The Lazy Genius Podcast - #50: The Lazy Genius Tidies the House

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

Tidying the house isn't cleaning the house; it's making it look clean. If you want some tips and perspective on the best tool in your Lazy Genius cleaning arsenal, this episode is for you. Mentioned in the episode: The Swap is available this month only! Learn to declutter for life with this short ebook that packs a big punch. The Lazy Genius Loses Weight (the most downloaded episode by a mile) The Lazy Genius Cleans the Kitchen if you're looking for clarity on the Fridge Zone and Dishes Zone situation A thorough, step-by-step guide to cleaning your house like a Lazy Genius! Download a transcript of this episode This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo, chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Every Day with Amazon. Thanks for joining me today on the Lazy Genius podcast. I'm Kendra, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 50. That's a nice round number.

We should momentarily celebrate, right? Our topic today, the lazy genius tidies the house. Tidying isn't about cleaning. It's about making things look clean. It is the ultimate tool in a little. lazy geniuses arsenal. So let's talk tidying. We'll define it, name the benefits of it, and I'll share my personal method of tidying my house that you could use in your own. First, what is tidying? Big picture is making things look clean, but my personal definition is

simply putting stuff in its place. That assumes a very important component that all of your stuff has a place. One of our biggest obstacles to tidying and definitely the cleaning is not recognizing that so much of our stuff doesn't have a forever home. And y'all, the kitchen counter is not a forever home. I do it too, man. We all have those things that just get moved from surface to surface and they contribute to our homes feeling less than tidy. For my family, it is my husband's work computer and all of my work stuff, like my laptop and notebooks and all that. So Koss's computer, it isn't always here.

And so it doesn't seem to merit a home. But when it is here, along with its charger, it's like super annoying to wrangle. It ends up on the end of our kitchen island or on a random desk. And it creates this big black rectangular visual obstacle I want to get rid of. We still don't have a forever home for it. And then, like right now it's plugged in next to the kitchen sink because that makes perfect enough. and my work stuff, it used to be on my desk in our den where work stuff goes, but my kids have commandeered my desk for their new video game system and there's literally no place for my stuff

anymore. I don't mind giving up my desk. I really don't. But I have yet to find a spot to park my laptop and planar and the stuff I use on a regular basis. That's on me, but I also feel the effects of that visual clutter every day, that stuff not having a forever home. So imagine and how that is compounded by all the other things in your home that don't have a home. So the most important part of learning to tidy is making sure everything has a forever home. How do you decide where stuff goes? That's the big question. How do you know?

I talk about this in a short e-book I wrote called The Swap, which if you're listening in the month of February 2018, you can buy it now. it is a lazy genius system of how to declutter for life. And this is one of the most important components of the swap, is things having a forever home. When you're trying to decide where stuff goes, don't ask where the best place is. That is a trap. The question to ask instead is where would I look for this burst?

How many times have we gone looking for something that's not used every day? opening closets and cabinets and muttering, where did I put that? The first place you looked is the place you should put that every single time. So when you're thinking about tidying, the biggest component is putting things away, which means everything needs a place to go. And where does it go? The first place you'd look. Now, when we talk about tidying at it, tidying is often our minds think of piles, right? We tidy by making piles. Piles are lovely, and they are the poor man's version of tidying. We totally make piles in our house, for sure.

My boys are constantly drawing and coloring elaborate pictures that they don't always finish in one sitting. And even when they do finish, like some of those art pieces I would love to hang on to for myself, right? So what do I do with all those papers that are like in mid-process or that I want to hang on to that are on every table and all over the floor? You make a pile. It makes total sense.

We always have a pile of sheets of paper, but that pile actually has a home. There is a small art easel in our dining room, and the pile of paper goes under the easel. So when the boys are looking for a project to finish or when I have a few minutes to go through a pile of papers and decide what to keep, I know where to go. That pile, though a pile, it still has a forever home. Now, some piles aren't as tucked away, so don't feel badly when your piles are like proudly out in the world. really fine. Mail, school, and work stuff that'll go out the door with you the next morning, clothes to take to goodwill, like all those piles, they happen. And you don't need to feel badly about them. This is not pile shaming. I would just encourage you in your tidying journey that piles are

your last resort, not your immediate go-to. Try and find homes for things before you pile them up. And if you're wondering if that thing is even worth finding a home for, I think you just found your answer. You just answered your own question. You need to get rid of it. And by the way, the swap, it gives you a path for your stuff to leave your house too. There's lots of good stuff in there. So if you're interested in buying it, head to the lazy genius collected.com slash stuff. I'd love for you to check it out. So, okay, so we've hammered out what tidying is, right? It's making things look clean by putting your stuff in its place. We're not dusting or vacuuming or any of that right now. Just putting our stuff away. Now let's talk for a quick second about why that's important. You know the answer, but sometimes we

forget the value of like normal things that get overlooked in the busyness of life. Visual clutter, which is what happens when stuff is not in its place, right? Visual clutter leads to mental clutter, for most of us anyway. A room feels smaller when the space is divided by random pieces of stuff kind of strewn about. You know what I'm talking about? Like imagine looking at your living room when everything is in its place. And then imagine looking at it with stuff everywhere. Or just look at your living room right now because it's the middle of the day here and mine is a madhouse right now. So I get it. What's the difference in how the room feels? How do the rooms look different? Yes, one is messing and one isn't. But do you see how the stuff kind of stops your eye? It creates lines and

breaks in a room that actually looks and feels bigger without those lines and breaks. We don't have to be crazy people picking up every last item. Homes are meant to be lived in. We talk about that last week in the episode, The Lazy Genius Home. But recognizing the value of a tidy room, both visually and even spiritually, is important in creating the kind of deep motivation to move you toward doing something that you would like to implement in your home like tidying. Not because you should or because your home is now worthy of having people in it and you're a better person with greater value because you keep your home quote unquote under control. No, my friends, no. You want to do it because it creates space within you.

And next reason why we tidy, space is inviting. Tidy spaces, not clean or perfect spaces, but spaces where everything has a home, those spaces, have welcoming built into them. You want to be in those rooms. You want to sit on those sofas and light those candles and watch a movie or have a conversation and just be. Like, yes, of course, you can do all those things in an untidy room. I'm not trying to say, but like we can only live lives in rooms that are tidy.

But the emotional and mental difference can be staggering in those two rooms. We're just more at peace when our stuff is resting in its place. so that we can rest in hours in that room. There's nothing wrong or inauthentic with that. I often get caught up in the lie that if I spend time, now roll with me here, if I spend time keeping a home that's tidy and shiny more often than not, okay?

If my home is usually tidy and shiny, then I'm being fake. I get caught up in that lie. Because aren't we supposed to be open to each other's messes? aren't we supposed to let go of things that don't matter? And in my head, cleaning often feels like it doesn't matter or isn't supposed to matter. How my house looks can swing from complacency to vanity really quickly, if I'm not careful. But what good does either do? I'm being judgmental either way.

I am still putting qualifications on a dirty house just like I am a clean one. It's like when we talked about losing weight a few weeks ago. I'll link to that episode in the show notes at the lazygeeniescollective.com slash lazy slash tidy. That's the show notes for this week. In the lazy genius loses weight, which is still the most popular episode, by the way, if you haven't listened yet, I talked about how we get angry at women who are fit and work out. And then we're also surprised by women who aren't fit and work out, like who aren't stereotypically thin.

And they walk into a room with confidence. we contribute to the problem by judging both sides of the coin. In our darkest moments that nobody else sees, we might say, does she think she's better than me with our muscles and her crossfit? And we like angrily eat more Cheetos. And then on the other side, we're surprised and inspired by larger ladies who like shouldn't be inspiring. It is such a joke. It makes me so angry at myself for thinking this.

We play both sides of the coin, and we do that in our homes, too. We swing far to one side. My floors haven't been cleaned in weeks, and I hope you don't mind sitting on a pile of Cheerios while you pull out a dining room chair. And like, but then we feel guilty for swinging the other way and desiring a tidy, shiny home to welcome our friends and family into on a daily basis. It feels like we can't have it both ways. We can't be free in our imperfection and still seek a beautiful home. That's the lie. caught in that we can't do both of those things. We can't be free in our imperfection and still

seek a beautiful home. And my friends, that is just not true. It's not true in our bodies or in our homes. It's okay if you like for things to be tidy. It is okay if you would prefer your stuff to be off the couch and the floor when friends come to visit. It is okay. It is good. It is lovely. But in the same breath, you can also be okay when it's not. It doesn't have to be a binary thing. we can seek and long for and even work toward shiny, tidy, welcoming homes, while still recognizing that the welcome isn't based solely on how things look. Our homes are worthy of opening up whether they're tidy or not. And just because you prefer the tidy version, it doesn't mean it's the better version.

Let's stop assuming that a life of tidying is binary. It doesn't have to be all or nothing in practice or in value. Okay, so box's done. I fill my rage core dissipating a little bit. I get a little upset about those kinds of things just because I have seen how they have crippled my own life in the past. And sometimes even now, sometimes when I forget this. So I just want us to remember that this does not have to be a binary thing. Okay.

Now let's talk some specifics about tidy. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. it's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life.

You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm going to share with you a few of our families' tidying strategies that give our house the space that we love. crave. First, I know that Marie Condo says to tidy by category and not by room. And I understand it and I even see the value like on occasion. But in my house, definitely for daily tidying, that is not going to work. For daily tidying, I find that room by room is absolutely best. Now, that said, there are some specific methods that make that feel way less frantic or overwhelming. And I'm going to share them with you now. Do you remember in the episode,

The Lazy Genius Cleans the Kitchen, how we talk about it. talked about a fridge zone and a dishes zone. Tidying benefits from the same idea. If we think about cleaning one room at a time, let's say a living room and a kitchen and a four-year area. Okay, like the main living area of your house. Let's say you have like an open floor plan kind of thing. Like what we do is we feel like we're always wandering into bedrooms and bathrooms

and all over the house to put all the stuff away, right? If you were to do one of those like hyperlapse, sped-up videos of tidying your living room and putting everything away as you touched it, you would be everywhere. You know, that video would be crazy. We want to limit our movements as we move from room to room. So how do you do that? When you're tidying a room, first put away the stuff that has a forever home in that room. You don't have to walk far.

So even if there are hot wheels cars at all corners of your living room, don't be tempted to tidy by category and grab all the cars because you'll always find another car as you continue to tidy and it gets exceedingly frustrating and is such a waste of movement. So just put stuff away as you find it as long as the forever home is in that room.

For anything else you find that belongs in a kids bedroom or in the kitchen or wherever else, make a pile. Piles are back. Have a pile for your oldest kids room, another for the playroom, another for stuff that goes in book bags, that kind of thing. It's not just one pile of other room stuff, but individual piles for individual rooms. Side note, that might feel excessive because you're thinking of all the rooms in your house, but chances are you won't have a pile

for every room. It's usually just a couple, right? Now, if you try this method and are just overwhelmed by all the room piles, don't do room piles. This way of tiding isn't for you, and that's totally okay. There are probably still some ideas that you can integrate into how you live and where your stuff ends up at the end of the day. So you can keep listening and maybe you'll learn some of those things that will be encouraging and helpful. So back to the daily tidying. Pick a room, put away everything that belongs in that room and then make piles for everything else. Next thing. Move to the next closest room or area or whatever you want to call it. Take the pile that you created for that room, if there is one, and put that stuff away and then continue to tidy that area. So put everything away

that belongs in that room and then make piles for everything else. If you're into completely different rooms, like far from each other, you have a kids room pile in each room. Don't combine the piles as you move from room to room, like just leave them where they are. That's just adding to your walking. Remember, we're trying to limit our movement. But if you're in two areas that are next to each other, like a living room and a dining room

and an open floor plan, for example, make your first set of piles as you're tidying the living room in the middle of those two areas. And that way you can add to the piles no matter the space you're in, like from either side. Does that make sense?

Now doing this this way, okay, this may feel a little bit picky. and frankly a little bit insane. But a lot of you thought that about the Clean Kitchen episode, if you recall, and I have made you converts. It is in the details, you guys. So if you're going to tidy, why not do it the most efficient way that you can? That leaves you more time to watch the crown when you're done, right?

Amen to that. Okay, now here's one danger that you do want to avoid. You don't want a house full of piles, right? I mean, obviously, that's almost worse. Sometimes tidying can take just a few minutes and other days. like snow days, for example, which I feel like we've had 17,000 of them this last month, at least in North Carolina. Those days take an eternity because literally everything you own is out. It is out in the open. On those days, days you don't have as much time to tidy, days you foresee being

interrupted a lot. Like there are lots of reasons. Any day where you want to be as smart as possible about finishing the tidying or you think you might get distracted, put your piles away as you leave a room. don't feel like you have to leave piles in your wake and come back for them when that room when it's that room's turn just put the piles away as you go and it's totally totally fine um when rooms are close to each other it's a little bit more efficient to put piles away at once but don't feel married to any of this again this is just one way it's not the only way do what makes you feel sane always always do it makes you feel sane now i have put everything away as i touch it i have walked around with a clothes basket and thrown everything in it to sort it later. Fat chance on that. And I've tried

to tidy back category. None of those ways worked nearly as well as the way that I just described. So again, put everything away that belongs in the room you're in as soon as you touch it. Put everything else into a pile specifically for where it should go. When you move to the next room, take that room's pile with you and do the process again. And when you go to the third room, if your tidying takes you that far, grab the piles for that room from the other two rooms you've already tidied and do it again. See how that works? I hope you try it and then it makes a difference for you.

And yes, like you're going to start, there's a chance that like if you start in the living room, and you're like, oh, the living room's tidy. And then you go to like you finish in your son's bedroom and there are things in there that do belong in the living room. And you're like, ah, I thought I've already did the living room. Did I do this wrong? No, no, no. now you just have a handful of things to put away and you put them away nothing else has to like hit the floor or make another pile or anything like that i think you'll find your rhythm it depends on your

stuff it depends on your people it depends on how you live but i think that you could definitely find a rhythm with this and then it makes a difference for you i really hope so now um the only other kind of tidying method we use in our house is family pickups two three five minutes max and i'll just worn the entire family like let's do a three-minute pickup before dinner everyone's used to it by now and kind of likes trying to beat the clock a little bit when your kids are little or competitive it's nice incentive um we don't reward family pickups or anything like that it's kind of part of living in the house with other people now that's just us if incentives help your own kids do it go for it mine however don't really do as well with them like when they when they started to ask for

rewards when they were nice to each other. I was like, guys, we're taking this a little far. Like, just be decent humans. You don't get a reward for being a decent human. That's another topic for another day. But I figure that you might wonder, like, how we get our kids on board. And at first, we just forced them, and we dealt with their lines and their bad attitudes. Now it's part of the routine. They don't, like, jump at the chance by any means. But neither do I. Like, I don't like tidying either but sometimes we have to do things we don't like in order to get a result that we do like right so if i'm tidying on my own it's room to room otherwise we get a good jump start on that with a family pickup time now i tend to tidy before i'm about to be alone without the kids around so before my daughter's

nap once my boys head back to the shower and get ready for bed um i want to enjoy the quiet time of Annie sleeping and the boys like settling into their rooms for the night and I enjoy that so much better when the house is tidy not clean tidy now sometimes I'll throw in a two-minute family pickup before I start cooking dinner just for my own sanity it all depends on what you need um to feel space in your soul right okay I've said a lot of words about tidying and I have more to say um I would love for you to check out the swap I really would for a system and a direction for having a declutter home pretty much for life. With a few strategies and mindsets, plus some specific steps for getting your stuff out of the house, it is a simple, but really complete way to see your stuff

in your home differently. So again, if you are interested in the swap, I will link to it in the show notes at the lazygeniuscollective.com slash lazy slash tidy. Or you can go directly to the lazygegeonyscollective.com slash stuff. Now, let's do our lazy genius tip of the week before we go. Cleaning is annoying, right? Obviously. But we have to do it at least a little. One sneaky culprit when it comes to dust is lamps. Our lamps are so dirty, but they're so annoying to clean. Like, they're so annoying. So today, put a sock on your hand, put a sock on your hand, and just walk around and wipe down all your lamps. I said last week, my Lacey Jeanne's tip of the week was to use swiffer duster sheets for dusting furniture because I'm obsessed with them. But I also said socks are my runner-up, especially for things with angles and

corners and weird shapes, socks are the best. And for lamps, they're perfect. So put a sock on your hand and just walk around and wipe down all your lamps, like floor lamps, table lamps, sconces, wipe the bases and the light bulb holder thing and whatever else. Avoid the shade though, because I'm wiping dust off lampshades. It just makes the problem worse. You don't need to do this all the time, obviously. But occasionally grabbing a sock and wiping the lamps is easy. It's much easier with a sock.

And it cuts down your surfaces getting dusty too. You don't have to dust the whole house at once. Just do the lamps, man, and call it quits. And when you turn those lamps on and the light shines bright off your freshly dusted lamps, it'll make you surprisingly happy. it's it's like double cleaning to dust a lamp because the light shines even brighter it's like magic okay so dust your lamps with a sock that is it for today good luck on your tidying adventures this week two quick things before you go i will be on instagram this thursday as i am every thursday live around

1215 eastern to talk about that week's podcast episode so if you're listening to this within a couple days of release let's talk about tidying this thursday i am am at the lazy genius on Instagram. And second, I will link to it in the show notes, but I have a big post on the blog right now called The Lazy Genius Guide to Cleaning Your House. And I would love for you to read it. Cleaning is one of those things we think everyone knows how to approach naturally and like we're the weirdos who can't find a rhythm. Nope, that is not true. You just need a strategy. So if you're interested in a lazy genius way cleaning your house, you can head to the show notes again, the lazygegeonoclective.com

slash lazy slash tidy and I'll link to that post for you. Thank you for joining me today. Listen to me, say a million words about tidying. I will see you next week to talk about bathrooms. Isn't that exciting? Until then, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Bye guys. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life?

It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous. than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.