The Hidden Emotions Behind Clutter

When does clutter become more than too much stuff?

For many people, clutter is simply a practical challenge. But for others, it can become linked to grief, shame, overwhelm, changing identities and life experiences that are much harder to untangle than the possessions themselves.

In this episode, Dr Lee David is joined by professional organiser and author Lesley Spellman to explore the hidden emotions behind clutter. The conversation looks beyond the practical task of tidying and asks why it can feel so difficult to let things go in the first place.

They discuss how possessions can become connected to memories, hopes for the future and versions of ourselves that are hard to leave behind. The episode explores why clutter may build up during periods of stress, poor mental health, trauma or loss, and why simply trying to become more organised rarely addresses what is happening underneath.

Lee and Lesley reflect on the role of shame and self-criticism, how clutter can affect confidence and relationships, and why many people find it difficult to ask for help. They also discuss the comfort that possessions can sometimes provide, and how that comfort can gradually become something that limits the life we want to live.

The conversation explores why small, manageable steps are often more effective than dramatic clear-outs, how confidence can grow through practice and why understanding the emotions attached to our belongings can make change feel more possible.

Rather than focusing solely on creating a tidier home, this episode reflects on how creating space in our environment can sometimes create more room for connection, wellbeing and the things that matter most.

Key moments

00:00 When clutter becomes a comfort
01:29 A house full of clutter
04:05 Shame and isolation
06:14 Understanding the emotional side of clutter
09:41 Clutter, safety and control
11:30 Clothes, identity and life changes
13:14 Building your decluttering muscle
15:02 Finding your bigger why
19:58 Grief and letting go
26:49 The power of community
28:36 Why small steps matter
31:26 What changes after decluttering
36:41 Where to start

About the guest

Lesley Spellman is a professional organiser, author and co-founder of The Declutter Hub, a global online membership supporting thousands of people to declutter and simplify their homes. She co‑hosts The Declutter Hub Podcast with Ingrid Jansen, a show ranked in the top 0.5% of podcasts worldwide with over 3 million downloads and more than 400 episodes. Lesley is co‑author of Reset Your Home and also runs The Clutter Fairy, a successful professional organising service operating across the North West and Midlands in the UK. With 16 years of hands-on experience, she helps people move from overwhelm and guilt to calm, confident living.

You can contact Lesley via Instagram, Facebook, or the Declutter Hub website

About the host

Dr Lee David is a GP, CBT therapist and author specialising in mental health and wellbeing. Lee has written many books on CBT, mindfulness and teen wellbeing, and speaks regularly at conferences and in the media. Away from work she enjoys running, hiking, singing in a choir and spending time outdoors with her family. You can find Lee through her website and on Instagram, TikTok (@dr.lee.david), Facebook and LinkedIn.  You can find more about her books, wellbeing courses and therapy here:  https://linktr.ee/dr.lee.david 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

People do feel that sense of shame. People have been judged for years, if not decades. It becomes part of their identity, the clutter. And people start to retreat a little bit and not talk about it. And stuff, then, for a lot of people, becomes a comfort. You can get that dopamine hit from the shops, you can buy a nice thing online, you bring it into your home. And it's a comfort for so many people when they're going through times of trauma, times of grief, mental health, all of the things that you have mentioned. So it is a comfort until it's not a comfort anymore, until it starts to really impact the life that you want to be living.

Dr Lee David 0:41

Welcome to the Choice Space Podcast. I'm Dr. Lee David, GP, CBT therapist and author. Many people notice things building up at home. Surfaces start to fill up, spaces are harder to use, and what starts as a few items can quickly become something much more difficult to face. It's often seen as a practical problem to fix, but clutter can also reflect what's going on in our lives, including pressure, lack of energy, or feeling overwhelmed. Understanding what's going on underneath can start to ease some of the self-criticism and create a new way forwards. I'm delighted to be joined today by Leslie Spellman, professional organiser and co-founder of the D Clutter Hub. Leslie, huge welcome. Could you start by telling us a little about the work that you do and what drew you into this area in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Hello, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. If I go back 16 years, I'm basically I bought a derelict house and it had been lived in by a compulsive hoard. The house was stacked to the absolute brim. It's a four-story house, and it was one of those houses, you know, in the neighbourhood that everybody used to talk about. So basically, cut a long story short, a year later we renovated the house and it was so nice because people would stop me at the gate and go, I love what you've done with the place, it looks amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was all really nice. But there was also this element of he was a disgrace, the guy that was in there and it was terrible in the neighbourhood. And it just, even though it was really lovely for people to say nice things, I was like, they just don't get that it was a mental health issue at all. And I think at that time, the fact that I had renovated this house and thought about storage solutions and the fact that for the first time ever, really, I started to think about the emotional mental health impact of clutter or hoarding. And the seed was sown for me to become a professional organizer. So that's where I came from when I set up my business, uh, the clutter ferry about six months after that. And to me, it's all about the emotions. Yes, stuff is there. I I see stuff as a, I even see throwing stuff in a bin bag as a byproduct of decluttering. You know, it's not just about getting rid of it here and to here and now, it's also about stopping the flow coming in later. So more of a permanent change. So yeah, so that's my little story. And I'm really grateful that I was given the opportunity to get this house and to understand a little bit more about him.

Dr Lee David 2:54

It really speaks to me because I've worked with a few people who've experienced clutter, and what really came through to me was there was a lot of shame around it. So it wasn't something that they wanted in their lives and yet also felt quite powerless and it was really difficult to address. And we've had a lovely conversation on your podcast. So I'm going to highlight that people might also want to have a listen to that because it was a lovely conversation about some of the emotions that can underpin clutter. For some of the people I've worked with, that level of shame is huge. And a clutter can be a sign, can't it, that there's something going on that people are struggling with their mental health, could be hoarding disorders, you've mentioned, it could also be severe depression, it could be anxiety, OCD, it could be uh neurodivergence such as ADHD. So there are so many different things that are quite significant that can impact on people and they present as clutter in the home. And so it feels really important to be able to just pull back a bit and not just get fixated on the clutter and actually see the person who is amongst all that clutter. And I'm kind of imagining the guy in the house and just sort of sending him a bit of care because it feels like it would have been very hard probably to live in that house as it was.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I think that people do feel that sense of shame. People have been judged for years, if not decades, for what's going on, and it becomes part of their identity, the clutter, and it's hard to and people start to retreat a little bit and not talk about it. And stuff then for a lot of people becomes a comfort. You can get that dopamine hit from the shops, you can buy a nice thing online, you bring it into your home, and it's a comfort for so many people when they're going through times of trauma, times of grief, you know, mental health, all of the things that you have mentioned. So it is a comfort until it's not a comfort anymore, until it starts to really impact the life that you want to be living. And I think so many people don't understand it because let's face it, there are so many people in this world who do not have a problem with clutter, and they're just like, why don't you just get rid of it? If it were that simple, then we wouldn't have people struggling. And so, really, the kind of people that Ingrid and I, that's my business partner, support in the declutter hub, are people who have struggled for years, have struggled for decades with this clutter and have felt that sense of shame and need somebody to understand it for an emotional level and not just a stuff level. Yes, of course, we talk about getting rid of stuff, that's the kind of the end point, but there's so much more that comes before.

Dr Lee David 5:16

Yeah, and that sounds so important, that sense of being able to go to a space where actually this is okay. We see this all the time, and actually we're very used to working with people struggling with this problem. It feels like that would be such relief because I think shame thrives in the dark. So people don't admit, they don't invite people round to their houses, they get socially isolated and they they know I can't have anyone come round because I'll be I'll be found out. And so that judgment comes externally, but also I think we have a lot of inner judgment, so we are very tough on ourselves, we're very self-critical, and so we're living with that judgment all the time, even if other people can't see it, because we imagine what they'd say if they could see it. And so it feels like coming to somebody like yourself and being able to recognise that it's not just me and there's somebody who works with people who are struggling with clutter. I think that feels so powerful. Could you tell us a little bit about what is a professional organizer and and how, you know, what what do you do in your work?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, so I've got two sides that are come to this really. So I mentioned before I set up my first business, the clutter fairy, 16 years ago. So that is a one-to-one business. So for many, many years I went into people's homes and this is where I learned my craft, really. And so basically we go and we facilitate. And so this is not about going into somebody's house and telling them to get rid of everything. This again is about going into their home, working with them to understand why it's been so difficult or why individual items are so difficult for them to let go of, and to try and offer different solutions to kind of counterbalance that. Well, what would your life be with it? What would your life be without it, to try and get them to come up with a decision whether or not that item is worth keeping or not? And so it's definitely not about chucking stuff away, or although, again, that is a byproduct of decluttering and one that we hope for, most people hope for, but it's really about understanding because only when you know, oh, I'm keeping that out of guilt because my mother-in-law gave it, or I'm keeping that because I've got an aspirational version of myself that I really want to be that crafter, or I really want to be that size 10, or whatever, then an aspiration comes in all different shapes and sizes. It's recognizing those behaviours yourself, which allow you then to see those patterns of behaviour and to stop them the next time it happens when you're at the shops or when somebody's giving you a hand-me-down or whatever that might be. So it's all about self-awareness, really. It starts with that. And so the role of a professional organizer is to share strategies with our clients to help them from a logistical perspective and from an emotional perspective to get to where they need to be. And I would say it's a very positive process, but it's a process that people are very wary about because we've talked about shame, we've talked about judgment, and people will have been in a position where people have tried to help with the best of intentions, of course, and chucked away someone's stuff behind their back. And that just leads to them wanting to keep more because they feel uncertain, they feel threatened, and so it just kind of perpetuates the problem. Now, professional organizers are never going to do that, they're never going to do something behind your back, they're never going to make you let go of something that you're not ready to let go of. Sort of almost the opposite, really. And so it's a very positive process for most people because they feel that empowerment when they're talking it through because they feel control, and that's the important thing. So, as a professional organizer, we want them to feel that they are in control of every decision that they're making about every single item. And let's let's face it, every single item in your house needs a decision made on whether or not it is worth keeping or not. And so that can be overwhelming in itself, you know, decision fatigue steps in, and so that's why we need to break it down a little bit. It's a lovely job. We're very privileged to be able to do it because we're in the in the world of transformation and making making people's lives better. And then about eight years ago, I wanted to be able to bring a professional organizer skill to people who couldn't afford that one-to-one basis because it is an expensive service to get somebody to work with you over several sessions and it's not possible for a lot of people. But people still need it, need somebody to understand them. And so that's when the declutter hub was born. We have a podcast which is free. We have a huge Facebook group community, and we do free challenges. So we have a very big element of our service is free. And then we have the inner hub, which is our membership program where people come in on a structured pathway to declutter with lots and lots of different tools that keep you on the right path and explain everything. It's much more personal. That's been in uh existence now for eight years. And both of those businesses and both of my the ways that I can be a professional organizer and bring my expertise, I absolutely love that.

Dr Lee David 9:41

It's such an interesting work to be doing. And in people's homes, it's it's a really private space. And actually, that sense of safety feels really important because I'm wondering if clutter becomes a safety behaviour. We think about that in the therapy point of view. It's not real safety, but it becomes difficult to let go of because we feel fearful about what might happen if we do throw that thing away and it represents something more. So it creates a sense of safety. But actually, over time we get trapped. You know, other types of sense of safety might be asking people for reassurance, for example, and it's okay to ask people once or twice, but if we're needing to do that all the time, then it's it's not very healthy and it actually knocks our self-confidence. And it feels a bit like that, where keeping a few things because we've got sentimental value is very different to feeling like I have to keep everything and I can't make the decision about what to keep and what not to keep. I don't trust myself to be able to make that decision, or maybe there's some shame. I mean, I was thinking about the clothes and people keeping sizes, and I've seen it both ways, where people maybe have lost some weight, but they don't they feel too fearful to throw out the larger size clothes because of well, what if I I can't trust myself, can I maintain it? And so they they keep for quite a long time clothes that no longer fit them, or the other way around, where perhaps over time we I think we all gain some weight, and then perhaps we're no longer able to fit in some of the smaller sizes, and then we're constantly thinking, but I should, I should, and it becomes like a shame-based, I'm not doing well enough, my weight isn't good enough, and I should be able to fit that smaller dress that I've had for the last 15 years, and I can't. And and so every time we see it, it kind of reminds us that we're failing in some way, which which feels really quite negative.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, we just finished our clear out your clothes challenge with thousands of people coming and we have that sort of self-awareness thing, and and we talk very much about weight because that is a big driver of a lot of people's wardrobes for the reasons that you've mentioned, and there's no right or wrong answer, but it's about a realistic assessment of your patterns of behaviour over several years. And so for some people, that weight gain or loss, and a lot of people think about it as gain, and let's there's a lot of weight losses going on for health reasons and things like that as well. It's about looking at your individual circumstances and looking at realistically about what's likely to happen. And we've not got a crystal ball, we don't know for sure, but we need to have an air of realism and step out of the comfortable side of it, the safety side of it, and go, but even though that does feel safe, that's also detracting from from what I want to do. And it's every time I open that wardrobe, all I see is impossibility. I just see lots of things that I can't. And that's puts us into a negative space straight away in the morning when we're trying to get ready. But I think just jumping back to what you were talking about sentimentality, sentimental items, when we are thinking about clutter, our minds take us to the difficult places. And so whether that's some people love their clothes, love their shoes, love their DVDs, books, all of those things where people are like, don't touch my shoes, don't touch my books. But often the clutter is not that stuff. It's it's like the duplicates of shampoo that we got on a buy one, get one free that we're never gonna get through that we forgot that we had that's under the bed, or the kind of the sheets or the pillarcases that we've got 27 of them because we've never let go of any. So we think about the sentimental stuff, we think about the difficult stuff, and we don't tackle the easy stuff. So we need to go for that low-hanging fruit in the first instance. And you know, in the inner hub, we very much take people on a journey of sort of building up their decluttering muscle because people think about the spare bedroom or the garage or the loft and start to tackle the really difficult spaces early on. And we're like, just go easy, break it down, start small, start in an area that's a little less emotional. And ironically, that is the kitchen. The kitchen has got less emotional decisions to make because most there's there is emotion based in the kitchen, I'm sure there's aspiration and guilt and all that kind of stuff, but generally the decisions are much more practical. Like, do I need this? Am I using this thing? Have I used it in six months if it's food? Those kind of things. And so we kind of almost set ourselves up for failure by going into the difficult areas because that's the thing that's bothering us. And it can be hard to get people to start in the kitchen, but kitchen's fine, I don't want to do that, I want to do my photographs. Do you need to build up to get to photographs? That those decisions are difficult. And so I think we get fixated and stuck with sentimental items, and that stops us from doing the easy stuff. So that's a pattern, definitely, that we see.

Dr Lee David 14:15

That's really interesting. So we get drawn to the stuff that's quite triggering and expect ourselves to do that, and then when we find it hard, we give ourselves a hard time. And actually, it's about stepping back and saying, what would be the easiest thing for me to do? What's the smallest thing that I wouldn't actually mind particularly getting rid of as a first step? And that feels really, really helpful. And we talked about this on your podcast as well, Leslie. But I I really think the idea of values about why am I doing this as well can help in terms of what's the purpose? Because it feels like, you know, how you're describing it, there's quite a bit of effort, isn't there, in going through the process. So it's like you don't start with a marathon journey over big hills, you start with a little walk in the local park, it feels to me.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

It's definitely a journey, and it depends on who you are. Some people have got a little bit of clutter, but everyone's tolerance of clutter is very, very different, right? So for some people it's straightforward, you can get through it in a weekend or a day or whatever, you can potter around and do it as part of your normal kind of day-to-day tiding up. But for other people where it has built up over a number of times, and there are potentially rooms that you want to close the door on, or there's piles of stuff everywhere, or there's what you perceive as mini chaos. It can take a little bit longer, that clutter, it was years building up and it's not going to go overnight. And so we need to psych ourselves up for the fact that it's going to take a little, a little longer. And I think that's a real thing that people learn because I think again, we're tuned in because decluttering is everywhere on social media, it's on TV, and we're seeing these quick transformations all the time. And then again, you know, you talk about shame. We're berating ourselves for not being able to do those quick transformations. And so we definitely need to start at the beginning. And what you talked about is your why. We call it a big picture goal. And what is decluttering my house actually going to allow me to do differently? How is my life going to look different when this house is where I want it to be? Is that that I will gladly open the door to a tradesman to come in without feeling any sense of shame? Is that that my grandchildren will be able to come in and play and I've got a spare room for them to stay? Is it that I'm not gonna fear and dread when someone says, Oh, I'm gonna drop round? Starting a craft that's not been possible to you. What is your why? And I think we're we're so fixated on I need to get rid of stuff, I need to get rid of stuff, but why do you? And I think that the big picture goal that you have, really important, and you can have a general one for your whole house, you can have one per room as well. It's good to sort of break it down a little bit. So you've got to keep that big picture goal firmly in your mind at all times so you can continue the process and come back, perhaps when it's not been an easy day.

Dr Lee David 16:49

I love the idea of a big picture goal and and also of having a different one for each room that feels really flexible because it might be a part who wants to have some space to do some exercise in one of the rooms, it might be a part who wants to, as you say, take up a craft again. And so then the the goal is about relaxation, about me time and feeling at peace in the space that I'm in, and and then thinking about other people and relationships. I think there's a lot of evidence that our well-being is really strongly linked to the people and our relationships with the people we care about most. And so if we're able to link in our declutter goals around building relationships, building connection, meaning I can have the grandkids over, meaning that we can have a play date with, you know, maybe we're we're a parent and we've got a child who wants other children to come over and play, and we don't want them to because we're worried about judgment. And so it feels like it opens up this whole opportunity, doesn't it, of being able to connect socially and to live our lives in really positive ways. And I think if we come to that rather than, as you say, I just need to get rid of stuff, then it's a completely different process because what we might do would be different, how we choose, what we want to keep is different. So yeah, that feels so powerful. This is the choice pause, a short tool you'll hear in every episode, drawn from my books and therapy practice. Each time it offers a different way to pause, notice, and choose your next step. Today is a pause for easing pressure around clutter. Take a slow breath in and a longer breath out. Allow your hands to rest and soften your face and shoulders. At times, things at home can start to build up. Surfaces fill spaces feel harder to use, and it can be difficult to know where to begin. You might notice this when you walk into a room or when you start to think about what might need sorting. Even small tasks may start to feel bigger than they really are, and it can be easy to put things off. When this happens, it's common for pressure to build. A sense that you should be doing more or keeping on top of things better. See if you can pause here. Notice your feet on the floor. The support beneath you, the rhythm of your breathing. Maybe say to yourself, This is how things are right now. I can meet this moment without adding more pressure. From here you could ask, what might feel manageable in this moment? It might be choosing one small area to focus on, moving just a few things, or deciding to leave it for now, without adding more pressure and choosing to do something else that you care about. As you continue with your day, see if you can carry this sense of easing pressure with you and choose your next step from there. So we've talked a little bit about some of the emotions that might come up through items that have belonged to people, but there may also be grief around letting go of something. I it feels to me like something about being able to grieve might be healthy when we're moving towards change. So we might need to experience some loss.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, definitely. Grief and the loss of somebody, obviously that has a huge impact and takes a while to work through and there's no right time. And I think the difficulty sometimes is that other people have got agendas, and sometimes it has to happen, like houses have to get sold, then it becomes difficult, right? But a lot of people are like, Oh, you know, mum, I think it's time that you started to get rid of dad's stuff, you know, that kind of thing. And we're like, don't ever do it until you're ready because you're just going to regret it. And you have to be patient with that process. But then we have what what we term as hidden grief, and so we've got periods of your life that you loved. And so if you're an empty nester, for example, and you get great pride and have great memories from when all your children were young and at home, it uh it can be hard to let go of stuff that you don't need anymore in your house from a practical level, but it's letting go of a period of your life that you loved. That's why people keep clothes from like corporate clothes when they had a job, if they've had to retire generally or had to be retired to ill health. It can be hard to let go of those periods of your life that you've loved. So we've not only got grieving for the loss of somebody, we've got grieving for the loss of a a period of our life that we loved. You know, we were having dinner parties all the time and now we're not. And if we used to wear high heels and now we can't because the arches of our feet are fallen, you know, all of those things, and it might seem very trite, but they're things that like, but I want to be able to wear those shoes and now I can't. And that and I find it really difficult. Every single item, and so there are hundreds and hundreds of emotions, and stuff is the thing that people have around us. We're surrounded by it everywhere, and so everything has a story to tell. And most things have an emotion behind them, whether that's poverty, people have lived in poverty, and people buy because they can now and they couldn't, and it's Trying to understand that about yourself, what it is that's driving those behaviors, and giving yourself the confidence over time to build your decultural muscle to go, it's okay, I can, I will be able to buy that shampoo again. So I don't need to buy 10 every time I go to the shop. But it takes a while to get comfortable with those ideas. It's just that ability to go there and think about it. Because if we find ourselves just thinking about the stuff, we don't go any deeper to think about the emotions that are sitting behind it. But when we do, it's a really powerful shift because sometimes that can be the only thing that we need to make that breakthrough. And then once we start, the floodgates open, and then we go, why did I not do this sooner? Because my life is so much better, I feel so much calmer. And you know, both you and I, um Lee, are lucky enough and privileged enough to be in a world of transformation where we see people on an upward trajectory, and it's so lovely. So we see people at rock bottom, but we also see people climbing up, and you know, how lucky are we to do that? But it can take some time and it's different for everybody in terms of what that journey looks like.

Dr Lee David 23:08

I totally agree, and it's it's such a privilege to be part of people's journeys. I often think, as you do, really lucky to be able to be part of their journey. And I think for me it's then our role, and I'm sure your role as the declutter fairy is to kind of regulate people and to walk alongside them, not to tell them what to do, but to be there and to be accepting and to help regulate their distress when they're finding it hard and be a rock that that says, I'm I'm here, and it's whatever you're feeling is okay, and we'll get through this together. And I I think that's such a powerful part of it for somebody who's got quite an emotional response to decluttering. I can really see how having somebody really quite hands-on would be hugely beneficial to have that that support on a one-to-one basis. A couple of other things that really struck me as you were talking, thinking back to the grief, you know, I one of the models I really like about grief, we often hear about stages of grief, and that assumes it just goes through a pathway. But actually, grief is really complicated and it comes and goes and it flows in all kinds of different directions, and it it can get triggered at any point. And I like the idea of a pendulum. And so you have times where you you go into the emotions of grief and you really spend time grieving and feeling emotional. And and I think perhaps when we get too stuck with our clutter, we're not allowing ourselves to feel. We're trying to avoid the difficult feelings. And then the other side of the pendulum is okay, we do stuff and we get on with the day. And and so actually, if you think of the model of I need a bit of time to feel and to maybe mourn a change that's been hard for me, and then I need to move on to do something practical, and then I kind of swing between the two, and it feels like that would be quite a helpful way to think about that. I don't have to get it all done at once. I don't have to be overwhelmed by my feelings for ages, but equally, if I never go there, it kind of feels unhelpful.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Absolutely, and I love that pendulum swinging back and forth. And I think the other thing that I would sort of say as you gather in momentum, that's where community kicks in as well, particularly McGrieving perspective, to find other people around you who are have had the same experience. Everyone's um aggrieving is completely different. But I think it's useful to be able to reach out to people who understand that it's not simple. The problem that you've got with all kinds of clutter, not just in a grief scenario, is that other people think that they're doing the right thing and they want the right thing for you because they see that a clutter-free home is going to bring you much more happiness and calm. But you've got to understand the journey to get there. It's not as simple as just, okay, let me just get rid of my clutter and that's it. You know, it's such a big thing. And so, whilst it's well-meaning, it can be really disturbing and distracting for a lot of people. And that's where people close up, like you say, and go, I don't want anybody in, I don't want anybody helping. And the worst thing that anybody can ever do is what is is get rid of somebody else's stuff, just because it's very distressing for people.

Dr Lee David 26:00

So thinking about the the community, it feels like that's a really powerful way of normalizing the fact that clutter's challenging, and and maybe it's about lots of people having different reasons and coming together and actually sharing differences. And maybe that's also powerful, right? We don't have to be exactly the same, but it gives us permission to be our own unique selves, but also within a community of others who get the fact that it's not just a simple quick fix, just get rid of some stuff, then you'll be fine, who recognise that there may be emotions, that there may be things that make it harder to do, and those things might be different for all of us, but actually just recognising that feels quite useful. Have you found that the community within the declutter hub is supportive for people to be able to encourage one another?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Hugely supportive, hugely supportive. We've got the Facebook group, which has got sort of 60,000 people, so it's a big community of people from all walks of life, and then we've got the inner hub community, which is obviously much more intimate and just has a few hundred people in it. But generally, there's the understanding and there's the validation to be validated that your feelings are the same as other people's feelings or similar to other people's feelings is so powerful. But then you've also got that little sort of not a kick up the backside, but you know, that kind of thing where you kind of go, but they've had a really hard time too, and they can do it. And sometimes it just gives people that little impetus to go, do you know what? I'm gonna go for it because they went for it. And then there's the knowledge as well, like I tackled it this way, and this worked for me, you know, in the same ways we do as professional organizers, you know, we go, there's this strategy or this one or this one, we pull on different strategies based on what we have learned from different people and what we think might work for them. And sometimes it can take several different strategies till we get to where we need to be. And that's the same in the inner hub community in particular. People go, Well, I tried this and this worked for me. So, and it depends, you know, we've got so much neurodiversity in there. So different people are gonna use different strategies, and some people can do it in 10 minutes, some people are going for longer sessions. You know, we've got we've got a lady in our inner hub who lives with chronic pain, and so for so long, she was like, I just can't do this, and she lives on her own, she she's got a little bit of help from her nieces and nephews, but generally she's kind of on her own. She's like, I've got to do this in 10 minutes a day, and she's literally gone through over the past year, 10 minutes a day, her entire house on her own. That's for somebody with chronic pains, it's a really big undertaking, but she did it, you know, and and other people have seen that and gone, if she can do it, I can do it. There's lots of different things that come from community, and I would really recommend people find their people because it's very, very powerful.

Dr Lee David 28:35

Because you might imagine that 10 minutes a day wouldn't get you very far. And I think we often get quite perfectionist about, well, if I can't do it all at once, then what is the point? And you know, I failed because I did some this weekend and it and it doesn't look much better. And I'm wondering if sometimes things look slightly worse before they get better as you're starting to get stuff out and and unpack things. So it feels like the journey's not going to be this straightforward one where you things just get better and better and better quite quickly. It sounds like it is possible that on, you know, just 10 minutes a day can actually make a difference for quite a lot of clutter.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, I mean, you know, if you've got a lot of clutter, you then you need to know that you're in it for the long haul. You know, you can be a tortoise or you can be a hare, both work. Lots of people are just somewhere in the middle. And so it's about understanding your own fatigue, where that sets in from a physical perspective, from a mental perspective. We've got people who, you know, uh go too long, decision fatigue steps in, then start making the wrong decisions about and just going, Oh, I just need to get it all gone, kind of thing at the end. And so it's understanding when you've done too much and finding that sweet spot really, and it's about an hour for a lot of people. But for somebody like the lady that I was talking about, she can't do an hour. It's not possible for her to do physical work for an hour. So she had to set herself up for success with that 10 minutes, and she's still going, so she's not gonna be overnight, and so it's got to be consistent. If you've got a very full home, you're not gonna just be able to do 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, you're gonna have to have this consistency of 10 minutes on a very regular basis to start making your way through. But very soon it's gonna start opening space up, and then when you start when you start to see the space, when you start to see the progress, again, that's gonna motivate you forwards. So it is possible, but generally people need a little bit longer than that if possible. It's like, right, okay, how can I find something that's gonna work for me realistically? You know, and this is what I'm gonna have to do to get this done. That's what I've got to work on. But I can do the learning, all of that around it. I can listen to podcasts, like there's other stuff that you can do where your mind is still trying to work through things even though you're not doing the physical work.

Dr Lee David 30:33

Can you talk to us a little bit about the impact of working through the process? Because obviously it can be challenging. We've talked a bit about grief, there's maybe some anxiety that might come out, there's a little bit of uncertainty about, you know, if I get rid of this, what if I need it? And so people can feel quite worried. And maybe if keeping clutter was acting as a safety behaviour, then we might feel a little bit more anxious initially when we start to shed some of that as a coping strategy, and we're kind of needing to accept and make some room for the fact that there is a bit of uncertainty, and yes, I might need something, but okay, what would I do if I if I did need some more shampoo and I'd run out? Is there anything else I could do rather than having 10 bottles to make sure that never, never happens? What's the impact that people describe when they've been through the process? Does it feel freeing emotionally for people?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Absolutely. I mean, you know, life-changing is a a word that we hear all the time. And it's life-changing on lots of different levels. You know, we've talked about relationships, talked about people inviting tradespeople in, we've talked about grandkids coming to stay. This is about relationships within the home as well. There's an ongoing tension often between partners and between parents and children because of this, and that improves, which is huge. That's a huge thing. We've got the financial side of things. People save money like tenfold by decluttering because they're no longer buying things that they don't need because they understand what they've got in their home. And that so that takes down a financial burden. That in itself is a huge deal as well. And then we've got what that opens up as possibility, transformation building on top of transformation. So quite often people come into us from a decluttering perspective, start to work on their home, and then starts to open up the possibility of going on a health journey or a well-being journey or a fitness or a weight loss or all those kind of things. Or, you know, we talked about the positive things about creativity and starting crafts, all related to well-being. Because I've done that one thing, so now I can do something else. It just takes you on this positive journey. But the process is difficult, but that's why we are big advocates of taking it slowly. It's all about having a control journey, being completely 100% behind every decision that you make. We talk about if in doubt, don't throw it out. Because we're like, if you've got doubts in your mind, that's not the right decision for you to be making at this moment in time. You've got phase two, phase three, phase four. So go, you know, do your decluttery in the first phase and know that you can come back to it at a later stage. And what we see is the people start in the kitchen and then their decluttering muscle builds, and then they go back around to the kitchen after they've done the whole house and go, why should I keep that? Because their decluttering muscle is stronger and they've learned by going through all those different emotions in the house that they can let go of something, that it's not going to be a negative thing. But it takes a while to get to that place. And so, you know, we're all about that kind of controlled journey and a phased journey, really, as well. As I said before, it's so nice to be in such a positive space because it's a good thing, you know, it's a good thing to have less, to buy less, to only have the things that you need. It saves you time, it saves you stress, it saves you money. Where's the downside? You know, there's no downside. The difficulty has probably come before where people are nervous and resentful and felt that shame. The only way is up. And so, yeah, it's uh it's a nice space to be and it's nice to see those journeys day after day for sure.

Dr Lee David 33:49

I love this idea about building self-confidence and self-efficacy, you might call it. Like, if I can do this, what what else can I do? And that sense of being empowered that I can make choices, I'm willing to make decisions. And I think sometimes we be we get very fearful about making decisions because we don't want to make the wrong decision. And it sounds like people are more willing to take a risk when they've built up the declutter muscle and can say, I can live with throwing it out, I can manage that. So it's not just about I have to get it exactly right, as much as I can cope, I'm strong enough to be able to deal with a situation where there's something that I kind of needed, but I didn't have it. And equally, I can also have a real positive about letting go of needing to have all of these things around me as a safety mechanism, and it just feels like that would be very freeing, and it creates a space that I think it's also very important to put things into that space. So, you know, you've talked about family relationships, and I I would be thinking, okay, we need to then really invest in our values. Uh we can we can keep that big picture thinking that you think about in the rooms, we can move that to the rest of our life and think, okay, how can I make this room brilliant for me? How can I make this room brilliant for my life? And so it's almost like a process that doesn't end because it's not just about getting rid of stuff, it's about living in a way that makes life feel good and purposeful and filled with all the things that we love in life.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Exactly. And I think if you are somebody that has lived with clutter for many, many years, people are kind of got that kind of roll in their eyes. She's on a decluttering journey again, sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, we've been here, been there, done that. And then as the as the progress starts to unfold from an emotional perspective and a space perspective and a stuff perspective, then what we see is people coming on board and then it becomes like more of a family thing. Because that's one of one of the biggest questions that we get asked is how can I get my partner or my children on board? And we're like, just focus on your own stuff for now, and the rest will hopefully follow. It doesn't always, we can't impact other people um so easily, but often it does people go, I want a bit of that as well. I want a little bit of that space and a little bit of that extra money and a better relationship, a bigger feeling of calm. And so other people come on board, it becomes like a whole family thing, which is greatest. So Ingrid and I love what we do, absolutely love what we do, and you know, to be able to empower people to do that for themselves in the inner hub. But obviously, people have got to do the work themselves. So it's finding the right space and finding your people and a methodology that works because one of the things that we talk about all the time is if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. People just jump straight in and start to declutter in the same way that they've always done. And so we have to go, don't do that, ignore the stuff for now and just let's do a little bit of thinking about your emotions first, and then it allows you to do things in a different way, and and then the progress and the results start to come.

Dr Lee David 36:41

I love that, and it sounds such a powerful community to be part of. So, so just to finish, we always do a choice space takeaway. So if someone recognised that perhaps they are struggling a little bit with some clutter in their home, what was one small first step that they might take in the next few days or weeks that might move them forward just a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

I think it's start small and know that when you go into your kitchen, for example, don't go to the junk drawer. That's hard. The thing that stuff's in that junk drawer for a reason. Let's go to the mugs, let's go to the glasses, let's go to the spices, and let's really go into granular detail on one area of our home and start to sort it out and think about why. We got things, you know, Sherry schooners from the 1960s that we've never used. Are they not in that cupboard with the wine glasses? Because I bought ones that are too big for my space. Really analyse every single thing in there and go, why? Why have I got this? And what's the barrier to me putting it away? Why am I keeping it? Can I let go? So once you start to really drill down on one area, you can learn a lot from that. So go into one cupboard, 10 minutes, might take you half an hour, and really go into granular level of detail rather than just scoot it along, wipe it out, put everything back, which is we tend to organize our clutter rather than declutter.

Dr Lee David 37:59

Now I'm just going to build on that to say just think about your why as well when you're starting to do it right from the beginning, to think about what would make this cupboard or this drawer, as you say, start with something that's not very difficult, not very emotional, that doesn't feel overwhelmed to start with. Think what could make this a more positive space for me and what would that be like? What would I get from doing this? And actually focusing on, well, I'd I'd open it and I'd just feel a little happier, or I'd open it and I'd be able to find the spice I want, and the cooking will be nicer. And hopefully that then makes it more of a positive choice, even though it can sometimes be still quite hard work, I think. Thank you so much. So just to finish, how can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Yeah, so we've got our lovely declutterhub podcast, and so that's declutterhub.com forward slash podcast. One of the things that's really quite good fun, actually, that a lot of people might want to do is our quiz, which is all about what clutter personality are you. Um and it's free in and we give you, we send you podcasts after all about your personality, dclutterhub.com forward slash quiz. So those are two great places that you can go to find out a little bit more about your clutter personality, which is what it's all about.

Dr Lee David 39:08

Thanks for listening to the Choice Space podcast. I hope this conversation has offered a little room to pause, notice, and choose your next step. You'll find ways to connect with Leslie in the show notes. If this episode has been helpful, you can download it, follow for future episodes, and please share with anyone else who might find the conversation helpful as well. Please also leave a rating or review on the podcast platform. It really does help people find our show.