Shockingly Easy Decluttering Habits: Start Small

This past weekend I watched my 24 year old son complete his first Half Ironman. It was pretty exciting and I was so proud of the hard work he put in training the past 5 months. A Half Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile swim followed by a 56 mile bike ride and ending with a 13 mile run. That’s a lot of training but he knew to start small.

Though my son is young and in great shape, just 5 months ago when a friend floated the idea of signing up it felt too big and scary. Initially he declined. But then he took a different approach to the challenge. He broke it down and started small so it wasn’t intimidating. He worked up to the strength and distances, gaining confidence along the way. He soaked in the high he experienced after each swim, bike or run and felt his motivation soar. As I watched him finish on Sunday I remembered how scared he was to sign up. That made me think about how scared people are at the thought of decluttering decades’ worth of possessions. Then I thought about how starting small is the best way to achieve any big goal, from decluttering to a half ironman.

There is so much good that comes from starting small. It’s the perfect way to hack your brain into helping you achieve something big. In this post I’ll review the 3 ways starting small exploits the very natural and human patterns that already exist in your brain. Decluttering your home feels overwhelming, I know. But if you start small your brain feels safe, doesn’t rely on will power and can easily build momentum. Here’s how…

Small Feels Safe

The first reason to start small when you want to achieve something big like decluttering your whole home is a tactical one. It prompts a sense of safety instead of fear. How do you feel when you think about the boxes and bins piled up in your garage? Scary, right? Now think about something smaller, like your silverware drawer. Doable, yes? 

By starting small you create a sense of safety about decluttering, a signal to your brain that this thing you’re about to do isn’t hard. To start small is to render the Thing That Is Scary powerless. When something is no longer intimidating, it becomes achievable in your mind, enabling you to take that first step to action.

So starting small breeds safety. And a sense of safety breeds action. And we’re off to the races!

Victory Breeds Confidence

Now back to that silverware drawer. It probably takes between 5 and 10 minutes to declutter; after all it’s mostly just your silverware set. You weed out some stray straws, maybe some ancient take-out chopsticks. You come across some baby spoons from when the kids were little, don’t need those. You discover you have 5 wine-openers, 3 of them can go. The whole thing is over in a few minutes and it didn’t seem like a big deal,  but you feel great. And powerful, somehow!

That feeling is the confidence that achievement brings. To start small is to feel the thrill of victory – ‘I did it!’ Take a minute to soak in that feeling, because it is powerful and you can use it to propel you forward. Notice how the thought of decluttering the next thing isn’t as intimidating? Maybe you aren’t ready for the garage yet but you definitely have forward momentum thanks to that rush of confidence. Seize the motivation you are feeling and pick another small space to declutter so you can build on it!

Anchors and Imprints

The third reason to start small is something called an anchor moment. B.J. Fogg talks about this in his book Tiny Habits. When you do something (like decluttering) that produces a positive outcome, it creates what Fogg calls an anchor moment in your brain. The anchor moment is your brain responding to something it likes and wanting to do it again. Another way to think of it is imprinting. The outcome of decluttering made an impression in your brain. Since the impression was positive in nature, your brain wants to seek it out again. Your mind now associates the behavior of decluttering with this feeling. It’s a gold mine, really. The more you do, the more you imprint. The more you imprint, the less scary that garage feels!

Back to The Tri

When my son Brooks initially thought about that Half Ironman, it felt to him like your garage does to you: scary, intimidating, overwhelming. But when he started small by breaking up his training into smaller, manageable pieces something amazing happened:

• The feeling of safety got him to the starting line
• The thrill of victory unlocked more motivation
• He built a series of positive imprints that his brain associated with training

So by the time he was standing on the beach, ready to dive into the ocean he felt a little nervous, sure, but he wasn’t overwhelmed. He was confident in his abilities. And he knew the positive feelings he was going to create by finishing.

So there you have it – I have somehow equated a 70.1 mile triathlon to decluttering. If you want to start small in your own decluttering training, I have a great free resource to help you build the muscle! And that illustrates the greatest thing about starting small – you can apply it to just about anything!