Stop Living in a MESSY HOUSE Today

What if living in a messy house is actually a decision that you're making? But wait, wait, not the decision that you're thinking, not the decision you might have made last night. Should I clean up the kitchen or not? No, I think it's a completely different decision because what I have seen over and over again is that messy homes are not due to laziness or lack of motivation, feeling too tired last night to clean up the kitchen. No, that's not at all. Messy homes are due to too much inventory. They're due to making the decision to keep stuff that you're not using. So a messy house is due to making a decision to keep stuff that you're not using. But we often don't make that connection. We just think that there's something wrong with us. We think, I just need more motivation. I need a better routine. I need things to slow down a little bit and then I'll finally be able to stay on top of them. But that's not actually the real problem because what I found both in my own home and as I worked thousands of women now is that once you significantly reduce the inventory, cleaning is a breeze. Cleaning is actually enjoyable. None of us actually want to live in a messy house. Our natural bent is to tidy up and keep things clean unless there's too much inventory. Then it's way too hard. It's overwhelming and we get behind with no hope of getting on top again. And so I actually saw a quote on Instagram the other day that totally hit this home for me. It says, the most underrated trait for a happy life, decisiveness. Our intuition is that it's best to keep our options open. But as long as you try to keep every door open, you'll never be able to walk through the one that matters. And so I know exactly why you've made the decision to keep stuff you're not using because of just in case. We've actually been talking about this quite a bit lately. What if I need it someday? And so I actually have some items I want to show you where it's been very easy to make the decision to keep them stuff that I'm not actually using instead of letting it go. And I wonder if some of these things might be cluttering up your house too and therefore making it messy and hard to keep clean. It comes in so many different shapes and sizes. It's actually very sneaky. So I want to show you some examples of this type of clutter and then how we can get out of this trap so that you can have a clean and tidy house all of the time. My house is so easy to keep clean right now, even with four kids and working full time and all the things that life throws at me still, right? My house is so easy and you can have that too. All right, but here's a few examples. Kitchen gadgets that others swear by. I've seen many influencers talk about this. It's just a pancake dispenser thing. Adeline is our resident pancake maker. She loves making pancakes. She makes them all the time. We use this a few times, but what's the drawback? If you have one of these, you might know it is a pain to clean. And so even though this actually works for her, she said, mom, I would rather just pour it out of the bowl than have to clean this up. So some might choose this is worth it. You get very uniform pancakes, so it's worth the hassle to clean it. Others might say, hey, I can make round pancakes in my sleep. I don't need the gadget. So this is, I think what gets confusing is it's different for everyone. Some love it. Some don't. But what happens? We used to use it. I think we should use it. And so we keep it instead of letting it go, but it is not being used. Therefore, it is contributing to my messy house. How about this one? The Amazon set of pajamas Adeline ordered. She didn't like the material at all. Didn't get it returned in time. So I'm like, well, maybe I could wear them or maybe someone else could. And my brain starts to think of how I can make this right. And so the truth is no one is using them. I feel guilty every time I look at them, but my brain is still scrambling, trying to figure out a way how to correct this. And then we got the decor. I used it in a previous space. It's very neutral. It's cute. I spent money on it. So surely there has to be somewhere in my new house that I can use it. Except we've been in here for five months now. I haven't found a spot for it, but I keep it for just in case. I make the decision to keep something I'm not using. And now it's another thing that I have to manage and take care of and trip over when I go into the basement. Oh yeah. Ever done this one? Supplements? We have such good intentions. I know why we get them. Well, sometimes it's out of fear tactics that someone is selling it to us. Other times, it's just something that we do think would benefit us, but it never makes it out of the bottle. We don't develop the habit. And every time we look at it, we feel guilty. So a great thing this kind of stuff is either challenge yourself to use it today, to learn it, figure out, do I take it with food or without? Where do I set it so that I remember to take it? And go through the effort of creating the habit or let it go. How about sentimental things? My mom has often said, you don't have a sentimental bone in your body. Not true. Here's the truth for me when it comes to sentimental stuff. I only want to keep things that remind me of happy times or happy people. I don't want to keep things just because. And we've talked about firsthand and secondhand sentimental before. I think it's a very important distinction, but I'll link to a video that I did on the different types of clutter where I go more into it. And so you can decide for yourself, am I keeping this just because I feel like I should out of guilt because it was someone else's, or does it truly help to jog happy memories of a time of my life or a person in my life? And then just so many things like this, right? Computer riser. I used it at my last desk. I thought, Oh, I might want it at my current desk. Again, been here five months, have not used it or needed it. Maybe one of the kids will want it for their desk. I understand. I understand why we keep this stuff, but here's something that's interesting. A while back, you know, I got my master's in psychology recently. I'm fascinated by why we keep something. And I really wanted to look into, are there actual messy personality types? Because if there are, that is for sure me. And what I found is that, Oh, and another area where we're often caught compromising and being indecisive is when it comes to upgrading our mattress. Today's video is sponsored by Helix Sleep. And chances are you've been knowing for a while that you need a new mattress, but I know there's a lot of options out there. And how do you know which is the right one? 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And man, once that mattress gets delivered to your house, you are going to start getting a great night's sleep, and you're going to wish that you had made this decision sooner. Now, I think we have a few more decisions to make. And what I found is that there is not a messy personality type, but there are personality types that do tend to liking stuff more in order, and they feel a sense of comfort or ease from things being in order. But as I studied it more, here's what was so fascinating about these more naturally tidy people. They innately understand that you can't keep so much inventory. So people that are more naturally tidy, usually most often, they understand that you can't keep all of this stuff, that it's not possible to have high inventory and a tidy home all the time, unless you're spending hours and hours a day. And so people that are naturally tidy don't keep as much stuff as those of us who maybe tend to be not so naturally tidy. But there is hope for us, because again, what I've found is, for me, I just had to significantly lower the inventory, and now I really enjoy cleaning. But we'll talk about that as we go. So I want to give you hope today. This is not about motivation and beating your flesh into submission and routines. It's about getting your house to a place where it feels very natural to keep it clean, where you want to keep it clean. When you see something out of place, you're like, oh, let's just put that back real quick. This right now is actually driving me bonkers. I gladly do it because I want to make a point, but I am so excited to get this all cleaned up again. And that wasn't how I was in the past. I was just like, oh, just how it is. This is life with four kids. We didn't pick up the last two days. That's all I did, was I'm like, no one pick up. I just want to see what happens. So this is what my house can look like after a day of not being intentional with it. But it's not gonna be hard for me to get back in order. We'll do it together here coming up. And I naturally want to keep my house clean and tidy now. But again, it all comes down to this kind of stuff, to removing this type of inventory from your home. What else do I have here? Also, have you noticed that everything comes with something else? So I bought this really cute lint bin for my dryer. I actually love it because I don't like keeping a trash can in the laundry room. I don't like things sitting on the floor. Anyways, it works great. But it came with this brush to clean out the lint trap area. And I know from the past that I don't use these types of things. I forget that I have them. They just float around. And so this type of stuff too, it could be useful, but I don't use it. I don't want to decide to keep this kind of stuff anymore. This is what's making my house messy. But again, just so much inventory coming into our homes all the time. Okay, so hopefully now we are fully understanding the problem. Now, let's talk a little bit more about how we can systematically move this stuff out so our house naturally wants to stay clean and not messy. Now, if you're starting with an especially messy space like this, I think it's really helpful to start at one point and work your way across or around your space. And also give yourself permission that if you're coming up against anything that's tricky, you don't know what to do with it. It doesn't have a home. Don't let that stall you out on cleaning up and tidying up your space. So just group it all together. So I have a few things at the end of the dining room table that I'm leaving. Some of it is the kid stuff. Some is something I got for my dad for his side-by-side thing, you know. But I don't want that stuff to hang me up from making progress in the rest of the kitchen right now. So it is okay for the time being to group stuff together. You're still tidying it up. So it's okay for the time being to tidy things up, to group them together. Even, I'm not going to do the dishes right now, but I'm getting all the dirty dishes next to the sink so that when the kids do get back home, they can run the dishwasher, right? But the rest of the kitchen is going to be all clean and tidied up. Also, I realized these were part of my sample clutter too. Really nice quality bookends. And I got these. I had used them in my last office. I always thought they were cute. Like they're really weighty. You can't tell. Really good quality. I think I spent like $25 on them. But again, I'm not using them in this house, but I keep them thinking like, well, what if someday or someone else or somewhere that I could make use of them? And so I want to circle back to this idea of the responsibility trap and regret and the one question that you can ask yourself when you're decluttering. Okay. So now if we're recognizing that, yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe my house is messy and hard to keep clean, not because I'm lazy or unmotivated, but because there's too much inventory. And I feel indecisive when it comes to keeping stuff. I don't know if I should keep stuff or not. And so this indecisiveness in and of itself is actually a decision to keep the item. And so this is really fascinating. There's a gal by the name of Annie Duke, and she was a professional poker player. And now she uses what she learned about gambling to talk about making decisions. And her entire philosophy is this good decisions can have bad outcomes. Bad decisions can have good outcomes. So she says, don't judge your decisions based solely on what happened afterward, judge them based on what you knew at the time. So if you donate something that you haven't used in 12 years, that's a good decision. And then six months later, you suddenly need it. That doesn't make it a bad decision. It means an unlikely event occurred. And so because of this, I think we can use one question when it comes to decluttering and that is, am I using it now? Am I using the item now? And because what I want you to understand is that I think the cost of clutter is grossly underestimated. I think the cost of clutter is grossly underestimated. I don't think you understand how this clutter, these things we're not using right now, how they are keeping our house messy, how they are making us feel like a loser. When your kitchen is trashed, you're not thinking, I'm really good at keeping my house. I'm a good mom. I'm a good spouse. You're thinking the opposite of that. We don't understand the cost of clutter when it comes to maintaining it, organizing, keeping track of it, shuffling around, or the actual real cost of rebuying something because we don't know where it is. Often we buy duplicates and extras, but when the time comes for us to use it, we don't actually know where it is. And so I think the cost of clutter is grossly underestimated. And also, I think we can use one question to declutter our house. Am I using it now? And what I talked about in my last video was this idea of the responsibility trap. And the responsibility trap, again, I learned it from my therapist in regards to relationships, that often we take over responsibility for others, for their emotions, for their well-being, for their happiness, and even for making sure their physical needs are met as well. And I see how we do this with our stuff too. Well, if I just keep it, then I will have it just in case, in case I lose weight, gain weight, go back to work, in case my kids need it three years from now. And so that's the idea of the responsibility trap. But what it reminds us is that we actually only have control over ourselves and what we're using here today. None of us can predict the future. And trying to predict the future just causes anxiety. And so we keep things for just in case because we don't know the future. We can't predict the future. And so we keep all these things, but again, they clutter up our home, they make it messy, which means we're living in a stressful environment that's very hard to keep clean. And so there's a big cost to trying to carry all of this stuff forward into the future. It's like a carrying cost of all of this extra stuff. Here's another quote that I thought was so good too. This is from Theodore Roosevelt. He says, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. And so circling back to our opening quote, this idea that decisiveness is what leads to a good life. Because we've also been talking about regret more recently too. And in the largest study of regret, they said the things that we regret the most are inaction. So again, what Theodore Roosevelt said is the worst thing you can do is nothing. That's what leads us to a life of regret, to look back and say, I wish I would have, I should have, I could have. And I don't think we often hear decisiveness explained this way. I think we live in a culture that is very wishy-washy. I want to keep my options open. I don't want to commit to anything. But living in limbo is stressful. Living in limbo is so stressful. On the other hand, if we decide, if we commit, now I know exactly how my decision played out and I can deal with the consequences of it. And there was such a great comment left on my last YouTube video by Eileen. She said, I've been decluttering for a long time, but more intensely since 2022. I've learned that for every 100 things I get rid of, there's usually one that I should not have let go. But the value of the 99% that needed to go far outweighs the one that I should have kept. So I think for any of us, if we went into something saying, hey, probably if you look at the odds, you're going to have a 99% success rate. 99%. Where's Annie Dukes talking about gambling and taking those odds? If she knew every time she sat down at the poker table, she was going to have a 99% success rate. Oh my goodness. She would take those odds all day long. But here's what I also want to remind you. Why do we get so hung up on the mistakes that we make? Why can that one thing out of 99 deter us from going further with the rest of our house? And that is because of loss aversion. People feel the pain of losing something about twice as strongly as the pleasure of gaining something. And so that's why we fixate on the one thing out of a hundred that we got rid of and that we could have used. But here's what I want to encourage you. People also dramatically underestimate the happiness they'll experience once the clutter is gone. We overestimate the pain. We underestimate the relief. We overestimate the pain. We underestimate the relief. Because again, I don't think there's anything wrong with you. I don't think you're lazy or unmotivated. If your house is consistently messy, I don't think there's anything wrong with you. I think you have too much inventory and I understand why you keep it. Just in case. Loss aversion. You just never know. And so it's easier to keep the thing than to make a permanent decision on it. But again, this idea that decisions actually create freedom. Once you've decided and made a decision, your brain can move on. Maybe you donate something. Maybe six months later, you say, oh shoot, I could have used that. Okay, now you know. You buy another one. You borrow it. You realize you can live without it and just use something else. But regardless, life moves on. Compare that to keeping something for 12 years. Thinking about it every few months. Moving it four times. Cleaning around it. Never using it. Feeling guilty about it. Forgetting you have it when someone actually could use it. Which one actually costs more in the long run? But probably the most powerful lesson that I have learned from this is that practicing decisiveness in decluttering in physical stuff in our house, that actually isn't that costly. That actually most things are replaceable. When you practice this decisiveness in your home, it leads to other areas of your life as well. And I've talked about this often, but one of the biggest side effects that I never expected from simplifying and decluttering my home to the point that I call myself a minimalist, I never expected the increase in confidence that I would get. And I believe it comes from just that. From practicing making decisions. From realizing they were mostly good decisions and that occasionally if I did make a wrong decision, learning that I could survive it and my brain had feared it would be a much bigger consequence than it actually was. And so by practicing this decisiveness with our stuff in our house, you will not believe how that translates to other areas of your life as well. Healthier relationships. Career advancements. Going back to school. Learning things. Helping people. Doing things that you wouldn't have ever imagined that you would do before. I hear this from women every single day. And so again, it's sometimes bizarre to me that by decluttering, not only do I get a house that's easy, that wants to be clean, where I naturally feel myself wanting to tidy up and just put stuff away quick. I get that benefit, but I also get so many other benefits as well. So of course, like I always say, I want that for you too. I hope you subscribe so we can spend more time together. I have tons of free videos to help you declutter. And if you want a guided plan, that's where our membership community comes into play as well. Step-by-step, I'm with you every single day. Every single day. Guiding you through your house. Helping you make these decisions about whether or not you should keep it or let it go. Always encouraging you on the side of letting it go. And so our membership community is a vibrant place that can help you totally get your house in order in a very short amount of time. So I'll put details for that, where details should be. But I'll link to my playlist of long format decluttering videos, perfect to put on in the background of why you're working to remind you of these ideas. And also that video that I keep talking about with a little more description about the responsibility trap and our favorite tools of the Time Will Tell bin and Clutter Catcher to help you to be able to declutter more confidently as well. I love you, I hope you have a really good day, and I'll see you again soon.