MOMENT | The simple non-negotiables that will keep your home tidy, without overwhelm - with decluttering expert Ingrid Jansen

0:07What about the sort of mental side of this? because I think it's so linked to procrastination and overwhelm and stress. And I think for so many, me included listening to this, you know, the mental load is already too high. There are already too many things on my plate. Have you got any sort of tips or advice for how we can make this process easier from that perspective? You know what? I think we are all, you know, we lead very, very busy lives, you know, and, you know, when you throw work in and when you throw parenting in and sometimes caring for other people as well, we want to, you know, be good partners and good wives and good friends.

0:54And we want to take care of ourselves. It's a lot to do. And I think, I think as moms, we do feel that responsibility to also have everything, you know, neat and tidy at home and but you're going to have to delegate you have to kind of go okay what are the things that I have time for and what is important to me and if you know that your house is getting you down so much it just also drains your energy so you're going to have to break it down in small manageable chunks because and also you know think about okay keeping a house involves different things, right? So you need to declutter, you need to organize, you need to store it all away, you need to tidy it, you need to clean it.

1:40They're different activities. But what a lot of people see, they see this house that is out of control, and they just start to run around trying to do everything all at once. Well, you're going to have to go, okay, hold on a minute. Decluttering and organizing is different than tidying. When I have a visitor and when I want them to sit at the table, but I just quickly tidy stuff away. But still nothing has left the house. Nothing is organized. We just open a cupboard and quickly shove it in and hope for the best. So you need to break these talks down. Of course, when you think to yourself, okay, it's Saturday, I need to clean the bathroom.

2:18You focus on cleaning the sink and the toilet and the shower and the floor perhaps. But a lot of people then also dive into I need to get rid of some stuff and then it all becomes too much and too fast over time. So what can really help you is something that we call daily resets and non-negotiables. These are tasks and chores that have to be done every day. They're different for everybody, but let me give you some examples. For example, in my life, I want to have the dishwasher loaded and unloaded every day. I want to have my washing up. I don't want to have anything in my sink every day. I want to have my recycling and my bins done.

3:01You know, I don't want to look at recycling all the time. That's something that needs to be done daily. Some people might have pets that need daily care. They need to be fed and watered and walked. That's a non-negotiable in people's lives. You might want to sweep the kitchen floor every day and after dinner, make sure that all the pots and pans are washed up and the kitchen counters are clean. These things we call daily reset. So a couple of times per day, you need to spend time, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to do a bit of a reset. Moms can do it maybe when they come back from the school run. Or if you go straight into work after school run, it needs to be done before you leave the house.

3:40You probably, if you've got 15 minutes before you need to pick up the kids from school, you can go, OK, let me just do a quickly, you know, a tidy up, a reset of a couple of bits before the kids come back. Then after dinner. So depending on your family and the busyness you have, you have to do one, two, three times per day. Then you can think about, okay, so what's non-negotiable for me? If I get nothing done today, what do I have to do to make things sticking over? Because what we see a lot is people are like, after dinner, I'm so tired, I want to sit down. But we've all had a busy day. You're going to have to find that 10 minutes to go.

4:17Let me just load the dishwasher and put that on. Let me just wash up the last little bits because you're going to do your future self a massive problem. Because what's nicer than in the morning to come into your kitchen and go, there's no pots and pans inside. I can start afresh today. And I do this with laundry as well. Every day I run a load of laundry. I put it on in the morning and I wrote because what I don't want to do is end up with whole piles of laundry everywhere. and then in the weekend go, okay, I forgot I've got swimming lesson, a party, we're going out, I have to buy presents, I have to do cleaning, how am I going to do five loads of laundry now?

4:57So that for me is a non-negotiable, one load every day and then somewhere across the weekend, I find half an hour, my non-negotiable again, to fold it all up and put it all away. And once you start to get those non-negotiables and daily resets into place, you're not behind as soon as the weekend hits because you've done a little bit already during the week you've done your future self a favor so then you start to see some time appear in the weekends to do some cleaning you know some shopping and of course when you're not by yourself but live with a partner or a husband or with kids that are older who can do what I always said to my kids you know when they were younger this is not a hotel you have to help you have to unload the dishwasher you're doing the recycling when mommy comes in with shopping help me unpack it all of those little things you build it up over time that's what i was thinking as you were talking about those daily non-negotiables we have those and we have those divided between us and that's really really helpful because yeah, I know what it's like to just let those tasks build up and then it can just get so overwhelming, especially when, you know, particularly if you've got little ones, there is no time in the day because if you're with them, then you're with them.

6:24It's really hard to get anything done, isn't it? Oh, this has been so helpful. Is there anything else that you want to share or you think would be useful for people to hear before we close? I think what can really help when you are doing toys with children or doing toys in the in sorting it all out when they're little see if you can make some boxes and put some pictures on it this is where the blocks go this is where the farm animals go this is where the train set goes little pictures and have your storage low and of course if there are items that you kind of want to supervise when they're playing with it, paint, glitter, arts and crafts, put those higher up that they can't reach.

7:09That doesn't mean they can never play with it, but then you know, okay, I'm going to get it down and get it out so I can control what's happening here. Once they get older, the pictures can be replaced by labels, also really, really helpful. And you know what, let's put some realism in here, Zoe, even when you've got labels and pictures and categories and everything in your toy room you know a couple of times per year you're gonna have to go through it and go right I'm gonna pull everything out I'm gonna kind of re-establish the zones great way then to declutter some stuff toys that are not being played with them anymore can you give them to a friend can you give them to somebody else can they go to their nursery there are so many outlets now that would love to have things.

7:55Fantastic giveaway sites like Oleo, Freegal, Freecycle, fantastic as well to give away things. So the volumes, you know, kids have so many toys, but they only play with a few and having less really is more, not only for them, but also for you. So think about that. And you know what? When you go on holiday, you don't need to buy another new activity book. Look at what you still have in the cupboards, what hasn't been touched from the last time. You don't need to buy a new pencil set every time they start in the summer or in the winter, you know, in the new year. Look at what you have and see that you use that up because it's so satisfying to use up the stuff that you have.

8:55Thank you.