Maria’s Success Story

Maria started her Private Clutter Clearing Journey in October 2020 and completed it in January 2024. This means she has cleared all her clutter and created the habits she needs to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Success Summary:

• 10 rooms and areas completely clutter cleared after 42 years:
• Hallway
• Landing
• Kitchen
• Living room
• Dining room
• 3 bedrooms
• Garage
• Attic
• E-mail inbox now below 100 read and unread e-mails
• 84% of all the clutter she categorised and sorted came OFF the Clutter Conveyor Belt
• 9 trees planted in her name with the Paperwork Reward Challenge
• Now saves over £800 / $1,000 a month due to
• the weekly shopping challenge
• cancelled monthly subscriptions that she never used
• insurances that no longer leaves to the last minute to renew, so she can now shop around for a better price.
• When Maria started her Journey, she realised how in-time she was, and how strong her resitance to ‘Doing the Doing’ was – how small her learning and change zone was and how quickly and easily she ended up in the panic zone.
• Maria saw a weekly therapist to help her deal with the resistance, self-sabotage and issues that the theory and exercises raised.
• Maria didn’t tell her friends or family that she was doing the Journey while she was on Steps 1 and 2 for fear of judgement, and because she knew she wouldn’t be working on the physical clutter and didn’t want the added pressure and expectations.
• When Maria got to the end of Step 4 and her family saw that she was keeping her first two areas / rooms clutter free, they asked her how she had done it. As a result, her brother who also struggles with clutter started the Journey.
• By the end of Step 1, simply from the awareness Maria gained from the Conveyor Belt exercises, she was saving over £80 / $95 a week which covered the monthly cost of her Private Journey Membership.
• As a direct result of doing her weekly Paperwork Clutter Clearing Sessions, by the end of Step 2 Maria had cancelled 3 monthly subscriptions on her bank account that she realised she didn’t use.
• With the money Maria saved and put away in a savings account each week, by Step 5 Maria was able to afford essential repairs to her house which were discovered by clearing her clutter.

Maria’s Clutter free Goal reward was to get a pet cat that she has named Clare!

Maria started her Private Journey in October 2020.

As Maria explains:

At the beginning of the pandemic, I told myself that I couldn’t face starting my Journey because I needed to focus on getting through the lockdown. I hated being at home with all my clutter because I literally couldn’t get away from it. I was desperate to get out.

Then when the second lockdown came, I realised I couldn’t face it. I needed a distraction, something to focus on that would feel like I was moving forward with my life, especially as no one knew how long this cycle of lockdowns was going to last.

The Journey gave me a good focus, and I loved the learning in Step 1. Finally, I felt normal and not like a freak. I had struggled with clutter all my life. My parents were hoarders, and my brother and sister struggle too. In fact, completing my Journey and clearing my clutter has been a challenge in terms of our relationships, because it was something we all had in common. When I started succeeding and proved that it is possible to clear it and most importantly keep areas and rooms clutter free, I think they feel like I had shown them up. I can’t blame them for that – it took me 50 years to finally deal with it. My success has inspired my brother to start his Journey and I’m hoping my sister will soon.

During lockdown it was quite easy to get into a routine of doing my Journey because there wasn’t much else to do. I have medical conditions that meant I had to shield, so I had more time than others to focus and concentrate on it.

I found it hard once I was able to regularly get out at the start of 2022, because there was so much I wanted to do to celebrate the end. I could easily have gone back to my old ways and habits and used the excuse that I was too busy. But my clutter free goal was about having fun at home, inviting friends and family round, doing hobbies in my own craft room,  rather  than  having to go to groups and clubs on specific days at specific times.

I had a choice – go out and procrastinate, or continue to prioritise my Clutter Clearing Journey and go out as a reward for ‘Doing the Doing’. I thought other people would be upset that I wasn’t back to going out as much as before the pandemic, but they weren’t. It’s funny how you assume people will think the worst of you when in fact they probably don’t even notice!

Christmas (2023) was the best Christmas ever. I invited my brother and sister to my clutter free home to stay. I was still clearing the clutter in my final area / room, my garage, but it wasn’t an area we needed to use, so it didn’t stop them coming to stay. They had a bedroom each, we had a Christmas dinner at my new dining room table, and I had to smile when I said ‘leave the dishes on the table, let’s retire to the lounge and look at the family photos’! I had that on my worksheet 7 as a sound, but to actually be able to say it to guests felt fantastic!

My brother started his Journey because of what he saw me achieving, and now he’s on Step 3. I’m his Clutter Buddy, and we’re hoping my sister might be inspired once he’s got to the end of Step 4 and has 2 clear areas / rooms. Hopefully she will be willing to try by then.

We can all come up with 101 reasons not to do something, or reasons why we think we can’t do something, but all you need is 1 compelling reason to try. For me it was simply knowing that I wasn’t living my Best Life, and my mother would want me to be living my Best Life in the present.

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

To find out how Clare can help you clear your clutter Forever, without the need for an expensive home visit, click here now: https://www.clutterclearing.net/clares-help-centre/