I often talk about how you can work through your declutter projects or your whole house if you just work a bit at a time. It’s amazing what some consistency and some hard work can truly accomplish! It’s great to focus on how your house looks. How organized it is, how you set up this new shelf to store this or that, or even some new closet organizer to help you get more stuff into your house and make it not look so cluttered.

Have you ever reached the end of a closet declutter blitz just to feel like it is still overwhelming? Do you feel like it still looks kind of messy?

Try instead to focus on how your space feels!  When you think you are done decluttering a space, ask yourself out loud, “ok, now how do I feel in this space? Do I feel great enough with it like this to keep it this way?” Focus on the items still there or step away from that space for a day or two and go back in there and really ask yourself how you feel in that space! If you can’t say to yourself, “Oh ya, this is great! This is what I want this space to feel like! This feels right!!”, then you might not be done with your work just yet. Sure, it may look better because you did, in fact, work hard and got rid of some stuff. But if you are still feeling overwhelmed by the space, then it’s not quite right yet, and you will inevitably feel like you need to declutter or start all over in another couple of weeks or months!

Try to really focus on how you feel in your home. How does your front entryway make you feel when you walk in? Does it make you want to turn back around and walk away from it? Does it make you cringe, but you blast through because you gotta go pee, start dinner, and then get the kids off to where they need to be! When you are tidying it up and decluttering, don’t focus on what it looks like – though that usually is an easy place to start. Focus on how you want it to make you feel. You may be holding on to things simply because they have always been there. Those items may, in fact, be some of the first things to go. Maybe they have made the space feel wrong from the start. You just worked with it because it’s what you had. If it doesn’t feel right, get rid of it and make it feel like your own space!

Even your bedroom! Don’t be afraid of a bit more hard work if it means that your space feels more like it reflects you. Paint if need be. Take down artwork or pictures. Get new bedding. It doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy all new furniture because your stuff doesn’t feel right! If you have the money, go for it, but you could also start a list and look for sales and buy when you have the money and when you find just the right thing.

Just don’t give up on it until it feels right!

It’s easy to get caught up in how you want your house to look or how it should not look. Instead, shift your focus to ensure your home feels the way you want it to feel! It’s great to have stuff and to have it organized in whatever tetris way you can make it fit, but if it doesn’t feel right, it won’t be useable or maintainable!

So, as you declutter moving forward, aim for permanent change and tap into how you want your home to feel!

Thanks for coming home!