← podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
471: Take It There Now, Overwhelming Closets, Five Minute Pickups, Laundry Challenges
00:39:41
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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- [00:00]
Dana K. White
Hey y', all, did you know that we now offer an ad free version of the podcast over on Patreon? Well, we do go to patreon.com a slob comes clean to learn more. That's patreon.com aslob 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 DES lobbification process as I figure out ways to keep my own home under control. I share the truth about cleaning and organizing strategies that actually work in real life for real people. People who don't love cleaning and organizing.
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Listener/Caller
Thanks for joining me today.
- [00:38]
Dana K. White
This is podcast number 471 and I.
- [00:43]
Listener/Caller
Think I'm going to call it Closets.
- [00:47]
Dana K. White
And Laundry and five Minute Pickups.
- [00:51]
Listener/Caller
This is one of the last of.
- [00:54]
Dana K. White
Our summer podcasts before we get back to regularly done podcasts. If you've not been listening, you may not know that I normally take summers off, but this summer I am trying out running the audio from previous live Q&As that I've done over on YouTube here as podcasts.
- [01:17]
Listener/Caller
So if you only listen to the.
- [01:18]
Dana K. White
Podcast, you've never heard this before. If you listen to the podcast and listen to everything I do on YouTube, you might have heard it before, but.
- [01:25]
Listener/Caller
It'S the first time for it to come out on the podcast. So. So like I said, I'll be getting.
- [01:29]
Dana K. White
Back to normal podcasts soon, but wanted to have something for you because I take off in the summer and I'm recording this in May and I'm hoping that by the time it comes out.
- [01:40]
Listener/Caller
I will have really had a great.
- [01:42]
Dana K. White
Summer with my family. So here's the Q A.
- [01:47]
Listener/Caller
Okay, first question. I am finding success in your decluttering methods and will continue until I feel comfortable with my home. My question is, what if space is not a problem? Is there another way I can frame the container question? I am fine with having lots of empty spaces, but still feel like I have too much stuff for my brain to manage. Okay, you are at the point of needing to focus on your clutter threshold. Know that or wherever you are in this process, right? The container concept is outside of you and so it's kind of an inarguable nothing to figure out. It's just the facts are the facts. The size of this drawer is the size of this drawer that determines how much stuff I can keep. Because if the drawer doesn't close, I have closed. I have too much stuff, right? So I use the container concept first because there's so little analysis needed. It's just, this is the space. What do I like the least? I'm going to get that out until it fits in this space. That's why we start with the container concept, because that builds that momentum, gives you a different view of your space. But if you're in this situation where you have plenty of space, then after you have decluttered down to the point where everything fits in that space, if you still have too much meaning, it still gets out of control consistently, then keep decluttering. The. The answer to a space being cluttered is to declutter. The answer to a space getting out of control. That's probably a better way to say it. The answer to a space getting out of control is get rid of stuff. If it still gets out of control, get rid of some more. If it still gets out of control, get rid of some more. So your clutter threshold is the point at which you personally only have what you can handle. Okay? And this is, yes, the house overall, but also in specific spaces. So, like, let's talk about your closet. If you are like, well, everything technically fits, like, all the stuff that's on the curtain rod and in the drawers and all that, you know, everything fits. But I'm still constantly overwhelmed by clothes. There are still clothes that are all over the floor in the closet or in my bedroom, or I'm always behind on laundry or whatever. Then that fact that it's still getting out of control, even though if you put everything up there is technically space for it, means there's too much. There's more than you can handle. There's more than you can keep under control easily. My goal is to get my house to the point where I can keep it under control easily, where it's not overwhelming to me, right? So get rid of more stuff, get rid of more clothes. Until you get to the point where you're like, oh, this I can handle, right? Another thing too, with this, just in case you are at the point where you're like, but I have a really big house and I know I need to get rid of some stuff. And I know this is going to be a problem down the line, right? Still, start at the beginning of the process and don't jump ahead. Go with, I'm just going to get rid of trash, because trash doesn't need to be there, whether you have space for it to be there or not, right? So focus in on trash, because doing that gives you something to get started. It helps you start to build some momentum and it helps you start to really see and acknowledge and assess what is in this space, right? So that by the time you are making some decisions here, you're not making decisions about trash because those things have already gone, right? Go ahead and deal with the easy stuff. Deal with the stuff that you already know where it goes. Instead of thinking, oh you know what, I've got tons of space in here and it's just a big go ahead and get the easy stuff out no matter what the situation, right? Like whether you've got plenty of space or no space or whatever. Look for you think that you're pretty much under. Look for trash, look for easy stuff, look for obvious donations. Get those things out and follow the process.
- [05:43]
Dana K. White
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- [07:04]
Listener/Caller
Right Dana, I'm one of your biggest fans. Thank you. And I share your videos with friends and family often. Thank you so much. I'm a small business owner, a doula and a sleep consultant and wondering if I have to keep all the physical copies of my clients contracts. Not sure if I have to keep the actual Signed copies, but I can just scan them and keep a digital copy. I would still. I sure would love to purchase paper if I could be not sure if I could keep the hard copy. I am answering this question just to say I am not the person to answer this question. Okay. I don't know. This is dealing with contracts. It's dealing with lawyers. This is one of those things that if this is weighing on you, sending an email to a lawyer, even if it means. And I'm not giving any kind of legal advice here, and blah, blah, blah, Even if it means you have to, you know, pay a certain amount of money or. Or going to the person who trained you to be a doula and talk to them about it, talk to somebody who is in this business or in the legal business and can give you this advice. And sometimes it's. It's hard because you're like, I don't. Can you contact a lawyer? And blah, blah, blah. And I probably have to pay them if I do or whatever. And yet if this is weighing hard on you and it's something that sounds like it probably. I don't know if it keeps you up at night, but it's the kind of thing that would keep me up at night. Right. Like, can I. What, wait, am I allowed to do this or not? Sometimes going through whatever it is and finding it out and saying, I'm gonna pay a lawyer to answer this question for me will then free you to know what to do from then on. Because this is a thing that's a consistent in your life. Right. And so sometimes taking that step of making the phone call or, you know, whatever, or paying the money if you had to, to find out a real answer, then eases that from now until ongoing, forever and ever. Right? So. But I'm not the person to answer this because I don't know. Also, I'm sure that some of y' all probably do know. But again, if it's you, you know, it's sometimes easier or it is easier, even though it's not as fun to have to pay somebody to ask them this question, but then to, you know, take advice from people on the Internet that you don't really know for sure if they know what they're talking about. Right. I understand the process of putting it where I'll look for it, but right now, my house is a hoarded haven in each room, every inch of space. So when I think this goes in the craft room, I take it upstairs and then toss it in the door as I can't access the doorway to bring it into the room. Is this what I do? And then declutter the house room by room until each space is done with. 98% of the space is cluttered. I feel like I can't move anything anywhere. Okay. What you do in order to keep it just from being. I'm moving this from here and I'm throwing it into the craft room to deal with later. Remember that this whole basis of this concept of the no mess decluttering process is to not put things off for later. Okay. It is better to not deal with it, but than to halfway deal with it and just set it over here for later. Right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to not make that craft room worse. Okay? That craft room is at a point where to get anything in there, I literally have to throw it in there. Right? Because you said I toss it in the door. I can't access the doorway to bring it in the room. Okay. So you're putting it in that room, but you're not going to leave that room off worse. Because if it is in that state, stuff has to leave. Right? Like, you already know, I need to go through. My whole house needs to be decluttered. And this is where you get so overwhelmed because it's like, well, then I'm just moving things from one place to another. Well, that's what I used to do. I used to stuff shift and I used to not really get any progress. And so I had to break that cycle of stuff shifting and never make any real progress. So what you do is as you take something to the door of the room where it goes, okay, yes, you might have to toss it in there, but there is stuff blocking your way. Some of it is trash. I can't imagine that. Some of it is not trash. The easiest thing to do is grab a piece of trash that is the same size as what you just threw in there. And if you want to grab as much as your hands can hold, awesome, even better. But at least one for one, that space, okay? So you put that item in there. You take something that you can access easily without causing a crap. A lance. Right. And get that item out, ideally, trash that you're going to take back to your trash bag that is at the original space that you were decluttering. Okay. Or an obvious donation. Because things are going to have to leave the house from this space if it is in the state. So what can I access here that I can remove? That's either trash or an obvious donation that I'm going to get out and take back to my trash bag or donatable donate box. Right? And so I'm not leaving that room any worse. No, I'm not stopping everything and now working on that room and then I take something to another room and realize that, and then I stop and I work there. And then I never make any real progress. Right. Instead, this is what I call net gains decluttering. Like my whole house is an item better because of this, because I've done this. Okay, next question. Two resistance questions for you. I'm considering starting laundry day. Do you tackle bedding, kitchen and bath towels, cleaning rags, etc, as well? That adds at least four additional loads for me, which feels like a lot. Also, when you store glass storage containers with their lids. Okay, this is two different questions. All right, so let's talk first about the. The bedding and things for laundry day. So here, here's how I look at it. Okay. The first thing I want to say is that you said that would add four extra loads for me. Okay. The first thing I'm going to say is try laundry day before you start estimating how much time and volume you're gonna have. Right. Because it is often the case that. It is almost always the case, right. That before you do laundry day, it seems so daunting because you don't have an understanding of an actual week's worth of stuff right now, I don't know here. This might be because you want to, you know, separate out certain different, you know, types of things, and that's fine, but here's basically how it works for me. Laundry day happens. And because laundry day happens, which I don't include these things in that because laundry day happens, then six days a week, my washing machine and dryer are just open and free and ready for anything. Because I tend to be the person who is more random in the time when I gather up all the towels and go and wash them. But my washing machine is always free and available and guilt free because I'm not like, oh, I need to wash towels. But oh, my goodness, look at all this backlog of laundry that I should do too. And then that just overwhelms me and shuts would shut me down. That's what used to happen. Right? But because of laundry day being that way, then being a thing, then I have six days of open washing machine. Right? Let's see. Also, when you store glass storage containers. Let's see. Also, when you store glass storage containers with their lids, how do you address trapped moisture in the lid Gasket. I have always kept my lid separate to help them air out since there's always water in the cracks. But I definitely prefer the keeping the lids with the container since we have very little cabinet space. It's kind of gross and I'm worried about mold. Okay, so I have not had an issue with this, but two things. First of all, I have glass storage containers. So I don't use the plastic ones. I mean, they do have plastic lids. And the other thing too, I have a dishwasher. I'm not sure your situation here, but I do the drying feature on the dishwasher. And I know that. I think I was taught by my mom to not use the drying feature. Like, somehow that was. I don't know. So I think a lot of us, maybe, maybe there was a time period where we were told, don't use the drying feature. That's wasteful or something like that. And I went to the Maytag labs back in some year of this world, and they like went through the whole thing and the energy efficient ones and like, basically, you know, the. You have to do your own research because this is just me remembering and not remembering any details. But basically it convinced me that it was worth it and not wasteful for me to use the drying feature. Okay, so this is not an issue for me. So I would recommend that you do that. If it, if it becomes a. A matter, like if you're hand washing, then it might be something where you hand wash those items. And if you're doing it consistently, then it's also only a couple every night. Right. Instead of just like this. Oh my goodness, I cleaned out the fridge and it's this huge backlog of stuff, which is what I used to do. But if you're hand washing, then it's like, okay, well those things, they stay out overnight and then I package them up and put them in there in the morning. Whatever it does, whatever works to make you feel like you can do it. Okay, let's see. Gardenias and Gray Said says, getting rid of trash first is so true. I literally cleared out half of my shed this weekend just by getting rid of trash alone. I am telling you, especially, especially if it's something that has been sitting in a pile or sitting in a box for a long time just looking for trash. It's amazing the things that will reveal themselves as trash, right? Okay. Judy says clothes are the one thing I doubted I'd get under control. In reality, clothes decluttering has been the best. And it just got easier as I moved along doing it. Love it. Okay. Julia says I am really struggling to find time to declutter. I did really well for a while, but I am overwhelmed but have so little time. Any advice? Thank you, Dana. Your method has helped so much. Yeah, I think it's to, you know, I just had a, our monthly Zoom call with my Patreon people, which if you're interested in knowing more about joining us over there, we call ourselves the kindred spirits. You can go to patreon.com okay. But anyway, we had this, we had a call this morning and somebody mentioned on their own, which is always nice when it's other people who mention it. I don't have to be the one to say it, but it's like, go back to the strategies. Like if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, like, oh no, I'm back to remind yourself, what, what are the strategies? And let me go work them. Because it can feel like, oh, I'm, I've gotten good at that strategy now. It's just kind of natural and I'm. And when you start to feel kind of, then say, I'm going to really zero in on doing the strategy. So for this, for your situation, what I would say is in the midst of an awkward pause and you're thinking, I have no awkward pauses. I have no time. Like, if you have a two minute moment in your day where you think, I'm so overwhelmed, I have two minutes. That's not long enough to do anything. Say, you know what, I'm going to follow the process and I'm going to just look for trash in a visible space or whatever space is right in front of you. In that two minutes, I'm just going to throw away trash. Because the beauty of the no mess process is that it does not require certain specific amounts of time. It literally you can take 30 seconds and throw away trash and you have decluttered. You can. If you end up having seven minutes, you can actually end up getting a lot done in seven minutes by getting rid of trash, moving some easy stuff to its actual home, seeing if there's anything that can go in the donate box, whatever. All of those things are so powerful. And say I'm going to remind myself by testing does the no mess method really work? Even in the midst of all of this, you know, bananas time of I've got so much going on. Really, really zero in on. I'm going to follow the process. I'm not going to assume I'm following it and sort of kind of follow it like I had been and Maybe when life wasn't quite as busy and crazy, you were able to be a little more, you know, like free flowing on the process. But during this time say I'm going to just try it. I'm just going to look for trash in the very, very tiny amount of time and see the impact that that has because then this can also your house feeling more under control can then change your sense of how much you have to do, which then helps with this feeling of I just have so much time, so little time and I'm so overwhelmed.
- [19:52]
Dana K. White
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- [22:13]
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- [22:46]
Listener/Caller
Zuna says the more I declutter, the easier I'm finding to get rid of stuff. Although I get hung up on some things. Mainly books. Absolutely. Like the the experience that you gain with every single single thing. You don't just experience. You don't just gain the experience of putting the item in the donate box. You gain the experience of making a huge impact by one item leaving. You gain the experience of this space being better. And I didn't make any hard decisions. All of those things work together to continue to make decluttering even more possible for you. Question We've taken in some family having life difficulties. They each have a room somewhat of their own. The guest room was mostly decluttered before it was occupied. The sewing craft room was a work in progress and still contains many things of my late moms. And it's not enough room for the current occupant. Both need more decluttering. Can you please advise how to approach decluttering? My message when it's occupied by adult men? Yeah, I mean my assumption would be that two things that there may be some time where you're home and they're not. Right? In which case I would just say it. Like just, just speak it and say I want to get some stuff out of that room. I won't touch any of your things. But I, you know, when you're not here I may go in there and work on that. If it's boxes of things, you could ask them to bring one box out at a time for you to deal with. You don't want to have them get everything out right because that would be overwhelming. But one box at a time just to keep. Just to start working through it. The other assumption that I have is that they would be on board. Right. Because this would make it easier for them to live in this space as well. And so I, you know, just letting them know I have a process for this. I'm glad you're here, you're welcome here. But also I need to be working on that. So I will be in there when you're not here or you know, and just reassure them. So I would just be very open about that and just try the one box method. If it's stuff shoved everywhere. If you have a box, ask them to, in its, you know, piles or whatever. Ask them, can you fill this box with stuff, bring it out and then I'm going to go through these things. Right. But it's not an easy situation either. Right. Because like you're, you're. And thank you for helping them out. I'm sure they're very appreciative. Okay, let's see. I struggle with decluttering my kids toys because they will often remember the toy months later. I've used Time Will Tell bins, but the bins are also piling up. How do I deal with this? Yeah, I mean, what I would do, honestly. So I don't do Time Will Tell bins. So just in case you're new here, that's not something that I do. I try to give it a home and that home, it just has to have a real home. Right. Because I forget about Time Will Tell bins and then they would pile up and stuff like that. Because I, I tried that many years ago before I started my disqualification process. And then I remember when we moved from that house. So this would have been in like 2006 or something. I don't know. We moved out of that house. I was like, oh, here's all those boxes of toys that I had put away in the closet and completely forgotten about. And oops. But what I would do is if you haven't try involving them on the process. I don't know what age they are, but at any age, you know, involving them on the process just to help them start to experience the, you know, we can get rid of things, experience the reality of the space, you know, go through the five step process. Do the, start with the trash, you know, and help them figure out trash. And don't make this an argument time over what is and isn't trash. Let's just get the obvious trash anything that belongs somewhere else. Oh, so how did the cup measures end up in your room? Okay, those belong in the kitchen. Those are easy. We already Know what to do with them. And then, you know, going through that process, is there anything that you don't want anymore and let them go and then go through this process with them. And then if they see still have these times where they think about it and they regret it, then you grieve together with them. Right? Like, yeah, yeah, I miss that too. But I really love your room now. I really love that we can just play in your room. Look at all this floor space. So really focusing in on what you are able to do because of the stuff, you know, they got rid of. But it doesn't mean that there's never going to be any regret. It's just, you know, facts are facts. I know. I don't think that was a great answer. But let's see. I find the stuff I believe I won't get to in my lifetime and things I like, once it is, it is in a bag to take away. I just tend to keep it anyway as some attachment that overrides desire to have it gone. What I would do is put a date on your calendar. You know, ideally a pickup date. You know, I. I mean like a pickup date, like call and schedule a donation pickup. If your area has access to that. Mine does. Not anymore, but, man, we had that like once a month for several years and it was the best thing ever. We don't have anymore. So I would put the date on there or, you know, say, okay, what can I get rid of? Like out of these. Out of these things, you know, what. Which are the ones that I. Yes, I can get rid of. And go ahead and take those. The more you actually go, follow that process all the way through and then you come home and there's open space. It's amazing, like, the impact that that has on your excitement and desire to then get more stuff out of there in the future. Living here in my kingdom of Slavonia, adhd, butterfly here, clutter and time blind. My issue is our books and educational materials. I am happy when I see them out. What's wrong with me? Okay, Like, I mean, it's fine to whatever. I'm never one who's like, oh, you should only have these things out and blah, blah. I'm not like that. Right. But my question is, is it making your life more difficult? Right. Like, so you think, oh, I'm happy when I say that out. And then, because this is me. And I have never been formally diagnosed with ADHD except by many of y' all on the Internet. But here, here's how it would work. For me, I would be like, oh, I don't mind those things all being out. Until all of a sudden I did mind, because somebody was coming over and I looked and I was like, oh, my goodness, this didn't bother me at all before. And now I'm like, super embarrassed about it, or, oh, I don't mind these things being on the table until all of a sudden it's time to eat dinner. And I'm like, you know what? We should eat at the table. And then I realized, oh, that would be a four hour project for me to deal with that. So focusing on how is it making your life more difficult. Difficult? If it's not and you don't care, nobody on the Internet needs to tell you what you care about. Right? I'm just saying, if it seems to bother you enough that you're asking this question here. So let's identify what is it keeping you from doing and use that as your focus and motivation. Okay. If something has no home, do I immediately trash it or do a trade out of sorts to create a home? I. If something has no home, I ask myself the question, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? That is its home. Okay? So the first step is to identify the home. It's not deciding where it should go. It's not figuring out where it should go. It is not analyzing the best place for it. That is something that makes my brain spin out, okay. And thinking that that was what I was doing as I found found homes for things. I never got anywhere in the process. Right. But instead I'm like, no, where would I look for it first? That's where it needs to live in my home. Then I take it there now. Okay, so say do I immediately trash it? No, no, no. Okay. I asked myself, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? I take it to that home, and at that point, this is the place where I would look for it first. So this is the place where it needs to live. If there's no room for it, that's when. Yes, I. One in, one out something to create the space for this item. Okay. So Rochelle says in all the items I did get rid of out of a thousand out of thousands of items, at the end of the day, even though there are about five items I feel sad to not have, I find the space is more valuable. Yes. And I think that that's. This is the same thing that happened to me too. Right. Very few things have I actually regretted. But I love having open space and life Being easier and it being easier to function in my home and do the things that I want to do. And that is more valuable to me now than these items that I got rid of that I maybe wish I hadn't gotten rid of of. Right. And, and same thing with your child. Like this is this like because we talked earlier about how do I deal with, you know, my child remembers things that we got rid of. Focus on the space, focus on the function and how much easier it is to play here with these things. And you know, if we come across another one like that at some point, well, then we'll just get rid of something else. And that kind of helps them give that thing of, oh, I can't just keep everything just because I want it. Which is what I always tried to do, which is what got me into my messy, messy house. The backpack family says, what if I want to just burn it all down? I know you're joking, but I also know that feeling, right? Like I have the exact same feeling. Like I would have these moments of thinking I wouldn't be that upset if something just happened and all my stuff was gone. Right? And that wasn't true. That wasn't real, that wasn't rational. It was just. That's how overwhelmed I would feel at times. Right? And so that is the extreme. And it feels like this is such an extreme situation. And I don't know what exactly your situation, but this feels like such an extreme situation that the only solution could be extreme. And so I would try to do extreme things and I would fizzle and I would burn out and I would make it worse. Right? So what actually changed the extreme was starting with the teeny tiny small. So start with trash. Just say if you feel that way, the best thing for you to do is get a black trash bag and a recycling bin if you have one and get rid of as much stuff as you possibly can. Okay? And it'll start on that.
- [34:01]
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Now you can fly anywhere in the world and pay discount prices on Your airline ticket. Book a flight today to London, Paris, Madrid, or anywhere else you want to go and pay a lot less guaranteed. Call the international travel department right now at low cost airlines, 8002-1551-4180-0215-5141. That's 800-21551. Okay. Vanessa says, I'm a doctor and lifelong language learner. And this is Vanessa who was asking about, you know, her stuff being out. I often have to give quick medical info. I'm able to find all reference materials immediately. So that's why we talk about clutter threshold, right? Like, clutter threshold is not what you prefer. It is what you can handle, okay? So if it's, if this is what you can handle and it's also allowing you to live your life now, if you have everything out on your dining room table, then, and you can't eat at your dining room table and you want to eat at your dining room table, then that could be a problem, right? But if you have a space where you need those things out because you need to put your hands on it at any random time, and that works for you and it's not hindering your life, go for it. Right? Because we're all different. We all have different things that we're into, okay? Tis the season for consumerism takeover. How do I ignore the ads and not get sucked into buying all the gifts and such? I mean, I don't know. I feel like this is. I mean, I'll just be honest. On Hulu, I used to have the cheapest package and I was like, I don't want to see ads anymore. And so I, you know, ups the ads, not up the ads. I upped my payment so that I wouldn't have to see the ads. I. I don't know. I mean, I think it's. Oh, actually, I do know. I know exactly what to do. Declutter. Yeah. Focus in on, say, this is the season for consumerism. And I know I'm going to end up getting this way. So instead, I'm going to put that energy into getting rid of stuff. Because I'm telling you, getting rid of stuff makes you allergic to bringing new stuff in. It is bizarre how that works, right? Like, the more you declutter, the more the think and you get into the closets and the piles and the things that have sat there and you're like, what? I've had this for four years and I thought it was going to be so great when I purchased it during Christmas season of another time. Really? Zero in on the decluttering. Because when you declutter a gift that your kid never played with, or you declutter a stash of gifts that you never ended up giving to your niece because you gathered, gathered, gathered from all the ads that you saw, and then your house was out of control, and you forgot about them or you couldn't find them, and now she's outgrown them. All those things happening and those regrets that you feel as you declutter are incredibly valuable because now you see those same commercials, and instead of it being like, ooh, it's like, dealt with that. That made my life harder. And it's shocking the impact that it will have on that. So the answer is declutter. Let's see what to do that we paid so much money for, would use it if it was on a bookshelf, but no space at all for, and are sitting in two boxes in the bedroom in the way. This is very specific, and I can't picture exactly what you're talking about, but I would say if you would use it if it was on a bookshelf, put it on a bookshelf. What is on the bookshelf that doesn't deserve to be there as much as this item that you paid a lot of money for and that you would use if it was on the bookshelf? Okay, so look at your bookshelf that way. Don't look at it as there's no space. Look at it as there's limited space. This item that I would use that I paid so much money for, but it needs to be in an accessible place on a bookshelf. It deserves space. You just said it. It deserves space. What can go. What deserves space less than this? I may love it. I may have a lot of memories attached to it. I may. It may have also cost a lot of money, but it will reveal itself as deserving to be there less than this item, or I will go, okay, what deserves to be there less than this item? And I'm like, actually, I really do use everything here. And then all of a sudden, this item reveals itself as something that actually I. It's not as important to me as I thought, right? Because I haven't been using it because it's been in a box. I've been, fine. I can get rid of that. So just letting that container, letting that limit of space make that hard decision for you. This is a great point. Judy says sunk costs are the most heartbreaking, decluttering realization in my case. But at the same time, Being trapped in so many things is horribly worse. This goes back to what has become a theme today, and that is there is value in empty, open, usable space. There is more value. I have come to believe and decide for myself. There is more value in a table with almost nothing on it that I can sit down and do what I need to do at this table that is more valuable to me than the things that used to sit on that table at the bottom of a pile with nowhere to go, okay? But I paid a lot of money for it. It is more valuable to me to have the space to be able to do the things that I need to do. Not stubbing my toe in the middle of the night is incredibly valuable. Here's one of the things I do when something happens, when I'm struggling with this, like, let's say, say my bedroom, you know, at different times in my life, was a stubbed toe bonanza. I don't know, like, was just. That's toes were gonna get stubbed in there every night, and it was miserable, right? I. I mean, I. I got pretty good at walking around things, but even in the dark. But when my toe would get stubbed and I would get so frustrated with myself, right? Like, I would be like, oh, my goodness, why do I let it get this way? Why do I. Why does this. Why do I not seem to notice until all of a sudden I'm in this horrible, horrible pain? I. As a part of my decluttering process, I would ask myself this problem that was only a problem because I had so much stuff in my house, right? The stubbing of my toes, the not being able to use my spaces, the, you know, never knowing where anything was, the being late because I couldn't find things because there was piles everywhere, and I didn't know which pile it was in, right? How much money would I pay to not stub my toe? And it feels like this. Like, it's a bizarre question, you know, it's really not, how much money would I pay to be able to walk to my bathroom in the middle of the night four times if needed, right? In order. How much would I pay to not stub my toe on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night? And ask yourself that question. How much would I pay for that? When I'm in the middle of a stubbed toe, I'm like, I would pay a hundred dollars. I pay a thousand dollars. I pay 10. $10, whatever. I would pay that much money to not stub my toe. Well, I put that value on These things that, yeah, I might regret it. I might actually have to replace something. I almost never do regret it. And I basically never have to replace something. But that is a big financial. That's how I break through that financial thing. Like, how much money would I pay to be able to open up this drawer and just find the nail clippers and not have to spend all this time digging through and poke my fingers with the. The tax that got spilled out of their box, and now they're all throughout, and I never know where they are. And how much would I pay for that? I would pay 25 for that. Well, then I'm willing to get rid of a lot of stuff that I might have to replace. And it wouldn't cost me anywhere near $25. Right. I'm getting a little preachy today. Sorry about that. My daughter just tells me to. Just keeps telling me to toss everything. I've been decluttering for two years. I'm still overwhelmed. And I keep getting more stuff with new grandbabies, and I don't know where to go from here. Get a little more ruthless. Get ruthless with the trash. Say, I'm going to ruthlessly declutter trash. I'm going to go really hard. Stick in the visibility. That is the, you know, stick with the visibility rule. That will build that momentum. Yeah. Because I know when you struggle like this, somebody telling me, just get rid of all of it. You're like, that's never going to happen. So now I don't have anything to do. Right. So really zero in on trash and obvious donations to get stuff out, because those things aren't leaving the house. There's no moving them around. There's no decisions to be made. There's nothing. It's literally just go hard, hard, hard on the trash and obvious donations. Lisa says cleared a shelf a couple of years ago now that I dubbed my shelf of space because I realize it's not. See, it's full of space. I love it. I love it. With upcoming holidays, how do you convince loved ones we do not want physical gifts? We would rather have experiences for our family or with our loved ones than items we may not need or want. There is not a foolproof, proof, foolproof way to do this. Because, you know, I think from your own perspective, you would say that the gift giving is more meaningful to the giver. Right. Than even to the gift receiver. And so people are, you know, if. If they're gonna give it to you, they're gonna give it to you. But you can just say, and you can ask and you can mention, but you have to know, like, how's this gonna go over? Because the way it might go over with one of my family members is not the same way it might go over with one of your family members. Right? So go about and just, you know, start to talk about. Be open about the fact that you have been working on decluttering and you really have been trying to get stuff out of the house and, you know, express that you're nervous about new stuff coming in at Christmas or whatever. Just be more open about the fact that you're trying to declutter and, you know, you. You love experiences. I'm just putting that out there. But be grateful for whatever they give you. Right? Because they did it out of a heart of love, and we want to appreciate that. So. All right, I have to go. And this has been fun, and I should be here next week. Yes, I should. All right, I will talk to you all next week. Bye.