← podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
podcasts Archives - Dana K. White: A Slob Comes Clean
511: How Do You Make Decluttering Progress When Your Routine is Unpredictable
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Hey y', all, did you know that I train and certify decluttering coaches who can coach you through decluttering your home using my no Mess decluttering process? Go to declutteringcoaches.com to find one of my coaches near you if there isn't a coach near you yet. Most of my coaches also coach virtually, and we've added a first available virtual coach feature on the site. All coaches listed@declutteringcoaches.com are trained and certified by me. Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal deslobification process us 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. Even people who don't love cleaning and organizing. Thanks for joining me today. This is episode number 5 11, and I think I'm going to call it how to make decluttering progress when your routine is unpredictable. Okay, so I mentioned last week when we talked about the basics of the maintenance tasks that will do a whole lot more than just maintenance in your home. But I talked last week about how summer is starting. I know there's the when does actual summer start? So I don't want to talk about that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when routine changes because the world start. Not the world. The US I know Southern hemisphere. Yours is is the opposite. Right, I get it. But our summer holidays generally are somewhere between May. Some people don't get out till June, but through August, or some people don't go back till September. But this general time frame is the time where a lot of things wind down for the summer and we're out of the routine. And with that can come the panic of oh my goodness, I've been making progress. But I've been making progress because my life has been somewhat predictable of what was going to happen when and and now it's not going to be as predictable because some of the things that were happening are not going to happen anymore. And some of y' all are thinking, my life is never predictable. And I get that. So this is great news for you too, because we're going to talk about how do you declutter when your routine is not predictable? And the reason that we're bringing up summer is just a reminder that I do take summers off from creating new content. So over the next couple of months here through the end of May and about till the middle of August, what you're going to be getting here on the podcast will be recordings from previous live q and as that I've done on YouTube. So they won't be things that have been here on the podcast before. So it's not going to be reruns. But if you are someone who watches everything everywhere, you, you may have have heard these things before. Just a little clarification though. For those who are watching on YouTube, they will not be coming out there. Okay. So I know I have that new channel that you may be listening on hopefully. But the replays of Prior Q&As are not going to be coming out there. So if you want to go listen to those, find my podcast on other platforms or go back and listen to them on the actual slob Danny K. White channel. So anyway, here. How do you make progress when your routine is unpredictable? Well, just so you know, it is possible to make progress when you cannot predict when you're going to be able to declutter, how long you're going to be able to declutter, how much stamina you're going to have to declutter, how much focus you're going to have to declutter. It is absolutely possible to declutter if you are just listening to this podcast for the first time. If you've never heard of my no mess decluttering method, you may be like, there's no way you have to predict time. Actually the whole entire reason that I created this process, which is really just based on what I figured out by stumbling my way through decluttering my house. And then I put it into a five step process, finding what worked and did that. But the whole reason that I did that is that I seemed to. Every time I would start to make a little bit of progress, something would happen and it would derail me. I would get started and have all this energy and think, okay, this time is going to be different. I'm going to do a really great job this time. And I would declutter for a little while, maybe five minutes, maybe four hours, whatever. But at some point I would shut down and I would, I would get overwhelmed. And I was like, you know, and usually when I did that, I had made a bunch of piles already or shoved things into other places or spread things out all over the countertop or the table or the floor. And I often was getting overwhelmed because of that because now all there were all these piles of things that I was going to have to do before I could ever stop. But guess what? I'm amazing at Stopping. And so I would get overwhelmed and I would stop. Sometimes it was because I didn't even realize I had stopped. I was just working, working. And then all of a sudden something caught my attention or life happened and somebody needed me, one of my kids needed me. And I stepped away for what I thought was going to be a moment. And then it never crossed my mind to go back to this space. So this process, my no mess decluttering method, is the way that I found to solve this problem. When things were unpredictable, how can I still make progress? Because things were unpredictable for me, because I had little kids, because I tend to be more distractible, because I tend to get very overwhelmed by things and especially like piles of things. So I had to come up with a way to still make decluttering progress when I could not guarantee how things were going to go. Nobody can guarantee how things are going to go. And so ultimately I'm just gonna say it. This process is the one that will work for everyone. This is the one designed for unpredictability. This is the one designed for whatever physical limitations you have, whatever energy limitations you have, whatever your life circumstances. It actually does work where a lot of times what I thought were the rules of decluttering were actually designed for an ideal scenario where everything was going to go. If I was going to pull everything out of a space, then I had to be able to guarantee that I was going to finish that space. Otherwise I was way worse off than I was before. And I can't guarantee that it's not actually humanly possible to do that. Sometimes I'm sure for some people it happens. Some people can't stop until they finish. Some people are driven in that way, like, oh, how could someone step away? And I'm like, I didn't realize I stepped away. So this five step no mess decluttering, what method is designed specifically for unpredictability?
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So how does that work in this process? You're going to go item by item. You're going to make a decision about each item as you pull it individually out of this space. And then you're going to go ahead and act on that decision before you pull out another item. So it's going to be one item at a time, final decision by final decision, acting on those final decisions. This is how you can make legitimate progress without being able to predict how things are going to go, which none of us can actually do. Because it's not going to be as big as the progress in my head was going to be when I was imagining all the impact I was going to make on this space. But it's all real. None of it, none of it is imaginary. None of it is depending on something else happening in the future, like me keeping going or me not getting distracted. Instead, I am going ahead and completely doing each small thing that then adds up to guaranteed progress. When I do things in a way where I go really big in the beginning and I make all these piles, then anything that comes along and derails me, I'm left with piles. And that's not progress, that's actually going backwards. Because now I'm going to have to go back through those piles and rethink through what was it that I was going to do with this. Okay, so it's a different way of working and it's the way we guarantee progress and only progress. Okay. The other thing about this is that knowing that I can stop at any time or if I stop without realizing I'm stopping, or if I change my mind and this doesn't seem fun anymore, and then I'm like, I give up for right now. Knowing that anything that happens is not going to undo the progress that I make because I'm doing it in this progress only progress way, knowing that means that I'm willing to get started. Because getting started is not a huge commitment to spending whatever it takes five hours in this space. Now, I know it feels noble to say, no, no, this time I'm going to do whatever it takes. That, that is so noble to say. And I absolutely know that you mean it. I absolutely know that I meant it. But also I couldn't predict how things were going to go. And so when I failed at that, then I not only had the mess and the frustration of the way that I had done things, but I also had a lot of self loathing. I had a lot of frustration with Myself, because I was like, no, I was gonna stick with it this time. I was gonna push through, this time was gonna be different. And here I go again. But if I do things in the way where it's progress and only progress, one item at a time, final decision, acting on that final decision, then I don't have that self loathing moment. Instead I'm like, oh, I made real progress. This is like real progress. And I never find myself in a situation where I'm like, would have been more progress if I had done it the other way and I had gone big and then actually finished. Instead I'm like, oh no, this is real progress. I am always amazed at the incredible progress that we make. So if you Never watch my YouTube videos, one thing that I'm going to go recommend that you do is we're going to put a link in the show notes or you can look on YouTube. Dana K. White One hour better. And I do sessions with people, multiple sessions every year, where we declutter for an hour and they're called one hour better. Because the point is not to push through and get huge amounts done in an hour. It's literally to see what can we get done in an hour. And many times we finish a space that felt completely overwhelming in that hour. Sometimes we don't, but it's always an hour better. One hour better. Okay, so I encourage you to go look at that. But this mindset shift is powerful because it's the thing that lets me get started. If I can guarantee progress, I am so much more willing to get started. But when I would do things in a way that didn't guarantee progress and I would fail again and again, it became harder and harder to get started in the beginning because I was like, this never works. What is the point? I geared myself up last time, I gave myself all this oomph and I started really hard and I just ended up in the exact same situation or worse than I had before. Like, what is the point? Or the main thing was I was always trying to predict the amount of time that I needed that I. Last time I thought I was going to work for two hours, I set aside two hours. That was not enough. I don't remember if I actually worked the two hours or not, but still it was not enough. I ended up with a huge mess. That was a disaster for the next two months. Obviously I need to set aside five hours this time. Or how about a whole weekend? Or how about a whole week? Or what about when I'm retired? Whatever. Like after summer's over. This mindset is the thing that keeps you from getting started. But if I know, you know what? I don't know how much time I have. I have a couple minutes right now. That's all I can guarantee. And I might be able to keep going or I might not be able to. Something might happen, I may have to step away or whatever. But if I know that I'm doing things in the progress and only progress way, then I'm willing to do that. That's what changed my home. Changing my mindset to be like any amount of time, even if it ends up being three minutes, is worth my time, because I know I'm doing things in a way where I'm only going to make progress. My house changed all the times before when I was like, no, I want to do it in the most efficient way, which is the opposite of efficient if I have to. But anyway. But that method that I thought I had to do things before, and I was predicting how much time I never actually got started and my house never changed and it just kept getting worse and more overwhelming. And then I would predict more time that I needed. Okay, so why are we talking about this? Well, if you've listened to me, you already know this five step process. But sometimes I think it's good to go back through the actual basics of the process so that this summer you are going into an unpredictable schedule time routine. Your routine might be changing. And so you have it front of mind that this is why I need to follow the no mess decluttering method. And also this is how I follow the no mess decluttering method. So I thought I would go through this as we are here heading into this unpredictable time. Okay. All right, so step one is trash. I'm just gonna give you my basic things that I say over and over. And I say them over and over because I get questions over and over from people who haven't grasped fully the simplicity or what exactly it is that we're doing here. Okay, so I'm gonna kind of give you some of my best spiels for each of the steps. Here's the thing with trash. Trash is the easiest of the easy stuff. It is decision free. Trash. It is obvious already to you. Trash. It is not something that you have to decide whether or not you should throw it away. Step one is look for trash. It is normal to go to pick up something that maybe is a little bit damaged. Maybe you could fix it. Maybe you set it here and you didn't get rid of it because you Were like, oh, I'll absolutely fix that. And now it's been seven years, and you're thinking, I don't know, should I? That's not what we're talking about in step one. We are literally talking about the stuff you already know is trash. Step one is not to walk into a room and throw all your beloved sentimental items away. That is not. That is not step one at all. It is not saying that perfectly good stuff needs to go be thrown away. It is literally saying, look, see, if there is anything that you already know is trash that is obviously trash. Here's what happens when you're looking for trash. You're looking at individual items. Where before, when you were looking at the pile or the closet full or the room or the drawer full, you may have opened up the door or the drawer, looked inside, thought, oh, my goodness, that's too overwhelming, and you shut the drawer or the door. Because it felt like every single thing in that space is going to be a hard decision. Because I know that there are some hard decisions in there. And so you never get started. The way to get started is to say, is there any trash in here? When I say that, instead of looking at the pile, I look at the individual items. Oh, inside that pile is an empty shampoo bottle. Okay? That's trash. Anything. Well, there's. Why in the world is there this gum wrapper, whatever it is in there, if you already know it's trash? Now, this is not the time to say, oh, no, I think gum wrappers are highly valuable because I could make a space costume for my Barbie doll with that. Like, this isn't the time. If that's. If you see a gum wrapper and you don't see trash, that's fine. This step is only for the stuff that you already see as trash. If you find yourself having to convince yourself that something is trash or analyze whether something is trash, that's not what we're talking about. Okay? Other thing I want to say about trash, too, is that recycling is in this same step if you already know it needs to be recycled. The reason I say trash is not everybody has access to recycling, and so I want to make it as accessible as possible. You're smart enough to know, of course that includes recycling if you already have it. But this is not the time to start a recycling routine. This is the way for me to immediately make real progress. If your house is out of control, if any space is out of control and there's trash in it, that trash is going to have to be thrown away. So you look for trash. If there happens to be no trash, there's always trash. But if there happens to be no trash, great. You've still accomplished this step just by looking. You can't get stuck on this step. If you get stuck, you need to move to the next step. Because if you get stuck, it's not obvious trash. And then you've already looked for it and you didn't find any. Okay, that's fine. In these moments where you're out of routine and you start to feel like, oh no, I was making so much decluttering progress before and now I'm just not able to do, grab a trash bag, grab the trash bin, whatever you have around you, easily accessible, and in whatever space you're standing in, in that moment, start throwing some things away. That is legitimate decluttering progress. And it can happen in 30 seconds. If you throw one thing in the trash, you have made real progress. And that mindset is incredibly powerful. Okay, because it does not require any predictability in your routine at all. After you've looked for trash and either you found a bunch or you haven't found any, either way is fine. You've looked for trash and anything that was obvious is gone. That you can get to and see without moving anything. That's a little clarification there. Never pull everything out of the space. Remember, we're going one item at a time so you don't have to shift and dig around to find trash at the very back or the bottom of the pile. Only start with the things that you can see and access easily that you can grab without taking everything out and put straight in the trash. Online shopping can be an amazing experience. I love it when I find that just right. Gotta have an item until I go check out. 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Step two. Step two is the easy stuff. Easy means decision free. You already know exactly where it goes. It's just not there. This does not involve self loathing. This does not involve asking why in the world is this here? We want to ask that question. Don't ask it. It does not move you forward. It's not helpful. Just say, okay, what do I already know what's here that I already know what to do with it. Oh, here's a book laying on this table. Okay. I have a bookshelf right there. I know that books go on the bookshelf. I'm going to put that there. Oh, here's my hand lotion. That for some reason is here by the front door. No, my hand lotion goes on this shelf in this place. Okay. If you don't have a place for your hand lotion, then that's not what we're talking about. That's not easy. You're only looking for things that are easy. I specifically remember looking at a room that was completely out of control and seeing the ironing board and I, I even look back now and I'm like, why in the world but the ironing board have been in that room. It was probably during my ebay selling days, but I remember look and having to you know, get things ready to ship it off. But I remember looking in that room and feeling the feeling in my heart of going, there's so much. There's so much I could. There's so many different things that need to be done. How am I supposed to get all this done? I'm not. Instead, I'm going to do something. I already know what to do with it. The ironing board didn't go in that room. I had a place already for that ironing board. So I broke it down, which is actually not that fun, and I lugged it, which is actually not that easy, to that place. But it was easy because I knew what to do with it. I didn't have to think, I didn't have to decide, I didn't have to analyze. It was just something that needed to be done. This is your procrast declutter. This is the stuff that you do know what to do with it, but for whatever reason, you haven't done it. If you this summer, four or five times a week, whenever, one time, whatever, any time that you have where you start to feel that, oh, I need to declutter. If you will focus on trash and easy stuff, your house is going to be better than it was before. Trash and easy stuff are a lot of times the things that have kind of floated there recently and then if they stay there and they pile up, then you'll find something that's easy, that's actually been there for 10 years, whatever. But trash and easy stuff, easy meaning decision free. And trash being the easiest of the easy stuff. Decision free things, you can make so much progress in whatever amount of time that you have. So in any moment, you don't have to predict you're out of the routine, but you know exactly what to do. And that's so much of the value. Before, I used to get out of the routine, start to feel overwhelmed in my house, and I always look around and I was like, I don't know what to do. I. There's so much to do. What in the world would I do first? How would it make a big. How would it make any difference to do any one thing? Because there's actually 10,000 things to do. So instead, knowing you know what, I don't have to go through all those mental gymnastics. Instead I just have to ask myself, okay, is there any trash in front of me right now? Okay, I'm gonna throw that away. Okay, what's easy? What do I already know to do? I'm gonna go ahead and do that thing because I already know to do it. That will make an impact on your home. Trash and easy stuff. Okay, third is obvious. Donations, duh, clutter, duh. Donate not doesn't stand for anything. It literally means why do I have this Duh. Of course I should donate this. The reason this is a step is that your goal with the first three steps is to get as much stuff out as you can possibly without using decision making energy, without using emotional energy of any kind of decisions or whatever. It's like, what do I already know to do? I'm gonna do those things. If I already know that this thing should just go straight in the donate bo, then I can go ahead and do that. And that's more progress that I've made before I've ever had to ask myself any decluttering questions. Okay, that is really powerful. I'm just gonna say it, y'.
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All.
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Most of the time, if you are saying to yourself or saying out loud that I just, you know, I just get stuck in the no mess decluttering process, it doesn't really work for me most of the time. The problem is that you've skipped the first three steps. And it's normal to skip the first three steps. It is normal to think, oh, I don't want to do the easy stuff right now. I need to do the hard stuff because I should really be decluttering. But if you skip the easy stuff, that's what makes all the hard stuff even harder. And it's the thing that makes your house look so messy. If you will focus in this summer on doing just the first three steps, you're going to make huge progress. And you won't have any emotional energy exerted because they are all the emotional energy free steps, the decision free steps. Okay, so zero in on those. Anything on those first three steps. The first being trash. It goes straight into trash or recycling. That's the easiest of the easy stuff. The easy stuff going to its already established home. Those things are done and over with. There's no halfway point. You're going to delete the chaotic halfway point step of piles or boxes full of things that you're going to put away later. You're going to delete that step. You're just going to skip straight from I pick this up to it goes to its final destination, the trash or recycling its home that's already established or the donate box if it's an obvious donation. Okay, that means that my house is improving because there are things that used to be randomly out as clutter that now are no Longer out as clutter. Okay. All right, now step four. Step four is what you do if you look for trash and can't find any trash, and you look for easy stuff and you're like, nothing's easy. And then you look for obvious donations and you say, nothing's a donation and I haven't done anything yet. Great, then. Now step four is going to take care of that. But don't skip steps one through three. Try look for trash, do the easy stuff if there is any, and look for obvious donations. Yes, you're going to keep on moving if you're struggling with those things, but at least give them a try. Okay, but anything that you couldn't do before, now you have a way to deal with it, and that is the two decluttering questions. The first question, if you can answer it, you don't even have to ask the second question. Just a reminder. The reason that I only have two decluttering questions and you only have to use one if you answer the first one is that I needed to get through my clutter as quickly as possible because there was so much of it. Not because I was on a deadline, but because I had so much stuff. And I had only ever seen lists of decluttering questions that were like five and ten questions long sometimes, like, consider this, and how would you feel about this? And how would you do this? And the natural things that come up are like, do I like it? Is it useful? Will I ever need it? All those kinds of questions did not work for me because they made my brain spin out. I needed a question that would work, that would keep my brain from spinning out. And that question is the first decluttering question, is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Don't veer from this question. Especially in this. Well, always, but especially in this out of routine time. You want to be able to know exactly what to do with this item as quickly as possible because you don't know how to how much time you're going to have to spend on it. So if you find yourself veering from this question, come back to it and say, nope, this is the question I'm going to ask. No matter if this is a sentimental item, no matter if this is a valuable item, no matter if this is whatever, something that my mother would say is trash, it doesn't matter. None of those things matter. Instead, I'm going to ask this one single question, which is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? I have talked on and on and on and on about this, haven't I? But I'm just going to give you the very basic understanding of it right now. Okay, I'm just going to give you the very basic for this. And then I have entire podcasts, entire videos where I dive into this specific question. But here's. Here's the basic. I am looking for my instinct. I am only asking this question about something that does not have a home. If you've ever thought or screamed or cried the words, I don't know where to put things, things don't have homes. That was me. I get it. This is how you give something a home. You are only asking this question about something that does not have a home. If it had a home, it left in step two, the easy stuff. But at this point, when you are asking this question, you are specifically asking it because you have no earthly idea where this would be. If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Picture yourself looking for this item. If you find yourself going, well, so a good place for it would be. That's not what we're talking about. You're doing it wrong if you do that. Okay, you don't have time for that. Your routine is unpredictable. You need to have a definite instinctual answer. Definite does not mean confident. It just means specific. So that means I'm saying, if I was looking for this item, where would I look first? Am I confident it's going to be there? No, of course not. Because this thing doesn't have an established home. But what specific place would I look in for this item first? Assuming that I'm going to open this cabinet, look inside, and then just close the cabinet and move to the next place where I would look and then eventually tear my entire house apart looking for this item. If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? I just did a session with somebody yesterday, and she was going to stick something somewhere, and I was like, okay, no, no. Where would you look for it first? If this space was clear that we're working on, and she was, okay, I would actually look for it here. And she goes. And she came back, she was like, guess what? There was another one just like it in that exact same spot. And I'm like, there you go. That's how this works. It's the instinct. It's the way that you don't have to make a spreadsheet of where you put everything when you decluttered and then lose the spreadsheet, right? Like, you don't have to do any of that because you are literally just putting things in the place where you would look for it first. Again, I've talked on and on and on about every angle of that, but that's what it comes down to. What is your instinct for where you would look first? That is this item's home. You are identifying where this item needs to live in your house by where would you look for it first? And then when you have an answer for that question, take it there. Now, don't set it aside and think, at the end of this project, I am going to then go deliver everything to its home. You have an unpredictable routine this summer, specifically for all of your life, always, right? Like, we can't guarantee what's going to happen next, especially for those of us who tend to be very distractible, like me. So instead, you go ahead and take this one item to its home immediately. What that means is that anything that happens, your routine changes. You know, you don't have a routine and you're like, oh, I've got to go pick up this kid. I mean, I remember there being summers when my kids were at those ages where they were all doing different things and I was the taxi driver, and I'm like, I was in the car for three hours in the morning. It was crazy, crazy because all the kids kind of had an overlapping different activity, and my kids were not just in activities all summer long. But I'm just saying this happens, right? You've had it, so you can't predict that. So this is the way you guarantee progress. I may not finish, but that item is done. That item is in its home. Okay? So that item goes there. The other thing that happens when I take it there now is I face the reality of that space. Is there even room for it here? If there's not, then I am going to remove something that is the same size as this item. That's either trash or a donation. Because my trash bag, my recycling bin, my donate box are back at the space where I'm originally decluttering. So I'm not just taking things and going, oh, I would look for this here first and shove it into that already messy space. No, I'm not going to leave that space any worse. I'm not going to stop and declutter that space, but I am going to remove something from my house completely that is the same size as this item. So I'm not leaving it any worse. And my whole house has one less item in it or a couple items that are equivalent to that space of this thing that deserves space here. Okay, so again, one of those things I've talked on and on and on about in other places, but that right there is key that take it there now. This is how I guarantee progress. This is also how I face the reality of that space and don't just end up stuff Shifting a bunch of stuff. Okay, if I cannot answer the question, where would I look for it first? And my brain goes, what? Where do I look for first? If my brain has no answer for that, then I have to ask my second question. If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already had one? If it wouldn't occur to me that I already had one, that means I would never go looking for it. Which is the reason I didn't have a place where I would look for it first. I couldn't think of a place where I would look for it first because the truth was I would never go looking, would never cross my mind that I had this item in my house. And because it would never cross my mind that I had this item in my house, I would go buy another one. And so even though it's hard to get rid of something thinking, oh, but what if I end up having to buy one? The real waste of money is to have something in my house, but my house be such a disaster that it never even crosses my mind to even go looking for it that I end up buying another one. That's the real waste of money, is spending money on something that I already had in my house but couldn't find or even think of because I was so overwhelmed by my house. Okay, I decided this is really just a reality check. It was like, listen, if it would never cross my mind to go looking for it, it needs to go. It doesn't mean that I'm not surprised by something in step one and have a place where I would go looking for it. And I go do that. That's why question one comes first, because I'm often surprised. Oh, that's right. I do have a Stanley Cup. Okay, where would I look for it first? I'd look for it first here. Great. Then it's going to go there right now. It gets a spot there. But if I am surprised and also have would never even go looking for it, then that's when I need to let it go. I need to let that item go. All right. Oh, and also, if you insist that you would go looking for it, but you didn't have a place where you would look first, then you have to go back to the question, where would I look for it first. Because if you insist that you would go looking for it, there has to be a place where you would look for first. Remember, you're not confident it's going to be there. It's just literally the first of what you assume is 15 places where you're going to look for this item before you find it. Okay? And then what happens is when you put it in the place where you would look for it first, it's in the first place where you look for it when you look for it. And that's like the best feeling in the world. Decluttering results in knowing what you have, knowing where it is and being able to access it. As you declutter, you learn what you have, putting things in the place where you would look for it first. The more that you do that, the more that you find things in the first place where you look for it, the more confidence you have that you actually know where things are. That's how you do it. Also, you have a lot less stuff. See, there's just a lot less in your brain taking up space and causing you to not be able to remember anything. And then step. And then the third, know what you have, know where it is and being able to access it. That's what happens when you actually give it a space, when you take it there now by getting rid of something else so it's not just shoved in there and Tetris to where you can't get anything out.
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Those are steps one through four. If you are working this summer or any out of the routine time or anytime honestly on your house, you can do any of those steps on their own. You can randomly pick up an item in the middle of a five minute pickup that you're like, okay, where would I look for it first? Top shelf of the cabinet over my toilet. Okay, go take it there. Now it's a valid use of those five minutes of a minute and a half of that. Probably 45 seconds of that five minute pickup. Like, that's a totally valid use of that. You can do. Oh, trash. If you have this mindset that every item gone is progress in your home and you have this mindset to go through a space methodically this way or to just be like, oh, that's a donate. I can stick it straight in my donate box. Oh, that's trash. I can stick it straight in the trash. Oh, that's easy. I know where it goes. I'm going to go ahead and take it there now. Oh, I don't know where this goes. Where would I look for it first? If you have that mentality and you practice that at any time, if you're facing a space, you go through it step by step. But then add the more that you do that just randomly walking around your house randomly, items will fit into one of those four and you can just go ahead and do that. Your house is going to improve with no need for a predictable routine. Your house will improve because every bit that you do is real, sustainable, unbacktrackable progress. Okay, all right. Then we have the fifth step. The fifth step is to make it fit. Make it fit does not mean shove it in. It does not mean shove it in. This is key for you to really embrace. Basically, if you come to the point where you have removed everything that doesn't deserve to be in this space that you're looking at right now. I have gotten all the trash out, the easy stuff, the obvious donations, and I've gone through every item. Where would I look for it first? And the only things left in here are the things I would look for here first. And. And the space is still too much. There are still books shoved in sideways on top of the other books. There are still piles of books on the floor next to the bookshelf. All of that. If that is still the case, then my goal is to make it fit again, not shove it in. What that means is I'm going to embrace the realities of this book space because of the container concept. The container concept is that containers are not meant to hold things. They are meant to serve as limits. And when I view them as limits, it frees me to let go of my least favorites until I only have what fits functionally in this space. So that's what I'm doing on this step five. If you never get to step five all summer, but you have done steps one, steps one and two, steps one, two, and three, one, steps one, two, three, and four on lots of different spaces, your house is going to be so much better. And then maybe when you get more into a routine, you can really come in and finish with this step five of make it fit. But what it means is I am going to embrace the reality of this space, and I'm going to declutter down to where the only things that I have are the things that fit functionally in this space. Okay? Being able to get to what I need and put it back easily is key to being organized. We achieve that by decluttering, by making it easy for me to get what I need and get it out and put it back when I'm done with it. So the way that you do that, the first part of this step is to consolidate without putting everything, without pulling everything out. We're never going to do that. You're not going to make piles, but instead, let's say it's a bookshelf and you have all of your Hardy Boys books, okay? So you pick up one Hardy Boys book and you look and you see another Hardy Boys book. And so you put it in there. Well, let's say there's no room to do that. Okay? Then you take out the book that's next to that so that you can put the Hardy Boys book in. And the book that was next to that Hardy Boys book, you're like, okay, this one is a Harry Potter. Okay, I'm gonna put this Harry Potter next to this Harry Potter up here. Okay, Well, I have to take out another book to put that Harry Potter book up there. All right? So the one that I took out is a. I don't know. Now it's getting hard is Danny K. White book. Okay, all right, well, I'm going to put this one next to her other book that I have over here. And so I pull it, and then I'm starting to, little by little, I'm getting things consolidated. I'm putting, like, items together. Many times what's going to happen is when I randomly pull out a book, unless it's one of my books, of course, Danny K. White. I have the Moment where I realize, oh, oh, actually, I don't like this book. I randomly pulled this out to make room for something else. And now where before it was just a book and so it went on the bookshelf now because I actually touched it. I see. Oh, this is a book that I'm not going to reread. This one's not worth staying on my bookshelf forever. Okay, I'm going to let this one go. And often you can get rid of a lot of things just by doing the consolidating step, because you are actually paying attention to individual items in this space. And a lot of things end up being obvious donations. You also may find multiples. That happens to us in my house. I'm always kind of shocked because anytime we do this type, you know, bookshelves specifically, but anytime that we're doing that, we end up finding multiples of the exact same thing. After you go through that process, you've hopefully made a little bit of room because you found more easy stuff. But if it still doesn't all fit, then remove your least favorites until what's left fits functionally in this space. So let's say there's a stack of books still on the floor in front of the bookshelf. You scan that stack of books and you see, okay, what is an absolute favorite that's in this stack, which sometimes is going to be the stuff that you've read more recently. That's the reason it's in a stack off of the actual bookshelf. And you say, okay, this one is a definite one I love. Okay, all I have to do is scan the bookshelf and look for a book that deserves space less than this one that is a favorite. And I'm going to get rid of one that deserves space less. Right? One that I don't like as much in order to make the space for the one that I do like and go through that process. This is a very methodical thing. It's again, one item at a time. So let's say. Let's say that you're like, oh, here's my bookshelf. And what she's describing right now is exactly what my bookshelf is like. It's all books, but, okay, you can do this in any amount of time. You can take one book and say, okay, this one here, this Hardy Boys. I need to put it next to this. Our Hardy Boys. Okay, this one I'm gonna put. You can do that and stop at any time and make progress and only progress, and every little bit that you do is going to benefit your home. Okay. So I wanted to go through the five step process because I know I talk about it a lot, I cover it a lot, but I think it's helpful every once in a while. I think it's been about three years since I did one of these, but I know it's helpful every once in a while for me to just lay out. This is the process and it's perfect for out of routine times. So if you're nervous about being out of routine, really drill down on. Okay, then I'm going to follow this five step process. Don't forget too that you can get a copy of my five step process at slobcamsclean.com 5F I V E. Sign up for the newsletter and we will send you a printable of that five step process. But also it's summer, so I'm not putting out new content. This would be a great time. If you haven't read my books, to get the audio version, check see if your library has the audio version. A lot of libraries carry it in an app form where you don't even have to get the physical, you know, copy of it. But listen to the books. I highly recommend because we're talking about the decluttering process that you listen to. Decluttering at the speed of life. That one is my five step process. It's all the mindset shifts that you need to change your home and it lays it all out in a much more purposeful way than the podcast. Like it is a book. It is a written, edited, published book. Okay. If you're overwhelmed in your house just completely. And it was last week's podcast that you were like, yeah, I gotta get the dishes thing figured out. You listen to or you can read. Obviously they have them in all the four. We have them in all the formats wherever books are sold. But how to manage your home without losing your mind? If you're like, I need a refresher or I kind of need an intro to everything organizing for the rest of us. If you are feeling so much shame that you can't move forward, read Jesus doesn't care about your messy house. That's the one that came out about a year ago. And then of course get Winnie's pile of pillows for your kids. And also just because she's really cute. Anyway, that's my children's book that came out a couple months ago. Okay. I hope this was helpful and I hope you have a wonderful out of routine time and that the, you know, the goal of this is not to be like, you can still get stuff done even though you're out of the routine. That's not what I'm doing here. Instead, I'm saying, it's okay. I want to ease your anxiety so that you can enjoy the out of the routine time for what it is and the benefits it has. But also know that in those moments where you're like, oh, I kind of want to get something done, you know exactly what to do. Start with the trash. All right, I will talk to you again in August. All right, bye, y'. All.