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podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
505: Hotelify – Making it Easier for the Others in Your Home to Keep it Neat
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Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal desalobification 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 505, and I think I'm going to call it hotelifying, making it easier for others in your home to keep it neat. So I had a conversation with a friend, and at some point, like, if y' all go, wow, hotelifying is the new word that we're gonna use all the time, I will absolutely give her credit, but I don't think she wants everybody to know all of her story right now that she's. Anyway, whatever. We were having a conversation. She's got exciting things coming up, but she's gonna be gone for a little while. This is just a personal friend. She doesn't have, like, a brand out there. Whatever. Anyway. Oh, I feel like I'm just blathering on, but whatever. Y' all know what I mean. She is gonna be gone for a while. And I. I know this happens, right? Sometimes Mama has to be gone for a while. Maybe for work, maybe for taking care of a family member, maybe for just whatever. A lot of you have been through this because you've told me your stories of having been through this, where you had to leave and go take care of something else for a while, and you had to leave your family at home. And even in households where everybody contributes, when the person who is the most dedicated to the idea of keeping the house running smoothly, the most determined, who thinks about it the most, who has the most. Feels the most responsibility in that area, which, let's be honest, is also the same person in the family who's listening to this podcast right now. That's what I tell people all the time, is I know you want people to care as much as you do, but you're the one listening to a podcast about cleaning and organizing and decluttering, and a lot of people, including the people in your house, don't care that much about this stuff as you do with your, you know, desire to actually listen to these podcasts. So, anyway, it's not a matter of what's it, you know, they should be pulling their weight. Even if people have been pulling their weight just to be gone for a while, that can be really stressful, right? It can be really stressful on the person who's like, I. If I Come back and it's a total disaster, then I am going to take on that stress. And they're trying to prevent that stress on their own. So, anyway, we're talking about this, things that are going on. And she just said something about, well, you know, right now, before I go, I'm trying to hotelify the house. And she just kept talking. And I went, what did you say? And she said, hotelify. And I went, oh, what do you mean by that? Well, she said, you know how when you go into a hotel, everything. Oh, my word. Phone. Callie, my phone is listening to this podcast. I hope she likes it. Anyway, but when you go into a hotel, everything that exists in that space has a very clear purpose. Right? Like, everything in the space, it clearly needs to be there. And because of that, when your own stuff gets put on these surfaces, it's very obvious that anything that's out of place is my stuff. So when you go to leave a hotel room, I mean, yes, there is the stress of looking under the bed, and what if it's not one of those that has the bed blocked off, you know, to the floor of, oh, goodness, what. Anyway, and you have to actually get down on the carpet in a hotel, which kind of grosses me out, and then look under the bed to make sure you haven't left anything under there. I love how they have that basically, like, you know, solid now so that you don't have to do that usually. But what I'm saying is that idea of getting stuff picked up to leave the hotel, you can pretty much tell easily, this is my stuff, I need to grab my stuff, because it's very clear. There's just not a lot of stuff on the surfaces. And if there is something on the surface, it's very clear what it is and why it's there. And so she just said, you know, my goal, because the people in my family, you know, I have stuff out on the counters, but I know they're not going to use that stuff while I'm gone. And so I am going to remove all of those things from the counters so that the counters are really clear, so that anything that's on the counter, they're going to know it's their stuff. And then they know they need to deal with it when I remind them, hey, make sure you're dealing with things, because she has a whole plan for that. But anyway, I just really liked this idea of hotelifying the surfaces so that when something's out of place, when something needs to be dealt with, it's just really obvious that it needs to be dealt with. And this happens, right? This is the thing that I experience myself and I hear from so many of you is now I find myself dealing with one item. Because when one item or even three items are out of place, I noticed those one or three items, I noticed that they're out of place. I didn't notice they were out of place before because there were 40 items on the surface. And so, first of all, what's the big deal to make it 43 instead of 40, but also a mostly clear surface with one or two things on it? Those one or two things really stick out as being the things messing that up. So it's like once you get a surface decluttered, it's so much easier to notice when something needs to be dealt with in that space.
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So this idea, though, of hotelifying the space is to make it easier for them, but it's also to make it easier for her so she will have less to worry about. She's setting it up for them to be able to be successful. And she's also acknowledging that there are things that she manages on that space that they don't care about. And that's just going to blend. Things are going to blend in if she leaves those things there. And it made me think about the idea of the family clutter threshold. You know, we've talked about that here on the podcast. I've written about it in my books as well. But what do I mean by that? Well, first of all, let me define the clutter threshold. Your clutter threshold is the amount of stuff that you personally can keep under control easily. It's the point at which you only have in your house what is easy for you to manage. So you have a different clutter threshold than your mother did. It's the reason why you might have set up your home to have all the same types of things and numbers of things that your mom had. But you're like, how did she do it? I can't seem to do this. This was my experience. My experience was that my mom is the type who, you know, feels the need to be prepared for any situation that ever might happen at any point in the entire future of the universe. And she has all that stuff in her house, but she was always able to keep it under control. She can handle it. She can reach into a cabinet, move six things, get the thing at the very back, and then move the six things that she moved out back in neatly and cause a disaster. I had to realize that even though I had inherited this belief that I needed to have all the stuff, I didn't inherit the ability to handle that stuff. And so the only way for me to be successful in my home was to accept that I have a lower clutter threshold than my mother. I can't handle as much stuff. It is not about esthetics. I wish it was. And I think that's really clear in this case as well, because I know that some of you probably reacted to the word hotelify and thought, cold, sterile. I don't like it. I don't want that. Y'. All. Somebody on a YouTube video, which I don't think it was any of y', all, because I feel like it was somebody who just kind of happened upon it or whatever. And you know how people assume that because I talk about decluttering, I must be a minimalist. And y' all know I'm not a minimalist. Everybody listening here knows that. Right? But sometimes. But that is a very common assumption that if you teach decluttering, you must be a minimalist. That is not true. I am a functionalist. Not a minimalist. Minimalist. But somebody was like, your whole. Your house is so cold and sterile, and you don't have any. It's not cute. And I was like, well, that's just rude. Because that is not because I'm a minimalist. It's just because I'm not very good at decorating, whatever. But that. I get that the reaction to the idea of having less stuff to make it easier can be. But I don't like the aesthetics of that. And that is valid. You can absolutely like the look that you like, but the look that you like is going to determine how much maintenance there is to do. And coming to this happy balance of, I like this look, y'. All. I Love. I love my friend Jackie. I've talked about her before. I love her amazing, cute vignettes and displays of cool, cute, adorable things. I loved my friend Liz, my roommate Liz in college, going to her parents house. Her parents were fascinating, interesting people. I think her mom's still alive, but, like, I loved how cool and interesting everything was. And they had, like, antiques and just unique, quirky things that I was like, I want a house like this. This is exactly what I want. And so I collected all the cute and quirky things, thinking, I want to have a house like Liz's parents have. And I couldn't handle it. I got all the stuff and I can't do it. Why? Because it all blends together in my brain. And when I've got that, When I've got the cute little display of all the cute and fun and quirky things, all of a sudden, like, I don't notice that 10 other things have drifted into that pile because my brain, I guess, just thinks it's a pile. I don't know unless I'm appreciating it. And it just starts to become. Anyway, it's finding that balance of this is the look that I want. What version of that look can I achieve that I can actually handle? Because being able to handle it is so much nicer than setting up something that I think looks beautiful when I first set it up. And then it constantly turns into an embarrassing mess that just frustrates me. It's coming to that balance, that place. And that's why I always say this with the clutter threshold is it is not aesthetic preference, your aesthetics. Of course, those are important. But if you're constantly designing something and setting something up and then it just seems to turn into looking like a big blob of clutter, well, that's not achieving what you're wanting to achieve when you do that. So what is. How do you know if you're at your clutter threshold, you can handle it. So it doesn't mean I have to get rid of all my displays, of all my things that I have out. Instead, it's, you know what? It keeps turning into a disaster. So I need to get rid of some. And so you get rid of your least favorites of these things. You make the display a little bit less complicated. You remove, you know, some things, you declutter some things. You love it all, but you declutter the things that you love the least out of that. Okay. And then you live with it for. And you're like, okay, all right. It's still getting out of control. Okay, well, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it a little bit simpler. I'm gonna declutter a little. My next least favorite things. I'm gonna get those things out and then. Oh, okay. That stayed under control a little bit longer. But it's, you know, but here's the beauty. Every time you do that and it stays under control a little bit longer and it's a little bit easier for you to manage and you get to enjoy it more instead of being frustrated by it so much. And that is the thing that encourages you to be willing to get rid of more until you get to that point. So it's finding that place of my clutter threshold. It's not an all or nothing. This is why we're not talking about minimalism. We are literally talking about what can you handle. It's finding this is what I want. This is the way it is. How do I adjust? Adjust, adjust, adjust, adjust until I get to the middle where I actually have the best version of what I want along with what I can handle. So therefore, this is the happy place. This is the point of functionalism. 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So we talk about clutter threshold. It is about decluttering your house until you can easily keep it under control. But when I talk about family clutter threshold, I am talking about shared spaces and how can those spaces stay under control? The only way to have a shared space stay under control easily is to declutter to the point where everybody who uses it can easily keep that space under control. So it's finding the lowest clutter threshold in the group. And this can be really frustrating for moms. This is one of those times. This is one of those conversations that I hear or somehow end up in because, you know, moms love to talk about this. Why can't they do this? Why can't you know? And I'm saying that with that voice and I know, but it's a very why can't they just do what I tell them to do? Why can't they do this? Okay, here. Here's that point of functionalism when I have this system set up that I want it to work I have a choice. If it is not working for my family, I can either declutter until it does work for my family and their, Their actual clutter threshold. Well, it's where it's easy for them. Or I can spend a lot of time and energy and effort reminding them, managing them, overseeing them, coming up with motivational systems and reward systems and punishment systems and discipline, all these things. I can do all of that to make the system the way that I want it to work, actually work. And that is fine. Like, you absolutely can do that. If that's what you want to do, that's what you should do. But if you find yourself frustrated and giving up and letting everybody be frustrated in this space because, oh, I just, I don't have it in me to constantly be managing and reminding and all this. The answer is to declutter down to the common clutter threshold that everybody. The lowest common clutter threshold, like the lowest amount of stuff that everybody can handle. And it can be hard. It can be hard. Especially as the one managing things right. Like you want things to work a certain way. You're like, well, if I was the only one using this space, then it would actually work. But you're not the only one using that space. It's everybody's space to use. And use a complicated system that you can handle, but they can't. And you've got plenty of space. You've got your, your skin care area, your, you know, different spaces that are your realm that you can have a more complicated system in. But if you're constantly frustrated by something, you need to have it down to the lowest common clutter threshold. And I think that's what I loved about what my friend was saying about hotelifying is she was acknowledging that especially without her there to manage things, that it would have been a losing battle to expect them to notice the things that normally she has to point out to expect them to see things. So she's like, I want to hotelify the space and get the things that they don't care about. They're not going to use them. They don't even notice them. I'm going to get those out just for the sake of having a clearer space so that they will know that this space has to be cleared down to nothing, that everything on here, because Mom's not even here, everything on here is your responsibility to deal with because everything else has been removed. And I just, I really liked and admired the way that she looked at that. Because when as moms especially, it can be incredibly frustrating. But that's functionalism. To come to the point where you say, I need this to work. I need this to actually happen. I need to set this up in a way where it's going to be as easy as possible for them to do the thing that I really want to happen. And it can be normal and easy to resent when someone else doesn't see things the way that you see them. It can be normal to wish that they were as motivated as you were, as you are. It can be normal to resent making things easier for them. But if you'll notice here, it's not a matter of her doing this for them. And I think that that's one of the hangups that we have as moms, especially those of us who struggle ourselves. I know for me, I really struggled when my house was out of control. And I also had the pressure of I'm supposed to be teaching these small humans how to have a house that's under control. And I. Things weren't easy for me because I wasn't under my clutter threshold, right? Like, everything was hard. And so I thought what I was supposed to be teach teaching them was how to do the hard thing and get it done anyway, even though it never actually had the impact because I didn't know which things to do. So what helped me personally was really boiling it down to saying, just do the dishes. If I will just do the dishes, if I will just do a five minute pickup, that will keep things under control. Once I boiled it down to these are the things that either if they're done, keep a house under control, or if they're not done, cause the house to be completely out of control. Boiling it down to those absolute essential things then gave me the freedom to stop feeling like a failure. And it also removed so much pressure from the people who I was trying to teach to do these things right. Like, it can feel like, but if I make it easier for them, then what am I really teaching them? Well, you've been listening to this podcast and maybe this is your first time and if so, welcome. But if you've listened to this podcast a lot, especially if you listened last week. So last week I was talking. What was I talking about last week? Time to give versus stolen time on hobbies, right? Like freeing up so much time. If you have listened to this podcast and you have personally been relieved to find out, oh, the real purpose of decluttering and keeping up with daily habits is so that it doesn't get overwhelming. So I don't get myself into A situation where I have to dig my way out again. You know, I did have to dig my way out. Oh, that it, that the ease that actually knowing what to do and what's going to move the needle, that the beauty of that is how much easier and less overwhelming it makes everything and how transformational that is for you personally in your own situation. And then to realize that's actually the thing that I want to pass on to my kids, I want to pass on to them that this doesn't have to be overwhelming, which for me personally was a hard thing to kind of unteach them from before. That was what I realized, especially now. I'm always telling you that with the five minute pickup, so much of the struggle when you bring your family in on that five minute pickup, which the. It's the best thing to bring everybody in the house into as far as a habit. But the hardest thing about that in the beginning is getting them to trust you that you mean five minutes. You're not trying to trick them into cleaning up the whole house and getting it ready for grandma. But to really teach them, this is five minutes. We're going to work for five minutes and we're going to stop at the end of five minutes. There's so much value in that because it changes like once you can really. And it's not going to be the first time. It's going to take several times before they believe that if you've never done it before. But once they understand, oh, she really does mean five minutes. Okay, well, then I'm willing to work for five minutes. When they think that you're saying five minutes. But you mean we're going to spend an entire day of mom. This was our situation of mom being bananas, running around the house, mad at everybody, mad at everything. Why is it so bad? Mom being in a horrible mood. Then they're gonna resist in those first five minutes because they're going to. And this is what my kids did like. They're like, oh, we don't like days like this. Days that are spent getting the house ready for people to come over isn't. It's just incredibly stressful. It's way too much. It's not fun. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. To go through all that to have people over. And so we're going to drag our feet so that she'll give up. We're going to drag our feet because this is going to be awful. This is going to be horrible. Here we go. Right? So them learning that Five minutes only means five minutes is huge because it gets them to the point where they realize, oh, okay, all right. She really means five minutes. Oh, okay. Well, I'm willing to do this for five minutes. And then once everybody gets to that point, then five minutes starts having a really big impact. But that teaching them that you only mean five minutes is incredibly important and incredibly value and not fun at all. Right. But then also when we get to the point where we've decluttered to where five minutes, that's the gauge that we use to know, have we decluttered enough or not? Are we under our clutter threshold? Does five minutes get a space back under control or the whole house? If we're all working for those five minutes, when we get to that point and we're under our clutter threshold, that's the point of the clutter threshold, is that it's not so overwhelming anymore. It's not hard anymore. I can handle it. That's the gauge. Is five minutes on a normal day with the people who live in this house and who are here on a regular basis, can 5 minutes be enough to get it back under control? And then I go, oh, yeah, I can do that. I can do five minutes. So what I really want to teach the people who live in my house is that I don't need to procrastinate. 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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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Remember the layers of a clean house the layers of a clean house are, first of all, the daily habits. And if I can keep up with the daily stuff of sweeping the kitchen floor, which is not about sweeping, it's not about crumbs, it's about making sure there's no junk on the floor. Okay. And that things are actually picked up off the floor. If I can keep up with the dishes, if I can do a five minute pickup, if I can check the bathrooms for clutter, if I will do those things, then the house keeps on running whether I clean it or not. It looks okay. This is how people who say they never clean but their house always looks clean. This is how they do it. They keep up with five minute pickup. I mean, they keep up with their daily habits. The next layer of the clean house is the clutter. Things have to have a place to go. And when you put things in the place where they go, which is where you would look for it first. According to my decluttering process, if you put things in those places and there's you go to put things in those places, there's nothing there, then something else has to leave the house in order to make the room for that. So that whole decluttering process, no, it's not fun, but it's always worth it because it gets to the point where, oh, things have a place to go. I don't have piles and surfaces covered and things popping out of cabinets the minute that I open the door, whatever. Like things have actual places to go and then the cleaning is the last thing. Well, cleaning is no longer overwhelming if I've dealt with those first two layers. The daily things are happening daily, so they never build up to something that I have to really catch up on and the clutter is out. Things have places to go and real space in those places. And then the cleaning is no longer that big of a deal. And so that's what I want to teach the next group, right, Is if they can learn that this surface being clear, except for my things that I put on there, makes it easy for me to get it back to being clear. That's an incredibly valuable lesson to keep going forward. And she's giving up the way that she likes for it to look because she's like, you know what? For this time period, we gotta get it down to the absolute basics to make it as easy for everybody. Because it's hard when mama's gone. Right. So why would we add extra stress? Let's make this as stress free as possible, as easy as possible to keep it under control. And I just, I love that perspective and that idea behind hotelifying, making things as easy as possible for the people who live in the house to keep it under control. Because I have a choice. I can either manage the people to do the things or I can get rid of the stuff. So we all have less to do. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know that's any kind of change everything strategy necessarily. But I do think it, it makes a lot of sense. And I think that, you know, I think about things like the same bathroom that the kids use is often the same bathroom that guests would use. Right. So having less stuff in there is just going to make it easier to keep under control. It's just going to make it less likely to become a disaster area, just have less stuff. I might want to have a cute little display in the bathroom of stuff that I think would impress people. You know what, those kids are going to grow up eventually and then you can do that. And you'll be sad because they'll be gone. But making it as easy as possible for there not to be excess stuff so that when something is out of place, they see it and they notice it. It's much easier to say clear everything off of this surface than it is to say, figure out what's out of place and get that out of this. Off of this surface. If I'm going for this surface being completely clear, then I know exactly what I have to do, which is get rid of every, you know, move every single thing to its actual home or out of my house. Piles are not fun, but they're actually easier in the decluttering process because you know that your end goal, you know, you're done when the pile is completely gone and the surface is completely clear, as opposed to a cabinet where some of the stuff is going to keep living in there. And then you make it to the point where you have that fifth step of my no mess decluttering process, where you have to embrace the reality of that space and you have to go, oh, okay, everything could go here, but it doesn't all fit. So then you don't even have to do that with the pile. You're just your. Your end goal is nothing. And somehow that makes it easier because it's all very concrete just to get it back to nothing. Okay, I hope that was helpful, and I will talk to y' all next week. Okay, bye.