5 Easy Steps to Make Your Home and Your Mind Clutter-Free
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Hey, it's your friend male. And today i'm coming clean about some on the mall Robin's podcast. Let's go. Okay, IT fell. And today's episode of the mell Robin's podcast is dedicated to those of us who feel overwhelmed by the process of trying to state organized, organized, organized in your house, organized with all of the stuff that you need to do for everybody else. And according to our expert today, that is Normal to feel paralyzed or like a failure, or overwhelmed.

When you look at the piles of things that you can't seem to get to at work or at home is your desk and nights, when somebody says, hey, can I ride with you? You're like, no, because I would take me an hour to clean out the front seat of my car. And god knows, I don't want you to see what's in back seat.

I beat myself up all the time because the wheel are off when IT comes to my home. And just when you know that i'm not making this up, I decided to walk into my husband's office morning and record his thoughts on what it's like to live with me for real. Hey, Chris, i'm recording something.

Could you describe for everybody what my bathroom think looks like compare to? Are you getting me yeah like for real? First long I known new year bathroom has just been an absolute shit chill.

I mean, like a bomb went off IT all the time. I mean, I I describe what IT looks like when you walk in there maham. I don't even know how you do make up without with all you have your whole life that seems like sitting on top of the bathroom. Vi, okay, I don't even want to begin with your closet.

I know, I don't know how somebody who is so so organized and so successful in so many other areas of your life that there can be such a black and White sort of economy, but between your worklife and your bathroom life, do you think anything could help me change? God help us. But I mean, i'm at least content with my own cleanly.

Bathroom vanity. Your, your, your own is your own battles are well, thank you, Chris. See, guys, i'm not lying.

You know, I am laughing, but the truth is I need help with this and maybe you do too. So if you're embrace that, you just can't keep up. I hear you.

I am desperate to have a house that is pulled together at this point. There's no way it's going to look like it's on pin rest. I just want to not feel over overwhelmed.

There has got to be a Better way. And according to our expert today, dinner White, he is saying, IT is Normal to feel the way that we do overwhelmed by our stuff at work at home. And IT is fixie.

SHE is a hit blog. A slob comes clean. This is a five step process to truly going from feeling like a failure to getting your life under control.

Her book is how to manage your home without losing your mind. And this goes way beyond your house. Dana, why i'm so excited, you're here.

Thanks for having me on day.

Know when you've got a person like me who literally a disaster in certain places in our home, just overwhelmed by everything. Where do we even start?

I mean, it's you're where you are. You have the makeup products all over the counter and you think that that's what I want. Those images on instagram and IT looks like a magazine.

yes. Are we ready for me to tell you what the difference is? Yes.

what is the difference between that fiction that I want and where I am right now?

Here's the reality. Organizing into clearing our separate things. They are not the same thing, but I always thought they were the same thing. I would look around at my mess, and I would think I have got to get organza because that logically makes sense, right? Yes, but the problem was I would buy a venture products, bring him into my house.

The organizing energy was gone by the time I got home, and I just dropped in by the back door and they turned into so I never made a real impact on my house. I was at such a rock bottom point. But I I honestly thought I was giving up by saying I don't even have IT in me to get organized.

I am just going to detter wow. Like, like in my mind I thought that's how bad I am. I've just got to decoder. I can even think about organizing yet declaring changed everything in my home. So the beauty of realizing the organizing into or not the same thing, and that you can, Justin tor, and that justice tterbusch change everything, it's just starting to get step out of your house.

So are you saying, dana, that is an organization expert, that in order to have a home or workspace or any area of your life feel manageable, which would be the opposite of how I feel right now when I look at my bathroom sink or my closet, that you just got to forget about organizing because you're not ready to organize, that you need to first decoder.

Is that what your saying? Guess you need to decoder declaring is everything. When I decode red, then I knew what I had. I knew where I was. I could get to IT easily.

I could access IT easily because I gotten rid of all that extra stuff so that when I opened the cabinet, I just saw what I needed. And I could get to IT without moving fifteen things. D cluttering made my house look Better, function Better, feel Better. IT was the thing I had been needing that I didn't know I needed. I thought I needed a ticket organized.

So what is the difference between the cluttering and organizing?

In my mind, organizing was bins and boxes, yes, and systems and all these things that I would look at those images on instagram of the color coded things. And yes, you'd look at that. You think that's IT. I need the colors. And so you bring the colors in, and then you're trying to fit all the stuff in there.

I laughing because I thought the solution to my bathroom sink problem was to go to warm water target and buy a bunch of bans to put the stuff that's on my counter. And why doesn't IT work for me to go banging budget taints for this stuff?

Everyone has a clutter threshold. It's the amount of stuff that you personnel can keep under control. It's the reason why you, your friend, can go shopping together by the exact same things.

SHE puts IT in her house. IT looks like a magazine you put in your house IT looks like a first store, right? That difference between, like, SHE can handle this stuff.

I brought all this stuff into my house because I wanted IT. I saw potential in IT am a lovely person who sees value and things that no one else sees value. And right, like that's a great quality except that I was bring you into my house and I couldn't handle IT.

嗯， IT was not .

possible for me to keep my house under control with the amount of stuff that I had in my house. So it's not, it's not esthetics some people hear cutter are all like, oh yeah, this tries not talk about, what can you handle? What's easy for you to keep under control of the spaces, continually getting out of control?

Get rid of more stuff. I was still getting out of control. Get rid of more stuff.

Get rid until you realize at some point this is what happened to me as I was like, wait minute, I can do this. Like I can keep this under control. And that's where I realized there's this point, this level of stuff that I can handle.

You are a genius. When I hear the word organization, I think that looks pretty. I just have to get the bins that line up and the labelle that has the nice font and the little tags in my laundry room, and then I take all the shit that I have, and I stack IT all in there.

And then I make IT look nice. I spend six hours in one space and I bought all the crap, the baskett match and IT looks like a photo shoot. And everything's in its place. You're right.

I managing shit that I can't manage because the second that our sun walks in the longer room and pulls out the thing and puts IT in a different place, then everything's out of work again. And I feel and organized again and IT all spills out from there. And then I go buy a different basket because IT needs to be a bigger basket. I am driving myself and my husband crazy. How do you know what your cluster threshold is?

I hate to tell you this so, but there is literally no way to know other than to the clutter. You can just know if my house feels overwhelming, i'm over my clutter thread hold. If my house is consistently getting out of control and I feel bewildered by that, then i'm over my clutter threshold. So the only way to find your clutter threshold is to the cotton.

I think i'm starting to get what you're saying. You're saying there is a critical difference between organizing your stuff VS. Declaring organizing is just moving everything that you already have around to different places.

And the problem is that you are organizing because you feel overwhelming by your stuff. So no amount of baskets or containers will take that overwhelm away because you have too much stuff. yeah. The real problem is you have too many things, too many things on your desk, too many things in your closet, too many things in your mudd room. So you have to start with declaring, which is a nice way to say it's time to get rid of a bunch of your stuff because it's all overwhelming.

You let me just say the list. If you have the list of that can right?

You are a genius. The less stuff you have, the less stuff that you can pile, and the less piles that you have, the less overwhelmed you're going to fill. Here's what I also starting to find really fascinating about your approach is that IT makes sense when you look at the research about how our brains work. See when there's too much input, too much going on in your family or too many things on your desk or in your mother room, your brain gets overloaded. IT can't process all that stuff.

And so what i'm realizing is the reason why we have this instinct to just organize IT all and put IT in, to make IT look good and put colors and labels on IT is because we're trying to make IT less overwhelming to our brain, when actually what we need to do is hit, delete and remove a lot of the stuff that is overwhelming to us. But i'm still hung up on the containers. Maybe i've been brain watched, maybe i've watched too much hdtv, but I feel like this process is missing containers. So how do you handle the desire to either put things in piles or put things in containers?

I used to think that containers, we're for putting things in, right? organized. People love containers.

They buy containers. Their house looks great. I must need more containers. So I would bring containers and to my house. So here's my little, my little scenario that I give.

Let's say, my friend, whose kids were the same major mine, you know, her little craft area looked amazing. Mine was this ge piled disasters spilling out of the cabinet OK. And I would look and say, oh, SHE has her crayons .

and a red bucket. Yes.

that's the difference between her and me. Ah right? Like SHE is a red bucket. I don't have a red bucket. That's why my spaces is a disaster.

So I would go and buy a red bucket and I would dup crayons in there and I would realize, O, I forgot seven hundred cyant leftover. Why does this not work for me, the way that works for her? So I would go out and buy two more red buckets, and then I would put the rest of my curry ons in those red bucket.

I go to put the red butts on the shelf, and my shelf wouldn't fit three red baskets. And I would think, are you kidding me? Why is this so hard for me?

Like, why does this not work for me? And then eventually I would be like, well, obviously, I need more selves side by ourselves. And then at some point, I would think I don't have any room for more shelves.

Obviously need to do house, and we can afford to do house right now. So I am doomed to be disorganized. That is just how my brain worked.

I just thought that if I, you know, ran out of space in a container, I thought another container and a reality. Her house was smaller than mine, but in my mind, my issue was that my house was too small. Like, which does that make sense? But IT might make sense to my P.

P. So when I was working, I was talking to myself and I was saying, container. And I went, container contained, like the word contained, is in there service a limit, set a boundary.

You know, like firefighters contain a fire. They create a boundary. And as long as the fire stays inside the boundary, they can keep in under control.

Their whole goal is to keep IT within this boundary. And I realized, oh, a container is not for putting things in. A container is meant to serve as a limit, to serve as a boundary.

And that changed everything for me because I was able to say, okay, here's the red bucket. It's not gona fit everything, but it's the boundary. So I am going to put my favorite crayons in first.

And when it's full, something happens in my brain. And I realized, oh, maybe I don't need a thousand croons. Oh, okay, before I would pick up every single crown and be like, well, I mean, I know it's broken, but broken crayon steel color, right? Yes, right.

So I would make all these.

And IT took forever for me to analyze every single one and and said it's just i'm going to put my favorite ce first and i'm gona let the container make the hard decision for me wow and then when I go to put the uh the red bucket on the shelf, I have to acknowledge that the shelf is also a container, the shelf is a limit, and IT determines how many red buckets I can have, and the size of the room determines how many shells I can have.

And the size of my house is the size of my house. So like the size of my house is the size of my house. And if i'm going to put my favorite things in first and i'm going to realize my house is a container, my house is a limit.

What's my favorite thing in my house? The people who live in IT, right? So like, we deserve space first.

And so that just shifted everything IT actually doesn't matter how valuable something is. How much is sentimental, you know, feelings I have toward IT IT dos t have space. I can keep anything, but I can keep everything. And my house ever have a chance of being under control? Okay, wow.

So that's .

the container concept, which changes how you look at your house and how you look at your stuff and lets me let go of things because I like it's not me, it's the container. I don't have the space for IT and that is very wow.

That's obvious. But IT makes so much sense. And more importantly, I feel like I couldn't do IT.

Don't you feel like you can do IT? huh? okay. Now what I would love for you to do is can you walk us through your five step process that we go through when we declare to? And I want to get really granular.

So let's take a quick break hereward from our sponsors. And when we come back, let's go step by step through. The actual process you created will be right back.

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Welcome back, I melt Robins.

and i'm here with dana White who wrote the life changing book, how to manage your house without losing your mind, the supplies to home work everywhere that you feel overwhelmed. And she's about to walk us through the her five step process that SHE created for declaring r dinner.

Where do you start? I recommend what I call the visibility rule. I recommend that you go to the place that visitors to your home will see when they either come inside or are standing at the door.

And you're trying to keep them from coming inside, right? Because it's a mess, whatever. That is the place to start, and we're going to go through the declaring process there.

I'll i'll explain that. But the reason why you want to start in a visible space is that you will see the progress that you're making. You will see your house getting Better. People who live with you will start to see your house getting Better. You'll experience that IT is easier to live in a space with less staff OK.

Because here's the thing, so many times when we get that desire to decoder, we go to the pantry, we go to the linning closet, we go to the top shelf of the mater bedroom set. Yes, we do those spaces because we think OK, if I will work really hard on this, we really don't use this space that match. And so maybe i'll actually stay that way, right?

Yes, when in reality you can work really hard on that. You talked about, like, you know, all the color coding and blah blah in this random closet. And then at the end of the day, your husband, you know, is like, so what you do today, you're like, oh, I have been organizing all day and I don't know about you.

I'm not gna project this on you, but in my experience, i've had that exact scenario happen. And my husband would be like, really okay. Well, what is more defeating than that, right? Yes, like is to feel like I have been organizing all day and i'm still embarrassed to open my front door.

Yes.

but if you work on visible spaces first, first, then you see the progress that you're making and you inspire yourself to keep going because you're like, oh, wow, telex good. I may not have noticed when I was messy, but I noticed now when IT looks great. And then that inspires me to keep going. Okay, do you may talk about the actual process?

Yes.

okay, I do. So I have to have like real steps because I have to remind myself still, I still look at a space and o and and no, I have steps OK. All right.

So the first step is trash. Grab a black trash bag or whatever you have available. Ideally it's black just because then you can see what you just put inside of IT. Your family can see what you're putting inside.

And I just find something.

Yes.

what is the barriers to tell you this? So oakly, these are eighteen year old son cleaned his room sunday. K, and he put all kinds of clothes in a bag that no longer freedom, so we could donate them.

I spotted a flan el shirt that I paid a lot of money for, and I tour open the bag, and I pulled them out of the bag just this morning. IT happens, right? Yes, you know what i'm going to do with that.

I'm going to hang IT in my closet because I can wear, but I don't even want IT. What is wrong with me? Da.

that things wrong with you? This is Normal.

So is that why you have a black bags so you can see the stuff that you're clearing out?

Yes, that's exactly White. Now with that, if you like, I don't have black trash bag. Start with whatever.

Start with a paper sac. H IT doesn't matter OK. But if you have a black trash bag, use that for exactly the reason that you're talking about.

But i'm talking about trash, not necessarily donations at this OK. The reason I start with trash is IT is literally the easiest of the easy stuff. I am not talking about deciding whether this item is trash.

I'm talking about just saying that trash put in the bag that's trash put in the bag IT starts the movement OK there are literally no decisions to be made, no emotions to be felt IT is just the action. And that immediately makes the space less overwhelming because there's less definite than there was before. Can, but he also helps my brain start to adjust to what's actually there.

Because when I look at IT as a big pile, the pile is overwhelming. There's important stuff in there, i'm sure. And so IT feels like the whole pile is full of important decisions, difficult decisions to make. But as i'm looking for trash, i'm seeing what's actually there, which then helps me be ready to move into the next steps of the process.

Okay, so we start with trash and a black bag and anything that is crash, or we just talk in papers and crap. People have not thrown out and that kind of thing.

If you have to think about IT, yes, skip IT and will get to IT in the next step.

I love that you're breaking IT down because this is like a real thing that we struggle with. Like, I see a pile in your right, I can become paralyze because I think there might be something expensive or important there. And so I don't know if i'm ready to sort through all that stuff. I just don't want to see the pile because I wanted to be pretty.

Your thing is, I just wanted to be pretty change your mindset to, i'm going to make this space Better. That means I can literally throw away two pieces of trash, get distracted, step away, step away, because I just don't want to do this right now. And i've still made IT Better, which means I have been successful.

Like if I do anything, I have achieved Better. Okay, so alright, sorry, that was a little pretty break. No.

I think it's I think it's perfect because I don't feel successful in this area.

but you are successful with every piece of trust. IT is Better because my goal is to have less in this space. If you have less in the space than you did when you started, you have successfully decodeme.

You're not done, but you have successfully delivered, right? yeah. Okay, so let's move to step. To step two is the easy step.

So trash was the easiest of the easy step because it's just going straight to the trash bag. yeah. But the second step is the easy step.

Easy step I define as anything that already has an establish home. It's just not there for whatever reason like i'm not going to agonize over why is this in the bedroom. It's just oh, this goes in the kitchen or whatever.

I'm going to take those things to their already established homes mediately. I can take as many as my hands hold, but I can't take any more than that like i'm not gonna him in a box. I'm not going to um set aside and do IT later.

I'm gonna go everything that comes into my hands that I pick up, that I identified as easy having an establish home, no decision to make, no emotions to be felt. I am gonna go ahead. And i'm gna take IT there now.

Okay, so again, I am making the space Better. I can step late at any time because i'm making progress and only progress, right? Got IT. Then the third step is the donations. Okay, when you are someone who hasn't felt successful in declaring before, IT feels like all declaring decisions are going to be difficult. So we want to narrow down the ones that you really have to make decisions about OK and go ahead and just sticks up in the donate box, the key with the donate box like the black trash bag is that the box itself needs to be donated, so don't senso the word donate on the outside of cute wooden box like that's not what we're doing, right?

Is that organization right .

in to IT just sets myself up to have to go back through that box again, right?

So you're basically just saying, no, have a box that's already gonna get donated to .

right the word donate so that you remember that was a donate box but don't decorate IT don't make IT something you're gonna anna reuse got IT.

Now when you do this, do you recommend that you just take that box and just put in the back your car? Or do we leave IT somewhere?

I always have a donate box or two or three in a spot in our garage. Yep, that is ready to be taken wherever that needs to go. The the decision making though is where the real power is.

You just keep dropping grenades in my head. This is so good, I don't want to stop. But let's take a quick pause. Listen to the sponsors and we will be right back with more amazing advice from dana White.

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Welcome back. I melt Robins, and I am here with author dina White. How to manage your home without losing your mind and let's jump right back into a dinner. What comes after? donate?

okay? So at this point, we have removed trash, easy stuff and of the donations, right? So we are down two things that at first gLance, you're like either yes, they go here or I have no idea on this item what to do.

Okay, so this is where my two declaring questions come in. When I started this, I had seen this beautifully written less of all kinds of questions to ask yourself about items, and whether you wants to donate IT or keep IT. I had too much stuff in my house to ask myself ten questions about everything besides those questions.

Gender, my brain spent out, right? Like, like, do I love IT? Ah I love all the stuff, you know, like, why would I have you in my house but I love IT, right you.

So I I couldn't ask myself those kinds of questions. So I came up with two questions. And if I can answer the first one, I don't even have to ask the second. So the first question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for the first?

K.

it's really important that you ask exactly that question. Where would I look for at first? IT is an instinct question, kay.

The word woods is the key word. That means, if I needed my headphones, where would I look for them first? IT is literally the first drawer or cabinet that I would open. Even if I had no confidence, they would be there.

This is because .

something that needs at home, right, like the whole, a place for everything, and everything in its place that organized, people say and think is so obvious. I was always like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't have places for things like, what? Like, I just didn't make any sense of my brain.

And so I had to come up with where would I look for at first? Because here's the thing. The beauty of putting something in the place where you would look for IT first is that when you look for IT, you find that in the first place where you look for IT. Isn't that the goal that you've had all along wanting to be organized?

What i'm realizing, my goal is that I just want hit the look pretty. I've never even thought about organization as a way to make my life easier. And it's a genius question, because i've put things in cabinet and doors because I didn't know where else to put IT.

Yes, what I used to do was thinking where my gravel kept. Hs, yeah. And think, okay, well, SHE, her house was always great, so I should put mine in the place.

Yeah, but how many people say as a joke or there's a facebook meme or something that says I got organized and now I can't find anything? Yes, right. It's hard in the beginning because you don't trust yourself.

right? And this .

also is part of that accepting how I actually function, as opposed to how organized people function. And I wish I was like them.

Figured all clippers were the thing when I came up with this question, as I was like, everybody else in the whole wide world surely would put their finger on clippers in the bathroom door, because that's where they supposed to go, right? But in my family, whenever somebody is looking for figure out clippers, they look in this, john jr, that's like, on the edge of the kitchen. That is just our reality. And I said, you know what, I would rather have things be in the first place where we look, then try to be like other people and never be able to find anything in my house.

That's amazing. See, I don't know where to put a male clippers. So I just look at Christ's topher of the bathroom. And that's great.

That's great. If that's where you look first, that's where they should be. But then there's a second part of the question, which is not actually a question but is actually the key to my no mess progress and only progress declaring process.

okay. And that is when you answer that question, where would I look for this first? Take IT there, nail no piles, because before I would step away for an hour or three weeks, or what I heard.

And those need little pilot where I had totally made all these decisions. Those need little pilots now worth into one big pile outside the space that I was initially, the coLoring. So my house looks worse than I did before.

Yes, people get all worked up over this like they are like, no, but that can't be the most efficient way. And yet, in the end, IT is. So here, here's the deal I used to make all these pilots.

I would be like, okay, this is the stuff that goes to the kids room. Yes, yes. This goes to the bathroom.

yes. And when i'm done, yes, I will go deliver all these things through the house. And that makes so much more sense than taking IT there right now. But that's how things work.

In an ideal world where I don't get distracted in the mist of a project I don't stop powerless through, nobody starts bleeding, right? Like I just, that's the ideal world. I don't live an ideal world, okay? So I decided I need to go ahead and take IT there right now, no piles.

When I do that, I can stop and accepting the fact that I will get distracted or life will happen. I can stop at some point in the spaces. Only Better.

IT is never worse. I have never created a bigger mess. I'm taking one night at a time making a final decision on IT, and i'm acting on that final decision. So it's either gone in the trash bag, it's gone to its R. T.

Established home IT has gone in the donate box, or I have established to home by asking myself, where would I like for this first? And then I take IT there now OK. So that's the key to all of this.

And people will resist IT. And then i'll say, just try IT and then they will try IT and then they will email me and say, I cannot believe the difference. I cannot believe I have actually made real progress declaring for the first time in my life it's working like it's changing my house because of that. Go ahead and take IT there right now, but people not like IT, but it's still .

I think it's genius because I completely related to moving and sorting and organizing things into piles and then running out of energy or time or getting distracted and not actually taking those piles anywhere. And then you're right.

and that makes IT worse. Yes, you come back to the space and you have to make all those decisions again.

Oh my god, I I feel like I do this every weekend. Yeah, that every weekend IT is me on that hampers wheel of making piles and running things around and pulling apart stuff and wholly smokes. This is revolutionary.

I get very paralyzed when I have an item, and i've spent a lot of money for IT. Or somebody's given IT to me or what or I might need at some point, ten years from now. What's the difference between i'm throwing this out versus i'm donating?

So all of those questions that you have in your mind, yeah uh, those are the natural questions that people think they need to ask when they're declaring I don't ask those questions. I stick to the facts. okay.

And so my process leads me through and helps me make those decisions, but without all of the emotions, because I brought all this stuff into my house because I saw the value in IT, right? And so before when I would decoder, I would make value decision after value decision, which is exhAusting, right? It's so emotionally exhAusting.

And I know IT is that then I would put off to clearing because I was like, I don't have IT in me to make those kind of decisions today, right? Like, so instead I say, okay, if I needed this item, where would I look for at first? And then I take IT their nail, and then I look at that space.

And sometimes this is a common question people have is like, what do I do in that space? Is its own big decline, red mess? All i'm going to do is i'm gna not leave that space and he worse, and am a say, will IT am I willing to get rid of from this messy space where I would look for this item first? What am I willing to get rid of from here that will create the space that I need for this item? And so IT helps me instead of saying, does this thing have you I say, is there a space for IT?

Can I just give you example? I'm starting to realize how not I am about this stuff.

You are .

not that i'm realizing how much noise and just how much drama I add to the process of organizing. And i'll give you an example. I see this jacket.

And because I bought IT form when he was fifteen, oakly literally worried for about a minute before he grew out of IT. And IT was expensive. And so I see this jacket.

I grab IT. I'm like, okay, we live in front. People visit. Should I hold under this in case somebody visits and they didn't pack a? Maybe this would fit me and I would fit this.

And then I attach all this meaning, and I create these stories about why I need to keep the thing and the value of the thing. And if I asked myself if I needed the item m, where what I look for IT, i'm even stalled because I go, well, I don't really needed in the mudroom. Maybe I should create a place in the basement for extra clothes for guests who forgot close that you need when you visit vermont. What is going on?

Well, okay, is this north? You just describe, yes, what you just described as your brain spinning out. Yes, that is exactly how my brain worked. Everything you said made sense to me. I got that right.

And yet, when I thought that way, my house was a disaster, and I was frustrated with IT, and I had all those feelings of what is wrong with me. yes. OK, so so I know I hate to just be like, let's go back to the process.

except that, no.

let's go back to the process. The process is what talks you .

through all of this OK OK.

So the second declaring question that I only ask myself is my first response to where what I look for this first, whether it's about the jacket, whether it's about a star, whatever, if I look at the item and I like, where would I look for this first? And my answer is, and, you know, like, okay.

Then I asked myself the question, if I needed this item, would IT ever occur to me that I already had one? Oh, we're not going to bring the scenario into IT. We're just going to ask the fat based question.

If I needed this jacket, would IT occur to me that we already had one. And it's tough because you're holding in your hand, right? Like it's there. It's in front of you. I had to make progress in my home here to get stuff out of my else.

Well, so I had to make these hard calls and say, i'm GTA be honest, if I needed this, would IT occur to me that already had one, because I didn't have a place where I would look for at first, which means I would not have even gone looking for IT. Instead, I would have done without, you know, we would have said, hey, here's six sweatshirts who forgot your coat, right? Hey, let's run by the store and grab one, you know, or whatever.

Those are both valid options. That right there is, is me saying this is my reality check up in this in the donate box. Wow.

you know, this is fascinating because IT is a whole new way to think about this. The reality of the declaring process of i'm tracking is not that you go okay this sunday. I'm doing this in the mudroom.

It's that you walk out your bedroom, you like it's seven, fifteen in the morning. There's now a giant must in front of me at the base of the stairs and you're saying you can do this process right now. I see the jacket IT doesn't belong there.

I have a choice in that moment to say, if I needed this item, where would I look for this first? And if the answers the modern, I walk to the modem and hang IT up if the answer is, doesn't fit them anymore. And do we even need to keep in? And I go to the second question. What was the second question?

If I needed this item, would I ever OCR to be that I already had one?

If I needed, decide what IT OCR to already. And the answer, yes, because I have the exact same size in a jacket for me. So yes, I have one.

So let's just say, let's indulge my psycho. Us, okay OK. Because I think we all have that. If you are creative mind, you're also thinking, huh?

Some day, fifteen years or now, there might be a scenario where I wish I had this right so let's say, I go, okay, I, um where are I onna, look for this first and I make a snap decision. This goes in my guest closet, right? And I ve a little rack in .

the basement. I know you. You didn't make a decision of.

you asked yourself .

a question that revealed your instinct of where you would look for IT first. Sorry.

but no, no, no. Great, great, great. If I needed the item, where would I look for IT first? And my instinct would be IT would be in the basement, in a little area i've created for extra stuff in case somebody needs to borrow something.

Okay, I don't know why .

I need this, but I had IT. So I would then go downstairs to the basement, to this place that has not been created yet. And I would put the the jacket there here.

if that's the place where you would look for at first, then you put in there. But if there is no thing there, like there is no place for IT, but there is a pilot, t other stuff, okay, not gonna ve that any worse. So what am I willing to get rid of in order to make room for this jacket? Often, which means something is leaving your house, right, so you are discovering. But often IT will help you realize, oh, wait, there's not actually a good place for this here. Or wait, i'm not willing to get rid of any of this stuff in order for this jacket to stay and IT will help you realize, oh, I could get .

to the time yeah, that's what i'm getting through all of this like i'm realizing this process helps you deal with yourself.

But if you don't take IT their nail, you're living in this land of hypotheses. Sea are still thinking .

about the damn jacket right now.

You're like, oh, oh, i'm going to a put IT down there. Yeah, i'll make a space down. Yes, yes. But you're not dealing with the reality of the actual space.

You're not dealing with the reality of if I take IT down to the bus and then I realized this, but is fully spiders and all this stuff. And I don't want to leave a jacket down here, you like when I go there. IT forces me to that reality. So much of what I do, probably a hundred percent honestly, if what I do is a process that helps me accept reality, I reality about myself, reality about my stuff, reality about my space.

that I love this. Before we get into the final step, I just wants to point something out. You listening if you're starting to kind of roll your eyes at me about like the stupid jacket and the details that i'm going through and all this stuff i'm confessing, I want you to know i'm doing in on purpose because I want to make a very important point.

Everything that i'm telling you, I am thinking this is going on in my brain, but it's happening in nanoseconds and in my subconscious. But IT weighs on me emotionally. That's what she's talking about when he talks about these like value decisions.

And you do the same thing, whether it's the report that you keep shoving to the pile on the left because you don't want to deal with that and you're overwhelmed with everything else and all of this stuff is sitting on your desk or it's a spare change, this piling up in the cup holder of your car and others like dirty gumm wrappers and stuff in there two. And you keep thinking all I should clean IT out. But then this or the seeds, how about those receipts that are choking your wallet, but you're not dealing with IT because you're afraid you might lose something if you pull IT out.

We all do this. And i'm trying to make a point that not dealing with something doesn't mean IT goes away. In fact, there is the subconscious cognitive load that you're Carrying as you are subconsciously processing all the emotions related to just starting the process.

And this is important to talk about because we're not really talking about organza here and we're not really even talking about declaring. We're talking about how you can take proactive steps to feel calmer, to feel more in control, to feel more at peace and to help your brain not be so overwhelmed. That doesn't need to be processing all your concerns about the code or the change or the report.

And so when dana talks about clutter, don't stay on the surface because this goes way beyond stuff. I'm not crazy and neither or you, but when your brain is overwhelmed, what i'm learning is you and I need to start the declaring process in order to help IT. Full stop.

yeah. In fact, now that i'm becoming very clear about your process in the connection to the connected load, i'm starting to see things in the space right now here in our office that are pure cluster that have emotional weight to them and they need to leave. And i'm explain one of them right now and it's gonna and ridiculous.

But as I explained this example, I want you to look around where you are, and I want you to let your mind spot something that you know needs to go. It's like stupid. You put IT in some me.

You made IT look nice, but you have a touched IT in a decade. I'll i'll tell you your mind is, hey, Jessie, could you grab me that main jar over there on our catty, the one of the color pencils and IT? great.

Thank you. So i'm holding amazing genre here. And in this message are our water color pencils that Christ's mother gave to one of our kids ten years ago for Christmas.

I ve never used once, but here they are, sitting in a beautiful place in jar, because i've freking organized them. I've put them in a container to make them look pretty. I don't know why figured matters will keep in the office in case we have spare time and the team would like to do a little arts and grass project.

I actually move these from our house outside of boss and and brought them here. This is crazy, but you know what my brain is? sing.

But when J, J. Gave him to the kids, he said, now, kids, these are real art supplies, their expensive. Make sure you take care of them.

Did they take care of them? no. But now here I am, organizing them in a jar. We need to get rid of them.

There is something in your space right now that I want you to do the thresh hold test. Look around something that may be you ve organized or a pile that you keep ignoring. And you're going to notice your brain is now going to start to spend. That's that cognitive load i'm talking about. And what day is teaching all of us is that every single day, throughout the day, when you notice this kind of stuff, you can empower yourself to make the space Better, to remove things that you don't need to declare, so that you create space for peace, for focus, so that you also create space, so that the things you actually love and you have space. This is honestly so simple, but it's really life changing the way that you've explained this today day, wow, how do you stop bringing new stuff into your home so you .

know how when you get sick from some kind of a food and then you never want to eat that food .

again uh huh?

It's because you had a negative experience with IT. That's the beauty of declaring there's a big difference in what you see at the store or the garage sale. You'll start to see you as future clutter and IT will naturally keep you from bringing things into your house because of the pain and just a physical effort that you've put out coing.

i'd love to just go to a question from a listener, and we got this question from a tone of people. Hi man, it's terrace. What do you do if your spouse is a sloppy person, but you or not? I feel like I am constantly trying to organize our house and keep IT clean.

But my husband has such a difficult time keeping IT that way I am constantly picking up after him. Anyone that comes over knows my side of the room versus his side. We are childless by choice, but sometimes I feel like I, A house full of them, help.

Thank you dinner. Yes, please help us because I am her husband. Crisis cluster threshold is higher than mine. He is always picking up after me, and it's frustrated for him because he is often said, that makes me feel like you think i'm you're made. How do you handle this conflict between an organized person and somebody who has a lower thresh hold?

The first thing I would do is tell story about, uh, my husband. He was very nice and sweet about IT, but he just said, he said, I hope you will take is the wrong way. But i've realized that there.

It's like there actually is something wrong with you. And I was so happy that he said that to me, because what he was saying was because he went on to say, i've realized you don't do this on purpose. This is not you are not refusing to close the cabinet doors.

You just literally don't notice whether they are open or closed. You are not putting something down thinking, oh, he will get rid of that later. You don't realize IT.

I've realized this is how your brain works. And I was like, thank you exactly. IT comes down to that. Colors are sold. And remember, you're probably not going to help the other person do Better in these types of things by organizing you're gonna help them by declaring even some of your own like stuff in that common area.

So do you recommend that a couple do that together to start in the common space? So you, arn T, I recommend .

ever is listening to me. You're the one who cares enough to be, know, listening to this powders, ast, right now. And so you go ahead and deal with your own stuff, like, don't start with the other person's stuff. That is a recipe for disaster and get their stuff is more obviously clutter, right? But start with your own stuff first. And neutral staff, invisible spaces as you do that and your family starts to see, is so much easier to live in our house with less stuff than other people start to get on board their view of stuff and clutter stars to .

change for anybody listening. Can you just let them know a little bit about the most tional aspect of trying to let go of stuff and going through the process of declare dering?

yeah. So my space process, specifically hermes starlink, does not use emotions to the clutter because I was so emotionally attached to my stuff, either because IT represented who I thought I was going to be someday, or who I had been in the past, or know just experimental things that people have given me. As you start with these things and you make visible progress before you've ever even dealt with anything that has a motion attached to IT is you see the progress that you are making and you realize, oh, wow, open space less stuff changes my house. By the time you get to more emotional stuff looks different to you.

right? Oh, that's great. Well, you've changed my life day that we have loved having. You are on the podcast. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I can't wait to hear how you put everything you just learned to use to create a Better life and in case nobody else tells you, i'm going to tell you, I love you, especially you slobs out there, you people who can't get your ship together like me, you bathroom counter clutters, I see you. You're mind people and for you, if you're the B, D, E, nick, I love you too. Please use today's episode to be kinder to yourself, to declare ter and to go create a Better life already. I'll see in a few days.

Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. IT is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.

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