Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Is your HOME making you overweight, sad, tired and broke? | Clutterbug Podcast # 122

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Is your home affecting your physical and mental health? Clutter causes stress, there is no denying that. When you home is messy, cluttered and out of control, it can affect your mood, weight, relationships and even your finances!      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

I'm going to be your coach for this podcast. I'm going to motivate and inspire you. And right now, we're going to take action on your home. Hey, clutter bugs and welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. I thought I'd do something a little different with you guys today. And I thought I would act as your clutter coach. And while you're listening to this, we can really take action. We can make a difference. We can do something in our home right now. And I want you to look around your space and think about what you can tackle in the next 15 minutes. Something I definitely recommend is looking at doing a drawer or a hot spot. A hot spot is one of those places in your home that just genuinely tend to accumulate clutter.

So your kitchen counter, the top of your dresser, you know, when you first enter your home, maybe you have a flat surface where you drop down mail and keys and things that are in your hand. These are hot spots and they get cluttered really easily. So let's take time right now. you're listening while you have a coach in your ear to take action. I want you to grab a bag for both trash and one for donations and let's go. Grab your bags and let's go. Head to either a drawer or a hotspot. This can be any space in your home. I don't want you to overthink it. The first place that pops into your mind, that's what we're going to tackle. And I want you to just go through

that space and make fast decisions. We're not taking everything out. We're not making piles. We are not sorting, we're just looking for things that can go and doing a quick tidy. So often we are overwhelmed by our space because we have this all or nothing mentality. We look at things, we feel overwhelmed, we overestimate the amount of time it's going to take to clean it up, and that makes us procrastinate. We're feeling stressed. We're like, oh my gosh, this is going to take forever, or I don't know where to start, I don't know what to do, so we do nothing. I want you to change the narrative. I want you to stop telling yourself that this is going to take forever and that you can't do it and that you don't have time you are listening to this podcast right now take action use this as a tool to get up

and do something that's going to make you proud of yourself even if it's finding just a few things that can leave your house your house is going to be better than it was yesterday and that's all that matters it's progress over perfection and I know we hear this all the time so while you're going through your spaces and while you're decluttered you're I want to talk about why this is so important. And I know all I talk about is cleaning and tidying and organizing your home. And I'm going to tell you the truth, this isn't a big part of my life. I don't spend a lot of time cleaning and organizing and tidying.

But it is something that's really important that I maintain a space that doesn't make me feel stressed out, overwhelmed, and bad about myself. And a few weeks ago, Joe and I and the kids got COVID. And this is right after we had a painter come and fix cracks. He was like in the middle of sanding. We got positive tests. We were like, sorry, Dave, you have to leave. Everything was torn apart. He had to leave because we were positive for COVID and we spent two weeks in quarantine.

And it's been a week even since then. And this state of my house is stressing me out. I forgot what it felt like to have mess around me. I forgot how it affects myself. mentally and physically. I've gone so long living in a home that perpetually just stays tidy. I mean, I remember what it was like before, but I haven't felt the physical effects because my home hasn't gotten to a really insane messy state in a very long time. But it is right now. And I'm going to tell you exactly what is happening in my body. And whether you know it or not, this is happening

to you too, if you are still living with excess and clutter, or if you have a mess that just continually seems to get messy over and over again, it is stressing you out. It's a silent to-do list. Every time you see it, whether you consciously are aware or not, or if it's a subconscious thing, these silent to-do lists are causing your body to have a stressful reaction. It's raising your cortisone levels. It's raising all of your stress hormones. it's making you feel hungry, tired, angry. And a lot of people, especially, I'm going to just use myself as an example, a lot of us, when we get really stressed out by our space, again, this isn't a conscious thing,

but we distract ourselves and we avoid it. The messier our home is, the less we feel like doing. The bigger the mess, the bigger our procrastination, and the bigger, like, the more we feel overwhelmed. we're not taking action. And this is biology. This is science because clutter is stressful. End of story. And when we feel stressed, our brain is protecting us from feeling that thing. It's releasing a bunch of hormones and chemicals, you know, that fight or flight. And it's also telling us, avoid this situation, run from this situation. Do anything other than tackle this mess that's stressing you out. And unfortunately, we can't really avoid it forever. We can't run from it forever.

because the next time we go in the kitchen to grab a snack, we have to look at the kitchen again. So our brain is really sabotaging us from making and taking real action and getting real results because it's doing everything it can to make us avoid this uncomfortable situation. But the great thing is we can trick our brain and we can change this right now. We don't have to let our cortisol levels control us and we can say, I only have to spend five minutes. grab that bag and start tackling, start tidying, start letting things go, take action right now. And what's going to happen is you're instantly going to feel better. You're taking the first steps, you're realizing you don't have to get it all done.

Getting started is the hardest part. It is the hardest part. And maybe you only have the energy to do it for five minutes, but that's okay too. But I want you to push yourself to try to keep doing it the whole time you're listening to this podcast. In the last three weeks, I want to tell you what has happened to me physically and emotionally because I'm living in a much more cluttered state that I'm used to, I have gained 10 pounds. I feel starving all the time. I feel so hungry. No matter what I eat and how much I eat, I feel really hungry. So I was doing a lot of research and there is a correlation between

stress and hunger hormones. And I'm stressed because the state of my home is chaotic. And when things are chaotic in my environment, I feel chaotic. And again, whether this is conscious or subconscious, doesn't matter. There is no denying that a messy cluttered space makes you stressed out. Period. End stop. And this doesn't mean you have to change this overnight, but it does mean that you have to change it. You right now have to say, enough is enough, I can do five minutes. And I'm not talking about dishes and laundry. Yes, all of these things take more than five minutes. We are not going to have a spotless house in five minutes, but we are going to dig ourselves out of the piles and the mess. And we can do that in five minutes.

We still have to do the daily stuff. We still have to pick up after ourselves. We still have to, you know, do the basics, laundry, washing ourselves, having a shower, putting away laundry, washing laundry. But digging our way out, we can do that in five minutes. So in the last few weeks, my stress over just the state of my house, even though I know it's only temporary and is, soon as we're done painting, we're going to put everything back and it's going to go back to normal, just looking at it, everything everywhere is doing a bunch of things to my body. I've gained weight. I have spent over $500 in the last two weeks on absolute garbage. I am over shopping

garbage Amazon stuff because again, I'm trying to avoid and distract myself from a really stressful situation. And I didn't even know I was doing this until Joe was like, hey, have you looked at the credit card? Why are you buying all this random crap? And I'm like, oh my gosh, because I'm stressed. I'm stress shopping. And again, it's having that self-awareness. I didn't even know I was doing this, but I know it's directly related to my home. The other thing that's been happening is I'm really angry. I'm angrier at my family. I'm feeling very resentful that the house is such a mess. And clutter attracts clutter and chaos attracts chaos. So we started out with, you know, tarps all over the because he was sanding and the furniture all moved to the middle of the room and half of the stuff taken apart and put in the basement like lamps and and everything's just

it's crazy chaotic all the furniture's piled in the middle of all the rooms and everything's covered in tarps including the bedroom the dining room the kitchen the living room there's drywall dust everywhere on everything but because it looks like that we're also just putting down mail and putting down the kids are just putting down their homework and their school things we're leaving dirty dishes all over the place we're just anything anything in our hand, we're just plopping it down because guess what? It's already a mess, so it feels like it's a natural magnet to add more mess to the pile. Like, look, this is where random things go. Let's just pile it in the pile. My daughter Abigail lost her AirPods for two days. It turns out she had tossed them on the pile of random painting drop cloths in the middle of the room. Why would she put her AirPods there? Because guess what? It looks like a pile of clutter. And when we have piles of clutter, our brain is telling us, just put it down there. That's where random stuff goes. So clutter attracts clutter. And before we know it, almost every surface in my home is

filled with stuff and I'm mad about it. And I'm taking out my resentment and my anger and my blame on my husband and my kids because it's a lot easier to point fingers at other people than it is to really look at ourselves. And the truth is this is no one's fault. And it's all of our faults at the same time. But I feel when things get really cluttered, I can't help but feel like I don't want to be the one to take the first step unless everyone else is going to take that step with me. So if Joe's not going to stand beside me and clean at the same time I'm cleaning, well, that's not fair so I don't get started. And when I said this to him, he said he was feeling the same way. So both of us are like at this standstill. Neither one of us want to do anything.

And we certainly don't want to do anything unless the other person's doing something. So we're both just waiting and watching for other people to start solving the problem of our messy house. And in the meantime, we're resentful at each other. We're blaming each other. And it's really affecting our relationship in a negative way. And maybe you can relate because honestly, I think you might. This is the number one question I get asked by people is how can I get my loved ones, my family,

my spouse to pitch in and help me clean? Why is this a war? Why is this a battle? Why is this a measurement of who's doing more? I don't know, but we all do this, but I'm telling you right now, we do this a lot more, the more mess and clutter that we have. I want you to keep cleaning. I want you to keep tidying.

I want you to keep finding things to go, but I have to take a second to thank KiwiCo for sponsoring today's podcast. KiwiCo is a subscription service that comes every month that offers really cool hands-on projects that are designed to create a lifelong love of learning for kids. This month we did a little different and we went with the art boxes and each of my kids got a really adorable loom knitting kit and they all made their own winter hat. The coolest thing that came out of this was I never thought to introduce this to my kids. But since then, Isabel has asked to learn to crochet.

We bought her crochet hugs and she's been like crocheting and knitting up a storm with her loom. she has a new passion and hobby now that she never would have had otherwise without the KiwiCo crate. For me, this is all about encouraging my kids to be innovators, to be creative thinkers, and to really see how fun math, science, engineering, and art can be. There's something for kids of all ages and there's no commitment. You can pause or cancel at any time. Right now, you can get 50% off your first month, plus free shipping on any crate line, the code clutter at kiwi-co.com. That's 50% off your first month at k-I-W-I-C-O-com promo code clutter.

I hope you're still decluttering. I hope you're still tidying. I hope you're still taking this time to make a difference some place in your home, whether it is your hotspot or whether it is a random drawer. Maybe it's under your kitchen sink or it's that pile that's been silently nagging you, the things that you have to do all the time. Maybe it's bills that need to be paid or library books that need to be taken back. Whatever it is, let's take action right now. Let's honestly, just enough is enough. We can do a few minutes. There's only five minutes left in this podcast. I want you to push yourself. I want you to make a difference no matter how small, but I don't want you to overthink. I want you to stop thinking that you have to organize as you go. I want you to

stop thinking that you need to research the perfect basket or the perfect system or know exactly what it's going to look like. This is not what this is about. This is about good enough. This is about doing something right now because you have me in your ear and you want to make a difference and you're sick of feeling the way you're feeling. My home is causing me to overeat, overspend. Definitely have resentment and anger towards my husband. But the other thing that I'm noticing is I'm sad. I'm just sadder. I'm tired. I'm more lethargic. I have way less motivation. And it's directly related to the state of my home because I'm not focused. Everywhere I look, I see something that needs to be done. And this is mentally exhausting. It's physically exhausting too, but more than that, it's mentally

exhausting. When everywhere you look, you're just walking through a room. And without you even realizing, here's what's happening. Your brain is registering this pile and the laundry that needs to get put away. Oh, and I really have to take that book back to the library. And oh my gosh, the carpet needs to be vacuumed and look at that dust over there and that picture is crooked. And oh my gosh, the kitchen sink is still leaking. All of these thoughts in seconds are just pummeling your brain when your home is out of control. And how exhausting is that? I'm exhausted just saying those things, but you're thinking those things all the time. I know for me walking around my house I'm like, oh, I need to recover the headboard. The lamps in the bedroom are broken. I have to put all the

pictures back up, do I need to get 3M strips or do I use nails? Oh my gosh, there's dust everywhere. I definitely have to dust. If I'm putting the curtains back up, I might as well wash them first. And I'm laying in bed with everything torn apart and everything around me. And I'm exhausted, but I can't fall asleep because my brain will not shut off. And I did not have this problem before when my home was under control. It's only since everything's been torn apart and since the piles and since the clutter is everywhere that I'm having real mental health. and physical effects. I'm telling you this because I know this is happening to you too. And it might be that you've had the mess in the clutter for a while. And so you're so used to feeling this way that

you don't even know you're feeling this way. You probably know that you're tired and you're exhausted and maybe you're resentful of your family and maybe you are struggling to lose weight and maybe you're overspending or struggling to save. Maybe you're feeling just all of the things that I've talked about. But do you realize that your heart? home could be the reason why? Have you made that connection? Have you really thought about the fact that having excess, having too much is damaging your mental and your physical health? And as soon as you have that thought, that's the first step to saying enough is enough. And the fastest and the easiest way to dig yourself out and to make a difference and to make it so you never feel these ways ever again

is to have less. Is to get things out. If you haven't used it in the last, year if you wouldn't buy it again and if you don't even like it why is it in your house every little thing you justify it by saying oh it's just something small or it might have regrets or one thing isn't going to make a difference all these little things are adding up to too much and it's adding up to mental and physical anguish for you it's taking away from the life that you deserve it's taking away from your happiness it's stealing your time it's stealing your energy it's causing you to not be proud of yourself or like the person that you are right now and enough is enough i hope during this podcast you've taken action i hope look down at your bag and there's something in there or you've

tidied it to space a space is a little bit better than it was before you started listening to that podcast and i want you to be proud of yourself for that because that's a little bit of space a little bit better than it was before you're all that matters. We didn't get it this way overnight. We didn't get the mess overnight. We're not going to get it cleaned up overnight. But you are going to do this. I want you to have confidence in yourself and know and know with all your being that you got this. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're feeling really inspired and I'll see you guys next time.