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.

The time is ripe to face an uncomfortable truth about decluttering in midlife. This may be hard to hear, but I feel compelled to share it based on my years of experience as a Professional Organizer. If you’re keeping your clutter around because you think you’re going to sell it eventually…it’s probably never going to happen. Selling clutter is usually a waste of your time and energy.

Here’s how it happens: You’re decluttering and come across something you feel is worth something. Maybe it was something you spent a lot of money on and you feel like you should recoup at least part of what  you paid for it. Maybe it’s something that is ‘perfectly good’ and seems like someone else would pay good money for it. Or it could be something you inherited, and maybe Antique Roadshow would tell you it’s worth a small fortune!  Your imagination fills your head with the exciting possibilities of resell riches and you set the items aside in a ‘sell’ pile..

Meanwhile, life goes on. That pile of possibility sits in the garage, guest room, basement, or closet for months – or years. And you come across it again the next time you decide you have too much stuff and it’s time to declutter.

I’d like to invite you to rethink the resell plan and consider donation instead. I have some good reasons, so stick with me while I lay them out for you.

Selling Is a Whole Separate Project

When you are in the throes of exciting resale possibilities, selling clutter feels like it will be a quick final step of the decluttering process. You’re thinking about the outcome, not the process required to get to it. I’m here to tell you: it isn’t quick. It requires a fair amount of work and mental effort. Here is a partial list of what is involved when you resell something:

• Researching prices
• Taking photos
• Writing listings
• Posting on multiple platforms
• Interacting with potential buyers
• Answering questions
• Negotiating
• Coordinating pickups or shipping

Don’t get me wrong, there are many selling platforms that are relatively easy to use these days. Reselling is definitely easier than it used to be! The problem isn’t that selling doesn’t work.

The problem is – reselling is work. More work on top of the not-insignificant mental energy you already expended making the decluttering decisions in the first place. Reselling is an entirely new project you are taking on. And that is why most people never follow through.If starting a small resale business is something you’ve been dreaming of, great! If you have systems set up, know all the hacks and tricks for the resell platforms and like doing this kind of stuff independent of your decluttering project – go for it! Just don’t expect you’ll get as much as you think your clutter is worth.

Your Stuff Is Probably Worth Less Than You Think

I predict there will be quite a bit of distance between your expectations of what you can get for your stuff and the reality of what it’s worth. Selling clutter hardly ever nets enough to justify the time and energy it takes. There are a few reasons for the disconnect.

You remember what you originally paid for the thing, and that does not match what the market says it’s worth. You’ll discover this to be almost universally true if you take a few minutes to do a little price research online. Also, your emotional attachment to the item – be it sentiment, guilt or frugality – inflates its perceived value in your mind. Your potential buyers have none of those attachments, in fact their emotions are pulling them in the opposite direction price-wise:

• “I’d only buy this if it’s a really good deal.” 
• “I could probably find something similar for less.” 
• “Used stuff should be cheap.” 

You  know how they say a new car loses a third of its value as soon as you drive it off the lot? Well, the value of most stuff you are trying to resell depreciated dramatically as soon as you bought it. Again, maybe take a few minutes and check out pre-owned prices for some of these popular midlife categories:

• Furniture
• Exercise equipment
• Home decor
• Kitchen gadgets

The reality is, you are going to spend hours and hours trying to recover a fraction of what you initially paid for the thing you are reselling. Are those hours worth it? Let’s do a little math. Say you have only 3 things to sell. You spend a total of 4 hours doing all the required activities (see list above) to list and sell your items. You end up netting $75 total (pretty good!) So essentially you earned $18.75 per hour for that project. I don’t know about you, but my high school kids made more than that lifeguarding at our neighborhood pool. And that’s only the time component, never mind the mental energy. The point is, sometimes you’re protecting the value of the item at the expense of your time and energy.

The Cost of Keeping It Is Usually Higher

And what about the cost of space that ‘sell’ pile is taking up in your home? Your intentions of selling clutter pay a price there too.  It’s definitely contributing to visual clutter. And it’s probably taking up storage space. But worst of all, it’s a constant reminder that you haven’t followed through on actually selling it. You will berate yourself every time you come across it and feel badly. It’s basically a visual ‘to-do’ that never gets crossed off your list.

In addition, you are depriving yourself of the most satisfying part of decluttering – when the clutter actually leaves your house! My clients tell me all the time that their favorite part of my service is how I take donations away with me at the end of our session. That’s because it feels so good to have it gone! It’s the most joyous part of decluttering in midlife, and if you’re keeping a bunch of it around, you’re defeating the purpose of your decluttering project.

Disclaimer

Of course there are exceptions to my rules of avoiding the resell trap. High-value antiques, designer clothes, shoes & bags, and fine jewelry are all probably worth the effort (through an appropriate channel.) And if you are someone who resells often, you know the ins and outs of your platform of choice – so the lift is lighter.

But for most people and most midlife clutter, the fastest path to exit from your home is usually the best path – and it isn’t selling clutter. So before you start adding to your ‘I’ll sell it’ pile, ask yourself: ‘How much is my time and energy worth?’ Then do a little math to validate your decision. And nine times out of ten the donation box that leaves your house this week is worth more than the ‘sell’ pile that’s still sitting there the next time you decide to declutter!

The post Why Selling Clutter Costs More Than It’s Worth appeared first on Method Seattle.

As you can imagine, I have a lot of ‘midlife’ content in my social media feeds. Most of it is focused on grief and sadness and missing the kids that have left. That’s fine (and totally relatable) but I think there’s a bigger shift happening that not enough people are talking about.

I think of it as an ‘midlife identity edit’ and it’s a huge opportunity to seize midlife by the horns and bend it to your will!  What do I mean by ‘identity edit’? Basically it’s taking stock of what you own and editing the things that no longer match up with the life you are leading now. Not only does it leave you feeling lighter, but it makes room for new identities you are growing into!

The kids left and while we weren’t paying attention our homes quietly become museums for a phase of life that’s been over for years. I’m talking about childhood bedrooms, family-oriented hobbies, shopping habits built around kids, spacesyou’re using for storage instead of living.

Decluttering the museum isn’t really about getting rid of stuff (although technically that’s what you’re doing.) Rather, it’s the means to help clarify who you are or want to be for this next phase and set your home up to support it.

Your Home Is Still Set Up For a Past Version of Life

Is your home frozen in time? Do your guests sleep in rooms with teenage posters (and lights, they were so into those light strips!) on the walls? Do you still habitually hit Costco to buy a bunch of stuff in bulk that will take you months (years?) to use up (if ever?) Are your storage areas stuffed with the relics of family life: school projects, sports gear, Ikea furniture?

The truth is, your day-to-day reality has changed. The needs are different, the needs are less numbered and your schedule, though it may still be busy, is less populated with things having to do with other people. Your home is now serving less humans, but it’s still set up to be in caretaking mode. It’s a super-subtle tension that you may not even realize is there.

That’s where a midlife identity edit can be so helpful in breaking up that tension. Decluttering to make way for a current version of daily life can be so liberating!

Decluttering Becomes Symbolic, Not Practical

I want to be crystal clear here, I’m not talking about tidying up Marie Kondo-style. This also isn’t a version of Swedish Death Cleaning; that’s all good but serves a different purpose. I’m not advocating a bunch of labels and bins – though they might be helpful once you’re done.

A midlife identity edit becomes a symbolic transformation. The decision filters (i.e.the questions you ask yourself) should all be related to identity:

• Do I still need this?
• Is this still who I am?
• Am I keeping this out of usefulness… or guilt?
• Does this serve me in my life today?

You are going to come across plenty of stuff that elicits ‘nos’ to most of those questions. Does that mean you should get rid of everything that doesn’t match your life today? Of course not. Some things will serve the purpose of making you smile because they remind you of motherhood, or your own childhood, or someone you loved.

But right now you can’t even enjoy those things because they are just part of a larger jumble of clutter. Now is a great time to assess which ones actually matter.

The Opportunity Hidden Inside the Empty Nest

Does a midlife identity edit feel unsettling? Sure, it does. But remember, that discomfort is a part of growth.When you clear the clutter from your past life you’ll suddenly find yourself with extra space. Physical space, yes – but also calendar space, mental space and space for new identities to grow.

Here’s an example from my own house. My husband and I are both big baseball fans and one of our goals is to visit every major league ballpark. It’s just one thing we are doing together in midlife but we now have the bandwidth and the inclination to make that goal more visible in our home. We have manifested it in two ways.

On the downstairs walls of our family room/home gym, there still hung Elementary School art projects we bought at auctions over the years. Those came down to make room for World Series front pages from each of our team’s (SF Giants, Boston Red Sox) modern championship wins (7 total!) We also had a ‘Top 100 Movies’ scratch off poster someone gave us that hung in our mudroom hallway. We have replaced that with a Pop Art scratch-off piece depicting all MLB parks. Less family-oriented, more ‘mislife us’ focused!

I have a lot of clients who are itching to remodel their empty nest once the kids leave. I always encourage them to declutter first, because you learn a lot about yourself and who you want to be now through the process. And sometimes, decluttering is enough of a ‘makeover’ and you discover just how well your home can support your midlife!

‘Rebuilding’ your home with intention looks like this::

• What do I want home to feel like now?
• What supports this next chapter?
• What deserves space in my life moving forward?
• What am I ready to stop maintaining?

The goal isn’t to erase the life you built – it was a fantastic phase! But you aren’t living in it anymore and keeping your home the same as it was before may be stunting your midlife growth.The empty nest isn’t just a parenting transition, y’all – it’s an opportunity to embrace your new identity as an Empty Nester. It’s a midlife identity edit – and decluttering is the physical act that helps you process that shift!

The post The Empty Nest Reset: A Midlife Identity Edit appeared first on Method Seattle.

Alert – this blog is for anyone who feels like decluttering specific items goes against their values in some way. I get this a lot in my social media comments:

“I would never get rid of (insert item X) because I value family”

“Decluttering (specific thing Y) is not an option – I value my memories”

“I will not add to landfills, it’s so wasteful – I value the environment”

So I am moved to point out the differences between values vs. practices. When we declutter, we often rationalize keeping things because we are confusing practices with values. That distinction changes a lot if you understand the difference between the two.

Here I’m going to illustrate why practices and values are mutually exclusive. I’ll dig into why the lines blur so much for those of us in midlife. And I have a question you can ask yourself when you are having a hard time decluttering that will put the decision in perspective. Let’s get into it!

What’s the Difference Between a Value and a Practice?

So values vs. practices – what’s the difference? A value represents a deep belief or priority. Here are some examples:

• Connection
• Family
• Creativity
• Hospitality
• Security
• Beauty
• Stewardship

A practice is the way you express that value. There can be many different practices that express the same value. Where we get tripped up when decluttering is confusing the way we’ve historically expressed a value with the value itself.

For example:

• Value: Honoring family. Practice: Keeping inherited furniture
• Value: Financial Stewardship. Practice: Keeping things you spent good money on
• Value: Security. Practice. Keeping things “just in case”
• Value: Environmental Stewardship. Practice: Recycling wherever possible
  

What many folks miss is that it is possible to change the way you express your values. There is not one righteous path forward. Practices can change while values remain intact. You can let go of a practice that isn’t serving you and pivot to one that better aligns with your current lifestyle/situation/circumstances. Or with something you are trying to accomplish, like decluttering for instance.

Why the Lines Between Values vs. Practices Blur in Midlife

It is completely understandable how we mistake practices for values so often in midlife. We’ve accumulated decades’ worth of physical expressions of our identity. That means our homes contain evidence of every life stage we’ve passed through, from our own youth to raising families to empty nesting. 

We were raised by parents and grandparents who grew up in times of scarcity, when values of family and stewardship were consistently expressed via physical belongings and squeezing the most out of every purchase. Our parents passed these practices down to us. Because the practices have existed through multiple generations they feel like the values themselves.

That’s why decluttering certain things can seem like a betrayal of your values, even though you know in your wise mind that it’s the right thing to do. Letting go of them feels like you’re becoming someone different – someone who is straying from the values you have identified with your whole like.

The funny thing is, these practices may not have even been explicity verbalized. They were just in the water we grew up swimming in:

• “Good mothers save their kids’ things.”
• “Responsible people keep useful items.”
• “Family heirlooms must stay in the family.”

Do any of these feel familiar? If the answer is yes you are not alone! The sensation is unique to our season of life and the specific generations we were born into!

The One Question That Changes Decluttering

Now you understand the differences of values vs. practices. Naming the problem sucks away half of its power over you! But that tractor beam is still pretty strong – so how do you actually break free? 

It’s very simple, really. It’s merely a switch of the internal question you ask every time you go to declutter something that is emotionally loaded.

Instead of asking “Does this item matter?” ask yourself “Is this object the only way to honor this value?” I guarantee you can think of multiple ways to express your values that don’t involve keeping a bunch of clutter that you don’t use and (honestly) don’t really care about.

• You can value your children without keeping 20 bins of childhood artwork
• You can value hospitality without a formal dining room (or the wedding china in it) that nobody uses
• You can value memories without keeping every object attached to them
• You can value preparedness without storing a lifetime supply of “maybe someday”

If you need ideas on clutter-free ways you can express values, check out my blogs on Rituals and Grief Decluttering. They’ll help you reframe what feels like giving up your values to merely updating how you express them in your life today.

Your values deserve space.
Your outdated practices don’t automatically deserve storage! When you decouple values and practices you make letting go feel a lot less like a loss.

Try it out and see if it doesn’t help you make space for the things that matter – and let me know how it goes!

The post Values vs. Practices: The Decluttering Shift That Changes Everything appeared first on Method Seattle.

You look around your house and think, ‘How did it get like this?’

Not messy. Not chaotic. Just… full. Everywhere you turn, there’s something that needs to be dealt with, moved out of the way, or stuffed into an already-full drawer. And you may be feeling like you somehow should have handled this already. 

Let me help you give yourself some grace. The problem is not you – it’s the season you’re in!

Midlife clutter is no joke. The clutter is multi-layered and there is no way you could have set aside a weekend to get through it all. You aren’t behind – you’re actually in the middle!

What am I talking about? Let’s dig into the three layers of midlife clutter that are making those of us in the sandwich generation feel so squeezed.

First Layer: Your Stuff

Congratulations, you’ve hit midlife! And that means you’ve had at least 3 decades to accumulate the many things you call your own. You’ve passed through multiple phases of past lives, interests and hobbies – each with an accompanying set of accoutrements. You may be finished with a lot of those hobbies – in fact some of them you may not even remember you were into. But the stuff that came with them is living in the back of a closet, in a box on a garage shelf, or buried somewhere in your basement.

And what about all the sentimental stuff you saved over the years? Your high school yearbooks, letters and birthday cards from a bygone era (an era when people still wrote letters!) or even ancient stuffed animals from your childhood. Life has been too busy to stop and think whether all this stuff still matters to you. So it has sat in boxes marked ‘memorabilia’ for years.

And then there’s the stuff that snuck into your home when you weren’t looking. The Gifts With Purchase you never used. The subscriptions you forgot to cancel. The duplicates you purchased, not realizing you already had one hiding somewhere in the house. You may have a desk full of office supplies that are mostly obsolete in a digital age (whiteout anyone?) Or a collection of golf tees that seemingly accumulates by a magnitude.

All of this is the stuff of life. We’ve all got some version of it, and yes, it’s time for a reset. If this was the only clutter we had to deal with, it would still be intimidating all on its own. But this is only the first layer of midlife clutter, there’s more, way more!

Second Layer: Your Kids’ Stuff

You may be in the process of emptying your nest…of the humans you raised, that is. Their stuff is another story. Most folks’ midlife clutter includes a healthy amount of things their children left behind. 

Some of it you were probably intentionally saving for them. (Whether they actually want everything you saved is another question!) Some of it they intentionally left because they don’t have room for it. But a lot of it is just leftover from the time they lived in your home. They had their own rooms that are still intact. They played sports and the equipment is still in your garage, gathering dust.

This layer is hard because there are some uncomfortable emotions involved. What things are yours vs. theirs? How long are they expecting you to keep the stuff they plan to take ‘someday’? Can you make decisions about what stays and goes when you don’t know their feelings or intentions? Ugh, and then there’s the nostalgia that accompanies all of this stuff. You miss the kids they used to be. You miss them living at home with you. It’s an era that hasn’t quite ended, leaving you feeling like you’re in limbo. The physical footprint of raising a family is a big one, no matter how many kids you raised. Yes, it’s probably time to make some decisions and set some boundaries with your children. But they aren’t your only clutter problem. Your parents are right behind them!

Third Layer: Your Parents’ Stuff

The last layer of midlife clutter is the most insidious because it’s arriving late to the party. Whether or not you anticipated a giant influx of stuff from your parents, you probably haven’t decluttered your own stuff to make room!

Our parents are downsizing, and some of them are passing away before they even have time to downsize. A lot of them are very attached to their things and expect you to take care of the ones they don’t have room for anymore. Sometimes, this happens with no notice because of a crisis or health event, leaving you with little choice but to fill your garage with their furniture, photo albums and ‘family heirlooms.’

Feelings of obligation and guilt accompany all of this stuff. There are probably things you would like to have, but I’m guessing there is a lot you have no need or use for. But it feels like a betrayal to voice that so instead you take it all in.

And P.S., all of this is arriving at a time when you literally do not have the physical space or mental capacity to deal with it. So you pack it away to be dealt with later.

So What Do We Do?

Y’all, this is the reality of the season of life we are all in. The problem is not personal to you, it’s situational. Instead of wallowing in the overwhelm of it all, let’s shift our perspective.

Because we are in midlife, we have the opportunity to edit and curate these items instead of managing them. Because we are in midlife, we are well-positioned to take our time in getting through it all instead of trying to attempt a huge purge of everything all at once. And friends, because we are in midlife, we have the wisdom to know what we truly care about keeping, and what is marginal or not important. We should trust that wisdom, gained from decades of life experience!

So take it small and slow. Curate instead of purge. Trust your inner knowing. You’ve got this. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it. We are in midlife and we will not let our clutter defeat us!

The post The Midlife Clutter Squeeze: Caught In The Sandwich appeared first on Method Seattle.

I call May the Month of Maureen. My mom’s name was Maureen. Her birthday is May 3. Mother’s Day is a week later. And she died 8 years ago on May 20th. So May is an emotionally loaded month for me, and always gets me thinking about grief decluttering.

In my organizing practice I often see people struggle to let go of things that belonged to a person they lost. When we lose someone we love, the things they owned suddenly take on a new significance. It feels wrong somehow to get rid of them, like a small act of betrayal. But I invite you to consider how you felt about these things when your loved one was alive. Were they important to you? Did they make you smile? Did you even know they existed?

When you lose someone there are a hundred ways to honor them without keeping everything they owned. In fact, keeping all of their stuff isn’t really honoring them at all. Putting intention behind the act of keeping something special to you shows love and honor. Saving everything that was theirs just because they owned it doesn’t. Plus, keeping all that stuff is making it hard to see and appreciate the things that do matter.

In honor of the Month of Maureen, I’m sharing the ways I’ve found to remember and cherish my mom through grief decluttering that don’t involve keeping a bunch of clutter in my house. Maybe you’ll find an idea or two you can use yourself!

A Few Cherished Items

Just to be clear, I have kept some of my mom’s things for myself. Grief decluttering doesn’t mean getting rid of everything. I kept things that simultaneously remind me of her and serve some purpose in my life. It’s a pretty random assortment. I have a bunch of her Marimekko oilcloth tablecloths – I use them every summer when I entertain. I kept a purple glass measuring cup she had that was passed down from her mother. And I wear her favorite philodendron leaf necklace that was a gift from my dad.

And, there is a lot of stuff of hers that I didn’t keep. Her baby book, the plaques and awards she won over the course of her career in education. The memorabilia from her childhood. Her clothes. These are things I don’t have a personal connection to. I won’t use them or display them, so what is the point in keeping them?

I’m not saying that you should get rid of your mom’s baby book. If that item has special meaning for you, then keep it. What I am saying is to approach your loved one’s things with an intent to curate a small collection of items that are meaningful to you and remind you of the person you loved at the same time.Putting intention behind the act of keeping something special to you shows love and honor. Saving everything that was theirs just because they owned it doesn’t. Plus, keeping all that stuff is making it hard to see and appreciate the things that do matter.

I feel pride when I pull out those tablecloths. I smile as I pour out of the vintage measuring cup. And every day I finger the necklace at my throat and think of my mom. Aside from these things (and a few others), I choose to honor my mom’s memory in other ways.

Photo Memories

Y’all pictures are so much better than things for remembering! And they don’t take up nearly as much room (none at all if you digitize your prints!) So when you’re grief decluttering, focus in on the photos. Whenever I’m missing my mom (this whole month, for instance!) I pull out some pictures to bring her back to me.

Pictures are shareable. (Text one to your siblings – ‘remember the time…?’) They help imprint our memories. They capture moments we may have otherwise forgotten. If you are lucky enough to have photos of the person you lost, you can honor them by organizing those photos and making them accessible. Gen X, Boomers and even Millennials have photos – both digital and prints – scattered everywhere from boxes to albums to computers, phones and cloud services. Bringing them all together and organizing them means you can actually enjoy them.

Imagine bringing together all of your loved ones’ belongings so you can sit and stare at them. Not nearly as fun, right? (Maybe try this if the contents of your parents’ house are currently in residence in your garage – let me know how it goes!)Forget the stuff and focus on the person. It’s so much healthier and worthy of respect. But what’s another way to honor your person that doesn’t involve any physical objects at all?

Remembering Rituals

Every year on my mom’s birthday I make the Hipy Papy Bthuthduth Thuthda Bthuthdy cake from the Winnie the Pooh cookbook I got when I was eight. I made it for her birthday many times as a kid, and picked the habit back up when my parents moved up to Seattle after they retired. It is a lovely and delicious way to remember something we shared together, and takes up no room at all in my house!

Here’s another thing I like to do: blast Broadway musicals while I’m cooking. (I can’t do this one all the time because our house has an open floor plan and my husband objects but every once-in-a-while…) This was my mom’s practice and it was fun to join her in the kitchen and sing along. Due to open floor plans and husband’s aversion to loud music I did not keep the tradition going with my own kids, but when I’m missing her I’ll dial up Guys and Dolls on Spotify!

Rituals don’t have to be a big thing, they can be small and subtle like taking a walk in nature, keeping a team loyalty alive (got my lifetime devotion to the SF Giants from my mom!) or connecting with someone else who also loved your person and sharing stories.

The point is, none of these things involve keeping a bunch of belongings – and in my opinion are way more meaningful.

Okay to Let Go

Losing someone close to you like a parent is brutal. So is the thought of grief decluttering. It is reflexive to want to cling to their things. Or feel paralyzed with guilt at the thought of getting rid of them. But there are many ways to show love and keep a memory alive. You don’t have to keep their clutter – it’s okay to let it go.

The post Grief Decluttering: Why You Don’t Need to Keep Everything appeared first on Method Seattle.

Most people think decluttering requires a free weekend, a surge of motivation, and a huge mess. That’s exactly why they never follow through. When decluttering feels like a massive project (which it absolutely does when you’re in midlife!), it becomes something you’ll ‘get to later’ and you repeatedly kick it down the road. If this sounds familiar, I have a new approach for you to try. Stop dreading the huge decluttering project and start forming some small decluttering habits.

Small, repeatable actions done consistently over time will change your home faster than waiting for the perfect Saturday that never materializes.In this blog I’m making my case for decluttering as a habit vs. a project. I’ll be drawing on some strategies from two of my favorite books: Atomic Habits by James Clear and Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, PhD. By the way, if you are taking on midlife decluttering projects and having success, fantastic. Keep up the good work! I would still recommend reading through these suggestions. Most of them also work well for painless maintenance after you’ve tackled something big. Before I get to the actual strategies, a bit about why decluttering habits are so effective.

Decluttering Projects End. Decluttering Habits Maintain.

A big decluttering project has a finish line. That finish line feels far away and often out of reach. The prospect of the amount of work required to complete the project is too intimidating so most people never even start. Even when people make it 90% of the way through their decluttering project, they often never complete the last mile (getting the clutter out of the house.) It’s a very common scenario, and one I see a lot because many of those folks end up reaching out to someone like me for help!

Meanwhile, a habit becomes part of how you live. It doesn’t depend on motivation. It becomes ingrained in the daily fabric of your life. The effort required to ‘finish’ the action of a habit is deliberately small so as not to be intimidating. Which in turn means you are more likely to complete the action. It’s the opposite of a vicious cycle – more like a glorious snowball quietly gaining speed and momentum. And before you realize it, you’ve blown past the ‘finish line’ you had in your head.

The bottom line is, even if you do complete a giant decluttering spree, the clutter will creep back without good habits in place. Causing the need for another big, intimidating project.

Here are some easy examples of what I’m talking about.

• Sorting and disposing of mail  instead of adding it to the pile on the counter
• Taking 3 expired/uneaten items out of the fridge before grocery shopping
• Clearing clutter from one surface before heading to bed

None of these are dramatic. Nor are they intimidating. They won’t give you the dopamine-fueled high of a transformation. Rather, they are easy, therefore you will actually do them. And to be easy, you need to make them small.

Make Decluttering Habits Small Enough to Repeat

I often say that if something feels intimidating to start, the first step is too big. With a habits approach to decluttering, we make the efforts really small. That works because it makes the effort manageable. Think minutes, not marathon sessions. Or a single shelf instead of a whole room.

There are two ways to make decluttering efforts small. A small space or a small amount of time. In the context of building decluttering habits I like to focus on the time element. I call it time-boxing and I like to use an actual timer when I do it. This timer is my favorite (it has proven to have magic powers for some reason) but you can just use your phone timer! 

You can time-box a decluttering session from any room in your home where you happen to be spending time. All you need to do is simply put a critical lens on and find a few things in that space that you no longer need, want, or like. Some examples:

• Expired/old medications in your bathroom while you’re getting ready in the morning
• T-shirts you never wear while you’re getting dressed
• Mugs you don’t use when you’re getting your morning coffee

The possibilities are endless for this exercise. Put the discarded objects in a donation, box, or in  the trash if warranted. It’s not going to feel momentous in the moment. But the point is you actually did it. And when you did you sent a signal to your brain that it wasn’t painful. So then your brain gives you the green light to do it again. 

If you try to go deeper or get sucked down a rabbit-hole, your timer yanks you back into the present. If you like, make a note on your phone of the spot you’re going to hit next. But keep the effort small, because that’s how you build consistency.

Make Decluttering Habits Consistent

Small efforts won’t make a dent in your midlife clutter if you don’t perform them consistently. That’s the other key to a habits-based approach to decluttering: being consistent.You can absolutely commit to a ‘15 minutes a day’ strategy to accomplish this. But there are a couple of other hacks that make consistency even more achievable because they don’t require finding time to make them happen.

The first one is using what I call ‘dead time’ or ‘waiting time’ in your day. The few minutes you have while you’re waiting for the water to boil in the kitchen. The commercial break during the football game you’re watching. Or how about the 10 minutes left over when you finish a call/meeting/task early? That was already ‘planned’ to be productive time so why not declutter for a few minutes instead of scrolling on your phone?

Another very-effective tactic is to attach a decluttering habit to something you already do. James Clear calls this ‘habit-stacking’ and I love it! I use it all the time. Find a routine that is already happening and add decluttering to it. Here are some examples:

• While unloading groceries, clear a few pantry items
• While putting away laundry, remove one clothing item you no longer wear
• While cooking dinner, declutter one kitchen drawer

No extra schedule required! Just better use of moments that already exist. Pepper in some short, scheduled decluttering sessions and before you know it, your home will begin to feel lighter, calmer and more organized!

Small Consistent Efforts Yield Big Results

If you have been waiting for a big burst of motivation or free time to suddenly appear, you are never going to peel back the layers from multiple decades of clutter buildup. Success lies in small, consistent efforts. Keeping things small makes the efforts doable. Doing them consistently leads to progress. If you declutter in small ways regularly, your home starts changing almost automatically. And the great things about decluttering habits is they help prevent clutter from ever being a problem in your home. Ever again.

So stop waiting for a weekend project. Start becoming someone who cultivates small decluttering habits. And just watch what happens to your clutter!

The post Why Decluttering Habits Beat Big Decluttering Projects Every Time 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 a trick to help you move past the emotional moments of decluttering. It’s going to sound a little weird but stay with me…. it’s decluttering with self-talk.

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar. You’ve committed to cleaning out your doom closet and you’re cruising along when suddenly you come across something that:

• Was given to you by someone you love
• Cost a lot of money
• Could potentially be useful sometime in the future

Suddenly you’re stuck. You know you don’t have room for this stuff. You know you haven’t used it (or probably even seen it!) in years. Before you realize what’s happening you’ve shoved a bunch of stuff back into the closet and decided you’re done decluttering. Ugh. Too hard.

Here’s the simplest way I know to break that cycle: Talk to yourself out loud. I know. It sounds ridiculous. But it really works.Because the second you say the thought out loud, something shifts. And there’s actual science behind why. Since I’m sure your eyes are still rolling I’m going to explain why this trick works so well to get you over those emotional hurdles. Let’s dig in.

Interrupting the spiral: talk back to yourself

When negative thoughts intrude on your logic, they move quickly and tend to put you in a downward spiral. As long as those thoughts are swirling in your mind there is no counter-argument happening to offset them. That’s where talking out loud comes in.

Research in cognitive psychology shows that putting thoughts into words (called verbalization or self-talk) helps regulate emotions and improves decision-making. You know how writing something down helps you remember it later? That’s because the act of writing sends a signal to your brain that the thing you wrote down is important.Talking to yourself works in a similar way – it triggers the  part of your brain that’s in charge of reasoning & fires it into gear. 

So now you have a counter argument.

You think: “I spent so much money on it, it’s wasteful to give it away”

Now say: “I haven’t used it in years and the money I spent is already gone”

I know it feels weird to argue with yourself but spoken words have power! Decluttering with self-talk is actually you coaching yourself.

Using self-talk it to do the next right thing

Another way decluttering with self-talk works – it helps you slow down so you can focus on the next right step. The negative thought has essentially frozen you in your tracks. To get yourself back into action mode, give yourself verbal instructions and encouragement. There has been lots of research on this with professional athletes. Giving an instruction out loud improves your focus. Encouragement reinforces the action. Let’s get back to that expensive thing that feels hard to declutter. Keep the steps small:

• “I’m letting this go now.”
• “I’m just going to put this in the donation box.”
• “I can keep going”

I recognize this read a bit like one of those ‘See Jane Run’ books we read in first grade. It sounds a little silly, but you get used to it with some practice.

Saying Your Name For The Win

As if you aren’t feeling weird enough at this point, let’s take it one step further! Saying your name as part of the verbalized argument or instruction makes it even more powerful! There is strength in your name, so use it! Here’s another example of how I use decluttering with self-talk on a daily basis to keep me on track.

I use the Two Minute Rule almost daily to keep my to-do list short and my visual clutter at bay. The rule says essentially that if something takes two minutes or less to action, just do it now instead of putting it off. I use it to put things away, take care of small actions like online reservations or paying a bill or even for reaching out to a friend with a question.

Over time, I’ve learned that saying ‘Carrie, two-minute rule’ when I notice something that applies is really effective in moving to action to get the thing done. It works like a trigger!Here’s a specific example. I retrieve the pile of mail from our box and am rifling through it when I come across the garbage bill. It only comes every other month and is the only one of our utility bills that still comes in the mail. Instead of setting it aside as a visual reminder to do it later, I say ‘Carrie, two-minute rule’ to remind myself to just take the two minutes to pay it now. Now it’s one less thing to do later and one less thing sitting on my kitchen counter!

Bossing up to your feelings

The practice of self-talk is well-researched and grounded in neuro-science. Using it in decluttering is win-win. Sure it feels weird at first, but the more you do it, the less weird it feels. Plus y’all, we’re in midlife now and I don’t know about you but I care a lot less about doing weird things!

The words spoken out loud are ultimately more powerful than the feelings swirling in your head. Use them to get yourself past the emotional obstacles of decluttering and build momentum as you go instead of stalling out. You’ll be amazed at what an effective coach you can be to yourself!

The post Decluttering With Self Talk: The Awkward Trick That Works 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.