December 2019

Every week, I work with women to simplify their homes and their lives. I love what I do and the freedom it brings to families!

Over the years, I’ve seen a gap during the holidays. Women are afraid the influx of gifts will re-clutter their homes and they don’t want to lose their newfound spare time and joy, but they also don’t know exactly what to say to their well-meaning relatives about their over-giving.

I don’t think Christmas, birthdays or other times of giving should be tightly monitored (talk about losing out on joy!), but I understand that some of you have people in your lives who just give way too much, and it’s really overwhelming. It can feel like an impediment on your boundaries, and it can actually be that too.

This blog post was written by me for you to use as your voice if you can’t find the words. Share it to your socials, post it to your Facebook wall, send it in an email… whatever you want. Borrow my words, friend. I got you.

I also included the option to get an editable, more personalized version of this letter you can fill in with your relative’s name and more details about what your kids might like as gifts. You can snag that at the bottom of this post at no cost to you 🙂

If you want me to help you simplify your life, I’m here and I’m ready to lighten your load!

xo Allie

DEAR LOVED ONE,

I’m writing this to you with a mix of appreciation and apprehension. Appreciation for you and how much you love my family, apprehension because I don’t want you to view me as ungrateful or unkind, and I have no desire to offend or upset you.

You have gone so above and beyond with my kids – I love that you love so big! It’s beautiful. I look at that and feel so honored that my kids get to have someone like you in their lives. What I want to say has nothing to do with your love… it’s about my own limits.

Over the past few months, I’ve been on a really important journey that’s involved a lot of learning. It started with the Google search bar – I was looking for some help because I was feeling so overwhelmed at home and in life.

It felt like all I did was maintain our physical space. I was constantly cleaning up and it was constantly being undone behind me; it was never-ending and sort of depressing! All I want is to run a home I enjoy being in and spend quality time with my family. It felt like I was always choosing between those two things rather than living them out in any sort of balance.

I found some interesting things in my research… did you know that a study done at Princeton found that you could cut down on housework by at least 40% if you just didn’t have clutter in your home? 40%! That’s so much weight removed from a busy mom’s week.

I also found a study done at UCLA, which found a distinct link in women between the amount of clutter in their homes and their cortisol levels. More stuff, higher levels of stress, automatically.

This study also found that women relate how they feel when they walk into their home to how they feel about their family. That’s intense because of what clutter makes us feel (stress). So to willingly create an environment that makes me feel that way about my family? That didn’t sit well with me.

I found multiple studies showing the effect of too many toys and options on children – it’s honestly alarming and sad! I want the kids to grow up knowing how to play… really play. I want them to use their imaginations, go outside, thrive!

As I was reading this research and more like it, it all started to hit me. It made so much sense that I’d been feeling so heavy and burdened in day-to-day life… we had so much excess in our home. It was a lot to maintain – too much! I made a decision to clear physical clutter in hopes of lightening things up a bit.

What happened was so much more than that! It was like we literally created more time in our days, just by removing some excess. We got rid of some dishes, clothing, and toys that were simply not being used, plus the random “stuff” hiding in our closets and drawers, and that was all it took for things to get better.

I found that I had more energy, more time, more space for things I actually like and use. I noticed an improvement in my marriage and the way I spoke to my family (must be the decrease in stress!). I also felt like I looked forward to my days a little more. This process was doing so much good for us!

Here we are now, at this time of giving gifts, and I know you want to give so big and love on the kids and I so much. Can I be honest and just say that I’m anxious about it? I’m hoping I can be transparent because I want that relationship with you. I have no desire to offend you or take any joy from you!

It’s just that, I feel so much lighter these days, and I’ve seen how “stuff” takes a toll on our home, our kids, on mental health and happiness. I know you love our family and your giving comes from a place of expressing that love, so I want to be honest about where I’m at and ask if we can find another way to do this moving forward. I would love for you to feel like you get to love the socks off all of us, and for me to not feel anxiety about this happy time of year. I’d love your help in raising the kids to know how to play, how to create, how to imagine and be present in the sweetness of childhood.

I’m really excited about the possibilities with this new way of giving and celebrating… I feel like experiences and really amazing gifts can come from this.

There are experiences the kids would love a membership to, there are a few toys they really want and would actually play with I can tell you about, there are interests and hobbies they’re interested in that you could buy supplies for… there are so many gifts that would be not only worth your financial while, but great for our family and aligned with my vision in raising the kids.

I love you, and I want us to both enjoy this time of year. I am happy to hear your thoughts as well, and to help you purchase things that will be good for the kids and actually get loved and played with. I want us to be on the same team! Thank you for hearing me out and for being the kind of person I’m glad to have in my family.

If you want to customize this letter to fit your family, I’ll send you a more personalized, editable version so you can make it your own.

SEND IT TO ME!

I hear from a lot of women that their biggest clutter crutch is **drumroll** paper! Are you raising your hand saying, “Yep. That’s me. I’m one of those women” ?

Trust me, girl. I get it. Decluttering paper can seem like such an unattainable goal because it’s not like normal clutter.

With normal clutter you can just train yourself to not buy the useless crap. But paper is always coming in. And it feels like it multiplies by a billion when you have kids.

The thing is that you’re always going to have more paper and get more paper. And that can feel suuuper discouraging when you’re doing all you can to work towards a minimalist lifestyle.

There are so many “solutions” online and organizational systems that promise pain-free, eternal freedom from paper clutter. But they’re not real solutions.

They’re band-aids. These tips and systems are not for real people dealing with real life.

And that’s my whole mission—to make minimalism and simplified living something that real-life women can work toward and attain. I like to take whatever is not working for everybody and figure it out for all of us, and then share it.

And that’s essentially what I’m doing today because I have figured out that paper clutter crutch for you, girlfriend! I have created a system—tried and tested by myself—that is going to get your never-ending-arrival of paper under control.

Do I hear the Hallelujah chorus? I thought so!

This system is for everything. It’s for mail, it’s for school flyers, it’s for announcements, to-do lists, random post-it notes, any kind of paper.

It’s not a magic pill. It’s not pain free. You’re going to have to work at this and keep working at it or your paper is going to come back.

But this system has eliminated my paper clutter and I know it can eliminate yours too. Follow these six steps to overcome your paper problem.

Create an Inbox

Mine is a white, metal magazine holder from Target. Yours can look however you want. It doesn’t matter.

It can be a basket or a box. Pretty or simple.

It just needs to be able to hold a week’s worth of incoming paper. This inbox is going to be the “landing zone” for any paperwork that comes into your home.

Whether it’s mail, bills, school flyers, wedding invitations, baby shower announcements or even the post-it note with that amazing idea you crammed into your purse when you were at Target. You’re going to put any paper into this inbox so that you can process it later.

Buy a Folder

You can use a plain manila folder or buy a fun one. Whatever you want. You do you. Mine says, “Follow Up” on it because that’s exactly what it’s for.

This folder is going to live inside your inbox. It’s going to be where you put any mail that you can’t take immediate action on.

Sidenote: You could also go digital here if you’d prefer that. Just create a folder in your phone and take a photo of any mail or paper that you need to follow up on and put it in that folder.

The main thing is that you have one place where you can put anything that you need to come back to at a later date.

Pick a Day to Process Your Inbox

Don’t overthink this. Just pick a day.

What day of the week is going to work best for you to sit down and spend time sorting your mail? That is going to be your paper processing day.

This day is nonnegotiable. Of course, you can change the actual day if you find that it doesn’t work for your schedule like you thought it would.

But you must always have a day for processing. Don’t skip a week. That’s how the paper piles up.

Because if it’s negotiable then, when life happens (which it will), you’re not going to take action. You’re just going to have this pretty inbox sitting there but it’s going to be totally pointless.

So, always have a processing day. Put it in your calendar. Set alerts to remind yourself if you need to. Do whatever you have to do to make this day happen.

Make It Fun

Brew yourself a fresh cup of coffee or tea. Or pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine.

Play some music or put a podcast on. Make this a treat. It shouldn’t be a burden. It shouldn’t be a big ordeal.

It should be something you look forward to because you have a system. You have a plan.

You are being an action-taking, problem-solving woman. You’re the CEO of your home and this is the day where you organize, systemize, and handle the things that would stress you out otherwise.

Process Piece by Piece

On processing day, sort through each piece of paper and ask yourself, “What is this? What’s the point of it? What do I need to know? What action needs to be taken, if any?”

Sometimes the action is straightforward and you can do it right away, like adding an event to your calendar or paying a bill online. Other times it takes a little more time.

Maybe it warrants a response from you and you need time to think about your decision or have a conversation with your husband. Maybe you need to call and talk to the company that sent you the piece of mail, but it’s Saturday and you can’t.

That’s fine. That’s what you have your “Follow Up” folder for.

Just stick that piece of paper in there so you can come back to it later when you can handle it. But add a task to your to-do list or set a reminder on your phone or calendar so you remember that it’s in the folder and you need to take care of it.

Your goal is to put as little amount of papers in the “Follow Up” folder as possible. Any time you can take immediate action, do that.

If you need to pay a bill, pay it. If you need to RSVP to something, do it. Don’t wait if you don’t need to.

Then throw the paper away. We want our processing days to mostly look like a checklist of: “Process, finish, trash.”

Quit the Excuses

You need to understand that you’re going to stay overwhelmed and overrun by paper if you don’t get a system in place. And that’s not what we want because it’s not necessary.

I hear so many excuses:

“Oh, there’s just no day of the week for me to do this.”
“Well, I’m not good at things like that.”
“This won’t work for me because of [insert any reason].”

Listen to me, friend. Anything can work for you if you make it work. If you decide that you don’t want to be a mess, that you want to handle things, that you want to get your crap under control, it will work.

Having a system like this takes the problem out of it. This is the answer. I’m literally giving you the answer.

Now it’s up to you. It’s time to channel your inner Olivia Pope, and handle your business.

Did you know my signature program, Your Uncluttered Home, has an entire section on paper clutter? Tens of thousands of women have completed the course and decluttered their entire homes.

Ditch the clutter, decrease stress, and spend your time on what matters most to you.

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