Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Take Control of Your Home | Clutterbug Podcast # 198

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Does having a clean house really matter? In this week's podcast, I share reasons why taking control of your home can have a big impact on your over-all well being and happiness. Having a tidy and organized home can make you feel more confident, and energized. Let's change our lives, just by changing the way we think about housework.        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

Does having a clean house actually matter? Like in the grand scheme of things, does it make a difference in your life? Is it really a big deal if you just let the dishes go and the laundry go and just do it every now and then? Do you have to have a clean and tidy house all the time? Or is it kind of overkill? That's what we're talking about in today's podcast. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. We're talking about if you should care, why you should care, why it's important to make having a tidy and organized home a priority. I went a really long time in my life, not seeing the point. Why would I do the dishes every day just to have to wash them again tomorrow? They just get dirty again. Why not just wait and do them all on the weekend? Why do laundry all the time? I'm just going to wear the clothes and get them dirty again.

wait till I run out of clean underwear and then do the laundry when I have to. And then after I had kids, they're so messy. And there was toys everywhere. I'd pick it up. It would get messy again the next day. I'm like, this is crazy pants. I'm not cleaning the toys until I have to, like if somebody's coming over or something. Because it felt like extra work just for the sake of working. And I didn't know why I should care. I told myself it really didn't bother me. And it wasn't that big of a deal and people live in houses and houses get messy and stop. And maybe you can relate to this. And I, I didn't understand the correlation between my environment and all the other aspects of my life until I started getting tidy. I knew that it bothered me a little bit

to have a messy house. Mostly when people came over, I'd be really embarrassed. But it didn't bother me enough to do anything about it on a regular basis. Sometimes I'd like rage clean because I would get so like it would just be too much, you know, and I'd lose my crap and I'd start throwing things in garbage bags and like shoving and hiding and cleaning. And then two days later would be a mess again. And I'd say, see, why I don't do this all the time. This is ridiculous. Like, look, I work so hard and I didn't even get to enjoy it that long. And I really stopped doing a on a regular basis because I didn't see the benefit, the real benefit to keeping it clean until it started staying clean. And then I noticed some crazy impact. So I want to talk about why

you should care today. I want you to see it's not even about the dishes or the laundry. It isn't about the mess. It isn't about the toys. It isn't about the clutter. It isn't about what it looks like. It's certainly not about what company thinks when they come over. This about control. It's about self-esteem and self-respect. It is about happiness and it is about your mental health. And that's why you should care. Why do we eat vegetables? Because it's good for us. We know this. Why do we exercise? Because it's good for us. We know this. And we can exercise. Do we see immediate results? Is it like we instantly get healthier? No. But we know because studies have shown that this is critical to our health, drinking water, taking vitamins. I don't know,

doing all the things that we're supposed to do has an impact, even though we can't always see them immediately. So take a, it's not about the mess. Take that right off the picture. When the wind blows, you can't see it, but you can feel it. You know that that's wind. That's kind of where this podcast is going today. I want to show you that it's doing so much. more behind the scenes when you actively make sure that you're consistently having routines and working towards maintaining a tidy, clean, and organized home that it is having more of an impact than you could ever possibly know. Okay. While you're listening to this, get to clean in something. Do those dishes. Put away the laundry. Let's do this because I'm going to

show you why you should care right now. There's a psychiatrist. Her name is Danielle Roske. She is the vice president of the residential services at Newport Healthcare. And she's also like a campaigner for the fact that your living space affects your health. And there is a direct correlation between stress, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, relationship strains, weight gain, financial insecurities like debt and the state of your home. Studies over the years have linked mental health to environmental exposure. In 1997, a study showed that children living in conditions that were messy had more health conditions as an adult.

Another study in 2000 linked the improvements in household quality. So getting a house tidy and organized. with a drastic improvement with those residents' mental health. And a recent study in 2020 in Korea showed that housing standards, that like houses that were messy and cluttered, directly correlated with depression in the residence. So, and what came first? The chicken of the egg?

I don't know. And then residents in a 2021 study in China were more likely to report good health when living in tidy homes. But I don't need to read all these studies. I'm reading them off to the side of my head. I don't need to read the studies to know because I felt it. I saw it and I've seen it since in my own life and I've seen it since in clients and people that I help. When I first started getting organized, it wasn't because I wanted to improve anything other than the way my house looked and functioned. I was sick of missing things and losing things. I was sick of being late. I was sick of having to dig through the mess. I was sick of constantly tidying just for it to get messy again. And the

wise words of Peter Walsh encouraged me to declutter and to try organization again. And I, so I went, I mean, I went all out, man. I decluttered like a bunch. I was like filling trash bags. And and this is the first time in my life. I had actually decluttered a aggressively. I want to call it aggressively because it was aggressive and also aggressively organized. I went to the store, I bought a bunch of dollar store dish pans and I just threw myself into this. And it did not take long. I mean days. Let's say, let's say, let's be honest, minutes, I started seeing results other than just the way my house looked. So here's the results I saw in minutes. As soon as I organized, it was like a sock drawer. started with and then a bathroom closet, I immediately, for the first time in a long time,

felt proud of myself. Pride right off the bat. And I don't feel like there is very much that you can do in this world that you can do for five or 10 or 15 minutes and see immediate results. Immediately. I'm like, look what I did. It looks amazing. I did this. I feel so good. I immediately felt extremely proud of myself by doing a short amount of work because I had a result that I could see, a tangible result that was like, look. When I work out, it feels good. When I eat a salad, yeah, yeah, it feels good. It feels good. But it goes away quickly because I forget. I can walk back into that room and feel pride all over again. An hour later, a day later, a week later. This feels so good. So that was the instant thing that I found. The next thing I really noticed when I started

decluttering and organizing and cleaning my house on a more regular basis was that other areas of my life where I was very out of control as well, because my house was out of control. But when I started gaining control over my house, even a little bit of control, I started realizing that I had more self-discipline and control in other areas too. I have no idea why. I've tried to find studies that really linked this control aspect. And I think I can't find anything like get control of one area of your life, get control of all areas of your life. I don't know why this works. And I can't find a study to really collaborate this. But I know I've talked to dozens and dozens of other people about this same thing. Like, why is it when we can get control of one area, do we start having control of

other areas too? So I stopped spending so much money. I started saving more. I got my finances in order. I started working on relationships and gaining control there. Eventually, I started getting control over my weight. It was like, what? And I think a lot of it was because an out of control environment makes you feel out of control in the inside. Like you feel chaotic because you're living in a chaotic space. And I know that your house, your home is like the foundation for your whole life. So when it's stressful and chaotic and out of control and you feel like, you just feel bad about yourself because of your space, that trickles everywhere else. And if you wake up in the morning and your house feels like a disaster, a bad day gets worse, right? It just really

does. If you wake up and something bad happens, it's kind of like the bad day and it just continues to get worse. But the opposite is also true. You wake up to a space that's under control and a good day gets better. It's a mindset. It's it really is so much. And I hate saying this. It's like your mind controls everything, but your mind controls everything. When you feel good, good stuff happens because you're doing good positive things and you're noticing positive things. And when you feel bad, bad things happen because you're noticing the bad things and you're taking shortcuts and you're more impulsive because why does it matter? So why should you care about the state of your home?

Because it's good for your health. It's good for your mental health. it's good for your happiness and it will improve every single freaking other area of your home. But we got to do it the right way. We can't just do the dishes and do the laundry and then be sad that there's dishes and laundry again tomorrow. That's not how we stop the cycle of clutter. We declutter the things we don't. We get it out of your house. We declutter.

We remove the things in your home that do not matter, that do not bring you joy, that are not serving you. and those things never come back. So how can it possibly get worse again? Because they're gone. They're out of there. And the other thing we do is we realize that small consistent actions is the secret. We can't wait until the weekend because all week we're living with all that mental health, physical health, all that nasty energy and all that stuff weighing on us.

we need to be consistent. And plus, I'll tell you this, I can promise you this, it's a whole lot harder to catch up than it is to keep up. So when we clean a little bit every day, when we put away the laundry every day and the dishes every day, and we tidy every day, we don't have to spend hours on the weekend or before someone's coming over. We don't have to scrub the goo because we've wiped it before it's hardened and before it's gotten hard. We don't have to scrub. We don't have to, oh, put away 10 loads of laundry. Kill me now.

We don't have to do any of that. And that also has a huge and lasting impact because now you've gained back something else that's insanely critical. And that's time, time and effort. you've gained back your weekends. You know? And so all of these little things that add up to, wow, this is just as important as eating fruits and vegetables. This is just as important as exercising.

This is just as important as taking your medication for your health condition. Tidying and cleaning your house is medication for your mental health and your physical health and your happiness. And it is just as critical. And I don't know why we're not talking about this more and that experts are talking about this more because I have seen it and I have felt it for myself. And I know the huge life-changing impact that this has. And I don't care. This might be sexist, but especially for women. As women, it's about our nest. We're feathering it. I think we're like innately just part of nature, our home is a reflection of us internally, externally. And when we struggle to be in control of it and manage it, when it's hard for us, not only is it embarrassing, but it also really

damages our self-esteem because we feel like failures. Not that it's a woman's job to keep up a house because it is not, but I think we also internalize mess more perhaps than men or maybe some men, my husband. Maybe I'm just talking about my husband. He doesn't really care. I mean, he cares if the house gets messy, but it doesn't feel like a personal slate on him. And I am here to remind you right now that you are not your mess. And your mess is not a reflection of you. It is not a moral failing if you have a messy home. But I can understand why it still makes you feel bad and I can tell you a hundred times a messy house is no reflection on you and you are still an amazing incredible beautiful person despite the state of your home and all of that is true

but it's really hard to feel it and what's important is that you do feel proud of yourself that you do feel in control that you do feel yeah happy with your home home and yourself and your environment. And just like a snowball that gets bigger as it goes downhill, the mess and clutter and self-hatred and feeling like a failure and all of those negative emotions get bigger when we just let it roll away. But the opposite is also true. The more we make these consistent changes and we realize that this is part of self-care and this is part of our health and this is important. And we're doing it because it's good for us. And we design. And we deserve it and it feels so freaking good. And we get to see immediate results. The more we change the

way we think about our home, the bigger that snowball gets too. And the more results we get to see. And the easier it becomes. And it's like, I'm amazing at this. It gets easier. And it doesn't feel like chores and work anymore because we've created these beautiful habits. So as you're doing your dishes and putting away your laundry and you're like, I hates it. This is, you're doing this for you because this is going to make your life better. Every aspect. Every aspect. This is your medicine.

But we can also make it fun. We can also make this feel more joyful in very easy ways. The first is changing your mindset. And if you feel any thoughts like, oh, I hate that I have to clean up after my kids or after my husband or this isn't fair. And I wish I could be doing something else and pour me. Anytime those thoughts come into your head, you replace them right away with, man, it's going to feel good when this kitchen's clean. Oh, I deserve a clean kitchen. I deserve a clean house. I'm doing this as a gift to myself. I'm girl boss in all day because holy smokes, this is going to

change my life. So the first thing we do is we catch those thoughts and we replace them. And the second thing we do is like literally make this fun put on some fun music listen to a podcast is this podcast fun probably not it's not fun i'm yelling at you to do your dishes but whatever whatever it takes friend because enough is enough i'm sick of you feeling like a failure i'm sick of myself feeling like a failure before so i'm sick of you feeling like a failure i i want you to say i'm sick of the mess. I'm tired of the clutter. I deserve better. And instead of waiting for it to happen, somebody else to come in to rescue you. Instead of being the victim, it's time to be the hero of your own life and fly in there with a cape friend and make it happen. Get up and take control of your house

right freaking now. And I look at pictures online and I'm part of a ton of groups on Facebook. I have my own Facebook group. It's like 234,000 people and people are posting pictures like, ah, my kitchen's a disaster and I don't know where to start. And there's dishes all over the counter and there's trash on the floor and there's boxes everywhere. And I look at that picture. And do you know what I think? You got two hours to a sparkling kitchen. That's all it would take. And I know this. Two hours of hard work, roll up your sleeves, work your butt off and your kitchen is It's immaculate, two hours to get it clean. And only because you've been putting it off for weeks or maybe even months.

And once it is clean, tomorrow it's 10 minutes. And the next day, it's 10 minutes. And every day after that, it's 10 minutes. You can do 10 minutes, but you've got to do two hours to get there. And if it's so full, it's like I can't, I have no place to put this stuff, Cass. I don't know where to put this stuff. Put it in the track. or find something else that can go in the trash so you can make room for this stuff.

Your house is as big as your house is. It is a container. You cannot stretch it. There is no magic wand or perfect solution or organizing bin that's going to fix it. Stop playing the victim. Stop looking for an easy way out. Roll up your sleeves and take action and make it happen. Because tomorrow you're going to feel so much.

much better. And tomorrow, guess what else is going to be better? Your mood, your self-esteem is going to be higher. You're going to feel in control, which means you're going to be more in control of your finances. You're going to be less impulsive of a spender. You're going to feel more in control of your relationships. You're not going to be snapping and rude or, or, you know, accidentally say something or argue with your spouse when you don't mean to. You're going to be calmer because you're happier. It's going to affect you're not going to feel depressed and overwhelmed and want to reach for the cookies and the candy and overeat. Why? Because you're going to feel more confident in yourself.

Because you did your freaking dishes. And this is why you should care. These are the reasons you should care. Because there is study after study after study that show that human beings prefer routines, stability, and in chaotic circumstances, we have negative, physical, and mental health repercussions. Your house is making you sick and sad. End of story. And if a messy house is making you sick and sad, then doesn't that prove that a clean house is going to make you healthy and happy?

Abs of freaking lulli. Your clutter affects your physical health as well. Absolutely does. And the act of cleaning actually releases endorphins. It really does because as long as you've got the right mindset and you're like, I'm doing this for me and this feels good and look at what I'm doing. Look at that. Look at my kitchen. My sink is shiny or look at my closet. Everything's hung. I've caught up on all the laundry. That's endorphins, endorphins. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine hit. You've done a good job. Look at what you've done. I'm so proud of me. Yeah. And endorphins are literally those chemicals that also improve your overall health, not just your mental health, but your physical health, too.

There has been so many studies that have shown that endorphins can have a positive effect on heart health, on your blood pressure, on your dietary system. So you're like gastrointestinal track. It can help improve your cortisone levels, which help with your blood sugar. All of these things. I'm not saying the cleaning your house is going to cure your diabetes, but I can promise you that stress affects your insulin levels a lot. So is this a magic cure? Yep. I almost said no. I mean, it isn't magical wave of magic wand. It is this hard work. But it is freaking magical. in that it will affect every other aspect of your life as well. It really will.

And I know I say this and I'm like, I should exercise because they say the same thing about exercising. They say like if you exercise every day, every other aspect of your life will improve. You'll have more energy. You'll, you know, all these things. Totally. I can see that that's true. I know that that's true.

But it's, I'm making excuses here. I need to do the exercise thing. But listen, if I could get immediate, if I could run on the treadmill and see a, see a perky or heinie, if I could do some crunches and like my stomach would instantly be a bit flatter. If I could choose a salad over a burger and like notice, be like, ooh, look at that. I'd be so skinny. I'd be like, I'd be so buff because I'm an immediate gratification girl. Give me results that I can see right away.

because if I can't see the results right away, I feel like it was a waste of my time. I don't want to wait till next week or next month. I want to see immediate results. And this is the thing with cleaning. You get to see the immediate results plus you get the long-lasting cumulative results that add up to all of these incredible health benefits that absolutely, without a doubt, scientific-backed changes your life. I'd like to take a second to thank today's podcast sponsor, ORA Frames.

I'm obsessed with my ORA frames. I now have two of them in the house, and there are digital picture frames that I can upload any photo from anywhere instantly from the app, either on the computer or my phone to my gorgeous frame. I love this because it's so easy. I don't have to think about it, but I also think this makes the best. gift. I've given them to all my grandparents, my mom, my mother-in-law, my stepmom has one. It's the gift that the whole family will enjoy and you can preload it with gorgeous photos.

Find them, you know, all get friends and family to add them to and you don't have to open the box. There's a code on the back. So not only you're giving a beautiful frame, but you're giving a frame that's already loaded with beautiful photos for your loved one. Right now, from now through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, visitoraframes.com and get $40 off their best-selling Carver Map Frame with the code Clutterbug. This is the best deal of the year. So right now, go to AuraU-R-A-Frames.com with the promo code Clutterbug. Terms and conditions apply. Now let's talk for just a second about how to actually dig your way out of the map. and how to get it clean without it feeling like this never-ending nightmare.

Because that's what it felt like a never-ending nightmare. I do the dishes and I got to do them again tomorrow. And I do the laundry and I got to do it tomorrow. And I pick up the toys and I've got to pick them up tomorrow. And why is everything so messy? It's exhausting. So here's the thing that really helped me. And that was breaking the tasks down into really smaller chunks,

especially the decluttering and the organizing tasks, you need to have wins. You to really have an effect of like to really have the long lasting positive health effects, mental health and physical, you need to have those positive endorphins. You need to have the confidence and the pride and the look what I did, not the, oh my gosh, I just cleaned for or just decluttered for an hour and I've made my house worse. that's bad. So breaking it down into like 15 minute jobs or 30 minute jobs is critical because we can have a beginning, a middle, and a completion, an end, which means one drawer, one shelf, just finding things that can go, not taking everything out and making a mess, just filling one trash bag, just grabbing a box and saying, what can I donate today? And I really love the 21 item toss. This is so effective because you give yourself that number of 21 things that you have to find. You're like, on your mark, get said, go, run around your house and try to find 21 items that you can donate.

Look at the old puzzle. Go in your linen closet. Pull out one blanket or one towel. Go in your closet. Pull out three shirts. Go in your underwear drawer. And you're like, these are nasty. Don't donate those.

Toss those in the trash. But my point is, this is actually fun. It's like Easter egg hunt, except not for the candy. It's for things that can go. But you feel like you've accomplished something. And your house isn't worse. It's better. And that really is the secret. Is these little tiny, rewarding projects that we can do. Still doing the dishes because that's rewarding. And hopefully the dishes does not take you more than a half an hour. If it has, you have a little, you have. haven't done them enough and you got to get in the habit of doing them once a day for sure, maybe even twice a day. But we need these confidence building projects that are small enough that we can do them without feeling overwhelmed and that don't make a mess so that we build something really powerful that's momentum. Because once we start feeling good and seeing this is positive, then we keep going. Then tomorrow we want to do it again. We don't feel like, oh, I just cleaned all day yesterday. That was exhausting because guess what? It didn't feel exhausting.

Because we stopped before it got exhausting so that we still have energy to do it again tomorrow. This is the secret. Don't push yourself until you're absolutely sick of it and exhausted. If you're not done, that's okay. When you start feeling tired, stop. This is a critical part. so that you have the energy to get back on the horse tomorrow. So make sure your projects are small enough that when you stop, you feel like you're done enough. And yeah, you're not going to do the whole kitchen one day and that's okay. Do one drawer, one or two drawers or just a half a pantry.

That's the secret. Okay. The next secret is this domino effect. So domino effect means you start with one thing and then it kind of like knocks down the next and the next and the next. You're like checking stuff off the list. And an important part that I did this was actually having a list. And I have some online and I have like a bunch. I have like the macro organizing guide. But you can also find like 30 spaces in 30 days little checklist that you can do. And these are great because they already break your. projects down into the first thing was like manageable goals. But now you kind of have an idea of what you can do the next day. So you like check it off. It's like, oh, this and this and this and this. And then I can do this and this and this. And before you know it, a hundred dominoes have fallen. And it feels so much better. And plus all of these things, not only are they immediate changes in results, but they're positive.

but they're also long-lasting impact. And remember, a good day gets better and a bad day gets worse. It's true. So we're focusing on these little positive things that we can do that will continue to have these positive effects. And then like more and more dominoes are falling. We're checking more things off the list. And like before you know it, your home honestly feels in control.

And we know that when you're, home feels in control, you start feeling in control of every other aspect too. So small things, small goals, having a list of small goals. So every day you don't have to think like, what am I doing today? You can reference it and don't feel so strict that like Monday I'm doing this and Tuesday I'm doing this. Just have it written down somewhere. So you have a guide. And then the last part is, the last really important thing is borrowing the motivation when you don't feel it. Because there's going to be lots of times where you're just like, I'll just do it tomorrow. You know why?

Because you're in the habit of just doing it tomorrow. You're in the habit of procrastinating. Let's be real honest here. You're in the habit of being messy. You're in the habit of leaving it. You're in the habit of making excuses. You're in the habit of being the victim. You want to be the hero?

You got to fight to be the hero. And you're not going to feel like it some days. So what are you going to do? You're going to borrow it from someone else. You're going to listen to a motivating podcast or watch a motivating YouTube video. Who likes to fire under your butt? Invite your freaking mother-in-law over. Nobody makes me clean like a visit.

Actually, it's my mother. If my mother's coming, I'm like, oh, my God, I'd better start cleaning. Whatever it takes, friend, borrow it. on the days you don't feel it. But remember, you're not pushing yourself. You're not working like a dog. You're doing something small every day because it's that consistent, constant reward, that consistent little project that makes you feel proud, consistently feeling in control, consistently seeing results. That is the secret. That is the secret. Not cleaning like a mad woman all in one day, that's setting you up for failure and exhaustion. And that is not realistic.

You can't do that all the time, but you can do a half an hour a day. You got this. You're going to roll up your sleeves while you're listening to this and you're going to realize that this is about so much more than how your house looks. That this is medicine. That this is self-care. that this matters on a deeper level, a more substantial level, that this is making you happier, healthier, more confident. It's causing you to have less stress. You're going to have more money. You are. And I know it's so, it's like, how is how cleaning my house going to give me more money? Because when you're in control of one area, you start getting in control of all other areas. areas because you feel in control, because you feel capable. And it isn't magic. It isn't

woo-woo-ness. It's science, friends. It's just science. So it matters. Do your dishes every night. You are not allowed to go to bed until you've tidied the kitchen and put away the laundry. I don't know how many people live in your family. For me, family of five, I got to do a loaded day. I have to do. And sometimes too, but a loaded day, that's all there is to it. I'm not allowed to go to bed unless I've done a loaded day. And I tidy for 15 minutes. And some days I wish like, oh, I could just give it. And I was like, you know what? No, I'm taking my freaking medicine. I deserve it. I'm going to feel great tomorrow. It's not fair to tomorrow's cast to leave this for her, to burden her with this. I wouldn't burden a stranger with my dirty dishes to wash tomorrow. I respect a stranger too much

to go into their home and make a mess and leave it for them to clean up the next day. Why do I not respect myself enough? Why would I do that to myself? That's freaking terrible. And I won't. And I won't let myself. And do you know what? I see it as an act of self-love because it is. to tomorrow's me, to tomorrow's you. So do this. Do this right now because you deserve it. And because you are going to be amazed at the results of consistently making sure that this is a priority in your life because it is. Thank you guys so much for listening today. I hope you've taken action on your home. I hope you're feeling proud of yourself. for what you accomplished today because I don't care if it was just the dishes.

I don't care if you just vacuumed a little bit of your house. It matters. And you are amazing. I'll see you guys next time.