Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Say Good-bye to your Clutter! Declutter Bootcamp starts now | Clutterbug Podcast # 112

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

It's time for our Declutter Bootcamp! This week we are starting off with Trash Bag Therapy. This is all about building momentum, finding motivation and finally taking action on your clutter today.  Get your FREE Declutter Bootcamp eBook here: https://clutterbug.me/declutterbootcamp2021       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

It's called trash bag therapy because honestly it's therapeutic. It changes your mindset, which is exactly what you need when you're letting go of stuff. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. I'm doing a decluttering boot camp on my YouTube channel, Clutterbug, where every week for four weeks we're tackling a different area or different stuff in our home to really jumpstart decluttering, to jump start taking back control of our house and I'm doing it in a boot camp because I want to show you the steps the real steps not about it's not about picking up things and putting in a bag or donating things it's about changing your mindset

when it comes to decluttering changing it from a negative like I have to get rid of stuff or stuff has to go my good things I have to let go of to a positive for you to actually get to a point where you want to have less stuff, where you actually enjoy passing things on to different people. We're going to change everything about your mindset when it comes to decluttering. Instead of getting rid of things, you're going to think of it as gifting. And it's going to give you those good feelings knowing you're helping people by letting go and, of course, making your life easier because you have less stuff. But there are steps.

You don't just go from someone who has anxiety about decluttering to someone who loves decluttering overnight. There really are concrete steps that you need to follow to change your mindset, which is why we're starting with trash. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can head over to my website clutterbug.com. And at the very bottom of the homepage, you're going to see a spot where you can sign up for the free boot camp. It's completely free.

It's also on my YouTube channel and you'll get a free decluttering ebook to go with it that has weekly challenges for you. We also talk about decluttering rules. You know how I love rules. Listen, rules are things that you can use as a guideline when you start feeling anxiety. So those rules are in there. We're going to talk more about those in a few minutes and also every week's challenge. But I wanted to talk about why we start with week one, which is trash. I call it garbage bag therapy. Peter Walsh called it trash bag therapy too, so I'm totally copying this from him. But when I first started my journey, I was stressed out about letting go. Anything I was putting in a garbage bag or donating, it felt, I felt like what if I make a mistake? What if I regret this? We didn't have a lot of money at the time. I was a stay-at-home mom running a daycare.

So I already felt a lot of guilt about any money that I spent because I had a lot of guilt about any money that I spent, I had a hard time seeing it as my money too, since my husband was the primary, you know, earner in the family. We were really struggling financially. And so there was a lot of shame when it came to my stuff. Shame that I bought it. Shame that I had it. Shame that I couldn't manage it. And definitely shame about letting it go because it felt so wasteful. We didn't have a lot of money. So how could I possibly be throwing things out or getting rid of things that I might need to spend money on in the future. So it was trapped. I was trapped by my stuff. And listening to Peter Walsh's words, he suggested starting with trash bag therapy. He called it trash bag tango. He had lots of names for it.

And I was like, I mean, I had a lot of stuff, but I definitely didn't think I was a hoarder by any means. And so I didn't think I'd find trash in my house, but I was so wrong. And still to this day, I mean, I declutter all the time and I can still find trash. And the great thing about starting with trash is it isn't emotional. And I'm going to help you identify things that maybe you didn't realize that are trash, that are actually trash. But it isn't stressful because you don't have to worry about having regret about letting these things go or worried about wasting money.

You just get all the good feelings of seeing immediate results of less stuff in your home and you get to see how good it feels to fill a bag or a box and take it out of your house. And those are the feelings we really want to cultivate. Those are the feelings we really want to focus on so that every week we push a little bit harder and it gets a little bit easier. So the first week trash bag therapy, we're going to do filled coloring books and notebooks and all of these things will be in both the video. You'll see this list and also in your free Cluttering Guide, which you can get on my website at Clutterbug.com. But we're going to get rid of filled coloring books and old notebooks.

If you have little kids, you probably have coloring books that are like all scribbled on and there's like maybe 10 pages left, but no kid wants a coloring book that's already scribbled on. So we're letting those go. If it's 90% full, it's trash. And if you are a person who likes taking notes, if it's the act of writing things down that help you retain information, that is awesome. and it's great that you know that about yourself, but keeping old notebooks, you're not going back through those and rereading them. It's the process of writing it down that's helpful for you.

So now it's time to let the old notebooks go. It's just clutter. The next thing is socks without a mate. So I'm not suggesting that any sock that doesn't have a mate immediately goes. I want you to schedule 15 or 20 minutes to gather all your lone socks and try to pair them. After that amount of time, anything else you can't find, give yourself permission to let those extra socks go. They've probably been rolling around in your house for months or years or decades. Let's totally be honest. And it's one of those things, these lost socks are one of these things that feels like a never-ending to-do list. You always look at them, you feel guilty, you feel like you should be tackling that. It looks like a big old pile of wasted money,

which makes you feel bad about yourself and the cycle continues forever. So we're just forgiving ourselves and we're letting them go. And there may be other ones in a drawer or in a basket that is that mate, but that's okay. It's okay. It's time to lighten your load. And a few lost pairs of socks are not going to be the be all end all break all of your budget. But they could really have a negative effect on your self-esteem and they're definitely stealing your time. If you're having to look for matching socks every morning, you're wasting

hours and hours and hours of your life. So we're matching the ones that we have. We're spending time to match them. And anyone that we can't find the mate with, we're forgiving ourselves, like after 15, 20 minutes, and we're letting it go. Food storage containers without the lids or the extra lids are leaving. You have enough. You have enough. And every time, you can't find a matching lid. It's wasting your time and it's filling up your cabinet. I don't know where they go. You've all heard the joke that lost socks turn into extra Tupperware lids. I don't know. It could be true. But either way, both of those things are leaving. Little samples or condiment packages, hot sauce, barbecue sauce, ketchup from takeout. None of those have expiry dates on them. So you have

no idea if they've gone bad or not. And they end up being in a drawer or in lunch. like a side of your fridge till the end of freaking time. No one uses them. Let's let them go. Expired medication and vitamins. I declutter all the time. I just found so many vitamins from 2018. I'm so embarrassed. But also I had so many vitamins. Every time I looked at them, I take a couple of vitamins, but I had so many that it seemed overwhelming. I couldn't see the ones that I like to take on a regular basis because there was just so many there and I felt a lot of guilt and shame for not taking my vitamins all the time and for wasting that money and so every day I went in the bathroom it was kind of reminding me of my failure

by looking at all of these vitamins and it was so amazing to go through and realize 90% of them had expired so I didn't have to feel the shame and guilt of putting them and wasting the money because guess what they had expired I can let them go and I never have to look at those and feel shame again. Greeting cards without notes. If somebody hasn't taken the time to write a personal note in your greeting card, they're just telling you they love you with the act of buying the card, but there's no reason to keep it. And there's no, they are not expecting you to keep it either. Let go of the guilt and the clutter at the same time. Old calendars, old planners, they've served their purpose. If they're still in your house, they're clutter.

It's not memories. It's clutter. Unidentified frozen food. If you open your freezer and you're like, I don't know if this is a pork chop or a filet of fish, it is garbage, my friend. That turkey that's more than three years old, it's trash, my friends. Anything that's freezer burnt, anything that's in the bottom of a box and it's like two, you know, really snow-covered chicken nuggets. Let's let that go. We all wish we had bigger and more organized. freezers, you'll get that, a little bit of that, by letting go of the things that are actually trash in your freezer. And this isn't wasting food. Keeping that is wasting your space, and it's making it hard for you to find the food that you actually like and that is good to eat. So let all that other stuff go. Old receipts. Probably shoved in the bottom of your purse. Come on, in your car, maybe, maybe in a random drawer in your bedroom, all the those old receipts can go. And last but not least, dead pens and markers. I can't tell you how many times I've gone in the kitchen to write a note or even in my office. I still do this. Like,

why do I do this? I take out a pen. It's dead. It doesn't work. And I toss it back in the drawer and fish around for another one. I've probably wasted hours of my life hunting for a good pen. If I was just to throw out the dead pens, I would never have to hunt again. Why don't we do this? it's time to let these go. And those are the 10 things, but I hope you find other things as well. Just open drawers and look for scrap pieces of paper, old packaging, trash. How many times have you bought a new shirt, ripped the tag off and then like toss the tag in your drawer? I know you do it.

Maybe you don't. I do it. If I'm being honest, I totally do that. But all of these little bits of trash can add up to a lot of clutter. But it isn't even about what's leaving our house. it's about changing your mindset about letting go it's about turning it from a negative the thought of it being a negative to a positive and that's why we start with trash bag therapy because it feels so freaking good it feels therapeutic think of it as self-care grab a trash bag and maybe a bag for recycling

and go through your house and just hunt we're not sorting we're not pulling anything out we're not making piles or just hunting for trash that can go. Maybe go to your car and clear out trash from your car. Whatever it is, I want you to build that momentum, that mojo. I want you to stop waiting for the perfect time, the right amount of time, waiting for the motivation to finally get your house in order. I want you to start right now. Right now. Grab a bag and fill it up. And when you're in doubt, if something is trash or not, when you're in doubt, throw it out. Because if it isn't a hard yes, it's a hard no, which leads me to the decluttering rules. Now, we don't really need these when it comes to trash because trash is trash.

You know what I'm saying? If something's broken, it's trash. If something's a packaging that food or something you've purchased has come in, it's trash. But there are other things that might be harder, especially as we go through this decluttering boot camp, there's going to be times where I'm telling you to declutter things and you're going to feel uncomfortable about it and not be sure and feel that fear and anxiety that comes from the fear of making a mistake, doing it wrong, having regret, wasting money. Those are scary things. And so when you're feeling those things, there is five rules that you can remind yourself of. And again,

and these are in your decluttering e-book. But these rules help take the emotion and the anxiety out of it because you don't have to trust yourself. You can trust the rules. Because this is about logic. These rules are logic-based. And the great thing is there are so many rules. You just need to have three or four out of the five be like, yeah, okay, it doesn't apply

to that. It doesn't have to just be one. so that you're really stacking on the logic. And you'll understand in a second. The first thing is, have I used this in the last 12 months? There are going to be things that you haven't used in the last 12 months, but that you're feeling like, well, but maybe, I mean, it's been COVID, or maybe it's an inflatable mattress that we only use when company comes over,

or maybe it's a tent and you just haven't gone camping. So not everything. You can't just have one rule. have I used it in the last 12 months? That's why we have to stack the rules. Do I love this is the second rule. Do I love it? Now, you might not love your potato masher,

but again, you may have used it in the last 12 months. So this is why we have multiple rules. The third rule is, if I didn't own this, would I buy it again? I just want you to think about this is honestly my favorite rule. If I didn't own this. and I was at the store, would I buy it again? If the answer is no, it doesn't need to be in your house.

And again, you can stack this with, have I used this in the last 12 months, and do I love it? And if the answer to all three of these is no, then you can know with confidence that that thing can go. The next rule is, if I needed this, would it even occur to me that I owned it? If I needed this thing, would I even remember that I owned it? It could be something, I don't know, really random, right? Like some sort of, I always use the example of a banana slicer. I don't think anyone actually has these things, but you know what I'm saying? I've seen them sold on TV.

I'm like, who the heck people would use a knife? But there are other things too. So my assistant Alicia has a drawer filled with batteries that she's not sure if they're dead or not dead. She's like, I have to buy a battery tester to test them. Every time she needs a battery, she doesn't want to go through. that big drawer and I said to her if you needed a battery what would you do and she said I'd buy a pack of batteries so if it wouldn't even occur to her to use or to check that drawer filled with batteries that's garbage that's trash that needs to leave her house now so that she's not burdened and she can

start fresh with batteries that she knows that they're all good right and the last rule is if keeping this thing isn't a hard yes, it's a hard no. So if you look at something and you think, oh, do I need this? I'm not sure. I don't know. It's a hard no. You don't need it. But again, you don't have to just trust your feelings. You have all the other rules to go off of. So I want you today, if you do nothing else, to grab a bag and hunt for trash in your house. We're starting small, don't care how clean and tidy and organized. your houses, you have trash. You have empty bottles of your, you know, in your shower or like almost empty bottles of goo that or something. You have broken hair ties. You have receipts. You have tags. You have

you have food in your freezer that you have no freaking idea what it is. You may even have food in your pantry that is expired or things you don't like. You've tried it and you're like, actually, I hate dad's cookies from Costco. Why do I still have this box that's been in here for three years? In case there's an Apocalypse? We've had an apocalypse. You still didn't eat the dad's cookies because they're gross. Put them in a bag, friend. Put it in a bag. This isn't about how much you let go of. This isn't about what's leaving your house. This is about changing your mindset, building momentum and finding the motivation to get up and take your house back. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you guys next week and I hope you head over to my website clutterbug.com and right on the home page

if you scroll to the bottom. If you put in your name and email, I'll send you that free decluttering boot camp ebook and updates each and every week. We'll see you then.