Day 3 - Clearing the Clutter

In this episode, Terri explores the topic of clutter and its relationship with disorganization. She discusses the definitions of clutter and disorganization and highlights that while they are related, they are not the same thing. The host shares personal experiences with clutter and emphasizes the importance of being organized for mental clarity, increased productivity, better decision-making, improved mental well-being, and enhanced creativity and focus. She also mentions the connection between clutter and prosperity.

Takeaways

• Clutter and disorganization are related but not the same thing.
• Being organized can lead to mental clarity and reduced stress.
• Decluttering can increase productivity and improve decision-making.
• A clutter-free environment can enhance mental well-being and creativity.
• There is a connection between clutter and prosperity.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Definition of Clutter

03:24
The Relationship Between Disorganization and Clutter

06:18
The Impact of Organization on Productivity

09:05
The Benefits of Being Organized

15:41
The Connection Between Clutter and Prosperity

Episode Five
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-these-3-things-causing-you-stress/id1552726231?i=1000595543052

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

You're listening to the what Women Want Today podcast. If you love the idea of being part of a community of women who are looking to thrive, not just survive, you're in the right place. Join hosts Terry Cullums and Amanda Keeper each week, as they bring you topics and guests to help you improve your relationships, your health and your emotional and spiritual well-being.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the what Women Want Today podcast. I'm your host, terry Cullums, so happy to be here with you today, two days after Christmas. Yesterday did not feel like the day after Christmas, for whatever reason. We spent Christmas Eve in Phoenix, celebrated with Brian's children and his grandma, and so then Christmas Day didn't really feel like Christmas Day to us. We like cleaned his grandma's garage and I don't know. It just didn't feel like Christmas. So yesterday, as we're heading down back down where we live in Southern Arizona from the Phoenix area, it just felt like the trip that would never end. We had to stop in Tucson and do a couple of things on our way home. So although we left Phoenix at about 9.30, I don't believe we got home until about three o'clock, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, somewhere around in there. So of course, waking up today, I just feel tired. I don't know how you all feel, I don't know if you're recovered yet. So a lot of people like to take the day after Christmas to just sort of relax and kind of get back to routine. But today is that day for me.

Speaker 2: 1:47

So we are in the midst of the series, the 12 Days of Christmas, if you're following along with me, we're trying to figure out what 2024 is going to mean for us, and today's topic is clutter. Now, I'm not going to go really deep into this discussion today because I did an episode, episode five, which I'm going to link in the show notes. I'm just going to kind of give some basics and hope that you will go back and listen to episode five. But there was a couple of things I wanted to touch on. When I started thinking about clutter, for some reason it reminded me of a conversation that Brian and I had. It was probably at least two weeks ago, and he was saying that for next year he bought a planner, like an organizer type thing, and he said I really just want to make 2024 a year where I just finally stop being so disorganized. He recognized that disorganization had cost him a lot of time and also some money in some instances, and he said you know what? I'm going to write things down because what typically happens and I don't know if your husband is like this, but he'll say honey, remind me, remind me to call this place, remind me to call that place, and those things just start to pile up after a while where I'm sort of the reminder of all these things and I have my own things that I'm trying to remember and so oftentimes that list will just keep building and it just you lose sight of some things, or what happens is that list of things suddenly keeps you awake at night, or when you do wake up at night, it's the thing that you start thinking about. You've got all these things and I did touch on that in episode five where we talked about, you know, like that brain clutter. So I actually was trying to decide if I thought that disorganization and clutter was sort of the same thing and I went to Google and looked for a definition there and it's talking about how clutter is defined as a large group of usually unrelated or marginally related objects piled together in a disorganized fashion. So I'm just gonna be really transparent today.

Speaker 2: 4:10

Like if you stopped over my house right now, you would walk in and you would see a what would appear to be a very clean home. There's nothing laying around. I would not be embarrassed if you showed up unannounced right at this very moment, because my dishes are done and my bed is made and everything looks on the surface to be very organized and clean, right. But if you opened up some of my drawers, like everybody has a junk drawer, right, we have a junk drawer. We have a basket that kind of sits close to the entryway where a lot of the meal has kind of piled up over the past month or so. If you opened my refrigerator. I would be embarrassed if you opened my refrigerator. To be honest with you, I am not great at organizing the refrigerator. I do have that on my list for 2024, for sure. If you went into, like our nightstands complete disaster. The surface countertop of my bathroom pretty okay, okay, not great, but okay. But open up the drawers. And yeah, there's underneath the bathroom sink not very organized. My closet is extremely organized, for whatever reason, and the living room. I don't have any visual clutter.

Speaker 2: 5:42

But my office is usually and I think it really relates to stress like how much we have going on is probably really closely related to how certain areas of the home look, like the garage is a complete disaster. So I would ask Brian to probably close the garage doors and have you come in through the front door. But usually and this goes way back, like I remember in the days when I owned my insurance agency and my oldest daughter was working on her master's degree and so she worked for me part-time and she's a very organized person. Like she's the person that you want to come into your house if you're struggling to get organized. Like she's just a very naturally it seems like it's a superpower for her. It comes very easily, she's organized, and so when she worked for me I would come into my office. She usually got there first.

Speaker 2: 6:39

I would come into my office and there would be like these stacks well, not really stacks, but just kind of laid out neatly where I could see each grouping of papers usually client paperwork and there would be little sticky notes on there. Sign here, do this call this person and I tell you what. Like there was nothing better, just a better way to start your day than to come in and feel like you already knew what you needed to do. Like, have you ever gone into a situation like a workday, or even like coming home from being away for Christmas and we took our motor home? So there's always the unpacking of the motor home. I have a hair appointment today.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Brian had some things going on today, so can you imagine the difference in your mindset if you had someone that had neatly arranged, a stack of things with little notes on it that says this is what you need to do first, like here's a chronological order of all the things that need to be taken care of today, from probably most important to least important. It is such a wonderful feeling. So, with that in mind, brian, when he had the conversation with me about you know how he was going to get more organized, to save more time and and and some money possibly I said to him I go, well, maybe what we should do in addition to you writing down work things in your organizer is at night, before we go to, either before we go to sleep or before we start watching a TV program Is to say, hey, you know what, what, what got accomplished today from the list, what needs to be done tomorrow, let's schedule it, let's get it written down, so that we wake up in the middle of the night and we start to think about that thing, like, oh, you know what, I don't even have to think about that, it's written down already. I already know I'm going into my day With those little sticky notes, with that little organized pile that says these are the things I have to do today, these are the most important tasks on my list today that just have to be done. And if it doesn't have to be done tomorrow, then it doesn't go on tomorrow's list, it goes on Friday's list, it goes on Monday's list, whatever, whatever day of the week it is. And so I really like the idea of being organized so that you can go into your day being prepared and not coming and sitting down at my desk and freezing and saying what am I going to talk about in the podcast today? What, what subject, what talking points do I want to talk about? And just being all over the place and thinking, oh, my goodness, I need to go get those things out of the motor home and I need to get to my hair appointment on time, and you know all the things that go in between. No, when you are organized, you can sit down and just get right to it.

Speaker 2: 9:38

And so how does that relate to clutter for me? Well, to me, that says you don't go to the grocery store. Well, this is me. I'm not saying this is everybody, this is me. You don't go to the grocery store without a plan or what you, what you need. I like to meal plan out my, my, my list. I write the meals down that I want to cook and then I start to think about everything I need to go into that. So I think you know they're. They're pretty.

Speaker 2: 10:05

It says in this, in this article on Google, it says disorganization and clutter are related, but not the same thing. Disorganization can lead to clutter, but someone can be disorganized without having visible clutter me right, because all my visible clutter is tucked away in a drawer or in the refrigerator when I don't have to to look at it. So Anyways, it says on the other hand, someone may have clutter but still have an organized system for dealing with it. So we are going to not only Work on disorganization, but we're going to work on being more clutter free and there are some benefits and I do go into these quite a bit in the episode. Even though it's not a long episode episode 5 is not long I did want to touch on some some real quick Reasons why we want to work on clutter or put clutter on our list for 2024. And there's 5 of them, so I'm going to go through those with you.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Mental clarity Mental clarity and decluttering can help clear our minds and reduce mental stress. When our physical space is cluttered, it leads to feelings of overwhelming, can distract us from focusing on the task at hand. By decluttering, we create a sense of mental clarity, allowing us to think more clearly and improve our overall well being. And I will tell you this when my office has gotten really out of control, I avoid coming in here, like I will sometimes, and I recorded episode one and two of the series in my dining room because my office was not a place that I desired to be, because the clutter had gotten. I had stacks and it's just not a fun place to be. It's not relaxing, it's not somewhere you crave to be Like. My office is actually really pretty. It looks out onto a mountain range and there's trees and it's actually a very gorgeous view. So to not want to come and sit in here really means that I've let the clutter get a lot of control. So that kind of leads into number two, which is its increased productivity.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Decluttering can significantly impact our productivity levels. A clutter-free environment promotes better organization and efficiency, making it easier to find what we need. This would be, brian, making sure to let's see, let's see where did I go. It can lead to improved time management. There we go again, brian Reduce procrastination and increased productivity in both personal and professional pursuits. So I think we kind of nailed that one down. That's a pretty good point. This is interesting better decision-making. Decluttering can positively affect our ability to make decisions, and organized and decluttered space can help eliminate decision fatigue. When we have fewer items to choose from and a clear space to work in, we can make decisions more efficiently and effectively.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Number four is improved mental wellbeing. The psychological benefits of decluttering it's the working space. Like I said, with my desk and my office contributed feelings of anxiety and stress and even depression. Decluttering we can create a more peaceful and serene environment, like my office I wanna come in now because I've decluttered it and it can have a positive impact on our mental wellbeing. And number five, our last point is it increases, it enhances creativity and focus. Decluttering can boost creativity and focus. By removing the physical clutter we can create a visually appealing and inspiring space and by having a clean and organized environment we can better focus on our work and creative endeavors. Is that the word I'm trying to say Leading to increase productivity and innovative thinking. So I know all these things to be true.

Speaker 2: 14:05

I'm wondering if you are going to put decluttering and organization on your list for 2024. I'd love to hear about it. Please come over to the Facebook group and let me know if this is gonna make the list, and what areas of your home are you gonna focus on the most? Is there something that you just need to get better at and you're just gonna commit to and you can commit to it in the community and we can hold each other accountable for some of these things? I look forward to talking to you over there.

Speaker 2: 14:37

I'm gonna leave you with the meaning of the third day of Christmas. It's three front ends, right, and it is associated with prosperity and abundance. So prosperity and abundance in different aspects of life, from wealth, wealth can mean a lot of things to different people and just to overall personal fulfillment. All right, I hope you're enjoying the series. Please let me know and enjoy the rest of your day. We'll talk again tomorrow. Take care everybody. Amanda, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but I sometimes will learn something really cool on a podcast, on a YouTube, video, audio book, whatever. I think I'm gonna remember it and then I forget. Does that ever happen to you?

Speaker 3: 15:31

Yeah, I call it brain after 40 all the time.

Speaker 2: 15:35

That's what we'll officially call it. But we've come up with something. Do you wanna introduce it?

Speaker 3: 15:40

Sure, it's from an app called Quick Jim Quick and it's an acronym called FAST.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Yeah, and the F it stands for Facebook. So we're inviting you officially right now to come over and join us on Facebook. Get involved with the community, share your favorite episodes with your friends on Facebook.

Speaker 3: 15:56

Yeah, the A is go ahead and take an action, so you can't remember anything if you don't act.

Speaker 2: 16:03

And S is for subscribe. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel.

Speaker 3: 16:07

And then T is teach. Teach what you've learned to somebody else. Share the love.

Speaker 2: 16:11

All right, we hope that works for you. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Bye-bye.