One of my big goals for the year is simplifying around our house.
With two young kids, I'm how much stuff (okay junk) is around us, but we hardly use.
Honestly, I'm tired of the cycle of cleaning and reorganizing. I'd love to remove the clutter and develop a process that allows us to have a comfortable space.
Joshua Becker's Uncluttered Course
One of my favorite writers and motivators with minimalism and simplifying is Joshua Becker. He's the creator of Becoming Minimalist and author of The More of Less, which I picked up.
It's a great read by itself, but as part of the launch, he offered access to his Uncluttered course. I took up the offer and signed up.
How Uncluttered Works
If you're looking to get some motivation and ideas on how to declutter, here's my take as a member of the current Uncluttered course.
It's a 12 week course (I finished up the third week and in the middle of the fourth right now).
There are four modules, each covering a specific topic:
- Find Your Motivation
- Unclutter Your Home
- Develop New Habits
- Experiment with Less
Josh opens up a new module each week on Mondays. Materials include a video, readings, and an exercise.
Some modules are much longer than others. For example, the unclutter your home module is 5 weeks long, which sounds about right since you're tackling your place room by room.
There are also webinars with Joshua during the course which you can catch live or watch later.
Since it iss designed so you can work at your own pace, if you're out for a week, you can pick up where you left off.
The advantage of following it week by week is that you can engage with the community online on Facebook. It's an encouraging group.
Getting the Most of Out of the Uncluttered Course
There is a lot of material covered in the course so to keep me on track and to get the most of it I had to change up some habits.
The key ones were:
Make a schedule
Prioritize this by making it a part of your schedule. It doesn't take much to read, watch, and work through the challenge.
For me, I used the morning as my project time. The kids are either asleep or quiet so I can give my full attention.
Set a specific goal
Human nature can make it easy to start comparing one another's progress. Focus on a goal that fits you and your current circumstances.
It's a supportive community, but it's easy to see how others are doing and start questioning our progress. Go through the course, working at it, and you'll see results.
Interact with the community
Turn that energy into something positive and have a goal for the course. It'll also make it easier to track your progress.
The Facebook group makes it easy to chat and share tips and stories.
Thoughts on Uncluttered
I'm enjoying it so and I can't wait to share how things turn out.
So three years later….how did it go….how much did you takeaway and keep?
It has changed how we approach purchases and home projects. I’d say since taking the course, we’ve reduced our clothing by 50%. I’ve also decluttered the girls’ room with them. There’s still plenty of toys, but I’m happy they were able to join in with choosing which to keep and which to donate good amount. The ones they have they appreciate more.