How To Declutter Your Home: 5 Tips That Actually Work

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I have to tell you something you may not know about me. I am a slob. I mean, it's almost embarrassing and something I would rather not talk about, but the time has come for me and you to face this issue head on. If you have people coming over anytime soon and you would rather they not get past the welcome mat or if you just have parts of your house,

For me, it's like the bathroom doors or the laundry room that are hidden disasters. Shut the door, Chris, you know, when the company's going to sit right next to me right now because you're not alone and you are in the right place. You and I have got to talk about clutter because clutter weighs you down mentally and physically. I mean, just think about it. When you walk into a room that's packed with stuff or you open up a drawer and you can't find what you're looking for, your brain feels it.

You may be in your car looking at old soda cups or tissues that are left from the day before this was me this morning. I had to find some my car. I'm like, how long have those coffee cups been in the backseat? Or you may be in the house or office looking at a cluttered counter or kitchen. Just take a second to notice. Isn't that clutter weighing you down? I'm here to tell you, it's not only weighing you down. It's holding you back.

No, you do not need to buy more storage bins to hide the mess. You don't need to take a trip to the big store to get organized or color code anything. Sir, cleaning up your act. You can take back your home and your life with a few simple decluttering steps that actually work in real life for real people like you and me.

Hey, it's your friend Mal and welcome to the Mal Robbins podcast. I am so excited that you're here. I just love this topic. I especially love this topic for right now based on the fact that the holidays are coming up like a driver that is riding your rear end right now on the on your on your the back of the car, whatever the heck that's called. Well, first of all, I should probably start and say it's an honor to spend some time with you and to be together. And if you're brand new, welcome to the Mal Robbins podcast family.

The fact that you hit play on this episode, it tells me something. It tells me you value your time and you hate the clutter, right? It tells me that you want simple ways to clean up your act. You'd like to be proud of your house. You'd like to be proud of your counters. I mean, wouldn't you like counters that are squeaky clean? I know I would. And I also know that you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life. And one of the simplest ways to improve your life. And this is actually really important is to improve the space around you.

your environment matters. It like sends these cues to your eyes, to your nervous system. And the space around me and my home and my studio and in my car, I mean, it could be described as I'm looking around. There are balloons in the corner in the office. There are stacks of let them books and manuscripts that are

Almost a year old lying around. There is a box sitting next to the printer that has some beige sweatshirt on top of it. I don't even know who the heck the sweatshirt. There is a hairspray, but I'm embarrassed. Thank God I'm not on video right now. But here's the thing. You didn't tune in to hear about my clutter. You tuned in to hear how you can change your life by getting control of your clutter. Because mess isn't just physical.

The mess around you creates a mess in your mind. Clutter in your physical space, whether it's clothes laying on the floor of your closet or piled on top of the laundry room or it's, do you have one of those drawers? They're always in your bathroom where you go to pull it open and there's some tube of something in the back that you probably haven't seen in seven years that is poking up and jamming the door open. Like this stuff clutters your mind.

And it makes it harder to focus and harder to feel more in control. Well, what if I told you there is a simple way to not only clean up your house before all your relatives come for the holidays, but to break free from this unnecessary overwhelm. Well, in today's conversation, you and I are going to flip the script on what decluttering really means because decluttering isn't really about tidying up your space.

It's about unlocking a new way to feel clearer and peaceful and more in control of your life. And it doesn't require you to reorganize your closet or to get more storage bins or to color code your bookcases or to make your pantry look like it's an Instagram post.

Our expert today is a woman named Dana K. White, and she is a hero to millions of people because she is going to show you how the act of getting rid of stuff is the key to decluttering your thoughts, reducing your stress, and making space for what truly matters. And what she said made me realize, she said, Mel, you have decluttering and organizing all wrong.

See, for me personally, every time I would try to get organized, you know what I would do? Like, just think about times in your life, you're like, I gotta organize my closet. I gotta, I gotta organize my, my, my, my desk space at home. Oh, I gotta organize my bedroom. I gotta organize the pantry. What do you do when you feel like I gotta organize things? You literally get in the car or you get on the subway and you go to a store and you buy more things. Does that make sense?

that in order to organize your things, you buy more things. And the reason why you're trying to organize your things is because you have too many things. In fact, I was on the road because I've been on a road a lot promoting the Let them Theory book.

And do you ever have this feeling like where you go on a trip and you spend all this time packing only to open up your suitcase and you go, I hate everything that I packed. I literally packed for a week and I packed exercise clothes, two pairs of jeans, three pairs of underwear. I'm gone for seven days. I don't know how the math works on that now. Even if I turn them inside out, I'm not going to last seven days with three pairs of underwear. I didn't pack a bra.

I packed two t-shirts. Like, that's what I took on a trip, you guys. And so I not only have too much stuff, I got the wrong stuff. Let me tell you what I used to do when I would come home after a trip, having packed all the wrong things. I still do that. That's the ADHD, but I'm going to tell you what I don't do anymore. So the old me, I would roll in from a trip. Does this ever happen to you? I don't know if I'm the only one that used to do this, but holy cow, this was like clockwork. What would happen?

I would roll on end and I would roll my suitcase into my bedroom and would I put my clothes away? No! Why would I want to do that? When I can crack my suitcase open, lay it on the floor, not even on packet, and then walk into my closet and go, you know, I think I should organize this.

I think right now, what I should do is I should organize my entire closet. What Dana White is going to say is get rid of things. And look, this is not going to be an episode about hoarding. You don't have to pull up a dumpster into your front yard. You don't have to make 55 trips to the town dump. This is not what her philosophy is. You are going to love what Dana White is going to teach you. See, once I saw the difference,

between organizing, which is just making your crap look pretty, and actually, truly decluttering. It transformed how I manage my stuff.

And it helped me let go of the overwhelm that I felt every time I walked into the mudroom, which was always a disaster, always. So was my bathroom, by the way. So were the kitchen counters. And I started to realize, wait a minute, declaring it's not about being perfect. It's not about the right storage solutions. It's about clearing space to create a calm, focused mind. I mean, this is a mind blowing conversation.

I remember when I first met Dana K. White, I could barely talk because my mouth was on the floor. I'm like, I've never thought about my life this way. I've never thought about the things that I have this way. She made me realize how much time and energy I waste moving things that I don't even use from one place to another.

It's like insane what you're about to learn. And I really want you to take a good, hard look in the mirror and truly be honest with yourself about your relationship with your stuff. Because you are about to meet a four time best selling author, including the best selling book decluttering at the speed of life.

by Dana K. White. Dana is a speaker. She is crazy viral on YouTube. She's the creator of the no mess decluttering process. So she is going to walk you through her powerful decluttering approach that will help you finally get stuck. And I realize as I'm telling you these stories, you're like, well, clearly it didn't work, Mel. And I would say after learning everything that you're about to learn, I went from a house where every room had clutter to a house where I would say,

30% of the spaces have clutter, which is unbelievable. And more importantly,

When I walk into the kitchen, which is kind of my safe space, that's where I like to see the clean counters, that's like, anybody else feel like that's your domain, don't screw with the kitchen. You can put your crap in another place, but don't walk in Christopher Robbins and put your cheese, your cheese, I made your keys, your keys, and your water bottle in front of my beautiful black pots that I bought at a antique place, like one of those big, it's called, what is that thing called? It's in

Brimfield, Brimfield, if all my antique and kind of junk choppers, you're going to know that round top is another one. Big kind of, you know, I'm so just so ADHD today. I have clutter of the mind, everybody, but it tries me bananas because I have set up this counter where you walk into the kitchen and you see these beautiful three antique pots and they're gorgeous and they're under these nice painting and it's a beautiful part of the counter.

He walks right in and puts his freakin' keys and his freakin' water bottle and the mail and the dog treats, and God knows what else right there. And I'm like, what? Well, I don't do that anymore. I see it. I then clearly use the let them. Let them, let them, let them put their stuff there even though I've passed a hundred times for them not to do that. And then let me use Dana White's strategies and let me

use decluttering at the speed of life to create calmness and a sense of peace and to remove things in a very simple way without a creating additional stress or additional piles. When she shares with you the tool,

You're gonna be like, come on now. I'm gonna tell you, it will change your life. It'll change your relationship with the people you live with. It'll open your eyes to the magnificent distinction between organization and decluttering. And so if you're feeling buried alive by the clutter,

this conversation is exactly what you need right now. If you are bracing for the holidays because you have no idea how to pull the place together, heck, maybe you haven't had friends over in years because you're embarrassed at the state of your apartment or your house. This is going to change your life.

And since I first released this conversation, it went crazy viral on YouTube. And so I thought this is the perfect thing for me to give to you as a gift. And by the way, if you heard this like a year and a half ago, I'm going to tell you something. You need to hear it again. You cannot hear this conversation enough.

When I listened to it again recently, I'm like, oh, oh my gosh, this is incredible. This is absolutely incredible. Wow. And now I'm looking around at that baby sweatshirt. I know what to do with it and that cardboard box. I know where to take it. Oh, and those balloons, I know exactly what to do with those two. And guess what? Bada bing, bada boom, but I'm going to clear out the space. I'm just going to clear out my mind and it's going to take absolutely no time at all.

I will not allow you to keep people from coming to your house or not crossing the threshold over your welcome, Matt, because you're afraid of what they're going to think about your mess. And I refuse to allow you to continue to beat yourself up over the state of things or to continue to walk into your closet or your kitchen or your bedroom or where your desk is at work and throw your hands in the air and just be like, I'm going to get together. Yes, you are going to get together. Yes, you can.

Have a clutter. I can't even say the word. It's so exciting. Yes, you can have a clutter-free life. You can and you will because Dana K. White is here to help you do that. Dana White, I'm so excited you're here. Thanks for having me on. Dana, when you've got a person like me who's literally a disaster in certain places in her home, just overwhelmed by everything, where do we even start?

I mean, it's you're where you are. You have the makeup products all over the counter. And you think that that's what I want those images on Instagram and it looks like a magazine. Yes. Are we ready for me to tell you what the difference is? Yes. What is the difference between that perfection that I want and where I am right now?

Here's the reality. Organizing and decluttering are separate things. They are not the same thing, but I always thought they were the same thing. I would look around at my mess and I would think I have got to get organized because that logically makes sense, right? Yes. But the problem was I would buy a bunch of products, bring them into my house. The organizing energy was gone by the time I got home and I just dropped them by the back door and they turned into more clutter. So it never made a real impact on my house. I was at such a rock bottom point.

that I honestly thought I was giving up by saying, I don't even have it in me to get organized. I am just going to declutter. Wow. Like in my mind, I thought, that's how bad I am. I've just got to declutter. I can't even think about organizing yet.

Decluttering changed everything in my home. So the beauty of realizing that organizing and decluttering are not the same thing and that you can just declutter and that just decluttering will change everything. It's just starting to get stuff out of your house. So are you saying, Dana, that as an organization expert, that in order to have a home or workspace or any area of your life feel manageable,

which would be the opposite of how I feel right now when I look at my bathroom sink or my closet, that you just gotta forget about organizing because you're not ready to organize.

that you need to first declutter. Is that what you're saying? Yes, you need to declutter. Decluttering is everything. When I decluttered, then I knew what I had. I knew where it was. I could get to it easily. I could access it easily because I'd gotten rid of all that extra stuff so that when I opened the cabinet, I just saw what I needed and I could get to it without moving 15 things.

Decluttering made my house look better, function better, feel better. It was the thing I had been needing that I didn't know I needed. I thought I needed to get organized. So what is the difference between decluttering and organizing?

In my mind, organizing was bins and boxes and systems and all these things that I would look at those images on Instagram of the color coded things and all that. You look at that and you think, that's it. I need the colors. And so you bring the colors in and then you're trying to fit all the stuff in there.

I'm laughing because I thought the solution to my bathroom sink problem was to go to Walmart or Target and buy a bunch of bins to put all the stuff that's on my counter in. Why doesn't it work for me to go buy a bunch of containers for this stuff? Everyone has a clutter threshold. It's the amount of stuff that you personally can keep under control. It's the reason why you and your friends can go shopping together by the exact same things.

She puts it in her house. It looks like a magazine. You put it in your house. It looks like a thrift store, right? Like that difference between like she can handle this stuff. I brought all this stuff into my house because I wanted it. I saw potential in it. I'm a lovely person who sees value in things that no one else sees value in, right? Like that's a great quality, except that I was bringing it into my house and I couldn't handle it.

It was not possible for me to keep my house under control with the amount of stuff that I had in my house.

So it's not aesthetics. Some people hear clutter threshold and they're like, oh, yeah, this drives me. Now I'm talking about what can you handle? What's easy for you to keep under control? So if a space is continually getting out of control, get rid of more stuff. Oh, it's still getting out of control. Get rid of more stuff. And until you realize at some point, this is what happened to me as I was like, wait a minute, I can do this. Like I can keep this under control. And that's where I realized there's this point, this level of stuff that I can handle.

You are a genius.

When I hear the word organization, I think it looks pretty. I just have to get the bins that line up and the labeler that has the nice font and the little tags in my laundry room. And then I take all the shit that I have and I stack it all in there and then I make it look nice. I spend six hours in one space and I bought all the crap, the baskets match and it looks like a photo shoot and everything's in its place. You're right. I'm managing

shit that I can't manage because the second that our son walks in the laundry room and pulls out the thing and puts it in a different place, then everything's out of whack again and I feel unorganized again and it all spills out from there and then I go buy a different basket because it needs to be a bigger basket. I am driving myself and my husband.

crazy. How do you know what your clutter threshold is? I hate to tell you this, but there is literally no way to know other than to declutter. You can just know if my house feels overwhelming. I'm over my clutter threshold. If my house is consistently getting out of control and I feel bewildered by that,

then I'm over my clutter threshold. So the only way to find your clutter threshold is to declutter. I think I'm starting to get what you're saying. You're saying there is a critical difference between organizing your stuff versus decluttering. Organizing is just moving everything that you already have around to different places.

And the problem is that you are organizing because you feel overwhelmed by your stuff. So no amount of baskets or containers will take that overwhelm away because you have too much stuff. Yeah. The root problem is you have too many things, too many things on your desk, too many things in your closet, too many things in your mudroom. So you have to start with decluttering, which is a nice way to say it's time to get rid of a bunch of your stuff because it's all overwhelming you. Let me just say,

The less stuff you have, the less stuff that can pile.

Right? You are a genius. The less stuff you have, the less stuff that you compile and the less piles that you have, the less overwhelmed you're gonna feel. Here's what I also am starting to find really fascinating about your approach, is that it makes sense when you look at the research about how our brains work. See, when there's too much input, too much going on in your family, or too many things,

on your desk or in your mudroom, your brain gets overloaded. It can't process all that stuff. And so what I'm realizing is the reason why we have this instinct to just organize it all and put it in baskets and make it look good and put colors and labels on it is because we're trying to make it less overwhelming to our brain.

when actually what we need to do is hit delete and remove a lot of the stuff that is overwhelming to us. But I'm still hung up on the containers. Maybe I've been brainwashed. Maybe I've watched too much HDTV, but I feel like this process is missing containers. So how do you handle the desire to either put things in piles or put things in containers? I used to think that containers

We're for putting things in, right? Organized people love containers. They buy containers. Their house looks great. I must need more containers. And so I would bring containers into my house. So here's my little scenario that I give.

Let's say my friend whose kids were the same age as mine, you know, her little craft area looked amazing. Mine was this huge pile disaster spilling out of the cabinet. Okay. And I would look and say, Oh, she has her crayons and a red bucket. Yes. That's the difference between her and me. Yes. Right. Like she has a red bucket. I don't have a red bucket. That's why my space is a disaster. So I would go and buy a red bucket and I would dump crayons in there and I would realize, Oh, I still got 700 crayons left over.

Why does this not work for me? The way it works for her. So I would go out and buy two more red buckets. And then I would put the rest of my crayons in those red buckets. I go to put the red buckets on the shelf and my shelf wouldn't fit three red buckets. And I would think, are you kidding me? Why is this so hard for me? Like, why does this not work for me? And then eventually I would be like, well, obviously I need more shelves.

So I'd buy more shelves. And then at some point, I would think, well, I don't have any room for more shelves. Obviously I need a new house and we can't afford a new house right now. So I am doomed to be disorganized.

That is just how my brain worked. I just thought that if I, you know, ran out of space in a container, I bought another container. And in reality, her house was smaller than mine. But in my mind, my issue was that my house was too small, right? Like, which doesn't make sense, but it may take sense to my brain. Yep. So when I was working, I was talking to myself and I was saying container, and I went, container, contain.

Like the word contain is in there. Serve as a limit, set a boundary. You know, like firefighters contain a fire. They create a boundary. And as long as the fire stays inside the boundary, they can keep it under control. Their whole goal is to keep it within this boundary. And I realized, oh, a container is not for putting things in. A container is meant to serve as a limit, to serve as a boundary.

Wow. And that changed everything for me because I was able to say, okay, here's the red bucket. It's not going to fit everything, but it's the boundary. So I'm going to put my favorite crayons in first. And when it's full, something happens in my brain and I realize, oh, maybe I don't need a thousand crayons.

Oh, okay. Before I would pick up every single crayon and be like, wow, I mean, I know it's broken, but broken crayons still color, right? Oh, yes, that's right. So I would make all these, and it took forever for me to analyze every single one. And instead it's just, I'm going to put my favorite ones in first, and I'm going to let the container make the hard decision for me. Wow.

And then when I go to put the red bucket on the shelf, I have to acknowledge that the shelf is also a container. The shelf is a limit. And it determines how many red buckets I can have. And the size of the room determines how many shelves I can have. And the size of my house is the size of my house. So like the size of my house is the size of my house. And if I'm going to put my favorite things,

in first, and I'm going to realize my house is a container. My house is a limit. What's my favorite thing in my house?

It's the people who live in it, right? So like we deserve space first. And so that just shifted everything. It actually doesn't matter how valuable something is, how much is sentimental, you know, feelings I have to board it. It's does it have space? I can keep anything, but I can't keep everything. And my house ever have a chance of being under control. Okay. Wow.

So that's the container concept, which changes how you look at your house and how you look at your stuff and lets me let go of things because I'm like, it's not me. It's the container. I don't have the space for it. And that is very freeing. Wow. That's obvious. But it makes so much sense. And more importantly, I feel like I couldn't do it. Don't you feel like you can do it?

Okay, now what I would love for you to do is can you walk us through your five step process that we go through when we declutter? And I want to get really granular. So let's take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsors. And when we come back, let's go step by step through the actual process you created. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and I'm here with Dana White, who wrote the life-changing book, How to Manage Your House Without Losing Your Mind, The Supplies to Home, Work Everywhere That You Feel Overwhelmed. And she's about to walk us through her five-step process that she created for decluttering. All right, Dana, where do you start? Yeah, I recommend what I call the visibility role.

I recommend that you go to the place that visitors to your home will see when they either come inside or are standing at the door and you're trying to keep them from coming inside, right? Because it's a mess, whatever.

That is the place to start. And we're going to go through the decluttering process there. I'll explain that. But the reason why you want to start in a visible space is that you will see the progress that you're making. You will see your house getting better. The people who live with you will start to see your house getting better. You'll experience that it is easier to live in a space with less stuff. Okay.

Because here's the thing, so many times when we get that desire to declutter, we go to the pantry, we go to the linen closet, we go to the top shelf of the master bedroom closet. We do those spaces because we think, okay, if I will work really hard on this, we really don't use this space that much. And so maybe it'll actually stay that way, right? Yes. When in reality, you can work really hard on that. You talked about like, you know, all the color coding and blah, blah, blah in this random closet.

And then at the end of the day, your husband is like, so what'd you do today? And you're like, oh, I have been organizing all day. And I don't know about you. I'm not going to project this on you. But in my experience, I've had that exact scenario happen. And my husband would be like, really?

Oh, okay. Well, what is more defeating than that, right? Yes. Like, it's to feel like I have been organizing all day and I'm still embarrassed to open my front door. Yes. But if you work on visible spaces first, then you see the progress that you're making and you inspire yourself to keep going because you're like, oh, wow, that looks good. I may not have noticed when it was messy.

But I notice now when it looks great. And then that inspires me to keep going. OK, do you want me to talk about the actual process? Yes. OK, I do. See, I have to have like real steps because I have to remind myself still. I still look at a space and go. And I'm like, nope, I have steps. OK. All right. So the first step is trash. Grab a black trash bag or whatever you have available. Ideally, it's black just because then you can't see what you just put inside of it.

Your family can't see what you're putting inside. Can I just confess something? Yes. I was embarrassed to tell you this. So Oakley, he's our 18 year old son, cleaned his room Sunday. Okay. And he put all kinds of clothes in a bag that no longer fit him so we could donate him. I spotted a flannel shirt that I paid a lot of money for.

and I tore open the bag and I pulled it out of the bag just this morning. It happens, right? Yes, you know what I'm gonna do with that? I'm gonna hang it in my closet because I can wear it, but I don't even want it. What is wrong with me, Dana? Nothing's wrong with you. This is normal. So is that why you have a black bag so you can't see the stuff that you're throwing out? Yes, that's exactly why. Now, with that, if you're like, I don't have black trash bags, start with whatever, start with a,

Paper sack. It doesn't matter. Okay. But if you have a black trash bag, use that for exactly the reason that you're talking about. But I'm talking about trash, not necessarily donations at this point. The reason I start with trash is it is literally the easiest of the easy stuff. I am not talking about deciding whether this item is trash. I'm talking about just saying, that's trash, put it in the bag. That's trash, put it in the bag.

It starts the movement. There are literally no decisions to be made, no emotions to be felt. It is just the action. And that immediately makes the space less overwhelming because there's less definite than there was before. But also,

helps my brain start to adjust to what's actually there. Because when I look at it as a big pile, the pile is overwhelming. There's important stuff in there, I'm sure. And so it feels like the whole pile is full of important decisions, difficult decisions to make. But as I'm looking for trash, I'm seeing what's actually there, which then helps me be ready to move into the next steps of the process.

Okay, so we start with trash in a black bag and anything that is trash or we just talking papers and crap people have not thrown out and that kind of thing.

If you have to think about it, yes, skip it and we'll get to it in the next step. I love that you're breaking it down because this is like a real thing that we struggle with. Like I see a pile and you're right. I can become paralyzed because I think there might be something expensive or important in there. And so I don't know if I'm ready to sort through all that stuff. I just don't want to see the pile because I want it to be pretty. You're saying is I just want it to be pretty. Change your mindset to I'm going to make this space better.

That means I can literally throw away two pieces of trash, get distracted, step away, step away, cause I'm just, don't want to do this right now. And I've still made it better, which means I have been successful. Like if I do anything, I have achieved better. Okay. So, all right. Sorry. That was a little preachy break there. No, I think it's, I think it's perfect cause I don't feel successful in this area.

But you are successful with every piece of trash. It is better because my goal is to have less in the space. If you have less in the space than you did when you started, you have successfully decluttered. You're not done, but you have successfully decluttered, right? Yeah. OK, so let's move to step two.

Step two is the easy stuff. So trash was the easiest of the easy stuff because it's just going straight into the trash bag. Yep. But the second step is the easy step. Easy stuff I define as anything that already has an established home. It's just not there for whatever reason. Like I'm not going to agonize over, why is this in the mud room? It's just, oh, this goes in the kitchen or whatever.

I'm gonna take those things to their already established homes immediately. I can take as many as my hands will hold.

But I can't take any more than that. Like, I'm not going to put them in a box. I'm not going to set them aside and do it later. I'm going to go, everything that comes into my hand that I pick up that I identified as easy, having an established home, no decision to make, no emotions to be felt. I am just going to go ahead and I'm going to take it there now. OK? So again, I am making the space better. I can step away at any time because I'm making progress and only progress, right? Got it.

Then the third step is the donations. When you are someone who hasn't felt successful at decluttering before, it feels like all decluttering decisions are going to be difficult. So we want to narrow down the ones that you really have to make decisions about and go ahead and just stick stuff in the donate box. The key with the donate box, like the black trash bag, is that the box itself needs to be donatable.

So don't stencil the word donate on the outside of a cute wooden box. That's not what we're doing, right? Because that's the organization. Right? And two, it just sets myself up to have to go back through that box again, right? So you're basically just saying, no, I have a box that's already going to get donated to.

Write the word donate so that you remember that was a donate box, but don't decorate it. Don't make it something you're going to want to reuse. Got it. Now, when you do this.

Do you recommend that you just take that box and just put it in the back of your car or do we leave it somewhere? I always have a donate box or two or three in a spot in our garage. Yep. That is ready to be taken wherever it needs to go. The decision making though is where the real power is. You just keep dropping grenades in my head.

This is so good. I don't want to stop, but let's take a quick pause, listen to the sponsors, and we'll be right back with more amazing advice from Dana White.

Welcome back. I'm Elle Robbins, and I am here with author Dana White, how to manage your home without losing your mind. And let's jump right back into it, Dana. What comes after donate?

Okay, so at this point, we have removed trash, easy stuff and obvious donations, right? So we are down to things that at first glance, you're like, either yes, they go here or I have no idea on this item, what to do, okay? So this is where my two decluttering questions come in. When I started this, I had seen lists, beautifully written lists of all kinds of questions to ask yourself about items and whether you want to donate it or keep it.

I had too much stuff in my house to ask myself 10 questions about everything. Besides, those questions generally let my brain spin out. Do I love it? Well, yeah, I love all this stuff. Why would I have it in my house if I didn't love it?

I couldn't ask myself those kinds of questions. So I came up with two questions. And if I can answer the first one, I don't even have to ask the second one. So the first question is, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first? It's really important that you ask exactly that question. Where would I look for it first? It is an instinct question.

Okay, the word would is the key word. That means if I needed my headphones, where would I look for them first? It is literally the first drawer or cabinet that I would open.

even if I had no confidence they would be there. It is because something it needs a home, right? Like the whole place for everything and everything in its place that organized people say and think is so obvious. I was always like, what are y'all talking about?

I don't have places for things. Like what? Like it just didn't make any sense in my brain. And so I had to come up with where would I look for it first? Because here's the thing, the beauty of putting something in the place where you would look for it first is that when you look for it, you find it in the first place where you look for it. Isn't that the goal that you've had all along wanting to be organized?

What I'm realizing my goal is that I just want to look pretty. I've never even thought about organization as a way to make my life easier. And it's a genius question because I've put things in cabinets and drawers because I didn't know where else to put it.

Yes. What I used to do was think about where my grandma kept hers. Yeah. And think, okay, well, she, her house was always great. So I should put mine in the place. Yeah. But how many people say as a joke or there's a Facebook meme or something that says, I got organized and now I can't find anything? Yes.

right? It's hard in the beginning because you don't trust yourself, right? And this also is part of that accepting how I actually function as opposed to how organized people function and I wish I was like them. Fingered all clippers were the thing when I came up with this question as I was like,

Everybody else in the whole wide world surely would put their fingernail clippers in the bathroom drawer because that's where they're supposed to go, right? But in my family, whenever somebody is looking for fingernail clippers, they look in this junk drawer that's like on the edge of the kitchen. That is just our reality. And I said, you know what? I would rather have things be in the first place where we look than

try to be like other people and never be able to find anything in my house.

That's amazing. See, I don't know where to put mail clippers. So I just look in Chris's top drawer of the bathroom. That's right. That's great. If that's where you look first, that's where they should be. But then there's the second part of the question, which is not actually a question, but is actually the key to my no mess progress and only progress decluttering process. Okay. And that is when you answer that question, where would I look for this first?

take it their nail. No piles because before I would step away for an hour or three weeks or whatever. And those neat little piles where I had totally made all these decisions, those neat little piles now morph into one big pile outside the space that I was initially decluttering. So my house looks worse than it did before. Yes. People

get all worked up over this. Like, they are like, no, but that's can't be the most efficient way. And yet in the end, it is. So here's the deal. I used to make all these piles. I would be like, okay, this is the stuff that goes to the kids' room. This goes to the garage. This goes to the bathroom. And when I'm done, I will go deliver all these things through the house. And that makes so much more sense than taking it there right now.

Yes. But that's how things work in an ideal world where I don't get distracted in the midst of a project. I don't stop halfway through. Nobody starts bleeding, right? Like I just, that's the ideal world. I don't live in an ideal world. Okay. So I decided I'm going to go ahead and take it there right now. No piles. When I do that,

I can stop. I'm accepting the fact that I will get distracted or life will happen. I can stop at some point and the space is only better. It is never worse. I have never created bigger mess. I'm taking one item at a time.

make it a final decision on it and I'm acting on that final decision. So it's either gone in the trash bag, it's gone to its already established home, it has gone in the donate box, or I have established a home by asking myself where would I look for this first and then I take it there now. Okay, so that's the key to all of this and people will resist it. Wow.

And then I'll say, just try it and then they will try it and then they will email me and say, I cannot believe the difference. I cannot believe I have actually made real progress decluttering for the first time in my life. It's working like it's changing my house because of that. Go ahead and take it there right now.

But people don't like it, but it's still. I think it's genius because I completely related to moving and sorting and organizing things into piles and then running out of energy or time or getting distracted and not actually taking those piles anywhere. And then you're right and it makes it worse. Yes, you come back to the space and you have to make all those decisions again. Oh my God, I feel like I do this every weekend.

that every weekend it is me on that hamster wheel of making piles and running things around and pulling apart stuff and holy smokes, this is revolutionary. I get very paralyzed when I have an item and I've spent a lot of money for it or somebody's given it to me or I might need it some point 10 years from now. What's the difference between I'm throwing this out versus I'm donating?

So all of those questions that you have in your mind, yeah, those are the natural questions that people think they need to ask when they're decuttering. I don't ask those questions. I stick to the facts. Okay. And so my process leads me through and helps me make those decisions, but without all of the emotions because I brought all this stuff into my house because I saw the value in it.

Right? And so before when I would declutter, I would make value decision after value decision, which is exhausting, right? It's so emotionally exhausting. And I know it is that then I would put off decluttering because I was like, I don't have it in me to make those kind of decisions today, right? Like, so instead I say, okay, if I needed this item, where would I look for it first?

And then I take it their nail and then I look at that space. And sometimes this is a common question people have is like, what do I do when that space is its own big decluttered mess?

All I'm going to do is I'm going to not leave that space any worse. And I'm going to say, what am I willing to get rid of from this messy space where I would look for this item first? What am I willing to get rid of from here that will create the space that I need for this item? And so it helps me instead of saying, does this thing have value? I say, is there a space for it? Can I just give you an example? I'm starting to realize

How nuts I am about this stuff.

You are not nuts. I'm realizing how much noise and just how much drama I add to the process of organizing. And so I'll give you an example. I see this jacket and because I bought it for him when he was 15, Oakley literally wore it for about a minute before he grew out of it and it was expensive. And so I see this jacket, I grab it, I'm like, okay,

We live in Vermont. People visit. Should I hold onto this in case somebody visits and they didn't pack a jacket? Maybe this would fit me and it would fit this. And then I attach all this meaning. And I create these stories about why I need to keep the thing and the value of the thing. And if I ask myself, if I needed this item, where would I look for it?

I'm even stalled because I go, well, I don't really need it in the mud room. Maybe I should create a place in the basement for extra clothes for guests who forgot clothes that you need when you visit Vermont. What is going on? Well, okay.

Is this normal? Yes, what you just described as your brain spinning out. Yes. That is exactly how my brain worked. Everything you said made sense to me. I get it, right? And yet, when I thought that way, my house was a disaster. And I was frustrated with it. And I had all those feelings of, what is wrong with me? Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I,

I hate to just be like, let's go back to the process, accept that. No, let's go back to the process. The process is what talks you through all of this. So the second decluttering question that I only ask myself is my first response to where would I look for this first, whether it's about the jacket, whether it's about a stapler, whatever. If I look at the item and I'm like, where would I look for this first? And my answer is,

You know, like, OK, then I asked myself the question. If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already had one? OK, we're not going to bring the scenario into it. We're just going to ask the fact-based question. If I needed this jacket,

Would it occur to me that we already had one? And it's tough because you're holding it in your hand, right? Like it's there. It's in front of you. I had to make progress in my home. I had to get stuff out of my house, right? So I had to make these hard calls and say, I'm going to be honest.

if I needed this, would it occur to me that I already had one? Because I didn't have a place where I would look for it first, which means I would not have even gone looking for it. Instead, I would have done without, we would have said, hey, here's six sweatshirts, kid who forgot your coat, right? Or, hey, let's run by the store and grab one, or whatever.

Those are both valid options. That right there is me saying, this is my reality check. I'm going to stick it in the donate box. Wow. You know, this is fascinating because it is a whole new way to think about this. The reality of the decluttering process, if I'm tracking, is not that you go, OK, this Sunday, I'm doing this in the mud room. It's that you walk out of your bedroom. You're like, it's 715 in the morning. There's now a giant mess in front of me at the base of the stairs.

And you're saying, you can do this process right now. I see the jacket. It doesn't belong there. I have a choice in that moment to say, if I needed this item, where would I look for this first? And if the answer is the mudroom, I walk to the mudroom and hang it up. If the answer is, doesn't fit them anymore, do we even need to keep it? And I go to the second question.

What was the second question? If I saw- If I needed this item, would it ever occur to be that I already had one? If I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already had one? And the answer is yes, because I have the exact same size and a jacket for me.

So yes, I have one. So let's just say, let's indulge my psychonists, okay? Okay, because I think we all have that. If you're a creative mind, you're also thinking, huh, someday 15 years from now, there might be a scenario where I wish I had this, right? So let's just say I go, okay.

I, um, where am I going to look for this first? And I make a snap decision. This goes in my guest closet, right? And I have a little rack in the basement. You, you didn't make a decision. Oh, you.

Ask yourself a question that revealed your instinct of where you would look for it first. Sorry. No, no, no. Great, great, great. If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? And my instinct would be it would be in the basement, in a little area I've created for extra stuff in case somebody needs to borrow something. Okay.

I don't know why I need this, but I had it. So I would then go downstairs to the basement to this place that has not been created yet. And I would put the jacket there. Yeah. If that's the place where you would look for it first, then you put it there. But if there is no thing there, like there's no place for it, but there's a pile of other stuff. Okay. I'm not going to leave that any worse. So what am I willing to get rid of in order to make room for this jacket, which

Often, which means something is leaving your house, right? So you are decluttering. But often it will help you realize, oh, wait.

There's not actually a good place for this here. Or wait, I'm not willing to get rid of any of this stuff in order for this jacket to stay. And it will help you realize, oh, I can just donate this item. Yeah, that's what I'm getting through all of this. Like I'm realizing this process helps you deal with yourself. Yes. But if you don't take it there now, you're living in this land of hypothesis. I'm still thinking about the damn jacket.

Right now, you're like, oh, I'm going to put it down there. Yeah, I'll make a space down there. Yes. Yes. But you're not dealing with the reality of that actual space. You're not dealing with the reality of if I take it down to this spot, and then I realize this spot is full of spiders and all this stuff. And I don't want to leave a jacket down here. But when I go there, it forces me into that reality. So much of what I do, probably 100%, honestly, of what I do is just

A process that helps me accept reality. I love this. Reality about myself, reality about my stuff, reality about my space, all that. I love this. Before we get into the final step, I just want to point something out to you listening. If you're starting to kind of roll your eyes at me about like the stupid jacket and the details that I'm going through and all this stuff I'm confessing, I want you to know I'm doing it on purpose because I want to make a very important point.

Everything that I'm telling you, I am thinking. This is going on in my brain, but it's happening in nanoseconds and in my subconscious, but it weighs on me emotionally. That's what she's talking about when she talks about these, like, value decisions, and you do the same thing.

Whether it's the report that you keep shoving to the pile on the left because you don't want to deal with it and you're overwhelmed with everything else and all this stuff is sitting on your desk or it's a spare change that is piling up in the cup holder of your car. And now there's like dirty gum wrappers and stuff in there too. And you keep thinking, Oh, I should clean it out. But then this or the receipts, how about those receipts that are choking your wallet?

But you're not dealing with it because you're afraid you might lose something if you pull it out. We all do this. And I'm trying to make a point that not dealing with something doesn't mean it goes away. In fact, there is this subconscious cognitive load that you're carrying as you are subconsciously processing all the emotions related to just starting the process.

And this is important to talk about because we're not really talking about organization here. And we're not really even talking about decluttering. We're talking about how you can take proactive steps to feel calmer.

to feel more in control, to feel more at peace and to help your brain not be so overwhelmed. It doesn't need to be processing all your concerns about the coat or the change or the report. And so when Dana talks about clutter, don't stay on the surface because this goes way beyond stuff. I'm not crazy and neither are you. But when your brain is overwhelmed,

What I'm learning is you and I need to start the decluttering process in order to help it full stop. Yeah. In fact, now that I'm becoming very clear about your process and the connection to the cognitive load, I'm starting to see things in the space right now here in our office that are pure clutter.

that have emotional weight to them and they need to leave. And I'm going to explain one of them right now and it's going to sound ridiculous. But as I explain this example, I want you to look around where you are. And I want you to let your mind spot something that you know needs to go.

It's like stupid. You put it in something, you made it look nice, but you haven't touched it in a decade. I'll tell you what mine is. Hey, Jesse, could you grab me that mason jar over there on our caddy? They're one of the colored pencils in it. Great. Thank you. So I'm holding a mason jar right here. And in this mason jar are watercolor pencils that Chris's mother gave to one of our kids 10 years ago for Christmas.

I've never used them once. But here they are sitting in a beautiful mason jar because I've freaking organized them. I've put them in a container to make them look pretty. I don't know why. Figured might as well keep them in the office in case we have spare time and the team would like to do a little arts and crafts project. I actually moved these from our house outside of Boston and brought them here.

This is crazy, but you know what my brain is saying? But when JJ gave him to the kids, she said, now kids, these are real art supplies. They're expensive. Make sure you take care of them. Did they take care of them? No, but now here I am organizing them in a jar. We need to get rid of them. There is something in your space right now that I want you to do the threshold test. Look around.

something that maybe you've organized, or a pile that you keep ignoring. And you're going to notice your brain is now going to start to spin. That's that cognitive load I'm talking about. And what Dana's teaching all of us is that every single day throughout the day, when you notice this kind of stuff, you can empower yourself to make the space better, to remove things that you don't need, to declutter so that you create space for peace.

for focus so that you also create space so that the things you actually love and use have space. This is honestly so simple, but it's really life-changing the way that you've explained this today, Dana. Wow. How do you stop bringing new stuff into your home? You know how when you get sick from some kind of a food,

and then you never want to eat that food again. It's because you had a negative experience with it. That's the beauty of decluttering. There's a big difference in what you see at the store or the garage sale. You'll start to see it as future clutter and it will naturally

keep you from bringing things into your house because of the pain and just the physical effort that you've put out decluttering. I'd love to just go to a question from a listener and we got this question from a ton of people.

Hi, Mel. It's Terese. What do you do if your spouse is a sloppy person, but you're not. I feel like I am constantly trying to organize our house and keep it clean, but my husband has such a difficult time keeping it that way. I am constantly picking up after him. Anyone that comes over knows my side of the room versus his side. We are childless by choice, but sometimes I feel like I have a house full of them. Help. Thank you.

Dana? Yes. Please help us because I am her husband. Chris's clutter threshold is higher than mine. He is always picking up after me. And it's frustrating for him because he is often said, it makes me feel like you think, I'm your mate. How do you handle this conflict between an organized person and somebody who has a lower threshold?

The first thing I would do is tell a little story about my husband. He was very nice and sweet about it, but he just said, he said, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But I've realized that it's like there actually is something wrong with you.

And I was so happy that he said that to me, because what he was saying was, because he went on to say, I've realized you don't do this on purpose. You are not refusing to close the cabinet doors. You just literally don't notice whether they're open or closed. You are not putting something down thinking, oh, he will get rid of that later.

You don't realize it. I've realized this is how your brain works. And I was like, thank you. Exactly. It comes down to that clutter threshold. And remember, you're probably not going to help the other person do better in these types of things by organizing. You're going to help them by.

decluttering, even some of your own like stuff in that common area. So do you recommend that a couple do that together to start in the common space so that you both learn the process? Not to start. I recommend that whoever is listening to me, you're the one who cares enough to be, you know, listening to this podcast right now. And so you go ahead and

Deal with your own stuff, like don't start with the other person's stuff. That is a recipe for disaster. And yet their stuff is more obviously clutter, right? But start with your own stuff first and neutral stuff, invisible spaces. As you do that and your family starts to see, it's so much easier to live in our house with less stuff than other people start to get on board. Their view of stuff and clutter starts to change. For anybody listening, can you just

Let them know a little bit about the emotional aspect of trying to let go of stuff and going through the process of decluttering. Yeah, so my five step process specifically, purposefully does not use emotions to declutter.

because I was so emotionally attached to my stuff either because it represented who I thought I was gonna be someday or who I had been in the past or just sentimental things that people had given me. As you start with these things and you make visible progress before you've ever even dealt with anything that has emotion attached to it is you see the progress that you're making and you realize

Oh, wow. Open space. Less stuff changes my house. By the time you get to more emotional stuff, it looks different to you, right? Oh, that's great. Well, you've changed my life. Dana, we have loved having you on the podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you. I can't

I can't wait to hear how you put everything you just learned into use to create a better life. And in case nobody else tells you, I'm gonna tell you, I love you. Especially you swabs out there, you people who can't get your shit together like me, you bathroom counter-clutters, I see you, you're my people, and for you, if you're the OCD neat-knit, I love you too. Please use today's episode to be kinder to yourself, to declutter, and to go create a better life.

All righty, I'll see you in a few days. You ready? Okay, can you hear me? Oh, no, I can hear you. Okay, great. Okay, here we go. We're rolling. Oh, I'm gonna air my dirty laundry. We're gonna get dirty. No, is it dirty, cluttered? No, I'm coming clean. Oh, nice. Okay. Okay, here we go. Got it.

That way I won't look at you. Jessie keeps standing back. They're going like this to me because I'm looking at you, Donna. Oh my God. I don't know. Okay. All right. Okay. Fabulous. Perfect. You're awesome. Thank you very much for doing that. Thank you. Thank you all.

Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.