← podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
461: Preparing for Guests, How to Break a Stall, My Container is Too Big!
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As always, I’m taking time off during the summer. This year, though, we’re trying something new! We’re sharing the audio of previous live Q&As that I did on YouTube. If you only listen to the podcast, this will be all new to you!
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Hey y' all, did you know that we now offer an ad free version of the podcast over on Patreon?
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Well, we do.
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Go to patreon.comAslob comes clean to learn more. That's patreon.comAslob Comes Clean to find out more about listening to the podcast ad free. Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the Podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal deslobification process as I figure out ways to keep my own home under control. I 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 461 and this is one of my summer podcasts, which are audio recordings from live YouTube Q&As that I have done in the past and just want to give you that warning that that's why the energy is a little different because it's a live video as opposed to my normal recorded podcast. But I am putting these out this summer so that you'll have things coming through your podcast feed. If you only listen to the podcast, you will never have heard this content before. Okay. If you watch my YouTube as well, you may have, but I just want to make sure that you know that this is for you. I hope. I would love to hear from you on how you like it because we will get back to doing podcasts normally in the fall. Normally I don't do podcasts at all during the summer. So this is our way to have something to keep you going. Because I know so many of you like to use these times of listening to the podcast to get a lot of stuff done. We're going to be talking about preparing for guests how to break a stall, meaning like when you stall out on things and what do you do if your container is too big? All right, enjoy.
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So our first question is is I start the five minute pickup near the living room and tidy in a U shape around through the dining room toward the kitchen. There is a laundry basket of papers in the corner of the dining room. Should I declutter these before I tidy the kitchen peninsula? Which one would you do first? Okay, so the five minute pickup is something that if it starts to feel complicated, take a step back and think, this isn't supposed to be complicated. All right. The five minute pickup's purpose is maintaining progress that you have already made and incremental bits and pieces of progress. Okay? So it is primarily about your everyday stuff that gets out of place, getting that Stuff back into place. Especially for those of us who have the brain loveliness. That means we rarely ever think consciously about the fact that we are setting something down or where we're setting it down or anything like that. Okay? So have it in your mind that that is the purpose of the five minute pickup. Another big purpose of a five minute pickup is knowing whether you're under your clutter threshold. Can a 5 minute pickup get this place back under control? The beauty of a five minute pickup though, is that it moves you forward even if you have nothing to maintain, even if you have done nothing yet. A five minute pickup is valuable, right? But it's real meaning, like if you just pick stuff up and put it away, even if your house is a total disaster, your house will be better for every day that you do a five minute pickup. Okay? But the laundry basket of papers that need to be decluttered, what I would do is I would spend the five minutes doing the most basic surface level tidying. So I guess that would be tidying the kitchen area within that five minute pickup. And then if you have time left, like a lot of times, what you'll find the more often that you do a five minute pickup as you've been doing decluttering, then you'll find that, oh, in three minutes I got things back under control. And then I can spend two minutes on this space that actually needs real decluttering and started on the decluttering process, which because we follow the no mess process, it is progress and only progress. I can do it in any amount of time, which means that I'm going to take those two minutes to say, okay, in this space that needs to be decluttered, I'm going to throw away trash for the next two minutes until this timer goes off, right? For the five minutes. So I can use whatever little bits of the last part of those five minutes I have to work on decluttering. Okay? So what I would say is focus on the five minutes being the most surface level, pick it up, put it away, get things, you know, picked up and put away. And so, and then use the time that you have left to actually do decluttering and to realize that the decluttering of the laundry basket of paper could be something that you then do at another time where you're like, well, my house is. I've got a little bit of time. Okay, I'm going to tackle this thing because the more that you tackle that paper, the more impact the five minutes is going to have in the five minute pickups. Okay? Is that what I'm making sense? So, so here's what I'm saying. There's five minute pickups and there are, there's decluttering. They're not the same thing. Except that in the midst of a five minute pickup, once you get the basics picked up and put away, you can spend the last part of that doing some decluttering. Because we use the no mess process and because that means I can get make progress in any amount of time that I have. Does that make sense? And also remember that yes, the five minute declutter pickup is to maintain decluttering progress. But also it's worth it. Even if you haven't done any decluttering yet. It's always worth it to do that. But just kind of keep those as, as separate things. Okay? So it's not a stop and do this instead of that. Do the general picking up during the five minutes and then with any time that you have left, then get into those deeper actual decluttering projects.
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This episode is sponsored by Greenlight. Money doesn't grow on trees. How many times did you hear that growing up? It's true, money does not grow on trees. But saying that doesn't actually teach much about saving and budgeting. Help your kids learn this important lesson in life. With Greenlight, parents can help their kids and teens build confidence and good habits when it comes to money. With Greenlight's easy, convenient app, you can send customized allowance payments using the chores feature. And you can get money to your kids when they need it, even when they're away from home, all while keeping an eye on their spending and their saving. So Greenlight worked really great. When I was paying my daughter for jobs that she did around the house, my favorite feature was that I could set up the system and then that system just kept working for us. Start your risk free greenlight trial today@greenlight.com clean. That's greenlight.com clean to get started. Greenlight.com clean.
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All right, next one. I have so many clothes of different sizes for pregnancy and postpartum. How do you declutter during a time when you need so many different sizes and styles of clothes? Okay, this is a real life, actual situation that you're in. Okay. So I'm not going to give you any kind of, oh, well, just get rid of those because the styles will be different. That may or may not be true. That you may or may not have the finances to be able to deal with that. Whatever, you know, you may not know where you are. I mean, you know There's a lot of us, me included, who deal with this even though we're not in the pregnancy and postpartum phase of our life. Right? And so this is, this is your reality. But we're also going to take away all the what ifs. Not. We're not going to take them away. We're going to acknowledge that there are what ifs here, but we're going to deal with the concrete reality of the space. And this is the container concept. So the container concept is that space is finite. There's a lot of stuff I want to keep, could keep, should keep, need to keep, could have a reason for keeping, a very realistic reason for keeping. And yet I only have so much space. And if I try to keep more than I have space for, there is no hope of my house ever getting or staying under control. Okay? It is not possible for my house to be under control if I have more stuff than I have space. Right? And so I let the space make those hard decisions, even in these difficult, very real, very challenging situations. Okay? So what that means is I acknowledge, first, I get rid of the, the trash and the easy stuff and the dud donations, the stuff I don't like and the stuff that's torn and the stuff that stained. I get all that out of there first because it has nothing to do with anything. It's stuff that just needs to go and I need to get it out. And as I get it out, I'm starting to see what I actually have. And as I'm getting it out, my space is becoming less overwhelming. And I'm not just going in and dealing with everything at once. I've already gotten out non emotional, obvious things, okay? So once those things are out, I look at this space and I say, okay, this is the actual space I have for clothing. Whatever that is for you, whether it's drawers, whether it's a closet, whether it's two closets, I don't know, whatever you actually have that you can devote to clothing that doesn't take up the space that you need for other things. So some of y' all are going to be like, what? People live like that. And some of y' all are like, oh, yeah, yeah. If you have an entire room filled with boxes of clothes and you don't have enough room for the baby that you have to have their actual space that they need. That's what we're talking about here, right? Like, like what space do you have to actually devote to clothing in your actual house that you actually live in? Is it One closet. Let's say that it's one closet and a chest of drawers, okay? That space is the space that you have. Maybe that closet includes some space over here where you could have some tubs for out, you know, clothes that don't fit right now but probably will fit again in the future. Maybe that's what you have. If that's what you have, then you acknowledge the realities of that and you say, I can't have this. And piles of clothes over here and piles of clothes over here and all my babies chest of drawers that we set up. And it was really cute, but now it's actually all filled with my stuff, you know, whatever. I. I need to have it limited down to this space. So what you're going to do there is you're going to take out your least favorites until it fits in this space. And that will help sort out naturally and identify naturally what things can and can't stay. And it takes us out of the should and would and I wish and what if. And it says what can and can't stay. If this is the only space that I have, I've got to have thick space for the things I actually wear, for the things that I actually can fit in now and that I can walk out of this house feeling okay. Because, I mean, this. This state that you're. The stage that you're in right now is a really difficult stage, right? And so when you already don't feel comfortable and then you're trying to wear things that you don't like and they, you know, it just, it could add all these different layers to this, right? So I need space for the things that actually I'm going to wear right now. They fit me. They feel good. They're what I need right now that deserves priority space. And then if there's space left, then I can keep other things that are not necessarily things that fit right now. But realistically, I am going to, you know, use those things again in the future. And it naturally sorts out and helps me go, okay, realistically, I've only got this much space in my closet left, or I only have this one drawer that's left after I actually have the things that I do truly wear right now that I need space for. Well, I got this one drawer left. So what deserves space the most? Well, probably this item that I wore between kids 2 and 3. It deserves space more than the stuff I wore on my honeymoon. That realistic. We're not going to talk about it. But realistically, this stuff that I'm gonna wear this again, where that you know is. I want to keep it. I dream of keeping it. But at the same time, when the space is the space and I'm dealing with the reality of the space, it just naturally sorts out which things can go. So I'm not here to say get rid of the things you want your honeymoon. I'm not going to tell you that. Right. But I am going to say the space that you have is the space that you have and accepting that helps make those decisions easier. Okay, next. I've been using your method to declutter visible spaces and I now see my stuff differently thanks to your five steps. Yay. My 11 year old son, who typically had attachments to everything down to the trash, has decluttered his room himself just by seeing me and my 14 year old daughter model this to him over the last 2ish years. He now manages his room as successfully. It works people. Yay. That's her saying that, not me. Right? Even though I'll say it too. It works. My question is, even though we stay on top of dishes and do a quick pickup often, I find myself stuck in maintenance mode of the everyday visible spaces and not getting to the non visible visible spaces I. E. Attic consignment, clothing, which I do twice a year, projects, etc as often as I would like. Items get taken there now on the way out the door. But then the everyday piles up again and I don't get back to that next layer. I seem to stay stuck in the visible spaces. Time goes by and things pile up again. Help working modem of 3. Okay, this is a, I would say a problem that lots and lots and lots of us face. Right. You know, it's that, okay, how do I make this, gain this traction? Right. So you are going with everyday visible spaces says I do a quick pickup often. The first thing I would do is do more of those quick pickups and do five minute pickups. Five minutes can either seem like a very short time or it can seem like a very long time. Right. And I, I would say I am going to really focus and in on doing at least one 5 minute pickup every day. And you've mentioned in your, you know, excitement thing that you have a daughter and a son who are both in on this process. Have them help with that as well. Like make it a whole, whole family, everybody around thing where we do a five minute pickup and we get that done. Five minute pickups done consistently have a shockingly wonderful effect on the house and keeping it under control. Okay. Use that as your way to know, okay, even with a consistent whole five minute pickup every day. Ish. Every ish day, this space is consistently getting out of control. Okay. I need to have less stuff in that space. And so when you do that keeps things more under control, then you'll find that you have these pockets of time and then really dive in hard on. On whatever space is. Is driving you bananas, right? Like whatever state space is getting on your nerves, really work on that space. In these. When you have an awkward pause, you've got 30 minutes here. You've got a weekend with. Okay, I've actually got an hour and a half. I am going to dive in deep really to any space because you said you've been working on your visible spaces. Go into those places where it's making the visible spaces harder to maintain because of these other spaces being the way. I hope that made sense. All right, next one. Oh, here's another. This one doesn't have a little thing because it's just a statement which I'm excited to retail. It says, I literally did your too many pins container concept with my adult autistic son the other day and it worked. He found he wasn't as fond in his of the pins in his container and said he could get rid of them and add it and add his new favorites. You've given an overstressed mom some hope. I love, love, love hearing that. That's wonderful. Okay, and then our next question. I'm new to your videos and blog. My daughter suggested you as a favorite. Yay for her. She is very good following you. Since when I ask her, do you want this? Her answer is 99.9% of the time, no. I'm stuck with take it there now. While my public rooms are better, my bedroom and the basement have gained many take it there now items. Those items belong there, but I haven't started those rooms unflattering process yet. Any advice for making this more workable? Am I missing a step? Thank you. You're not missing a step except that you're taking it there now. So you're doing a great thing, but you're starting to see that, okay, there's not really space in those places for. For that. So what I want you to think is when I take it there now and that space is a mess, I am not going to leave that space any worse. So I'm going to even it out. I call this net gains decluttering. My whole house is moving forward one step. So I'm not just making this space better by taking it there now and then leaving that space worse because that, that's the frustration, right, that a lot of us feel. So when I go to that space for every thing that I take there, if that space is a mess, I'm gonna take out something that's either trash or a dead donation because I just said that space is a mess. And you're starting to learn this decluttering process and so you're learning the power of getting rid of the trash and the donations of just getting those things out, how powerful it is to do that. So that space is going to need to be decluttered at some point. But I'm still working on these spaces here. So as I take something there now, I'm going to make the space for it by getting rid of something that is either trash or a dead donation. Because the space that I'm decluttering has my trash bag and my donatable donate box. And so I'm taking that thing back there. And so I am not leaving that space any worse for the item that I am taking there now. Okay? And it still keeps me on track, working in the space that I'm working in.
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This episode is sponsored by Greenlight. Money doesn't grow on trees. How many times did you hear that growing up? It's true, Money does not grow on trees. But saying that doesn't actually teach much about saving and budgeting. Help your kids learn this important lesson in life. With Greenlight, parents can help their kids and teens build confidence and good habits when it comes to money. With Greenlight's easy convenient app, you can send customized allowance payments using the chores feature. And you can get money to your kids when they need it, even when they're away from home, all while keeping an eye on their spending and their saving. So Greenlight worked really great. When I was paying my daughter for jobs that she did around the house, my favorite feature was that I could set up the system. And then that system just kept working for us. Start your risk free greenlight trial today@greenlight.com clean that's greenlight.com clean to get started greenlight.com clean.
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As summer approached, I decluttered some things from my closet and updated my wardrobe. So in the summer, I am all about wool and flowy dresses. But I realized a few of them weren't as favorite as they used to be. So I did some one in one outs. And I ordered the tinsel jersey fit and flare dress in dark olive from Quint. Quint makes it so easy to add a couple of quality pieces that are timeless, summery and upscale without breaking the bank. I've decided I'm a really big fan of tinsel, so the Tencel jersey fit and flare dress was perfect. I love the way it feels and the way that it falls. It's so comfortable, but it also looks nice and is fantastic quality. At Quint's, you'll find European linen shorts and dresses from $30 Luxe Swimwear, Italian leather platform sandals, and so much more. Best part? Everything's half the cost of similar brands. They work directly with top artisans and cut out the middlemen. Quince gives you luxury without the markup. Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.comclean for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com clean to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
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Quince.comclean this is an ad by BetterHelp. Men face immense pressure to be strong and keep it all together. No wonder 6 million men in the US suffer from depression every year. It can be hard to seek traditional in person therapy, but BetterHelp offers an online option making it easy and convenient to find a therapist. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, fitting therapy into your busy schedule. You can even switch therapists at any time. I have worked with a therapist through Better Help and I found it to be incredibly easy to set it up and I really appreciated that I could make my sessions work with my schedule, fitting it in between meetings without having to factor in travel time because it was all online.
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We all struggle.
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Your five step method has saved my life and my sanity. Yay. I found my people. Welcome. Thank you Dana. Can't even explain how much you have helped me and my family with your methods and approach. We're moving but rarely making a bigger mess as we pack and keeping dishes done. Isn't that so powerful? Like not making a bigger mess and doing the dishes and everything changes, right? Like I'm so proud of you. Let's See, my home got flooded. I am so sorry. And a company came and packed all my stuff in boxes. It was packed randomly and quickly. I'm feeling your stress here. When I got. When I get it all back, I hope I can use this opportunity. To get decluttered is an opportunity. I mean, you're seeing that correctly. And I. I know you feel that. Wow. Yeah. No, that. That's gonna be hard. It's one of those times you're like, I'm grateful that they did that. I'm grateful. Me. But also, wow, okay. But, yeah, I think that it. It is an opportunity. It's a huge opportunity. So as you do box by box, open up the box and item by, you know, first, if you see any trash in there, throw it in the trash. If you see any dead donations without pulling everything out of the box, stick it in the donate box. So always have the trash bag and the donate box right there with you as you're opening up a box so that things can easily go through there. And then you'll start to be like, wow, this box is. Gets emptied so quickly when I just stick stuff in the donate box or the trash bag. Right. And so you do that. But as you pull out something, it either goes trash, donate, or where would I look for this first? If it's already an easily established thing, you don't even have to ask that question. Like, if it's an easy thing, where would I look for this first? And you take it there now, item by item, one at a time, and then face the reality of that space. Is there or actual place for this here? Or. As I've. Okay, in the beginning, it's super easy because everything has a place because everything had been packed up. And then you keep finding more and more and more things, and you go to put it there, and now it's full and it's like, oh, okay. Well, this is, you know, so going through the process, I think is going to be really, really helpful as you do this. And I'm so sorry that you're going through it. That is very stressful. I know. How can I overcome my fear of losing parts of myself when I discern what to get rid of? I love this question. This is very much one that I understand. So I don't talk a lot about them because they are kind of confusing to explain what they are. But I have. I mean, I'll answer your question too, but I just want to let you know that on audible and any audiobook form platform, you know, libraries, if you like, to get audiobooks from your library. I have what's called audio products, and basically they are a professionally produced longer similar to a podcast. Okay. So anyway, they are paid. The reason I hesitate to talk about them is that I know some. A lot of platforms use credits, and they're much cheaper than a credit. They're usually $4 or $5. And so I don't want you to spend a credit on it. And it just gets so confusing. Anyway, but one of them is called identity clutter. So if you look up Dana K. White Identity Clutter, I dive so deep into what you're talking about here. Okay. So anyway, I just wanted you to know that that is out there. So just, you know, search Dana K. White Identity clutter and you'll. You'll see it. But just know that not to use a credit to. To just, you know, they're like. I don't know exactly how much they are right now. I don't have any control over that because it was my publisher. But anyway, they're usually around four or five dollars. So this is one of the biggest hesitations for people like me when we are decluttering, right? Like, it's. If I give up this stuff, it. Does that mean I'm giving up on the dream that I had when I collected it? For example, crafty stuff or even stuff that I was, you know, collecting for someone who, you know, my friend was, you know, starting to do foster care. And so I started collecting great things at garage sales for babies that I was gonna, you know, be the hero and give them to them, you know, and. And come in. And then turned out that they got an older kid. And so now I had this stuff, but I thought, well, but I collect. Wouldn't somebody be. So it just. All of these things are. Are that identity, right? It's like I have, this is me, this stuff is me. It might be my academic stuff from studying for a degree. And this was who I was. And then if I, you know. But now I'm doing something completely different. If I give up those textbooks and those papers and those things, does that mean that I am saying I'm no longer that person? All these things are wrapped up in clutter for a lot of us. This is where the container concept helps so much in this, because the container is reality. Like, it's a finite space. And the beauty of decluttering according to the container concept is that I can keep anything. I just can keep everything. It's the reason why I don't sit around and say, because I Know how I react to it, Why I don't say, you don't need that stuff. I don't say that kind of thing to people, Things to people, because I don't know what you need. I. I am the same. I use super weird things that other people say no one should ever have. Like, if you see those lists of, like, no one should have this in their house, half of that stuff I've either had in my house or still have in my house, right? And so I'm not going to say stuff like that, because when I see that, I go, well, you don't know me. But the beauty of the container concepts is it's you making the decisions, but it's the container being the bad guy. It's the container making the hard decisions. So if something is important to you, it deserves space. But if you have more than will fit in the space, then the house is out of control because there's no hope of a space being under control. If I have more than will fit comfortably, usably, functionally get to oblate in a space. And then when my house was out of control, I was not able to be the person that I wanted to be as I was collecting all of this stuff. And so it's this thing of letting go of my least favorites. They're still favorites, but my least favorites so that I have room to truly function and thrive with my most favorites. Which then means that because I have the space to function, I really, really use the most favorites. And that is more satisfying in this identity issue to really be doing the thing that I wanted to do than having all the stuff for all the different things I might want to do and not being able to do any of them. Okay, I know I'm rambling here. I'm just saying that this is a real issue. Let the container help you prioritize. What are the favorite things? Those go in here. And. And it's. Sometimes it's a grieving process. Like, it's a legitimate grieving process. I'm not going to say, you'll be fine. You. You'll be okay. All right? But it may be a difficult thing to let go of some things. And yet when you're able to blame the container and then let those things go and then live with it being functional, it starts to change how you think of that. And remember that if. If this is your concern of what's going to happen, make sure that for now, you're getting rid of trash. Like actual trash to you, not trash that someone else would say was Say is trash. And you're like, no, I could make whatever out of that. A lot of times that's an identity issue, right? But get rid of the stuff that is easy to you to get rid of. Get rid of the stuff that you can't stand. Don't start with those things that are the identity things. Because so many times when we say, well I, I know this is going to be hard when I get, you know, when I deal with the stuff from my degree that I'm not using, that's going to be so hard. I know that's part of the. And so it just can stop us from even getting started. But say that is going to be hard. So I'm not even going to worry about that right now. I'm going to go ahead and get rid of the trash, the easy stuff, the donations, especially in my most visible areas. And as you do that, it will start to build that decluttering muscle and help you gain that momentum. That will either mean that by the time you get to that stuff after you've done a lot, your house has already changed significantly before you ever get to that stuff. By the time you get to that stuff, you're going to see space and stuff differently and that stuff will look different to you or you will open up the space to be able to keep these things and it be functional and usable and get toable in your space. My laundry room gets messy again every couple days and I haven't found a way to prevent things from gathering there. Not really close, but to do, but to do's and I don't know what else. Give me ruthless advice, please. Your ruthless advice is a five minute pickup. If it is a consistently recluttered space, consistently tackling it is going to help you. So like every day, five minutes in that space. Here's the thing, my recommendation, after you get past, you know, like I've got the dishes down, I've got my five minute pickups down, I check the bathrooms for clutter. Pick the space that drives you bananas. Solve that problem every day for seven days so that you start to understand what do I need to be doing on a regular daily basis in this space to prevent this from happening. Okay? Because when you, when here's the thing, if you solve it and then you wait a couple days, it's back to being out of control. Okay, now I'm solving it again. Solve it every single day so that you're seeing what is ending up ending up there on a one day time frame. And that will help you see how to actually change how this space functions and works. So solve the same problem every day for seven days before it turns into a problem again and you'll start to understand what to do in that space. Please some encouragement on how to declutter. Sort through kids toys that are sentimental due to memories. Not sure if we will be having more kids or not. Not. Don't know what to do. Help. My number one advice on this is before you get to that, give yourself permission to deal with the stuff you don't like. Okay. Again, it's kind of like the other one. So many times when we have a specific category that we know is going to be highly, highly sentimental because there's a lot wrapped up here, right? It's like, yes, it's kids toys. It's also, are we going to have more kids? And I mean, like that. That's a lot to be dealing with. Say I'm going to go and declutter. Maybe it's something that has nothing to do with the kids stuff, but in another space that is not emotional to you. Work in that space, build some decluttering momentum in that space and see what happens. The other thing is when you tackle this stuff, I don't generally use the word sort, okay. Because I think a lot of times people say, oh, decluttering and sorting. Like here there's a slash, right? Decluttering and sorting. Same thing. Not at all, right? Like, sorting in my mind is putting things into, you know, their sorted category. So I'm going to put these things together and these things together and these things together, which is how I used to think I had to declutter, which was the. Creating a bigger mess as I got started. Decluttering, right? And I don't do that. We use the no mess decluttering process. That's my process. So as we do this instead, it's to remember I'm looking at this overwhelming pile of stuff. And I know there are going to be things in there that are going to make my heart just feel like it's been ripped out of my chest. Right? I'm not going with that stuff right now. I am going to look at this stuff and I'm going to say, is there any trash before? I'm not going to do any sorting. I'm not going to put things in pile. I'm just going to literally say, in this big old pile of stuff, one big pile. Is there any trash in here? And I start looking, oh, there's a piece of trash, there's a piece of trash. No there's, there's no trash. I mean, like, how many times have I said there's no trash? There's always trash, right? But you look for trash, even if there isn't, which there is, you're still looking at individual items and now you're starting to know what you're dealing with. And you've got a little bit out and you've gotten started and you haven't sorted it into things where it all just becomes overwhelming, right? We pull out the trash, we go, is there anything in this space that it's easy, Like, I already know where it goes, where it's supposed to live in my house, and I'm going to get it out of here and take it there right now. Oh, there's my big Tupperware bowl that somehow got put with the kids stuff. Oh, there's my very favorite pair of high heel shoes that are somehow with my kids stuff, you know, and so you take those things out and you do. Every time you come back, it's a little less overwhelming because it's a little smaller. The pile's a little bit smaller. And you're dealing with things and you're getting it out of there before you ever get to any of those emotional decisions. Then you go with duh, donations and you say, is there anything in here that obviously needs to go. I'm not going to look at each toy and say, does this toy have value? And blah, blah. I'm just going to say, is there anything in this space that I already know? We would never. You know what, this one's broken. Actually, that one's trash. Oh, this is the one that my kids can't stand and it turns into a weapon or whatever. And so we're gonna, you know that one, I'm just gonna let that go. Maybe it needs to be trash instead of whatever. But you go and you get those things out so that by the time you get to any kind of real decision, you've already gotten stuff out of there that wasn't emotional to you. Okay? And then we go with the. If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? If I needed this item for a future child, where would I look for it first? Well, I would look for it first on that shelf up there in the closet. Okay. How much space is there? And then we're gonna just let that space determine how many of these items we can keep. And so it's not that you can't keep them, it's that you can't keep everything. So you don't have to say I've got to rip the band aid off. You know, for me I, I know I've told this story before, but I found out that my third child was a girl and my other two were boys. And at that point we had learned or figured out that we were probably not going to have any more kids after her. And so I, I was selling on ebay at the time and so I did a big sale thing and did all of my boys baby clothes, every last item. And it was so painful. It was so painful. And I remember my mother in law was having a heart issue and so I was going up to visit her in the hospital pretty regularly and so I'd gone to visit her in the, in the hospital and so we're just making conversation and I told her that I think my mom was there too. I think my mom had come to visit her too. And I was telling them, you know, that that's what I've been doing, that I put all these. And they knew I sold on ebay, that I put every single last stitch of baby clothes on ebay. And I was really emotional about it, you know, because I was like, I guess, you know, I guess I just have to do this. Like this is it. I mean this is it. And they both were like, you know, you can keep a few outfits, you don't have to sell them all. And I went, really? I mean this is years and years and years before I started really diving into decluttering. And years and years and years before I did any of this stuff. Well, I guess it wouldn't be years and years and years because my daughter was three when I started, but it was at least three years before, right? And so I remember because it was an hour away the hospital and I remember feeling panicked to get home and remove that listing. It's before I had an iPhone remove the listing of my favorite outfits. And so I kept. It might have been two output outfits per boy that like really, you know, reminded me of, brought back all those feelings. And it was such a, a powerful thing for them to tell me that because I was like, oh, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And those outfits, I still know where they are, I still run across them. They don't make any space less functional because they're tiny, right? And they're little. And so it's like it doesn't have to be all or nothing. So the, the beauty of the no mess process of the five steps is that you remove the non emotional things and then it's less overwhelming by the time you get to the emotional and then you acknowledge the reality of the space and you may have more kids in the future. And so it's like. But when you have a limited space, you start to see, oh yes, this is an actual favorite outfit. Oh, this is an outfit that rides up to their armpits every single time. So you know what actually that you know. And it just naturally sorts out the the favorites. As summer approached, I decluttered some things from my closet and updated my wardrobe. So in the summer, I am all about wool and flowy dresses. But I realized a few of them weren't as favorite as they used to be. So I did some one in one outs and I ordered the tinsel jersey fit and flare dress in dark olive from Quint Ones. Makes it so easy to add a couple of quality pieces that are timeless, summery and upscale without breaking the bank. I've decided I'm a really big fan of tinsel. So the Tencel jersey fit and flare dress was perfect. I love the way it feels and the way that it falls. It's so comfortable. But it also looks nice and is fantastic quality. At Quint, you'll find European linen shorts and dresses from $30 Luxe Swimwear, Italian leather platform sandals, and so much more. Best part? Everything's half the cost of similar brands. They work directly with top artisans and cut out the middlemen. Quince gives you luxury without the markup. Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.com clean for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C-E.com clean to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com clean ready to order? Yes. We're earning unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with a Capital One Saver card. So let's just get one of everything. Everything. Fire everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27 and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back. Yes, Chef. This is so nice. Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert. Oh, tiramisu. Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with D California Capital One Saver Card. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com for details. Hot Wheel TRA tracks specifically are really difficult to organize and store. Do you have a solution for this? I'm ready to trash them all. I do not have a solution for that. That's not really. I mean, y' all know, I'm, I'm just about the decluttering. I don't really come up with storage solutions for things other than just to say, okay, if that is something that's really difficult to organize and store often that means it needs a lot of space around it. You know, like I'm picturing from my brother's Hot Wheel tracks, which would have been in the 70s, right. I'm picturing lots of pieces and things like that that don't, didn't just neatly stack or whatever. And so it's that if that's what you want to store, if this is the thing, then maybe it's a lot of other things that can go. Because the Hot Wheel tracks that are difficult to store, therefore need more space to store them are the priority. Right? So it's that. And sometimes that same question can make you realize, wait, I have been thinking so hard about Hot Wheel tracks and in reality they barely ever play with them. I think we can actually just let those go. Right? Okay. What if you've been decluttering for four years now and you've put off all the sentimental and identity stuff and now you need to deal with those items and it's too overwhelming. How to start non committal. Look, look, always look. Meaning. So you've done a lot of the other stuff, so you are at this point, but it's still. You're dreading dealing with this sentimental stuff. Take a box or go through a shelf or a drawer, whatever that space is, and say, for now, this time, I am going to, with no commitment, just look through it. I'm gonna not wear mascara. I am going to give myself permission to feel all the feelings and I'm just going to look through. If I happen to find some trash, I'll have the trash bag right there. But I probably won't because it's all sentimental, right? And so I am just going to feel the feelings. You will probably find trash, but even if you don't, there is value in that, going through it and looking through things. Because the problem with sentimental stuff, we know I've got to declutter, it's sentimental. Then we put that off and it just builds and grows in our mind and becomes so much more daunting. Yet in reality, there's probably a lot of different levels of sentimentality in there. And so you give yourself permission, you know, how do you get started? That's what you're asking here. How do you get started? I'm going to just give myself permission for today. I'm Going to look through that. One thing about not pull everything out. One drawer, one box, whatever. I'm going to look through that item, that. That box, feel all the feelings, and put it back. And then at some point in the future, hopefully sooner than later, because now it's not this daunting, overwhelming unknown anymore. It's something that you. You know what's in there, and your brain starts to adjust to it. And then I'll go back and I'll look for trash, and then I'll start going through the process, and it's. It's amazing how that has a big impact on. On these types of situations. I'm a middle school assistant theater director. Oh. I have actually been there, like, that exact situation. How could you organize a large props costume closet? I am not the only person using the closet. So where would you look for it will be difficult. Difficult. Okay. So as a former theater arts teacher, I wasn't an assistant. My. My assistants, I had some girls in some of my classes who loved organizing, and they would see my messy prop closet and they'd be like, can we organize it? And I would say, yes. And that's how I did it. But anyway, that was also long before I ever did what I'm doing now. Right. The prop closets I loved were the ones that were just highly, highly organized. I mean, like, highly as far as labeled and, you know, acknowledging the realities of the space. Meaning, like, you know, this is going to be. I don't know if I'm. Where would you look for, I mean, like, you know, going according to. These are our long dresses. These are our, you know, shorter, glitzier things. These are our shoes. These are whatever, you know, I would just go with. The realities of the space that you have is the key. Right. Like, the thing that I had no concept of back when I was teaching theater. So it would be, this is the space that I have for shoes. So I'm going to put the best shoes on there first, you know, which I know a lot of times you end up with all kinds of things in theater departments. Right. And so. But it helps to sort out, like, this is the space we have for shoes. Best, most used shoes here. Which means that probably the size 16. I'm not going to be able, you know, to keep those. If it comes down to the space or whatever. I don't feel like that was a great thing. Let's see. Wait, is this my same person? As we were talking before about letting go of sentimental kids stuff, you said I don't have room For a huge tub, I think we might just let them go. At the moment, the long pieces are standing up behind the bookshelf, and the little pieces are in a bin. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, too. It doesn't have to be a huge tube. That. That's the bit. If you don't have room for a huge tub, do you have room for a small tub? Do you have room for a shoebox? Whatever. If you do that is the size of the container, and then it helps you determine, okay, this is all the space that I have for potentially having, you know, is it a box that goes under the bed, whatever, which will then help you really identify. I can't keep most of this stuff, but those were my favorite shoes that I want to make sure. I keep baby shoes, though, you know? So the size of the container. There's. There's definitely the size of the container is. Whatever the size of the container is. Is it possible to live minimally and be a prepper? I want to be both, and they often clash. So just to be clear, I am not a minimalist, and I am not a prepper, okay? So I am just kind of coming at this from the way that I view homes and stuff and clutter and decluttering and all that, right? So I think the key there is being who you are, right? Like, being who you are. So you want to live minimally, and you want to be a prepper. So it's. It's. That's where the container concept is so valuable. So you go, okay, what are the spaces? I can live minimally in all of my constantly used spaces. What space do I have in my home that I can devote to things that are only for this prepper idea that you. You really want to pursue, right? So, like, maybe it's that closet. I am willing to devote that closet to being my space for that type of stuff. And then that becomes your limit for what you can do there, which then helps you identify, okay, what are the things that I want to have for that? And then that. That keeps them contained and keeps them limited so they don't leak out. Or, you know, leak is not the right word, but you know what I mean? Like, shift out, sift out into making our lives more difficult to live.
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That really give you that. And if it's really important to you to have that prep kind of stuff, then you say, I am willing to have fewer clothes, fewer dishes, I am willing to have fewer pieces of furniture, or I'm willing to not have A game closet. You know, where not like most people have a game closet, whatever. But, you know, I'm willing to not have this category of stuff in my life so that I can have a cabinet or a closet or a drawer or whatever that is devoted to these, you know, preparation type things. Love this says. Hi, Dana, I just wanted to say I so appreciate you. I've been watching cleaning and decluttering videos from the Best for years. You've truly been my biggest inspo and most relatable for me. All that makes me happy. Thank you. What do you do when your container is too big, a 40 by 70 storage barn and you don't know how much you should keep? We foster zero to eight and have a lot of active farming, homesteading, fixer, upper projects. Okay, this is a great question. I was thinking you fostered zero to eight kids, but I think you mean zero to eight year old kids. Yeah. So first you declutter to the container, which it sounds like you probably have, but if it's still too much, you declutter down to your clutter threshold. Okay. So I always say to start with the container because it's an outside of you thing and it doesn't require any kind of analysis or thinking or whatever other than just, you know, identifying your favorites, but to the container. But if it's still too much, you say, this is consistently getting out of control. This is over my clutter threshold. I need to have less, so I get rid of more. And then I realize, oh, okay, it is still getting out of control consistently. Okay, well, I need to have even less, so I get rid of more. So if this is, you know, you know, you've got this space, which, that's a big, big space. Right. And so it's easy to think I can just stick it out there. But if you realize, as you say, it's too big, it's too much for us, then you start to go, okay, well, what is the amount that I can keep? I can keep, you know, one tub for newborn clothes or I can keep, you know, one, one tub for each size for kids. And you know, whether that's, you know, tubs can vary from this size to this size. Right. But you think along those lines. You say that, let me go with the smaller containers and be thinking about this category of items and giving it a smaller container in order for it to be manageable for me. Okay. Because the problem so many times is, well, I've got the space, so I might as well keep it. But in reality, it's hard for you to keep it under control. So really, you know, bringing down those amounts of. Or that space that you're. You're keeping stuff in. Clutter threshold decreased about 15 years ago with a health crisis. Worked over five years to get rid of trash donations put it away, now it's contained. Still too much left. How do I get rid of more when I am stalled? Kind of like what we just talked about. Like, if it's still too much, it is over your clutter threshold. And so going back into visible spaces and say, how is this space hard for me to maintain? Does this space consistently get out of control? I just need to have less. And it's going to be painful, but I just need to have less in it. Maybe it's less decorated core, maybe it's less, whatever, but I'm gonna have less in this. Another thing too. And I know that health crisis might mean that it's difficult physically, but so many times getting rid of a big piece of furniture is so powerful. I mean, it's like so incredibly powerful to, you know, maybe it's the asking somebody to come help or if somebody is able to help you. Like, this is the thing you could do is get this piece of furniture out of there. Because so many times the more surfaces that you have, the more places there are to pile things. And if you can get rid of the surfaces, it eliminates a lot of that. So, all right, I think that is it for today. I did want to remind you that if you need someone to coach you through my decluttering process, I have decluttering coaches, right? They are trained and certified by me in my no mess decluttering process. They know how to work with you in a way that's respectful of your unique situation, your emotions. This whole, like, if it, if it appeals to you. When I say stuff like you can keep anything, you just can't keep everything. It's what you, you know, anyway, if that kind of stuff appeals to you, that's how they're trained to work with people. So declutteringcoaches.com everybody there is mine coach. Trained by me and certified by me. So anyway, most of them. If there's not one in your area. There are, which I think we just added our first coach in Asia. I know we've got coaches in Asia, Australia, the uk, maybe Sweden. I don't know. I'd have to go look. But like, we've got international, but we've also got them all over the US too. But most of them also work virtually with people. If there's not one who can help you in. In your area, so. And that's very valuable. All right. This is always so fun. Y' all are the best. All right, bye.