Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Overcome Overwhelm and Get Stuff Done! | Clutterbug Podcast # 172

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

Let's talk about overcoming feeling so overwhelmed, we don't know where to start. When I feel overwhelmed by my never-ending to-do list (or life in general) I tend to "ostrich" - aka avoiding and procrastinating.  So how do we overcome those feelings and actually get stuff done? It's all about embracing GETMO (Good Enough To Move On)!      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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm feeling insanely overwhelmed today. I have so many things on my to-do list. I printed out a big checklist. I don't know where to start. And I'm feeling exactly what I know so many of you tell me that you're feeling when you just don't know where to start. There's too many things to do. And it's really easy in these times to just want to do nothing at all to avoid the entire situation. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Today, I want to talk about overcoming overwhelm, like beating it once and for all. And there are times where maybe we don't feel overwhelmed and life is going pretty smoothly. And then there's times where we feel like we're absolutely drowning. What can we do in those situations? That's exactly what I want to talk about today

because I am, I feel like, I feel like I'm hyperventilating stressed out right now. So here's what's going on with me. Yesterday was our all day declutter as part of the Take Your House Back team. We have this Take Your House Back course that I do with Dawn from the minimal mom and Dana from a slops comes clean. And three times a year, we do an all day live declutter where we coach everyone who's part of the team live from 9 a.m. till 4.5. p.m. Eastern, and it's insane. And I always cry. I'm always so motivated, but I decluttered along with it. So I got rid of five trash bags. I have two donation bags filled with clothing and a bunch of boxes to go. I didn't think I could find more, but I did. But the act of decluttering like this, first of all, it's time consuming. So I spent all day doing this. And second of all, even though we say it doesn't make a mess. It kind of makes a mess in that we're not doing other things. So my husband took the kids out all day. I was home alone with the puppy. So I wasn't doing the day to day stuff. And we were already really behind on laundry. It's just been a crazy hectic week because I'm going

away next week. I'm going with Joe. We're leaving tomorrow morning to go to San Francisco for a YouTube conference. My parents are coming to stay. with me. They're going to be sleeping in my bed, using my bathroom, cooking in my kitchen, and instead of dealing with the anxiety that I feel about that and getting things tidy and just ready for them, I spent all day decluttering, which was awesome and fun and I'm really glad that I did it. But now I leave tomorrow morning. The house is kind of trashed. I'm so behind on laundry. I haven't been doing a load of late a day because I've just been working nonstop because I know I'm not working next week. And everything feels, I feel like I'm suffocating under the pressure of all of my to-does.

I have to do at least six loads of laundry. Wash all the bedding. My parents are going to be sleeping my bed. I have to obviously wash those blankets and that bedding. Get fresh towels ready. I need to grocery shop for them. We hardly have any. food in the house. I also in my brain, I'm telling myself, I should organize and tidy all the hidden

spaces like bathroom drawers. What if they snoop? What if they're looking in places? The garage is a disaster. What if they drive my minivan? It's filled with Starbucks and McDonald's containers. There's a million things to do. Plus, I need to walk the dog. I need to make her homemade dog food. She's got a really upset stomach. So I need to go and get rice and make. And make a big batch of food for her to last for the week. So many things to do and only today to do it. I should have got up early and seized the day. It is now 3 p.m. when I'm recording this podcast because I've procrastinated. I've watched criminal minds. I made myself multiple things. I baked cookies for some reason. But this is so normal. I hope when you're listening to this, maybe you can really

or maybe you just think I'm crazy. But when we have a lot to do, when it's overwhelming, when there's a million things on our to-do list, even though I wrote a list and you might write a list too, it's very easy to procrastinate because of the feeling of overwhelm. So how do we beat that? How do we actually make progress? How do we stop procrastinating, stop panicking, stop feeling like we're just running in circles and getting nothing done and actually check things off the list. I should have done this

earlier today, but we're going to talk about that right now. The first thing we do is write a list of all the things. And I put on here things like pull the weeds in the front garden, pick up the dog poo, tidy the garage, dust the house, mop the house. Yeah, these things need to be done, but they don't need to be done right now. And will I be embarrassed that my parents are coming and the house is dusty? Yes. Will it be worse that there's no groceries in the house? Absafric and lute.

So grab a marker, brain dump first of all the pen, brain dump all the things that you actually think you have to get done today or this week and then go through and circle the most important. I think the most important thing is probably the laundry. I don't want my parents sleeping in my bed with my sheets that I've been slept on. That's gross. So we got to do the laundry, the sheets in particular. We have to do grocery shopping. It's got to get done and probably vacuum. I definitely have to feed the pets and get the pet food made and I need to pack and I need to write them a schedule so they know where to take my kids, what time and all of that stuff. So I've been circling this. You're listening to this podcast. I'm actually circling it while I record this. And now instead of a

huge piece of paper thing to do, I have one, two, three, four, five. I have five things to do. Still overwhelming. So here is a new technique that I just learned about. Actually, I learned about this during the all-dady clutter yesterday. It's been brought up a few times. We always say things like progress over perfection. Don't worry about doing things perfectly. But this person, his name is Craig Groschelle. I've never heard of him. He was doing some conferences for business leaders, how to help people who are running businesses or organizations get more done. And he came up with a concept called getmo. Getmo. G-E-T-M-O. Get-mo. You want to get more done. You want to get more money. You want to get more success. It's cute, right? It's adorable.

And what it stands for is good enough to move on. Good enough to move on. I can just wash the sheets and move on and not do all the laundry in the whole house and put it all away. Yeah, my kids have baskets of clean laundry that need to get put away. Now my problem. They can do it while grandma's here. that it's good enough to move on. What is the bare minimum that I can do today that's good enough to move on to the next task? Do I need to clean out my van? Nope. Can I throw out the takeaway containers and all the cups? Yep. Good enough to move on. Is it full of dog hair and leaves and and dust and grossness? Yep, but at least it isn't going to stink when it sits in the warm heat for the week. with all of those containers and food and glasses in it. Good enough to move on. And we can use this

concept for every single aspect of our life. I want you to take a look at your home or your life, your current to-do list, and not only look at what is the most important thing, but how can I kind of just shortcut this? How can I do it crappy? How can I just do the bare minimum and make good enough to move on to the next thing. This goes against everything we've ever been taught. If you're going to do something, do it right. And even our instinct is if we're doing something like the laundry, we want to do it all. We want to like, oh, I have, or we tell ourselves we want to do it all. All these things need to be washed. All the bedding needs to be washed. All the towels should be washed. Everything should be folded and put away. What if we just wash the bedding that our family

and like our guests are going to sleep in and have some clean towels for them and move on to the next task because there isn't enough time in the day to get it all done. Even if I got up and worked from the crack of dawn until I went to bed, I wouldn't get it all done. And I've procrastinated doing it because of the overwhelm. So what happens when we give ourselves permission to do things badly. It doesn't feel right. I know I'm still going to be embarrassed when my family comes and spends the night and things aren't great and I'm supposed to be an organizing expert and I have weeds in my front garden and things are kind of dusty and my fridge isn't super organized. Who cares? Good enough to move on. Good enough. That's what we got to focus on today. So that's what I'm doing.

I'm breaking this down and I want you to do the same. thing. We're going to talk a little bit in this podcast about the kitchen success path because when we're looking at our house as a whole, whether there's company coming over or not, the area that makes, that gives us the biggest bang for the buck that makes the biggest difference in how our house functions, how it looks, how we feel about it, what our guests are interpreting when they come over, the room that makes the biggest difference is the kitchen. It's also important that we clean our toilets and maybe our bathroom counters, but the biggest bang for our buck comes from the kitchen.

So I'm going to talk about the kitchen success path in a second and how focusing on that and doing that step by step in that order can eliminate the overwhelm, get us on track, and get us the space that we deserve. That can be the catalyst for the rest of the house. So we can get more done, but also get it done good enough and move on. If you weren't part of the all-day declutter yesterday, I kind of want to just share some of the things that we did

because thousands of people had huge success. Thousands of people decluttered boxes and bags and endless amounts of clutter from their home. And all of these people had struggled in the past. So what was the difference about yesterday? What are some of the reasons why all of a sudden they were able to let go of so much? And I'm going to tell you some of those reasons right now. And I'm hoping as you're listening to this podcast,

I want you to look around and tackle something in your home good enough. Whether it's decluttering something, maybe you're like, I really need to do the dishes. Let's do the dishes right now while you listen to this podcast. When is the last time you've opened up a drawer in your kitchen and just said, why do I have six spatula? Some of these can go. All these little things that we can do, just these little tasks that we can do are going to add up to less stress, less pressure, and less overwhelm. And I know I keep coming back to decluttering and organizing is important, yes, and routines are important, yes, and your house isn't everything either. Like cleaning your house and having a clean

house isn't the most important thing in the world. There are so many things that are more important. And yet, when we take a few minutes here and a few minutes there and make our home a priority just for a few minutes a day and then go back to prioritizing all the other stuff that's more important, that consistency of daily tackling it means that overall we feel less overwhelmed because it's easier to make dinner. It's easier to get dressed. We're not stressed by the clutter. We're not embarrassed if people come over. We feel a little bit more in control when our space is in control. So how are people doing this in huge ways on the all day declutter on the Saturday? I'll tell you how. The first is accountability.

They are setting a time. They know it's Saturday. They're showing up with the intent to declutter on that day. It's an intentional act. Having us there, we're just doing a lot. It's like you're listening to this podcast. There really isn't. It's not like you're talking back to us. It's not some interactive thing. And yet it's insanely, insanely effective. Why? Because you've decided, you've set the intention and you've shown up with a plan to let things go that day. How often do we do this? How often do we say, this is what I'm doing this day and stop? This is all I'm doing this day. We're not overwhelmed with 50 things on the to-do list. The only thing we're doing this day is removing things from our home. So it's that accountability to It's that intention. It's it's that mindset. We're being really mindful in the moment that this is what we're doing today. And we've got the tools. We've got the bag and we've got the boxes. That's 90% of it. It really is. It's 90% of it. And setting the time, we're starting at 9 a.m.

So we can't procrastinate till 3 like I did. Right. It's on the calendar. We start at 9 a.m. You've got to show up. You've got to show up and turn on the computer and be there for 9 a.m. Again, accountability and intention. We can do this anytime. We can have the same effect anytime. You are listening to this podcast right now. You are, I am holding you accountable. You are holding yourself accountable. You're listening to this because you care, because you want to make a difference, because you freaking love yourself enough to say, I deserve better than what I'm living in currently, and I want to be better. I want my home to be better. I want myself to be better. I want to level up. And I'm here and I'm in it to win it.

So do the work. And not all day, do we have to work? But we do have to be consistent. So what are you going to do right now? I hope while you're listening to this, you're doing putting away laundry, or you're doing the dishes, or you're finding things to go. Okay. So accountability is 90% of it. just being intentional, 90% of it. The other 10% is a plan. Really? It's having somebody take away that decision fatigue of what do I do first? Where do I start? What is the first thing that needs to be done? That's so overwhelming. And when we want to overcome that overwhelm and we want to beat it down, we do need a plan, but a simplified plan. We can't have a to-do list with 50 things on it because we're going to want to run and hide and watch criminal minds in our bed like I did all day.

I'm very embarrassed to say this, but it's true. I didn't do the thing I know what to do today. So I'm doing it now. We're breaking it down. What's the most important thing we can do today? The most important thing. For me, it's just stripping the bed and washing those sheets, hands down, and then go into the grocery store. What's the most important thing you can do today? And how can we break that down further? I'm overwhelmed at the thought of going to the grocery store, but guess what? I can open up the app to the grocery store and I can add a bunch of stuff and I can schedule the time to pick it up later today. I can simplify that.

I can make it easier for myself. I can take a shortcut and I can do it good enough to move on. to the next thing. I'm going to get more groceries. Good enough to move on. I'm going to get more laundry done by just at least putting it in the wash and switching it over and just worrying about the stuff that really matters, which is the sheets for my family because they're going to be sleeping in my bed. Get more. Get more done. Good enough to move on. Think about your to do list today. When we're doing the things that are on our list, too, we got to remember this. Get mode at that time, too. When you're decluttering a drawer, you don't have to take everything out. You don't have, you shouldn't

sort everything into, well, this is all the spatula is and this is all the spoons. And our brain tells ourselves, we need to do this so we know how much we have. So we know which ones we like better. So we know blah, blah, blah. This is such a lie. This is such a time consuming waste of time. So if we look at us accomplishing our tasks as sort of a chart, how much time we put into it based on the other way at how good the results are, we think the more time we dedicate to a chore, the better the results are going to be. The more bang for our buck we're going to get, right? If we're going to do something, we're going to do it right, and it's going to last, it's going to be

better and this has proven to be a lie. We have to put some time in, but we don't have, it doesn't, the more time doesn't equal a better result. You don't have to take everything out and sort into lots of piles to decide what spatulas you don't like. You need to open your drawer and look down and say, what spatula do I never use? Or which spatula do I love the most? This one. Which spatula do I love the second most? This one. Which spatula do I love the second most? This one. Which third, this one, the rest can go because we don't need more than three. But you know this. You know what you like and what you don't and what you use and what you don't. So we trust our gut and we don't make piles and we don't sort. And when it comes to house cleaning or dishes or all

these other things, like let's just get it done to the minimum so we can move on. When I'm vacuuming the house, you don't have to pull out all the furniture. We're just vacuuming the traffic areas and done and we're moving on. Good enough. Good enough to move on. When we're dusting, we don't have to move everything. We're just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, the really dusty areas and move on. When we clean the bathrooms, let's just clean the mirror, swoosh the toilet, and clean off the counter. Do we have to scrub the shower today? No. Do we have to scrub the floors today? No. Good enough to move on. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It doesn't have to be some huge undertaking. And when you're listening to this, let's embrace that in every aspect of your life.

I have spent the last few years interviewing a lot of incredible people on this podcast and meeting them in real life. I've got the privilege of going to conferences and meeting insanely successful people, not just in the home and organizing industry, but just like in general. And I look at these people. I look at Elon Musk. I look at these people who are like, you are crazy successful. I haven't met Elon Musk. I'm just using him as an example. What makes successful people different than all the rest of us? Like, why is this person succeeding and this person is struggling? Or even if they're not struggling, not doing as well. And when I really ask successful people this question, What's your secret? I get the same answer every single time. And we've talked about this time and time and time and time again. What is it that they're smarter? No. Do they work harder? No. Do they have some abilities that the rest of us have? Absolutely not. What is it? What is it that they're doing? And I'll tell you, they're doing things good enough to move on. And they're doing it consistently. They are embracing doing things crappy.

They are not planning everything down. They are not making lists upon list. They are like, I need to do this. I'm going to jump in. I'm going to figure it out as we go. And I'm going to just do it good enough and move on to the next thing. And when that's good enough done, I'm going to move on to the next thing. There's no perfection in this success.

path for these people. There really isn't. There really isn't. And so I look at people in my life, I have friends who are brilliant, the smartest people I've ever met. Are they more successful? Absolutely not. The most successful people I know personally are not the smartest, not the hardest working. They're the ones who are just like, I'm going to do this and this and this and this, and they're doing none of it perfectly, but they're doing a lot of it, a lot of the time. They're doing it good enough to move on, and they're consistently showing up and doing it. They're not working from the time they'll get up till the time they go to bed. And when I look at my own life, I work part time.

I used to work when I was living with a messy house and, oh my gosh, just I worked so much harder than I work now, managing the mess, trying to manage my finances, trying to plan everything, trying to work out what it's going to look like when it's done before I even start, researching, planning. I was so scared to waste my time, maybe, to do it wrong and have to do it again, that I kind of like wasted my time planning and research. I would watch an hour's worth of videos on shortcuts on how to do the dishes faster, right, instead of just doing the dishes that took five minutes. That's a bad example.

Dishes is a bad example. But I would watch something on how to do something easier that would take more time than just doing the thing, especially just doing it good enough and moving on. And this is the secret. We don't have to fold our underwear. We don't even have to fold our anything. Okay. Is it better that it's sitting in a laundry basket,

just sitting there waiting forever, or is it better that it's away and you're moving on? I promise you it's better that it's a way. It's better that it's a way. And I hear a lot of people who I coach in person and I have clients. And I'm like, listen, just take that out of the laundry basket and put it in the drawer. And they'll say, oh, but it's going to get wrinkled and I'll have to do it again and it's going to bother me. And I'm like, but it's not, it's literally take it from the basket as is in the basket right now and move it to a drawer.

Same, same, same friend, except one is a way and one is a mess. One is a to do that every time you look at that, it's nagging you and one is you're done and you're moving on. It's good enough and you're moving on. And it's not just the laundry that this applies to. It's everything. If you're like, I have this pile of stuff I want to go through and I want to get to or pile of bills. I want to file properly. So it's just sitting on your desk. Pick up that pile and put it in a box and label it 2023 paid bills and move on. It's good enough. It has to be a way though. It has to have a home. And your surfaces and piles. That is not a home. And I don't want you to just shove it in a drawer. That's not good enough. I don't want you to just hide things in places that aren't a home. There's a difference. Create a home or put it in a home. Think where would I look for this first and make that it's home and then move on. We don't have to color coordinate. We don't have to label. We don't have to organize. We don't have to buy containers.

we don't have to do these extra things and we shouldn't do these extra things, especially when you're drowning and you have a huge list of to-dos. If you're doing the dishes right now and they're drip, they're wet, shake it off and put it away. It doesn't have to be perfectly dry. It'll dry in the cabinet. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Is that crazy, Cass? It's not freaking crazy, you guys. It's not good enough to move on. Means we're doing it. We're showing up. We're making a difference. We're getting things done. But we're not worried about doing it perfectly. So now we have so much more time to do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And we're tackling 10 times more than we would accomplish because one task that would usually take us an hour

it now takes us 10 minutes. And we can do six more things or five more things, six things total in that hour. Because we're shortcutting it. And we deserve this. And we're also getting things off the list that don't matter that aren't going to give us that biggest bang for the buck. Every, I feel really bad. I'm going to throw my sister under the bus for a second.

But I hope she doesn't watch this podcast. Every spring I talk to her and we talk about spring. cleaning our house and all the things we're going to do. When you walk into my sister's home, there isn't one surface that isn't completely covered in clutter. You have to step over piles of shoes and coats just to get in her door. Oftentimes you can't sit on any of the sofas because they're so full of laundry, both dirty and clean, that have to be done.

The floor is littered with toys and just trash and things everywhere. and I talked to her and we're like, I'm like, I'm doing this today. What are you doing? She's like, oh, I'm spending all day washing my walls, all day scrubbing my walls. Yeah, they're probably dusty. Because when you have clutter everywhere, it attracts dirt and grime and it's very hard to dust and it's hard to vacuum and it's hard to clean and eventually that dirt's going to go up to the walls. But what can she do on a Saturday that's going to push the needle for? forward that's going to give her the biggest bang for her buck? Is it doing the dishes, picking up the stuff, putting the shoes away, getting the laundry done, or is it washing her

walls? And I know you know the answer to this. And she knows the answer to this. But we get so overwhelmed because this seems like it's something it's going to take forever and I got to do it right and I have to organize first and I got to buy containers for the shoes. And I probably have to like, you know, declutter some things and I need to and I need to and I need to. I need to. All I need to wash the walls is a bucket of soapy water. I can do that. This stuff all requires more thought and more planning and more supplies and more work. And this seems easier. So I'm going to do this because this seems overwhelming. But what if the dishes just have to be you fill the sink with soapy water, you scrub them a little bit and you toss them into the sink to dry?

What if we just throw the laundry in the washer and we take the stuff that's clean and we just throw it in the drawers without folding? What if we just do that? It's off the sofas. It's off the floor. It's out of the baskets. What if we make all of those tasks as simple as filling a bucket with soapy water and wiping down the walls? What if we don't do it in this complex way that we think we have to and we do it shitty? And we get more.

right good enough to move on this is the difference this is the difference between people who are succeeding and seem to be juggling it all and getting it all done and those of us who feel like we're drowning please listen and and really hear it's okay to let go it's okay to do things badly what isn't okay is to not do those things at all and wait until you have the time tomorrow or next week or a month from now because every day you put these things off, more things add and pile on your to-do list and you are drowning and it's time to take some things off. I'd like to take a second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Aura Frames. Mother's Day is coming up and honestly the best gift that I've ever given to my mom and my mother-in-law and my grandmothers is an aura digital frame. I love these frames not only because

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I quickly want to talk about the kitchen success path. And this is something we've been doing really a lot in the Take Your House Back community and we did it in the all day, declutter. And it's something that Dawn from the minimal mom and I kind of just discovered talking about like what is the actual plan? We know that the kitchen is the most important room in the house when it comes to just getting it under control. We know this when it comes to decluttering, cleaning, having routines, zoning, and organization. You're going to get the biggest bang for your buck in the kitchen. But what does this look like? Because we talk about this and then we hear from thousands of people, this is what's so great about this course, is that we have this interaction with people who are struggling

and working, getting their house under control. And we have this real-time feedback of what's, working and what isn't, what they're struggling with. And so we're able now to teach better. And what we learned in the kitchen was it's overwhelming because where do you start? Yeah, we know we do the dishes. But after that, like, what does this look like? And do I take everything out? Do I move everything around? Do I worry about the counters? Do I worry about how many spatulas I have? Do I worry about where the mugs go? Like, it's crazy. Overwhelming. So we've created a kitchen success path for you. And we've broken it down into these steps because these are the steps you need to follow to have success. And I like to call them group A, B, C, and D.

And when you know what group you're in, it simplifies it. This is the group you're in. This is your only focus right now. And then you can graduate to the next group. And this is your only focus. And when you've graduated from this group, then we move to the next group. And then eventually we're at the top of the mountain. And our kitchen's amazing. And it's more functional. And it's making life easier every single day. So what does this kitchen path look like?

Group A is dishes and tidy. So you're in group A if you don't do your dishes on a regular basis. If you have dirty dishes in the counter. And also there's a lot of things out that just have to get put away. The peanut butter needs to get put back in the cabinet. Maybe you've got mail and bills that you need to deal with or reference papers, receipts, kids' artwork. You have things out on the counter that don't belong in the kitchen, that you just haven't

or do belong in the kitchen and have a home, but you just haven't put those things away. And so group A, we're focusing on the basics. We're getting caught up on the dishes and we're tidying the kitchen. In group A, you can do this in under an hour. You can catch up and move on to group B today, right now. As you're listening to this podcast, you can move from group A to group B. And the thing about group A is we're kind of all always in group A. This is like where the consistency comes in.

We need to focus on this every day. But when we do, it's no longer a big deal. We can create habits and systems that make this feel effortless. I don't even realize that I'm emptying the dishwasher now and loading it. I'm just doing it after dinner. My family's helping. We're loading the dishwasher. It's just kind of like this autopilot thing.

So let's move on to group B. And that's clear counters. And I talk a lot about, you know, your organizing style and if you're visual and if you're not. And so this is a really tricky thing to talk about because visual organizers are like, I leave it because I want to see it. And especially like if you've ever cooked professionally in a kitchen, we're in this. kind of like habit of having everything out on the counter. But here's the truth. When everything is visual, nothing is visual. And when everything's left out for function, nothing's functional.

You don't have room for cooking. You don't have space to prepare things. And everywhere you see is clutter. And clutter attracts clutter. And your kitchen feels messy and dirty even when it isn't because there's just too much out. So when you're in group B and you're clearing the counters, what we're focusing on is just removing things from the counters that you don't use every single day. If you only make toasts three days a week, your toaster shouldn't be on the counter. If you're only using your blender a couple times a week, your blender should not be on the counter. And you're thinking, I don't have a place for these things to go. My kitchen isn't big enough. I promise you that is a lie. If you open up the cabinets, especially right underneath or

above or close to where you're putting these things on the counter, what can leave to make room? What can go? You probably have soup pots or roasting pans or platters for entertaining guests. Those things don't need to be in your kitchen because you don't use them all the time. We can relocate those things to the storage room, the basement, the garage. This doesn't mean you have to get rid of these things, but you can make room for the things that are important. Use your valuable real estate in the kitchen by relocating things that you don't use all the time to someplace else. I also know there's a ton of stuff you can declutter in your kitchen, whether it's Christmas mugs that you never really, you do not need that many mugs. Some of those can go, giant mixing

bowls, food storage containers, pots and pans you don't like and don't use. You can only have what fits on four burners. Why do you have 10 pots and pans? Be ruthless. Be ruthless because when you clear things out and make room for the things on the counter, your kitchen is going to feel tidier. It's going to be easier to cook, easier to keep it clean, and you are going to feel more in control of your space. So that's group B. Then we move to group C. Once we've really focused on the counters and creating homes for those things, then we dig a little deeper with the declutter. We don't take everything out and sort into a million piles, but we do open up cabinets and look. We open up drawers and look. And we really say, what am I not using here? Why do I have three potato mashers?

Why do I have four peelers like vegetable peelers? Why do I have so many pictures and jugs for juice when we never use them? These things can leave. These extras and excess can leave because every small thing that leaves your kitchen is adding time back in your day and peace of mind and helping you overcome that overwhelm. Okay. So group D is zoning. And this is like, it's so important, but it's a lot of work, which is why we keep it at group D because it's near the end of the process, right? The end of the top of the mountain. Zoning means completely rearranging your kitchen. And you're like, well, I just move things and I just decluttered and I know. But we have to follow the steps. We're not doing this all in one day because it's impossible. And then we're just left with a mess everywhere and we've super overwhelmed. So it's, it's,

It's a gradual step and step and step to success. Zoning means taking a look at your kitchen differently with a critical eye and saying, how can I make this more functional by storing things where I use them? Your plates, your dishes, your glasses should be stored close to the dishwasher as close as possible. Same as your cutlery, your silverware so that emptying the dishwasher, you don't have to walk across the kitchen. Your mugs, your coffee mugs, should be stored above the coffee maker or close to the coffee maker.

They don't have to be stored with your glasses. Your baking, your spices, that should be stored where you're naturally standing when you use these things. And if you don't have space to zone everything perfectly, we start with the things you touch every day, the things that are most important, the things that are accessed all the time.

Are your dish rags right beside the sink? They should be. So what can we switch? What can we rewrote, like move around to make our kitchen more functional? So that's what zoning is. And lastly, we have organization. So once everything's decluttered, once everything's zoned, once you've found homes for things on the counters, right? We've done this step. Now we can go through and say, let's get some pretty baskets or drawer dividers. Let's maybe decant all of our flower. Let's create nice, cool, organized homes for the things now that we know exactly where they're going to live and how much space and exactly how much we have. Now we can organize. We don't organize at the beginning because you're wasting time and you're wasting money. And when you

break your kitchen down into these steps, the kitchen. success path, you are going to have long-lasting success. But more importantly, you're going to overcome that overwhelm. Okay. Thank you for joining me today in today's podcast. I hope you're feeling inspired, mindful, motivated to get things done in your house today. But more importantly, to get it done good enough to move on to the next thing. I'm going to go do the laundry right now. I'm going to quickly do a quick tidy, maybe a little vacuum, wipe down counters, going to place that order at the grocery store, and I'm going to embrace good enough. And I'm not going to let my anxiety about perfection derail my progress. Thank you guys so much and I'll see you next time.