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“People before things. Always”

Collette Barker is the Clutter Mentalist! Isn’t that a great title?

Well, Collette is a great human! Not only does she have a unique gift to declutter your home and your mind, she also has four gorgeous girls, was a Plunket nurse (New Zealand’s early childhood health centre), and is ridiculously funny. I mean laugh-out-loud funny.

Having grown up in a cluttered home Collette embarked on a mission to help herself and other mothers overcome home clutter, one useful and easy step at a time. Resulting in not just a decluttered home but also a decluttered mind.

In this episode of the Tough Mothers Podcast and Tough Mothers TV Collette shares with us hilarious stories from her motherhood life, and how her home changed from having no babies through to her fourth baby. She generously walks us through her amazing, useful and simple decluttering tips, which we can all implement today to declutter our home and our mind.

Key takeaways from this episode of the Tough Mothers Podcast and Tough Mothers TV:

♥    Don’t ever compare your home or your mothering to anybody else

♥    Don’t undervalue motherhood as a job

♥    Clutter in the home need not be clutter in the mind

In this episode you will learn [Podcast, TV  time points]:

[5.35 5.15]

Don’t ever compare your house to others! This goes for your parenting and your home. If your amount of clutter works for you, fabulous. It doesn’t matter what people think. However, if your clutter doesn’t work for you, you absolutely can change it. Collette gives us some great tips how to get rid of clutter.

“One person’s clutter is another person’s tidy”

[8.00, 7.30]

With each baby your mothering will change. Collette shares with us her hilarious confessions of how she mothered baby number 1 versus number 4, and how her home changed with each child #DomesticGoddess

“The next baby taught me that everything I knew was in fact wrong”.

[14.15, 13.45]

Let’s chat co-sleeping! Many mothers dream that they are rolling onto or smothering their baby. We talk through these and the many safety things you need to consider when sleeping with your baby, in your bed.

“I was certain that as soon as I fell asleep next to my babies they would die”

[19.55, 19.25]

It’s important to remember that looking after children is just as much a job as any other job.
(How cute is this photo pf Collette’s girls?)

“If you can walk out of the house with it being a mess but are looking after your child’s needs, you have aced your job.”

[22.30, 22.00]

If mess in your house is driving you crazy Collette has these tips to support your mental health. Collette’s strategy focuses on psychology and what works for each individual home.

[26.58, 26.28]

When it comes to managing your home, your children and your clutter, it is important to work with your weaknesses. Do what works for you. Don’t make it difficult. Motherhood is hard enough. Collette has some great examples of how to do this.

“You have to work with your habits, not create whole new ones.”

Mentions in this episode:

♥    Because Mum Life gets busy and many noteworthy things happen, Collette has created an amazing little book that you can add all your experiences, incidences and funny things your kids say and do to. Just so you don’t forget them 😊 Contact Collette HERE if you would like to know more.

♥   I Wish Someone Had Told Me… – unspoken truths about what really happens to women during labour childbirth and the first few weeks of motherhood.
Get your FREE E-book with the top 7 truths from the book HERE

♥   Tough Mothers courses implement a three-step framework to:

1) help mothers understand how motherhood changes their brain
2) how to strengthen their brain by training it to thrive in motherhood.
3) Teach simple, specific exercises mothers can fit into their busy day to train their brain to thrive in motherhood

A little more about my guest Collette Barker:

Youngest of 7 and mother of 4, Collette is a clutter mentalist and productivity freak. She grew up in a home FILLED with loads of stuff, and she’s no minimalist herself. A busy mum juggling family, community, work and all the normal things (and occasionally nailing it). She figures out the underlying determinants unique to each family’s cluttered home. Then together they rearrange the spaces to make the right habits easy to keep. Removing the power from ‘the stuff’ and giving it back to the people, so they never again have a moment’s [completely unfounded and totally ridiculous] guilt about what they own and how they keep it. 

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Mental Health Support Services

If the topics in this episode are triggering for you, or if you feel you need support, please contact you doctor or local mental health line.

In Australia: www.healthdirect.gov.au
In New Zealand: www.mentalhealth.org.nz
In the USA: www.mhnational.org
In the UK : www.mind.org.uk
In Ireland: www2.hse.ie
In South Africa: www.safmh.org.za

If your country is not listed please search “Mental Health Line” in google in your country.