Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Why Clutter Helps (and What to Do About It) | Clutterbug Podcast #319

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Hey Clutterbugs! Today, I’m breaking down how your clutter is HELPING you. It's why clutter keeps coming back and why you feel stuck organizing (on top of ADHD, burnout, perfectionism, and overwhelm). If you’ve tried every organizing system and still can’t keep up, this episode will help you understand what your clutter is doing for you (other than making you feel bad about yourself).In this episode, I’m diving into teleology (don’t worry, you can forget the word after, and I can’t pronounce it either), which is just a fancy way of asking: What purpose is this mess serving right now? Because clutter isn’t random, sometimes it’s protecting you from decisions, emotions, conflict, perfectionism, or even visibility.I’ll walk you through the seven most common “jobs” clutter does (like decision freezing and identity preservation), then we’ll do a quick exercise to uncover what your own clutter is helping you with. Finally, I’ll give you practical replacement strategies, and one 10-minute action you can do in the next 24 hours to create real momentum.If you’re ready to stop the shame spiral and start using strategies that match your brain, let’s go! 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 #decluttering #organizing #homeorganization #clutter #whyimstuck #adhd #adhdorganizing #executivefunction #overwhelmed #burnoutrecovery #mentalhealth #teleology #decisionfatigue #perfectionism #productivity #habits #homereset #motivation #organizingtips Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've ever looked around and thought, I know what I'm supposed to do, I just don't know how to do it. This is the episode for you. If you have ADHD or you're just overwhelmed, maybe you have chronic illness, maybe you just can't find motivation, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just in survival mode. Your body is telling you no more. This episode is all about removing shame and instead using leverage. because shame's not going to clean your kitchen, okay? Shame is not going to fold your laundry. Shame is not going to tackle the dirt and the mess. Shame is not going to make your house feel like a place you're proud of. Shame just makes you avoid the space or avoid getting started. And that is what we're going to

change right now. But first, before we get started, did you know that I have a segment called Talk to Cass? It's usually at the end of this podcast where you call in and ask questions or share amazing tips. and we have a little chat right here on the podcast. My name is Emily. I live in New Orleans. Okay, Emily, I cannot wait to hear what you say, but again, we got to wait till the end of this podcast to the talk to cast segment to find out. So just like always, you are not allowed to just listen to this podcast unless you're driving. Please, please just keep driving and don't do something while you're driving.

But for the rest of us, let's take action. Let's do something today to make our home and our lives. easier. And a perfect thing to do is to get in your bathroom. Take me with you, whatever device you're watching or listening on. Let's go in the bathroom and tackle that space. I want you to open up your drawers and your cabinets and look, I know you have face cream that you don't like that stings your eyes. I definitely do. I know you have old toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes that are completely empty that are still in there for some reason. I know you have things that are expired, medication and vitamins. All of these things are creating friction. So what if you took just a few

minutes while listening to this podcast and you became a warrior in your bathroom? This is not about completely reorganizing. You are not buying new things. You are eliminating all those little things that are just getting in the way. The stuff you rarely use, that red lipstick. Taylor Swift can pull it off. We cannot. Why do you still have it? All of these things. are making your life harder. Let's say goodbye. And the best part is we can't donate used makeup and face products so we are putting it all in the trash. Don't you dare think about washing out and recycling that bottle. It goes in the trash today because you're amazing and we're being fast, ruthless house cleaning, badass bosses. My favorite thing last week was reading all of your comments on

the podcast. So many of you took the clear counter challenge and you put in the comments like how much better your counters looked. So I want you to do the same thing this week. Let me know in the comments how much you let go of. You don't have to count the numbers in the bathroom. But like did you make a difference? Is your bathroom cleaner and easier and just better? Let me know in the comments below. Together as a clutterbug community, we are taking back control of our home. And all of your comments, inspire other people. So make sure you put that in the comments below and let's jump into today's podcast. I started last week's podcast with my usual cassism. You were not messy. You just organize differently. But there's also another layer that I don't talk about a lot. And we're really

going to dive deep into that today. So we have more understanding about what is actually going on in our home and what the mess is actually saying to us. And this is called teleology. I'm using big sciencey words, but I'm going to make it easy. And sometimes we just need to look at things differently to actually make a real change. Don't worry, okay? You do not need a psychology degree. I'm obviously not a doctor. And you can totally forget the word teleology as soon as I tell you what it means. Basically, instead of asking why, like what is causing this? Why is this happening? We're going to say, what purpose is this serving? Like what is the reason? What is it doing? What is it giving? And we're going to use this specifically about the mess and the clutter in our house. So if we look at a big pile or a mess and we

ask what caused this, it may be that we're using a system that doesn't work for our brain. It may be that we just have excess. But what if we reframe that and ask what purpose is this pile serving? That's a different way of looking at it. Maybe if we're asking what is it actually giving or how is it serving, what's its purpose, we can find something that could serve us better. We could find something that will fulfill that purpose that isn't like a pile of junk. What if we actually realize that clutter is doing a job for us? It is. It's doing something for us. What if we find a new employee? What if we look at our clutter differently and hire someone better to do its job, someone that also doesn't make you miserable.

I know for a really long time myself, and maybe you can relate to this, we would look at problems in our home or things that weren't working, like the mess, the piles, the inability to want to clean, and we'll look for reasons, right? So I don't love cleaning because my mom was such a clean freak. I don't want to tackle this big pile because it's so overwhelming. And I I'm bad at organizing. I have this issue over here, like, all the clothes don't fit in my closet because I have a need to epically shop. All of these are, you know, their causes, but let's look at it different. If we're using teleology to see, like, what is this serving and how is this serving a purpose? We can look at the bursting closet and say, when I'm at the store and I'm shopping,

it's fulfilling my need of self-love. It's a gift to myself. When I'm looking at the cleaning and like, oh, I want to avoid that. We're trying to avoid failure. We're trying to avoid working our butts off for it just to look the same way the next day. This is failure. This is like that feeling of we're trying to avoid the feeling of defeat. So instead of us asking what's wrong with me, what if we reframe and ask, what is this doing for me? Like, what is the positive here? What is the real solution that even the negative bad stuff is solving? Because everything is solving something. I just want to share my own example of how I really saw this kind of manifest in my own life. And that was I avoided cleaning like it was a full-time paying gig. I didn't, it was like I hated it. I dreaded it to the point where the idea of vacuuming,

mopping, even doing dishes, tidying. It was like, ugh, I had to force myself. And usually I didn't. I would do anything but. And it was always like I was looking for the cause of that, which is, well, you're just lazy. You've always been lazy. Or the cause of, well, my mom was like obsessed with cleaning. and then therefore I don't want to be obsessed with cleaning. But when I dug deeper, okay, well, what does that actually mean you're lazy and you don't want to end up like your mother? It was like, well, I don't want to dedicate hours of my life to doing something that I don't enjoy. Well, what does that mean? I think cleaning has to be done and take hours and be this really long thing.

And the more I walked down and just kept breaking this apart and reinventing. evaluating and getting to, well, what is my avoidance of cleaning actually solving? It was to save me time. It was to, I didn't want to exert an a huge amount of effort at this. And I think this is where my do it shitty shortcuts years ago kind of came from. It was because I stopped, I stopped looking at the fact that I hated housework and the why do I hate housework. And I started saying like, well, how is this improving my life? And it was improving my life. It was solving, well, it was saving me time, right? Except it really wasn't because my house was dirty.

I was like wasting time in all these other areas. But the solution was, well, how can I do things as quickly as possible? What shortcuts can I take? Actually, it wasn't actually about the time at all. It was about the energy. I felt like I would rather do the fun things. I didn't want to give all my energy to something that didn't make me happy. Yes, maybe the clean house made me happy, but it didn't feel worth it for the amount of effort

and energy I had to expend. So what if I could do it with the least amount of energy possible, right? What if I could find little hacks and shortcuts? What if I could take what I was actually trying to solve the purpose was like conserving my energy and saving it for the good stuff and use that as a tool to get the housework done and to still. have what I was hoping for was a clean and tidy house without having to like focus on the cause anymore. And I don't want to treat you my listener as a therapist right now, but let's let's keep going and getting real deep for a second because what I actually found was I think also part of me was avoiding the cleaning because yes, I was like I don't want to be a crazy neurotic person,

but also a big part of me didn't think I deserved it. I didn't feel like I was maybe like that was for the good people who have their lives together, the people who like get up at 5 a.m. and run. And I'm like, eh, and I can't be that. But what's so bonkers to me is when I started almost embracing like, okay, you're kind of lazy, but like let's not see that with shame. and instead, like, let's use that as a tool and try to do these little things as quickly and as crappily as possible, but still getting done, that started to actually energize me.

Because even though I was trying to conserve energy, what I realized all along is like, self-love and self-pride and accomplishment is actually energizing. It actually gave me that boost that I thought I was conserving by avoiding the task. So let's talk about decluttering for a second. And what I think, I mean, again, not a doctor, but I've worked with a lot of people. And oftentimes, I think people are living in really cluttered and full spaces and they're struggling to let go. And there's all these causes of like why decluttering is hard. But at the root of it, the solution of not decluttering is like you don't have to make hard decisions. You don't have to expose. You don't have to

expose yourself to failure, making mistakes. You don't have to, and in some cases, succeed. Because sometimes people are afraid of the good and they accept the suffering because on some weird, gross, sick, deep level that we don't even understand. We think we deserve to suffer. For a lot of us, Clutter is quietly protecting us. It's this barrier. It's this wall against all the scary, dark, bad thoughts or experiences that we might have. And we're hiding behind it. So here's what we're going to do right now. We are going to identify what your clutter, what the mess is actually doing for you. We're going to find out what its purpose is. We're going to find something else to sort of or to give you that same purpose. And then we're going to pick one small action step we can take

right now. There are lots of jobs that your clutter is doing. And we're going to talk about all of them. And while we're talking about them, I want you to see if one resonates with you. If one makes you think like, ah, yeah. If one makes you feel kind of sweaty and uncomfortable, that probably means it's resonating. And we're going to start with decision freezing. When we pile things to later, when we just avoid dealing with something, what we're really avoiding is having to make decisions. And that's really hard for a lot of people. We have to decide what to do with it, if we keep it, where it goes. All of that is very overwhelming, especially if you have decision fatigue. So of course you're putting it off till later because you're solving the problem of you just don't want to think and have to make a choice. choice in this moment right now. So we're getting out of it by pushing it off till later. The next thing that our clutter does is access an emotional buffer. And here's what I mean. There are lots of ways that in dealing with the clutter, we're going to feel emotions we don't

want to feel. These could be sentimental things. It could be items from people who have passed away. But honestly, what I see quite often are people avoiding dealing with their children's items. if you have to go through and declutter the toys your children have outgrown, their baby clothes, things like that, you have to deal with the fact that that stage of life has ended, that that is over. And that feels so hard. Anytime we're moving to a next phase, it's normal to mourn the previous one. So whether it's a relationship that ended or just even a vacation that you went on, that you

loved having to deal with the pile of souvenirs can feel too emotional sometimes. So we just stack it in the corner. The next thing that our clutter really does for us is it is kind of like perfectionism protection, especially you bees and crickets who are piling till you can do it later, because if you start, you could fail. If you don't start yet, there's no potential of failure, right? We're pushing everything down. Or if you try a system and it's not 100% correct, then that's like, ah, the pain. We're avoiding that by not actually getting started. If you can't choose the perfect system, you can't choose the wrong one either. Sometimes clutter is conflict avoidance. And this is something I really, really struggled with for a long time. So I didn't want to fight with my partner about

things that I thought could probably go, but maybe he would want to keep it. I didn't want to nag my family. I didn't want to make them have to do so. I didn't want to be that person. You know what I mean? I didn't. So I just was like, well, I'm just going to avoid it altogether, right? Because I didn't want the conflict that comes with having boundaries, with having rules, and with having to get everybody on board to make our house a priority. So I just did nothing at all. So often, clutter is also like identity protection almost or like preservation. So if you're a crafter and you have all these craft supplies, getting rid of that can feel like you are admitting that you're actually not as crafty as you want to be, or if you have clothing that no longer fit you, it feels like

if you let them go, it's kind of like, oh, well, I'll never be that person that could fit into them again. Like we are still, we're holding on to this best version of ourselves, and that is reinforced with our stuff. And so letting go of the stuff, whether it's the things your children have outgrown, it's like, oh, but I'm a mom, and maybe I'll be a great grandma, or maybe I'll have another baby one day. All of this is tied to identity, which is why we just don't want to deal with it. Maybe your clutter is a substitute for boundaries. Maybe it is a wall of protection. So if you actually are feeling really nervous about having people over, you don't want to entertain. Maybe your messy home is an excuse, right? Maybe this is like what you hide behind. You can't

possibly have people over because your house is too messy when it's just that you're afraid to have people over. Or maybe it even goes deeper than that. Like, I can't start my business from home. I can't start my business or I can't work because my office is so messy. Is that just protecting you from actually doing the scary thing? Right? I can't work out because I don't have a spot to set up my weights. I can't do this, XYZ. I can't have a relationship. I can't date. I can't all of it. Kind of hiding behind the clutter as an excuse when really it's just protecting us. And last but not least, I feel like sometimes our clutter can be control. And I don't know if this is the right word to describe it, but here's what I mean. We have a whole basement filled with canned goods.

Right. We have so much food. This. is like a sense of safety, but also control if the world goes to crap. At least I have the food. Like I feel in control in an uncontrollable situation. I'm using this to, yeah, to help knock down this fear. And we do this not just with food. I had a real issue. As you know, I was homeless for a lot of years and I didn't have clothing very often. I wasn't naked. Okay, calm down. But I would have like one outfit that I wore four weeks and I did not have access to a washing machine or a dryer. So when I started getting my life together, I found that I had this real obsession with clothing, gathering just cheap clothing and hoarding clothing because I wanted to make sure that I would never be in a position where I didn't have clothing again. It was a form of control.

It was a form of protection and self-preservation. And I think whether it all is wrapped up in scarcity mindset, but at the end of the day, it's control so that we don't have to feel fear. So your clutter is solving some problems, kind of, but not like, they're not good. It's not in a good way. This isn't like, yay, let's celebrate the clutter. It's doing a good job. No, it sucks. It's a crappy employee.

So let's try this activity and see if we can replace the clutter so that it's still solving the problem that the clutter is. It's like, we're getting deep here, okay, friends, we're getting deep. But this could be exactly what you need to break through. So pick a place you're stuck. Maybe it's your kitchen counter. I hope not because if you listen to the last week's podcast, we dealt with that. But no, I'm not judging. It could be your kitchen counter.

Maybe it's your doom room. Oh, I hope it's not a doom room. but this is super relatable. Maybe it's your entranceway. Maybe it is your closet or your bedroom in general. Pick one spot that's getting on your dang nerves. And let's look at it differently. If this one space was solved, if the clutter was gone,

what issue would you then have to deal with? Now, this is really hard, but I really want you to think, if your kitchen counters were clean, would you, do you feel like, oh, it'd be a lot of work to maintain this, a lot of effort? Is that what it is? If you, if you didn't have all the stuff in your doom room anymore, do you feel like, oh, I wouldn't feel like a crafter, I wouldn't be able to create? If all the baby stuff was gone, do you feel like, oh, I wouldn't feel like a mother? I wouldn't feel like I'd be able to have another child or I wouldn't be able to celebrate my children's memories anymore. Like, what is the uncomfortable thing that would happen?

And there will be something if this clutter problem was solved. What is the mess in this area that you've picked? What is the clutter? What is it really solving for you? What is it protecting you from? What do you get to avoid by not getting started yet? Is it you don't have to host a bunch of people at your home? Is it that you don't have to feel failure if you try and it isn't perfect and it didn't work out?

Is it that you don't have to feel regret in case you've made a mistake and all the pain that comes with that of not being smart enough or perfect enough? What are you avoiding by not starting right now? Now we're going to do a weird exercise. Yep. It's just straight up therapy up in here, okay? because listen, the Superman pose, this works. It's proven science and stuff that when you embody it, that when you say it out loud, that when you own something that has power. So let's just go right now. Hands on the hips. I'm keeping this clutter because it helps me avoid first thing that pops in

your mind. It helps me avoid failure. It helps me avoid success. Ooh, that hurts, doesn't it? It helps me avoid effort. It helps me avoid mistakes. What is it? Say it out loud. And now, hands on the hips, I keep this clutter because it helps me feel whatever pops in here. It helps me feel safe. It helps me feel protected. It helps me feel. What is that word when it's like we're going to get to something and it's going to be amazing one day, but I'm not going to to do it now, but there's a word that it helps, it helps me feel like I have potential. It helps me feel. Just shout it out. It doesn't have to be right, my friends.

Just shout out something weird. I'm thinking about my clothes. It helps me feel optimistic. That is what my clutter used to do. It helped, it did. The craft clutter, I was like, I'm going to make that one day. The clothes that didn't fit, I'm going to lose weight one day. All of that.

like identity, idealized self, the clutter actually made me feel optimistic about the person I could be. That was a tough one for me. So the point of this little exercise is no shame. Okay, we're not, we're not like shaming ourselves. We're identifying it so that we can find something else that can serve us in those ways. We can find something else, a new employee, to solve those problems that isn't the clutter. So let's talk about, like, we're going to break them all down. All right. I hope you're still cleaning your bathroom while you go. If the bathroom is tidy, move to another space. Let's go. You're a warrior. Okay, we're starting with decision freezer. So how do we do this? We have to make the decisions that we are going to make really,

really tiny. So it's not overwhelming. You are, you are using your clutter as a way to avoid making decisions. So what if we make those decisions ahead of time? This is why I like the does it stay or does it go? Yes, no. You don't have to decide what pile things go into. You don't have to decide how to dispose of it. You only have to decide yes or no. Or maybe you come up with rules ahead of time, like, I can only have 10 mugs, or I can only fit what I can fit on this shelf or in this basket. That eliminates the decision because you're not the bad guy. The container is the limit and the bad guy. little things that we can do ahead of time, these rules, setting a timer is another good one, this is going to eliminate that decision fatigue because we've immediately reduced the amount of

decisions we have to make. If the solution that your clutter is solving is like, I don't want to fail, I don't want to set up a whole thing and do all this work, and then it just like becomes a big fat mess again tomorrow and oh my gosh, it's so much effort. I think this is where knowing your clutter bug method comes in. This is the whole reason why I developed this was because because I feel you, babe and dudes, I don't want to also waste time and energy and money. So take the Clutterbug quiz, go to Clutterbug.com, find out your natural organizing style, and then implement something that you know is going to work because that's how your brain naturally works.

Like, instead of guessing and having that fear of failure, you go in with confidence knowing, I got this. Now let's talk about a little bit of a craptacular one, which is our clutter is avoiding conflict. This is tough, especially people pleasers out there. And I'm a people pleaser on steroids, so I feel this. But like, maybe we can soften this by having the conversations ahead of time, like little micro-conversations. Like, what is our baseline definition of what a clean kitchen looks like? Or what are some rules that as a family we can agree upon, not in the moment while we're screaming in the mess, but like at dinner, somewhere nice and calm earlier. So we're not ever going to go to bed with dirty dishes.

And whose job is it to make sure that they're in charge of that? We are going to do a load of laundry a day and actually put it away. Again, who's in charge of that? And like, let's get really clear on each other's boundaries and do all these compromises and little micro conversations, not while we're raging out and looking at the mess and feeling stressed and feeling naggy. Let's actually set some loving ground rules for our home. What if you are avoiding grief and guilt? This is so hard. So whether it is that your children have grown or someone has passed away or a loved one, or you're just worried you're going to forget.

all the beautiful memories. So you don't want to deal with them. You're holding on to them because the idea of letting them go is so painful. And I think this is where actively writing down the stories is so helpful. Taking pictures is so helpful. Capturing what truly matters by journaling, creating a memory bin so that these things can actually go into a home that's safe and protected. This is so important, especially if you are a highly sentimental person, if you have not protected these memories and these things, everything's going to feel important. If your and your special things are mixed in with your bills and your old lunch pail, everything is going to feel special. And I think this is where just grabbing a notebook, grabbing a basket and giving

things the real love that they deserve is critical for overcoming this. I just want to say again, I'm like a huge fan of a memory bin because what it actually provides is relief. In almost every client's home that I've been in where one of their biggest struggles is this like sentimental fear of guilt and shame and they're going to like forget things as soon as we give a special preserved place, it can literally be a $10 bin from Walmart. Okay, this isn't anything fancy. As soon as we give this and things start to go in there, it's like a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders.

And suddenly, decluttering doesn't feel as hard because you have a safe, cared for, respectable place for your things to go. And all the fear is almost magically eliminated. So dudes, get a memory bin. identity, the identity one. This one's really hard, you guys. So if we're holding onto things and I'm calling out you crafters or you book lovers where you have 50 million thousand books or again, the like moms with all the kids stuff, this is tough to let this stuff go because it's part of you. It's a piece of you. So the one thing that I really found helpful for me with identity clutter

is telling myself, I'm actually a better crafter. and a better crafty person if I share the excess with other fellow crafters. I'm actually more of a book lover if I'm sharing my love of reading with other people. I had to do this reframe. I'm a better mother when I teach my children that it's healthy and good to let go of the old to make room for the new, but also sharing with other new mothers and bonding by letting of the things that my children are no longer using and loving, instead of hoarding it for my future grandchildren, I'm sharing it with other mothers in need. That makes me feel like the best

version of that identity is the sharing component. And when you can do that, when you can say, I have so much yarn, but there are women and men in nursing homes sitting there, you will change their lives by giving them a little bit of yarn so they can sit and knit or crochet. You are improving their life. That makes you feel like even a better crafter, right? And a better human. So it sounds weird, but that small reframe can help solve that solution that the clutter is currently solving. And last but not least, if it is a control thing, so fear, scarcity, mindset,

that therapy, therapy is super, super helpful because again, not a doctor. But if you're like not wanting therapy, here is something that I will say, exposure therapy is something you can do. What I mean by this is the control is avoiding fear. And the best way to deal with fear is to feel a little bit of fear in a safe way. So that's why we say start with trash. just let go of one thing. Sit with those uncomfortable, horrible feelings and realize it's not actually going to kill you. And then do it again and feel it again. This is how I overcame all of this

was like, I always call anxiety like this little troll in my shoulder. And every time I give into it, like, you're right, that is scary. That bitch gets bigger. You know what I mean? And I allow it to grow. And it's when I give it a pop in the face that I can actually shrink it down. So therapy friends therapy but also a little exposure therapy goes a long way okay so here's your homework here's what we're going to do in the next 24 hours i want you to pick one spot don't overthink it look around pick the one that's like ew that's horrible hands on the hips and i want you to say this clutter is helping me avoid say it whatever comes in your mind this clutter is helping me avoid, say it. And this clutter is helping me avoid feeling, say the word. And now pick one of the

techniques we discussed to help you kind of solve this, feel the same way, right? Don't overthink it. Listen, if you cannot come up with anything, stop it, move on to something else. But I think you are more creative and problem solving than you actually give yourself credit for. So, we're thinking outside the box here. What is this making you avoid feeling? And what else can help you avoid feeling that exact thing that isn't the pile of clutter? Quick example. If you're looking at the pile and you're like, this pile is helping me avoid making a decision because I don't want to feel overwhelmed and make the wrong decision. Okay, here's a quick solution. What if the decision, what if the decision is only yes, no. And it isn't like a lot of decisions. But if even that feels so hard,

what if you ask your child or a friend or the husband to help make the decision? A lot of people are like, hate this so much. But I hate making decisions, okay? If someone's like, what's for dinner? I'm like, stop it. You better pick. I'll tell you if I like that or not, but I don't want to make the initial decision. I want you to make the decisions because I hate making decisions. And that's okay and there's nothing wrong with that. So what if you have a friend that makes the initial decision for you, but you can always veto that decision? It's a whole lot easier. They'll say that can go and you're like, actually, I want to keep that. That's easier, friend. So either make that decision only one, yes, no, or rope a friend in because seriously, so helpful. And also

accountability buddies work. It's body doubling on steroids. So maybe send this podcast to the friend that you would love to do this with. And together, you guys can combine your forces to be unstoppable. Consistency is the secret, but it does not come from intensity. We can't, like, force consistency at, like, going 90 miles an hour all the time. It comes from small, tiny, everyday decisions. It comes from tiptoeing towards our goals, not sprinting. I have to be able to be. I have to be Take a second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Carraway. I switched to Carraway cookware years ago because, honestly, I had heard that if you had Teflon, nonstick pans and you scratched them, which I always did, that you were releasing

thousands of micro toxins and plastic particles into your foods. And that was like a no. Time for me to be a healthy grownup. So I switched to Carraway, and I'm so obsessed. I think my favorite thing is, like, I can fry in their big, beautiful pans and then finish cooking it in the oven in the same thing. I feel like Chef Boyardee up in here because not only are they beautiful, heavy duty, easy to wash, but they're also non-toxic. And if you want to give Caraway a try, you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase. This deal is just for my listeners.

So go to careway home.com slash clutterbug 10 or use the code Clutterbug 10 at checkout for 10% off. careaway non-toxic kitchenware made modern. Now it's time for my favorite part of the podcast Talk to Cass. And now we're actually going to hear from Emily the whole thing. Hey Cass, my name is Emily. I live in New Orleans. And I wanted to thank you first and foremost for changing my life, helping me view myself as a person who can be organized and understands the way my mind works. I feel like I understand my home better. myself better since listening to your podcast. I've got what I think is a decluttering dinosaur. The object in question is a calendar from 1982. However, it was found under the bed of a person born in 1985.

My best friend when she was young was very, very cluttered. She's gotten so much better. But one day she and her mother and I set aside an entire Saturday to clean her room and we found this calendar under her bed from three years before she was born. She had never seen it before. She had no idea where it came from. And to this day, it remains a mystery. I could also use some advice, speaking of kid clutter. I hear that children are all butterflies and we've got bins and we've got baskets in my house and my question is how how do we keep organized all the tiny little parts of things so the action figure and its six costume pieces and the tool set and the like all the different little tool bits uh and and and you know all of the game pieces from this game where the box was

destroyed all those like itty-bitty little things that need to be kept with their main toy to have any use or significance. Please, please help me. Thank you so much for everything you do. And looking forward to hearing your answer. Bye. Emily, I'm going to challenge you right now. Like, oh, I bet you're a beer cricket. I just got this vibe. Do you have to keep it? This is the thing. I had this like aha moment when my girls were younger and I had 50 million thousand Barbie shoes and the little purses and the little outfits. And then it was like, what? And then I was always like corrupt. This was the mess maker of all mess makers, these little bibbidi boobbby boobs. And then one day I just threw them all in the garbage and my kids never noticed. And they just kept playing with their Barbies and they just went on with their life. So this is when I realized that all the accessories that comes with toys are actually not necessary at all. And you said, what about all the game pieces that come with the game where the box is destroyed? What if the game's just gone? Like, what if we as parents are just like, no to the messmakers? Also, can we say no to the big, giant stupid thing? So what I mean by this is your kid gets some like hot wheels car race track and it's

freaking four feet big, but they only just play with the race cars on the table, on the coffee table. Like, we don't have to keep the whole collection. We can keep the piece. We can keep the piece. that are actually played with. We can keep the play food without keeping the play kitchen, and they can turn the sofa into the kitchen. So, yeah, friend, that would be my advice to you. It was a big old trash bag with no regret and no shame. Now let's hear from Erica. Hi, Cass. My name's Erica. I'm a butterfly and also probably in the younger group of your listeners being in my late 20s. I found your channel about two years ago. when I just started my decluttering organizing journey,

wasn't something that was really familiar to me. My family was the kind who, you know, put, you use the example, put a broken vacuum cleaner in the garage, like on the way out of the trash can, but you leave it in the garage for a couple months. So this concept was kind of new to me, and I had lived in a lot of really small places, jumping around different, you know,

as life takes it's different turns. And I kept a lot of my clothes simply because I didn't fit, like rolled up really tiny and like big suitcases. And so when I got to my current place two years ago, I was like, okay, like let's see what I have. I unpacked my big suitcases and I had so much stuff. And I was like, oh my God, it doesn't all fit. So I've been decluttering. It's taking me a lot longer than I want. I feel like I made so much progress, but I'm still not there. I think I haven't, you know, the right amount of stuff for my space, but now it's just tidying up and organizing. So along those lines, what I found, and maybe you have some advice for this, a lot of times when I am cleaning or organizing, things are going really, really well.

And then there's just like one spot. Like maybe I had the, I don't know, clothes in the laundry and didn't get to finish that, but then take it out, put it in the hamper. And I'm like, okay, you know what? I do the rest of the house. I'm good. Or something like that where it's like so close to being done, but it's not quite finished. Or like, you know, I need like a little underbed storage thing so I can't put these clothes

away. So I'm just going to pull them and put them a corner. And when that happens, like my brain goes, oh, like, you're going to have to clean anyway. So you might as well just like throw this over there too because you're going to be cleaning. And then all of a sudden, like, everything's a disaster because like life catches up and then I don't have time. And then I'm looking for things and it gets all messy again. So I would love any advice that you have. especially I think what's interesting is organizing to fit your lifestyle.

And so I would love to know a little bit more about that. I also just want to say thank you for two years of podcasts. I listen every time I clean my house or try to. So I listen to you a lot. I really love the speakers that you've been bringing on. I just listened to the episode with Peter where he gave some tough love. I also like and need tough love. I'm similar to UCAS where I will watch those YouTube videos where they're yelling at me to like get my shit together.

So I can relate. I also really loved Gretchen Gretchen's four tendencies. I thought that was awesome. And then I went and I like read two of her books. So really cool to like discover, you know, these other people who can help make your life better through. you. And so I just really appreciate that. And I've recommended you to like my family and friends. And I'll tell my, you know, mom or dad, I'm like, listen, like, you know how we never took that, you know, vacuum cleaner out of the garage. Well, it turns out we're supposed to. And we're not supposed to just

let things sit. And they're like, okay. But that was new to me and just showed me a different way that, you know, I hadn't learned. And so once I finish my final like itty cluttering, organizing project with, you know, all the stuff I have, I think things will go well in the future, but I just got to get there. And right now, it's a little bit crazy. So, yeah, any advice you have would be great. Really busy schedule. So it's hard to, I guess, find the time to, like, really dedicate to my house and stuff. So I think that's also another factor that makes things get out of hand. But, yeah, okay, well, thank you so much. And I love your channel. And I will be. stay tuned next week and the week after and the week after.

Just keep getting better and learning. So thanks. And hopefully you hear this message. Bye. Erica, you are adorable. And guess what? I also love Gretchen Rubin. And she will be on next week's podcast.

Somebody pinch me. I know I've talked to her before, but we're doing like this whole cool thing together. And she's my hero. So this is like amazing. And she's a genius. So stay tuned for that. But I do want to.

offer some help with the idea of not completing the cycle. I actually first heard this concept from Peter Walsh, who talks about the importance of completing the cycle. He likens it to washing our clothes in a washing machine. Like you wouldn't stop the washing machine halfway through before it's done the rinse and the spin and call it doing our laundry. So why is it that when we wash our dishes, we leave three things to drip dry? So what I started doing, was hacking my dopamine brain. So just setting a timer, I'm going to do something for five minutes gives a completion. Even if the thing isn't done, we still get dopamine. Or I'm going to finish 10 dishes and make sure they're actually washed and put away. It's a way of not having to do the

whole big thing, but still giving us the dopamine, that rush, that feeling of completion, which allows our brains to give us those happy chemicals. It's why when you spend all Saturday cleaning your house and you're like exhausted, but there's one small thing that you didn't get done, you don't feel fulfilled. So it's like, why would I want to do this again? That sucks so bad. So breaking it into smaller chunks and celebrating, even if we have to fake celebrate, every single tiny win floods our brain with chemicals. And that's how we go from hating, cleaning and decluttering and organizing to being obsessed with it. It's the ultimate brain hack. You got to give it a try. Okay, that is all.

ready for some randomness. I've never done this before, but I think we should start doing random product reviews. Someone sent something and I'm going to see what I think about it. I have no idea what this is. Okay, my producer has put this in here. Let's check this out. This is the laundry chair, but it's not just a chair. It's a storage solution. Everybody has this chair. Covered in clothes that are not clean, but also not dirty. The rail lets you hang the clothes you're still wearing. And when you don't want to look at them, it rotates neatly at a sight behind the chair. So if you have that chair, then this is the upgraded version. What in the know is that? If you buy that chair, I'm going to climb through this screen and kick you in the

butt on, that's the dumbest thing I've ever dang well heard. What are you, just get a hook, get a coat, Put some 3Ms on the wall. What are you talking about? You don't buy a piece of furniture to hang clutter on. Stupid. That's stupid. Okay, sorry. I got a little ragey about that.

All right. If you are listening to this and you want to actually see what this chair looks like, you can go to my YouTube channel, Clutterbug Podcast YouTube, and see for yourself is weird. And you're not allowed to buy it because we can go. What? What is this world coming to? Stop it. All right. People will invent the dumbest stuff I've ever heard. So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope your bathroom or whatever you decided to work on is better. I hope you celebrate. And I think this is what is so important. No matter what, even if you're not 100% done, celebrate the finish completion thing that you did do. Is one

drawer better? Woo! Potté. Have a little woo. Do it like out loud. Like right now, woo. I want to hear a Woo, I can't hear you, but I'm going to pretend I can hear you. It matters, okay? Be proud of the progress that you made, and I can't wait to see you back here next week with Gretchen, freaking Rubin. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Let me know in the comments below what you got done today, and I'll see you next time. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes.

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