Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Why You’re Not Lazy—And How to Actually Get Stuff Done With KC Davis | Clutterbug Podcast # 267

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the endless cycle of cleaning, organizing, and just keeping life together, you are not alone! In this episode, I sit down with KC Davis, author of How to Keep House While Drowning, to talk about why traditional cleaning advice doesn’t work for everyone—and what to do instead. We dive into reframing chores as care tasks, overcoming executive dysfunction, and creating sustainable routines that actually work with your brain. Plus, KC shares genius tips for making life easier without guilt or shame. This conversation was a game-changer for me, and I know it will be for you too. You don’t want to miss this one! Learn more about KC here: https://www.strugglecare.com/ Buy How to Keep House from Drowning here: https://www.strugglecare.com/book-purchase Pre-order Kc's new book Who Deserves Your Love here: https://www.strugglecare.com/books   KC's Socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strugglecare/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StruggleCare/ X : https://x.com/KCDavisSays YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Strugglecare     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #mondaymotivation #ADHDLife #cleaningtips #KCDavis #StruggleCare Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you ever felt like keeping up on the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and just all the adulting stuff that comes with running a household is hard, you're in the right place. In today's podcast, I am so excited to be talking to Casey Davis. She is the bestselling author of How to Keep House While Drowning, which was the most insane success during COVID. This book resonated with millions and millions of people and helped them not only, get their home more under control, but give themselves some grace and understand that you're not a bad person if you're bad at cleaning your house. The two things are not mutually exclusive. So I'm so excited to introduce you to Casey Davis. She's a therapist. She knows what she's talking about, but she also really struggles to, you know, keep the house tidy and has real life strategies to make it easy to take shortcuts and to feel good about yourself while loving your home.

So let's welcome Casey Davis. Casey, welcome. Thank you so much for being on the Clutterbug podcast. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. This is really exciting because when your book came out, which is absolutely incredible, it resonated with my community in a way that I had never seen anything else really resonate with them before. because most of the people who are following me here on Clutterbug are really struggling with

mess. Yeah. And I think what's so incredible is your, I mean, it's, it sounds simple, but it's so not and it's profound is how you really shifted the narrative from like a chore to a care task. So I know I'm just jumping right in because I'm really excited to talk to you about this, but I would love to know like how that came about. did you have an epiphany or was it like I'm struggling here and I just need a different narrative? So I think it was really kind of, it was so many things coming together, right?

So, you know, a lot of my audience knows that I have a background in addiction. I ended up in rehab when I was like 15 and a teen rehab for like 18 months and went through this really big change just psychologically and emotionally. and spiritually. And I learned a lot of, like, emotional skills and sobriety skills that were very, very helpful. But I also, like, if you know anything about, like, the troubled teen industry, it's very, very, like, behavior modification. It runs on this model called the therapeutic community model. And when that's done poorly, it's basically like a lot of shame, a lot of, you know, just behavior modification with a lot of rewards and punishment. And so I was always kind of a messy person.

And part of being in rehab was very much like you need to learn discipline. You need to learn responsibility. You need to shower every day, brush your hair every day. You need to learn to clean. You need to do chores every day. You need to wake up early. You need to do these things. So I learned those skills and I did those things and I did them for 18 and a half months.

When I got out of rehab, this really interesting thing happened because we treated all of that kind of like messiness, forgetfulness, interrupting as moral problems. You're irresponsible, you're entitled, you're arrogant, you're, you know, lazy, all these things. So I get out of rehab. My emotional and psychological growth, like, continues to take off. Like, I'm doing better in relationships. I'm staying sober. I'm happier. I'm managing my emotions. I'm being successful at work and at school. But like literally the day I got out of rehab, like I slept till noon and like went back to showering every three days and was like a messy person. So that was kind of the first click of like, wait, these are as connected as they said they were. And when I was in a

really highly structured environment, I could get up at 6 a.m. and go do chores every day and do all these things. But as soon as I had to create my own structure around that, it didn't work anymore. So that was the first thing that kind of like turned me on. And then I was really influenced by the anti-diet movement, which talks a lot about yo-yo dieting and how we do a lot of restriction when we eat. And then the body feels like it's starving and ends up kind of like boomeranging into we fall off the diet. it and we blame ourselves for not having enough willpower, but really it was your body biologically being like, this is not enough calories.

I need to eat more. And we end up sort of like eating even more than we need. And then we do it back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And there's this kind of like restrict shame cycle, restrict fall off shame. And oddly enough, this all leads. And in that time I became a therapist. But this all leads to 2020 when I had had my second daughter and three weeks. after I had her was the lockdowns.

And I went from like this big postpartum plan about cleaners and meal drop-offs and playdates and family coming to stay with me to nothing. Me and a two-year-old and a newborn by ourselves all day long. My husband had just started a lawyer job. So he was working like seven days a week. And my mental health tanked. And the house got really, really unmanageable. And so that is where.

I got to the point of I need to do something different. I've always been messy. But now that there's two children in the mix, this kind of messy fly by the seat of my pants is not working anymore. It's unmanageable. Now I don't have enough clothes to wear. Now there's mold on the dishes. Now it's not working. It's not hygienic. I need something different. But I've never been able to do kind of like the normal self-help, you know, just be more responsible. Just be more disciplined. Just clean as you go. So I had to rethink the whole thing. And as I'm rethinking it, and I'm going to land this plane now, as I'm rethinking it, as I'm talking about it on TikTok, I get this huge response of people saying, oh, my God, my house looks like at this and I feel so much shame. And that's where it all started was me talking to other people and going, messiness is not a moral failing. And maybe the ADHD and the messiness is totally morally neutral. And we need a totally different approach to how to create sustainable. habits to keep our homes functional. Oh my gosh, that's so good. And honestly, I have never met anyone else that like struck that cord with me because as a kid, like just with your addiction and your

troubled teenness, I had the almost same story. So I was in a rehab facility. I left home at 15, was a homeless teen, struggled with addiction. I lived in a rehab facility for three months. like a live in and I didn't want to leave. I like bald when it was time to go because I had never experienced that type of like open love honesty talking about feelings like what I'm a gen Xer. We didn't we didn't do that and it was so incredible and I left there and I never used again and I was like clean and I was like yes I'm going to be all this amazing thing but and I never broke the law again. I was in and out of prison a lot but I couldn't do the law. life stuff. Like I could be a good person, but I couldn't do the good thing person stuff. Does this

makes sense? Yes, it does. You totally know what I'm talking about. And I felt like I was almost toning all the time, like just whipping myself. Like, I've got to get it together. I've got to make up for all these things. And it was like awful and brutal. And I found my own kind of journey to clean. But I am a slob and I will always be a slob. And, I will, that will never change no matter how much practice, no matter how. My house is tidy. I'm still a slob and that's just the reality. I had to use muscle memory. You know, I had to declutter a ridiculous amount of crap. And I had to have one hard rule for myself, which is I can't go to bed with a messy kitchen because I just can't. As soon as I, I just, ugh, it's bad. But I love that you,

you get it. And I think people listening who struggle, it isn't like about lack of discipline and it isn't about you just have to try harder. There's something else. Do you think ADHD is a big component of this? Why is this so hard? So I do. But the part about ADHD is that it affects your executive functioning, which is the part of our brain that does time management, task initiation, flexible thinking. It does sort of that cause and effect. There's some, you know, pleasure center regulation kind of things happening there, emotional regulation. But ADHD is not the only thing that affects our executive functioning. And so I think a lot of people will resonate with what we're talking about, but they'll go, well, but I don't have ADHD. Right. But

there's all so many things, depression, anxiety, trauma, like those kind of things affect. your executive functioning, but also lack of sleep, stress, burnout, all of those things, pain, right? And if you, if anyone ever is kind of wondering like, what do you mean executive functioning? Okay. Think about the last time that you pulled like an all-nighter or was so tired, like the most tired you remember being. And think about how your, you're like your brain was working, right? Where it was hard to remember things. It was hard to think about things that you knew, you knew it was difficult to like i remember when i had my first daughter and they told me like you need to feed her every three hours but it's three hours from when you started feeding her right so you're like

okay and i remember like that was so difficult to like the the literal math of like it's one o'clock okay so she needs to be fed right and like you just can't like that's what it is right and you know you do some small thing happens you just start bawling i mean that's because your executive functions were so compromised. One of your executive functions is this thing called working memory, which means if you think about how there's short-term memory, which is I have to memorize this for a test, and then, you know, I might not remember it anymore. Or I'll remember this for a year, but if you ask me what happened 10 years ago on that day, whatever. And then there's that long-term memory. I'll never forget that memory of when I was five and my parents divorced or whatever. But there's

actually like a third bucket of memory called working memory, which is a temporary bucket that your brain dumps, because think about how much information your brain is taking in. Everything you see, everything you hear, everything you feel, everything you think gets dumped into a bucket where your brain goes, we need to sort through this because we don't need to remember all of this. I don't need to remember the color of the car that was in front of me this morning at my daughter's drop-off line, right? So my brain will sort through that and go, we don't need that car. the color of that car. Get it out of here and throw it away, right? So I won't remember it. Okay, here's this little piece of information. Oh, actually, you know, we got a ticket. We need to

pay that ticket. Hold on to that. Right. So when you have problems with working memory, your brain has a really difficult time deciding which of those things need to stay around. The other way that I describe it is think about like your web browser. And right now I have up this like Riverside recording because this is what I'm doing. right now. This is what I'm focusing on right now. But behind it, I have a tab open to my emails because there's an email I need to answer. And there's a tab open to an Amazon page because there's something I need to buy, but I need to double check something before I buy it, right? When you have working memory problems, you are only able to keep one tab open at a time or a very limited amount

of tabs open at a time. And the way this shows up is that I take the milk out of the fridge because my kid is asking for milk. I pour her a glass of milk. I put the milk on the counter. I take her her glass of milk. And then the other one goes, oh, you know, I've, can I have a band-aid? So I go to a different part of the house and get a band-aid. And I bring the band-aid back. By that time, my brain has completely forgotten that there's milk sitting on the counter. And I will not remember it's there until I visually see it. And you can see how that leads to being messy. This is so good. You describe it in a way that makes sense in a way that I haven't heard before. Yes, this is what I struggle with. And I think a lot of people listening, it's what we struggle with. And we say things like out of sight, out of mind and all of these things. But the reality is our brain has moved on to something else.

So I want to share what worked for me and get your opinion on this because I had to do something crazy pants. I had to set an alarm in my phone every few hours to do a quick like two to five minute tidy. And what happened was I was really bad in the bathroom. I'd get ready. I'd brush my teeth or I'd make a sandwich if you'd know the mayonnaise, the bread, everything's out. You know, you know what I've done. What I did is I set this alarm and it sucked so bad. And I was like, you're not allowed to snooze it, man. You can do anything for two minutes.

You got to do this. So I would like go in the bathroom and I'd put the brush back in the drawer and I put the toothbrush back in the drawer because of the alarm. And it didn't take long before now when I'm done brushing my hair. I was putting it back in the drawer without realizing because of muscle memory. And it didn't help with the kid clutter or the husband clutter. Right. But that's a whole other thing.

But it helped with me, but as soon as I moved into a new home, I had to start all over again. That's what people don't realize is that the amount of energy that we are having to put into something like putting a hairbrush back where we got it is so much more energy than other people. And so when people go, I don't understand, just clean as you go, it takes two seconds. It's super easy. And it's like, no, it's a drain, a constant drain on my mental resources. Yeah, it is. And if I, and I'm home, I work from home. If I was working outside of the house, this would be even harder to train.

Because how can I set an alarm every, I'd, so I guess the people who are like, that's crazy. I'm not setting an alarm every hour to tidy for five minutes. Is there another way to kind of adapt? Yeah. So I think even before we get to that, we kind of have to look at how we're thinking about our space. Like this is what I find is that there's so many, there is an innumerable amount of these little tips and tricks that work with your brain instead of against your brain. But in order for them to be their most effective and long term sustainable, we have to start

with a foundation of like what is our philosophy about our home and about our beliefs about our ability. We've kind of talked about reframing it from I'm dirty and lazy and gross and pathetic and ashamed to I've got a different brain. I need different, you know, ways of going about this. And I call that being morally neutral. Like cleaning is morally neutral. Messy is morally neutral. That doesn't mean that it may not have some effects that are not ideal for you or that could impact others or yourself negatively. It just means that at the root of your struggle to be clean and tidy is not you being bad or lazy, right? So we need to get that shame out of there because shame is very paralyzing. Shame keeps you stuck in that. I just need to try harder. Just try harder.

instead of what you and I are doing, which is I need to think outside the box, right? Second thing is we need to ask ourselves, what is our goal? Is our goal? And I love that you're talking about the bathroom counter because my bathroom counter has every single thing on top of it still. And I think the goal we have to, like, what's the goal? Like, okay, my goal is I want to always put things back into the drawers. I want a clean countertop.

Why? Because we don't want the goal to. to be, it needs to be clear because that's what it's supposed to be. We need to identify these messages that tell us these should. Well, because that's what responsible people do. That's what good mothers do. That's what good spouses do. That's what adults do. Well, really? We need to focus instead on a functional environment. There's a big difference between I want to learn to put the brush back into the drawer because it's not functional for me to have everything out on the counter because I can't find things and I'm overwhelmed when I see it and my kids come and take things and run off with

them. That's a functional reason to learn that new skill. But you might ask yourself, wait, I don't have a, actually, it's more functional for me to have everything out on my kitchen counter, sorry, on my bathroom counter because I use these things every day. And I forget about things when they're in drawers. And I'm never keeping my, and in my drawers is this mix of things I need every day and then these random things I'm throwing in there and I don't you know right so when you ask yourself that you realize what do I really need and then you go with I do really need to learn want to learn to put the you know the thing in the drawer or you go I don't actually care that everything's out on my it's actually easier what everything's out right so and I think both of those are are suitable answers

and and then you're actually going to gain back so much energy because there'll be another part of your house that you realize, like you said, no, I need a clean kitchen because my mornings are so fast-paced that I need to walk into a really functional kitchen. I need counter space. I need to know where things are in the fridge. I want to do those things, right? And so I think that that's the first key is what do I need for my home? How do I make it functional for me? Not for Martha Stewart, not for Marie Kondo, not for Rachel Hollis, for me. And you're going to gain so much energy back to stop to stop, trying to fix things that aren't really problems for you. Oh, you're making me real happy right now because here at Clutterbug, we talk a lot about

different organizing styles and identifying how your brain works when it comes to managing your belongings. And we call them like bug names. And I'm a ladybug, which means I, listen, I don't fold. I can't stop and think and do tidy. But I get really uncomfortable with a lot of visual, like seeing a lot of visual things. don't know what it is. Like I, it causes me anxiety. You, my friend, are a butterfly. Because I follow struggle care. And I'm like, she's a beautiful butterfly. Whereas like, it's almost the opposite.

If you take your everyday use things and hide them out, that's going to cause you like uncomfortable feelings. Because that's that subconscious I'm going to forget about it. And it is more convenient for you to have it out. You want to see your everyday stuff. So we adapt and create systems where those things have a visual home. And I love, I just, this makes me so happy. And I hope everyone's following you on struggle care, right? Your struggle care. Are you struggle care in TikTok as well? No, on TikTok, I'm actually domestic blisters. I love that. Which is like a play on domestic bliss. Yeah, I love that. I, I'm trying to avoid the TikTok. Because I find I have an addictive personality and you'll never see me.

No one will ever see me when I'm on TikTok. But that's great. I'm going to put a link to all of that down below because you're making it make sense. You're making the struggle and why is this so hard makes sense? And you're offering real solutions. So I love that. Before we get into your new book, which I definitely want to talk about,

how can people who are feeling very overwhelmed with their space, like what do you recommend is like the one thing that's going to have the biggest impact that they can do or are you like go have a nap and who cares i'm glad you asked that because there's sometimes a misconception that what i'm saying is that it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it's fine have an ice cream like i've never said that but here's here's the big thing i care about what your home looks like only because I care about you. And I care whether you're in pain. So I don't care whether your house is messy or clean because there are people with messy

houses that are totally functional and happy. And there are people with messy houses that are really, really struggling. And there are people with neat and tidy houses that are that way because they're on their game and they're super happy and their houses working for them. And there are people with neat and tidy houses who are miserable because they're exhausted because they're using cleaning constantly as an anxiety management technique because they can't have anything less than perfection and they never sit down and they can't recreate and they beat themselves up. So this isn't about, is it messy? Is it clean? Is it tidy? Is it whatever? This is about you. Right? And finding the best way for us to exist in our homes because we deserve. deserve a functional space. We're not trying to meet some external measurement for being good enough. You know, we're just trying to find the skills so that you can live in a functional space because you

really do deserve to function, even if you struggle with things. Yeah. For me, I still notice when things get kind of out of control, it's like getting punched in the gut. It knocks the wind out of me. And I don't know why my home affects my mental health like that, but it does. And I didn't know the correlation until I finally started, well, decluttering a lot because I just can't manage a lot of stuff. That's all there is to it. Like I just, I can't do it. I felt like when I, when my house is in, like it's never perfect. It's a disaster a lot of the times.

But it's tidy. I feel like, okay, you got this. But when I wake up in the morning and there's dirty dishes everywhere, I literally just go back to bed. And I don't, I don't know why. And that's not for everyone, but that is for me. It sucks the energy out of me. Yeah. And listen, some people are going to be able to sit down and really look into that and be like, wow, this has to do with feeling like I'm not good enough.

And maybe you can just tackle that at an emotional level and then you don't feel that way anymore. But that's not reality for a lot of things. It's really more about, I don't know why this is my sticking point. But if this is the sticking point for me, then in order to have enough energy, to manage this part of my house, I'm going to have to get that energy from somewhere else. I can't just live this life

where I'm continuing to overextend. So I'm going to have to find these places. And I think that's, you know, as far as like my one tip, because I have so many, but they all start with that same thing of, you know, really leaning into the moral neutrality,

but finding the bottleneck. So like what is the step that you stumble on? Like for laundry, my step, what there was a couple of them like one was that I would forget that things were in the washer and they would mill do and then I would forget they were in the dryer right and then I would I would need to do laundry be like ah everything's still there and it was the folding so even when I got it clean I'd be like okay I'll come and fold us later and I'd never fold it and everything would just sit in the laundry basket so when I sit down and ask myself what are the bottlenecks what are my stuck points and I identify those two parts it's the switching over because I'm forgetting and it's the folding because I hate it. right so forgetting that's causing forgetting and procrastination so what can i do to work instead of just saying try harder casey don't be so lazy don't be forgetful do it do it how can i work around those steps or cut those steps out completely so i obviously can't cut out moving it from

the washer to the dryer but i can set an alarm for myself every time i put a load in the washer to remind me to go back and turn it over, right? And then I look at folding and go, actually I can cut out folding. So I moved to a basket system where everything can just be thrown into basket. So all the shirts are in a basket, all the shorts are in a basket.

And are there a few things that I don't want to wrinkle? Sure, so I hang those. But all of a sudden, I can put away two loads of laundry in three minutes. So that you've got to ask yourself, where's the bottleneck? and a lot of people don't ask themselves that because if you're stuck in that place of I'm just being lazy, it does not give you the freedom to be curious with yourself.

Even about things like brushing your teeth. I'll ask people, what's the bottleneck? And they'll be like, oh, because I'm lazy, because I'm overwhelmed because I just, it's like, no, no, really. What is it about brushing your teeth you don't like? And they go, well, this is just stupid. I mean, even if there was something, you know, I should just get over it. It's like, okay, maybe, but what is it? And you will be amazed the answers you get.

and they're all different. People will go, I guess, I guess I really don't like the taste of toothpaste. I find mint really, really harsh in my mouth. And so I kind of avoid it. Or you'll get a mom that goes, well, I never used to have problem brushing my teeth. But now that I am a stay-at-home mom, I have no morning routine. I'm never in my bathroom first thing in the morning. I'm up when the baby cries and then I'm out in the house. Those are two different problems and there are two different solutions. So good. Right. Like there is toothpaste that is strawberry flavor. You don't have to brush your teeth at your bathroom sink. You can brush it to the kitchen sink.

Move your stuff to the kitchen sink. You could put it beside your bed, which is a big. You can get the pre-pasted ones and put them in your purse. Yeah, so good. My husband, he had like an issue, so now he brushes his teeth in the shower. I know this seems so weird, but it's so good. I literally like want to jump through the screen and hug you because my big issue was putting away laundry.

I ditch the dresser. I'm like, dressers don't work. We have no dressers in our whole house. What the heck? A dresser does not work for my brain. No. I got baskets too. I don't fold anything.

And you know what? I have to shoot it like a basketball. So I pull all the bins out and I just shoot my clothes in like a basketball and then like use my foot to shove it down. I do not care. Because guess what? The laundry is away. I know where it is and I can find it quickly and things get wrinkled. But I just I just don't care.

I don't care. Me neither. I got a roly stool so that I can roll back and forth along the like, like bins. This is so good. Do you know what I just started doing? I'm going to tell you. I'm going to get into your new book, but I'm real excited.

This, I'm a bed person. I think they call it like bed rotting. I don't care. I really like my bed. Got me too. Oh, man. I can spend all day in my bed. It's bad.

I have a problem. So I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I'm going to share this with you because it works. I used to have everything and anything on my bedside table, dishes, candy wrappers, glasses, cans, the books I wanted to read. It was bad. And then it's filled to like all beside the bed. Yeah.

I got this little roly cart under my bed and I tied a ribbon to it. And so I pull it out so I have access to all the stuff and then I kick it under my bed and the ribbon attaches. So while I'm laying in my bed, I pull this string and it pulls out all my cool crap. And then I kick it under my bed when I don't want to look at it. I love it. Because listen, let me tell you I have the same thing. Like everything's overflowing. And here's what I came to.

One, and this is kind of true everywhere. Like when you talked about like your two minute tidying, people are like, oh, God, but part of the big issue is I found that if I have a trash can, a laundry basket and kind of like a, you know, this, this is for stuff that goes somewhere else outside of this room. If I have that in every single room in my house, then when I do have a minute and I go, ooh, I'd like this to be a little bit cleaned up, I'm not as overwhelmed because it's not going to take me even five minutes. it's going to take me 45 seconds because I can literally, like you said, like a basketball, not even have to move to get all of that stuff away and out. So in my bedside table, first, I switched to a type of bedside table that does not have any drawers. Same. Right?

Because I will clutter up drawers. It is, it's actually just like a big chest that I put things on top of. There's nothing in it. Okay. Yes. And then second was like, I need to have my laundry basket and a trash key. hand within reach of my bed so that those things don't clutter up, right? And so there's still some stuff that'll clutter.

But again, when I do go through and do like a room reset, I have like a ritual in my head where I start with trash and then I get the dishes and then I pick up the laundry and then I put away things that have a place in this room and then I make a pile of things that don't have a place or that go somewhere else. And when you ritualize those kinds of like tidying rituals, so not a routine, it's not married to any time or place or frequency. It's just when I need it because I try to envision all my spaces as having a cycle, which is like morally neutral. Like it's not just clean or dirty. There are a bazillion like like kind of stages in between.

But it goes from usable to not usable within several different like on a spectrum. And I just ride that spectrum until it hits a point where I go, ooh, not usable anymore. And now I have a ritual to make it usable again. That's pretty quick and not overwhelming. I love that. Yeah, because I used to get beat up that, you know, the laundry was never done. Like beat myself up. You're wearing clothes, dude.

The laundry is, it's impossible. Well, and you'll never be caught up. That doesn't exist. And I'm a laundry person in my house, but I had to realize, like, I didn't sign up to make sure we never had dirty laundry. I signed up to make sure we always have clean laundry. And those are two very different goals. That's so good. That's so good. Okay. Tell me about your new book. It comes out in May. Who deserves your love? I mean, it's not cleaning or is it? Tell me. Tell me. So it's not. It's actually about relationships. But what I wanted to do was take this same idea of moral neutrality and self-compassion.

and disability, advocacy, and inclusion, and kind of try and it's a little bit trickier, right, when it comes to relationships because there are moral components and ethical components for how we treat people. However, there is a good bit of conflict and problems in relationships that are coming from a place in us that while we admit the effect is harmful, it's not coming from a place in us where we're wanting to harm people. It's coming from a struggle within us where we're feeling afraid or ashamed or we have some trauma or we have some mental health issues or, you know, we just, we have these reactions and we wish they were different.

And I wanted to talk about relationships and boundaries in a way where we kind of take some of that shame away. And I don't want to approach it like, hey, just be different. manifest it. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. I really wanted to talk about practical ways that make sense and that aren't just inspirational but are practical. So the book is in three parts. The first part is how to work on relationships where I talk about why people conflict and relationships, particularly if you feel like you're kind of conflicting, conflicting about the same thing over and over, how you can slow that cycle down by looking at kind of your defense mechanisms and some

skills for moving out of those defense mechanisms and how to talk to other people. And by the way, it's not just romance. It's friends, family, partners, all of this. Then what you're going to find if you go through that is that sometimes the person that you're talking about that with will be on board and you'll start to kind of make these changes. Sometimes they won't. And just like you, a lot of times, the reason that somebody is doing harmful or hurtful behavior stems from maybe they don't care about you. Maybe they don't have enough empathy. Maybe they don't have the skills. Or maybe it's an issue that you are actually very sympathetic to. Oh, they have mental health. They're depressed. They have PTSD. You know, their mom wasn't the da-da-da. And so this kind,

the second part of the book answers this question, what do I do if they're doing their best and their best is still hurting me? And does it address your own issue? that you might have as well because I'm hearing this and as somebody I have ADHD I forget to remember to make other people a priority sometimes is that so bad to say no I get like caught up and I'm like I'm like oh and I'm hyper focused on like painting or something and I'm like I didn't even say hi to my kids today like I'm a terrible person and then I start really beating myself up because I'm like I get distracted and sometimes neglect relationships. I talk about that.

There's a whole. So the second part is a decision tree where you walk through. It's almost like a choose your own adventure that gives you an answer at the end about what you should do. But there is specific insight into things like ADHD where, and I talk about messiness. Okay, your roommate is really messy or you're the roommate that's really messy. And we need to solve this kind of relationship conflict. and how do we do that in a way that is not permissive? Oh, it doesn't matter because it's from a disability.

So just get used to it. And is not oppressive. So stop being ADHD, just be clean. We always have to go to my standard. Just quit doing that, right? Like, we don't want to be oppressive or permissive. So I talk about this one example is about ADHD and messiness. One example is about autism and eye contact.

So maybe your partner doesn't like to make eye contact. but it makes you struggle to feel like you're listened to and cared about. And again, we don't want to be permissive and go, well, get over it. I'm autistic. I don't have to look at you. You're being ableist if you say that I have to look at you, right? We don't want to do that because both people matter. We don't want to be oppressive and go, you need to mask and look at me and force yourself to look at me because we have this battle of whose needs are more important.

Oh, my gosh, this is so good. In reality, both of our needs are important. Both of our needs usually can be accommodated, but it's going to require that there's mutual accommodation and mutual commitment and accountability and agency. And so I talk about that in the book. And then the third part of the book is about boundaries. So regardless of what decision you're going to make, are you going to stay in the relationship, are you going to leave the relationship? Are you going to make some changes in the relationship? You are going to need to have boundaries. And that's what that third part of the book is about. I'm holding back because I'm just like, be my therapist and I want to unload all my crap

on you and I want you to fix all my problems. Yeah, it's a struggle in our house. I think it's a struggle in every household when you have different personalities and different needs and you're like, well, who's right and who's wrong? And it feels a little black and white. So my daughter and I are both a little bit loud and obnoxious. And my husband is on the spectrum, but he's very quiet and get so very overwhelmed by noise. And so it's tough situation sometimes because at the dinner table, we will just break out in show tunes. And then he will be like, no, I need no one talking at the dinner table. It must be quiet and noise free. And so there's this, it's a weird one. But there's this, do we mask and then hold in and don't be talkative or loud? Or does he adapt and put

up with the noise or is there somewhere in the middle where it's like, okay, we'll talk, but we won't sing. Yeah. That's exactly what. And you know what? I totally relate to that because I have two children and one of them is very loud and one of them has a noise sensitivity. And then I have a noise sensitivity as well.

And so I'm always telling my kids like, you're screaming. And then I'm like, Casey, stop. They're allowed to be kids. They're allowed to be loud. So I'll give you kind of the example from the book where I talk about eye contact where we say, okay, so should this person make eye contact, even though it's uncomfortable? Or so this person just ignore

their pain or whatever? And I talk about, you know, sometimes we can change the story that we tell ourselves, and that can be the answer. Sometimes. So if sometimes you have a conversation, you realize, oh, I thought that him not looking at me

was a sign he didn't care, but now I understand where that's coming from and it doesn't hurt so bad. However, sometimes that hurt is really deep. Like if you grew up feeling really ignored, that's going to be a sensitivity for you. And it's not as easy as just going, well, just tell yourself that he's not ignoring you. It's not that easy, right? So what I talk about is what you want to be identifying and assessing in your relationship is the other person's willingness to mitigate harm and collaborate on solutions. So for example,

we can say, well, maybe what you really need, like here's an example of a solution. What if what you really need is verbal assent, the confirmation that they're listening and they care. So maybe if they weren't looking at you, but they were going, I really care about this. Or, okay, here's a follow-up question. Or, right, like maybe you'd go, oh, yeah, because what I need is to feel listened to, not necessarily to have you look at me. That's just a sign. Or here's another one.

maybe you can go on a walk every day. And that's your time to talk because nobody's looking right at each other when you're walking or when you're driving or when you're exercising on the treadmill next to each other. But you kind of dedicate that time to I want to talk about my day and I want to talk about things. Like maybe there's a solution that kind of works for both people's needs. And like you said, sometimes it's, well, we can talk but not sing. And then sometimes it's really radical. Sometimes it could be as radical as maybe family dinner doesn't work for us. Now, in your case, I don't know that it would be that radical because you're someone who can go, I can just be quieter.

Like, I can not sing but talk. But if you had another child on the spectrum that was very loud or that shouted or that did these things, maybe that they wouldn't have that kind of capability to be quieter. and then you have, right, and you find just what kind of script? It could be that revolutionary. Like, where do we even get the message that we have to sit down and have family dinner? And what's that about? Like, is it that it has to be a meal or is it that there needs to be quality time every day? Because maybe there's a way that you guys can engage in daily quality time that is different.

Oh, this is so good. And so sometimes it's totally revolutionary. sometimes it's simple sometimes we meet in the middle sometimes we both have to maybe you know alter some things this is so good i'm i'm already my light bulbs are going off my daughter and i the first time we see each other is i get done work and she gets done school it's at the dinner table and we are so excited to talk to each other that we're like and it doesn't give any air left in the room for anyone else But what if we schedule a date while we make dinner together? Yeah.

Play loud music and we sing and we or you know what I mean? And then we get it all out so that we can respect everyone else at the dinner table. And because it's very hard when you're excited and you have ADHD to mask it in. Yeah. But if we changed it and looked at like that's the bottleneck and just backed our time up a half an hour before and did it just the two. two of us, we would be tired and we would be able to then not be the most obnoxious people at the family dinner. Oh, God, you're a genius. I'm pre-ordering your book. How can people pre-order your book right now? This is going to change lives. You can do it in a lot of places.

You can get it on Amazon. You can go to Barnes & Noble. You can go to bookshop.org if you want to pre-order it from an independent bookstore. And all those places are also linked at my website, which is strugglecare.com. And you can click on the books link and see those options there. Thank you so much. This is a, I mean, I just want to talk to you all day. I want you to fix all my problems. But I love that you're so relatable. And I know everybody listening is like, yeah, this is what I'm feeling too. Okay, but before you go, you're not going to love this. But do you have like a something people could do? Again, I'm using you as my therapist. I apologize for this. I'm just going to give you an example of something I really struggle with. I feel

like the house part was easier for me because it's very easy. It's not easy for everyone, but it's easy for me to just have less. Like I could spend five minutes and fill a trash bag or fill a box with donations and then my life would instantly be better. There's other areas of my life that I'm struggling like with health and fitness that I don't have a quick easy fix for. And I think for people who really struggle to let go, they can't just fill a trash bag because that's not, it's like, I can't. So there's this, there's this block. So when there's things we were like, I wish I was different in this area or I wish I could do better, do you have advice for me, but also for everyone listening. Yeah.

I think when you come across an area that is really, really difficult. Typically speaking, there is a shortcut. However, the barrier to that thing being easier is money, time, or some sort of like ethical consideration, right? So, for example, I struggle with dishes. Always have. Now, there is a way for me to shortcut that. paper plates right so I could either hire someone to do my dishes I could order everything out I could

um go to paper plates and dishes I could you know whatever whatever right however obviously we can't solve all our problems that way like I don't want to just be contributing to disposable things every single time but here's the key where I am and I'm going to use these terms and I don't mean them in a moralizing way, but I want to use my shortcuts. I want to make things easiest they can be in areas where I'm weak and then make things harder in areas where I'm strong. So for example, if I do want to hire someone to do my dishes, is there something I'm paying for now that honestly, like, I could do myself?

Like, it wouldn't be hard for me to mow my own lawn. it wouldn't be hard for me to pack lunch like something that plays to my strengths right um for me i went with paper plates i still use you know um cooking things but we went with compostable paper plates um and so you know you're going to be someone who you go well i have more time but i don't have money or i have more money but don't have time or you know i could do paper plates but i don't want to contribute. Okay. So what I've done is that we've gone compostable paper plates and I have found other areas of my life to make more effort into being environmentally like contributions. So like, I don't actually need to use dryer sheets. I can use a dryer ball. I don't need to use,

you know, I can bring my reusable paper, I'm sorry, like reusable bags to the whatever. I can donate money to environmental causes. I can take the time to get involved with calling my representatives about environmental things. I can switch to more sustainable slow fashion instead of using fast fashion because, you know what I mean? So like looking at the areas of my life where I could do those things and then being like, this is the area I'm going to give myself that break. Is it, you know, because not everything has to be perfect.

And so I think that just that mindset switch of, you know, maybe if laundry is the thing that you really, really struggle with and you're going, well, you know, you could send it out. You know, you could go to a stop folding. Stop folding. You could go to a capsule wardrobe. You could decide that I really like three outfits and just buy several. of those three outfits. You know what I mean? Like there's you can have a family closet. Like I think it's okay to cut yourself a break in the places where you're really struggling the most. And then look for

areas in your life where you can put more effort into kind of like balancing that out if that makes sense. Oh, it makes so much sense. And you're just so clever. And I didn't, I'm not as clever. So I just have been doing a lot of these things without realizing, right? I use paper plates often. And my big struggle was cooking. It just felt like I made a lot of dishes. I would wander away and burn things. And then when I got done, my family would have like three bites.

And then I would feel used because I made this big dinner and no one was eating it. So now I'm like, if I'm going to Costco, I'm getting pre-made dinners or I have HelloFresh or I have Factor, which is already and I use this often. And on the days, I'm very overwhelmed. We always just have paper plates. Like I'm like, oh, it's a busy night. I got to go to firefighting tonight. It's a paper plate night.

And I don't feel guilt or shame about that because I need that in order to be able to go out and put out fires or pull people out of, you know, car accidents. I wouldn't have the capacity to do that if I was worried about cooking and dishes all the time. Yeah. And I think when people think about I need more. time. I need more energy. And a lot of people, especially mothers, will kind of look at their life and go, there's nowhere to get that back from. I don't have child care. I don't have the money to pay for it. I can't go out and get, you know, a facial. Like, the thing, it's, it really stinks what

it feels like self-care is just another thing on your to do list. Yes. That you can't get to, that you don't have the time or money or energy to get to. And then you feel guilty that you didn't get to it because now I'm not even taking care of myself and I should feel guilty about that. my example for this is that there's ways to think about so here's my example it's like maybe you're a mom and would it be great if you could take a night off and go to a book club and that's your night to kind of rest and recharge sure but if you don't have the child care for that or you have a child that's medically complex so even if you could pay for the child care you know there's not really anyone that can do it for you great but what if

on Friday nights, that was the night that you ordered pizza and ate dinner in front of the TV with your kids, a Disney movie. And that bedtime was a little flexible that night. And everyone just kind of could fall asleep on a pallet on the floor or in bed with you. And maybe you have to be a mom to appreciate this. But like, that is a break. It is. Because to not think about cooking or cleaning it up to not think about the bedtime rigmarole or the stress or the gelling or the and like I know that's not going to solve all your problems but there are places where it's like okay yeah if maybe if that's what we were doing every night of the week I don't think that would be great because you know kids need a schedule and they need nutrition and you know maybe

you don't want to use that many paper plates but it really is okay to like have that sometimes, especially when you are thinking to yourself, you're not, you're not just going until you break and then doing that and going, I'm being lazy. No, you're building it in and going, I am caring for myself. I'm making things easier for myself for one night a week so that while those kids watch that movie and eat that pizza, I sit back here on a comfy chair and read a book or, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. This makes me so happy. we have some nights where we have fend for yourself dinner. I don't know if you've heard of this, but my kids every day will say, is it fend for yourself?

Yes, they love that. And look forward to that. It's a break for me. I'm just like, you know what? I'm busy tonight. It's fend for yourself. And I used to do Sunday platter. I would get a giant tray and I would make like a snack platter.

And I would put it out and I would be like, I'm not making any more food today. Like, I'll make your three meals, but like I'm not, I'm not making any more snacks. It's on a giant snack tray. Here you go. Yeah, that's so good. As soon as, this is bad. You're going to judge me. People are going to judge me.

Listen, the cooking is a bit is a bottleneck for me. And I just felt, I don't know, I don't like it, whatever. As soon as my kids were old enough to pour their own milk, I had a cereal dispenser where they could crank it and make their own breakfast. Awesome. I also don't make lunch. I don't make breakfast. I don't make lunches for my family. They can figure it out on their own. It's a meal a day and sometimes it's fun for yourself or sometimes it's food that's, you know, a pre-cooked meal kind of thing. This, that, it freed me up to do so many other things. It was like giving

myself permission and because it's all hard, man. I don't care what anybody says. It's all hard. The laundry's hard, the cleaning's hard, the cooking's hard, the parenting's hard, the working full time's hard. It's all hard. So I love that you're just like, yeah, let's make some of it easy with no shame and no guilt. I don't do leftovers. So this was a big thing for me. The years of leftovers rotting in the fridge and shaming myself and saying, I need to be better. And then, you know, you avoid the thing in there that's closed in your glass container and rotting. Because you're like, so here's what I did. I got rid of all of my Tupperware. I love it. I do not own Tupperware. I have maybe three glass containers that I kept because there's occasionally something, right, I do not

keep leftovers. There's a small group of foods that I will eat leftovers from. And I know what those are, right? Like, I know I will eat a tuna noodle casserole all week long. Right? But I know I'm not going to go back to a baked chicken. Like, I just won't. So if I do want to keep something, I put it in a Ziploc back because I know that worst case scenario, if I don't get to it and it gets bad and moldy, I can just throw it away. God, you don't have to. That's, I hope if you're listening, that you really are taking this in and you're really giving yourself permission here because we are also a nobody eats leftover family.

And there is guilt and shame there about wasting food. So I put it in the container. And then I got to deal with it two weeks from now. And I got to think, is that gross? And how old is that? What the heck is happening? happening here. Throwing the extras. Exactly. Just throw it out. Ziplock bags and then this is so good, Casey. Oh my gosh. I lived with a family. I lived in Guatemala for a while and I lived with this missionary

family and they were Mennonites. And every Sunday, they had this thing that they called Mennonite Weekly Review where the mom would get every single leftover out of the fridge and warm it up and put it on the table. And that's how they did it. It was like they kept their leftovers because they didn't have You know, because again, you're going to hear some of these and go, well, I don't have the money for that. I don't have the time for that. I can't, I don't have the privilege of throwing away leftovers. But it doesn't mean that this is the only solution, right? Like their solution was, and that was great for her. She's like, I don't cook on Sundays, right? I make my kids get the leftovers out. And that's what we do. And then anything left over from Menonite Weekly Review can be thrown away because now we know it's really too old.

That's so good. And I, here's what I'm telling you. telling myself I don't want to throw out the leftovers because I don't want to waste food, but then I never eat leftover. So I'm wasting it no matter what. Anyways, now I'm just wasting space in the fridge and I'm taking my time to have to clean the stupid containers. You're wasting it. The food is going to be wasted, but you can either also waste your time and energy and emotional

health with it or not. And people will say this is not a big deal. It's not that deep. What do you mean you can't just clean a dish? But people do not realize that this is not the only thing we have to do. life. You know what else is hard? It's like emotional regulation and taking care of children and working and being creative and having, like, it's- And remembering to call your mother and taking the trash out and emptying all the garbages and scooping the cat litter and it's death by a thousand cuts, man.

Yeah. Like the places that you can save seconds are going to matter. And you know what? Some of the times it's just like internalized misogyny. There are men being paid six figures to shave seconds off of Amazon's production time. But God forbid, women try to save seconds in various like housekeeping tasks. God, I love that you said that. So much truth right there. I can get all, we can have a whole episode of misogyny. We're not going to do that.

I'm going to let, I'm going to let you go now. But before I do, help me with my final problem. Okay. Yes. Just some kind of tips. I want to be a. person who exercises. I hate exercise. I want to be a person who exercises. If you say pickleball, I'm going to hang up on you because I don't want to leave the house. I want to be in my bed.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I do. I'm a bed person. Okay. I can do this. Let's start here. I got an exercise. I have to because my knees. Why? Why? Two reasons. Why do you want to exercise? We need to answer that first. Yes. So I became a firefighter. Listen, why? It's a whole other ADHD. why and my husband said I couldn't so there was that so I feel like the things I have to lift are heavy when I have to cut someone out of a car at 65 pounds and I'm struggling to pick it up and that's risking people's lives so that's number one number two is I see my mom has mobility issues I want to I want to be able to go up and downstairs I want to be able to to walk I don't want to have to have a walker and I'm very much aware of my age it's starting to I'm starting to have aches

Okay, so you cannot build a sustainable routine around something that's boring. So let's throw those things out. The idea is of I'm going to go join the gym. I'll just get on this. That is boring and you will never stick to that. So there's two options. You can find a way to move your body that does not bore you or you can pair what would otherwise be boring with things that you do not find boring. For example, if you find a podcast that you really love or an audiobook that you really

love, you can make a deal with yourself that you can listen to that when you are walking, whether that's on a treadmill, whether that's outside. You can do those sort of like pairing activities. You can also find ways to move your body that you enjoy. So for me, I'm never someone who will be capable of going to a gym and exercising, but I am someone who is capable of showing up for a scheduled exercise class. There's other people. There's other people who are people there, right? And if I find one that's like a dance class or if I, things like that, right, I'm not someone who will go and do it. But if somebody's waiting on me, then I'll do it, right? So if there is a way, right? Like, think about the ways to move your body that are enjoyable.

And sometimes it's stuff that you would never think of. Like, I mean, do you, have you ever looked at your kids during gym class and gone? I wish I would have done gymnastic stuff when I was younger. Like, you actually can. Like, you. can go learn to do back hand springs like will will you do it will you be able to maybe not but you can actually go and do those things you can find something you enjoy you can dance for 15 minutes a day you can find ways i mean and here's another kind of interesting one and i'm not saying this will be the solution but i mean if you are cutting people out of cars you are getting stronger So what have you just had an extra shift?

Yeah. That is you getting stronger. I mean, I'm waiting for the pager to go off. So it's like, you know, I'm an on call. So it's like, yeah. But I hear what you're saying and I'm already like my brain is going. So I, the idea of a dance class sounds awesome, except I don't leave the house and I hate leaving the house and I have real anxiety about going out in public.

But I can do a virtual one where I pay someone and I'm going to have to show up for them and we're doing a virtual class. Yeah. And it's still a person, so I don't want to disappoint them. Or like if your kids are into anything, like one of my daughters really likes yoga and she likes that like cosmic yoga on YouTube and where it's like, okay, look at this. We can do this together and be loud and get all of our time out being loud and we're moving and I'm getting stronger. Do you see what I'm saying? Like you can you can kind of combine those things with other things that you. So and it's that's where it's about momentum. And if we combine this every day at dinner making time, we don't have to make dinner.

My husband has to when we get to go have a dance party in the basement. Look at that. Stop it. Yeah. I'm solving all my problems at one time. Sometimes it's it's about thinking about where the momentum already is in your life. Like, you know, if you come home at a certain day, instead of waiting to, I just have to clean my kitchen at the end of the night and you're not you find yourself not doing it well what if like when

you came home every day from work that's when you clean to the kitchen because you're already up you already have your shoes on you don't do anything else you come in you do it and then it's okay like it's okay if the cycle gets moved and then you don't you don't have to necessarily do the dishes right after dinner because you know once a day they're going to get done like that's like find the places where there's already momentum that's really good okay you're you're a genius this was so fun. I could pick your brain all day, but I know you've got things to do. Thank you so much. I'm going to put a link down below to all the places that people can follow you and definitely to how to keep your house while drowning and how to pre-order your new book. I'll make sure to put a link to that too.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Casey. You're absolutely incredible and I'm so honored to have you on the clutterbug podcast. Thank you. Thank you, clutterbugs, so much for tuning in to today's podcast. I hope you're really feeling inspired and motivated and yeah, feeling less shame about your own home after listening to the very wise Casey. I'm going to put the links to her new book, her old book, and all the ways that you could follow her in the description below. And I'm going to see you guys next time.