115. 10-Minute Task: This or That

Sometimes you look at a pile of items and try to figure out what you're going to keep, and what you're going to give away. For today's 10-minute task, you're going to do something new: Choose A or B. Once you get the hang of it, you'll find yourself making quicker - BETTER - decisions on the fly. For now, let's just focus on just two things though: listening to this episode, and... choosing between two things. [Smiley face lol]

Transcript

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For today's 10-minute task, I want to make things really simple. I want you to play a game of this or that. And you're like, okay, what is that? You know how in the last episode where I talked about the baddie bag, and actually that was two episodes ago. I apologize. I talked about how if you spread out everything from a goodie bag, and if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend you listening to that first. And then coming back to this one, if you spread out everything in your goodie bag, then it doesn't just become one big gift, even if it's cheap, even if it's free stuff. You actually can look at each individual thing, and you can choose to keep some of it right away. You can choose to immediately discard something, but you're basically playing a game of this or that. Do I want to keep this? Do I want to get rid of that? But what we're going to do in the 10-minute task is very, very specific. You're literally going to do an A or a B. This isn't about, okay, I have a group of things and what do I want to keep? What do I want to get rid of? This is literally picking two items in your house and saying which do I like better? Now, this works really well with like items. So think about what you have in your home that you have multiples of, and it can be in any room and it can be in any category. But I'm thinking of some examples like coffee mugs, free plastic cups. Okay. I've talked about this in other episodes where a lot of you will get a free cup from an event, or maybe you go to the fair and you buy a drink and it has like a souvenir cup. Maybe you go to the movies. My son has gotten some souvenir cups from like the Super Mario movies, uh, Sonic, stuff like that. Now, he only has two or three collector's cups, and they come with like the collector's popcorn buckets, and he really likes them and they weren't cheap. So I'm gonna hold on to them. He wants to hold on to them. That's fine. We're not gonna make decisions like that. I'm talking about the free cups that your dentist office gives out. I'm talking about these cups that maybe you got in high school 30 years ago. And when you were in college, you threw them in your cabinet and you used them. And then when you got married, you kind of pushed them to the back, like, okay, we'll just use these when we have a party. And they go even further to the back. And you're like, okay, now we're gonna use them in the RV. Now we're gonna use them when we go sit on the balcony. And then at some point, you've got these cups that have maybe writing on the outside from a dentist that you went to in high school, and the number to their practice is on there, but there's only two numbers left. Everything else has worn away, and the cups are cracking, or you know, you cut your lip because the plastic pieces were so cheap that you know now the rim is is fraying, you know, stuff like that. Coffee mugs. Again, some of you have so many coffee mugs, you would think you invite 30 or 40 people over for coffee every Friday. So those are some examples. Shoes, purses, accessories, hair ties. Okay. The reason I'm telling you to do this is because if all of a sudden you grab a picture frame and a tripod, you're gonna be like, well, I don't know. I like them both. I don't really know which one I like better. I mean, I need the picture frame because I have a picture that I want to display, but then I need the tripod to record my cooking videos. You know, so you can't really compare apples to oranges. You really need to compare coconuts to coconuts. So your 10-minute task is to go find a category of items that have kind of taken over the area. Okay. So, like I said in the kitchen, it could be coffee mugs. It could actually be utensils, like cooking utensils. Maybe you have like three ladles, and maybe you have like five or six big spoons, maybe you have two or three pasta spoons. I literally want you to lay them side by side and say, which do I like better? And that's it. And whatever one you pick, I want you to put it aside and that becomes your front runner. Now, if you are someone that cooks a lot and you have to have a certain amount of utensils for certain recipes and you know this, you don't have to play the game with that. Okay. Much like how we talked about the makeup bag. If you're somebody that's a makeup artist, you may not want to follow my advice as far as having a very, very small makeup bag that is smaller than your head. Okay. But if you're someone that never cooks and you have all of the stuff that you got, either from when you got married, maybe you went through a cooking kick where all of a sudden you went to William Sonoma and you got some stuff and it's just sitting there. Again, you could have been gifted something and you're like, I know I'm never gonna use these, but my mother-in-law is gonna come over and she's gonna ask where they are. Sometimes, sometimes you can get brave enough to go back to the person who gave you the gift and say, Listen, I've had these for a couple years now. They're gorgeous, or you know, they're really good quality, or whatever the adjective is. And then you say, before I give these to someone else, or before I sell these, do you want them back? Because you were the one that bought them for me. So I assume that you like them as well. Because if you really don't cook and someone gives you cooking items, there's a really good chance that they went and bought them because they got excited about them. And then they gave them to you as a gift. And now they have the opportunity, as long as they can humble themselves and say, you know what, I really did like that. I I'll find just something else. Let me have that back. Now, that is a perfect world. Uh, I'm not saying that that happens. I'm not saying that it happens frequently. What I'm saying is, for me, I'm at a place in life and enough people in my family, whether they listen to this podcast or they've just heard me talking at a family event, people know that I do not like to be given physical gifts. Now, if they find something super cute that they want to buy, maybe they're traveling. My mom went to Rome a couple of years ago and brought back a few things. And she said, I have a few things I brought back and I'd like for you to have one of them. So I picked out my favorite item out of the three. Now, when I went back to Indiana this last time, I took that item back to her because I had it for two years. I didn't really use it. It was cute, but as I was going through things, I'm like, okay, I don't want this, but I don't want to donate it because my mom got it in Rome. So it's not like she can just turn around and order it from Amazon. If I say, oopsie, like I donated it, you know. So I took it back to her and I said, Hey, I appreciate you bringing this back and offering it to me. I have not used it in two years, and you know I'm trying to run a really lean ship. So I wanted to make sure I brought it back to you. And that way you have, and she's like, Oh, okay. And if someone gets upset about that, I really don't know what to tell you. I have gotten to a place with my family where I am definitely the outsider. Okay. I do things very, very different than everyone in my family. It's taken me a long time to get here, but my life is more peaceful because of it. I'm never disrespectful to family members. I'm never forceful with you should do this, you should do that. There are times that I offer my advice because every so often someone will say, Okay, do you like this over here? Or look at this pile, what would you do with it? But it's taken a long time to get there, to be honest. I had to get to a place where I could go to a family function. And if it's like Christmas or it's my birthday, and someone brings me a gift and I open it, of course I'm grateful. I live in the moment. I thank them. I take it home. And really, even if I don't like it, I do hold on to it for a little while because I really want to process that. Like I want to actually think about do I not like this because I'm really trying to do a this or that in the moment, like actively in the moment? Like, okay, I got two gifts today from family members. Do I like this or that? So I think that sometimes I make decisions too quickly. Now, if I'm at a store and I'm thinking I want to buy something, then I try to take a little bit longer before I actually purchase it. But if I need to go buy something, like if I'm like, hey, I have to buy a new shirt, I'm going to an event and we have to wear blue, you know. So it's like, okay, I'm on the hunt for a blue shirt. Then that's when I do the this or that, because it's like, okay, yeah, I could grab this blue shirt and be done shopping in 15 minutes, but I'm really not that crazy about it. So right after the event, I already know I'm not gonna wear it again. So then I go on another search. I say, okay, I'm gonna spend an extra 15, 20 minutes and go to a different store. And then I'm gonna play the this or that to determine, okay, is this something that I actually can use for the event and I'm gonna use it later? Or it's so inexpensive that after the event, I literally can go donate it. Like maybe you just need a blue t-shirt for a car wash. Maybe someone said, Hey, we're doing this fundraiser, show up in a blue shirt. Doesn't matter what shade of blue, we're gonna be washing cars, it can get dirty, whatever. And you go find like a three or four dollar blue t-shirt at Walmart. And then when you're done with it, you wash it, throw it in your donation bag, and you're like, okay, that was fun. Now somebody else can enjoy it because it's only been washed and worn once. There we go. I'm done. So back to the household, this or that. What you're gonna do is you're gonna find your category. You can go in the bathroom and you can pull out your makeup bag. You can do a this or that with your eyeshadows. You can say, okay, do I like this or that better? And for the guys, you can do brackets. And they're like, what? And it's like, we know that you guys like to do everything competitively. Like, look at it like, okay, I like this hammer better than that hammer. I'm gonna keep this hammer, and then that one is gonna get sold. Okay. I know that tools can be expensive. So if you're like, okay, I like this hammer better than this hammer, but that hammer that I don't like still cost me $30, then all of a sudden you can throw it up on marketplace for $10 or $15 or whatever you want. Try to do that as often as you can with shoes. If you have five pairs of tan sandals, then you don't have to look at it as, okay, I've got five pairs and I need to get it down to three. I literally want you to put two pairs side by side. Sometimes when you see the pair that's like your favorite pair and everything else compared against it, then it's noticeable. Then you're like, oh my gosh, nothing compares to my favorite pair of tan sandals, right? So sometimes you can go into a category and be like, okay, this is my favorite item of this category. It could be watches, it could be earrings, but you put the item down and you say, This is my favorite. This is the high standard, this is the gold standard. And we talked about high standards in an earlier episode, so go find it. Um, but put your favorite thing down, put the next closest thing to it, and then do it this or that. And I guarantee you your favorite item is gonna win. But there may be something that surprises you. Maybe there's something that you bought that you forgot about, and you're like, oh, this has been my favorite. But now that I see this side by side, this pair of shoes that I bought last year, I really haven't given them a shot. I really haven't worn them that much. And wow, my favorite shoes compared to that shoe looks kind of sad. And of course, you have different categories of shoes and all of that. But the goal here is to get you more comfortable with holding on to the things that you really, really like. And then that way you can actually make better decisions when you go to bring in new things. That way, when you're in a store, you're like, I really don't like that. Or if you're like, oh, I really like that, you put it in your car and you walk it around the store. That's a fun game that I like to play sometimes. Like, hey, I think I want to buy this. And then after maybe 20 minutes, the high wears off and I see something else I like better. And I'm like, well, that was fun, wasn't it? I'm gonna go put you back in your department. So you can make it a game. Your husband can make it a game, your kids can make it a game. It is really good for the younger kids because when they're looking at some of their toys that are almost exactly alike, maybe from season to season, there was something that was like the toy, and there was a newer version that came out year after year. And at some point, you're like, there's no way that you could play with eight of these at one time. And really, you only play with the newest ones anyway. But you can do a this or that, you can explain the whole concept of we want to try to get some of these toys to kids that don't have toys or stuffed animals to kids that have never even owned a stuffed animal. And if you start teaching your kids when you're young that, hey, there are kids out there that don't even have one of these and you have 15, then they're like, oh, that's sad. Now, I'm not saying they come to that conclusion right away, but a lot of kids, if you explain the fact that there's a child out there somewhere that doesn't have what they have, sometimes it teaches them early on some. Now, if it's their favorite item or something newer that they haven't had a chance to play with yet, don't be surprised when they're like, nope, that's mine. Sorry about that kid, you know, wherever they are, but this is my new toy. You know, we all expect that from young children. Okay. But if your teenager has 20 notebooks and he's only written in two of them, you can play this or that with notebooks or office supplies or video games or even movies if you still have DVDs, if you've got CDs, stuff like that. So I hope this episode was helpful. Please make sure to subscribe to the bonus content. The minimum contribution is only $3 a month. The next two episodes are going to be bonus episodes. So make sure you subscribe now so that you have access to both of those. Thank you all for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.