Dana K. White

speaker
88 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard Nov 2024

Dana K. White’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Mel Robbins Podcast · How To Declutter Your Home: 5 Tips That Actually Work · 23 Nov 2024 podcast
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 hands 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. Okay. 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 donations.
Okay. 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. Okay. 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. Like that's not what we're doing. Right. Because that's organization. Right. And two, it just sets myself up to have to go back through that box again.
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.
I always have a donate box or two or three in a spot in our garage that is ready to be taken wherever it needs to go. The decision making, though, is where the real power is.
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 wanna donate it or keep it. I had too much stuff in my house to ask myself 10 questions about everything. You know, besides those questions generally let my brain spin out, right? Like, like, do I love it? Well, yeah, I love all this stuff.
You know, like, why would I have it in my house if I didn't love it? Right. You know, so... 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? Okay. It's really important that you ask exactly that question.
Where would I look for it first? It is an instinct question. Okay. OK, 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 today. 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 used to do was think about where my grandma kept hers. Yeah. And think, okay, well, 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. Fingernail 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 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 there now. 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 kid's room. This goes to the garage. Yes. This goes to the bathroom. Yes. And when I'm done. Yes. 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 a bigger mess. I'm taking one item at a time. Making 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 it's already established home.
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