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Clutter Free Academy Podcast #394

Clutter Free Home – Declutter

<<intro music>>

Kathi – Well, hey friends! Welcome to Clutter Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. My name is Kathi Lipp. I’m the author of Clutter Free and here with me is the founder of Clutter Free Academy on Facebook, it is Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya!

Tonya – Hey, Kathi!

Kathi – I am so excited. We are in a series right now, because we are talking about my book that is coming out. It is The Clutter Free Home. I really do know the title of it. It’s coming out a week from today. 

Tonya – What?!

Kathi – I know. I’m super excited. So, we’ve got our launch team. If you haven’t gone over there, let’s make sure you’ve got all the information for that. Today, we’re talking about the third step in the book. It’s been really fun to test this out with our Clutter Free for Life. I call them Guinea Pigs, you called them Early Adopters. So they’ve been doing this for over a year and making such huge progress. It’s been super fun to watch. We want to talk about our decluttering system for The Clutter Free Home. 

Tonya – Sigh. It’s so fitting for Clutter Free Academy to talk about decluttering.

Kathi – Yes! Finally! We’ve talked about dedicating your space; really understanding what your space is about and how you’re using it. Decide. How do you want that space to feel/look/smell/all the things? Now, we’re going to declutter. The new decluttering system has two parts. It’s always had two parts, but we want to talk about daily decluttering and then deep decluttering. Daily decluttering? Fifteen minutes. Get ‘er done. 

Tonya – Yep!

Kathi – So, that’s the basis of everything we’ve ever done in Clutter Free. Would you talk through what you do in those fifteen minutes? ‘Cause you’ve been doing this for five years.

Tonya – Yeah, so I think the first thing I do is decide what I’m going to do. Because it’s fifteen minutes – I’ll use my bedroom as an example ‘cause I love to use my bedroom as an example – fifteen minutes is enough time to tackle one drawer in my dresser or my closet.

Kathi – One drawer in your closet. Or one area in your closet.

Tonya – What I was going to say is, if I have a very specific purpose in my closet. So, I’ll do a fifteen minute session and say, “I’m going to get rid of everything that is worn or I no longer love.”  Right? I’ll have my trash bag already there, and I’ll get everything situated to give away or to toss. I set my timer for fifteen minutes, and I just go through. It’s no mercy, because I’ve already pre-decided “This is what I’m doing. This is why I’m going to do it. This is how long I’m doing it.” Then, at the end of the fifteen minutes, I set another timer for 5 minutes, and it’s a mad dash to get those bags out to the car and get back in. Then, I’m done. I’m not the person who’s going to do the marathon. I’m not going to set my timer for another 15 minutes.

Kathi – ‘Cause we’ve done that before. 

Tonya – And it never ended well.

Kathi – No. It was always a bad thing. So, that’s our daily decluttering. But we, now, want to assign you a room. We want you to know that, when you’re doing your daily decluttering, there’s a schedule. So, we’re not just letting you go willy nilly, and you’re like, “I’ll do the laundry room, because that’s easy.” No no no. We’re going to assign you. Monday is your kitchen. I love this, because it starts out the week on a fresh note. So, for 15 minutes, I want you to get in there and declutter your kitchen. Make it all the things you want it to be. Tuesday is your living room. You’re getting in there. It’s just one shelf. One drawer. One something in your living room. Wednesday is your bedroom. This could be your bedroom or a kid’s bedroom or maybe a guest bedroom. How much time do you spend in your bedroom versus your girls’ bedroom?

Tonya – I spend more time in my bedroom. We only have a two bedroom house, so the bedrooms get a lot of use.  But more time in mine, because I need to sleep well. I don’t sleep well when I’m overwhelmed with stuff in my room.

Kathi – Yeah. If you’re afraid you’re going to trip and die in the middle of the night, it’s not a good way to live. It just isn’t. Okay, so you’re going to pick one bedroom. It’s not like you’re doing fifteen minutes in each bedroom. You’re just trying to declutter and get the stuff out of there. Okay, Thursday is bathrooms. So, it depends. Is it your master bathroom? Your half bathroom downstairs? The kids’ bathroom? Whatever it is. This is not cleaning time. This is decluttering time. This is getting stuff out of your space. Then, Friday is office area. Even if your office area is your kitchen. Wherever you do your office. Wherever you do your paperwork. That needs to be decluttered on the regular. In San Jose, our office area is, really, the third bedroom, where Roger works. I have an office too, but for our household, bills and mail and things like that, that’s the third bedroom. Here at The Red House, Roger has an office upstairs, but we have a closet that has all of our paperwork. All that kind of stuff. So, that’s where I spend my fifteen minutes. It’s just more detailed. It’s more detailed to do it in there. Okay, and Saturday is extra. So this could be your garage, your basement, your attic. If you have a storage unit, I would suggest you go over there and spend your fifteen minutes cleaning it out, doing what you need to do. Sundays you get off. Now, if your work schedule is such that Tuesday is your day of rest? Figure it out. You guys are all adults. You can figure this out. What’s going to work? Nobody’s going to come to your house and make sure you’re decluttering on Tuesday in the living room. 

Tonya – Right.

Kathi – We want you to be able to do all the things. So, that’s the first part. That’s the daily decluttering. Then, once a week, I want you to do a deep declutter. This is where you can get your hands dirty. We’re going to say sixty minutes. Here’s what I mean by that: You are going to deep declutter for 60 minutes. This is 60 minutes of getting stuff out of your house. I feel like once a week, I could do sixty minutes without analysis paralysis. 

Tonya – Right.

Kathi – ‘Cause you’re picking the spot in your house. My recommendation is: If your garage is driving you crazy, every week you do your sixty minutes in there, until you’re about 60% decluttered. Then, if you need to, move on to another space. Do it until you see a difference in there.

Tonya – Right. And can I dig into that a little tiny bit? I know that in Clutter Free for Life this has been a challenge. First of all, we’ve talked about realistic expectations before, people think “All I need is an hour and I’m supposed to get the whole room situated.” Then they get a little bit discourage when that doesn’t happen. I liked what you said, and I want to dig into that a little. You’re decluttering for an hour. That whole goal of that hour is to get stuff out. The goal is not to color code your drawers. The goal is not to sit there and match socks. The goal is to get the single socks into a bag and out of the house. The goal is to get, if you’re in my house, and you’ve got underwear from size four all the way to size eight. It’s to get the underwear out that the youngest one is not going to wear, because there’s nobody else.

Kathi – There’s nobody else coming along to claim that underwear.

Tonya – And I’m never going to fit in size four toddler underwear. That’s just not going to happen.

Kathi – Nope. It’s not going to happen. So, at some point, when you’ve got your place decluttered enough, you can start to do the organization that will help you out. But here’s what people do: They try to organize their clutter. They go in and say, “We’re going to go in and put a system in place in this closet.” But, here’s the thing. You’re organizing things that are junk. Anytime you try to organize junk, it just explodes on you.

Tonya – Can I share a personal example?

Kathi – Of course.

Tonya – Okay, so most of our listeners know that we moved into a house that was built in 1952. What I don’t think listeners know is that they sold us everything in the house. As somebody who grew up in a studio apartment with my kind of background, I didn’t really believe that the house was ours, for a while. It’s taken me awhile, right? So, I have not touched anything they left.

Kathi – What do you mean?

Tonya – So, we have two closets in the house. We have one in the bathroom and we have one in the hallway. So, if you open the hallway closet, the shelves are stuffed with their linens.

Kathi – Whoa.

Tonya – So, they left their curtains and their sheets and everything. I’ve never touched them. I haven’t even pulled them out and folded them to see if they would fit my bed. It’s been this shrine. So, I’ve been losing very precious space in my hallway, because I’m just like, “I just don’t believe they’re not going to come back and want their stuff.” Which, by the way, they don’t. I actually did ask. But as I’m sitting here, thinking, that would be the perfect use of an hour. I would get four shelves back.

Kathi – Yes. I’m going to hold you accountable for this.

Tonya – I wish our listeners could see your face. Kathi is very concerned for me, right now.

Kathi – Can I just tell you? The house is yours. 

Tonya – But, I think our listeners will appreciate the fact that there is a lot of ‘pinch ourselves’, right, in our decluttering journey? I just want to give hope to the listener who feels like they just can’t let stuff go. 

Kathi – Can I just tell you, no judgement? There’s no judgement.

Tonya – Oh, no. I don’t feel judgement. But, I laugh because I’ve been in this journey a long time. It wasn’t until you were talking about that just now. You were talking about the storage unit, and I was like, “That’s basically a storage unit inside my house.”

Kathi – It totally is.

Tonya – I open the cabinet and I go, “Yeah, no, I’m just going to close that.”

Kathi – So, here’s my question for you. This is one of the things I don’t think we talk enough about in Clutter Free Academy, but I think it would be super helpful. What is your vision for that closet? What could that become for you? 

Tonya – I want that to be, it sounds silly, but I want my paper towels and my cleaning stuff to go there, because it’s so centrally located for the home. I’ve thought, over time, “Oh, that’s where blankets should go. Oh, that’s where towels should go.” That’s not actually where I want those things. I don’t want to trip over the Costco package of paper towels that are left on the floor because I don’t have any other shelves that are tall enough. But I do in there. It’s just funny to me how, again, I’ve lived there over a year, and it’s never occurred to me. 

Kathi – But isn’t that how we are? We have shrines in our own house. 

Tonya – Right. We talked about this before, right? We let the house happen to us. I love that this is a way to take ownership.

Kathi – Okay, so in the next two months, could you declutter that closet?

Tonya – Well, I could probably do it in the next weekend. None of the stuff is mine. I can’t even imagine wanting to keep any of it because it doesn’t belong to me.

Kathi – It’s just a big old Goodwill run.

Tonya – Yeah. I really think so. How funny is this? I’m tickled by myself right now.

Kathi – Yeah! No! I totally get it, though. I really do. There are things, even in this Red House. We have a barn. Okay, that’s weird. We have a barn. But, I don’t know exactly what’s out there. 

Tonya – Right, ‘cause you’re in the same situation, where they sold a lot of the stuff to you.

Kathi – Yeah, it’s a very unusual circumstance. You’re like, “Should I keep this? I don’t even know what it’s for.” But, it’s like, “Is that the key for keeping the whole house together?” So, part of it is research to find out, “What is this doohickey?” I’ve gone through everything in our garage. I’ve touched everything in the garage. I know what’s in there. The barn is still a bit of a mystery to me. We will uncover these things together, Tonya. 

Tonya – That’s what I like about Clutter Free Academy, though, right? We do this together.

Kathi – Yes. Okay, so I’m super excited about this, guys. We want you to join the journey with us. So, if you have ordered a copy of the book, go ahead and preorder. That is super helpful to us as authors.

Tonya – Yes it is.

Kathi – But, also, I would love for you to be on this journey with us. We will be telling your more about that. So, Tonya, thanks for being here.

Tonya – Thanks for having me.

Kathi – And friend, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutter Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter free life you were always intended to live.

<<music>>

*see show notes in podcast post above for any mentioned items

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Clutter Free Academy Podcast #391

Redesign Your Life

<<intro music>>

Kathi – Well, hey friends! Welcome to Clutter Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. Today, I have a new friend on the podcast. When I started reading about her book, I’m like, “Me and my friends at Clutter Free Academy, we need this.” You guys, the book is, A Redesigned Life: Uncovering God’s Purpose When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned. Can I hear an Amen? It’s with Tracy Steel. Tracy, welcome to Clutter Free Academy.

Tracy – Well, thank you for having me, Kathi. It’s a joy to be here.

Kathi – I just love that old quote, “We plan and God laughs.” Because it’s so true, right? One of the statements you make, and I love this: “All of us are living a life we did not design.” Can I tell you? That rang so true for me. I stopped and I read it out loud to my husband. Have you ever heard of the show, it’s a British show, called Grand Design? Have you heard of this?

Tracy – I’ve heard of it, but I’ve not watched it. So, let me know. What’s it about?

Kathi – My husband and I are obsessed. Obsessed. I cannot nail two boards together, but it’s about building unusual homes in England and Scotland and Ireland and all over. The host was asking this couple, “Why is it taking so long?” and she said, “We’ve been waiting to live our life while we’ve been waiting to live our life.” So, one: Go watch this show. It’s got the British sense of humor that just makes me so happy I can’t even stand it. Also, when you are in design, there are so many life lessons. It’s so funny. The thing I’m always saying to Roger while we’re watching this is, “If they’d just clean up their worksite, their lives would just be so much easier. They would be so much less overwhelmed.” That’s kind of what your book is about. It’s design principles, but also talking about your life. So, what made you think that these two needed to come together? In retrospect, it makes all the sense in the world, but I don’t know that I would sit down and say, “I’m going to apply design principles to life.” How did you come up with that idea?

Tracy – Well, when I was a little girl, I first dreamt about becoming a ballerina. Then that didn’t work out. That’s in the first couple of chapters. Then, the next dream I had, Kathi, was to be this big time interior designer. I used to watch the TV show Designing Women. Have you ever watched that?

Kathi – Can I just say, Sugarbaker’s is where I need to be. I needed to be at Sugarbaker’s.

Tracy – Exactly. They were so beautiful and they just sat on couches all day and talked. I thought, “Sign me up. I want to be an interior designer.” But, I quickly found out, in school, Interior Designers do not sit on couches all day. They work very hard doing what they do. I graduated with a degree in Interior Design. Then the next dream was to move to New York City, own my own design firm, make millions of dollars, wasn’t going to get married, wasn’t going to become a mom. Then I met Jesus, and guess what? He changed everything. So, then He called me into a different kind of interior design. It looked a whole lot like youth and women’s ministry. So, I’ve been doing that for the last decade. One of the things I see when I’m out speaking to different women’s groups, is that women are saying over and over to me, “Tracy, life is not going the way that I had thought it was going to go. And if I’m honest, even though I come to church, even though I pray and I listen, where is God? Does He see me? I don’t understand the patterns that I’m seeing. How can you help me find contentment while living a life I didn’t design?” So, I started to think back, and I thought, “My life hasn’t gone the way I thought, either.” And as a human designer, there were a set of principles that I would use when I came into a space just like this, to help me create something beautiful and functional for my clients. So, as I started to think about how God is our master designer, our master architect, I started to wonder, “Does He use the same set of principles as He is redesigning us through the shocks and surprises in our lives?” Guess what? He sure does. He uses movement. He uses patterns. He uses emphasis just the same way I do and that is how this book came to be.

Kathi – Okay, so a couple of things on this. One, will you judge me that I still want to be Annie Potts in Designing Women?

Tracy – No, ‘cause I do, too.

Kathi – Okay! There were the speeches. I loved these beautiful, strong women and yes, just amazing. I want to talk more about the patterns that you noticed. Here’s what I feel like, for my Clutter Free people. We want to have routine. We want to have patterns. We want to be able to establish patterns and see patterns, but it’s really hard for us. I want you to talk more about that and how can we notice and build on those patterns?

Tracy – Again, in the book, I bring up the point that God is an effective and efficient communicator. He is actually very present in our lives, but sometimes things like business, or clutter, or jealousy. Let’s call jealousy clutter for today’s purposes. Envy. Those kinds of things start drowning out His voice. He’s over here saying, “Hey, daughter! There are things about me, that if you’d only remember this, or know this about me, you’re going to make it. You’re going to be just fine.” He’s given us patterns or repeated words throughout the pages of Scripture to not only tell us about who He is, but about how we are to live and find contentment again, when things don’t go as planned. Yes, I talk about paisley, and I talk about polka dots. Those are things we’ll see around us, but my hope is that, when we see actual physical patterns in our homes or in our workplaces, that would remind us, “Oh! God has something to say.” And if we quiet ourselves. If we clean out the clutter in our minds and in our hearts, and we go to His Word, we can see certain things repeated over and over again. That will help us understand who He is, and a little bit more about this life that we’re living.

Kathi – Okay, this is so interesting that we’re having this conversation today, because earlier today, I had a great conversation with Ron Deal who is in charge of step families at Family Life. We were talking about this very thing – a pattern he noticed in the Bible. He has a new book about Money Matters for Step Families. He said, “Have you ever noticed that when God talks about money, he always says, “And I will be with you.”?” I was like, “No, I have never noticed that.” If money is one of the most stressful things in your life, God’s not surprised by that. That’s not a new revelation and God gives us reassurance each and every time that He will be with us through that fear; through that struggle. I love that so much. So, I would love to know, what are some of the patterns that you’ve found that were the most impactful to you?

Tracy – That God is a forever God. So, I talk about the pattern of God’s Forever-ness. I think I made up that word.

Kathi – I love that word. Forever-ness.

Tracy – Don’t you love that? Forever-ness. And that’s important to us, especially as women. One of the things that’s going to trip us up, is when our relationships don’t go the way that we thought they were going to go. If we are not careful, when we face betrayal; when we face deceit, those kinds of things, with our human relationships, we can start to project that onto God, thinking that “He is going to leave me. He is going to forsake me. He is going to betray me.” So, this pattern of God’s forever-ness, looking for words like ‘everlasting’, reigning ‘forever more’, I AM. You will see these patterns of God’s forever-ness all throughout Scripture and what a comfort that should be to us as women and men, to remember our God is not going anywhere. Even when our plans fall apart. Even when friends or even spouses betray us, our God is different because He is forever.

Kathi – Okay, I love the pattern of forever-ness. I love that. One of the things that I really believe is that clutter is just the physical manifestation of overwhelm. When we are overwhelmed, clutter is that physical manifestation. So, a lot of things lead to that overwhelm. Loneliness, feeling like it’s all up to me. So, I love the forever-ness of God, because it is not. You are not forsaken. You are not abandoned. When we are overwhelmed, whether it is physically, in our space, or maybe it’s emotionally, what are some of those patterns we should be looking for in God’s Word that can be a truth when we are feeling like, “Nope. I feel overwhelmed in every area of my life.”

Tracy – The Scripture says a lot of things about God. He is our peace. He is our rock. I think a great place to look for patterns is in the Psalms. One of the very first things that I ever did, and I’m a big mentorship/discipleship fan. I really think, especially since my mom is home in Heaven, now. I use my mentors a lot to encourage me. So, one of the very first things a mentor told me to do, open up the Psalms and start underlining or circling any word that you can find that describes who God is, because you’re going to start seeing patterns. They’re going to help you when you’re lonely. They’re going to help you when you feel depressed. Remembering that God is our rock. God is our refuge. God is our protector. He’s our defender. Finding those words, even Google on BlueLetter.org you can find all the different passages that have those words in them. I encourage women to keep a pattern journal just full of different patterns. You can Google any topic and find all the different passages, and start to memorize those. The more that we’re memorizing, the more we can recall those patterns. We’re not always going to have our Bible apps. Right? We need to be memorizing the Word. Have you seen that memorizing helps you?

Kathi – Oh my goodness. One of the best things that ever happened to me. I went on a mission trip when I was seventeen. Now, it’s questionable how much my work did for people. Let’s be super-clear, but we had to memorize forty verses of Scripture and those have stuck with me for these thirty-odd years. It’s made such a difference. I would say, wherever you are in life, today is the easiest day you will ever have for memorizing scripture. It does get harder as you get older, but those truths, the longer it dwells inside of you, the more good it does. Here’s what I love about that. In clutter, it’s about removing stuff, but I also know there are essential things that we need. Let’s say, you’re not a minimalist. You’re a maximalist. You like a lot of stuff around you, but you need that stuff to make sense and make order. So, that’s why you’re not just saying, “Banish bad thoughts!” You’re saying, “Replace them with God’s truth. Fill yourself up with the things to dwell on, so that it is eternal.” You can say, “I’m having this bad thought, and we know from Scripture that we need to take every thought captive. So, what truth are you replacing that with?” And to fill yourself up with that. This is why I love, in decorating, one of the things I’m talking about in my next book, The Clutter Free Home, is to put truth up on your walls. To find, it doesn’t even have to be Scripture, although I love Scripture up on my walls. I also love truth that replaces. I actually fight against things like, “Namaste in bed.” Things like that. It’s funny, but if we adopted this as our truth? No! I am a new creation in God and I want to fill myself up with that. So, we buy these things that are cute, that have sayings, but make sure it’s pointing you in a right direction.

Tracy – ‘Cause it becomes noise.

Kathi – Right?!

Tracy – Right. And your brain, we can only focus on one thing. In fact, we were created to worship one thing. It will either be ourselves, or it will be God. Whether it’s the music, or the decorations. All of these principles in the book go back to, “You’ve got to have a focal point.”

Kathi – I was just going to say, “Every room needs a focal point!”

Tracy – And so do we!

Kathi – Yes! That’s why I love the idea of walking into a room and saying, “What is your purpose here?” My purpose needs to be, “Honoring God.” Or “Connecting with Others”. There are purposes for every space in our life, and to embrace that and celebrate it is such a beautiful thing. For somebody who is new to Scripture, I love the idea of going to Psalms and looking for that. You said BlueLetter.org?

Tracy – Yes. BlueLetter.org, or BibleGateway.com. Those are two great websites that have little search boxes right at the top, that you can type in a word or a passage, and it will take you right there. It will explain what those words mean.

Kathi – I love that. Guys, if you are into design? Here’s what I know about cluttery people. We all long for design, but we all struggle with it. If that, pairing with wanting to understand the design that God has for your life, if those are two desires you have, you couldn’t ask for a better book. A Redesigned Life: Uncovering God’s Purpose When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan. Here’s the beautiful thing: we have a couple of copies to give away, which I’m super excited about. Here’s the thing, guys. You know we don’t just do giveaways. I’m going to make you work for it. Here’s what I want in the podcast notes. I would love for you to share a time when you could see a little of God’s plan, a glimpse, when your life did not going according to plan. Just give us a little something. Maybe you were sick. Maybe there was a disappointment in your life. Maybe you didn’t get the job, you didn’t get the house, whatever it was, and you got to glimpse God’s plan. I’d love for you to share about that in the notes. Tracy, thank you so much for being on Clutter Free Academy.

Tracy – Thank you. It’s been so much fun.

Kathi – And, guys, thank you for being here. You are the best part of what we do here at Clutter Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter free life you were designed to live.

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*see show notes in podcast post above for any mentioned items