This time of year we accumulate so much stuff at our home. Not only do we have three birthdays in our family between November and December, but taking out that box of Christmas decorations and spreading them around the house feels a little like we’re just laying on red, green and white clutter on top of clutter. Then, not to mention the clutter that happens after Christmas day with another huge influx of toys and more stuff.

So, this year I partnered with TaskRabbit to do some serious holiday decluttering. And you can too! Just enter code YES15 at checkout to get $15 off any task between now and January 15th. Perfect timing!

Here’s how it went with some embarrassing before and after pictures…

Have you used TaskRabbit before? We are huge fans at our home. We’ve used it for a lot of handyman jobs around the house like putting together a bookshelf, hanging and installing curtain rods in the sunroom, painting a bookshelf, and general cleaning. Any household job you can imagine from party planning, cleaning, errands, moving, maybe even help assembling and addressing your holiday cards?? We always have a great experience with them. And this de-cluttering project was no different. The website (and app) is really easy to use. You select and describe your task, and then pick your Tasker. They respond super fast and then off your go to make a day and time to get it done. So convenient and easy to be connected with local, skilled help in minutes.

Lisa was my Tasker. She was awesome! I didn’t even know where to start but she has a degree in library science and so we first went to the cluttered bookshelves in our living room. I’m always annoyed with those things! This should be one of the prettiest rooms in our home where we entertain and relax, but there are too many books and the top shelf always becomes a dumping ground for whatever. It’s even worse that I tried to put Christmas decorations on TOP of it all. Ugg.

We came up with a plan on what books should go where. Outdoor and Jared’s work books on the right shelves, my work, fiction, and nonfiction on the left shelves. There were also a lot of family memorabilia that were scattered on them too and needed to go in storage. We made piles of books to donate to donate and found to our surprise that we had not 1 but 3 axes, and 4 lighters hanging out by the fireplace (who needs that many?!?).

I worked alongside her, mostly doing purging and sorting while she re-shelved and made everything look so much better. Having time set apart to declutter and focus on problem areas was the perfect way to spend this rainy Sunday afternoon.

Next we tackled the kids closet. Oh my gosh. Guys, it was terrible. We never play board games because they’re out of reach. I have to toss the kids’ grown-out clothes up into the bin on top. The suitcases were in a huge messy pile. We had zero room for any big bulky toys which is what we needed room for.

We pulled everything out. I sorted through the baby girl clothing (actually a fun job- got me excited for another girl!) and made some huge piles of stuff to donate. Lisa was so great! She listened to the issues (no room for bulky toys, can’t access board games or kids clothing bin) and made some really simple solutions like storing the suitcases on the top shelf separate from the duffle bags (both light and easy to pull down!), keeping the board games we use a lot on our toy shelf and the kids clothing bin where I can access it easier on the bottom. Look how much room we cleared out! Hooray for a new spot for wheels!

The next day Lisa came and we tackled the laundry room. Again: disaster area! Also, everything was covered in a fine coat of dust. So gross! We pulled everything out and got rid of a ton of expired items, duplicate items (apparently I have 2000 plastic spoons), and organized the paper bag situation. We also wiped off the shelves, floors, and sorted through the emergency kit I put together 7 years ago covered in dust. We refilled all the big jars of bulk foods that were empty due to my pure laziness.

Lots of stuff got thrown out and back everything else went into a clean, edited, new space.  It cleared out so much space that we were able to use the top shelf to store and display some vases and pitchers which cleared up more room in our cupboards. Way better!

Having someone come and setting aside time to clutter was kind of life-changing. I told Jared we needed to do this every month. It’s not enough for me commit to doing it personally. I need to be held accountable and having someone show up at my door was exactly the motivation I needed. Lisa, I’ll be booking you again soon!

Thanks to TaskRabbit for sponsoring this post and making my house ready for the holidays. Remember, you can get 15% off any Task between now and January 15th, 2016 by using code YES15 at checkout.