Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The Decluttering Restart: How to Finally Finish What You Started in January | Clutterbug Podcast #331

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Hey Clutterbugs! It's halfway through 2026, and if you haven't decluttered your home yet, you haven't failed—you're just getting started again. In this episode, I'm sharing my best organizing tips and decluttering strategies to help you restart your home organization journey, overcome clutter overwhelm, and get back on track for that clutter free home of former New Years resolution dreams. If you set big organizing goals in January and you're still drowning in clutter, this episode is your wake-up call. This is all just part of the process - stopping and restarting isn’t just common, it’s part of the process! I’m breaking down why we struggle (spoiler: it's not laziness), how to find your minimum effort threshold, and why your messy home might actually be full of organizing products you don't need. We're talking decluttering strategies for ADHD brains, the difference between decluttering vs. organizing vs. tidying vs. cleaning (yes, they're different!), and how to use your Clutterbug Organizing Style to finally create systems that stick. In this episode, you'll learn: How many times you need to stop and start before habits stick The visible win rule for instant gratification Why your minimum effort threshold is the secret to consistency Stop waiting for the perfect time. Stop feeling guilty. Stop letting your stuff win. You're the boss . . . let's act like it! Want to get organized? Learn 6-Step The Clutterbug Method: https://clutterbug.thinkific.com/courses/Clutterbug-Method You can find more Clutterbug content here: Main YouTube Channel: @Clutterbug Website: http://www.clutterbug.me TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/ #clutterbug #podcast #melrobbins #restart #motivation #declutteryourlife #organizer #homeorganization #lifehacks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In January, I told you that you don't have to have your entire year mapped out. You don't have to lose 20 pounds. You don't have to become a minimalist. You don't have to completely change your life. You only have one thing. And that one thing, be consistent. I realize now that that is actually one of the hardest things to do is be consistent. Because even if it's a really small step, a small habit we're trying to start, it's easier for sure than going balls to the walls, doing it all. But it's still tough to show up. So if you failed, if you had a goal or a word or like something you were really hoping you would have achieved by now, we're halfway through the year. I'm here to tell you you have not failed. Do you know how many times you have to restart? I think studies say like three or four times you have to like quit and then restart before things actually become a habit. So the fact that you've, maybe fallen off the wagon doesn't mean anything other than that you're human. And today, we're getting back on. We are going to like grab the second half of this year by the gonads and make it

awesome. At the beginning of every year, everyone thinks they have to get their weight and health under control. They feel like they have to organize and declutter their entire house. They have to completely and radically overhauled our finances and get out of debt and have like a bazillion dollars saved. They have to change their relationships and become a better wife and mother and sister and all the other things. Like there is some pressure in January to completely reinvent ourselves. And I did a podcast at the beginning of this year telling you you don't have to do any of that. Like, let's take the pressure off ourselves to become a different person and instead take one small step to slowly be a little bit better version of who we are right now. If you made a plan in January to overhaul your life or your home or whatever, it's now June, we are halfway through the year.

And if you're in the same place you were, or maybe things are even worse, do not. worry. This podcast is for you. In that podcast in January, we talked about a roadmap that you could have for your year, to have like a really successful year. We also talked about how that's kind of a little bit of BS. You can't really have the perfect plan. But if you feel like, Cass, I had big goals and it didn't work out, I have something even better, a roadmap for restarting. Because if you been knocked down seven times, it's time to get up eight times. That's what we're talking about today, like how to dust yourself off and start again. I'm just going to say why I stop. Change is hard. Honestly, it is because we are in the habit of doing the things we do on a regular basis.

And creating new habits is extremely difficult. And then on top of that, these new habits, this new person we want to become, their expectations are so ridiculously high that we have to have motivation constantly. We have to have, you know, discipline and we have to have extra time. This requires our best self. Anytime we want to make a big change, it requires us to show up every day consistently as our very, very best self when most of us, we're just trying to get through the day. And our best selves are not consistent. It's few and far between. But that's okay. Here are some common reasons why people give up and quit. And the first one is that all or nothing mentality.

So this isn't so much as like giving up as it's waiting. You know, I'm going to wait until I have more time, more money, and I can do it all at once, except that time never comes. So it's halfway through the year and you're still waiting. The second reason why a lot of people stop is because they're not seeing immediate progress. This is totally why I stop any type of. of fitness. I say I'm going to get buff, right? And then I lift weights for a few weeks, and I don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I'm like, well, that was pointless. And I

completely give up because if you're not seeing this immediate progress and satisfaction, it's easy to kind of lose the wind in your sales. The next thing is chronic stuff shuffling or reorganization, just moving things from here to here, and not decluttering. Decluttering is how we have actual progress, long-lasting progress in our home, not moving things and straightening and tidying and lining things up. It isn't a game of Jenga or Tetris over here. We need less stuff. Decision fatigue, that's another one that's really real. Every time we decide what stays or goes or no matter what your goal is, it can be exhausting mentally to and emotionally. Just think every day about what we're supposed to be doing or what's the right choice to make. And last but not least,

it's comparison. Everybody out there on social media, their pantries look, you know, like they're a Kardashian or their homes or their bodies. Everything feels so unattainable. So why even bother? If we can never get to that level, it feels like it's pointless to even try. Going back to January, in that podcast, I asked you to declutter 26 things. I'm not sure why I picked 26 things. It doesn't matter. I want you to pick 26 things to leave right now. It's so good to have a number. Here's why, because it stops you from overthinking. It gamifies it. It gives you a clear goal that you can celebrate when you found that number of things, so you get the dopamine hit. And that is what creates that momentum. And that is what creates that momentum. the excitement to keep going. So, 26 things right now are leaving, either in a black trash bag

or in a donation box. You do, you boo. It can be a gum wrapper. It can be an old bill. No pressure, but push yourself right now, 26 things. Don't take anything out. Don't you dare. Make piles. Don't you dare sort. Don't you dare say, I need to know how many pairs of shorts I have before I can pick a pair are shorts to leave. You know what you use and what you don't. It's time to trust yourself and just get stuff out. I want you to really know that stopping is not failure. So just because you started something and you didn't follow through, you did not fail. This is normal. This is part of the process. You're supposed to be stopping a bunch of times. In fact, research shows that people stop and restart three or four times before something actually sticks. In my case, I have stopped hundreds of times. I couldn't even

like, listen, I have never started a new habit and consistently followed through ever, ever, never. But I have made real change. Why? Because I just keep dusting myself off and trying again. And finding new ways, trying to get excited, borrowing motivation from other people is my go-to. And that's what you're doing right now because guess what? I'm freaking excited for you. I'm so pumped for you to be the best version of yourself, to have the home you deserve, to have a rocket bod, to have buckets of money in your bank account. I don't know what you're craving, but I'm telling you it is possible. And that you deserve it.

And together, we are going to make it happen, not overnight, not in some dramatic movie montage thing where you just wake up one day and you are a completely different person. But by putting one foot in front of the other and celebrating every tiny tiptoe step, that is the real secret. We think we have to overhaul everything instantly and just like see dramatic change. That is not how things stick. That is not how we become the best version of ourselves. We do it messily. We do it with a lot of stops and starts, and we do it by figuring out what actually works for us instead of copying what works for other people. The fact that you're listening to this podcast right now means you did not give up. You are here probably to just hang out with me because I'm so awesome, but also because you want to

make a real change, probably to your home, and maybe you feel like you're like, I should have been there by now. I should have got it decluttered. You have not failed. Okay. Even if you are listening, even if you've been listening for years and you still aren't there, that is part of the process. You are not done. You're just done round one or round 10. Get up, man. There's a bunch more rounds to keep going. We got this. You got this. It's when you feel shame for not being there yet or not following through. It's the shame that's really the road block. in front of you. And we are going to turn that shame into momentum. You have nothing to feel bad about. This is literally exactly what progress looks like. It is what success looks like. Success is forged

in failure. And anyone who tells you anything differently has not succeeded yet, okay? Failure is part of the process. And I don't even want to call it failure because stopping isn't failure. It is a pit stop along the way that is critical to actually succeeding. So this is your permission slip to try again. To dust yourself off, grab that trash bag and get back in it. Because the only people who do not have success and do not actually follow through and declutter their homes are the ones who allow themselves to sit in that shame cycle and feel bad and don't get up and start again. Okay. There is no one. on the planet who started a new habit and didn't quit the first time. That just doesn't exist.

It is a fantasy. So why are you putting the pressure on yourself? Why are you even feeling bad? Why are you even allowing yourself for a moment to entertain those negative self-talks about the fact that you're not done yet? First of all, you're never actually done. And second of all, the stopping and starting again is key. It is key. So right now we're starting again. Feel that fire. Feel that warrior energy. Get back in the game and take back control of your home. You are more important than anything in there. The junk from Walmart, the ugly gift from your mother-in-law, the hand-me-downs that are not blessings. You are the freaking boss. So let's act like it. And maybe you've like, I've tried the past cast and it hasn't worked out. Today's a new day, man. You woke up.

You're alive. Let's make today count. I'm doing a quick check-in. How are you doing with your 26 things? This is just a reminder. Take the pressure off. Stop overthinking this. Just like let your eyes land on something right now and put it in a bag.

I hope you're doing well. If you've already found your 26 things, you want to do 26 more? I don't know what 26 plus 26 is. 52! Math, you see? Winning it life. 52. Could you imagine if you're not.

You found 52 things to leave today. And if you're still on the 26 and you're struggling, that's okay too. Peter Walsh gave me a little schooling when he was on my podcast last because I can be a little pushy, but I'm pushing you because I love you. And I know that you can do it. But I also understand that when I first started, it was hard for me to even find one thing. If you're in that place where everything feels like, oh, it might be important or I might use

or I don't want to make a mistake, know that this is also part of the process. And the way through is to acknowledge that it feels uncomfortable, to realize like, yeah, this makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach, but I need to do it anyway, to trust your gut and realize that the anxiety and the fear is just your overthinking brain trying to protect you because it, for some reason, isn't actually that bright. And it's only job. is to keep us alive and it sees a tiger about to eat us, it feels the same emotional distress as it does with putting that chipped mug in a trash bag. And we need to train it. We need to show and prove that it's okay to let things go. I want to talk about my favorite decluttering strategy. I guess this is my

favorite home management strategy that absolutely worked for me, that I hope you, give a try. And it's going to feel weird. And it's going to feel, I don't know, if you're not a drama nerd, this could be a little out of your comfort zone. But let's just go with it. And that is being the boss, being the CEO, even if you don't feel like it, we can fake it till we make it. We can do like the Superman power pose, you know, like Tony Robin says. It makes a difference. Listen, that guy is not a quack, okay, despite what we all think. No, he's on to something. So invoke this fierceness, because sometimes that's what it takes. That's what it took for me to make real change. I had to start literally, like, I picked something up and I'm like, oh my gosh, but maybe.

And then I was like, you know what? I am the boss of you and you are pulling your weight. You are fired. And I put it in the trash bag. Or like, you suck, you know? And I felt this. empowerment that I had never really felt before. Because if you are feeling like I felt and you're struggling to just do the basic adulting thing where everybody else makes it seem like it's so easy and effortless and you're over here like struggling with your home or your finances or your weight or relationships, it can really be not only embarrassing and shameful, but it can be demoralizing. I just didn't love myself. I just didn't love myself. didn't love myself enough to stand up for myself. And I became like this weak people pleaser,

even to inanimate objects. Not only did I not stand up for myself to people who were taking advantage of me, I allowed the stuff in my home to take advantage of me because I felt worthless. And I had to stand up to the stuff first. And it felt weird. But I literally like invoked this boss energy and then it trickled to every other area of my life, the confidence. And you might not feel it right now, but it's time to fake it. And there are other strategies I talked about in that January podcast besides just invoking the boss CEO energy, being a warrior, fighting for your home. I talked about how important it is to do small, tiny steps. Because starting big and saying that I'm going to do the entire kitchen is a recipe for disaster. You're going to burn out. You're going to feel

exhausted and you're not going to want to do something again tomorrow. This is about lasting change, which requires consistency. And the only way to be consistent is to make every day so ridiculously easy and small, like every task every day, that it's like five minutes that we can't possibly fail because the expectations are on the floor. We have nothing. We have nothing. but success. So we can do it again tomorrow and the next day too because it feels effortless. This is how you create a habit that's completely subconscious. This is how you become an organized and tidy person. It's the tiny little steps. And I have lots of other tips in that January podcast. I'm going to put a link to that if you want to go back and listen to that again. Listen,

I know it's halfway through the year. But again, this is about restarting. This is about dusting yourself off and getting back on the horse as many times as you need to to finally see success. So while I do want you to go back and listen to that January podcast, there's a lot of tips. I also have some new tips and strategies for you right now. So don't like leave and listen to that one now. Stay with me here, okay? You can listen to that one tomorrow when you're doing this all over again, you absolute winning champ. New strategy is we talked about starting small, We talked about just a little baby step. Now I want you to do like lower that bar to the floor.

Like what is the bare minimum? I actually call this your minimum effort threshold. And it is so important to know your minimum effort threshold because there's only going up from there. Your minimum effort threshold is the crappiest job that you could possibly do just to get something done or done-ish. So cleaning a toilet, how can you do it as badly as possible? Decluttering, your junk drawer, what is like the worst you could do to still be able to call it done? And everyone's minimum effort threshold is different. But our expectations of how we're supposed to do

things, especially for you perfectionists, even if you're not a perfectionist, our expectations are ridiculously high, like unachievably high. And we have no idea what our base level is unless we set everything back down to zero. And that's just the reality. And until we're starting from like the floor, how do we possibly know where our good enough is? And so you don't have to do things epically bad forever, but you do need to try everything super bad to really understand yourself and what matters and what doesn't. Maybe you're no longer folding for a week and you're tossing everything in. You're like, actually, Cass, I really would prefer to fold my clothes. Cool. You know, you've found your threshold, but you can't do that until you start on the floor. So whatever you

are working on today, I really want you, and going forward, all the tasks that don't. don't really matter if you were a brain surgeon, please don't do your minimum effort threshold. But 99% of the things we do on a day-to-day basis are just boring, mundane things that, yeah, we got to do, but they do not matter. It's dishes and what's for dinner and vacuuming the floor. That's most of our lives. It's going to work. It's things that like we do not have to put our best effort everywhere. It's impossible. lowering the bar to the floor allows you to find your minimum effort threshold and really decide what is worth your effort and what isn't. And we're still getting things done. It's not saying,

I'm not going to do the dishes at all. That is not what we're finding here. It's like, what is the quickest and crappiest way you can get the dishes done until they're done? Maybe it's not rinsing, throwing them in the dishwasher. Maybe it's not drying them and letting them dry in the cabinet. The mold you say, stop it. How do you know that they're going to, unless you've tried? This isn't forever. This is you drop in that bar to find your sweet spot. All right. So let's talk about another strategy. Before I jump into the strategy, I do want to say a lot of the times we neglect hidden areas when it comes to decluttering like inside the cabinets, inside the closet, because we see the piles of mess. And we're like, oh, I want to deal with this.

and chain, but then that stuff has no place to go. Because the things on your counters, the things you see on your floor, that stuff you use every day. And the reason it's there is because it doesn't have a quick, easy place to go because all those spots are full. So while I think it's so important that we declutter the hidden areas to make room for the things we actually use day to day, focusing only on those hidden areas can feel a little defeating. It's important, but don't get me wrong, but your junk drawer isn't going to give you that like instant gratification, ooh, look what I did, as much as clearing off the top of your counter will. So for this strategy, I want you to pair every time you are finding 26 things to go. How can you then go and get a visible win? We're calling this

the visible win rule? What is one thing that you can do where you're like, ha, that looks better, whether it's decluttering a small section of your countertop or decluttering or straightening a shelf? Getting some throw pillows for your couch. Okay, that, uh-huh, instantly makes things look good, fluffing your couch, making your bed. This is why this is so powerful because your entire bedroom, it could be like a crappelanch, but if you make your bed, it's going to look better. So what if, now that you've found 26 things, you think about one quick, visible win that you can get. So you can feel that, yes, I'm seeing progress. Because when we don't see immediate progress, we get that immediate gratification.

It can be really easy to quit. Here is another strategy that can help if you've started and stopped, especially if you've started and stopped because you've come across something that has been emotionally changed. charged. So you're decluttering and you come across photos or something sentimental from a loved one who has passed or your children are growing and you find like artwork from when they were little or a baby toy. That can feel like, oh, it can derail us. And we just walk away because we're stressed and we're anxious and we're emotional. So why not be prepared for those? Because this is normal. This is, again, part of the process.

This is why it's so important to have, one, a memory box. It can be an empty Amazon box. I do not care. Slap memory on it, have that close by. But also, a time will tell box. This is what Don from the minimal mom calls it. I used to call it a time capsule. Basically, you're just taking an old tote or a bin, a basket, a box, and you're writing

a date on it. Six months in the future, if I haven't needed anything in here, here by blabity bloop, then I can let it go. This gives you like that piece of mind of, I'm not going to make a mistake. It's okay. I'm not going to have regret because it's still in my home, but it's not in my space. We're putting that box in the closet or a basement or an attic or the garage, some under your bed. We're putting it somewhere that you can still access it if you need it. But it's out of your space so you can really test it. You can get the data. You can prove to yourself if you need that or not. And you get to experience what it's like to live with

less without any of the fear and the regret. If you are just starting out and you find that you're coming across things that are just like, I'm not sure and the anxiety is high, you need a time will tell or a time capsule bin. Trust me. This is a strategy that will help you keep going. Before we get into the next strategy, I want to share this little, it's a life lesson. I don't know what else to call it. It's something. Every home that I go to, that's a client that's crazy messy, I'm going to say at least 15 to 20% of the clutter is organizing products. I said what I said.

The messiest homes have two things more than the average tidy home. Two things. Hear me. One, bins and baskets, totes, stacked in the corner, bass, like just all the organizing products that they've bought to fix their problem of too much stuff, especially in January. We go out and we buy more things to fix the problem of too much stuff. And the second thing that every messy home has way more of than any other tidy home is cleaning products. True that. How many different ways to clean and nobody's cleaning. So it's hilarious. So here's what I'm going to say if you bought a bunch of binders and stacking bins and you bought totes and you bought like drawer

dividers and it just maybe things even look a little different but it still feels chaotic it still feels out of control it takes you more than five minutes to get a room back to reset and looking amazing if it takes more than five minutes you have too much stuff and it isn't that you failed to get organized it's that you didn't start with step one, which is decluttering. You cannot organize excess. There's all the bins and baskets in the world are not going to fix the problem of too much stuff. It's just going to add to it. And I see this time and time again. This is going to be crazy, but I know you spent like, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars on bins. What if they leave? What if you declutter those? Seriously. Because right now it's just sitting in the corner.

contributing to the problem. You have no idea what organizing products you need because you have not decluttered and zoned yet. You don't even know how you might not need anything at all. You did not waste money. You just had a little roadblock that you're kicking out of the way. And if you're like, I'm not, Cass, I am not decluttering those. Cool. Then what is going to leave to make room for those? If you have them, we're going to use them or we're going to create a closet where they're going to go, which means everything in there also has to leave to make room. Everything needs a home, even the influx things. We start with decluttering.

So keep going. How's it going? The 26 things? Potentially the 52 things. I hope you are this fierce warrior CEO boss right now. Fill in trash bags like a psychopath because you deserve it. And if you reached for a container before. you've decluttered, if you find yourself straightening and lining things up, that is organizing and

tidying. That is not decluttering. Can I just, this is something that really, I'm just going to, listen, this podcast is going somewhere. There are four separate things that we are doing in our home, and they have names and words matter. I am not a linguist, obviously. I struggle with words, but I will tell you, I didn't understand the difference. I would say, oh, I have to clean my house. So this is one of the words, like clean. I got to clean my house. And that encompassed everything. That was like I would have clutter everywhere. Everything would look like a disaster. Like, I got to clean my house. That was one of the biggest mistakes I made, not having the right language for what I needed to do. So let's talk about the four different things that we do to manage a home. The first is declutter. Decluttering is removing things from your home forever. It is not taking things from the kitchen and putting in the basement. It is not taking things that are on the counter and putting it in a cabinet. Decluttering is removing things from your home forever, which is filling trash bags and it is putting things in a donation bin and they are gone.

And a lot of people get so confused by this. They think decluttering just means making things look less, but we're never getting ahead if we're just stuff shuffling. So decluttering. The second thing is organizing. Organizing is creating new homes or systems. New homes. So putting things in a new home, setting up shelving for new, like new homes, new systems. It is not lining things up. That is the third thing, which is tidying. Tidying is putting things back in the home where they already had or straightening things. You know, that's tidying. And last but not least, cleaning, that's removing dirt. Cleaning is not picking things up off the floor and putting it in the laundry hamper. That's tidying. Right. And yeah, we can do all of these things at once. But knowing the difference is important,

because when you're like, I'm going to declutter today and you find yourself after two hours, you've just sorted into piles and stuff shuffled, and you feel like you're no further. head, it's because you weren't using the word correctly. You weren't actually doing the thing. So there, that's my soapbox. I was on it. I'm off it now. Where were we again? ADHD's hard. And the final strategy I want to talk about today is your organizing style. So if you did try to get organized in January and you set up systems, maybe you have a command center and you're like, I created a landing zone and I went crazy and had an action file. But it did stick or it didn't work and things still feel as chaotic as ever. First of all, you didn't fail.

You just found what didn't work for you. A lot of times people are using the wrong organizing system. It doesn't work for their brain. And so, of course, you can't be consistent with it because it requires so much extra effort and determination and self-discipline and chronic consistency to to try to use a system that goes against how our brain naturally works. And this is what the clutterbug philosophy and the clutterbug method is all about. It's about finding how you naturally organize and mimicking that in your home with systems. So it feels just as easy to put it away as it does to set it down and leave it out. So I'm going to quickly break down the four styles. And hopefully you can diagnose yourself, but also know that you can't really put everybody into four

categories. What's important here is to have the self-awareness of what works and what doesn't and why. And maybe you are a little bit of one style in one room and you prefer to do it in another way in another room. That's awesome. But we still need to find like your natural on your worst day baseline organizing style so that in the spots that just aren't staying tidy and organized, you can set it up for how your brain works. Okay, I'm rambling. It's how you naturally sort and how you naturally store. So we'll start with store. Like, are you a visual person? Is it out of sight, out of mind? Do you want to see and have quick access to the things you use and touch every single day? Or do you prefer hidden storage? Which means you're not going to forget to remember things

and actually looking at it every day, even though it's important, even though you use it, you don't want to see it out. I'm going to use your bathroom products as an example. Would you rather have the bathroom products you use every day out so it's easy to see and know exactly what you have, or do you want them tucked away in a drawer? This doesn't mean you love to look at clutter if you're visual. That's not at all what it means. It means like seeing your everyday things inspire you. It's that visual cue you need, and it really is out of sense.

Edmine. So you're either visual or hidden. And then the other side is detailed versus non-detailed, how you sort. Some people's brains are just very like analytical. And they put things into categories naturally. And they love to have things separated and categorized. And other people are like, squirrel. And their brain is more of a big picture thinker. And they're not really big onto details. think, do you love a good spreadsheet? If the answer is yes, you're probably a detailed person. If the idea of a spreadsheet feels like a horror show, you're probably a non-detailed person. And this matters because most organization is traditionally super detailed. So if you're not a detailed person, of course you're going to fail trying to use one of these systems on a daily basis.

So I gave these styles, this combination of how you sort and how you sort. you store bug names. The butterfly, super visual, just like the actual bug. They're attracted to beautiful flowers, but they don't have a detailed bone in their body. They're floating all over the place, super random. And that's how the organizing style is too. They need fast, easy, simple, big categories, no lids, really visual systems. Then we have the ladybug also needs big categories, easy, non-detailed systems like the butterfly, but they're hidden organizers. So we're going to tuck things away out of sight. We're going to have lots of drawer dividers and big baskets and closets. So you can still chuck stuff like a basketball, but it goes into its separate,

big category home. Then we have the cricket, who is a traditional organizer, think Marie Kondo, hidden but super meticulous loves everything in little categories lined up lots of details but out of sight and last but not least the bees are really visual they're inspired by their things they want to see their everyday beautiful things but they're very meticulous they love a good spreadsheet they're a detailed thinker so of course they should have their systems more detailed so they can quickly find what they need in an instant. Knowing your style means you can look at your house and think, okay, I know I'm a visual person that's really detailed. How am I going to store my everyday bathroom products? I need them to be out, but the counters, surfaces are hot lava.

Can I have some floating shelves? Can I have a bucket system? Can I have clear containers that I can put up on the mirror or right beside so I can still see my things? But, Everything is really obvious where it goes. This is the power of understanding your organizing style. It gives you the ability to ignore your basic builder home and look at it through a new lens. How can you adapt and adjust so it works for your brain? So if you did a lot of work back in January and it just didn't stick, I need you to take the clutterbug quiz.

Go to clutterbug.com slash quiz and find out your. organizing style, whether you're a bee or a butterfly, a cricket, or a ladybug, maybe you're a butterbee. People make up adorable names with their part. It doesn't even matter. What matters is the self-awareness of knowing what works and what doesn't and why, and then taking that knowledge and implementing it into your home. Now it's time for a new segment that we are lovingly calling, oh, hell no, where I rant for 60 seconds like you're my therapist about things that are just really driving me crazy so that I can contain the rage and not let it leak out in the normal world. I'm just letting it leak on you. So put on a raincoat. Here's the thing I want to rant about today,

and that is self-checkouts. Every freak, I don't know if this is all over or it's just where I live. It doesn't matter if I'm at the dollar store or the grocery store. There is no cashier. Everything is self-checkout. And here's the part that's so freaking annoying. The spot where you put the things, the groceries, I got a family of five. I'm buying hundreds of dollars with the groceries. There's not enough room on that stupid little wayer thing, right? And so then you're like, oh, not bag, not bag. And then also they're like, oh, cashier's coming. And then you got to wait for the one person who where even are you in the back room

and you come and you're doing something with your code. You could have had my groceries done and in a bag by now. Here I am working a part-time job to do this thing and then paying more than ever for groceries. And I leave in a rage. Okay. So the self-checkout thing, it's got me. I get it. I get it. But also, when something doesn't scan, my brain's like, I'm just stealing this thing. But I wouldn't do that. So then I wait. But let's all paid it. I'd like to take a second to thank

today's podcast sponsor, Caraway cookware. I switched to Caraway pots and pans a few years ago, and I got to say, it's changing the way I cook in my kitchen. Not only are they non-toxic, but they're beautiful. They're heavy duty. They come in a ton of different colors. And I feel like a real for real grownup when I'm cooking now. I can fry something or I can cook things in like a one pot and then immediately put it in the oven. No worried about anything melting. And they're super duper easy to clean. Right now, you can save up to $230 on the 12-piece cookware set versus buying the products individually.

Plus, if you want to include their fan favorite minis duo, you could save up to $350. Visit careway home.com slash clutterbug 10. to take an additional 10% off using the code Clutterbug 10 on your next purchase. This deal is exclusive to my listeners. So visit carewayhome.com slash clutterbug 10 or use the code Clutterbug 10 at checkout. Right now, you better keep on keeping on. Whatever it is that you're doing, let's close the loop. We have a few minutes left.

So if you've found trash, take it to the can. If you've decluttered, take it to your car or put it in the garage. Let's make sure at the end of this podcast, you are so happy with your progress. If you've pulled everything out and sorted it into a million piles, that was bad. That was a mistake. Shove it all back in, okay? Come on, man.

I am not letting you leave this podcast with your home worse than when it started. So complete the cycle, finish what you started. So at the end, you can just be like, I am amazing and look what I've done. All right. Let's jump in to talk to Cass. And we're going to start with Anonymous. Hi, Cass. So I have a question for you.

I struggle with things in my kitchen, trying to find a place for everything. It's so bad. Like, my husband gets so mad at me when he comes in the kitchen. And he's like, where is the strainer for this? Because I'm constantly moving things around in my kitchen. It's like I struggle to try to figure out where things should go. And then I'm constantly deciding that's not a good place for it. So maybe I should move it over here.

And it's a total complete mess. I'm sure I'm ADHD. But any advice that you have to kind of help me find homes for places that like makes sense. I mean, some things have stayed and they work. But then there's also some things that don't work. So any information that you have for me would be really, really great. Thank you so much. I love this because the struggle is real. So the first thing I want to say is your kitchen will never be perfect, ever. There is this expectation that if I just zone, then everything will work, it's never going to be perfect. So right off the bat, lower those expectations. That will help. The second thing is I think you're doing the right thing. Trying new spots is not the end of the world, but have you tried decluttering? Because I used to struggle with a strain or two. I was just like cramming it and this like,

lazy Susan thing with the other pots and pans and then it would fall behind. I'm like, that's not a good spot. I'm going to put up the salad bowls. That's not quite right. I'm going to put it in over here with our everyday dishes. And then I just went and decluttered like four pots that I never actually used. And now it makes sense because it's not lost and I can find it. So I'm going to guess you have too much stuff in your kitchen and it will never be functional when it's like that. So start with the declutter. And then another thing that's really helpful, last thing, is to open up all your cabinet doors. Open them all as like, you know, they'll be kissing each other. You'll put them together. And then stand back and look.

Every time I do this, I notice the cabinets that are really jammed or the ones where I'm like, oh, I don't even remember putting this here. That way, like, it gives you a new perspective on your space when you stand back and see it as a whole with all the cabinet doors open and then think where do I stand? What do I use the most? And visually, or even on paper, do a little rezone before you're actually moving the physical stuff. This is so helpful. Now let's hear from Robbie. Hi, my name is Robbie. A couple years ago, I stopped folding some of my clothes before putting them away, especially my underwear. But my newest do-it shitty tip is when I put my clothes away, my t-shirts that I hang up. If they're inside out, they get hung up inside out. I'll turn the

t-shirt right-side out when it's time to wear it. I find that's easier to do one t-shirt at a time than to fix every t-shirt when I'm trying to put them away in my closet. Same girl, same. Yep, you know many comments, but every time I do any video in my closet, people will always say, what's the purpose of the clothes being inside out? And then you'll see comments like, maybe she's doing it to protect the thing on the inside or maybe she's starting stopping pilling. You're giving me way too much credit. Why are all my clothes inside out? Because they came out of the dryer like that. And classic ladybug butterfly, we got to just put things away fast. That's the key secret. I'm just going to leave you with this. Would you rather put something away

fast and then take the time to like find it or turn it inside out when you go to wear it? Or do you want to take time to put something away slower so that it's easier when you go to need it, right? Do you want to put something away fast or do you want to find it fast? That is such a key difference in understanding your organizing style. Bees and crickets, they want to be able to find it fast. They will take a few extra minutes to put something away properly. I'm using air quotes because there's no such thing as properly. Whereas us butterflies and ladybugs, we just got to put it away as fast as possible, we don't mind taking a few extra minutes when we go to use that thing. So I love this. This is so good. Do not feel any shame in putting something away badly. Putting it away

is the only thing that matters. Last but not least, we have a question from Bella. Hello, Cass. My name is Bella. And I just first want to thank you for what you do and for who you are. I've seen many of your videos on YouTube and I've cleaned up so many zones and and have been overcoming this challenge of purging to have a better home. I have encountered this challenge where, as an educator with classroom items that I'd unexpectedly come into my apartment for distance learning while I was packing and purging to move, I'm kind of in a tight spot. I don't know where I'll go next and I don't know what I'll teach next, so it's becoming

harder to be able to toss away items. As you know, many of us educators have to buy our own resources and depending on where I'll move, especially if I move internationally. I don't know if help people to buy the resources again. So I just wanted to know if you have any advice. I tried to rework the zones that I already had in my small place, but it's a really tight place. So I wanted to know if you have any advice for overcoming this kind of situation. where work items have to unexpectedly come into the home and where there's the challenge of having a lack of space and storage, even in trying to, like, divide up a part of a room. I don't have Facebook, but I am creating an account so that I can join the community so that I can at least be with others who might have this situation to get some encouragement from like-minded people. Yeah. I wish you well and I hope that there are some ideas that you can share with us teachers who are just trying to do the right thing for kids, but still keep our houses clean and organized. Thanks.

Oh, thank you, Bella. I will say this is the reason I don't organize for teachers or crafters because it's crazy. It's crazy. But I do have some ideas for you. I think the most important thing that you have is boundaries and limits. And so we need to find a spot in your home that can be for storage and that's as much as you get. And I know it sucks, but listen, there's no magical solution here. So let's talk about some of the classic and best spots to store things that you're not using every day. And just think if any of these kind of stand out for you under your bed, it's a huge amount of storage that is often filled with absolute garbage. This should be a spot where you're putting these important things. So under your bed, bottom of your closets, top of your closet, super important here, or any wall that doesn't have anything where you can add an armoire or even a billy bookcase. So underutilized vertical space in your home. So think about that and then realize like we're going to use under your bed as an example. You're going to clear out all the stuff under there that you're not using.

Maybe there's old bedding. There's clothing that you would never actually wear. That's leaving. And then you can only keep the classroom supplies that fit under the bed. So get yourself some rollout totes. I don't know, those dollar store sucky bags. This is not about perfection. But you can only keep what fits in that space.

So you shop your stuff for your favorites first. I have a feeling that this is a lot of identity clutter. and there will be, I'm going to just say probably over half of the supplies that you have that aren't critical to keep, but they're mixed in with important ones, which makes everything feel important. So the first step is finding a dedicated home for it. The second step is going through, shopping the favorites until that space is full and whatever doesn't fit is leaving. It's not ideal, but this is how you can have your cake and eat it too. I'm just going to say two other things too. If you are,

planning on traveling and teaching internationally, it is so expensive to ship things, especially books. It's so expensive. So you might say, well, I won't be able to buy it in this place, but I can tell you right now, Amazon ships everywhere. And it is going to cost you less to re-buy things like books than it would be to actually pay to ship them across the world seriously. So just think about that. And also, if you are doing remote learning, a lot of the resources you have, you can have them in digital format. So can you scan them? Can you take pictures of them? Do you actually need the books or the resources? Or can you find a way to have them in a digital format? So you can still share your screens. You can still show them to your students if you're

teaching virtually without keeping the physical object. These are all just some quick suggestions. again, think about the idea of identity clutter. You are a teacher, but that doesn't mean you need to keep every teaching resource. You're still an amazing teacher without them. I hope you are feeling so proud of yourself. I hope you let go of at least 26 things, maybe 52, maybe 52 plus another 26. That's a big number. Whatever, boo, you're awesome. celebrate your success. Remember to complete the cycle and know that this stopping and starting is all part of the progress. You're not behind. You haven't failed. You are on the path to winning, my friend. Thank you guys so much and I'll see you next time.