Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 1: a series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and their advice
Speaker 1: for the rest of us. So today I am delighted
Speaker 1: to welcome Dana K. White to the program. Dana is
Speaker 1: a decluttering expert, the author of Organizing for the Rest
Speaker 1: of Us, and most recently a book called Jesus Doesn't
Speaker 1: Care About Your Messy House. She's created numerous helpful YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people you know listening to
Speaker 1: the show have watched for people looking to get their
Speaker 1: homes and lives under control. So Dana, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, glad to have you. So maybe you could introduce
Speaker 1: yourself to our listeners. What you're up to these days?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm Dana KA White. I always put the K in,
Speaker 2: so we don't, you know, get confused and think you're
Speaker 2: talking to the guy who runs the UFC, because that's
Speaker 2: not me.
Speaker 1: Not talking to him to know, not today, you know, anyotherday.
Speaker 2: So I am a mom of three young adults, so
Speaker 2: I was an empty nester for two days and then
Speaker 2: my one of them said, you know what, I think
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this semester from home, and I was like.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that was the end of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, it's it's that phase of life where
Speaker 2: you're just like whatever, anything's great, whatever, you know, And
Speaker 2: I teach people how to declutter even though this is
Speaker 2: the thing that I struggled with my entire life, and
Speaker 2: actually because it's the thing I struggled with my entire life,
Speaker 2: because this does not come naturally to me, So I
Speaker 2: don't teach it out of a place of Wow, I'm
Speaker 2: so good at this, everybody else should be good at
Speaker 2: it too. It's more like, oh, I get how hard
Speaker 2: this is and I've had to figure it out. So
Speaker 2: so it's been more of a journey for absolutely, absolutely
Speaker 2: And how did you?
Speaker 1: So? Then, how does one establish oneself as a decluttering
Speaker 1: expert if this is something that isn't so easy for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, how have you gone about doing that?
Speaker 2: Well? It was not my intention. I will tell you
Speaker 2: that I just wanted to be a writer, and I
Speaker 2: was stopped from doing that because I just had it
Speaker 2: in my head. I was like, I have got to
Speaker 2: get my house under control first. I'm not saying you
Speaker 2: have to have your house under control in order to
Speaker 2: do the thing you want to do, but it was
Speaker 2: stopping me right. Like, I found out what blogs were
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and eight, and I was like,
Speaker 2: that's it. I've got to have one. And I had
Speaker 2: been trying so hard to get my house under control,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I can't take on another thing
Speaker 2: until I get this figured out. And so I didn't
Speaker 2: start my blog for a year and a half, and
Speaker 2: I started it as a practice blog, Like I thought
Speaker 2: that I was going to write about getting my house
Speaker 2: under control as a way to stay focused on that
Speaker 2: and figure it out, and then start writing about things
Speaker 2: I actually felt qualified to write about. Right, So in
Speaker 2: the beginning it was anonymous. I didn't even tell my
Speaker 2: husband what I was doing for like at least a month,
Speaker 2: and I was just trying to figure it out. Had
Speaker 2: no intention of teaching anyone any of this stuff. Like actually,
Speaker 2: as people started to read it and they're like, can
Speaker 2: you teach us what you're doing? And I would say,
Speaker 2: why in the world would anyone want to learn about
Speaker 2: this from me. I'm like no, no, I am like
Speaker 2: struggling my way through. And after about two and a
Speaker 2: half years, I had my house at a point where
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I get it now, like I
Speaker 2: know what to do. I know what I was doing wrong.
Speaker 2: And when people would ask me that, I finally said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I cannot tell you how to have
Speaker 2: a perfect house, but I can tell you how to
Speaker 2: go from completely overwhelmed and hopeless to oh, Okay, I
Speaker 2: get it now, you know. And so that is my
Speaker 2: niche or niche or however you like to say it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very curious what made it so overwhelming? I
Speaker 1: mean I sort of think, like, you know, being paralyzed
Speaker 1: and unable to write or something that you must have
Speaker 1: been like sitting under giant piles of furniture or something.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was going on with the house that
Speaker 1: made it so out of control? You know?
Speaker 2: It was just a constant disaster. Okay, So I could
Speaker 2: have people over. I just needed two weeks to get ready,
Speaker 2: that's all. So all I needed was so I would
Speaker 2: take the first week to you know, declutter. I'm making
Speaker 2: air quotes as I say that I would take the
Speaker 2: first week to declutter, which really just meant I shoved
Speaker 2: everything into my husband's bedroom because that was the door
Speaker 2: I could lock, right, I would shove everything in there,
Speaker 2: and then I would clean for a week because you
Speaker 2: can't actually claim when there's clutter everywhere, right, And so
Speaker 2: it was just a constant disaster. And I could get
Speaker 2: my house under control, but I treated it like a project.
Speaker 2: And so I would like, you know, take everything else
Speaker 2: off the calendar on my house, get it, you know,
Speaker 2: basically under control, and then think, okay, who, I'm done, right,
Speaker 2: and then it would go right back to being a disaster.
Speaker 2: Things I didn't know I had more stuff than I
Speaker 2: could possibly handle. I had more stuff than I had
Speaker 2: places to put stuff. And I didn't understand that correlation, right,
Speaker 2: because I'm a highly creative person and I don't see limits,
Speaker 2: and so, you know, that just didn't occur to me
Speaker 2: that the too much stuff was the actual issue that
Speaker 2: I had. So when I say that my house was
Speaker 2: a disaster, I mean that I avoided having people come over,
Speaker 2: or when I did have them come over, it was
Speaker 2: a huge stressful deal. And so, yeah, go.
Speaker 1: Ahead, Yeah, was that the most common issue? Then? When
Speaker 1: people feel like their homes are overwhelming and out of control.
Speaker 1: Is it that they have too much stuff?
Speaker 2: Generally, yes, it's that and its routines. Like I always
Speaker 2: tell people to start with the routines because part of
Speaker 2: my issue was I always thought, what is the point
Speaker 2: of any kind of a maintenance task when my house
Speaker 2: is a total disaster. I need to get it under
Speaker 2: control and then start maintaining. That never worked. What actually
Speaker 2: did work was when I started doing those maintenance type
Speaker 2: tasks before it was any better. Like, I just started
Speaker 2: with the maintenance tasks that started to change my home.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the more I did that, it
Speaker 2: freed up time for me to get stuff out of
Speaker 2: my house. And so those two things are equally important.
Speaker 2: You really can't have one without the other. But in general, yes,
Speaker 2: most people's issues are that they have too much stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, it's an easy thing to have happen. And this is,
Speaker 1: you know, running not too long after the holidays, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of folks have just gotten a
Speaker 1: whole news shipment of stuff into their homes. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: what can you do if you find you have too
Speaker 1: much stuff? Let's start with the getting rid of some
Speaker 1: of this stuff first, and then we can talk about
Speaker 1: the routines that are helpful for maintenance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the number one thing that I recommend, and
Speaker 2: this is all based in my own experience, is that
Speaker 2: you should prioritize decluttering according to the most visible spaces
Speaker 2: in your home. This is actually the opposite of what
Speaker 2: most of us naturally tend to do. We tend to
Speaker 2: think I need to declutter, and we start with the
Speaker 2: linen closet, or we start with the top shelf of
Speaker 2: the closet, you know, some obscure place where maybe we've
Speaker 2: been thinking about, oh that needs to be dealt with, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, or maybe it's that if I work on
Speaker 2: this space and we don't really use it that often,
Speaker 2: then maybe it'll stay decluttered. Right. But the problem with
Speaker 2: that is that you put all this time and energy
Speaker 2: into this space that you don't see and use consistently,
Speaker 2: and therefore you're not seeing the results of the work
Speaker 2: that you've done. And if you've spent all day decluttering
Speaker 2: a back closet and then the doorbell rings and you're
Speaker 2: still embarrassed to open the front door, or you let
Speaker 2: somebody in and they say what you've been doing today?
Speaker 2: And you say, well, I've been decluttering, and you see
Speaker 2: their eyes look around like really, you know, and that
Speaker 2: is so defeating, right, Like, it's so incredibly defeating to
Speaker 2: have that happen that it makes you just feel like,
Speaker 2: what's the point. But if you start in a visible space,
Speaker 2: then the progress that you're gonna that you're gonna make
Speaker 2: is something that you're gonna experience. You're gonna experience the
Speaker 2: benefits of it. You're gonna see even though you walked
Speaker 2: past that mess for months. Now you walk by and
Speaker 2: it's clear and you're like, oh, that looks so good,
Speaker 2: and it increases that decluttering energy. So it helps to
Speaker 2: perpetuate your uh, decluttering energy and build that momentum that
Speaker 2: everybody is looking for. So that's the number one thing
Speaker 2: that as far as how to start decluttering. I have
Speaker 2: my no Mess decluttering process, right, which is designed to
Speaker 2: make progress and only progress. Never end up creating a
Speaker 2: worse mess than you have before. Like you know how
Speaker 2: everybody always says, oh, it has to get worse before
Speaker 2: it gets better. That's not true.
Speaker 1: You know, don't make it worse for it. So you
Speaker 1: are not saying we should put everything in the middle
Speaker 1: of the floor, took everything out of every kitchen drawer.
Speaker 1: I and then and then you know, something happens. You're
Speaker 1: pulled away, I gotta go pick a kid up from school, sick,
Speaker 1: and then the mess is worse than it ever.
Speaker 2: Was, well exactly. And you know a lot of the
Speaker 2: people who send me emails will say, well, I did that,
Speaker 2: and then I had stuff all over the floor for
Speaker 2: six months, you know, or what I even without it
Speaker 2: being that extreme method, I thought that the way you
Speaker 2: had to declutter was to pull everything out of the space,
Speaker 2: Like I just I thought that's what everybody said you
Speaker 2: were supposed to do, and so I would try that,
Speaker 2: and every single time I would end up overwhelmed and
Speaker 2: defeated because I never finished it, you know, And so
Speaker 2: it was worse than it was before, and I would
Speaker 2: shove it all back in and where I used to
Speaker 2: kind of know where things were in the pile, now
Speaker 2: I had no idea. So yeah, so as first starting,
Speaker 2: we start with the trash, like we just start one
Speaker 2: item at a time pulling it out, and then I,
Speaker 2: you know, my five step process takes you all the
Speaker 2: way through, but it helps me know what to remove first,
Speaker 2: and item that I remove makes me a little bit
Speaker 2: less overwhelmed, helps me understand what I'm dealing with so
Speaker 2: that when I do get to the point where I'm
Speaker 2: making actual decisions, I'm ready for that.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, we're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 1: and then I will be right back with Dana K.
Speaker 1: White talking about decluttering. Well, I am back with before
Speaker 1: breakfast interviewing Dana K. White, a decluttering expert. So we've
Speaker 1: been talking about not pulling all the things out of
Speaker 1: the every door, putting it on the floor, and then
Speaker 1: winding up with stuff there for six months. First we're
Speaker 1: going to get rid of the trash, I believe. The
Speaker 1: next thing is we're going to get rid of any
Speaker 1: dirty dishes or laundry. Right is that the next day?
Speaker 2: Well, the next step is the easy stuff, which may
Speaker 2: include dishes or laundry. Not the dishes and laundry or
Speaker 2: easy like, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is
Speaker 2: emotionally easy, meaning I already know what to do. Right,
Speaker 2: So the easy stuff is anything that I already know
Speaker 2: what to do with it, that already has an established home.
Speaker 2: I just have to do the thing. Sometimes I call
Speaker 2: this per crest to clutter right, it's stuff that's laying around.
Speaker 2: Like you, if you really work hard on your living
Speaker 2: room and yet there is a recliner piled high with
Speaker 2: clean laundry, your living room doesn't actually look like it's
Speaker 2: been decluttered, right, because that iesore is there. But it's
Speaker 2: easy to be like, oh, I'll get to that later
Speaker 2: when I'm not decluttering. But it's important to get that
Speaker 2: step done so that you have the actual benefit of
Speaker 2: what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And then after that that's when you tackle the more
Speaker 1: difficult thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Next, the next step in my five steps is
Speaker 2: the obvious donations, so I call them the duh donations,
Speaker 2: Like why do I even have this? I don't have
Speaker 2: to think about it. I'm just gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: get those out because again, with everything that leaves now
Speaker 2: I can see more clearly what I'm actually dealing with.
Speaker 2: And then at that point that's when I ask my
Speaker 2: decluttering questions. That's step four.
Speaker 1: All right, what are those real?
Speaker 2: Quick? Let's run through. So there's only two and if
Speaker 2: you if you can answer the first one, you don't
Speaker 2: have to even ask the second one. So the question
Speaker 2: declaring question number one is if I needed this item,
Speaker 2: where would I look for it first, And it has
Speaker 2: to be asked like that, Like, it's not where should
Speaker 2: it go, It's not where would it be? It is
Speaker 2: where would I look for it first? If I already
Speaker 2: knew where it went it left in step two, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm only asking this question because I literally don't know
Speaker 2: where this thing goes. It doesn't have a home in
Speaker 2: my house. And this is how I give it a home.
Speaker 2: Where would I look first at the beginning of what
Speaker 2: I assume is going to be a three hour search
Speaker 2: tearing apart my house looking for this item. Right, So
Speaker 2: where's the first place where I would look? And then
Speaker 2: I take it to that place right now? Because this
Speaker 2: is the key to the no mess, right, is to
Speaker 2: go ahead and do the thing so that when I
Speaker 2: get distracted, when I get overwhelmed, when I just am
Speaker 2: like I'm done, I'm out. I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2: I have only made progress. I haven't made any piles,
Speaker 2: i haven't put things in boxes to deal with later.
Speaker 2: I've made real progress. And that's a game changer for
Speaker 2: me and for so many people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I love about this is I mean people
Speaker 1: hear that and they're like, well, that's incredibly inefficient, waste time,
Speaker 1: and it was like, well, sure, but you know we
Speaker 1: could probably all use a little bit more exercise. Well,
Speaker 1: and you're running up and down the stairs a few
Speaker 1: more times. It is It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 2: And it's so funny to me because I like, I
Speaker 2: get emails from people pretty much every single day saying
Speaker 2: I had all the reasons why this was a terrible
Speaker 2: idea and so inefficient, and then I tried it. So
Speaker 2: I'm always like, just try it because people are like,
Speaker 2: I can't believe the power of actually being done with
Speaker 2: that small thing. Because here's the real opposite of efficiency
Speaker 2: is when you make little piles or you put things
Speaker 2: in a box to go take to their homes later,
Speaker 2: and then you have to go back through the piles
Speaker 2: and ask yourself the question again to remember where it
Speaker 2: was that you were supposed to put that thing, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's the opposite of efficient, cause you're redoing your work
Speaker 2: and I need to just go ahead and do that thing.
Speaker 2: Act on. The other thing that happens when I do
Speaker 2: that is I face the reality of the space. Because
Speaker 2: if I'm not actually going to that space right now
Speaker 2: where I say I would look for it first. I
Speaker 2: may be picturing a space like a cabinet that has
Speaker 2: plenty of room in there for this random mug, and
Speaker 2: then I actually get to the cabinet and I realize, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got seventeen of this mechanical pencil that I said
Speaker 2: I would look for here first. Oh okay, or this
Speaker 2: drawer where I say I would look for it first
Speaker 2: won't even close, you know. And so it's this reality
Speaker 2: check instead of just this fantasy land of oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: i'll do this later, I'll do this later, I'll do
Speaker 2: this later. But I'm gonna face that reality and I'm
Speaker 2: really moving actually forward in my home by doing that.
Speaker 1: Love it. I love it. So let's talk about sort
Speaker 1: of the daily maintenance habits then, because this is how
Speaker 1: you're getting rid of stuff, this is how you're kind
Speaker 1: of lightening the overwhelming amount of stuff that is in
Speaker 1: the house. But you said that you also need to
Speaker 1: do these sort of daily routines to keep on top
Speaker 1: of things. So what are some of those.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they are as basic as it gets, right,
Speaker 2: because when I started, I call it my deslopification process.
Speaker 2: When I started, I was like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: to do. I had tried all the methods, I had
Speaker 2: failed at everything. I was pretty sure I was going
Speaker 2: to fail again. And I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I know that my friends whose houses are under control,
Speaker 2: like if I have to stop by for some reason unexpectedly,
Speaker 2: their kitchens are never a disaster. What did you take
Speaker 2: from that? Well, I didn't know how they did it.
Speaker 2: It didn't make sense to me, because here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I would put off doing my dishes, and by the
Speaker 2: time I did my dishes, I was catching up on dishes.
Speaker 2: And so let's say that I had had a busy
Speaker 2: and it's time to clean the house, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to start in the kitchen, and I would spend five
Speaker 2: hours catching up on getting my kitchen under control, five
Speaker 2: days worth of dishes. Well, in my mind, logically, I
Speaker 2: was like, well, if it's five days worth of dishes
Speaker 2: and it takes me five hours, then obviously, logically it
Speaker 2: must take an hour to do the dishes every day.
Speaker 2: And so I would say to myself, I don't want
Speaker 2: to do the dishes for an hour every day, and
Speaker 2: that's not how dishes work. Dishes are if I do
Speaker 2: them every day, it only takes me fifteen to twenty minutes, right,
Speaker 2: and if I waited one more day, it's not twice that,
Speaker 2: it's an hour. And then if I wait three days,
Speaker 2: it's hours. You know, So I call that dishes metho.
Speaker 2: It just does not work the way that I logically
Speaker 2: thought it would. But doing the dishes every day changed
Speaker 2: everything because I never had to start in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: So when I was going to work on my house,
Speaker 2: I could just start working on my house. I didn't
Speaker 2: have to go catch up in the kitchen first. Right,
Speaker 2: the other stretch of the other routine or task that
Speaker 2: I tell people, if you're completely overwhelmed, do the dishes
Speaker 2: and do a five minute pickup. Okay, Now, the dishes
Speaker 2: are hard because the first day you are catching up.
Speaker 2: If you're behind the five minute pickup, I actually mean
Speaker 2: five minutes today, even if your house is every surface
Speaker 2: is covered, okay, okay, Because the problem was I always thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I need to get all those surfaces under control, and
Speaker 2: then it would make sense to do five minutes. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, all the surfaces were so overwhelming that I
Speaker 2: didn't do anything, and then it just got worse and
Speaker 2: worse and worse. Right, But if you'll do five minutes
Speaker 2: of picking up and putting away today and then tomorrow,
Speaker 2: and then the next day, and whenever you think about it,
Speaker 2: it's amazing the impact that it'll have. And those are
Speaker 2: also the same two things to do to keep your
Speaker 2: house under control. Those two things will change your house
Speaker 2: and they'll maintain your house.
Speaker 1: Yep, we can do a lot in five minutes, especially
Speaker 1: if we do five minutes every single day. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: We're going to take one more quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then I will be back with more from Dana. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back interviewing Dana K. White, who is the
Speaker 1: author of several decluttering books, Organizing for the Rest of
Speaker 1: Us and then most recently, Jesus doesn't care about your
Speaker 1: messy house. So this is a fascinating title to me.
Speaker 1: Dana say, it hadn't occurred to me that Jesus had
Speaker 1: thought much about my house, But it sounds like you
Speaker 1: have worked with a number of people who have some
Speaker 1: significant shame and guilt about the state of their home
Speaker 1: to the point of thinking that like it's sinful to
Speaker 1: have a messy house or something like that. So maybe
Speaker 1: you could unpack that topic a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I am a Christian and I, Uh, when
Speaker 2: I started this journey, I assumed God was gonna show
Speaker 2: me some secret that I had somehow been missing that
Speaker 2: was gonna just make me go, oh, I get it now,
Speaker 2: and then my house always be clean, you know, like
Speaker 2: I because it felt like, you know, we don't have
Speaker 2: time to unpack all of it, right, but it felt
Speaker 2: like I was missing something because I would try to
Speaker 2: get this thing under control and I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: You know. Now, I've heard a lot of people talk
Speaker 2: about the same thing from the perspective of someone who
Speaker 2: can't stop cleaning, you know, like their house is perfect
Speaker 2: and they keep going, and they keep going because they're
Speaker 2: trying to be perfect for God, you know. And I've
Speaker 2: heard them talk about how God showed them that his
Speaker 2: love is grace and it has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: what we do. And I was like, Okay, that's great
Speaker 2: for them, but what about for me When I have
Speaker 2: tried and I just can't do it. You know, it's like,
Speaker 2: am I missing something? Is there something wrong? So as
Speaker 2: I worked on my house, God was showing me very
Speaker 2: separately that He just made me the way that I am.
Speaker 2: My brain just works differently, you know, like we're all different.
Speaker 2: There's that's not an excuse to have my house not
Speaker 2: be under control. But at the same time, it's also
Speaker 2: not a shame, like it just is an issue of Okay,
Speaker 2: so my brain works differently. I got to figure out
Speaker 2: what does work for me, because the problem was I
Speaker 2: always was trying to do what you know, everybody would
Speaker 2: say you were supposed to do in your house, and
Speaker 2: I'd be like, well, this doesn't work right, And it's
Speaker 2: because what a lot of people are teaching on this
Speaker 2: stuff misses the actual starting point that I was at, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's that's a big point. It's not that what people are,
Speaker 2: you know, advising and sharing and encouraging other people to
Speaker 2: do is not correct. It's that my starting point was
Speaker 2: so far back that I had a lot to do
Speaker 2: before I could ever even get to that point, and
Speaker 2: it just didn't make sense to me. So when I
Speaker 2: acknowledge and accepted that, you know what, this is not
Speaker 2: a spiritual issue, this is just I'm wired differently, and
Speaker 2: I got to figure out what does work for me,
Speaker 2: it removed that shame and it set me on a
Speaker 2: path where I was like, you know what, I like
Speaker 2: who I am and if that also means that I
Speaker 2: struggle in my house, that's fine, and then I was
Speaker 2: free to actually figure out what did work for me
Speaker 2: instead of trying other people's ways, failing at those ways
Speaker 2: and thinking, oh my word, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah. Realizing that everyone is different and our brains
Speaker 1: work differently, yes, and we experienced the world differently, is
Speaker 1: you know, good and good to know that God made
Speaker 1: us all different as well.
Speaker 2: Right, and it's a beautiful thing, right, Like we wouldn't
Speaker 2: want to all be the same? How boring would that be? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well I'm glad to find out that Jesus
Speaker 1: doesn't care about the state of my house, So that's good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to.
Speaker 2: Hear that exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So, Dana, you mentioned the daily housekeeping routines of doing
Speaker 1: the dishes and doing the five minute pickup, but I'm
Speaker 1: curious if you have any sort of other routines or
Speaker 1: daily habits that more about, like how you organize your time.
Speaker 1: Are the things you you know, do for yourself daily?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, I well, you know, as far as the
Speaker 2: tasks that I do, I have four tasks that if
Speaker 2: I will do these things, my house is great. The
Speaker 2: number two. The top two are the dishes and the
Speaker 2: five minute pickups, So I don't get if I don't
Speaker 2: get to the other two, I'm okay, I'll survive, right,
Speaker 2: But if I can do the dishes every day, if
Speaker 2: I can do a five minute pickup, if I can
Speaker 2: check my bathrooms for clutter, so that when it comes
Speaker 2: time to clean the bathroom, all I'm doing is cleaning
Speaker 2: the bathroom and not like you know, excavating from the clutter.
Speaker 2: And sweep the kitchen floor, which is not about crumbs necessarily.
Speaker 2: It's about combating what I call my slab vision, where
Speaker 2: I just don't see that, oh, there's a pile of
Speaker 2: things over here, or there's whatever. But if I will
Speaker 2: sweep the kitchen floor every day, then it just is
Speaker 2: a habit that helps me see those things. But the
Speaker 2: way that I manage that is I have had to
Speaker 2: come to the point where I don't assign those things
Speaker 2: to a very specific time of day. Okay, So like,
Speaker 2: for example, the five minute pickup, I knew that people
Speaker 2: whose houses were under control did a pick up every night, right,
Speaker 2: and so when I used to try to change, I
Speaker 2: would be like, okay, okay, I am going to start
Speaker 2: picking up the living room every night before the kids
Speaker 2: go to bed, okay, you know, and then we would
Speaker 2: do it for a night, maybe two nights, and then
Speaker 2: it would be a week later and I would think,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, I forgot to do that. Okay, the
Speaker 2: kids are already in bed, all right, tomorrow night, I'll
Speaker 2: do that, and then I would forget again, and then
Speaker 2: the next So what I came to the point of
Speaker 2: realizing was whatever time it crosses my mind, that's when
Speaker 2: I need to do it. And sometimes it's frustrating because
Speaker 2: I like to have the whole family participate in the
Speaker 2: five minute pickup. But if it crosses my mind to
Speaker 2: do it when it's just me at home, then I
Speaker 2: go ahead and do it. And strangely, me doing a
Speaker 2: five minute pickup when it's just me at home actually
Speaker 2: usually helps me remember to do another one, which we
Speaker 2: always need when the kids are home too. Write And
Speaker 2: so this not assigning it to a specific time was
Speaker 2: actually very freeing because it kept me from giving up
Speaker 2: because oh I missed that time again. I miss that
Speaker 2: time again, and that could go on for weeks until
Speaker 2: it just I just gave up completely, right of like man,
Speaker 2: every single night when I'm putting the kids to bed,
Speaker 2: it never crosses my mind to pick up toys before
Speaker 2: they go to bed whatever. Not that my kids have
Speaker 2: toys anymore, but you know what I mean, back in
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in the day. Yeah, yeah, okay, wonderful. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's something so freeing about realizing that routines
Speaker 1: don't always have to happen at the same time every day.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I tell people at this show, you know,
Speaker 1: morning routines are morning can be a state of mind.
Speaker 1: Sometimes your morning routine is more of a morning checklist,
Speaker 1: and the morning checklist may happen over the course of
Speaker 1: the day if your life is a certain way, and
Speaker 1: that's totally fine too. So Dana, what's something you've done
Speaker 1: recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2: Well, let me think. I put on my calendar, which
Speaker 2: is funny because my best friend is my assistant as well,
Speaker 2: and I just texted her the other day I said, Hey,
Speaker 2: did you notice that two months ago I put on
Speaker 2: the calendar that we're going to do our Christmas shopping tomorrow?
Speaker 2: And she was like, She's like, yeah, I saw, I
Speaker 2: put it on my calendar too. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: good things. And I think it's that scheduling in, you know,
Speaker 2: like this is we're talking I'm not sure when this
Speaker 2: is coming out, but we're talking in December. And it
Speaker 2: gets bananas, especially when your content is about decluttering, because
Speaker 2: decluttering time is really really strong, you know, in January.
Speaker 2: And so I schedule in my fun things and I'm like,
Speaker 2: she and I go Christmas shopping every year, and if
Speaker 2: I don't get it on the calendar. And I did
Speaker 2: that as I was, you know, coming up with times
Speaker 2: and dates where I could do podcast interviews and things
Speaker 2: about the new book, and I'm like, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: as important, if not more important, than all the other things,
Speaker 2: because if I don't have that, then it feels like
Speaker 2: what am I doing all the rest of this stuff for?
Speaker 2: You know, if I'm not able to do the things
Speaker 2: that bring me peace and joy and happiness and all.
Speaker 1: That, way to get it on the calendar. Yeah, putting
Speaker 1: things on the calendar is generally a good way for
Speaker 1: making them happen, exactly exactly. So, Dana, where can people
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 2: You can find me at aslabcomesclean dot com that has
Speaker 2: links to all my YouTube and podcasts, and I have
Speaker 2: decluttering coaches noil who are certified by me and all that.
Speaker 1: So yep, that sounds awesome. Well, Dana, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us, and thank you to everyone for
Speaker 1: listening to one of these longer episodes. If you have
Speaker 1: feedback from me about this episode or any other, you
Speaker 1: can email me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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