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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 renee, 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. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast.

Diana Rene: 0:54

I am sick currently. Well, I take that back. I'm hopefully knock on wood at the tail end of being sick, back to school. Germs got us. They got my nine-year-old. My six-year-old was spared. She did not get sick, but I got it. But you know, that's what happens when you're taking care of your kids, and they sneeze directly in your face several times throughout the week, right? So I'm at the tail end, though, and I'm starting to feel better, but you might hear it in my voice, so I wanted to give you that heads up.

Diana Rene: 1:27

Today, I wanted to talk about something that I actually got a DM on Instagram asking me this question and I thought it would be a really good thing to discuss, because it usually comes up more for Christmas time, because I think Christmas is a season that most people decorate and then throughout the year, there are there's a large percentage of people that decorate like seasonally all throughout the year, but then there's also a segment that doesn't. And so, um, the DM was she. She sent me a message just saying like hey, I'm getting ready to like decorate for fall and I'm really curious how you decorate without adding clutter. And I thought that was a really great question that I wanted to kind of go over and how I have my process of decorating. When I do decorate, you guys, I am not a very great decorator. Um, I have the decorating style and taste of like someone in a dorm room in college. Um, just, I, just I don't have. I don't have that very well, um, it's not in my skill set, so, so I just don't for a lot of things. Like, I decorate for Christmas, for a couple other holidays, like maybe I'll put out a couple things, but I'm not, like I'm not someone who's going to deck the whole house out in various seasons, for spring and summer and fall and all the holidays, like all the like obscure holidays. You know that's just not me, so keep that in mind, but I do still think that my system for it will be helpful for even the person who does go all out and decorate for every season, and I think that surprises people. When they hear that from me, they're like if you are this, you know decluttering person, isn't that about like making your home look beautiful? And no, I don't think so.

Diana Rene: 3:33

Decluttering and decorating systems and routines has truly nothing to do with decorating and home decor. It's more about function of the home. But I just will never pretend to be great at decorating. It's just not my thing. I like it. I wish it was my thing, I truly wish it was my thing, because when I do have home decor that like really works in a space, I do think it does change the feeling of the room, and so I wish I had that skill. I just don't.

Diana Rene: 4:16

But Christmas, like I said, is the one that I do decorate, probably the most often. So I wanted to go through basically five tips or five steps that I take when I am decorating and that I recommend to any clients or members of my program and we're just going to jump into them. So the first one is to use what you have first. So as you're going into a new season that you are decorating for whether it's fall or Christmas or spring or whatever I want you to identify what you already have that you can use. And here it turns on my decluttering brain right, like I'm always thinking of that aspect of it first, but I just think it's so beneficial so that you don't let your home decor storage get out of control. So I recommend to use what you have first.

Diana Rene: 5:07

I put any specific season in a bin. So you know how I mentioned like there are a couple holidays that I'll put a couple things out. So for me, like I have one bin for fall slash Halloween, because that's just, I just don't have a lot. I have a couple, like I have like a wreath for fall, and then I have a couple like pumpkin type things for Halloween, and so I have one bin for that For Christmas. I think I have three. I think I have three bins for Christmas, but just keep the bin to the specific season or holiday which I kind of skipped ahead. That's number two. So when you are going through your things, you're going to grab your bin that's for fall, right, and then you're going to pull everything out and you're going to decide what you're going to use and just use those first before you go out and buy anything new. And again, that's just the decluttering brain speaking first.

Diana Rene: 6:08

Number two is the bin thing. I kind of jumped ahead of myself. It's just to keep bin specific to the season or holiday. That's just an organizational thing that's going to help you. You're not going to lose any decorations that you're looking for. You're not going to, you know, have to get everything out every time you're ready to decorate and all of that. Number three again, decluttering brain is coming in.

Diana Rene: 6:32

If you don't use it one year, let it go. And what I mean by that is if you pull that fall bin out and you use what you have already and you put everything out that you're wanting to keep or use and put up in your home and there's a couple things that are in the bin that you're like I don't know, like I don't really think I want to put that out this year, let it go. If it is not good enough for you to put up in the one season that it is in your home, for let it go, because it's just taking up space now. There's no point to it, because nine times out of 10, if you're not going to put it up this year, you're not going to put it up again next year it's not going to like magically become more interesting to you. So if there are things that you just don't want to put up, maybe your tastes have changed, or maybe it just doesn't. Maybe you move and it doesn't really fit the style of your home that you're in now. Whatever that is, just don't hold on to things. Just because you bought it at one point and did like it at one point, it's okay to like let it have taken its course. It's served you well, hopefully at some point, but it doesn't need to continue to take up space in your home in the form of a storage bin.

Diana Rene: 7:48

Number four is, then, to go supplement decor with any new that you want to buy. So I think, after you have gone through everything you already have and you are ready to continue decorating, that's the time to like go to the store and start looking for the things that you want. I think it's wise to like go to the store with an idea in mind of something that you want and then holding yourself to that. So not just like roaming the halls of Hobby Lobby looking for inspiration. I mean, I think that's okay to do. But if you're wanting to keep things a little bit contained and not let it become like a big cluttered mess, then I would say figure out the things that you're wanting. So like okay, I know that I really want a garland for this mantle that we have, or I really specifically want like a new wreath for our front door or any of those things. Like, make a list and try to stick to that list. If you see something that's just beautiful and it's nothing that you were thinking about, but you truly think, oh gosh, school pickup alarm again. You truly think that it's going to, you know, make or break a space for you that that holiday season, then sure go for it. But I think it's just a general guideline of going into it without um, with having an idea of design in mind, versus just walking in and being like I'm going to buy all of the Christmas items that I can find, because then when you get home, what happens is you end up putting more up or out than you probably plan to, and I think that's can. That can be when it starts to look a little bit cluttered.

Diana Rene: 9:37

Also, number five is to replace your non-seasonal decor. So what I mean by that is when I am decorating for Christmas and maybe I have, like this cute little snowman that I want to put on my TV, stand like, take I take the flower, the fake flower pot that I have on the TV, stand off, I don't add it to. And I think that is the number one mistake I see when people are decorating their homes for holidays or seasons is that they take all of this new home decor and they just add it to their existing things and then they're like, why does it feel so cluttered in here? And when you think about it, think about like after I feel like. I know I keep using Christmas as an example, but that's just, that's my, my life experience, so that's what I'm going to use when the Christmas season is over.

Diana Rene: 10:33

I know it's always highly debated about like when's the right time to take down your tree and all of your decorations and all that. But when you do, when you do take down the tree and you take down all of the extra decorations, like your house feels empty, right, even just the tree. When you take the tree out, your house feels empty, and that's because your brain has gotten used to this ginormous tree in the middle of your house that is bright and shiny and flashes lights and has stuff under it. Our brains get used to things, right? This is something I've talked about before, but a lot of times, clutter will just feel like you're normal, like you'll have a Amazon box full of returns that's sitting at the top of your stairs for a month and you don't even really notice it anymore. It's just part of your like normal home because it's been there for so long, and then, when you move it, it's like, oh yeah, it's like that, that hallway looks like big now because I just wasn't even thinking about that box being there. It's like, oh yeah, it's like that, that hallway looks like big now because I just wasn't even thinking about that box being there, cause it's been there forever.

Diana Rene: 11:39

Same thing with the tree and same thing with basically all holiday decorations, right, and so I think part of that, though, is that when we already have decorations out and we have our home the way we like it, and then we add on seasonal or holiday decorations. It just fills the space to a capacity that our brain starts to scream like this is clutter and, as you've heard me say before, especially for women, our brains perceive clutter as something that is stressful, like a stressful, and so it's raising our cortisol levels, and that's not what we want to do during any season, right? So what I do is, for that same example, if I'm going to put this snowman little guy on my TV stand, I'm going to take the flower pot off of the TV stand and I'm just going to put it into the Christmas bin. So that way, at the end of the Christmas season, when I'm ready to put all the Christmas decorations away, I have all of my regular decorations that I can then just pull back out of the bin, put them back up and just swap them out. Basically, it's a really simple way to do it. That way, your normal decorations are not like taking up space in your guest room or anything like that, like you could just put them in there, put the Christmas bins back into storage and then swap them out at the end of the season. And again, I know I'm saying Christmas over and over. I just I don't really decorate for anything else.

Diana Rene: 13:11

So I wanted to record this now because I think fall is a time where a ton of people do decorate, and I got that DM and so it was like a good reminder that, yeah, this is something I want to talk about, so I hope that's helpful.

Diana Rene: 13:26

This is a kind of a shorter episode today, but decorations do not have to be this like stressful thing for you as far as managing them, and I hope that these steps can help you a little bit as you are going about with your own home. So let me know in DMs if this was helpful for you. I would love to hear, I would love to hear it and we will see you next week. 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.