Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - I’m in a funk - -Let’s get motivated together! | Clutterbug Podcast # 110

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

I'm in a total funk lately. I just don't feel motivated to get up and get moving. In this podcast, we talk about how to simplify your life, how to get motivated and how to finally start finishing all those tasks on your to-do list. Let's do big things together.        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

Today we're talking about simplifying your life, what that really means and what it looks like. And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm at a point right now that I'm feeling seriously overwhelmed. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now. And I don't know, it's probably self-imposed. It's not like I actually have that much to do. but I've been in this state of procrastination really since I've got back from New York I'm putting awful lot of thing I'm like kicking the can down the road maybe you can relate

every time I have something new that I should do I'm just like I'll do it next week I'll do it next week and all those little things are adding up and now I'm feeling overwhelmed when I feel overwhelmed I have a tendency to ostrich which means stick my head in the sand and pretend everything's just going to magically work out and do nothing which again is a form of procrastination, which is making everything worse. So today, right at this moment, I feel like I'm at that precipice. Is that a word? God, that's a big word. I'm not even exactly sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure I'm standing out the edge of a ledge and I either dive in and do all the things that I need to do or I continue to stick my head in the sand, hoping magically it's

going to work out. And I want to dive. I want to jump. I want to leap in. and just do the things that I need to do, but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling so, so overwhelmed. And I wanted to talk about that with you because I know you can relate. I know a lot of you are dealing with a home that's overwhelmed or your finances could seem overwhelming or your job could seem overwhelming. Whatever life, life feels overwhelming. And how do we manage? How do we, how do we do the things that we know we should do, but for some reason we're reluctant to get started? And so I brought out this old How to Simplify Your Life mini journal that I wrote a really long time ago when I was really into journaling because the truth is, journaling helped me.

Journaling really helped me manage my emotions and sort of prioritize my thoughts, I guess, which helped calm my mind, which helped calm the anxiety so I could actually get motivated to do the things I needed to do. So I brought out this old thing and I thought we would spend some time today just talking about the stuff in it. This thing had, all right, it has having less, doing less and wanting less. And I'm really at the point right now where I've already decluttered. I've definitely sort of got a management on my finances where I'm spending less. I'm prioritizing purchases. That's code for I'm super cheap now. I don't know. My husband has converted me. But what I really need to work on is the doing less. And it isn't that I'm doing

too much. Let's be honest. Unless doing too much means watching obnoxious episodes of Brooklyn 9-9 while lying in bed. It's the point where I'm doing this make work busy thing in the times that I do get out of bed and put down Brooklyn 9-9 to avoid the things that I know I should be doing. And maybe you completely can't relate to this, but I find myself doing tasks that aren't really important, that aren't really pushing the needle forward, but I'm making them important because they feel less stressful than the things that I know I need to do. So I have this to do list. I have to film a bunch of videos. I have all of these commitments coming up with different brands that I have to work with.

And it's all amazing and it's all very, very exciting. And I'm doing Get Organized HQ again. I'm going to be one of their keynote speakers. So I'm like, pressure, make an amazing video for that. I'm redoing the mini course. So I'm like, pressure, make an amazing mini course. I'm doing another little course inside the Take Your House back. And so I'm like, pressure, do a good job on that.

I have no idea what I'm going to talk about, but make it epic. and all of these things that I should be doing, they terrify me. They terrify me because they're so big. I know I should be planning them. I should be putting work behind them. So instead of doing those, I'm like cleaning baseboards and like, oh, well, I definitely need to replant that lettuce pot in the back because the lettuce is getting bitter. I should go and source new lettuce to read.

So I literally did that today. We're redoing our floors downstairs. I'm spending so much time at Home Depot and low. looking for flooring options, trying to find the perfect floor that matches my stairs that I'll never be able to get. In the meantime, all of these other things keep building up that I really should be doing, but instead I'm filling time with these make work projects, right? Why do I do this? Why do this? Why does everyone do this? Because it's hard. It's hard to do the scary things. Because it's hard, it's hard to fail at the things that are really important.

And if I do it and I do a bad job and I fail, that feels so much worse than just avoiding it and hoping it all works out. And I think that's really what it comes down to. And I think that's what I'm hearing from a lot of my clients too when it comes to home management, when it comes to their finances, their weight, whatever it is, that shit is hard. Okay? That stuff is the big things are hard. and it's really hard to fail at those things because they're important and if we try and we fail at

those then we feel bad about ourselves so we put them off we put them off by crushing a lot of Brooklyn 9-9 which is a fantastic show by the way just saying I thought I would hate it because I hate the office but I'm kind of addicted but I also know that it's it's an escape from me it's something that I'm doing to avoid the stuff that I should be doing because I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I mean, I literally ironed clothes this week that I would, I never iron as in a way to keep myself busy to escape the things that I know that I should be doing. I dusted baseboards. I cleaned out my bird's cage. I went and looked at different flooring options. I tried to buy lettuce at multiple grocery stores for a pot of lettuce.

I don't even eat lettuce. That's for rabbits. Who the heck eats lettuce? Not this girl. Why? am I doing this? Because I'm terrified. I'm terrified to start the things that maybe I won't be able to finish, that I won't be able to do in time. But I certainly won't get it all done in time if I keep procrastinating it. And we know these things, right? We know these things. It's like right now I'm really struggling because I am stressed. I'm a stress eater. I've been filling my face since I got back with things that I shouldn't be eating and my pants are starting to get tight. and I'm like Cass, you lost all that weight. You did all that work.

Just don't eat cookies right now, bro. Just don't put down the cookies. And I can't. And I can't. I can't find that self-control that I need to do it. So I'm looking at this thing. I'm looking at this how to simplify your life. And I'm looking at the step two.

And there's three things in here that I need to do, that I need to start doing so I can find the time, carve out the time, find the motivation to do these tough stuff on my to-do list. And the first thing is taking shortcuts. You don't get bonus points for doing things the hard way. I don't need to be dusting my baseboards. I need to be focusing on the non-negotiable things in my home, which are every day the dishes need to be done. We have five people so every day I have to do a load of laundry or it's going to become crazy overwhelming. And I need to do a daily tidy up so that things don't seem nuts and get crazy because when my house is out of control, I have a tendency to want to go back to bed. Those are the three things

and the only things that matter. Everything else, I'm just going to take a shortcut on or I'm going to delegate or I'm not even going to do it all. I'm not going to worry about mopping bathrooms or cleaning showers because at the end of the day that stuff isn't really moving the needle forward yes it needs to get done but those are the things that I tend to do as make like a busy work so I'm going to identify the three non-negotiable things and if those are done I'm going to be really mindful that I'm not spending time doing make busy work I had a mom who had a lot of anxiety like I do extreme anxiety and I mean she would come home from working afternoon shift she works in a factory and it would be crazy hours or she'd work midnights you know she'd come home at like seven in the

morning and I'd find her on the dining room table polishing the crystals on the chandelier like what she would take all the screens out of all of our windows and scrub them with a scrub brush in the shower multiple times a year like why why and and she'd be exhausted exhausted but she was doing these things I think as a way almost to avoid the things that she probably should have been doing in her life, avoid dealing with emotions, just avoidance altogether. And so the non-negotiables. If we can focus on the non-negotiables, we can't let our house get to like a point where our house is now a point of stress.

But even if you are dealing with a lot of clutter and that's your mountain that you're avoiding at all costs, if you're dealing with maybe other forms of housework, you're like, maybe your house really does need a deep clean, but that's a form of stress. That's your mountain that you're avoiding, like I'm avoiding making these videos. What are your non-negotiables? Let's focus on those and let's make sure we're getting those done. And we're moving on to the next thing, which is routine. Routine. Oh my gosh. I think a big reason why I'm sucking at life so much right now is because I don't, I no longer have a simple daily routine. sometimes I sleep till noon, sometimes I got up at nine, sometimes I do, you know, I write a to-do list,

sometimes I don't. I've thrown all the basics out of the window and I'm suffering because of it. And I like to be a free spirit. I don't want schedules. I don't like strict things. But there's a difference between a schedule and a routine. A routine of those basic things we do that we don't even realize we're doing. And it's some positive, I have some negative routine things that I do that lay in bed and watch Brooklyn 9-9 when I wake up. That's bad. That's bad. Okay, brush your teeth would be a positive. I wake up, I brush my teeth without even thinking about it. But what I used to do as part of my daily routine was every day that I woke up, I would write a to-do list, just three or five things that I wanted to accomplish that day and put it on the fridge.

That was part, that was a positive thing that I did that really just triggered the rest of the day. I would make my bed. So I didn't have the urge to. crawl back in when shit got hard so I could avoid the hard because that's that's my thing I crawl back in bed and I crush I stream TV it's terrible it's terrible but I know that about myself so making the bed stops me from doing that negative thing that's part of my routine and forcing me to find other ways to cope and so grab a piece of paper and we're going to write down your three non-negotiable things that you're going to do every day. But we're also going to focus on a couple other things that you can do, whether it's write a to-do list, whether it's go for a walk every morning, whether

it's make your bed. Are there one, two, three things that you can do, that you can make a daily routine that help bring some structure to your day, that help ground you in a way that you can manage anxiety and help you stop ostriching. and help you actually find some semblance of motivation to tackle the things that are scaring the crap out of you. Whether you know they're scaring you or not, they're scaring you. And that's why you're avoiding them. So daily routine. What are your non-negotiables? And then the other thing that I really need to do is identify my time suckers. And so I have made some changes in my life lately that are awesome and amazing but they're also really time-sucking. I'm realizing when I was in

New York, when I was really focused on my business and growing my business, I neglected family. I neglected to sit and just hang out with my kids every day, individually and together and just listen to them. Listen to Milo Natteron about Roblox and Minecraft. Listen to Izzy talk about Izzy stuff, teenager things. Listen to Abby talk about, you know, her favorite YouTubers or do TikTok dances that are just like mind-nubbingly terrible. Just sit in the hot tub and talk to Joe. Not about work because we both work together on clutter bugs. So that's not a great thing to talk about. Instead, just talk about the fireflies in the backyard or, yeah, just small talk. so I've been really trying to fill those things into my day to make time for those things and it feels

like work right now and it is a very time-consuming thing and I'm not used to it I'm genuinely a pretty selfish person and I definitely definitely it doesn't come naturally to me to listen to others and put others first I'm working on that it's a thing but that's something that I want to spend more I'm doing, but it's time consuming. So I need to identify the things that are sucking my time because when I'm adding all of this in, which is a couple extra hours a day, still doing my basics, laundry dishes, still working, I feel like taxed. I feel like there's nothing left at the end of the day, which isn't true because there's a lot of hours in the day. So where are they going? I have to identify the time suckers, the things that aren't really important. So I can still have time

for me so I can still have time for the rest so I can still have time to do the things that I need to do like make these dang videos to move the needle forward. So a lot of my time suckers are mindlessly scrolling Facebook in the morning hours could go by hours where I'm just looking at posts or Instagram things. Why am I doing this? I'm getting nothing out of this. I got to stop. That's a time sucker for me. Brooklyn 9-9 is a time sucker for me or whatever other stupid season I'm streaming at the time. I have a tendency to be like just one more episode, just one more episode. So I need to limit that. I need to write those down and realize that these are avoidance techniques that I do. These are negative habits and routines that I do in order to avoid doing

the things that I know I need to do. So it doesn't mean I have to stop cold turkey, but I need to the self-awareness to identify these time suckers. So again, just a piece of paper writing them down. I want you to think about your time suckers. Do you spend a ton of time gossip into your best friend on the phone? Do you have shows that you watch? Do you like after dinner sit down on the couch and turn on TV and before you know it, it's bedtime and you've done nothing from dinner until bedtime but crush mindless TV? Which doesn't even at the end. of the day make you feel relaxed right and you feel kind of bad about yourself because you've wasted time but it also it's like it fast forwards time almost when you're doing these time-sucking activities

it's like you don't even it's four hours could be gone and it feels like a split second so what are those things for you and i'm not saying cut them out but how can we carve back out an hour or two or even 15 minutes away from those time suckers and dedicate that to something that moves the needle forward. Okay. So that's what I'm doing. Those are like little things that I'm doing. But that doesn't talk about motivation. So last but not least, let's talk about how to get motivated to do those actual things

when you really don't want to, when you're scared, when you're feeling overwhelmed, when you're feeling a lot of anxiety about it, when the last thing you want to do is start, tackle, even five minutes of those things that you know you should do but you don't want to. And I say this all the time, but I'm going to say it again. It's borrowing motivation. It's borrowing motivation from someone else instead of waiting for it to come, hoping you're going to manifest it, waiting for the moment where you actually feel motivated,

borrow it from somebody else. If you want to tackle your space and you want to declass, want to declutter, watch a decluttering video on YouTube. One. One guys, because that's a time sucker, right? Okay, but one. Listen to an audiobook. Oh my gosh. Atomic habits. Atomic habits is so motivating. The five second rule by Mel Robbins. So motivating for me. I listened to, I just did a podcast with Ali Kazaza. Anything that I listen from Ali Kazaza, she has the purpose show. I listen to that. I'm motivated to get up and do something. And sometimes that motivation lasts five seconds. Sometimes it lasts five minutes. Sometimes it lasts five hours. It doesn't matter. I need to borrow it

from other people. Tony Robbins. Oh my gosh. Tony Robbins is some sort of crazy magician. When I'm feeling really, really low and I don't want to do anything at all except avoid all the things that I should be doing. A little bit of Tony Robbins, even one of his videos on YouTube watching it for 10 minutes, I feel a spark. I feel a fire. I've borrowed some of his passion for life and I've sucked it into me and it just pushes me a little bit to get up and do something. And five minutes does matter. It makes you feel better about yourself and sometimes those five minutes can turn into so much more, especially if you are listening to an audiobook and you've got your headphones in and you're listening to the motivation while you're doing the thing.

Right? My God, I can clean our entire house from top to bottom if I have an audiobook in that motivates me. I'm like, I forget how much it sucks. I've turned my brain off and I'm in go mode, man. I'm in go mode. And so I just wanted to get on here and tell you. about myself, I'm in a funk. I'm in a funk right now. I'm with you. I'm in the muck. I'm not feeling it. But we can do this. We can do hard things. Glennon Doyle says we can do hard things.

And we can do hard things. We can do something really hard right now. And so wherever you are, wherever you are, if you're driving in the car, if you're at home, wherever you are listening to this, I want you to write down. If you're in your car, please don't write down. But like, I don't do a voice memo okay the three non-negotiable things that you're going to do every day and how you're going to add new little routines into your habit i want you to really really identify some of your time suckers and parent yourself put a limit on those time suckers so that you have the time for something else in your life that you know you should do and i want you to borrow some motivation today i want you to look at an audiobook a youtube video video video video

that you can watch where somebody is kicking your butt and you're going to borrow some of their passion from life so you can get up and do something today something something small that pushes the needle forward we can do hard things you know what i'm going to do today i'm going to write a script for these three insane videos that i have to do that is very overwhelming for me because as soon as I get the stuff out of my mind and on paper, that's step one. And that's all I have to do. I don't have to record them today. I have to take one step forward and I can record them tomorrow for the next day. Because you know what? I still got a bunch of Brooklyn 99 to watch. But you know what? It's baby steps. It's baby steps, my friends. Okay. I hope you're feeling motivated. You're probably

not because I don't have any motivation, but borrow them from someone else. Not me. Someone else today. And I appreciate you tuning in to listen to me, Ramble. It's been fun. I'll see you guys next time.