Episode 124: Finding Calm Through Decluttering and How to Get Started with Carly Adams of The Tidy Revival
Studies have shown that clutter is a major source of stress. So how can you alleviate it? Get rid of the clutter! Perhaps you’ve already started the process while sheltering-in-place, but if you haven’t now might be a great time to get started!
Joining me in this episode is Carly Adams of the Tidy Revival. Carly is a Professional Organizer based in Sacramento, CA. She helps her clients get organized in their homes & businesses by working alongside them, or virtually through personalized action plans. Whether that’s helping clients declutter, create a Pinterest-perfect pantry, or helping busy parents re-examine the flow of their kitchen or utility closet - Carly is a self-proclaimed “organizational nerd” that loves to geek out to her clients’ benefit.
You’ll hear us discuss:
The Tidy Revival story
Her top tips of how to start decluttering when it feels so overwhelming
What to do when emotions take over
7 tips for decluttering any space
I started decluttering my home back at the beginning of the year and with each space that I cleared, it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders, leaving me with a lightness I haven’t felt in a long time.
I truly believe that decluttering has helped make sheltering-in-place for a prolonged period of time feel comfortable because my home is now a space that I enjoy being in.
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“The amount of clutter that built up, that didn’t happen in one day, two weeks, three months. This took years and years and years. So it’s going to take a little bit of time to undo it. But when you’re done, if you’re finding things in your house, you know where they go. You’re able to put them away instead of creating this whole other mess.”
Read the Episode Transcript...
Naomi Nakamura: Hello my friends and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I'm your host Naomi Nakamura. I'm recording this during a time where we are all sheltering in place because of the Coronavirus pandemic. I know this is a stressful time for many of us. We have the stress of work disruption, finances, of being confined to our homes, of being able to get food. There's just many different things going on that's really causing a lot of disruption in our lives, and we all cope with that in different ways.
Perhaps maybe you've turned to your hobbies like knitting or gardening or maybe you're into meditation and deep breathing. Maybe you're into journaling. Maybe you just like to get lost in a movie. We all have different ways of coping and managing stress. But what I want to talk about today is another way. Now, I don't know about you but there is clutter in my house and there have been studies shown that clutter causes stress. And while we are all sheltering in place, hopefully you are too. A lot of us, we now have the time to work on those projects in the home that maybe we just haven't had the time to or the energy to before. And maybe you've actually already started decluttering your house. Maybe you've been working on cleaning out that pantry or cleaning off that closet.
So, joining me today is Carly Adams of the Tidy Revival. Carly is a professional organizer based in Northern California in Sacramento. And so, in our conversation, Carly is going to share the story of the Tidy Revival and how she came to do this work. She is going to share her top tips on how to even get started. I don't know about you, but when I want to declutter my house, I literally look around and I feel so overwhelmed. I'm like, I don't even know where to begin. We talk about that in this episode and she talks about what to do when the inevitable emotions and overwhelm take over because a lot of our clutter can be tied to emotions and different things that might've happened in the past and when you start to declutter and deal with those things, those same emotions come up as well.
She talks about how she helps her clients through that. And then she gives us seven tips for decluttering any space. Now, before this pandemic started back in January, I actually started the process of decluttering my home. If you follow me on social media on Instagram, you'll remember that I was at the container store every Sunday morning for like six straight weeks. I started with my storage unit and then I moved to my bedroom and my kitchen and so forth. And I will tell you that as I made progress on every little, not even just room or area, just on every little space, it was like this weight that was lifted off my shoulders and I felt lightness that I hadn't felt in years.
That's why I so believe that decluttering is a de-stressor and it's so good for our wellness. I truly feel that just doing that before this happened has really been a key factor in helping me be okay sheltering in place, feel comfortable being in my home because it's now a space that I enjoy being in and I'm able to comfortably stay here for a prolonged period of time. I hope that this is something that you're curious about because we definitely have a great conversation about it. So with that, let's get to the show. Hello Carly. It's so nice to meet you. Welcome to the show.
Carly Adams: Thank you so much for having me, Naomi.
Naomi Nakamura: We have connected on Instagram and we've had this scheduled on the books for a while, but it is so refreshing. I'm excited to talk about the things that you do. I was telling you before we started recording that I've gone through this process myself starting in January of just trying to tidy up my home and all the things that come along with that. So, looking forward to this conversation. But before we jump in, can you introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what it is that you do and how the Tidy Revival came to be?
Carly Adams: Sure. My name is Carly Adams and I am a professional organizer based in Sacramento, California. I have had my business since fall 2017 and I just went full time in December of this last year or, yeah, the second half of December. Being full time finally was a huge goal of mine. I'm really excited about it. But the mission of Tidy Revival is to create peaceful environments with simple storage solutions. I work with families and entrepreneurs to help them just really tidy up the spaces that they're having trouble with in their life and implement really simple systems that everyone can follow.
Naomi Nakamura: Living in the Bay Area in a very small home, the peaceful storage solutions is just, it's my jam. It's light up my alley. I've had to get creative about it. I'm sure you have great resources for that. So, how did you get into this line of work?
Carly Adams: I talk about this on a page in my website called The TR Story. When I got started organizing, it really came out of a financial journey. Back when I was finishing school and starting working my first grownup job, I wasn't in a good place financially and I had a lot of stress about the student loans I had accumulated, I didn't really know where my finances were. I had a lot of anxiety even when I was opening the mail because I just wasn't organized financially. I didn't have a handle on things. It was through the process of getting things under control in that aspect of my life, i.e., like creating systems around paying my bills on time, knowing where my finances were every month.
Really getting those things in check, getting a budget implemented, starting to actually save money instead of just owe people money. Getting all of that under control brought me so much peace that I started thinking to myself like, where can I take that type of system and implement it in other areas of my life to give myself more and more of this peaceful feeling. So, I also at the time lived in San Francisco lived in a really small apartment. I mean, there was a year there where I probably decluttered my closet, my main closet like, I don't know, six different times and found so much peace in owning less, figuring out really simple solutions and kind of implementing organizational practices into my life that when we moved to Sacramento, I knew that I had wanted to do something for myself, own my own business and I was really racking my brain as to what that could possibly look like and this just felt like the best next step.
Another thing worth mentioning is that by that time I was working in tech as an executive assistant and so in my day-to-day working life, I was also making things run smoothly by keeping either my executive and/or his team on track, keeping things organized in my work realm. So it just felt like a natural progression to be able to do these types of things for clients.
Naomi Nakamura: I love that so much. There's so many things you said there, but first you took skills that you already had in a corporate job and found ways to use that same skillset in a way to do work that you're passionate about, that is your own. Also when you talked about decluttering your closet, it's funny, just last night I was looking in my closet because I was putting away laundry and I now have more empty hangers than I actually do clothes. What's even funnier is that the clothes that I do have, I realized that almost every single piece is somehow Instagram inspired or related.
Carly Adams: Oh yeah. How so?
Naomi Nakamura: I bought something off of Instagram or I saw a brand and went to go look for their website or something. It's pretty funny. I'm hashtag influence.
Carly Adams: But you love every piece, right?
Naomi Nakamura: I love, and that's the thing is that I've come to love every piece and what I don't love or I just... I stopped trying to convince myself it looks good on me or something that I thought I had a sentimental attachment to, I've learned to let go of those things. And we will get into that later, but I'm curious, what are some of the top few issues that you see that when you start working with a new client, like are there trends that you see every time you work with a new client and you're like, "Hmm, it's the same with a lot of different people." I'm just curious, what are those trends that you see that people have problems with?
Carly Adams: There are definitely a few things that... our patterns come up time and time again with different clients. I would say that the top issues are: one, chronic clutter. Working with clients and quickly realizing that the clutter is because items in their home don't have a place. So, because they don't have a place, they don't know where to put them and so they just kind of put them anywhere and everywhere. It ends up being kind of a long process because you are creating homes as you go and sometimes that means that the middle of the process can get kind of messy because you are having to create these systems from scratch but the end result is absolutely worth it.
Another issue is that people sometimes come to me because they need systems, but a lot of times people think that the systems, and they use the word systems really broadly, but a lot of times it seems as though they feel that the systems need to be very complicated. Working with clients regularly, it's great to kind of just show them that they can be more simple than they thought they could. And then the third reason is really, I would say general overwhelm. It's hard for them to know where to get started and so they become kind of paralyzed in that process.
Naomi Nakamura: I can relate to all of those things. It's funny when you say clutter comes because things don't have homes. I immediately related to that because I would look around my home, and I kind of attributed this to Amazon because you see something you want, you literally can be at a stoplight. Think about something you want, pull up your phone, pull up the Amazon app, place an order and by the time the light turns green, it's ordered and going to be at your doorstep in two days. I imagine this is a problem for most people too. It's Like you order all these things on Amazon and then they pile up and you don't have, or I don't have home for these things. And I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do with this stuff now? And they become piles everywhere.
Carly Adams: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that I see a lot are subscription boxes that don't necessarily get used. People love ordering the subscription boxes, but maybe it's gotten to a point where they have way too many makeup samples or maybe it's a subscription box that revolves around like a culture around a TV show or certain kind of collectible item. And they have more and more and more. But it's not that they necessarily want to actually use or display those items. They just like receiving the boxes.
Naomi Nakamura: I actually had two of those. I had one for stationary and after a year I was like, I do not send this much mail to people. So I stopped that. And then I had another one that was gifted to me for my dog. I thought, she does not even like toys and here I am getting these toys for her every month along with treats that she doesn't even eat. I never even thought of that but that is so true. I actually had to end both of those subscriptions.
Carly Adams: Yeah. And I've seen it get kind of out of control. I've helped clients declutter many, many, many subscription boxes that were just completely unused and piling up. It's something to think about, like where is our money, time and energy going. And if we can kind of nip some of those issues in the bud, it can really help out with the clutter overall.
Naomi Nakamura: Going to your last point, a few months ago, and of course it was at the end of the year, right? Because we all want to start the New Year off on the right foot. And I thought, okay, I need to spend this time decluttering; that week between Christmas and New Year. I looked around my home and I felt exactly what you said. I felt overwhelmed and I just didn't even know where to begin. And so, I started to make a list because I am a list maker and the list was an entire page and long and I thought, "I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired just..." So, how do you help people through that?
Carly Adams: I really love that you made the list. I think that that's really helpful. Even though the list can end up being long and can be its own monster. For overwhelm, I really like to talk about it in two camps. There's one, the whole house, and we'll get into that. And then there's the second one which is an actual space. Because either one can make you feel overwhelmed, not knowing where to start in your entire house or walking into an overwhelming space and not knowing where to start within that space. So I'm going to break it down one after another.
But starting with your whole house, if you don't know where to start, I think what you did making a list is a really great place to start. I love making digital lists because I can move them around easily. What I would probably recommend is a digital list, just kind of brain dump all the areas that are driving you crazy as far as your cluttering goes. And then redoing that list in the order that it's driving you crazy.
Naomi Nakamura: It's funny you say that because I sort of did that and then I realized I actually had to make a game plan because for me to declutter, say my bedroom, I had to take some furniture out to put it in storage. But in order to do that I had to clean up my storage. So it was like all of these dependencies upon each other.
Carly Adams: Yeah, I mean it really kind of turns into an if you give a mouse a cookie situation. There's this thing, I've talked about this recently where say you're decluttering in your bedroom, but then you find a bunch of things that go in your bathroom. But then your bathroom is really disorganized. That middle part is where some people can kind of go off the rails with their plan because then they're decluttering in their bathroom, but then they find some stuff for the closet but then the closet is a mess and then they get in there a little bit and then you have three spaces that are a little bit decluttered. None of them are done. You're feeling super overwhelmed, really frustrated, and you're like, "Forget it. It's not even worth it."
Naomi Nakamura: And then you live with half the mess.
Carly Adams: Yes. And that's really the part where I talk to people a lot is because it's getting to the point where they're like, you know what? It's not even worth it. But my whole goal in working with clients is to say, you know what? I promise you it is worth it. It just takes time. And the amount of clutter that built up, that didn't happen in one day, two weeks, three months. This took years and years and years. So it's going to take a little bit of time to undo it. But when you're done, if you're finding things in your house, you know where they go. You're able to put them away instead of creating this whole other mess.
It's really important if you are in that middle point and you're putting away piles that go into other spaces but those spaces aren't done yet. Don't worry about those spaces right now. Even if that means that you're taking the items that you found, you're putting them in a little bag because you know that bag is key and the bathroom is the next space that you work on, like that's fine. But don't worry about it too much right now. Just finish the room that you started in and then you can move on to the next space.
But that's why I suggest making a list so that you can really focus in on the area that's driving you the most crazy or, like you were saying, the space that you know you need to start so that you can work in that space that is your top priority. And then when you're working in a specific space, this is really common. A lot of guest bedrooms I've seen have become kind of catchall rooms. You open the door and it's like the room of shame that people were really not looking forward to having you see but it's become a problem and we need to address it and it's a room that just has a lot of clutter.
When you enter the room you're like, "Ah, I don't know where to start." Or it could be a cluttered bookshelf or a closet. What I suggest in those situations is to, if it's a whole room, when you walk in I like to pick one side of the room and kind of work in a circular around a clock. Start on your left and then work clockwise around the room. Or if it is a closet or a bookshelf, start from the top down or the bottom up, but just kind of in a certain motion and have that game plan on the front end so that when you are feeling overwhelmed or you need a little break or you end up getting sidetracked with something else, you know the area that you're able to come back to and just focus back in on. And you kind of have to block the rest of everything out so that you're just zeroing in on your task at hand.
Naomi Nakamura: I like that because at least you know there's a starting point and you know where your ending point is.
Carly Adams: Yeah. But it can be a lot. I completely understand that.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. Do you have anything else that you walk through people through with your process?
Carly Adams: Yeah. With the process, I would say that the first step when we're working together is to really prioritize things like we talked about. Any new or potentially new client that I'm talking with, the first thing we do is identify the spaces that really are giving them the most trouble, that would affect them most positively on a day-to-day basis. I work with a lot of busy moms. So for a lot of moms that could be their own space. Creating a bedroom or a master bathroom that's more relaxing so that at the end of the day, in the beginning of the day, they have a space to feel serene in. Or it might be the kitchen or the pantry, an area that they use daily that it would just kind of streamline their morning or their evening routine if these areas were more organized. So, that's the first step is to really prioritize things.
And then as we're going through the different spaces, we're identifying the issues and coming up with simple solutions in those spaces. For instance, maybe you have a laundry room and it ends up being a catchall for items coming into the house. Maybe it's close to the door that you usually enter and so it ends up being the place where people are dumping their lunch bags. Or you bought something from the store that's a gift for someone and you just kind of dump it there until you're going to that party. Or you had, like you said, excess items from Amazon come through the door and you just kind of dump them there for now.
Identifying the issue, which in this case would be that that space is a dumping ground. Identifying what you want that space to be and then figuring out solutions along the way. If people are dumping their lunchboxes and that's not where we want them to go, where do we want them to go? Let's create a space for that so that we can kind of bring the whole family on board and have them know. Instead of just saying, "Don't leave your lunchboxes here," where is the place that you would like the lunchboxes to go? What is the process around that? If we don't want random gifts in this area, is there another closet or a cupboard in the laundry room that you do want future gifts to be? If so, as they come into the house, like if you're buying them, a lot of people buy gifts kind of spur in the moment or in advance, then you create a space for that. So, you're training yourself slowly but surely to solve the problems that you had before.
If there are items coming in from Amazon, instead of just dumping it there, maybe you're creating a practice where as packages arrive, you're opening them, figuring out where those items go and making sure to put them away so that you can keep that area clear. So, it's basically just a long, long series of figuring out the issues and then creating very simple solutions to solve all of those problems.
Naomi Nakamura: I know one problem that I had. Well, there's two things. Now I'm trying to be a little bit more mindful of where, before I even place in Amazon order for something, I try to think in my head, "Okay, where is this going to go?" And then secondly is, when you talk about walking in the door and just dumping stuff, I have that problem with mail because I get so much junk mail every day and before I know it I have a month piled up of mail that I'm like, "Oh man, I have to go through and open all that stuff." And most of that stuff is just stuff I need to put through the shredder anyway, so I understand the problem.
Carly Adams: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For mail, that's something that I talk to people a lot about. Really the solution here is to nip it in the bud. I suggest to people, I have at home too an area where I keep the action items from the mail. But when the mail comes in the house before anything goes in that folder, I'm going through it and identifying what the junk mail is and if there's something that actually needs action taken. The items that need action taken will go in my little mail folder and I generally go through that about once a week. But the items that are just junk mail goes straight into the recycling. I was telling someone this this week. It's a lot easier to go through mail and declutter one day's worth or even one week's worth than it is one month. But for most of us these days, at least two thirds of what is coming in the mail doesn't need to stay. It can just be recycled or shredded. Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. Most of us coming in, I'm like, "I don't even know why I'm getting this. How did I get on these people's mailing lists?" But I love that system that you just shared and I am going to do that. I'm going to create an action folder that I keep.
Yeah. And the other thing too... Okay, the things that end up going in my action folder. We just had an election cycle. So, building up to the election you're getting flyers and you're getting the voter guides and all of that. And those were items that I kept together and kept in my action folder until I was ready to go through, read all the information, choose the candidates I'm going to vote for, make that action plan and then it can all be recycled. Or I have a neighborhood newsletter that comes once a quarter. I'll keep it there until myself and my husband get a chance to read it and then it can be recycled.
Or maybe it's a bill that's coming up. I have one from the DMV that's not due for another month and a half. I've set a reminder and it's going to be, I'm going to be paying it next month. But it's just hanging out until that gets taken care of. But yeah, just making sure that you're going through those items regularly. And then the other thing that I strongly recommend for mail solutions, this is my biggest mail tip actually is the action area for your mail. I like to use something that's kind of like a napkin holder size. So, the items are held vertically instead of horizontally and there's a very small amount of...
Naomi Nakamura: Of space. You can't let it get filled up. Oh, I like that a lot.
Carly Adams: Yeah. Because a lot of people have more of an inbox situation and then inbox can just pile up, up, up, up, up, up.
Naomi Nakamura: You don't even know what's sitting on the bottom.
Carly Adams: Uh-huh (affirmative). Somebody told me recently. They said, "Here's the thing. I have this place where my mail goes, but there's so much that now it's just falling off." I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, That's way too much. Let's go through it on a daily basis." Because when it comes in, you have five pieces of mail, four need to go into recycle and one needs to get shredded, then you're done. And that process can take 10 seconds to identify what you really need and not. But if you do, like the longer you wait the more painful it is because it's just turning into a whole project by that point. So if you nip it in the bud early, it's not a project, it's just a thing that you quickly do during your day.
Naomi Nakamura: Now, you wrote a blog post that I think is fantastic and I would love for you to walk us through that. But before I do, before we recorded, I was telling you that at the start of the year, I kind of got into this little decluttering project of my own in my house and I found myself going to the container store every Sunday morning as soon as they opened for like six weeks in a row. I feel like I became a pro in what was there. I measured everything. But I would like your thoughts and your input on how to go about finding the right tools to help you organize the spaces you have in your home. I got containers for my kitchen cabinets, for my pantry, for my linen closet and next is going to be my dresser drawers. I haven't approached that yet, but I just would love to hear your take on how you go about that part of it and then if you have any favorites that you recommend.
Carly Adams: That's a great question. I would say that when you are figuring out what type of items to use, first before you look at how pretty everything is, I think it's very important to think about how you work as a person and what works best for you. I'm going to name a couple of different scenarios that I see with clients all the time. None of these are right or wrong answers. This is just what works for different people. First, I have some clients where everything needs to be in clear containers. If it's on the shelf, it needs to be contained in something that's clear because even if it's labeled or not, if they can't see it, it doesn't exist. So when things are behind a solid wall, whether it's a really, really cute container or even maybe opaque, if they can't see what's inside it's as if it disappears. And if that really resonates with you and you're nodding your head, then I would highly suggest making all of your containers very, very clear. Whether or not you add labels on top of that is going to be up to you.
Naomi Nakamura: I went with clear. I did.
Carly Adams: I mean, it's a real make or break situation for a lot of people.
Naomi Nakamura: It is. I feel like now when I open my cabinets, I'm like, "Oh." I know what's there.
Carly Adams: Uh-huh (affirmative). And it's especially great for things like pantries for busy parents. If you have kids' snacks that they're able to access on their own on a certain shelf and those are in clear bins, then at a glance you're able to see what you're running low on, what needs your attention as far as the shopping list goes and just makes things a lot faster when you're assessing that.
Naomi Nakamura: This might be a little bit on OCD level. I did this for my fridge as well. I've got these clear containers and I put everything because every morning I have a morning smoothie and I put all my smoothie ingredients in this container. In the morning I just pull out that container and I have everything I need there, and I can't even tell you how happy that makes me every morning.
Carly Adams: No, I don't think that's OCD at all. I think that's awesome. You might be talking to the wrong person to be like, "No, no, there's a problem there." But that's something that I suggest to people, put things into categories. If you are an avid baker or even if you're not an avid baker, actually especially if you're not an avid baker, keeping all of that stuff together so that when you do want to bake you can just grab your bin or two and you have all the supplies you could possibly need. That's so, so important. Morning smoothies, that's something I ask people when we're organizing pantries a lot. Also if they are avid valid makers because a lot of people we'll have croutons, nuts, berries, all these things that they want added to salads. And if you are keeping all those supplies in one spot, again, you can just go to that bin or grab the bin and you have every little thing that you need for this thing that you make on a daily-
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, I made one. I have a sandwich tray. It actually makes me excited to be able to go to my fridge and pull out my smoothie box and my sandwich tray.
Carly Adams: I love it. Yeah, I think that's amazing. You get a high five from me and five gold stars. I was going back to the types of containers that people choose. Another thing that's very popular is the look of beautiful baskets in a pantry or on a shelf. And then a lot of times people like to label those too although I will say I do have some clients who prefer to not label things and they would rather memorize the location of where different items are. Again, that's going to differ based on the client. You just need to know what works best for you as well as the other people in your house.
And then like you mentioned, measuring is huge. I kind of steal the old contractor phrase. When they say measure twice, cut once; I say measure twice, purchase once. It's very, very important because there are so many different options out there, but you really need to figure out the ones that work best for your space and are going to work best for the way that you find things and the way that your brain works. And getting those combinations in place just means that you're going to have very, very simple solutions.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, I really have to brush up on my math skills. I usually hang in thinking, "Okay, two of these can fit into one shelf here."
Carly Adams: Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah, that process I feel like is why a lot of people hire me in the first place because they're like, I don't want to go through all of the options at the container store and/or other stores to figure out what works best for me. And so then since that's something that I do day in and day out, then they hire me to just figure out those solutions so they don't have to-
Naomi Nakamura: I will admit I did this with a friend who was way more enthused about it than I was. It made it more fun. But I would not have done this if it was just me. I fully admit that I would not, I would much rather have hired you or have someone come and help me with this.
Carly Adams: Yeah. Another thing that people tell me is that they would have given up on the whole project a lot faster if they didn't have me as an accountability partner. I mean, I'm happy to do it. Again, this is what I do for a living. So I got into it for a reason. I find this endlessly fascinating.
Naomi Nakamura: Do you work with virtual clients?
Carly Adams: I do. Especially, I had done it a little bit before kind of by request and then after everything with COVID-19 came out, I pivoted quickly into the virtual space.
Naomi Nakamura: We are all virtual these days.
Carly Adams: Yes. So, I have clients right now who are moving and need an action plan to prep their home for listing. I have other clients who are just busy parents working from home and need to kind of maximize a few spaces in their homes. Now they have a little more time but don't want to take all of their time figuring it out from scratch. So yeah, I have a lot of great options to work with clients virtually and they can be anywhere.
Naomi Nakamura: It takes a lot of just brain space to try and tackle this on your own. Like I said, there is absolutely no way I would have if I didn't have a friend who was so hyped to do it. I was just dragged along for the ride. But I'm really glad that I did because every time something is decluttered, it's like a weight lifted off my shoulders and I just feel so much better. I'm so much more excited to be home. First thing I did was tackle my bedroom and I even feel like I'm sleeping better because I got all this stuff out of there.
Carly Adams: Oh yeah. There are studies that are done. I can actually, I'm going to make a note of this and send you a link to a study about how clutter raises your cortisol levels. But yes, studies have shown that clutter raises your stress levels.
Naomi Nakamura: I believe it. I've lived it.
Carly Adams: Yeah, I have lived it as well. I completely understand where you're coming from. And then you asked a question a bit earlier about some of my favorite products. Actually I did a morning show segment recently and talked about some of my favorite products for closet organization, but the products that I mentioned there are some that I use in many areas of the home, so I'm just going to run through those really quickly because I love them.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. And if you have the link to that clip, I'd love to include it in the show notes too.
Carly Adams: Oh sure.
Naomi Nakamura: You wrote this blog post that I thought was so fantastic on seven tips for decluttering your space. And of course I will link to it in the show notes, but if you could just quickly walk us through them. I loved your tips.
Carly Adams: Oh, thank you. And I will say that I wrote this after people really started hunkering down during the COVID-19 situation. And so, the thing that I was hearing from people most is that they were at home decluttering, that they were really frustrated. So I had started to put together some tips for a few clients and decided that instead of just doing it for the clients, that I would write it for everyone. There are going to be more blog posts coming on different topics that people are needing help with specifically right now. So stay tuned for more of those. And if there's anything that readers want to hear about, also feel free to connect with me because my whole goal during this time is to be putting out content that people really want and need and it's going to be extremely helpful.
So, these are the seven tips for decluttering any space. I know you're going to have the link to it in the notes and it's on my blog. But the first one is that if it's close to meal time, eat before you start. I talk about this a little bit, but I mean, I do this for a living and I really take what I am eating and how soon I'm eating before every single client session very seriously, because I can get kind of hangry and my goal is to never be hangry with the client because that's not fair. They're not paying me to be hangry and snappy.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, the whole process can be very emotional as well for many different reasons. So that's just the one way to help alleviate that situation.
Carly Adams: Yes, and I know that you are huge on blood sugar levels. I am too. Diabetes runs in my family, so this is something that I take very seriously in my day-to-day life. But making sure that I have a protein-fueled meal before I'm meeting with clients is really, really paramount. So I suggest that people do that at home as well, especially when you're decluttering. I know right now everyone's at home with their family members and maybe they're not used to spending this much time with those people. It can be, because your family are the people that you know the most, people tend to feel a little more free to be snappy with those people. So, de-cluttering is hard enough. Let's not make it harder. Eat something before you start.
And number two is to have water on hand when you're organizing. Not just before you start, keep it next to you the whole time because when things are starting to feel a little frustrating, a little overwhelming, you want to grab that water bottle. Maybe you want to leave the room for a second, just take a little break, have some water, hydrate and come back to it. And then like we mentioned before, you're going to know where you were working so you'll be able to dial back in right into that area.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, let's be honest. It's like once you start working, you might be tired and you're like, "Oh, I'm going to stop and take a lunch break." And you just may never come back.
Carly Adams: Never ever. Yeah. Yup. That's why eat before you start. And then if you don't know where to start, work in one direction. We had talked about that a little bit, so I'll skip to the next one. Know that you may get overwhelmed during the process. I say that because I don't want people to be surprised by it and I think that especially right now, we as a planet are under a lot of stress and decluttering can be a stressful project on its own. And so, I think it's just important for us to all give ourselves a little bit of grace and just know that if you're going through items, especially maybe memories or items that are kind of triggering for different people, and different spaces mean different things to different people.
But it can be overwhelming. It can be frustrating. You might find yourself feeling a lot of feelings, whether that's dredging up old memories or being frustrated with yourself for spending money on things that you didn't end up using or feeling frustrated with yourself for buying things just that you thought were going to fit into your life and didn't end up working out. Whatever the case may be, it can be frustrating, it can be overwhelming. Know it going into it and that's okay. It's okay to feel all the feelings.
Something that I like to do that I mentioned in the blog post too is that if you're having trouble staying on track while you're decluttering, something as simple as setting a timer for 20 minutes that you can say to yourself like, "Okay, I just need to zero in on this task for 20 minutes. I got this. Okay, go." And then just zero in. Then when the timer goes off, you can kind of shake it off, take a water break, and then decide what to do from there. If you want to go back into it, if you need to switch gears a little bit, whatever the case may be is fine.
Naomi Nakamura: That's a great tip for the particular area that you have the most dread to face.
Carly Adams: Yeah, and it can be really hard. I really stress this a lot because I have worked with clients where I've told them that they need to take a break because they're getting really emotional in this space. There have been so many hugs, there have been so many tissues given to clients while they're crying. The thing is, the items that you're going through are often delayed decision making from your past. So things that you just haven't wanted to deal with in the past that you box up and save for later. And now later is here. So you're going through all these deferred decisions and depending on what those items are, it can be really, really tough for people. I just don't want people to feel like they're alone in that because they're not at all. So, so normal.
Naomi Nakamura: And I think that's part of what makes it a cathartic process.
Carly Adams: Yes, yes, absolutely. We've talked about this a little bit, but when you come back from a break, focus where you stopped last. Just block out everything else and just zero in on where you were working right then. And a couple of examples that I give are focusing on one shelf instead of a giant overstuffed closet. Decluttering one bin of memories instead of focusing on the whole garage being packed, or working on one drawer at a time in your dresser. And just zeroing in on that puts the perspective of decluttering into baby steps that are totally manageable, which feels less overwhelming. Like if you're working on a drawer, that's way easier than working on your whole entire closet.
Naomi Nakamura: Or working on a dresser with six drawers.
Carly Adams: Uh-huh (affirmative). So just break it down into the little baby steps at hand. If you have a whole dresser with six drawers, that's just six teeny tiny little projects. Just break it down; one space is easier than six. And then we had talked about this a little bit earlier too, but following up on the piles, but making sure that doesn't get you sidetracked into starting six other organizing projects. Just take the piles. If it needs to go in the garage, just put it in the garage. And maybe that means you're putting your garage pile on the top of your tool chest that is a mess, that's okay. You will get to it when you get to it. Today's not the day for starting six projects. Today is the day for just zeroing in on this one area. And if your house needs attention in a lot of different spaces, this is the point where it's going to feel very frustrating. But if you stick with it and just concentrate on one area at a time, eventually it is going to all come into place, like I promise you.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. And as you do little bits at a time, it's going to feel good and you're going to want to keep on going.
Carly Adams: Yes, absolutely. I also feel like the baby step process is really important. It's kind of like Dave Ramsey talks about in his baby steps and also in the debt snowball, if anyone's familiar with that concept. Like in the Dave Ramsey debt snowball, when people are paying off their debts, they list their debts from smallest to largest. And the reason for that is, if you are paying off a debt that is $200 versus $20,000, once that debt is paid off and you're able to take the money that you would have spent paying that debt, roll it into the next one and so on and so forth, you're going to be feeling the momentum of that quick win. So, even though it's only a little bit, you have that win quickly so you feel deep inside like, "I got this, I can do more." And so, decluttering is the same way. When you're feeling overwhelmed, it is really important to take a second and think to yourself what you have done and how far you've come because focusing on what you can do will help keep you motivated to be able to do more.
Naomi Nakamura: Absolutely.
Carly Adams: Those are the biggest tips that I have for decluttering. I also want to throw out there that I am on Instagram. Every day while we're all at home, weekdays at 11:00 AM I am covering different areas. Like for instance today I'm going to be talking about my top tips for linen closet organization and another day I'll be talking about kitchen or junk drawer. Basically I'm talking about different spaces that other people are suggesting that they need help with and I'll answer any questions that people have during that time. And then any of the top tips that we discuss during the live, I'm putting in a highlight. And the whole thing is called Office Hours. So, the top tips of the day are kept in the Office Hours highlight so people can go back to them and see those top tips.
Naomi Nakamura: Love it. Are you also saving those videos elsewhere? Like to IGTV or YouTube or something?
Carly Adams: I am not. All the videos are kind of like if you catch it. I'm saving them to my story so they're available for 24 hours, but it's kind of like you got to catch it to catch it.
Naomi Nakamura: Cool. Well, where are you on Instagram?
Carly Adams: On Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, it's all @tidyrevival. So really easy to find.
Naomi Nakamura: And your website?
Carly Adams: The website is tidyrevival.com. You can connect to the blog from there. You can connect with me for questions. You can get more information about working with me in person or virtual sessions. The breakdown of what's included in the cost is all included on there as well.
Naomi Nakamura: I love it, and I will link to all of those, your website and your social accounts as well on the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us. This was so... obviously you can tell that I love talking about this stuff. And my full-time job, I'm a program manager, so I'm just a natural organizer.
Carly Adams: I love it.
Naomi Nakamura: But I still get the piles as well, so it helps to, like you said, have the system. I'm always looking for new ideas and how other people do it better than me of things that I can incorporate to my own home. I'm so glad that our paths have crossed through our mutual friend Tammy.
Carly Adams: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you again for having me, Naomi. It's great to finally talk with you person-to-person. And yeah, I've really been enjoying your podcast, so thank you.
Naomi Nakamura: Thanks for listening today. Every week there's a new episode here on the Live FAB Life Podcast. Please subscribe and leave a review. I love hearing from you. Head on over to the website at livefablife.com\podcast to submit topics you want to hear about or tell your story. See you next week. Bye.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps passionate, ambitious high-achievers who are being dragged down by fatigue, burnout, sugar cravings, poor sleep, unexplained weight issues, and hormonal challenges optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy so they can do big things in this world.
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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