← podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
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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 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 503, and I think I'm going to call it Minimizing Decluttering Regret. This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. If you have not yet, you really should listen to the conversation I had with my husband on podcast number 500. And something we talked about on that podcast made me think about this a lot, because I think I asked him, you know, is there anything that we've decluttered that you regret decluttering? And his answer was some of his old muscle and fitness magazines that we got rid of years ago. And when he first said it, I was like, I don't remember what you're talking about, because I was nervous to ask him that question. Right? Isn't that the hesitation that a lot of us have is how are the people in our family, in our household gonna react to getting rid of some of these things? It's the reason why one of the most common questions that we ever, ever, ever get is, how do I get my family to get on board? How do I convince everybody in my family that it's okay to declutter? And it's also the reason why we say, hey, declutter your own stuff first so that you're not worrying about someone else's regret when you're decluttering. Worry about your own stuff. Get rid of your own things. That's going to make an impact on your house anyway, blah, blah, blah, that. But when he said that, and I was like, okay, when was that? And then he went on to explain, I know a lot of y' all have listened to it, but he went on to explain that it was a decision that was made in a high pressure, frantic time, that these were magazines that we threw away, that he decided, I'll just throw them all away. As we were packing up to leave the house before we moved to the town that we're in now. So we're in a different house than what we moved to, but that was our first real home that we were packing up. It was years before I had started what I now refer to as my des lobification process. It was long before I had even understood that my struggles in my home were because I Had too much stuff like it was before. All the things that I've learned here on this podcast and that I've shared and then I've shared on the blog and in my books and all that. So decluttering expert Dana did not exist at that point. Okay. So we were moving and we. That was. That was the situation where we had the 3,000 square foot truck that was supposed to hold enough for 3,000 square foot house, and then we filled it completely and another truck and a van or whatever. Like, we did a lot. We had so much stuff in that house that we were just desperate, you know, and we always were like, well, maybe we'll get a little bit bigger house. So why would we get rid of anything now? And not. Not that we didn't get rid of anything. Obviously we got rid of his magazines, but, you know, why would we get rid of anything now when we might need it in the next house? Maybe the next house will have the perfect place or the perfect setup for this, or maybe we have three different options of something, but in the new house that we don't even know what that new house is going to be, which one are we going to actually wish that we had kept? So we just kept things. I didn't understand the reality of space. I didn't understand container concept. None of that was in existence at the time. Right? And so in his memory, and some of y' all have listened to him say this more recently than I did, meaning you might have listened to that episode yesterday. And it's been weeks since I had that conversation with him. But in my memory, he was basically saying, you know, we were desperate. It was at the last minute and we had been frustrated at the process of trying to get packed and oh, my goodness, and we don't have room for stuff. And fine, fine, these magazines can just go. And that's his big regret, you know, and here. And I was completely surprised. I had no idea what he was going to say. And I definitely didn't know he was going to say that. I didn't know that it's bothered him over these years that he got rid of those. Because, I mean, he got rid of them. And so he's not going to bring it up and be like, why did we get rid of those? Right. Even though I might do that at some point in my own life. But he regretted that. And it made me. Made me sad, right? But it also made me realize that so many times decluttering regret happens in those maniacal moments as opposed to methodical moments.
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So I'm going to read you a blog post that I wrote. Let's see, when did I write this? It was early on in blogging. And let's see, the date on it is, oh, March 12th of 2010. I started, I think it was August, maybe August 27th, something like that of 2009. So this is less than a year in to getting my house under control. So if you're new here, what I did, I wanted to be a writer, had no intention of writing about cleaning and organizing, decluttering, anything like that, because those were my biggest struggles. But I wanted to be a writer and I thought I need to get my house under control first before I start a blog. But then I just couldn't get my house figured out. So I thought, well, I'll start a secret anonymous blog about getting my house under control. Like, as a journal. I wasn't teaching anything at this point, but I was just writing down like what I was doing, what I was thinking, what I was trying, what was working, what wasn't working, blah, blah, blah. So this is what, September, October, November, December, January, February, March. It's about seven months in. I had seen a lot of progress in my home, which I'll talk about in the actual thing that I'm reading. And my master bedroom, our primary bedroom, was just absolutely still out of control. And I just couldn't get it figured out right. So I was working on this and starting to work on this space and I was seeing the difference between what I had been doing for the last seven months and what I had always done before. What I had been doing for the last seven months was. Anyway, I'll talk about it here, but was going slowly and methodically versus my old style, which was clean the house from top to bottom and then it just going right back to being a disaster again. Now I often refer to this as the project brain. Like seeing my house as a project, meaning I'm going to just put all my energy into clean it, clean it, clean it, clean it, clean it and then sitting back and enjoying the project in the meantime, it goes right back. Right? So this is, this is this thing just for a real time perspective on this idea of maniacally getting rid of a bunch of stuff, which is a situation that we were in and we had to be in when we moved that my husband, his biggest decluttering regret is based on that moment of big maniacal cleaning. But he didn't name things. Not that he doesn't have any other regrets, but it didn't come to mind for him anything that we had gotten rid of once we actually understood the method. Right. The. The process. Okay, so here's the, here's the 2010 blog post. I can do maniacal cleaning. When my husband and I were first married, pre kids, he'd go out of town and I would clean like crazy. Dust, mask, rubber gloves, multiple trash bags. And the house would be sparkly and clutter free, or at least clutter hidden. When he returned living as I used to live, the house always a sty, I had no choice but to clean like crazy in order to be able to open the front door and let someone in. And then I'd enjoy the clean house and think I deserved a break. Until one day a week or so later I would notice that the pigsty was back. Yes, I am good at the maniac fame, but as I've worked on making real lasting changes in our home over the past seven months, I've changed my methods from maniacal to methodical. I've been working at consistency, real decluttering, and staying focused on maintaining a space once I've rescued it from disaster status. It's working. It's working better than any other way I've tried. So as I'm trying to gear myself up to finally conquer the master bedroom, I. I want to apply what I've learned in the rest of the house. Last fall, when my husband took the boys camping for the weekend, I tried the crazy woman thing on the master bedroom. It was so far gone at that point that even approximately 20 hours over that weekend didn't get it to perfection. And the result? It's now back in its full fledged horror movie state. I had intended to work on it this week, but then the week got away from me. I found myself with 40 minutes yesterday and decided that I might as well do something. So I took some before pictures which I'm too ashamed to post, and decided to clear the dresser. 40 minutes wasn't enough, but I came back when I had a few minutes later in the afternoon and finished up. Here's the after. Yes, that's one of my wigs. I took my time. I focused only on the dresser and took every piece of junk to its proper home. I got out my pledge and shined it up and arranged the photos and cleaned the mirror. Our master bedroom is so bad that I know in order to do it right, I'd have to devote an uninterrupted week to it. In the past, on my maniacal cleaning days, I pick up all their dirty clothes in the entire room, then pick up all the trash. At that point, I'd become overwhelmed and I'd always, always get to that point when I wouldn't know what to do with those last few things that didn't have a home anywhere else in the house. And. And then I'd usually quit. So since I'm committed to truly changing my slobbish ways, instead of just getting the house ready for one party, I'm going to take my time. I mean, no one has seen the master bedroom in three years. What's one more month, right? I'm going to work on a small section at a time, celebrating each section as its own success and work to maintain the finished ones. And that cleared off shiny dresser gives me hope. Okay, so that is a real time thought process, experience, progress, work, trial and error that I was doing back in 2010. Just a little plug for those of you who haven't. If you find yourself completely and totally overwhelmed and just thinking, I don't get it, and you've read the books, whatever, or even if you haven't, I always recommend, and I recommend this because people tell me they do it and it is incredibly helpful for them. I recommend that you read the blog backwards. I recommend that you go and there's. On the site itself we have, you can click on. I think it says I'm here, so I should actually look it up, right? Get started. Yeah, there's a tab that says get started. And that's going to explain to you how to go back to the first post and keep reading them so that you can see the real time. Like, people are constantly asking me, how long is this going to take? How long is it going to take for me to get my house under control? You can actually see, you can read every day's log for the several years that it took me to get my house under control. And you see the things that worked and the things that didn't and the things that worked and then didn't and then started working again. And then, I mean like, all of that is there because I was recording it and writing about it. But anyway, this is what I was realizing. I had made more progress in my home by working methodically than I ever had by working maniacally. Okay? And that realization, like, I. I think back to this moment of this realization so many times I think about it when I'm in the moment of finding myself thinking, you know what I need to do? I just need to block off my schedule and work like crazy for this amount of time. When I think of that, I go, no, I know better. Methodically versus maniacally. But maniacally sometimes has to happen, right? Somebody's coming over, you're moving, the deadline happens. You know, I know for us, when we moved into this house that we're in now, which would have been like 13 years after the blog start, or 12 years, whatever, you know, well, over a decade of having my house under control, having written the books. Yes, I've got it. My house is completely functional at this point. At those last minutes, the last day when we had to get the very last few things that, you know, whatever had were still there out of our old house. Those moments, like, everything got thrown into boxes and shoved in my garage, and then they sat there for a really long time in this house. I mean, like, we. The reality is maniacally sometimes has to happen. But every moment that I work on my house in a time that doesn't have to be maniacally is so incredibly beneficial and is going to prevent the maniacal times from happening. Because the maniacal times are the times when I experience the most regret. Regret over having not done it earlier, but also put myself into a situation where I'm like, I don't know, get rid of it. What was that thing I just got rid of? Okay, the Decluttering Regret. So the title of this podcast is Minimizing Decluttering Regret. Since I view my closet as a container as a natural limit for my clothes, I've become pretty passionate about choosing quality over quantity. Clothing that's well made and versatile deserves priority space. That's why I love quints. They make high quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics and materials, and a few quality items I'll wear over and over again make more sense than a closet full of clothes I won't actually wear. Spring is a great time to take a good look and one in, one out some items in your wardrobe. The seasonal colors and prints available at Quint are beautiful. I love that Quint works directly with safe, ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. 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With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1NA member FDIC.
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So how is it different when I go methodically versus maniacally When I'm going methodically, first of all, I have to have a method. Well, good news for all of us. I have a method for you. It's called the no Mess Decluttering method. And you can get a printable of that method at a slob comes clean.com 5F I V E. Or you can listen to it here on the podcast because I'm about to go through it. Or you can. I mean, the best thing to do is to get decluttering at the speed of life, because that is going to take you all the way through your house and all the way through the method and all that stuff. Right. That's my book, which is also an audio and most libraries have it too. But I have a method for you. And I find it really interesting that his regret, even though now is the time where I'm the person teaching decluttering to the world, I do. I help people declutter. I have made hard decisions. I have made some really, really hard decisions. He has made some really hard decisions about things that we're going to keep and things that we're not going to keep. Our perspective has changed. We have gotten rid of so many more things than we ever had back when we got rid of those magazines. The magazines were a really difficult thing for him to throw away. I do feel bad that I don't remember, but like, they were hard for him to throw away and he just did it. But comparatively, that was maybe one plastic tub full for me and for him. Now we have gotten rid of literal truckloads. I mean, I hired 1-800-got-Junk about a year ago around this time, and they took an entire truckload of our stuff away. And that was after having decluttered for years. Furniture and all sorts of things. I mean, just boxes and donate boxes constantly. Every time there's ever a chance for a donation pickup, I am going to fill as much as I can possibly justify filling. And meaning, like, I don't want to be too embarrassed when they come and they're like, we didn't mean we were going to take your whole house. But I mean, I have gotten rid of so much stuff. And that's not what we think of in going, okay, what do we regret out of that? Instead, it was the one thing when we weren't getting rid of a whole bunch of stuff. There was so much trash. There were so many obvious donations. I didn't know to look for those. We probably packed up and hauled, paid the gas and paid the people who, you know, their teenagers came and helped us bring all this stuff in. Our kids were little bitty at the time. We paid all that money and put all that oomph and effort and sweat into getting all that stuff moved. And I guarantee you, all that included legitimate trash. We would never have even thought twice about if we had just taken the moment to say, is there anything that we could just throw away? Is there anything that we could just stick in a donate box instead of into this moving truck? But instead we just packed it all up and moved and then ended up throwing something away that was a real regret. But when you follow the method, it naturally minimizes regret. So therefore follow the method. Because here's the problem. If you are fearing decluttering regret, if you're fearing that you are going to end up regretting having decluttered, that fear of regret often stops you from starting the decluttering process at all. So the first three steps of my decluttering process are all decision and emotion free. Meaning by definition, there are no decisions in the first three steps. It isn't possible to. I mean, it's always possible. I know y' all are going to give me some example how it's possible. It really. I'm just going to say it though. It isn't possible to regret decluttering something from those first three steps because they are decision free. So, meaning the first step is the trash. And the trash means obvious trash that you already know is trash. It's impossible to regret throwing trash away if it's obvious trash. Now, we're not talking about muscle and fitness magazines that he had collected for years. He just went to the Arnold Expo in Ohio. That might be why he specifically thought of those items. But because he just loves that kind of stuff. And he had all these muscle and fitness magazines from when he was, you know, that he and his friend both just Jim Bros, you know, that kind of thing. But he. Those were not an easy decision. But taking the moment to say, is there anything here that is decision free? Anything here that is obvious would generally make enough space that we could have easily kept those magazines. So the first step is the trash and you get that out. The second step is easy stuff, meaning anything that does have an established home other than this place that I'm dealing with right now within my house and I go take it to its established home. That's not even getting rid of anything. That's literally just putting in the place where it already goes, where it's supposed to be. The third step is obvious donations. Sometimes people struggle with this, but as I've said before in a whole podcast, it's not possible to struggle with obvious donations because if you're struggling, they're not obvious. And so that's not what we're talking about. It isn't possible to struggle with these first three steps because if you're struggling, then those whatever you're struggling with is not part of the first three steps. If it, if something makes your heart go, oh, I can't get rid of that, then that's not what we're talking about in the first three steps. The first three steps is only obvious trash. Easy stuff that has an established home. Take it to that home. And obvious donations like obvious to you. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to debate. I'm not going to force myself to just do it. None of that, right? It is literally just decision free, easy stuff. When the kids are home during spring break or Easter break, there is nothing better than sitting around the table eating a home cooked meal together. I love meals that are easy, simple and delicious. HelloFresh makes it easy to put out delicious satisfying recipes no matter what else is going on to make life busy. I really love how HelloFresh sends everything I need to my doorstep. So all we have to do is put pull out the bag for that night's meal and get to cooking. It makes it fun and easy. Choose from seafood, antibiotic and hormone free chicken and their new grass fed steak ribeyes. You can add seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus to your meals. 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with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep. Even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC.
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When you deal with those first three decision free categories of stuff, first it opens up space. It opens up space so it doesn't feel as pressing to just get rid of stuff. Like it's not. You're not in the same situation anymore because now you have more space because the trash is gone and the trash was taking up space. And the easy stuff that was in this space is now in its actual home. And maybe you found some trash in the actual home because you needed some space to put that thing in its home. And the obvious donations are gone. And so you have freed up space, which just makes it. You're in less of a situation where you need to do this maniacally anymore. Okay, here's what I'm gonna say real quick too, before I forget. If you are in a situation where you are having to maniacally clean, meaning you've got to move, you've people are coming over, whatever you've got, the stove needs to be fixed and you gotta clean up the living room so the repair person can get through whatever. If you were doing that, you still, or you also, or you definitely really need to focus on the five step process. The method. You know, maniacally go in there and say any obvious trash? Yes, obvious trash. Obvious trash. Obvious trash. Sometimes that stuff will make it show up a little clearer in your brain than when you're like, huh? Is there any obvious trash in here? Okay. You know, go through these steps because it's going to make it make sense and it's going to mean that you don't end up in these situations of regret as much because you have an actual method to use. Yes. Maybe you're having to use that method faster, but you're not just randomly causing damage. Okay. Because you're going through the process. You're like, I got to do trash, trash, trash, trash, trash, trash, trash, trash, trash, trash. All right. Anything. Easy. Yep, this is easy. That's easy. All right, I'm going to do that. Okay. Anything here that's a donation. Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. These things can go, right? Like See what I'm saying? How it's yes, it's sped up, but it's not maniacal. It's methodical, which minimizes the regret, right? And then the two decluttering questions are instinct based, not value decision based. They're not emotion based. They are literally, which, I mean, all emotions and value decisions come into play, of course, but they help me make these decisions based on facts. So the first question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? That's a fact. This is not a where should it be? Where would it go? Because those are not facts. Those are like, I don't know where I should go. I have no idea where it would be. Instead, like, literally, if I had no earthly clue where this thing was, what's the first place that I would walk to to look for it with no confidence it's going to be there. And that's a fact. There's, there's a, there's. Do I know for sure the future? What if I think of something different next time? Well, if you go on your actual instinct, there's a really, really high chance that you're gonna find it in the first place where you look. If you put it in the first place where the place where you instinctually thought you would look for it first, right? If not, maybe it's the second one. But you know what's better is the second one is a whole lot better than tearing your house apart for three hours, right? So that put it in the first place where you look for it, get to take it to that space right now, face the reality of that space. I gotta get rid of something in order to make the room for this. If there's no room for it, there's gonna be trash and there's gonna be obvious donations in there. I have to do those things. So that walks me through it. It gives me a very methodical. It gives me a method, it gives me a process to follow. So I'm making fact based, reality based decisions as opposed to decisions of, I don't know, I'll just throw it away, right? And then you take it to that space. And sometimes you have a moment, like, it is very possible that we could have gone through this whole process and Bob take the bin of muscle and fitness magazines from the 1980s, that he could have taken that to the place where he would look for it first realize, and I'm just making this up, realized, oh, that's actually where we keep our kids memory boxes or whatever, keepsake boxes, what we call Them. That's where we actually keep those. Oh, you know what? I'd rather keep our kids keepsake boxes from when they were babies than these muscle and fitness magazines. It could still make him sad, but there's a difference between sadness and regret, right? Like, the sadness may happen when I face this reality. Or honestly, I might be like, I'm gonna pick out my three favorites because I only have a small amount of space. And I may be sad about letting go of the other 47, but I've based it all in facts. I face the reality. I had a process to go through, and so I am able to do this, and it's just a very different experience. I don't experience the same regret when I do it this way. Okay. When I actually follow a method versus just, oh, no, fine, throw it away. Right? I don't think he yelled when he did that. But I. I know it was hard, and I. I feel bad. I feel terrible about it. But I also go, we didn't know what we didn't know, and so now we know, and now we do better. So the. The second decluttering question, which. This is the second part of step four. So the step four is to ask the decluttering questions. If I can answer where I would look for it first, I take it there. Now I'm done. I don't have to ask the second question. But the second question. If I can't answer the first question, if I don't have a place where I would look for it first, the second question is, if I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already had one because I didn't have a place where I would go looking for it, which means I need a muscle and fitness night, you know, March of 1982, that had Arnold Schwarzenegger on the COVID that he would know. He would probably know if Arnold would have been on the COVID then or not. I don't. So that's not a fact. This is a hypothetical example. Okay. Anyway, if I asked the question, where would I look first for, you know, a 1982 March Muscle and fitness magazine if I didn't? And this would be him, right? Because it'd be his stuff. If he was like, I don't know. It's probably because he doesn't know he has it right now. I mean, obviously a category of items, muscle and fitness magazines, is probably not the greatest example, but. But if you don't know that you have it and you would never go looking for, that's hard for a lot of people. Like, oh, but, but now I know I haven't. Blah, blah. Well, if you know you have it and you're confident you would have gone looking for it, there has to be a first place. You got to go back and say, what is the first place where I would look for it? But if you truly don't, again, it can cause sadness. But I'm facing reality and saying I've got to get stuff out of my house. And the fact is I would never have gone looking for this. And I just, I can't even think of a first place where I would look because I wouldn't look. In the meantime, my house would stay cluttered, which would put me in the situation where I would have to do things maniacally at some point. Like, that's, that's how all this plays out in the end. Okay? And then the final step of the method, of the method of the. Of the no mess decluttering method of the methodical method that that last step is to accept the realities of the space. Again, I'm dealing in reality and I have a very specific method that allows me to work within that reality. And that is to say, if it doesn't all fit, that I need to get rid of my least favorites until it does fit. And even before that, I'm going to put like items together. So I'm going to put the, the ones with Arnold on the COVID and the ones with Lee Haney on the COVID I don't know who that is, but I know it's one of those names he said. And the ones with Franco Colombo. I don't know. Is that a real thing? Anyway, I'm going to put all these different. I'm going to do that and I'm going to do the ones that blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. But consolidating is an action that you take. It's a method that you take that naturally helps you go, oh, I've got four copies of the same magazine of somebody I don't even really care about. I'm getting rid of three of those. But that is what naturally happens. But you have a method for getting you to that point where you are non emotionally going through all of these items and facing the reality of them. Okay. And it's very likely we would have come to the point where we said, this is the shelf for old muscle and fitness magazines. Put your favorite ones on first. And the ones that don't fit, those are the ones that need to go. Most likely, because this is what happens to me. And I know it happens to you because you tell me that and it happens with people I work with all the time, is we rarely get to the point where we're just like, oh, no, now I have to get rid of these. Usually that process of taking the least favorite out or if it happens to be a new space, you know, because you have found this bin in the garage, you, this new space, and I'm going to put these, you know, magazines on there for favorite ones first. By the time it's full, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Like, I don't have any regret at that point because I followed the process, the method, because I did it methodically instead of maniacally. That's how you minimize decluttering regret. You use my five step, no mess decluttering process, and you let it build upon itself and you let the process itself, the method itself, give you the confidence to let some things go. So you're not just saying all muscle and fitness magazines from the 1980s are great. That's not what I'm saying. You know, I, I like, I used to like Muscle Fitness magazine, so I'm going to keep them. Instead you say, this is the space that I have for muscle and fitness magazines from the 1980s, so I'm going to put my favorite ones in first. And then you realize, oh, yeah, I don't care about these. But before, when it was just a category of is this good or not? Oh, of course it's good. I used to love that stuff. But going through the process, having a method naturally results in less regret in minimizing regret. Okay, well, I hope that was helpful. And I, I really have enjoyed thinking about this because it's, it's honestly changed how I've thought about regret in the past. I've, you know, my, my general answer when people would ask me, oh, I'm so scared of regret, it's like, well, you know what? You have to put your appreciation on the function of the space, and you have to put it on the value of being able to, you know, move freely in that space, get rid of the easy stuff first, and it'll change how you see your stuff. And it'll also maybe free up some space where you'll be able to keep some things that you need. All those things are still true, but now I look at it and go, oh, a lot of the reason we have not experienced decluttering regret more than we have, considering how much we have decluttered, is that we have done it methodically. So take some time this weekend when it's not urgent to say, I'm gonna work. I'm gonna do the five step process on this space for however long I got. I'm gonna do it for 20 minutes and I'm done at that point. If you. If you physically cannot move around, do what you can do following the five step process, sitting in a chair in front of this space. Just do what you can do until you're just done. And I don't mean like, done with a project. I mean, like, you're ready to quit. Because as long as you're following the no mess process, you can quit at any time. Which actually means a whole different level of not having regret. Right? Like, not. You're not gonna regret having started because you can stop at any time. So that's a different kind of decluttering regret. Right. Okay. I hope this was helpful, and I will talk to y' all next week. Bye.