109. 10-Minute Task: The One Thing

I know many of you are struggling to get your home organized. Sometimes it's just starting with one thing... And I know that's easier said than done. That's why, in today's 10-minute task, we're going to get specific on one item that could alter your entire view on what is considered necessary and what is not. 

Transcript

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Sometimes you don't know what you need until you get rid of the one thing that you know that you don't need. For instance, I just got rid of my toaster last week. Does that mean I don't like toast? No. Does it mean that I never have a loaf of bread that I don't look at from time to time and say, you know what? It would be nice to have a piece of toast. Sometimes there may even be the thought of, let's get some of those waffles in the freezer section. We can pop them in the toaster. Easy peasy. But the one thing that I had to keep in mind after I moved, and unfortunately, I didn't have this epiphany before I moved, but I did on other things. So it all balanced out. But once I was in the new place and I put the toaster on the counter, it just looked different than it did in the old place. And I think part of it was because I also had a different routine at the old house. What I was eating in the morning consisted of gluten-free toast. And it was probably a combination of the fact that I got tired of eating that every morning. Sometimes I would get the gluten-free bread and it would be in the freezer. And for whatever reason, it would get freezer burn on it sometimes and not others. I adjusted my freezer settings. I moved it around in different spots. It was completely hit or miss. And when it came down to it, out of everything that I have in my kitchen, my toaster was probably the least expensive as far as the appliances and really the lowest priority in terms of what I went to every day and what I cared about. So for instance, my coffee maker. Coffee maker can't do without. I've even taken it on vacation before. I love my coffee maker. Recently I got little wheels that go on the bottom of it. So now I can actually slide it around the counter a lot easier. So if you're actually purchasing accessories for one of your appliances, you know you love it. Or you know that you're going to use it a lot, or you see a future with it where you're doing various things with it. Some people feel this way about their coffee makers in terms of different frothers, maybe they're upgrading. Maybe there is an organizer for their coffee pods that they're excited to get. You tend to gravitate towards kind of elevating the appliances you know you're going to use. Something that you paid a lot of money for may be something that you love. It may be something that once you get it, you're like, I overpaid for this, or I don't like it, or I don't really use it, or it sounded like a good idea at the time. I always tell people if you spend a lot of money on something and you don't like it, try to return it right away. If you can't return it, maybe it's past the 30-day window, maybe there's a policy, maybe you got it as is, maybe it's just something that you don't have the receipt for anymore, and it's just not going to happen. I suggest trying to get rid of it right away. Either you put it on a marketplace, eBay, even if you have to go donate it, sometimes that peace of mind is gonna be a lot better than you sitting and looking at a mistake that you made. So I want to bring back the point that I've mentioned a number of times, the answer is always less. And that's also gonna be my book that's coming out next summer. Really excited about that. The answer is always less. So if you're not sure about something, if you're trying to get organized, the answer is less. So if you're like, I'm not really sure if I like that, the answer is it's gone. Okay, the less you have equals the more organized you have the potential of being. So if you're sitting there and you're like, I just cannot get organized. I bought all of these organizers, I've got totes, I've got baskets, I've got file folders. The more that you can get rid of, the better. Because you'll start realizing that the number of organizers that you have usually are less than what you need to get truly organized. So back to my point about getting rid of something that you know that you don't need in order to get something you know that you need. I finally got rid of this toaster. I'm like, okay, it's probably a $30 toaster. I've had it for about, I don't know, three or four years. It's fine, it still works. Um, you can never truly clean a toaster, and that always bugs me. Even if you pull out the little drawer and you clean that part out, there's just something about a toaster that you just cannot get it completely clean. And you almost feel like you have to replace it just to get a good clean toaster. But this toaster I wasn't really excited about. My last toaster was great, it was perfect. It was a great little toaster, and I think that's why I actually got more excited to use it and I started buying the bread again to make the toast in the morning. And then I got to a point where it got smashed or something happened. I can't remember exactly what happened, but it really wasn't working as well or it malfunctioned. Something happened. And I thought, it's okay, I'll just buy another one. And I got rid of that one and they quit making that model. And then I just settled on this one. And trust me, from time to time, I'm thinking I can make some toast. I gotta go buy the bread though. Um, but once I buy the bread, I'll make the toast, I'll start eating toast again. And when we moved from point A to B about six weeks ago, I brought the frozen bread with me. So I brought the toaster, you know, put the frozen bread in a cooler with everything else I was bringing, brought it over in six weeks. Actually, a week ago was about five weeks. So in five weeks, I did not make toast once. And then when I went to look at the bread, I'm like, I don't even really know how long it sat at the other place, even though it was in the freezer, and even though I'm really, really good about throwing away stuff, I was just kind of like, eh, I probably haven't reached for it because I was kind of unsure about the bread. I kind of have a new breakfast routine that doesn't include using the toaster, which is fine. You know, it's not like I have to, right? And it's not like we have guests over that often. We don't have house guests that stay over that say, I may want a piece of toast in the morning. Occasionally, my mom will come into town and stay with us. But I watched the toaster in its new spot and I didn't like it. And I moved it around the kitchen, still didn't like it, put it underneath in a cabinet, and I was like, Well, I don't like that it's down there. If I need to use it, I don't I don't want to pull it back up on the counter and plug it in. Like the whole thing just bothered me. So I made a decision. I thought, okay, I'm not happy with it. I'm not using it. If I need to replace it, I'll probably get a slightly better one. So I may be paying, you know, $50 instead of $30. But do I really need a piece of toast that bad? There have been times where I've gone to breakfast places and I'm like, you know what sounds good, a piece of toast. So there comes a point where it's like, do I really need to own this item? Now, if you're married to someone who has toast every morning, please do not get rid of their toaster without speaking to them. But if you're sitting there and you're like, I'm the only one who ate toast to begin with. My husband doesn't eat toast, my kids don't eat toast. We never toast anything, you know, and maybe you have a different, more advanced kind of toaster, you know, or maybe you just make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And, you know, or maybe you make grilled cheese sandwiches in the skillet. I tend to do that more often than I use the toaster. And you know what? I'm sorry, toast companies, you're probably hating me, right? You're like, you're doing a bad job of promoting toasters. But I'm not here to promote toasters. I'm here to promote sanity and organizing and minimalism. And I don't expect all of you to become minimalist, especially not overnight. But if you want to do it eventually, just keep listening to the podcast because I do bring it up from time to time, because that's how I try to live. And I say try because moving to this new space, the square footage didn't change that much, but the setup changed, the layout changed. And so I'm still trying to figure out do I really need certain things? Because they're not really working well in our new space. And sometimes you just go through seasons where you're like, I don't want to do that, I don't want to eat that, I don't need that. So it's been about 10 minutes I've been talking about this toaster. Your 10-minute task today is finding the one thing in your house that you know that you don't need to make space for something that you will need. Now, when I got rid of the toaster, I had a couple of ideas. I'm like, you know, at the last place I had more drawer space, so I had drawer organizers, and that's where I put like my bigger kitchen utensil items, like the spatula. And now I don't have as much drawer space. But now I may get an actual utensil holder that would actually felt well in that space. I have a couple of other decorative items that didn't really have a place at the old house that they could probably fit there, but I'm not quite sure yet. The one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to get rid of something and then immediately put something else there just because you're trying to fill the space. I know plenty of people that do this. They can't stand to have an open space. Your house can have some open spaces from time to time. And those of you who think that I'm gonna be that I'm crazy for saying this, you're gonna think I'm new age and you know, I'm just talking nonsense. Sometimes the space will tell you what it needs. Okay. I've got an empty space beside my bed right now at the old house. Part of my desk took up that place. Now it's a different layout. Now I have space where I could put an oversized chair, a reading chair. And that's kind of what I'm thinking. But then there are other times I have to do auditions and I need a blank wall. So right now I've got my tripod in that corner. And so for some people, you may say, well, you know, you can't keep a tripod there. But then if I put an oversized chair there, I'm gonna have to pull it away from the wall every time I have an audition, every time I want space to put down my yoga mat and stretch. So sometimes you just kind of have to let the space be and just get used to having open spaces. You don't have to fill every spot on every wall, you don't have to have furniture in every open spot on the floor. Sometimes you need more room to move and you don't know it until you actually get rid of that item. So your 10-minute task today is to find the one thing that you don't need anymore to make space for something that you may need later. I don't care where it is. I don't care if it's in your kitchen, in your bedroom, in your bathroom. It can be big, it can be small. If you feel more comfortable starting small, like maybe there's a little canister that holds your cotton balls in your bathroom. And maybe you keep a lot of your cotton balls in a Ziploc bag in your closet or in a bag, like in your gym bag or something. Maybe you have a specific spot and you're like, I really don't use this canister anymore. Maybe there's something you used to use, now you don't use it. Try to pay attention to what season of life you're in, what your goals are. If you just moved and you're like, I just don't think this works for us anymore. Try to pay attention to that gut instinct because once you really focus in on something and you're like, I just don't know what to do with that. Sometimes it means getting rid of it to create space for something new, especially if you are entering a new phase or you're trying to accomplish some new goals. I hope this episode was helpful. Please make sure to subscribe to the bonus content. The minimum contribution is only $3 a month. And if you are moving in the next two to six weeks, you gotta join our moving series. The first episode is in the regular podcast. It is free. Episodes two and three are already in the bonus content. We're getting ready to do episode four next weekend, and then episode five is gonna be in two weeks. All right, you guys, I will see you in the next episode.