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Have you ever wanted to get your entire home organized? And you start, and you take big messes and you start sorting on the floor into a million little tiny piles and then three weeks later, they're still there, you're still sorting, except now you're sick of it and you just put it all back into one giant pile and feel like life's kicking your butt. Today we are not focusing on pulling everything out and making piles. In fact, I hope you never, ever do that. Instead, we're going to be focusing on tiny micro changes, small steps that add up to that big change you're looking for. It's not as dramatic and it's not as like, oh, in your face, I'm gonna be amazing. But it actually works. And that's the difference. Just like always, you are not allowed to just sit and passively listen or watch this podcast unless you're driving. Please keep driving and keep your eyes on the road. But if you are at home, you are going to take action and today's gonna be a little bit different. I'm gonna give you a challenge to start, but out this episode, I'm going to give you little mini challenges that I hope you do along with me, that you go to a space and while you're listening, you make tiny micro improvements, those little tiptoe steps. And at the end of this podcast, you're going to feel so proud of yourself. So the first challenge is I want you to go to your kitchen sink and I want you to clean it out. If it's full of dirty dishes, you're washing them, definitely pull out that drain. Stop. I say this because this morning while I was making my tea, I went over and put an old mug in my sink has an odor, it has a stink, it has old rags in it, and I'm pretty sure there's melted cheese stuck to the bottom. No, no, my friends, we deserve better. So start there, start in your sink, and let's jump into today's podcast. If you're new here, I'm Cass from Clutterbug and we talk about all things home maintenance, a little bit of decluttering and organization. We often talk about ADHD and it' about finding those ways to make your home easier. Sometimes that means a hack, but sometimes it means the opposite of a hack. Because hacks can be a bunch of bull crap and not actually work. We're looking to actually make our lives feel effortless because our homes should not be a part time job. Speaking of terrible hacks, check out my main YouTube channel coming up really soon. I have a video where I tested a bunch of viral TikTok hacks. I was so excited. Honestly, every single one was an EP fail. I was almost not going to post the video, but it's hilarious and I had to. I tested it. So you didn't have to. Because the truth is sometimes we spend more time looking for the shortcut that it would actually just take to do it. Crappy. Today we're traveling to Japan. Not literally, but how awesome would that actually be? But we are looking into the Japanese culture. Why? Because they are known for organization. Not just because of the amazing Marie Kondo who made organization organization cool. She is literally the most followed organizer of all time, but because the entire Japanese culture is really around this Zen, orderly, calm approach to life. Right? Why we all want this. They are known for not only beautiful, aesthetically pleasing places, but respect. Respect for other people's belongings, their own belongings and the shared space. They also have to be really mindful about space and small spaces because they don't have 7,000 square foot homes. Everything is really minimal and reasonable. So their organization has to be too. Let's just talk about the elephant in the room for a second, which is my love hate relationship for Marie Kondo. I. I love that Marie Kondo made decluttering like this worldwide phenomenon because it, it is something that we all need to do. Like she literally inspired millions of people to get stuff out of their homes. What I don't love is the how it didn't for us adhders like pulling everything out and making a giant pile. I did that. I did that in the, in the dark times of COVID you know, where I was stuck in the house. I'm like, I'm gonna take every piece of clothing, mine, my three children's, my husband's, and I'm gonna make a mountain in the living room. And then I'm gonna stare at that mountain for 60 days while crying because holy crap. So I mean, I should have. I think probably because I stopped at like chapter one and got so excited I just dove in. If I would have read the entire book, I prob learned some other lessons. But the point is I think the concepts are incredible. But I also think that this all or nothing approach, which is what really the Konmari method is based on, can feel a little overwhelming. So for those of you who have ADHD or you, you're undiagnosed, okay. And you're just like a little bit of a hot mess. Here's some ground rules. Today we are not pulling everything out. You're going to want to. You're going to be, you know, full of optimism and see that shelf and want to completely empty it. Stop. And no, we are taking little baby steps because making giant piles is an absolute trap. Second, we are not going on Amazon while you listen to this and adding containers to your shopping cart. No, friends, no. That is just wasting money. And it's a hope that's going to go die in a pile with the other containers you bought last month. So we're not buying containers. And we are using timers because timers are going to help us stay focused, focused and make sure we're not going off and just creating way more work for ourselves. They're going to keep us on track. The first thing we're going to talk about today is the word kaizen. This is a Japanese word that means change for the better. And it's commonly used to describe tiny little steps, little increments of change that lead towards this bigger goal that we have. And I love this because instead of being overwhelmed right by this big task, we're just doing these little tiny baby steps so that we never feel stressed, so we never feel like we're failing and we only ever have progress. It's also so important that these tiny little steps are consistent, that we're continually making these steps over and over again. That's what leads up to the real, real progress. And what's really crazy to me is I know that it's little steps that are the secret. I know this, but I know this with the things that I've done, Little steps that have seen success, like organization or cleaning my home, but I forget to remember sometimes. And I want you to head over to my Clutterbug YouTube channel and check out the video that I posted last week where I was trying to do this crazy 30 day health challenge. I don't know why I wasn't applying these tiny steps to my health. But what's crazy is when I tried the challenge, I saw the results about little micro adjustments. I thought I was failing, but in fact, I was not. Go check out that video to see what I mean. And I hope you're feeling inspired because I am so inspired to just really apply this method everywhere. I need to stop treating things like big goals as events. I need to stop looking at organization, cleaning, money management, my butt and getting it smaller. All of those things are not events. It's all about these little tiny steps consistently that add up to real, lasting change. And the part that's the most amazing is when you do it this way. When you look at things as little increments and you do them over and over again, they become unconscious habits. They become you and your identity, and you no longer have to force yourself to do them or make them into projects. It's just you over here being a master at life. So what I want you to really remember when we're going into this little challenge that I'm about to give you is that you're not going to be an organized person by Saturday. This is about those little building blocks. You are going to slowly become an organized person because you are building an organized life. All right, you ready for the challenge? I want you to think of one space in your home or even one object in your home that creates friction. Something that you touch every single day. This could be your keys or your wallet. This could be your bathroom products that you use to get ready in the morning. It can be when you're making yourself a coffee, it's you. Do you boo. The first thing that comes in your mind, a small point of friction. And how can we make that just 1% better? What is the most like, lower that bar, friends. You are not completely rearranging or reorganizing or rezoning. What is a small, tiny micro adjustment that just might make something a fraction better, 1% better. I'm going to give you some quick examples to help you make it a little bit easier. If every day you are kind of hunting for your keys and you're not sure where they are, grab a 3m hook and just put it where you naturally put them down. Put them there. Or get a bowl, get an old Tupperware container and write keys on the side of it and stick it right on a flat surface. That label is going to. Even if it's hand drawn and it looks like absolute garbage, it is going to do something amazing for your brain. Same with mail. Get an old Amazon box. I know you've got something you haven't broken down yet in your garage. Pull one of those out, write important paper and stick it right on the counter for the important things to go in. Your kids have all those little bibbidi bobs everywhere. The random Barbie shoe and that definite McDonald's toy. That's absolute junk. Go get a vase. I know you have a million of those for flowers that your spouse never buys you. And just put all the random bibbidi bops in a vase right now. It's art and it's contained and it's no longer clutter. These are the tiny micro things that you can do in this moment. Literally get rid of one pen that's dried out. That's 1% better. The next time you open that junk drawer and, and reach for a writing utensil, I do not want you to take forever. I don't want you to overthink. I. Whatever pops in your mind right now, this is what I want to do. And I'm going to be your timer. So I'm going to start talking about another concept and by the time I'm done, you're done. This tiny micro improvement, whether you're actually done or not, you're still done. Okay, we're leaving it in its slightly better progress area. So know that I'm only going to talk for like three to five minutes. Make this task tiny on your market set. Go. I want to talk about something called the 5S system. I have heard this talked about many times before. It was a. It's kind of like a pri. No, it's. It's like a. Stop. Don't tell me. It's like a. The word is efficiency. Yes. Okay. My parents, really good friend, one of their best friends is the Six Sigma guy here in, in Canada. He like developed this and he goes around to different companies and he helps work on their efficiency. He must have added an s because the 5s is the system that was developed in Japan and it was really made popular by Toyota. And if you know anything about Toyota, those cars never die. The quality is amazing. But it's not just for factories. What if we can take this 5S system principles and apply it to our own home as. What if we can automate systems? What if we can create like management inventory systems where it just feels effortless. And the best part is anyone can come in and use it. So you no longer have to tell your husband where the tape is. And your kids, they know where the scissors are because your home is like a Toyota factory. Fortunately, these five S's translate in English to also start with S. So I don't have to remember the Japanese or pronounce the Japanese names for all of these. They're in English too. So here we go. The first S is sort. And no, this doesn't mean you have to take everything out and make tiny piles. What it means is you are going to have categories of things, all the batteries together. So you're going to remove things that aren't batteries and put those with the other things of that category. Sort of. Okay, we got this. The second is set in order and I love this because not only does this mean giving everything a home, but it means prioritizing the things that you touch and use the most often and giving them a home, setting them in order first. This is so easy to do in the kitchen. Think about the things you touch the most. It's snacks in our house. So let's contain all the snacks to one shelf. Let's set them in order. We're not going to have a box of Mac and cheese on that shelf. We are going to only have snacks. That is the snack shelf we have sorted and now we're setting in order. The next S is Shine, which is basically just clean. Maybe you notice some imperfections. Maybe, you know, it's a little bit of straightening, but it's also scrubbing the goo because we all have it. And when you organize, you will find more and the dust and all of that. Okay, next is Standardize. And this is the part that I'm most excited about, because what this really means is you want to make this like. This is where you turn it into factory mode. So you're using all the same containers. You're labeling everything. You are having it like a store. People can come in off the street and know where your Mac and cheese is because it's on the shelf with your other sides. It's standardized. You can even take Standardize further than that and create checklists. Think of like menu planning or your shopping list. Your checklist of things you're gonna like, clean each week. These are really about kind of like maintaining the first three. Sort set in order and Shine. Standardize is about making sure these things stick because you've created systems. And the last S but not least is sustain. This just means you gotta, you know, actually maintain these spots. You gotta go back every now and then and tidy them up. You have to create these habits of using these new systems. So it's all well and good to have them in place. You can have an awesome menu board and it looks gorgeous on your kitchen wall. But if every Sunday you don't have an alarm that goes off that tells you to write next week's menu on it, it's pretty useless. We have to train ourselves to use these new systems that we've put in place. All right, how are you doing on your Kaizen activity? That 1% change that you made to the thing that you did that you touch all the time, because guess what? You're done in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And quit. Put it down. Walk away. You're done. You've made a Tiny change. And this might be hard for you, especially you bees and crickets, you're like, I'm just gonna do a little bit more. Just 10 minutes more. Ca. Stop it. This is the whole point of this podcast, is learning that these tiny micro good enough changes are the secret. This isn't going to be this overnight huge goal that you're going to achieve. During this podcast, we're training ourselves that small steps matter. So let's move on to another challenge. I want you to pick a space. I'm going to give you an example of the entrance way, but pick any space. And we're going to to go through the five S's. So here's an example. You do you boo. But if you're in your entrance way, we're going to start with sort. And what I want you to do is just make sure all the shoes are sorted together. Is there shoes that you see right there that nobody uses? Toss them right now. They're going to leave. Are there, like, things mixed in with the shoes that don't belong, like umbrellas and paper? We're going to move it to a paper section. We're going to throw out that old umbrella that's definitely broken or blues clues on it. Even though your kid is 14, that can absolutely go. So not that we're making huge piles. We are using the space that you currently have. We're just making sure that the things that belong are categorized together and the things that don't belong are out of there. Now let's talk about set in order. And this is really easy to do when you think about the space that you have. You don't have to go and completely reorganize. But if you have a shoe shelf, can you make each shelf for a different family member or can you make one section in your closet for muddy boots to go and just put that there. Can you take a look at the coats and the backpacks and all of those things? And can you say, what are the ones that we're using every day now here in Canada, it is no longer freezing outside. So can we put the winter coats away and just have our spring coats notes out on the hooks? How can you set things in order? Little tiny changes and grab a pen if you need to? Maybe you're like, man, I wish I had hooks. Cass, everything's in the closet. Cool. Write a list right now. I need to get five hooks today. And make a note of where they should go on your wall. If you have little kids, hang them low. Planning is part of the set in order, right? Because yeah, it is moving on to shine. Get a rag. Don't go crazy. And just wipe surfaces. Just wipe. Wipe a surface. See some mud. Get it, girl. Okay, next, standardize. This is going to be really tough to do in this short amount of time that I'm giving you, but I do want you to think about it and maybe make a note. This could be literally adding labels, like, right to that shelf. You could put. Put hubby's name for where his go and your name for the shelf that for your shoes. You can add labels to the bins where your kids put their hats and mittens and gloves. You can think about, what are some systems that I can use in this space to make it function better, whether that's hooks for backpacks, a bowl for keys. How can you standardize and create systems here? And a really good thing to do, like I love to do, is a go bag. I am a person who I have all these little things, like my headphones that I bring when I go out the door. And I like to have my wallet that I always forget. But if I get pulled over, I need my driver's license because I don't use a wallet. The point is, I have this little zippy bag where I just throw all that type of stuff in my glasses because I can't see without my glasses. My Chapstick. What if I standardized it by putting all of that into one little bag and leave it by the entrance door? That totally counts.