I’m always looking for ways to help you declutter, and I often think about what helped me most. It wasn’t information on how to declutter. Instead, I needed some powerful things to tell myself to change my mind and declutter with more ease.
A list of what to let go of might help you declutter in the beginning, but as you may have noticed, decluttering is a marathon, not a sprint (and the real work is changing your mind about your stuff). We need to remind ourselves why we are bothering in the first place. Decluttering isn’t really about organizing your stuff. It’s about developing a decluttering mindset that makes letting go easier. Decluttering and owning less doesn’t mean owning nothing. Own the things you actually want to keep, the things that make you smile.
Come back to basics, pepper in a few decluttering challenges, and then say the words below to yourself (over and over again) and let go of the stuff that weighs you down. P.S. Usually, this is the stuff we never use or enjoy.
If you need a little encouragement to let go, these reminders will help you declutter by shifting your mindset about the things you own.
- Remember you already have enough
- Donate the bag sitting in your car
- There isn’t room for all of it
- Decluttering is about your heart, not just your stuff
- Letting go of stuff is easier than holding on
- Hold on to what matters
- Organized clutter is still clutter
- Less stuff means less cleaning
- Your legacy is not your stuff
9 Little Notes To Help You Declutter and Let Go of Your Stuff
Even though tips and tricks to help you declutter may add value to your decluttering journey, a mindset shift is what you really need. Use these little notes to help you declutter your home by shifting how you think about holding on and letting go. Shift your mindset around what your stuff really means to you. Use these notes to remember what actually matters to you (and to laugh a little). We need humor and compassion to get through this decluttering process.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, these little reminders can help you declutter by shifting your mindset and making it easier to let go of things you no longer need.
1. When you are drowning in a scarcity mindset, remember that simplifying allows you to thrive in a mindset of abundance or enoughness.
When scarcity mindset gets in the way, remembering that you have enough will help you declutter. Less really does become more. You appreciate what you have when you have less of it. You enjoy your favorite things when you only own your favorite things. Remember what you have to share and borrow with friends, family, and neighbors.
2. May this be the year that the bag of clothes you want to donate makes it out of the trunk of your car.
Sometimes it really is this simple. You’ve bagged up the clothing, but it sits in your trunk or closet just waiting to be donated. You probably don’t even remember what’s in the bag(s). Challenge yourself to donate them in the next 48 hours. Let them go so you can create a little space.
3. With everything that is vying for our attention, there simply isn’t room to hold everything … not in a home, not in a drawer, and not in a life.
Why overwhelm yourself trying to hold on to it all? We’ve all tried the thing where we do too much, take care of too much, and wonder why it’s so hard. What’s wrong with us? Maybe it’s not us at all. It’s simply too much and the only options are to hold it all until you break or let something go.
4. Decluttering is one part dealing with your stuff and three parts dealing with your heart.
This is why letting go is hard. Because stuff isn’t just stuff in our hearts. Stuff is the moment someone said hello or goodbye. It’s a pair of shoes we never thought we could afford or decades of photos that remind us that we had a life. Stuff is dozens of report cards and yearbooks, and it’s also 49 coffee cups (even though we always use our favorite one).
Knowing that your heart may be holding on a little too tightly, be gentle with yourself. Go easy, take tiny steps, and take lots of breaks as you work towards a more spacious, relaxed life.
5. Letting go of things is actually easier than holding on to them.
We assume letting go of things is really hard, but as it turns out, holding onto things is much more difficult. You have to hold on to things like clutter in your house, negative thoughts, goals, and expectations all day, every day. They consume your space, time, energy, and emotions. You only have to let go once. Decluttering gets easier when you stop holding on to things, and stop letting your things hold on to you.
6. Hold on to what matters. Let go of the rest.
It all comes down to this. Keep noticing what matters and what doesn’t. What do you care about? If you don’t care about it, don’t use it, and don’t enjoy it, say goodbye.
7. In the end, organized clutter is still clutter.
There is an endless supply of containers out there for your clutter. It’s tempting until we remember that if you need stuff to store your stuff, you might have too much stuff. I know there are exceptions, but for the most part, organized clutter is still clutter. Let’s face it, if organizing worked, we’d be organized by now.
8. Less stuff = less cleaning = more life.
This really works for me because I don’t like to spend time cleaning. If you can’t think of a reason to declutter, just remember that less stuff = less cleaning = more life. When you own less, you clean less, manage less, and stress less. That means more time for … anything you want!
9. I don’t want my legacy to be containers full of stuff.
In my many years of helping people declutter and let go, I’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m so glad my loved one left me all of their stuff to deal with.” Never. It’s painful to sort through someone’s life of things while you are grieving. I don’t want my legacy to be containers full of stuff. I want my legacy to be how I loved while I was here, not the containers of stuff I left behind.
Start with just one drawer, one shelf, or one bag today. Tiny steps like these help you declutter without overwhelm. Come back to these notes whenever you need a gentle reminder to help you declutter and let go of what no longer serves you.
