Have you ever sat down to plan and felt overwhelmed? Or maybe you felt like you had no vision for how you wanted your layout to look. Feeling overwhelmed is a common side effect of having too much stuff! You can get past this by doing a quick declutter. Decluttering your planning supplies will help you stay focused on your plans and goals, and you can make space for cute new stuff that you’ll be excited to work with.
How To Declutter Planning Supplies
Quickly Decide Which Items Make your Heart Sing
Grab a trash can and 2 boxes. Go to your planning area or gather all your supplies in one space. Choose a category of supplies to start with, perhaps washi or functional stickers. Go through that category and pick up each item in your hands. Make a quick decision by asking yourself “Am I excited to use this supply in my next planning session?”. If the answer to that questions is YES, then put it back where it goes. If the answer is NO set it aside in one of your boxes (label it if necessary, I’m sure you have supplies for that!). If it is a MAYBE, set it aside in the other box (we’ll go through this box again in a bit). If you come across anything that is obvious trash, just throw it away! Don’t feel guilty. Then move along to the next category of planning supplies and repeat the process until you are done. The idea with this first step is to go QUICKLY. Don’t linger with the decisions. If it isn’t a clear YES YES YES, you will have another chance to think longer on it.
How to Decide on the Maybes
Now that you have your supplies mostly decluttered, you can spend a little bit of time on with the supplies that you weren’t sure about. Look at each item carefully. Be honest with yourself. Is the item actually useful to you? Maybe you bought it thinking it would be great, but it turned out that it didn’t work for you the way you thought. That’s okay! You don’t have to keep things that you don’t enjoy using. I have a bunch of shaped paperclips and some patterned binder clips that I never use. They look so cute on Instagram, so I plan to keep a couple as photo props. But the rest just don’t work for me so out they go.
What to do with Decluttered Supplies
If you have a hard time letting go of things because they are still useful, pass them along to a someone that will use them! Here are some ideas:- Send a stack to a friend as a RAK (random act of kindness)
- Have an Instagram destash sale and use the proceeds to buy some new Limelife Stamps
- Give stickers to your kids or a friend’s or neighbor’s kid to play with
- Swap with a planner friend (send her this post and have a swap party when you’re both finished decluttering)
Decluttering sounds overwhelming, but it’s not so bad. Once everything is put away, you will be so glad you did it. Plus, once you are done, your tidy planning space filled with supplies that you are excited to use will provide you with so much inspiration for your next spread.
This post was written by Kristan Kremer for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. For more information about Kristan visit her on Instagram @kristankremer. Please share and repost this blog entry with your friends! All we ask is that you give credit to Limelife Planners and the post author.
