Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Leveling up! How to Transform your Home & Life with ONE Simple New Routine | Clutterbug Podcast # 65

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

Leveling up is all about mastering your new, small routine and making it a habit before you add something new. Each time you master a new small habit, you "level up" and accomplish even more with the next level.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys and welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Today I want to talk about leveling up. So thanks so much for joining me. I know I haven't podcast in a while. I keep saying this. It's like I should just put this on a repeat, but we went to Costa Rica. So we were gone for almost two weeks and then we got back and we had some illness. This is probably related to the trip, but we're all feeling better.

So I thought I'd make a quick podcast talking about something that I've talked about so often, but I think it's so important that I'm just going to keep saying it over and over again. And that is the concept of sort of building up when it comes to new habits and, yeah, just our everyday responsibilities, building up or leveling up. and so this is actually, I just finished my third book, and the final chapter is actually called leveling up. And I like this way of describing it because it feels very much like you're defeating new levels, like a video game. And you know, if you're a gamer, you have to beat your current level in order to get to the next level or unlock the next level. And it is so true when it comes to

life. It's the same exact concept of a video game. And so when you're looking at something like organizing your home or losing weight or getting your finances in order, saving money for retirement, whatever it is that you have this goal in your mind, the end result is what we want. And that can seem impossible to reach. That can seem just really overwhelming. Like how do you get there and what steps do you take and how does this huge task even seem possible when you're starting from day one and i know you've heard this a thousand times before how do you eat an elephant it's one bite of a time but that doesn't really explain the how it's just telling you to do little bits at a time which is just sort of adding to the overwhelm and i remember drowning in

clutter. I remember being a complete disaster, feeling overwhelmed and looking at pictures and magazines of beautifully organized and tidy homes or going to visit friends and families whose homes were really organized. And I saw this as this task that, I mean, I was trying and failing and trying and failing, but something that was just completely unattainable for me. I didn't know how to get there. And you can say one day at a time, do one small thing at a time. But, it seemed at the time that I was doing all of these little things every day and never getting anywhere. I felt like I was just treading water and barely keeping my head above water and somebody would say, oh, just a little bit every day.

And I was being like, listen, I'm doing a lot every day and I don't seem to be getting there. But it wasn't until I started making doing the right things and breaking it down into smaller steps that I actually had success. and like real steps, not just saying take one bite at a time, but actually identifying what those bites or those steps look like. And it looks a lot like a video game. It looks like passing levels as you go up. So I'm going to talk, I guess, a couple of different things that I mean, but let's talk about first my home. And the truth is I wanted a bigger house and I wanted to be organized and I wanted to have a clean house. But I wasn't able to actually manage the house that I had now, so getting a bigger house was completely out of the question. And I felt like I was cleaning all the time. I was picking up,

I was shoving things back in homes, I was constantly wiping up crumbs, and it just got messy again tomorrow. So to say, do it, you know, small steps at a time when it came to my home, I was just eye-rolling at this point. But the truth was, what I had to do was create a little bit. It was, you know, new habits and I had to start really small. So the very first new habit that I created was a nighttime cleaning routine. And every night before I went to bed, I would spend 15 or 20 minutes and just make sure that the kitchen was tidy and wiped down and the bathrooms were tidy and wiped down. That was one small habit. The house was still a mess. Sometimes there was, I wasn't keeping up on the dishes and so that's all I got to do in my 20 minutes was at least wash and get all the dishes in the dishwasher.

And that was my small step. And this crazy thing happened. I mean, that was it. That was all I was doing. Nothing else. And after forcing myself to do this every single day, after a week or two, I stopped having to think about it. It became completely second nature.

It became like brushing my teeth. And that small thing, I leveled up. that was no longer even something I had to give it second thought to. So then I was able to add more to my routine because that felt effortless. Doing my nighttime cleaning routine was no longer a chore. It was just something I did and it didn't seem like work anymore. It was natural to me. So then I was able to add on top of that making sure that I got ready for the next day

and was filling out my to-do list or, you know, adding something more onto that, making sure that every night before I went to bed, I put away one load of laundry. So not only was I cleaning the kitchen and wiping down the bathroom counters, but I was doing a load of laundry and planning for my next day. And when that became second nature, then I started adding more onto that. I started every day tackling one small organizing project, like a drawer or like one shelf in my closet and when that became second nature over time I added more to my plate and the truth is that is how the change happened it was really slow but it was painless every time I created a new small habit I still held on to those old ones because they didn't feel like work anymore I had to level up each and every time

it was like when I first started blogging I was running a daycare and I was you know working for home with a bunch of kids and I was making I started making YouTube videos and at first it was like oh my gosh making a video seemed like a ton of work and over time it seemed like second nature and I was able to run the daycare and clean my house and do the organizing and start making videos and then I started a website and started blogging and then once I mastered that I was able to start a podcast and then when I was able to master all of these things I started writing a book now I'm doing a course. But in order to achieve all of these things, I had to make the things underneath the level that I was currently working on really, really easy. I had to be able to master it to beat that level

before I was able to get to the next one. And basically my entire life, I've really struggled with weight. And I've seen my husband achieve success with his own fitness and health journey in a really short amount of time using the exact same leveling up technique. I'm like, why am I not doing this? So he started by doing like 10 pushups a night. Ten. That was it. And then he went to 20. And then he went to 30. And now he's doing like 200 pushups and 200 sit-ups. He started running for just one minute on the treadmill and then walking. But he was doing it consistently like multiple times a night. And I'd roll my eyes and laugh at him. Now he easily runs over 5K. No problem. But he had to level up each and every time. And now working out, I mean, since I've known him, 17 years, this guy has never worked out. Now he's doing it on a regular basis

and he's told me it seems like no big deal. It just seems like part of his everyday routine. And it's the same for me when it came to getting my house organized, to house cleaning, to starting a blog and a YouTube channel and all of the things that I was able to do, it was starting at the base level. And I think that's where so many people are struggling. And I know that's where I was struggling. I was looking at the end game. And I was thinking, how the heck do I do that? When I think, oh my God, I could never run 5K. I could never run 5K. But I can run a minute, maybe. Well, I can run 10 seconds. Let's be completely honest. That's that's, that's, that's, the truth. And when I consistently can run 10 seconds, it seems like no problem anymore and I can go to 30,

and then I can go to a minute, and then five minutes and so on. And it's the exact same thing when it comes to organizing your home or keeping up on your home. Maybe you can't go to bed every night with a perfectly clean house, but can you go to bed every night with a clean kitchen? Maybe that is even too much, but can you go to bed every single night having all of your dishes done? No dirty dishes. And when you can master that, and that becomes so simple that you don't even give it a second thought, then you add wiping down the counters, and then you add having a completely clean kitchen, and then you add making sure you're keeping up on the laundry. It's definitely all about beating each level. You can't just jump to level 10. You can't just beat the big megaboss.

You have to start at the bottom. And when you do that, everybody, you know, raises beats those levels at different at different times and with different effort but when you do it that way it really does become effortless just like brushing your teeth at night or making your bed in the morning or whatever habit that you do that you don't even give a second thought to you that's exactly what it's going to be like when it comes to your home i i no longer stress about cleaning honestly i don't even realize i'm doing it when i'm picking up after myself or quickly wiping the kitchen down or wiping the bathrooms before bed every night. I don't ever really give it a second thought.

It's completely habit at this point, which means I no longer have to be a weekend warrior and clean my house like a crazy person on the weekend or go insane because someone's coming over. Like, trust me, I've been there. That panicked feeling of, oh my gosh, company's coming. The house is disgusting. I don't have to feel that anymore because I beat it. level by level by level starting really small. And I started with a nighttime cleaning routine. So

I know I've said this so many times to you guys before, but I cannot express how absolutely life-changing it is. You no longer have to spend a ton of time on the weekends and take away from the time that you should be doing something you love cleaning your house. You no longer have to see housework as a chore as like grown. I got to clean the house type of feeling. Because it's completely being maintained on such a regular basis that it never gets gross and really dirty or really messy or really cluttered. You're able to make that a habit, an effortless habit. I promise you. I promise you. I know how daunting it feels because I think, I look at my husband as he's doing 200 pushups and 200 sit-ups and running 5K and I think, oh my gosh,

I could never do that. Like you make that seem so easy, but I saw how he got there and it was one tiny little step at a time. And so I'm inspired to share this message with you again because that is exactly, exactly how I transformed my house from complete chaos and mess to clean and organized. It is the exact same way that I was able to write three books was just a little bit here and there, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes the next day, maybe 20 minutes one day on a weekend. It added up to something. it didn't have to be overwhelming. I thought it was. I was overthinking all of these things. I was thinking, God, this seems like some things that's so unattainable. But the truth is, it's not about the end game. So I want you to stop focusing on the end game and instead just take one small

step and be consistent and keep taking that small step until it becomes a habit and second nature. So that's the podcast I wanted to share with you guys today. I'm going to challenge you this week to start your nightly cleaning routine. And again, do whatever it is that you can win at. It's all about winning. It's something that you can actually accomplish every single night no matter how small it is. Even if it's just having a clean sink or wiping down your bathroom counters, I want you to commit to doing it for an entire week. Put a big sign on your fridge or a reminder in your phone to go off every single night to do your nighttime cleaning routine. And when that becomes so simple, that it no longer seems like work, add something else.

Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed and I will see you next time.