Hey guys,
it's Paula Moore, the Posture Doctor, from posturevideos.com, and today we've
got a special treat. I'm here with Professional
Declutterer, Rachel Papworth from mygreenandtidylife.co.uk.
You DON'T want to
miss this one! So Rachel, welcome to Posture Videos.
Hi. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, it's great to have you here. I don't do this very often,
so this is a special treat and I know, at the end, you're going to give us three
top tips to clear our clutter. Yup, yup. I'm very excited about that. Excellent. Great.
And the tip for you is that, if we can clear our clutter, we're gonna
make room for health and well-being and, of course,
more posture exercises.
So, Rachel, how on earth did you become a Declutterer?
I didn't even know there was such a thing. Yeah, I get asked that a LOT,
because most people have never heard of such a thing as a Professional Declutterer, or a Professional Organiser. And the answer is, it's something that I've always loved.
I even, I have three brothers and, when I was a child, I used to help them
declutter their rooms. I mean, my approach is somewhat different now from how it was when I was a child.
My
"helping" used to be quite dominating when I was little, whereas now I'm very much
around supporting people to understand for themselves what
their issues are, understand for themselves how to set their place up the way they want it to be.
But the answer is, it's just something that comes from the INNER core of my being,
is to bring order where there is chaos. So, Rachel, can you tell our
posture people, how big a problem is clutter
really? It's a significant issue. There's a HUGE
number of people that are struggling with clutter. In fact, it wasn't until I started working in this area, about three years ago,
I began to realise how many people I knew personally that were really struggling with clutter.
Estimates vary, partly because it's an issue that a lot of people
feel very ashamed of, and keep very secret, but it could be as many as one in 20 people
that actually suffer from hoarding disorder. So, hoarding disorder
is now a recognised mental health diagnosis. Wow. And maybe as maybe as many as one in 20 people in the
population are suffering from it at the moment.
And I definitely know one hoarder and one borderline (There you go)
hoarder. Absolutely. And it's not just people that are hoarding.
So, there's a whole spectrum of struggling with clutter
and many people that are way, way away from the
level of being diagnosed with hoarding disorder, are nonetheless
finding that they're overwhelmed, they're struggling, they don't feel feel like they're coping in their own home.
So, moving away from people who are
hoarding, and let's talk about your average person with
clutter and, you know, all of us can relate to that. Sure. I remember my father used to
look at my desk that I was trying to work at, and say, "Uh! Cluttered desk, cluttered mind!"
And does clutter actually affect other areas of your life
and prevent you from being as successful, say with your health and well being
and those areas of your life? Absolutely. Absolutely it does. And, actually, one of the things that I really love
about working in the area of clutter is that it's like a gentle way in
to lots of other issues that people are dealing with. So, often when I
support someone to clear their clutter, the next thing that happens is they start
dealing with all sorts of other areas of their life. They get a new job, or they
bring an interior designer into their home
no police wait list of sleeping popular, or they work with a stylist and completely revamp their look, or they lose loads of weight, or they start sleeping properly, or they
sort out their relationship, or they get into a new relationship. So it's amazing how clutter
it's a symptom of other stuff that's going on for people
and, by actually dealing with that, it often provides a gentle way in
to the underlying problems, and the underlying issues that people are dealing with,
and enables them to open up their lives. It's amazing. When you clear clutter out,
you make room for other stuff, that you actually WANT in your home, to come in.
Now I'm thinking, "Where can I start?! Where can I start?! I want those things, desperately!" Yeah! Exactly!
So, knowing that most of
us have a little bit of clutter and that moving that out of the way
will give us room for other important areas of our life
and in this case obviously health and well-being and more posture exercises,
how 'bout those three top tips that you were telling me about earlier?
OK, well there are so many things I could say but I tried to distill down to what would be the
three key messages I'd love your people to have. Yup.
Now, the first thing is, to declutter BEFORE you organise. So,
people often say to me, "Do I just need more storage solutions? Shall I get some
shelves here? What if I got a filing cabinet?" And what I always say is,
"Declutter first", because you might actually find you don't need that storage solution
and, however many storage solutions you get, you'll fill them up. It's like the handbag principle.
You know? You get a new handbag, you fill your handbag. So declutter first,
always. The second thing is, there's no right answer
about how much clutter you "should" have. There's no
correct amount of clutter, or correct amount of organisation to have in your space.
It's about what works for you. So, people often say to me,
"You must be really minimalist. I bet your place is really clear", and actually, it's
not. You know, it's set up the way that works for me, and my level of clutter would be
different from yours, or anyone else's. It's true, I've been there.
So the answer is not to have some ideal that you're
aspiring to, but just to work out what works for you, and keep watching, you know,
what does it work, how does it work for you to have things there, and have things there? Because people have things
they love, right? That they don't necessarily wanna get rid of those things that are really close to them. No, exactly! Exactly.
And I would NEVER put pressure on somebody to get rid of something that they wanna keep.
And the final thing I would say is to declutter little and often.
Try not to let it build up into a big backlog because, once you've got a big
backlog, it just seems so overwhelming, it's really hard to get started.
So, if you can, try and do a little bit of decluttering
weekly or monthly so you keep on top of your home or your office space.
Oh! I have a bonus question, a bonus tip for our viewers
here. Is there a room, a best room to start decluttering?
The answer to that is "Yes and no".
For each person, there's a best place to start but it will vary from person to person.
So what I always say is, what's going to make the biggest difference for you?
Now that can either be going for a quick win: somewhere where you can
really quickly make a big difference, or where it's actually gonna be quite
easy for you to make a big difference, or work in the area
that's the room that you use the most. So you're gonna spend the most time there and
you're gonna love the fact that you've transformed that space and it works for you now in a
way that it didn't work for you before. So, if you can't do your posture exercises, every morning, and you really, really wanna do them,
and it's BUGGING you that you can't do them, clear THAT space.
You know, even if that takes you 20 minutes, and then, everyday, you'll be able to do your
posture videos and that'll make a huge difference to you. And that'll give you the motivation (Yes!)
to keep going.
Wow! So, there we have it. Clear your crap, ooh I mean clutter. That's right, so
get rid of the stuff and make room for your health and well being and start those
posture exercise. Now you have no excuse.
And, if you head on over to mygreenandtidylife.co.uk,
you can start on Rachel's free masterclass
and get rid of that clutter ASAP. Thanks so much for watching and
I'll see you again soon. Bye bye. (Bye). Thanks Rachel.
(Thanks for having me). See ya. (Bye).