Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Answering your Organizing Questions | Clutterbug Podcast # 209

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

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Are you ready for the answers to all your most burning organization questions? That's what we're doing in today's podcast. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. So I asked for your help and you guys delivered. I put out a post asking for just questions that you want answered to, your most pressing organization questions. And I'm going to read some of those now and give you answers. This is fun.

This is a fun little podcast. Hopefully we can do more of these in the future so that you as community members really feel heard and really feel like you're getting the help you're looking for. As you're listening to this podcast, I hope you take action on your home, that you move the needle forward, that you do something today in this short amount of time together that's going to make you proud. So that when you wake up tomorrow morning, you're so thankful. that you took action the day before. This is a gift. This is a gift to tomorrow you. So what are you going to do?

Are you going to do the dishes? Are you going to catch up on laundry? Are you going to declutter and get things out of your house or tidy? Let's take real action while we learn a little bit about organizing and decluttering and just some random life stuff. Okay? Let's jump in with Josie A. Pearl who says, What do you do with nice stuff you are ready to part with when you have no storage space? I have tried to give it away, but nobody wants it. Or they don't show up and then you end up with bags and boxes lined up in your hall. The longer it's there, the more you second guess your decision. So it's best for you to just get it out ASAP.

Is it okay to just throw it away? I love this question so much for a couple of reasons. one, I feel like this is so relatable. And two, this is something that we're kind of dealing with with a loved one in our own personal life. So right off the bat, it's okay to throw it out. It's okay to throw good stuff in the trash. I have to repeat that. It's okay to throw good things in a black trash bag and just put it in the trash. And this is because we only have so much capacity to do so many things in a day and arranging people to come and pick up your donations or dropping off your donations and loading your car and packing things up. And all of this, if this feels overwhelming

and it is stopping you from making the progress of getting things out of your house, you don't have the capacity to do it like that right now because you're drowning, because you're overwhelmed. And it's okay to take a shortcut and give yourself some grace and just get it out so that tomorrow you can be better so that when your house is under control in the future, you can be more mindful not only of how you declutter things and how you donate things, but what's coming in. But right now we're playing catch up. You're trying to make a huge difference in your life and transform your home. You can't be slow and dealing in the weeds with all the little things and the logistics of how things are leaving. So you absolutely have

permission to throw things in the trash. And if that's like, I can't do that, it's okay. You know what? You can post on Facebook that it's free. It's at the curb. Come and get it. First come, first serve, and be done. And if people come and take it, put a free sign with paper and tape it, leave it in the front yard right by where the garbage goes. If it's not gone by garbage day, the garbage men will take it. So at least you're giving like the opportunity. Absolutely, you can load it into your car and drop it to Goodwill or Value Village and they'll help you unload your car. But that's a lot. It's a lot of effort. It's a lot of moving. If you don't have the capability for whatever reason. And this isn't about laziness. This is about overwhelm. Okay. You do what you got to do. And if it's the trash,

it's the trash. And why I really loved this question. And I highlighted it too was it's really, I love how you say like nobody wants it. You try to give it away and nobody wants it. So you end up holding on to it because this is so relatable. My in-laws, my mother-in-law just retired. And my father-in-law's been retired for a long time. And we stopped by there the other day. And they've been trying to get rid of workout equipment for years. There's only the two of them who live in the home. They have a three bedroom home plus a bedroom in the basement, plus a full storage room, tons of closet space, but the whole house is full. And they aren't using this workout equipment and they've been wanting to get rid of it forever. And so I was there and I asked for their bench because I'm getting buff,

you know, going to become a firefighter. That's another story. The point is, I asked for the bench. And my father-in-law was so excited. He was like, take this and take this bar and take these weights. I've been trying to get rid of these for years. Please take them, take them, take them. And he wanted to give it all to me. He would have been happy if I loaded up the truck with all his workout things. And that really struck me how desperate, first of all, how desperate he is to get rid of it. But to him saying, I've been trying to get rid of this for years. Because what he really means, by that is I've been trying to find a person that I know who will take it. For some reason, there's a mental block there. Why can't a stranger take it? Why can't you post it for free on

Facebook and give it to anybody who would really love it? Why can't you drop it off at goodwill or value village? Because for some reason, in a lot of us, there is this mental block that we want to only share it with friends and family. Even if we don't want it in our house, even if it's like causing us stress and anxiety and headache, we want to know exactly who it's going to. We want to approve of that person and how they're going to use it. And while I'm leaving, they know I declutter all the time. My mother-in-law said, now remember, if you get rid of that in the next few years, let us know and we'll take it back. They don't want it. They don't want it. They just don't want it to be wasted. This, friends, when I say it out loud and you're hearing this,

they don't want it in their house. They wish someone would take it that they know. But the idea of just giving it to a stranger feels wrong. It's weird. It's a weird mindset to have, but it's a common mindset to have. So I want you to really think about that and say, is this a holdup for you? Because if your daughter, sister, best friend, aunt neighbor came to you and said, I would love that XYZ, whatever piece of excess clutter you have in your house, please can I have it? I know you would happily give it to them and be equally happy that it's leaving your house. But you can feel that way about gifting this to a stranger too. The only difference is your mindset. So open your horizons a little bit maybe and see if this is really a roadblock for you. And if it is,

it's time to kick it down because it doesn't make any sense at all. Okay. Deanna says, or Dionne, I don't know how to say your name. I'm so sorry. What is the best way to organize the deep awkward cabinets above the refrigerator so you can actually get to the items easily? Okay, anytime you have a deep cabinet or a really tall cabinet that, it's kind of hard and awkward to get to, the solution's pretty much the same. And that is using a light container within that cabinet that you're able to slide out and pull down, especially if it's high, one with a handle is really nice because you can just reach up and grab and pull the whole thing down. So you're not wasting anything at the back. So an inexpensive basket or a plastic bin,

again, especially one with a hanger, means you can store things up there. And a good thing to store above the fridge are light things like extra paper towels or paper plates, napkins, plastic cutlery, things you use for entertaining and party type things, nice and light bowls, like salad bowls, entertaining bowls, platters. So think things you don't use all the time, things that aren't crazy heavy and things that you can contain or that are large. So you can just reach up and grab it and pull it down. And you don't have a lot of little small things at the back getting lost. This is the secret for deep cabinets too, using a tray or using a basket. So you can pull it out and get to all the stuff in the back without having to take anything out in the front. You know,

like move stuff. We don't want to move stuff. Organization is about being a little. lazy. Okay. Virginia, how do I help an aging parent declutter? My dad turns 80 this year, still lives in our childhood split home. It's filled with things like beds and desks and memorabilia and decor, especially from when your mom was still alive. He has no intention of moving or getting rid of anything, even though he recognizes that these items are no use to him or the kids. you feel it's disrespectful to declutter behind his back, which it is. But you also feel it's disrespectful to, for him, like to you, for him to wait to get rid of things until after he passes. Any tips? Yeah. So basically what she's saying is as he gets older, the burden of everything he

keeps in his home now falls onto his children when he passes. And that's not really fair to anyone. So Virginia, I have two bits of advice for you. The first is, honestly, I would look in your area to see if you have any auction dealers. A lot of the times when somebody passes away, there are businesses in the town that will go in, take everything out, sell the entire contents of the home at an auction and then give the family a portion of the money that they get. This is so nice. We have one of these in the town that I live in because, They're basically like estate sales, but they take care of everything for you. Now, they do keep a lot of the money, but they do all of the work, which is really, really nice. So I would look into this because Virginia, if you can find somebody who could do this right after he passes, you don't have to worry about the burden because it doesn't really matter what he does with the stuff right now. It's all going to be taken care of by somebody other than you when he passes. So you can kind of breathe a little easier. If you don't have that type of kind of business in your town, that changes things. Because

you're right, it's going to fall on you to take care of things. So you can be really honest with your dad. And I guarantee, because this happens with a lot of people, we just talked about this is one of the first tip. If you came to your dad and said, hey, I'm moving and I need a bunch of furniture. Is it okay if I take all the extra that you're not using and put it to my new home? Your dad would be like, heck yeah, you can have it because he wants to know it's going to a good home. So what if you find that good home for your dad now? What if you find a charity that's furnishing homes for families that lost everything in a fire? Or you reach out to the women's center and see if they have somebody who's starting over again and needs new furniture or I mean

there's there's so many different social programs who are looking for free furniture that maybe you can find out if that's something you know that could be helpful and then say to your dad hey I heard about somebody who's really in need of furniture for their home those desks that you have that bed that sofa, that extra stuff would really be helpful to them. Is that something you're open to sharing for this really good cause? And I'm sure your dad would be like, heck freaking yeah. I think the idea sometimes of it just going, who knows where possibly in the trash being wasted, is what really holds people back.

So give him the solution, make it easy for him to let go, by making sure that he has a vision of how it's going to be used and loved. S, okay, I'm going to butcher this. SF 9345 says, how do you figure out the best system for you? I've cleaned different areas so many times and it becomes a mess, which means I need different system. And or keeping up with maintenance once you have an area cleaned and decluttered. Yeah, it's really hard to.

know the difference between is this system not working for me or am I just not having the right routine to make this system work? And so let's talk about what it kind of looks like tidying wise and what we should be doing daily and what we should be doing weekly and what we should be doing monthly because that's going to kind of tell you if your system is working or not. your hot spots, which means like your entrance way, they probably the top of your, like maybe kitchen table, your kitchen counters. If every single day you're not tidying them, that's, it doesn't matter what system you're using, they're going to get messy. That's a hot spot. Maybe also your bathroom counter or the top of your dresser. Like every home has different spots where you just naturally put things

down throughout the day, those are your hotspots. If you are tidying them every day and you still can't keep up on it, like it's really hard to put the stuff away every day, just those small little hotspots, you're not using the right system. If it takes you, basically, if it takes you more than five minutes, you're probably not using the right system. That being said, there are a lot of spots that you only do kind of like weekly or biweekly or even monthly, like tidying your pantry or your fridge or your dresser or your closet or kind of like those, you're still using them all the time, but they aren't drop zones in your home. That's a little bit different to know if that's the system or just like the frequency of use. I think the best way to kind of know the difference is

to do three, five minute tidy up throughout the day. So set a little bit. So set a lot of alarms three times throughout the day to do five-minute tidy-ups of your hotspots. And if you notice a big difference after doing this for two or three days, you're like, okay, I'm staying on top of this. You have the right system. It's just the maintenance. That's the problem. But if you're doing these tidy-ups and you still find like you're, it's not really making a difference, that's when you know it's time to really evaluate and change the system. Probably means you're trying to be too detailed or it's hidden in your visual. So adapt for the way that you naturally organize. Teacher's pet, R.I says, I used to really enjoy when I did segments on the different types of clutter

bugs or those that needed micro, macro organizing tips, or out of sight, in view types of storage ideas. It was an eye-opening way of viewing clutter. You know, not your question, but along those lines, your biggest issue is creating working piles or in-view projects that you must put away when tidying, cleaning the house for company, or when other people come by like service workers. You feel you're forever searching through the stacks and piles. And on this topic, you have room where things go. You have like a whole room, like a junk drawer, but room size. It's overwhelming to begin with, organizing it because you tend to want to put each item in the correct place. So it can be a project that drags on forever. Any solutions. P.S. former preschool teacher with a ton of little arts,

crafts, themed lessons and projects. Thank you. Teachers pet, listen to me. You sound like a bee. What I'm hearing is you have a lot of things out visually all over the place to remind you of projects you want to finish or things you're working on. You spread. You like to spread your stuff. You probably have a lot of surfaces and a lot of clutter and a lot of excess. It doesn't really bother you, but you're very aware of it when somebody's coming over, right, and you get embarrassed. So then you just stack it all up and shove it places. That doesn't mean you're a ladybug. you're definitely a B. And I know that you're a B

because the visual stuff doesn't bother you on a day-to-day basis really, right? You're like, I don't mind seeing all my crap. But I also heard you say it takes forever to put the things away because you want to make sure everything's going in the correct place. Which, I mean, I want to make sure

everything goes in the right place too, but my right place and your right place, I can guarantee you're very different. I have a feeling you're very detailed and meticulous, and I have a feeling like you have way too much stuff. So what really is going on here is that you have more inventory than you could ever possibly manage. And because when you clean, because you're like someone's coming over and you have excess clutter and you shove it all in the room of doom, you probably forget what's in there. And you're rebuying. When you do need something, instead of searching the room for doom, you just order it.

you go to the store and you pick it up again. And that's compounding the issue with the excess of the clutter and the room of doom. The only way to dig out, teachers pet, listen to me, it is what it is, is letting go. And B's struggle to let go more than any other type, but that doesn't mean they don't, that they get to get out of it. That doesn't mean that's like, oh, it's hard so I don't have to do it. You can do hard things. no amount of organization, no amount of daily routine, no amount of buying the perfect system is going

to fix the problem of excess. The only way to do that is to fill trash bags with trash and bins with donations and get it out of your house forever. And the only way to do that is pick up a trash bag and look for things that can go. And honestly, I wouldn't recommend you looking in room of doom. I recommend you look in your living space. Start in your entrance way. It's the first thing you see when you come home, but it's the first thing that people see when they come in too. Do you have shoes you never wear? Coats that you just don't even really like. Old umbrellas. What can leave? Everything that leaves makes your life easier. And if you're at this point where you have an entire room of doom and it's so cluttered that you feel more,

mortified when somebody's coming over or you have to like move tons of stuff out of the way in order to clean surfaces, you have an extreme amount of excess, which doesn't mean two or three trash bags need to go. It means half the contents of your house has to leave. And I hate saying things like this, but but it is the reality of the situation. And I think if you have friends or family member that can help you overcome the anxiety and get started because it is a big task. That would be amazing. You can join Facebook groups where there's accountability buddies and like once a week, they all get together on a Zoom and they declutter together. You can hire a professional who can come in and who can help you, motivate you, inspire you, make the idea of decluttering that's so negative now

turn into a positive by helping you change your mindset and making it a really joyful experience because it can be. All of those are great ways of transforming your space so that you don't have to do this whole like stack and shove before people come over or before you can clean. And you don't feel like everything in your house is kind of a hunt and a maze to get what you need. Jetrip says your question is more personal, so she understands if I skip it. You are my ray of hope. I feel overwhelmed and struggle to even get the simplest tasks completed. You have a very simple three non-negotiable list, but you still find yourself paralyzed by the overwhelm and often fail even with those simple tasks. So your question is, what did you do? Is this even part of your story? What did I do to overcome this

paralyzing overwhelm and get it done? So yeah, I mean, there's lots of times still to this day that I feel really, really overwhelmed and paralyzed and I have a lot of anxiety about things. But in the beginning when my house was really, really cluttered and disorganized, I think I was mostly paralyzed because I didn't know where to start. Everything seemed like it was going to take so long to do. And I was always like overestimating the amount of time that I would think I don't want to spend six hours doing my dishes. This is crazy. I don't want to waste my entire day doing the dishes. And I'd get myself so worked up about it that I would just avoid doing the dishes. right? And then there would be days where I would work my butt off and spend like hours and

hours and kind of overdo it and not only do the dishes, but clean the whole kitchen and clean up the fridge. I'd be so sore and exhausted and overwhelmed that I wouldn't have the energy to do anything for the next week in my home. So it would just go right back to being bad. And then it would be like the cycle again. So how did. I overcome this and overcome this cycle? I really had to put boundaries on myself, put limits on myself, and have those non-negotiables. Like, I'm just going to do the dishes once a day, but I didn't have to do all the dishes all at once. So if you're feeling like this, if the dishes are one of your non-negotiable, what if you just filled the sink with hot soapy water

and soaked some of the dishes? What if you just did that? Not for the day, but for right now. now and leave and then go back to doing whatever you want to do that that is bringing you joy. And then later in the day, what if you just went in with a rag and just wipe them and then set them on a clean towel somewhere on the counter to kind of drip dry? That's okay. And then just walk away and come back later and maybe you put those dishes away and start another load to soak. That's okay.

you don't have to do it all at once. You can break this down into five-minute tiny projects and really celebrate those successes. Like, you got up and you did it and you started taking action. And this isn't, a non-negotiable isn't like clean the whole freaking kitchen from top to bottom. It's every day you're going to do the dishes. And that doesn't mean you go to bed with not even one dirty dish in the sink.

It means at some point in that day, all the dirty dishes were washed. And then that's it. That's awesome. And if that's all you can do at first is one non-negotiable, then start there. And then add in laundry, put away, put away one load a day. That's it. No big deal. I can put away one.

I don't have to catch up on all the laundry. I don't have to do 50 million loads of laundry. I only have to put away one load a day. That really helped me. I have to take a second and interrupt to thank today's podcast sponsor, Cozy Earth. A few years ago, I upgraded my just boring basic sheets to Cozy Earth award-winning bamboo sheet set. And I'm telling you, there's no going back because it feels like luxury. They're so soft.

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Lawrence says, what made you decide to get evaluated for ADHD? What was the deciding factor? I don't know. I think I suspected that I had ADHD for a really long time. I also suspected maybe it was bipolar, though I didn't have a lot of lows. I was hyper, very hyperactive. And I also did a lot of stupid things. And I still do a lot of stupid things. I got distracted easily. So I would drive away with my purse on top of my car or I'd lose my wallet multiple times or I would

just always doing like everyone in my life would make little comments of you're so weird. You're so annoying, you're so extra, you're so loud, you're so forgetful, you're so just flighty. So the narrative from everyone was like, there's something wrong with you. Constantly my entire life pointed out to me. And even as I got older and became like an organizing expert and I had a show on HDTV at the time, it had just started and I'm supposed to be this person who knows all of this stuff. I remember just being so emotional because I didn't know which pocket or which coat my keys were in. Did I put them in the purse? Because it's key fob, you know, was it in the purse? Was it here? Was it there? It was supposed to go here? Why can't I remember? What are I supposed to be doing right now? What's going on? What day is it? I have a meeting. Oh my gosh, I'm late for my doctor's appointment again, even though I set six alarms. What is wrong with me? Why can't I remember to pay that bill? Why can't I remember to not impulsively buy this stupid stuff? Why do I have to take my credit card off? of Amazon or else I'm going to buy whatever random thing I see on TikTok.

Like it was always just came down to like I knew something was wrong. And I just went to my doctor and I literally cried my eyeballs out. And that was it. Now the way he diagnosed me isn't a great way. We're just going to move on past that. But eventually I did see a psychiatrist and got a formal diagnosis. and I just, wow, it was so, it changed absolutely nothing about my life, but it also changed everything about my life because it changed the way I saw and thought

about myself. I no longer looked at myself as somebody who just didn't try hard enough, who didn't try to focus, didn't try to have more self-discipline, didn't try to be not so impulsive. I really thought my whole life that all these little traits that are obvious ADHD were just me not being strong enough and good enough to manage myself, to control myself. And so learning about ADHD gave me a lot of sympathy for myself. And I really forgave myself for all the mistakes that I made in the past and all the mistakes I'm going to make in the future and all the mistakes I'm making right now.

because guess what, I can't help it. There's nothing wrong with me. It's not that I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not working hard enough. I don't have enough self-discipline. My brain works differently, and I have attention deficit disorder, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, and I need medication, and I need different tools and coping strategies in order to run my life better.

That's okay. I wouldn't shame somebody who's a diabetic. for needing insulin because their pancreas doesn't work. So why the heck am I shaming myself? Because my brain doesn't work the way that other people's brain does. That's Bacodong's friends. Okay. L.Y. Tucker says, what are ways for a visual organizer to organize a small home without it looking too busy? This is hard, especially when you're lacking closet or storage space. So I feel you so hard on this because visual organizers mean that you don't, don't want to put everything out of sight. You have to have things out. But even if you weren't a

visual organizer, if you have a small home and not a lot of storage, where do you put things? You don't want to have wall-to-wall open shelving and like hooks everywhere and everything in your face, but you, on the other hand, definitely need storage. So a really good hack, whether you're a visual organizer or not, is to go ahead and go with open storage, go high, take advantage of that vertical height, do either floating shelves or bookcases, and then instead of having every spot just with things piled, go ahead and get yourself some solid containers that are all the same color. Or a few coordinating muted colors, natural woven baskets, things in white, things in black,

or a combination of grays, whites, blacks, or muted, don't have a lot of different things, try to go with all the same kind of colors and the same type of muted look, and then add labels to make it visual, big labels in a beautiful font that you like, all of them the same. And that's going to visually to your eye give the appearance of like it's going to make it feel invisible while still signaling to your brain. what things are and where they go. Because you need that. If you had solid bins that didn't have big labels,

you would forget you owned everything. But if you have bins that are labeled cords and cables, you're going to know your cords and cables are in there. But if they're all the same color or they're all the same tone and they're muted, it isn't going to feel like clutter. It's going to help your stuff feel really invisible until that's absolutely what I would do, whether you're visual or non-visual organizer, if you're a hidden organizer, you can probably skip the label thing because you'll probably remember, you know, what goes where.

But if you have other family members who are also using the space and their visual, why not add a label? A simple, beautiful label is not going to look like clutter. Sunshine says, what was your final straw? What clicked? That made you say, something has to change. I remember this very, very clearly. I was running a daycare. I had my own two girls, plus I had a bunch of daycare kids. Joe traveled a lot as an engineer. He was not home very much. My first daycare kid came at 6 a.m. My last daycare kid left at 6 p.m. And then it would have to make dinner, clean up dinner, do the laundry, clean up all the toys, and fall into bed in the summer, the grass, vacuum the pool, clean the house, do all those things, go grocery shopping,

run the errands. And I couldn't, I'd be working from the time I got up till the time I got to bed and I could never catch up anyways. Couldn't even keep up. Couldn't even, couldn't even find anything. And I remember almost every day I would lose something. And there, for me, losing things created such a feeling of panic and distress and anxiety and self-hatred that, I don't know, I just, I got really sick of it. And I think the final straw was I lost the kid, my iPad, I think, or something, or my laptop, my something, some device that I really, really needed. And I remember lots of times losing like my kid's iPod. That was like the big thing back then and these are expensive and we didn't have a lot of money and I and I remember thinking did someone

break in and steal it and then looking around and saying if someone broke into my house they couldn't find it to steal it they couldn't find anything because you can't see the floor but I was really just sick and tired of hunting and feeling that stress of worry did someone steal this thing or did I throw it out accidentally and that panic and that having to tear me my house apart and I finally just was like enough is enough there's so much crap here that's worth like a dollar or worthless or garbage that I can't find the thing that's worth hundreds of dollars that I actually need and I'm sick of the stress and this little little stuff isn't worth me losing the important stuff so I just started decluttering

That's it. That's all there is to it. That was the final, final, I just put things into perspective, and I rage decluttered. And then guess what? I stopped losing things as much. And life got a little bit easier. And I was like, is this the secret? I think it is. And then I became addicted to throwing things out. Because I'm like, I couldn't do it anymore, man. My life was too hard. And there's just no going back. Once you feel the. freedom of less stuff. Okay. Me, wanny, I don't know. It's, yep. How do you involve kids in the decluttering project? Your eight-year-old has difficulties letting go, saying she will miss the objects too much.

I think this goes for everybody. When you ask yourself, like just right off the bat, like can I give that can I take this from you? You even ask yourself like can I take this from myself or do I want to keep it? Initially we all want to keep it. Why would we want to have stuff taken from us? It's human nature to want to collect, especially things that felt really good when we first got them, things we really wanted. It feels really bad to have those things taken from us. That's totally normal. we've trained our brain and shown our brain that it's actually a positive experience and it feels good to live with less. But our only experience with things being taken from us or like when things have been stolen from us and it's like horrible anxiety inducing trauma, you know? So we got to

rewire our brain and do things a little bit differently. So that's why we always say to start with trash. And whether it's an eight year old or a three year old or a 50 year old, or a 50 59 year old, it doesn't matter. When we start with trash and we're helping somebody else declutter or even helping ourselves declutter, when we find things to go, we really praise ourselves. Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is garbage. That can go. That can go, oh, I filled a whole trash bag. Yay, me. I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to have some ice cream or something. Right. Like we rewire our brain, our neural pathways to show us that finding things to go is positive. And we start small. and you can start with your eight-year-old.

Can they find one piece of garbage in their room? Can they find two pieces of garbage? What about clothes that they wore when they were little and that doesn't even fit them anymore? Can we gift those clothes to another little girl or boy? Again, that doesn't feel like taking from us because we're not using this stuff right now. We can't use this stuff in the future because it doesn't fit us.

And we're not just taking it and putting in the trash. we're now gifting and sharing, which feels really good and positive. So how can we start with things like that? Now, if this isn't working at all, that's okay. Another thing that you can do as the mom, you kind of know what she plays with and what she doesn't. You can pack up a bunch of things that you're really sure she doesn't like or doesn't use or has outgrown. And then invite your daughter to come in and take a look and pick out a few items from that that. That's she wants to keep. So you can say, I've, I have this big gifting box filled with wonderful treasures that we're going to give to other boys and girls. But is there something in here that you really

want to keep for yourself? Can you find a few things that you'd like to keep? Then the experience isn't picking what's leaving. It's picking what's staying. And she won't pick the whole box. She'll go through and she'll pick one or two items that she wants to keep. And now, cluttering again has been a really positive experience. This is what I do with my husband, okay? And he's 41. And this is how I declutter with my husband. And it works. Legit, it works. Okay, Joanne says, do you ever feel angry that your brain, while beautiful, isn't normal? You sometimes hate how hard, easy things are for you. Yep. Yep, I do. I really do. I think the one thing I've said, I wish, you know, when you're just like, I wish, and I've had this, I wish

over and over again. Maybe some people are like, I wish I had more money. I wish I was skinnier. I wish I was prettier. I wish I could bench 100 pounds. I wish, you know, I lived somewhere warm. We all have these kind of things that we just nonchalantly say. The thing I've repeated my whole life is I wish I was normal. Ever since I can remember, man, I wish I was normal. I just want to be normal. I wish I was like everyone else. I wish I was normal. So yeah, and I think what I mean by normal is all the things I talked about earlier where it's really obvious to other people that there's something not quite right with me because I am so forgetful, so impulsive, so just odd. Like, you. like a character kind of thing. Like I'm always losing things. I'm always making mistakes. I'm

always doing stupid things. I'm always like saying dumb things. It's just not normal. And I think sometimes people are really attracted to that quirky, weird, hyperactive energy in the beginning. When I first meet someone for a short amount of time, people are like, like that child like that whimsy thing people are like they like that but it doesn't take long until it starts to grate on people's nerves and become very annoying and I'm also very aware of that how irritating I am how annoying I can be to other people in my lives which is where it comes from like I wish I was just normal so yeah I wish my brain was different that's my own struggle with ADHD. I know other people, it's the time blindness or it's the motivation or it's all the

XYZ type things that come with it. There's just so many struggles. But it's the how other people perceive me that I wish I could change more than anything else. Okay. Daniele? Sure. I really suck it reading names. How do you handle it if you have a deadlock situation, which means to put something away, one item, you have to move something else, but this item's blocked by something else. For example, one book belongs into the bookshelf, but it's completely full because there's craft supplies blocking the way, and these belong somewhere else, but you need to make space to move that first and so on and so forth. And a lot of you guys are going to know what I'm going to say to this, but it's cold hard truth here. You ready for some

tough love, you have way too much stuff. That's what the issue here is. Everything is full and every spot is blocked. And so when you try to put something away and tidy, you can't because there isn't an easy place to put that because literally every space in your home is so jam packed. And you cannot buy your way out of this. You cannot buy more shelving. You cannot buy more bins and totes and organizing solutions and systems that will not solve this problem. And I'm going to go a step further. You can't even buy a bigger house to solve this problem. Because maybe you buy a house, a mansion, temporarily, but until you've got to the root of the issue, you're just going to fill that place up first too and the root isn't necessarily that you buy too much and you accumulate too much absolutely not

the issue is like it might be part of that but it doesn't have to be that at all the issue is if you are not getting things out of your home at the same rate that you are bringing things in you will always have this problem which means do you declutter on a regular basis do you get things out of of your home at least once a week. Are you removing things? And I'm not just talking about trash. I'm talking about clothes you don't wear anymore, shoes you don't wear anymore, old, I don't know, kitchen gadgets, old spoons, old decor, old Christmas decorations. When is the last time boxes and boxes and boxes of things have left your house? Because even if every year you're only bringing in a few things, it doesn't take long for those things to accumulate and add up to a lot of things in your house.

And I don't know why they don't talk about decluttering more as being just like a normal part of home management. They're like, you got to do your dishes and you got to put away laundry and you have to vacuum and you have to dust. But you have to declutter too. Like this is part of house cleaning. Things have to leave your house. And yet nobody ever talks about this as being part of normal house maintenance. And if we don't do this, our house will be cluttered in a matter of years in no time at all. Because people give you gifts or you're at the store and maybe you pick up a candle one week. In the next month, you're like, I'm just going to get a new shirt. And like you can go months without getting anything. But then Christmas and you get like a few things at Christmas.

We're not talking. You don't have to be a shopaholic here to fill a house fast. You don't. it does not take time at all. And if you do buy too much, well, that only speeds up the process and really makes it insane. The only solution here is to remove things from your home forever and do it every all the time, every week till you die. You will be declutter. You're never done decluttering. Never, never, never, never, never done decluttering because you're never going to be done bringing things in. So you always. have to, it's like, it's what? It's brushing your teeth. It's putting on clothes. It's doing laundry. It's putting gas in your car. It is part of life. And yet, we've never been taught how and we've never

been told that it's part of life. It's part of life. We have to get things out all the time. And because we've never been told and we haven't really done it, we've gone probably our whole lives without doing regular decluttering, it feels so hard. Imagine if you've never in your life, ever, never, never, okay? I don't know, brushed your teeth. It's like they'd be nasty. I get it. But now somebody comes along and says you have to brush your teeth twice a day, at least. You'd be like, that's a lot of effort. And that feels, and then you're doing it, it tickles. And it feels like anytime I'm like for when you have little kids and you're trying to teach them to brush their teeth, they act like you're trying to murder them with the toothbrush or something, right?

It's like, this is weird. And this, I got to do this twice a day. It's a whole thing. And the toothpaste is too spicy. It's too spicy. It's too spicy. But eventually it's just like, whatever. So I got to brush my teeth.

I'm like, it's not a big deal. You don't even think about it. That's exactly like decluttering. It should be this just innate thing that we do as part of adult. being a human being and it should feel natural and it should feel like no big deal. But until we start doing it on a regular basis and making a habit, it will be hard. And that's okay. It's okay.

But please let's remind ourselves that this is something we all need to do on a regular basis. Once a week, do a 21 item toss. Once a week go through and get rid of expired food and get rid of the empty shampoo bottles. and the trash once a month, absolutely we should be going through and just doing a pass and looking for clothes we don't wear, old shoes, or old home decor. And every season, every season change, we should be doing a big declutter. So four times a year, a really big declutter. And if we're not doing this, we will have clutter and we will stuff shuffle and we will have this deadlock situation forever. Okay. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today as I

answered these questions. I hope you found some of these helpful. I love spending time with you. I get a little like on my soapbox and get a little rage you about the declutter thing. Like I just think, why don't high schools have a course on teaching decluttering an organization? It is a life skill, just I think also like budgeting, learning about compound interest, learning about all these other things that we, for some reason, we get taught about algebra and calculus and we memorize like wars and countries and geography and crap like that, but they don't teach us like how to live our freaking lives. That's important.

I think that should be a class. life skills 101 that they teach in high school. Anyways, I'm going to get off my soapbox now. Thanks for hanging out with me, and I'll see you guys next time.