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You're not messy. You just organize differently. And I know I've been talking about this for years. This is one of those, like, quintessential. Is that the word Cass isms? If I do say so myself, it is what the framework of my entire business is built on. Organization is not one size fits all. And if you have failed, it's probably because you're using a system that isn't meant for your brain. But what does that actually mean? Like, what does that look like? That's what we're talking about today. I'm going to show you how we can work backwards from your stuff, from your clutter, to really identify your organizing style and design a system that works not for your idealized version of yourself, but for your true organizing style. And as your organizing system improves in your home, your entire life gets better. Just like always. You are not allowed to just passively watch or listen to this podcast. I want you to take action. I want you to walk away at the end of this time together, so freaking proud, not only of yourself, but of what you've accomplished. And I have a challenge for you today. If you're driving, please just drive. Just look at the road. But if you're at home, what if today you make your kitchen sparkle? Like the challenge today is a clear counter challenge. And this is extreme, I know, but we're going to be hanging out for almost an hour. You can do big things in an hour. Remove a few things or a lot of things, hopefully from your counter and find homes for them in the cabinets. Now, you visual organizers, this is going to be extra tough, but let me tell you, we have a hard rule. If you don't use something every day, it is not important enough to be in your visual space. Because when everything is visual, nothing is visual, and you are just distracted by stuff. I want you to walk in your kitchen and feel inspired to cook. I want you to walk in your kitchen and have it be a calm space for gathering with your family. I want you to feel, like, not overwhelmed, but instead in control. And that starts with your countertops. I know if you're like, I have a small space. I don't have room for things. This is what we're going to do. I want you to open every cabinet door right now. Just open them all up and step back and look. This will show you things you haven't seen before. First of all, which ones are bursting and which ones have space. And second of all, can you identify things just by stepping back and looking that you never use? Like the salad spinner, like that big soup pot, the roasting pan. Why do you have so many platters? You're not Martha Stewart. Why you got so many platters. These are things you'll see when you look at your kitchen differently. Not for every item and like, is this useful, but standing back and seeing what is earning its space. And when we do this, we can start making room for the things on the counters. So open them up. Go. Your only goal right now is finding things to leave so that you can make room for the things that are out that don't belong there. Before we talk about systems and bins and baskets and containers and solutions, we have to talk about what your clutter is actually telling you. A lot of the times we look at a messy house and we feel like it's judging us. But the truth is what it's telling us is not judgment, it's feedback. It's telling us this isn't working. And it's telling you in the most obvious reason by having piles of things everywhere. The reason it's there is because it's not easy and natural to put it away. The reason that you're looking at stuff in piles and mess and clutter is not that you're lazy. This is not about you being a bad person or messy or bad at keeping house. It's that you don't have a system that is so easy you might as well put it away because it's just as easy to put it down. Your home is too hard. So let's make it easy. Sometimes the feedback we're getting from our home, it's not just telling us like, what isn't working on one particular day. It's feedback about our whole life in general. Like, maybe it works most of the time, but the days that you're really, really tired, maybe you're just like overwhelmed. Maybe then you start to see the piles piling up. Why? Because it's too much work for those days. Or maybe when your kids are in school full time, things are staying okie dokie. But then in the summer when everyone's. It's chaos all over, that's probably telling you that while something works for you, it doesn't work for everyone else. This is feedback. This is information that you're getting by reading your clutter, by listening to the mess. We're not moralizing the mess here, we're debugging it. I want to share a quick story with you. I saw a video and I feel really bad because I don't remember her name. It Was shared to me a bunch of times. A video on YouTuber from a content creator who, who was like, I tried the clutterbug method and here's what's wrong with it. And basically what she said was, she tested a Cricut. She wants everything super detailed and super micro organized. So she went ahead and set up all these systems, but then she can't actually maintain it, especially on the days where she's coming home from work tired or she's, you know, just not feeling her best. Everything just gets jumbled together and her systems are too hard to manage. What I wanted to scream through the, through the screen at her was, you're not actually a cricket lady. Or which is also totally possible. You are part cricket and part ladybug because you don't always have to have the same organizing style in every space. And also your true organizing style should support you on your worst day. My husband is a cricket. He's sick right now with a man cold. Is it a real cold? Probably not, but he thinks it is. He is still meticulously putting his toothbrush in the little holder and meticulously putting the mail in the folder. This is his natural state. Why people are really struggling is because they're confusing their idealized version or their best day self with their worst day self. And your home and your systems and your organization is making meant for your worst day not your best. When I talk about the fact that you organize differently or that everyone organizes differently, here's what I'm really saying. There are people out there who have no problem remembering where things are when it's out of sight. They can maintain a detailed system. They will stop when they are done with something and take the time to put it away in its right little individual home. Even if that means opening a door or opening a lid or unstacking something. And then there's me and maybe some of you listening who are just like, nope, our brains moved on when we're done with something. And also if something's hard to put away, like if it's something more than one step, I'm probably just gonna do it later. And that's okay. We don't have to change anything about ourselves. We don't have to become, you know, a detailed, efficient, a type person. We just have to know our. We have to know how we naturally manage and adapt our home to match that. And there are people out there who are seriously just real, for real crickets and bees. And that's amazing. But there's also a bunch of us Ladybugs and butterflies who need to make the adjustments to our home instead of beating ourselves up for not being able to maintain the normal traditional system. And if that wannabe cricut who made that video sees this, I really hope that you try out ladybug techniques. Because, yes, it's not ideal and maybe it isn't in your mind what you envisioned that your home would be, but it's going to work and it's going to stay tidy and it's going to catch you on your worst day so that you don't have to go back and tidy and clean later. I think where the real this is what I think is the. The big, like, stumbling block for people. It almost feels like we've been told our whole life there's a right and a wrong way to do things, and that the right is this very meticulous, detailed way. Like, if you're gonna wrap up an extension cord, every loop better be uniform and perfect, or your dad's making you redo it. And if you're gonna clean your room, your mom wants it to be a certain way with everything in its really detailed home. So as adults now, managing our own lives, when. When those systems don't work for us or someone tells us, hey, just toss everything in a bin and slap a label on it, there's a wrongness there. There's this feeling of, like, cheating, maybe a shortcut, like, ooh, I'm taking the easy way out. And I think what I want to tell you is embracing your natural style is not a cheat. You are not like, oh, I'm going to be less than. You just think differently. And the amazing thing is you are going to have a home that looks perfect. That's what I can tell you. Like, it is going to look organized and tidy and beautiful without effort. And that's what we all want anyways. And when we stop chasing a system that isn't made for us and we embrace one that is made for us, we all end up with the results we're craving, which is a beautifully organized, tidy home. And a lot of people who are visual organizers, especially butterflies, they'll say to me, I don't want to look at clutter. I know I'm visual, but I don't want a house that's messy. That is not what being a visual organizer is. It means the things you find beautiful and that are really important are organized in a beautiful visual way because you're going to leave it out anyways. So let's adapt your home so that you still See it, but it's contained and it feels calm. And that's why when we started this, we're talking about clearing off the kitchen counter. Because again, when everything's visual, nothing is visual. So visual organizers need to be very, very choosy about what they design a home for that's out and what they're tucking away. I'm going to be totally honest with you. Organizing for a ladybug is, hands down, the easiest. The easiest. And I feel bad for butterflies and bees and sometimes even crickets, because there is another added layer of complication. And in that, you have to find systems that work that aren't traditionally available. I can go to the dollar store for a ladybug, buy a bunch of baskets, slap a label on them, and shove them behind closed doors. And you will walk into their home and it will look traditionally clean with. With not a lot of effort to get there. With a butterfly, you are going to have to think outside the box. You're going to have to look at how you naturally put things down and look at your wall space. You'll probably have to invest in shelving and hooks and pegboards. There more work involved because it isn't a traditional system. It isn't something that you're just going to be able to go in a big box store and pull off a shelf and come home with. Because, again, you organize differently. You organize in a way that you're going to have to create the system. Okay, you want to know also what's super crazy is if you were to walk into my home, you would. You would, like, assume I was a cricket. It looks. Everything's hidden. It looks really tidy. The only way you would know the difference between a cricket and a ladybug is if you're snooping in my drawers. So for this. So for this woman who made this YouTube video to really be kind of like, ooh, a ladybug. I don't want to be a ladybug. I'm like, girl, no one will know the difference. You know, it looks the same on the outside, and it really, really does. It's about making systems that are hidden super fast and easy with baskets. Even sometimes when you open up the closet still looks beautiful. You see all these matching bins with gorgeous labels. When you look inside those bins, they're a hot mess sandwich. But at least every bin is its own category. So, yeah, you gotta hunt for the aspirin, but it's in with all the medication and there's not one band aid in there, I swear. So now, let's talk about your own home. Let's zoom out for a minute. And I want you to look at your home as a whole and realize that what we're doing is kind of diagnosing. We're doctors up here, and we're looking at the space, and we're listening to the feedback that it's giving us, and we're diagnosing the issue, and then we're coming up with a solution. So just like a doctor, you're coming into them like, oh, man, I think I have diabetes. They would not say, why don't you try harder to not be a diabetic? Have you tried that? Have you tried not being a diabetic? That's insane. How about we make adjustments to our lifestyle and how about we find the right medication and how about we, like, embrace the fact that this is what we have and change our life to suit that? This is the same as your home. You're not looking at a mess and being like, why can't I be a cricket? And why can't I microorganize everything? And why can't I shove everything behind closed doors? Why is it always out? It's like, what are you talking about, Butterfly? You are what you are, and there is no better. That's. That's the other thing that I really want you to know as you're looking around at your home. It's not like you can graduate to a different organizing style. There are times that I wish I was a little bit more like Joe, that I was a little bit more meticulous. But also, I know for a fact there are times that he wishes he was more like me. We were putting away all the laundry last night, and I don't do his laundry anymore. I was done putting away my laundry in about five minutes, and he was still working on his an hour later. And I'm playing Fortnite while he's in our closet crying into his perfectly folded socks. So there's a time and a. There's a good and a bad to every style. And this isn't about comparison. This is about embracing your natural tendencies and making the most of it. What we really need to do is find the point of failure, so look at our stuff differently and really ask, why is this not working? Like, what is the point of me moving through my home where this went terribly, terribly wrong? And a really good example of this is, like, you're coming home from work, you've got groceries in your hands, You've just stopped at the mailbox. You've got your coat and your purse and you're walking in. And later, when you're, you know, two hours later, you turn around and you're like, why is my kitchen table now full of heaps of stuff and I have to clear it off before I can make dinner? The point of failure is that you've put things down on this surface where it doesn't belong. But let's ask why. Let's really look at all of these things and ask why. Does that paper have a place to go that fits your natural tendency that's along your path of flow? Do those keys have a place your visual, right? Does it have a visual place to go? Are you expecting yourself to put it back in your purse every time or in a drawer every time? Look at the things that are piled and ask yourself, where was the failure to put this away? A lot of this is your organizing style, but there's also the reality that this stuff might not have a home. Why? Because our homes are not designed out of the box with a place for keys. There's not a place for bills and paper and mail. You have to design that system. If your organizing system or your lack of a system aren't working like you just like it. I've tried and it's just always a mess. It's usually due to these three breakdowns. And the one that I see over and over and over again is that people are so focused on the stuff that they're not looking at the space. And when I'll use toys as an example, they'll go into their living room and there's freaking toys everywhere and it's a mess. And what they do is they'll stack it neatly in the corner. Or maybe they'll have some tubs, Rubbermaid tubs, or even a toy box. And they'll kind of shove everything over there in a pile and it looks neat because now you can see the floor. But that isn't a system or solution. That is stuff shuffling into a neater pile. That is not organization. And tomorrow those toys will be just spread all over again and you'll have to do the same Jenga stack. This goes for your. Your bills, your kitchen counter. You don't have a place for the important papers to go. Sure, when you organize, everything will be stacked neatly for that day. Or maybe you'll go to the store and buy some Rubbermaid totes. Or you'll buy those three tiered plastic things and organize the stuff, the piles in this moment. But all of those are band aid solutions. Because you're zoomed in on the stuff and you're not zoomed out and looking at the space and where those deficiencies are, where those breakdowns are. And our homes are empty boxes. We have kitchen cabinets, we have closets. We don't have places for stuff, especially if you organize differently. So the first thing we need to do is step back and look at our space, read the mess, listen to its feedback, and then realize, like, it's probably there because it doesn't have a place to go that fits your brain. And then look around your home and say, how can I add or adapt my space to catch, to give a proper home that isn't just a neat little stack and pile for those things. And right now you're still in the kitchen. Hopefully that was your job today. This is such a good example, because I know for a fact there are things on your kitchen encounter that are there because they don't have another place to go. They don't have a home. Whether it is the papers or the random cables or it's even the toaster that you only use once a week. It doesn't have another place to go. That is your job to give it a place, to make it a place to go, Whether that is a basket or you're decluttering something to make room, or you're getting hooks or you're getting a paper organizing system that you can hang right on the wall. A little drop zone. And this is what organization is about. It isn't about stacking neater or lining things up. It's about designing systems. The second breakdown of real progress and success is decision fatigue. It's where you start looking at things like that little. Like random Barbie shoes and the little receipts and the pieces of paper. And you start like, where should this go? And I'm not quite sure, and which pile should this go in? And do I really need to keep this? And you're exhausted, and you're probably stuff shuffling and making lots of different piles, but not actually making any progress. In an hour from now, you're just done. You feel like, oh, my gosh, I worked my butt off. But you turn around and look, and it's just now you've spread your mess out into tiny little piles and not actually made progress. And I think that's where Dany K. Weight's method is so helpful for this decision fatigue. And that means when you pick something up, you are not thinking, like, which pile should this go in? Or where's the idealized version of this to go? And where should I, you think, where would I look for this first? And if the answer is I actually wouldn't look for this random Barbie shoe, you put it in the trash. And if the answer is I would look for this in this drawer over there, you take it to that drawer and when you open that drawer and it's crazy full, you're like, well, I really want this thing. One thing's going to leave and be donated or go in the trash to make room. It isn't going to be taken out and put in a pile for later. It isn't going to be like, I'm not sure. So I'm going to set this over here and make a decision tomorrow. We make the decisions immediately whether they're good or bad. Decisions made today are better than perfect decisions made tomorrow. So take it there now. You can always go back and make it perfect later today. We're only focused on progress. Sometimes we're tired and we're exhausted and we've got 50 million thoughts on our plate. We need to just rely on our first instinct. That's the whole point of like your natural organizing style. It, it also includes like your, the natural place that you would put that thing. I think the third biggest breakdown I see in people's homes is they are taking on too much at one time. It gets to a. They get to like, it's ironic, but a breaking point right where they're just like, everything is such a mess. That's I'm going to do this kitchen and they go and empty every single thing from their kitchen counters and they make bunch of piles all on the floors and they're sorting things into. And then what? And now what do you put it back in a slightly different way? Like we're not solving any real thing here. We've taken on way too much. We're overwhelmed. And even if you get it done, it was so monumental that it's become a project and you're going to wait six months before you do it again, which is the death of real progress and real organization. If you want to become an organized person, you have to practice on the daily. You have to take little baby steps instead of big huge chunks. You start with one drawer, one shelf, one tiny thing and you test and you see and then you evaluate and you go back. This is like five minutes a day kind of thing. But then you show up tomorrow for another five minutes. It's these little tiptoes towards your goal that are actually going to be long lasting. And yeah, it takes longer to get there. But it doesn't go back. That's what I think the biggest issue is when we take on too much, we do these huge jobs. Whether it's your closet or you're cleaning the whole house on one weekend, it's like three hours and you're just. And then next week it looks like freaking trash again. That's awful. That's an awful way to live. And it makes you just not even want to bother anymore. It's the tiny little baby steps that don't feel hard and that actually last. Okay, so now we're going to take this from oh, she's just talking about random crap to let's be useful. Okay, Cass, give me some actual plans and steps that I can take to. To make my life better. So here it is, Sherlock Holmes. You're about to be Sherlock freaking Homes. Put on your adorable little hat and look at your home like a crime scene. Just look at one space like a crime scene. And you are a brilliant detective. Why is there a pile of murdered clutter there? Like, where did it. How did it get there? What path did it take? And where was it axed along the way? How did it. It end up in the wrong place? Walk it back. And this is like, it's. It sounds ridiculous and I know, but this is a missing piece to an organized home that so many people just aren't understanding. They don't know that this is even a thing. And how can you possibly have success when you don't know where the failure is coming from? How can you adapt and change a system if you don't know where the flaws are in the first place? If you don't know what's going wrong, how can you make something right? It starts with identifying where you're tripping up, where those little issues are. So, yeah, you have to say, okay, well, when I come in, there's no place to drop this except the kitchen table. And maybe your first brain says, well, I just have too small of a home and there's no place, period. Well, no, that's. I mean, listen, your grandma and grandpa raised a family of six in a 500 square foot home. The reality is it is possible to adapt to any size space. So zoom out again. Where's the issues? And how can you start coming up with real solutions to solve it? It probably starts with, you need way less stuff. I'm sorry, but that is the reality. You probably need way less stuff. But you also probably have to adapt and add things, which is ironic. You're going to have to add storage Systems add hooks, add bowls, add baskets, and add maybe a three tiered cart to catch things. But first you're going to have to also remove. It's this. It's this little tiny. I'm going to try this. Does it work? That's the secret. But the first step is being. Being Sherlock Holmes. So right now, go into a space, grab a notebook and deduce. So I'm going to be your Dr. Watson. Okay, we're looking at your kitchen counter. One thing that we see, kids backpacks. Where's the failure there? Is there a place from the door to here for the backpack to go? You're like, yeah, it's in the closet. Are your kids consistently opening that closet door and sticking their backpacks in there? No. It's being axed. Nope. What can we do? We need a hook instead. And we need a hook that's close to where they naturally flow to get to the kitchen table. They're not going to walk across the room, they're not going to go down the hall. How can you just. Just create a hook right there. Now let's look at something else. I'm Dr. Watson. Sherlock. Look, I see a pile of bills and they're mixed in with old receipts, and I'm pretty sure those are kids artwork piled in there too. And a random shoe that you were going to take to a cobbler to fix is also piled on top. What's happening one, there's not a place for important papers to go that's along the path to get to the table. So the table is now the dumping ground. Where can we create a spot for these papers to go? And how can we keep the important papers separate from the kids artwork? Obviously we need two paper spots, right? And the shoe, the I'm gonna fix it cobbler system, or that Amazon package that you totally gotta return. Where's your out system? Where do you put the library book you have to take back. Where do you put the things you. You need an out system. Your table is not an organizing solution. So maybe it's a basket. Maybe it's a reusable shopping bag that you put a little label above on a hook right on the wall. It doesn't have to be perf the bat. We're testing it. We're in testing phase. But first you have to identify where the failures are. So you're listening to this podcast today, and I just want to say this, you're just listening to the podcast, even if you don't take any action while listening, because maybe you're Driving a car or you just don't feel like it, you're still learning. Because I did home EC in high school. I don't know if anyone else did too. And I was taught how to bake, sort of. I mean, it was crap, but they, they taught that. And they, they taught like, you need to clean and you need to vacuum, you need to wash dishes. But nobody teaches us how to organize. No one teaches us that the home we move into has to be adapted and systems need to be created and added. And what do those systems even look like? No one tells us any of this. So of course we have crappy everywhere because we are not taught how to make a place for that to go. And that's what organization is. Not just finding a place, but making a place and going a step further and making a place that works with our natural brain, our natural organizing style, how we naturally put things down, adapting our space and making our stuff fit in a way that feels natural and easy. And, and yeah, it's. It's crazy. I think so many times too. Things are passed down from generation to generation like gospel, like the way you, you. I was always taught by my mother, fun fact. When I was nine, I shaved my entire body from head to toe except my hair, my arms, everything. And I looked like I was attacked by some sort of wolverine. I was just scratched everywhere. And my mom was like, you have to go, go up and you have to go slow and you have to. But I just found out safety razors. Safety razors which have been around for a long time. You can, like up and downy sideways, it doesn't matter, you'll never be cut. And you can shave like in a fraction of the time. And as someone who still shaves my entire body from head to toe like a psycho every other day. This is life changing information, you know, like, we don't always have to just do things the way society has told us our whole lives. It's supposed to be done. We can think outside the box. There's been, there's been advancements and there's been advancements in organization. So you're listening to this podcast, but I hope you also, like, go on Instagram, don't look at everybody decanting everything. Realize that that is fake crap. But amongst the fake crap, there's also good advice and real solutions. Learn your organizing style. Take the quiz. I've got this free ebook that's on there that links to all of these Pinterest boards that I made a million years ago. Because Pinterest is kind of. It's not really a thing anymore, but you should still go check it out because it will give you so much inspiration and ideas. And then you look at those and you think that right there, I know that that's going to work to solve the problem that I discovered because I'm Sherlock over here. And then you make it in your own home. It's a life we're crafting here and it's worth it. Now it's time for my favorite part. Talk to Cass. And we're going to start with a story from Courtney.
B
Hi, Cass, My name is Courtney. I wanted to say thank you so much for the content that you provide and just the way that you are impacting people's lives. I am one of those people. I ran across your material a little over a year ago when I was listening to somebody else's podcast and they were interviewing you and I got really curious about the four different organizational types. So I took your quiz and discovered that I am a cricket. Which was really no surprise to me when I considered that a few years prior I had read a Marie Kondo book and got all excited about doing her method and did that for my clothes and my books. And then when I got to papers, I just totally stalled out and it was kind of a disaster because I just quit and like didn't declutter anything else for a couple years until I found your content. And it was just so motivating that I did your like five minute, a day, 30 day declutter challenge. And that helped so much to just give me the momentum that I needed and helped me realize like I can declutter and it doesn't have to be one specific way. There are actually a variety of ways and they're all legitimate and just giving my brain like permission to take action in a different way than maybe I had thought I should because I tend to be kind of a rule follower and a high follow through person. And it's like if I can't do it completely, I'm not going to do it at all. And so listening to your content and doing your challenges has just been super, super helpful to me. And also a few weeks ago I got married and moved from my parents house in Kentucky. That was about 4,000 square feet and I was the last kid at home so I had plenty of space for all of like my music studio and my entrepreneurial, you know, work, work from home stuff. And I moved to Iowa where my husband has a 750ish square foot apartment. And so that was a big change. And after we got back from our honeymoon that weekend, we unloaded all the vehicles that had all of my stuff in it. And literally the next day, my husband came down with, like, the flu or something, and he was in bed for, like, three days. And I just was looking at these piles of things going, what am I going to do? But I put on one of your podcast episodes, I think the one that had, you know, you released, like, that day. And I just started unpacking my clothes. I thought, I can start with clothes. That's easy enough. I've got a chest of drawers here. And I just started shoving. I started shoving my clothes into my chest of drawers. I ladybugged the process. The clothes are in the drawers that they're supposed to go in, but they are not folded, and they're not organized, and they're not the way that I like to see them. So I can see literally everything when I open the drawer. But it's okay. And it's because of you that I am okay with that and I'm not freaking out. And it's like, you know what? It's good enough, and I can fix it later, but I'm making progress, and I'm gonna get this apartment turned right side up eventually. And so I just want to say thank you so much and keep up the good work.
A
Courtney, I love that so much. And I think you really touched on something that I want to. And I. And I should talk about more. And I really want to emphasize, which is when I say, like, I'll just do it crappy or do. Just do it good enough, it doesn't mean forever. It means until we catch up. And then when we. It's way easier to keep up than it is to catch up. So once we've caught up, we can go back and make it perfect. I have no doubt that you are going to crickify your apartment one day. You're going to go and fold everything like Marie Kondo into tiny little pockets. For some reason, you do. You boo. But to get there, we have to get the whole place under control first. We have to. To really design systems that we know that work. And the only way to do that is to practice them kind of crappy to just like, yeah, lower the bar, do a crappy job. When we identify what works, we go back and make it perfect later. Now we have a tip from Kara.
B
Hi, Cass. Just want to share a quick tip that I've learned over the last couple years, and that is do the pots and pans. First, somehow that makes all the rest of the dishes go faster. I used to start with the little things, the delicate things, but somehow doing the pots and pans first makes the other things just zip past. I don't know if it's a psychological thing or some other reason, but who cares why? If it works, it works. I challenge you guys to try it. It. Good luck.
A
Bye, Cara. That's so good. That's like that eat the frog thing. I think it was Benjamin Franklin or some other old smart dude who said, if the first thing you do every morning is eat a disgusting, gross frog, the rest of your day is going to seem like woo a party up in here. I'm sure he didn't say it like that because he was super profession stuff. But basically do the worst thing first so that everything else feels so easy. And you're doing that with pots and pans. I am going to try that. This. This is super. I put everything in the dishwasher. I'm not gonna lie. I don't even. I don't even rinse. I'm. But if you. If you doing it right, I shouldn't have said that. If you're doing it that way, totally, you should try washing the pots and pans first. And last but not least, let's hear from Asna.
C
Hi, Cass, it's Asna from Indianapolis. I've been loving your podcast and your YouTube videos. I've been decluttering and becoming so much lighter, so thank you for that. One thing that you bring up that I think about a lot is hobby clutter. And I have a lot of hobbies and interests, and a lot of them, especially the art ones, require a lot of supplies. I recently picked up painting, and it's super fun, but there's a lot of supplies needed. And I also don't really want to spend a lot of money on all the supplies, so I thought, what about getting them used? And I made the most amazing discovery I found in my town. There are. There is a used art supply store. So I took over my leftover scrapbook supplies and then I got a discount. And with that, I bought some painting supplies. So I encourage anyone looking into a hobby to look into getting supplies used. And then also, if you're done with that hobby, giving away supplies to a place like a used art supply store. I'm so thankful to have this in my city and I hope that other people can find something similar in their hometown. Just wanted to share this lovely nugget of a discovery. Thanks for all that you do, Cass.
A
This is actually my entrepreneurship brain is immediately going to. This is genius. And we need to have a hobby swap place where you go, because ADHD is a thing. You know, when I was into photography and I bought all the cameras and all the gear and then I was really into jewelry making and then I got into clay, for some reason I was doing all the things and buying all the supplies. Guys, stained glass. Stop it. The point is, what if you could go and like rent all the supplies and try them and then man, this or buy this is so good. Now I'm gonna hyper focus on this the rest of the day and see if I have one in my place or if I can start a new business because the struggle is real. So good. I love this. Please, if you are also a hobby hopper like me, look and see if you have something just like this in your city. So thank you so much. I hope your counters look awesome and I hope you went a little bit further than you wanted to. Took a little bit extra off. Really took the clear counter challenge. You can always put things back, but why not try it, live with it, Embrace a calmer kitchen, because you deserve it. Thank you guys so much and I'll see you next time. Toogood and Co Coffee creamers are made with farm fresh cream, real milk and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold, or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers, real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle.
Host: Cas (Clutterbug)
Date: March 23, 2026
In this motivating and candid episode, Cas unpacks why some people struggle to keep their spaces tidy and why traditional organizing advice often fails. She urges listeners to embrace their unique organizing style rather than forcing themselves into systems that don't fit. The episode is rich with practical strategies, real-life examples, tough love, and ADHD-friendly tips, culminating in a hands-on challenge to clear your kitchen counters and discover the root causes—and solutions—to everyday clutter.
Courtney from Iowa (30:24)
Kara’s Pot-and-Pans Tip (34:19)
Asna on Hobby Clutter (35:47)
Episode mood: Candid, encouraging, funny, and tough-love real—a classic Cas pep talk with practical guidance for every organizing style.
Closing Thought:
"Embrace a calmer kitchen. You deserve it." (37:30)