I didn’t set out in this new year for a cleaner home. In fact, I had recently written a post about why I should just give in and embrace our cluttered home. But, as a library and learning addict, I found an online event scheduled just two weeks into the new year for a live chat session with an author. These are hard for me to pass up. And she wasn’t just any author, she was a de-cluttering expert. In the name of being prepared for this ultra-cool opportunity of an author talk (I’m just realizing some may think I’m saying this tongue-in-cheek, but I am, I assure you, 100% genuine), I checked out her book on audio to listen to while I did other things. Not that it would make a difference, I knew, but why not give yet another cleaning book a read?
OH. MY. GOODNESS. Not two minutes into How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, I knew I had found my person. Dana was speaking my clutter language. I cannot tell you how many times I laughed out loud listening to her, not just because of her casual, entertaining approach, but because she was describing ME! Finally! As Dana says in the beginning, “Here’s the dirty little secret about most organizing advice: It’s written by organized people.” Yes! Exactly! I’ve tried different books and different approaches. The reason I wrote my Embracing Clutter post was because I felt like I just needed to surrender and accept my messy ways. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seemed to work for me. A tidy house just did not seem to be in the cards for me this go around. I have tried. I know we’d all feel calmer and better in a less-messy house, but I just couldn’t seem to do it. So, it seemed embracing the mess was my only option.
I started Dana’s audiobook exactly two weeks ago. I finished listening to it in just a couple of days. We had people over last week, like it was nothing. Our living room, our front hall, our bedroom, even our out-of-control kitchen table? They are all consistently clutter-free. I kid you not. It is nothing short of AMAZING! I fully realize we might be in the ‘honeymoon stage’ here, but it has NEVER been like this. This is not to say there isn’t more work to do. This is absolutely, 100% a journey, and an ongoing one at that. But to have someone so similar to me describe her approach and process has been a complete game-changer for me. I have so much gratitude.
So, just off the top of my head, here are some of the things Dana said that sound like me and that helped me have some Aha! moments:
–Dana sees potential in everything. Yes!! That’s me. I like how she phrased this, because it is a positive trait to see potential. As a passionate environmentalist and a lover of projects, stuff just comes with the territory. In our house, things like empty jars, tin cans, broken objects…all of these are potential projects for me. I save them with all the best of intentions. Yes, the majority of people in this current world would see these as trash. I get it. I sometimes like to think I am living in another time, a time when people had to find creative ways to reuse what they had since they couldn’t just run out to the market on any given day. I wanted to Save the World and make up for other people’s wastefulness by making the most of every single item that entered our home. This is, and continues to be, one of THE hardest parts of de-cluttering for me. I can send items to a thrift store like it’s nothing, but ask me to throw away old toothpaste caps? With that, I will struggle. But seeing potential in everything and having clutter everywhere means I get to do exactly zero of these projects. Seeing potential in every little thing is a good trait. It’s sweet, and I see the merit in trying to reuse and be creative. And it’s not something I plan to fully give up. But the clutter that it brings is overwhelming. I know that I am creative. I know that I do a lot to help make environmentally-good choices and share some of my ideas with others. But I cannot keep every little thing. Letting these go – seeing potential and then passing it along – that’s tough. But it is making a huge difference for me and the state of our house.
–Dana talks about having a low clutter-threshold. Had I not heard her explanation, this terminology would have confused me. I would have guessed I had a high clutter threshold, since, like Dana, clutter quickly becomes invisible to me and I easily find ways to work around it. But what she means is that she needs to live in a home with a minimal amount of clutter, otherwise it will be out of control. There are some people who can collect items for future gifts or keep more sentimental items, and they make it work. They manage that amount of stuff and still live in a, well, livable home. That is not me. I, like Dana, have a low clutter-threshold. I actually quite like cleaning and managing stuff, but when there’s too much of it, I just can’t. And that is the #1 thing that’s made this journey so hard for me. In the last two weeks, I cannot tell you how much stuff has left our home. Dana recommends just getting it out the easiest way possible for donation. I did take several boxes of books to a used bookstore (a wonderful one that donates the rest without me having to do anything!) and I did sell some stuff to a used kids’ stuff shop (they do not keep the rest for donations, but I promised myself I’d take anything they rejected straight to the thrift shop). But I took boxes and boxes and bags and bags of stuff out of our home. And there are still more waiting. I want to get all of it out as soon as possible, because that little sneaky part of me I mentioned above that sees potential in everything likes to creep back in and whisper ideas to me.
–Dana talks about the “container concept.” Our shelves, our drawers, even our houses themselves – these are containers, and we have to be able to fit the objects we want into these spaces without buying more and more shelves and containers. I get it. And I went a little dramatic, maybe, and got rid of two large shelves that just haven’t worked for me in awhile. They have become stuff and junk collectors. And as I got stuff out of our home, I realized I didn’t need all the shelves I had at one time collected and wished I had had more of.
–In the book, Dana also talks about a wonderful method of going through stuff. It is definitely a “slow and steady” method, but it is fabulous. Many of the organizing books out there suggest an ‘all-in’ (or should I say ‘all-out’?) approach of dumping out an entire drawer or piling up all like items to sort through them. That might work for some people. I’ve done this. And, unfortunately, just days before starting Dana’s book I did one of these, so I’m still dealing with the aftermath. Yes, I love the grand gesture of this method, and, yes, it is helpful to see all the items at once. But, for people like me, the excitement of starting in this dramatic way quickly fades. Life happens. Dinner happens. Fatigue sets in from staring at the overwhelming mound. And then it sits there. And it is VERY discouraging. Dana recommends a very different approach. A one-item-at-a-time deal. This sounds like it will be mind-numbingly slow. But, it truly works. It’s an incredible feeling to deal with each object as you see it, and then…BE. DONE. with it. Whether you’ve got five minutes or five hours, what’s done at the end, is done. Wahoo! Bonus for me, is that by putting away each object as I go through it, I get a lot of movement and extra steps in my day.
–I’m embarrassed to admit to this one, but Dana does, so I will too. She talks about having a bit of a hero complex. I’m not even in that many social situations, but- Does part of me think it would be super awesome that if somebody suddenly needed a collection of jar lids for a project that I could step in and hand over loads of them? Yes. Yes, I do. But the truth is, people figure things out. The other truth is that when things like this have come up, even in very small ways, I often can’t find the item I would have felt so smug about having. So, really, this is not a valid reason to keep things. I know. It’s obvious. But it sure helped to have Dana lay it out for me.
–Dana talks about clearing visible spaces first. Oh, my goodness. I feel like I should have figured this one out on my own, but it really didn’t occur to me until I heard her say this. Like many people, I was digging into closets and cluttered spaces to start my clean-out. Firstly, those are the big, scary projects. They’re overwhelming. I avoid them, or I start them without finishing. Why not start with the spaces we see everyday? The spaces where we live. Not only is this so much lovelier to enjoy, but it also builds on the inspiration to keep going. This concept was huge for me, and I love waking up and walking into our uncluttered living space.
–I forget the term Dana uses for this, but it’s a time-estimation problem. I actually bought a timer last year because I realized I had this too. There are tasks that I am sure are going to take forever, and then I set the timer and realize they’re actually quite quick. Then there are chores I’m sure I can squeeze into a much shorter amount of time, only to realize I have far underestimated. Knowing the amount of time it takes to unload the dishwasher or fold the clothes or wipe down the sink are actually very helpful for me. I realize I DO have the time to do these tasks. They are fast and easy, and I love knowing that keeping our house clean won’t take up my entire day. It’s manageable.
–And here was one of the biggest things for me. Dana talks about how having a clean home helps give her time for projects she wants to do. Ok, I will admit that I have had some very backwards thinking on this for quite a long time. For one, I will sheepishly admit that when I would see clean homes I had a sour grapes mentality. I theorized that the people who lived there just didn’t have as many fun, exciting projects that were consuming their lives. Cleaning was their thing, and that was fine, but I wanted to spend my time in other ways. Folding and putting aways clothes, picking up at the end of the day, regularly cleaning out…these all seemed like a waste of my valuable creative time when I had ‘better’ things to do. But the overall truth was that living in chaos was eating up more time and energy than I cared to admit. Not being able to find a clean pair of socks or a paper I needed. Frantically picking up so somebody could come over or feeling the stress of a cluttered living room. All of these things were actually taking away from the time I wanted to spend doing my ‘fun’ projects. They were robbing my energy and making things more stressful than they needed to be. By working on getting our life to a base level of clean and then spending the time to maintain this is opening up so much time for me already.
If you haven’t caught on, Dana has become a household name here. My family is all very familiar with her, as I interject many conversations these days with, “Do you know what Dana says?” I was amazed by how quickly our home looked different by removing clutter and by starting with the visible spaces. I may have rattled on about embracing clutter in my previous post, but it sure feels great having a cleared, livable space.
And I absolutely love carrying these concepts into other areas of my life. Using the one-thing-until-it’s-done method with my work instead of hopping around? Wonderful! Realizing my brain space cannot hold onto so many worries? YAAASSS! Doing the not-so-fun stuff of life so that I have time for the things I want? Sounds like a good deal. The lessons from this book are making a wonderful impact on all areas of my life.
So, Thank You, Dana! I don’t think I fully realized how much I needed all of this. Thank you for sharing your stories with those of us who, like you, have looked on, baffled, at others’ clean living spaces for years. Thank you for helping me realize that we, creative-types, can not only keep a tidy home (while keeping our creativity), but can also benefit from it. This has been a true gift, and I look forward to the continued positive changes in my living space.