Stay Motivated to Declutter When Overwhelmed
You want a clutter-free home, and you start by getting rid of a few things. Then you look around, and it seems like there is still so much to do. You quickly get overwhelmed, and all your progress stalls. Here is how you can stay motivated to declutter your house when overwhelmed.
Does this sound familiar?
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Here are some strategies for staying motivated to declutter when you feel overwhelmed. You can do this!
1. Identify why you want to declutter and write it down
One of the first things you want to do in your decluttering is identify why you want to do this. Why do you care about getting rid of your clutter? A strong why will connect you to this project. Write out all the reasons you can think of, not just the first thing that comes to mind.
- You have too much stuff, which makes it hard to put things away and keep a clean home.
- You are planning to move to a new address in the future and want to move with fewer boxes.
- You want more space instead of having piles everywhere.
- You want less stress and more focus while you are at home, but the current state of your entire home is distracting.
- You want your whole house (including the basement) to match your current stage of life, not each of the ones you’ve transitioned through in the last fifteen years.
- Or maybe you have been watching those YouTube videos and admiring how a lot of people have taken control of their clutter.
Whatever your reasons, write them down so you can refer back to them and understand why it is important to you to keep going. This is HOW you stay motivated to declutter and prevent feeling overwhelmed.
If you can envision your end goal for how your home will look or feel, include that on your list as well. It can be as simple as most flat surfaces are cleared off and I feel relaxed when I am at home. Feel free to update this along the way as you think of other aspects you want to include.
2. Start small
Pick one small area as a starting point. It could be your bathroom vanity, your coffee table or a cluttered surface in your kitchen.
Take a before photo and declutter this small space. Some things you will keep, but there are likely unwanted items you can trash, donate/sell, or even rehome if this is really not where these things belong.
Then, take an after photo. These photos are for you; no one else has to see them if you don’t want to share. Look at the two photos and notice what a difference you’ve made to this one space. You might be surprised how fast you forget what it looked like before; your brain will quickly adjust to the new look.
Those photos can be a great confidence boost when your motivation is low, and you need a reminder that your hard work is paying off. You can do this!
3. Set a timer
This is a great way to fit a decluttering session into your daily routine and make positive changes that will last.
Maybe you have 10 minutes per day to dedicate to your decluttering process. You can pop in your ear-buds and listen to your favourite podcast or music while you work on it for ten minutes. If you can commit to 10 minutes every day, that’s 70 minutes in one week or 300 minutes or 5 hours in a month! The minutes add up.
In those ten minutes, declutter in one specific space, like your front closet or your junk drawer. The point is to do what you can in those ten minutes (or five minutes or fifteen minutes). The exact number doesn’t matter. It’s about committing to that same number of minutes every single day.
4. Consider habit stacking
In James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, he talks about linking the new habit you want to form to something you already are doing. This is a great hack to avoid overwhelmed, stay motivated and get that home decluttered!
For example, if your daily habit is to have breakfast and start the dishwasher, then maybe you stack your ten minutes of decluttering after that. Have breakfast, then start the dishwasher, then do your decluttering. This helps you create good habits by associating the task with another habit instead of a time of day. This way, if you get up later a couple of days a week, you can still follow the same routine.
5. Recognize when you find momentum
Some days will go better than others. Some days you will do your ten minutes and move onto errands and picking up your kids from school and the hundreds other demands in your life. But there are those magical days when you will have more time and you will find yourself decluttering for way longer than you had expected.
Really, these days do happen!
When they do, be open to spending an extra few minutes and getting a little bit more done. You want to respect the ebbs and flows of your energy. Your energy can change from season to season. That doesn’t mean you have to completely stop working on your home.
6. Break it down into small areas
When the project is too big – like decluttering the entire house – that can trigger self-doubt, anxiety and other dark feelings. This is how overwhelm sets in, making decluttering hard and stopping your motivation. No one wants that. Break it down into smaller tasks that are more manageable and less intimidating.
If you need to declutter your kitchen, don’t think of it as I need to declutter the whole kitchen. How about you need to declutter the drawers or even the silverware drawer if that fits better in your time budget. The upper cabinets, the lower cabinets and the pantry are tasks for another day. Approach is as a series of smaller, achievable goals. One small step at a time will get you there!
If all you have the capacity to do today is throwing the junk mail in the recycling bin or letting go of one thing, then do that. It’s a quick win and a step in the right direction. Sometimes our mental health or physical health is limited. Focus on what you can do instead of beating yourself up over not living up to some unrealistic expectation that doesn’t match your life.
7. Celebrate the wins as they happen!
A successful decluttering session feels good. Celebrate the wins as you cross things off your to-do list. When you finish the pantry, sit down with a cup of your favourite tea or maybe escape to a quiet space in your home to read for twenty minutes. You know the best thing to do for your small reward!
Self care is important. You are making a lot of decisions as you declutter and that can be exhausting. (The good news is that you will get stronger as you do more decluttering.) Think of these little celebrations as a bit of recharging!
8. Set aside time on your calendar to deliver donations It’s not fully decluttered until it leaves your home.
Some charities offer curbside pickup, like Community Living or the Diabetes Clothesline program in Canada. Check to see what is available in your area and schedule a pickup (or a monthly pickup!) if this is something that appeals to you
If you have to take your donations to a thrift store or a donation center, pick a date and add it to your calendar in your phone or your planner. Make this a non-negotiable job, whether you go on Saturday, once a month or after a regular appointment (I go on the day that I get my nails done, because it is in the same area)
If your preference is to sell your decluttered items, then put them into a cardboard box near your decluttering spot and write your sell-by date on the side. Give yourself whatever amount of time you feel is appropriate, but after that amount of time, if it’s still there, let it go. Take it with your donations. This is about making it a priority to get unwanted items out of your home!
When you see that donation spot is empty and trash bags are taken away, it’s a great feeling. You will hardly remember what you had there before. (For real!)
9. Talk to your family members about this decluttering project
Your family might be overwhelmed too, when you say you’re motivated to declutter. You can’t declutter other people’s possessions, but you can talk to them about the benefits of decluttering and how it makes you feel. This reinforces the value of the project to yourself. They may be having similar feelings, but haven’t identified them or didn’t know how to take action to improve things.
Make sure they know where the donation pile is. Yes, they might not be ready to join you in decluttering, but get the ball rolling. Some of them may think about what you are doing and, when they are ready to learn, they know you’ll be there to answer their questions.
And when your teen wants to put something in that donation pile, let them. Respect their decision and allow them to let go of what is not useful to them anymore. Nothing will discourage them more from their own decluttering journey than taking away their sense of control. (Obviously, if it’s something of high value that needs to be sold instead, have that discussion.)
10. Engage with Friends for Support (including online friends)
Whether it’s your friend down the street or your friends online, reach out for support and share your best decluttering tips and challenges. Sometimes talking it out with a friend can help you make a decision or let go of the stress you were feeling in the first place.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, you can come talk with us in the Minimalist Home group on Facebook or join the Tidy Mighty Club. Someone else is feeling the same overwhelming feelings you are and others have found their peace of mind from doing the work, but can still remember being in that spot where you are right now
You could ask a friend to join you in a challenge, like the 30-Day Declutter Challenge where you both work on your own homes. This gives you a time limit of 30 days; each day, you declutter the number of things that match the day. Day 1 is one thing. Day 2 is 2 things. Day 22 is 22 things. Alternately you could do it backwards and start with 30 items on day one and decrease each day by one.
By tracking what you’ve decluttered, you can build your sense of accomplishment as you see how much you’ve done. Having someone doing the same work as you gives both of you accountability to try to stay on track.
11. Leave your sentimental items for last
Have you ever been looking for one thing, you get distracted by the nostalgia of something else you come across and suddenly you’ve spent too much time in your memories? That’s partly why we don’t start with the sentimental stuff. You can spend your whole ten minutes (or fifteen or whatever limit you set) looking through things and not making any decisions.
The other reason to leave this until last is that your decision-making muscles will be much stronger and you will have a much clearer vision of how decluttering works. The mindset shifts that accompany decluttering are subtle, but you might want a simple life by this point and feel differently about what you think is valuable and worth keeping. You might be more selective about what you want to give precious storage space to.
The best way to stay motivated without getting overwhelmed is to get started and keep chipping away at it a little bit at a time. It doesn’t need to be a big, exhausting marathon where you have good intentions and run out of steam with the second cup of coffee that got cold.
So, go get started!
Your simpler life awaits!
