Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The Lost Art of Homemaking (and how to actually love it)! | Clutterbug Podcast # 162

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

In today's podcast, let's chat about the lost art of homemaking! I used to think that homemaking meant cleaning, cooking and caring for children as a full-time career. I now understand that ALL OF US are homemakers! We are homemaking anytime we clean, cook or organize, no matter how much or how little time we devote to it.  I'm sharing some simple ways to make caring for our homes easier and more enjoyable! Small changes can have a big impact on our lives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I used to think that the word homemaking meant somebody who took care of their house as a full-time career. So stay-at-home moms or someone who didn't work outside of the home and their only job was to cook and clean and organize all day. This is so far from the truth. I've really learned that we are all homemakers, no matter our situation, even if we work full-time outside of the house, even if we don't own our own home, even if we are still living in our parents' house, we all. all our homemakers. And we need to find this art again. It is a lost art. And it is so crucial to our happiness. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about how we can be happier and find joy in the art of homemaking. Hey, Clutterbugs. Welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. I want to talk about homemaking today.

I know I've talked about this in the past, but there is so much research. and so many studies that just reinforce the connection between loving our homes and happiness. And there was a huge, it was a huge study done an 80 year study that talk about basically the overall defining things that make us happiest in life. And it isn't what I thought it would be when this study finally came out. there was two top things and of course the first was relationships so good relationships has the most impact on our overall happiness but the second the second thing that really affect happiness that's the part that i found so fascinating i mean as somebody who talks about cleaning and organizing

and taking care of a home for a living this was really fascinating to me it's loving your home That was like the second thing. In fact, there's a good home report that found 73% of people who consider themselves very happy. They're happy in their home. Like this is such a huge correlation and that their home contributes to 15% of their total happiness. So that means it's more important than their general health and fitness, which only contributed to 14%. It was more important than their career. career, which was only 6%, how much money they earned, which was only 3%.

Like this, this is crazy pants. How happy they are with their home was more important than how much money they made and more important than even their overall health. So why? Why? Why are people who love their homes just genuinely happier? They seem to think that not me, researchers, smart people, scientists say that it's because there are five core emotional needs that your home can really meet. And those five core

emotional needs that are imperative to happiness are pride, identity, comfort, safety, and control. And our home affects all of these things. And I think pride is that one that really stood out to me. So if we have a house or a home or an apartment or even a bedroom that we are proud of, we are going to be happier and stop. And what scientists are saying and showing is that pride doesn't come from that your house is bigger. In fact, people who live in tiny homes have way more pride in their house than people who live in mansions, which I find very eye-opening. So having more money and having a bigger house and having a fancier house does not equal happiness. People are finding pride in their home when they have a home that they feel is clutter-free, that is clean, that is clean,

They like the way it's decorated. It feels spacious to them. So even if you have a bigger home and it's filled with clutter and it's messy, you're not going to feel as prideful in your space as somebody who has like a one bedroom apartment that they're walking into that. And they're like, ah, this feels clean and organized or this feels tidy. That is so telling to me of the importance of making your house a priority for your overall happiness. and we know that having a cluttered space leads to feeling stressed. We know that clutter and mess and having a space that feels full, too full, it raises cortisol. There's been a gazillion studies that show that especially in women, we are so stressed out

when we're looking around and there's dishes and laundry and chores that have to be done. It upsets us. And it's tied to our everything because, it's part of our identity. Our house, we can't get away from that. Our house is part of our identity. We feel uncomfortable in a space that feels dirty or that there's chores to be done or that feels cluttered and it makes us feel out of control, which are four of the five emotional needs that we need to be met in order to feel happy. And I'm saying all this because I'm super passionate about this, but also because this is one thing that we can improve and

and get happier almost instantly. We're not going to earn more money overnight. We're not going to repair relationships and build good friendships overnight. We're not going to feel secure overnight. But we can feel proud in our home immediately. We can do our dishes and feel a little bit of pride. We can hang up our laundry and put our clothes away and feel a little bit of pride. We can mop the floor and feel a little bit of pride.

We can bake a banana bread. and feel a little bit of pride. And all these little bits of something add up to a lot. And so yes, our home has a huge impact on our happiness. And what they found that I find the coolest of all is that buying and acquiring material possessions has almost zero effect on our overall happiness. I think we know this. We know this.

But we're tricked. We're tricked by media. We're tricked by walking into a store. We have those flashy N caps, you know, with all the beautiful looking stuff or maybe buying a new car is going to make us happy or buying new clothes is going to make us happy or the latest gadget is going to solve our problem. Even buying the latest and greatest cleaning product that we see on TikTok, I think we buy these things because on a subconscious level, we know that having a clean house is going to make us happier. We're just tricked into thinking buying the supplies is going to get us there because we're. We don't actually want to get up and do the work because that sounds really sucky. And it seems overwhelming, especially if you're living in a space that has a lot to do.

And so I'm hoping in today's podcast I can motivate you to just get started. To stop procrastinating and take one small step because you're going to feel so much better. Yesterday, I walked into my daughter's room. She's 16 and it was disgusting. there was so much crumbs and dirt on the floor her bed was unmade her sheets had pulled off the bed so much laundry that needed to get put away everywhere and she wasn't actually home she was at a friend's house and so i texted her and asked if i could quickly clean her room i wasn't going to throw anything out i wasn't going to go through any of her drawers could i just spend a few minutes and get back on top and usually

i put this on her i'm like dude you got to clean your room clean your room clean your room and she does an okay job but I know that she's been feeling really stressed out lately and really overwhelmed in her space. It's affecting her mood. I can see it on her. And I know that her room affects her mood, but she doesn't know that yet. She rolls her eyes. She thinks, I'm just being a mom. She honestly has told me, this is how teenagers live. Teenagers don't mind the mess. But I know that that's not true. So I spent, it was under 15 minutes. I hung some clothes up. I put new sheets on her bed. I made her bed. I wiped her surfaces. I quickly got the crumbs off the floor, did it as speed mop. It didn't look great. I wasn't walking into there and like, you know, thinking this room was going to win any

awards for cleanliness. But she came home. She kind of rolled her eyes and was like, thanks, mom, for cleaning my room. But today, she's been painting. She's been pretty. She's been She was working out. She was like she was feeling good. I could see it. I could tell. She was more motivated and what the only difference was last week feeling blah, wanting to lay in bed and just kind of surf the web and she had all her lights off and I could tell she was getting kind of depressed and today where I could feel that she was I could see that she was motivated and happier and she opened her blinds and she had light. on in a room. The only difference was it was a little bit cleaner. And I know, I know for myself that when my house is kind of crazy and dirty and gross and out of control, I am so much sadder. I just am. I feel defeated. I feel all my energy being drained because it's stressful, because I don't feel proud because I don't feel like it's a reflection. It's of my of my overall identity because I don't feel in control and I don't feel comfortable in a space that's messy. That's cluttered. That's dirty.

So my house is not meeting my core emotional needs. In fact, it's doing the opposite. It's taking all of those things. I can't possibly feel happy when my space is like that. And I'm not saying that we have to have it clean all the time, but we need to know that there's light at the end of the tunnel. We need to know that we're working towards it. It's going to be clean soon. We need to be taking active steps to get there. Or we're going to continue to just feel like, uh, trapped in the cycle of sad. So what can we do? What can we do right now? We can take some steps forward. and everybody's interpretation of clutter is different. Everyone has a different clutter threshold.

Your house, you may have a lower clutter threshold than your family or that other people, friends and family, people that you see on the internet, maybe your house isn't that bad. But when it's a little out of control, maybe you feel really stressed. And there's a fine line between cleaning all the time and having, you know, it be part of like something that we're doing now to just get rid of anxiety and it's becoming an obsession, we got to know the difference. We have to have that self-awareness. But I'm not suggesting that you clean all the time. That's a trap my mom fell into in order to deal with her anxiety. And it took away a lot of her happiness in the end because she wasn't engaging in good relationship.

She wasn't spending time with other people. She wasn't having hobbies outside of her home. All of her identity was tied in to have. a clean house and that isn't healthy too but how can we find happiness somewhere in the middle how can we find balance and i think the easiest way to do that is to declutter is to have less stuff because when we have less stuff we're going to have less mess and we're going to have less to do and it's going to feel more effort we can get a tidy house in less time it's going to be faster to get there. When we have less clothes to wash, we're going to be able to keep up on it easier. We're not going to have mountains. When we have less dishes and less gadgets and less stuff

in our kitchen, it's going to be easier to keep our kitchen clean. And so the real solution, the shortcut, I guess, to being able to have a house that makes us feel pride, that makes us feel in control, that makes us feel happy. That's just, that's what it's going to do is make us happy. in order to feel that the fastest way to get there the biggest shortcut is to declutter and i don't think we have to be minimalist i don't think this means we have to get rid of everything we own and have like two forks and a and one plate kind of thing that that's not what i'm suggesting at all it's all the excess just in case stuff it's the stuff we're not using on a regular basis that we're holding on to out of fear out of guilt because we spent money on it or it was a gift and all those what ifs what if everyone's sick at the same time what if our electricity goes out what if we're cold we need those extra blankets but we've had those what if scenarios and we haven't needed this stuff a few days ago we had a huge ice storm here and we lost power for a few days and i was like oh my gosh i shouldn't have decluttered all those extra comforters it's going to be the house is going to be freezing we lost power for a few days and i was like oh my gosh i shouldn't have decluttered all those extra comfitters it's going to be the house is going to be freezing we

We don't have our forced air furnace going. I was really panicking. We didn't have lights. I'm like all those times I decluttered all those extra candles. I was kind of freaking out. And surprisingly, we didn't need any of the extra blankets. It didn't get that cold because we still had our gas fireplace. And even if we didn't, like, it just didn't get that cold.

We didn't use those extra blankets. We didn't need them. We didn't need those extra towels. We didn't need the extra dishes. And I had enough tea lights and candles. I didn't even use half of what I had, even though we had no electricity for days. And that gave me so much peace of mind, like, it's okay that I decluttered all the excess. In fact, because I didn't have a cluttered space, we weren't tripping over things in the dark.

Like we couldn't see things. We had like a few candles here and a few candles there. We weren't tripping over things. We weren't hunting for things. I was grateful. I was grateful that I decluttered because even though we had that emergency for three days, every other day of my life that wasn't those three days, I'm happier because I don't have excess. So I want you to think of it that way.

I don't want you trading everyday happiness so that you're possibly a little bit like that you're happier in case of an emergency one day what if. so that you don't have regrets one day what if and instead you're living with regret every single day because you're living in clutter. That's craziness. I don't want you to trade your happiness today for the what if tomorrow. I have to thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring today's podcast. Cozy Earth makes beautiful luxury feeling betting,

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You can get 35% off when you use the code Clutterbug. Go to CozyEarth.com and use the promo code Clutterbug to save 35% off today. Let's talk about more ways that we can really make our house help us feel happy. year overall, definitely decluttering, having a space that isn't feeling dirty, so doing some cleaning, that's important. But I also think that that feeling pride, that's an important part. And we can really feel pride in a home that we find beautiful. And the last thing I'm suggesting is that we spend a ton of money and renovate our house and dump a bunch of money in. Because what we found over and over again in studies are that a house that we spent more,

money or a bigger house or a house that's renovated, that doesn't lead to more happiness. It's a house that we take pride in because we've done something ourselves to make it a little bit more beautiful. That's how we can feel pride. So we can feel proud of a house by having a piece of furniture that maybe we've painted or something we've built or rearranging the furniture, putting up new curtains, getting some throw pillows, adding color that you love, these are things that you can do, that anyone can do, that can make you happier in your home because you're feeling proud. You've done it yourself.

It's not about spending money. We're not going to feel proud because we've bought a $2,000 sofa. Spending money isn't what makes us feel proud. Making something beautiful with our own two hands, that's going to be. going to make us feel more pride in the long run. And I know this firsthand because I renovated only really one room in my house and that's the craft room. We had someone come in and do drywall and I installed IKEA cabinetry. It's very beautiful. It was pricey. Somebody else came in and built it all for me. And even though I think that's probably the prettiest space in my house and definitely the most

expensive space in the house. It's not the space that gives me the most pride, if that makes sense. Isn't that strange? Like I don't walk into that room and feel pride. I do walk into my bedroom and think, oh, I made that headboard for $20 and oh, I sewed those curtains myself and I made that throw pillow. And I don't even love the way it looks. Like I definitely would like to redo my room. It isn't my ideal bedroom or anything. But for some reason, that makes me feel pride, even walking to my kitchen, which is the one room in my house that I honestly hate the most, I stained all those cabinets myself. I took them off, I gel-stained them, I polyurethane them, and yeah, I did it black and yeah, it's dark, but I still can't help

feel pride when I walk into that space that I did that all by myself. I have like zero ability to do a DIY. But when I do it, it's like, oh, I feel that. good. I did that. Look it. It's not even that crappy. Like it's it's almost all right. Good job me. And so that's the act of homemaking. It's doing these little things and lately I've been really into breadmaking. I'm trying to channel a little bit of Lisa from farmhouse on Boone. She does everything homemade from scratch. She's got chickens. She's a full like homesteader. She makes everything from sourdose. So I started a sourdose starter. I've kept it alive now for over a you guys, I'm very proud. I don't actually like the taste of sourdough, so I bought some instant

yeast. I stole my sourdough starter, but it's mostly Joe that's like making the sourdough bread, but I also got instant yeast and I've been making like dinner rolls and honey bread and I feel, I don't know, there's something about it. I know it's easier to just go to the grocery store and buy the bread and sometimes I do, but it feels so good. I feel so proud of myself. when I've done a little something like that or made a dessert, I took some old stale bread and a jar of peaches and I made peach cobbler and it was good and I was so proud of myself and I was happy the rest of the night, the rest of the night and maybe you don't feel pride in baking or cooking or even making your own curtains but there are aspects of homemaking

that I know for a fact will make you feel joy. Just catching up on the laundry is going to bring you happiness, make you feel better about yourself. And putting away that load of laundry, you're going to have a smile in your face when you're done. Nobody wants to do the work while we're doing it. I mean, let's get real. Cleaning sucks.

But the benefits at the end are so freaking worth it. So put away that laundry. grab that vacuum cleaner let's vacuum some stuff today it doesn't have to be all or nothing we got to chuck that old old school thinking out the window we don't have to like tackle it all in one day we don't have to wait until the weekend today right now it's the act of homemaking it's the art of homemaking that leads to happiness and every little thing we do is adding up look around at your space right now what can you do right now what can you do right now now that's going to make you feel proud. Open up those curtains. Maybe open the window and air it out. Light a candle. Fluff your pillows. Put away some laundry. What can you do right now to make you happier and know this? It's going to affect your family's happiness too. Just like my daughter is motivated today and smiling today and I can tell she's so much happier because I spent 15 minutes tidying her room, your husband, your kids, you're going to feel that same way when your kitchen's

tidier and your living room's tidier. Rearranged some furniture together. Do a 15-minute tidy up. It affects everything. It affects everything. And yes, that 80-year study that they did to see what is the root, the one thing that has the biggest effect on your happiness, it was definitely relationships. That should come first. Having good friends. having good relationships with your spouse and your kids and your family, that is important. That is number freaking one. But number two was having a home that you love, a home that you are proud of, a home that you feel is comfortable, it reflects your identity, and one that you feel in control of. And that's something that you can do right this minute.

Okay. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you're feeling really motivated to do to tackle something today, to bake something, to bring back and practice that art of homemaking because we are all homemakers and we know without a freaking doubt that it directly corresponds to our stress, to our mood, to our happiness. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you guys next time.