Jennifer Mackey-Mary: If you’re anything like me, you are constantly managing clutter. As soon as you get that junk drawer under control, the closet in your foyer needs to be cleaned out. And once that’s done, the junk drawer is a mess again. And don’t even get me started on the bathroom cabinets. Getting control of the clutter in our homes can feel like an overwhelming and never-ending task, but that might be because we’ve been doing it wrong all along. Today, I am welcoming decluttering expert Ingrid Janssen to the show to teach us a better way to think about and deal with our stuff. Let’s get started. 

Hello, gorgeous. Welcome back to the Everyday Style School, the podcast that gives real-life style advice to real-life women. I’m your host, Jennifer Mackey-Mary. I’m a wardrobe stylist who’s been dressing everyday women for over 20 years, and I’m the founder of Everyday Style, where we’re on a mission to inspire women to love the way they look and give you the tools to make getting dressed easy. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Declutter Hub podcast, and I enjoyed that conversation so much. And I had such a great connection with Ingrid that I knew I had to have her on our show as well. I just had this feeling that if you like my approach to clothes and style, you’ll love her approach to clutter and stuff. Ingrid and her business partner Leslie have a new book called Reset Your Home Coming Out and they were kind enough to send me an advance copy. I loved the book and absolutely tore through it. There were so many great nuggets of wisdom and aha moments as well as practical advice for getting control of every room of your house. I invited Ingrid to talk about just a few ideas from the book, like the five clutter personalities, which is one of my favorite things from their book. By the way, I am a harassed housekeeper, if you’re wondering. And I also wanted her to share her top tips for managing the stuff in some of the most cluttered spaces in our homes. But we also talk about why we struggle with decluttering and some of the habits that derail our efforts and where decluttering really starts. And I hate to ruin a good shopping trip for you, but decluttering does not start at Target or the container store. I know the burden that a cluttered home can bring and I know how it’s hard to feel peace and calm when your space just feels overwhelming. So I am really excited to share this conversation with you. If you are tired of the piles and stacks of clutter or of overstuffed cabinets and closets, I think you’re going to love this episode. You deserve to feel peace in your home and getting rid of the physical clutter can go a long way in finding it. Before we jump in, let’s meet today’s guest. Ingrid Janssen is one half of the UK’s leading authority on decluttering and organizing your home as the Declutter Hub. Together, they have over 30 years of professional experience helping overwhelmed homeowners cut to the core of the emotions that hold us back from having a clutter-free, organized space that we want to live in. Their new book, Reset Your Home, Unpack Your Emotions and Your Clutter Step-by-Step, is out in February 2025, featuring their tried and tested approach to emotions-based decluttering and creating a calm space with long-term results. Here’s my conversation with Ingrid. I hope you love it. 

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Hi, Ingrid. Welcome to the Everyday Style School.

Ingrid Jansen: Hello, Jennifer. Thank you so much for having me. It’s so nice to be here. 

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: It’s wonderful to talk to you again. I was on your show and we just had such a wonderful connection and had so much fun talking that I had to invite you to come on mine. And you coincidentally have written a book. So we have so much to talk about today. How exciting. How exciting.

Ingrid Jansen: Oh my gosh, we’re like absolutely bursting from excitement. And it’s a long process to write a book because we were asked to write it. We kind of had it on our wish list of if we never have anything to do again, we’re going to write a book. And of course, you know, it never comes to the priority, the top of the list. And then Bloomsbury reached out to us and said, we’ve heard you on the podcast. You should write a book. And we went, Okay. And it’s been, you know, year and a half in the making. And I’m so delighted that finally next week, the book will be published and available here in the UK. We will also be publishing in the US at the end of June. So fingers crossed, it will all go well.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I love that. Actually, that gives me such motivation because I also have a book on my list. You know, if I have a chunk of time where I have nothing to do, I’ll write a book. And I have not had a chunk of time with nothing to do for a long time. But one struggle I’ve had when thinking about writing a style book is that styles go out of fashion so quickly, right? That it’s hard to write something that would be enduring and long lasting. But your book really kind of gave me food for thought because it talks so much about the mindset of decluttering. And just like the mindset of style, the mindset of decluttering is something that never, ever, ever goes out of fashion, right? That’s not a trend. 

Ingrid Jansen: Exactly. 

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: And one of the things you talk about is the importance of thinking before doing.

Ingrid Jansen: Can you speak a little bit about that? 

Ingrid Jansen: Yeah, absolutely. So basically, Leslie and I, Leslie is my wonderful business partner. So she and I together set up the Declutter Hub. We’re both professional organizers, and we actually worked in people’s homes. but then realized we really loved working together. But Les is on the other side of the UK in Manchester. I’m in Southeast London. So we said, let’s do something online. And that’s kind of how the Declutter Hub was born. And we help hundreds of people all over the world with their decluttering and organizing with our online membership. And what we quickly realized is that originally we set out to write a course. How do you declutter something? But we thought, you know what? There is so much more to decluttering than just doing the learning. We need to offer support. We need to offer motivation. We need to offer accountability. We need to offer a community of people. So in our minds, it kind of changed from a course into a membership. And then we also realized what we already knew by working with clients, putting something in a bin bag to donate it, give it away, trash it, whatever it is, that’s a very small part of decluttering and organizing. You need to understand the emotions that sit behind the decluttering. So you need to do a lot of thinking when you declutter. And I think a lot of people start with decluttering by going, right, I’ve got two hours in my diary. I’m going to fling open my cupboards and pull stuff out. And they skip that really important part of the thinking before the doing. Part of that thinking is also actually at the whole beginning, why am I doing this? What is my big picture goal here? Because if you just say to yourself, I want a tiny and decluttered house, I mean, that sounds amazing. But why? What is your reason? What is your why? What is your big picture goal? Is it I want to have my friends over for a cup of tea or a meal? I want to have my grandchild stay in my house. I want to be able to craft and knit and sew and be creative in that craft room that has never actually been set up. And now my crafts are everywhere. So what is your why? And you need to get that really clear in your head and do the thinking about it before you can actually kind of ponder the project then, because then you can go, OK, If that is my big picture goal, what needs to happen to make this happen? And then you can go, right, I need to declutter this and I need to move that. And you can do even more thinking about it. This is never wasted time. What we see a lot is people would just dive in, start to kind of run around like headless chickens and try to do this, that, and they’re everywhere. But never get there because they haven’t thought about how are we going to do this? Then, of course, when you are in the rooms that you’re working, you’re going to come across the emotions that sit behind the clutter. Again, what a lot of people do, they go, right. The worst room in my house is the first room that comes to mind that they want to declutter, whether it’s your wardrobe with your clothes or your spare bedroom or your garage or whatever. The worst room comes to mind thinking, OK, that’s the room I need to tackle. That sounds like a good idea, but the problem is that room is the way it is because it’s got loads of stuff that doesn’t have a home and that’s been put there for whatever reason. So by wanting to start in that room, you’re actually choosing to go immediately to one of the hardest areas. And when you haven’t decluttered for a long time or not enough, you can’t start with the hardest. It’s like saying, OK, I want to sort out my whole house. Let me start with my photographs and my sentimental items. Hardest thing to do. You have to go, right, let me start with some no-brainers in rooms that are easier, like the kitchen, the bathroom, your linen cupboard, your towels, your bedding, all of those types of rooms and areas, because you need to create space. Because probably in the rooms that are full is stuff that needs to go into those rooms, but it can’t because the cupboards are full. All thinking before you start doing.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: That was an aha moment for me. Like, oh, wait a minute. Don’t start with the hard stuff. Start with the easy things. And you’re right. There are so many things I’m like, I can’t put this away because there’s no room where it goes. But as you were talking, I kind of had this thought because we talk a lot in the style circle membership, which is so very parallel for women’s style and clothing to what you do for their homes and clutter. We talk a lot about the importance of thinking about understanding how you want to look so that you know what to buy. And I think a lot of times for our audiences, they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds great, but I just want the end result.

Ingrid Jansen: Yeah.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: You know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m going to go to the container store, stock up on pretty bins, and then I’m going to start at the end. What would you say to people who are like, This whole thinking thing, this is just what people who sell courses and memberships tell us to do. What would you say to those people?

Ingrid Jansen: You know, I think absolutely parallels everywhere, Jennifer, because we see the same. I have a clutter problem, so I’m going to buy containers and bins to make myself organized. The problem is, how do you know where these containers go if you don’t even know where the stuff goes, if you don’t even know what you’re going to keep and what you’re going to let go of? So the first step is always, and we see it all the time, and that’s why I’ve decluttered so many containers and bins in my life, Jennifer. Because people go… Oh, the irony. Yeah, it is true. Because it’s like, I want to get organized. And I see all these things on socials and TV and in magazines of that people have all these beautiful containers and bins. So that’s where I’m going to get started. So they buy more stuff to add towards the clutter they already have. It has to start with decluttering, deciding what you want to keep and deciding what you then can let go of. Then you need to find a place for the items in your home. Then you can go, okay, what kind of storage do I need? Do I need see-through containers, closed containers, with a lid, without a lid, large, small, whatever? And once you know that, then you can go out and possibly buy new containers. But we know from experience that a lot of people have containers in their houses, they’re just not using them in the right way, or they’re in the wrong place. So we always say here in the Declutter Hub, and exactly the same to our members in our wonderful membership, don’t buy your containers yet. Use temporary containers. Use some anti-shoe boxes. Use some of the boxes that you’ve got in your house. You don’t know yet which container you need. And once you kind of break through that, it’s like, wow, I’ve tried to solve my problem, buying containers and absolutely packing everything to the gill. But still, I can’t find what I need. I have doubles of everything. I keep spending money. And same in clothing, same in clothing. I mean, I’m just not talking about, you know, but same in wardrobes. Things fall down in the bottom of the wardrobe. Wardrobes are back to the rafters with clothing. So you can’t get anything out. You can’t get anything in. So what happens? Piles start to appear in front of wardrobes, on the floor, on the exercise bike, at the end of the bed. Laundry can’t be put away because the wardrobes are too full. So you’re going to have to start with the cupboards. Because what a lot of people want to do, they’re like, I’ve got a cluttered house. I want to tidy up. But the first hurdle then they get is like, where am I going to put it? Because the stuff is out on the kitchen counter, on the living room sideboard, on the floor, on the exercise machine in the bedroom, on the chair, the famous clothing chair. It’s out. because it can’t be put away because the wardrobes, the cupboards, the shelves, the drawers are all too full. So you need to start there and that can be a scary place sometimes and that’s why it’s so important to start small. One of the reasons why we start in the kitchen because a kitchen has already got smaller cupboards. It’s not a three, four or five door wardrobe or walk-in closet. You think, oh my word, how am I going to do this? A kitchen has smaller cupboards. So it feels suddenly more manageable to go, I’m going to do that one little cupboard. And then it’s like, wow, I did that. This is amazing. And that’s the reason why I’m, I’m sorry, I’m taking you off track of your question.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: It’s fine. And no, I, I think it’s so important that everyone gets back to this idea of doing the first things first. You know, I always say the last step in your style upgrade, your wardrobe makeover is shopping. Yes. When you do that first, you just add to the problem. When you go by the containers first, you just add to the problem. I love it. I love that you and I are so in sync on, I mean, you could just switch out clothes for clutter on either of our shows and there you go.

Ingrid Jansen: Yeah exactly and I think that’s why we’ve always enjoyed talking to each other so much because we feel we’re so aligned as well in the way we approach these things because you and I both know this is not easy and the problem is sometimes you see the hacks and you see the tips and you see the 30 second videos of a before and after. And a lot of people feel super overwhelmed and they go, I want that, but how do you do that? And then they want to start with making it all pretty while you have to start more at the beginning to have that result.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Yeah, it might get messy before it gets pretty, but I think yours is a book that everybody needs to read if they are struggling with clutter, if they are struggling with where to put everything. But I do want everyone to be warned that your mind is going to be challenged and you’re going to have to think a little bit. Ingrid’s not just going to tell you how to declutter that kitchen cabinet, she will, but your mind’s going to be involved. So just be prepared for that. Another thing I love in the book, and I know this is a huge topic, so we’re not going to go super in-depth on it, but you have five clutter personalities, which I think is so, so, so interesting. We don’t have time to go into all five. That’s a big topic. Can you just share one of them?

Ingrid Jansen: Absolutely. So yes, so we’ve got the happy heaper, the kind keeper, the warm weeper, the harassed housekeeper and the nostalgic knee deeper. And it’s fun because we actually have a quiz in our membership that when you’re on our socials, you can do a little quiz and find out what you are. But I think it’s really important that not all people are the same and not all clutter is the same. So let me tell you a little bit more about a happy heaper. A happy heaper is likely to have a kind of a busy life, multiple people, projects, priorities to think about. And what then happens is that their home kind of falls down the list of priorities. But what you see is you see these heaps of stuff. That’s why we call them happy heapers. They have heaps of stuff around their home. And other people might think, well, it’d be chaotic over there. But they probably have a good sense of where everything is, but it looks chaotic. What we see a lot with happy heapers is that they want to do it perfectly. So they just don’t have the time to find the perfect system. That’s what stops them in their tracks and they procrastinate about kind of moving on to the next thing unless it’s perfect. I need to have a whole weekend clear. I need to find the perfect containers. If only nobody would ring me and the doorbell wouldn’t go and my mom wouldn’t call me and then I’m going to do it. But what we see a lot is that they wait for the stars to align and the rainbows to come out at the same time, so then it will never get done. So what’s important for a happy heaper, they probably have to take it slowly instead of rushing into it, because they have a lot of boxes that they want to tick. And that’s, you know, we got all different kinds of personality. And we have a whole chapter about it in the book, because it’s really important that you understand your clutter personality. And some people might read the book and go, well, I’m all of them. That’s possible. That’s very, very possible.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: So your clutter personality kind of talks about how you store clutter, right? Or how your clutter is and kind of the habits that get you there. And then also some best strategies for organizing for that specific personality, right?

Ingrid Jansen: Exactly, exactly. And that’s why also, for example, the chapter after the clutter personalities, we talk about the do’s and don’ts of decluttering. Because again, you need to do some understanding of clutter in your home before you can dive in. In our membership, every of our courses we have, and living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, we have a video called understanding your emotions and habits, you need to understand what kind of things you can come across. Because even in the kitchen, which can sometimes seem like well, a kitchen item should not be difficult to declutter. But still, you know, we still have items in our kitchen and we think, Oh, that’s tricky to let go because it might been something that was really expensive, like a bread maker or a certain juicer or a multipurpose pasta maker that you really, really, really wanted to have and you finally got for Christmas or your birthday and you’ve used it once and then it’s sat there and you might feel really guilty about that. So you will come across emotions when you’re decluttering your rooms, but normally the emotions in a kitchen are easier than when you move to harder areas. After the easier areas, you go to bedrooms, clothing, all of those things. Then you go to your indoor and outdoor storage areas, your hallway, you build up your decluttering muscle. If you haven’t decluttered in a long time, you can’t just go, right, I now want a minimalist lifestyle with nothing in my house. It’s almost like a little onion. You have to peel the layers off. That’s why decluttering, unfortunately, listeners, is never done. But if you make it easier for yourself, you can make it easier. It does get easier.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: So the decluttering muscle was actually something I wanted to ask you about. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Ingrid Jansen: Definitely. It’s very similar as trying to go on a kind of health journey or on a exercise journey. When you decide, okay, I want to become healthier, you can’t go immediately from having junk food and beige food and never eating vegetables too. I’m only going to eat salad, nuts and no more meats and no more processed food. It’s a journey, isn’t it? When you want to pick up your exercising, you’re not going to start with going to the gym and trying to lift weights of 200 pounds. You’re going to go with, let me start with the 2K dumbbells and build it up. It’s the same with decluttering. You start off with small, manageable drawers. You start in your kitchen and you look at your mugs, and then you look at your glasses, and then the day later you look at your plastic containers, and then another time you look at your pots and pans, and the day later you look at your cutlery. You’re not going to go, right, kitchen, here I come. I have not decluttered anything for five years. I’m feeling completely overwhelmed. But I’ve blocked five hours. Here I am. And just start to pull stuff out. Because what we see all the time is people get super overwhelmed. And they’re like, after an hour and a half, look around and go, what have I done? It’s total chaos in here. How am I going to go out of this? So that’s why the small approach is crucial. I would rather you do one drawer and one cupboard for three weeks on end, every day one, than you to go this weekend five hours and then go, I’m absolutely shattered. What was I thinking? I’m never going to do that again. Because then you’re going to go, I don’t want to go back to this. This was boring. It was no fun. I’m exhausted. I can’t move. And then you leave it for months. And then the problems only kind of grow over time. So you need to build that decluttering muscle in smaller areas, in easier rooms. And then over time, your mindset starts to change. it’s going to get easier for you because you’re like, wow, but I did all of these cupboards and drawers successfully. I feel now ready to do a more challenging room because I’m used to making decisions. Decluttering is all about making decisions all the time. So that way you can make it easier for yourself and you build your decluttering muscle. And it doesn’t exist, the decluttering muscle, but we know it is there because our members talk about it all the time. Wow, my decluttering muscle is so much better. than before I joined your membership six months ago, or wow, I can really see the benefits of breaking projects down and building on my successes and celebrating those wins when you’ve done something and not berating yourself about everything that you haven’t done.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I would imagine too that when you start with something small and in a less sentimental area, you give yourself a win as well. Like, okay, look, I did that. I can do that. Oh, look, I threw away 25 pens that didn’t work and life still continued. Oh, I got rid of a cord that I don’t even know what it goes to. And the world kept turning, right? So you, you allow yourself to have those wins and successes. And then when you get to the harder areas, it’s like, Oh no, I’ve, I’ve been okay. I haven’t needed anything. I haven’t gone dumpster diving into the trash to retrieve that cord. So I know I can do this. I can handle the bigger things. Whereas if you start with those hard things, I see this a lot in closets. Conventional wisdom says take everything out of your closet, put it on your bed, and then try everything on. That to me is a great recipe for now having your wardrobe on the floor when you want to go to bed or giving up and putting it all back just because it’s so overwhelming. So we teach our members to do it in chunks, do it in little pieces, because you get to this point where it’s just so hard that you’re like, oh, the hell with it. put it all back in the closet it’ll be fine right like the clutter is easier than dealing with the clutter yes so we have to we have to chunk it in in small in small things what helps a lot of our members is

Ingrid Jansen: Don’t think about decluttering as what am I going to get rid of, but think about in decluttering as what’s important for me to keep and what do I love, use, like, wear. So when you’re doing a closed declutter, first go with, okay, these are the clothes that I wear and that I feel happy with and that are probably also in the laundry and in the floor piles and on the chair and all of that. Those need to stay first. So that’s the decision. Okay. That’s easy because you know, I wear that. I like it. It looks good on me. Happy about that. And then it’s much easier to go, okay, now let me look at the rest. then it doesn’t feel like the pressure, the negative way of what am I going to get rid of? But more like, hey, no, I’m going to turn it around. And it’s the same thing, but more positive. What’s important enough for me to keep? I love that. That’s a really, really, really good.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I’m going to steal that. I will give you credit and I’m going to steal it. So let’s talk about a few roadblocks to effective decluttering. You have quite a few in your book. You have these wonderful just little vocabulary words, which I love. One of them is flitting. Can you talk to us about what flitting is and then share some of the other roadblocks that we have when we try to declutter?

Ingrid Jansen: Yes. Flitting, we see a lot. It’s when you go, okay, there’s no plan. You haven’t thought about it. You’re just going to decide and want to open up a cupboard somewhere and I’m going to get started. And then you come across something and you think, oh, that belongs in another room. And instead of putting it to the side to return it to that room, when you are actually finished with that little cupboard, you go, let me bring this thing that I’m found to the bathroom. Then you come in the bathroom and you’re like, oh, the laundry basket is overflowing. I forgot to put my laundry on. So you go and put your laundry on. Then you realize that’s still a laundry in there. So that needs to be put in the dryer first. So you then put it in the dryer, you load the laundry, and then you see some toilet rolls that you meant to put in the upstairs bathroom that evening before. So you then walk, you see what I’m doing here? I was decluttering a kitchen cupboard, and now I’m suddenly four chores down, upstairs in a room that wasn’t, and then it’s like, why is all this stuff out? I need to put it away. Before you know it, you flit from one thing to the other to the other. There’s no plan. And in the end, you feel like you’ve done nothing. And then you’re like, but hold on a minute. I was actually in the kitchen decluttering a cupboard. What happened here? So you need to think about that and go, OK, I’m not going to move away from what I’m doing. Put a timer on this 20 minutes, this 30 minutes, this 50 minutes. I’m going to focus on this thing. And if I find something for somewhere else, I’m going to put it to the side. And when I’m done with this cupboard, then in one go, I’m going to walk around with my tray or my bag or everything in my arms. And I’m going to just put it everywhere in the right place. because that way you prevent that you get all these unfinished things everywhere. Flitting is as well that when you do one day something in this room and then you find it another day you find something in another room and then the third room you find something. So you’re like everywhere but you’re nowhere. And the thing with decluttering is you need to try as best as you can to stay in one room and declutter that to the best of your ability. Now, that might be 70 or 80% done, but the bulk needs to be done because then you can go back that I’ve done all of that. I’ve seen a difference in that one room. Lots of people who come to us are overwhelmed because for years and years and years, they’ve just scratched the surface everywhere and feel like they haven’t done anything. And we teach them, no, you need to start in one room. Stick to it, and when it’s mostly done, then you can move on. And yes, there will always be one or two hard drawers that you might not be ready for. You can go back to them. If you’re ready to go to the next room, go to the next room. But don’t just do 15 minutes here and half an hour there. Decluttering is different than tidying. Very different.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Okay. What are some of the other roadblocks that you’ve seen over the years when it comes to effective decluttering?

Ingrid Jansen: A big one is churning. Here’s another one that I love as well. So churning is when you are seeing something in your living room, in your bedroom, wherever it is, and you think, okay, I’m ready to let this go. And it doesn’t go to the donation. It doesn’t go to the car. It doesn’t go into a pile of stuff I’m going to bring to Goodwill or whatever, but it goes temporarily somewhere else. Whether that’s the spare bedroom or the garage or the attic. So you’ve just churned this item from one place in your home to another place and it has not left. The big problem with that and why it is so important to break that cycle is that as long as something has not left your house, you’ve not decluttered this and you have to make the whole process of the thinking and the decluttering thing all over again, just because you’ve moved it. So when we speak in the membership about the cycle of success, one of the most important steps in the cycle of success, besides of course decluttering, categorizing, organizing, storage, is actually donating the item. We always say we prefer to donate because then it has got the biggest chance of you leaving the house. Be careful with creating all these, I’m going to sell this pile. Because they build up and build up and build up. So donation is preferable to the best way possible. But of course, we understand that people, you know, do have to recoup some of the money that they spend on it. But if you can make donation your priority, and then it has to actually leave the house, because when it’s left, you can officially say, I’ve decluttered this.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: That is such an amazing point. And we see this a lot with clothing, right? Like you put them in the bags, you mean to take them somewhere, you mean to donate them, and then they stay, and then you’re struggling to get dressed one day, so you go back into the bag, right? You’ve already made the decision about it, but somehow it has that creep. I had Amelia Trumbull from Retold Recycling on the show, gosh, I think it was, at the time of recording this last month. And she has a business, it’s like take back bags, right? Where you can mail in back your clothing donations. And I just made the decision to order a bunch of them to have in my closet because what I didn’t want is when I’m decluttering to have these bags and then I have to order the bag and wait for the bag to come to me and then I can send it back. Nope. I just want to have those little yellow bags right in my closet good to go, get it out of there right now. And that is the thing in my own home. When we do any kind of cleaning, decluttering, whatever, I make my family load it all into my car that day. And my husband’s always like, no, we’ve been working all day. I’ll take it for you tomorrow. I’m like, no, no, no, no. It’s going, it’s out today because I know, I know how easily that happens. By the way, if you need recycling bags from Retold Recycling, we will have the link and the code in the show notes. So go check that out. But get the stuff out of your house ASAP. Don’t just transfer it somewhere else.

Ingrid Jansen: Exactly. Because you know, that’s also a form of churning as well, you know, just then moving it somewhere and then you’re like, what was in these bags? Why are they here? Because some other stuff gets put on top of it. And then you’re reinventing the wheel yet again, you know, you want to part of your decluttering should be undoing a declutter bringing it to a donation, goodwill, charity, whatever it is, needs to be part of that process. And of course, I have a lot less clutter in my house. So I have now created a little donation station in my house where my items, whether I see you as I go along my normal week, I can put them in. And every once in a while, I go, right, my donation station is full now. I’m going to bag it all up. But if you’re in a house with a lot of clutter, Those regular trips should be part of, you know, of the cycle because you’ll have more success and that’s what we want for you.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I think one of the hardest things for decluttering, whether it is your clothing, whether it is your mugs, anything is sentimentality. Yeah. What would you say to somebody who wants to hang on to everything because there’s some sort of memory attached to it? How do we start to navigate that one?

Ingrid Jansen: Excellent question. So first of all, what’s really important is that you need to keep those sentimental items for later. You need to build up your decluttering muscle. If you find some sentimental items in your kitchen, like a mug that you got from your mom, or a special holiday souvenir, or one from your university when you were young, just make a little shelf on the top cupboard where they all are together with their friends. You can go, right, that’s my sentimental shelf. And I’m just going to put a couple of bits there. And then later, when I’ve built up my decluttering muscle, I’m going to go back and look at the sentimental items. as well when you’re going through your house and you’re finding piles of like photographs and special letters, make a box and call it my sentimental items box. So they’re not loose and out everywhere and almost can get damaged because they’re just somewhere on a random pile. I have a couple of sentimental boxes, one for my son, one for my daughter, one from us, a separate one from our wedding at the time. So just because I’m a professional organizer doesn’t mean I’m not a sentimental soul. But, and here it comes, Jennifer, you need to find the quality over the quantity. If you have hundreds of something, nothing is special. What is the item that truly gives you that warm, fuzzy, we talk about a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that you think, oh, wow, I love that. that is special, or there’s a story, or there’s something about it that you love. For example, greetings cards, right? We save them and save them, and every time somebody sends us a card, we save them because we think, ooh, that’s lovely. But if it, you know, Leslie sends me a card, and it’s like, hey, Ingrid, happy birthday, love, Leslie. Very nice of Leslie. I appreciate her thinking about me, et cetera. But that card does not have a special meaning for me. I don’t need to keep that card. If that card had like a whole heartfelt message and a whole story about when we met or whatever, that’s different, right? So we need to find the quality over the quantity. We don’t need to keep every card people have ever sent us. And that’s how it goes with all the items. We don’t need to keep every picture that our children have drawn for us. We might want to keep the one with a little hand on it because we think, oh, I can’t believe it. Maybe that’s the special one. Or maybe with the one with the picture that they drew with their friend or when they drew you as a family, for example. Clothing the same. If you have lots and lots of sentimental clothing, What are the truly the treasures? If you’re struggling, you know, if you have plenty of space, you know, no problem. But here in the UK, we don’t have very large houses. And I mean, even, you know, people who live in the US, when you’re in New York in an apartment, you can’t have 25 sentimental outfits if you just don’t have the space, because you then can’t put your clothes that you wear all the time in your wardrobes. You’re going to have to pick and choose. But this is one of the reasons why sentimental items comes later, almost at the end of our reset your home system, our reset your home roadmap. That’s why it’s also at the end of our Reset Your Home book, because you need to understand what the emotions are and work your way through it step-by-step to make yourself ready to do those sentimental items.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I think there’s a lot of wisdom in the idea of it’s okay to save something for later, to not be ready to make the decision about it. Because when you make a bad decision in decluttering, it prevents you from making more decisions down the road. And I see that with clothing. I never, you know, when I would work with clients and they’d say, are you going to make me get rid of, I’m not going to make you get rid of anything. I can’t tell you to get rid of anything. And if somebody was hemming and hawing about something, I’d say, keep it.

Ingrid Jansen: Yeah.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: You can get rid of it later. Just keep it. Because I know if they got rid of that sweater dress, And then they thought about it and they thought about how they wish they hadn’t gotten rid of it and they can’t get it back because it went to donation or whatever. The next time they went to edit their wardrobe, that would be the memory they would have of this is terrible. I’m going to wish I hadn’t done this. I’m going to, I want all my things back rather than, oh yeah, I did feel lighter. And I did, it did make it easier to get dressed.

Ingrid Jansen: Yeah.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I liked the idea of just deal with it later.

Ingrid Jansen: I love this so much because it’s exactly, and we say something that shocks a lot of people, because what do people think? If in doubt, throw it out, right? Leslie and I are like, no, no, no. If in doubt, keep it. And everybody goes, what? You’re a professional organizer, Cindy Clutter is, how can you say if in doubt, keep it? And it’s for the exact same reasons. They’re just not ready yet. just not ready yet. We want decluttering to be something that can be enjoyed, that you can feel lighter and happier about it. Now, it won’t be perfect. A decluttering journey is never perfect. You know, you can’t make perfect decisions about all the items in your home. But if you indeed have this feeling inside that goes, I’m not sure about this, you have to keep it because you’re just not ready. While maybe a couple of months down the line, when your decluttering muscle is grown, you’re like, actually, what was I thinking the last time? I don’t need this. I’m happy to let it go now. But once you’ve kind of forced yourself to declutter stuff that you’re not ready for, it gets really, really hard. And that’s where I think we have a very different view as the declutter hub on these kinds of things.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Well, I’m right there with you, which makes me wonder, what do you tell women about clothes that don’t fit?

Ingrid Jansen: Good question. I think you need to look at reality, right? Realism is a whole big thing as well within the decluttering. What is the chance of you going to wear that again, right? If you are currently, I don’t know, the sizing is a little bit different in the US, but for example, if you’re a size 16 in the UK and you still have a size eight in your wardrobe, like a half a wardrobe full of sizes eight, how realistic is that? That doesn’t mean you have to declutter all the sizes eight, you can still keep maybe one or two and go, I aspire to do that. But you also need to be realistic. Because if you then can’t get dressed every day, because you have to rummage through your size eight clothes and go, can’t wear that, don’t fit that, I’m too fat, all the negative things we hear all the time, all the negative self talk, That is so detrimental to your well-being. You want to open your wardrobes and go, okay, what am I going to wear today? These are all my options instead of going, don’t, can’t, won’t. It’s very, very negative. So you have to be realistic about it. And, you know, people fluctuate in size and there’s people, you know, it’s not only people with weight gain, but also people who had a lot of weight loss, you know, you’re going to have to work with what you got. But that doesn’t mean you need to keep a whole wardrobe full of something that’s five sizes too big or too small, because that’s such a negative way of starting the day.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Well, there, once again, we are on the exact same page. And I always tell women, first of all, get it out of your closet. You don’t need to look at it. If you’re gonna keep it, fine, keep it, I don’t care. But get it out of your closet, put it in a bin, put it in a box, and put the very smallest sizes at the bottom, and then layer up from there. So if you’ve gained weight or whatever, and you can’t fit into things, okay, the next size down, that should be on top. And then you pull those out, there you go. And then eventually if you get down there, wonderful. If not, whatever. But I also tell women to give it a date, not a weight. So if you are taking out those size eights, All right, I’m going to give it six months. I’m going to give it a year. I’m going to give it a two years. It’s up to you. But on that date, open it. And if it doesn’t fit, that’s when you need to let go of it. Because styles do change. But give it a date, not a weight. A date is certain to come. That is something, you know, someday never comes. When I get back to my pre-baby weight, that may never come. and the longer it goes on, you know, the harder it gets, but give it a date and how to wait. But I love, I love that you tell women to be realistic and would you want to wear this again? And what’s the reality of getting back in there?

Ingrid Jansen: And indeed, if you ever get down to that size eight again, would you still want to wear this? Or are you just making yourself feel guilty every time you see it. It’s the same with clothes that we haven’t worn, right? Clothes that still have the tags on. We feel that guilt. I spent so much money on it. Oh my gosh. And why have I not worn this? And why did I buy it? Because we all, you know, have a bit of, you know, retail therapies every once in a while and we fall off the wagon and we make a mistake. But by keeping it in your wardrobe and perpetuating Every time by seeing this, you’re not going to move further. And I think what’s really important is that you have the stuff in your house that fits the current you and the person where you want to go. And it’s with clothing, but it’s with everything else in your house, the books, the ornaments, the items in your kitchen. Does it fit with your current life? And not only for younger people, but also for people who are older and older kids have flown the nest. does the stuff still work with your current lifestyle? Why is there still kids plates while there’s no kids anymore? Why do you have a 14 set dinner set for 14 people while for Christmas you now either go to your son or daughter and they have the whole meal and you only have a couple of people around now or why is the wardrobe still full with clothing from when you were in a job but you’ve retired now four years ago. Can you not go through it and decide okay those clothes I still like I still would wear But a lot of people then still see them as work clothes and they never feel comfortable in them anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: All right. So I want to do a little bit of a lightning round with your top tips for a few key areas in your home. We’re just going to go through them real quick. Now you’ve shared a little bit about the kitchen as a good place to start. What are a couple of quick tips for decluttering your kitchen?

Ingrid Jansen: Okay, when you’re decluttering, you need to think about that items need to be accessible. So stuff that you use all the time needs to be on eye level or on hip level because they’re easiest to reach and easiest to get to. So glasses and mugs for a coffee or tea need to be close to a kettle, easy to grab, maybe next to the coffees and teas. So accessibility and then visibility as well. If you’ve got high cupboards, use a container that you can lift out so you can see it. If you’ve got a drawer or cupboard full of spices and you have to rummage through and things fall out, get a little container where you can put them in so you can lift the container out and see what you have. And also in a kitchen, instead of a junk drawer, create a drawer of useful things. Because there are these things that are just really useful to have, but they should be in little containers in a drawer of useful things where you can just easily grab them and they don’t get lost between all of the little bits and bobs that normally end up in junk drawers. Go through it. categorize it, put it in little containers. It can be, you know, iPhone boxes or phone boxes that are empty, perfect little containers if we’re a drawer like that. And then you can suddenly, it becomes instead of a junk drawer, a drawer of useful things.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Oh, I like that mindset shift. That’s a good one. All right. Two tips for the bathroom.

Ingrid Jansen: Yes, first of all, create a use first container. So if you have got like little samples from when you went on holiday, or you’ve got like little shampoos and things that have a little bit left, Put them in a, I need to use these first container. So you can just finish them. I personally don’t think we should just all just throw it away. Even if there’s a little bit of shampoo left, that’s all money you’re throwing away, but finish it. Don’t start a new one when the old one hasn’t finished. And this is a great way to really, really clear out a lot of stuff from your bathroom. And also, Have a look at, you know, when are you going to use that cream? Are you going to use that body lotion? Are you a hand lotion person? Do you want to have that bath fluff puff thing that you can use to shower? Are you just not a person like that? A lot of this stuff can be donated for a shelter or a food bank, but if you leave it in your cupboard for four years, it’s no use to good to anybody anymore. So again, lots of realism needed here just to go, okay, I’m just not a hand lotion person. Why have I got hand lotion in my bathroom cupboard? I’m going to declutter that. I’m going to let it go. person who would love to use that. We have a lot of giveaway apps here in the UK. I don’t know if you’ve got them in the US, but they’re fantastic. You just snap a picture, you do hand cream, unused, pick it up from a house, you put it outside in a little bag and somebody collects it from your porch. I mean, brilliant. That way you start to create space for the things you do use.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I love that. So something I did, I had all those little sample bottles of shampoos and all that stuff. I am very picky with curly hair. You don’t just use any shampoo. So I was like, what am I going to do with all these? I dumped them all in my husband’s shampoo bottle because he has like one thing that he uses on his body, his hair, his car. It’s men’s care. It’s so much easier. I just dumped them all in there. I just emptied them. He didn’t even know. I got rid of like 15 sample bottles of shampoo in there.

Ingrid Jansen: Exactly.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Exactly. Pawn it off on your husband. He’ll never know.

Ingrid Jansen: And I think as well, the next level then is, okay, let’s not pick these up in the first place.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Don’t take them anymore. Don’t even take them.

Ingrid Jansen: But that’s the next step. When you’ve got a cluttered house, you can’t think ahead. But once you start to declutter, and you start to recognize your own habits, when they offer you a free sample in the shops, just say, no, thank you, I’m good. And don’t even take it in the first place, because then that’s another decision less that you don’t have to do later.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Well, I have all of these. They’re really nice samples from, you know, like high-end skincare lines. But the problem is that tiny, itty, itty bit of eye cream is not going to be enough to tell me if I like this or not. And if I have something that’s working, I have no reason to use it. And if, so I’ve just, I’ve just started saying, no, thank you. Yeah. I don’t need to take all the samples at the dermatologist, even, even though they’re really good. Yeah. They’re not enough to, actually tell you if they’re what you need. All right, so one or two quick tips on bedroom before we move on and wrap up.

Ingrid Jansen: Yes. So like I mentioned before, very important. If you want to tackle those floor drops and the clothes that are out, you’re going to have to do the wardrobe first. But exactly what you said as well, don’t pull out all of the clothes everywhere. Start with the drawer. you know, take out your pajamas or your gym wear or your underwear or your socks and go, right, let me just look at this and then I’m going to go, right, what am I going to keep? I think that is really, really important. Break it down into manageable categories and then go, okay, This is my job for today, and tomorrow I’m going to do something else. And with your hanging clothes, it’s the same thing. You can just look at the jackets in one go, and to the shirts in another, and to the trousers in another, and to the dresses in another. So again, although it might all be in one big area, you can still break it down into small manageable chunks.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Fantastic advice. Do you have one quick tip? Once you have cleared out that junk drawer, turned it into a drawer of useful things, how do you maintain it? What’s your best tip for that?

Ingrid Jansen: You need to do daily non-negotiables. If you don’t do anything during the week, it will all fall down to the weekend. Daily, you’re going to have to do a little bit of work. And I’m not talking hours. I’m talking 10 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening, just by going, okay, what are my non-negotiables? What needs to be done every day to make sure I don’t go backwards? And that is probably something with dishes. Something with laundry, a load of laundry in the washing machine, a load of laundry in the dryer, a load of laundry to put away. So something with laundry. Something probably with rubbish and recycling. I need to empty my recycling into my outside bins or whatever. And probably something with wiping the kitchen sides. People who have pets need to make sure non-negotiable. They need to feed and water their pets every day. They do it for them. You also need to do stuff for yourself so your future self is not coming back to a kitchen in the morning where still the dishes from last night are stacked up because the dishwasher wasn’t loaded. And once you start to get those little habits ingrained in you, you will see that you will have a lot less hard chores in the weekend. So you start to free up some time in the weekend to do a bit of extra tidying, to do a little bit of extra decluttering, to do a little bit of extra cleaning. If you just do a little bit every day, honestly, it’s a game changer.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Great advice. All right, the last question I ask every single guest, before we wrap up and before we tell everyone where to find you and your book, but our listeners are busy, busy women, and I know they’re taking in a ton of information. If they could remember one thing, what is that one thing our listeners should take away from our conversation today?

Ingrid Jansen: that it’s always about the emotions first and the stuff second. The stuff is a very, very, very small part of what we do. You need to do that thinking and understanding the emotions. And once you actually spend a little bit of time on that, your whole decluttering experience will improve massively.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: That is a good one to put in your memory bank, ladies. All right, Ingrid, tell everyone where they can find you. Tell us about your book. Tell us all the things. And we will put all the links in the show notes.

Ingrid Jansen: Thank you so much. So we’ve got a podcast, a Facebook group. We’ve got a membership. We’ve got socials. Everything is on declutterhub.com. And if you specifically want to know about our book, Reset Your Home, go to declutterhub.com forward slash book.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Fantastic. Ingrid, thank you so much for sharing your time, your knowledge, your wisdom. As always, it is wonderful to talk to you.

Ingrid Jansen: Oh, it’s been absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for having me so much.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary: I want to thank Ingrid again for her time and for sharing with us how we can find more peace and more calm in our homes by decluttering and getting organized. Head to the show notes for this episode to connect with Ingrid and Declutter Hub in all the places, and also to check out their new book, Reset Your Home. I loved it, and I think you will too. I’ll see you next time. And until then, remember that your everyday matters, so get dressed for it.