451: Decluttering without Making Decisions

Summary

Podcast Summary: Episode 451 – Decluttering without Making Decisions

Podcast Information:

• Title: Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
• Host/Author: Dana K. White
• Description: Reality-Based Cleaning, Organizing, and Decluttering
• Episode: 451 – Decluttering without Making Decisions
• Release Date: March 27, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 451 of A Slob Comes Clean, Dana K. White delves into the psychological barriers that often hinder the decluttering process, particularly the fear of making decisions. This episode, titled "Decluttering without Making Decisions," offers a strategic approach to tidying up by minimizing the overwhelming aspects of decision-making. Dana introduces her innovative five-step "No Mess Decluttering Process," designed to help listeners achieve organized spaces without the stress of constant decision-making.

Understanding the Fear of Decision-Making in Decluttering

Dana begins by addressing a common obstacle faced by many when it comes to decluttering: the anxiety associated with making numerous decisions about what to keep or discard. She explains that the fear stems from the perception that each item requires a final, definitive choice, which can be paralyzing.

Dana K. White [06:15]: "Decisions feel very final, right? And they’re not necessarily, but they feel so final."

She acknowledges the concept of clutter as "delayed decisions," suggesting that viewing clutter through this lens can validate the overwhelming nature of tackling disorganized spaces. However, Dana proposes an alternative perspective: decluttering without the burden of making every decision upfront.

The Five-Step No Mess Decluttering Process

Dana outlines her five-step process, emphasizing how each step reduces the need for immediate decision-making, thereby making the decluttering journey more manageable and less stressful.

1. Trash – The Decision-Free Step

The first step focuses on eliminating obvious trash. This phase is entirely decision-free, allowing individuals to remove items that unequivocally serve no purpose or hold no value.

Dana K. White [07:45]: "Step one is trash. Obvious decision. Free trash. Start with the trash because it gives you something to start with."

By concentrating solely on trash, listeners can make immediate progress, reducing visual clutter and building momentum for the next steps.

2. Easy Stuff – Streamlining the Process

After addressing the trash, Dana advises moving on to "easy stuff" – items that don't require significant emotional investment or complex decisions. These are items that one already knows how to handle, whether donating, recycling, or storing them elsewhere.

Dana K. White [09:20]: "Step two is the easy stuff. This is by definition the stuff that doesn’t require a decision. It’s the stuff I already know what to do with."

Focusing on easy tasks further alleviates the feeling of being overwhelmed and continues the decluttering momentum.

3. Duh. Donations – Simplifying Choices

The third step involves identifying obvious donation items. Similar to trash removal, this step is designed to be decision-free, allowing individuals to dispose of items they recognize as unnecessary without emotional hesitation.

Dana K. White [12:05]: "Step three is duh. Donations. Obvious donations that made me go duh. Why was this not already gone?"

By granting permission to donate without second-guessing, Dana emphasizes progress over perfection, reinforcing the importance of continuous improvement within decluttering.

4. Instinct-Based Sorting – Leveraging Intuition

Step four introduces a semi-decision-free approach by utilizing instinct rather than deliberate decision-making. Dana explains that this step involves asking instinctual questions about each item's utility and storage.

Dana K. White [17:10]: "Step four is a way for me to deal with all those little things that I don’t know what to do with. I am making a decision about what to do with them, but the process is instinct-based."

Listeners are guided to consider where they would naturally look for an item or whether it would occur to them that they already possess a similar item. This method reduces decision fatigue by relying on gut feelings rather than analytical thinking.

5. The Container Concept – Establishing Boundaries

The final step, known as the "Container Concept," revolves around defining spatial boundaries to maintain organization. Dana emphasizes that containers are not just storage units but serve as limits that prevent clutter from accumulating.

Dana K. White [22:30]: "The container concept is this space is finite. It does not expand because I want to keep more stuff."

By setting clear boundaries, individuals can ensure that their spaces remain organized, as containers dictate the volume of items they can hold, inherently controlling clutter.

Personal Anecdotes and Practical Applications

Throughout the episode, Dana shares personal stories to illustrate the effectiveness of her method. For instance, she recounts tackling her garage clutter during her daughter's spring break, highlighting the transformative power of following a structured process without the pressure of making every decision at once.

Dana K. White [10:50]: "I finally dealt with those boxes, and I’m like, so incredibly proud of myself."

These anecdotes demonstrate the practical application of her steps and offer relatable experiences for listeners navigating similar challenges.

Mindset Shift: From Perfection to Progress

A recurring theme in Dana's discussion is the importance of shifting one's mindset from striving for perfection to valuing progress. By redefining success as any improvement rather than a flawless outcome, individuals can cultivate a more sustainable and less stressful approach to decluttering.

Dana K. White [24:45]: "We’ve changed the goal from we’re going to get this space completely decluttered to we’re going to make this space better. That mindset shift is incredibly powerful."

This perspective encourages listeners to celebrate every small victory, reinforcing the idea that each item removed contributes to a better, more organized space.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Dana concludes the episode by reiterating the benefits of her decluttering process, emphasizing that significant progress can be made without the exhaustion of constant decision-making. She encourages listeners to embrace the first three decision-free steps to initiate change and gradually build the confidence to handle more challenging aspects of decluttering.

Dana K. White [36:10]: "You can declutter without making decisions because those first three steps are by definition decision free."

By following her five-step approach, individuals can transform their living spaces incrementally, reducing overwhelm and fostering a sense of accomplishment throughout their decluttering journey.

Notable Quotes

• Fear of Finality:
  “Decisions feel very final, right? And they’re not necessarily, but they feel so final.”
  — Dana K. White [06:15]

• Starting with Trash:
  “Step one is trash. Obvious decision. Free trash. Start with the trash because it gives you something to start with.”
  — Dana K. White [07:45]

• Instinct Over Decision:
  “Step four is a way for me to deal with all those little things that I don’t know what to do with. I am making a decision about what to do with them, but the process is instinct-based.”
  — Dana K. White [17:10]

• Container as a Boundary:
  “The container concept is this space is finite. It does not expand because I want to keep more stuff.”
  — Dana K. White [22:30]

• Mindset Shift:
  “We’ve changed the goal from we’re going to get this space completely decluttered to we’re going to make this space better. That mindset shift is incredibly powerful.”
  — Dana K. White [24:45]

• Progress Over Perfection:
  “You can declutter without making decisions because those first three steps are by definition decision free.”
  — Dana K. White [36:10]

Final Remarks

Episode 451 of A Slob Comes Clean serves as an invaluable resource for anyone struggling with clutter and overwhelmed by the multitude of decisions involved in decluttering. Dana K. White's structured, decision-minimizing approach provides a compassionate and practical framework, empowering listeners to take control of their spaces one manageable step at a time.

For more insights and strategies on cleaning, organizing, and decluttering, don’t forget to explore Dana's offerings and her newest book, Jesus Doesn’t Care About Your Messy House, which delves into the spiritual aspects of decluttering and overcoming the shame associated with a disorganized living space.

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Note: All timestamps referenced correspond to Dana K. White’s dialogue segments and are intended to highlight key moments within the episode.

Transcript

[Dana K. White]

Hey, y'all. I wanted to be sure you know that my fourth book is now available wherever books are sold. This is the book where I tackle the spiritual side of my desalabification process. My first three books don't have any spiritual content. They're full of the strategies that will take you from overwhelmed in your home to knowing exactly what to do to get your house under control. But this new book, Jesus Doesn't Care about yout Messy House, deals with the shame that so many of us feel over our messiness. My goal is to help you find freedom from that shame so you can move forward. Go to aslabcomes clean.com book book to find links to all my books in all of their formats. Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal desobification process as I figure out ways to keep my own home under control. I share the truth about cleaning and organizing strategies that actually work in real life for real people. People who don't love cleaning and organizing. Thanks for joining me today. This is podcast number 451, and I think I'm going to call it Declutter Without Making Decisions. Okay, so here's where I'm going with this. The fear of making decisions is generally a big part of the fear of decluttering, right? It feels like the stuff that I'm going to have to deal with is a bunch of decisions to make. And that's overwhelming, right? Because decisions feel very final, right? And they're not necessarily, but they feel so final. And it feels like I have to know what I'm doing. I have to feel confident that I'm making the right choice if I'm going to make this decision. And so there's all this fear around decision making. You know, I've heard of clutter being referred to as delayed decisions, right? Like things that I haven't already made a decision on yet. And I think that that's valid. I think it's true. And I'm as. As always, I say that if it helps you think of it that way, like if. If just acknowledging that clutter is delayed decisions helps you, great, right? But here's what I'm going to say for those of us who struggle, struggle with clutter, like me, is a lot of times things are not necessarily, yes, there are absolutely delayed decisions within the clutter, for sure. But then because clutter attracts clutter and piles attract growth of pile or however you want to say it, the reality is that some things that are just not even decisions at all. Like, it wasn't that I delayed a decision to put that baggie that I had brought my sliced apples to my office in. You know that that's not a delayed decision. It's just a. I set that down. Right? But when I just think of all clutter as delayed decisions, it can feel like, okay, well, then that's a lot of decisions to make because that's a really big pile or that's a really full closet, or that's a really ready to topple shelf or whatever it is, right? And so I present to you the idea that you can declutter without making decisions.

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[Dana K. White]

If you're new here, welcome. So I have my five step no mess decluttering process, right? Like this process I designed to help me make progress and only progress. And I do say going item by item, final decision by final decision, and acting on that final decision, right? And so I'm, I'm not like reinventing the wheel here. I'm just looking at this from the perspective of if decision making is your reason that decluttering is so overwhelming to you, let's look at it from the perspective of you can declutter without making decisions all the way to step five. And that's what I'm going to go through. I'm going to go through my five steps and talk about how you're making progress following the steps without making decisions. Now, yes, it's a decision, right? But. But it's. The pressure is not there. I'm not making this big daunting decision until step five. And by the time you get to step five, if you have started with step one, y'all, every space that I declutter, I use my own five step process because it keeps me on track and it just works, right? I use that. And every time I face a cluttered space I feel overwhelmed. It's fact. It's how it goes, right? Like, just literally two weeks ago, my daughter was home on spring break. She had like, oral surgery or whatever, you know, so we had some just down days where she's recovering, she's relaxing, you know, and I'm like, I'm gonna get stuff done around the house because it helps me to have those weeks where I'm like, you know, And I tackled my garage. I'm so excited to share it in a YouTube video next year because, you know, I do all my videos ahead of time, right, so that my son Reed can edit them over the summer. But I finally, like, I'm sure you've heard me mention, if you've been around a while, you know, we moved into this house however long ago, one year, two years, three years, and I've still got some boxes that I've never dealt with in the garage. Well, guess what? I finally dealt with those boxes, and I'm like, so incredibly proud of myself. Right? That was a big one. I looked at that space and it caused me to feel overwhelmed and caused me to want to shut down. And I was like, nope. Well, actually, I didn't even say that. I didn't even say no, Dana. No. I didn't talk myself out of it. I just said, I have a process to follow. I'm going to follow this process. And the process works in every situation. I do the same thing when I, you know, get behind on the kitchen and it's embarrassingly messy, and I'm like, oh, I have a process. I use my decluttering process on that too. Why? Because first of all, having a process means I don't have to invent a way to do this. I have a process to to do. I don't have to decide how to declutter. I have a process for doing that. But even the steps themselves of my no mess decluttering process, remove the decisions from them until step five. And even then, it's the container making the decision, not me, right? But I. I say right, and if you're new here, you have no idea what I'm talking about. We're going to get to that, right? But I am ready at that point. I am ready to make the decisions because I have a different perspective on myself. I have a different perspective on my stuff. I have a different perspective on my space. I have experienced success. I am a different person by the time I get to step five and I'm ready to make decisions. But the beauty is that I have made a Ton of progress before I ever made decisions. So let's go through this. Step five is the container concept. Okay, spoiler alert, the container concept. The short version is this space is finite. It does not expand because I want to keep more stuff, right? The purpose of a container is not to keep stuff in it. It's to serve as a boundary. It's to contain. It's to create a boundary. And then as long as I stay inside that boundary, things can stand or control. If I go outside that boundary, if I keep try to keep more stuff than will fit in this space, then there is no hope of it ever being under control, right? So carried all the way out, my entire house is a container. Every shelf is a container. Every drawer is a container. Every container is a container. Like, each space within my house is the limit to how much stuff I can keep. And when I view things that way, it changes everything, right? So I no longer am saying, is this a good item? That's a hard decision, right? To say, do I. Am I ever going to need this? I have no idea, right? I can't predict the future. Is this a valuable item? Do I love it? How do I feel about it? Those are all decisions. Those are daunting, right? And a lot of those things are. I don't know. I have feelings about it. But is that love? I don't know. So all of those decisions feel very daunting. So I've removed that from it. Instead of the value decision decision on this item, either whether I value it or it is valuable, I am instead letting the container decide. So even in that the container is making the decisions for me, I am saying, this is the size of the container. I'm going to pick my favorites. I'm not deciding necessarily. I mean, yes, I am deciding at this point which ones are my favorites, but that's very different from rejecting something. These are my favorites. And then the container draws the line and says, that's as many favorites as we can have. You may love the other, I may love the other things, but I can't keep them and my space be under control, right? So the real decision there is do I want my space to be under control or do I want to have the stuff at the expense of my space being under control? Right? But at that, that is the point where I'm making decisions. But I'm ready for that because of the first four steps. All right, so step one, Trash. Obvious decision. Free trash. Start with the trash. Because when you start with the trash, it gives you a thing to start with it gets you moving immediately. It helps me to start to see everything that's in there. Because I'm looking for trash. I am looking for non emotional decision free trash. Decision free. Decision free trash. Here's the thing, when I say trash, if you find yourself looking at something and thinking, oh, you know, and I did a whole podcast this on this recently, right? Like the whole podcast was about how it's not possible to struggle with obvious donations, right? It's not possible to struggle with trash because the whole point is that it's decision free. Like, I'm specifically talking about the things that are decision free. So because of that, I'm skipping over anything that feels like a decision at this point and I'm just getting out the trash because it gives me something to do. It gets, makes the space less visually overwhelming with every item that leaves. And I'm starting to build. Like, you know, I always say I'm, I find trash all through the process. Yes, Step one is trash. I look for trash, I deal with that trash. I put it in the trash or the recycling, whatever I've got, right? But I'm going to continually find trash. Sometimes it's because I uncover something that I didn't see before, but other times it's because something didn't appear to me as obvious trash in the beginning. But the more obvious trash I get out, the more something else becomes obvious trash, right? And so, yeah, okay, so step two is the easy stuff. This is by definition the stuff that doesn't require a decision. It's the stuff I already know what to do with, right? All I'm doing is I'm identifying the things that I already know what to do with those things. I go ahead and do that to get them out of the space. The space becomes less visually overwhelming. And when I come back to it, it's, I'm ready to move on to the next thing. Okay, but I've gotten out trash. I've gotten out easy stuff. Those are all decision free, right? I find again and again and again, especially a space that I had decluttered at one point and then it, you know, got recluttered so many times. It is just trash and easy stuff. I will feel like this is a full on decluttering project when I start. And then when I actually get going on it, I do the trash, I do the easy stuff. And I'm like, oh, yeah, actually that was all there was. And it was not a single decision. But when I looked at it, it felt like a big old pile of decisions, right? So, so, so much of the progress in a space is trash and easy stuff. 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[Dana K. White]

Step three is duh. Donations. Obvious donations that made me go duh. Why was this not already gone? Right? And it's just giving myself permission to go ahead and get more stuff out without any emotional energy being spent. Okay, like, I am not talking about the things that I should get rid of. I'm not talking about the things that I. What? It's the stuff that. Oh well, I can get that out of here because it has no decision to it because it has no emotion involved in it. Right? So those first three steps, I always refer to those as my decision free emotion Free steps. Those are the steps that I recommend you zero in on when you feel like you have no decision making energy. Because it is always worth it to go through those three steps or any one of those steps on any space ever. It's good, gonna be significantly better. You're going to feel better about your space, you're going to be successful, you're going to make decluttering progress. Not going to be done right, but you're going to make progress just with those first three steps. Especially if you go into it saying, I don't have emotional energy, I cannot make any decisions right now, so I'm going to do these things right? Like, that is really, really powerful. So much progress can be made with just those three, by definition, decision free steps, right? So then we get to step four. Now this one is the one where it, for today's purposes, we're going to call it decision free. I feel very firmly that this is decision free. But it's also a way to make decisions, right? Like these are the items that they're not easy, they're not trash, they're not an obvious donation, meaning it feels like something I think I would like to keep, right? And yet this space is a disaster. I used to always say, I think I remember I did a post early, early on about organizing my laundry room. And this was before I had realized and acknowledged and given myself permission to experience the power of just decluttering, right? Like I felt like everything I was doing was organizing, right? When in reality decluttering was actually the thing I needed to be focused on. I didn't know there was a difference between organizing decluttering, right? So I remember. And it was also before I had my no mess process. So I had pulled everything out of the space and I'd made this big, you know, whatever. And I remember saying something about I can get started usually sometimes, but I always get down to where I have all these little things and I don't know what to do with all these little things. I would say that I hear that from you all the time. Step four is a way for me to deal with all those little things that I don't know what to do with. And so yes, I am making a decision about what to do with them. But the process that I use to make that decision is actually instinct as opposed to decision. It's a way for me to learn, acknowledge and act on instinct as the way to make the decision. So it's not an angsty decision like, oh no, what do I do? Where does this Go all those things that I thought were the things that I needed to be doing instead, I boil that down into 1, 2. If I can't answer the first one instinct based questions, right? So the first question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? That is not a decision. That is acknowledging an instinct. Because this item was not easy, which means it does not have an established home in my house. Okay, so we're not saying it's easy to answer this question. It might be hard to acknowledge your instinct. And yet it is an instinct, which means that if I am agonizing over it, I'm doing it incorrectly. If I am deciding where I would look for it first, I'm not actually doing this. I'm not actually answering or asking this question correctly. I need to acknowledge the instinct instead of decide the place. So what I mean by that, if you, okay, this item's not easy, right? But you pick it up and you're like, yeah, I would. Okay, where would I go looking for this if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? You're picturing yourself at the beginning of a three hour process of searching for this item. Like that's the picture in your brain. That's the assumption of what it's going to be. That's the past experience that you're drawing from is tearing your whole house apart looking for an item. This feels like it would be one of those items, right? So we're gonna go with the instinct of where's the first place that I would look? What's the first drawer I would open? What's the first cabinet door I would open? First closet I would look in? Where in that closet would I look? And then I am going to take it to that space right now. There's really not a decision there. It is instinct. It can feel difficult, especially when you don't have the experience of this. Especially when you don't trust that you're ever going to find anything. It's really zeroing in on, okay, what's my instinct of the first place where I would look for this? Okay. And I do that and then I take it there now. Taking it down there now is not a decision. If you're following my no mess process. You know that the take it there now is actually the key to not making a bigger mess when I declutter, right? Like that's actually the, the hinge of the door that separates messy decluttering from no mess decluttering. So, like, that is the key. That is the key is to take it there now. And I know, I know you have to make yourself do that. I know you don't want to do that. One of the ways that I tell myself and get myself to do that thing and make it not feel like this, I'm deciding, I'm committing to doing this, is say, you know what? I'm just going to see, just gonna see for the sake of reminding myself of this thing that I've written books about. So I totally know it works. And I hear from people all the time, are like, this is the game changer. This is the thing that changes everything when I take it there now. But I know, I know for a fact. And yet I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna try it out again and just see. And I do. And every time it works every time. It's shocking the impact of taking it there now that things just literally disappear. Literally. This space only gets better and only gets better. And when I set it aside and I don't take it there now, that's when I really do have to then go, okay, at what point am I going to finally deal with this stack of stuff? Am I going to deal with it when I stop for the day? Or am I going to wait until I'm done with the whole project? Because I often stop before I'm done with the whole project, right? And if I don't deal with it today, then when am I going to deal with it? When am I going to come back to the space? Those are all decisions. But if I take it there now, I don't have to make those decisions. This is how I know it works for me to do the no mess decluttering process is to take it there now. So I go ahead and I take it there now and then there's no decision to make, right? Because I acted on instinct and then I took it to that place. And yes, I do have to. That is where the container concept comes in. Okay. If that space is full, then I do have to acknowledge, okay, so yes, this is a decision about what am I willing to get rid of in order to create the space for this. Ideally, it's going to be trash, which is decision free. Oh, yeah, that's right. That should go in the trash anyway. Or recycling or obvious donations. Oh yeah, that's obvious. It just takes a moment for me to go, that's right, I got to get rid of something. But I'm still going to get rid of. Ideally I'm going to get rid of something that is decision free, okay? So I'm. I'm going ahead and I'm acting on that. If I can't answer the question, where would I look for it first? Then I go to my second decluttering question. I don't ask this one first because this is where I get into a big argument with myself. If I was to ask this, if I was asked to ask the second question first, that's when I argue with myself, okay? Which becomes the decision thing. And then I'm okay. But if I have a place where I would look for it, I go ahead and take it there now, acknowledge the reality of that space, give it a place to be by getting rid of something that is decision free, Right? But if I don't have a place where I would look for it first, then I say, if I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that already had one? That's actually not a decision. That is acknowledging reality. It's admitting not deciding. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not a decision. And somehow that makes it easier for me. Instead of me saying, dana, I need to get rid of this thing. I need to decide to get rid of this thing, because I probably wouldn't even remember that I had it. That's a decision. That's an internal argument. That's a lot of angst and emotional energy for me instead, saying, if I needed this, it's a yes or no question. If I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already had one because I didn't have a place where I would go looking for it? It's a yes or no question. Would it occur to me that I had one, Would it not occur to me that I had one? Okay, if it wouldn't occur to me that I had one, that's really not a decision. It's just admitting the facts that I would probably go buy another one. And I'm trying to declutter right now, not bring in extras of things that I already have, because that was the problem. That was a big part of the reason why I had so much clutter was that I had so much stuff in my house. I had no idea where it was, no idea what I even had because I had so much stuff, because things didn't actually have places to be, and things were in the bottoms of piles. And so therefore, it didn't cross my mind that I had it because I was so overwhelmed. And also sometimes when it did, I just was like, I, I don't have it. In me to go looking because I have no idea.

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[Dana K. White]

So I'm admitting and I'm acknowledging reality as opposed to making a decision. Okay, now I know this is a stretch and some of you are like this, like a decision, okay? But you have a process for making a decision. This is a way to think of it. If decision making is your fear, know that you can make tons of decluttering progress before you ever make a decision. Y'all. If you get out the trash, if it's going to look so much better. If you get out the easy stuff, it's going to look even better. If you get out the obvious donations, it's going to look so much better. If you go through every last random item that is in this space that you didn't know what to do with and that didn't used to have a home, this space is going to look a whole lot better and you are now a different person. The action that you have taken of making final decisions without actually decision making, right? But instead acting on instinct and acknowledging reality, you're different now. This space is different. Okay? You're now a person who has less clutter. You're a person who knows how to significantly, positively impact a space. You're different. You have less clutter. You have a significantly better space than you had before. You're a person who knows what was in that pile, okay? You know exactly what you have in this space, you know where things are that were in this space that even have a new home. Why? Because you put them in the first place where you would look for it. Right? So you know what you have, you have a better space. You're a person with significantly fewer decisions in front of you to make than you had before. Even though you technically didn't make any decisions to get here. But the person you were before felt like you had so many decisions to make, the person you are now knows that you have so many fewer decisions to make than you thought you had to make before. Okay? So you are different than you were. So by the time you get to the fifth step, where we are acknowledging, okay, everything in here now is something I would look for in this space, and yet it doesn't all fit in this space. At that point, looking at what is left and saying, okay, out of all these things, I'm gonna remove and donate my least favorite things. You're not the same person saying, what's my favorite and least favorite that you were. If you would have started with, what's my favorite stuff? What's my least favorite stuff? Back in the beginning, when also there was a whole bunch of trash here and there were things that you had no business wanting. You, of course you didn't want it. It was an obvious donation when you had things that already did have homes and didn't need to have any kind of decisions made about them. When you were looking at all of that stuff, if you had asked, okay, I'm going to get rid of my least favorites, it was overwhelming because it felt like, oh, my goodness, I'm going to have to get rid of so many least favorites. And in reality, there were a lot of things that were in no way favorites that didn't even deserve to be asked. Those questions about that you would ask at this, you know, final fifth step of acknowledging the realities of, of the space. Okay, so you're a different person by the time you get to step five and you're ready, you have been successful, you know what you're doing. You've started to see what this space could actually be. Right? It's no longer an abyss, it's no longer a big old pile. It is so much better because of the decision free stuff that you did that you're like, okay, I can actually see how this could work. I can actually see the future for this space. And that excitement gives you energy as opposed to draining energy. So at that point, you're actually getting to the end of step four with more Energy, more emotional energy than you had when you started. And that's counterintuitive for the person who is scared of decluttering because of the fear of decision making, right? It feels like here's this big old pile. If I was ever to get to the end of it, I would be just absolutely dragging myself along because all energy would be completely gone by the time. Instead, you have more emotional energy. Energy because of the success, because of your feeling confident and competent in this process. Right? So remember, here's the other beauty. Remember that our goal, our meaning us. Y'all listening, right? People who we, we follow this no mess process. Our goal is always better. We've changed the goal from we're going to get this space completely decluttered to we're going to make this space better. That mindset shift is incredibly powerful. I am going from this idea that what's the point if I don't get it done right? To okay, now I do get it right. Like, now it all makes sense to me. Okay, so. So our goal was better. Every item gone is better. I am counting that as success, which is the thing that allows me to get started. When I know that I can stop at any point because I will have achieved better. When I have this idea that, oh, I've got to get it all the way done and I'm not following this progress and only progress, mindset and strategy, then it feels like, what is the point of starting when I don't. When I know I'm not going to have the energy or the time or whatever to finish, but because I know that I can stop at any time because my goal was just better. And every item that leaves making a final decision, decision about it is progress and is legitimate, you know, achieving of the goal of better. That's the thing that lets me get started. Right? So remember things to celebrate. Every item gone is decluttering. Every item gone is better. Every item gone is real legitimate progress. Every item gone is worth your time that you're spending in this space. So you can declutter without making decisions because it counts as decluttering. Even if you don't get to that fifth step that requires decisions. Even if you are like, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't view step four asking the two decluttering questions as not really making decisions. I. I just can't. I'm. I know I'm using instinct, but I just can't view that as not decisions. Okay? It's still worth it to go through the decision free steps. You can declutter without making decisions because those first three steps are by definition decision free. And because our goal is better, that is legitimate decluttering. So you can declutter without making decisions. But even when you go all the way through to step five, which is the goal, right? Like that's how we finish a space and make it organized. Really, going through all five steps is worth my time. And ultimately it is decision free. And remember too that that fifth step even, okay, has two parts to it. The first part of the embrace the realities of the space, okay? The implementing the container concept. The first part of that is consolidate. It's putting, like items together. So we are down to only the items that I would actually look for in this space. The first part of that fifth step is completely decision free. It is simply without pulling everything out, moving like items together. I'm going to put all my water bottles together. I'm going to put all of my, you know, insulated cups together. I'm going to put all of my coffee cups together. I'm going to put the glassware together. I'm going to put the plastic restaurant cups together. Just doing that, it is decision free. It is part of the process because it naturally means if I'm doing that, I'm touching every single item, I'm acknowledging every single item and it goes from drinking thing to plastic cup that is completely. Everything is rubbed off of it. I don't even know what it was. And nobody drinks out of this, okay? Actually it becomes an easy thing, a decision free, easy item or trash, right? As I do that, I naturally go, I have how many non insulated water bottles? And actually nobody in our family drinks anything except out of insulated water bottles. Actually, those become easy, right? So just that act, that part of step five that is the consolidate is by definition decision free and helps us get rid of even more. To make it even easier, once you get down to the point where you're picking favorites, all right? And even picking favorites is instinct. But even if you want to think of it as a decision, deciding what's the best, great. You are a different person at that point than you were when you started. And even if you're not ever ready to get to that step, you are so much better off for having done any of the steps. Any of the steps, because the goal is better, right? So you're better off. All right? I hope this was helpful. I will talk to you all next week. Don't forget my newest book, Jesus doesn't care about your messy House is the spiritual side of my dislappification process. I would love it if you go and check it out if that's something that is interesting to you. I really tackle hard the misconceptions around what the Bible says about cleaning, but also just really diving deep into the shame issue, which is such a difficult thing for so many of us who struggle with clutter. Right. Okay, I will talk to y'all later.

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