn’t care for that came from someone you love. Family ‘heirlooms’ gathering dust in your garage. Lovingly handmade things you don’t use.

In these cases, let’s be honest – you are not sentimentally attached to the item. You are sentimentally attached to the person associated with the item. You’re not keeping these things because they improve your life or bring you joy. But letting go of them seems mean or cold.

Here’s where I’ll encourage you to separate the object from the person – they are two separate and distinct things. You are not honoring anyone by continuing to store a bunch of stuff you don’t like. Keeping these things buried in your basement is not a testament to your love. Let the stuff go – you can appreciate the person without keeping everything that was/is important to them.

And no, you don’t have to tell them.

3. You Didn’t Intentionally Save It…You Just Never Got Rid of It

This one is my favorite of the three – and it’s also the biggest! This stuff does not even qualify as sentimental clutter – it’s just straight deadwood in your home. It will shock you to discover how many things you kept without any intention behind the decision. 

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we? Kids were small. Work was hectic. Schedules were crazy busy. On the river of life you were paddling through the rapids and just trying to make it through without getting thrown from your raft.

In that context, here are some things that may or may not have happened. You moved and threw a bunch of ‘miscellaneous’ stuff in the box that is still sitting unopened in a closet. Something your family outgrew got buried behind some other things and you forgot you ever had it. The ‘storage’ closet became a dumping ground for anything that didn’t have a home.

It wasn’t an intentional decision to keep any of this stuff. You were busy and life simply happened. Now, as you enter the lazy river portion of your life journey, it’s time to circle back and make the decisions you didn’t have a chance to before. And what you’ll find is that the decisions are incredibly easy. 

This is an incredibly freeing feeling because you discover that much of your clutter has no deeper meaning to uncover – wahoo! That’s great news for your sweet, sentimental heart!

Now You Can Get To Work

The next time you catch yourself saying, “I’m just too sentimental to declutter,” I want you to test that assumption by actually starting the process.

You’ll likely learn that much of what you’re calling sentimental is actually just deadwood you can slough off. And when you do that you make more room to appreciate the treasures you genuinelycare about.

I wear the label ‘sentimental’ with pride, but I also honor it by appreciating the things that truly bring me joy. I wish the same for you!

The post The Truth About Sentimental Clutter appeared first on Method Seattle.

Last month our youngest child graduated from college – wahoo! After the excitement (and drama, she got mono a week before the ceremony) had ebbed, I felt as if I had crossed an invisible threshold of midlife. After almost 30 years of our children dominating our time, mental energy and our home, a new era was beginning.

Yes, all 3 of my kids left the nest to attend college so technically they had been gone awhile. But going away to college still feels like the kids have one foot in and one foot out. Sometimes they are home for summers. They certainly don’t have a permanent living situation going. And they all descend on the house during the holidays – making it feel like it used to, if only for a week. So even though our nest was technically empty when they were in school – it didn’t really feel that way.

But now that the youngest had passed this milestone, something shifted. The kids really felt gone (full disclosure, one is still at home but only for 6 more months!) This summer a rotating cast of houseguests was on the docket. And I had an antsy feeling as I looked around. It was time for a home tour of our newly empty nest.  I made my way from room to room, closet to closet, noticing so many things I was keeping around for no reason. It was eye-opening! I quickly stopped on the thought that this easy exercise would be a good one for all empty-nesters to do.

Do me a favor and take 10 minutes to do your own ‘noticing’ home tour. That’s why it only takes 10 minutes, because it’s merely exploratory. I’m going to give you 3 slightly different ‘noticing’ lenses to look through. The results of your tour may surprise you – they definitely surprised me!

1. Look For What No Longer Fits You

As you begin your home tour the first lens I want you to wear with your empty nest glasses on is the one where you notice anything that no longer fits you. And I don’t mean clothes (although they count too!)

I’m talking about things you’ve never really liked but kept around for one reason or another. Furniture you don’t care for that has been ‘in the family’ for generations. Supplies for hobbies you haven’t engaged in for years. Anything that fit better with an earlier version of yourself.

I’m guessing your list will include gifts you didn’t like but kept around, expensive purchases that didn’t work out and many things you forgot you even had. This stuff has been around so long that it literally faded into the backdrop of your home and it’s been years since you really looked at it.

Remember, you aren’t actually taking action to declutter anything yet. This is an exercise to reveal the clutter hiding in plain sight that doesn’t reflect the life you are living today. The goal isn’t to get rid of anything; it’s simply to notice what no longer fits in.

2. Notice What Your Kids Left behind

Empty nests don’t happen all at once. It takes awhile and often the fledglings return to the roost for another round. But they do eventually leave for good. And when they do, somehow their stuff remains. This is the next lens for your home tour – what the kids left behind.

The things you encounter on this part of the tour fall into 3 different categories:

• The things you are purposely storing for them – you know they want this stuff and don’t have room
• The things you saved for them over the years – things of the sentimental variety
• The things you have no idea if they want

My guess is that the first category is the smallest and the last one is the largest. Most people I work with haven’t actually asked their kids what they want, they just reflexively save everything.

Again, we aren’t diving in to take action on anything right now – only noticing the assumptions we’ve made about all our kids’ stuff still hanging around. Many parents are surprised by how much space is being occupied by belongings that their kids don’t really want

At this point you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much clutter has been revealed by this exercise – but you aren’t done yet. The last lens is the most fun of this tour!

3. Imagine Your Next Chapter

I’m calling this part of the home tour the ‘what if’ lens. It’s the lens where you let your imagination take over and envision what you’d like to see in the empty-nest era of your home.

Instead of noticing things that should probably go, you’re asking yourself ‘what if’ the clutter was gone?

If the clutter was gone…

• How would I use this room today?
• What would make my daily life easier?
• What have I always wished this space could be?
• What would I like to make room for?

Maybe it’s a reading nook. Could be a guest room. The possibilities are endless: a studio, a workout space, a home office. Or my favorite of all – more open space. In my opinion, open space is one of the most under-rated attributes of modern homes.

Wherever your imagination takes you, I hope you realize your home doesn’t have to remain frozen in a time that passed a while ago.

A Big First Step

One of the reasons people find decluttering overwhelming is that they think they have to do everything at once. Not true, my friends. We take things in small steps around here – and this home tour is the perfect example.

You should have 2 big takeaways from this little exercise. First, an awareness of how much stuff is currently taking up space in your home that doesn’t fit your current lifestyle or mean much to the kids who left it behind. Second, a dawning vision of what your home could look like if you were to let go of the clutter.

Midlife is full of transitions. Some are chosen and some are not. But if you’ve recently crossed into a new season of life, this might be the perfect time to ask whether your home reflects who you are today—or who you used to be.

Because after spending decades creating a home for everyone else, it’s okay to start creating one for yourself. Congrats to all the grads out there flying the coop!

The post The 10-Minute Home Tour Every Empty Nester Should Take appeared first on Method Seattle.

Midlife is already asking a lot from us.

The kids are leaving. Our hormones are in flux. Eight hours of sleep is more of a Holy Grail than a regular occurrence. Some of us are caring for aging parents, some of whom are happy about it. And we are all carrying decades of responsibilities, decisions, and mental load. It’s a lot!

Midlife is hard enough, the last thing you need is your home adding to the burden.

Research suggests women who perceive their homes as cluttered and stressful experience higher stress and less healthy cortisol patterns than women who view their homes as restorative. Men do not appear to be affected in the same way (figures!) 

In the grand landscape of challenges we are facing during this season of life, our home environment plays a significant role. It either adds to the burden or serves as a haven. But unlike some of the other things we are facing, our clutter is directly under our control. That means we can do something about it!

We Are Already Managing a Full Mental Load

Midlife is hard, yes. A cluttered home contributes to that, yes. But you maybe haven’t noticed it as a problem because clutter itself is not the problem in isolation.

It’s more like the straw on top of an already overloaded system.

When you are dealing with the emotional demands of newly launched kiddos, planning for retirement, helping aging parents and navigating changes in your body – you’re pretty much at max capacity. So that means things like a pile on the counter, an overstuffed closet or a looming stack of boxes in the garage can tip your brain over the edge.

That’s because every time you visually encounter a pile of stuff, your brain sees:

• a decision
• a task
• an unfinished project
• something you need to remember

The issue isn’t that one pile. It’s that the pile is one more thing on top of everything else you’re dealing with. Bottom line, your brain doesn’t experience clutter separately from everything else. It’s just adding to the load that’s already there.

Why Clutter Feels Harder Now Than It Did Before

You might be wondering, “Why didn’t this bother me when my kids were younger?” After all, that was a very hectic season of life in itself. I don’t know about you, but tired was my baseline and I got very adept at spinning multiple plates in the air with only an occasional crash and burn!

During that time, accumulation was the norm. Because let’s face it, there is a lot of stuff involved in raising a family. And that stuff all had a clear purpose. Sports equipment, school papers, toys – it was all needed and used. And frankly, you were too busy to notice how much was piling up. It wasn’t that there wasn’t stress, and there definitely was clutter – but you were too busy to notice it.

The reason midlife is hard is because even though it isn’t as hectic, it’s weightier. You have more time to  notice your environment and it doesn’t feel relaxing.

Plus, you’re in the middle of an identity edit. The kids are gone, so there’s less people and less activity. But the house is still full of stuff. And because so much of it isn’t relevant to your life today, maintaining decades of accumulated possessions suddenly feels exhausting rather than meaningful.

Trimming off the extra via decluttering takes away some of the cognitive load you’re carrying right now. And that leaves you with more energy to deal with everything else. Your home can become your refuge and a restorative place to recharge.

Decluttering Is One Midlife Stressor You Can Reduce

Midlife is hard because it’s filled with transitions that oftentimes feel out of our control. Menopause is inevitable. Aging is real. Losing parents is going to happen. Kids are doing their own thing and don’t want us butting in. Plus, forgive me for saying it – but the outside world is also a bit of a dumpster-fire right now. All of it can make you feel powerless.

I can’t help you with most of the other stuff (though I’ve reigned in my menopause symptoms, thanks to info from doctors like Dr. Mary-Claire Haver – check her out if you haven’t already!) You can’t declutter any of it.

But you can declutter your garage, the paperwork piles, the clothes in your closet that don’t fit, the guest room that’s basically a storage dump. All of that is in your control – and one intangible benefit of decluttering is how empowering it is.

Every item you declutter removes a future decision, a visual distraction, a storage obligation and a tiny slice of cognitive load. You don’t need to overhaul everything, but each little bit adds up.

So begin with the surface clutter and move on from there. Suddenly all the other weighty things in your life will feel a little less burdensome. And you’ll have a place to chill out and relax when the weight feels too heavy.

Reclaim Your Home

Please know I’m not suggesting that decluttering will fix your hormones, eliminate stress, or solve every problem you’re facing. But midlife is hard enough, and if your body and mind are already working to navigate this season of life, why not remove one burden that’s completely within your control?

Think about it, and maybe set a timer for 10 minutes and attack your junk drawer!

The post Midlife Is Hard Enough. Don’t Let Clutter Make It Harder appeared first on Method Seattle.

Moving in midlife hits different. Actually, it hits harder – way harder. Because we’ve been living in our current homes for quite some time. And the clutter has accumulated. Decades of paperwork, mystery cords, ‘sentimental’ boxes, kids’ stuff, multiple generations of furniture, “good” serving platters, and enough junk drawer contents to stock a small store. It’s all there, waiting politely to accompany you to your new home!

This stuff has quietly built up over the years to the point where you barely even notice it anymore. Until it comes time to pack it up, that is! Ugh. Every client, family member and friend of mine who has ever moved will tell you – they had way more stuff than they thought they did.

It is definitely overwhelming, but a move can be one of the best motivators to finally declutter. Because nothing clarifies what matters like paying to pack, move, unpack, and store things you don’t need or even want.

Here is my advice on how to approach a move from a decluttering perspective. It applies whether you are moving to a bigger home or downsizing to something smaller. If you follow it, you will save a lot of precious time, energy and money on your move!

Start Earlier Than You Think

As soon as you even contemplate the thought of moving in midlife, you should begin decluttering. The earlier you start, the less painful it will be (because you can work in small, sustained efforts) and more smoothly things will go when it comes time to do the actual moving. When my mom had a stroke and had to move to Assisted Living, my dad thought he would be selling their house and moving into a place in her building. Sadly, she passed away before he put the house on the market and with her gone, he decided he would stay in the house a while longer.

We both knew he wasn’t ready to move yet, but we started decluttering anyway. Any time I was over at his house we spent 15-20 minutes decluttering a specific area. It was low-pressure, over quickly and allowed for reflection in between ‘sessions.’ By the time he decided to move, several years later, his house was in pretty good shape. There was still plenty left to do (especially since he was moving to a much smaller place) but we had both built up the decision-making muscle required to get through what was left without much drama.

What I often see is the opposite. People conflate decluttering and packing, thinking they will just declutter as they go. Huge mistake. Decluttering and packing should be mutually exclusive. Packing is logistics. Decluttering is decision-making. Those are two different jobs, and combining them is how people lose their minds during their move. In addition, everyone has more stuff than they think they do. You will be amazed at how much has been stuffed, boxed, hidden and neglected in all of the drawers, closets, storage spaces and cabinets in your home. Even if you are a very organized person who doesn’t tend to accumulate things (or so you thought!)

Sometimes starting early isn’t possible, but usually it is. In fact, you can begin the process of decluttering the buildup in your house before the question of moving out even comes up!

Be More Ruthless Than Usual

Moving in midlife is not the time to err on the side of caution. If in doubt, opt to let it go. Yes, it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first. I’m often reminded of this pearl of wisdom from my triathlon coach, who was re-teaching me the crawl stroke as I trained for my first event: “If it doesn’t feel uncomfortable, you aren’t doing it right.’ That advice applies here. It’s going to feel like a leap of faith at the beginning, but then you’ll get the hang of it. Trust me when I tell you, you won’t miss this stuff in your new home but you will love how clutter-free it feels.

Clutter to look out for as you go:

• Anything expired
• Anything broken
• Duplicates
• Old paperwork
• Clothes that no longer fit
• Unfinished projects
• Decor you don’t like
• Books you’ll never read again.
• Your grown kids’ stuff you’ve been storing for them (for how long?)
• Anything from a bygone era that no longer fits your lifestyle

If you get stuck – ask yourself the very relevant question: ‘Do I really want to pay to move this?’

More advice: make note of your clutter pain points as you go. Tons of re-usable tote bags? Random Tupperware coming out of your ears? Flower vases that could serve a large wedding? These are things to not only declutter, but mentally note so you don’t re-create the same clutter conditions in your new home.

Also: Don’t sweat the small stuff! Drawers full of office supplies, mystery keys of unknown origin, single socks. Don’t waste your precious energy trying to figure out a donation plan for this stuff – you have too much to do. Just get a big black trash bag and empty all that stuff into it. It will feel hard in the moment but I guarantee it will pass (usually in 90 seconds or so.)

Welcome Home, You’re Not Done

Welcome to your beautiful new home, here’s some more decluttering advice! Oh, you thought you were finished? Sorry, but if you are moving in midlife, the decluttering doesn’t end when everything is loaded on the truck. Here’s what to do as you are getting settled to set yourself up for clutter-free success.

As you unpack, look at your belongings with fresh eyes. I bet there will be at least a few things that you realize don’t fit,look good or work in your new place.

Is somebody else taking over holiday-hosting duties but you moved all of your platters, crystal and tablecloths?

Did you bring that file cabinet you’ve had forever, only to realize you don’t need it because you got rid of all the old paperwork living in it?

Five bedrooms worth of linens for a 3 bedroom place?

Keep a moving box or two for donations and fill them up with this stuff as you go. It’s normal to feel differently about certain things when they are in a new context. This last decluttering round is small and fairly painless but makes a huge difference in how your new home feels. 

Moving in midlife is stressful, I know. But, it is also a perfect opportunity to curate your belongings to serve the life you are living today. When you make space for the things that matter, you have more mental and physical room to enjoy them – and that makes for a happy home!

The post Moving in Midlife? Read This Before You Box Anything appeared first on Method Seattle.

I have been on a bit of a shopping kick lately. As each new purchase arrived I hastily stuck it in my closet, vowing to  make room for it later. Over the past couple of months it became clear that I needed to declutter my closet. My sweater stacks were more like piles. I used every nook and cranny to stash shoes. Oh, and it took more time than I cared to admit to rummage for  a bra. It wasn’t fun to shop in my closet, even for the cute new things I’d recently acquired!

So I decided to use my biannual closet swap to make some room for my new treasures. Every Spring I put the heavy winter sweaters and boots away and bring forward the lighter weight knits and sandals. This year I would add some radical honesty into the mix, employing a few tricks to make my closet shoppable again.

Everyone has a finite amount of closet space. I have a very nice walk-in closet that I share with my husband. Your closet may not be as big as mine (or maybe it’s bigger!) but we all have some mix of hanging, shelving and drawer space to work with. Here’s a run down of how I decluttered each of my spaces to make my closet feel fresh, Spring-forward and fun to shop in.

Hanging Space: The Hanger Trick

When I went to declutter my closet, the first challenge was hangers. My first instinct when I ran out was to buy some more. They aren’t that expensive (I use this velvet variety) and I can get a pack of 25 or 50 easily. But my better angels reminded me that more hangers take up more space. More space taken equals less shoppable hanging bars. So, instead of buying more hangers I decided to free some up! I needed to clear at least as many hangers as I had new purchases.

I targeted my knits and tops since they hadn’t been decluttered in awhile. Then I scanned visually for what no longer fit, was out of style, or was a bad purchase that I never actually wear. It takes some radical honesty to admit that my boobs are never going to shrink enough to wear the top I used to love. Or to face the fact that I threw some money away on something I don’t really like. I let the regret have its 90 seconds, then I removed the offending items into donation bags. No new hangers needed! But the bigger problem was my shelves.

Shelf Space: The Good Boxes

How to declutter my closet shelves? My shelf space houses my sweaters, denim and shoes. Most of the new things I’ve gotten lately are (you guessed it) sweaters, denim and shoes. A quick visual scan provided some decluttering candidates: A pair of Adidas high tops I routinely pass over in favor of Nikes. A couple of pairs of neglected skinny jeans. A sweater I love that unfortunately has a visible hole in it. Sadly, removing those few items did not give me the space I needed on my shelves. So I looked deeper and found…shoe boxes.

Is anyone else a sucker for a good box? I don’t keep my sneaker boxes but I have many pairs of designer shoes and for some reason find it so hard to part with the boxes! In my defense, I house my off-season shoes in their boxes on my highest shelves. They do serve a purpose. But what I discovered upon closer inspection is that I had a decent amount of shelf space taken up by boxes. Just boxes, with no shoes in them! There are shoes that never need to be in boxes because they are seasonless. They always stay on the shelves. If I end up donating or selling those shoes, the boxes will not be involved. So why exactly, was I keeping the boxes? 

I am embarrassed to say that it was very difficult for me to part with those boxes. There were 5 of them. Letting them go freed up an entire shelf! But it was hard – and I had to push through some major discomfort. Sometimes the gravitational pull of feelings defies the logical argument, but I eventually pulled through. Because I knew it was the right thing to do for my closet! 😂

Drawer Space: The Bygone Era

Maybe this is TMI but my boobs used to be much smaller. Somewhere in my menopausal journey they grew several cup sizes. Along the same journey I decided I don’t much care for underwire, and wireless bras began migrating into my drawers. I have to say, I don’t pay much attention to the drawers where I keep my intimates. I have never been into lingerie and don’t spend a lot of time agonizing about what I’m wearing underneath the clothes I do care about.

The short story is, I had a lot of bras (and bathing suits!) that were no longer relevant for my current body shape. I just simply hadn’t encountered them because they were at the bottom of the pile of bras in my drawer!

As I set out to declutter my closet,I found once I excavated them it was a completely different experience to open my bra drawer and select what I needed. Easy to open, no rummaging and everything clearly visible. It didn’t take a lot of time but boy, did it make a big difference in my closet!

The Closet Refreshed

At the end of this exercise (which took a couple of hours) I reveled in my newly shoppable closet. Everything neatly hung (with a few hangers to spare!), folded and contained in drawers. It only took a couple of hours because I didn’t take apart my whole closet/dressers. Rather, I used the Spring swap as a reset to help me make room for the things that mattered in my wardrobe today and focused on just a few space-offending categories.

Now I have 4 bags for Goodwill and one small pile of designer items I’ll consign through The RealReal. For me, parting with clothes takes a lot of mental energy so I like the step after that to be as easy as possible. And now my closet feels so refreshed!

Need more than just a closet refresh? My Bedroom & Closet Room Guide is one of my most popular guides. It takes you through the process of decluttering your whole closet – category by category, in the most efficient and painless way ❤️

The post I Decided to Declutter My Closet for Spring—Here’s What I Learned appeared first on Method Seattle.

The last subject in my Spring Decluttering series is a sleeper. It’s not as overwhelming as beauty products, not as obvious as the entryway and not as emotional as decluttering your books. The sleeper category to declutter this Spring is your giftwrap!  The reason it’s a sleeper? Well, when was the last time you thought to declutter your gift wrap? I’m guessing the answer is…you never have? Or it’s been at least a decade! Gift wrap is a sneaky-smart category to declutter because you don’t use it as often, it doesn’t take a lot of effort and (speaking as a Professional Organizer) it’s kind of fun to organize once you’re done. 

It’s somehow very satisfying to get your wrap supplies into a place where you can easily access them and feel inspired to wrap a gift vs. the desperate scramble of the wrapping experience that exists today. But before you can do that, you need to declutter!

The Great Gift Wrap Accumulation

Why is our giftwrap such a hot mess by the time we hit midlife? Let us count the reasons, shall we?

1. It’s a category no one really thinks to declutter. Unless you’re someone who is really into gift wrapping and dedicates space to it, you don’t interact with your giftwrap very often
2. You probably didn’t notice the buildup because giftwrap is living in multiple places in your home.
3. Giftwrap doesn’t go bad – so we all fall victim to the classic act of saving things with the intention of using them in the future, but never do.
4. Our gift wrap needs change over time. There was the wedding era, the baby shower era, the kids birthday party era. It was handy during those times to have specific paper and gift bags on hand for those occasions. Those eras have been over for awhile, but the giftwrap associated with them remains.

You may (like me) have gravitated away from using wrapping paper in favor of gift bags – but you still have the wrapping paper. Or you vowed to re-use some cool ribbon that came on a gift you received, but never did. Or you do most of your gift shopping online and never even see the gifts you purchase, let alone wrap them. There are a million reasons why this category has become such a mess. When you declutter your giftwrap in midlife, the buildup has been happening for quite some time.

The Clutter In Your Gift Wrap

It’s clear why you have so much gift wrap, now let’s identify the stuff that  can go and the useful bits you should keep. Time to declutter your giftwrap so you can have fun organizing what’s left! (You’ll probably want a trash bag for this exercise)

The first thing that can go immediately is all the little scraps you saved over the years, just in case you needed to wrap a tiny gift (you never did, did you?) Don’t overthink it, just gather them up and toss them into your handy trash bag.

Now for the many rolls of wrapping paper. Pull out any that are almost used up (it’s probably more than you think.) Now pull out the duds that, at some point in the past, you bought in desperation that you don’t really like and never used except that one time. Ditto for the massive collection of paper you bought from someone’s kid’s fundraiser. If you haven’t used it by now – it’s not gonna happen!

If you’re like me, you dutifully save every gift bag you get because you can reuse it! Except they never seem to be the right size, or denote the correct occasion, or they are just ugly. Those can go too.

Now take a critical eye to your ribbon options. Pull out the rolls that have plenty of ribbon left. Those are the ones to keep. The almost-finished rolls and leftover scraps you thought you’d re-use but haven’t can go.

Setting Up a Wrapping Hub

Now that you’ve put in the effort to declutter your gift wrap (goodbye, scraps and stray ribbon), it’s time to set yourself up for future gift wrap success. I often say that decluttering solves 80% of organizing problems – so you’ve only got 20% left to do. This is going to be a cake walk!

May I suggest a wrapping cart that you can stash in a closet? Carts are my favorite way to store wrapping supplies because it’s easy to roll out whenever (and wherever) you need it. Here are my two favorite options; one with a bigger footprint for serious gift wrappers and the other a slimmer profile with an attachment that you can easily tuck into most closets. The new rule is that all your wrapping supplies now live here in this cart. It’s your handy gift wrap hub.

Stock your hub with only what you actually use: scissors, tape, wrapping paper, gift bags, ribbon, and gift tags. That’s it. Here’s your gentle but firm storage boundary: if it doesn’t fit in your wrapping hub, you have too much. This is how you keep the clutter from quietly rebuilding itself over the next decade. And when everything is contained and easy to access, wrapping a gift becomes enjoyable. Or at the very least, no longer chaotic!

Wrapping It Up

Decluttering your gift wrap might not have been on your radar, but it’s one of those small resets that makes a surprisingly big difference. It clears physical clutter, yes—but it also removes a layer of low-grade stress you probably experience every time you need to wrap a gift.

And the next time you have need, instead of digging through a pile of semi-crumpled paper and mismatched bags, you’ll roll out your wrapping hub and feel prepared. Maybe even a little smug.

The post Declutter Your Gift Wrap After Years of Buildup (A Midlife Reset) appeared first on Method Seattle.

What is the low-key hardest category to declutter? It’s books, folks! Decluttering books doesn’t seem hard but most of us are pretty attached to our book collections. Books carry meaning in a way that many other possessions do not. In midlife, the books we’ve accumulated over time can represent the many phases of our lives. Ideas, interests, characters – they all stay with us. That’s why so many of us hold onto books that:

• We read many, many moons ago
• We never finished
• We still hope to read someday
• We will never read, but someone we love gifted to us

Over time, our shelves quietly fill up…and overflow with books that no longer serve us. As someone in midlife who loves to read (40+ every year!) and makes her living professionally organizing – I’m here to tell you that decluttering your book collection is worth your time. I’m not recommending a full purge, just a curation. It will take place in 3 rounds – and if your book collection is large and overwhelming you can go one round at a time.

Round 1: The For Sure Keeps

When you have so many of something the thought of pulling each one out and assessing its worth is overwhelming. The easiest way to declutter books is to move quickly. So for Decluttering Books Round 1 we are going to use the technique of inside-out decluttering to help speed things up. Inside Out Decluttering simply means that instead of assessing each and every book in your collection, you’re going to do a quick visual scan and pull out the books you for sure want to keep. How do you decide which ones make the cut? Here are 2 filters I use for my scan.

The Classics

By classics I mean your classics, the books that are the most meaningful to you. You’ve likely read them multiple times and maybe your copy is a bit beat up but never will they be absent from a collection of yours.

I have more than a few books that fall into this category, including my entire collection of Jane Austen, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I still reread these classics from time to time, and even though that now happens on a device – the actual physical books are like old friends I like to see on the daily. They are that important – the top tier if you will.

The Reference Books

These are books you like to reference on a regular basis. They are likely non-fiction and have impacted your life in a meaningful way. For me, books like Atomic Habits by James Clear, Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and The Comfort Book by Matt Haig are all books I reference often in my work and life. I am pulling them off the shelf often, not to re-read the whole thing but to reference something specific.

Round 2: The Easy Edits

Decluttering Books Round 2 is a similar exercise to Round 1, but with an opposite intention. We are going to do another quick visual scan, but this time we are looking for easy edits. With easy edits, you’re looking for the books you can let go with little to no mental effort.

Here are filters I use for easy edits.

The Obsolete How-To Books

Doesn’t everyone go to YouTube or another video platform to learn how to do something? I’m wondering how the genre of ‘Dummies’ books is currently performing now that all of the knowledge-base is accessed so easily online. I had many in this category as well as Sunset Gardening reference books and finance books. They were easy to identify on my shelves and I wasn’t really attached to any of them.

The Gifted Books You Will Never Read

My friends and family love to gift books. Every year at my birthday in June and Christmas I receive a new batch of reads. Most of them I do end up reading but there are always a few I know I will never get to (or I’ve already read!) Last year my brother gifted me Fast Like  Girl because he knew I was trying intermittent fasting. Such a sweet sentiment but I was already far down the fasting road and already had my fasting bible (The Galveston Diet by Dr. Mary Claire Haver.)  As I was scanning my shelves a few months later for edits I recognized I was never going to read Fast Like a Girl and so it went into my donation box.

Two more popular categories of gifted books are coffee-table books and cookbooks. Take a visual spin through your collections of both and I’ll bet you find some easy edits!

The Books You Never Finished

It is a rare occasion that I do not finish a book I started. But every year there are a couple. If I didn’t like it enough to finish it, it isn’t hard to let it go. If you have been hanging on to books that you intended to finish but didn’t – maybe practice some radical honesty and cut the cord!

Round 3: Everything In Between

What you’re left with after the lightning rounds 1 and 2 is all the stuff in-between. There’s probably still a lot but it feels more manageable since you removed the easy keeps and edits. Decluttering Books Round 3 is going to take a bit more time. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, take it in smaller chunks.

For the books that are left, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my reason for keeping this book? (‘Because I’ve had it forever’ is not a reason, FYI)
• Would I buy this book again today?
• Am I realistically going to read this in the next year?
• Do I truly love having this book on my shelf?

Remember that books are one of the easiest items to replace if you change your mind. Libraries, digital books, and used bookstores make access easier than ever so it’s not a huge risk to take if you’re in doubt!

Curating is Honoring

Curating your book collection is an act of honoring your reading life. Your book shelves should feel curated, not crowded. It is the books that make up your book collection (rather than the size of the collection itself) that says something about you. When every book on the shelf is one you love, plan to read, or return to often, the entire collection feels different. More meaningful and special.

The post Decluttering Books: Why It’s So Hard (and How to Do It Anyway) appeared first on Method Seattle.

We are well into March and it snowed here in Seattle yesterday – ugh. My brain badly needs a Spring reset and I’m going to find one through my favorite means; decluttering my entryway! The second entry in my Spring Decluttering series – here’s why an entryway reset  is such a game changer for your home and your mind.

Number one: it’s the first and last impression your brain experiences as you come and go from your home. All of those small impressions make a big difference over the course of a day or a week. We are (mostly) finished with Winter now, and our entryways have quietly collected detritus over the course of the season. Coats, jackets, shoes, bags, mail and various other items landed there and stayed, acting as a visual reminder of everything we haven’t dealt with yet.

Number 2: as far as decluttering goes, the entryway is low-commitment and high-impact. In other words, you get a lot of bang for your 20-30 minutes. It’s the decluttering equivalent of a cold plunge; it’s uncomfortable for a minute but doesn’t last long and leaves you feeling wonderfully refreshed. Let’s walk through the process of resetting and refreshing your entryway for Spring.

Step 1: Assess

The first step of the entryway reset is a visual assessment of the accumulation. Most entries feel chaotic because they are golding more volume than the space can reasonably handle. This is true whether you enter and exit through a spacious mudroom or a small foyer. Most entryway clutter falls into four categories.

Seasonal Overflow

Boots, coats, hats, gloves and anything else that stuck around after the winter weather subsided.

Package Central

New arrivals, intended returns, eventual dontaions and things you borrowed have all piled up.

Paper Accumulation

In a mostly-digital world, we all continue to receive an alarming amount of paper mail. Not much of it is important, but it represents a visual to-do list that accosts you every time you come or go from the house.

Way Too Many

Shoes, shoppping bags, sunglasses, leashes, caps. These are things that should live in the entry for convenience, but over time the number has multiplied.

Take a few minutes to scan your entry and mentally place your clutter into these categories. It will be helpful as you dive into Step 2.

Step 2: Declutter

Before the entryway can be reset we need to shed the clutter we just identified. Three quick rounds of decluttering executed in a aparticular order does the job efficiently.

Trash

Grab a trash/recycle bag and get going. Shoes/boots that have seen better days? In the bag. Extraneous package materials? In the bag. Junk mail? Toss it. Bonus points for any random broken items you were planning to fix but never will. They can also go in the bag.

Car

Let’s get the donations, store returns, items that need to go back to friends into your car. That takes a only a couple of minutes, tops. But (this is important) – don’t stop there. Take another couple of minutes to commit to a day/time (today, if possible!) that you will execute these errands. I know you’re busy, but if you come up with a plan now you won’t be staring at a pile in your trunk in 6 months. PRO TIP: I do all of my errands in one loop and reward myself at the end at the Starbucks drive-thru.

Re-Home

The winter stuff (or most of it, if winter is lingering where you live) can go back into off-season storage. Make sure you definitely still like and use everything you are packing away. There might be a jacket or two that should go with the donations in your car. Don’t waste time and effort packing away something you don’t need.

Also peel off the extra shoes, bags and random things that migrated to the entry and take them back to their regular homes. The key is to keep only a few necessary items in your entry for convenience. All the things that migrated from other parts of the house need to hurry back home.

Okay, that was the most time-consuming part of the process and I’m betting it didn’t take you long. It’s all downhill from here!

Step 3: Reset

I’m always saying that decluttering solves 80% of organizing problems. This holds true for your entryway reset. Now that you’ve stripped away all of the unneccesary and extraneous stuff it’s so easy to efficiently organize what’s left.

All you really need in an entry is a few hooks for jackets, leashes and caps. Maybe a basket or two for shoes and incoming/outgoing packages. And some sort of receptical for mail – keep it on the smaller side and commit to stripping out the junk mail as soon as it comes through the door.

In most cases, you don’t need any fancy organizing systems – less stuff does the trick!

Reset & Refresh

Your entryway sets the tone for your entire home. When it’s overrflowing (usually at the end of a season) the house feels chaotic before you even step inside. But after you’ve decluttered the difference is immediate and impactful. And now, with just a 30 minute effort, the smallest space in your home just delivered the biggest sense of relief. Congratulations, your home and your mind are now reset for Spring!

The post Why a Spring Entryway Reset Is the Easiest Decluttering Win appeared first on Method Seattle.

If your bathroom counter is crowded with half-used serums, forgotten lipsticks, and tiny sample bottles you keep meaning to try, you’re not alone. Many of us in midlife are quietly managing a small mountain of beauty products—most of which we don’t actually use.

March is here and it’s time for Spring Cleaning. Unless you are me and you’d much rather focus on Spring Decluttering! This month I’m doing a little Spring Decluttering series focused on categories you may have neglected over time. This week I’m focused on a midlife beauty purge! In my experience, most women in midlife own far more products than they actually need. How did this happen? Because we quietly accumulated free samples, impulse buys, subscriptions and aspirational purchases; only a small fraction of which we actually use.

So let’s slough off all of the products you don’t really need – because they are detracting from your beauty experience. I promise when you are done with this process you will feel confident. You will feel excited to use your products. And dare I say – you will feel more beautiful? At any rate – let’s dig in!

The Types of Beauty Clutter

Don’t be scared of the ‘purge’ part of Midlife Beauty Purge. You aren’t getting rid of everything. When you are a beauty minimalist (like me) or someone who loves to have fun and experiment with their beauty and skincare routine, we all have deadwood in our makeup and skincare collection that can most definitely be classified as clutter.

These types of beauty clutter are what you’re going to be looking for during your purge.

Expired products
Makeup and skincare do expire, I’m sorry to say.  It’s not like you can hurt yourself with an expired lotion but the fact that you didn’t use it up during the multiple years it was ‘good’ should be your sign that it’s time to let go. Mascaras in particular are only good for 6 months before they turn clumpy and gross.

Duplicates
Three mascaras, five moisturizers, six half-used lip balms. Duplicates of products you actually use are fine – you’ll eventually make your way through them. But duplicates in the same category are the ones to watch out for. Some are your go-tos, others serve the same function but will always fall to the back of the line. Those are the ones to toss.

‘Aspirational’ products
The bold lipstick or complicated skincare routine that seemed like a good idea at the time but then you never really picked it up. The beauty industry is really good at selling us hope that they will solve all of our many issues with our faces and skin. You should not feel bad that you got caught in their net. But should be really honest with yourself when confronted with a purchase that you never used. The discomfort is temporary.

Freebies and samples
This one was a killer for me. My many years at Nordstrom netted me so many beauty samples, which I tossed in my travel bag. I kept tossing them in there but hardly used any of them and eventually I couldn’t find the things I did need because they were buried under the samples!

Guilt purchases
Expensive products you feel obligated to finish. These are the ones that make you feel bad every time you see them sitting on your counter. I know – it feels crappy that you wasted your money. But it’s gone now and you aren’t getting it back. It’s time to move on – you’ll feel better when you do.

Separate Into Categories

Hundreds of small items can be overwhelming so before the midlife beauty purge we need to do some sorting. First, sort into the two larger categories – makeup and skincare. Maybe do skincare first because it’s usually less overwhelming. Then follow with the makeup sort.

Group your products into the following families:

Skincare

Lotions, creams, toners, oils, masks, makeup removers, tools.

Makeup

Eyes: liner, shadow, mascara, brushes)

Face: foundation, powder, concealer, blush, bronzer, brushes)

Lips: Lipstick, Lip Balm, Lip Liner, Lip Gloss, Plumper

Nails: Polish, remover, cuticle oil

Once you have the families together you will have a good visual of where you’re over-assorted (i.e. you have too much.) You will likely come across some other items that don’t fit into any of the beauty categories because they migrated from somewhere else. Set those to the side – you can either toss them or put them away later. Now it’s time for the purge!

Curate For Your Needs Today

Actually, the Great Midlife Beauty Purge is actually a Midlife Beauty Curation. You are editing your products down to an assortment that suits your lifestyle today. For instance,there are the products you use daily. Use inside-out decluttering to pluck those out first, those are your high-velocity products and they for sure should stay.

Do you travel? Next pull out the products that you use when you go on a trip. I like to keep a travel-sized/duplicate set of the things I use in a pouch that I can just toss in my bag when I’m packing. It has everything I need in it.

What about the occasions that demand something special? A dramatic lip. A smoky eye. A shimmery bronzer. False lashes. That’s your next layer to pull from the family groups. I like to keep my special occasion stuff separate from my everyday products. Because I don’t need to access it regularly.

Whatever is left likely falls into one of the 5 clutter categories we started with. It’s the stuff that isn’t serving your beauty needs today for whatever reason. You can go through and assess each product individually if you like. But if you have a lot that can be really painful and time consuming as you confront feelings of guilt, waste and shame. Sometimes the better strategy is to sweep it all into a black garbage bag and take it out to the trash (you shouldn’t donate used beauty products.)  It feels bad for a minute but if you push through you’ll find the discomfort is temporary.

A Fresh Start

Now that you’ve completed your midlife beauty purge you’ll notice how easy it is to organize the products you have left. Less clutter makes your everyday routines easier and faster. Beauty products should serve you in midlife, not overwhelm you every time you step to the mirror. You don’t need more products—you need the right ones. Let this purge be your permission slip to keep only what truly supports the kick-ass woman you are today: streamlined, confident, and of course, beautiful!

The post Too Many Beauty Products? How to Do a Simple Midlife Beauty Purge appeared first on Method Seattle.

I field many requests each month for insights on decluttering and organizing craft rooms. Normally my advice on this blog is driven by a blend of my work as a Professional Organizer and my lived experience. However, I am not and never have been a crafty person myself. My poor children were mostly deprived of any ambitious craft pursuits as I equated ‘crafts’ with ‘mess’ and was not excited about cleaning up after them. (I know you creatives are cringing at this, and rightly so!)

So for this blog I draw upon 2 things; my work with organizing clients and my 30 year career in fashion merchandising. The first got me into the minds of creatives and the second helped me help them to edit in a way that did not stifle their creativity.

The theme here is finding a balance between inspiration and order. When decluttering a craft space your editing decisions should be driven by 3 things:

1. The space you have to work
2. An inspiring assortment of choices
3. Storage boundaries you put in place

A balance among the 3 is what you are striving for. So let’s break each one down.

A Creative Space

Everyone dreams of a large studio space with plenty of storage and room to spread out, but that is not most people’s reality. Decluttering and organizing craft rooms could actually mean any space where you work on your crafts. Whether you have a dedicated room, a smaller space within a room, or different spots for storage and working, your creative space should have 3 common elements.

The first and most important element is literal space to create. If your available surfaces are covered with stuff, you are immediately at a creative disadvantage. A good rule of thumb is to value open space to work as highly as the supplies you need to do your work. Find one or two (or more if you have a large studio) spots within your larger space that are ‘protected’ from clutter. That is, they are deliberately left open and clear except when you are actually working.

The second element is inspiration. That is, visual cues that inspire you and put you in a creative mindset. These are as important as the open spaces. They could be hanging on the wall, decorating a tabletop or incorporated into the storage solutions you have for supplies. In other words, we aren’t going for a minimal vibe in a crafting space; you want to allow visual space for inspiration.

Lastly, you want your creative space to be easy to clean up. Ease of cleanup is the fatal flaw in many studios. If cleanup is a pain, then you don’t do it. When you don’t do it, projects and supplies pile up. When projects and supplies pile up, the space is visually overwhelming.

Notice I have not yet mentioned decluttering. There is a reason for that. Prioritizing the 3 elements I just mentioned will help you make good decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of. An inspiring area with space to work that is easy to keep clean is the beacon. The beacon will guide you to the appropriate edits for assortment and depth.

An Inspiring Assortment

When decluttering and organizing a craft room, your ‘assortment’ of choices should inspire you to create. You could have an assortment of different crafting hobbies (e.g.knitting, sewing, paper crafts) or an assortment of choices within a single crafting hobby (e.g. yarn, fabric, stamps & ink.) You want to keep enough choices to fuel inspiration and creativity while prioritizing your creative space as we just reviewed.

If you have too many choices you can quickly move from inspired to overwhelmed. If you don’t have enough you can feel stifled. So put your choices into high, medium and low priority buckets. Then edit the low priority bucket.

Here’s an example of what this looks like. Say quilting is your hobby of choice and fabric assortment is the task at hand. Go through your fabrics and separate them into High, Medium and Low piles. Obviously the fabrics you love best or use the most go in the High pile. The ones you never touch go in the Low pile. The Low pile gets decluttered. If you have so much fabric that it’s overwhelming to pick up every piece, try an inside-out approach of pulling out only your favorites. Once you have them, the rest can go. A good measure to assess when you’ve crossed over from overwhelming to inspiring is to be able to see everything. When you can see your choices clearly (vs. a jumbled mess) you are on the right track!

A balanced assortment of supply choices is a great first step, and now we can address depth.

Depth of Supply

Okay, we took care of the breadth – now let’s address the depth of supply. This refers to how many you have of the same thing. Do you need seven pairs of scissors? Twelve reams of plain white card stock? Three sets of sharpies? A whole bin of water color paint brushes?

There are some supplies where depth is important. That plain white card stock may be the base for everything you create and you go through a lot of it. Great – maybe twelve reams is what you should have handy. But you need that kind of depth for only your most high-velocity items. You likely could shave down the amount you keep of other supplies that you don’t go through as quickly, or the duplicates of items that aren’t consumable.

To help keep your depth of supply under control, let your storage for these items be your guide. If you keep all of your stamps & ink in a bin that is overflowing, edit the amount in the bin until it is easily ‘shoppable.’  If the paper shelf is overflowing onto your work space, edit it back until it is properly contained. I think of these as storage boundaries; giving you a visual cue when you have too many/much of something.

Edit down until you are within storage boundaries, then vow not to exceed them. This makes cleaning up so much easier, because you can see where things go and how many you have. In fact, decluttering to reach the appropriate depth of supply helps your pursuit of a dream creative space. One where you have room to work, feel inspired and clean up easily.

You’ve Got This

Decluttering and organizing craft rooms isn’t about perfection (besides, it’s rude to be perfect!) It’s about creating a space that supports creativity without chaos. By setting thoughtful storage boundaries and curating an inspiring, workable assortment, you can enjoy a craft space that energizes rather than overwhelms. Whether you’re starting fresh or editing an existing area, this balanced approach will help you feel more focused, inspired, and ready to create!

The post Decluttering and Organizing Craft Rooms Without Killing Creativity appeared first on Method Seattle.