Dana K. White (0:00)

Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal deslobification process as I figure out ways to keep my own home under control. I share the truth about cleaning and organizing strategies that work in real life for real people, people who don't love cleaning and organizing. Thanks for joining me today. This is podcast number 448 and I think I'm calling it Comparisons or Containers. Okay, so we all know comparison is the thief of joy or whatever, right? Like, it's. Comparison's bad. Comparing ourselves, our homes to other people's homes is a negative. And I mean, I hope that we, we know that. I know it's a struggle, but I want to make sure we, everybody here knows that. What I teach is not how to get your house to look like somebody else's house. It's how to get your house to function for you. Okay, I have shared some about. You know, I used to assume that my goal when I started working on my house was for my house to end up looking like a magazine picture. That was in the olden days, y'all, when magazine pictures, that was the defining thing that we would use as an example of what a beautiful home was supposed to look like. Now we say Pinterest or Instagram, right? But that's what I assumed my goal was. I went through a lot figuring out how to get my house under control, what I call my deslobification process. As I worked on my house, as I got stuff out, and I realized pretty quickly that the more stuff I got out, the more I could function in my home easily. And how much I enjoyed and appreciated being able to function in my home easily. My goal changed. Like I realized, you know what? Actually, I don't. My goal is not for it to look like a magazine. My goal is for my house to not hold me back. Over the years, I've learned that having one high quality item I use and love is better than having a bunch of low quality items that take up space and end up shoved somewhere. This is why I'm happy to have discovered Quince. Quince offers a wide range of high quality items at prices within reach. When my kids are home, my two boys compete over who makes the best steaks. They like to practice when I'm the one buying the groceries. We were all impressed at the quality of the German stainless steel steak knife set I ordered from Quince. Such high quality at a fraction of what I'd pay elsewhere. Everything available at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How do they do that? By partnering directly with manufacturers. This way, Quince can cut out the cost of the middleman and pass the savings on to us. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.comclean for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C ce.comclean to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.comclean my goal is to be able to do the things I want to do and not have stuff come tumbling down every time I try to pull something off of a shelf, right? Like, my goal is to be able to open the cabinet and put away the food storage container. Like, and if I open the cabinet slowly, it's fine. Where before I used to hold my breath, close my eyes, put the food storage container as close as I possibly could to the cabinet opening, open it as quickly and as smallly as possible, and shove the item in and then close it so that things didn't topple on top of me. Right? Like, I have talked a lot about how my focus and my value became on having open space to be able to move around and do the things that I needed to do. It wasn't about having a perfectly decorated dining room table. It was about being able to eat at the dining room table, like without having to clear a bunch of stuff off first. That became the goal. Okay, but I just want to clarify this comparison thing, because it is true that comparison is not helpful or healthy. And you know, I talked in my recent book, I really tackle a lot of advice and I'm putting that in air quotes, right? Advice that people give in an attempt to be helpful, but that is actually not helpful at all. And advice that, that the person who seems to know what they're talking about gives to someone who is very bewildered by the thing that the other person is talking about. And yet that advice actually isn't helpful at all. It can really backfire for the person who really does want some help. And yet the advice given was not helpful. But they're like, I don't understand enough to be able to explain why this is not helpful. And so maybe it's just that I can't be helped, right? So I talk about that a lot in my new book, Jesus doesn't care about your messy houses. Like, ways that people have tried to encourage people, women, Christian women, to have a perfect house, you know, and like these cute little statements and things that just don't help. They don't actually give any Help. Anyway, so that's why I want to tackle this idea of comparison. And the reality of. That's not what we're talking about here, because I am all about accepting the reality of your space and your home, and that is what the container concept is. So the container concept, if you're new here, is the pivotal concept for me, understanding the container concept, which I named it that, or I think even maybe some of y'all named it that. Started just calling it that as I would talk about it, but that concept helped me understand why it had been so hard to make any progress in my house. Okay. All those years of me not being okay with my house, it making it really hard for me to function in my house, not being able to find things, things being a mess all the time, constantly being frustrated with my house. So much of that was solved when I understood the container concept. And the container concept is that space is finite. Space does not expand because I want to keep more stuff. So the. The very short version is that one day as I was working on my. I think it's my cookbook shelf, even, maybe I was talking to myself, and I was saying the word container, and I went, oh, my goodness. The word contain is inside the word container. Oh, okay. So firefighters work to contain a fire, which means they create a boundary. And the goal is to contain that fire within that boundary, keep the fire inside the boundary. And as long as it can stay inside the boundary, we can keep it under control. But if it goes outside the boundary, bad things happen. And I realized, oh, a container's purpose is to contain. It's to serve as a boundary, a limit. Where I had always thought of containers as things to put things in, I knew organized people loved containers, so I thought that must be what I'm missing. Even though I had plenty of containers, so I would just buy more and more containers. I would shove things in them, and my space never became more functional. And it was always a huge source of frustration to me because I thought I was doing what the other people were doing, and it didn't seem. Seem to work for me. When I realized that a container is a limit, I realized, oh, I don't have to go and find containers to put my stuff in. I need to let the containers be the limit. And then that freed me from looking at every single item in my home and assessing its value and thinking about, will I ever need it one day? How. How do I feel about it? All these kinds of things. Instead, I said, is there room in the container? I put my favorite Things in first, and once it's full, something in my brain goes, oh, okay, yeah, actually, I. I don't need all of them. I'm letting the container make those hard decisions for me again. I've written about this in all my books. I have videos. We're going to talk about one of those today. But like all of these things, this is a pivotal, pivotal concept is that space is finite. And the reality is that if I try to keep more stuff than I have space for, there is no hope of it ever being under control. Okay, Then there's also my clutter threshold, which is even if things do fit but I personally can't maintain them, then I need to have less stuff. I'm over my clutter threshold. I have more stuff than I can handle. And the only way for me to be able to keep my home under control is to only have what I can handle. And so that means I need to get rid of some things if I'm not able to keep my house under control. Right? So ultimately, what I teach is reality acceptance, which sometimes is really hard because sometimes I don't want to accept reality. Sometimes I don't want to be bound by that. But as I've gotten older, y'all, now that I'm 51, what in the world? But as I've gotten older and just as I've tried all the hard ways, all the wrong ways, and beating my head against a wall, as I just could not make things work the way that I wanted it to work, as I've done that, I have finally come to a point where I was like, you know what? Actually, if I will accept the realities of my space and accept the realities of what I can handle and what I can't, then it makes everything so much easier that it actually makes me grateful to have less stuff. Like, I'm incredibly thankful and I'm not resentful of not being able to have all this stuff. Instead, I'm thankful that I finally understand this is the thing that I was missing. Over the years, I've learned that having one high quality item I use and love is better than having a bunch of low quality items that take up space and end up shoved somewhere. This is why I'm happy to have discovered quince. Quince offers a wide range of high quality items at prices within reach. When my kids are home, my two boys compete over who makes the best steaks. They like to practice when I'm the one buying the groceries. We were all impressed at the quality of the German stainless steel steak knife set I ordered from Quince. Such high quality at a fraction of what I'd pay elsewhere. Everything available at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How do they do that? By partnering directly with manufacturers. This way Quince can cut out the cost of the middleman and pass the savings on to us. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.comclean for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com clean to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com clean I made it through the holidays, survived winter storms, launched a new book y'all Sometimes it feels like life is never going to slow down. If you wonder how I manage, let me just tell you that I am a big fan of using awesome tools like Prep Dish. Prep Dish is a great way for busy people to get nourishing meals on the table without the stress. Every week I receive an email that includes an organizing organized grocery list with instructions for prepping meals ahead of time. This means I instantly have a plan for a week's worth of dinner time meals that's super quick and easy. The meal plans are always seasonal so we never get tired of eating the same thing week in, week out. I love the Crock Pot meals for those days when I know I'll get home late and I need dinner to already be ready when I get home. 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It's time to shift the focus from trying to do it on your own to knowing that you can ask for help. Better Help's online therapy sessions are affordable and convenient, serving millions of people worldwide. You'll have access to a large network of credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. After being matched with a therapist, you can schedule your sessions at a time that is suitable to your schedule. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Build your support system with better help. Visit betterhelp.comclean to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h e-l p.com clean so why are we talking about comparison? Well, I have a video on my YouTube channel that is one of the ones that gets watched. You know, it ebbs and flows, but it's. It's one of those that has the most views of any of my videos. Maybe that and Layers of the Clean House. But this one, in this video, I explain the container concept. I'll link to it in the show notes. I demonstrate it. So I've got a bucket and I've got pens. And I'm like, oh, I love these pens. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'm gonna put the pen, my favorite ones, into the bucket first. And I explain the container concept and how something triggers in my brain when it's full that, oh, actually these are all great pens and yet I don't have the space so I can let them go. Right? It just, it's amazing how the container concept and really embracing it works. But in that I tell the little story of. It's my little hypothetical story. I'm sure I've told it on the podcast here a bajillion times. I've told it everywhere. But it is hypothetical. Even though I can picture the person who I'm, you know, thinking of, like, and how this would be very. A thing that could really happen, right? But let's say that I'm at my friend's house and she has a cute little craft shelf and it just looks perfect. And I'm like, man, I love her craft shelf. I wish mine looked like that. And I'm picturing mine at home. That is a whole craft closet that we're scared to open because if we open the door, everything's going to fall out, right? And I think what is the difference between my craft closet that is unusable and non functional, which is probably the same thing, but anyway, and her craft shelf. And I'm like, oh, the red bucket. That's the, that's the difference. And I'm like, oh, she has her crayons and a red bucket. So I go get a red bucket just like hers. I bring it home, I fill it with crayons, and I've still got 700 crayons left. And so I think, oh, my goodness, why does this not work for me the way that it works for her? And so I go out and I buy two more red buckets, because in my mind, that's the solution to this problem, right? Like, I want my space to look like hers. She has one red bucket, but that didn't fit all my crayons. And so I buy two more red buckets. I've got three red buckets. I go to put them on the shelf, and they won't all fit on the shelf. And so I'm like, oh, my goodness, why is this so hard for me? Why does it not work for me the way that it works for other people? And I go and buy another shelf, and then eventually I can't fit more shelves in my room. And then at some point, my room is, you know, full, and I'm like, well, obviously I need a new house, and I'm doomed to be disorganized because I can't afford a bigger house, right? Like. And so I think that that's the problem. Even though her house is actually smaller than mine, but it was not computing that. The reality was she was using her container without even realizing that's what she was doing, but she was using her container as the limit for crayons, and I was just buying containers to put things in, and I was not acknowledging the realities of my space that I had, right? So anyway, I mean, that's. That's the gist of the video when I go through and I demonstrate it, right? And it does really well. And so because it does really well, it shows up in random people's feeds who have no idea who I am, who've never heard anything before. And so this very helpful comment, which I. I know it was intended very nicely, right? But the. The comment was, which. I also am pretty sure this person only watched the very beginning of the video. But anyway, whatever. Which people do that a lot. This is the comment. The main mistake in this thought process is made right at the beginning. And this mistake is comparing yourself to your friend. There are people who only need one or two pens and markers, and then there are people who need way more artists, for example. On the other hand, your friend may need several drawers for her pots and pans because she likes to cook, while you may only need half a shelf for Your two pans as you don't. Anyway, this comment is focusing on me looking at my friend's shelf. Okay. Which was hypothetical anyway, but and assuming that the issue here is comparison, and it is true that comparison is not helpful, Right? And so the attempt here is to be helpful and say, oh, don't compare yourself to your friend. But that's actually not what was going on. What was going on was I am not okay with not being able to function in my home. I want to know what to do differently to be able to function in my home. And I'm trying to observe what is it that's the difference between this completely functional space and my completely non functional space. So it's not a comparison thing, but when you say something, I think I looked it up. What was it called? A logical fallacy. Right. A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning where an argument is made using invalid logic or irrelevant points. Okay, it's an. It is true that comparison is bad, but it's irrelevant in this situation. Okay? But the problem is when this comes in and this is like why I was talking about this is one of the things I tackled hard in my book was unhelpful help is that you're coming in and you're going, comparison is bad. And I'm like, you're right, comparison is bad. Except that I'm not okay with my space being non functional. And I'm trying to figure out how to make my space functional. But you just told me comparison is bad. And so you're right, but it's also, I'm not being helped, but I don't know what it is that I'm missing. I didn't know what I was missing to be able to say, no, no, no, no, no, it's not comparison I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is I want my space to be functional, blah, blah, blah. That's where I come in, y'all. I'm here to let you know it's not comparison. Okay? Comparison is not the issue. You're not comparing yourself to the person with a functional home. We might be comparison comparing ourselves, like, oh, she has it all together and I don't. That's comparison. Right? But when we're really trying to look at the space and go, I'm not okay with this. There are actual strategies. That's what I'm here to give you is the actual strategies so that you don't get caught up in this whole like, okay, well, she says comparison is the difference. And yet. And so okay, yes, I need to not compare myself, but I'm still miserable. There's hope, y'all. There's actual help. That's the real point of this podcast, is what's actually helpful versus what's meant to be helpful but ends up backfiring because it's not helpful, but the person needs to be helped. Doesn't understand why it's not helpful. Right? So it's not about comparison. It's about the container. It's about the acceptance of reality. When I accepted that the space that I have is the space that I have, I would have thought that that would be disheartening. Back when I thought that the problem was that I didn't have enough space to think that the space I have is the space I have felt like, oh, but when I realized, oh, no, no, the size of the space makes the hard decisions for me and I can let go of things because I am accepting reality, that was actually incredibly freeing to me. Okay, so there is a way forward, and that is to accept the reality that you currently, personally are living in. And there's so much beauty in that. Okay, there's so much beauty in that. Because every space in my home is a container. I don't need the same container that she has. That was never the issue, which container we had. The point of the container concept is that that is irrelevant. The actual thing that matters is whatever container I do have, whether that be a bucket or a bin, or just the size of the shelf or the size of the closet or the size of the clothing bar in the closet or the drawer or whatever the size of that space already is the container, it already exists. And I am so much better off if I accept the reality of the space that I already have instead of trying to compare it to hers. Right? No, I'm accepting the space that I have. That's what's going to change things. Springtime is arriving, so I am spending all the time I can outside whenever the temperature is right. My friends who are cat owners know what it's like to not have fresh air in the house if the litter box stinks. For their sake, I'm spreading the word about Pretty Litter. It obliterates odors so everyone can enjoy all the wonderful scents of spring. Pretty Litter's non clumping formula traps odor and moisture. It's ultra absorbent and lightweight. Also low dust, which I hear is really important. A six pound bag works for up to a month. My friend Jackie is loving testing out Pretty Litter for me and she was very happy to know that Pretty Litter changes color to indicate early signs of potential illnesses in cats, like urinary tract infections, kidney issues, and more. This gives her peace of mind. Pretty Litter shipped free straight to her door. And she loved that there was a toy included in the box, a toy with a bell that was perfect for her blind cat, Daisy. Pretty Litter keeps a house smelling fresh and clean. Try and you'll love it. Go to pretty litter.com slob to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. That's pretty litter.com slob to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. Pretty litter.com slobber slob. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. The Apple, Samsung or Google and Qualcare Condition Solo and Verizon. And the other big problem here is that the example given for comparison is, oh, well, she may need different things than what you need. And that is absolutely true. However, as long as my focus was on what I need, my house was a disaster because I'm very creative, and I can come up with a reason to need just about anything, right? Like, the example was maybe an artist. Okay, I. If I'm. If I'm an artist, y'all. I just did a craft room declutter video, specifically with craft YouTuber Kara Brandon. We decluttered her craft room like the reality. She's a junk journaler. She can literally use anything. So that is how I used to think. I would look at my stuff and go, what do I need? Well, I see value in things that other people would never see value. And so that's what I assumed was what I needed to be doing when I was decluttering was really focusing in on what I needed. Well, as long as I was doing that, I was keeping so much more stuff than could possibly fit in my house. When I shifted that and made it about the container instead of what I needed, it actually clarified what I did need versus what I thought I needed. Right. So when I view myself as I love cooking, well, then I had all kinds of baking stuff. I had every size of muffin tin and the amount of muffin tins that I could possibly imagine if I ever needed to make 36. 36 cupcakes. At the same time, I needed to have that. I had lots of mixing bowls and pans. I had tons of cookie cutters. I had the. Not just the regular cake pan, but the. The. The kind that. What's it called? I don't know. It's that kind where it has a little hinge on the side and you undo it and it comes off for like a cheesecake or something. I had all the different things I could possibly need because I was like, I love to cook. And so I need all of these. I need all the soup pots and I need all the pans and I need all of the plates and all of the forks and all of the glasses and all of the. Every single thing. Focusing on what I needed was actually causing me to have way more stuff than I needed by focusing in on the need. That was the problem When I said, okay, the size of my kitchen is the size of my kitchen, and if I have more stuff than will fit in here or more stuff than I can handle with my clutter threshold, meaning I'm not going to rearrange an entire cabinet to get one item out and then completely arrange it again after I'm done so that I can make this odd thing. I'll probably just never end up making it because I'm never going to do that, right? Or if I do need it, I'm going to pull everything out and it's going to be spread out all over the kitchen. That's over my clutter threshold. So accepting the reality of this is the space that I have and this is how much I can handle, suddenly sorted out to me things like, you know what, I don't bake that much. Actually. I could have two one dozen cupcake pans and still be able to do all the things that I need to do. Actually, I don't need to also have three mini cupcake pans. Okay. Because the size of the space was the size of the space. And so when I'm acknowledging that it helped me sort out what I actually needed, right? Oh, I don't need every mixing bowl that has ever come across my path or 5 cents or a dollar at a garage sale or whatever. I don't need it. Where. When I was just thinking about what do I need? Oh, I like to cook. So I'm going to grab these things up at a garage sale. When I say this is the space I have, I go, okay, well, if I only have one three shelf cabinet to put things in, then I can only keep the mixing bowls that will fit nested in each other on this shelf. And then on this shelf needs to be the measuring cups and then on this shelf needs to be the, you know, things to. So you know what I'll do? Muffin tins and a cake pan and a bread loaf pan, and that's what will fit there. And Then suddenly it frees me from this idea that I need it all. But ultimately it's helping me to accept what I really do need versus what I want, okay? Which starts to feel like a need, especially when it becomes an identity issue of I'm the person who likes to cook, right? So that's the main thing that I wanted to just bring up, okay. Is that sometimes people are trying to be helpful, but if they don't understand the real, actual thing that you're dealing with. Because the truth is, if somebody is someone who naturally sees space as a limit, which a lot of people do, and that's why they don't struggle the way that I did, right. Is they just naturally see that, and they may not understand that there are those of us who don't see limits, okay? And so naturally, it just kind of sorts itself out for other people, like, oh, I need more things. So they deserve space more. Where I was just like, well, I need more things. And I don't have place to put all the things, but I still need the things, right? So that clarification that we're not talking about comparing. Our goal is not to have a home like someone else. Our goal is to have a home that functions well for me. And the reality for that is that I need to accept the reality of my space. I need to understand the container concept, and I need to let that give me freedom because I don't have to make the hard decisions. I say, this is the cabinet I have, okay? Out of all these things that I've collected, because at some point they seemed really cool or useful or whatever, which ones deserve the space most? I'm not saying the other ones aren't cool and useful. I'm just saying there's only the space that there is in here, okay? It's another reason why I love doing what I do. Okay? I'm thankful that it lets me write. That was my whole goal. Why I even got started in the beginning talking about this stuff was I wanted to be a writer, and my house was a disaster. So I started writing about this, not thinking I'd still be writing about it this much later. But I am happy to be writing about it because I know how important it is to be understood. Okay, I understand because you as an audience, when I was first writing, of course, the audience was teeny tiny at the time, but I thought I was the only one. And therefore, when people would try to be helpful and their help wasn't actually helpful because they had no idea what was going through my brain it just made me feel all the more hopeless because it just made it feel unsolvable because they would give me advice that didn't actually help. And I was like, but they know what they're talking about and I don't know what I'm talking about. And so I. There must be something wrong with me because their help is not actually helping me. So it was so important for me to know, oh, I am not the only one whose brain works this way. And y'all were the ones who told me, me too, me too. That's how my brain works. Those are the thoughts that have run through my head. And that was helpful for me. So it's important for me to let y'all know that you're not the only one. Right. So I wanted to read something. I wanted to read a couple of comments that people had left that just kind of demonstrate, hey, this is the thing that makes all the difference. The container. I've been using your method for a week now. I'm struggling with the containing because for years I thought that containers were there for me to keep more stuff. And it doesn't help that I can fix almost anything. See there again. But I can see a difference. Thank you so much for your methods. It is helping me take my life back again after a hectic year where my season in life has changed a lot. So I wasn't the only one, y'all. I. I think I've shared this recently, but it's hit me not too long ago how I don't think I would have shared the container concept if I would have just figured it out in my own personal life and not figured it out while I was writing about it on a blog, even though it was anonymous. Right. It was public because other people said, ah, that changes everything for me too. And I went, oh, okay, so it's not me. It's not. I'm not the only one who didn't understand this concept. And so that's why I love hearing from you. And I want to give you all that confirmation that you are not the only one. Okay. Because again, somebody else sharing. I am struggling with the containing because for years I thought that containers were there for me to keep more stuff. And it doesn't help that I can almost fix anything. And so when we're looking at it as need or things that we should keep because I'm good at fixing things or whatever, that's when things get out of control. The way to have things under control is to acknowledge the reality of the space and that the container is a limit. Okay. I hope that was helpful. It's always fun to talk about the container concept, let go of comparison. But also know that if letting go of comparison does not solve your problems, there's actual other help. You know, there's actual other. There are real strategies. Yeah. And another comment that I had put put in my notes here was my mother used to always tell me to do the easy stuff first, but I never understood what that meant because nothing to me was easy. Because to me, nothing was easy until you explained it. Now that's what I'll think of as easy. Thank you. So some of us need things explained in a different way. And that's why I've talked for how many hours now we're on podcast? 4:48. That's a lot of hours talking. 220 something hours of me talking about this stuff. But that's why we're here. Because it is just not how we naturally see our space. Right. Okay, I will talk to you all later. Bye.