This step-by-step decluttering book helps you ditch clutter in 90 days

In this post: my new step-by-step decluttering book, Room to Live, guides you through decluttering your whole home, removing the guesswork from the process while encouraging you along the way and helping you overcome roadblocks.

I stared at the boxes that filled my dining room to capacity from wall to wall. Waves of frustation and anxiety rose in my chest. I couldn’t even walk through the dining room, let alone use it to eat a meal with my new husband. This wasn’t the fairytale I had dreamed living together would be like. I felt like I had failed at homemaking. Why couldn’t I get it together? What was wrong with me?

It was early 2010. We’d just moved, just married, and just … piled things.

Something had to change.

Tired woman with moving boxes

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The reason I began decluttering

In the mad dash that was the months leading up to our wedding, we had rented our first apartment together, finished wedding plans, DIYed much of our wedding decor, and packed up everything we owned to move it into our new place.

After the wedding and honeymoon, we returned to that apartment and became promptly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of STUFF that filled it.

Wedding presents mixed with old hand-me-downs from our families when we were living on our own. College textbooks and childhood picture books piled in the corners of rooms, waiting for bookshelves. And in the master closet? Forget college. My husband’s wardrobe contained items from middle school, because he’d never let go of anything. In his family, you just didn’t get rid of clothes that still had life in them. Even if they were a decade old.

I began my decluttering journey that day, by going through some of the boxes in the dining room. They were full of old writing and manuscripts or bits of stories I knew I wasn’t ever going to follow through on. Pieces of paper I’d taken with me on every move of my life since I was eight or nine years old were finally faced and disposed of, if I didn’t keep them in a memory box.

These were the boxes of my past-self’s scribbles. And they were in the way of my current-self’s dream of having dinner together at the table as a married couple.

I chose my current self’s needs and made decisions that stung but were necessary.

Within a few weeks, we could walk through the dining room. We could eat in the dining room. During all the years that came after that, we just kept decluttering, and slowly, persistently, over time our home became a place we could truly live.

And now? I want to help other people do the same.

It’s why I started this blog (and its predecessor, Behind Closed Drawers.). And it’s why I keep working on new products to help others tackle their clutter.

My method of step by step decluttering

Most recently, I’ve released my book, Room to Live: 90 Days to a Clutter-Free Home, now available on Kindle (get it HERE) and as a pre-order for the printable PDF version (with added bonuses!) The paperback edition will follow shortly after that.

Room to Live is a step-by-step decluttering book with a done-for-you plan that will take you from chaos to calm (in just 12 weeks!) by focusing on areas that make life a little easier, so you can start enjoying your home again as soon as possible.

In this step-by-step decluttering book, you’ll learn:

  • Why it’s hard for you to let go of things. (And how to work through it.) Chapter 3 dives deep into the reasons we keep things and the impact they have on our daily life.
  • Where clutter hides. It’s sneaky! Chapter 2 talks all about that.
  • The most important part of a decluttering project. It might not be what you think it is … and Chapter 6 will reveal this essential step.
  • What clutter says about you. Hint: you’ve been thinking about your struggle all wrong! And Chapter 3 will tell you why.
  • What the different kinds of clutter are and why it accumulates in your home. From other people’s stuff to junk mail, Chapter 1 has it covered, and Chapter 3 dives even deeper. And Chapter 9? Well, it tells you the exact order in which to declutter it all.
  • How to deal with guilt, especially if you are worried about getting rid of gifts a friend or family member has given you. Chapter 11 goes over that, and other sticky roadblocks you might encounter while decluttering.
  • The best order in which to declutter your home, including which spots to focus on first, and tips for editing the contents of each of the major areas. It’s all in Chapter 10, Your 90-Day Whole Home Decluttering Schedule.
  • How decluttering brings freedom to your life. Chapter 4 talks about why you should declutter, and all its benefits.

Why read a step-by-step decluttering book?

Because when you decide to declutter but don’t have a plan, you can get lost in the details or feel like you don’t know where to start or how to keep going. This book keeps you on track, designating which days to do specific tasks (in the order that keeps things less messy for you in the process) and helping you overcome common decluttering roadblocks.

The result? A systematic approach to decluttering your whole home that takes the guesswork out of it and supports you with encouragement along the way.

The esssential processes I share in Room to Live are the framework of all my decluttering coaching and the foundation of my professional organizing services.

Woman reading step-by-step decluttering book ebook Room to Live on iPad mini

How can a step-by-step decluttering book help?

Well, just imagine if you could:

  • Enjoy calmer school mornings because you know where things are and can get out the door without rushing so much.
  • Have more time to play and live in your home. No more putting off family game night because you can’t find the game (or the top of the coffee table).
  • Reclaim your drawers, cabinets, and closets. Have room for the life you live now, and release the things that keep you in the past.
  • Stop the plastic container and lid avalanches because you only kept what you needed.
  • Be able to escape to your bedroom as a grown-up retreat again because it isn’t a storage room for random stuff anymore.
  • Be more productive, because you can easily access everything you need to complete a task.

That’s life-changing! And that’s exactly why I wrote Room to Live! Because all of those things are possible when your home is organized and clutter-free.

Why should you declutter?

Decluttering is not about becoming a minimalist or getting rid of everything you love and choosing a spartan lifestyle.

Decluttering is a way to save time (because you don’t have to look for things as long), and money (because you’ll buy fewer unintentional duplicates), and space (because you’ll have room for more, as needed).

In fact, decluttering is even about saving relationships, because who is responsible for cleaning up piles of clutter or losing important items like bills in the mess is a common reason for arguments among couples.

Are you ready to declutter your home?

Excellent! I’m so excited for you and the transformation you are about to experience. To get you started, grab a copy of Room to Live today. The PDF version includes three special bonuses:

  • immediate access to a printable decluttering journal to help you dive deeper into why you have clutter and where it is likely to hid in your home
  • printable signs to help you mark your sorted piles while decluttering
  • premier access to my seven steps of decluttering video, “How to Declutter” to get you started while you wait for the PDF to be released.

You can order the PDF version HERE.

Life after decluttering

Decluttering is not a one-and-done experience. As you acquire more things, change your phase of life, or go through periods of struggle where tidying up is more difficult, you will need to do maintenance rounds of decluttering.

I experienced this recently.

I stood in my new dining room just a few days ago, after two vacations, a cold, and writing this book undid all the good I’d done to it after we moved in last year. I’d neglected that room and let things pile up on the table and in the corners of the room. While I knew what to do to tidy it up, I hadn’t done it for quite some time, and a new feeling—determination—rose inside me.

This was the day I would take back my dining room once again.

But this time? It only took an hour or so. Not weeks. And that is power of decluttering.

I hope you get to experience that power, too.

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