The great thing about this website is that you have limitless access to it. This means that you can keep track of your progress, or if challenges arise and you’re starting to lose ground, you can use this website at anytime 24/7 to catch yourself sooner and reach out for the support you need to get back on track.

​

I’m also pleased that you’re going to have access to the following:

The activities of daily living scale will help you measure how you might be inadvertently adapting and adjusting to the clutter buildup in your environment especially as it relates to the activities we all must do every day in our lives.

​

The animal hoarding resource is meant to be used with compassion. Very few people who create animal hoarding deliberately set out to do that, and the five psychiatric models that Jeannie Lewis developed are not to be used to pathologize people or label them. They’re actually meant more for those who have experience treating mental health disorders; to provide them with a body of knowledge and protocols to help get started working with someone hoarding animals.

​

The quiz are you a hoarder in the making is a great tool that can quickly help you understand if you’re on the continuum of hoarding: If you are, where you are, and what your next steps need to be.

​

At some point we’re all going to need to breathe to destress. When you find yourself in a state of alarm, use this technique, because I want it to be part of your toolkit to destress.

And obviously, there’s going to be a point where you need to ask yourself questions. Those questions will involve shall I bring this home? Another question is shall I let this go? These questions are specifically developed to help you make your decisions easier and avoid the most common pitfalls.

​

The conceptual model tool is list of ways that people become derailed and develop a burden that they carry. This burden overwhelms them and creates a set back. Use it to know yourself better as it relates to hoarding vulnerabilities. Remember, no matter how many boxes you tick, be gentle with yourself. No one ever overcame anything difficult by feeling less about themselves.

​

Safety first, and to that end, calculating the environmental risk will help you quantify the risk that you are actually living with. It takes some perseverance, but it’s worth the time and effort. The other advantage of this tool is that you can track your progress and see, as you reduce your risk, the quantifiable feedback that will help you appreciate your effort to reduce your risk.

​

The case review of the last 10 years is a random sample of Birchall Consulting clients which surveys the characteristics in peoples lives that often exist when they succumb to hoarding disorder. See if and how it might reflect your reality. Many lovely people just like yourself end up creating a hoarding situation for good reasons. The reality, however, is that situation puts them and anyone living in close proximity at an unacceptable risk level. Don’t accept that as your destiny. It isn’t.

​

Chapter 16 includes: checking in with yourself on danger signs, the clutter checklist which you can use as you go through each room in your environment and see where and how the buildup is happening.

​

The conscious acquiring process is a user friendly tool to help you make deliberate rather than impulse choices about what to bring home.

​

At some point every item needs to have a permanent place, and this is a really simple tool to help you decide where the permanent place is for any item.

Many people want to know how did this accumulation start and when did it start. No one ever set out to create a hoarded environment, so determining what started the accumulation might be an important starting point for you.

​

Yes, there are do’s and don’ts for clutter coaches. Anyone who wants to help someone who hoards needs to be someone who genuinely respects the fact that no one person has the answer for anyone else, respects the other person’s right to choose, and is willing to work at the other person’s pace. These are some of the basic characteristics of a good clutter coach.

The environmental risk assessment checklist is the tool to use if you don’t want to use the complex calculating environmental risk tool.

​

Obviously, we want to figure it out, especially when we’re in a jam and overwhelmed. This tool helps you drill down and better identify and decode any situation, not just hoarding, that is troubling you. No one has ever hoarded in isolation of other issues. Life gets complicated. This tool will help you dissect and figure out how to get out of those jams.

​

The five red flags will identify if your situation is something you even need to be concerned about. Listen to it and abide by whatever the results are. It may be your first indicator that you’re on a path you really don’t want to go much further down.

​

For those people who do research I included the hoarding demographic measurement tool. I cannot take credit for this excellent tool. I hired an superb researcher to develop the tool for me. I offer it to those who do research for whatever positive use they can make of it.

Additionally, the hoarding disorder associated resources is another tool that I know will be of benefit to you.

​

If you go on site to see people who are hoarding, leave them a fact sheet. Their stress will mean that they will only remember a small amount of what you say. It’s a good starting point for people to start moving forward.

​

Procrastination, what it leads to and where it comes from make these knowing yourself worksheets a valuable resource to figuring out why you can’t get started and what keeps you from making the progress you really want and intend to make.

Particularly during COVID, but before and after as well, the online impulsive shopping information sheet is something you really should look at. Problematic shopping doesn’t have to just be online. Many of these principles are true for simple impulsive shopping. Anywhere, anytime.

​

The on-site clutter coaching toolkit was developed not just for individuals who hoard, but for those who would like to work with people living in a hoarding situation. It has served me well, and it is built on the feedback from my clients over the past 20 years.

​

My goals worksheet, IE there is more to life than decluttering asks people to make three types of goals in order to bring balance and meaning back into their lives.

​

Problem solving using CBT is a user-friendly, portable tool to help you figure out what is really happening when distorted thinking is influencing you.

​

Elaine’s scaling process helps you identify the intensity of your relationship with various types of items. When they’re all gathered together it is confusing and feels like they are all of equal importance to you. In most hoarding situations it is necessary to let go of some items. This tool will help you make sure that you do that without regret, and that you will be making “I can live with it” decisions. This protects those items that mean the absolute most to you, and those for which you have the absolute greatest need.

​

Many people wonder if their collections are like others’, so I include the 10 most common things hoarded sheet.

​

The three and a half plus box technique is a good way to organize. You need a staging area with containers, boxes, and bags or not often used furniture. Make sure to have criteria for “Keeps and Go’s” before looking at the first item. Go back to Elaine’s Scaling process and re-read before starting.

​

I wish you success and the peace you seek in reclaiming yourself, your spaces, and your life. For the very best outcomes, each of these resources will help.

​

​

​

If I can be of any additional help, you only have to contact me through www.hoarding.ca / or 613-492-0700 or join in on Wednesday mornings from 11am-12PM EST. for my Conquer the Clutter Podcast. You can subscribe free on Hoarding.ca, and you will receive an invitation with the Zoom link. Don’t be shy, it’s a great group of people all looking for help and supporting each other toward the same outcomes you’re looking for.

 

Hope to see you soon.