B (25:35)
So you want to check that out. But we were going through her stuff, and it was like all of these things had just been brought in and they're on the surfaces. And she was like, I need to get my craft room under control. So the first thing we talked about was the number one thing that deserves space is the space that's needed to create. She was a junk journaler. Maybe you are a, you know, maybe you're a painter. Maybe you really enjoy paper crafting. You know, whatever. Whatever space is needed to actually do that craft. That is priority space. That, that, that action of doing the creating gets priority space. Sewing anything that is creative for you, like, that means that empty space, open, available space is actually already used space. And this is really hard for those of us who are highly creative and we don't see limits, and that's part of our creat. And it's a wonderful quality. But also it's the thing that let's causes these spaces to get out of control. So instead to say, okay, this. There may be nothing on this table right now, and yet that table is full of empty available space for creating. Does that make sense? I mean, it may take a moment for your brain to go, wait, what? But this is a transformational concept for those of us who are highly creative. I have to have the space to create. I have to have the space to be able to spread out the five items that I've brought together that I'm actually going to use to create this project. Because if I don't have any room to actually do the paper craft, then the paper craft can't happen. And that's my dividing line, is that no creating is actually happening. So empty space, think of it as open available space for the actual action of creating that is used space. It is used by being open and being available to do the crafting. Okay, think about it as this is your passion or your hobby. Is it making felt flowers, or is it your passion to store the supplies to make felt flowers? Because coming up with super creative ideas to store the felt to make felt flowers feels creative. Like it is a use of creativity. But if you're collecting the supplies to make felt flowers, then if you don't have any actual physical space to sit down and make the felt flowers, then you're not actually doing the creative thing, Right? Like, the thing that you're doing is storing the supplies as opposed to that. So it doesn't mean that you're not going to store supplies. What it means is first priority is open space for creating. And that means, yes, space for your actual, like, you know, on a surface to do the action, but it also means space for your body. It means space for your body, space to sit in a chair. If you sit in a chair to do this, if it's something where you need to see it from lots of different angles, then it means space all around the table for you to be able to do the thing. That mindset shift is really powerful because that's the container concept. The most important things and most important to you, most important for this purpose that we have the space in the first place, the most important thing is the thing actually happening. Like, the thing actually getting done, the creativity happening. And so that physical reality, when you look at it as an exciting, I know it doesn't feel exciting to you right now, and I get that. But as you get through this process and you really start to accept the realities of your space, that's when it becomes that weird ingredient that made you come up with a genius idea. You say, you know what? I don't have a craft space. I don't have a craft room. All I have is one shelf, and that's all I can devote to this. Okay, then that one shelf needs to be used for the things that are the most important, that are your favorite items, that are the things that you're actually going to use. And that that physical reality frees you from making the decision of saying which things are bad, which things are good, and instead gets to say which things are the most likely to actually be used, which are the things that are going to move me forward in this desire that I have to be creative and do crafts. Okay? So letting that space be the limit and viewing that limitation as something that will help you be creative as opposed to stifle you. So with Kara last year, you know, as all these things were spread out that had been brought in and she was so we would go through the process. You know, we went through the process. We got rid of trash first. We got rid of any obvious donations. And then we, you know, dealt with the things that she already knew what. Knew what to do with. And then she would pick up some things, some things that she had ordered in a package or somebody had given her, and she's like, oh, I really do like these. Okay, well, we're not going to the. The point of decluttering is not to convince yourself not to like the thing that you liked enough to bring into your home. That's not what's going to do it. Instead, it's to say, okay, where would you look for it first? And she said, well, I would look for it first in that bin because she had great bins for organizing stuff, but her space was out of control because she had too much stuff. She had more stuff than she could handle. So. So at that point, I said, okay, then let's take it to that bin and let's look in there and is there room for it? And most of the time there was not room for it. So I said, well, is there anything in there that's easy for you to get rid of that definitely doesn't deserve space as much as this item that you want to put in there? And so sometimes it was things that maybe she had gotten a package in the mail and she realized through going through that process that, oh, these are the ones of that package that I really like. And the other ones, actually, now that I look at it that way, now that I look at it through this lens of a limitation that, you know, forces me to narrow down and be creative, I see that some of these things are not as exciting, and I can let those go. But also, in going through that process, she often found some things that, oh, there's space being taken up in this bin where I would look for these items that I bought for the kind of crafting that I'm doing right now, there's space being taken up by some things that maybe I had gathered for another kind of craft that I don't actually do anymore, or that I had somebody had given me, or that, you know, I had collected thinking I was going to do something. And then I tried it once and didn't like it that much. Like, that's how this works. It doesn't mean that I just say, okay, get rid of everything. It means I accept the realities of the space. I expect accept the limitations of the space and view that as helpful for my creativity. So organizing could be the answer. And I know that that is the tendency, especially for the creative person that was me. I would bring all these things into my house thinking, someday I'm going to figure out how to get all this stuff organized. And that didn't really work all that well. All these times when I had thought, oh, I'm going to get organized. Oh, I'm going to get organized. I'm going to get this done. At some point, I just kept bringing things in because I was like, well, I haven't gotten there yet. But I have complete confidence someday I'll be able to get organized. Well, then I would organize things, and then it would get completely out of control again. And then I would feel like, well, I'm not very good at organizing after all. So then it would make it harder for me to start again in the future. Organizing can. Can be the answer, okay? But it only. It can only be the answer after you declutter. You have to declutter first. You have to accept the reality of the space and then organize. Because otherwise you end up in this situation where you're coming up with an organizing solution for things that you actually don't even want in your house. Because so many times accepting the reality of the container is the thing that reveals, oh, there are things in here that I do not care about. Most of the time, it does occasionally come down to two great things, and comparing those two great things and deciding which one deserves space out of these two great things. Most of the time, though, it's an assumption that the things in there are great. And then I take the item that I know I'm going to be using to this space, and I say, is there anything in here that deserves space less? And I go, oh, my goodness, I forgot about this. This, this, and this, and those things can go. That is generally what happens, okay? So if you are organizing first, you are trying to come up with a solution to keep things that you have no business keeping that you don't even want to keep. So declutter first down to the realities of that space. What happened for me and what happens for so many people is once I declutter down to the realities of the space, well, then it was organized, naturally organized, just by doing that. So I didn't have to come up with a lot of solutions. But I know as a highly creative person, it can be very tempting, normal, logical to try to come up with a really elaborate solution, a really elaborate organizing solution. And I'm gonna say, I'm gonna guess that a lot of people listening have already done this in the past, have put a lot of time and effort into some sort of elaborate organizing System in some area of your, your home. Okay, I, I know I did like, I mean take, take days, months, not months, but you know, days, hours to put together this very detailed system and then it would completely go back to being a disaster. And that was a big, that was my biggest frustration. I was like, I don't understand. My mom would come in, she would help me, we'd come up with an elaborate system and I could not maintain it. And especially for the creative person who is pouring their creativity into the organizing solution, it's extra important to understand the concept of a clutter threshold. Your clutter threshold is the level of stuff that you personally can easily keep under control. So so many of those organizing systems that I'd come up with, even though I had poured my creativity into it in that moment, they were not systems that I could maintain because there was just more stuff in them. It was a lot of managing and dealing with. I, that's over my clutter threshold. That was a big realization for me in my own desalbification journey was, oh, I can't handle that amount of stuff. I can't handle the amount of stuff that my mom can handle and keep under control. I, I tried to keep that much stuff, but I couldn't keep it under control. So even if your desire is to organize and you want to use your creativity in that way, first declutter. Because you don't want to be coming up with solutions for things that have no business being in your home no matter what. And pay attention to how it works, whatever system you've done. And I'm going to encourage you to look back on systems that you probably have put in and how they ended up working. And if they did not work for you, it's probably because they were designed to hold more stuff than you could handle no matter what. So the encouragement is to view limitations as things to help you get to be creative. Opportunities to be creative, but not in a way of shoving more stuff in and finding cool ways to keep things, but in ways to really identify which things matter. Which things out of all these great things, which are the ones that are actually going to help you be creative, not just dream about being creative. I hope this made any sense at all.
