Amanda’s Success Story

Amanda started her Private Clutter Clearing Journey in January 2020 and completed it in June 2023. This means she has cleared all her clutter and created the habits she needs to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Success Summary:

• 8 rooms and areas completely clutter cleared after 23 years:
  • Hallway
  • Kitchen
  • Lounge room
  • Dining room
  • 3 bedrooms
  • Garage
• E-mail inbox now below 100 read and unread e-mails
• 61% of all the clutter she categorised and sorted came OFF the Clutter Conveyor Belt
• Over 19 black sacks of donations to her local charity shop
• 17 trees planted in her name with the Paperwork Reward Challenge because she shredded over 85  sacks of paperwork clutter
• Amanda now volunteers in her local food bank where she herself donated much of her unused food during Step 1 of her Journey
• Amanda began her Journey doing 30 minutes a day of her Journey videos 3 days a week. By the end of Step 1 she was doing 1 hour, 5 days a week 2 x 30 minute slots. She was doing 2 hours a day, 5 days a week by the end of Step 2.
• Amanda didn’t tell her friends or family she was doing the Journey while she was on Step 1 for fear of judgement, and because she knew she wouldn’t be working on the physical clutter and didn’t want comments about them not seeing a difference.
• As she started saving more money on Step 2 and 3 she started spending it on her real passion – travel. She booked weekends away during the holiday / vacation time, to act both as motivators and as Peak and Step End rewards.
• With the weekly Shopping Challenge Amanda started saving over £80 / $95 a week by the end of Step 2  which covered  the cost of her monthly Private Journey Membership.
• As a direct result of doing her weekly Paperwork Clutter Clearing Sesisons, by the end of Step 2 Amanda had cancelled 3 monthly payments on her bank account that she realised she didn’t need or use which saved a further £200 / $250 a month:
  • 1 computer software subscription that she didn’t know she was paying for
  • 1 beauty product subscription that sent her items every month that got lost in the clutter
  • 1 TV subscription that she discovered during her Step 1 Time Exercise she never used
• Amanda found that being on her Journey enabled her to make more positive progress with her therapist than she had in years because she was able to share the LIFE Timeline exercise with her therapist and get the support she needed to revisit and explore events in her past that were significant in understanding why she had turned to clutter to avoid her emotions.

Amanda started her Private Journey in January 2020.

As Amanda explains:

In January 2018 my father died, and because I was the only one of his children who didn’t just want to get rid of all his stuff, I said I’d go through it. He called himself a ‘collector’ – in reality he was a hoarder. My brother and sister kept pressurising me to sort out his stuff out because they wanted me to clear his house so we could sell it and they could get their share.

I never made time to ‘do the doing’, so by Christmas 2019 I had to agree to get a house clearance company in to clear it. They took two days to put it all into dumpsters. I know a lot of happy memories of my dad were lost. All my dad’s things were trashed when he died, it was all wasted and went to landfill.

That’s why I decided I had to deal with my own clutter. Like my dad I had called myself a collector and just someone with a lot of passions, resources and hobbies who didn’t have the space to actually do any of my hobbies, because of the clutter. I was in classic denial until my dad died.

It wasn’t just about the things that had mattered to my dad – it was the things I’m sure he believed he could or should use or might come in useful. But it was ALL wasted in the end. It ALL went to landfill.

It was because of what happened with my dad’s clutter that I realised I had to start dealing with my own if I didn’t want all my things to go to landfill like his did, when my time came. I finally accepted I had to make regular time to learn how to deal with my clutter. Only I could deal with my clutter.

I started my Journey in January 2020 – three months before the pandemic began. I think it was only because of the recent experiences with my dad that I didn’t give up when the pandemic began.

I was grateful that I had already started my Journey before the pandemic so I had something to do with my time. I did the time tracking exercise on Step 1 before the first lockdown. I hadn’t realised just how much time I wasted.

My greatest fear about the Journey was that I would give up, just like all the times I had before. I’m sure I would have done that again if I hadn’t had my weekly Private Session with Clare, who always made me focus on the half of the glass that was full. She could see successes I couldn’t, and my success gratitude Journal became essential to keep me motivated in-between our weekly sessions.

I really enjoyed the Journey when I got to Step 6 and could see that I had not only cleared 5 rooms and areas, but I’d also kept them clear. It was a miracle – and I had done it all myself! On Step 6 learning how to organise my home was actually fun – so much in fact that I added a course on Interior Design to my Best Life Goal Reward. 

If I had one piece of advice it would be that getting into a routine is more important than how much you do each time. I started by doing just 30 minutes a day, three times a week and that was enough to feel momentum. As I learnt more about my WHY, as I felt less like a failure because there were reasons behind my clutter, as I started to feel the deeper shifts going on as a result of what I learnt from my LIFE Timeline, I started to WANT to spend more time ‘doing the doing’.

Now I don’t have my clutter, I have peace of mind that my clutter won’t be wasted or end up in landfill when my time on this earth comes to an end. I also know that now I’ve cleared my clutter and I’m finally living my Best Life, I can achieve any goal I set myself! I like to think that my dad would be so proud of me.

You can clear your clutter fast, or you can clear your clutter forever, but you can’t clear your clutter forever, fast.

If you NEED to clear your clutter and you’re ready to accept that you can’t clear it forever FAST, click on this link and visit my Help Centre to find out how I can help you get started. https://www.clutterclearing.net/clares-help-centre/