Dana K. White (2:41)

Your feed this summer.

Dana K. White (2:42)

All right, here you go.

Dana K. White (2:45)

Hi. I am so excited to be here live. I am later than I normally am, but I thought, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and and do this today, so who knows who's gonna join me? So in these live videos that I try to do Tuesdays at noon Central, today's later than that because I literally flew all night and landed this morning. And then I'm just now back in my office. So if I fall asleep in the middle of this, well, that'll be interesting, right? Anyway, you can hear me snore. I am answering questions that have been submitted ahead of time@askdanikayte.com.

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Dana K. White (3:58)

Okay. And I think it's a good thing to mention if you don't know my history. I started doing what I do, a slobcumps clean dot com. I started doing that as a way to stay focused on my house and figure out what it was that I had been doing wrong or what I had not been doing for all the years that my house was a complete disaster. In the beginning, it was anonymous. It was never intended to turn into this. Okay. I did want to have an online, you know, writing and all that kind of stuff. I didn't want to write about the house, right. Like, because that was the thing I'd always struggle with. But I did that as a way to kind of learn about it while getting my house under control. And so one thing I do to keep myself in check is which I think is kind of bled over into the house, which is something that is. Is helpful, is this. You know, if you're looking for perfect, this is not the place to find it. Like, my stuff online is never going to be that many. I'm a perfectionist in certain areas of my life. I can't be here because if I focus on perfectionism and if I say I am, you Know, if I can't go live right at noon, well, then, you know, I'm not going to do it. Well, then we don't get this time together, right? We don't have this opportunity to have these discussions and conversations. And so it is. Has been very helpful for me and beneficial that I started the way that I did as a way to stay focused, because it gave me permission. It helped me give myself permission to say, you know what? I'm going to do what I can do, and if it ends up hindering me being able to keep my house under control, then I'm not going to do that. I'm only going to do the things that are helpful to me and work within my actual life. Okay, so it's been, like, a boundary that I've had. But, for example, you know, for, like, 10 years, I didn't do YouTube. I did nothing on YouTube. And the reason was that when I did YouTube videos, you can go watch the old ones. I've just. Sometimes I debate. I'm like, should I cut all those out? And I'm like, no, you all need to see where it all started. But when I was doing those YouTube videos 10 years ago or more than that, I don't know. As I was doing that, I was. I realized that I was stopping myself from decluttering. I was thinking, oh, I need to work on that spot. Oh, I don't want to put on makeup. I don't want to fix my hair, y' all, today, this is my. I just flew in and my hair is still wet, But I don't. I don't want to do. You know, I don't feel like getting dressed, blah, blah, blah. And so I wouldn't declutter. And so I realized after a year of doing those videos that was actually hurting my house, and that's why I stopped doing them. So, like, if you watch my Thursday videos that come out, which are the ones that are edited and everything, I know there are people because they say it most y' all are amazing. But there are people who are like, oh, I don't like this because you're not actually filming it. In the moment of you doing all this, I'm like, you literally have no idea how to look in that moment. I mean, like, it is super scary. I have one coming out soon where I shut myself a little bit, and I'm like, oh, should I not do that? But. But the reality is, I had to say, if I'm gonna do this, it has to help my house, right? And so the way I can do that is I'm go ahead and declutter and I'm just gonna, you know, shoot the pictures and the little B roll of the things that I'm doing, and then I'll come in later and I'll explain what it was that I was doing when I'm actually, like, you know, properly attired. Because I'm not usually properly attired when I'm doing my regular decluttering. I look pretty interesting. So anyway, I'm. I just think it's important because I know that so many of us have. That we have that project brain, right? Like, I don't focus on the whole perfectionism thing because I. I don't know, it's something I've done podcasts on. I've really dove into before in that, and I won't right now. But I do know that with that project brain that we have, it's like, okay, well, until I have everything in place and ready to just go, I'm not gonna do it. Well, that never made my house any better. And it's the same way with my house, right? Like, that whole big idea of I'm going to do it, right? I'm going to do it perfectly, I'm going to do it all the way, and then nothing ever happens, right? So, like, my T shirt I have on today, you know, it's the one that says better is good. Right? Like, that's my philosophy. So anyway, a video at 115 is better than no video because I couldn't do it at 12. Right? Okay, but like, and how does that carry out in my home in all the things that I do? All right, so let's answer some questions here. I will be putting up the abbreviated version here, and I will be reading the full question as the person asked it. Okay? I have three children, 10, 7 and 4. They love to keep everything. With birthdays and holidays, it seems they are always getting new toys, but never want to let go of the old toys. In what ways would you explain to small children that it's okay to let go? Okay, here. Here's how I go about this, okay? I don't start out by explaining it's okay to let go. Okay, let me just go back to what I always say, right? Which is I go through the process, the five step process, instead of building it up. Because this is what I used to think with the whole project mentality. And like, I'm going to do this correctly. I'm like, I got to get in the right mindset. I got to do all the, you know, the brain work ahead of time so that I'm ready to just get in there and get the stuff done. And then I never got anything done. Right. And so the mindset shift actually happens as you declutter using the no message, emotion free, but it acknowledges that you have emotions. And that's okay process, the five step, no mess, decluttering process. Okay? It's progress and only progress. And so you either get to an emotional point and you have to stop, and that's okay because we've only made progress. And while this space is better and better is good. Right? And that helps them start to see the power of having less in the space. And they haven't actually. They were able to stop when they got emotional about these things or it helps you work through those emotional things. But as far as a practical thing to do with kids, okay, I mean, like, you know, I think it was 10, 7 and 3 or whatever, you know, that's quite a range. Like, the 10 year old can understand a whole lot more than the three year old. And yet for everybody, anywhere, the container concept is true. It's not just a way to explain things. It's an actual physical reality that if we don't accept it, our house can't be under control. If we refuse to accept the container concept, the house can't be under control. If we embrace the container concept, the house naturally gets under control. Okay, so, so what does that look like? Well, just to, you know, say super briefly, what I've spoken for hours on the container concept is that every space within your home is a container. And a container's purpose is to serve as a limit, as a boundary. When I view containers as a boundary, as opposed to viewing them as a place to put stuff. When I thought containers were something to put things in, that meant when I filled one, I got another, and then another and another, and my house stayed out of control, okay? But when I realized they were a boundary and I said, okay, this is the amount of space that I have for a bucket for my crayons. So this bucket that's on the shelf that exists in my home and I don't have other space to give to it, this bucket is what makes the decision about how many crayons I can keep, okay? And then I don't have to make value decisions and blah, blah, blah, okay? Like I said, I've spoken, written all that kind of stuff, you know, what does ad nauseam mean? Y' all are always good at looking things up for me later. Ad nauseam that's what it feels like. I have spoken on that. But anyway, I mean it, it doesn't it mean like over and over and over. But then the whole nausea thing, like gives such a great word picture anyway. I don't know, maybe it means something completely different, but I've spoken on and on and on about the container concept, but how does it work in this situation? You let the container make the decision for them as opposed to you having this back and forth about it's okay to let go. It's these things aren't valuable anymore. You never play with this. We don't have to have those discussions because we let the container be the decision maker, okay? They are the ones deciding what goes into the container. But we do that in a way where it's okay, this is, this is their room that they have, okay? And whether it's their bedroom, a player, whatever it is that your personal situation in your home is whatever space where toys are kept or where you want toys to be kept, because right now they're all over the house or whatever this space is. The room itself is a container. And the first thing that goes in that space space is open space to actually play with the toys, right? Like if every surface is covered with toys, if the entire floor is covered with toys, if there's no open space, then the toys don't actually have space to be played with. So that's the first thing that goes in the container. So you're the one deciding what the container is, right? So here's the room that we have that toys go in and it's their bedroom or whatever. And this open space, like the, the thing that goes in that is people playing. That means we can't just have toys stored there. That's not what the open floor is for. Instead it's going to be okay. In this space we've got the bed that takes up room. So that is not a storage space because that is the purpose is for sleeping. I know some kids will say, you know, stuffed animals. And yet you have to kind of go along this line in that even if you are, you know, using the bed as stuffed animal place, but this is the room, this is the space. And then within this space, what room do we have for storing toys for us? When my daughter was young with stuffed animals, Stuffed animals is one of those where it's like they are highly sentimental, right? Because they're just so cute, they are cuddly and they are a comfort thing. And you know, grandma gives them or so. And so give Them, gave them or whatever, you know, like stuffed animals. So we designated a shelf that was one that wasn't as accessible for her because she didn't actually play, play with them all the time, but her heart, you know, just. I mean, she couldn't get rid of them. Right? So this is the shelf that we have for stuffed animals because that is what worked within this space, right? And here is the, the bookcase for your books or here is the Barbie bucket or whatever. You know, we had a Barbie bucket. So like, these are the things that fit within the space and, and still give, you know, priority to actual room to, to play in. So as we do that, then your job is to say, look, we've got this shelf and we're going to put your stuffed animals on there so that you can see all of them and so that they all. You can enjoy them more. Right? Like, isn't that exciting? This is the shelf. The shelf is where the stuffed animals are going to live. Okay, let's put your favorite ones on there first. This is what we do with my daughter. Of course, she's 17 now, but like, this is years ago. Most of the stuffed animals are gone now. But anyway, so that, that shelf though, at that time, this, this was the, the space for it. And we say, okay, we're gonna put in this space your favorite stuffed animals first, y' all. That's fun, right? Like, that is not the, it's okay to let go. It's the out your favorite ones first. And they start doing that and it naturally sorts out the things that they most love and don't love as much. And then when the container is full, when the shelf is full. For us, it was a three shelf little thing that we had. There's pictures on the blog years ago. I'll never remember to go link to them. So maybe someone can find it, I don't know. But the three shelf thing, once that was full, it was like, okay, well, it's full, the contain, the container is full, the shelf is full. So the other ones are going to need to go. And I kind of work that into conversation as they're picking out their favorites and going through all that fun stuff. It's this, you know, anything that doesn't fit, we're going to give to, you know, other kids who, you know, who need stuffed animals that they don't have as many as you, you know, so they're going to go to great homes. But, you know, this is your container for that. And it just takes the emotions out of the process and it is pretty rare that you get to the point where it is bursting at the seams and you're trying to make that hard last decision. It usually just naturally sorts itself out as, oh, I'm looking for my favorites. And it's like, oh, yeah, those are not my favorites. It's amazing how that works. But even when it does, it's the container making the decision. It's not mommy saying, no, you never play with that one. Or, that's from Aunt so and so. And, you know, we haven't spoken to her in 15 years. Whatever. You know, like, they are the ones making those decisions, but they are learning to accept the boundaries, which is the basis of your house being able to be under control of your house being able to be maintainable for you is accepting the boundaries of the realities of the spaces that you actually have. Okay, so it's the. This is our Barbie. Beckett, put your favorite Barbies in there first. And then the beauty of this is every answer is yes. You never have to be the bad guy. Every answer is yes. So when they say when they went through all of that, it was a hard decision, and then they find their very favorite Barbie in the car because they took it to their brother's baseball game or whatever, you. They get that Barbie, and they're like, oh, no, this one. And there's no room in the bucket. Of course you can keep that one. Which one is your least favorite? You know, maybe even just say, you know, which one are you willing to donate so that we have room for that? You can absolutely keep it, but, you know, we just need to make the room for it. So just let's donate your. Your least favorite so that we have room for this one that you love so much that you took it to baseball game. Okay. And so the answer is, yes, of course you can keep it. We just have to get rid of something to create the space for it. All these things are really foundational concepts for them to be successful in their own homes in the future anyway. And so it's a great, easy way to work through this with kids. If they say, oh, but I have to keep all of my Barbies, I need another bucket, you can still say, okay, yes. Do you want to get rid of this bucket of Hot Wheels cars or this bucket of Polly Pockets or this bucket of Paw Patrols things so that we can keep the. I don't. Y' all. I don't know the age appropriateness. Some of you are like, those are all different age. Whatever. Okay. I'm just trying to come up with stuff in the top of my head. It's like, absolutely, you can keep more Barbies. We just have to get rid of something over here. So fix it. Oh, I can't do that. Oh, yeah. Then there's not, you know, any room for any more Barbies. And you're letting. And you can give them a hug, and you can and, you know, comfort them and say, it is hard. It's hard getting rid of stuff. But the space we have is the space we have, and we need to have the room to actually play with these things. So it's just going through that process, Working through the container concept is the best way to do this with children and with me. Whatever that says about me, okay? It works. It. It works. It just works because you're honoring them, too. And remember, if the thing that happens a lot of times with kids is that the thing that they're more than happy to get rid of is either sentimental to you or, you know, how much you paid for that or whatever. If you're the one who wants to keep it, you need to find room in your own container. Okay? So if they. You know, for my daughter, it was. She was like, oh, this Cabbage Patch doll that, for me, was, like, a really big deal. When I got it when I was in third grade in 1983, she was like, you know, like she was ready to get rid of it. And I was like, you're gonna get rid of Carlina, Emmy. What? And I just had to say, you know, what if. If. If she doesn't want it, I'm not gonna force her to. If I have to keep it, then it needs to go in my own st. Space, in my own limited container for things that I really don't use or need, but they are enough of a memory that I want to keep them. Okay, all right. The full question is, what about when everything fits in your closet? Then you get rid of half of everything. Wait, what? I thought I read through all the questions. I don't think I read through this one. Anyway, what about when everything fits in your closet? Then you get rid of half of everything and get rid of half of everything again six months later, and now this stuff will no longer fit inside. No new things came in between declutters 1 and 2. I have continued to keep about the same number of items since these two declutters. Four seasons, half of one closet. Okay, so I don't remember what I just read to you is all I know. I don't know the whole situation.

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Dana K. White (22:19)

So I'm Going to guess as best as I can, especially off the top of my head, because I didn't read this one ahead of time. So it sounds like new stuff is not coming in, but you've gotten rid of half. So what I'm going to fixate on here is the words half and then half again and then the number and then. Okay, as hard as it is, throw math out when you're decluttering your clothing. If you are someone who has always kept your laundry under control, always kept your closet, your drawers, everything. You don't even know why people. Some people have clothes strewn everywhere. You're like, what? How does that happen? Then I'm not talking to you. You can do the math. But for those of us, people like me, who really, truly have struggled with just like, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, everywhere, piles of dirty clothes and things before I had a laundry routine that actually kept things under control. Throw math out of the equation. No equations and decluttering. Okay, we're just going to go with the space. Think of it as space as opposed to thinking of it as math. Okay. And let that free you. Because sometimes what's happening when you're thinking of half and half, and you specifically mentioned numbers coming, you know, in and out, there's no extra. But then the numbers are the same. Blah, blah. I don't know exactly what's happening here, but I will say that for people like me, I need to just look at the space itself. How much space things take up, how much space I have put my favorite things in first. And then as I am realizing, oh, it's full of my favorite things, but I actually need, you know, this bulky sweater or these bulky work coveralls or whatever. Like, these are things I actually need because I really do use them. Then it, it goes, okay, well, I need this thing and it needs space. And so I need to remove enough to have that, you know, space under control. The other thing, too, is to really focus on your laundry routine. There are people in the world who highly recommend the one load a day. I don't do that. That never worked for me. And there's videos that explain why and what I do instead. I do a laundry day. But whatever you do, work on getting a laundry system under control. Because what can happen and what would happen to me is I would declutter my space, which is always valuable to declutter. Right. Anytime you're getting stuff out, that's a valuable use of your time. Wonderful. Okay, but maybe I had a lot of dirty clothes in piles in different places at the time. And so I was decluttering and fixating on this space. And yet when I would do laundry or catch up on laundry, it was like, oh, okay, well, these things were never part of the decluttering process. And yet these are the things I've actually been wearing. And so now I need to, you know, maybe those things got stacked over here and then worn. Or you were maybe, you know, putting clean laundry on the couch and everybody was getting their clothes out of there. And so in reality, those are the clothes you've actually been wearing and using. And these things that you made all these decluttering decisions about were not okay. So that could be something that that's going on here. But again, I only have what the person writes. And so I just guess, right? We just guess.

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Dana K. White (27:48)

Okay, this was a great question. This next one how do you recommend Choosing a container if you don't have one. Three months ago, I moved in with my fiance. We don't have. We both don't have a lot of stuff. And I decluttered a lot beforehand, always asking myself if this item has a place in my life where I see myself becoming a working mom in the next few years. I in. Oh, do I need to read this with the British accent because you said mum? No, I think I'm too tired for that today anyway. But it's really tempting. Okay. I ended up with less than 20 boxes to move, including kitchen stuff. When I came to his place, the apartment was empty. The person who lived there before took all the furniture. The only thing I brought with me furniture wise was a dresser and a small shelf. We both love wooden furniture and during the last couple months we were able to get our hands on some really nice secondhand pieces that didn't cost a fortune. And the entryway and our living room are quite small. That made it easy to look for a cabinet and shoe cover, but okay. However, we still need a closet because we don't have built in closets where that's not a good one. I'm not. That's terrible. That was terrible. I'm sorry. I can do so much better than that. So that's why I'm not going to do it. Okay. We don't have built in closets where I live. I'm just going to use my extra Texan. Okay. I cannot find anything secondhand that suits our needs. So we will be buying new. Buying a wooden closet is quite the investment and I worry about buying one that is too small or too large for our needs. Y' all know what I'm about to say, right? I know it's an exciting opportunity to start from scratch in your home, but it's also a lot of pressure. You're absolutely right. Any thoughts on this? You probably bought some furniture after you moved into your new house. How did you choose it? Okay, couple of things here. I have talked many times about my friends and they got married around the same time that Bob and I got married. And we had multiple homes worth of stuff. We had three dining room tables. I mean, I've written about it in the books and stuff. We had so much stuff because I was like, I gotta have all this because I don't know what I'm gonna need in the future and I need to be able to choose from it. Right. This is not your situation. You're more in Jim and Amber's stuff spot. Okay. Where they Were. And I watched them. And at first I was like, how do you do this? And over time, especially as I got my house under control, I was like, wow, that's what I wish I would have done. And that was they did this wild thing called they lived without until they found just the right piece. And sometimes that meant that they spent more money than I had spent on the four different things to have as options combined. They spent more, but it was just the right thing for just the space that served just the purpose of exactly what they wanted. And until they got to the point where they could get that, they lived without. Like, I have memories, and they are lovely, precious memories of. They were some of the first people we knew who got a DVD player. And we were like, what is this thing? So we had gone over to their apartment to watch DVDs, and they didn't have anything to sit on, and we just sat on the floor. But we were young and we could do that back then, right? So, like, they built things. I mean, they not built, but. I mean, Jim actually does build. But they added things slowly to their house and they just lived without until they found just the right thing. The other thing I want to say is one of those, like, words that makes me go. You know, like, things that I used to think and say that I've had to realize. Oh, wait, that was incorrect for me to think and say that the too small or too large for our needs. I highly encourage you to not think about. Kind of like we talked about the math, you know, with the clothing in the last one. Instead of trying to think through what exactly I need, say, what space do I have and what will fit into this space? Obviously, you can't get something this big to fit your clothes, right? But think along those lines of, what is the space that we have that we can devote to this closet? Okay, for those of you who are watching in the US you probably have built in closets. And so for you, the size of your closet is the size of your closet. I mean, like, that's what I had to realize. I've had very tiny closets, and I've had very big closets. And it's like, that is the space that I've got. That's what I have to accept. And when I accept that, then I'm able to manage my home. When I don't accept it, when I refuse to accept the size of it, then I'm not able to keep my house under control because I just keep too much stuff. Because I'm thinking of all the things I need versus the space that I have. So for you, as you are buying an actual physical piece, think, you know, like, where logically is this going to go in my home? And let that be the deciding factor. Because most likely, most likely you are going to, you know, find a piece and then that piece is going to determine the size of your wardrobe as opposed to this is the wardrobe that we have. And what kind of a piece are we going to, you know, Because. Because having a container and letting the container make the decision is incredibly freeing. Okay, but I love that question because I think that's a very common question. It's kind of like we talked about with the. The kids space or the kids room where the toys were. It's like how do you choose the container for the Barbies and then the container for the Hot Wheels? It's like it's according to the size of the container that is the room and the space that is needed for playing. Then this is the space that we have for the container. So we don't choose our container for Barbies according to how many Barbies we have. We choose the container according to the space that we have. Okay, full question. Hi Dana. I'm working through our home using your methods. We were doing really well. Then last year my dad died. I'm very sorry. And we cleared his small flat. You said flat again. So tempted to do the accent and it's not good today. So I was mindful and didn't take on too many of his belongings. But the sorting process took so much time and emotional energy. Now sadly, my mother in law recently died. Again, I'm very sorry. She was a real. You had in parentheses, a real hoarder. With a large and very full house. We are making good progress to make their house safe and comfortable for my elderly father in law to continue living there. Understandably, he wants everything cleared as soon as possible so he can live peacefully for his remaining years. How do I maintain the energy and enthusiasm for continuing my own decluttering when I can see that we will be occupied with my in laws house for the foreseeable future? I feel that while we're working elsewhere, my own home will regress. Again, I only have parts of this question, right? Like I don't know the other family members that are involved. Are you in charge of this? Whatever. So I'm just going to answer according to what I know and what I assume from this question, right? So let's assume that you are the one in charge of this and that you're the one making the decisions in direct relationship with the father in law and without other, you know, outside forces at play here, like sisters in law and you know, whatever you said in there that he wants everything cleared out as soon as possible. So that's a huge blessing, right? So be thinking that the vast majority, like the vast majority of stuff is going to be trash and donate, recycle. If you have an established recycling routine. Trash and recycle, those are the same thing. Okay? But I always say trash because not everybody has the recycling resource available to them. And donate because he wants it cleared out. Okay? So be thinking open space. That is the number one thing, right? Like that he needs, he needs open space so that we eliminate tripping hazards and you know, things that have to be shifted around and you know, strength issues and stuff. At this phase for him, you're wanting to make his home as simple and easy as possible. So trash and donate, those are your things. Those are both non emotional. Not that it's not going to be emotional. Okay? But if you go into the situation saying our goal is to clear out, to make, to create open space space, I am decluttering in my own home. And you know, I mean, like it's real. That's the beauty of the no mess decluttering process, right? The progress and only progress is life happens. And if you've been using the no mess process, you have made progress. And so when life happens and you have to go over here and do this, which also thank you for doing this. Like, this is a huge help and a huge blessing to him, right? So you're stopping and going and doing that, but because you've been using the no mess process, it's frustrating. You want to keep going, I get it. But you can go and, and stop and do that because it's not like you pulled everything out. And I was in the middle of this huge decluttering process that was really just spreading everything all over the house and then I had to go do this and then it gets completely. No, we didn't do that. Right, because you were using the no mess process. So really be ruthless and have. The purpose being I'm clearing space and I'm not bringing stuff into my own home unless it is extremely special and he doesn't want it, you know, right now. So my goal is trash and easy stuff and donations. Get as much as you can out like that and use the process. Use the. Where would you look for this first? If he is really in that mindset of I just want this stuff out he is probably going to often say, I would never go looking for that. Get rid of it. Get rid of, you know, but, but get the easy stuff out so that you then are only looking at those, you know, a significantly smaller number of items. Therefore, it's less overwhelming when you do ask those questions. But most likely he's going to be ready to get stuff out. So, yeah, really focus on the donations and trash. Last question for today. What does your writing process look like and how do you keep it organized? So I did a podcast on this at one point when I was in the midst of writing a book. I have a spreadsheet. So in a traditionally published book, you submit a proposal ahead of time, which is an outline and it has like a blurb, you know, or a summary, short summary of each chapter. And it has other stuff too, sample chapters and things. But that's a great way to, like, stay on track. Right? So I know this book needs 60,000 words. I want to have it done in X amount of time. And I want to set aside three weeks at the end for me to be able to really polish it up and make sure it's what I want and have time to send it to a couple of my people who I send it to just to get some feedback before I actually turn into the publisher. So that, you know, goes back this amount of times. So I've taken those three weeks off the end. I've got this much time. I am realistically going to write five days a week. Maybe some weeks it'll be six or seven. Great. But I'm, you know, I write five days a week, so I take the number of words and I keep my spreadsheet going. And I have. And I know there are actually programs out there that do all this for you. I just do it all in my own spreadsheet. But I have that spreadsheet and I say, okay, you know, I write today and oh, I wrote 1200 words today. Okay, great. On this day, I wrote 3, 500 words. Oh my goodness. On this day I wrote 4, 500 words. Whatever. And I add that up and then however many, you know, 60, 000 words minus what I've already written and then divided by the number of days, I know that, okay, if I'm going to stay on track, I need to be writing at least 1200 words a day. Well, when I have a 3500 word day, then it kind of lowers that average for the rest of the days anyway. So there's a podcast on it. But I go through that I really use my spreadsheet. Okay. I'm going to take questions from those of you who are watching. And we've had a good number here. Okay. So it's not a. I always get nervous that if I do it at a different time, we won't have anybody who's able to come live. But it looks like we've got very similar number to other. Other days. So I will be answering some questions. I will go through and see what I see. If you have asked a question already, it'd be great to ask it again. Put three question marks at the front so that I recognize it as a question because y' all are great at, you know, having interaction and stuff. Okay, here we go. How do I help my fan? How do I help family recognize that while they are living within the container concept, I. E. Plenty of room, they aren't living under their clutter threshold, can't manage what they have. A five minute pickup. A five minute pickup done as a family, all together. You all, everybody who's there in the house, you know, set the timer for five minutes. I have podcasts going into the five minute pickup. I go into it in different ways in both how to manage your home without losing your mind and in decluttering at the speed of life. Okay? So the way that you determine your clutter threshold, the way that you demonstrate your clutter threshold, the way that you prove to people who need to understand it that they are over their clutter threshold is by doing those five minute pickups. Give it some time to where you actually, you know, learn. You get through that learning curve. And if they can't get it back under control in a five minute pickup, that is a physical manifestation, example of the fact is proof, physical proof that they are over their clutter threshold, okay? Which then motivates them to work a little harder during the five minutes, but it also helps them understand what you're going for here. Right. Sometimes I. People I work with, kids, people who are not the one who is super into decluttering and listening to this lady on the Internet and all that kind of stuff, it can be like, no, okay, okay, so we got to get rid of stuff. What? Okay, but when you have that five minute pickup, this is the goal. This is how we're going to know. This is how we're going to know that we have only in our home. What we can handle is when we can get it under control in five minutes, all doing it together. Remember, five minutes times five people is 25 minutes worth of work. Okay? So if we can do that on a normal day, get the house back under control, then we know we're under that. And it, and it just as a way to, to show that and demonstrate it so they get to experience. Oh, that's what we're going for here. Favorite free donation place. I do not have one. And I don't think it's really, I don't think it's helpful for me to name specific places because it is so different in different areas. Like, you may live in an area where offer up is hopping. Like people use it. They, you know, like are always watch, you know, it gets taken immediately. And you may live in a place where people are like, offer up. You know, you put an offer up and people realize, oh, you're five hours from me. No, you know, so it, it's hard to know that. So the best thing to do is whatever you already sort of kind of do, put a little more effort into that. Right. And also ask the people who are local to you, how do you get rid of your donations? They know and they're not going to think it's weird that you're asking those of us. For me, okay, I used to be like, well, if I ask people where they get, where they donate their stuff, they're going to know how much clutter I have. And in reality, people who don't have clutter in their homes, they don't have clutter in their homes because they're always decluttering. So they know how to get rid of stuff. Stuff. Right. So the best thing to do is ask locally for you. And, and my rule is whoever doesn't make me sort like any place that's like, oh, we'll take your electronics or we'll take your clothes, but we don't want any kids clothes, or we'll take, you know, household items, but we won't take this. I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna find the place that will take it all because that speeds up my decluttering process.

Jonathan Fields (45:09)

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Dana K. White (46:23)

Do you recommend isolating clothing to see if they are no longer necessary? Necessary? I just struggle with getting rid of well made, lightly used clothing. I have the space amount overwhelmed. I never recommend the isolate like setting it aside to wait and see. Okay. It's either got a space in the place where I would look first for clothing because when I once I put it in some kind of a box away it is gone from my brain and then it's just a box of like I think there's something important in there that it just does not work for me. So I either give it a home according to where I would look for it first and embrace the reality of that, or. Well, that's all I do. I mean, like I said, I embrace the reality of the space where I would look for it first. And that often means that I get rid of something after the first time I wear it and realize, oh, that looked good in the store and it actually didn't look good at home like, or it just didn't. It didn't work out the way that I thought it was going to be or it was hotter. I don't like to be hot. It did not breathe, whatever. But I'm like, you know what? How much more excited is somebody going to be to find a barely used thing at the thrift store? Right? Okay. Instead of me sitting, letting it sit in my closet long enough that it's completely out of stock. Yay. I love hearing this. Oh my goodness. I'm in so much temptation with the accent thing today. I'm not gonna do it. Okay. You tried the system of putting things away immediately. It is life changing. Thank you. From England. It is. Take it there now. It's the game changer. It really is. It really is. Yay. Oh, this makes me so happy. You can usually let people in the door and not have a massive panic attack. Thank you. I. This makes me so happy. So happy. Worth writing the 60,000 words and all the spreadsheets to actually enjoy that kind of stuff anyway. Okay. I will watch the replay later, but I just wanted to pop in and say that I tried the container concept with my super sentimental 7 year old yesterday and it worked. You're a genius. Thank you. It's just a way to explain thing that explained the thing. Naturally, organized people know that they don't know we need to know because they don't know that other people don't know this. Right. Okay, let's see. I have difficulties following through to actually getting stuff out of the house. I have several donation bags and trash for recycling. I struggle with large items we have to remove. Yes, this is. This is normal. Okay. This is a real struggle for a lot of us. A lot of us kind of prioritize what's worth our time, you know? So I did a video recently and I've talked a lot about procrastinaclutter. It's the stuff that we're like, oh, that has to be done. I. I'm gonna have to do that eventually anyway, so it doesn't feel worthy of my decluttering time and energy. When I'm like, okay, I'm gonna declutter today. I'm gonna make a huge impact on my house. And then I work on something and I'm like, my house doesn't look any better. Well, it's because I've got donation bags and recycling bags as well. Like that. Give yourself permission or take my permission, whatever you need. I'm somebody who doesn't really care if I have somebody else's permission, so that doesn't help me. But other people it does help. So if it helps you to take my permission, say it is a worthy use of your decluttering time and energy to take a day or a morning or whatever to load up those donation bags and go drive them to the donation center or make a phone call to have them picked up or taking the recycling, you know, where I am, there is one kind of recycling that we can do, and it has to be hauled away by us, like, not by anybody else. So it's like, it is a worthy use of my time. It doesn't feel like it's worthy. It feels like I should be doing something more important than this. But when you do that, the immediate visual impact on your house is so incredibly powerful. It is so worth your time to say, I'm decluttering today and what I'm doing is loading up the things I've already decluttered and driving them to the donation center. Desperate Mama part one. Your methods have helped me tremendously. My five year old is struggling to throw away anything, even legit. Trash. I've tried to put your favorites in first, but then she still can't cope with throwing away the rest. It is so hard for her as a mom. I don't want to make it traumatic and just throw it all away, but we just can't keep it all. Any advice? Yeah, I mean, yes. Let the container be the bad guy and commiserate with her. Cry. Cry about it if you need to. You know, I mean, like, it's hard. It really, really is hard. The other thing with trash, remember, too, is the whole thing of the process is, you know, okay, let's throw away the trash. The person that you're helping, whether that person is 5 or 95, is like, there's no trash. You go, okay, well, you know, this. This granola bar wrapper is this track. No, that's not okay. I mean, like, okay, let's move to the next thing. Okay, let's get easy stuff out of here. What belongs somewhere else. There's usually stuff like that, especially in a major league, you know, know, cluttered area. Oh, that goes in the kitchen. Oh, that goes in the garage. That goes. Whatever. You know, things that already have established homes. And then any donations? Oh, no, everything's good in here. Okay, we move to the next thing. We go on to those two decluttering questions, and we can ask the first decluttering question about the granola bar wrapper. Okay, if you needed a granola bar wrapper, where would you look for it first? And you're not going to where would you look for it first? We were going, okay, if you needed a granola bar wrapper, where would you look for a granola bar wrapper? A used granola bar wrapper first. Usually that will help to trigger the fact that that is trash. Even if it doesn't carry it out, they're like, oh, I would look for it on my floor. Oh, well, the floor is play space, so we can't put. Put stuff on the floor. We're trying to get the floor cleared so that you can play in it. So where would you look first if we took the floor out? Where would you look first for a used granola bar wrapper? I would look for it in. On the shelf of my closet. Okay, all right. So you're earning trust as you do that. Okay. And I know some of y' all are like, what? I'm just saying, if this is one of those issues, this is how we play it all the way out. We go, oh, this shelf up here. Because usually if we have used granola Bar wrappers. We got a lot of stuff on the shelf too, right? So the shelf up here is full. So. Okay, well, what are. What. What can we get rid of? Either donate it or put it in the trash. What can we get rid of to have room for the use. Renewal of our wrapper that will often, you know, help them realize, oh, there's no space for it. Okay. Or if. If you ask the question, where would you look for it first for a used granola bar wrapper? And they're like, you know, then it's like, okay, if you needed a used granola bar wrapper, would it occur to you that you had a granola bar wrapper? That's the second decluttering question that we ask if we can't answer the first one, you know, and so it helps them work through that, but you're doing it in a kind way that's accepting their reality, but you're also letting the container itself be the. The thing. Okay. And I think part here with throwing away the rest, it's that giving priority to the play space, that is something that we sometimes overlook. We're just like, I'm trying to find places to put all these things and instead be like, oh, our goal is a clear floor. So we can't have things spilling out of the containers because we want a clear floor where you can wrestle with the dog or play with your Barbies or whatever, that kind of thing. And all these are very short answers to what I know are intense questions for so many people here. All right, how do I get past the fact that I pay good money for something, but I no longer use it? But I feel like I need to recoup some of the money I spent on the item. If you have to recoup the money, then sell it. When you. When you realize that taking the time to sell something, I'm not going to say sell everything. Okay, but say, okay, you know, this is the thing that's keeping a bunch of stuff in my house because I have this mindset that I really need to recoup money. Okay, then what's the thing in here that you're most confident is worth a lot of money? Go through the process to sell that. Whatever it is that you already have in your mind is, I could learn how to do ebay, or I could learn how to. Or I could, you know, take it up to that flea market over there and somebody sells stuff on consignment, whatever. Go through the process for that one item that you are most confident is high value. You will either learn what it takes to sell things and so then it will no longer be daunting and sitting in your house or you will realize, that was a lot of work. I didn't make near as much money as I thought I was going to. I'm willing to just get rid of this stuff because I, that is not worth my time. But as long as you're just like, oh, this is the thing stopping me, don't let it stop you. Go ahead and do the thing. But so many times. And you're like, okay, so I'm going to go ahead and do the. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't actually want to go through the thing to sell this. So I'm not going to if it's. But I could have a garage sale, okay, Put it on the calendar, call your local paper or whatever. Ask people around you who actually shop at garage sales. How do you find them? You know, find that out. I have a whole series years ago on how to do garage sales. But as you do that, go ahead and do the thing like go ahead and call the paper and schedule for your ad to be in there or, or whatever it is. Like, go ahead and put it on your own calendar. Let your people in your family know we're having a garage sale. Start putting stuff in this one designated space because we're having a garage sale on this date instead of just this ambiguous, oh, maybe we should have a girl. I should, I shouldn't get rid of this because I could have a garage sale one day. Make the one day happen. Oh, let's see. My dad wouldn't let us clean out anything after my mom passed. Needless to say, everything was still there when he died. Yeah, I, I think, I mean, it's hard. I have been through it with my in laws, so I know, like, it is incredibly, incredibly difficult. There is no, I'll just do this. Like it's really hard. Especially you're dealing with family dynamics and things. So like in the question that we had, I mean it's, it's a huge blessing for the father in law to be ready for stuff to go. So I don't wear perfumes and I don't organize. I just declutter to the point where it's naturally organized because I've gotten rid of the excess. But it would be the same process with everything else. So like, let's go through the decluttering process applied to perfumes. Okay, we start with the trash. There's no trash. That's my Perfume collection. If. If they are a lot, okay. It's possible that there might be some other trash in there. It might be, oh, wait, this one's empty, or these three are empty or whatever. But you do that to help yourself start looking at the individual items and immediately get some stuff out of there, which immediately reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed. Right. And then you go just through the process. Like, what would dead donations be on perfumes? Well, it might. If you collect perfumes, there is a chance that there are some that you don't like, right? Like that you thought you were gonna love, and then you wore it a couple times and you were like, oh, that gives me a headache, or whatever, you know? So, like, go through that process. And then whatever space you have in your place where you would look first for perfume, whether that's the surface of a small table or, you know, whether it's a shelf in your bathroom or something like that, this place is the limit. It's the container, okay? And then you take out your least favorites until you only have what will fit comfortably, usably, functionally. Okay? If you want to do an organizing system, that's not my specialty. It's not what I teach, because for me, the only thing that has actually worked is just to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate, until it all fits comfortably, and then go ahead and use it for a while and realize, oh, it's still getting out of control. That means it's over my clutter threshold. I just have less. Right. But even if you are going to implement some sort of a shelf system or something that you've seen, you still have to declutter first, and you don't want to be putting trash. Easy stuff that's actually not, you know, and maybe it's something that you. I don't know. I can't think of an example off the top of my head. But easy stuff, things that don't belong in this space, and duh, donations, ones you don't like anyway, you need to get those out of there anyway first, right? So go ahead and do that. And then it's possible the system that you already have, whether it's just a place or a shelf or something, is going to function so much better because you've gotten all that excess out of there and then live with it for a while. And then you're like, oh, you know, what would be really helpful is some sort of a slot or whatever, you know, tubs or whatever. I used to use my tongs that the little thing that kind of keeps them closed had come off And I. I loved those. And they were kind of smooth edged, so they didn't snag clothes or anything. And when we moved, I have no idea. I have no idea what happened to them. They have decided. Disappeared. So. But so now what I use, I think it's from getting a chick fil. A nugget tray for a party or something one time. And it's the little plastic ones. That's what I use. So there's no. Perfect. I would recommend something that doesn't have sharp, you know, edges. Okay, pantry. Besides throwing out expired things, how do I even start organizing? Well, you start by throwing away the expired things, right? So you start by decluttering. And then remember that the final step of the decluttering process is putting, like, items together so that in and of itself is going to reveal, oh, I've got 16 boxes of cornbread mix, and I make cornbread one time a year at whatever holiday, whatever, you know, so put things, you know, consolidate. Put, like, items together. Accept the realities of that. Again, I. It is much better for me to just eliminate, eliminate, eliminate declutter to the point where just being on the shelf and living there is easily accessible and functional. I can see what I have, and I'm able to get it really quickly as opposed to fancy systems, because that just doesn't work for me. So. Okay, do you realize you've ruined me for all other decluttering slash organizing experts? They're doing great things for a lot of people who need that. I am here for the people who need to think through things the way that I think through things, you know, Because, I mean, they have a lot of amazing things. That's why. It's one of the reasons why I'm like, I'm not gonna make up when people are like, how do I organize this space? I'm like, I'm just gonna tell you. What I do and how I have achieved an organized home is by decluttering, not by organizing, okay? It's by decluttering. Just getting rid of all the excess and making sure I only have what use I can use functionally and everything. So that is what works for me. And. And I'm. I'm not going to make up a way to, oh, you should get this and this and this, because that would just be making it up. Not. Not something I've actually proven. And I only like to teach the things that I've proven to be true in my own home. Okay, how do you stop Chef, Chef dipping, y' all? An hour and a half of Sleep in the last 28 hours maybe. Okay, how do you stop, shut that thing and actually start decluttering? Also, how do you deal with empty spaces? They make me feel uncomfortable. I feel the need to fill empty spaces such as a bookshelf counter. Any open space. Okay, I think you need the book. And I, I, I, I know that you're here but like this is a full on mindset shift and I get it because that is exactly where I was. I was like, I don't know how to do Redeclaring the Speed of Life. It's available at most libraries. Pay if if you need to get it that way or ask your library to stock it if they don't have it. Follow the process. Okay, you can get my process at a slob comes clean.com 5F I V E. That is the process that I go into great detail about in Decluttering the Speed of Life. But that printable just lists out. It's a free printable. When you sign up for my newsletter, it lists the five steps. Okay? We are making progress and only progress, which is the opposite of step shifting. So we are removing trash, going straight into the trash or the recycling. It's done, right? Like I have taken the trash there now to the place it needs to be in the trash bag. Right? So really watch my no mess decluttering method video. I think it can't, I don't know when it came out anyway. It's like 30 minutes long. But I go through the whole process. That is how you do this. Okay? That is how you keep the stuff shifting from happening. Do you have any advice on teaching a two year old and a seven year old to pick up after themselves? Yes, five minute pickup. Asking them to just do things differently. Start picking up after yourselves. It doesn't actually like, and I know this as the person who I am 49, about to be 50 and it's not helpful for me to be like, okay, I gotta start picking up after myself. Instead I say, oh, okay, I naturally leave things around. So what is the solution? It's the five minute pickup. Hopefully for your children, the more you do five minute pickups, the more they are going to naturally put things away immediately. Because then they don't have to do it in the five minute pickup. Okay? That hopefully is going to happen for them. But even if it doesn't, the five minute pickup is going to solve the problem. Okay, so we. The five minute pickup is, is everything. It's everything. Kitchen serves as both dining and homeschooling space. How Do I best keep it decluttered? When the space is used for many different uses, home is very small and storage is limited. Okay, so what I would do in this situation, and this is off the top of my head because I'm just reading this as y' all were watching me read it, I would pick one definition for the space and call it that, and then the other use that that space gets. So. So, like, let's say you decide this is our dining space where we also homeschool, or this is our homeschooling space. It's also where we eat. There is a mindset shift that happens. So I had a room in my old house that I would call my game room, slash guest room slash office. I always referred to it that way, and it was always a disaster. But when I decided that I was going to name it my game room, this is the purpose of this room. We still had guests stay in there. Like, that is still where guests stayed, but its real identity was the game room. And that changed everything in the how that space functions. So, like, let's say you decide this is my dining room. Which if this is my dining room, then or my dining space. You didn't really say room because I'm thinking like, formal. Well, let's just assume you're talking about, like, this is our space where we eat dinner every day. Okay. This is our. Our dining space where we also do our homeschooling. That means that homeschooling needs to be set up in a way where it's pack away able, and it comes out and is done on this table and then it gets packed away because this is the dining table. Or we say this is our homeschool space, so we have it set up for homeschooling and then we clear it into this thing temporarily so that we can also eat here. So it's just a mindset difference that really makes a huge, huge impact. Okay, let's see. What opinions are your thoughts on. Do you have on people who resell on their stuff is what makes them money? I mean, like, if you resell it and you actually do it, I think that's great. The thing that I have that I try to encourage people to not do is keep it in your house even though you don't like it because you have this idea that you might start reselling it. So we kind of talked about this earlier, right? And this all comes from my perspective as someone who had an entire. That. That game room I had that I was just talking about, it was a very large Room. It was an ebay room for years because. And it was a complete and total disaster because it was just. It was a storage space, basically. So I had an entire, very large living area in my home that was just for ebay. So I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who used to see dollar signs on all of my stuff. So I completely get that. And I've talked before about, like, the process of going through that I went through to come to the point where I realized, oh, I just want to sell stuff. Oh, my goodness. I've gone over an hour. I need to stop after this one. Did I just say I need to sell stuff? No, that's not what I meant. I just need to donate stuff. When I realized the power of donating to speed up and make my decluttering easier, I was like, oh, I now see huge value in donating. I see huge value in donating because of the speed and the ease with which it gets my stuff out of the house. And all the same things apply, like, if this is how you support your family, which is how I supported our family. I mean, like, my husband had. Anyway, I've shared it in other times, but, you know, we had. We had moved. We hadn't sold our house yet. So we had rent and we had house payment, and we had zero extra money. And that is the only extra money that we had was what I was making on ebay every week. Okay? So, like, any. Anything above and beyond the absolute bare necessities was that many. So I totally, totally get it. What I know now that I didn't know then that would make me do things differently is apply the container concept. Give priority space in my home to actual living in my home and the people who are functioning there and what it needs to be for and. And designating. Okay. This is the space that I have for the off season. Things that I just found at a garage sale, but won't sell well until another six months from now. Okay. This is the amount of space that I have, and so then I would, you know, apply the container concept to that as well. Okay. I know we've got more questions, and I wish that I could. All right, I will talk to y' all next week. Bye.