Episode 8 - Decision Fatigue - 6 Questions to Eliminate the Struggle when Purging and Decluttering Your Home - Intentional Edit

Episode 8 of The Intentional Edit Podcast – Decision Fatigue is real and might be preventing you from decluttering and purging the unwanted, unused items in your home. Lean how to decide what should stay and what needs to be donated with the 6 questions to guide you through purging your entire home.

This episode gives you the knowledge to declutter anything and everything that is causing your home to feel cluttered and unorganized. It’s time to create a home that feels clutter free and brings peace to your family.

Listen to this episode of the Intentional Edit Podcast now!

Full Episode Transcription:

Decision fatigue is real, too much clutter in your home is usually the result of delayed decisions. Whether you’re overwhelmed by the clutter, don’t know where to start in the purging process or struggle with making decisions about what to keep toss or donate. This episode is for you. I’m about to share six questions to ask yourself when deciding to discard an item or to keep it. These questions serve as a guide for you to use. As you declutter and turn your home into the more peaceful space you have been desiring. If you’re struggling with daily tasks, clutter organization, and finding any sort of work life balance, the intentional edit podcast is for you. It’s time to stop the chaos and live with more intention. I am Lauren, and I’m here to help you declutter implement systems and maximize routines that remove the overwhelming unorganized parts of life. Bringing simplicity to your home. Come on. It’s time to create a life you love.

(01:00):

Hi friends. Before we get started with episode eight of the intentional edit podcast. I want to remind you to head over to Instagram or be sure that you’re following me. You can find me on Instagram. I’m at intentional edit because we are on day five of the 2021 home organizing challenge. It’s a 21 day challenge where we organize a different space in the home for 21 days. There’s these are small areas that make a big impact and they take about only 20 minutes a day to organize I’m sharing how I have them organized in my home on Instagram stories every day. And then other organizers share how they have these spaces organized in their homes, to be sure to follow along on Instagram, you could find me at intentional edit, and then you can participate too. You can start today. And if you want to catch up on the last four days that you’ve missed, that should be pretty easy to do over the next week or two, because like I said, a second ago, these are just tasks that take 20 minutes a day.

(01:57):

But head on over to Instagram, I’m at intentional edit. You can follow along and participate in the 21 day 2021 home organizing challenge. Let’s get on with the episode. This is episode eight. I want you to think about the life you want to be living in your home. The life you’re dreaming of for your family. It may seem far fetched right now, and you don’t know how to get there, you know, in the back of your mind that it’s possible. What does this life look like for you? It may mean you are feeling rested rather than exhausted. The beds are made daily. The houses generally picked up not perfect, but for the most part picked up and orderly. There aren’t toys. Everywhere spaces are organized. When you imagine this life, your home probably feels more peaceful and less chaotic. You have more of a feeling of routines in place than like a free for all where your kids are going crazy and anything could happen at any moment.

(02:57):

It’s a picked up environment rather than a cluttered one. You may have heard the phrase outer order contributes to inner calm. That’s exactly what I’m talking about today. So if you think of that phrase, I just said, outer order contributes to inner calm. It really makes sense. When the area around you is really messy, then you feel that stress and that mess in your mind. It’s the same concept as when you have a messy desk and work environment and an office, or even if it’s just a desk, that’s messy studies show that you’re actually not as productive. And if you just take a few minutes clear off the papers, clear off the desk and make it a more peaceful, clean environment with less clutter, the productivity increases. When you eliminate the mess in your environment and your office at your desk or in your home, you feel better.

(03:51):

When I work with my coaching clients and we discuss what they’re wanting in their homes, it’s never about more, more stuff or more anything. It’s not about more toys or more physical items. It’s always about how they can make their homes feel how it’s going to function so that things needed to happen and occur. Almost effortlessly. An example of this would be putting clothes in a laundry basket instead of on the floor, or maybe taking dirty dishes to the sink or the dishwasher instead of leaving it where you finished eating. Some people already have those systems in place. Those just become habits. A lot of time, most people are blown away. That little kids like two and three year olds will actually take their own dishes to the kitchen counter and place them by the sink. Some young kids load their dishes into the dishwasher.

(04:40):

These are just things that are naturally occurring when they’re taught, because they become a habit. And it’s not even something you think about. Those are just habits and routines that are put in place with good quality systems. Those are what help the home function. And that’s where you get that effortless feel because you’re not thinking about doing those things, the feelings that are desired in a home like calm, peaceful, maybe serene, like a safe place to be, where you feel like you can relax and feel good when you get home, come from a clutter-free environment with good systems in place to keep the things running smoothly and orderly without a lot of effort removing the clutter and the unused items in your home is very important. That means the physical possession stored and cabinets and drawers, accessories, furniture, anything on display or sitting on counters at your table like sofa tables, anything that is stacked up and kind of hangs out there for maybe way too long, everything out and about in the rooms in your home causes stress.

(05:46):

And that agitated kind of annoyed feeling prevents you from having the overall peaceful and relaxed vibe that you’re looking for in your home. Most likely, you know, that you have extra items in your possession and you probably can look around the room right now and see a few things that you don’t necessarily love. And that maybe don’t need to be there sometimes when we’re not in the practice of removing things that are no longer serving us, we might purchase a new chair, you know, something for a living room, but then the chair that it’s replacing just gets pushed to another area. We don’t need it. It’s causing club clutter. It’s making the room feel smaller. It’s not serving a purpose, but we haven’t gotten rid of it. Those are common things that happen. If you look around your space right now, you might see a collection of accessories or picture frames or too much stuff on the fireplace mantle.

(06:39):

And it looks cluttered and it doesn’t feel good to you or an extra chair in the corner, a stack of magazines or catalogs purse that is on the ground that you changed six months ago, that you’ve just left their toys that are not being played with anymore. Things like that. You might feel overwhelmed by the thought of trying to purge or go through these belongings might even be some guilt about getting rid of certain things because they were gifted to you or they’re sentimental, even though you don’t use them and you don’t have plans to use them in the future, you might have that a little bit of that guilt through reason you’re in this situation is because of delayed decisions. Clutter is actually the role, the result of procrastinating or not making decisions. If you couldn’t find an item, would you replace it? If you lost it, would you buy it again?

(07:30):

I want you to really think about those things. Those are questions to ask yourself. When thinking about keeping something in the home or donating it, if you wouldn’t replace something, or if something was lost, you were made aware that it was gone. Would you go out and buy that thing again? If the answer is no, you don’t need that in your house. You can get rid of it without feeling guilty, purging and taking on home decluttering and organizing projects requires a lot of decisions to be made. Especially if you’re a parent, you already make a ton of decisions for you and your family in a day, thousands of decisions in a day, it’s entirely possible that you haven’t started this project in your home, or maybe you start it and stop because it seems overwhelming. Or you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, or you might even be afraid that you’re doing it wrong.

(08:18):

Decision fatigue is real. We’re not going to let that stop you from changing your current home environment into a place that you want to be living and an environment that you’re desiring for your family decision fatigue. Yes, it’s real, but it’s not an excuse. The first step in creating the home that you want with that peaceful, relaxing, safe feeling is to get rid of everything you don’t want. And you really have to adopt this mindset. When you choose to adopt this mindset, it becomes easier to decide what needs to stay and what you can get rid of. Let me just rephrase that for you, creating home environment that you want can only happen when you get rid of everything that you don’t. I say things like this, a lot only keep the things that you need, use or want. Let’s just say that one more time.

(09:08):

If you have something that you need, use, or want that it’s serving a purpose for you, those would be things you could keep. But if you pick up an item and you don’t want it and you don’t use it and you don’t need it, then you can get rid of it. I don’t necessarily want the vacuum that I have in my house, but it’s used, I need to keep it at my house because it cleans the floor and it stays it’s in working order. It’s in good condition. And it serves a purpose. When you think about like need, use, or want, that’s just a quick way of deciding if something can be kept or if you could donate it, think about if you need it, if you use it, or if you want it, I’ve come up with six questions that I share with my clients when they want to purge and declutter, but need a guide to follow.

(09:58):

And these questions eliminate the decision fatigue and allow you to determine what stays and what goes before I share these with you. I want to briefly go over some of the reasons why you might be struggling with making a decision on an individual items to purge or not to purge. One reason that I just mentioned was that you feel guilty. The decision to keep an item. If it’s sentimental, sometime is it, you will have that guilty feeling you don’t need to. And when we go over the six questions, you will be able to figure out if you should keep it or not. And then you can release that feeling of guilt. I just said, sentimental items. So if you have a sentimental attachment to something, it’s okay to keep a few of those, but you don’t want an overabundance of those. What is a great solution to have for sentimental items is keep these items on display, or even take a picture of them.

(10:52):

If it’s not something you love and it doesn’t fit your design aesthetic, you can always take a picture of it, donate it. But what we find with a lot of these sentimental items that cause guilt is if you were given something or it was passed down to you from a grandparent or a relative, when you contact other relatives to say, I’m not really wanting this anymore, I don’t have a need for it. Do you want it? Usually I’ve never had a situation where another family member wants those items or wants to take them off your hands. They’re fine with you having them, but they don’t want to take on that burden and keep them. If it’s not something that is serving you, don’t keep it really toughen up. Don’t feel guilty about letting it go. Another reason that we keep things is the guilt of thinking.

(11:42):

Well, I already spent the money on it and wasting my money. If I get rid of it, this may sound harsh, but you’re not wasting the money by getting rid of it. You’re wasting you wasted the money when you bought it. If you no need it than it really should go. One other thing, the idea that you might need something one day, or you might need this in the future. If you haven’t used an item in a year, your 99% not going to use that item again, the idea that you might use it in the future is a not very realistic. Those are just a couple of things I wanted to go over with you that are reasons that sometimes that we have decision fatigue. So you can probably identify with some of those. If you do, then these six questions that I’m about to share with you are going to be even more helpful.

(12:29):

Now that we identified some reasons you might be struggling with purging. Let me share with you these six questions that I find helpful for making these decisions about decluttering. The questions are a guide and you use each question with every individual item. If you are decluttering one room, every single item that you are not sure about keeping or getting rid of, then you can ask yourself these questions and you don’t have to ask yourself all six questions about every Ida. I’ll explain that to you. As we move through the questions. If you pick up a picture frame that might be kind of broken and has a pick an old picture, that’s a little bit faded. It’s not your favorite. And you have other picture for animals in this room. So you pick this picture, frame off the mantle. And the first question you’re going to ask yourself is does this item serve a purpose?

(13:22):

If the answer is yes, then we keep moving on to the next question. Does it serve a purpose, a picture frame? It might. Is it useful? And in working order, well, it’s kind of faded. It’s a little bit broken on the corner, but you could still deal with it easy, useful in working order kind of, but not really. We haven’t gotten a solid no yet. So let’s move on to the next question. Have I used it in the past year? This is a decorative item. So it doesn’t really apply there. Let’s move on to the next question. Is this the only item I know used for this specific purpose? It’s really not. You have the same people in this picture, frame and other frames in your home. Those are frames that you like. They go with your design aesthetic. They look better. They’re in better condition.

(14:10):

Pictures, not faded. It’s a more current picture. No. When I got to question four, I just answered no about this picture for you. Once you get to know, then you know that you can remove the unwanted item from your home. Say we didn’t get a no on number four. The next question number five is, would I buy it again today? Because of the way that I’ve already described the picture frame and that it’s falling apart and that the picture is faded and all of that we can say no to number five. We’ve now said no, a couple of times, the first time that you say, no, you don’t need to continue on with these questions. You could just say, I am discarding this frame, this object with a picture frame that might’ve not been the best example that I could have picked because with the picture frame, I usually like to remove the photo before donating those so that you can keep that photo.

(14:58):

If you don’t want to keep a bunch of physical photos, you can always scan it into your computer and save a digital copy. Let’s go through the questions again, because I went through those kinds of fast. The first question that you would ask yourself with any item is, does this item serve repurpose? If it does serve a purpose and you’re using it for that purpose, you can keep it. But move on to question two. If you say no in the next few questions, you might not want to keep it. It might not be necessary in your home and it’s not serving a purpose. Number one is, does this item serve a purpose? Number two, is, is it useful? And in working order, going back to the vacuum example, if my vacuum was one of three vacuum was, and one of them didn’t work all of the time or had some issue, I could get rid of one of those vacuums, but I would still keep the good vacuum that I was using.

(15:52):

Think about what you have and if there’s other ones that you’re using instead of that particular item, is it useful? And in working order, if it’s not useful and it’s not in working order, it’s time to donate it or put it in the trash or recycling because you don’t need it anymore. Question three, have I used it in the past year? If you have not used it in an entire year, the likeliness that you are going to use it again is a very, very low. So you can take that item and donate it without guilt. It’s okay. Question four. Is this the only item I own use for this specific purpose? We just covered that with the vacuum example. If it’s not, which is the one that is your favorite, what is the one that is one you actually use? Keep that one and get rid of the rest.

(16:41):

Number five. Would I buy it again today? If the answer is no, then get rid of it. If you answered no to any of these questions, it’s time to remove those unwanted items from your home. The item is sentimental and you’re still questioning what to do with it. Ask yourself one more question. This is question six and most items are never going to get to question six, because once you answer no to questions one through any question, one through five, you stop there and you put it in the donate box. Question six is, does this item make me smile? If it does it, and you’re keeping it out of guilt, donate the item. You can donate that item without feeling guilty. If it does not bring a smile to your face and bring you joy or happiness, if you don’t enjoy it, maybe take a photo of it, ask another family member if they want it, but get rid of it.

(17:30):

Because having to keep it is making you feel stressed. And it’s really burdening you. A materialistic object is adding to the clutter in your space. It might be something that is needed or welcomed in another space. If it doesn’t make you smile, then it’s time to get rid of it really quickly. I’m going to go over those questions. I’m going to list them for you. One more time. The six questions to ask yourself when decluttering number one, does this item serve a purpose? Number two, is it useful? And in working order number three, have I used it in the past year? Number four, is this the only item I own use for this specific purpose? Number five? Would I buy it again today? And number six, does this make me smile again? You will go through those six questions once you answer. No, you place it in the donate button.

(18:25):

You never say no to any of those questions. That would be an item. That’s okay to keep. If you’re struggling with decision fatigue and need help, deciding what to get rid of, what to keep, think about the end goal, how you want your house to look, always keep that end goal of how you want your home to look and feel most importantly, how you want it to feel in mind. Because if keeping an item, doesn’t help move you into the direction of that end goal, then it’s probably not an item that you want to keep. If the items in question aren’t assisting you and getting to that home, that feels the way you want it to. They’re not items to keep because they’re really burdening you. And they’re adding to your stress. Keep your desired home in mind when you’re decluttering and you’re purging. And you’re going through all of your belongings and use the six questions that I just covered in this episode as a guide to help you make decisions. Good luck on your project. I know you can do this. Keep me posted and send me messages as to how this is helping you, how you are using the questions and what’s happening. I want to hear about all of your successes as you move towards a home that feels good and makes you relax and feel calm and enjoy being in.

(19:45):

Thank you for listening to the intentional edit podcast. If you found today’s episode valuable, tell your friends about it by taking a screenshot, sharing it on social and tagging me at intentional edit. I’ll be back soon with another episode in the meantime, find me at attentional, edit.com and be sure to follow intentional, edit on social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, to ensure you catch future episodes, click the subscribe or follow button. Now I am grateful for a five star rating and review from you. Be sure to let me know what you liked about this episode and what you want me to cover in the future.

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Lauren is the founder of Intentional Edit, a home organization and lifestyle company focused on consciously editing to create efficient and organized spaces. Lauren believes that a functional home that looks and feels good has a positive influence on all aspects of life. Creating systems that allow for the home to function more efficiently, therefore, eliminating most of the clutter and chaos is her priority. While trends come and go organization is always in style!

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