Loading summary
Transcript516 lines
- [00:07]
A
And action.
- [00:08]
B
Decluttering.
- [00:10]
A
Yeah. We're going to talk about something cozy this week. Because. Gestures wildly at.
- [00:18]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because of. Because. Because of the world.
- [00:21]
A
Because.
- [00:22]
B
Because. Let's talk about all the things. And I also want to talk about. You're going to talk about decluttering today because it's a special interest of yours, because you're passionate about it, because it's kind of fun to talk about. But I also want to say that you're going to bring the academics to it because a lot of people who talk about decluttering do it in a haphazard. My personal experience, I followed this advice and then I changed it. But you're going to begin with a literature review because that's how you do it for real. You're going to go over what other people have already said and then you're going to talk about why what you have to say is novel or what you have distilled from what they have to say. Am I wrong about that?
- [01:02]
A
I wasn't, but I can. So it is the case that I have, like, I have read all of the things. I have been decluttering my own space and stuff for eight plus years.
- [01:19]
B
Yeah. Based in, like, living in a place. But you also moved like, almost every year for like 10 years.
- [01:27]
A
Right. So when I was in grad school for seven years, I lived in 10 places.
- [01:35]
B
Right.
- [01:36]
A
And then when I moved to Massachusetts, I moved in what I could fit in. My Saturn Ion.
- [01:43]
B
Yeah.
- [01:44]
A
That included my bed, which is a small sedan.
- [01:47]
B
For anyone who doesn't remember Saturn, doesn't.
- [01:49]
A
Remember a Saturn Ion. That was my last stick shift car. And then. And then we bought a house and we moved into it and rapidly filled it with things.
- [02:00]
B
And combining two households plus more than a household.
- [02:05]
A
Right. Plus, Yeah. A whole bunch of stuff. We had a ton of stuff, and I had a ton of stuff that I had just been moving around from place to place to place to place to place to place without ever really thinking about the stuff. It was just the stuff I had. And so it's the stuff I moved. And then I had a whole house and I could make choices about my stuff. And I didn't start making intentional, deliberate choices about my stuff until I started doing a behavior that I identify as decluttering. And I have read all the books and I rely most on an author named Dana K. White, whom I have mentioned before, who is the author of how to manage your home without losing your mind and decluttering at the speed of life, which is a very clever Title. And she has a really specific approach to decluttering that I find really valuable. But as I have used her extremely practical and effective decluttering strategies, I have integrated into that my knowledge of the polyvagal theory, which is related to Marie Kondo's approach of, like, hold something in your hands and see if it sparks joy. That sparked. Joy is also known as a ventral state. It is a feeling of safety and connection, and it's where joy and pleasure and love live. And I began making choices about what to have in my home based on how my body vibrated when I thought about it, looked at it, touched it. And by doing this, by structuring every possession in my home based on how it made me feel, I ended up with a home that is very largely full of things that make it easier for me to feel safe and connected and loving and grants me more access to pleasure and joy. Doesn't that sound good?
- [04:23]
B
That sounds like I want to know how you do that, because I want to feel that way, too.
- [04:27]
A
Yeah.
- [04:28]
B
So I'm pretending to be a listener right now.
- [04:30]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not just that the outcome is valuable. It's that the process is so valuable, because, as Marie Kondo says, you're tuning your sensitivity to joy, your sensitivity to that feeling in your body you're granting. You're reinforcing the pathways in your central nervous system to a ventral state.
- [04:59]
B
I have a theory that people dread decluttering or getting rid of things because they're going to have to confront the things and the feelings that the things make them feel and also the feelings they have about the feelings.
- [05:10]
A
Yeah. Because there's so much shit in our houses, in our homes that we're holding onto because they activate a fear response or, God, a grief response or, like a deep dorsal terror shutdown. Just thinking about decluttering can put people into a dorsal shutdown state. So I want to start with just, like, look at the stuff around you if you are at home and let your eyes fall on one thing that gives you a little like, oh, I love that. Oh, I love that. Just an unambiguous and unadulterated sweet, comfortable.
- [05:57]
B
Oh, I love that.
- [05:59]
A
I'm actually looking at my hard drive right now because Rich got it for me when we were in the middle of construction and I needed a new computer set up in a different space. And instead of trying to do a complicated, let's adapt what I've got. He's like, here's a simple solution. So not only is it a simple solution, To a complicated problem. It also represents rich thinking about what I need and solving it for me so I didn't have to. And it just is this very ordinarily looking black hard drive that runs everything. I need it to run beautifully. Oh, did you have a thing that you can see?
- [06:43]
B
Yeah. I am looking at my posters from the. I forget the name of the nonprofit organization, but they advocate for women composers in Boston, and they produced a series of posters of women composers faces. And I have a. I have a collection of them. I have. I have all of them. And I've got Ethel Smythe, and I've got Margaret Bonds, and I've got Julia Perry, like, all within sight. And, you know, anyway, I'm looking at these pictures that I got that I got to decorate my office when I was teaching. But I got. Because they, you know, purchasing them went to support this philanthropic organization who were. Who are awesome.
- [07:19]
A
So that's a more abstract experience of connection. Mine is directly to my spouse, and yours is to this organization and to these other women.
- [07:27]
B
They're also beautiful, like, really cool drawings of women composers.
- [07:32]
A
Yeah. Art man.
- [07:35]
B
I've also got a mini fridge in the barn that originally in the barn, we had a mini fridge that I used to have in my office. And then I couldn't work at that job anymore, so I moved out of my office. I moved the fridge into here. And it was just this tiny, like, the least expensive mini fridge I could find. And it broke. It died, and I had to replace it. And I replaced it with a very cute, charming, like, vanilla cream color that matches the, you know, IKEA mini kitchen that we installed as the thing in here. And it looks so, like, cute and retro and charming. And I'm so proud of how long I spent shopping for that thing and finding the exact right thing and then waiting till it went on sale. And I just. The story of acquiring that and searching for it and finding exactly the right thing. It has a separate freezer. Even though it's teeny tiny, there's two separate doors. Like, I. I just. I love it, and I feel so proud and.
- [08:35]
A
Yeah. So this is a simple way to reinforce ventral activation in your central nervous system. Spend time noticing the items, also the people and the places. Like, what are the spaces in your home that bring you peace, joy, love, and a sense of connection? That's fun to do, granting that there are, for sure, things and people and places and ideas that don't. And that's okay. The first step is to, like, let yourself be connected to the stuff that does feel safe and good and loving and connected.
- [09:11]
B
I like doing that.
- [09:13]
A
Yeah. Do it every day. Do it every time. You sit down and let your eyes wander around your home.
- [09:18]
B
So can I just do that? The part that feels good?
- [09:21]
A
You can. There's awesome. It's in like, it's your home. You get to choose. You are the boss of your home. You get to decide what you keep and what you discard. Granting that decluttering is the process of removing things from your home. And you can heighten the power of all of your ventral stuff by removing the non ventral stuff that's around it. So if you want to heighten the pleasure of, like, just connecting with the stuff that feels ventral, you can take the bold step of noticing there are things in your home that stress you out. It might be an object, or it might be what the object represents, or it might even be a worry about, like, you know, you want to get rid of this thing, but you are so worried about the right way, the right way to get rid of it. Or, like, maybe somebody gave it to you and what would that person think if you got rid of it? Or what you're. The things that you're supposed to be doing with that item that you have never done with that item. I should have been crocheting all this time, and I haven't crocheted for so long. And, like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna crochet again, but I might crochet again, and I should crochet again.
- [10:39]
B
So I've got this orange wood thing that inside has the cutout of the shape of Delaware, and it used to have little puzzle pieces that fit inside it.
- [10:50]
A
Yeah.
- [10:51]
B
And you gave that as a thing that should be used in the barn back when we were going to use the barn for, like, a public space. And I lost the puzzle pieces when we moved here. And you got all, like, mad that I lost the puzzle pieces because it was this, like, cool, handmade thing.
- [11:07]
A
Irreplaceable piece of art.
- [11:09]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I have the orange, like, shell and, you know, it got lost in the move, and I. And I feel bad about it.
- [11:20]
A
Yeah, we can probably replace the puzzle pieces. Rich, listening to this. So for those who don't know, my spouse does the editing of the podcast and he'll hear this and be like, I wonder if we can replace that and see if we can replace the puzzle pieces. Or you could, like, that's a fully. You can burn that in a fire outside in the summer. It's a Piece of wood.
- [11:42]
B
I don't have to feel bad about it anymore. My piece of art that I lost chunks to because I moved and things.
- [11:48]
A
Shit happens when you move, you know.
- [11:50]
B
Okay.
- [11:50]
A
If you were worried about how I felt and I probably was pretty sad that.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, you're pissed.
- [11:58]
A
I don't remember being pissed. I remember being sad.
- [12:01]
B
Oh. Either way, sometimes when you're sad, it comes off as pissed.
- [12:06]
A
That is valuable information. Thank you. So there are these objects in your house that you're worried about. Marie Kondo's rule is when you accept something that someone gives you and then you keep it to please them, even if you don't want it, like it have space for it or have the bandwidth to take care of it, you're disrespecting that object. And maybe even the person who gave it to you does that. Of course, that sounds familiar. And it means from my point of view, it means you're in a sympathetic state about it. You're in a stress response about this object in your home. Which is why Marie Kondo does the like. Thank you for your service. Gratitude to the item allows you to be in a ventral state in relation to this item and allows you to let it go without feeling bad about letting it go.
- [13:01]
B
So there's this consumable product that I use that comes in a heavy duty white plastic bucket. And I use the thing and now it's a freshwave that. See, it's fresh wave. Yeah. And it like now I'm like, oh, this is a really nice useful bucket. But I have six of them.
- [13:16]
A
Oh God, the useful trap.
- [13:18]
B
Yeah. So I feel bad every time I look at that goddamn bucket. I'm like, I feel bad that I have that bucket, but I feel, I would feel bad getting rid of the.
- [13:26]
A
Bucket because it's potentially useful.
- [13:29]
B
Yeah. And because it's plastic, that's, you know, I'm going to wish cycle it into the.
- [13:34]
A
Sure. You're going to put it in the recycling that's available to you. Yay. Not everyone lives in a place where recycling is available to them at all. So you're going to put it in the recycling, which is as good as you can do. This is a consumable product that comes in a theoretically recyclable plastic package.
- [13:53]
B
But I get it in a large bulk quantity so that I don't buy little tiny plastic.
- [13:59]
A
Yeah, no, no, you're doing the right ecological and economical choice of like getting it in bulk. Like, you know, you're making a harm, harm reduction. Let's talk about Harm reduction.
- [14:10]
B
Okay.
- [14:11]
A
It is not possible. So. So the world has more stuff in it right now than humans will ever be able to use. Everything. You buy something new, you are adding more to the more than we will ever use. That's just reality. And we as individuals cannot bear responsibility for the ruination of the planet that is mostly being caused by corporations that actually have a massive impact on the environment.
- [14:44]
B
Yeah.
- [14:45]
A
All we can do is make the best choices we can, given the environment we live in.
- [14:51]
B
Yeah.
- [14:51]
A
Does that help you to feel better about.
- [14:54]
B
I feel a little better about the bucket.
- [14:55]
A
Yeah. Instead of buying 20 individual size buckets containers, you buy one container and you use everything, all the product that came in it. And then you do your best to recycle that container. It's white plastic, so the scanners can see it. It is the right kind of plastic. It's not too big for the recycling facility, which some buckets, like, we used to get our litter in really big plastic buckets that were too big for recycling. Oh, yeah. We kept bucket after bucket after unrecyclable bucket. And we do use a couple of them. We use a couple of them for storing compost in the garage in the winter. We use one of them for storing salt for the driveway. In the garage. Yeah.
- [15:51]
B
I've used them for storing salt for the driveway.
- [15:53]
A
And, like, there's only so many that you can keep. And we did transition away from buying it in those big plastic buckets.
- [16:00]
B
Mm.
- [16:01]
A
And like, we're doing our best. We're all doing our. We're all doing our best with the resources available to us and all of us. If you are listening to this, chances are you have limited bandwidth. Every object you own is work. It requires your maintenance, your attention, your labor to keep it clean. And to have the fe. Like that. Like that sense of I should be doing something with that. Not wanting it in your home, but keeping it because you feel like you should. Your home is not an alternative to a landfill. Your home is not a landfill.
- [16:42]
B
Oh. So we've been talking about feelings a lot. Should we talk about some, like, actual practical. How to declutter and how this. Like, how we can put this into action of a. Give me a prescriptive solution.
- [16:55]
A
Okay. Prescriptive solution. This is Dana K. White's no mess decluttering method, which not only guarantees that you will make progress and only progress without ever making a worse mess, it also is mostly emotion and decision free.
- [17:14]
B
That sounds too good to be true.
- [17:16]
A
Step one. In the space you are working in, I will show you how it's true. It's truly. She has cracked the code.
- [17:23]
B
Okay, wow.
- [17:24]
A
One, start with trash. In the space you are looking in, look for trash. There's always trash. You think there's not trash. There's trash. There's trash. There's always trash. You get yourself. You start out with a black trash bag or an opaque trash bag, so you cannot see what's in there once it's in there. And a recycling bucket if you have an established recycling routine. Dana K. White lives in a place where there is not recycling available. Unless she drives, like an hour each way. Right?
- [17:54]
B
Yikes.
- [17:55]
A
When you are decluttering your home, now is not the time to start. Like, don't wait to make your home better until you have access to a recycling routine.
- [18:06]
B
Right? Right.
- [18:07]
A
Just put that shit in the trash. You're doing your best. Your community did not grant you access to a recycling program. That sucks. And you deserve to live in a home where as many things as possible spark joy, make you feel safe and connected and peaceful. And as few things as possible are yelling at you. For sure you want to discard anything that, like, says nasty, negative, critical things to you. So in any given space, you start with trash. Right. Decision free. We're not talking about, like, hemming and hawing. Is this trash just stuff that, like, instantaneously, automatically food wrappers just like, it's trash. Just trash. Just if it's broken, it's trash. Donation centers across America are full. They don't need your trash. Our donation center has a sign that says not to give them broken stuff. If it's electronic, it has to work. So broken lamp is trash. Broken toasters trash. If it's broken, it's trash. So step one, look for trash. Emotion free. And the value of looking for trash is not even just getting rid of the trash, which is going to make a big impact on, like, the how your space looks. Whatever space it is, it's also going to force you actually to look at all, all of the things that are in this space. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the mass of the just, like, stuff, the sort of gestalt of the piles of stuff you've got, it makes you look at the individual things that are in the space, which helps to reduce your sense of overwhelm because you get a more realistic relationship with, like, what is actually in that space.
- [19:56]
B
I trust Dana K. White, but I have to say that there comes a time with clutter and things that I don't see individual things anymore.
- [20:04]
A
Yes, it's called clutterblindness. That's what this step is for, is to help begin to make you see what's there. Another one of her rules is look, look, always look. So if you've got like a box that's full of, the category in that box is papers. Maybe it's scores, maybe it's like student papers. Look, look, always look. You gotta open the box and look for trash.
- [20:33]
B
Like friggin Pandora.
- [20:35]
A
Yeah, you gotta look because you gotta open the box. You're overwhelmed by the idea of what's in the box.
- [20:42]
B
Mm. I'm gonna have to make all those decisions, figure out solutions.
- [20:48]
A
Right. It feels so exhausting. Trash is not a decision. Trash is easy.
- [20:52]
B
That's true.
- [20:53]
A
Step number two is also. It's literally called easy stuff. This is stuff that has an established home in your space. It's just it, for whatever reason, it's not in that space. So you just put it in the space where it goes easy stuff.
- [21:09]
B
Okay.
- [21:10]
A
You're like, duh. I don't know. I don't know why this is here. This is, this is just has a home. It's someplace else.
- [21:16]
B
I like that better than just like open this box and deal with everything in this box. It's look everywhere for trash. Remove the trash and just. You categorize it into either trash or not trash. If it's not trash, you just leave it. Because you're not making things worse, right? You're just getting rid of the trash.
- [21:33]
A
You're just making it a little bit better and assume it. Like, let's assume you get overwhelmed and exhausted because you ran out of energy. Because it actually was a lot to like even see all that stuff. Or you get interrupted because there's like a family emergency. Or you get distracted. Like you just like, your attention just wanders. Right.
- [21:52]
B
You end up in another room.
- [21:54]
A
Right? Because that's a thing that happens. And that's absolutely.
- [21:56]
B
You had to put a thing away and you never went back to that room.
- [21:59]
A
The thing is, you have just. You've made progress. You removed the trash from whatever that thing was.
- [22:05]
B
You didn't dump out a whole box or a whole drawer. And now you can't get on the bed.
- [22:08]
A
An abandoned. You made it worse. This is like the key to this is like never, ever, ever take everything out of the space and then put back the things you want to keep. Because always what happens when you do that is you are left with like the scattered remains of the most difficult decisions. Yeah. After you're already tired from like making choices about what you want to Go in there now you have like all this like difficult shit that you have to make more choices about. And either you abandon it there or you just shove it all right back where went.
- [22:43]
B
Okay, step one, get rid of the trash. Step two, easy stuff.
- [22:47]
A
And usually easy stuff is not far from where it belongs. Sometimes it's far from where it belongs, but very often it's like it just needs to be over there.
- [22:57]
B
Yeah.
- [22:58]
A
Step three, duh clutter. This is stuff that is easy donation. Like, obviously you want to donate that. Like, obviously that's a. That's a good thing. And it's not a thing you want or need. Declutter gets easier every time you go through P.S. decluttering is not a thing you do once and only once. It is a thing that is a normal part of the metabolism of the house is like you bring things into your home. You have to get rid of things as they come into your home. Because here's the container concept is I'm basically just explaining all of how to decluttering for the rest of us and decluttering at the speed of life.
- [23:38]
B
Is that also Dana K. White?
- [23:39]
A
Yeah, These are her books. Get them from the library. There are audiobooks narrated by her. She was a theater teacher before she became a stay at home mom. So she is very funny when she reads her own books.
- [23:52]
B
Good.
- [23:52]
A
She's also from Texas, which helps. So the container concept was like so revelatory for me. The idea is any given space is a container. It's a limit. It contains. It sets a limit on how much you can keep. It is the container's fault. The size of your home is the size of your home. You may wish you lived in a bigger home. This is the home you live in right now. And you can keep whatever fits. And that you can. It fits in a way that you can easily get to whatever you need to without destroying that space. Does that make sense?
- [24:34]
B
Yeah. And ideally, fitting stuff that makes you feel nice, that doesn't yell at you.
- [24:41]
A
Right. So you've got a closet. You want to only keep what comfortably fits in that closet. If that's your space for keeping clothes, you only keep the clothes that fit. And you start by keeping your favorites and getting rid of the trash. That's the stuff that's torn and undonatable. It's duh clutter. Like, obviously I want to donate this. This is three sizes too small. This is three sizes too big. Okay.
- [25:10]
B
A lot of people don't recognize that as being duh clutter because they think, well, what if I change sizes and.
- [25:14]
A
Clothes is a whole thing. And maybe we should leave that to another clothes as a whole thing.
- [25:20]
B
Clothes maybe aren't dull. Clutter. Unless they're ripped, torn.
- [25:24]
A
But everybody's got a category of stuff that, like. It's impossible for me to write, like, books. It is. Like, it has taken me a long time to recognize that, like, I can get rid of a book. Books are so much more difficult for me than clothes.
- [25:39]
B
So it's gonna be different categories.
- [25:40]
A
Scarves. You've got a particular hanger where you keep your scarves. You can have as many scarves as fit on this hanger. And that you can, like, get to them without pulling one scarf out means you've, like, pulled out 40 other scarves and they all fall on the floor.
- [25:55]
B
I have a hanger for my everyday scarves. I have a basket for my special occasion scarves. And I have another basket for my winter scarves.
- [26:02]
A
Do you have containers? I have containers that you set limits.
- [26:05]
B
And I have gotten rid of stuff that doesn't fit that. I have too many of these.
- [26:09]
A
That's great. So the container concept is one of the rules to follow as you're decluttering, but it's actually pretty far along. So we've done the three really easy steps. Steps. Trash. Easy stuff. Stuff that hasn't a home in your house. It just has to go there. And then the third is duck clutter. Stuff that is easy for you to recognize as, like, this is a good thing that I do not need. And you donate that. You put that in your donate box. So you've got your trash bag in your donate box and you are filling those things. Then we get to.
- [26:40]
B
I feel bad about donating things sometimes because I know that most of the things that go to donations end up in the trash. Again, I'm doing my best.
- [26:47]
A
You are not in charge of the destruction of our planet.
- [26:52]
B
And I want to, like, hold myself to, like, a standard of. So I want to try to make sure that the thing goes to someone who's actually going to use it instead of just randomly to a. Yeah. Donation place. And are they gonna. So, like. But then it's like, oh, that's too big a project I have to do. So I'll, like, make a big pile of stuff for that project for later.
- [27:10]
A
Yeah.
- [27:11]
B
But what I need to remember is that I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have available. And if I'm not perfect, that's. I'm not responsible for the destruction of the world.
- [27:19]
A
You have intensive Energy limitations. And you deserve to live in a home that is easy for you to manage.
- [27:24]
B
Yeah.
- [27:25]
A
Do you believe that you deserve to live in a home that is easy for you to manage?
- [27:29]
B
Yeah.
- [27:30]
A
Do you believe that your energy limitations mean it is even more important that you simplify your house?
- [27:41]
B
Yeah.
- [27:43]
A
So you want to do the best thing. You're disabled. You do the best you can given the resources available to you. Some people do have the bandwidth and the emotional wherewithal and the organization and the energy to take a pile of clothes that are three sizes different from the size they are now, put it in a bag, take a picture of the pile and say, clothes X size, whatever, and post it on Facebook Marketplace for free. Come and get it.
- [28:14]
B
Yeah, I'm not on Facebook Marketplace.
- [28:15]
A
Some people have that bandwidth.
- [28:17]
B
I don't think I'd do that anyway.
- [28:19]
A
Yeah. I mean, in what other way are you going to make sure somebody gets these clothes or this pile of stuff?
- [28:24]
B
Well, I send them to Thredup or. There are things I can sell on ebay, but I have not had any. Like, I've tried selling stuff on ebay for, like, super cheap. Just like, here's a. Here's a. A wool blend Ralph Lauren blazer. It's.
- [28:39]
A
Is it the powder blue one?
- [28:40]
B
Gorgeous. It's the blue one. Yeah.
- [28:42]
A
Yeah.
- [28:43]
B
Selling it for, like, $19. Selling it for nothing.
- [28:47]
A
Yeah.
- [28:48]
B
Just because I want it to go to somebody who wants it and just nobody even looks at it.
- [28:51]
A
Nobody wants your stuff.
- [28:53]
B
Nobody wants my stuff.
- [28:54]
A
Nobody wants nice stuff, even if it's. And that's the thing is, like, you wouldn't own it if it weren't nice stuff. Well, there's some stuff you own that's not nice stuff, and that's easy stuff to get rid of. That's the stuff you bought because you needed something now.
- [29:06]
B
Yeah.
- [29:07]
A
And you just got something that would do. Right.
- [29:10]
B
Yeah.
- [29:11]
A
That you couldn't. Like you did with the fridge. Like, you waited until you found exactly the right thing and you waited until it was on sale. That's the thing that sparks joy. That gets. Gets you access to ventral. And then there's the stuff where you're like, we just need a couch to fill this space right now.
- [29:25]
B
Yep.
- [29:26]
A
And so you ordered something that could be delivered in two days from Wayfair.
- [29:29]
B
I'm looking at that couch right now. Yeah.
- [29:32]
A
We have a bench.
- [29:33]
B
Our stuff was in storage for a month. And we needed a place to sit.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah, we just needed a place to sit. And it could be here in two days.
- [29:40]
B
Yeah.
- [29:40]
A
You do the best you can. And you have different feelings about getting rid of that stuff than you do about, like, the nice stuff that just doesn't work in your life anymore. Right. And that's fine. So these are all the feelings. Like, these are all the feelings that people have that they have to confront when they just want to, like, make their house simpler and easier to manage. Because every. Every object you own demands something from you.
- [30:05]
B
Yeah.
- [30:06]
A
There's a book called Goodbye Things where the author talks about the invisible to do list. Does that phrase resonate?
- [30:14]
B
I know exactly what the invisible to do list is. Yeah.
- [30:18]
A
For people who might not have an intuitive grasp, like, what does it mean to you when I say invisible to do list?
- [30:23]
B
That Ralph Lauren jacket is part of.
- [30:26]
A
Your invisible to do list. Yeah. Like, you know, it doesn't have a home in your space anymore.
- [30:32]
B
Right. But how to get it to a.
- [30:35]
A
Home where it will be respected as it deserves to be?
- [30:38]
B
Yeah. How? This orphaned jacket that I'm abandoning.
- [30:43]
A
So there are. I'm gonna talk about a lot of decluttering experts, because I have. Can I give you that jacket?
- [30:50]
B
Will you wear that jacket?
- [30:51]
A
I will not wear a powder blue jacket. It will stain from my hair.
- [30:55]
B
You did wear a powder blue jacket, though.
- [30:57]
A
I did. I wore that jacket in the video that we made together. Yes, I did. And if I owned it after a year, it would be, like, irretrievably stained by my hair dye.
- [31:07]
B
Anyway. Yes. This was not actually a serious. But.
- [31:10]
A
Yeah, but the idea. But if you give it to me, if you bring it, I will put it in our donation pile and it will go to our goodwill.
- [31:20]
B
I can donate it. That's fine.
- [31:21]
A
Yeah.
- [31:22]
B
Although. Yeah, your goodwill is probably a goodwill to give it to. P.S. i bought that Ralph Lauren jacket on ebay secondhand. So.
- [31:30]
A
But, like, yeah, Invisible to do list. It's this. The stuff that is constantly sending you messages of, like, you have an obligation to me.
- [31:40]
B
Yeah. That adds to my feelings of, like, I adopted this.
- [31:44]
A
It's like I adopted a puppy.
- [31:45]
B
Like, I adopted this jacket from someone else.
- [31:51]
A
So Cass Arson is the clutterbug. And I'm going to talk more about her in just a second, but. So she's Canadian. She's a firefighter. There's a lot of very entertaining facts about Cass, but the way she says it is like, you're not rehoming a kitten.
- [32:09]
B
Yeah.
- [32:11]
A
It doesn't have any feelings. You do your best.
- [32:14]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [32:15]
A
She is a strong advocate of, like, a thing you've done is, like, rent a dumpster for a weekend. And it creates this pull because you. It is a time limit. You paid for it. You are motivated to just fill it. And it changes how you see your stuff. When you have paid money for a limited time opportunity to put stuff in this. Yeah. Dumpster. Yeah.
- [32:39]
B
While you were moving around and living in 10 different places in seven years, I moved into a house and I lived there for 15 years. So I had an attic and a basement.
- [32:49]
A
Yeah.
- [32:50]
B
And four big bedrooms and a walk in closet. It was a 1901, like sort of almost painted lady style Victorian. Anyway, it was a great house. It was big house. And we filled three trucks full of stuff to get rid of when we moved to Massachusetts from that house in Connecticut. Yeah. I mean we go, okay, not sponsored. We called 1-800-GOT junk and they came three times and filled three trucks.
- [33:15]
A
My God.
- [33:17]
B
Of oh, my God. So much stuff.
- [33:20]
A
Yep.
- [33:22]
B
It was amazing. And also 1-800-got- junk feels good because they talk about how they recycle e waste and they donate clothes in good condition. Like.
- [33:31]
A
And how did it feel? They say they do that.
- [33:33]
B
So it feels good to me. And I'm. I'm just going to not question.
- [33:38]
A
Yes, they say they do that. Yes, because they say they do that.
- [33:44]
B
Yep. I'm going to take that at face value.
- [33:46]
A
Yeah. 100%. If they say they do it, just be like they say they do it. So I'm going to do what I can.
- [33:51]
B
Yeah, they do.
- [33:52]
A
And they also come and just like truck your shit out of your house.
- [33:57]
B
It's nice.
- [33:58]
A
They carry it. They just get it out. And is there anything that you got rid of in those three truckloads that you were like, boy, I really wish I hadn't gotten rid of that. One of the main barriers to getting rid of things is decluttering regret. I really wish I had. But what if I need it?
- [34:20]
B
Yeah.
- [34:21]
A
But what if I miss it? But what if my kid asks for it? Kid.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah.
- [34:27]
A
Decluttering is a whole other thing that we're not going to talk about because it's a whole other thing. We're just talking about like your stuff that you 100% have a right to make choices about kitchen stuff, plates and bowls and silverware. Like, it should fit in the spaces available in a way that means you don't have to destroy a space in order to get to the thing you need. So one of the reasons why the container concept was so important to me is that we did not grow up with the container concept.
- [34:52]
B
No, we did not.
- [34:54]
A
No. And because we Grew up poor.
- [34:57]
B
Poor.
- [34:58]
A
A lot of our clothes came from Goodwill. And you know, when a shirt costs 50 cents.
- [35:03]
B
Yeah.
- [35:04]
A
And you know you're struggling to afford groceries.
- [35:08]
B
Yeah.
- [35:09]
A
It is a way that you can give abundance to your child. They can have five shirts for $2.50. It's a way that your kid can have abundance at a time when like you can't afford abundance of almost anything.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah.
- [35:25]
A
Right. So we had more stuff than we could manage.
- [35:30]
B
Yeah.
- [35:31]
A
Not least because we had more stuff than could realistically fit in the space that was available to us. We had a dresser and a closet and we had just more stuff that can fit. We had more toys. We also had grandparents who were generous and gave us things. We had more toys than can fit in a toy box. Right.
- [35:51]
B
Yeah.
- [35:52]
A
And we grew up. I grew up feeling like I was incapable of keeping things clean. We were very, very, very messy children.
- [36:04]
B
Yeah.
- [36:04]
A
Very messy.
- [36:05]
B
Yeah.
- [36:06]
A
And I thought I was just incapable of managing stuff.
- [36:09]
B
Yeah.
- [36:10]
A
But it turned out we just had too much stuff.
- [36:12]
B
Yeah.
- [36:14]
A
And systems that didn't work for our brains.
- [36:18]
B
Yeah. The thing that I learned that had never been right for me was that we had all this stuff, but none of it was right. None of it was good. None of it was the thing that I needed. The quality I needed it to be or the fit I needed it to be. Like nothing was all this stuff and you know, all these clothes and nothing to wear.
- [36:41]
A
Yes.
- [36:42]
B
Was my. Was my life for a very long time.
- [36:45]
A
Very long time.
- [36:46]
B
Yeah. Now I have way, way, way, way, way less clothes that I wear a lot more.
- [36:53]
A
Over and over. Yeah.
- [36:54]
B
Because they're the right thing and they're. And they're decent quality and. Yeah.
- [36:58]
A
Yeah. And then there's the stuff that I hold on to. Like. So I have a balance disorder. I love skinny. I love three and a half inch heels. I love it when they're like skinny, round toed looking.
- [37:14]
B
Yeah.
- [37:15]
A
Adorable.
- [37:15]
B
Your girl loves a round toe. It's weird.
- [37:18]
A
I love them.
- [37:19]
B
I love them.
- [37:20]
A
And there are some very beautiful, very expensive shoes that I wore when I had a job. Job that I like was perpetually stumbling and almost falling down and occasionally actually falling down because I didn't realize I had a balance disorder. And I was walking on three and a half inch skinny little he across campus. And I still have some of those shoes in a storage container under the bed. And I can't get rid of them because I love those shoes. And it's confronting about ability that I have lost to get rid of those shoes. I have Feelings about it. So, like, look, there's dumb stuff you're not ready to get rid of.
- [38:04]
B
Yeah.
- [38:04]
A
And that's okay. Yeah, that's okay. You can keep anything you want to keep, but you can't keep everything. I can manage. Like, I have a space for those shoes under the bed and it's fine.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah.
- [38:18]
A
I can hold onto that as long as I need to until my brain is ready to let go.
- [38:24]
B
Yeah.
- [38:24]
A
And like, this isn't even getting to like, the really difficult emotional stuff of like a beloved person in your life died and there's their stuff in your home taking up space. Like that is. Then we're transitioning into like the dorsal stuff of grief and lost. Lost. It's. Yeah. Like people have feelings about their stuff.
- [38:51]
B
Yeah. I have dog stuff from dogs who are gone.
- [38:58]
A
So our. We chose one favorite toy for each dog. And look, they're like, dirty. We washed them, but they still look dirty.
- [39:10]
B
Gross.
- [39:10]
A
Yeah, used up gross. But we put them in like a little display for the dogs and it's. Yeah, that's ventral stuff. But we chose like one thing that is really associated with beautiful memories as opposed to keeping all of it.
- [39:28]
B
Right.
- [39:30]
A
I kept a photo of my stalker for like 25 years.
- [39:36]
B
You probably didn't need that.
- [39:37]
A
He. His face wasn't in it, so it didn't feel like a picture of him. Yeah. But he was in it, so. And I. It took me 25 years. When I went to organize all my photos and I was only keeping the ones that were ventral, I realized how out of place this was and that I had been holding onto this as a self preserving fight response, as if keeping this picture somehow helped me stay safe.
- [40:08]
B
Oh, dull.
- [40:10]
A
So I tore it up and I put it in the trash. But it took that long for me to recognize why I was keeping this thing.
- [40:18]
B
How'd it feel to tear it up?
- [40:22]
A
Oh, like nothing. Like it's been so long.
- [40:25]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [40:25]
A
And it was so easy to recognize that this photo was not doing anything. Especially because I had done so much in those 25 years to feel profoundly safer in my body and in my life and in my relationships.
- [40:39]
B
Yeah.
- [40:39]
A
It was. Once I recognized why I was keeping it, I was like, oh, this is trash. This is trash. That experience was trash. But it was like, thank you for your service.
- [40:54]
B
Yeah.
- [40:56]
A
So the dorsal stuff, this is the last stuff you should deal with. This is the. Like, there's so much progress people can make in their homes without ever having to touch the stuff that makes them feel overwhelmed and frozen and swamped. And stuck and helpless and hopeless. Or it might make me feel nauseous just to think about that thing. Or breathless. Or just like, just fatigue. Just like heavy. Right. Like.
- [41:25]
B
Yeah.
- [41:26]
A
Leave that stuff for last because you need to get comfortable and good at dealing with the stuff that makes you afraid, the stuff that makes you angry.
- [41:33]
B
Yeah.
- [41:34]
A
And you're clearing out space that is making it easier for you to feel the ventral stuff all around you. When you like, scan your space. Every object just like sings with its ventralness because it's no longer crowded out by the stuff that puts you in a fight or flight response. Which is partly helped by the fact that you have begun to work on not needing an ideal outcome for every object in your home.
- [42:03]
B
Yes. Yes. That's definitely a barrier I have. I was thinking of how to recognize like flight response. This is a thing that I don't recognize in the moment that it's happening. But I sometimes look at the thing I have to do something about and I get so motivated to go do anything else.
- [42:24]
A
Right.
- [42:25]
B
And that's totally just flight.
- [42:27]
A
That's flight. That's literal. I need to get away from here.
- [42:29]
B
Yeah.
- [42:31]
A
Avoidance is a flight response. Yes.
- [42:33]
B
Boy, I really have to. I do have to do something about that box. I should go do the dishes right now.
- [42:39]
A
Yeah.
- [42:40]
B
You know what? I need to vacuum. Let's let me hang that lamp on.
- [42:44]
A
The wall and look. Hanging the lamp, doing the dishes, vacuuming. Those all make your house better.
- [42:50]
B
Yeah. And that all makes me feel like I did a thing and I didn't. I didn't avoid doing a thing. I did all so many things.
- [42:56]
A
Finishing a project is decluttering.
- [42:59]
B
Yeah.
- [43:00]
A
Eating the food in your freezer is decluttering.
- [43:04]
B
That's like my favorite thing.
- [43:06]
A
If it's making your freezer easier to manage. So we have a side by side fridge. The freezer and the refrigerator are side by side. You have a freezer in the bottom. And it's just this like cavern.
- [43:18]
B
It's not anymore.
- [43:21]
A
Oh, I purchased. Right. Cause you got organizing containers.
- [43:24]
B
Purchased plastic organizing containers.
- [43:28]
A
Yeah. And they set limits on which kind of. Which kinds of frozen food you can get.
- [43:33]
B
And it means that I can access the stuff on the top.
- [43:36]
A
Yeah.
- [43:36]
B
And I can decide to put like if I have like. Because I order beef from this like farm with the happy goes. And so I order like a couple of times a year and I get a whole lot all at once. So if I've got like five things of burgers, I only need like two on the top. And I put the Other three on the bottom layer. So that means I have on the top is everything I want to access right now. And the bottom layer is like backstock.
- [44:00]
A
Yeah. So what you're talking about now is organizing, which is a separate thing from decluttering mostly. Yeah, well, but I need to finish Dana K. White's five decluttering steps. Okay.
- [44:11]
B
But you were saying how my fridge is. My freezer is just like a.
- [44:14]
A
Right.
- [44:15]
B
So pit of frozen.
- [44:17]
A
In many ways. I dislike the side by side refrigerator. Refrigerator freezer situation because it is quite difficult to use the like shelving in this very n. Narrow.
- [44:24]
B
Yes, it is space. Yeah. You're not putting a pizza in there.
- [44:27]
A
But it sets a hard limit. That container sets a hard limit on the frozen food we can keep if we want to be able to use the refrigerator and use the freezer and remember what's in there and actually eat the food we bought.
- [44:41]
B
And that is what the containers I bought due to my big drawer freezer. Yeah.
- [44:45]
A
And a lot of people are stuck with these terrible cavernous drawer freezers where things get lost. And like you use the stuff on the top layer and that bottom layer just is like this sedimentary.
- [44:57]
B
Yeah. My container.
- [44:58]
A
Detritus of food you have forgotten about. Yeah, I fix that. And there's. There's a lot of feelings people have when it comes to food decluttering because of food waste and all the feelings we have about that. And that's like the feelings you have while getting rid of stuff that you have feelings about is actually really informative. Because one of the things, if your home is way too full, it's because you brought way too much stuff into your home. And an important way to avoid recluttering your home is to reduce what you bring in. And when you have that adverse feeling of like, oh, shoot, here's all this expired stuff that I can't even donate to a food bank. God, like, it sucks. And maybe it'll help you shop with a grocery list.
- [45:51]
B
Yeah. But you're doing the best you can with the resources you have available.
- [45:54]
A
You are doing the best you can with the resources you have available. And like, notice how much it sucked to have to throw away or compost food that could have been used to feed the people in your home.
- [46:07]
B
Yeah.
- [46:07]
A
And now it can't be because you.
- [46:08]
B
Didn'T know where it was. You didn't know that you even had it.
- [46:11]
A
Right. Because you were swamped and overwhelmed.
- [46:13]
B
Because as you were talking about so many reasons. The purpose of decluttering is so you can see the things that you really want. And like.
- [46:19]
A
Yeah. So the first. Remember the first step.
- [46:23]
B
Trash.
- [46:25]
A
Easy stuff, which is stuff that has an established home. It's just not there for.
- [46:28]
B
Put the cup in the sink.
- [46:29]
A
Whatever reason we don't have to beat ourselves up for. Why is this here? How did this get here? Doesn't matter.
- [46:36]
B
That's fine.
- [46:37]
A
I actually, like have a thing where when I find something that has an established home, I go, how did you get here? You weren't supposed to be here.
- [46:51]
B
Of course you were. So. Okay, cool.
- [46:53]
A
I put you here. I don't remember when. Okay, just make it a little playful. Don't have to beat myself up. Yeah, I don't know. Shit happens. So the step three is.
- [47:07]
B
Duh. This is nice. But I don't use it. I'm donating it.
- [47:12]
A
Yes. I don't need it. I don't love it, I don't need it.
- [47:15]
B
And I'm getting rid of it in a. In the best way I can. Even if it's not perfect.
- [47:20]
A
In the best way I can today.
- [47:23]
B
Yeah.
- [47:24]
A
Because when you use this method, you make progress and only progress, and your home will only get better.
- [47:30]
B
So not making and maintaining piles of things you should take to the recycling center for e waste.
- [47:39]
A
Yeah. Because you're supposed to be in the process of like, vastly increasing your access to ventral, which increases your healing so that your mitochondria can get better. And those piles are reducing your access to ventral and increasing activation of sympathetic and dorsal. So when you change your home, you change your nervous system. Are you convinced?
- [48:04]
B
Yes. Yes. And I like that you never just dump everything out and then you have this project you're committed to never.
- [48:12]
A
Right. Really, really essential. And in her book, Danny K. White goes through every excuse, every reason not to do this, every. But like, I'm totally sure. Because the next to the next step is you find something. It doesn't have an established home. You're like, oh, I forgot I had this. But like, if the question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Because you're assuming that you're going to spend all fucking day tearing through your house, getting increasingly enraged and then despairing because you know it's gotta be here somewhere. You know it's somewhere. Where the. Where is it? What's the first place you would look? And an amazing thing will happen the next time you're like, I know for sure that I have this. I know for sure I'm gonna spend all goddamn day looking for this thing. And you look the first place and it's there because you put the first place you would look. That's where it belongs. If it doesn't have an established home, establish the home as the place. And then crucially, as part of step four, take it there right now. Take it there right now. Do not make a pile of things that you're going to take to the garage. Take it to the garage right now. And if you've got energy limitations, you know what, look around and be like, is there anything else here that belongs in the garage? Let me take as much as I can carry in my arms.
- [49:48]
B
And if I'm not going to take it all, that's fine. I'll do it another time because I have not committed to finishing this project. I'm just making a little progress.
- [49:55]
A
You're just making it better. Better at progress and only progress. You have in no way made it worse.
- [50:00]
B
Yeah.
- [50:01]
A
And I mean, like, these are. This is the thing that happens is you take it to the place where it goes, and that place is also a cluttered mess. Yeah, that's fine.
- [50:11]
B
That's fine.
- [50:12]
A
You just like space for space.
- [50:14]
B
You still made progress.
- [50:15]
A
You take the thing there and space for space. You find trash, easy stuff, and duh, clutter. That doesn't belong in the space where this other thing belongs. And again, we're choosing based on our favorites, like what deserves a space in this limited container. So anything that deserves to be in that space less than this thing you found in the other space you were decluttering, remove it, make room. Even if it's not the thing that'll make the biggest impact, it just has to be something. That space for space deserves this container less. It's less container worthy. Does that make sense? Does it make sense why you take it there right now?
- [50:58]
B
Oh, yeah, for sure.
- [50:59]
A
Because don't make a pile, because the pile is just going to make your central nervous system activated in uncomfortable ways.
- [51:07]
B
I'm thinking about a pile I have right now and it's activating my.
- [51:12]
A
Yeah. So you could address that pile in this way of just look for trash. Look for easy stuff. Look for, duh, obvious clutter. Put it in a trash bag, an opaque trash bag. Put it in your donation box. Have a place where your donations live with your recycling in your trash. We have an established, like, we have, like, trash. We have recycling and we have donations. We have places for all that stuff. We have an ongoing donation situation.
- [51:39]
B
That's a good idea to have like a permanent place for d. Clutter in.
- [51:43]
A
The same way that you have a permanent Place for your trash goes and where your recycling goes and it has to get emptied.
- [51:47]
B
Yeah.
- [51:48]
A
On the regular.
- [51:49]
B
I do. I have a permanent place for E waste. I have a basket where all the E waste goes.
- [51:56]
A
Great. It has an established home.
- [51:57]
B
Yeah.
- [51:58]
A
So when you find E waste, you take it there right now.
- [52:00]
B
Yeah.
- [52:02]
A
You're doing it.
- [52:02]
B
This battery's dead. I dropped this phone in the bathtub three times and it doesn't turn on anymore.
- [52:08]
A
Doesn't this feel more manageable than take everything out of a space, make a pile of all your clothes.
- [52:13]
B
Because you want to look at it.
- [52:14]
A
You really want to see what you have, because that's not confronting and shaming. Yeah.
- [52:22]
B
No, I like the idea. You only make progress and also you're making things better and they don't have to be made perfect right now all in one project. You're just constantly making things a little bit better a little bit at a time.
- [52:34]
A
Yeah. And Danny K. White, who the entire Internet has diagnosed with adhd, but she's never sought a diagnosis, has what she calls Project Brain. She's a theater teacher. She produces plays. She loves something with a beginning, a middle, and an end. She's super good at managing stuff that has a clear beginning, a middle, and an end, as opposed to the stuff that's just like the dishes. They just need to get done over and over and over and over, and laundry has to get done over. And because she's adhd, she has the thing with laundry where, like, you forget that there was a load in the washer and so it sits there and then you have to wash it again because it sat there for four days wet, and now it's all mildewy.
- [53:13]
B
Yeah.
- [53:14]
A
Yeah. Part of our solution to this is we bought a combo washer dryer. It is huge and noisy, but, like, we just put it in and hit go. And there's clean, dry laundry at the end without our ever having to think about it. That's. That's great. Her solution to laundry is also to have a laundry day where you just run all of it. You just a day when you're going to be home and you just run all of it in one day. And, like, your primary commitment that day is the laundry. So you're not going to forget because it's the main thing you're doing and everything else you do is just an interruption to laundry day. Yeah.
- [53:47]
B
This reminds me a lot of, like, wellness solutions where, like, the solution is wax on, wax off, do the little bit of something good for you. A little bit. All the Time just.
- [54:00]
A
You have to do it over and over again. Yeah.
- [54:02]
B
Yeah.
- [54:04]
A
You can make your home support your well being when you practice keeping the things and appreciating the things that fill you with a sense of peace and comfort and connection and love and joy and letting go of the things that do anything else. The clothes that talk to you. Shitty. You get rid of those clothes. They don't deserve space in your home. Why are you keeping stuff that is mean to you? That's. That's stuff. It's being mean to you. Get it out. You wouldn't tolerate a person in your life who's mean to you all the time. Get it out. You don't know it. Shit.
- [54:53]
B
Yeah. You don't deserve for that jacket to be yelling at you just cause you used to be two sizes smaller. And you don't deserve to be yelled at just because you're two sizes bigger.
- [55:03]
A
You deserve a closet full of things that when you look at those things, you're like, everything in here is something I could put on my body and leave the house and be like, I'm a person in the world.
- [55:14]
B
Yeah. I feel guilty and obligated to that jacket I adopted. But that jacket is telling me that, you know, I'm a bad person because I got disabled and grew two sizes that day.
- [55:29]
A
Right.
- [55:31]
B
I'm gonna donate the jacket.
- [55:33]
A
Yeah, donate the jacket. And like, we know that the jacket isn't saying any of those things that you saying those things to yourself.
- [55:40]
B
Yeah. It's not even me saying them. It's the larger society saying this jacket.
- [55:44]
A
It's the fucking bikini industrial complex, which is a whole racist and ableist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get rid of the jacket that's like a representation of the bikini industrial complex in your closet. Just. You don't belong here.
- [56:01]
B
Yeah.
- [56:02]
A
And if people are like, but, Amelia, you might shrink two sizes one day. And won't you wish you had that jacket?
- [56:11]
B
Oh, yeah. I'm completely at peace with getting rid of the things that don't fit me anymore.
- [56:16]
A
Yeah.
- [56:17]
B
Since I've been to not everybody is. I have changed sizes fast. Fast. I've had to replace my whole wardrobe twice in three years. My whole wardrobe. And I just ruthlessly doesn't fit. I'm getting rid of it. Doesn't fit. I'm getting rid of it. Doesn't. Like, I feel no attachment to most of the things I have. But I think this jacket, because it was like a very nice jacket that I got actually right before COVID so I never got a chance to wear it.
- [56:52]
A
I Never wore it.
- [56:54]
B
And then I changed sizes.
- [56:57]
A
Yeah. So there's grief. Yeah, grief about, like, the whole pile of how the world and your own body changed when you were preparing for a totally different future. You bought this jacket in anticipation of a different life where I'd be this.
- [57:18]
B
Size and I would have to go to work events where I'd be wearing Ralph Lauren blazers.
- [57:23]
A
Yes. Which is a thing you were doing all the fucking time in 2019.
- [57:26]
B
Then I found vintage on ebay, like. Yeah.
- [57:29]
A
Yep.
- [57:30]
B
And then my. And then my future turned into. Turned into Disney hoodies.
- [57:38]
A
Yeah.
- [57:38]
B
Yeah. And your Pizza John cozy.
- [57:42]
A
Yes, my fucking Pizza John Cozy. That whenever I wear it to therapy, whenever I wear it to any medical appointment, the person always comments on it because it does look tonally bananas. It does look bananas.
- [57:58]
B
What I love is often warm.
- [57:59]
A
So, yeah. We keep our house, like, an ecologically responsible temperature.
- [58:05]
B
Oh, yeah. So this barn is 50 degrees right now.
- [58:09]
A
If I'm sitting still, I just want.
- [58:12]
B
To be really, like, this is so warm.
- [58:14]
A
If I start, like, if I move enough to do the dishes, I'm sweating in this. But when I get out of bed and I'm just sitting in a chair drinking my coffee, it's perfect. And I love it.
- [58:24]
B
Yeah.
- [58:25]
A
And I. And I have a place where it fits in my life. And I'm also in a place where if I bring something into the house, I get rid of two other things.
- [58:34]
B
Oh.
- [58:36]
A
People very often follow a one in, one out kind of situation. Like, if you bring something in, you got to get rid of something to make sure you've got space to keep your situation manageable. But I have so much that it's an easy way to motivate myself to get rid of more. If I'm like, if I'm going to bring something into my home, I need to get rid of two other things. Oh. Because I have enough.
- [58:58]
B
Yeah.
- [58:59]
A
So this serves the function of two other items in my wardrobe. Nice. Yeah. And so. And we have an ongoing donation pile. We also have a textile recycling. So the Red Cross has a bin where it'll take towels. Like, ripped, torn up towels and sheets and underwear and bras. And anything made of a textile you can put in the bin. That's stuff that you couldn't donate.
- [59:29]
B
No. Yeah.
- [59:30]
A
The worst thing is pillows. There is nothing but trash for the pillows. You cannot. Like, you. Nowhere in our vicinity accepts pillows for recycling or donation.
- [59:40]
B
Happily, most pillows can be washed. So, like.
- [59:44]
A
Yeah, but then you're keeping.
- [59:45]
B
I guess if you have quantity of.
- [59:46]
A
Pillows, you're not you're not getting rid of things. Yeah. So there's only so much you can do. And again, let me emphasize, the goal is to create a home that is.
- [59:58]
B
I've only ever gotten rid of two pillows. And this is in, you know, 30 years of being an adult, I've only ever collected pillows, except for two that I got rid of because the cat literally peed on them.
- [60:09]
A
Literally. I slept on that pillow.
- [60:10]
B
You're like, your room smells. And I'm like, the room doesn't stink.
- [60:13]
A
Like, intensely of cat pee.
- [60:14]
B
Yeah, no, it's just the pillow that smells that. You had your head on that.
- [60:18]
A
I had my hat on.
- [60:20]
B
Sorry, I didn't know. I don't sleep on that bed. I didn't know. Which brings us back around to the fresh wave.
- [60:35]
A
So is it clear that decluttering is a process of making your home more manageable? Because we live in a world that just eats bandwidth. It just, like, consumes our attention and our feelings, and we deserve to live in a space that feels cozy and connected and warm. There's Another declutterer on YouTube, the organized soprano Kay Patterson, whose motivation for being invested in decluttering and organizing. She's especially an organizer, not so much a declutterer. Originated in 2001 with 911 feeling so, like, panicked and out of control outside of her home and needing her home to be a cozy, safe haven. We all deserve that. Not all of us are naturally organized, tidy people. And so we need a system for gradually removing stuff that is taking up bandwidth. Just removing it. Removing it, Removing it. And not feeling bad about it.
- [61:44]
B
Yeah. And it doesn't have to be one big overwhelming project where you destroy your house and then feel like you made a huge mistake by committing to this project. Just you make it a little better every once in a while.
- [61:55]
A
Which is how I felt when I did the spark joy jubilee of piling all the clothes I owned onto a bed. Keeping only the ones that spark joy. Like, and books. Piling all my books. The thing is, when you're actually doing.
- [62:10]
B
That, like, that's a lot of time and energy spent feeling and examining your feelings, which is a literal energy burn. Like, that's when you feel a feeling. That's a. That's a physiological experience where your body makes different chemicals at this moment. And that's a, you know, that's an intensive high energy experience.
- [62:34]
A
Yep.
- [62:34]
B
So, like, doing that all day is truly exhausting.
- [62:39]
A
Whereas this progress and only progress.
- [62:42]
B
Yeah.
- [62:43]
A
If you want to know where to start, like, where physically in your home. People have different philosophies. Dana K. White says, start in the most visible part of your home. And if your motivation for making your home more manageable is primarily so that you can have people over and not, like, panic, organize and tidy before they come over and just, like, throw all the extra stuff into your bedroom and close the door before they arrive, which trashes your bedroom, then start with the most visible space in your home. Dawn of the minimal. Mom suggests starting in the kitchen, because that's like. It's like the digestive system of the home. It is like, the key to the metabolism. When your kitchen is more functional, everything else in the home is going to function better. Peter, I forget his last name. Says. Or somebody. Some. Some minimal. Somebody. Somebody dude says, start with the room you use the most. Which makes sense, because then you're going to feel the impact so much. And Cass the clutterbug says, start with your bedroom because you deserve a place of peace, to go to bed at night, to end your day in a peaceful state. I don't care where you start. What matters is that you start. Choose a place. I do like the idea of not starting with, like, a drawer that's gonna close. Cause you're gonna invest all this emotional energy, and you're never gonna make these choices, and. Yeah. And then the drawer's gonna close, and people are gonna be like, what did you do all day? This drawer.
- [64:22]
B
I have so completely spent a whole day on a drawer.
- [64:26]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [64:27]
B
Are you proud of that drawer? That drawer is amazing.
- [64:31]
A
There's nothing wrong with doing that. And when you're getting started, give yourself a big visible win.
- [64:39]
B
Yeah.
- [64:40]
A
Doing laundry and doing the dishes counts as decluttering. It's actually a great way to find out what your favorite things are. Cause it's the stuff you use and wear.
- [64:48]
B
Mm.
- [64:49]
A
When all your dishes are clean and all your clothes are clean, you know that the ones you just washed are the ones that you chose. And if all your stuff is clean and there's stuff you keep choosing over and over again, even though everything is clean, those are your favorites. Ditto dishes. So many people have more dishes than realistically fit in the space they have available for them. But there are some dishes you choose and use over and over and over and over. Those are your favorites. Keep those and donate the other ones. And don't worry about, like, this is a set I got when I got married. And, you know, it's an incomplete set. And so I'd want to complete the set so that I could sell it for so much money. Oh my God. The like, I could sell this for money. Nobody wants your stuff. Kids don't want. Your kids don't want your stuff, right? Your kids don't want your stuff, right?
- [65:43]
B
Probably not.
- [65:44]
A
Yeah, they don't want your stuff. The last thing I'm going to talk about this is going to be a short one. Cast the clutterbug talks about organizing styles. When you get to the point where you have only what fits in the space that's available to you that you can manage. And that you can manage is important. Danny K. White talks about a clutter threshold. How much stuff can you manage? Some people can manage, like packed stuff. I can't. I have a low clutter threshold, which is one of the reasons why our room was a disaster area 98% of the time when we were growing up. I have a low clutter. Like I need there to be much less stuff in order for me to be able to manage it. And in eight plus years of doing this, I still have not gotten rid of all the things that I need to get rid of in order to be able to manage it. Because this is a slow process for me. Like, there's a lot of feelings.
- [66:43]
B
So my thought was like, well, if you have to get rid of two things, every time you get a new thing, you should just get a bunch of new things.
- [66:52]
A
So there are times when I have to buy stuff, but. So I want to talk about declutter organizing styles. If you get to the point where your stuff fits in the containers, there's sort of two axes. One is, do you need your stuff to be visible or do you really want your stuff to be invisible? Are you a person who puts things behind closed doors or are you a person who, out of sight, out of mind, you forget you have it and you have to see it. And like, how do you feel? Some people really want that sort of minimalist look of like very few things on the walls. Nothing on your horizontal surfaces. Like your floor and your horizontal surfaces are lava. As far as your stuff is concerned, you just want like, just very little visible. And then some people are like me, where if I. If I can't see it, I forget it exists. So I need transparent containers very often. Or I really like lots of stuff. I like. I'm a maximal. Like we, we have a. We have a muppet academia design style. And that means I have walls full of art and objects and cabinets with sliding glass doors with like just stuff that everything that I look at feels delightful to me. So I am A visual organizer. I like to be able to see the stuff. And I'm also a macro organizer where I don't like little small categories of things. Some people are macro organizers. They're just like, all of my shirts go here. And some people are like short sleeve shirts go here and long sleeve T shirt types shirts go here or blouse, and then there's the hanging blouses. And they need like micro categories of organization. I am a visual macro organizer. A lot of people are hidden macro organizers. And those are bin people. Put it in a bin, close the door. You know it's in this bin. It doesn't. Like, all your shirts are in one place. They're all in this one bin. And you're okay with sort of like combing through, but combing through to find the shirt you need in that bin. But you are never going to be a person who carefully folds it and puts it in a specific place where it goes within that bin. Because you're just not a person who needs it to be in micro categories. Does that make sense?
- [69:17]
B
Yeah.
- [69:17]
A
Do you have a sense of like.
- [69:18]
B
My pajamas are in a bin, but my shirts are hung by sleeve type, fabric weight?
- [69:23]
A
Yeah. And a lot of people are. It depends on the category of thing and how they organize. And that's okay.
- [69:29]
B
And level of formality.
- [69:31]
A
Yeah, you're. So you do a sort of.
- [69:34]
B
I enjoy the micro.
- [69:36]
A
One of the struggles of your specific microorganizing style is that you don't have time to make it perfect. And so you don't start until you have time to make it perfect.
- [69:48]
B
Yeah, that's true.
- [69:50]
A
And so you end up with. So start with macro organizing. Like, put stuff away in macro categories. And the more stuff you get put away in macro categories, the more bandwidth you open up for creating micro categories. Like, your stuff is already. Like, all your shirts are here. And like, you. Because you don't have piles of crap everywhere.
- [70:11]
B
Yeah.
- [70:12]
A
You now have sort of the emotional bandwidth to like, go into your shirts and be like, let me joyfully and playfully have this delightful experience of putting things in their little micro categories.
- [70:23]
B
Yeah, that's the thing I like.
- [70:26]
A
Yeah, that's the thing you like.
- [70:28]
B
I just get stuck with the things that I bought and never used. And then my life changed. And like, that's bigger. Look, I'm. I have therapy next week. I'll talk about it with my therapy.
- [70:39]
A
Yeah. And that's okay. And like, if you're a microorganizer, Rich is a microorganizer. He's a visual microorganizer. He's a cricket. See, It's a clutterbug. So I'm a. I'm a butterfly. I'm a visual. Fortunately, we're both visual organizers, which makes life easier. If I were like an invisible macro organizer and I just, like, I wanted everything hidden, we would really struggle because he needs things visible or he forgets they exist. With, like, leftover food. I replaced all our food storage containers, to be clear.
- [71:15]
B
Yeah.
- [71:15]
A
And as much of our leftover food as possible, I put on the highest shelf because that's the first one he sees so that he doesn't forget we have leftover chili.
- [71:25]
B
Yeah.
- [71:25]
A
Because he can see it. It's the first thing he sees when he opens the fridge.
- [71:28]
B
Yeah.
- [71:29]
A
Fortunately, I am fine with that.
- [71:31]
B
Yeah.
- [71:32]
A
Do you have a sense of melon's.
- [71:34]
B
Oh, yeah. He forgets. If he doesn't see it, he. He doesn't know it exists. Which I think is why he spends so much time and energy telling me what's in the fridge. We've got leftover chili and there's some meatloaf. And I ordered a salad yesterday, so there's still some salad left over. Like, babe, I know. I looked in the fridge and I saw it. I know he's.
- [71:59]
A
Yeah, that one. That's a way of expressing care. Yeah, absolutely. Feeding people his care.
- [72:03]
B
But, like.
- [72:04]
A
And it helps to, like, reinforce for him, and it's the kind of thing.
- [72:07]
B
That would be news for him. And then I never think to do.
- [72:11]
A
I'm never like, you remember that meatloaf?
- [72:14]
B
You remember you made those sausages yesterday?
- [72:16]
A
Yep.
- [72:16]
B
They're in the black container on the second shelf.
- [72:18]
A
Yeah. We have no black containers.
- [72:20]
B
Yeah. But I.
- [72:23]
A
Maybe. Maybe you should. I mean, start saying. Because it's a thing I do remember. We have that chili that needs to get finished.
- [72:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [72:31]
A
And Rich takes it on as, like, a job in the home.
- [72:34]
B
Oh, yeah. Mehla has the food. He. He says out loud, I blame you for this. But now I try to finish things that are in the fridge and I'm like, my work here is done. Don't.
- [72:48]
A
Eating the food in your fridge is decluttering. Finish it.
- [72:52]
B
Yeah. Finish it or freeze it.
- [72:55]
A
Yep. Finish it or freeze it. And don't. Don't let it live in the freezer for more than a month. Eat it, because it'll just get frostbitten. Frost. Not frostbitten. It'll just get Freezer burned.
- [73:08]
B
Yeah. Freezer burn.
- [73:10]
A
Freeze a burn.
- [73:11]
B
So this is going to be another short episode and it's Way over an hour. Yeah, sorry. Sorry.
- [73:17]
A
But I think, like, this is maybe this is a really important part of, like, the things that you can do to help strengthen yourself. When your home is not taking a toll on you, that's one less thing that's taking a toll on you.
- [73:34]
B
Yeah.
- [73:35]
A
And we each deserve a home where we feel good, safe, connected, peaceful, joyful, loving, playful. We deserve that. What that looks like for everyone is going to be different. And the way you can tell whether or not you're there is by checking in with how your body feels in every space and looking at every object you own. The curtains in this room that I am looking at right now, I had a special order because the size. These windows are from the 1960s, in 1960, and they are a weird size, so I had to special order them, but they are exactly the right color. They're a beautiful fabric, and they fit perfectly, and they spark joy.
- [74:20]
B
Huh?
- [74:21]
A
I love them so much. Good. And then the curtains, like, people have different relationships with stuff. The curtains I have in the other bedroom are. Our grandmother made them for us for a specific room and a specific window. And it just so happens that these windows fit that size. And I love them. But you have negative associations with them. You don't like them at all.
- [74:48]
B
No.
- [74:49]
A
And that's okay.
- [74:50]
B
I don't remember anything about them specifically, but when I look at them, they.
- [74:53]
A
Make me go, yeah, they make you have a yucky feeling.
- [74:57]
B
Yeah.
- [74:58]
A
But they fit those windows really beautifully. That's one of the reasons we moved the guest bed to a different room.
- [75:03]
B
So you could leave the curtains and put me.
- [75:06]
A
So the curtains that fit so perfectly and that I have positive associations with. I have very little from our grandparents for a lot of complicated reasons. I have very little from our grandparents. But you have those curtains. Yeah. I took those curtains with me when I moved to Indiana, and they moved to 10 different places, and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to move them to Massachusetts. Also, they didn't fit any windows I had for 15 years until we moved to this house.
- [75:34]
B
Now you have the house where the curtains go.
- [75:37]
A
Yeah. And they spark fucking joy for me. Good. And they're like a thing. And, yeah, they're old, and they've got some tears and imperfections and stuff, but I love them. Good. So what it looks like for everybody is going to be different. And so much of our home, like, I completely get why our mother was like, keep your door closed. I just don't want to see it.
- [76:00]
B
Oh, 100%.
- [76:01]
A
Because there were spaces in the home that she got to be in charge of. Yeah. And she deserved to be in charge of those spaces because that is her home and she lives there. And she deserves to live in a place that feels good. And if we could not keep our shit together.
- [76:13]
B
Yeah.
- [76:14]
A
She did not deserve to have to be confronted with our bullshit.
- [76:18]
B
Yeah. I also think that autism had some to do with our.
- [76:22]
A
With our. With our nest. 100%.
- [76:24]
B
Yeah.
- [76:25]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [76:27]
B
Yeah.
- [76:28]
A
Which is why, I mean, like, one of the things about this system is that people talk all the time about how. Because they're disabled, because they're neurodivergent. It is so important that they have a system like the no mess method.
- [76:40]
B
Yeah.
- [76:41]
A
That allows them to walk away at any time and they're not walking away from a worse mess than they started with. Yeah.
- [76:50]
B
That's.
- [76:50]
A
Which is exactly what happened to me when I did the Konmari thing.
- [76:53]
B
Yeah.
- [76:54]
A
I was walking away from emotional piles of decision after decision after emotional decision. Yeah. So declutter and then organize. Yeah.
- [77:05]
B
And we'll talk about autism next week.
- [77:07]
A
So that's. That's the. That's the how to get started in making your home more manageable. And that is the why. To make your home more manageable. And those are some people that you can follow in books that you can read that can inspire you to make your home more manageable in a way that doesn't make your home less manageable.
- [77:25]
B
I'm going to donate that jacket and I'm going to get rid of that wooden. No longer a puzzle thing.
- [77:30]
A
Amazing. And your life will be more manageable. Just.
- [77:33]
B
Just. Just make my life a little bit better.
- [77:35]
A
Just make your life more eventual. A little less sympathetic. We're not solving the problems outside your home, but we're solving your home. And I think that's a really important place to start.
- [77:47]
B
Totally.
- [77:47]
A
Thank you for listening to all of this, and I hope it helped. And I'll talk again next week or maybe in two weeks because this is a big one. Okay, bye. How did you get here? You weren't supposed to be here. I put you here. I don't remember when.
- [78:24]
B
Of course you were, so. Okay, cool.