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I enjoyed recalling this experience with Silvia. My client gave me permission to write this with a name change.
Silvia and I had an initial consultation where she gave me a virtual tour of all the places she wanted to declutter. Before we started the job, Silvia wondered where she would ever find the time to declutter. Making the commitment to spend just 4 hours felt doable to her.
Having this virtual head start helped me to be even more supportive when I arrived in person a few weeks later. We sped through the various rooms working efficiently yet being light-hearted about the process and accomplishing our goal of decluttering her whole house in four hours.
We started in the room that was bothering Silvia the most–the office. I set out boxes that were labeled with super sticky post it notes. The categories included undecided, get rid of, important, flat, and misc. Super Sticky post-it notes, with the official name being “Extreme Notes” are one of my secret weapons. Each of these categories here.
Being able to quickly label something as well as change the label easily cuts down on many minutes. Since my goal is to help clients save money and time, those minutes are important.
Normal post it notes fall off easily when they are moved about, so Extreme Notes, which have a waterproof and extra-sticky backing, are perfect for the job.
Silvia’s main challenge was that the drawers, cabinets and closets in her house were filled up with mostly unneeded stuff. Clutter easily got piled on surfaces and finding homes for the objects she needed to have easily accessible was impossible.
We quickly boxed up the hidden contents of drawers, cabinets and surfaces. Silvia laughed so hard when she saw how much stuff came out of small spaces. The whole office space (which was also her spacious living room) was filled with boxes of things that came out of drawers and cabinets! Her laughter was infectious, and I joined in and had a good belly laugh!
I have seen this situation over my past 20 years of professional organizing. The amount of space that is taken up by objects taken out of a closet in order to put it into order seems a lot larger than the size of the closet.
With my sorting system, this overwhelming amount of stuff can be packed up quickly and stacked in an out of the way place in a way that is surprising compact.
After 3 hours of work, Sylvia got the hang of how to sort things, and she was able to work on her own while I did this task.
After we completely decluttered the office (surfaces and all drawers and cabinets), the kitchen was the next priority. Although our goal was to go through the whole house, we wanted to make sure that the most important areas got attention.
Silvia stood on a ladder and handed me items which were on a high, deep shelf. This kind of task is time consuming and tedious, so having a helper can save so much time and energy.
Although I didn’t want to take too much time to sort things, I did decide to put old birthday decorations into one box since there were so many. She knew she was not going to keep much of the decorations so keeping them in a category meant that box would be able to be sorted quickly.
except for “important–keep out.” My clients almost always find things and happily exclaim, “I’ve been looking for this!” I encourage clients to set these items in one place, rather than put them in a box, so they can prioritize finding homes for or attending to these items. With the clearing of storage spaces, it is much easier to find homes for these precious items.
Silvia quickly realized after emptying a very spacious cabinet that she could put food that was taking up precious floor space. I handed her the items and she put them right where she wanted them.
Cleaning out large drawers was easy because Silvia was able to dump everything in one box. She found just a few things she knew she wanted to keep. This box, labeled “kitchen” would be easy to sort later.
Having a “get rid of box” where we put recycling, give away, and even trash, was much simpler than trying to haul around 3 different boxes. I have discovered that the less categories we have, the faster we move. Silvia would periodically quickly clean the trash out of the box.
We needed to prioritize because of our limited time. Silvia would look into a drawer or cabinet and decide whether or not to empty this space. If it seemed too time consuming, she would say, “later.” For the most part, we ended up emptying the drawers and cabinets.
She decided to take 5 minutes to reorganize under the sink when I suggested that she put some things in plastic containers she had purchased. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better. The most important thing is to keep moving, and not get hung up on any one area. Refining can take place later.
The only area that needed to be sorted in the dining room was what Silvia called “her hidden cabinet.” She had not looked into the cabinet for years, although she knew it was mostly crafts. As she pulled out a huge amount of crafty stuff plus some games, I filled a box and labeled it “crafts.” Silvia imagined how fun it would be to play games when her sons came home to visit, so I kept the games out of the crafts box and she put them back on the shelf that now had space.
Having a variety of sizes of boxes is essential. I was glad that Silvia had followed my advice and bought a combination of plastic bins and boxes. She didn’t have time to look for many boxes, so she did buy plastic bins. If you are going to store items in a place where dampness, cold, rodents or bugs can invade the containers, plastic bins might be the way to go.
I brought some boxes with me. I have never experienced having too many boxes! Since speed is of the essence, searching for the right-sized box is not a good use of time.
We spent two hours decluttering 3 rooms. Silvia decided that her bedroom was next. One drawer had a large variety of items, mostly electronics, which were easily put into a box.
The bottom drawer had tools and manuals. Removing the manuals and putting into a small bin left enough room for Silvia to be able to get to her tools.
With 90 minutes to go, I knew we needed to look at the staging area where she would be storing the boxes to sort. Taking out some large items and putting them in the garage was quite easy. We did a tiny bit of re-organizing in the garage in order for these things to fit.
Silvia gave me permission to reorganize some things in the bedroom staging area. We were going to have a lot of boxes to store there temporarily. As I went around the house and gathered up the boxes that had been filled, Silvia continued to work on her closet. Getting boxes of old memories off of shelves so I could put them in the sorting room made space for items that Sylvia used more often.
We were finishing strong! Sorting and letting go of clothes was something Silvia knew she could do later on her own. The goal we had was to get everything else out of the closet so that she could easily move around in the space. We did it! The floor had been almost entirely filled up, and now all was clear.
I knew it was a risk to tackle the closet and to stay within the 4 hour time frame that we agreed upon. I could have stayed later so we could get more work done, but I like to stay within the 4 hour goal because then my client can see the light at the end of the tunnel and stay within their budget. This also motivates us to go a little bit faster.
Once the whole closet was decluttered, Silvia put the things back that she wanted to have easily accessible. I swept the floor which had some papers and miscellaneous still cluttering the space. I put those things in a box.I do not throw anything away without permission! Of course the dirt went into the trash. (Okay–I don’t ask permission to throw dirt away!)
I had prayed a lot before our session that things would go smoothly and that we could accomplish our goals in record time. And we did! It was just a few minutes past the 4 hour mark, and we could declare the job completed. We both felt such a sense of satisfaction. Kitchen, living room/office, dining room, bedroom, and bedroom walk in closet got decluttered!
The day after our blitz, she messaged me, happy and proud that she got rid of two big boxes and a bag of plastic bags. Before, she dreaded the idea of having to spend her precious time doing this work. Now she was excited to sort since the task seemed less daunting and more doable.
A few weeks later, Silvia messaged me saying that she needed some coaching about how to sort the rest of the boxes. I gave her a few tips, and she took them and ran with them. Because her son was coming for the holidays, she wanted to have his bedroom (which served as the sorting room) in tip top shape. Silvia messaged me with pictures to show that she had sorted all the boxes and the bedroom was better than when we started.
During our session, Silvia felt a lot of emotions. This is typical. My clients often feel a whole range of emotions including shame, regret, sadness and fear.
She decided to set aside the emotions, knowing that at some point she could process them. The priority was to get the physical job done. And clearing out all this stuff actually helped her to feel more energized and stronger so the emotions did not control her.
However, if Silvia had wanted to do some processing while we were working, I could have supported her. I have the ability to listen empathically and help people move quickly through their feelings that are blocking them from moving forward.
Knowing that Silvia benefited immensely from our combined efforts left me feeling very satisfied, fulfilled and happy. I love my work, and feel so grateful that I have this talent.
If you would like to talk about how I can help you do a 4 hour blitz either in person or virtually, I hope you will contact me.
