Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Cleaning Versus Tidying Up Routines | Clutterbug Podcast # 84

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Are you tired of having to "clean" your home everyday? The truth is, you are struggling with a dirty home...you are struggling with a messy one. You can't control how often you have to clean your home, but you can control how often you need to tidy it! In this podcast, we talk about the difference between cleaning and tidying and how you can stop the constant cycle of tidying up once and for all! A special thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast. To learn more, visit http://betterhelp.com/clutterbug   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, today we're talking about the difference between a cleaning routine and a tidying up routine. And how knowing the difference and scheduling these can seriously save you a buttload of time. I just want to go my own way. Gonna let the past burn down because honestly don't want to be stocking more in conversations with me. Hey clutterbugs and welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Today we're talking about the difference between cleaning and tidying. So cleaning, which. be the vacuuming and the scrubbing and the dusting and mopping and all of those tasks that we just

kind of groan and don't want to do but need to be done. Tidying is a whole other beast. Tidying is all the things you probably do before you actually get to the cleaning. So it's putting things back in the cabinets, in the drawers, hanging things up, picking up the toys off the floor before you could possibly vacuum. I mean, how can you wipe down your kitchen counters when there's stuff all over it, right? And the truth is it's the tidying part that takes so long. And the real truth is you don't have to do the tidying anymore when it becomes a habit. If you're looking around or you're struggling with mess, you're probably rolling your eyes at me. But know that I've been there.

I've been in the place where I had a path from my door to my bed and a path from the couch to the fridge. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but that's the honest truth. Almost waist high of papers and clothes and just junk. I just drop stuff everywhere. So obviously I wasn't doing any cleaning. I wasn't vacuuming the floor. I couldn't even see the floor. But I certainly wasn't doing any tidying either.

But before someone would come over, this is when I would grab like baskets and garbage bags and pick all the stuff up and shove it all in my bedroom, spend hours tidying, calling it cleaning. feeling exhausted, shoving it and hiding it when company come over, just to have to pull everything out or have it fill up again within a matter of days. So why? Why was this so hard for me? Well, there's a couple of reasons. I was living in mess. And that's the same reasons why you're struggling with something that's constantly getting messy. All of our homes are going to get dirty.

There's going to be dust that falls on our surfaces. There's going to be crumbs and leaves and dirt that falls in our carpet. We're going to dirty dishes. We're going to have sticky spills on our kitchen counters. Our toilets and our bathtubs are going to need to be cleaned. That's something that we just cannot change. What we can control and change is the stack of papers on our kitchen counter. Is that clutter that accumulates on the top of our dresser? It's the pile of clothes on our floor of our bedroom. It's the time-consuming things. That's what we really have control over. And that's where organization comes in. When you know your organizing style and you can set up a system, it's so much easier for you to put these things away that it's second nature, that you can do it

without even realizing that you are as you go so that you don't have to spend hours before you clean the house tidying so that you don't have to grab a laundry basket or a tidy tote and fill it to the top before people come over because there's stuff everywhere. That's the stuff you have control over. And I'm not going to lie, it doesn't happen overnight. It's a long journey to get there. But when you're there, you've made it. And you no longer have to be that person that spends hours tidying your home before you can clean it. You no longer have piles on your surfaces. You live in a perpetually tidy home all the time and the only thing you have to do is the actual cleaning. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about how you get there, how you transform yourself from someone living in a perpetual state of messiness. And if you've ever said,

oh my gosh, I just cleaned the house and I have to clean it again today. It got messy again today. Cleaning is not where you're struggling. Tidying. is where you're struggling. So let's talk about how you can do that. Let's talk about how you can set up a home that basically tidies itself. And again, this is not an overnight fix. This is not something that you can implement in tomorrow. You never have to pick up papers off the counter again.

This is about creating new habits. This is about creating new organizing systems that support those new habits. and this is about making those habits so effortless, so routine that you don't even realize you're doing it. I want you to think about it in the morning. I want you to think about what you do when you get ready. Maybe you have a shower, you brush your teeth, you wash your face, maybe you put on makeup, you brush your hair.

Are those things on your to-do list? When you think of all the things you have to accomplish in a day, are those things on that list? Of course not. Of course they aren't. The truth is you probably don't even realize that you're doing them. And when you think about all the things you have to accomplish in a day, brushing your teeth, getting ready, doing your hair, putting clothes on, I can guarantee you're not even thinking about those. Yet those things are time consuming. They're taking up your time, their effort, their energy. But we never think of them as a chore because their habit. We don't even realize we're doing them so they don't feel like an overwhelming task for us.

If you're a toddler, those things feel like you need to put them on your to-do list. I actually remember when I had little kids, I made them chore charts and like brushing their teeth was on the chore chart, right? It was like, oh my God, I got to brush my teeth. But when it becomes a habit, you don't even realize you're doing it. So that's the secret to living in a tidy home that stays tidy all the time. it's creating a habit it's having a routine versus a to-do list it's making tidying such an automatic habit that we never even realize we're doing it and that's what we're talking about in today's podcast I'd like to takeing off the wall

But tonight I'm letting the goal Spend my coin for show I'd like to take a second to thank BetterHelp Online Counseling for sponsoring this podcast Getting counseling was one of the best things I ever did for myself Honestly it was like an investment in my mental health In my sanity and it wasn't that I was even depressed I just felt like something was interfering with my happiness.

Like there was a roadblock in my life. BetterHelp has over 3,000 U.S. licensed therapists all across 50 states. And there's more than just one way to get help. You can chat through text, chat, phone, video. It's completely up to you and you can do it from the comfort of your own home. The best part is that it's really an affordable option. And all of you listening, all my Clutterbug podcast listeners, get 10% off your first month using the discount code clutterbug.

So why not get started today? Check out betterhelp.com slash clutterbug to learn more. Okay, so let's talk really quickly about the difference between tidying and cleaning up. Obviously, cleaning is the basic chores. Bathrooms, you know, vacuuming, dusting, win dishes. That's all the stuff that we don't have any control over. That's things we have to do on a regular basis. but that stuff, let's be honest, it's pretty quick.

We could probably dedicate if we do dishes every day, maybe laundry every day, an hour a week, maybe two, depending on the size of your home, to dust and vacuum and mop and clean bathrooms, and that's all you need. The rest of it, the rest, the time-consuming part, is the tidying. So let's work. Let's make a plan to eliminate that,

that we don't have to do that anymore. And step one, step one is knowing your style. And here's why. If you're a macro organizer like me, if you need fast, easy solutions, if you're a big picture thinker, you are not going to just make it a habit to use a filing cabinet. You are not going to make it a habit if you're a visual organizer to open a closet and open a lid and put something away when you're done with it. Like, you'll stack it to later.

that is a habit that you cannot easily create. So we need to make your organizing system so simple, so in tune with how your brain and how you naturally think and live in your home, that it's more effortless. It doesn't mean it's going to be completely without effort. You're going to have to train yourself to do it. But it sure as heck is going to make it a lot easier. So that's step one, knowing your natural style.

You can find your clutterbug style, I call it, by taking the clutterbug test at www. clutterbug.com. It's free. Take the test. Find out if you are a visual organizer or a hidden, if you need macro or micro solutions, and that'll tell you what clutter bug you are. And so when you are setting up these organizing systems, you can kind of think, okay, what's a simpler way? Maybe, oh my gosh, the entranceway is always a mess, but you know

you're a butterfly. And yeah, you're probably not going to stop, open up the closet, take out a hanger, put your coat on, put it away. You're going to drop your counter. You're going to drop your coat on the counter or on the knob of a door, on the back of a chair, on the banister of your stairs. So instead, we're going to install hooks instead of worrying about using a closet. You should closet for something else. Install hooks instead. It's about knowing your styles. You can set up a system so that you can create a new habit.

So that's right off the bat. The second thing we have to do is look at your limiting beliefs and we all have them. And we need to change the way we're thinking about tidying. If you are constantly looking at mess and thinking it isn't fair that you have to be the one to do this, that your kids and your husband aren't helping, that you're not the maid, that this isn't fair. that this isn't fair, you're victimizing yourself. You're already putting yourself into a place where tidying feels negative. It feels to you like a chore and it feels to you like something that is a burden and you're feeling resentful.

You don't even want to do it at all before you've even started. So you have to climb a mountain every day when it comes to tidying before you've even picked. up one thing. If your limiting belief is that it isn't fair because no one's helping you, you have to start realizing that you're doing it for you. It's not even about them. This is about you and your happiness. This is about you wanting to save time and effort and have an effortlessly tidy home. Whether people live with you or not, you're doing this for you and who cares if they're participating or not. Right off the bat, it's changing the belief. Every time you're going to tidy, I want you to really think of a positive thing like

you're going to feel great when you have a tidy home. You're doing this because it makes you happy. So think if that's your limiting belief, I want you to really think about that and how you can change that. If you have a limiting belief that you suck at tidying, that you're a naturally messy person, I want you to really dig deep into that and realize that sometimes our beliefs can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you're telling yourself all the time, oh my gosh, I'm just, I'm so messy. I'm a naturally messy person. What's the point? I'll never get it. It's hard for me. It's so easy for other people, but it's so hard for me. Why would I even bother? Again, you have to climb this mountain that you've built in front before you've even picked up one thing.

You've created a mountain out of a molehill. And I used to do this. This is my biggest struggle when it came to my home was my own beliefs about myself and my ability to do it. I overthought it. I overcomplicated it. And I beat myself up to the point where I didn't even bother starting because I knew I would fail. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. So those are things I want you to think about before you even start tidying is your limiting beliefs. next the next step to really transforming your home from something that just stays effortlessly tidy

is having less stuff and i i mean i groan at this because so many people really hate the idea of getting rid of things and i hate the idea of telling people to get rid of things but there's no way around it less stuff equals less work it's less stuff to manage it's less stuff to think about it's less stuff to have to pick up and tidy and I am not suggesting that you have to be a minimalist at all. But let's be real here for a second. If you have not used something in 12 months, I don't care if it was a million dollars. I don't care if it's the coolest thing. I don't care if you're afraid that you're going to regret getting rid of it. Get rid of it. If you have not used something in 12 months, it does not belong in your home it is taking from you it is not giving to you it is making your life

harder it is making your house messier period and maybe it's in a closet and you never see it and maybe it's in a drawer in a cabinet and you're like what's the big deal that one thing or those two things they're not really hurting anything yes they are they are taking up your valuable space in your home so that you do not have space to easily put away the things that you're actually using every day. And that's why those things are piling up on your counters and your and your desk and on your floor. Because the spots where you could easily put those away are full of things that you're not using all the time. So we have to grab bags and boxes and be ruthless. If you haven't used it in 12 months or if you wouldn't buy it again, it's got to go for you.

and I know it's hard. This is the hardest part by far. It's harder than overcoming limiting beliefs that you've had for your entire life. It's the hardest thing to let go, but it's also the most rewarding. It's also the thing that's going to have the biggest impact. And last but not least, it's creating those new habits. It's actually implementing this organization with our less stuff. And it's every single day making tidying part of our routine. Not a to-do list, not putting it on a to-do list, setting reminders in your phone, setting alarms, putting a list on your fridge, not a to-do list, a routine list, that you're going to start putting things away multiple times throughout the day. So you're going to put things back in the cabinet in the kitchen. You're going to put back the

peanut butter when you're done with it. You're going to put the coffee back in the cupboard when you're done brewing your coffee in the morning, you're going to put your toothbrush back where it goes and your makeup instead of leaving it on the counter. You're going to put your brush in the drawer. At first, you're going to have to set alarms to remind you to do this. And it's going to feel like a chore. It's going to suck. But keep doing it. Because the magic happens in that you're no longer going to have to set alarms. You're no longer even going, you're going to start putting the brush in the drawer without even having to have an alarm, without even realizing you're doing. it, it's going to become a habit. You're going to be putting things away as you're putting away groceries. You're going to be talking down the phone with your friend and putting away clothes off of the top of your dresser. You're going to be tidying without even realizing that you are and creating lifelong habits so that you can maintain a home long term. It doesn't happen overnight.

and that's okay because you're going to get there and i've got other podcasts talking about easy ways to set up new habits here's the last thing i want to talk about the last key point it has to be daily it has to be daily habits and weekly habits and i'm going to have a printable of my organizing and tidying up routine that you guys can find on my site it's free it's under my printable shop that you can see what my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tidy up routines look like, not cleaning, just tidying, maintaining my organization, what those look like if you're curious, but we have to do it all the time. This is maintenance mode. And if you're thinking, how the heck am I going to find time to add more to my day? How am I going to be doing this every

day, I'm already so tired and doing so much, let me assure you that this is going to take you minutes. This is going to feel like it isn't even work because when you do this daily, it isn't a lot of work. There is never a buildup of mess and you are no longer going to have to grab a laundry basket and hide all your stuff before company comes over. You are no longer going to have to spend hours tidying before you can clean your house. The rest of your life is going to be easier and you are going to save time every single day because you've created tidying up as a natural habit. It's hard work at first.

It doesn't happen overnight, but let me tell you it is so worth it. you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed and i'm going to see you guys next time