How To Declutter Your Home: 5 Tips That Actually Work
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Hey, each friend male and welcome to the male robbin's podcast. I to tell you something you may not know about me, I am a slob. I mean, it's almost embarrassing and I would rather not talk about, but the time has come for me and you to face issue had if you have people coming over any time soon and you would rather they not give us the welcome mat or if you just have part of your house permanent, like the bathroom doors or the longer room, there are hidden disaster. Shut the door, Chris.

You know, when the companies could sit right next to me right now, because you're not alone and you are in the right place, you and I ve got to talk about clutter. Because clutter ways you down mentally and physically. I just think about IT.

When you walk into a room, this pack with stuff, when you open up a draw and you can find where you're looking for, your brain feels IT. You maybe in your car, look at old sota s or tissues that left the day before. This was me this morning.

I defines my cm. How long of those have spent in the back seat or you maybe in the house or office looking at a clock counter or kitchen? Just take a second to notice.

Isn't that clutton weighing you down? I'm here to tell you, is not only weigh you down, it's holding you back. No, you do not need to buy more storage means to hide the mass.

You don't need to take a trip to the big store to get to organized or color code anything. So cleaning up your act, you can take back your home and your life with a few simple declaration ing steps that actually work in real life for real people like you. and.

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H friend, male, and welcome to the mall Robin's podcast. I am so excited that you're here. I just love this topic. I specially love this topic for right now based on the fact that the holidays are common up like a driver that is right your ear and right now on the take on your, on your the back of the car, whether the heck that's called, well, first of our surprise starts and say it's an honor to spend some time with you and to be together. And if your brand new, welcome to the male rob's forecasts family.

The fact that you hit play on this episode that tells me some IT tells me you value your time and yeah, hate the clutter, right? IT tells me that you want simple ways to clean up your act. You'd like to be proud to your house.

You'd like to be proud to your counters. And me, when you like counters that are sweet, I clean. I know I would. And I also know that you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life.

And one of the Simon est ways to improve your life, and this is actually really important, is to improve the space around you. Your environment matters IT like, sends these cues to your eyes, to your nervous system. And the space around me, in my home and my studio, in my car, I mean, I could be described as as i'm looking around.

There are balloons in the corner in the office. There are stacks of let them books and manuscripts that are almost a year old lying around. There is a box sitting next to the printer that has some page switcher on top of any who the heck the switcher there is a hair scrape I I mean bar, I think god, i'm not on video right now, but here's something you didn't do in to hear about my cluster.

You tune in to hear how you can change your life by getting control of your cutters. Because mess isn't just physical. The mess around you creates a mess in your mind, clutter in your physical space, whether it's close, lying on the floor of your closet or piled on top of the longer room, or it's give on those doors, they're always in your bathroom where you go to pull IT open.

And there some two, the sutton in the back that you probably haven't seen in seven years, that is poking up and jam in the door open like that. This stuff clutters your mind and IT makes IT harder to focus and harder to feel more in control. Well, what if I told you there is a simple way to only clean up your house, you, for all your relatives, come for the holidays, but to break free from this unnecessary overwhelm?

Well, on today's conversation, you are not going to flip the script on what declaring really means because declaring isn't really about tighten up your space. It's about unlocking a new way to feel clear and peaceful and more and control their life. And IT doesn't require you to reorganize your closet or to get more storage ments or to color code your book cases or to make your pantry look like it's an instagram post.

Our expert today is a woman named dinner k White, and he is a hero, two millions of people, because he is going to show you how the act of getting rid of stuff is the key to declaring your thoughts, reducing your stress and making space for what really matters. And what he said made me realized. He said, meal you have, declaring and organizing all wrong.

See, for me personally, every time I would try to get organized, you know, I would do. I just think about times in your life like I organza I, I gotta organize my, my test space at home. Oh, I got to organize.

My Better. I got to organize the pity. What do you do when you feel like I got to organize things? You literally get in the car or you get on the subway and you go to a store and you buy more things.

Does that make sense that in order to to organize your things, you buy more things? And the reason why you're trying to organize your things because you have too many things. In fact, I was on the road because I ve been on a road to lot promoting letham theory book.

And do you ever have this feeling like where you go on a trip and you spend all this time packing only to open up your suitcase and you go, I hate everything that I packed. I early packed for a week, and I packed exercise clothes, two peers of genes, three pairs underwear. I'm gone for seven days.

I don't know how the math works on that mail. Even if I turn inside out, i'm not gonna seven days with three pairs of underwear. I didn't packed abba.

I packed ten t shirts. Like, that's what I took out a trip, you guys. And I saw I not only have too much stuff, I got the wrong stuff.

Let me tell you what I used to do when I would come home after a trip. Having packed all the wrong things, I still do that. That's the A, D, H, D.

But i'm going to tell you what I don't do anymore. So they told me I would roll in from a trip. This ever happened? you? I don't know about the only one used to this, but holy cut, this was like clock work.

What would happen? I would roll on in and I would roll my suitcase in, in my bedroom. And what I put my, no, why would I want to do that when I can crack my suitcase open late on the floor?

Now, if IT on packet and then walk into my house, go, you know, I think I should organize this. I think right now, what I should do is I should organize my entire closet. What they know why is going to says, get rid of things.

And look, this is not going to be an episode about holding. You don't have to pull up a dumper into your front yard. You don't have to make fifty five trips to the town dump.

This is not what her philosophy is. You are going to love what dana White is going to teach. You see, once I saw the difference between organizing, which is just making your crap look pretty, and actually truly declare IT transformed how I managed my stuff.

And IT helped me let go of the overwhelm that I felt every time I walked into the modern, which was always a disaster, always. So was my bathroom, by the way. So were the kitchen counters.

And I started to realize, wait minute. Declaring is not about being perfect. It's not about the right storage solutions. It's about clearing space to create a calm, focused mind. I mean, this is a mind blowing conversation army.

When I first met day OK wait, I, I, I, I could barely talk as my mouth was on the floor. And like, i've never thought about my life this way. I ve never thought about the things that I have this way SHE made me realize how much time and energy I waste, moving things that I don't even use from one place to another.

It's like insane what you're about to learn. And I really want you to take a good, hard look in the mirror and truly be honest with yourself, about your relationship with your stuff, because you are about to meet a four time best selling author, including the best in book. Declaring at the speed life by dancy y da is a speaker SHE is crazy viral on youtube.

She's the creator of the no mass declaring process. So she's gna walk you through her powerful declaring approach that will help you finally get stuck. And I realize and tell you these stories are like, clearly I didn't work.

And I would say after learning everything that you're about to learn, I went from a house where everywhere room had color to a house where I would say thirty percent of the spaces have clutter, which is unbelievable. And more importantly, when I walk into the kitchen, which is kind of my safe space, that's where i'd like to see the clean counters. It's like, and anybody else like that, your domain don't screw with the kitchen.

You can put your crap in another place, but don't walk in Christopher Robins and put your cheese. I made your keys, your keys and your water bottle in front of my beautiful black pots that I bought at a, uh, antick place like one of those big it's called is that thing called it's in bradfield brimfield feel all my anti and kind of junk shoppers. You're gona know what that round top is another one big kind of, you know, I am so, so A D acted, it's, I have clutter of the mind, everybody.

But IT tries me bananas because I have set up this counter where you walk into the kitchen and you see these beautiful three antique pots, and the gorgeous and the under. This is nice painting, IT beautiful part of the counter. He hacks, rated and puts his freaking keys and his fricking water bottle, and the male and the dog treats and god knows what else right there.

And I might, could, well, I don't do anywhere. I see IT. I then clearly used let, let them, let them, let them put their stuff there, even like a hundred times for them not to do that.

And then let me use dana Whites strategies, and let me use the cluttering at the speed of life to create calmness and a sense of peace, and to remove things in a very simple way without a creating additional stress or additional piles. When SHE shares with you the tool, you will come on. Now, if I tell you, I will change your life.

It'll change your relationship with the people you live with IT. It'll open your eyes to the magnificent distinction between organization and decline. And so if you're feeling buried alive by the clutter, this conversation is exactly what you need right now if you are bracing for the holidays because you have no idea how to pull the place together, and maybe you ever had friends over in years because you're embarrassed at the state of your apartment or your house, this is going to change life.

And since I first release this conversation and went crazy viral on youtube, and so I thought, this is the perfect thing for me to give to you as a gift. And by the way, if you heard this, like a year a half ago, i'm going to buy some. You need to heard again.

You cannot hear this conversation enough when I listen to IT again recently. And I H, oh my gosh, this is incredible. This is absolutely incredible.

wow. And now i'm looking around at that bage sweat shirt, I know what to do with that. And that cardboard box, I know where to take.

IT h, in those in, I know exactly what to do with those. And guess what, bought a being bought a bomb, but i'm going to clear out the space who is going to clear out my mind. And it's gonna absolutely no time at all. I will not allow you to keep people from coming to your house or not crossing the thresh holds over your welcome mat. Because you're afraid of what they're going to think about your mess.

And I refuse to allow you to continue to beat yourself up over the state of things or to continue to walk into your closet or your kitchen or your bedroom or where your desk is at work and throw your hands in theirs and just feel like I never need get together. Yes, you are going to get together. Yes, you can have a cloud fly for that.

I can't even say the word is so exciting. Yes, you can have a clutter free life. You can and you will, because dick White is here to help you do that.

Dana, why i'm so excited you're here. Thanks for having me on dana. When you've got a person like me who's literally a disaster in certain places in our home just overwhelmed 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 perfection that I want and where I am right now?

Here's the reality, organizing into covering 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 organized because that logically makes sense, right? Yes, but the problem was I would buy a bunch 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 my color. So I never made a real impact on my house. I was at such a rot 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 at 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, get declaring changed everything in my home. So the beauty of realizing that organizing into covering are not the same thing and that you can justice cutters and that justice cuttery will change everything is just starting to get step at your house.

So are you saying 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 detter. Is that what you're saying?

Yes, you need to decoder. Deterrent 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 ve gotten rid of all that extra stuff so that when I open 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 to .

get 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'm laughing .

because I thought the solution to my bathroom sink problem was to go to warm water target and buy a bunch of bins to put all the stuff that on my counter in. Why doesn't IT work for me to go binder up about the containers for this stuff?

Everyone has a clutter threshhold. It's the amount of stuff that you personnel to keep in your control is the reason why you and your friend can go shopping together by the exact same thing. SHE puts IT in her house.

IT looks like a magazine you put in your house IT looks like at her store, right? Like that 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 in things that no one else sees value and right? Like that's a great quality except that I was bringing you into my house and I .

couldn't handle IT. 嗯， IT was not .

possible for me to keep my house under control with amount of stuff that I had in my house. So it's not it's not esthetics some people hear colors are like, oh yeah, this story i'm talking 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. It's 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, every 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 org ization, I think that looks pretty. I just have to get the bins that line up and the labelle that has the nice faught 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 baskets 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 unorganized 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 tell you this though, 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 clear threshold with 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 versus declaring organizing is just moving everything that already have around to different places. And the problem is that you are organizing because you feel overwhelmed by your stuff.

So no amount of baskets or containers will take that overwhelm away because you have too much stuff. 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 less if you have the list of the compile, 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 baskets and 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 hang 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 were 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 into my house.

So here's my little my scenario that I give, let's say, my friend, whose kids were the same as mine, you know, her little craft area looked amazing. Mine was this huge pile disaster spilling out of the cabinet. K, and I would look and say, oh, SHE has her crayons and a red bucket.

Yes, that's the difference between her and me, right? Like SHE has 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 dump crayons in there. And I would realize, O, I still got seven hundred croons lept cover. Why does this not work for me? The way that works for her.

So I will go out and buy two more red buckets, and then I would put the rest of my Carry ons and those red buckets I go to put the red butts on the shelf, and my shelf wouldn't fit three red buckets. 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, well, I don't have any room for ourselves, obviously need to do house, and we can afford to do house right now. So I am doomed to be disorganised. That is just how my brain worked.

I just thought that if I 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, right? Like, which doesn't make sense, but I might make sense.

yes. So when I was working, I was talking to myself and I was saying, container. And I went, container, contain, like the word contain, 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 bounder.

And I realize, 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 gna fit everything, but it's the boundary. So i'm 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 crayons oh, okay, before I would pick up every single crown and be like wall. I mean, I know it's broken, but broken crayon steel color, right? H, yes.

right.

So I would make all these. And IT took forever for me to analyze every single one and said, is just, i'm going to put my favorite ones in first, and i'm going to let the container make the hard decision for me. well.

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 shows 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 doesn have space. I can keep anything, but I can't 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 free.

Wow, that's obvious. 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 to do is can you walk us through your five step process that we go through when we d clutter? And I want to get really granular ous.

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

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Welcome back. I melt Robins and i'm here with dinner 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 da.

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 decode dering 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 this is easier to live in a space with less stuff. okay?

Because here's the thing, so many times when we get that desire to the cotton, we go to the pantry, we go to the lining closet, we go to the top shelf, the mater region 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 in blab ba in this random closet. And then at the end of the day, your husband, you know, is like, so what you do today and you're like, oh, I have been organizing all day and I don't know about you, i'm not to project this on you, but in my experience, i've had that exact scenario happen and my husband would be like, really, oh, okay. Well, what is more defeating than that, right? 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, then you see the progress that you're making and you inspire yourself to keep going because you're like, oh, wow, that looks good. I may not have noticed when I was messy. Bd, I notice 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 go. And no, I have steps. Okay, right? So the first step is trash.

Grab a black trash bag or whatever. You have available idea, if it's just because then you can see what you just put inside of IT. You can see what you're putting inside.

Can I just something?

Yes.

what was embarrass to tell you this? So oakly, P, R. Eighteen year old sun claimed his room sunday, okay. And he put all kinds of clothes in a bag that no longer freedom, so we could donate them.

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

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

no 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 throwing out?

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

IT is a 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.

okay. 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 crash put in the bag, that's trash put in bag IT starts the movement, okay? Like 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 definitely than there was before. Can but also helps my brain start to adjust 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 decision 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 time.

I love that you're breaking IT down because this was like a real thing that we struggle with. Like, I see a pile in your right. I can become paralyzed because I think there might be something expensive or important in 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 saying is I just wanted to be pretty change your mindset to.

i'm going to make this space Better.

嗯， that means I can literally throw away two pieces of trash, get distracted, step away, step away. Because I just don't wanted 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 right. Sorry, that was a little pretty break.

Now I think 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 immediately. 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 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 stick 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 sensor the word donate on the outside of a cute wooden box like that's not what we're doing, right?

Because that's organza .

and IT just sets myself up to have to go back through that box again.

right? So you're basically just saying no eva box that's already gonna get donated to write 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 to reuse got IT.

Now when you do this, do you recommend that you just take that box and just put IT 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. Yes, that is ready to be taken wherever he 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 will be right back with more amazing advice from da White.

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Welcome back. I mell 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 obvious 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 discovering questions come in. When I started this, I had seen less 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.

You know? Yes, besides, those questions generally let my brain spin out, right? Like, like, do I love IT? Well, yeah, I love all this stuff you like, why would I have you in my else? But I love IT, right? 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 one. So the first question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for IT first OK, 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 wood is the key word. That means, if I needed my headphones, where would I .

look for them first?

IT is literally the first draw or cabinet that I would open. Even if I had no confidence, they would be there. He is because something that needs a home, right, like the whole, a place for everything and everything in its place that organized ed 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 IT 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 to do 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 her yeah and think, okay well, SHE, her house was always great, so I should put mine in the place yeah but but how many people say as a joke or there's a facebook name 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 are supposed to go, right? But in my family, whenever somebody is looking perfect, all clippers, they look at this. Jang ja, 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 nail clipper, so I just look at Chris top or of the bathroom that's really puts .

that's great. If that's where you look first, that's where they should be. But then there's the 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, and and those neat little piles where I had totally made all these decisions, those neat little piles now more into one big pile outside the space that I was initially to colleran. So my house looks worse than I did before.

Yes, people get all worked up over this like they are like, no, but that's 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, OK. This is the stuff that goes .

to the kids room.

This goes to this. 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.

Yes, but that's how things work at an ideal world where I don't get distracted in the midst of a project I don't stop pathway through, nobody starts bleeding, right? Like I just that's the ideal world. I don't live in an ideal world, okay? So I decided, I mean 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, and the spaces only Better. IT is never worse.

I have never created bigger mess. I'm taking one night at a time, making a final decision on IT, and I acting on that final decision. So it's either gone in the trash bag is 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 look 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 wow. And then i'll say just try IT and then they will try IT and then they will email me and said, I cannot believe the difference. I cannot believe I have actually made a real problem 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 hammer wheel of making piles and running things around and calling apart stuff. And holy smokes, this is revolutionary. I get very paralyzed when I have an item, and i've spent a lot of money for IT or somebodies given IT to me or what or I might needed 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 the stuff into my house because I saw the value in the 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 I would put off to cuttery because I was like, I don't have IT in me to make those kind of decisions today, right? Like, so instead I say, OK, 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 I am going to do is i'm gonna not leave that space and he worse.

And am I say what I 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 space that I need for this item? And so IT helps me, instead of saying, does this thing have value? 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. Next.

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, oakley 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 vermont, people visit. Should I hold onto this in case somebody visits and they didn't pack a jacket? Maybe this would fit me and I would fit this.

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 this item, where where I look for IT, i'm installed 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 guest who forgot close the you need when you visit vermont. What is going on?

Well, okay, is this north just described? 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. Okay, so so I, me, 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 statelier, whatever.

If I look at the item in my ground, would I look for this first? And my answer is, 啊， you know, like, okay, then I ask myself the question, if I needed this item, would IT ever occur to me that I already had one OK? 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 went. 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 and get to fight of my else.

Well, so I had to make this hard calls and say, i'm going, to 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 said, hey, here's six sweatshirts. Can you forgot your coat, right? Yeah or 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 monistic 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 clearing process, if 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 music at seven fifteen in the morning. There's now a giant mess 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 the same item, where what I look for this first, and if the answers the modern, I walk to the modern 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 still needed this item, would I ever occur to be that I already had one?

If I needed, decide what would accured already? And the other, just 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 psychosis. Okay, okay, 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 o where I wish I had this right let's say I go OK I, um where were I? Onna, look for this first and I make a snap decision. This goes in my guest closet, right? And I have a little rack in .

the basement and 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.

it's like, no, no, no. Great, great, great. If I needed a 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 is not been created yet. And I would put the the jacket there.

yes, if that's the place where you would look for at first, then you put IT there. But if there is no thing there, like there's no place for IT, but there's a pilot t other stuff, okay, not gone to leave that any worse. So what am I willing to get rid of in order to make room for this jacket.

which often .

which means something is leaving your house, right, so you are recovering, 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 have got to this yeah, that's what i'm getting through all of this like, i'm realizing this process helps you deal with yourself, yes.

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, i'm GTA 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 spot, and then I realized this spot is fully spiders and all this stuff, and I don't wanted leave a jacket down here, you know, like when I go there IT forces me into that reality. So much of what I do, probably one hundred percent honestly, if what I do is just 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 want 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, this stuff sitting on your desk or is a spare change this piling up in the cup holder of your car and now there's like dirty gummer, rappers and stuff in there two.

And you keep thinking all I should clean IT out, but then this or the sets, 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 that 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 organization here and were not really even talking about declaring.

We're talking about how you can take proactive steps to feel common, 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 coat 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 are you, but when your brain is overwhelmed, what i'm learning is you and I need to start the declaration ing process in order to help IT full stop. 嗯， in fact, now that i'm becoming very clear about your process in the connection to the cogniac load, i'm starting to see things in the space right now here in our office that are pure clutter that have emotional weight to them and they need to leave. And i'm an explain one of them right now.

It's going to sound ridiculous. But as I explain 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 tell you my mind is, hey, Jessie, could you grab me that may jar over there on our catty, the one of the colored pencils and IT? great.

Thank you. So i'm holding amazing rate here. And in this messenger, our water color pencils that Christ's mother gave to one of our kids ten years ago for Christmas, i've never use them once, but here they are, sitting in a beautiful mace and jar because i've freking organized them.

I've put them in a container and look pretty. I don't know why figured mines 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 boston 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 dan 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 d clutters. 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 explain this today. Da, 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 went to eat food again.

uh.

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 cutter 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 discovery.

I'd love to just go to a question from a listener, and we got this question from a ton of people. Hi, is there? What do you do if your spouse is a sloppy person, but you're not?

I feel like I am constantly trying to organize our house and keep a 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. Da.

yes.

please help us because I am her husband. Chris s, clutter threshold is higher than mine. He is always picking up after me, and it's frustrating 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 my husband. He was very nice and sweet about IT, but he just said, he said, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but i've a realized that there it's like they're 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're open or closed. You are not putting something down thinking, oh, he will get rid of that later. You don't realize that i've realized this is how your brain works. And I was like, thank you exactly IT comes down to that clutter or hold. 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 that you both are .

liable to start? I recommend that whoever is listening to me, you're the one who cares enough to be know, listening to this podcast right now. And so you go ahead in, deal with your own stuff, like don't start with the other persons 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 there. People start to get on board their view of stuff, and cutter starts .

to change for anybody listening. Can you just let them know a little bit about the emotional aspect of trying to let go of stuff and going through the process of declaring.

yeah, so my spice step process specifically herbaceous lily, does not use emotions um to declare because I was so emotionally attached to my stuff either because IT represented who I thought I was gna be someday or who I had been in the past or know just sentimental things that people have given me. As you start with these things and you make visible progress before you've ever even dealt t with anything that has a motion attached to IT is you see the progress that you're making and you realize, oh wow, open space less staff changes my house by the time you get to more emotional stuff, IT looks different to you.

right? Oh, that's great. Well, you've changed my life.

dana. We have loved having you 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 bd neat 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.

You're ready. Okay, can you hear me? Oh, no, I can hear.

Okay, great. Okay, here we go. We're roan. Oh, i'm an air, my dirty laundry.

We're onna get dirty. No, is a dirty clutters. No, i'm coming.

Oh, nice. Okay, okay, here we go. Got IT. Ca.

where I won't look at you. Jessie.

keep standing back. They are going like this to make. I'm looking.

God, I don't know. OK, alright, okay. fabulous. perfect.

You're awesome. Thank you very much for doing that. Thank you. Thank you all.

Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue per. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers right? And what I need to read you.

This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licence therapies, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode stitcher. Celebrity cruise is black friday event is so good, you're onna need a bigger bucket list, explore the caribbean, europe or alaska was seventy five percent off your second guess plus bonus savings book today and see why nothing comes close to celebrity cruises. This is celebrity 点 com， call one eight hundred celebrity or contact your travel advisor offer applies to select sAilings savings amount varies by state room category, other terms supply this is celebrity.

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