Something You Should Know - What Music Does to Your Brain & The Amazing Benefits and Techniques of Decluttering

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

Negotiating your own salary can be stressful and difficult. This episode begins with some proven ways to help you maneuver through the negotiation process effectively so you get the best deal and the most money possible. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-negotiate-a-higher-salary Just about everyone enjoys music. But it is more than mere entertainment. Researcher and writer Dan Levitin author of the book, This is Your Brain on Music discusses how people have used music throughout history and how we use it today to help wake us up, make us think, enhance our mood and help us sleep. https://amzn.to/2zRC39i Houseplants can make any home look better but houseplants also have real health benefits. I’ll reveal why it is worth the fuss and effort for you and your family to fill your home with houseplants. http://www.bayeradvanced.com/articles/5-benefits-of-houseplants So many of us struggle with clutter – whether it’s our workspace, a room or our entire home. It’s not just getting rid of clutter that’s hard, it’s making sure more clutter doesn’t come in and take its place. Decluttering expert Dana White of www.ASlobComesClean.com is author of the book Declutter at the Speed of Life. She joins me to share some very simple, practical strategies for getting rid of clutter and also talks about the amazing benefits that come when the clutter is gone. https://amzn.to/2uKoHpy This Week’s Sponsors Hoka One One. Get free expedited shipping on your first pair of shoes by going to www.hokaoneone.com/SYSKand use the promo code SYSK Hotel Tonight. Download the app Hotel Tonight to your phone and get $25 off your first eligible booking. Bombas Socks.Get 20% off your first order by going towww.Bombas.com/something and use the promo code SOMETHING Madison Reed. Get 10% off your first hair color kit plus free shipping by going to www.madison-reed.com and use the promo code SOMETHING InterContinental Hotel Group. Listen to the podcast called “Stories of the InterContinental Life” at Apple Podcasts, GooglePlay or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, some tactics to use the next time you negotiate your salary that will help you get the most money. Then, you probably listen to music. Most people do. In fact, we spend, as a culture, we spend more money on music than we do on prescription drugs or on sex. People use music in many respects in the way they use drugs. They use it for self-medication. They use music to help get them going in the morning or to help them make it through a workout. Plus, several good reasons to have houseplants around that you probably haven't heard before.

And the amazing benefits when you finally declutter your home or office quickly, effectively, and permanently. For me, it was my keys. I was constantly losing my keys. The more I reduced the amount of clutter in my home, the less often I lost my keys. And that is a very tangible way to see that, huh, my life is better, my stress is lower. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life.

I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know, with Mike Carruthers. Hey, hi, welcome to episode 195 of the Something You Should Know podcast. Closing in on 200 episodes. Episode 195 of the Something You Should Know podcast. Closing in on 200 episodes. First up today, if you've ever had to negotiate salary, you know it can be stressful and difficult. So here are some proven strategies that can help you actually get what you want or know that at least you got the best you could.

First of all, don't go face-to-face until you absolutely have to. A study found that in face-to-face negotiations, the more powerful person usually wins. When you ask for a raise from your boss, he is in the power position. So you have a better chance when negotiations are conducted by email for as long as possible. Go ahead and make the first offer.

Conventional wisdom is that you should wait for the other party to make the initial offer in order to get more information. But in reality, Wharton professor Adam Grant says it's much better if you make the first offer because you get to set the anchor, that figure that affects the trajectory of the negotiation. People who make very high first offers usually end up with a much better result. And use a specific number.

Throwing out your target salary as $103,500 seems a little silly because that's pretty much $100,000, but researchers from Columbia Business School suggest that using a precise number makes a more powerful anchor because it leads the other party to think that you've really done the research to arrive at that particular number, and that in turn makes them think that you're likely correct. It's suggested that you open with something personal. When you tell a little bit about yourself, it sends a signal that you're trustworthy. In an experiment, people

who revealed personal information during a negotiation got significantly better results than those who did not. And make a little small talk. Small talk is good because it can be disarming and make the interviewer more open. But research shows that small talk. Small talk is good because it can be disarming and make the interviewer more open. But research shows that small talk tends to work better on male interviewers than female ones. And that is something you should know. Everyone has their favorite music. I'm sure you have your favorite music. I have mine. I don't think I know anyone who doesn't like some sort of music. But is music just entertainment, or is there more to it than that? Dan Levitin has studied the role that music plays in our lives.

Dan's a researcher and writer, and his book is called This Is Your Brain on Music. Hey Dan, so I think I heard, and maybe it was from you, that throughout history, every culture, every population has had some sort of music, right? Well, wherever there are people, there seems to be music. As far as we know, music is characterized by its ubiquity and its antiquity. Every known culture on the planet today has music, and that seems to have been so for as far back as we know. And so why do you think that is?

What is it about music that makes it so universal? Music seems to have something fundamentally to do with who we are as a species, but we don't really know why. We can speculate that it may have had some evolutionary advantage. One possibility is that music signified sexual fitness and cognitive, physical, and mental flexibility in the way that the peacock's tail signifies sexual and physical fitness. In other words, the tail is a display that says I'm healthy and I can afford to attract predators with this thing because I'm so darn fast they're not going to catch me anyway.

Music indicates a kind of creative mind and an ability to control the muscles, whether the vocal muscles or the fingers and feet used to dance and play an instrument. And so its ancient function may have been to do nothing more than indicate this kind of fitness. It's always fascinated me that music is seemingly unimportant. I mean, we don't need it like we need air and water and food. And yet it must be important because people spend an awful lot of time and an awful lot of money on music, recorded music, going to concerts.

So clearly music is more important to human beings than seemingly on the surface. Well, you're right. In fact, we spend, as a culture, we spend more money on music than we do on prescription drugs or on sex. So that's one measure of how important many of us think that it is. And it's hard to imagine a week going by where you wouldn't hear any music of any kind. One thing we found in our research is that people use music in many respects in the way they use drugs.

They use it for self-medication. They use music to help get them going in the morning or to help them make it through a workout or to relax at the end of the day. Many of us have songs playing in our heads even when they're not explicitly playing in the environment. Yeah, well, I can't recall ever meeting someone who said that they just, you know, blanketly don't like music. Everybody seems to have their musical likes or dislikes, but, right? I mean, everybody likes some sort of music.

Yeah, well, it's interesting you say that. I have come across people who don't like music, and we estimate that 5% to 10% of the population really don't. It's just that they've learned not to tell anybody about it because people look at them like they're weird. But, you know, there are people that don't like chocolate, too, and people look at them weird. Yeah, well, I would look at them equally weird, too.

So what is it that music does to the brain that you talk about? Explain that. One of the things we know is that it stimulates the same pleasure centers in the brain, the same neurons, causes the same neurochemical release, as a number of other unrelated pleasurable experiences. So there's this group of neurons that become active and cause certain neurochemicals to be secreted when we eat chocolate,

when we have an orgasm, if you find a $50 bill on the ground. And music stimulates those same regions. Now, you said a minute ago the observation that people like different kinds of music. And that's the interesting thing, too. There's no one piece of music that stimulates this so-called pleasure center for everybody. It's whatever you like that will do it. And it could be Nelly Furtado or Prokofiev. It could be Busta Rhymes or Mussorgsky.

And another interesting thing that I find about music is that people love to listen to the same music over and over and over again, much more so than they'll read the same book over again or watch a movie or a TV show over and over again. Yeah, I've been thinking about that lately, and I think that the reason for that is that music has a greater ambiguity than a book or a movie does. Music doesn't refer to specific things in the world like language does. I can say to you, please go open the window, and you will or you

won't, but you understand what I'm saying. But there's no melody I can play you that conveys that. There's no melody I can come up with that says, oh, would you pick up some milk on the way home, honey? The ambiguity in melody and in harmony means that each time we listen to it, our task is convolved with the task of the composer. We're a co-creator or a co-conspirator in interpreting the meaning of music. And because of that ambiguity, there's richness and there's a personal connection. And that's why we can listen to the same piece of music thousands of times. It can mean something different to us each time because it was inherently ambiguous.

In that respect, it's more like poetry. People who like a poem can read the poem hundreds of times. But you're right, most people wouldn't read a book a hundred times. Well, and it's interesting how, at least for me, and I'm sure it's other people too, when I hear a song, it can immediately bring up a lot of old memories from my past. Yeah, that's another interesting thing about music. And in that respect, it's like smells. What we've learned about the neurobiology of memory is that it seems as though almost everything that's happened to you gets encoded in memory. The tricky part, the hard part, is getting it out,

trying to find a unique memory cue that will find that one memory and not find a whole bunch of other ones to pull out the one memory. And the reason music and smells do that so well is that they tend to be associated with a particular time and place, more so some songs than others. Happy Birthday isn't going to be an effective retrieval cue because we hear it all the time with the National Anthem. But Happy Birthday sung by a particular person, your grandfather,

yeah, that'll bring up a particular memory. We're talking about music and how it affects you and me and everybody else, and I'm speaking with Dan Levitin. His book is This Is Your Brain on Music. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.

Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids

first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Dan, how else in your research,

what have you found about other ways that music impacts or influences the brain? Well, one of the things I try to do in the book is cover 10 or 15 years of research and make it entertaining and palatable to people who haven't really had a background in science or in music for that matter and want to know what's going on with the current state of scientific knowledge. And we've learned a lot. Almost every area of the brain that we've mapped is involved in musical activity. Different areas depending on the activity. Different areas for listening

versus performing, or for composing or imagining. One thing I think you might find interesting, Mike, is that if you listen to a piece of music, it activates very specific and predictable regions of the brain that are virtually indistinguishable from just imagining that same piece of music is playing. Wait, say that again? Listening to music and imagining music invoke virtually identical brain structures. It's as though you've got a little CD player in your head when you imagine music, and you put it on play, and it tricks your neurons into thinking that it's actually playing.

That's wild, isn't it? But imagination, and it's actually playing. That's wild, isn't it? But imagination, and it's not just for music. In many domains, we're finding imagination. Imagining something recruits the same neurons that actually experiencing the thing did. And what this teaches us about the brain is it teaches us what imagination is. Imagination or remembering is actually just a matter of getting those neurons that were involved in the original perception active again and to try and re-experience the thing, only you're generating the input internally. It tells us also where hallucinations come from,

whether they're drug-induced or otherwise, and why they can be so compelling. We're dreams, for that matter. You sometimes dream that you're seeing something or climbing a stairway or hearing something. And the reason they seem so realistic is that they're really invoking the same neurons that are invoked when you actually do these things. Well, something interesting that I've noticed about music, and even my six-year-old noticed this when he sang in his school presentation the other day, that if you were to ask me to sing a song, and God help you if you do, but if you were to ask me to sing a song, maybe I remember the words, maybe I don't, but if I sing along with the song on the radio, or if I'm singing with other people, somehow the lyrics come

back to me. Yeah. Well, the interesting thing about lyrics is that they are subject to multiple constraints. So songs rhyme. So if I sing to you or say a certain lyric and it's a rhyming scheme, there are only a certain number of words that are going to fit. Be Bopalula, she's my baby. Be Bopalula, I don't

mean... Maybe. Gotta be, right? So you don't have to remember. We think that we're remembering all the words, but we don't actually have to remember all of them. Some of them are constrained, and they're not just constrained by rhyming, but melodies have certain patterns of accents and certain rhythms, and those constrain the number of syllables. This is the reason why before there was written language for thousands of years, humans passed on stories and oral traditions and warnings about dangerous things or lessons about where a watering hole was. They passed these on through song. The Old Testament, as you probably know, was passed on before it was ever written down through song.

And the song provides all these constraints to really help your memory. So is there any difference in the brain between a person who's a songwriter and someone who's not? Well, this is something that's interested me, too. You know, I often wondered if, you know, when you take me like Aretha Franklin, who I think is just a tremendously soulful singer, does she have a different brain? Does she have like a soul switch that I don't have? Right? You know, if I could get, you know, if I could get that part of her brain in mind, would

I be able to sing that well? There is evidence, you know, the brain is shaped by experience. So everything that happens to you changes the wiring of your brain in some way. Good things and bad things. Foods you eat, you know, plays you see, exercise that you do. We call it learning learning these brain changes. When something happens to you, your brain accommodates and gets connections to represent that experience. And musicians' brains do change.

Somebody who learns to play a musical instrument, certain regions of their brain that control motor activity and muscle movement increase in size. Somebody who plays drums is going to have an increase in size in different regions of the brain than somebody who plays, say, violin. On the other hand, there's no evidence that the musician brain starts out different. It seems just to be a matter of training. So although we don't know why not everybody can become an Aretha Franklin or a Sting or a Rachmaninoff, it doesn't seem as though they started out with a different brain to begin with, at least not one that we've been able, not in ways that we've been able to ascertain.

Well, I think of like Lennon and McCartney. I mean, how does anybody write that many great songs? Yeah, well, that, you know, you get these musical geniuses. But are they? Well, I'm awed by what they do, and I think time will tell whether 100 years from now we're still hearing their songs the way we still hear Stephen Foster's Oh Susanna. Will they last? That's a question only history can tell.

In a more general theory of art, there has to be a convergence between the technology available, what's going on in the artistic movement, and the abilities of a particular person. So what I mean by that is that Picasso became famous, among other things, for helping usher in the birth of Cubism. If he had been born 100 years earlier or 100 years later, we don't know if he would have become as well-known. There was this convergence where what he was able to do, or the way that he saw the world, or the way that he was able to represent painting, given what was going on at the time in the painting community,

just sort of struck a chord, so to speak. And Lennon and McCartney were certainly writing at the right time for what they could do. Timing is everything. It is. So what about the benefits of music? Is there any evidence that music is good for your health? It sure is good for helping people to cope with difficult situations if they're among the 90% of people who like music

and find comfort in it. So there's evidence that people who are going through trauma, psychological trauma, can do better if they have access to music, if they can control the music they're listening to, if they can choose it, if they can find music that they find soothing. Some women came up to Joni Mitchell recently, the singer-songwriter, and told her, you know, thank God we had you in the 70s, because before there was Prozac, we had your album Blue to listen to,

and it comforted us. And I hear these kinds of stories all the time. I think implicit in your question is, if I learn music or I listen to music, will I get smarter? Or will I do better at other things? And the jury's still out on that. There's a lot of research going on trying to sort all that out. But we've heard these stories that, you know, like if you play a certain kind of music to your unborn child, or if you play certain kinds of music while you're doing certain tasks that makes you smarter and better and perform well?

It's a complicated story, Mike. There was one well-publicized study that turned out to be poorly done, and it was debunked. The Mozart makes you smarter. 20 minutes of Mozart will give you a higher IQ. That stuff's been debunked. The study wasn't done very well. But there is evidence that children who learn to play an instrument early, like before the age of 7 or 8, do better in a number of mental tasks that their thinking might actually be sped up.

They might be faster information processors in general. In that respect, it's like learning a second language. Second language learners are often faster at a host of things. Well, in a way, it is another language, isn't it? I think so, and I think that's the explanation for it, too. Well, clearly, music is more than just something to dance to. It plays an important part in lots of areas of our lives, and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it so well. Dan Levitin has been my guest. The name of his book is This Is Your Brain on Music,

and there is a link to his book in the show notes for this episode. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you should know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared

wherever you get your podcasts. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts.

Clutter is a fascinating topic to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seems that everybody who has clutter knows they have clutter, and it's probably not such a good thing, but it is so extremely hard to get rid of. And often harder, I think, even if you do get rid of it, to prevent it from coming back. Stuff just seems to have a way of filling up space. And yet, at least for me, when I declutter a room or a workspace, it has this psychological effect.

It's calming. It feels good. So why do we keep accumulating stuff, and why is it so hard to get rid of? Well, someone who knows a lot about this from a practical and a personal point of view is Dana White. Dana has a website called aslobcomesclean.com, and she's the author of a book called Decluttering at the Speed of Life, Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff. Hi, Dana. Welcome. Thanks for having me on. So when do you think stuff becomes clutter? How do you know when you have too much stuff that you now have clutter?

It's not a matter of taste. Like someone can have tons of stuff in their home, but if it's consistently under control and they can do the things that they need to do, great. That's awesome. You know, it's not for me to come in and say you have too much stuff. It's really a very personal thing. And it is clutter when it's affecting how I'm able to do the things I want to do in my home. But when you have too much stuff, when you acknowledge, you know, there's too much stuff in this room, I need to get rid of some of it. Even still, it is so hard to actually say, okay, I'm going to throw this out and I'm going to throw this out and give this away and give that away. That paralysis sets in.

Decluttering paralysis is a very real thing. And that means I know I need to declutter. I have no idea where to start. So the way that I solve that problem is to start with the easiest of the easy stuff. So the easy stuff is anything that doesn't require any kind of analysis or emotional decision, because my goal is to just start making visible progress to get myself moving, to see some improvement, so that I'm inspired to keep going. And the easiest of the easy stuff is trash. So grab a black trash bag, make it black, so the people in your house can't see what you're putting inside of it. And just start getting rid of the stuff, you know, maybe it's actual obvious trash, maybe

it's just stuff that when you stop and analyze it, you go, yeah, that's completely not even worth donating or whatever, you know, sometimes you look through new eyes, and just start getting rid of that. And what that will do is it starts to reduce the overall volume of the mass, which then makes you feel a little less overwhelmed, which makes you able to keep going. I think it's easy for people and common for people to lump together decluttering and getting organized, that they are pieces of the same puzzle or they're part of the same process. But you point out that decluttering is different than getting organized, right? It is.

And a lot of times, well, my own personal experience was that I always would look around my house and think, I have got to get organized. You know what I mean? Like, oh my goodness, my house is a wreck. I need to get organized. And when I started just decluttering and told myself, I'm not even going to worry about getting organized right now. That was when I started making real progress. And so making that separation is also really

important to say that decluttering and organizing are not the same thing. Organizing is problem solving where decluttering is just getting the stuff out that I don't need. And that, allowing myself to just declutter, allows myself to just go ahead and start and make progress. I think it's easy to dismiss some of this advice of, you know, becoming very purposeful and very functional and only keeping the things that work and that you need because life is full of other things. Life is full of memories and,

you know, no, I don't need this coffee cup, but it's the coffee cup, you know, and attach your favorite story. So I'm not going to listen to your advice about, you know, I only need four coffee cups because everybody only needs four coffee cups. I want to have this coffee cup. And so then it's easy to kind of throw out the whole advice. Right, which is where I come in. Because the issue here that you're talking about is people's personal clutter, because clutter is intensely personal, what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. And so the thing that was incredibly freeing to me personally, was when I discovered what I refer to now as the

container concept, which is something that people who are naturally organized are born knowing, but I was not born knowing this. And that is what containers are really for. I thought containers were for putting things in and that made sense me. And all the organized people loved containers. And so I thought, well, if I just buy more containers, then someday I'll magically be organized. But I was not using them correctly. And I finally realized, oh, so the root word of container is to contain. And that means to limit. And when I started using containers as limits, it changed. Because here's the thing. When I pick up an item, pretty much any item in my house, like let's say grandma's plate.

If I pick up that item and I say, does this item have value? My answer is going to be yes. Of course it has value. If I pick up a broken crayon, I'm going to ask myself, does this have value? Well, of course, it has value, because I'm a really nice person. And I know that broken crayons still color, you know, so that question did not do me any good to ask myself if I liked something, or if I wanted it didn't do me any good. Instead, what did me good was to go, okay, this container is the limit. So

I'm going to put, if I have a thousand crayons, I'm going to put my favorite 400 crayons in this red bucket. And then once it's full, that's how many crayons I can keep. And it's already sorted because I put my favorite ones in there first, where before what I would do is I would put 400 crayons in the red bucket. And then I would be mad because I still had 600 crayons left over. And then I would go out and buy two more red buckets. And then I would go to put them on my shelf, and I would be mad because they didn't all fit on my shelf. And so I would go out and buy new shelves. And then eventually, I didn't have room for all the shelves in the room. And I thought, well, I just need a new house. But we didn't have the money to get a new house. And so I was like, well, I'm doomed

to never be organized. This doesn't work for me. Where instead, when I let the container itself decide how much I could keep, it freed me. And it's amazing the emotional release or the emotional change that there is when I am able to blame the container instead of me. So I say, it's not that this item does not have value. It's that I don't have the space for it. I mean, that's just reality, you know? And when I look at it that way, I'm able to fill my space with the things I love. So if I want to keep grandma's plate, I can totally keep her plate, but I can't keep it and everything else that I have and have my home under control. So I can keep it, but it means something else is going to go because the space is what it is. The container is only as big as it is, whether that container is a red bucket or a cabinet in

my kitchen or a drawer or a closet or whatever, that takes that pressure off of me to decide if it has value and instead say, is it container worthy? Okay, so I understand the idea of one in, one out. If a new thing comes in the house, something old has to go out, so you maintain the same level of stuff in your house. But that requires a lot of vigilance. I mean, every time something new comes in, I've got to figure out what's going to go out. I don't think I have that much interest in this. I don't either. I mean, this is not my natural bent. You know, this is not a, oh, let me see, what can I get rid of today? And that's fine, as long as I am, you know,

the five minute pickup is an amazing thing. Because what would happen for me is I would put things where they go, I would find, you know, this is the space for him, this is the designated place. And then I would use them and I would leave them out, my house would get messier. And you know, so a five minute pickup is just putting things back where they go. And that even if it's not an everyday habit, if it's more often, then as I'm doing that, I'm just embracing and seeing the spaces that I have. And it does become a little more natural to declutter. But at the same time, even if it doesn't, every single time you declutter and every single time you do a one in one out as it comes into your

house, then the next time that you re declutter, because that's life you're never done. Um, then as you re declutter and go back to that space, it's going to be so much easier because of the work you've done in the past. Um, so there's really no, there's no failure because that's the way I always thought. I always thought, well, I decluttered this before. It went back to being a disaster. What's the point of trying again? So I suspect that one of the ways to get good at this or to get into this is to do the easy stuff first. So where's the low hanging fruit? I mean, I know you talk about if you don't bake, why don't you get rid of all the baking stuff in your kitchen that you never, ever, ever use? Yes. at spaces as containers, not looking at individual items and questioning their worth or their value, then you start to view your space and go, wait a minute, I would much rather have a place for

this stuff I do use and get rid of this stuff that I don't. But the thing that I do recommend as far as when you're starting is to follow the visibility rule. For some reason, most people tend when they get that itch to declutter to go declutter the linen closet or the top shelf of the master bedroom closet or some space that's been driving them crazy in the back of their mind, you know, for a long time. And they're like, well, I'm going to really make an impact. But the problem with that is you work on that space and then you've been working maybe all day long, the doorbell rings, and you're still embarrassed to open the front door. And even though you might tell somebody, oh, I've been decluttering all day, I mean, you're going to see them look around your house and go really? Uh huh,

sure. You know, like, they would never believe that. So to start instead of starting with the baking supplies, I mean, go ahead and get rid of them if you already know that that's what you want to get rid of. But start in your most visible spaces of your home, because what that'll do is you'll see that progress, and then it's going to increase your decluttering energy as opposed to sucking it away when you spend all that time working and then still feel frustrated over your home. That's a great idea because, well, if you're like me,

I feel better being around spaces that have been decluttered. So if you're decluttering spaces you can't see, you don't get that effect. But where else do you get the most bang for your buck? Well, start with your living areas. The kitchen is, for a lot of people, a living area. But go ahead and start with the place that people are going to see when they walk in the front door. And I sometimes will have people say, but, but I don't walk in the front door. And I'm like, that's fine. Except that the feeling of total failure that makes you want to quit is when somebody rings the doorbell and you're embarrassed to open the front door, you

know, so start with the front door. It's probably not the most used place in your home anyway. So you're going to make progress a little bit faster. And then go on to those living areas so that you really are living, sitting with your family, being together with people in these spaces where you just consistently go, wow, this space is so much easier to live in. It's easier to maintain. It's easier to enjoy each other's company. And that will, it really will start to build that decluttering momentum. And then right after that is kitchens, because kitchens are extremely functional as well. They're one of the most

used rooms in your house, or at least most people want them to be the most used room. How many kitchens have appliances that, you know, I have a pasta maker that takes up a lot of space. You know how often I use the pasta maker? I haven't used it in three years, but it sits there just in case I get a hankering for homemade ravioli. And I never get a hankering for homemade ravioli. If you have space for it, great. But if you start to view your kitchen as a container and you realize, I don't have space for this, It's taking up space that I actually need for the, you know, whatever it is that I actually do on a regular basis, then you start to view that differently and you can let go.

The last time I made pasta with my pasta machine, dinner didn't start till about 11 o'clock. And I think I was turned off to the whole thing for the rest of my life. So it really makes you wonder why that thing is still sitting in there. But there it sits. And I guess because I think, you know, a really good kitchen needs a pasta maker. But it also needs a guy to make the pasta. And I think what you're saying, too, brings about like you were talking about the one in, one out and the consistency. There is such value in saying, I'm going to declutter.

Because when you say those words and you look at your space, you see your things differently. We're sitting here talking about it. And the first thing that comes to your mind is this thing that's pretty obvious and easy to you, but it's because we're talking about decluttering. So there is value in decluttering projects, even if that project is only, you know, you get distracted in the middle of it and you've only gotten rid of the trash and moved the easy stuff. You've made progress and then that visible progress is going to make you take another five minutes later down the road. I'm sure that in your work with people, you've come up with some tricks to get people motivated and to kickstart the process. So give

me one. Give me a way to really get going here. So one of the things that I highly recommend is that you take a picture with your phone of a space, any space, and set your timer on your phone for five minutes. And then at the end of five minutes, take another picture so that you can actually see this is the kind of progress that I can make in just five minutes. And then that will flip a switch in your brain that makes you go, oh, so I don't have to wait until I have, you know, three days off from work to work on my house. It's worth it to me to go ahead and just do a little bit here and then a little bit the next day and a little bit the next day. Or, hey, maybe I thought I had five minutes and it turns out I have 20 and I can make four times the progress or whatever.

Let's talk about the benefits of decluttering because I think sometimes when you're living in the midst of clutter, it's hard to imagine how good it's going to feel when you get out of it. If someone is completely overwhelmed, it is very easy to not realize it's the clutter doing it. It's very easy to not realize that having too many pots and pans is actually making cooking harder. So, you know, think about how hard is it for you to access the things that you have in your home? And if you only had to reach in and get it or imagine being able to find something, the first place where you look for it,

those kinds of benefits, think about how much that would reduce your stress levels overall. You know, I mean, for me, it was my keys. I was constantly, constantly losing my keys. The more I reduce the amount of clutter in my home, the less often I lost my keys. And that is a very tangible way to see that my life, my stress, my everyone. I mean, I know there are some people who are just naturally neat and tidy and this doesn't apply. But I think for the rest of us, really, it's a matter of keeping things under control. And you've given some really good strategies to do that. Dana White has been my guest. Her website is aslobcomesclean.com. And she is author of the book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life. And there is a link to her book in the show notes.

Thanks, Dana. Thanks for having me on. It was fun. Bye-bye. Having and caring for houseplants can be a bit of a chore, but it may be worth the effort. Houseplants not only bring nature indoors, they offer some health benefits as well. For example, they help you breathe easier. When you breathe, your body takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide.

During photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. So adding plants to interior spaces can increase oxygen levels. They also increase humidity. Plants release moisture vapor, which increases humidity in the air around them. Plants release roughly 97% of the water they take in. Place several plants together and you can increase the humidity of a room, which helps decrease the incidence of dry skin, cold, sore throat, and dry coughs. They help sharpen your focus. A study at the Royal College of Agriculture in England

found that students demonstrate 70% greater attentiveness when they're taught in rooms containing plants. In the same study, attendance was also higher for lectures given in classrooms with plants. And they just overall keep you healthy. Studies show that adding plants to office settings decreases fatigue, colds, headaches, coughs, sore throats, and flu-like symptoms. And that is something you should know. You can reach me anytime with questions or comments.

My email address is mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Mons, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and possibly enrage you. And don't blame me. We dive deep into listeners questions,

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