Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - It's Time to CLEAN YOUR HOUSE - Tough Love | Clutterbug Podcast # 239

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Are you ready for some tough love?! In today's podcast, I'm giving you the kick in the pants you need to get up and clean your house with me!  Grab your FREE ticket to GET Organized HQ: https://thegetorganizedhq.com/gohqv2024-freeticket-casclutterbug/?a_aid=Clutterbug&a_bid=cabab9ad Join my FREE 30-Day Declutter Challenge here: https://clutterbug.me/declutterchallenge2024     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

Are you ready for a kick in the pants? Are you? Because today I'm bringing some tough love and I want you to get up and take action and make your house better. Hey, Clutterbugs. Welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. I was doing a live yesterday in my organizing experts group and one of you asked for another tough love podcast.

And I feel you because everybody has a different way to get motivated. but for a lot of us, we need a little bit of a kick in the pants. We need that external, like, get up and do the thing because it's really hard to motivate ourselves. So I also needed a little tough love in my own life when it came to my house right now. So I thought we'd do this together. And I'm going to be your coach while you're listening to this podcast. I don't want you to just passively listen to it. I want you to take action on your home and do something that's going to make your life easier later, later today and definitely tomorrow. I want you to do something that's going to make yourself proud because the crazy pants thing is it does not take long for our house to get

out of control, does it? It really doesn't. I've been so focused on a 30-day decluttering challenge, which if you don't know about this, I have a free 30-day decluttering challenge that's going on right now on my YouTube channel. You can go to my website clutterbug.com. Scroll down to the bottom of the homepage. You'll see a link to get the free printable. I'm excited. It isn't live. This is all pre-recorded. But it was so much work. I was making posts every day and I've had to schedule and make social media graphics for it and do the marketing. Plus, we have... get organized HQ going on at the same time, which I don't run that, but I am a speaker. So I am like sharing that online, which by the way, my talk is tonight, September 9th. It's free. You can get

your free ticket. I'm going to pull a link to that as well in the show notes down below. So I've been promoting that plus take your house back, which is this amazing course that I run with Don from the Minimal Mom and Dana from a Slub comes clean. That launches. right now it's open and our all-day declutter is coming up on September 21st. So, I mean, I don't mean to be a whiner. I did this to myself. I took on way too much. But I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's also back to school. And my house has paid the price. I'm so grateful because I do have these kind of rhythms and systems in place to catch the clutter, but it got dirty friends, okay? there's been not a lot of cleaning, like actual wiping, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms,

and it shows. I look around and it's kind of gross. I don't know what your house looks like right now, but I will tell you this. It's a whole lot easier to keep up than it is to catch up, but life happens. And sometimes we get behind. And sometimes we're starting behind the eight ball. And I know, and I've been there, and I had clutter issues for years, where my house looked like an episode of hoarders. I mean, I was hiding dirty dishes in the oven, and I had waste-high piles of dirty clothes that might also have been clean, and I'd have to do the sniff test to know the difference.

So I am not judging, but I will tell you this. When my house is under control, it's never perfect, who cares about perfect, when it's under control and easy. and I can wake up in the morning and look around and do this. Ah, I love my home. It's not about the decorations. It's about it isn't work. It feels relaxing.

When I get that, my entire day is better. My entire life is better. This is the correlation that I've seen. When my house is under control, it's easier for me to be in control of my health. it's easier for me to be in control of my finances my mood my relationships every aspect is better because your home is the foundation for your life and when it's out of control you will feel out of control too and our and our feelings our brain controls our outcome that's just the

truth we're not getting woo-woo with like manifesting and and all that kind of of stuff. But listen, if you're living in chaos, how are you going to feel calm? So today's the day, friend, you are doing something to catch up. You are getting up and you are doing something to catch up. Right now, you can start a load of laundry and it can do it in the background. That's the great thing. You're going to feel productive instantly because you started a load of laundry, but it takes 30 seconds. Throw in a load of laundry. And if you have dirty dishes, you're going to be done. going to wash them. And if you have a dishwasher and it's full and it's running, we're going to hand wash right now together. Just fill that sink with soapy water and get in there because we are catching,

we're not procrastinating anymore. We're not like, oh, I'll wait till the day and then I'll unload the dishwasher and I'll do it later. Nope. Right now with me, you're going to make your kitchen better. Why? Because you deserve it. Because it bothers you. Whether you admit it or not, it bothers you and you deserve a clean and sparkling kitchen. And if your dishes are done and you don't need to do laundry, we're going to do a tidy up. Are there piles? Deal with them. Right now. Let's put stuff away. I had to do this today. I did this this morning. I was running around like a crazy woman. Just I had a trash bag. I want to call it. I call this trash bag therapy. Truth time today. was rage cleaning. I had a trash bag. I was running around. I was grabbing dirty dishes that was in

everybody's bedrooms, including my own. There was chips and there was candy wrappers and there was just, it was dirty clothes on the floor. I was just throwing out trash, picking up stuff, just like a whirlwind tidying like crazy. I grabbed a laundry hamper that was empty and I filled it with all the dirty dishes throughout the house, and I brought it all to the kitchen, and I washed them. And I was just like ruthless, like a fire under my butt, but I was angry. It was a rage clean. But sometimes we, it's okay to tap into that. And not that we're angry at our family, which maybe we are. But angry, angry because we deserve better. Angry because we deserve a house that's clean.

And our house shouldn't be another chore in our chore list. We already have work. We already have things we got to do. We shouldn't be spending hours and hours doing this. So we got to catch up so we can keep up. If we do a little bit every day, it never gets bad. But when it's bad, we can't just expect. a little bit every day to bail us out. No, the boat's drowning, friend. Using a cup to bail out the water

is not going to work. We need to plug the holes. So we are resetting our house right now while you're with me. We're going to focus. We're not getting distracted, my little, if you got little squirrel brains, dishes first. Start that load of laundry and then get your butt in the kitchen. Do not leave until all the dishes are done. And if all the dishes are done in the kitchen right now, run around the house and find more dishes, come back and wash them again. Wash them again. And this is what I do. Listen, I'm not telling you how to wash dishes, but I love the dishwasher, but sometimes I let it go way too long. And this cycle of, I'll wait till that load's done, and then I'll empty it, and then I'll reload it,

never really works for me because the whole time we're waiting for the dishwasher, my family's using more dishes and we never get caught up. So when I get to a point where it is, it's bad, friends, and I've let it go too long and I got dishes everywhere and there's dirty dishes for days. I fill that sink with soapy water and I just get in there and get it done. And I'll spread out tea towels on the counter and I'll have everything like drip drying while I'm washing. And then when everything's washed, I dry it and I put everything away. I complete that cycle and I catch up on my kitchen. And it sucks.

And I'm not going to tell you it's fun. But we're doing this right now together and I want you just to repeat it. You deserve it. And when those thoughts come into your head, those excuses of I don't have time. I'll do it later. Nobody, I'll do it later when I have people to help. me. Excuses, excuses. That is our brain's way of just trying to get us out of hard work. You could do hard things. You can do your dishes. You got this. Okay? Right now we're doing it. And also, we could feel

overwhelmed, especially when we're looking at piles. And it's really easy for us to be like, oh, it's this so much. And oh my gosh, I just, I don't even know where to start. And it's like, it's crazy and then we start getting like this little panic attack you can shut this down you can control your brain all you have to do is fill the sink with soapy water and wash those dishes and if your dishes are done what else are you doing what are you making better today are you tidying are you putting away loads and loads of laundry if you really want to make a lasting difference you're going to grab a trash bag and you're just going to throw stuff out. And I'm all for donating. I think when I'm decluttering, I try to donate as much as possible, but there are a lot of days, friends. I'm

just going to be honest with you. I don't have it. I don't have the capacity to worry about packing up donations and dropping them off a goodwill or another charity and making sure everything's finding a good home and I just tell myself it isn't a freaking cat that I have to care for and make sure it has a good home. It is an inanimate object that I probably shouldn't have bought in the first place. But even if I needed it, I'm not needing it anymore. It served its purpose and I need it out because I need my life easier. And I'm sick of picking it up. And I'm sick of shuffling it around. And I'm sick of all my spaces, my drawers and my cabinets and my closets being full. And I have no place to. to put anything and I'm sick of it. And I just put it in a trash bag. And I give myself permission

to just suck. And it feels like, oh, I'm contributing to a landfill. Guess what? If I die, somebody's putting all my crap in a landfill. A hundred years from now, everything's going to be in a landfill. My house is not an alternative to a landfill and neither is yours. we are never going to be at a place where we can be really mindful about our purchases and make sure we're not overconsuming and overspending and we're making sure we're buying like products that are good for the earth and sustainable that takes effort and time and we are never going to get to that place where we can be that good person, that good steward of the earth and the environment and just our finances. We can't dedicate that amount of time and effort to something that we really

want to and we should be doing when we are drowning and our house is out of control. And I say this all the time, but here's the honest truth. This is what I see. I see it in myself, but I see it time and time again where people are just like in way over their head they are just struggling to keep their head above water in life and they're worried about their swimming technique right i want you to imagine you're out at sea the waves are like lapping over you're gasping for breath and your brain instead of like i got to get out of this water you're like am i doing the overhand am i treading water properly how many kicks per minute am I supposed to be doing? What's the proper, you know, swim technique? What are you talking about? But, and I know this sounds drastic and, and totally unrelated to your home, but it's the

same. It's a metaphor because it's the same. You're looking around at your house and you're like piles of dirty dishes and piles of clutter and things that need to be put away and everything's stuffed and you're just like, there's, there's like weeks and weeks and months and months of work. And here we are like, what's the best organizer for our craft supplies? Where's the best place for me to dispose of these half-filled paint tubes that are dried out? I should probably wash all these expired condiment containers from my fridge and dry them before I put them in the recycling bin to recycle. What are you talking about?

You don't got time for that. You are going to rage clean and rage declutter and you are going to fill trash bags because you, friend, are drowning and you need a life preserver. And when you get out of this mess and you got everything under control, then we can do things the right way. Right now, we're not worried about the technique. We're getting the freaking heck out of the pool. Okay? And I know it feels wrong. And I think I know, I know, this perfectionism mindset of making sure we're doing everything the right way and being so stressed about making a mistake and not wanting to have that shame and guilt of not doing things perfectly is the reason why we are struggling because there is not enough time in the day.

I was recently looking at doing a video about time management, and I asked chat GTP to break down the average day, what the average person spends in a day, like break it down by hour, how many hours they spend doing each thing. And it was the basics, okay? So I had AI do that for me. And it was crazy, okay? They broke it down and they were like, work for eight hours, commute for one hour, prepare and eat food 45 minutes do a little bit of laundry or light housework one hour a day like

for all the housework was one hour a day which includes the tidying and the and the dishes and all that stuff and then sleep was eight hours it was like I think it was like six to eight hours but anyways I added up and there was nothing exorbit here there was like workout for 30 minutes like move your body, 30 minutes. They weren't dedicating hours and hours. I think relaxation was one hour. I added it up. It was 26 hours. 26 hours in a day. Doing like the bare minimum. And like nobody's, and I just thought that there is only 24 hours in the day. The math ain't Mathin. The mouth ain't mathin. Just keeping up on life is every minute of our day. And that's giving us like one hour of relaxation. And yeah, we can streamline that. We can cut things down. We can cut off

time on the cleaning. We can definitely decluttering an organization saves us a butt ton of time. But it costs us time in the beginning. It's an investment. We have to spend the time to make the time down the road. Where is that coming from? You certainly don't have time if you're worried about how you're going to dispose. If you're folding your freaking donations and you're washing them first and drying them first and folding them before you can drop them off a goodwill, let me tell you friends, you certainly don't got time for that. You don't. Something else will have to give. And it's probably just like you're constantly every day getting further behind. because we are dedicating time to things that don't matter.

So today we are getting ahead. This time that you're spending on this tough love podcast with me, you are getting ahead. Which means you're going to do things badly. You're going to take major shortcuts. You're going to ruthlessly declutter. You're going to do the dishes right now so fast. You're going to maybe, guess what? There won't be 100% dry when you put those.

glasses back in the cabinet. I don't care. They'll dry in the cabinet. We're letting go of doing everything perfect today and we are catching up. And if you are tidying and you have random boxes and you're like, you've just thrown things in and it's like, I don't even know where any, we're just throwing it all out. Is there anything important in there? Is your passport in there, your driver's license? Is there money in there? Is there really important things? If not, good buy. The junk mail, goodbye. Is there bills that need to be paid if not goodbye? The catalogs, the coupons, the, the, I'm going to order this thing. I don't know. The flyers. Buy. Bye. I'm catching up. I am catching up. You have kids, you got little Barbie shoes. You have like,

this is an accessory to something. There's little hair elastic, but the trash. I know. It's drastic. You don't got time. You don't have time to manage the bibbidi-bops. You just really don't. And all these expectations of projects you're going to get to and things you're going to do, you're going to mend those socks. Oh, Lord, I lost my, I lost my, I'm really, I'm such a freak here. I lost my air pod. It flew across the floor. But listen, if you're like, I'm going to sew this button back on, I'm going to mend this sock. I'm going to fix this vacuum. I'm going to blah, blah, blah. When? What if it's just gone forever and you never have to think about it or worry about it again? How does that feel? If it feels like a weight off your chest, then you know what you've got to do and that's just let it go.

Because you deserve better. And this isn't about minimalism. We're not aspiring to like having one fork and one plate kind of thing. That's not what this is about. This is about just easy. Does it fit in your cabinet? Do you have piles everywhere? Do you have to rummage to find what you need? Then you have too much stuff. You just need, you need life to be easier. And we got to do this crappy stuff. We got to tidy. We got to put things away because we're probably not in the habit of putting it away as soon as we're done using it and your family's probably not. So stuff gets left out. That is normal. But what is also normal is to spend 10 to 15 minutes every single day picking that stuff up and putting it where it belongs. And if you haven't done it every day, now you've got days worth of clutter you got to put away. So we're catching up. And then tomorrow is just 10 or 15 minutes. If you've got dishes all over the freaking,

we're catching up, it might take you an hour to do your dishes today, but it's not going to take you an hour tomorrow. Dana K. White calls this dishes math. And I used to do this. So I would let the dishes go and go and go and go. And then it would have to take like hours and hours and hours to do all the dishes. And then I'd be like, I don't have four hours tomorrow to do the dishes. It isn't four hours tomorrow. It's 10 minutes. Because we don't have days worth of dishes tomorrow. It's easier to keep up than catch up. But one more behind. We got to roll up our sleeves and bust our butt and get back on top. And that's all there is to it. And sometimes, I mean, I try to stay keep up, but I fall off the wagon too. It's normal. It happens. It doesn't mean you're a failure at all.

It just means we dust ourselves off, we get back up, and we catch up again. We invest the time today so that we save the time tomorrow and the next day and the next day. So come on, man. you got this you can do hard things you deserve this and you are going to feel so proud of yourself you are going to feel so good and if you're doing my 30 day declutter challenge where you're spending every day just five minutes decluttering i want you to know that i am so proud of you because today is day nine and you are showing up for yourself and even if you missed a couple days get right back on that horse. This is not all or nothing. We have to let go of this expectation that to start a new habit, we have to be consistent every single day. And then as soon as we screw up, well, it's over. See,

I'm done. I'm going to give up. What are you talking about? Every day is a new day. Get back on that horse. Every minute we get back on that horse. We remind ourselves, we're not, what is a new? You know, what you talking about? There is no all or nothing. You don't have to be perfect ever in any situation ever. You miss a day. We just do it the next day. We skip a day. Not a big deal. But we remind ourselves that it's easier to keep up than catch up. Because if we give ourselves permission to skip one day and then two and then three and we lie to ourselves that I'll just do an hour on Saturday to make up for it, that's the kind of bull crap that got us into this problem in the first place. That procrastination, nope.

You're going to get up and you're going to do it right now and you only have to do it for five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes. And you're going to not put it off another day because that is not fair to tomorrow you. Stop making her life harder so that today feels easier because tomorrow you, is now burdened with tomorrow's chores plus yesterday's chores plus the day before's. That's awful. You wouldn't do that to a stranger, would you? Would you? If you had a co-worker, would you just push all your work onto her or him? You're like, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to make Susan do my job tomorrow and her job. And guess what? Then tomorrow, I'm going to push tomorrow's job,

and now Susan's going to have to do four days worth of jobs, her days plus mine. Like whatever. Susan's a B-I-T-C-H anyways. You are Susan. What are you doing? Why are you doing that? You would never do that to someone else, but you're doing it to yourself. Stop it. We're not getting out of work today. We're making it twice as hard tomorrow. You are the same person tomorrow. Be kind to her or him. Be kind to you. now we're catching up. I hope you're feeling really pumped. I hope you're feeling proud of yourself. And this honestly more than anything else is about self-love and self-empowerment, especially the decluttering part, especially when we're just like we're throwing out that old sponge and we're

just like, I never use this cleaning supply goodbye. And it's like, oh, why do my kids have all this junk? I'm just throwing it out. When we do that, here's what we're really doing. We're saying, I am more important than this stuff. I come first. My time comes first. My happiness comes first. It comes above stuff. It comes above money that was spent on that little piddly stuff. When we start putting $20 junk from Walmart above us, there's something wrong. And I know it's like, well, I don't have the money to replace it. And what if and what if when you're ringing your hands of why I don't want to make a mistake? Look at that stuff. Is that something you've, really are going to buy again? Or is it junk? Is it extras? Is it excess? Is it the bibbidi-bobbs? You don't even know what it's for. It's leaving. Because you are the most important person in your life.

You are more important than your kids. I know. Bill's messed up, but that's just the truth. And your spouse. Why? Because you cannot truly. love them and support them and nurture them if you first are not loving and supporting and nurturing yourself if you're running on empty you got nothing in a tank to give to anybody else you fill your tank first and then you fill everyone else which means you need less work friend you need an easier simplified life you definitely need a simplified home which means way less stuff to manage. Way less stuff to manage. Way less stuff to do. We're not making extra work for us tomorrow. We can wipe it today or scrub it tomorrow. That's all there is to it. Right? When we're looking at

mess and dirt, we can wipe it today or we can scrub it tomorrow. And I have this swiffer duster. And I'm rambling now. I'm almost done, friends. But I have this swiffer duster and I go around my house with my little swiffer duster night. Whoop-o-do-d-da-p-da-and-it-a-da. And it takes like five minutes. And I see in the comments all the time, like, that would never get the dust in my house. Like, that is not enough. I got like thick, sticky dust.

I can never use that swiffer duster. Yeah, bros, because you got to catch up first. A swiffer duster is maintenance mode. A spray mop that I love and I'm obsessed with is maintenance mode. A rumba is maintenance mode. that is not going to be enough to tackle deep down dirt. If you have not cleaned in a while and you've got thick dust and you have grime and you have grease and yep, you're not going to flutter around with a swift or dust,

or that's going to do absolutely nothing. You got to catch up so you can keep up. So you fill a bucket with hot, soapy, a multi-purpose cleaner. I don't even care. It could be dish soap. You grab a rag and you go around and you want. and you wipe everything down. It's called wet dusting.

You take stuff off, you wipe everything. You just wipe and wipe and wipe. And then, guess what? A couple days from now or next week, now you can swiffer duster. Now you can keep up. But you have to catch up first. If your floors are nasty, you're going to have to do a deep down clean. I'm sorry.

It's just the truth. And then we can be in maintenance mode and just do a light little spray him up. Yeah, yeah, that's how I clean the house. And every time I make these cleaning videos, I know in my gut that there are people watching that are like, that is not even clean. There's no, bro, because I'm starting from an already clean house. Because I caught up so now I can keep up. Catch up right now.

Catch up right now. Whatever it is that you're doing, catch up. Work your tail off to catch up. Catch up. It's hard work. It's time. It's awful. It sucks, but it's going to be so awesome tomorrow and the next day and the next day because as soon as you work hard to catch up, now you can keep up. Okay? I hope you're feeling it.

Hope you made a difference today. I hope you're feeling proud of yourself. It's probably not perfect. That's fine. Get back on the horse tomorrow. We're going to keep catching up till we catch up. And that's all there is to it because you just, it because you deserve a house that doesn't feel like effort, but it takes work to get there. You can do hard things, friend. We can do it together. You can go back and listen to old tough love podcast where I scream at you because I love you because I want this for you. Because I know how crappy it feels to always be behind. And I want you to feel proud of your home. I want you to find your home beautiful and relaxing, and I don't want it to be another chore on your

chore list. And only you can make that happen. No one's coming to rescue you, friend. You are the hero of your own life. So get up and make it happen. Okay. Thank you guys so much. Don't forget.

I'm going to put links to the 30-day decluttering challenge in the show notes. Also, today get organized HQ launches. It's a free event. I'm going to put a link to that free ticket. My keynote talk is tonight at 8.30. That is Monday, September 9th at 8.30 p.m. Eastern. I will be doing a live talk on how to help other people declutter. So make sure you tune into that. Get your free ticket to get organized HQ. And I'll see you guys next week.