SHEDDING clutter gives you the same happy feeling as shedding unwanted kilos, says professional “declutterer” and self-confessed minimalist Kate Smith.
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About 18 months, Mrs Smith left her long-term job in the health sector to start her business Lifestyle Rejuvenation, whose services include wardrobe, pantry, fridge and linen cupboard makeovers, decluttering homes, offices and garages and creating budgets.
“I like helping people and I’m fortunate to have a husband who is working to allow me to pursue my passion,” says Mrs Smith. “If you do a job you love then you are not working a day in your life, and this is what I love.”
Mrs Smith says her business is growing with word of mouth referrals, her main clients being time-poor mums and clients aged in their 50s and 60s who were prohibited by poor health in doing some basic housekeeping.
The biggest demand she has seen is for the decluttering and budgeting assistance, the latter in which she has lengthy experience from a prior administration role. A former Lifeline counsellor with qualifications in personal training, nutrition and business management, Mrs Smith says that she is often counselling clients during the process of decluttering.
“I am talking to them about how they got to the point they are at because many of them are stressed, depressed and feeling out of control,” she says. “Things have unravelled for them, and I’ll never judge anyone how they live, though my own house is very minimal.”
Mrs Smith said many people felt a lot of guilt about removing possessions when those items were linked to loved ones who had died.
“We talk through that and because I’m not attached to the items I can talk to them about keeping maybe one or two precious pieces rather than 20 pots and pans,” she says practically.
“Sometimes it’s only a four hour job to declutter, somethings it’s 10 visits, I can organise things to be immaculate but people may have to spend a little money on tidying objects to do that, or I can just work with what I have.”
Having had a constant struggle with weight for most of her life, Mrs Smith said clutter can weigh people down but “if they can see how much easier it would be without it, then they’d take action and feel freer.”
Nominating her “very organised” parents as having a hand in her own neat personality, Mrs Smith says that life events – from a bout of depression or the death of a loved one – could be all it took to turn someone’s life upside down and into a situation where they could not keep on top of things.
“Sometimes it just takes another person to turn it around,” she says. See rejuvenateyourlife.com.au.
