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What if the biggest difference between you and an organized woman isn’t how much stuff she owns or how naturally organized she is?
What if she simply believes being organized is possible for her?
In this episode, I’m sharing the secret I think organized women know about decluttering and why that belief changes everything about the way you approach your stuff.
When you doubt that you’ll ever really be organized, every unfinished project, difficult decision, or cluttered room can become more evidence that you’re “just not an organized person.” You start, stop, question yourself, get overwhelmed, and eventually give up.
But organization is a skill you can learn and practice. You don’t have to organize your whole house to be organized. Every time you make a decision, declutter for 15 minutes, assign something a home, reset a space, or resume after stopping, you’re practicing being an organized person.
We’ll also talk about another powerful shift: decluttering from your life forward instead of from your stuff backward.
Instead of picking up an item and asking, “Should I get rid of this?” try getting clear about the life you want to live, the season you’re in, and who you’re becoming. Then ask, “Does this deserve space in that life?”
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why believing organization is possible for you matters
- How decluttering actually helps you become more organized
- Why decluttering is really a decision-making practice
- How fear, scarcity, memories, and regret make decisions harder
- Why your current season of life can help you decide what stays
- How your future identity can become a decluttering filter
- The difference between stuff that supports your identity and stuff that simply proves your identity
- Why you don’t have to finish an entire project for your organizing efforts to count
- How to use 15 minutes to get clear on what you want your home and life to support
I also share the story of my client Cheryl, who had to declutter to move into her dream retirement home. The payoff wasn’t simply having less stuff. It was having a home she loves, a guest room her grandkids can actually use, and the freedom to enjoy this season of her life.
As you listen, consider these questions:
What am I making room for?
Who am I choosing to be in this season?
Does this support the life I want to live?
You don’t need to wait until your whole house is organized to become an organized person.
You become her while you practice.
One decision, one space, and one 15-minute session at a time. Get the 15-Minute Declutter Challenge here.
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The Secret Organized Women Know About Decluttering That You Don’t
What if the biggest difference between you and someone you think of as an organized person is not her house?
Maybe she does not own less stuff than you. She might not be naturally better at making decisions. Her closets may not always be perfect, and she probably has areas of her home that need attention too.
The difference might start with something you cannot see.
She believes being organized is possible for her.
I have been thinking about this idea a lot lately because we often treat organization as something certain people naturally know how to do. We look at someone who seems organized and assume she has always been that way.
Meanwhile, if you have struggled with clutter for years, you may have collected plenty of evidence for the opposite conclusion about yourself.
You start organizing a room and do not finish. A pile sits there longer than you planned. You clean out a closet, but three months later it needs attention again. Before long, you start thinking, “See? I knew I couldn’t do this.”
What if that belief, rather than your clutter, is one of the biggest things keeping you stuck?
Being Organized Is Possible for You
I want you to consider something that may feel uncomfortable at first.
Being an organized person is possible for you.
That does not mean you will eventually have a perfectly organized house. It does not mean every drawer will look beautiful or that you will never have clutter again.
Being organized is not a finish line you reach after completing every project in your home.
Organization is a set of skills you practice.
You can learn how to make decisions about your belongings. You can practice decluttering. Assigning homes to things is a skill you can improve. You can learn how to reset a room after it gets messy and how to resume when you stop.
Those are the things organized people do.
You do not have to organize your entire house before you can consider yourself organized. In fact, you can begin practicing the identity of an organized person today.
Decluttering Is Part of Becoming Organized
When I was preparing for this topic, I asked some of my clients what they thought organized women know about decluttering.
My client Danielle gave me a simple answer. She said the secret is that decluttering is actually what makes you organized. Her advice was essentially to declutter, declutter, declutter!
She has a point.
We sometimes treat decluttering as the annoying task we have to complete before the real organizing can begin. First, we get rid of everything we do not need. Then we buy containers, label things, and finally become organized.
I do not see it that way.
Decluttering is organizing.
Each time you decide that something no longer belongs in your life, you are organizing. When you determine that something deserves the space it takes up, you are organizing too.
Every decision helps you practice the skill.
Another client, Robin, described decluttering as a decision making session that gives you renewed energy. I love thinking about it that way.
You are not required to declutter the entire basement this weekend. Instead, you can spend 15 minutes practicing decisions.
When you believe becoming organized is possible for you, those 15 minutes count.
Why Decluttering Can Feel So Difficult
Most of us have been approaching decluttering from the stuff backward.
We pick up an item and immediately start thinking about everything connected to it.
Maybe you paid a lot of money for it. Someone special might have given it to you. Perhaps you loved it during another season of your life, or it reminds you of when your children were little.
Your brain may jump into the future too.
What if I need this someday? Might my kids want it? What happens if I get rid of it and regret my decision? Wouldn’t it be wasteful if I had to buy another one?
Suddenly, one object has turned into a complicated decision involving money, memories, scarcity, fear, regret, and an imaginary future.
No wonder decluttering feels exhausting.
Instead of asking each object to justify its place in your future, I want you to try something different.
Start with your life.
Declutter From Your Life Forward
One of the most powerful questions you can ask before decluttering is not, “What should I get rid of?”
Ask yourself, “What am I making room for?”
Think about the season of life you are in right now. Consider what you want to do more of and what you would like to do less of.
What lights you up? How do you want to spend your days? What is God calling you toward in this season? How do you want to feel when you walk into your home?
Your answers can become a filter for your belongings.
Once you have some idea of where you are going, you can look at your possessions differently.
Does this support the life I want to live?
Does this deserve space in this season?
Is this helping me do what matters most to me?
Instead of decluttering from your stuff backward, you begin decluttering from your life forward.
Decide What Deserves to Stay
I recently talked with Myquillyn Smith about house hushing on The Organized Coach Podcast. One of the ideas we discussed was removing things from a space and then deciding what deserves to come back.
That question has stayed with me.
What deserves to stay?
Notice how different that feels from walking into an overfilled room and asking what you can possibly bear to get rid of.
When everything is already there, the default decision is to keep it. Getting rid of something requires an action and a decision.
Turn the process around and you create a new default.
What deserves to come back?
What supports the purpose of this room?
Which things support the way I want to live?
You are no longer trying to get rid of as much as possible. The goal is to become more intentional about what earns space in your home.
The Organized Home Is Not the Real Payoff
One of my clients, Cheryl, had to make a lot of decluttering decisions when she moved into her dream retirement home.
She wanted the house. She wanted the neighborhood, and she could picture herself living there.
There was just one problem. Her belongings had to fit.
Cheryl could not take everything from her previous season of life simply because it was useful, valuable, sentimental, or potentially needed someday. The physical space gave her a constraint, so she had to make decisions.
Some of those decisions were uncomfortable.
Looking back, however, she does not regret them. In fact, she continues to declutter because she has discovered how much she enjoys living with less.
One of my favorite examples is her guest room. After decluttering the closet, the room became truly available for her grandkids to stay.
The payoff was not an organized closet.
The payoff was her grandkids.
Her decluttering created space for people she loves. It made her home more useful for the life she actually wants to live.
That is the kind of payoff I want you to picture when you declutter.
Let Your Home Support Your Life
I see this in my own home too.
I know what I want to happen around my table. Gatherings, conversations, connection, learning, laughter, and people sharing their stories.
Knowing the purpose of that space makes decisions easier.
I do not need to fill the table or the surrounding space with things I have to move, manage, dust, clean, or store. My stuff should support what I want to happen there.
The same thing is true in my sitting room.
I want that room to be a place where people can sit down and talk. Listening to people’s stories matters to me. The room does not need a lot of things to accomplish that purpose.
Having fewer things to manage allows the activities of my life to take center stage.
Your home can do the same for you.
Maybe you want your grandchildren to visit more often. Perhaps you want to start painting again. You might want to invite friends over, read more, travel, work from home, mentor women, or enjoy slower mornings.
Your belongings should support those things rather than compete with them.
Your Identity Can Help You Declutter
There is another layer to this that I find fascinating.
In addition to asking whether something supports your life, you can ask whether it supports who you are choosing to become.
Books are a great example.
I have books from my coach certification and other training I have completed. For years, keeping them has seemed like an obvious decision because coaching is part of who I am.
Recently, I started questioning that assumption.
When was the last time I actually opened some of those books?
If I am actively studying them, referencing them, and continuing to develop my coaching skills through them, they may absolutely support my identity as a coach.
On the other hand, some of those books might simply represent something I accomplished in the past.
There is a difference between an item supporting your identity and proving your identity.
Imagine someone who sees herself as a writer, educator, philosopher, theologian, or lifelong learner. A wall filled with books may perfectly support her chosen life. She may read them, reference them, lend them, and love being surrounded by ideas.
For another person, those same shelves might represent books she thinks she should read someday.
The amount of stuff is not the deciding factor.
Alignment is.
You Do Not Need Stuff to Prove Who You Are
Identity becomes especially interesting when sentimental items are involved.
Imagine that being a grandma is one of the most important parts of your life. You might decide that you need to keep everything your grandchildren give you because those items represent your love for them.
Go one step deeper.
What does being the grandmother you want to be actually look like?
Maybe it means having a guest room where your grandchildren can sleep. It could mean having games ready to play, space around your table, or cookie cutters you can easily find when everyone wants to bake together.
Perhaps keeping some treasured artwork supports that identity beautifully.
Keeping every single item they have ever given you, however, is not required for you to be a loving grandmother.
You do not need your belongings to prove who you are.
Let your belongings support who you are becoming.
Trust Yourself to Make Decisions
None of this means every decluttering decision will suddenly become easy.
You may still feel uncomfortable when you let something go. Sentimental items can bring up sadness, and expensive purchases can trigger regret.
Uncertainty is part of making decisions.
The goal is not to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling before you declutter. Instead, you can become someone who is willing to feel some discomfort while making thoughtful decisions.
You can also trust yourself to get better with practice.
Organized women are not necessarily perfect decision makers. They are practiced decision makers.
Every time you make a decision, you learn something.
What About Your Memories?
Sentimental items can be especially challenging because they connect us to our past.
You may look at something and remember a season you loved. Letting go of the object can feel like you are letting go of the memory too.
What if you could honor the past while also trusting the future?
There are beautiful memories you have not made yet.
People you have not met may someday sit around your table. Trips you have not taken are still ahead. Your grandchildren may sleep in that guest room. There are conversations, hobbies, opportunities, and callings you cannot see yet.
Making space does not mean the past was unimportant.
It means you believe there is more life ahead.
Try This for 15 Minutes
Before you attack your basement, buy another organizing container, or empty every closet in your house, try something simpler.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and get out a piece of paper.
Ask yourself what season of life you are in right now. Think about what is good that you want more of and what you would like less of.
Consider what lights you up. Write down what you are dreaming about and what you feel called toward. Notice which activities were important in the past but no longer fit your current season.
Then ask yourself two questions:
Who am I becoming?
What am I making room for?
You do not need to plan your entire future during those 15 minutes. Simply start paying attention to your answers.
Afterward, choose one space in your home that could better support something you wrote down.
It might be your dining room table, guest room, bedroom, craft room, front entry, or one small closet.
When you begin decluttering that space, resist the urge to ask only, “What should I get rid of?”
Instead, ask:
What deserves to be here because it supports the life I am choosing?
The Secret Organized Women Know
I think the secret organized women know about decluttering is bigger than decluttering.
They believe being organized is possible for them.
They do not need a perfect home to prove it. Instead, they practice the skills of being organized.
They make decisions. They declutter things that no longer fit. Homes are assigned to what remains. Spaces get reset, and when they stop for a while, they resume.
Over time, those actions build trust.
You begin collecting new evidence about yourself.
I can make decisions, let things go, choose what belongs in this season, stop and resume, and create a home that supports my life.
Maybe you are not ready to look around your house and confidently declare, “I am an organized person.”
That’s okay.
Start with something smaller.
Could you believe that becoming more organized is possible for you?
Then practice.
Make one decision. Clear one small space. Set your timer for 15 minutes and begin.
You do not become an organized person when you finally finish organizing your entire house.
You become an organized person by practicing the skills organized people practice.
And that is absolutely possible for you.
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