052. A Realistic and Sustainable Guide to Spring Decluttering for the Working Mom

Spring has arrived—and so has the pressure to get your home perfectly organized. But if you're a working mom, the idea of spending an hours and hours decluttering can feel completely out of reach.

In this episode I'm sharing practical, no-fluff strategies to help you declutter your space without the stress—and without the shopping spree.

Whether you're doing it solo or considering decluttering services in the future, this episode will help you get started in a way that works with your real life—and reflects your values.

💡 You’ll Learn How To:

• Set realistic goals that match your schedule (and energy!)
• Start small to build momentum and avoid burnout
• Declutter in short, manageable bursts of time
• Use what you already have before buying anything new
• Make your spring reset more sustainable by donating, reusing, and shopping secondhand
• Keep your energy up by celebrating every small win!

This episode is perfect for busy moms who want to feel more organized, less overwhelmed, and confident that their efforts are making a difference at home and for the planet.

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

This podcast is where busy moms get practical organizing tips that actually fit into our real lives.
And today we’re diving into something that’s all over social media right now: spring decluttering.
Here’s what you see on social media: the bins, the labels, the pastel-colored pantries… but, if you’re a working mom, you’re probably wondering:
“When exactly am I supposed to do all this?”
So today’s episode is not about organizing like an influencer—it’s about organizing like you. The real-life, time-strapped, got-10-minutes-between-meetings version of you. And bonus: we’re talking about how to make it sustainable, too. Because you can refresh your home without buying out the entire organizing aisle at Target.
Let’s get into it.

Hey, welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living, the podcast for working moms and entrepreneur moms that provides sustainable organizing tips for your home, work and life.

I’m Zee Siman, Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant, and I’m here to share simple ideas that don’t take a lot of time so you can love your home, excel at work, and have the time to enjoy both without stress or overwhelm. 

Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen!

I’m starting with this: be realistic.
If you're doing this solo, without a professional organizer providing decluttering services in your home or online working with you, you need to set expectations that match your life.
So ask yourself:
How much time can I actually commit this week?
What space is frustrating me the most right now?
If you’ve got 30 minutes on a Sunday and a toddler climbing on your back, it’s not the week to color-code your entire closet.
Instead of aiming for a picture-perfect pantry, aim for a space that works. Organization is functional first, pretty second.
It’s just about setting realistic goals. Cause I know what happens. You tell yourself: this weekend, I’m going to organize my home office! 
And in your head, it’s totally doable. You’ve got the entire weekend ahead of you. Only what happens? 
The kids only want YOU on Saturday morning, not your partner.
And you just need to run out real quick to get something notarized
You’ve got to do one load of the kids’ laundry so you can pack up a bag for them before your mom comes to pick them up
And just like that, half your weekend is gone, and all you’ve done is crack open your file cabinets.
And, worse, you start with the negative self-talk: I’m just not organized. I should be able to do this on my own! Helen, down the street, is always organized and she works full time too!
So, cut it out.
You’re you. Helen is Helen. What’s realistic for her isn’t realistic for you, and that’s ok.
Realistic goals means realistic for you. 
To understand the reality of what you can accomplish, you’ve got to understand your time. 
In my Weekend Declutter Sprint program, we plan realistically. We think about how to prepare for that weekend before it happens.
But say you don’t have a weekend right now to dedicate to decluttering. But you’ve probably got 20 minutes, or even 10 minutes at a time, right? Well, make that your goal. Each 10 minute tidbit of time you’ve got, you can spend it decluttering over the next couple of days, and it will make a difference.
So here’s what you’re going to do.
First, you’re going to Start Small, and define what that means for YOU
Small is relative. For some moms, “small” might mean a junk drawer. For others, it might be a full weekend to declutter a kitchen.
The trick is to pick a size of project that won’t leave you burned out or buried in half-finished projects, half-finished chaos.

Finishing one space is always going to feel better than half-finishing five, not to mention that that one space is going to function better than the half-finished five.
Look, I don’t care that Helen finished decluttering and organizing her entire home office in one 8-hour sitting on Saturday. Helen is a perfectly nice lady, and I admire her commitment.
But she’s not you. Maybe she’s got a 5-star cleaning lady, and you’ve got a 3-star one, but you trust her unconditionally! So Helen might have a head start. But it doesn’t matter because you know what? Helen’s not living in your house. So, let’s get on with it.
Maybe today, what’s realistic for you is just decluttering your bag or your car console or the top of the kitchen island. That’s still progress.
Decluttering is less about volume and more about momentum. And I’ll say it every day until I’m blue in the face: decluttering is a skill that gets better the more you practice. If you only do it once in a blue moon, you’re going to feel like you’re starting from scratch every time. It’s better if you’re doing a tiny little bit every day, ongoing, instead of only decluttering something big once, and then not doing anything at all for 5 months.

The next thing to do is Speed Decluttering
This is my favorite way to just get going. Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes and start by making all the quick “NO” decisions. Open a drawer, cabinet or closet, and pick out the things you absolutely know you don’t want to keep. So start with:
The Expired stuff
The Broken things
The Stuff you forgot you had and you never use
The Obvious duplicates
These decisions are easy wins and they’ll build your confidence. Oh, and remember the momentum! This is how you build it!
You don’t have to make every decision about every item on the first go. You’re just warming up. So getting rid of the easy stuff makes the hard stuff feel way less overwhelming.
Honestly, one really easy place to start is the coffee mugs. Somehow, we end up with so many coffee mugs, and we never get to the ones in the back of the cabinet! So pick out the ones you really don’t like and get rid of them! Ask your family members if they need a coffee mug, ask Helen if she needs a couple. Put them on your buy nothing group or donate them.
When your timer, your 10 minute goes off, take a quick break. Drink a glass of water, stretch your legs, make a quick phone call. Then decide if you have another 10 or 15 minutes in you to continue, or if that’s it for now.
Right. Next, you’re going to organize by Using What You Have
You’ve done some decluttering by now, speed decluttering at least, and you’re thinking “OK, now I need to contain these pens in the junk drawer somehow.”
By the way, if you call something the “junk drawer”, are you surprised that junk ends up in there? In my house, that drawer is called The Drawer, or the pen drawer. It holds a cup of pens, along some other things, but we never call it the junk drawer anymore.
OK, but can we talk about how shopping for organizing supplies can derail your entire project?
Listen, I love a good basket. I do.
But as a realist, I know that measuring, shopping, and returning are not always a good use of my very limited time.
So here’s the rule: Use what you have first.
If you have a leftover shoe box? It’s an instant drawer divider. 
If you have a mason jar from the back of the cabinet? It’s great for pens or for holding cookies once you open the pack.
What I suggest is that you live in the newly decluttered space for a few days or a week. Then, if you're finding the system needs a little help—well then you get something.
Organize first. Shop second.
Remember that everyone is going through some Spring decluttering right now, so it’s a great time to look at your buy nothing groups, or your neighborhood groups and ask if anyone is getting rid of baskets, drawer organizers or things like that.
No matter where or how you shop, it takes time because you need to measure and make sure it fits. I’ll tell you that this is the part that our clients prefer to leave to us, the professional organizers, because it’s so time-consuming.
OK so now, it’s important to Give Everything a Home, Even if it’s a temporary one 
Once the space is decluttered, even if it’s not pretty yet, assign everything a “home.”
It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be consistent.
Even a labeled Ziplock bag or a sticky note on a box is enough to say, “Hey, scissors live here now.”
And if you want to get fancy, sure, you can use a label maker.
Once your stuff has a home—even a temporary one—your brain can rest a little. You’re not constantly rethinking where things go. And the rest of the family can start putting things back where they go, too.
And again, after living with it for a little while, you’ll realize if something really isn’t in the right spot. And you know what? At that point, since you’ve already decluttered, it’s so much easier to move stuff around in bulk.
Like, all the coffee mugs can go into that cabinet, and the wine glasses go where the coffee mugs used to be.
Or you decide you actually want to use the Pen Drawer for silverware, and all you have to do is grab the mason jar of pens and the little drawer organizer boxes of other stuff in that drawer and move them over.
And the final thing you’re going to do is Celebrate and Reset 
This part is important, and I feel like it gets skipped: celebrate the win.
Did you finish decluttering the pen drawer? Well, take a picture with your phone!
Did you tackle that scary corner of the playroom? Light a candle and make a cup of tea.
Tell your group chat, “Hey! Look what I just did!”
And then? Reset. Don’t immediately move on to the next big task. Decluttering is a cycle right? It’s not a sprint.
Give yourself permission to pause and just enjoy the results—even if it’s just for a day.
I have one more tip for you to make your Spring Decluttering even better: involve the kids and your partner if you can.
Even the little ones can toss broken toys or help choose which five stuffed animals to keep in their bed. It doesn’t have to be perfect—it just has to be shared.
And your partner can help with the mental load by decluttering something they care about, too, no matter how small it is.
Decluttering as a family plants the seed that “Hey, our stuff is manageable.” It’s a life skill that you get better at the more you do it. Even if it’s just a little bit, and even if it doesn’t look like the way Helen does it.
So that’s your realistic guide to spring decluttering.
Remember to:
Set realistic goals
Start small
Get those quick wins by speed decluttering
Use what you have first to be sustainable
Give things homes even a temporary one
And celebrate the progress
And all without a single $300 trip to Target.
Remember: being organized isn’t about having the prettiest home—it’s about having a home that works for your life.
If this episode helped you, I’d love it if you shared it with a fellow mom who’s also buried under laundry and legos while trying to get to work on time.
And if you’ve got a spring win to share, tag me on Instagram @fireflybridgeorganizing—I’d love to see your realistic results!
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you back here next week!