Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to Overcome Your Inner Perfectionist | Clutterbug Podcast # 61

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

Are you struggling with perfectionism? Is your fear of failure causing you to procrastionate?     In this podcast I talk about how to overcome your perfectionism become a happier and more productive person!      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today I want to talk about perfectionism and how being a perfectionist can sometimes be a bad thing and can actually make your home messy. So thanks so much for joining me. I'm sorry I haven't podcasted in a while. It's summer. We're totally on vacation all the time. And I haven't found time. So I apologize. I apologize for that, but I wanted to talk today about perfectionism because this is something, I don't know if it's because it's on my brain, but this is something that I'm seeing in so many friends and family. We are on vacation a lot. We're visiting a lot of friends and family, and probably because this is my business, people are constantly bringing up their organizational

challenges when they see me, whether I saw them last week or I haven't seen them in a year. it's kind of something that just comes up in conversation, obviously, organizing. And I see something that people are talking about again and again and again with their challenges of getting organized. And whether they know it or not, the thing that's sort of underlying in so many people is perfectionism. So I'm going to use my sister-in-law as an example. They just bought a new beautiful house. It's gorgeous. she's really into decorating it. Her style is a ladybug, so she's like a hider. She wants everything really beautiful. But she definitely has some cricket tendencies. And she's a perfectionist. And she lives with a butterfly. And he really honestly doesn't care. He just doesn't care about

having a tidy house. It's not something he even thinks about. So when he comes home from work, he drops his keys and his hat and sometimes his pants, whatever it is, wherever it is that he drops it. So sometimes it's right in the entranceway. Sometimes it's in the kitchen. He drops everything on the kitchen counter or on the kitchen table. And this really frustrates her. It drives my poor sister-in-law crazy. And so she asked me, like, how can I help him overcome this? And so I asked her, where is his hat supposed to go? Where his keys supposed to go? Where does his wallet live? And the truth is, she said to me, I have no idea. Can he find a spot? But there wasn't a designated home for these things. So they end up being homeless clutter. For her, she's sort of finding a spot for

those things. That's how her brain is working. She's putting everything into compartments. so she has maybe a hook or a drawer or a spot where she puts her things, but that isn't how a butterfly brain works. A butterfly is a really visual person and they're not thinking about putting things into categories. They're not thinking about organization as a natural tendency. So he doesn't have a spot for those things to go and she's going to have to help him create those spots. And so in talking about that with her, she kind of looked like a deer in headlights for even herself, she doesn't, she has spots where she puts things, but she hasn't set up systems. She hasn't set up a system for her kids' artwork when they come home from school. They're both

going to school. One is an SK. One's going into JK., but she doesn't have a spot for them to put their backpacks even. She doesn't have a designated home for anything. So what she's doing is creating so much more work for herself when it comes to trying to maintain a clean and organized and tidy home. She's basically just running around shoving things, hiding them away, like I used to as a ladybug, and then never really coming up with a system to maintain that clutter-free, messy-free home in a long-term. And so I think the idea of coming up with homes, the idea of creating systems overwhelms her because she's a perfectionist. She wants someone to tell her or she wants to see in a magazine exactly what she needs. She wants to know what it's going to look like.

She wants to know all the supplies that she needs. She wants to get all the supplies. She wants to have it done in one shot. And until she can do it right or perfect, or until she finds this perfect inspiration, she's paralyzed to do anything at all. And that's what perfectionism does. It's like, yeah, it paralyzes you.

It leads to procrastination until you can do things perfectly. So I said to her, until you come up with the great idea, in the meantime, just slap some 3M strips, those hooks, you know. You can get pretty looking hooks at the front door for Ian to put his keys when he comes home. Give him a basket where he can drop his hat and his wallet. Dedicate a home for your kid's artwork. Maybe it's just a basket in the garage where you use your entranceway or a hanging rack that you put on the wall. it doesn't have to be a permanent forever thing. It just has to be good enough for today. And that is exactly how

you start making that transition from disorganized to organized. And a lot of perfectionists actually have a pretty clean looking home. But underneath, especially if they're a ladybug, it can be really chaotic. And they can feel out of control. And that's because they're constantly tidying and picking up things. all this homeless clutter that's everywhere because it doesn't have a designated home. So there's shoving or relocating or hiding or having to deal with things on a constant basis because there isn't a little landing spot for that stuff to go that everyone in the house knows about. So perfectionism. So how do you overcome this? How do you overcome that fear of doing it wrong, making a mistake, not having it done perfectly, having to redo it, wasting money,

How do you overcome that when it comes to home organization? And honestly, it's practice. It's just telling yourself, okay, let's look at the biggest pile in my home today. The thing that's bugging me the most, that no matter how many times I clean it up, it just keeps getting messy. Let's look at this pile and let's come up with a solution for it. Not a place to hide it. Not a place to shove it.

I'm not going to deal with these papers right now. I'm going to come up with a system of how we can make this type of stuff. have a short-term home or a place to go until I have a chance to deal with it, or until I can make it perfect one day. And usually this is like a Sunday basket. Organized 365 has this great solution where all the paper throughout the work goes in one, like throughout the week, goes in one basket, and that's a Sunday basket that you deal with every Sunday. For me, I have this little file folder on my desk. I drop in mail bills to be paid. Upstairs, I have this other. little file folder where I put school calendars and, you know, invitations to birthday parties and all that

sort of stuff that I need to take care of. And we have a homeless clutter pin for Joe because he is a cricket. So he's a perfectionist. So when he buys something new or, yeah, he has something and he's not quite sure what to do with it yet, we have a big basket upstairs where he can put that stuff until he can find the time to deal with it. Because otherwise, it would just be everywhere. He would leave it out until he can deal with it. So that's what perfectionists do. They tend to pile, neat piles, tidy piles, but they pile where they shove, depending on what their organizing style is, until they can deal with things properly. So practice. Today, look at a pile and think, what can I do short term to deal with this? So going back to my sister-in-law, she's got all these

fantastic ideas for her new home. She wants to build built in lockers in the mudroom and she wants to have an office downstairs for Ian that has all IKEA cabinetry and everything's really perfect and organized. But that stuff costs money and it takes time. She's a teacher. She's almost back to school. She's run out of time to do these things how she's envisioned in her mind. So she needs to just do good enough. I told her, just hang some hooks, a bunch of hooks in your garage for backpacks and kids' coats and all of those things that you drop when you come into the garage when you come home. In Ian's office, just get some magazine-style folder racks in the meantime to go on his wall for his paperwork because he's a butterfly, he's visual.

And worrying about this fancy IKEA cabinetry system later down the road, let's work with what you have and let's come up with a system to just really get organized today, for today, and not worry about making it perfect tomorrow. And this is a really big struggle for so many people. It's like not at all a struggle for me. I'm like the opposite of perfectionist. I'm like an anti-perfectionist, which has its drawbacks too. I mean, I just never do anything perfect. I'm going to say I half-ass pretty much everything and sometimes it turns out okay but nothing's ever really great so i think there's definitely a happy medium there but um i'm getting stuff done and i think that's where a perfectionist struggles when they do do something it's amazing but they tend to procrastinate doing those things until they can do it right

so i'm going to use my bathroom as another example because this is like one area where i i was being a little bit of a perfectionist. We have a dated house. Our house is original 1979 and everything's pretty, it's pretty old. And when we moved in, I wanted to gut everything. And my husband, who's a perfectionist, didn't want to do anything until we could go balls out, 100% replace everything and we had the cash to do it. The thing about that is, it's so much funner to buy other things than the money or it's important that we also invest that money. So there never is a real nest egg that we could spend on the house. And redoing all the bathrooms is going to be like $60,000. So when we moved in, I just painted all the tile and that was it. It was like a really bad paint job to deal with

one day we would renovate. But in the meantime, at least it's good enough. And the paint sort of chipped off and the bathroom got gross. And I've been just telling myself, why would I bother do anything to it anything because we're going to renovate it one day. So this is that trap that perfectionist get into or that perfectionism trap. Why do anything now when I'm just going to have to redo it later? Or, yeah, why would I paint my bathroom now and one day I'm going to renovate it and it's going to be beautiful? But what we're left with then is a freaking ugly bathroom with chipping paint off the wall that we have to live with every day that kind of makes us feel like crap about ourselves. So Joe went away. I was at the store. I saw this painting. It was $30 on clearance. I was like,

this is beautiful. I literally have no place to put it, but I bought it. And then I decided to put it in my bathroom, which led to buying a $30 can of paint and a couple new towels. And I kid you not, it was under two hours to paint the bathroom. Two hours. And for under $75, I completely updated the space and made it look so much better. I gave it a really good clean because I was in there. I was feeling motivated. I was feeling inspired. And it isn't perfect.

It's a fresh coat of paint, a new picture, and some towels. But I feel so much better about that space. I feel even though it isn't perfect, it isn't what I have envisioned for the one day. It's so much better than it was. And that is exactly the same approach that I recommend you take to organize. Maybe you would love your dream bedroom and it's a really, it's crazy messy right now. And you think to yourself, well, someday I'll invest in a closet organizing system or someday I'll get new bedroom furniture. So in the meantime, why would I bother organizing it? Because that's a waste of my

time and a waste of my money until I can do it right. But the truth is, oh man, you deserve so much better and you can make your space a hundred times better just using what you have now. Maybe it is just a can of paint or an old bookshelf that you can use to fold clothes or just purging and having less can make such a huge impact in your home and it's going to save you time. It's going to make you feel better about your space and it's going to motivate you to go and tackle other areas of your home. So I know Pinterest and looking at Instagram and looking online can feel discouraging because we see spaces that we want someday. And we know that with what we have, our space isn't going to look like that today.

So it's so easy to fall into the why even bother trap. It's like a vicious cycle. Why even bother? But let me promise you, it doesn't take long. It will not take you long. It does not have to cost you money. to take small steps to make your life easier. And that is exactly what organization is all about.

It's making your life easier. I don't care if you cut down some cereal boxes and use those to organize that drawer that always stays messy. It doesn't matter if you get some 3M hooks for your entranceway for your keys instead of thinking about this perfect landing strip that you saw in Pinterest that you want to recreate one day. It's about today. It's about making your life easier right now.

It's about loving your house a little bit more right now using what you have and just rolling up your sleeves and giving it some elbow grease and some love. I promise you when you hug your home, it hugs you back. It hugs you back so hard. You're going to feel so much better about your space and yourself when you take time to take care of your home. So think about a project. Think about a pile. think of something that has been bugging you about your house like my nasty bathroom was bugging me and tackle it this week don't overthink it don't plan it to death don't go on

Pinterest and look at a million different ideas just do it just do something trust yourself that you know yourself you know your home you know your stuff you are an expert of you and jump right in and give something a try today so that is what i wanted to talk to you by I'm hoping to motivate you guys to let go of the perfectionism a little bit, jump right in and embrace good enough. Thanks so much. I'll see you guys next time.