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Speaker 1: Hello, guys. It's Steph here, Steph the Mess, and I'm taking a little break this week. I am just enjoying some family time and I think I had too much fun out of health retreat because I've come back with a bit of a cold, so that's fun, and of course I've decided to share with the family. So what I thought I would do is take you back to a few popular episodes in Stepping Up, and this one is very, very needed. This is all about de cluttering. This is like my best deck cluttering framework and hacks and tips one oh one. So we've done the heavy lifting for you and this is everything that you need to really just like cull and reset, especially at this time of year when I feel like everything gets a little bit hot and heavy and not in the way that we want. So I want to stop yapping and first STARp it's three steps from chaos to clarity. Now, let's talk about organizing your home. This can be such an overwhelming thought and a lot of us don't even start because when you think of the house, it is huge. It's a whole house, and we don't all get you know, Marie Condo popping in with the whole team to do a Netflix show where they fix your house up in a day. You know, we have priorities, jobs, kids, things to do, and we can't possibly overhaul our whole house in a day. And I think we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do that, to think we need to click our fingers and the whole house needs to be perfect. And look, guys, as you know, I am known for my organization. You guys call it stephing. And I can tell you now even my house isn't fully staffed or organized because we are humans and things happen in life, and that is okay. One big thing I always preach is when you think of organization, I don't want you to think of the whole house. I don't want you to think of the big picture. I want you to think of that draw, that bench, that surface, and that's how you're going to conduct it. But one huge mistake a lot of people make when organizing is they go out and buy all these tubs and containers before they even know what they're going to do with it. And then they get home and they realize they've got so much mess and clutter that they need to cull it. It really is quite simple. Clutter eagles mess. So the less stuff you have, the less mess you're going to get. And yes, the house is still going to get messy every day. It needs to be lived in. People have children, have pets, have ryan's. But it's all about having a routine and it's all about upkeep. I always say organization is like fitness. You know, you don't decide one day, okay, I want to get fit. You go to the gym for a few months, and then you finally do get to a level of fitness you're happy with, and then you stop and you stop going to the gym, stop eating healthy. You can't do that because your fitness won't be upkept. So it's the same with organization. You can't just organize your house one day and think it's going to stay that way. No, because unless you kick out all the people in your house, it's not going to happen. It's something that needs to become part of your daily routine and rituals, and that is going to upkeep and maintain the organization of your house. So when I organize any space, there's always three steps you want to do. The first one is cull So this is obviously decluttering. And again, you don't have to do the whole house. I'm saying do a space at a time, So spend five to ten minutes per day on a small space, start with the junk draw and cull that area. Now, I know decluttering can be really hard, and I will be doing a full episode on decluttering as well later on, but it is necessary to do that. I've actually got a free resource for you guys. It's been out for a very long time and it's probably one of my most downloaded resources, over like hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded. It's called My Declutter Challenge. It's thirty days and basically it's a small task I set for you every day. So I will link it in the show notes below, and it is really really helpful for you just to break up the house. So let me know if you guys do that, because it is really really helpful. So let's say you're going to tackle the junk draw, so open it up, take everything out, and then you're going to sort it into categories. So the categories you use are going to depend on your space and your lifestyle. For example, if you're doing categories for your pantry, it's going to be things like oils and vinegars, spreads, cooking, baking, meal, kits, snacks, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas if you do it for your linen closet, it could be things like flat sheets, fitted sheets, dinner covers, cushion covers, et cetera. So you're going to put it into categories. So if something like the junk drawer, it could be things like keys, coins, gift cards, things like that. And yes, it does get worse before it gets better. You know when you like decluttering your pantry or something and you're like half an hour in and then you look around You're like, oh my god, what do I start this because there's shit everywhere. Just remember it gets worse before it gets better. So once you've done your categories, now you want to contain slash storage, so you want to find storage for it. So yes, but this is where you can measure up your space and then you can go buy storage. But you don't have to buy storage. Guys, look around your house for things like baskets, tubs, containers that you've already got and you can use that. So things for like your junk draw I love using a cutlery Cuddy because it separates everything in the drawer and look, it becomes organized chaos over time. But again it's about the upkeep. So those three steps are going to be your holy grail to organizing any space in your house cold, categorized, storage or contain. Now, the next step is upkeep, and this is all about your daily routine to keep it organized and keep the clutter at bay. So for me, my biggest thing is doing things like my AM and PM non negotiable. So these are things I have to do morning and night to keep the house under order. Now, look, if we've got a busy period just recently, I've just gotten back from traveling and I'm busy recording all these podcasts, I have an unpatched look. Life happens. And this isn't about being perfect, Guys. Everything I share on my podcast is not about being perfect whatsoever. I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. It's just about not feeling like a slave to your home and your life. And that is all I'm here to do to help you with. So my AM routine consists of a few different categories. Can you tell I love category? So we've got my health aspect, which is things like journaling, meditation, all the things, but we also have the organization part of it. So in the am, I'm doing things like getting the kids ready for school, looking at the day ahead for the work week, trying to get myself sorted to get out the door. So some non negotiables for me is unstacking the dishwasher, popping them away, cleaning up the kids breakfast, cleaning up any toys, or getting them to help, which is a big thing, getting the kids to help me put their toys away in the morning, wiping down the benches, and then checking my planner for the day ahead, which I also do the night before, but I have the memory of a goldfish, so I also need to do it in the morning, so I'll check my planner make sure no plans have changed. I also, just because I run a business, I jump on emails and make sure no one's canceled any meetings and things like that. So that is an example of my AM routine because that means when I get home after work or when I get back from dropping the kids off, the houses in order and I'm not spending the time I'm meant to be doing other tasks cleaning up after everybody. Now, my PM non negotiables is always one that will struggle with because you just don't feel like cleaning up at the end of the day. And I get it, I really do. But my biggest hack for that is set a timer for ten to fifteen minutes, just to ten. And if you anything like me, you're gonna want to beat the time and a cleanup because it becomes a challenge. So what you do is you set your timer and you're like, Okay, I'm going to get this house sorted and then I can go to bed, or then I can binge some true crime on Netflix. So set your timer, and for me, I do things like spot, vacuum, dishwasher, clean up toys, tidy up the lound room, wipe the benches, check my planner, and then I can go to bed. And it honestly really does help. So these AM and PM non negotiable routines are going to help you with the day to day the business of life. And then when it comes to the ongoing decluttering of your home, this is when you just spend five minutes per day. If you see a bench or a draw start to get cluttered again, you just get stuck into it. It honestly will take you a couple of minutes. Again, set a timer if you have to, but this will become a habit, just like brushing your teeth, And for me now, just like going to the gym, I don't even think about it. I just go. Another thing that really really helps is having a cleaning routine. And I feel like a lot of us spend all the weekend just cleaning for the week ahead, and you don't want to be spending your Saturday and Sunday deep cleaning the bathroom, doing all the things. So what's really good and what's helped me over the years is having zones. So for example, I will clean one part of the house per day. And look, this has changed a lot for me over the years. Now I can't afford a cleaner to help me with the deep cleaning as well, and I just keep on top of the maintenance. So if you are able to outsource that help and get a cleaner, one hundred percent, do it. But you still need to upkeep anyway during the week. So for me, for example, Mondays could be kitchen, Tuesday's bedrooms, Wednesday's lounge room, Thursday's entry away, and laundry etc. Etc. So break it up and I have, of course a staff pace planner cleaning magnet you can chuck on your fridge, and this is so important. But getting your partner on board so you don't feel like you have to nag them all the time. Last thing I want to do is have to nag Ryan and be like, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? So if I've written it on the cleaning magnet, he can see it. And yes, I do have to remind him it's on the cleaning magnet, but at least it's there, and at least I know what needs to be done and we can tag team it. That was three steps from chaos to clarity. Now we're tackling one of the biggest decluttering challenges of all, which is how to de clutter when you don't want to let go. I honestly feel this because I still have a lot of random jerseys from high school. So you're going through your shit, You're going through all the stuff in your room or wherever you're looking, and you just don't know if you should keep something or not. Now, these are the key questions that I ask myself for everything I go through and these help me determine the answer. So the questions are, if I saw this in a store, would I buy it? Think about our taste, change, our styles, change, even just normal household items. If you saw it in a store, would you buy it? And if the answer is no, get rid of it, donate it, sell it whatever. The next question is have I used this in the last six months? Now. I know this can be a bit difficult because everyone thinks, oh, you never know that bloody cake mixer I haven't used for five years. I might need to make a cake one day. Oh you're not going to You're going to go to Woolies and you're going to go buy that really nice mud cake they sell and you're going to use that. Okay, So if you haven't used it, get rid of it now. I know with clothes it's more like seasonal. So with that I like to say every six to eight months. And then with me because where we live it doesn't really get super cold, so I do keep one really big puffer jacket, but everything else I don't need a lot of things for that. So just be honest with yourself. Now, the next question is does this add value to my life or not? If it doesn't, then it's clutter. So if that fifth batchela doesn't give value to your life, it's clutter, all right. Obviously we need things like spoons and knives and forks, but you don't need all this excess of stuff. We just always have such an excess. Honestly, I cannot tell you how much easier it is when you have less stuff. Again, it's less cleaning. Now. The next question is there somebody in my life that would get more use out of this than me? So, for example, my cousin, she just moved out, she moved into a new home. That fifthspatula she could probably use that. I'll give it to her. I don't need five done. And the last thing, if you're just really not sure, if it's not a yes, like straightaway yes, then it's a no. Now I want to move on to more of the emotional stuff because those questions don't especially apply to things that are a bit more emotional, things that maybe we're given to you as a gift. The kids drawing things like that, the kids could literally I remember when the kids started drawing and they draw like a line on a piece of paper, and I was like, oh my god, she's Percasso like. But you can't keep everything. But there is a way that we can do things a bit differently, so you can keep it, but you're not really keeping it. So I want to get into that now. Now this is really about being smart, so I want you to look into your storage situation. Firstly, this depends on how your home is, how much space you have. We'll start with the kids' artwork as an example. Kids art work. Every day I get like twenty pieces of art, especially Willow. She loves drawing. It's so cute. So I had to have tubs for the girls. They're the suspension file holders. I'll make sure I link a blog or something below for you guys who can see, and then I have them labeled for like daycare, the year, kindy, one, two, three, bah blah blah blah. So that was working really well. Now if your kid is like Willow and does a lot of art, and you don't really have space for a couple of tubs because those tubs generally that will probably become at least two or three, then some other option is you can scan them and keep digital copies of them, so you've got them digitally. You can make them into a photo book. There's all these photo books that you guys see. You guys know, if you've been following me for a while, I use chat books for our photo albums. I know. There's so many different brands' is like Once upon a Time and things like that. People will literally scan them and make them into photo books, which is such a good idea. Some people will scan them and then make them into artwork, like brands that will make them into a piece of art on the wall. There's so many things you can do with it. So those are some options that also can be if you get a lot of letters, any of those types of things. Again, it is always just a good idea to keep things digital as well in case like something ever happens. It's just a good idea to scan things. So I've got a letter from my nand which I literally have in a frame and it's so important to me, and I scan it and have that on my computer just in case. Now, I want you to think, if it is a gift from someone, it obviously depends on the situation, but just don't feel obligated to keep it because it's a gift. At the end of the day, if you're not going to see it, and it depends what it is. Again, everything's different. You can always take a photo of it and keep it like that, so you've always got a memory of it, But just don't feel obligated because it's a gift. Because all of the time people keep things because of guilt. You feel guilty. That's why we don't get rid of things because you feel guilty or it's attached to a memory. So that leads on to my next point, that is, remember that these are things, not memories. Now, if it's like a hairloom or something really special from like your Nan or whatever, of course keep it's really precious. You put it in like a cabinet, But just remember not every like just because you're getting rid of it, doesn't mean you're getting rid of that memory. That memory is with you forever. You know. I'm sure you have photos of that event all that time, and it is an item, it's not the memory itself. Now, some options you can do again is like I said, take photos of the items, or if there's a lot of them, like if there's multiple items, keep one thing from that event or whatever. So like for me when Nan passed away, I did get a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of stuff we had to share around, so I took photos of them so I've got them in my heart, you know. And now weird things like baby clothes, you could do something like for me, I have a thing with baby clothes. I can't up myself. I know some people get their first outfit framed. That'd be super cute. Another thing you can do is get a vacuum bag. Let's be honest. Look, I do this, but the only time I'll probably over open them again is if they're really old, like the kids is like pro teenagers, and I just want to bring them out, but I probably will never open them unless my friends have babies. But these are the items from them that really does spark that memory. So I just kept one thing, so I tried to really reduce it and then I kept it in a vacuum bag, which really seals it up. If you guys want a full episode on like storage hacks and things like that, let me know because I have so much storage hacks I can give you that will really really help. Now I want to recap that really fast to do with the emotional stuff, So number one, look into your storage situation, because that's going to determine how much you can keep. Number two, store things digitally if you can, or think outside the box, get them made into a book, artwork, things like that. The next point is, if it's a gift from someone, don't feel obligated to keep it. It's up to you. You'll know what's right, not even right, You'll just know what's right for you. And just remember that these are things, they're not memories themselves. Take photos of the item so you don't have to actually keep the item. And if you have multiple things, then just choose one thing. Now. The biggest trick with decluttering that you've listened to this episode, you like, I want to do this when I did clutter. Focus on your emotional items first because they're hard. But the biggest thing you need to do is make sure you upkeep it. You can't do clutter ones and it stays that way. Does not work like that. You have to keep at it every day. It's like cleaning the house. It's like fitness, like I always say, you can't get fit, and then you sit on the couch forever and then you're done. Now it doesn't work like that. Love, Sorry, you got to keep going. So every day, any space in your home that you start to see gets cluttered, spend like a couple of minutes just fixing it up. So for us at the moment, we've always found that the junk draw At the moment, we have a junk tub because we don't have enough drawls in this house. We have like a bit of a basket I bought from Amazon. I have to go to that every three weeks because it gets so full. Kids' bedroom once a week because Willow brings home all this random shit. It's all about the upkeep. So every day literally, if you can just spend five minutes a day, it's going to really really help. And also just being really mindful of what you're bringing into the house. I like to have a rule if you're bringing something in, get rid of something now, don't forget to use the Golden Red source, which is the thirty Day de Clutter Challenge. I'll link it below because that will change your life and make it so much easier for you. It is honestly just something that's like really good to go off. Something you can do every day and tick it off as you go, and then your house will be done. You're listening to the best hacks and tips of my decluttering episodes, and we looked at how to create clarity and how to let go of the things holding us back. Now, let's finish with some practical tips from eight hacks to keep a tidy home and stay sane. So the first tip or rule that you want to do to upkeep your home is don't put it down, put it away. And now don't want to roll your eyes with this, because I'm sure you've heard of it before, but this is something that when I'm really exercising this rule, the house is so much cleaner. Now. Some examples of don't put it down, put it away is when you get home and you take your jacket off or your jump up, don't check it on the bed, hang it up, or usually wear again. Hook. Yeah, you wear again. Hook is the best. If you guys don't know what it is, it's basically command hook. And this is the hook for clothes that are too clean to gone the wash, but too dirty to go back in your wardrobe and you know you're going to wear them again. Why it's called a ware again hook. Perfect for work uniforms, stuff of the kids. Just use a wear again. Hook. You know the moment where you look at a surface or an area, it could be kid's bedroom floor, and you look at it and you're like shit, like I just don't want to do this. It's too much and it just feels like so much effort. But when you do do it, it takes not long at all. That is because when you are looking at all of the items. You know I said before, all the items in the house are like coming together for a meeting, and they're from all over the house. The reason why you get so overwhelmed and feel like you can't start it is because not only does your brain have to do the executive function of starting the task, it has to look at every single item that's in front of you figure out what it is, what does it do, and where does it go? Which is going to lead me on to my next point. And I know I don't have to say this twice, but clutter equals mess equals more cleaning for you. So this is also where doing a daily decluttering practice comes into play. And now when I say that, I don't mean I want you to pull out everything in a drawer or like take a section each day, which you definitely can. And as I always say, when you're decluttering, I do not want you to think of the whole house. It's like what they say about the staircase. You don't want to think of the whole staircase. You want to think of the first step. It's the same as when you declutter your home. And I will link my decluttering challenge below. That is a great way to get started. But what I mean about doing a daily decluttering is, for example, I get home from work or from the gym and I see there's a couple of toys chucked in the back, there's a bit of rubbish shoved in like the cup holders. I will just grab that. Stuff goes in the bin, stuff goes where it lives. And it's just doing these like little daily tidy ups as you go. And this will kind of go into my next point. But if you see a surface or a draw that has a little bit too much stuff, or you know, like half of this stuff's just junk, just quickly do it. It'll take you two seconds. So once you get into the practice of that, and then you can be a bit more intentional by doing like decluttering sessions where you literally spend fifteen minutes on one area, you'll be so surprised what you can do in fifteen minutes. Honestly, So, when everything has a home, not only does your brain have to work less hard and try to solve the problem, it helps you find things quickly and everyone in your family also knows where things go. How many times does your partner not know where to put shit? Like mate, you live here too, So once everything has its home and everyone becomes aware of that, you can actually help each other. Now you're probably asking, Okay, that's all well and good, stuffy, I'll do my decluttering every day, but how do I actually organize everything into a home. Before you organize any space, you do want to do a cull. It's like a draw. So say, if you've got a drawer and you've got like pens and pencils and all this stuff, and it's really messy and there's rubbish in there. Are you going to try and put tubs in that and organize the mess or are you going to get rid of the mess and then see what's left, categorize it and then put your storage in Literally the process cull, categorize, contain. Now, if you're someone who really struggles to look at a space and organize it. I kind of want you to think of your room or home as zones. So you know, you've got your entryway zone. So when you come in the door, you've got space by the door, maybe you have a bin for shoes. You walk through and you think about what you're doing. So you've got keys, you've got your phone, and now you want to think about Okay, so how am I going to stare this? So you want to start designating zones for practicality. That's where things like my drop off zone comes in. So a drop off zone is basically storage. I've set up near the door where we chuck our shoes. You can chuck your bag, you put your keys in there, and you like those coins and mail, they all have a place and we all know where to put them, and you also know where to find them. And then you can really break it down into specific shelves or drawers or containers that you keep all your tech charges. So we have a million phone charges and things. I don't know why. I have this big plastic ikea container that's divided into a fair few sections. Then I organize the cables into sections by what type of charger. They are even down to having a certain spot in the kitchen in the cupboard for anything the kids need for school lunches, whether that's the lunch box themselves, the lunch cooler bag, the insulated cup for breaks. Everything goes in the once spot. Now you may not have a lot of storage, so this is where you really want to be utilizing vertical space as well. I've done this so much in the unit here I get over the door hangers that have organized on them, even under the bed storage, which is really good for like you know, your seasonal close, extra toys for the kids, things like that, but just really like think outside the box. You can use the door organizers to store your shoes. We use the kids door organizer for school shorts, certain items that they were losing all the time. It's because I know they're up off the floor and they're like literally as they go to walk out the door, they write there because every day I bought them these little shorts to wear under their school dresses, and they'd always lose them. And since I've put them there, no problems. It's all about just trying to think of like a solution. Another thing that can really help with decluttering is having the one in, one out rule, so every time something comes in the house, something needs to go and that just really helps with yes, stopping the accumulation of stuff that gets brought into the house every single day at Bay. Now, the next thing, which we all know is from the OG steph days, is having a daily and weekly cleaning routine. Again, I don't enjoy cleaning. I don't really know who does enjoy cleaning. Maybe on the rare occasion when there's not too much clutter around, it's okay you need to listen to a podcast, But it's not my favorite thing to do in the planet. But coming up with cleaning schedules is my jam. I love it and mine has changed a lot over the years. Now I'm able to outsource the cleaner just to come in and do the deep cleaning, which is one of the tips I'll give you soon. But I have to say here at the unit, it is much much faster to clean. It's very quick, and it's one of the great things about having a small space is how quickly you can clean up. But as I said, as your lives and lifestyles change and your you know, routines change, so does this cleaning schedule. You can't always just expect yourself to do the same thing throughout your whole life. I know people probably hear the word cleaning schedule and they roll their eyes. They're like, oh God, it sounds horrible, and they're like, oh, you know, I work full time, blah blah blah. But I'll tell you, once you start doing a cleaning schedule, because you're cleaning certain areas on a consistent basis, the cleaning gets cut in half even more so, and you get quicker at it. When I'm consistent with my cleaning schedule, my weekend cleaning is courted at least because the thing is the reason why I started doing this too, is because I want to be with my family. I don't want to my whole bloody weekend cleaning the house with Ryan. We want to be with our kids. And it's important that you do get your partner to share the load. And I know that can't be the same for everybody, And I very much acknowledge there's single parents, there's people that with fly in and fly out, there's people out there with health issues one hundred percent. But I'm saying, if you have anyone in your household that you can get to support you with cleaning. Please do because you deserve to be helped. Now, I want you to think of a cleaning schedule like keeping your email inbox organized. Imagine during the day you're receiving all these emails. If you take ten minutes once a day or twice a day at certain times, that allows you to read, reply, delete, do whatever you need to each email as they come, then your inbox stays half manageable, and you can also find really important messages easily. Now I want you to think if you don't do that, and you leave your inbox for say a week or even a month, Imagine coming in and then having to go through all of those emails that have come in, that would be so overwhelming and that would take you hours. You would most likely put it off as long as you possibly can, until you get in trouble or fired. It's because of the sheer volume of what you have to deal with, and having a cleaning schedule works is the same way as checking your emails twice a day. Literally, I have an AM and a PM non negotiable routine. By having a certain routine in the morning and in the afternoon, that allows you to do what I did with the inbox. It allows you to get in there, sort the clutter that has come in throughout the day, get rid of the rubbish that's come in, and put things back to their homes. But if you leave it to even just the end of the day, or if you leave all of the cleaning of the house till the weekend, you're going to be way more overwhelmed and you're going to spend a lot more time doing it. Now, let's move into the weekly cleaning schedule again. I want you to designate your weekly cleaning schedule into zones, so you can do bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathrooms, entry, away, outdoor spaces. I want to give you an example of what ours is. So Monday's bedrooms, Tuesday is floors, so I have a full day just for floors, just because I can smop and vacuum, and I always will do a spot a vacuum at nighttime. Wednesday's kitchen, Thursday's bathroom, Friday is living areas. Saturday is laundry and meal reset, so meal prep and that type of stuff, and then Sunday is sheets and laundry and any outdoor areas. Because you know Ryan loves to do out and bloody water the grass for no reason. It's like a man thing I don't get. Now, to make this work and to actually stick to a cleaning schedule, you need to have it visible to the whole family and in a place where you guys are always there, So that's where the cleaning magnet comes in. You can also delegate zones per family member. So say, for example, you'd be like mondays, I'll do the bedrooms Tuesdays, you do the floors, and I get seeds on the magnet. If it doesn't work, you can wipe it out and change it so easy. And then on the magnet you've got your AMM your PM routines on there as well. Now, if you are someone that you just like, I can't even do zones. It's just too much. All I want you to do is spend twenty minutes a day cleaning. That's it. I don't want to even think about what you're going to clean or where you're going to clean. Just do twenty minutes a day. Now for me personally to do like the schedule way, because I feel like I take twenty minutes anyway. But at least it's kind of a reoccurring thing, because I know I'll forget to maybe do the outside area for a while and then I go out there and it's a shit show. So that's why I do promote having a cleaning schedule. But even if you do, just do twenty minutes and then you keep going until your house is a little bit more clean, a little bit more clean, and then over time it just gets quicker and quicker to clean. Now we have finally reached the part of the podcast that you've been waiting for, and this is the life altering hack that's going to change everything, literally change the game for you. I've mentioned it a million times. Clutter is just random objects from around the house that you need to tidy up. It's really blood annoying. So there's toys, there's remotes, there's that fourth bloody spatchuela that you're meant to throw out. It's just everything. They've all just kind of got together. And this is where I'm going to introduce to you the catch or basket. And this is where you have a basket in the main areas in your home. So for us, it's the living room and we have one upstairs, and then we have one on the stairs. You guys would already remember the upstairs basket. I've done that for years, and I did that in the old house, so I had a basket at the bottom of the stairs. Anything that had to go up, we'd go in the basket and we take it up at the end of the night. This is the same kind of vibe, but basically it is you're placing a basket in the main areas of your home. So throughout the day, when people are finished with things, or there's just things that do need to go away and they just can't be bothered, it gets put in the capture basket. You just chuck it on in there, and then at the end of each day you take it with you and you just put the stuff away and that's it. That's literally the hack. Well there's even like these stair baskets I saw, because if you guys up stairs, you know the bloody pain that it is of having to constantly put things on the stairs and then no one else in the family takes it up, and it drives me bloody bonkers. It still happens with the baskets, but basically you put everything on the stairs and then no one takes it up and then you're trying to like carry all of this shit and then you end up being like, oh, just take half, and then you won't make the trip back. And that is why having these baskets is really really helpful. Another tip for this hack is allocate a basket to certain family members or so to Ryan, you did the downstairs basket, or do the living room basket, and the kids can do the upstairs basket. Like, get the kids involved and it's going to make it so much easier. You can even make it a game, you know, you put some music on, put a timer on it, and people can see how quick they can empty their basket, you know what I mean, and just make it fun. But yes, the catch or basket is a game changer. It can be a laundry basket. You can get cute baskets from Kmart. All right, guys, that is it for this special decluttering best of Thanks for spending some time with me while I'm away. I hope these favorite moments have inspired you to clear a little space and create more calm. Are we back in your ears next Monday? And until then, take care and happy decluttering. Bye.
Speaker 1: Hello, guys. It's Steph here, Steph the Mess, and I'm taking a little break this week. I am just enjoying some family time and I think I had too much fun out of health retreat because I've come back with a bit of a cold, so that's fun, and of course I've decided to share with the family. So what I thought I would do is take you back to a few popular episodes in Stepping Up, and this one is very, very needed. This is all about de cluttering. This is like my best deck cluttering framework and hacks and tips one oh one. So we've done the heavy lifting for you and this is everything that you need to really just like cull and reset, especially at this time of year when I feel like everything gets a little bit hot and heavy and not in the way that we want. So I want to stop yapping and first STARp it's three steps from chaos to clarity. Now, let's talk about organizing your home. This can be such an overwhelming thought and a lot of us don't even start because when you think of the house, it is huge. It's a whole house, and we don't all get you know, Marie Condo popping in with the whole team to do a Netflix show where they fix your house up in a day. You know, we have priorities, jobs, kids, things to do, and we can't possibly overhaul our whole house in a day. And I think we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do that, to think we need to click our fingers and the whole house needs to be perfect. And look, guys, as you know, I am known for my organization. You guys call it stephing. And I can tell you now even my house isn't fully staffed or organized because we are humans and things happen in life, and that is okay. One big thing I always preach is when you think of organization, I don't want you to think of the whole house. I don't want you to think of the big picture. I want you to think of that draw, that bench, that surface, and that's how you're going to conduct it. But one huge mistake a lot of people make when organizing is they go out and buy all these tubs and containers before they even know what they're going to do with it. And then they get home and they realize they've got so much mess and clutter that they need to cull it. It really is quite simple. Clutter eagles mess. So the less stuff you have, the less mess you're going to get. And yes, the house is still going to get messy every day. It needs to be lived in. People have children, have pets, have ryan's. But it's all about having a routine and it's all about upkeep. I always say organization is like fitness. You know, you don't decide one day, okay, I want to get fit. You go to the gym for a few months, and then you finally do get to a level of fitness you're happy with, and then you stop and you stop going to the gym, stop eating healthy. You can't do that because your fitness won't be upkept. So it's the same with organization. You can't just organize your house one day and think it's going to stay that way. No, because unless you kick out all the people in your house, it's not going to happen. It's something that needs to become part of your daily routine and rituals, and that is going to upkeep and maintain the organization of your house. So when I organize any space, there's always three steps you want to do. The first one is cull So this is obviously decluttering. And again, you don't have to do the whole house. I'm saying do a space at a time, So spend five to ten minutes per day on a small space, start with the junk draw and cull that area. Now, I know decluttering can be really hard, and I will be doing a full episode on decluttering as well later on, but it is necessary to do that. I've actually got a free resource for you guys. It's been out for a very long time and it's probably one of my most downloaded resources, over like hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded. It's called My Declutter Challenge. It's thirty days and basically it's a small task I set for you every day. So I will link it in the show notes below, and it is really really helpful for you just to break up the house. So let me know if you guys do that, because it is really really helpful. So let's say you're going to tackle the junk draw, so open it up, take everything out, and then you're going to sort it into categories. So the categories you use are going to depend on your space and your lifestyle. For example, if you're doing categories for your pantry, it's going to be things like oils and vinegars, spreads, cooking, baking, meal, kits, snacks, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas if you do it for your linen closet, it could be things like flat sheets, fitted sheets, dinner covers, cushion covers, et cetera. So you're going to put it into categories. So if something like the junk drawer, it could be things like keys, coins, gift cards, things like that. And yes, it does get worse before it gets better. You know when you like decluttering your pantry or something and you're like half an hour in and then you look around You're like, oh my god, what do I start this because there's shit everywhere. Just remember it gets worse before it gets better. So once you've done your categories, now you want to contain slash storage, so you want to find storage for it. So yes, but this is where you can measure up your space and then you can go buy storage. But you don't have to buy storage. Guys, look around your house for things like baskets, tubs, containers that you've already got and you can use that. So things for like your junk draw I love using a cutlery Cuddy because it separates everything in the drawer and look, it becomes organized chaos over time. But again it's about the upkeep. So those three steps are going to be your holy grail to organizing any space in your house cold, categorized, storage or contain. Now, the next step is upkeep, and this is all about your daily routine to keep it organized and keep the clutter at bay. So for me, my biggest thing is doing things like my AM and PM non negotiable. So these are things I have to do morning and night to keep the house under order. Now, look, if we've got a busy period just recently, I've just gotten back from traveling and I'm busy recording all these podcasts, I have an unpatched look. Life happens. And this isn't about being perfect, Guys. Everything I share on my podcast is not about being perfect whatsoever. I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. It's just about not feeling like a slave to your home and your life. And that is all I'm here to do to help you with. So my AM routine consists of a few different categories. Can you tell I love category? So we've got my health aspect, which is things like journaling, meditation, all the things, but we also have the organization part of it. So in the am, I'm doing things like getting the kids ready for school, looking at the day ahead for the work week, trying to get myself sorted to get out the door. So some non negotiables for me is unstacking the dishwasher, popping them away, cleaning up the kids breakfast, cleaning up any toys, or getting them to help, which is a big thing, getting the kids to help me put their toys away in the morning, wiping down the benches, and then checking my planner for the day ahead, which I also do the night before, but I have the memory of a goldfish, so I also need to do it in the morning, so I'll check my planner make sure no plans have changed. I also, just because I run a business, I jump on emails and make sure no one's canceled any meetings and things like that. So that is an example of my AM routine because that means when I get home after work or when I get back from dropping the kids off, the houses in order and I'm not spending the time I'm meant to be doing other tasks cleaning up after everybody. Now, my PM non negotiables is always one that will struggle with because you just don't feel like cleaning up at the end of the day. And I get it, I really do. But my biggest hack for that is set a timer for ten to fifteen minutes, just to ten. And if you anything like me, you're gonna want to beat the time and a cleanup because it becomes a challenge. So what you do is you set your timer and you're like, Okay, I'm going to get this house sorted and then I can go to bed, or then I can binge some true crime on Netflix. So set your timer, and for me, I do things like spot, vacuum, dishwasher, clean up toys, tidy up the lound room, wipe the benches, check my planner, and then I can go to bed. And it honestly really does help. So these AM and PM non negotiable routines are going to help you with the day to day the business of life. And then when it comes to the ongoing decluttering of your home, this is when you just spend five minutes per day. If you see a bench or a draw start to get cluttered again, you just get stuck into it. It honestly will take you a couple of minutes. Again, set a timer if you have to, but this will become a habit, just like brushing your teeth, And for me now, just like going to the gym, I don't even think about it. I just go. Another thing that really really helps is having a cleaning routine. And I feel like a lot of us spend all the weekend just cleaning for the week ahead, and you don't want to be spending your Saturday and Sunday deep cleaning the bathroom, doing all the things. So what's really good and what's helped me over the years is having zones. So for example, I will clean one part of the house per day. And look, this has changed a lot for me over the years. Now I can't afford a cleaner to help me with the deep cleaning as well, and I just keep on top of the maintenance. So if you are able to outsource that help and get a cleaner, one hundred percent, do it. But you still need to upkeep anyway during the week. So for me, for example, Mondays could be kitchen, Tuesday's bedrooms, Wednesday's lounge room, Thursday's entry away, and laundry etc. Etc. So break it up and I have, of course a staff pace planner cleaning magnet you can chuck on your fridge, and this is so important. But getting your partner on board so you don't feel like you have to nag them all the time. Last thing I want to do is have to nag Ryan and be like, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? So if I've written it on the cleaning magnet, he can see it. And yes, I do have to remind him it's on the cleaning magnet, but at least it's there, and at least I know what needs to be done and we can tag team it. That was three steps from chaos to clarity. Now we're tackling one of the biggest decluttering challenges of all, which is how to de clutter when you don't want to let go. I honestly feel this because I still have a lot of random jerseys from high school. So you're going through your shit, You're going through all the stuff in your room or wherever you're looking, and you just don't know if you should keep something or not. Now, these are the key questions that I ask myself for everything I go through and these help me determine the answer. So the questions are, if I saw this in a store, would I buy it? Think about our taste, change, our styles, change, even just normal household items. If you saw it in a store, would you buy it? And if the answer is no, get rid of it, donate it, sell it whatever. The next question is have I used this in the last six months? Now. I know this can be a bit difficult because everyone thinks, oh, you never know that bloody cake mixer I haven't used for five years. I might need to make a cake one day. Oh you're not going to You're going to go to Woolies and you're going to go buy that really nice mud cake they sell and you're going to use that. Okay, So if you haven't used it, get rid of it now. I know with clothes it's more like seasonal. So with that I like to say every six to eight months. And then with me because where we live it doesn't really get super cold, so I do keep one really big puffer jacket, but everything else I don't need a lot of things for that. So just be honest with yourself. Now, the next question is does this add value to my life or not? If it doesn't, then it's clutter. So if that fifth batchela doesn't give value to your life, it's clutter, all right. Obviously we need things like spoons and knives and forks, but you don't need all this excess of stuff. We just always have such an excess. Honestly, I cannot tell you how much easier it is when you have less stuff. Again, it's less cleaning. Now. The next question is there somebody in my life that would get more use out of this than me? So, for example, my cousin, she just moved out, she moved into a new home. That fifthspatula she could probably use that. I'll give it to her. I don't need five done. And the last thing, if you're just really not sure, if it's not a yes, like straightaway yes, then it's a no. Now I want to move on to more of the emotional stuff because those questions don't especially apply to things that are a bit more emotional, things that maybe we're given to you as a gift. The kids drawing things like that, the kids could literally I remember when the kids started drawing and they draw like a line on a piece of paper, and I was like, oh my god, she's Percasso like. But you can't keep everything. But there is a way that we can do things a bit differently, so you can keep it, but you're not really keeping it. So I want to get into that now. Now this is really about being smart, so I want you to look into your storage situation. Firstly, this depends on how your home is, how much space you have. We'll start with the kids' artwork as an example. Kids art work. Every day I get like twenty pieces of art, especially Willow. She loves drawing. It's so cute. So I had to have tubs for the girls. They're the suspension file holders. I'll make sure I link a blog or something below for you guys who can see, and then I have them labeled for like daycare, the year, kindy, one, two, three, bah blah blah blah. So that was working really well. Now if your kid is like Willow and does a lot of art, and you don't really have space for a couple of tubs because those tubs generally that will probably become at least two or three, then some other option is you can scan them and keep digital copies of them, so you've got them digitally. You can make them into a photo book. There's all these photo books that you guys see. You guys know, if you've been following me for a while, I use chat books for our photo albums. I know. There's so many different brands' is like Once upon a Time and things like that. People will literally scan them and make them into photo books, which is such a good idea. Some people will scan them and then make them into artwork, like brands that will make them into a piece of art on the wall. There's so many things you can do with it. So those are some options that also can be if you get a lot of letters, any of those types of things. Again, it is always just a good idea to keep things digital as well in case like something ever happens. It's just a good idea to scan things. So I've got a letter from my nand which I literally have in a frame and it's so important to me, and I scan it and have that on my computer just in case. Now, I want you to think, if it is a gift from someone, it obviously depends on the situation, but just don't feel obligated to keep it because it's a gift. At the end of the day, if you're not going to see it, and it depends what it is. Again, everything's different. You can always take a photo of it and keep it like that, so you've always got a memory of it, But just don't feel obligated because it's a gift. Because all of the time people keep things because of guilt. You feel guilty. That's why we don't get rid of things because you feel guilty or it's attached to a memory. So that leads on to my next point, that is, remember that these are things, not memories. Now, if it's like a hairloom or something really special from like your Nan or whatever, of course keep it's really precious. You put it in like a cabinet, But just remember not every like just because you're getting rid of it, doesn't mean you're getting rid of that memory. That memory is with you forever. You know. I'm sure you have photos of that event all that time, and it is an item, it's not the memory itself. Now, some options you can do again is like I said, take photos of the items, or if there's a lot of them, like if there's multiple items, keep one thing from that event or whatever. So like for me when Nan passed away, I did get a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of stuff we had to share around, so I took photos of them so I've got them in my heart, you know. And now weird things like baby clothes, you could do something like for me, I have a thing with baby clothes. I can't up myself. I know some people get their first outfit framed. That'd be super cute. Another thing you can do is get a vacuum bag. Let's be honest. Look, I do this, but the only time I'll probably over open them again is if they're really old, like the kids is like pro teenagers, and I just want to bring them out, but I probably will never open them unless my friends have babies. But these are the items from them that really does spark that memory. So I just kept one thing, so I tried to really reduce it and then I kept it in a vacuum bag, which really seals it up. If you guys want a full episode on like storage hacks and things like that, let me know because I have so much storage hacks I can give you that will really really help. Now I want to recap that really fast to do with the emotional stuff, So number one, look into your storage situation, because that's going to determine how much you can keep. Number two, store things digitally if you can, or think outside the box, get them made into a book, artwork, things like that. The next point is, if it's a gift from someone, don't feel obligated to keep it. It's up to you. You'll know what's right, not even right, You'll just know what's right for you. And just remember that these are things, they're not memories themselves. Take photos of the item so you don't have to actually keep the item. And if you have multiple things, then just choose one thing. Now. The biggest trick with decluttering that you've listened to this episode, you like, I want to do this when I did clutter. Focus on your emotional items first because they're hard. But the biggest thing you need to do is make sure you upkeep it. You can't do clutter ones and it stays that way. Does not work like that. You have to keep at it every day. It's like cleaning the house. It's like fitness, like I always say, you can't get fit, and then you sit on the couch forever and then you're done. Now it doesn't work like that. Love, Sorry, you got to keep going. So every day, any space in your home that you start to see gets cluttered, spend like a couple of minutes just fixing it up. So for us at the moment, we've always found that the junk draw At the moment, we have a junk tub because we don't have enough drawls in this house. We have like a bit of a basket I bought from Amazon. I have to go to that every three weeks because it gets so full. Kids' bedroom once a week because Willow brings home all this random shit. It's all about the upkeep. So every day literally, if you can just spend five minutes a day, it's going to really really help. And also just being really mindful of what you're bringing into the house. I like to have a rule if you're bringing something in, get rid of something now, don't forget to use the Golden Red source, which is the thirty Day de Clutter Challenge. I'll link it below because that will change your life and make it so much easier for you. It is honestly just something that's like really good to go off. Something you can do every day and tick it off as you go, and then your house will be done. You're listening to the best hacks and tips of my decluttering episodes, and we looked at how to create clarity and how to let go of the things holding us back. Now, let's finish with some practical tips from eight hacks to keep a tidy home and stay sane. So the first tip or rule that you want to do to upkeep your home is don't put it down, put it away. And now don't want to roll your eyes with this, because I'm sure you've heard of it before, but this is something that when I'm really exercising this rule, the house is so much cleaner. Now. Some examples of don't put it down, put it away is when you get home and you take your jacket off or your jump up, don't check it on the bed, hang it up, or usually wear again. Hook. Yeah, you wear again. Hook is the best. If you guys don't know what it is, it's basically command hook. And this is the hook for clothes that are too clean to gone the wash, but too dirty to go back in your wardrobe and you know you're going to wear them again. Why it's called a ware again hook. Perfect for work uniforms, stuff of the kids. Just use a wear again. Hook. You know the moment where you look at a surface or an area, it could be kid's bedroom floor, and you look at it and you're like shit, like I just don't want to do this. It's too much and it just feels like so much effort. But when you do do it, it takes not long at all. That is because when you are looking at all of the items. You know I said before, all the items in the house are like coming together for a meeting, and they're from all over the house. The reason why you get so overwhelmed and feel like you can't start it is because not only does your brain have to do the executive function of starting the task, it has to look at every single item that's in front of you figure out what it is, what does it do, and where does it go? Which is going to lead me on to my next point. And I know I don't have to say this twice, but clutter equals mess equals more cleaning for you. So this is also where doing a daily decluttering practice comes into play. And now when I say that, I don't mean I want you to pull out everything in a drawer or like take a section each day, which you definitely can. And as I always say, when you're decluttering, I do not want you to think of the whole house. It's like what they say about the staircase. You don't want to think of the whole staircase. You want to think of the first step. It's the same as when you declutter your home. And I will link my decluttering challenge below. That is a great way to get started. But what I mean about doing a daily decluttering is, for example, I get home from work or from the gym and I see there's a couple of toys chucked in the back, there's a bit of rubbish shoved in like the cup holders. I will just grab that. Stuff goes in the bin, stuff goes where it lives. And it's just doing these like little daily tidy ups as you go. And this will kind of go into my next point. But if you see a surface or a draw that has a little bit too much stuff, or you know, like half of this stuff's just junk, just quickly do it. It'll take you two seconds. So once you get into the practice of that, and then you can be a bit more intentional by doing like decluttering sessions where you literally spend fifteen minutes on one area, you'll be so surprised what you can do in fifteen minutes. Honestly, So, when everything has a home, not only does your brain have to work less hard and try to solve the problem, it helps you find things quickly and everyone in your family also knows where things go. How many times does your partner not know where to put shit? Like mate, you live here too, So once everything has its home and everyone becomes aware of that, you can actually help each other. Now you're probably asking, Okay, that's all well and good, stuffy, I'll do my decluttering every day, but how do I actually organize everything into a home. Before you organize any space, you do want to do a cull. It's like a draw. So say, if you've got a drawer and you've got like pens and pencils and all this stuff, and it's really messy and there's rubbish in there. Are you going to try and put tubs in that and organize the mess or are you going to get rid of the mess and then see what's left, categorize it and then put your storage in Literally the process cull, categorize, contain. Now, if you're someone who really struggles to look at a space and organize it. I kind of want you to think of your room or home as zones. So you know, you've got your entryway zone. So when you come in the door, you've got space by the door, maybe you have a bin for shoes. You walk through and you think about what you're doing. So you've got keys, you've got your phone, and now you want to think about Okay, so how am I going to stare this? So you want to start designating zones for practicality. That's where things like my drop off zone comes in. So a drop off zone is basically storage. I've set up near the door where we chuck our shoes. You can chuck your bag, you put your keys in there, and you like those coins and mail, they all have a place and we all know where to put them, and you also know where to find them. And then you can really break it down into specific shelves or drawers or containers that you keep all your tech charges. So we have a million phone charges and things. I don't know why. I have this big plastic ikea container that's divided into a fair few sections. Then I organize the cables into sections by what type of charger. They are even down to having a certain spot in the kitchen in the cupboard for anything the kids need for school lunches, whether that's the lunch box themselves, the lunch cooler bag, the insulated cup for breaks. Everything goes in the once spot. Now you may not have a lot of storage, so this is where you really want to be utilizing vertical space as well. I've done this so much in the unit here I get over the door hangers that have organized on them, even under the bed storage, which is really good for like you know, your seasonal close, extra toys for the kids, things like that, but just really like think outside the box. You can use the door organizers to store your shoes. We use the kids door organizer for school shorts, certain items that they were losing all the time. It's because I know they're up off the floor and they're like literally as they go to walk out the door, they write there because every day I bought them these little shorts to wear under their school dresses, and they'd always lose them. And since I've put them there, no problems. It's all about just trying to think of like a solution. Another thing that can really help with decluttering is having the one in, one out rule, so every time something comes in the house, something needs to go and that just really helps with yes, stopping the accumulation of stuff that gets brought into the house every single day at Bay. Now, the next thing, which we all know is from the OG steph days, is having a daily and weekly cleaning routine. Again, I don't enjoy cleaning. I don't really know who does enjoy cleaning. Maybe on the rare occasion when there's not too much clutter around, it's okay you need to listen to a podcast, But it's not my favorite thing to do in the planet. But coming up with cleaning schedules is my jam. I love it and mine has changed a lot over the years. Now I'm able to outsource the cleaner just to come in and do the deep cleaning, which is one of the tips I'll give you soon. But I have to say here at the unit, it is much much faster to clean. It's very quick, and it's one of the great things about having a small space is how quickly you can clean up. But as I said, as your lives and lifestyles change and your you know, routines change, so does this cleaning schedule. You can't always just expect yourself to do the same thing throughout your whole life. I know people probably hear the word cleaning schedule and they roll their eyes. They're like, oh God, it sounds horrible, and they're like, oh, you know, I work full time, blah blah blah. But I'll tell you, once you start doing a cleaning schedule, because you're cleaning certain areas on a consistent basis, the cleaning gets cut in half even more so, and you get quicker at it. When I'm consistent with my cleaning schedule, my weekend cleaning is courted at least because the thing is the reason why I started doing this too, is because I want to be with my family. I don't want to my whole bloody weekend cleaning the house with Ryan. We want to be with our kids. And it's important that you do get your partner to share the load. And I know that can't be the same for everybody, And I very much acknowledge there's single parents, there's people that with fly in and fly out, there's people out there with health issues one hundred percent. But I'm saying, if you have anyone in your household that you can get to support you with cleaning. Please do because you deserve to be helped. Now, I want you to think of a cleaning schedule like keeping your email inbox organized. Imagine during the day you're receiving all these emails. If you take ten minutes once a day or twice a day at certain times, that allows you to read, reply, delete, do whatever you need to each email as they come, then your inbox stays half manageable, and you can also find really important messages easily. Now I want you to think if you don't do that, and you leave your inbox for say a week or even a month, Imagine coming in and then having to go through all of those emails that have come in, that would be so overwhelming and that would take you hours. You would most likely put it off as long as you possibly can, until you get in trouble or fired. It's because of the sheer volume of what you have to deal with, and having a cleaning schedule works is the same way as checking your emails twice a day. Literally, I have an AM and a PM non negotiable routine. By having a certain routine in the morning and in the afternoon, that allows you to do what I did with the inbox. It allows you to get in there, sort the clutter that has come in throughout the day, get rid of the rubbish that's come in, and put things back to their homes. But if you leave it to even just the end of the day, or if you leave all of the cleaning of the house till the weekend, you're going to be way more overwhelmed and you're going to spend a lot more time doing it. Now, let's move into the weekly cleaning schedule again. I want you to designate your weekly cleaning schedule into zones, so you can do bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathrooms, entry, away, outdoor spaces. I want to give you an example of what ours is. So Monday's bedrooms, Tuesday is floors, so I have a full day just for floors, just because I can smop and vacuum, and I always will do a spot a vacuum at nighttime. Wednesday's kitchen, Thursday's bathroom, Friday is living areas. Saturday is laundry and meal reset, so meal prep and that type of stuff, and then Sunday is sheets and laundry and any outdoor areas. Because you know Ryan loves to do out and bloody water the grass for no reason. It's like a man thing I don't get. Now, to make this work and to actually stick to a cleaning schedule, you need to have it visible to the whole family and in a place where you guys are always there, So that's where the cleaning magnet comes in. You can also delegate zones per family member. So say, for example, you'd be like mondays, I'll do the bedrooms Tuesdays, you do the floors, and I get seeds on the magnet. If it doesn't work, you can wipe it out and change it so easy. And then on the magnet you've got your AMM your PM routines on there as well. Now, if you are someone that you just like, I can't even do zones. It's just too much. All I want you to do is spend twenty minutes a day cleaning. That's it. I don't want to even think about what you're going to clean or where you're going to clean. Just do twenty minutes a day. Now for me personally to do like the schedule way, because I feel like I take twenty minutes anyway. But at least it's kind of a reoccurring thing, because I know I'll forget to maybe do the outside area for a while and then I go out there and it's a shit show. So that's why I do promote having a cleaning schedule. But even if you do, just do twenty minutes and then you keep going until your house is a little bit more clean, a little bit more clean, and then over time it just gets quicker and quicker to clean. Now we have finally reached the part of the podcast that you've been waiting for, and this is the life altering hack that's going to change everything, literally change the game for you. I've mentioned it a million times. Clutter is just random objects from around the house that you need to tidy up. It's really blood annoying. So there's toys, there's remotes, there's that fourth bloody spatchuela that you're meant to throw out. It's just everything. They've all just kind of got together. And this is where I'm going to introduce to you the catch or basket. And this is where you have a basket in the main areas in your home. So for us, it's the living room and we have one upstairs, and then we have one on the stairs. You guys would already remember the upstairs basket. I've done that for years, and I did that in the old house, so I had a basket at the bottom of the stairs. Anything that had to go up, we'd go in the basket and we take it up at the end of the night. This is the same kind of vibe, but basically it is you're placing a basket in the main areas of your home. So throughout the day, when people are finished with things, or there's just things that do need to go away and they just can't be bothered, it gets put in the capture basket. You just chuck it on in there, and then at the end of each day you take it with you and you just put the stuff away and that's it. That's literally the hack. Well there's even like these stair baskets I saw, because if you guys up stairs, you know the bloody pain that it is of having to constantly put things on the stairs and then no one else in the family takes it up, and it drives me bloody bonkers. It still happens with the baskets, but basically you put everything on the stairs and then no one takes it up and then you're trying to like carry all of this shit and then you end up being like, oh, just take half, and then you won't make the trip back. And that is why having these baskets is really really helpful. Another tip for this hack is allocate a basket to certain family members or so to Ryan, you did the downstairs basket, or do the living room basket, and the kids can do the upstairs basket. Like, get the kids involved and it's going to make it so much easier. You can even make it a game, you know, you put some music on, put a timer on it, and people can see how quick they can empty their basket, you know what I mean, and just make it fun. But yes, the catch or basket is a game changer. It can be a laundry basket. You can get cute baskets from Kmart. All right, guys, that is it for this special decluttering best of Thanks for spending some time with me while I'm away. I hope these favorite moments have inspired you to clear a little space and create more calm. Are we back in your ears next Monday? And until then, take care and happy decluttering. Bye.
