Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to Get an Organized Home for 2024 | Clutterbug Podcast # 204

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Are you sick and tired of having a messy and cluttered home? Are you ready to get organized for 2024?! This podcast episode offers the steps, motivation and tough love needed to break through the barriers and give yourself the clean and organized home that you deserve.      You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy new year, Clutterbugs. Today we're going to talk about how to get an organized home for 2024. And just to let you know, I'm going to bring some tough love. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back. It's a new year. It's a new us. Hopefully we're getting a new home. If you're listening to this podcast, you either really like organizing. You really want to get organized or you just want to hear me be weird. Welcome, no matter what the reason is you're here. I'm hoping to motivate you, inspire you, and really give you actionable steps so that you can have the home that you're craving and the home that you deserve in 2024. Because listen, I don't want you to go another year with that.

Why didn't I get started sooner? Why is my house like this? Why am I struggling? What's wrong with me? Why can't things stick? Why don't I have these habits? We don't have to live that way. anymore. This is about making a change that's going to last forever. And that's what we're going to

talk about today in a lot of different ways. But let's start with the actual mess and clutter that you're struggling with. If you are sick and tired of waking up to a dirty kitchen, if you are sick and tired of the piles of paper, if you are sick and tired of constantly having to pick up things off the floor or off the surfaces or off the bathroom counter and then five minutes later it seems like it's a mess again. You are in the right place because I want you to never have to struggle with that again. And I'm not saying that your house is always going to be clean and tidy 24-7. That is not realistic. But here's what I can promise you. You can train your brain to be a tidy person. Right now, you are probably in the habit of being messy.

and your family probably is too. You're in the habit of putting things down instead of putting them away, probably because you don't have the right system or it's hard or you have too much or you're just overwhelmed. In this podcast, I'm going to help you fix all of that. And I'm going to show you realistic, real life ways to actually get a handle on your home. If I can do it, you can do it. I hate when people say that. But the truth is, I struggle. I struggled. and I still struggle with like all areas of adulting. I'm impulsive and I'm messy and I don't think before I do things. And I'm just, I'm just a mess.

I'm just, I'll always be a mess. But I've trained my brain and I've organized my home in a way that catches my chaos so that it stays tidy so that I feel in control, even though I'm not in control up here ever. That's okay. You don't have to be in control either. Or maybe you're too in control up here, which is another area. Maybe you're like you're too much trying to make everything perfect. Whatever you're coming from and we're all coming from different places, we have the same universal struggle and that is life shouldn't be this hard and it doesn't need to be this hard.

So if you have a space or multiple spaces that just seem to always be chaotic and messy and dirty and you're like, you want to just light a match some days, your mess is really telling you three things, which is a good thing. It's talking to you. Your clutter is talking to you. And here's what it's saying. The first thing it's saying is that you're overwhelmed because your physical space is a manifestation. manifestation of what's going on inside. And that doesn't mean you have to be all Zen to have a tidy house, not at all, because I'm not Zen at all. And my house is tidy. But I know that my house was messy because I was not Zen. I was overwhelmed. And this might mean like you're working too much. You've got too much on your plate. It could be that you have too much stuff and you're

overwhelmed with having to manage it all. It could be that just life overwhelms you. For whatever reason, it's just too much. And you're just like struggling to handle it, struggling to catch your breath, probably. And it doesn't, even if you don't work, we're not beating yourself up over here. We're like, I have the time. I should be. That's not what this is about. You can feel overwhelmed and on paper have nothing to do. That doesn't mean that you're not overwhelmed. and there's nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed. And the second thing that your clutter is probably telling you is that the mess isn't a priority. I'd probably rather maybe play with my kids or watch TV or rest or have a snack or go for a walk

or whatever it is that you would rather do than clean the mess. Because at the end of the day, the mess right now isn't a priority. For whatever reason, if it was your number of, one priority, it wouldn't look like that. And it's okay. There's no shame in that. I'm not, I'm not saying this. It should be your top priority because it shouldn't. But we also have to admit that it's not. And we are choosing other things. We are procrastinating on it by by doing other things. Because at the end of the day, for whatever reason, this just isn't a top priority for us. And the third thing that your mess and your clutter is telling you,

is that you organize differently, that or your house, for whatever reason, isn't set up for the way that you organize right now. Because if it was, if it was, if you had homes for everything and it was really easy to put things away, you would just put it away. That's the whole point of organization. It should be as easy to put away as it is to just put it down on the counter. So why are you putting it down on the counter? Because the systems aren't made for you right now. They're not working for you right now. And maybe that is you have too much stuff or whatever. We're going to break all of these things down right now. Okay, let's start with the first thing that your clutter is really saying to you that you're overwhelmed. And there's a lot of things that we can do to kind of identify what's overwhelming us. And there's lots of things we can do to calm our brain. And there's lots of things we can do, you know, meditate. It helps with overwhelm. We can talk to our doctor about medication, we can move things off our plate. Apparently exercising every morning is good for this, but if you're like me and you just want a shortcut, because I'm the shortcut queen,

and you just, you're like, I feel really overwhelmed, but I also don't want my space to add the overwhelm, but my space is overwhelmed because I'm overwhelmed. It's this vicious cycle, right? our space looks like this because we're overwhelmed. But then looking at the space makes us overwhelmed. So then we are overwhelmed. So our space looks overwhelmed and like, what? Stop it. Crazy pants. How do we just like quickly break free? We don't got all day here. We want immediate results. You know what I'm saying? So here's how I got immediate results. And I've said this a million times, but I want you to do it. You can hear me say these things, but have you done it? Have you actually done it. Have you picked up a trash bag and done some trash bag therapy? It is the most

incredible way to relax, to make a difference in your space. We call it trash bag therapy because it's therapeutic. And this is what you do. You grab a trash bag and you look for garbage in your house and I'm not just talking about emptying trash cans. I'm saying go in your fridge and throw out all the expired salad dressings and that mayonnaise that expired six months ago and the sauces that have expired and the old leftovers and then open up your pantry and get rid of the stale potato chips and the, I don't know, the cracker box that nobody sealed up properly and that's all stale or whatever it is, go in your medications, your old bathroom products. If it's expired, it's leaving. Do you have old bills and junk mail and just crap? What about all the Christmas cards you got?

It's after Christmas friends. They can go in the trash or the recycling. The point is we're walking around and we're hunting for things to go. And I can just open a junk drawer and I can find like empty bottles or scrap old receipts and I can open my kids' drawers in their bedroom and find candy wrappers and packaging from products that have opened up and for some reason we throw the packaging back in the drawer. The shower is filled with empty shampoo bottles and body wash. There is trash everywhere in your house and you don't think there is, but there is, and I promise you. So I want you just to walk around with a trash bag and hunt for. it and fill a trash bag and look, do you have holy socks, right? You're not going to donate those. No,

you're not using them as cleaning rags. Stop it. Put them in the freaking trash. Do you have holy underwear? Probably throw them in the trash right now. Old scraps and bibbidi bops and little stupid McDonald's toys that your kids never play with that you've had for three years. Throw them in the garbage. We are looking for trash and we are filling a bag because enough is enough. because you deserve a space that doesn't feel overwhelming. And this is the first step. All you have to do is grab a bag and fill it. It's it. And this stuff is not things that are sentimental or stressful. You don't have to worry about making a mistake or does this cost money to replace. This is literal trash in your home, which is why we start here because what you're going to find is a ton of it.

Old flyers. Catalogs gone. Old receipts gone. Buy. Junk mail. See you later, alligator. Actual trash is leaving your house. And it's so therapeutic because not only are you strengthening your muscle and getting things out,

but your house, when it has less stuff, you instantly feel like you can release a little bit of a breath. It looks better. It's easier to manage. You can do this in 10 minutes. minutes and see a difference. And it helps you feel in control. And when you feel in control, you feel less overwhelmed. This is medicine for your soul and your home. When you actively are removing things and getting a bag and tidying up and doing this type of thing, you are helping

to tame the beast inside. Because human beings, we need to. We need structure. We need some sort of structure and routine. And without it, we feel lost and chaotic. And even those of us like me who resist structure and routine, you know, it's like, don't put me in a box, man. We need some. And so letting things go is the first way to go. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, it's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg, right? Are we feeling overwhelmed? Do we get our brain zen first? And then our home will feel overwhelmed. follow or can we get our home zen first and then our brain will follow and what i've found is i'll never be zen on the inside that's just i've tried meditating i've tried all the crap i've tried all the crap except for the working out every morning listen but what i found is i feel a whole lot better when i work on getting my home in control and that is way easier because you just got to fill trash bags and you just got to let go of things you don't even like or want anyways. Nobody is telling you you have to get rid of 80% of your belongings. Nobody's saying

you have to get rid of anything you actually love. It's the crap you don't even use or like anyways. Okay, let's talk about the second thing that your clutter is telling you. And that is that the mess isn't really a priority right now. You have told yourself a million times that the mess will still be there tomorrow, or if I clean this, I'll just have to clean it again, or what's the big deal? You just have some dishes in the sink. Everybody's house is kind of messy. You have made excuses to yourself of why it's okay to procrastinate. You've made yourself promises that you're going to start tomorrow or next week or next month or when you get more money or when you have more time or when you have someone to help you, you constantly have been kicking that can down the road.

And now your brain thinks this just isn't important to her or him. It just is not a priority. So now in the new year, you're fired up though. You're like enough is enough. I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want my house to be work anymore. I want to come home from work and be able to relax and like my space. And if my neighbor or friend or mother comes over, I'm not embarrassed. I want to find my house beautiful. I want it to look tidy. And I just, I want that so bad. Do you want that? Do you really want that? And is it a priority? Because I think,

the fact that you're listening to this podcast means yes, it is. Your brain just doesn't know it yet. And it's time to tell your brain that it is. It's time to train your brain that this is a priority that you have had enough and you are sick of the mess and the clutter. Are you? So here's what we do. We say it out loud. We say, I'm sick of this and I deserve better. And we don't just make it a negative like this isn't fair, poor me. I'm tired of the clutter. I wish I had a magical house that was clean all the time. We train our brain that this is a priority by saying things like, I deserve a clean kitchen and I'm going to make it happen for myself. I'm going to be the hero of my own life and I'm going to do things today to make tomorrow me proud. There is nobody coming to save you. There is nobody coming to fix this for you.

There is nobody coming to magically transform your space. You are the hero. You are the superhero. Put on a freaking cape and make it happen. This is a priority for you because you know with all of your being that this is going to make you happy. If this wasn't, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. You'd be listening to a podcast about puppies or something, I don't know, or a podcast about whatever else things in the world, you know, but innately, you know that this is part of your life

that you're just tired of struggling with. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you that the only thing stopping you is you. And so to make this a priority, you have to get tough with yourself. You have to parent yourself and you have to stop procrastinating and also looking for shortcuts. This is not a problem you're going to buy your way out of. You're not going to buy shelving, and bins and baskets and organizing solutions that will not fix this. Sorry. It's going to add to the problem and you're going to end up feeling like a failure because it's not going to work.

And the only thing you're going to have is more stuff and less money. That is not the problem. The solution, the real solution here is you need less stuff. You need to be tough. and get rid of things that you're not using and you're not loving. And you need to get tough on your daily routines. You are not allowed to go to bed without cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes. You're not allowed.

You are not allowed to go to bed. It is a non-negotiable without not only cleaning the kitchen, but doing a 10 to 15 minute tidy, which means putting things that you've left out or that your family is left out, away. You are not allowed to go to bed until that's done. And stop. I don't care how tired you are. Start it earlier. Start it right after dinner. I don't care. You're exhausted. You're like, I just want to fall asleep on the couch watching The Bachelorette. I don't know. I don't watch reality TV, but whatever. No, it's a non-negotiable. You're doing these two things. You're doing a nighttime kitchen clean and a nighttime 15 minute tidy up, non-negotiable. This will take you a half an hour.

If your kitchen's a disaster, really bad, it's going to take you longer than that. But guess what? That's fine. That's one day out of your whole freaking life that it's going to be really hard work. One day, you can work hard for one day because tomorrow it's not going to be hard to clean up your kitchen at the end of the day because you did the hard work yesterday. Now it's only 15 minutes. and the next day it's another 15 minutes and the next day it's another 15 minutes and I know it's like god I wish I didn't have to do it but you are doing it because you deserve it and because it's a gift for yourself and because you need it and it's your medicine and if you do not take it you get sick you get sick of your house you get sick of yourself feeling lazy it builds up

and before you know it you're just a complete mess inside and outside. So take your freaking medicine. You are not going to bed until you've cleaned the kitchen and done a 15 minute tidy up. And you got to let things go. Okay. That was my tough love for it. I'm yelling at you because I love you. I'm yelling at you because you love you. I'm yelling at you because you know what you've got to do and you just don't have it to make yourself do it yet. And every day you're going to have to force yourself in the beginning. Set alarms. Every day it's going to feel like effort because you're in the habit of not doing this for

yourself. But I promise you it won't feel hard soon. I promise you you're going to see the benefits every morning and you're going to be so grateful for yesterday that you're going to want that same feeling tomorrow morning. It's going to be worth it. But you have to be consistent. Set six alarms if you have to, to remind you before bed to do this. You're not allowed to watch a show maybe after dinner.

No one can leave the kitchen after dinner until everyone's cleaned up the kitchen. Whatever it is that you got to do to force yourself to do this, this is a non-negotiable daily thing and it will 100% change your life. The third thing that your clutter is telling you, if you have piles of all over and just random stuff, your clutter is telling you that you organize differently than how your home is set up. Because if it was just as easy to put it away, you wouldn't be putting it down. This is actually a good thing. Your clutter piles are telling you you need to create a new home for this stuff somewhere close by to where you're naturally putting it down. And there is no

organizing without decluttering. So yeah, you're going to have to get rid of things to be able to create homes for the things that are out. Maybe you have a drawer right underneath where you naturally pile papers. You could get a basket for the counter, but I don't want you to go to the store and buy one because in your chaos, you have the solution. I know you have baskets in your house that you're not using. I know you have bins that are filled with junk. Throw the junk out that's inside and use that basket. Get creative. This isn't about spending money. We are not buying our way out of this problem. You are creating solutions. You are being a creative problem solver and you are letting your stuff tell you where it's lacking a home. If you're a visual, can you put something right here?

Do you have an old bulletin board in the basement? Probably. I know I have too. We, we, we, We buy solutions because we're like someday, but then we're not letting our clutter tell us how to use it. And we're not making it a priority. So we've been procrastinating. Or we're using it in a way and it hasn't worked and switch things around. Start one pile at a time today. Look at a little tiny section of a mess and say, how can I make homes for this stuff close by? How can I make putting this away easier?

How can I create a system? It doesn't have to be elaborate. It can literally just be a drawer or a shelf or a something. You don't need to buy anything new. You just need to make it a priority and create a home. And knowing your organizing style is really helpful for two reasons. One, you can create a system that works. with how your brain naturally organizes.

So if you're a visual person, yeah, putting your stuff in a drawer isn't going to work for you because it's out of sight, out of mind. So you're subconsciously just going to leave it out next time. If you're a macro organizer, you're not going to use a detailed system on a daily basis. Knowing your style helps you understand why things aren't working for you and helps you create a home that will work for you. So that's the first reason that knowing your clutterbug style is important. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can go to my website, clutterbug.com,

and you can take the clutterbug organizing quiz. So go to clutterbug.com and take the quiz. It will help you identify your organizing style. And if the quiz isn't helpful for whatever reason, you really just have to. ask yourself, are you a visual person? Do you like seeing your things? Do you want easy visual access to your important everyday things? Or do you prefer everything hidden away? So are you visual or are you hidden? And the other side of that is, are you a really detailed person with your stuff? Do you take the time to put something away if you have to open a lid or unstack something or put something in a little

category or do you need big, fast, easy solutions? Like you're just going to toss it. You're not going to take the time to put something away if it's detailed. You are a big picture thinker. We say this, you're either detailed or a non-detailed person. And that's it. Those two things, how you sort and how you store. That makes up your organizing style. But it's so critical because it allows you to look at your home differently and realize, yeah, of course I'm not filing my bills every time. I'm done with them because the filing cabinet's like overwhelming and has a million different files and that seems crazy. And I don't want to like find the folder that's for credit card. I'll just put it there and I'll do it later. What if you just had a basket that was 24 bills? And when you're done paying it,

you just toss it in 24 bills, which statements, everything just gets tossed in there and you sort it at tax time. guarantee when you're done paying a bill, you're not going to put it in a pile now because it's just as easy to toss it in the 2024 basket. This is the power of knowing your organizing style. And the other reason why it's important is because it allows you to forgive yourself a little bit for feeling messy, for struggling with traditional organizing styles, with trying and failing in the past. It's not your fault. You're not messy. You just organize differently. And forgiving yourself changes your mindset.

And it gives you permission to try again. And it eliminates the fear of failure because you're not going to fail this time because you know what works for you. So you can try again. You can make it a priority. You can get off your butt and take time and set up a new system because you know this time it's going to work. And it's going to stay like that because you're using a system that you know works with

how you naturally organize. That is the power in knowing your organizing style. It's the empowerment part of knowing your organizing style. And again, setting up systems is great, but they only work if you work them. So that nighttime 15 minute tidy up, that's non-negotiable, means you never put this away, you always leave it out, you made a home for it, but the next day you're not using the home. Oh my gosh, you failed. No, you didn't. You just didn't train yourself to use your new system yet. You just have not trained yourself to use your new organizing system. So every day when you're doing your 15 minute tidy up, you're picking stuff up and you're putting it in the new home. That's training your brain when I'm done with this thing in my hand. it goes in the home. And eventually you won't need to do that as part of your tidy up time anymore. You're just naturally always going to put it away because you've trained yourself how to put it away. This takes about two weeks. Two weeks. I used to be a person. I would use bathroom products, my brush, my toothbrush, and I would just leave it on the counter. And I had homes for it.

I just would only tidy it when, like, I was had to clean something. You know, I wouldn't put stuff away until it got to be so overwhelming that I'd rage clean. But when that 15 minute tidy up, I forced myself to do it, I would run around the house and I would be like, oh, walk the bathroom. When we put things away, da-da-da-da-da-tich-da-tut-tut-tut-and done. And after a couple of days of doing this, now when I'm done brushing my teeth, I would find I would put it back in the drawer. because every night I would put it back in the drawer. I was training myself to be a tidy person. Now every night I don't have to do a 15-minute tidy up anymore. I'm just tidy. The biggest lobby I know, me, this girl, path, path from my front door to my bed, to my fridge, to my sofa.

Waste high piles, disgusting, maggot-filled turkey carcasses in my, kitchen cabinets, melting things because I would hide dirty dishes in my stove. So gross, I would gag on the smell when I would come home from work. My house smelled so bad. So many dirty clothes, I would just throw them out because I was so, it was just, I would just buy new clothes and throw out my old ones. That girl now doesn't have to tidy. That girl's house stays tidy because she knows herself. She knows her organizing solutions. She got rid of the excess and she trained herself to put things away. But I think the most important thing was I made it a priority because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of the mess because I deserved a house, a clean and tidy house. I would go to

other people's homes. They're beautiful homes. And I would feel so much hate. hatred towards myself and shame. It's like, why can't you do this? It can't be that hard. I'd beat myself up. Every morning I'd wake up and look around at the mess and I'd beat myself up and I'd come home and look at the mess and I'd beat myself up and I'd be so embarrassed when people came over. I'd be shoving and hiding. I'd have to spend weeks cleaning and it would still be disgusting. Why? Because I didn't do the steps. I didn't fight for myself. And 2024 is the year that I want you to fight. Rent a dumpster if you have to. Get it out. None of it matters. None of it. I don't care. If you're like, Cass, I don't have the money to replace it or it was expensive or my grandma gave it to me or my mother passed away. If you don't like it and you're not using it, it's taking from you. And this is about loving yourself enough to say, I am more important than my stuff.

I am more important than this crap made in a Chinese factory from wherever that I bought from Amazon or Walmart. My God, you're so much more important than that. You're so much more important. This isn't adding to your life. It's adding to your overwhelm and your chaos and your misery. Get it out. Don't feel bad about it. This is your self-it's about self-respect and self-love. There is no shame

in letting it go. And if you do not have the capacity to sort everything and sell it and make sure that, you know, this goes recycled properly here and this is recycled properly here and this is donated here, put it in the trash. Nobody will know. Nobody will care. And you won't care either because as soon as it's gone, you will never think about it again. And you will never go back there. And from now on, you will have a house that is easy to maintain so you'll be able to recycle things properly. You'll stop bringing things in constantly because you're going to be more mindful of what you buy. You'll save money. You're going to be saving the earth. Well, not saving the earth because it's pretty much going to hell in a handbag. But you'll be doing better environmentally because you'll be more conscientious about what you're bringing in, because you've done the work by letting things go, because you're proud of your house and you've never wanted to get cluttered again. You, every freaking area of your life will improve because you are going to be proud of yourself and love yourself because you love your home,

because you did amazing things to make it happen. And it's easy. We're not climbing Mount Everest here. We're filling trash bags. And we're creating homes. And we're forcing ourselves every night to do a half an hour of tidy up and clean the kitchen. You can do 30 minutes a day. You can do more than 30 minutes a day. You got this. You are worth it. And you deserve it. and I am so proud of you. And there are going to be days you fall off the wagon. There's going to be days you you screw up. There's going to be days you forget and you let it go where you make excuses and you procrastinate. And that's okay. That doesn't mean you failed. This isn't like a one and done. You'd get up, you dust yourself off and you do it again tomorrow. Whatever. There's no going back here. There's only going forward. If you mess up, you just do it again the next day. It's not like,

oh, well, see, I can't do this. Stop that. Stop that. Stop that. Enough is enough. You got this. You can do this. Trust me, friends, if I can do this, you can do this. This isn't about perfection. This is about self-love. 2024, it's your year. I can't wait to see you. journey. I hope you post online and tag me. And I hope you share and inspire your loved ones and your friends because this is the year you're going to be so freaking proud of yourself. This is the year your life gets easier. This is the year you move freaking mountains, literal mountains of clutter out of your home so that you have the time and capacity for the things that really matter. Thank you guys so much. Happy New Year. And I'll see you guys next time.

Thank you.