Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Your use of these links is greatly appreciated!
Last updated on November 8th, 2023 at 08:29 am
There’s one thing you need to know before you start organizing …especially before organizing sentimental clutter.
After digging through my mother-in-law’s garage, my husband decided he would declutter two tubs of old family photos. Watching “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” on Netflix inspired him to get started.
But before he started, he understood WHY he was decluttering the pictures.
He wanted to split up the pictures between himself and his brothers, mostly to save his mom the headache of having to do it herself.
He got the job done (after several months) and cut down the pictures to less than half, keeping only the good, meaningful ones.
You have to know exactly why you want to get organized. It helps to be super-specific. Your reason why will give you direction when you feel lost. It reminds you why you started going through the craziness in the first place.
Knowing your reason why is especially important when it comes down to the sentimental clutter …that’s the really hard stuff!
Here’s a client case study of how knowing the reason why helped her let go of sentimental clutter.
Making the decision
A client got in touch with me to work on a project she’d been putting off for years: paring down 12 boxes of her kids school work from the last 18 years.
She had not let go of anything her kids had done. Every year when they would bring school papers home, she set everything aside in a box. She’d tell herself, “I’ll deal with it later.”
When her father passed away, she was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff she needed to sort through and figure out. There were so many things her dad kept that she had no idea what to do with, and felt guilty about letting go of.
Finding the reason why
After this experience, the client found the motivation to work through her fear and anxiety of decluttering those 12 tubs of school work.
Her reason?
I decided that I would never want to burden my children with so many boxes of things that they might not even want.
That sounds good to me. I know there are certain experiences I’ve had that I wouldn’t want others to go through, especially my kids. Personal experiences, bad or good, are at the core of why we do anything. This is definitely a good enough reason to start organizing.
Making a goal
By the time the client got in touch with me, she had her reason why and a goal to pare down 12 tubs to just 2. These went hand-in-hand as worked together for several weeks going through each of those boxes.
At each session we would remind each other about the end goal, no matter how emotional things got. And you know what? She totally did it! In fact, she did more than just doing 2 tubs. She found some attractive little storage chests that forced her to pare down even more!
The big achievement
By keeping her reason why front of mind throughout the whole decluttering and organizing process, the client couldn’t be more relieved. She let go of her guilt about not keeping everything. And she’s definitely free from the guilt of passing on a massive burden to her kids someday.
And if there’s anything we moms need to do, it’s to stop feeling guilty about everything.)
Leave a Reply