What To Do Next After Your Decluttering Project Is Over

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So you did a huge job decluttering and organizing your home. That’s amazing! But what now? What’s next? 

What do you do after the decluttering project is over?

• Do you not buy anything else anymore to prevent new clutter coming into your life?
  • Is a buy-nothing challenge the answer?
• Do you buy only what you need and continue organizing your old stuff and the new things?
  • Is being a forever-organizer the answer?  

Or do you want to look at buying things and decluttering / organizing in a whole new way and have a balanced relationship with things and balanced shopping habits?

A new decluttering project after the decluttering project

When I did my first huge decluttering and organizing project, I did it all: I decluttered, organized, labeled, shredded, trashed and donated. And my home looked like a hotel room, my papers were in military-like order and my closet was like a boutique. 

And then life happened. 

I moved in with my long-term boyfriend and the chaos was back in my life. Not just my chaos, but his chaos. Even though we lived in a nice house, the things just didn’t find their place on their own. And I started from the beginning. But this time it wasn’t just my belongins, but his too. And WOW, was it a lot of things! And of course we had two of everything! 

But this time I decided to do the decluttering / organizing project differently. I wanted to really take my time and learn from all of the items.

Learn from the things – Project Nightmare

At first I sold as much as I could of our things. And I did – 400 things – 4000 dollars worth.

And by selling I mean negotiating about the prices, taking pictures, posting, measuring, informing, meeting people, pickups, dropoffs, making decisions, letting go, having regrets, and questions after questions after questions.

Then there were the donations – the things that were difficult to sell, but as a donations very wanted. The amount of the donations was at least double what I sold. 

And the rest was trashed. We packed our small car with things, drove to the landfill/recycling center and dumped the stuff there… times (what felt like) million. 

And at this point we hadn’t even touched the garage with boxes after boxes filled with memories, albums, toys, tools and treasures.

It was a months-long nightmare… months long project, I mean. Ok, let’s call it what it was: The Nightmare Project. 

But I persevered, because I had the vision of the the balanced home of my dreams waiting for me in the end of it. I thought that after the decluttering project is over I never had to declutter or organize anything anymore. 

And just when our home was organized to the very last item life happened again. We moved accross the world, and there I was starting all over again. 

Who’s fault is it? Who’s responsible?

During the decluttering project (part 2) – The Nightmare Project – I realized that I was the one who had brought all those things into my life (and my hubby had brought his into his life…and now mine). 

But nowhere in all the decluttering and organizing books, articles and courses I read and took was there a chapter about taking responsibility about stuff that you’d brought into your life. Nowhere! 

Nor was there solutions what to do after the decluttering project was over.

And I was stunned!

There had to be a better way! 

And because I couldn’t find one, I had to create it.

A nightmare project vs. a dreamlike process?

None of us want to end up with new stuff and clutter after the decluttering project is over. None of us want to do a huge organizing and decluttering project just to end up buying new things that somepoint turn into clutter. 

So we are willing to try everything. We do the buy nothing challenges, the no spend challenges and we create these rules to buy only the things we need and nothing more.

We choose not to buy anything and continue organizing our stuff.

And we are proud of ourselves for not buying anything.

Up until we buy again.

It’s inevitable. Something will brake, something is needed, something is just “to die for!”. 

And we buy new stuff. 

I did that too.

Even though somewhere between “oh, how much fun minimalism is” and “where the heck does this stuff keep on coming from!?!” I promised never (ever!) will i buy anything ever-ever again. Never-ever would I put myself into this situation again.

But somehow new things kept on coming into my life.

And somepoint it will keep on coming into yours too.

If you’ve not learned the skills to fix the root cause (aka “stuff comes into your life”) and you just fix the problem (aka “you have excess stuff in your life”) you haven’t actually fixed anything. 

So how can we fix the root cause and go from The Nightmare Project to a Dream-like Process?

Not like this!

Let me repeat this:

If you’ve not learned the skills to fix the root cause (Root Cause: stuff comes into your life) and you just fix the problem ( Problem: you have excess stuff in your life) you haven’t actually fixed anything.

It’s the same as you would want to lose some weight and would have a strict diet and do some exercising. And then when you would have lost the pounds you wanted to lose, you would just continue eating like you did before the diet. What would happen?

Or worse. You would decide never-ever to eat anything again. How crazy would that be? 

Check out the article:

How shopping is like eating and decluttering like losing weight

Not eating is like a buy-nothing challenge, strict diet is like frugalism. Exercising is like decluttering. Somepoint the project is over and it has to become a lifestyle. But what kind of lifestyle? 

The same kind you had before your decluttering and organizing project? Before your buy-nothing or no-spend -challenge? 

Do you really want to be a forever-organizer and have a yo-yo effect with clutter? Do you want to juggle between periods of no-buys and no-spends and then buy mindlessly again without a smart plan? 

Did the decluttering project really teach you all the needed skills to survive the next Black Friday or Amazon Prime day? Or would you rather have balanced shopping skills for the rest of your life and feel good about yourself?

If you choose the latter, then please don’t do things like this:

Instead do it like this!

Forget challenges and projects and take your relationship with things to the next level – to a dream-like process – a balanced lifestyle. 

And I’m here to help you with that.

What is the SaturdayGift Method?

The SaturdayGift Method in a nutshell is the sweet spot between the two extremes

• Between overspending and frugality
• Between overshopping and no-buys
• Between clutter and hard-core minimalism

The SaturdayGift Method is very simple:

• You buy things
• You maintain your things and declutter the excess
• You learn from the things you bought, kept and decluttered
• You have a balanced home and balanced shopping habits
• And you buy things again

Who am I?

Hi, I’m Cristina.

I’m an ex queen-of-chaos, an ex shop-a-holic, ex save-a-holic, ex sale-a-holic and an ex minimalist. 

I’m the blogger behind SaturdayGift, a professional buyer, MBA, NLP Master Practitioner, lover of streamlined life and a me-gifting extraordinaire. 

I worked years as a purchaser and developing and streamlining processes (and saving millions for the companies I worked for!), but my passion was always in self-development, coaching, solving problems, and helping others to excel in their lives. 

It took me forever but finally, I was able to find a way to combine all of my knowledge, passions, and values into a pretty little package (a Saturday gift) I want to now gift to you.

And want you and your current and future things to live happily ever after.

What next?

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