067. Breaking the Clutter-Shame Cycle: Three Mindset Shifts for Calm & Confidence

Ever glance at a messy countertop and feel that pang of I should have it together by now?  You’re not alone—and you’re not broken. In this episode, professional organizer Zee Siman unpacks the science of “clutter shame” and shares three simple mindset shifts (plus a five-word mantra) that turn self-criticism into self-compassion — so you can clear space and breathe easier.

You’ll learn:

🌟 The Curator overtakes The Judge – how one tiny mental swap boosts motivation instead of guilt

🌟 Progress Over Perfection – why 5-minute micro-wins can be as good as a picture-perfect pantry

🌟 Self-Talk equals Kid-Talk – the language trick that ends the harsh inner monologue

🌟 The 2×5 Daily Tidy formula for stress-proof maintenance

🌟 Zee’s 5-word mindset mantra you can post by the door

Links & Resources

• Free Kitchen Declutter Weekend Workshop wait-list → https://fireflybridge.com/update
• Full archive & transcripts → https://fireflybridge.com/podcast

If this episode helped dial down your clutter anxiety, tap ★★★★★ in Apple Podcasts—it helps other busy moms swap shame for calm.

Get on the wait list for my FREE class: 3 Steps to Painlessly Declutter your Kitchen in just a Weekend! This is how you get no-cry mornings and calm evenings in your kitchen. And I'll show you how you can do it in just a weekend without overwhelm and without getting stuck. And, of course, you'll learn how to make sure the clutter doesn't come back with minimal effort. Go to https://fireflybridge.com/update and get on the wait list!

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

Have you ever looked at a messy countertop and felt a knot of guilt in your stomach, followed by that little voice that says, ‘Why can’t I keep it together?’
Well. today we’re sending that voice on permanent vacation.
I want to chat with you about clutter-shame, why it spikes anxiety, three mindset shifts, and a five-word mantra that’s been helpful for me. And all this is going to let you declutter and tidy with self-compassion instead of self-blame.
Hey, welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living, the podcast for working moms and entrepreneur moms that provides sustainable organizing tips for your home, work and life.
I’m Zee Siman, Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant, and I’m here to share simple ideas that don’t take a lot of time so you can love your home, excel at work, and have the time to enjoy both without stress or overwhelm. 
Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen!
Today’s episode ties into Pillar 5 of Beautiful Living, Thrive Daily. Because a calm home nurtures a calm mind, yeah? But the road there should never be paved with shame.
No way. You’re living in whatever phase of your life that you’re in, and maybe that means you’re dealing with young kids. Maybe you’re adjusting to having aging parents who need more of your time and your energy and presence. Maybe you’re starting a new job, a new business, a new endeavor that’s filling you with anxiety, uncertainty and excitement. And all that affects how you deal with your home, with your daily life at home.
These things are all going on for you right now, right? They’re important. You need to take care of that.
So then what we want is for your home to support you in all of those responsibilities that you have, instead of you feeling ashamed that you can’t get it together.
If you ask any professional organizer out there, and pro organizers, if you’re listening, leave a review and tell us if this is true, but I will bet that any professional organizer will tell you that there is something in their house that recently sent them into a spiral. Right?
For me, it was cereal. I remember it as the cereal avalanche. It was really early one morning, my husband was traveling, I was getting the kids ready for school and there was someplace I needed to be really early, too, so I was in a hurry. I opened up the cabinet to grab the cereal, and there were containers on top of containers, cereal boxes were jammed into whatever tiny spot in that cabinet that they would fit, so much so that you know how the tops of the boxes, they flattened, they get squished together?  That’s how it was.
So I just want the Cheerios box out. And I’m in a hurry, so I don’t want to deal with taking a bunch of other stuff out, and then have to put it back in because I needed the countertop to pack the lunches.
So I see a tip of the yellow box, I grab it and I pull. I yank on it. Hard. And the box finally gives. It comes out flying, it rips open, the bag inside was open, and Cheerios go flying everywhere onto the kitchen floor, the kitchen island behind me, under the kitchen table. Everywhere.
And the feeling I felt was…despair. Why hadn’t I kept that cabinet from getting so cluttered? What was I going to do now? Other moms don’t live like this. My kids’ classmates’ moms have it together. Their cereal cabinets weren’t jam-packed with junk! No one lets this happen, except for me, and on and on my thoughts went. 
I was in such a hurry, but I couldn’t just leave the cereal all over the floor all day! And the kids and I would have to step all over it, and it would crush and make a bigger mess.
It was a self-shaming soundtrack. I vacuumed up the mess and I was tearing up because I was frustrated at myself! This wouldn’t have happened if only…if only…if only!
Well, look. My mess and my mindset needed a reset.
I was feeling clutter-shame.
What is clutter shame? Well, it’s an anxious, self-critical response to visible disorder. To clutter. To stuff that you can see that’s a mess.
Oh, self criticism! Who hasn’t been there! 
And you know how in school and in our careers, we’re told that constructive criticism can help us be better, do better work, achieve more.
So we end up believing that criticising ourselves will do that. Being self-critical will surely keep us ahead of the game.
We’ll address any shortfalls and any mistakes before anyone else can, so we’ll actually be better!
Only, self criticism can quickly turn into shame. It’s a real slippery slope, isn’t it?
And shame does not  lead to consistently doing better. Shame does not equal motivation. Instead, it creates avoidance. 
I knew that my kitchen cabinets were cluttered. And you bet I was going to make sure no one saw my cabinets like that! I didn’t want anyone to know how I was living in my kitchen because I thought people would see it as a reflection of me, of who I was! So I closed that cereal cabinet and tried my hardest not to think about it! 

It was easier for me to make something else for breakfast than deal with that mess in there, and not seeing that mess behind closed doors meant that I could forget about it for a while.

So let’s look at the three Mindset Reframes that we should try to have in order to break the clutter-shame cycle, and create more confidence in ourselves and in our situations.

OK to make this easy to follow, for each reframe I’m suggesting, I’m going to first tell you what the reframe is. So I’ll tell you what you’re replacing. The old thought, and the upgraded thought. And then, I’ll tell you how you can practice each of these 3 mindset reframes. OK?

All right. 

The first Reframe is that the Curator overtakes the Judge.
The Curator overtakes the Judge.

So the old thought is a judgy thought that you have, something like, “I’m failing at this. Just look at this mess.”

And the upgraded thought you’re going to replace it with is, “I’m a curator, deciding what earns a place in my life right now.”

Notice the difference, right? First of all, you do need to pay attention to your thoughts and recognize them for what they are. I mean, we all do, not just you. But notice and recognize what you’re saying to yourself, about yourself. 

Are you being a judge instead of a curator? Are you being judgy?

Are you saying things to yourself like, “Those moms don’t live like this. Those moms are all put together when they leave the house. They’re not yelling at their kids to hurry every morning. They’re not sleep-deprived. They’re not whatever, whatever, but I am. I’m lazy. I don’t deserve to spend some money on a babysitter or a day camp so I can have time to declutter my kitchen cabinets. I don’t deserve to hire an organizer to help me with the decluttering so I can start fresh and learn how to maintain my space more easily.”

Anytime that you notice these types of thoughts, these judgy thoughts, replace them. Upgrade them.

“I’m a curator, and I’m deciding that I will hire a babysitter every day this week. I’m deciding to hire an organizer for a day to help me get a handle on my pantry, to start fresh, and to give me ideas for how to maintain my pantry so it doesn’t become like this again. I’m deciding to stop comparing myself with those other moms, and instead focus on what I’m grateful for in my life right now! The time with my family, my parents, my spouse. I’m choosing what snacks to keep in my pantry, I’m choosing to keep an eye on the shelves, and not allow stuff to be stacked on top of the cereal! I’m choosing to keep less in my pantry so everything in there is what we actually use, and we can get stuff out easily all the time.”

That’s how the Curator overtakes the Judge!

And when you get good at this, at being the curator and not the judge, you’ll find motivation. It’ll come from taking control and being a decision-maker instead of seeing things as if they’re happening to you.

I know it’s hard to not compare ourselves to others. I mean, it’s human nature. You see a mom acquaintance at camp drop-off and she’s fresh from the gym, you get a glimpse of the inside of her car and it’s clean, not a sippy cup or stray Cheerio on the seat anywhere. Yeah! It’s hard not to say to yourself, man! Look at the sad state of my car! That Amazon return has been on the floor of the passenger seat for almost a week! 

So recognize those thoughts for what they are: You’re being judgy! And once you recognize it, then commit to being a curator. When you start deciding what you want to keep in your life, and what you want to let go of, whether that’s the stuff in your kitchen, the activities on your schedule, or the thoughts in your mind, you’re going to feel more confident, more in control. 

Try it. The Quick Practice I want you to try is to pretend you’re building a museum called “Life Right Now.” ok? So items that support that exhibit? Your Life Right Now? They stay. Items that don’t support the exhibit, they exit, guilt-free.

The second Reframe is Progress over Perfection.
I think we all know this logically. But we fall prey to the perfection monster sometimes, right?

So the old thought might be “If I can’t finish the whole garage, why even start?”

But the upgraded thought would be something like, “Five minutes of progress beats zero minutes of dread.”

You’ll find lots of examples of this everywhere. Sayings like, “Just start.” “Just Do It.” “Do a little bit each day.” “1% better.”

And the reason is that it can work. Look, if you have guidance and support, I have no doubt that you could declutter your entire house really, really fast, right? An organizer is telling you what to do, or helping you to actually do it. What could be better?

But when that organizer leaves, you still have to maintain your space. When you allow your pantry cabinet to become like my cereal cabinet - packed tight, and you can’t get anything out without ripping the cereal box and showering Cheerios everywhere - well, that’s just overwhelming. But doing something is always better than doing nothing.

I think that when we do something, we see a tiny change, right? I put one pair of shoes away. That’s one less pair of shoes cluttering up the entryway.

That means instead of having to make a decision about where 50 pairs of shoes need to go, I not only have to make a decision about 49 pairs! 

OK, that’s still overwhelming, but making decisions is a skill that you have to practice! If you’re hanging on to only doing a big Spring and a Fall decluttering, you’re only making decisions on your belongings twice a year. That’s a whole lot of decisions to make at once, and it’s no wonder that you would feel overwhelmed by it.

And then, add to that the common perception that our spaces need to look and function perfectly the first time we decide to declutter and organize, well it’s no wonder that we get paralyzed, right? And we say, ah! Forget it! I can’t do it! It’s too much!

So continual progress, consistently making decisions about your things, big and small, but making these decisions consistently will mean that you’re going to get good at making these decisions, and so decision-making will ultimately get faster and simpler for you.

But you’ve got to do something. Make progress, no matter how tiny. That’s how you start.

So the Quick Practice I want you to try for this Reframe is to do a Daily 2x5 Tidy. I talked about this on the last episode, episode 66 about how to be company-ready in 10 minutes. 

Essentially, a Daily 2x5 tidy is 2 times a day, do a quick 5-minute tidy. Like, I like after breakfast and after dinner. Get the family involved. But do that every day. Choose the spots you want to assign to each person, and set a timer for just 5 minutes. Tell everyone specifically what you want them to do for those 5 minutes, like match your pairs of shoes, and take as many as you can to the shelves in your closet in these 5 minutes. Or for yourself, it might be to match food containers with their lids for 5 minutes, and if you see one that’s cracked, stained, or just not usable anymore, you toss it right away. When the timer goes off, you can stop. No pressure, no guilt. And you’ve made progress. You might still not be done with all the food containers! But that’s ok. You can let it go, come back to it tomorrow during the next 2x5 Tidy and continue.

But just making a little progress, we want that to deliver a dose of dopamine to your brain. Ultimately, you want that to lead to more little doses by continuing every day, short bursts of tidying, making progress. It’s training your brain that progress is good, no matter how small the progress. 

It could lead to you feeling good about extending the 5 minutes to 15 minutes, maybe.

The challenge you’ll face, of course, is that you’re probably getting bigger dopamine hits when you scroll on your phone, looking at other people’s perfect pantries and garages. So recognize that. Be aware of that, and make a point of looking at your own 5 minute Tidy as “progress made!”

And the third Reframe is Self Talk equals Kid Talk.
Self talk equals kid talk.

Let me explain this.

So your old thought could be, like we already mentioned, “I’m lazy. This is hopeless”

And the upgraded thought is, “Would I say that to my child? If not, I need to rephrase that!”

So when you’re facing the Laundry Sofa - you have one of those, right? The sofa where clean laundry waits to be folded, but it doesn’t actually ever all get folded, so there’s always a pile there? And when someone in your house is looking for that blue t-shirt, you tell them to go look on the Laundry Sofa?”
Yeah well, instead of labeling yourself lazy for having a Laundry Soda, or labeling your partner ungrateful for not helping you, swap the label for a fact: “I’m tired and I need help.” 

Then recruit that help! It’s late-night folding time with your partner while watching your favorite show. Or folding time with the kids on Saturday afternoon. Or, hiring someone who’s looking to make a little extra money on the weekends just to come to your house for an hour or two on Saturday to fold and put away the laundry!

Or, you can shrink the task. So instead of continuing to pile clean laundry onto that pile, you make a full-stop. You don’t do more laundry until this pile is folded and put away, and while you’re folding, you’re taking a really good look at what you can get rid of, because let me tell you that owning fewer clothes makes your laundry sessions so much shorter, that you could likely actually complete a full load in a day, instead of having it pile up on the Laundry Sofa!

And so, swapping the label you’re putting on yourself for a fact is showing yourself some compassion. And compassion unlocks energy for you to do things. When you recognize you’re tired, not lazy, you’re more energized to get help, instead of shaming yourself for not getting something done, right?

Now the 5-word mantra that has helped me to stay positive, to stay in the right mindset is this:

Mess is Momentary. I choose.
Mess is Momentary. I choose.

I choose where I start. I choose how long I tidy for. I choose what I want in my life right now, and whatever doesn’t fit in my life, I choose to let it go. Mess will come and go depending on the stage of life that you’re in! We won’t always have a pantry cabinet chock full of Cheerios and Oreos and Goldfish crackers and nuts and dried cranberries and all the snacks! This is momentary. What I can do right now is spend 5 minutes to choose one thing I want to keep in my life from that cabinet, and one thing from the cabinet that I choose to show the exit - without guilt!

So Mess is Momentary. I choose. I also choose how that mess is making me feel. I choose to label myself as a messy person, as a mom who yells, as a lazy mom, or I recognize the facts that it’s a busy season with little kids, too many activities, too much stuff in my house to keep track of and take care of, and I choose to recruit help, get rid of the excess and simplify so I can become the mom I choose to be.

If this helps you, write that mantra on a post-it note, and stick it near your entryway drop zone, ok?

That way you’ll see it every day when you come home, and every day as you leave your house. Let it sink in.

OK so a quick recap of the Three Mindset Reframes to break the clutter-shame cycle:

The first is that The Curator overtakes the Judge.
Instead of judging yourself, choose to be a curator and decide what earns a place in your life right now.

The second is Progress over Perfection.
Five minutes of progress beats zero minutes of dread anytime, so do something, anything, in a space that you dread to make a little progress for just 5 minutes, and do the Daily 2x5 Tidies.

And the third is Self talk equals kid talk. 
If you wouldn’t say it to your child, don’t say it to yourself! Instead, rephrase the thought. “I’m not a mom who yells every morning. I have too many responsibilities to do before we all leave the house, and I either need to recruit help, or I need to shrink my responsibilities.” Compassion for yourself unlocks your energy to take action.

And finally, don’t forget the 5-word mantra that can help you to be more positive and stay in the right mindset:
Mess is Momentary. I choose.

Look, your home should cheer you on. It should never ever shame you.

We’ve talked about recognizing our thoughts today, and that’s so important. I don’t think we do that enough in the rush of our daily lives.

But let’s recognize that this whole episode has been about our mindset, about the way that we think, the self-talk we have. 

So sure, decluttering is important, having a step 1, step 2, step 3 to declutter. Being organized is important, but we also want to thrive every day. Having a picture-perfect house at one moment in time is great! It makes us feel good! It’s that dopamine hit that we love!

It’s like the day after we’ve cleaned the whole house, or the cleaning service has cleaned the whole house. It looks great, smells great, there’s no hairballs on the floor, no cheerios under the table - for a minute.

And then what happens? The cereal avalanche.

So unless our mindset supports us, provides us with compassion and understanding, we won’t thrive in our homes because the mess, it comes back! It’s momentary, but it comes back.

That’s why these 3 mindset reframes are really important, and I hope you’ll give them a try, ok?

Thanks for being here today. I really appreciate you following along so that you can Organize for Beautiful Living, too.

Don’t forget you can still join the waitlist for my free class, 3 simple steps to declutter your kitchen in just a weekend. Go to fireflybridge.com/update. That link is in the show notes for you.
Have a great week! I’m Zee, and I’ll see you on the next episode.