Ep. 162: Why You’re Still Stuck: 10 Clutter Struggles and the Mindset Holding You Back

Clutter isn’t just about stuff — it’s about how we think about our stuff. In this episode, I walk you through the 10 hidden clutter struggles I see over and over again in midlife moms, and the deeper mindset traps that keep us stuck in guilt, overwhelm, or indecision. You’ll learn how to spot your own clutter language and go deeper on the most common blocks so you can finally move forward — with clarity, confidence, and action.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Clutter and its Impact
• 0:56 Identifying Hidden Clutter Struggles
• 2:34 Introduction to Clutter Strategies
• 5:32 Understanding Clutter Types
• 11:37 Deep Dive into Mindset Shifts

Transcript

Well, hey, welcome to today's episode of the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast. I am so excited that you are here. And if you are here, it's likely because clutter is a language that you speak. It's because clutter is a struggle in your life, maybe just for a short time, maybe for decades. Know that you are not alone. More than 80 % of the women that I survey say that they have struggles with clutter. So friend,

know that you are not alone. I also know because you're here, you are ready to make progress. You're tired of it. Maybe your clutter strangles you. Maybe your clutter makes you feel shame. Maybe you avoid having people over because of the state of your home. Maybe you're frustrated with yourself that you've let it get this far. And maybe you're so tired of trying the latest clutter hack or the latest

clutter strategy because at the end of the day, they just don't work. Today's episode is going to be a game changer. If you've ever looked around your home and thought, why can't I just get it together? Maybe you've tried all the bins, the systems, the Marie Kondo thing, but nothing sticks. And so what if I told you the reason isn't your stuff, but your mindset about your stuff?

That's exactly what we're going to be unpacking today. And hey, if you know someone who needs to hear this episode, will you share it with her? You might have a friend, a sister, a loved one, a family member, someone who you know struggles with clutter. And if someone shared this episode with you, welcome. I'm so excited that you are here. Know that someone cares about you and know that this is a podcast where we unpack real life strategies that work.

for women of all ages, specifically midlife women. So most women think that clutter is just a stuff problem. But clutter is actually a thinking problem first. The way you think about your home, your time, your role, and your responsibilities, these are all at the root of why clutter hangs on and why it's so hard to break free from.

So again, in my new clutter type quiz, I identify 10 different clutter struggles, what I call clutter languages, and each one is linked to a unique mindset block. So today I'm gonna briefly walk you through all 10, and then we're gonna go deeper on three of the most common ones so that you can start shifting your mindset today. So let's unpack again real quickly the 10 clutter struggles. Now know that when this,

quiz is ready to release, know that we are going to have so much information for you to go much, much deeper on each one of these clutter types. But I want to unpack them here for you today because I really want you to start to really start being able to see which of these clutter struggles sounds like you. And it could be more than one and it likely is. And sometimes different clutter, different types of clutter have different reasons for the struggle. And that makes sense, right? Because

We have different mindsets at play here. We have different thoughts about different things. But let's jump into the 10 most common clutter struggles. Number one, the guilty keeper. This is if you feel bad about getting rid of anything, especially if it was a gift, maybe it's something that belonged to your kids, maybe it's something that cost a lot of money. This is the guilty keeper.

could be number two, the overwhelmed avoider. And this is where just thinking about decluttering, it sends you into full shutdown mode. You're stuck in, don't even know where to start mode. The third reason, the third kind of struggle is the sentimental saver. Boy, I resonate with this one. And I think a lot of times women in midlife do. But the sentimental saver, this is if you're someone who

who really sees everything that you have through the value or lens of meaning and really everything holds meaning. Baby clothes, grandma's dishes, and even old cards that you received in the mail. The sentimental saver. Number four, the all or nothing thinker. This is where you feel like if you can't do it perfectly or all at once, you shouldn't do it at all.

Now know that when it comes to all or nothing thinking, every single one of us, if you're human, your brain comes hardwired with this all or nothing, black or white, right or wrong, win or lose, done or not done, pass or fail kind of thinking. So know that all of us come wired in our brains this way. But specifically when it comes to clutter, this is really how you, where you get stuck when it comes to getting rid of your stuff. So the all or nothing thinker.

Clutter struggle number five, the fantasy future planner. You hang on to things just in case or maybe for the ideal version of yourself that you imagine, the person that you so want to become, the hobbies that you so want to start, the way that you so, the identity that you want to step into. The fantasy future planner, that's number five. Number six, the bargain hunter and saver. You love

finding deals and you hate waste. So you hold on to extras, duplicates and things you might need someday. The bargain hunter and saver. Don't get me wrong, I love a good bargain, but this is where being a bargain hunter and a saver can go wrong. And again, just really cause you problems when it comes to the stuff that you have. Clutter struggle number seven, the hidden piles and stashes.

So your home might look okay, but behind closed doors are bags and boxes and bins of postponed decisions. Let me say that again. It's not just the stuff, right? It's the postponed decisions. So you've got things hidden, you've got them hidden well, but you know they're there and it's driving you a little insane. So that's number seven.

Number eight, struggle number eight, the indecisive over thinker. You can't decide what to keep or toss. And you fear making the wrong choice so nothing gets done. And again, the wrong choice. Here's where that black or white, all or nothing thinking comes. The wrong choice. There's either a right or a wrong choice for each item. It's not, I just get to decide. And in reality, that's the way it is, right?

So often, even when we have to make a decision about something not related to clutter, we so often see every decision as there is a right possibility and there is a wrong possibility. And that can be so paralyzing. number eight, the indecisive over-thinker. Number nine, the aspiring perfectionist. You want a Pinterest perfect home, but you get paralyzed when it doesn't measure up. And for most of us, the reality is it's not going to measure up.

Let's not forget that when it comes to Pinterest and other social media that it's the highlight reel that you're singing, right? If you think about what you're looking at on Pinterest, it's staged, right? But still, that's what we hold ourselves. That's the standard. That's what we think is attainable, achievable, and will earn us that gold star. And if you tend to lean toward perfectionism, that gold star, man, that is such, that is what we're after, right?

So the aspiring perfectionist. Struggle number 10, the resentful rebellion. This is when you're sick of being the only one who cares. And that resentment keeps you from even trying. So now that you've heard them, which one or ones actually made you say, that's me? And what's interesting, when you listen to a list like this, a lot of times you'll hear one and you'll think, that's me. And then you hear the next one and you say,

but maybe that's me, right? And it's totally normal that there's little elements or fragments of truth, things that feel like truth in many of these. So again, don't worry if that's you. So take a second though to just kind of reflect, where did you say, hey, this is me? Because identifying your clutter struggle, it really is the first step to breaking free. But today, we're gonna spend a little bit of time here going a little bit further, a little bit deeper.

to really help you understand the mindset shift that needs to happen. So we're gonna talk about that mindset shift in terms of three of the most common struggles. So we're gonna be leaning deeply into the guilty keeper, the overwhelmed avoider, and the all or nothing thinker, okay? So number one, the guilty keeper. The mindset block that's at play here is thoughts like,

If I get rid of this, it means I'm ungrateful, or it means that I am wasteful, or it means that I am saying this doesn't have meaning, or the person who gave it to me or used to own it doesn't have meaning. That really is the mindset block, is that in order to get rid of it, I am saying this has no meaning or value. And

You get emotionally attached to your things. It's not necessarily because you want them, because you feel like you should want them. And so guilt is keeping you stuck because you don't feel that way. But you're such a bad person because you don't feel that way. So you just hang on to it. That really is what that mindset block looks like. So the mindset shift, what does that need to look like?

gratitude or being grateful for things or being thankful that things served a purpose for you or someone else for a time. It doesn't require keeping the object to agree and be able to define that something has meaning. It doesn't mean that you have to hang on to this stuff to agree that it has meaning. You can appreciate what something represents or here's the big one.

what something used to represent without continuing to store it forever. So here's an action step. If this, if you identify with the guilty keeper, pick one item today that you've been keeping out of guilt. Write out, I love writing things on paper. It just makes it more real. And I think really it helps break free from mindset blocks even more. It kind of gets to a deeper level of

pouring out and releasing, and that's what we need to do, right? We need to release the stuff. So write out or say out loud the purposes or the purpose that this one item once served, or maybe it's what you thought it would serve or hoped it would serve.

Be grateful for the memory, for the person, for the season, for the hope that it once brought, and then release it. That's your action step for the guilty keeper. The overwhelmed avoider, let's go a little bit deeper there. The mindset block here is, it's too much, I'll never catch up. You know, when we feel so deeply to our core discouraged, it is impossible, no matter what we're talking about.

It is impossible to make forward movement. As humans, again, we are wired to not walk into a fight that we can't win. It goes against everything in us to engage in something that feels like it is hopeless. And so it's too much. I'll never catch up. And so you shut down before you even start. And everything feels urgent and everything feels impossible all at the same time.

And so you do nothing. And the more and the more and the longer and the longer that the stuff piles up, the more and the more overwhelming it feels and the less and less likely that unless you really figure out what's actually going on here with what we're talking about here today and going even deeper, again, once we get our clutter resources ready for you, unless you really unravel and unpack what's in your mind first.

you're not going to be able to get rid of the stuff. So if that's what your mindset block looks like, the mindset shift that you need to have is this cliche that we say, but it's such a good one, right? Progress is better than perfection. It's so important to tell yourself and actually mean that you don't have to do it all. You just have to start. Small wins are what build

Real momentum. Let me say that again. Small wins build real momentum. Here's something else that I like to remind my coaching clients of. Everyone starts somewhere. Another related truth that I remind them of is everyone starts at the beginning. Everyone starts when it feels hard. Most things that we do, especially if it's something new, it feels uncertain. It feels hard.

It feels scary. Everybody feels these things. It's not just you, but we have to start. We have to take that first step in spite of those feelings, in spite of the uncertainty, in spite of all of the things we think we're going to have to sacrifice in order to do it. You have to start and remember again that small wins build real momentum.

Here's an action step for you if you are an overwhelmed avoider. I love 10 minutes. Now, we so easily dismiss 10 minutes. think about what can we actually get done in 10 minutes? I have mastered the art of 10 minutes. Anything more than 10 minutes pretty much feels like too much for me, or I'm gonna get distracted, I'm gonna get interrupted, I'm gonna have to do something for someone else. So 10 minutes, my truth has been if it isn't

something that I'm going to do in 10 minutes or less, it's not going to do. That has become my life's theme, I think. But set a timer for 10 minutes and walk into the clutter danger zone. Okay? You walk into the clutter danger zone and as you step into that room, step into that area, you start your timer and you just start. There is no thinking. Do not think. Do not ask yourself the question,

Where should I start? Or what makes the most sense to start with? Nope, not allowed. You just have to start. What do you trip over? What is your eye drawn to first? What feels easy? A lot of times, this could be trash, literally things that need to be thrown away. Or it could be one particular category of things, like clothing. I think about the things that often clutter my spaces, and they are. They're things like trash. My kids, I don't know why.

in their bedroom if they have wrappers or plastic or whatever it is. I don't know why they just throw it on the ground. They have so many places they could put it. I don't know. Maybe it's just a my kid thing. I'm not sure. I don't understand. I don't know that moms anywhere will ever understand why the clothing can't just be put in the dirty laundry basket or hamper. It's not that far away. Most of us have by default and because we know it needs to be this way, we have made it painfully easy for our kids.

to put stuff where they belong. Yet that can be hard. So when I think about when I walk into a space and I start thinking about decluttering it, I will a lot of times walk into the space and I will say, what does my eye see the most? And it could be clothing, it could be paper, it could be trash, it could be game pieces. If you can approach it that way, what looks like it's the most prevalent in this room?

But it's totally up to you. The rule though, is that you walk into the danger zone with your timer for 10 minutes and you start, you may not think. Literally bend down and start picking up stuff. Literally reach onto the top of the bookshelf and start reaching there. You may not think. It doesn't matter what makes sense. It doesn't matter what should be done first. What matters is it's the first thing you trip over. It's the first thing you see. It's

whatever your hand touches. That's for the overwhelmed avoider. So let's go a little bit deeper in the all or nothing thinker. So the mindset block here is, if I can't do it all, why bother at all?

I talk about things like this a lot. I talk about this concept a lot in this way too. talk especially on Instagram. And really, I talk about this with my coaching clients all throughout the week as well. For most of us, we have to accept the reality that we are going to have to work. If something is to get done, we're gonna have to work with the time we have, not with the time we think we need, not with the time we know we need.

Not with the time we wish we had, or I'll wait until I have more time. Ever said that one? And so this really is where the mindset block comes in. And so really, you're waiting for the perfect time, or a better time. You're waiting for the perfect plan, or a better plan, or a plan at all. You're waiting for the perfect energy, or what you feel is the right amount of energy. And what do we know to be true? We know.

that it never comes. And so the mindset shift here is, one of those cliches that we hear a lot, but it works. It's why we throw it around. It's why this is something you've already heard. It's because it works. And here it is. Done is better than perfect. I like to think about this in terms of delegation, too, when we delegate things to other people. Done is better than not done.

Because in reality, there's going to be plenty of times where if things stay on your list, there's always going to be something that is more urgent. And that could be 100 % truthful. Your list is simply too long. And so if we're trying to get more done, delegation is such a good answer. But a lot of times, that means that we're going to have to remind ourselves, look, I can pass this off to someone else, and I could have it done differently. I can maybe have it done not as well or not in the way in which I would

prefer it to be done, but any element of done is always going to be better than any element of not done. And again, if your clutter has been here for a long time, done is absolutely going to be better than perfect. Progress is better than perfection, right? So real life, really, in pretty much any way,

Pretty much in any capacity, real life does not work with all or nothing thinking. It's not going to allow for that. It's not going to align with all or nothing thinking. In reality, whether we're talking about your clutter or anything else, you're gonna have to start messy. And you're gonna have to allow yourself to refine as you go. And a lot of times, I'm sure that you can think back on an example of a time where you had to start

before you started to be able to figure it out. So often we think, I've got to figure this out first, or I've got to know in what order I'm going to do things, or I've got to have some sort of mental plan, or some sort of step-by-step process, and those are great. I teach them, I help my coaching clients with them all the time. But there is also a point where in certain contexts, we are going to have to start imperfectly and start messy so that we can start to say, okay, now what?

How is this working out? How am I doing? What if this is working? What if it isn't? We have to start getting some feedback sometimes to know how to do the thing that you've been waiting to start because you didn't know how to start the thing. So start messy and give yourself permission to refine as you go. So something that's gonna help with this action step, your action step here is really a concept that, again, I've been teaching for a long time and it's a strategy.

and I call it the time burst strategy. Basically, whenever you're gonna do something, you've kind of got two different ways in which, especially if it's gonna be a larger project, right? You're not gonna be able to do it in all one sitting. And for a lot of us, that's gonna, a lot of the things are gonna qualify here. So rather than thinking about which piece or part or step to do right now, we're not gonna try to identify any of that stuff. We're gonna think about

a time burst, a certain pocket of time that we are gonna work on the clutter in this example. So instead of saying, I'm gonna clean this particular shelf, you would say, I'm going to work for 20 minutes or whatever it might be. And we already know that 10 minutes, that's like my sweet spot. So that'd be a great place to start. But here's what makes, when we think about breaking things down into steps or a particular part or a particular area, what can make that hard?

is that we really don't know how long it's going to take for us to complete that part or to complete that step. And number one, we don't like not knowing how long the misery is going to last. And if you've got to work on your clutter, it can feel like misery, especially in the beginning. And so if I don't know how long this torture is going to last, I just don't feel equipped to do it. That's a lot of times floating around in our brains.

Another reason that it's hard to break it down by step or part is because how are you supposed to schedule or plan for the time that you need to, again, let me use the shelf as an example, how are you gonna know how to plan for the amount of time it's gonna take you to do that shelf if you don't, how long is it gonna take? How long is it gonna take for you to make every decision about everything that is on that shelf? There's often no way to quantify that. And so then,

Well, I don't know. Do I have enough time to work on this now? Well, I don't know because I don't really know how much time it's going to take me. So I'll just wait until I figure that out. Well, again, if you have a very clearly defined 20 minute pocket of time and I'm going to work on this shelf on the bookshelf for as long as I can, I'm going to get as much done as I can in this 20 minutes. Well, now we know exactly how to schedule it and we know exactly when the torture is going to end. And so I call that the time burst strategy. And I will say,

Personally and really I see this in my clients as well. I think that when we have something that's larger than what we have time to complete in anyone sitting I think in more than 50 % of the cases I approach it and Through my prompting my coaching clients approach it using a time-burst strategy rather than a particular step and that's not to say that you shouldn't break things down into steps you can but then again instead of completion being

When that step is completed, you can even take that step and say, I'm going to apply the time burst strategy to that. And I'm going to work on this particular step or this particular part for this particular amount of time. And then at the end of that time, I'll re-evaluate. Am I going to keep working? Am I going to it done? Because I have fulfilled the requirement. Another reason why time burst strategies are so effective is because it kind of gives us that closure. We don't like leaving things open-ended.

We don't like the feeling of incompleteness. And so if you have to leave the shelf in the middle because you just didn't have enough time, but again, in your mind, I'm going to work on this until I get done with this shelf, but I didn't know it was gonna take me more than 40 minutes. I don't have, I gotta go drive a kid to practice now. I don't have more time. So we leave in the middle and we don't have that sense of closure and suddenly we're frustrated.

But with a timer strategy, can see how you will always, provided you follow the timer, you will always be able to get that sense of closure. You will always be able to complete the job that you asked yourself to do. So the timer strategy is such a smart strategy. And I also teach the concept of rapid fire tasks to all of my coaching clients. So if you are familiar with rapid fire tasks, you know.

Rapid fire tasks are a great way to get things done. So here's what you need to know about today. Your clutter, it isn't a character flaw, and it's not laziness and it's not failure. It really is a signal that something deeper is going on. Once you understand your clutter struggle, you can stop spinning your wheels and start working with your mindset, not against it.

And we nearly have this clutter type quiz ready so that you can find out what clutter languages you speak. It's usually more than one. We should have it ready to go by next week's episode where I'm going to be sharing client clutter success stories with you. You, I promise, you will find yourself in the story of someone I tell you about next week. For this week, remember, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just stuck in a mindset that needs some understanding.

and some rewiring, and I can help you with this. So until we talk again, friend, you've got this. Let's make it an intentional day.