Too Much Stuff? How to Start Decluttering Without Burning Out

Feeling buried under clutter and not sure where to begin? You’re not alone. In this episode of Let’s Talk About Clutter, Margo shares a simple and encouraging approach to help beginners take the first step without feeling overwhelmed or burned out. Whether you've tried before and failed, or you’re just too paralyzed to even begin, this episode is your gentle nudge forward.

💛 This one’s for anyone who feels stuck, overwhelmed, or completely unsure how to start—but wants real, doable change.

🎧 Tune in now and discover a better way to declutter—without the pressure or perfection.

Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Let's Talk About Clutter. I'm your host, Margot Staten, a professional organizer specializing in chronic clutter. How would you feel if you could finally overcome procrastination and overwhelm and start working towards a clutter-free home? If you feel stuck, almost paralyzed at the thought of decluttering, today's podcast is for you. Let's jump into three simple steps to get you started as a decluttering beginner. Step one, choose a small project. What's more manageable? An entire room or a shelf? You're probably thinking to yourself, Margo, definitely the shelf. So my question to you is, why are you focusing on an entire room? The key to getting started is to think small. When we have a lot of clutter in our homes, it can feel like a huge undertaking. And that's the problem. We're taking in our entire home, trying to make sense of where and how to start. Who wouldn't be overwhelmed? If you are a decluttering beginner, doing it that way will freeze you dead in your tracks. And because your mind is essentially there to protect you from the unpleasant, what can be more unpleasant than committing to a never-ending project? Let me put it another way. Imagine for a second that you want to run a 10K marathon, which is, I believe, a little bit over six miles. Now you've never run a day in your life unless you count trying to chase the bus you're about to miss, or that time a bee chased you at the beach. I seriously doubt having no running experience, you're going to go straight into a marathon. My guess is you might try first to buy some running shoes. Start by running on a treadmill, then maybe running in your neighborhood, maybe a park with your dog. Over months, increasing your distance while you're also making some much-needed lifestyle changes. You probably will need to quit smoking. You will take small steps every day to eventually achieve your monumental goal. Decluttering is no different. So start small. Choose a shelf, a drawer, or even just a handful of beauty products or a pile of socks. Decluttering is a mental muscle that you have to build. It is a new habit, just like many of the new habits you've already built in your life. Learning to drive, cooking meals, doing a job, blow drying your hair, heck, even brushing your teeth and walking. You've learned hundreds of new skills across your lifetime. And decluttering is just a new one among so many future ones you have yet to learn. When I started my decluttering journey, I didn't tackle my entire closet, and boy, was it overflowing. I was a compulsive clothing shopper, turned wardrobe minimalist. But this did not happen overnight. It happened with one t-shirt, one pair of pumps at a time across a few years. So right now, choose a small project in your home, put on some music, and get started. I promise that if you just focus on a small win, the motivation, the momentum will come as you start to see progress. Small wins lead to big results. By the way, I host a free live decluttering plan workshop every other week on Zoom where I teach you the art of creating a decluttering plan and how to get started without feeling overwhelmed. I'll leave a link to more information in the show notes. Let's move on to tip number two. Set days and times, and most importantly, set those alarms. A huge mistake I see beginners make once they get started is overcommitting to how long they will declutter. I have new clients trying to tell me I will declutter eight hours a week, and I giggle every time they say that. Although I must admit, I've had close to 100 clients by now, and one of them did commit to and stick with 10 hours a week. I call that atomic decluttering. Anyhow, for the rest of us humans, especially if you're just starting out, let's go with 15 to 20 minutes, two to three times a week. Choose a few days of the week where you can prioritize decluttering, set an alarm for 15 minutes, and declutter a small area. If the alarm goes off and you are mad hype to keep going, fantastic. Extra time is bonus time. Our brains enjoy meeting goal. That's where motivation comes from. If you are someone who makes two-do lists at home or work, think of how good it will feel when you cross things off the list. Decluttering works the same exact way. If you set a goal for an hour a day but can only do 20 minutes, three days, you will inevitably stop and feel like a failure. Think of the New Year's resolutions you made when you were gonna hit up the gym five days a week. Maybe you went for like two weeks, realized January weather really sucks, cut it down to two days, and eventually just stopped going completely. Let's move on to step three decluttering for beginners. If you are new at this, this one is a must and works incredibly well. Set little rewards for yourself to keep you motivated to complete a project from start to finish. See, our brains are wired to seek out rewards. It's like they're little pleasure-centered seeking missiles, constantly on the lookout for anything that'll give us that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. And when we pair rewards with decluttering tasks, something magical happens. Think about it this way: you set a goal to tackle that overflowing closet of yours. It's overwhelming to say the least. But then you promise yourself a little treat once you're done, or preferably a big treat, because tackling an entire closet is huge. I would actually go as far as recommending that you set a little reward for every small win. So if you are tackling your entire closet, or rather, if you want to complete a closet from start to finish, my hope is that you're tackling one small section, one drawer, one shelf at a time. So especially if you're brand new to this, why don't you go ahead and set a little reward for every decluttering session? So maybe you went through like 10 pairs of jeans within 15 minutes because you had to try them on as well. Give yourself a little reward. Maybe pause, make yourself a frappe, right? Maybe you completed multiple drawers and you went beyond the 20 or 30 minutes that you set for yourself. I don't know, take yourself out to lunch or give yourself that 30 minutes to sit and read a book. Rewards are one of the best ways to help us build a new habit, such as decluttering. And what happens is that suddenly your desire to procrastinate is not as prevalent. You've got something to look forward to each and every time. A light at the end of a clutter-filled tunnel. The key when it comes to rewards is finding rewards that resonate with you personally. Whether it's a small indulgence or a large splurge, the most important thing is that it brings you joy and reinforces your hard work. I would caution you against setting some kind of overly simplistic reward that you quite frankly don't care for and could do for yourself at any given time, right? That's not really a reward. Like you want to have that feeling where you're like, you know what, that day where your alarm goes off, it's like Tuesday evening, and you're like, I have to do 15 minutes decluttering a stack of papers, and there's that little voice inside of your head that's going, absolutely not. I don't want to do this, right? But then the other side, right, goes, but the reward is, you know, catching up on that show on Netflix. And you're like, you know what? Yes, yes, I'm gonna do it. I'm going to do it. So rewards have to resonate with you and it has to make sense. They have to be things that you are actually looking forward to. And the more that you do this, the more you build the habit of decluttering, to be honest with you, the less you will actually need rewards as motivation, unless it's like a huge project that we just naturally procrastinate. And here is a little bonus tip for you. So, this is actually a fun little game that I used to love to do, especially when I first started out decluttering, and I literally had to declutter my entire house. It was a nightmare. I stuck with it though. Um, and this helped me with my decision fatigue and procrastination and actually made decluttering fun. Okay, here's what you do. Humor me. And by the way, this is a great thing to do if you have kids. To do this with your children is super fun. I used to do this with my daughter as well. Um, and as some of you might know, my daughter's now nine years old and declutters on her own all the time. Hashtag proud mama, just saying. Okay, so you're gonna take a jar, and on several pieces of paper, you're gonna write down a small decluttering task. At the back of each task, you're going to write down a reward. Then you're gonna essentially put all those pieces of paper into the jar, you're gonna shake up the jar, you're gonna close your eyes, and you're going to pick one. Then you're gonna set 15 minutes on the clock and declutter away. And after you've completed that little decluttering thing, you get the reward. And this is why kids absolutely love it. So I hope you found these three decluttering tips for beginners helpful. As always, good luck on your decluttering journey. Thank you for listening, and remember to be good to yourself.