Decluttering client story: The gift of time
Nancy and I met a couple of years ago and it was love at first sight. She’s a woman in business whom I greatly admire and when she heard that I was a declutterer, it wasn’t long before I was setting up her pantry for easy living. Nancy lives with her husband, two school-aged daughters, dog and cat.
Busy families have stuff – toys, activities, games, clothes – and it is very common for that stuff to get messy (a fact of life that I am absolutely not immune to!). Keeping spaces uncluttered and organised becomes a juggle; something to fit in between running a business, spending quality time with family and somewhere in there, carving out time to care for ourselves.
Because Nancy is such an astute businesswoman, she immediately realised that having me work on the tricky spaces in her home gave her the gift of time. Rather than find time in the schedule to declutter the kids’ rooms, organise hubby’s wardrobes (and her own) and optimise her rumpus room storage, she signed up for a maintenance package and outsourced all of this to me.
Maintenance packages are a really smart way to keep your home organised and uncluttered. They’re perfect for busy families because it helps to keep on top of clutter that accumulates as your kids transition through ages and stages. What better way to declutter your kids’ clothes and toys than move them on out of the house as soon as they’ve outgrown them? Another fantastic benefit to my maintenance clients is that they “unlock” shorter decluttering sessions – maintenance or project clients can have me for one hour, if that’s all they need (one-off appointments are a minimum of three hours). One hour sessions work perfectly for maintenance clients; because I know my clients’ preferences and I know my way around their home, I can work incredibly efficiently and independently of them, leaving them to focus on their more important priorities.
This is exactly how my most recent session with Nancy went. Nancy is beginning a kitchen renovation soon and needed to relocate the pantry, linen and hallway cupboards into the rumpus room storage (somehow combining six cupboards worth of stuff into four cupboards) to allow the renovation to begin. A total headache for Nancy but honestly, a fun day at the office for me! While Nancy worked on her business and served her own clients, I got to work doing what I do best – decluttering and organising. I did all of the heavy lifting and categorising so all of the cupboards’ contents were in one place, then called Nancy in for a quick game of Yes/No on the items I was unsure of. That was over in no time and Nancy was able to get back to her business, while I continued the work. By the end of the session, I’d rearranged everything and achieved the goal of a fitting six cupboards into four.
Nancy came downstairs and when she saw the result, said “I actually feel elated!” And so did I. I genuinely love this work: the problem-solving nature of organisational tetris; the physical labour of lifting, carrying and stair-climbing; the satisfaction of uncluttered and functional spaces at the end of a session; the joy of seeing my little van filled to the brim with unwanted stuff that can mostly be rehomed. But what I love most of all is helping my clients. I LOVE taking decluttering tasks off their hands because I realise that while I get so much pleasure out of organising spaces, that’s not everyone’s happy place. Doing an amazing job for my clients in turn frees them up to do an amazing job on something else – whether that’s a work project, spending time with family and friends, or caring for themselves. I like to imagine that ripple of amazing-ness spreading through kiwi families and communities, all because clever women just like Nancy give themselves the gift of time.
Can I give you the gift of time? Let’s jump on a free 15 minute phone consultation and talk about where I can get started in your home - here’s the link to find a time that suits you.
* Cover photo by Katarzyna Kos on Unsplash