I Wasn’t Always Organized: The Real Start of My Decluttering Journey

I Was Not Always Organized. Not Even Close.

I was not the kid color-coding art supplies or neatly folding doll clothes into labeled bins. My childhood bedroom was always a disaster (unless my mom cleaned it).

As a teenager, I shoved things wherever they fit. In my twenties, my roommates were genuinely appalled by the state of my room and car. Like, silent judgment — the whole thing.

There’s one moment from my twenties that still makes me laugh and cringe a little. I was dating someone, and he came over for a house party. At some point, he looked around my room and said, “You sleep here?”

At the time, I truly did not understand what he meant. I slept there. Obviously. It took me years to realize what he was actually saying. It makes me laugh thinking about his statement.

I was super unorganized and a bit chaotic because I didn’t need to be organized yet.

When I Needed Structure, Everything Changed

I didn’t become organized because it was trendy or aspirational. I became organized because my life needed structure. And I remember the exact moment it clicked.

I had just had my first baby. Haakon was only a few weeks old. I was sitting on the couch while he slept, and out of nowhere, my heart started racing. The room felt like it was closing in on me. All I could see was all the stuff.

Lying on the couch with my newborn, the clutter was quickly closing in on me. My decluttering journey was underway.

Boxes of diapers stacked in the corner.

Counters covered in things that hadn’t been decided on yet.

Shoes piled by the front door.

Reusable bags shoved onto a hook.

Baby gear everywhere.

I remember thinking, why do we have so much stuff. Where did it all come from? Do we need any of this?

Was it hormones? Anxiety? Sleep deprivation? Some combination of all of it? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. That moment was when my decluttering journey began.

The Start of My Decluttering Journey

That’s when I started asking real questions about what we owned. Not in a dramatic, throw-everything-away kind of way. Just intentionally.

I went room by room. Slowly. I took inventory. I paid attention to what we actually used. I noticed what stressed me out every time I looked at it.

At the time, we were living in a tiny third-floor apartment in San Francisco. No storage. No place in the garage for storag. No elevator. Every single piece of baby gear came upstairs with us. Car seat. Stroller. Diapers. Everything lived inside the apartment.

Our apartment was the building on the left with the triangle peaks. We were in the top unit — the window right under the peak.

Space wasn’t a nice-to-have. It was a problem we had to solve.

The First Big Shift Was Habits

Before I touched bins or shelves or bought anything, I changed how we lived. Some early rules I adopted:

• No more buying in bulk

• More frequent, smaller trips to the store

• Saying no to gifts (I need to write a blog post about this)

• Not feeling obligated to accept hand-me-downs

• Being intentional with clothing

• Adopting a one-in, one-out rule

That part mattered more than any organizing product. Because if your habits don’t change, the clutter always comes back. Always.

Then Came Space Planning

Once the inflow slowed down, I started looking at the apartment differently. I stopped thinking about square footage and started thinking about usable space.

Vertical space became my best friend. The backs of doors suddenly mattered. Walls started doing more work. This was when I bought my first Elfa over-the-door rack. Game changer. I also discovered IKEA Trones around that time, which I am still using in my home 13 years later.

That was my first real lesson in space planning. Good systems aren’t about having more space. They’re about using the space you already have better.

What I Learned Along the Way

My decluttering journey wasn’t about becoming a “neat person.” It was about making my life easier to manage. I needed to be more efficient with my time. I needed my home to support me instead of draining me.

I needed fewer decisions staring me in the face every day. That realization changed everything. Not overnight. Not perfectly. But permanently. And that’s how this whole journey started. Not with labeled bins or matching hangers — with a tired new mom on a couch, looking around and thinking, something has to change.

Stay tuned for part two. I’ll share what happened next — three moves in three years, what that taught me about systems that actually hold up, and how it slowly turned into a business.