Decluttering and organizing a very messy space can feel overwhelming and I definitely felt that when I tackled this messy closet but I asked myself two important questions that helped me power through the mountain of junk that I pulled from this closet this week so let me show you the before before I started
Decluttering I’m going to show you the closet the closet that I’m decluttering in this video is our main hul closet I declutter and organize this closet every season to fit whatever’s going on in that season in the summer it holds swim gear and basketball uniforms in the
Winter it holds snow gear and coats it’s also a Dumping Ground for stuff that just doesn’t have a home somewhere else it’s got roller skates board canes uh bags backpacks uh cleaning tools uh shoes um the my husband’s shoes and my shoes are also stored in here
It’s also a kitchen overflow for stuff that is just too big for our kitchen cabinets so it’s it’s it has a really big job in our house to store a lot of things for us so the first question I had to ask myself was what should even
Be organized in this closet and I started the whole project writing out a list of things that I wanted to keep in this closet specifically and that helped guide me through all of the decisions once I started taking everything out of the closet I realized how much extra
Stuff was in there that I didn’t write on my list that I wanted to to organize and keep in here by the way in case you’re new here my name is Erica Lucas and I share videos about decluttering that have led me on a journey of slow
And simple living for the last 4 and 1/2 years I actually skipped decluttering and organizing this closet over the summer after spring and so it’s been six months since I’ve actually tackled this closet and when I feel a space start to become overwhelming where we literally
Can’t even open the door I know I need to simplify the number of items that are in there and how things are organized in that space and I love these opportunities to rethink the spaces in our house as systems rather than just looking at us a closet and what I want
To keep there I think about how I need it to function and work for us how we need a space to be able to walk in safely without stepping on a million things and grab the things that we need to give some autonomy to my children for
Their roller skates and their snow gear so my husband can have all of his stuff stored in there that he likes that me and my husband can just go in and find the shoes that we actually want to wear for the day without having to dig
Through a mountain of junk and so just clearing out the initial space of shoes and the floor and the stuff that was hanging on the utility hooks on the wall was a really great kickoff for this space I still had the other half of the closet and the
Back half and the shelves to to deal with but just getting everything out and literally throwing it out there into the hallway felt therap itic and really something for me that I needed to do I asked the kids to help me cuz they helped make the mess but the agreement
In our house for when it comes to YouTube is if you don’t want to be on camera that is your choice and uh two of my kids did not really want to participate in the project and be on camera my oldest is always willing to do
It he’s always willing to help and he’s he loves being on on YouTube so I always seek their permission for projects like this and he was willing to help me read do these bins uh he wanted his own bin for gymnastics he and his sister had
Been sharing and so they wanted to have a separate bin for their own personal gymnastics gear and clothes that we have and then we also have separate bins for karate and then we have a bin for Scouts and I was getting rid of the swim and
The basketball and I got stuck on swim because we’re not doing winter swim classes indoors the pool in our backyard is closed so I was trying to figure out where I wanted to if I wanted to keep it in this closet or remove it somewhere else and I decided that it really could
Just get stored upstairs I now completely overwhelmed by this approach because I have all that junk and I still have all of these shelves to deal with I’m going to look at my list and see what needs organizing winter gear that’s a good one kitchen overflow I can do that sports gear I
Just did okay and shoes will happen at the end once everything is cleaned up it’ll be a lot easier to work organized shoes I’m going to do winter gear by person and find a home for that the next thing I’m going to do is remove anything from here
That does not belong in this closet or at least that I don’t want in the closet right now like that box okay what’s under there oh the kids hiking shoes oh okay there’s hundreds of things in this closet that need all those little micro decisions about what
Is going to stay in this closet what should get thrown out what should get donated what should be kept somewhere else in the house and that volume of decisions is difficult okay I just threw everything out of here and buried myself into the closet I didn’t even like figure out
What I wanted to do with anything that I threw out here I just knew that I didn’t want it in here right now theyve got their boots with their winter hats and gloves they’re roller skates they’re they’re like changeable roller skates between blades and skates so there’s the extra pieces I did throw
The Allen wrench out there so I’ll have to find that um game that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the house right now this is a coin basket where we put coins and collect and save and then this is my seedling shelf that I pull out in February and start my peppers and then
My tomatoes as seedlings and that just moves out there for a few months while I grow my seedlings and then in the winter it serves as Dual Purpose storage for us in here and then this I just cleared everything off except what I knew would stay the printer and the supplies my rooster
Pan Which I use pretty regularly it just doesn’t fit in the kitchen anywhere and then I Consolidated the rest of kitchen overflow up here stuff that doesn’t fit in our kitchen cabinets or I don’t use as often can stay up here and then we organized Sports and then I’ve cleared off I’ve
Cleared off the top shelf completely I am completely stuck I don’t know where to start Brandon’s just pulling out shoes cuz that feels like something we could do um I think maybe referencing my list again is going to be the way to go so let’s see shoes I did winter gear I did
Kitchen overflow coats are going to be easy to hang we did sports gear we did the printer we did cleaning tools and dog towels are so easy they’ll just go right on the Shelf so honestly what’s left is a question of is it should it be decluttered or put somewhere else in the
House or just trashed because it’s not on my list of things that I was thinking or donated that’s right I cannot believe this is what remains that was stuck in that closet no wonder we couldn’t open the door get through there I’m going to confess
Something to you and I kind of hope that you can relate to it because you are watching this particular video but sometimes when a space gets like this in our house I feel like a failure as a mom as a wife as a housekeeper as a a
Homemaker I I feel like I’m failing when projects get like this clutter is a stimulus but I have to give myself so much grace because life is messy and we have a house that we live in and I’m dealing with levels of grief from losing
My mom and my brother and then I have to really just focus on all of the good things that are happening the children are happy they’re active in sports we do a lot of of uh school at home we have a really amazing group of friends in this
Area we’ve lived here for three and a half years and my husband’s getting ready to retire from the Navy and we’re celebrating that and there’s a lot of really great things going on and beating myself about beating myself up about one closet is not something I allow myself
To do anymore that when that feeling of failure presents itself because it does when it comes to clutter and a mess I just have to remind myself that I am not alone on this journey that you’re watching this video and you probably have Messes in your house that you’re
Dealing with too and that habits come over time and I am dealing with thousands of less items in our home now and that’s what led me to the second question that I needed to ask myself with this project do I even want to continue taking care of all the stuff that didn’t
Make it back into the closet some of the kids shoes that need to go where we keep kids shoes which is at the end of the hallway um okay I’m not going to deal with that yet I’m still I still got to tackle this okay and then here’s kind of how
I’ve got it going so far all right so sports gear is here I’ve been hanging backpacks and more sports gear right now I have all the coats and stuff hanging I don’t really like walking into that because for me this is like bin organization kind of clock it
Um so I have to think about that it could work over here but then it makes it hard to get out the vacuum every day so maybe if I rehome the vacuum but okay towels for when it rains and we got to wipe off the dogs and keep the floor
Dry as we can and the rest of the towels I’m going to put upstairs with the swim stuff that we don’t need right now I have a closet upstairs that I keep offseason stuff so right now it has summer clothes for my kids and swim gear and then those extra
Pool towels and then this closet is the current season returning to that second question of do I even want to manage all this junk that Still Remains out here that I need to make decisions about do I really want to manage it and I literally contemplated this for like a half an
Hour I cut all of that footage out because it was too much it was just me standing there doing nothing and thinking over and over do I want to manage it I read a statistic recently from a survey of 2015 from declutter.com that said that 54% of Americans are
Overwhelmed by clutter we just have too much stuff and 78% of us have no idea what to do about it and I can’t believe that I stood there that long trying to decide what to do but what I got stuck on that the cluttering roadblock that
Always gets me is we spent money on this is this really something I just want to throw away or give away is this something we might want what if we want it later okay so I’m left with a bunch of just random junk this is recycling
That’s going to get stored in the garage that’s just Andy’s lunch that has to go back in the closet and then just a bunch of random things my daughter’s purse will go in her room but I’m asking myself right now do I want to manage
That on an on like a future basis on a day on the days Beyond Today is this inventory is this stuff is this are these things we want to own that I want to man continue to manage I mean it wasn’t being managed in this closet it was just taking up space collecting
Dust I’m inclined to throw it all out like that’s what I’m feeling that it’s not things I need to keep that I should just declutter them and they’re I mean it’s not stuff I would give away it’s garbage it’s garbage it’s garbage it’s garbage so many times when I work
On these decluttering projects when I talk it out with you it helps me so much come to the realization that it is okay to throw things away sometimes that it is okay to make a big giant pile for donation on things that you spent money on and these repeated decisions build
Decluttering muscles and make it easier to declutter year after year even though stuff still comes in the house from birthdays and holidays and grandparents and friends and we just gather stuff stuff just collects it’s part of living in a home stuff just comes in and goes out and recognizing that sometimes more
Things need to go out than are coming in is a big part of simplifying and I love simplifying our home and finding processes and systems that work for me my husband and the kids and coming to realization that sometimes trash is just trash this game broke and it was just
Sitting under the Shelf in the closet for like a year I’m glad to just get rid of it and not keep it as something I have to manage it’s broken I don’t know why we were holding hope that it would not be broken anyway trash recycling my husband’s lunch bag
Doesn’t go in the garage that’s going to get stored in the garage and skateboarding gear gets stored in the garage that’s my husband’s stuff that was in there that I just need him to decide what to do with it usually hangs this lunch bag right there okay my husband built that little
Shelf for our shoes so my shoes are on the bottom I’m missing my brown my short brown boots I don’t know where those are they might be my closet upstairs my husband’s shoes are on the top we’ll go top down so open space to work with snow pants for all five of
Us kitchen overflow this is a shelf for the dog stuff sports gear I still have an access problem with these coats though and then maybe I’ll just put the coats back on the hooks the way we used to have it it just felt so crowded I mean granted I have four coats
And ads3 coats I mean I don’t know and then I tucked this shelf back into the corner to squeeze the vacuum here to be able to make space for the coats so then I’ve got that shelf done and then this shelf is the cleaning stuff the skating stuff um hats and
Gloves scarves boots skates so world’s better I still got to figure out coats cuz that’s just they’re not going to work hanging here I don’t think they’re going to work hanging here this has always been more for bags and stuff but we’re going to have to maybe
See how that works and if we come up with a better solution for now and then shoes ended up with two bags of trash I took out the recycling going to give that away and then I’m throwing out all these shoes as well um four pairs of shoes they eat my
Feet and um they started out in the beginning not eating my feet but every time I wear them my feet hurt so much so now I’m I’m just going to put them all in the garbage I guess I could donate I don’t know they’re all stretched out and gross
So I don’t know I don’t think they’re they should be donated and then this is all the stuff that needs to go into somebody’s bedroom or into the offseason storage closet upstairs it just needs to be carried up and put away this was a really big
Project for me the the two things that helped me finish this completely and Tackle such a giant massive amount I mean what did I have like a hundred things left on the floor to make decisions about that was massive making myself a list of what I wanted to
Organize in here to keep me on track and then at the end really questioning everything that was left as something I wanted to continue to take care of asking myself that very deep question do I actually want to take care of of everything that is left and having the
Answer of no and just putting it into the trash bag helps me to eliminate so many decisions that would have just really stalled me and then stuff would have just just sat around in a pile rather than getting rid of it and having less in my life so I’m really glad you
Were with me today for another declutter and I will leave you here with this video next hope you’re doing well
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