The Lazy Genius Podcast - #78 The Lazy Genius House Purge

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

Are you feeling it, too? Are you feeling the itch to get rid of everything and start over? Do you want to make your home feel like fall but have too much stuff in the way? In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to purge the house like a Lazy Genius, how to see our stuff with new eyes, and how to give ourselves a break when we can’t seem to create the space we want. Stuff Mentioned Do you need reinforcement for how small steps matter? How to Set Goals like a Normal Person #66 The Lazy Genius Yard Sale I wrote a long post about what kitchen tools are essential. It may help you purge your kitchen. Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing podcast John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us Nest Fest details and tickets for October 20th, and I’ll be a special guest at The Popcast Live Show that night, too. Download the 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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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 everyday with Amazon. Hi there. You're listening to 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 78, The Lazy Genius House Purge. Are you feeling it too? Are you feeling? the itch to get rid of everything and start over. Do you want to make your home feel like fall but have too much stuff in the way? Whenever we experience transition, a new season, a new job, a new baby, a new house, a new perspective on life, we want our space to reflect the freshness of that new thing. Or maybe we want our homes to feel organized and comfy and settled to help

negate the craziness of that new transition. We'll take order wherever we can get it. In this, episode, we're going to talk about how to purge the house like a lazy genius, how to see our stuff with new eyes and how to give ourselves a break when we can't seem to create the space we want. First up, stuff creates background noise. I'm not anti-stuff. I like stuff a lot. But no matter how much or how little you have, stuff creates background noise. When you walk into a cluttered room, you feel the hum. There's a buzz in your brain that you might not have named before, but it's there. The more stuff, the louder the buzz and the loud of the buzz, the more desperate you might feel to like silence it. It's that thing when you walk into your kid's bedroom and it's

covered in like every Lego and Hot Wheels car imaginable and you feel like you might break into a million pieces like you're a Marvel villain or something. It's the buzz that causes that pressure. And as we're talking about transitions about moving from one thing to another, your mind is already fairly noisy. Forget the tangible stuff. You're already trying to sift through new schedules or perspectives. You're already trying to figure something out that doesn't have an answer. For this recent step into October, you might be seeing the holidays looming like an oppressive black cloud because you're so not ready to deal with all that crazy. And so the din of your house contributes to the din of your mind.

There's physical noise and mental noise, and it can just feel like too much, which is why you start mercilessly ripping things out of closets and showing, just showing no mercy to everything in your house. Desperation can happen quickly when we're trying to quiet a noisy mind or a noisy house or both.

The desperation makes a swing really big, right? Go bigger, go home, or maybe leave home. It's more appropriate. I love my house. and sometimes I'm like, can we just sell this whole thing and start over? It's a very normal feeling to be desperate about your space. So what do we do about it? I don't have three days to devote completely to purging my house, even though that's what

I want in an ideal world. But if you do have three days, I mean, that's great. There's nothing inherently wrong with getting rid of stuff in your entire house all at once, just like there's nothing wrong with keeping all your stuff and living with a noise. There's no morality attached to any of these things. They're not good or bad. They just are. The choice instead,

depends on your capacity for the noise and how it affects the rest of your life. If the noise of your stuff keeps you from paying attention to the good things you have, maybe it's time for a little purge, if only to give you a more enjoyable perspective for what's coming in this new season. If the effect of this stuff in your life doesn't make much of a ripple emotionally, don't sweat it. But if it's making waves, let's talk about a plan. I don't want you turning into a sweaty monster that scares little children trying to clean out your house. Desperate house purging all at once from a mind already spinning out of control is a recipe for yelling and the merciless treatment towards stuff that might actually matter.

And then you'll probably quit in the middle anyway because it was just too much. That's not our ideal scenario. So we're going to find another way. I'm going to give you five steps to purging the house like a lazy genius. And I'm saying this again. I say this like in every episode I feel like. but you guys small steps matter they matter more than the big ones i think if you develop the practice of seeing your stuff with calm eyes those desperate purges happen very rarely it's fine for them to

happen but they won't feel as desperate because you've already done the regular small step thinking of what really matters in your house throughout the year you can take a small step in giving away like that giant bowl that's clogging up an entire cabinet or the small step of getting rid of one sweater that no longer fits your body or your life. Don't dismiss the small steps. And when you do need a bigger purge because your baby's not a baby anymore or you used to cook for a family of six but now it's just a family of three. You can approach the bigger purges with more calm. Small steps matter. I'm not going to get into the science, but it's proven by like. smart people, that small steps have a more lasting impact than big steps too. It's okay to do this one

thing at a time. It's okay to do it in big steps too, but that's just not as practical. It's okay to do this one step at a time. And I believe that's the best place to start. Now let's quickly run through the five steps. Step one. Choose the most frustrating space. Don't say you're going to purge the whole house because that just might be a little crazy. Instead, choose one space, a drawer, a closet, or even an entire room that creates the most physical and mental noise. You might think you need to purge the whole house when really the effects of one particular space could change everything. So choose your most frustrating space, the space with the most noise. Step two, choose an exit strategy. Before you touch, a single thing, you need to know your exit strategy.

How is the stuff you're getting rid of going to leave your house? Because it really needs to leave your house. Have you ever cleaned out a closet and like you love the feeling of all your clothes being exactly what you love and need and you can see them all? But there's this pile of rejects in the corner because you're not sure if you want to give them away or like can sign a few things or maybe you'll have a little yard sale. So the pile sits there and it taunts you and creates new noise which distracts you from the calm. you created in your closet in the first place. So it's really important to choose an exit strategy before you begin. I'm a big fan of one path out the door.

One continuum. It's overwhelming to try and sell this thing on eBay. And this pile on Craigslist. And this pile can go to your sister. And then it's too many piles. All piles go down the same path. Whenever I finish purging a space, I will either like, I will alert a couple of friends and tell them they're welcome to take what they want and then I'll just donate the rest.

or if I'm prepared for it, I'll have a yard sale. But it's not like piecemeal and all these different things. So the friends seeing the stuff is still on the same continuum because I didn't move the stuff for them. It's all in the same place that it would be for when I'm loading it to take it to Goodwill, right? Like it's still in a pile on my dining table. And so if they want something, great. Either way, what's left on the table gets taken to the thrift store. And if you are wanting some like early fall yard sale help, episode 66,

is the Lacey Genius Yard Sale. I will link it up in the show notes. So again, choose an exit strategy and choose it before you start cleaning anything out. That way, you'll actually get the stuff out of your house, which is the whole point. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at RBC Trainingground.ca. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life,

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Choose what deserves to stay. Your stuff needs to earn its keep. If you don't really use it, perhaps you don't really need it. You don't have to be merciless, like we've been saying, and get rid of everything. But think strategically in terms of how much value this thing is offering you versus the exchange of how much physical and even emotional space it takes up. If you use it and love it, it deserves to stay. Don't get mad in three weeks when it's, taking up space. If it's worthy of keeping, it deserves the space it takes up. So give the thing the space it needs or say goodbye. In terms of like how to go through what stays and what goes, depending on the space you're cleaning out, you can take everything out and sort it by like keep and exit. Or if the space is a kitchen that just has too much to pull out all at once, pull out what you're getting rid of, you know, open up your drawers and cabinets and just pull out the pieces that you're getting rid of and leave all the keepers behind. And then once you've cleared out every space and all that's left is what's staying, you can open all the cabinets and drawers

at once and scan and see if like a little movement is a good idea. Don't start relocating stuff until the entire space is empty of what is no longer useful. It'll just frustrate you. And just remember that when you're trying to figure out where to store something, don't choose the quote unquote best place. Choose the place you'd look for it first because that's the best place. Step four. Exit. You have your stuff. You're saying goodbye to. No, you have to say goodbye. This is the hardest part. This is why choosing an exit strategy earlier is important. It's so tough to actually remove that pile no matter how tiny from your house. There are too many possible paths to take and you get crippled by the noise of indecision, just like you feel the pressure of the noise of your stuff.

Exit. You have to get the stuff out of your house. And I'm begging you. I'm begging you. No matter how big or small your purge pile, if you're donating it or taking it to somebody, don't leave it in your car. The best way to keep your car from becoming a mobile thrift store is to put all the stuff to donate or drop off at a friend's in the front seat of your car, not the trunk.

That's your ticket. That's your ticket to getting it out of your car. Put it in the front seat. me. And then step five is notice. This is one we forget, I think. Pay attention to the difference that the room or drawer or that whole space, the difference, how it feels once you've gotten out the stuff that doesn't matter anymore. Notice the calm and the quieter level of noise from the stuff that you love keeping around. Anytime we bring something new into our homes, we're contributing to the noise. So it's important to notice how good certain levels of noise feel. It might just make you

put down that thing at Target that's going to just make more noise than it will bring joy. So pay attention to how your space feels after the purge. That doesn't mean that you can't ever buy anything or that you'll never purge any space again. Nothing is one and done. But you can keep that desperation away with a perspective of small steps of giving space, the physical and the moment, the physical and the space to what matters, and then by having a simple game plan when it's time to perch. So choose a frustrating space. Let's recap these steps. Choose a frustrating space. Choose an exit strategy before you clean anything out. Choose what deserves to stay. Exit the stuff that doesn't. And then notice the effects. Pay attention. You can do this room by room over a couple of weeks,

or you can just do the most frustrating space and then reap the benefits. without touching the rest of your home at all. And if you're feeling any kind of frustration at your current home in the state of your stuff or even your life, because those are connected a lot of times, I want to do something I've never done before. And that is leave you with a blessing. The best blessing reader is Emily P. Freeman on the Next Right Thing podcast.

And during our trip to London, she told our group about a book of blessings by John. O'Donohue. It's called to bless the space between us. It's the name of the book. I'm pretty sure all of us on the trip, we added it to our Amazon carts, like within minutes, because every

blessing that she read to us from that book was so beautiful and meaningful in ways we didn't really know that we needed. So while I really do love to give you practical advice and like virtual high fives over here, our homes I think feel a little deeper than that

sometimes that you might need something to reclaim the truth of home of its history and what it means. So to close this episode, I'm going to read a blessing from this book. I wish it was Emily reading this and my apologies that my voice is not as wonderful as hers, but we'll do our best. This blessing is called elemental blessing for a new home. Before a human voice was ever heard here, this place has known the respect of stone, the friendship of the wind, always returning with news of elsewhere, whispered in seed and pollen, the thin symphonies of bird song softening the silence, the litanies of rain rearranging the air, cascades of sunlight opening and closing days,

and the glow of the moon gazing through darkness. May all that elemental enrichment bless the foundation and standing of your home. Before you came here, this place has known the wonder of children's eyes, the hope of mornings and troubled hearts, the tranquility of twilight easing the night, the drama of dreams under sleeping eyelids, the generous disturbance of birth, the anxieties of old age unclinching into grace, and the final elegance of calmly embraced death. May the life of your new home enter into this inheritance of spirit. May the rain fall kindly. May daylight illuminate your hearts. May the darkness. May the darkness never burden. May those who dwell here in the unseen, watch over your coming and going. May your

lives of love and promise refine and deepen the mind of this land. So last week, we talked about rest. And this week we're talking about purging the house. Those aren't accidents. I need to talk about both of those things because I've been much more easily distracted recently by my own narrow view of time and home and purpose, being intentional about rest and valuing my home, not just from a stuff standpoint, but also seeing my home as an inheritance of spirit of much that's come before. It's been such a gift. So I share these words and the hope that it's a gift for you too. Okay, well, that is it for today, my friends. Thank you so much for listening and sharing and leaving reviews on Apple Podcasts all the things. The show has actually had like a decent jump in numbers lately and that is 100%

because you guys are spreading the lazy genius love and wanting your friends and your sisters and your neighbors to be encouraged and I'm just so grateful. I'm so grateful. A lot of you have been telling me on Instagram and email that you're coming to either Nessfest or the Popcast Live show and both in Charlotte on October 20th. I'm just so excited to meet you. So if you see me, please say hi and finally don't forget that I will be live on Instagram every Thursday talking about that week's podcast episode I'm at the lazy genius so you can come join me this Thursday around 1215 Easter and we'll talk about purge in the house we are in us together all right friends thanks for listening until next time be a genius about the things that matter

and lazy about things that don't bye guys have you ever felt like you were living just a bee or 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.