[PODCAST 6]: How to Complete a Month-Long Decluttering Project

Some of my earliest memories come from the time I spent decluttering with my mom and siblings while I was growing up.

My mom did a great job of making it a regular routine in our home to declutter not only our family’s common spaces, but also our own personal spaces (oftentimes with her help).

While I was recovering from some surgeries at the beginning of April, I decided to make one of my “Family” projects for the month a spring cleaning/decluttering project that we could tackle together.

I went room by room in my mind (while I was resting on the couch) and thought about every little 10-30 minute task I wanted to accomplish. Now, I will say that our apartment is very tidy already, thanks to some solid routines, but there were a handful of tasks that hadn’t been done in a while and a couple areas that needed some extra attention.

If you are looking at implementing this idea in your own home or office, but you are starting from square one, please break this project into multiple sub-projects so that it is manageable. For example, if your kitchen is overflowing with items and has lots of piles on the counters and floors, I wouldn’t recommend making “declutter the kitchen” one of your Current Projects. You might need to write “declutter the floor items and clean the floor” as your project #1. This will give you a great starting point and room to move around your kitchen. Then you can start tackling certain cupboards, shelves, or counter spaces as appropriate. Please adapt this to meet your current starting point!

Here’s what my list ended up looking like–this was a great way for me to do a Mind Sweep and get everything out of my head.

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Once I created the list, the next step was to figure out how to fit these little tasks into our days. This is where you get to make it fun and customize it to meet your available time and needs.

I felt like we were on a pretty quick timeline because we are expecting our second baby in just a couple weeks, so I was really hopeful that we could finish everything before having a baby–and we did! We finished this whole project with time to spare. 🙂 And of course, if we weren’t able to do everything before having a baby, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but that’s why I really wanted to prioritize this as one of my April Current Projects. I was paying attention to our timeline for the next couple months and knew that there were certain things we should try accomplishing during this window of time together.

I also wanted to take my energy and health into consideration while working through this project. I was still recovering from surgery, so it made sense for me to spend more time throughout the month of April.

Each day, I completed my Daily Review and looked at the different calendar events we had scheduled. I would pay attention to the open pockets of time each day and think, “Which one of these tasks can I do with our son?” Some tasks were certainly easier to do with a toddler than others, but we made it a game.

When we decluttered the pantry, he helped me take every single item out of the pantry–I sat in a chair and he brought me each item, one by one, for almost 3 hours that day. We broke up our decluttering time with meals and play time, but he absolutely LOVED being included in the process–and I loved getting to sit down and rest while he got his energy out!

If you don’t have children in the home, this could be a great time to listen to a podcast or audiobook, have a phone call with a friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with, or invite someone over to work alongside you. I love this kind of flexible monthly project because you get to choose the different ways to “entertain” yourself while you work. Maybe you like working in silence so you have time to think. Maybe you are going to strengthen a relationship (with a friend, child, or other loved one) while you work. Or maybe this will be time for you to consume information that you otherwise wouldn’t have the time for.

My son and I got the majority of the tasks completed while we were together during the days, but in the evenings and on some weekends, we worked together as a whole family when my husband had more flexible time available. (He’s a full-time medical student, so the time we spend together as a family is extra important to us right now!)

I delegated some of the more labor-intensive tasks to my husband since I wasn’t able to do things like wipe down the kitchen cabinets or comfortably reach our kitchen cabinets. While I sat nearby, I was able to give ideas about where things should go and what we should do with them. We also had a lot of good conversations while we decluttered, and it was definitely a relationship strengthening activity for both of us.

And after a month of working on this project, it was done! Everything was checked off on our list:

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I really enjoyed this decluttering/cleaning project, and I would love to make this one of our annual springtime routines as a family. We won’t always need to do the exact same tasks, but I think it would be really nice to do a Mind Sweep of everything that needs to be done around our apartment.

It was extra fun to do this project during the month of April because we did a “Decluttering Party” with our ARISErs in the ARISE membership. They collectively shared over 200, 10-minute microbursts that they completed to tidy their physical, digital, and mental spaces throughout the month. It was so inspiring!

Here are a couple of their before and after photos.

One ARISEr focused on the bathroom counter:

Another ARISEr transformed this nightstand space:

And this ARISEr was able to tidy up their coffee drawer in just 8 minutes!

Here’s one of the spaces I decluttered during the month–this 3-drawer office supplies holder needed some extra attention, and it looks/feels so much better each time I use it now!