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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. All right. So we are here with Kim Kelly, and she is a member of Minimalist Starts here. Hi, Kim, thanks so much for joining us, hi.

Kim: 0:58

Diana, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Diana Rene: 1:01

Yeah, absolutely, we're just going to jump right in having me, I'm excited. Yeah, absolutely, we're just going to jump right in. And if you can just share with everyone a little bit about who you are, your family, that kind of thing, yeah, absolutely.

Kim: 1:13

So I am 35 and I'm married to my husband, who we've married for almost nine years, and we have two kids. We have Finn, who is five, and Emmett, who is two, and Finn has autism, so he was diagnosed just before Emmett was born.

Diana Rene: 1:34

Okay, yeah, and where do you live?

Kim: 1:37

Oh, I'm sorry, we live in Philadelphia.

Diana Rene: 1:39

Philadelphia. Very cool. Is it getting cold yet? Not yet.

Kim: 1:44

No, we've had like fake fall, where it's fall for like a couple of days and then it goes right back to being super hot.

Diana Rene: 1:52

Yeah, I know, I swear I'm like I, my kids will never know like a true fall and it makes me so sad because it's like my favorite season. But it's either like 85 degrees and then we'll have like one day of fall and then it will snow. We're like, we're good.

Kim: 2:09

Yeah, I feel like every year it gets shorter.

Diana Rene: 2:13

Absolutely so. Tell me a little bit about how your life and your home operated prior to joining the program and going through the whole decluttering process.

Kim: 2:25

Yeah, so I have always tried really hard to be very organized and have things, have a home and have a place, but I also had a ton of stuff and it didn't really. I felt like I was sort of living in this, like almost like this repeated phrase in my head was like how come I can't get it together, like why do I have to reorganize the top of this closet?

Kim: 2:54

you know, every single month, or how come I can't just stay nice and organized and where I know things are yeah, and so that was, I think, a big problem. And then we had two kids right before we started the program and I think I very much relate it to your story of you have your second kid and there's stuff everywhere. You're in the very thick immediate postpartum and things were just felt very out of control for me and that's I think I found your program on Instagram but it just finally clicked of. Like you know, I cannot I cannot continue to try to organize without getting rid of some of this stuff.

Diana Rene: 3:40

Totally yeah. And it's so interesting because I think most people, when they do feel overwhelmed in their home, that's the number one thing they think is oh, I just need to get organized, and yes, and you have to be able to get rid of the stuff first, because you could put all of the organizational systems and buy all of the pretty containers from the container store that you want. But if you have too much stuff to begin with, it's not going to actually be like a sustainable system for you.

Kim: 4:12

For sure, yeah, I think that's where I was kind of stuck was like it would be organized for about a week and then things get shoved up there or thrown up there, and then, you know, things get shoved up there or thrown up there and then, before you knew it, I was back to pulling everything out. Yeah, I mean, like I hate the top of this closet so much, like why can't it just stay organized?

Diana Rene: 4:34

Yeah, it's a cycle, definitely. And what about? You said you're married. What about your husband? Is he someone who tends to be tidier, or does he have a hard time letting go of things?

Kim: 4:48

also, he sometimes does have a hard time letting go of things, but I think I have sort of convinced him, like brought him over to our side. In the beginning he didn't really care. He was just like you know, if you want to do this program, that's fine, go for it, yeah, and like I'll support you, which was nice. But I think once we realized what it meant for us as a family, then he became more on board and now we're just very on the same page. We're very good at just looking at, you know, a room, a box, even one item, and being like we haven't used this, we don't need this, let's get rid of it.

Diana Rene: 5:29

Okay, what about your kids? How does it go with your kids when it comes to letting go?

Kim: 5:35

MSR two-year-old, and he's still, I think, a little bit too young to really know what's happening. He has his favorite toys that I would never touch and he has, you know, his moments where he'll find something that he hasn't used in a while and it will bring him, you know, some joy there. So we haven't really introduced like the decluttering thing to him just yet, and I think it's because we've started before he was even able to, you know, talk or move around.

Kim: 6:08

So he hasn't really known a life of you know, like insane amounts of stuff and toys everywhere. He's only really known minimalism, which is nice. And then Finn, like I know I've listened to the podcast about you know how fewer toys is better for kids, but I think specifically for kids with autism, it really does help them. You know, I think often kids with autistic kids, autistic adults, are easily overwhelmed because they are taking in so much sensory wise that you know everything, sight, smell, everything has an effect on them. And that's specifically for Finn. He can get very overstimulated if there is too much going on, whether it's noise or smells or things. So we are always keeping that in mind when we are decluttering, whether it's his room or toys, even just a shared space in our house. We know that it has been a game changer for him to have less around. I love that.

Diana Rene: 7:26

That's amazing. It's so true because the things around us are affecting us mentally, whether or not we realize it. And so for someone with autism, realize it. And so for someone with autism, like you said, that gets over easily, overstimulated by things, all sorts of things eliminating that excess around them just immediately helps them have a calmer baseline.

Kim: 7:51

Yeah, definitely.

Diana Rene: 7:53

That's also true, like with ADHD. I have ADHD and I know we have a lot of members in our group with ADHD and who have kids with ADHD and it's like the absence of stuff around you immediately helps you focus. The hard part is, with ADHD, it's easier to let stuff build up around you, so it's kind of not fair.

Kim: 8:16

But yeah, I also have ADHD but I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult. So it's kind of not fair.

Kim: 8:19

But yeah, I I also have ADHD, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult so it was about a year ago actually and I think I also wanted to thank you for just sharing your ADHD journey because that I think some of that really resonated with me and kind of pushed me to go get a diagnosis or to confirm it. But yeah, it's even just like the smallest pile. It can be very distracting. So when your whole house is piles that you have plans for but they never actually happen, it's really, it's a game changer to be able to eliminate that.

Diana Rene: 9:02

Yeah Well, I'm so glad that my story was helpful for you. It's, um, it's. It's one of those things where it's amazing how many adult women are being diagnosed. And it's just be. It's not because, like, all of a sudden, we became someone who had ADHD, it's just we were overlooked because we weren't like the boys bouncing off the walls and getting in fights. And you know, we were. We were the. I was the one looking out the window and daydreaming and like wait, what, what am I doing? Yeah, exactly, I get it. So now that we kind of covered like how you were feeling in your home prior to going through the whole journey, how does your life or your family's life look different having gone through the whole process? Because we talked a little bit before we started recording, but you did go through the full program. So that means that your entire home has been decluttered and you've added systems in.

Kim: 9:58

So that means that your entire home has been decluttered and you've added systems in. I think the biggest thing for us is that on the weekends that's really our family time. We love to be out of the house on the weekend, we love to be outside. We love to bring the boys to the playground or to events that are happening in the area, even stay out and have dinner together out, you know, as long as the boys can tolerate it. That I think would have been a pipe dream, like long ago, because that was when we got cleaning done and organizing done and you know all of those things. And now it's it's very easy to, it's not stressful to go out and stay out all day or for you know several hours because you come home and you don't have a ton of things to do.

Kim: 10:49

You have just like daily tasks to do. They don't take long, you have routines in place and that is freedom, I think for us like freedom from our home, basically.

Diana Rene: 11:04

Yeah, oh gosh, I love that.

Diana Rene: 11:06

I think that's something that people get confused so often is that the idea of decluttering and systemizing and organizing means that your home is like perfect museum Pinterest at all times.

Diana Rene: 11:21

And that's not true, especially if you have kids. You're going to have messes, you're going to have crafts left out, you're going to have food still on the count, you're living in your home, right, so there's still going to be things happening in your home, but the difference is the time and energy it takes to get back to that baseline. So a good example that I always like to think about is, prior to going through decluttering for us, if anyone got sick my kids got sick, or I got sick once the sickness had lifted and everyone was back to school and everything, I felt like it took me a week to get back to normal, like the house was a disaster, and now it's like it might take me a day to get everything fully back, but it's such a dramatic decrease that that's just a really good example of, yes, life's still going to happen, but it's just easier to get back to where you want to be.

Kim: 12:21

Yeah, I completely agree.

Diana Rene: 12:23

Yeah, what do you think the hardest part of decluttering was for you when you were going through the initial journey?

Kim: 12:30

I think there were a couple of things. I think the hardest part was when we moved into our house. We didn have like any money we had. We had no money, we had no stuff. But people around us offered us stuff and we took it. You know anything anyone offered us, we took it and I think some of it was like very niche. Some of it was great you know played Scraps Bowl but some of it was like I'll give you like I'll give you an example. Some of it was like banana split bowls, like root beer float glasses, like oh my gosh.

Kim: 13:08

Like small dishes for like warming butter, like if you were going to have like a sit down dinner with with lobster, where everyone was going to get like their own butter dish.

Diana Rene: 13:20

Which is exactly what you were doing with little kids right.

Kim: 13:23

So I think, like we took these things and like in my head I was like well, you know, when we have fancy parties, when we have sit down dinners, when we have ice cream parties like when the kids are older, they're going to love, you know, having their friends over and having ice cream socials Like wouldn't it be cool to have all of these things? And just just sort of letting go of the like what might be, because we don't really know what's going to happen, but also like letting go of who I thought we were going to be and just like being okay with where we are now and just kind of living in the present and being very comfortable with being present.

Kim: 14:12

That has been like a learning journey across, I think, multiple facets. But like just being okay with like where we are right now, Like we're not. We're not fancy, we love, we love having people over and we love hosting people, but like we're never going to have like fancy dinner, like that, Like it's okay to get rid of. You know, it's okay to just kind of move on from what we thought was maybe going to be the future at one point versus what it is today.

Diana Rene: 14:40

Oh, I love that. Yeah, I really like that. It's just kind of resetting your expectations for where you are and what you want in your life. And the funny thing is too is like maybe one day you're going to have a banana split party, but you will totally do it in regular bowls and be okay and everyone will still have fun.

Kim: 15:01

Maybe you will never have like the lobster party, but maybe it just felt like very, you know, very Pinterest-y, very Instagram real or TikTok or whatever, like you know those influencers who have all of that stuff. You know it's that's not real, like learning that that's not real and that the algorithm is designed to pull you in and, you know, make you think that if you have these things you'll be somebody else. But that's just not true. And just, you know, being okay with with what is true.

Diana Rene: 15:36

Yeah, that's a conversation my mom and I had recently actually where she was talking about how, when she was like in the trenches with young kids, her only examples was like women on TV and the magazines that she read, and then like the occasional house in the neighborhood that like she would go to. It was not like a 24-7, nonstop feed into her brain of all of these other people that she doesn't even know, that have this, supposedly have this idealistic life in the beautiful home with all of the newest gadgets and clothes and all of that and just how much it like shapes our like, our perception now versus when she was like going through the same stage in life, her reading or looking at a magazine.

Diana Rene: 16:31

It was like very much like oh, that's celebrities, it's not like everyday people, and I think we are like kind of trained to think that that's just everyday people because it's so in our face through influencers and those kinds of avenues.

Kim: 16:48

Yeah definitely.

Diana Rene: 16:49

Yeah, that's so interesting. I've always wanted to go to like. It's so funny because sometimes, because I have a large following on Instagram, people sometimes say I'm an influencer and I'm like, no, I am not, I'm not an influencer, but I would love to go to an influencer's home like a true influencer, who gets sent all of the things, all of the you know. They get all of the PR packages and all of the just to see.

Diana Rene: 17:19

Number one, how much of it they actually keep. I'm very curious about that. And number two, like, where do they put it? I don't understand.

Kim: 17:28

Oh my God, that's my first thought now, whenever. I watch a video of someone like opening a package or something that was sent to them for free. I'm like, where are you going to put?

Diana Rene: 17:37

that, yeah, it's like they must have another. Like put that, yeah, it's like they must have another level of their home. They just don't show or something, or a storage unit. Yeah, everything goes there. True, that's actually probably very accurate, so interesting. What would you say if you had to narrow it down to the number one perk, or the number one like positive to being able to know how to declutter and how to go through those processes? Like, what's the number one positive way you've seen that show up for you yourself, or your family or your home?

Kim: 18:14

So we've done. We've done a couple of things that people outside of our family have been like. You guys are crazy for doing this Really. Yeah, so we had our basement, has a bar in it, but it also had like huge furniture in it a big sofa and a big loveseat coffee table and that section just like wasn't being used as efficiently as it could have been. So we sold all of that and we turned that section into a playroom.

Kim: 18:47

And then our coat closet. We all just have like one coat, especially after decluttering, like we all just have one coat and we have like sweatshirts and stuff, stuff. But everything fits in their closets upstairs so it's not like nothing is like bursting at the seams. We're like we're not really using this efficiently. So we have a big-ish kitchen. I think because it's open concept, it looks bigger than it actually is, but it doesn't have a lot of like cabinets or drawers. So we turned that closet into a pantry. So these are like these are things that people were like. You know people don't typically do that. People don't sell. You know three-year-old furniture Like you know what if you need it and you know it's going to decrease the resale value of your house to get rid of your coat closet.

Diana Rene: 19:43

But, um, I think it just comes back to, like you know, recognizing that something isn't working for you or something could be better and, just you know, having the freedom to change it yeah, I love so, just going back to like being able to live in the present moment and where you and your family are like currently in your stage of life, and also having the ability to turn your coat closet into a pantry because it's not stuffed with all the things that you have to do something later with right.

Kim: 20:18

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Diana Rene: 20:21

I also I love that you use that specific example because you were telling us prior about how, like the coat closet, like top shelf, would always be like overflowing before.

Kim: 20:32

That's my kryptonite. That was actually like my worst nightmare was that top shelf, that coat, closet? Never again, everything went up there. The crock pot went closet Never again, everything went up there. The crock pot went up there.

Diana Rene: 20:42

The food processor went up there Like everything went up there, and then suddenly it didn't, because we had space for the things that we used and we got rid of the things that we didn't, and it really was like that. Simple, yeah, and you get to make your home functional for you. You get to organize it in a way that's not just necessarily like pretty and aesthetic and color-coded, but it's functional for your family, which I would choose function over aesthetic any day, any day, especially with small children in the home. I think it just makes everything easier for you and everyone else living in it. If it's functional, it's working and things aren't overflowing at the seams just to make it look pretty.

Kim: 21:31

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that was like something else too was like I was always kind of thinking about the next thing or like the next project that we were going to be doing or you know, but and get like getting sucked into that algorithm. But now I'm, I'm just. I know that our home runs smoothly, I know that at the end of the night, you know we're not folding insane amounts of laundry, we're not picking up for hours, like we're sitting on the couch and we're spending time together, we're watching a show together, like we've recently like bought a couple of new, like two player board games for after the kids go to sleep, like we're just, we're spending time together just because we don't need to be spending time cleaning or organizing or you know, just doing those types of activities after the kids go to bed.

Diana Rene: 22:26

I love that. It's, I mean, you're really being able to do what you want to do, versus what you have to do to keep the house running. Exactly. Yeah, I love that. I forgot to ask you before are you a stay-at-home mom? Do you work out of the home? What's that situation for you?

Kim: 22:46

I actually work remotely, okay, but my husband is a stay-at-home dad, okay, so we're a little like non-traditional. Yeah, that's awesome, so many therapies throughout the week. Like Finn gets like 11 therapy sessions throughout the week and like so for us, you know, we were able to have a parent stay home. Pat used to joke about being a stay-at-home dad, yeah, and now he like gets to do it, yeah, so he it, so he yeah, so he stays at home. I work remotely, so I think that's maybe I think something people think would be like the reason that you know our home run smoothly is because we have two adults at home. But like, really, when I'm, I'm home, I'm working. When he's home, he's with the kids or he's out with the kids taking the therapy.

Kim: 24:03

Our travel time is certainly less but, this is not like impossible with two parents working outside the home. You know, we I had a previous position where I was working outside the home, so, and it was after we went through the program. So, okay, yeah, so it's easier now, sure, but yeah, not impossible.

Diana Rene: 24:27

Yeah, and it's just so interesting because I think what each family looks like right now, compared to even five years ago, when it comes to who's working, when they're working, where they're working, is so varied Like before.

Diana Rene: 24:45

I think it was. I mean, as we all know, remote work was just not nearly as common pre-COVID, but there's just so much more opportunity to be able to work remotely that more and more, I think more and more parents are working that maybe weren't before, at least in some capacity, and so that's probably one of the top three questions I get is like I work full time or I work part time, or both of us work, or you know all of these different examples of different scenarios and like how in the world could I like add going through a program and like going through all this stuff in my home? So I think you're just a really good example of of being able to do that, because anyone who's listening that does work remotely knows that when they are, that doesn't mean that they're like hanging out, laying on the couch watching a movie, like you're working. It's just in a different location. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to make sure that you said no?

Kim: 25:50

I don't, I don't think so. I think you know, overall, I think the hardest part is starting. Yeah, the hardest part is like taking the leap and just starting, but once you've started like it really is life-changing overall.

Diana Rene: 26:09

Yeah, I know, and I hate like how overused that term is, because anytime I talk about it I'm like it's life and they're like everything's life-changing these days.

Kim: 26:21

No, you don't understand.

Diana Rene: 26:22

It is literally life-changing. It really is.

Kim: 26:25

Yeah, so we're starting to get into, you know, now that we've decluttered and have done like the habits and the systems, the next part for me is gonna be meal planning, because that is something I'm still struggling with. But I'm excited to kind of tackle that next. But yeah, yeah, the hardest part is starting, for sure.

Diana Rene: 26:46

Yeah, I totally agree. And once you start as long as you start in a good and simple place that's not going to overwhelm you Then you kickstart that momentum, you start rolling and then it's just easier moving through. Yeah, yeah, Awesome. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I know there's going to be so many people that resonate with your story and just I think it's always comforting to hear from other people who are like in your shoes when you're really feeling overwhelmed and to know that, like there's hope and it doesn't have to be like this.

Kim: 27:25

Yeah, I completely agree.

Diana Rene: 27:28

Yeah, so I just thank you so much for taking the time to come on and chat with me and, yeah, if anybody has any questions, just let me know. It's always so much fun talking to members of the program just to hear their experiences as they go through, and so I know you guys like these episodes. If you want to hear more of these, let me know and we'll make sure to get more of our members on here. Thank you so much, Kim. Thanks, diana. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.