February 12, 2025 • 28 mins
Decluttering expert Dana K. White talks about how to address the mess while feeling good about yourself
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
a series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and their advice
(00:25):
for the rest of us. So today I am delighted
to welcome Dana K. White to the program. Dana is
a decluttering expert, the author of Organizing for the Rest
of Us, and most recently a book called Jesus Doesn't
Care About Your Messy House. She's created numerous helpful YouTube videos.
I know a lot of people you know listening to
the show have watched for people looking to get their
(00:47):
homes and lives under control. So Dana, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, glad to have you. So maybe you could introduce
yourself to our listeners. What you're up to these days?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, I'm Dana KA White. I always put the K in,
so we don't, you know, get confused and think you're
talking to the guy who runs the UFC, because that's
not me.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Not talking to him to know, not today, you know, anyotherday.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So I am a mom of three young adults, so
I was an empty nester for two days and then
my one of them said, you know what, I think
I'm gonna do this semester from home, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Okay, So that was the end of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, I mean, it's it's that phase of life where
you're just like whatever, anything's great, whatever, you know, And
I teach people how to declutter even though this is
the thing that I struggled with my entire life, and
actually because it's the thing I struggled with my entire life,
because this does not come naturally to me, So I
(01:47):
don't teach it out of a place of Wow, I'm
so good at this, everybody else should be good at
it too. It's more like, oh, I get how hard
this is and I've had to figure it out. So
so it's been more of a journey for absolutely, absolutely
And how did you?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So? Then, how does one establish oneself as a decluttering
expert if this is something that isn't so easy for you?
I mean, how have you gone about doing that?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well? It was not my intention. I will tell you
that I just wanted to be a writer, and I
was stopped from doing that because I just had it
in my head. I was like, I have got to
get my house under control first. I'm not saying you
have to have your house under control in order to
do the thing you want to do, but it was
stopping me right. Like, I found out what blogs were
(02:30):
back in two thousand and eight, and I was like,
that's it. I've got to have one. And I had
been trying so hard to get my house under control,
and I was like, I can't take on another thing
until I get this figured out. And so I didn't
start my blog for a year and a half, and
I started it as a practice blog, Like I thought
(02:52):
that I was going to write about getting my house
under control as a way to stay focused on that
and figure it out, and then start writing about things
I actually felt qualified to write about. Right, So in
the beginning it was anonymous. I didn't even tell my
husband what I was doing for like at least a month,
and I was just trying to figure it out. Had
no intention of teaching anyone any of this stuff. Like actually,
(03:15):
as people started to read it and they're like, can
you teach us what you're doing? And I would say,
why in the world would anyone want to learn about
this from me. I'm like no, no, I am like
struggling my way through. And after about two and a
half years, I had my house at a point where
I was like, oh, I get it now, like I
know what to do. I know what I was doing wrong.
(03:37):
And when people would ask me that, I finally said,
you know what, I cannot tell you how to have
a perfect house, but I can tell you how to
go from completely overwhelmed and hopeless to oh, Okay, I
get it now, you know. And so that is my
niche or niche or however you like to say it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, I'm very curious what made it so overwhelming? I
mean I sort of think, like, you know, being paralyzed
and unable to write or something that you must have
been like sitting under giant piles of furniture or something.
I mean, what was going on with the house that
made it so out of control? You know?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
It was just a constant disaster. Okay, So I could
have people over. I just needed two weeks to get ready,
that's all. So all I needed was so I would
take the first week to you know, declutter. I'm making
air quotes as I say that I would take the
first week to declutter, which really just meant I shoved
(04:37):
everything into my husband's bedroom because that was the door
I could lock, right, I would shove everything in there,
and then I would clean for a week because you
can't actually claim when there's clutter everywhere, right, And so
it was just a constant disaster. And I could get
my house under control, but I treated it like a project.
And so I would like, you know, take everything else
(04:58):
off the calendar on my house, get it, you know,
basically under control, and then think, okay, who, I'm done, right,
and then it would go right back to being a disaster.
Things I didn't know I had more stuff than I
could possibly handle. I had more stuff than I had
places to put stuff. And I didn't understand that correlation, right,
because I'm a highly creative person and I don't see limits,
(05:20):
and so, you know, that just didn't occur to me
that the too much stuff was the actual issue that
I had. So when I say that my house was
a disaster, I mean that I avoided having people come over,
or when I did have them come over, it was
a huge stressful deal. And so, yeah, go.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Ahead, Yeah, was that the most common issue? Then? When
people feel like their homes are overwhelming and out of control.
Is it that they have too much stuff?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Generally, yes, it's that and its routines. Like I always
tell people to start with the routines because part of
my issue was I always thought, what is the point
of any kind of a maintenance task when my house
is a total disaster. I need to get it under
control and then start maintaining. That never worked. What actually
did work was when I started doing those maintenance type
(06:12):
tasks before it was any better. Like, I just started
with the maintenance tasks that started to change my home.
At the same time, the more I did that, it
freed up time for me to get stuff out of
my house. And so those two things are equally important.
You really can't have one without the other. But in general, yes,
most people's issues are that they have too much stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, it's an easy thing to have happen. And this is,
you know, running not too long after the holidays, because
I'm sure a lot of folks have just gotten a
whole news shipment of stuff into their homes. I mean, well,
what can you do if you find you have too
much stuff? Let's start with the getting rid of some
of this stuff first, and then we can talk about
the routines that are helpful for maintenance.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah. So the number one thing that I recommend, and
this is all based in my own experience, is that
you should prioritize decluttering according to the most visible spaces
in your home. This is actually the opposite of what
most of us naturally tend to do. We tend to
think I need to declutter, and we start with the
(07:18):
linen closet, or we start with the top shelf of
the closet, you know, some obscure place where maybe we've
been thinking about, oh that needs to be dealt with, oh,
you know, or maybe it's that if I work on
this space and we don't really use it that often,
then maybe it'll stay decluttered. Right. But the problem with
(07:38):
that is that you put all this time and energy
into this space that you don't see and use consistently,
and therefore you're not seeing the results of the work
that you've done. And if you've spent all day decluttering
a back closet and then the doorbell rings and you're
still embarrassed to open the front door, or you let
(07:58):
somebody in and they say what you've been doing today?
And you say, well, I've been decluttering, and you see
their eyes look around like really, you know, and that
is so defeating, right, Like, it's so incredibly defeating to
have that happen that it makes you just feel like,
what's the point. But if you start in a visible space,
then the progress that you're gonna that you're gonna make
(08:20):
is something that you're gonna experience. You're gonna experience the
benefits of it. You're gonna see even though you walked
past that mess for months. Now you walk by and
it's clear and you're like, oh, that looks so good,
and it increases that decluttering energy. So it helps to
perpetuate your uh, decluttering energy and build that momentum that
everybody is looking for. So that's the number one thing
(08:41):
that as far as how to start decluttering. I have
my no Mess decluttering process, right, which is designed to
make progress and only progress. Never end up creating a
worse mess than you have before. Like you know how
everybody always says, oh, it has to get worse before
it gets better. That's not true.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, don't make it worse for it. So you
are not saying we should put everything in the middle
of the floor, took everything out of every kitchen drawer.
I and then and then you know, something happens. You're
pulled away, I gotta go pick a kid up from school, sick,
and then the mess is worse than it ever.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Was, well exactly. And you know a lot of the
people who send me emails will say, well, I did that,
and then I had stuff all over the floor for
six months, you know, or what I even without it
being that extreme method, I thought that the way you
had to declutter was to pull everything out of the space,
Like I just I thought that's what everybody said you
were supposed to do, and so I would try that,
(09:33):
and every single time I would end up overwhelmed and
defeated because I never finished it, you know, And so
it was worse than it was before, and I would
shove it all back in and where I used to
kind of know where things were in the pile, now
I had no idea. So yeah, so as first starting,
we start with the trash, like we just start one
item at a time pulling it out, and then I,
you know, my five step process takes you all the
(09:53):
way through, but it helps me know what to remove first,
and item that I remove makes me a little bit
less overwhelmed, helps me understand what I'm dealing with so
that when I do get to the point where I'm
making actual decisions, I'm ready for that.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Awesome. Well, we're going to take a quick ad break
and then I will be right back with Dana K.
White talking about decluttering. Well, I am back with before
breakfast interviewing Dana K. White, a decluttering expert. So we've
been talking about not pulling all the things out of
(10:31):
the every door, putting it on the floor, and then
winding up with stuff there for six months. First we're
going to get rid of the trash, I believe. The
next thing is we're going to get rid of any
dirty dishes or laundry. Right is that the next day?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Well, the next step is the easy stuff, which may
include dishes or laundry. Not the dishes and laundry or
easy like, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is
emotionally easy, meaning I already know what to do. Right,
So the easy stuff is anything that I already know
what to do with it, that already has an established home.
I just have to do the thing. Sometimes I call
this per crest to clutter right, it's stuff that's laying around.
(11:04):
Like you, if you really work hard on your living
room and yet there is a recliner piled high with
clean laundry, your living room doesn't actually look like it's
been decluttered, right, because that iesore is there. But it's
easy to be like, oh, I'll get to that later
when I'm not decluttering. But it's important to get that
step done so that you have the actual benefit of
(11:27):
what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And then after that that's when you tackle the more
difficult thing.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. Next, the next step in my five steps is
the obvious donations, so I call them the duh donations,
Like why do I even have this? I don't have
to think about it. I'm just gonna go ahead and
get those out because again, with everything that leaves now
I can see more clearly what I'm actually dealing with.
And then at that point that's when I ask my
decluttering questions. That's step four.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
All right, what are those real?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Quick? Let's run through. So there's only two and if
you if you can answer the first one, you don't
have to even ask the second one. So the question
declaring question number one is if I needed this item,
where would I look for it first, And it has
to be asked like that, Like, it's not where should
it go, It's not where would it be? It is
(12:18):
where would I look for it first? If I already
knew where it went it left in step two, right, Like,
I'm only asking this question because I literally don't know
where this thing goes. It doesn't have a home in
my house. And this is how I give it a home.
Where would I look first at the beginning of what
I assume is going to be a three hour search
tearing apart my house looking for this item. Right, So
(12:40):
where's the first place where I would look? And then
I take it to that place right now? Because this
is the key to the no mess, right, is to
go ahead and do the thing so that when I
get distracted, when I get overwhelmed, when I just am
like I'm done, I'm out. I can't do this anymore.
I have only made progress. I haven't made any piles,
i haven't put things in boxes to deal with later.
(13:01):
I've made real progress. And that's a game changer for
me and for so many people.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, what I love about this is I mean people
hear that and they're like, well, that's incredibly inefficient, waste time,
and it was like, well, sure, but you know we
could probably all use a little bit more exercise. Well,
and you're running up and down the stairs a few
more times. It is It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And it's so funny to me because I like, I
get emails from people pretty much every single day saying
I had all the reasons why this was a terrible
idea and so inefficient, and then I tried it. So
I'm always like, just try it because people are like,
I can't believe the power of actually being done with
that small thing. Because here's the real opposite of efficiency
(13:43):
is when you make little piles or you put things
in a box to go take to their homes later,
and then you have to go back through the piles
and ask yourself the question again to remember where it
was that you were supposed to put that thing, right, Like,
that's the opposite of efficient, cause you're redoing your work
and I need to just go ahead and do that thing.
(14:06):
Act on. The other thing that happens when I do
that is I face the reality of the space. Because
if I'm not actually going to that space right now
where I say I would look for it first. I
may be picturing a space like a cabinet that has
plenty of room in there for this random mug, and
then I actually get to the cabinet and I realize, oh,
I've got seventeen of this mechanical pencil that I said
(14:29):
I would look for here first. Oh okay, or this
drawer where I say I would look for it first
won't even close, you know. And so it's this reality
check instead of just this fantasy land of oh, yeah,
i'll do this later, I'll do this later, I'll do
this later. But I'm gonna face that reality and I'm
really moving actually forward in my home by doing that.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Love it. I love it. So let's talk about sort
of the daily maintenance habits then, because this is how
you're getting rid of stuff, this is how you're kind
of lightening the overwhelming amount of stuff that is in
the house. But you said that you also need to
do these sort of daily routines to keep on top
of things. So what are some of those.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Well, I mean they are as basic as it gets, right,
because when I started, I call it my deslopification process.
When I started, I was like, I don't know what
to do. I had tried all the methods, I had
failed at everything. I was pretty sure I was going
to fail again. And I was like, I don't know,
(15:33):
but I know that my friends whose houses are under control,
like if I have to stop by for some reason unexpectedly,
their kitchens are never a disaster. What did you take
from that? Well, I didn't know how they did it.
It didn't make sense to me, because here's the thing.
I would put off doing my dishes, and by the
(15:54):
time I did my dishes, I was catching up on dishes.
And so let's say that I had had a busy
and it's time to clean the house, and I'm going
to start in the kitchen, and I would spend five
hours catching up on getting my kitchen under control, five
days worth of dishes. Well, in my mind, logically, I
was like, well, if it's five days worth of dishes
(16:17):
and it takes me five hours, then obviously, logically it
must take an hour to do the dishes every day.
And so I would say to myself, I don't want
to do the dishes for an hour every day, and
that's not how dishes work. Dishes are if I do
them every day, it only takes me fifteen to twenty minutes, right,
(16:37):
and if I waited one more day, it's not twice that,
it's an hour. And then if I wait three days,
it's hours. You know, So I call that dishes metho.
It just does not work the way that I logically
thought it would. But doing the dishes every day changed
everything because I never had to start in the kitchen.
So when I was going to work on my house,
(16:58):
I could just start working on my house. I didn't
have to go catch up in the kitchen first. Right,
the other stretch of the other routine or task that
I tell people, if you're completely overwhelmed, do the dishes
and do a five minute pickup. Okay, Now, the dishes
are hard because the first day you are catching up.
If you're behind the five minute pickup, I actually mean
(17:20):
five minutes today, even if your house is every surface
is covered, okay, okay, Because the problem was I always thought, oh,
I need to get all those surfaces under control, and
then it would make sense to do five minutes. In
the meantime, all the surfaces were so overwhelming that I
didn't do anything, and then it just got worse and
(17:42):
worse and worse. Right, But if you'll do five minutes
of picking up and putting away today and then tomorrow,
and then the next day, and whenever you think about it,
it's amazing the impact that it'll have. And those are
also the same two things to do to keep your
house under control. Those two things will change your house
and they'll maintain your house.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yep, we can do a lot in five minutes, especially
if we do five minutes every single day. Right, Well,
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Dana. Well,
I am back interviewing Dana K. White, who is the
author of several decluttering books, Organizing for the Rest of
(18:26):
Us and then most recently, Jesus doesn't care about your
messy house. So this is a fascinating title to me.
Dana say, it hadn't occurred to me that Jesus had
thought much about my house, But it sounds like you
have worked with a number of people who have some
significant shame and guilt about the state of their home
(18:49):
to the point of thinking that like it's sinful to
have a messy house or something like that. So maybe
you could unpack that topic a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, So I am a Christian and I, Uh, when
I started this journey, I assumed God was gonna show
me some secret that I had somehow been missing that
was gonna just make me go, oh, I get it now,
and then my house always be clean, you know, like
(19:18):
I because it felt like, you know, we don't have
time to unpack all of it, right, but it felt
like I was missing something because I would try to
get this thing under control and I just couldn't do it.
You know. Now, I've heard a lot of people talk
about the same thing from the perspective of someone who
(19:39):
can't stop cleaning, you know, like their house is perfect
and they keep going, and they keep going because they're
trying to be perfect for God, you know. And I've
heard them talk about how God showed them that his
love is grace and it has nothing to do with
what we do. And I was like, Okay, that's great
for them, but what about for me When I have
(19:59):
tried and I just can't do it. You know, it's like,
am I missing something? Is there something wrong? So as
I worked on my house, God was showing me very
separately that He just made me the way that I am.
My brain just works differently, you know, like we're all different.
There's that's not an excuse to have my house not
(20:21):
be under control. But at the same time, it's also
not a shame, like it just is an issue of Okay,
so my brain works differently. I got to figure out
what does work for me, because the problem was I
always was trying to do what you know, everybody would
say you were supposed to do in your house, and
I'd be like, well, this doesn't work right, And it's
(20:42):
because what a lot of people are teaching on this
stuff misses the actual starting point that I was at, right, Like,
that's that's a big point. It's not that what people are,
you know, advising and sharing and encouraging other people to
do is not correct. It's that my starting point was
so far back that I had a lot to do
before I could ever even get to that point, and
(21:03):
it just didn't make sense to me. So when I
acknowledge and accepted that, you know what, this is not
a spiritual issue, this is just I'm wired differently, and
I got to figure out what does work for me,
it removed that shame and it set me on a
path where I was like, you know what, I like
(21:24):
who I am and if that also means that I
struggle in my house, that's fine, and then I was
free to actually figure out what did work for me
instead of trying other people's ways, failing at those ways
and thinking, oh my word, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah? Yeah. Realizing that everyone is different and our brains
work differently, yes, and we experienced the world differently, is
you know, good and good to know that God made
us all different as well.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Right, and it's a beautiful thing, right, Like we wouldn't
want to all be the same? How boring would that be? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, Well I'm glad to find out that Jesus
doesn't care about the state of my house, So that's good.
I'm glad to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Hear that exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So, Dana, you mentioned the daily housekeeping routines of doing
the dishes and doing the five minute pickup, but I'm
curious if you have any sort of other routines or
daily habits that more about, like how you organize your time.
Are the things you you know, do for yourself daily?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah? So, I well, you know, as far as the
tasks that I do, I have four tasks that if
I will do these things, my house is great. The
number two. The top two are the dishes and the
five minute pickups, So I don't get if I don't
get to the other two, I'm okay, I'll survive, right,
But if I can do the dishes every day, if
(22:40):
I can do a five minute pickup, if I can
check my bathrooms for clutter, so that when it comes
time to clean the bathroom, all I'm doing is cleaning
the bathroom and not like you know, excavating from the clutter.
And sweep the kitchen floor, which is not about crumbs necessarily.
It's about combating what I call my slab vision, where
(23:03):
I just don't see that, oh, there's a pile of
things over here, or there's whatever. But if I will
sweep the kitchen floor every day, then it just is
a habit that helps me see those things. But the
way that I manage that is I have had to
come to the point where I don't assign those things
to a very specific time of day. Okay, So like,
(23:24):
for example, the five minute pickup, I knew that people
whose houses were under control did a pick up every night, right,
and so when I used to try to change, I
would be like, okay, okay, I am going to start
picking up the living room every night before the kids
go to bed, okay, you know, and then we would
(23:45):
do it for a night, maybe two nights, and then
it would be a week later and I would think,
oh my goodness, I forgot to do that. Okay, the
kids are already in bed, all right, tomorrow night, I'll
do that, and then I would forget again, and then
the next So what I came to the point of
realizing was whatever time it crosses my mind, that's when
I need to do it. And sometimes it's frustrating because
(24:08):
I like to have the whole family participate in the
five minute pickup. But if it crosses my mind to
do it when it's just me at home, then I
go ahead and do it. And strangely, me doing a
five minute pickup when it's just me at home actually
usually helps me remember to do another one, which we
always need when the kids are home too. Write And
so this not assigning it to a specific time was
(24:31):
actually very freeing because it kept me from giving up
because oh I missed that time again. I miss that
time again, and that could go on for weeks until
it just I just gave up completely, right of like man,
every single night when I'm putting the kids to bed,
it never crosses my mind to pick up toys before
they go to bed whatever. Not that my kids have
(24:52):
toys anymore, but you know what I mean, back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, back in the day. Yeah, yeah, okay, wonderful. Yeah. Well,
I think there's something so freeing about realizing that routines
don't always have to happen at the same time every day.
And sometimes I tell people at this show, you know,
morning routines are morning can be a state of mind.
Sometimes your morning routine is more of a morning checklist,
and the morning checklist may happen over the course of
(25:15):
the day if your life is a certain way, and
that's totally fine too. So Dana, what's something you've done
recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well, let me think. I put on my calendar, which
is funny because my best friend is my assistant as well,
and I just texted her the other day I said, Hey,
did you notice that two months ago I put on
the calendar that we're going to do our Christmas shopping tomorrow?
(25:46):
And she was like, She's like, yeah, I saw, I
put it on my calendar too. I was like, Okay,
good things. And I think it's that scheduling in, you know,
like this is we're talking I'm not sure when this
is coming out, but we're talking in December. And it
gets bananas, especially when your content is about decluttering, because
decluttering time is really really strong, you know, in January.
(26:08):
And so I schedule in my fun things and I'm like,
she and I go Christmas shopping every year, and if
I don't get it on the calendar. And I did
that as I was, you know, coming up with times
and dates where I could do podcast interviews and things
about the new book, and I'm like, Okay, this is
as important, if not more important, than all the other things,
(26:28):
because if I don't have that, then it feels like
what am I doing all the rest of this stuff for?
You know, if I'm not able to do the things
that bring me peace and joy and happiness and all.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That, way to get it on the calendar. Yeah, putting
things on the calendar is generally a good way for
making them happen, exactly exactly. So, Dana, where can people
find you?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You can find me at aslabcomesclean dot com that has
links to all my YouTube and podcasts, and I have
decluttering coaches noil who are certified by me and all that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So yep, that sounds awesome. Well, Dana, thank you so
much for joining us, and thank you to everyone for
listening to one of these longer episodes. If you have
feedback from me about this episode or any other, you
can email me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(27:30):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(27:54):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
a series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and their advice
(00:25):
for the rest of us. So today I am delighted
to welcome Dana K. White to the program. Dana is
a decluttering expert, the author of Organizing for the Rest
of Us, and most recently a book called Jesus Doesn't
Care About Your Messy House. She's created numerous helpful YouTube videos.
I know a lot of people you know listening to
the show have watched for people looking to get their
(00:47):
homes and lives under control. So Dana, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, glad to have you. So maybe you could introduce
yourself to our listeners. What you're up to these days?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, I'm Dana KA White. I always put the K in,
so we don't, you know, get confused and think you're
talking to the guy who runs the UFC, because that's
not me.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Not talking to him to know, not today, you know, anyotherday.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So I am a mom of three young adults, so
I was an empty nester for two days and then
my one of them said, you know what, I think
I'm gonna do this semester from home, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Okay, So that was the end of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, I mean, it's it's that phase of life where
you're just like whatever, anything's great, whatever, you know, And
I teach people how to declutter even though this is
the thing that I struggled with my entire life, and
actually because it's the thing I struggled with my entire life,
because this does not come naturally to me, So I
(01:47):
don't teach it out of a place of Wow, I'm
so good at this, everybody else should be good at
it too. It's more like, oh, I get how hard
this is and I've had to figure it out. So
so it's been more of a journey for absolutely, absolutely
And how did you?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So? Then, how does one establish oneself as a decluttering
expert if this is something that isn't so easy for you?
I mean, how have you gone about doing that?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well? It was not my intention. I will tell you
that I just wanted to be a writer, and I
was stopped from doing that because I just had it
in my head. I was like, I have got to
get my house under control first. I'm not saying you
have to have your house under control in order to
do the thing you want to do, but it was
stopping me right. Like, I found out what blogs were
(02:30):
back in two thousand and eight, and I was like,
that's it. I've got to have one. And I had
been trying so hard to get my house under control,
and I was like, I can't take on another thing
until I get this figured out. And so I didn't
start my blog for a year and a half, and
I started it as a practice blog, Like I thought
(02:52):
that I was going to write about getting my house
under control as a way to stay focused on that
and figure it out, and then start writing about things
I actually felt qualified to write about. Right, So in
the beginning it was anonymous. I didn't even tell my
husband what I was doing for like at least a month,
and I was just trying to figure it out. Had
no intention of teaching anyone any of this stuff. Like actually,
(03:15):
as people started to read it and they're like, can
you teach us what you're doing? And I would say,
why in the world would anyone want to learn about
this from me. I'm like no, no, I am like
struggling my way through. And after about two and a
half years, I had my house at a point where
I was like, oh, I get it now, like I
know what to do. I know what I was doing wrong.
(03:37):
And when people would ask me that, I finally said,
you know what, I cannot tell you how to have
a perfect house, but I can tell you how to
go from completely overwhelmed and hopeless to oh, Okay, I
get it now, you know. And so that is my
niche or niche or however you like to say it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, I'm very curious what made it so overwhelming? I
mean I sort of think, like, you know, being paralyzed
and unable to write or something that you must have
been like sitting under giant piles of furniture or something.
I mean, what was going on with the house that
made it so out of control? You know?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
It was just a constant disaster. Okay, So I could
have people over. I just needed two weeks to get ready,
that's all. So all I needed was so I would
take the first week to you know, declutter. I'm making
air quotes as I say that I would take the
first week to declutter, which really just meant I shoved
(04:37):
everything into my husband's bedroom because that was the door
I could lock, right, I would shove everything in there,
and then I would clean for a week because you
can't actually claim when there's clutter everywhere, right, And so
it was just a constant disaster. And I could get
my house under control, but I treated it like a project.
And so I would like, you know, take everything else
(04:58):
off the calendar on my house, get it, you know,
basically under control, and then think, okay, who, I'm done, right,
and then it would go right back to being a disaster.
Things I didn't know I had more stuff than I
could possibly handle. I had more stuff than I had
places to put stuff. And I didn't understand that correlation, right,
because I'm a highly creative person and I don't see limits,
(05:20):
and so, you know, that just didn't occur to me
that the too much stuff was the actual issue that
I had. So when I say that my house was
a disaster, I mean that I avoided having people come over,
or when I did have them come over, it was
a huge stressful deal. And so, yeah, go.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Ahead, Yeah, was that the most common issue? Then? When
people feel like their homes are overwhelming and out of control.
Is it that they have too much stuff?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Generally, yes, it's that and its routines. Like I always
tell people to start with the routines because part of
my issue was I always thought, what is the point
of any kind of a maintenance task when my house
is a total disaster. I need to get it under
control and then start maintaining. That never worked. What actually
did work was when I started doing those maintenance type
(06:12):
tasks before it was any better. Like, I just started
with the maintenance tasks that started to change my home.
At the same time, the more I did that, it
freed up time for me to get stuff out of
my house. And so those two things are equally important.
You really can't have one without the other. But in general, yes,
most people's issues are that they have too much stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, it's an easy thing to have happen. And this is,
you know, running not too long after the holidays, because
I'm sure a lot of folks have just gotten a
whole news shipment of stuff into their homes. I mean, well,
what can you do if you find you have too
much stuff? Let's start with the getting rid of some
of this stuff first, and then we can talk about
the routines that are helpful for maintenance.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah. So the number one thing that I recommend, and
this is all based in my own experience, is that
you should prioritize decluttering according to the most visible spaces
in your home. This is actually the opposite of what
most of us naturally tend to do. We tend to
think I need to declutter, and we start with the
(07:18):
linen closet, or we start with the top shelf of
the closet, you know, some obscure place where maybe we've
been thinking about, oh that needs to be dealt with, oh,
you know, or maybe it's that if I work on
this space and we don't really use it that often,
then maybe it'll stay decluttered. Right. But the problem with
(07:38):
that is that you put all this time and energy
into this space that you don't see and use consistently,
and therefore you're not seeing the results of the work
that you've done. And if you've spent all day decluttering
a back closet and then the doorbell rings and you're
still embarrassed to open the front door, or you let
(07:58):
somebody in and they say what you've been doing today?
And you say, well, I've been decluttering, and you see
their eyes look around like really, you know, and that
is so defeating, right, Like, it's so incredibly defeating to
have that happen that it makes you just feel like,
what's the point. But if you start in a visible space,
then the progress that you're gonna that you're gonna make
(08:20):
is something that you're gonna experience. You're gonna experience the
benefits of it. You're gonna see even though you walked
past that mess for months. Now you walk by and
it's clear and you're like, oh, that looks so good,
and it increases that decluttering energy. So it helps to
perpetuate your uh, decluttering energy and build that momentum that
everybody is looking for. So that's the number one thing
(08:41):
that as far as how to start decluttering. I have
my no Mess decluttering process, right, which is designed to
make progress and only progress. Never end up creating a
worse mess than you have before. Like you know how
everybody always says, oh, it has to get worse before
it gets better. That's not true.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, don't make it worse for it. So you
are not saying we should put everything in the middle
of the floor, took everything out of every kitchen drawer.
I and then and then you know, something happens. You're
pulled away, I gotta go pick a kid up from school, sick,
and then the mess is worse than it ever.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Was, well exactly. And you know a lot of the
people who send me emails will say, well, I did that,
and then I had stuff all over the floor for
six months, you know, or what I even without it
being that extreme method, I thought that the way you
had to declutter was to pull everything out of the space,
Like I just I thought that's what everybody said you
were supposed to do, and so I would try that,
(09:33):
and every single time I would end up overwhelmed and
defeated because I never finished it, you know, And so
it was worse than it was before, and I would
shove it all back in and where I used to
kind of know where things were in the pile, now
I had no idea. So yeah, so as first starting,
we start with the trash, like we just start one
item at a time pulling it out, and then I,
you know, my five step process takes you all the
(09:53):
way through, but it helps me know what to remove first,
and item that I remove makes me a little bit
less overwhelmed, helps me understand what I'm dealing with so
that when I do get to the point where I'm
making actual decisions, I'm ready for that.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Awesome. Well, we're going to take a quick ad break
and then I will be right back with Dana K.
White talking about decluttering. Well, I am back with before
breakfast interviewing Dana K. White, a decluttering expert. So we've
been talking about not pulling all the things out of
(10:31):
the every door, putting it on the floor, and then
winding up with stuff there for six months. First we're
going to get rid of the trash, I believe. The
next thing is we're going to get rid of any
dirty dishes or laundry. Right is that the next day?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Well, the next step is the easy stuff, which may
include dishes or laundry. Not the dishes and laundry or
easy like, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is
emotionally easy, meaning I already know what to do. Right,
So the easy stuff is anything that I already know
what to do with it, that already has an established home.
I just have to do the thing. Sometimes I call
this per crest to clutter right, it's stuff that's laying around.
(11:04):
Like you, if you really work hard on your living
room and yet there is a recliner piled high with
clean laundry, your living room doesn't actually look like it's
been decluttered, right, because that iesore is there. But it's
easy to be like, oh, I'll get to that later
when I'm not decluttering. But it's important to get that
step done so that you have the actual benefit of
(11:27):
what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And then after that that's when you tackle the more
difficult thing.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. Next, the next step in my five steps is
the obvious donations, so I call them the duh donations,
Like why do I even have this? I don't have
to think about it. I'm just gonna go ahead and
get those out because again, with everything that leaves now
I can see more clearly what I'm actually dealing with.
And then at that point that's when I ask my
decluttering questions. That's step four.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
All right, what are those real?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Quick? Let's run through. So there's only two and if
you if you can answer the first one, you don't
have to even ask the second one. So the question
declaring question number one is if I needed this item,
where would I look for it first, And it has
to be asked like that, Like, it's not where should
it go, It's not where would it be? It is
(12:18):
where would I look for it first? If I already
knew where it went it left in step two, right, Like,
I'm only asking this question because I literally don't know
where this thing goes. It doesn't have a home in
my house. And this is how I give it a home.
Where would I look first at the beginning of what
I assume is going to be a three hour search
tearing apart my house looking for this item. Right, So
(12:40):
where's the first place where I would look? And then
I take it to that place right now? Because this
is the key to the no mess, right, is to
go ahead and do the thing so that when I
get distracted, when I get overwhelmed, when I just am
like I'm done, I'm out. I can't do this anymore.
I have only made progress. I haven't made any piles,
i haven't put things in boxes to deal with later.
(13:01):
I've made real progress. And that's a game changer for
me and for so many people.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, what I love about this is I mean people
hear that and they're like, well, that's incredibly inefficient, waste time,
and it was like, well, sure, but you know we
could probably all use a little bit more exercise. Well,
and you're running up and down the stairs a few
more times. It is It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And it's so funny to me because I like, I
get emails from people pretty much every single day saying
I had all the reasons why this was a terrible
idea and so inefficient, and then I tried it. So
I'm always like, just try it because people are like,
I can't believe the power of actually being done with
that small thing. Because here's the real opposite of efficiency
(13:43):
is when you make little piles or you put things
in a box to go take to their homes later,
and then you have to go back through the piles
and ask yourself the question again to remember where it
was that you were supposed to put that thing, right, Like,
that's the opposite of efficient, cause you're redoing your work
and I need to just go ahead and do that thing.
(14:06):
Act on. The other thing that happens when I do
that is I face the reality of the space. Because
if I'm not actually going to that space right now
where I say I would look for it first. I
may be picturing a space like a cabinet that has
plenty of room in there for this random mug, and
then I actually get to the cabinet and I realize, oh,
I've got seventeen of this mechanical pencil that I said
(14:29):
I would look for here first. Oh okay, or this
drawer where I say I would look for it first
won't even close, you know. And so it's this reality
check instead of just this fantasy land of oh, yeah,
i'll do this later, I'll do this later, I'll do
this later. But I'm gonna face that reality and I'm
really moving actually forward in my home by doing that.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Love it. I love it. So let's talk about sort
of the daily maintenance habits then, because this is how
you're getting rid of stuff, this is how you're kind
of lightening the overwhelming amount of stuff that is in
the house. But you said that you also need to
do these sort of daily routines to keep on top
of things. So what are some of those.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Well, I mean they are as basic as it gets, right,
because when I started, I call it my deslopification process.
When I started, I was like, I don't know what
to do. I had tried all the methods, I had
failed at everything. I was pretty sure I was going
to fail again. And I was like, I don't know,
(15:33):
but I know that my friends whose houses are under control,
like if I have to stop by for some reason unexpectedly,
their kitchens are never a disaster. What did you take
from that? Well, I didn't know how they did it.
It didn't make sense to me, because here's the thing.
I would put off doing my dishes, and by the
(15:54):
time I did my dishes, I was catching up on dishes.
And so let's say that I had had a busy
and it's time to clean the house, and I'm going
to start in the kitchen, and I would spend five
hours catching up on getting my kitchen under control, five
days worth of dishes. Well, in my mind, logically, I
was like, well, if it's five days worth of dishes
(16:17):
and it takes me five hours, then obviously, logically it
must take an hour to do the dishes every day.
And so I would say to myself, I don't want
to do the dishes for an hour every day, and
that's not how dishes work. Dishes are if I do
them every day, it only takes me fifteen to twenty minutes, right,
(16:37):
and if I waited one more day, it's not twice that,
it's an hour. And then if I wait three days,
it's hours. You know, So I call that dishes metho.
It just does not work the way that I logically
thought it would. But doing the dishes every day changed
everything because I never had to start in the kitchen.
So when I was going to work on my house,
(16:58):
I could just start working on my house. I didn't
have to go catch up in the kitchen first. Right,
the other stretch of the other routine or task that
I tell people, if you're completely overwhelmed, do the dishes
and do a five minute pickup. Okay, Now, the dishes
are hard because the first day you are catching up.
If you're behind the five minute pickup, I actually mean
(17:20):
five minutes today, even if your house is every surface
is covered, okay, okay, Because the problem was I always thought, oh,
I need to get all those surfaces under control, and
then it would make sense to do five minutes. In
the meantime, all the surfaces were so overwhelming that I
didn't do anything, and then it just got worse and
(17:42):
worse and worse. Right, But if you'll do five minutes
of picking up and putting away today and then tomorrow,
and then the next day, and whenever you think about it,
it's amazing the impact that it'll have. And those are
also the same two things to do to keep your
house under control. Those two things will change your house
and they'll maintain your house.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yep, we can do a lot in five minutes, especially
if we do five minutes every single day. Right, Well,
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Dana. Well,
I am back interviewing Dana K. White, who is the
author of several decluttering books, Organizing for the Rest of
(18:26):
Us and then most recently, Jesus doesn't care about your
messy house. So this is a fascinating title to me.
Dana say, it hadn't occurred to me that Jesus had
thought much about my house, But it sounds like you
have worked with a number of people who have some
significant shame and guilt about the state of their home
(18:49):
to the point of thinking that like it's sinful to
have a messy house or something like that. So maybe
you could unpack that topic a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, So I am a Christian and I, Uh, when
I started this journey, I assumed God was gonna show
me some secret that I had somehow been missing that
was gonna just make me go, oh, I get it now,
and then my house always be clean, you know, like
(19:18):
I because it felt like, you know, we don't have
time to unpack all of it, right, but it felt
like I was missing something because I would try to
get this thing under control and I just couldn't do it.
You know. Now, I've heard a lot of people talk
about the same thing from the perspective of someone who
(19:39):
can't stop cleaning, you know, like their house is perfect
and they keep going, and they keep going because they're
trying to be perfect for God, you know. And I've
heard them talk about how God showed them that his
love is grace and it has nothing to do with
what we do. And I was like, Okay, that's great
for them, but what about for me When I have
(19:59):
tried and I just can't do it. You know, it's like,
am I missing something? Is there something wrong? So as
I worked on my house, God was showing me very
separately that He just made me the way that I am.
My brain just works differently, you know, like we're all different.
There's that's not an excuse to have my house not
(20:21):
be under control. But at the same time, it's also
not a shame, like it just is an issue of Okay,
so my brain works differently. I got to figure out
what does work for me, because the problem was I
always was trying to do what you know, everybody would
say you were supposed to do in your house, and
I'd be like, well, this doesn't work right, And it's
(20:42):
because what a lot of people are teaching on this
stuff misses the actual starting point that I was at, right, Like,
that's that's a big point. It's not that what people are,
you know, advising and sharing and encouraging other people to
do is not correct. It's that my starting point was
so far back that I had a lot to do
before I could ever even get to that point, and
(21:03):
it just didn't make sense to me. So when I
acknowledge and accepted that, you know what, this is not
a spiritual issue, this is just I'm wired differently, and
I got to figure out what does work for me,
it removed that shame and it set me on a
path where I was like, you know what, I like
(21:24):
who I am and if that also means that I
struggle in my house, that's fine, and then I was
free to actually figure out what did work for me
instead of trying other people's ways, failing at those ways
and thinking, oh my word, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah? Yeah. Realizing that everyone is different and our brains
work differently, yes, and we experienced the world differently, is
you know, good and good to know that God made
us all different as well.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Right, and it's a beautiful thing, right, Like we wouldn't
want to all be the same? How boring would that be? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, Well I'm glad to find out that Jesus
doesn't care about the state of my house, So that's good.
I'm glad to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Hear that exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So, Dana, you mentioned the daily housekeeping routines of doing
the dishes and doing the five minute pickup, but I'm
curious if you have any sort of other routines or
daily habits that more about, like how you organize your time.
Are the things you you know, do for yourself daily?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah? So, I well, you know, as far as the
tasks that I do, I have four tasks that if
I will do these things, my house is great. The
number two. The top two are the dishes and the
five minute pickups, So I don't get if I don't
get to the other two, I'm okay, I'll survive, right,
But if I can do the dishes every day, if
(22:40):
I can do a five minute pickup, if I can
check my bathrooms for clutter, so that when it comes
time to clean the bathroom, all I'm doing is cleaning
the bathroom and not like you know, excavating from the clutter.
And sweep the kitchen floor, which is not about crumbs necessarily.
It's about combating what I call my slab vision, where
(23:03):
I just don't see that, oh, there's a pile of
things over here, or there's whatever. But if I will
sweep the kitchen floor every day, then it just is
a habit that helps me see those things. But the
way that I manage that is I have had to
come to the point where I don't assign those things
to a very specific time of day. Okay, So like,
(23:24):
for example, the five minute pickup, I knew that people
whose houses were under control did a pick up every night, right,
and so when I used to try to change, I
would be like, okay, okay, I am going to start
picking up the living room every night before the kids
go to bed, okay, you know, and then we would
(23:45):
do it for a night, maybe two nights, and then
it would be a week later and I would think,
oh my goodness, I forgot to do that. Okay, the
kids are already in bed, all right, tomorrow night, I'll
do that, and then I would forget again, and then
the next So what I came to the point of
realizing was whatever time it crosses my mind, that's when
I need to do it. And sometimes it's frustrating because
(24:08):
I like to have the whole family participate in the
five minute pickup. But if it crosses my mind to
do it when it's just me at home, then I
go ahead and do it. And strangely, me doing a
five minute pickup when it's just me at home actually
usually helps me remember to do another one, which we
always need when the kids are home too. Write And
so this not assigning it to a specific time was
(24:31):
actually very freeing because it kept me from giving up
because oh I missed that time again. I miss that
time again, and that could go on for weeks until
it just I just gave up completely, right of like man,
every single night when I'm putting the kids to bed,
it never crosses my mind to pick up toys before
they go to bed whatever. Not that my kids have
(24:52):
toys anymore, but you know what I mean, back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, back in the day. Yeah, yeah, okay, wonderful. Yeah. Well,
I think there's something so freeing about realizing that routines
don't always have to happen at the same time every day.
And sometimes I tell people at this show, you know,
morning routines are morning can be a state of mind.
Sometimes your morning routine is more of a morning checklist,
and the morning checklist may happen over the course of
(25:15):
the day if your life is a certain way, and
that's totally fine too. So Dana, what's something you've done
recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well, let me think. I put on my calendar, which
is funny because my best friend is my assistant as well,
and I just texted her the other day I said, Hey,
did you notice that two months ago I put on
the calendar that we're going to do our Christmas shopping tomorrow?
(25:46):
And she was like, She's like, yeah, I saw, I
put it on my calendar too. I was like, Okay,
good things. And I think it's that scheduling in, you know,
like this is we're talking I'm not sure when this
is coming out, but we're talking in December. And it
gets bananas, especially when your content is about decluttering, because
decluttering time is really really strong, you know, in January.
(26:08):
And so I schedule in my fun things and I'm like,
she and I go Christmas shopping every year, and if
I don't get it on the calendar. And I did
that as I was, you know, coming up with times
and dates where I could do podcast interviews and things
about the new book, and I'm like, Okay, this is
as important, if not more important, than all the other things,
(26:28):
because if I don't have that, then it feels like
what am I doing all the rest of this stuff for?
You know, if I'm not able to do the things
that bring me peace and joy and happiness and all.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That, way to get it on the calendar. Yeah, putting
things on the calendar is generally a good way for
making them happen, exactly exactly. So, Dana, where can people
find you?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You can find me at aslabcomesclean dot com that has
links to all my YouTube and podcasts, and I have
decluttering coaches noil who are certified by me and all that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So yep, that sounds awesome. Well, Dana, thank you so
much for joining us, and thank you to everyone for
listening to one of these longer episodes. If you have
feedback from me about this episode or any other, you
can email me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(27:30):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(27:54):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
Show Links
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