E32: How to Spring Clean Your Life

In this episode, I’m sharing a lesson I stumbled onto while watching my husband clean out his closet in 15 minutes flat, and how it became the framework I use for everything from what stays on my calendar to what I’m actually saying yes to in this season of life.

If you’re craving clarity about what deserves your full attention right now, this episode is for you.

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Hey, it's Angie Mazell and welcome back to More Like You. Today we're talking about how to spring clean your life. In our last episode, I talked to you about what to do with unanswered questions that you might be carrying into the new season. Things that you feel like you have to make a decision about, but you don't know what to do with. If you haven't had a chance, you can go back and listen. It's episode 31, What to Do When You Don't Know What To Do. But today, I want to talk to you about how to make space for the things you are certain about, your clear yeses. So I'm bringing back one of my favorite episodes about how a lesson I learned while decluttering can help you spring clean your life anytime. If you're looking for clarity about what needs your full attention in the coming months, this episode is for you. Listen in. So a few months ago, I watched my husband clean out his closet. We share a walk-in closet, and it's not that big, but it is a walk-in closet, and I have one side and he has the other. And so I'm watching him go through his things. And the whole process took him about 15 minutes. Yes, no, yes, no, done. And I was like, what is happening in your brain? How are you able to go through your things this quickly and make these decisions so quickly? I was like, is there a series of questions you're asking yourself? What is that filter? And he acted like he didn't even really understand the question. Like he couldn't explain it. What I realized in watching his brain in action, it's not that I'm not clear on what a yes is, what a yes feels like in my body. I feel like I'm pretty certain when something is a yes, I know it. I feel it right away. It doesn't mean it's perfect. It just means it feels like a yes. I feel yeses in my body. I feel the same way about no's. If something's a no, I know that pretty quickly too. It is the maybes that keep me stuck every time, trying to force a yes or a no before I was ready. And that is where decision fatigue comes in. That's where we get either overwhelmed or stalled, or our vision gets cloudy. Maybe is a valid option. It's not you being indecisive. Something that's a maybe, that's information too. And it might be a signal that it's not time to make a decision about that yet. But here's the key we cannot start with the maybes. We need to start with the things that feel like a yes. Once the yeses are in place, then go back to the maybes because then we will have more perspective and there will be less pressure because you've already sorted out your yeses and your no's. And we're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about the no's because if something is a no, it's a no, and you know it's a no, and it's not taking up space. The point is we have to get to a place that things that are maybes aren't crowding out our yeses. So we're gonna make this practical for a moment and we're gonna talk about the act of cleaning out my closet. Everything has a place. The yeses are here, the maybes are here, the no's are over there. Not this season is tucked away to revisit later. So, for example, I'm not going to spend a lot of time right now making a decision about a sweater when it's 80 degrees in Charleston. That's not a no, it's a not yet, and I know where that sweater goes. It goes in the part of my closet for the clothes that I'm not wearing this season. Now, again, once we go through it, you will see how this led me to a practice that I use for everything, from my closet to my calendar to my creative work, and on and on it goes. But let's just start and think about this in a practical sense. I'm standing in my closet. If something's a yes, I just leave it hanging there. There is no need to pull it out, to put it in a pile, to have to put it back in my closet. That's gonna take too long. If it's a yes, it stays right where it is. So imagine I'm standing at the rack of clothes and I'm just going one by one, yes, no. If I'm like, I don't want this anymore. I'll just pull it out and put it in the no pile. Here's the thing: if I get to anything that makes me pause and I find myself going, huh, I don't know. I'm feeling like mixed feelings about this. I pull it out, but I put it in the maybe pile, and I don't spend another second thinking about that item. That's what creates the decision fatigue when we get bogged down with the mental gymnastics of something that clearly already flagged our internal system that it's a maybe. So go through the closet. Yes, no, yes, yes, yes, huh, I'm not sure. Pull it out. It goes in the maybe pile. Wait, that's a sweater. This shouldn't even be on this side of the closet. Okay, I'm gonna pull it out and put it in the knot this season. Fast, fast, fast. This should go as quickly as it went for my husband when I was watching him go through his closet. The difference is I'm making a pile for the maybes. I can't stress enough that if we stop in that moment to decide about the maybes, that's where the decision fatigue sets in. That's where we get stuck. We just need to set them aside. Just set the maybes aside. Now, here's the tricky part. Sometimes, as committed as I am to this process, I'll hit something that feels like an almost yes. And I will pull it out and then I'll put it back on the rack. And I catch myself, and that's when I remind myself the goal of this practice is to see the true yeses, the no brainers. If it made me pause, it needs to go in the maybe pile. Everyone knows the phrase: if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. And I really do get the appeal of that. It's bold, it's decisive. And in some cases, that filter can really work. But sometimes a maybe is a not yet, or sometimes I'm just not ready to decide. I have given away things that I regretted almost the moment after I got rid of it because it was a maybe, it was an almost yes, and I just decided if it's not a hell yes, it's a no, and then I got rid of something, and then I'm like, wait, why did I do that? Here's the key. This is why even if something is an almost yes, but it made you pause, you need to pull it out. Put it with your maybes. Because once everything is sorted, then you can look at your yeses and you can ask, is this just what I need? Is there room for more? Is this rack of clothes already full enough? Then go back to your maybes. Look at them with a fresh set of eyes. You're seeing your maybes differently now, and you're not deciding under pressure because you already know what belongs, and you're able to decide about the maybes from a place of clarity. Does that make sense? Because there are many times I pull things out of my closet, I look at the yeses that are left, and then I look at the maybe pile, and there might be a handful of things that I take and I put back on the rack, but I'm deciding about those maybes in the context of everything else I've said yes to. And I've already gone through this process that I know this was a maybe, but I put it back in. Let's see. Let's try this on. Let's see if there's really room for this. But I've already gone through the process of being 100% clear on what the true heck yeses are in my life. We can apply this practice to anything. It's not just piles of clothes and sections of your closet. There are so many ways we can take an inventory. We can make lists, we can journal about it, we can use sticky notes, a blank open document on your computer. And if your brain works a certain way, maybe you can put things in these categories inside your brain. I'm not able to do that. I have to see how I have things separated. Once everything's sorted, you look at your yeses and you ask, is this just what I need? Is there room for more? And then, only then, do you go back to the maybes? Because now you're seeing them differently and you're not trying to decide under pressure. You're deciding from a place of clarity. So that was an excerpt from an episode that I recorded last year. And since then, I've used this process to make decisions about what I want to keep or focus on across my whole life. And one of the things I've gotten better about with practice is noticing when something is on its way to becoming a yes, even if it's not a yes in the season. This alleviates the stress I inflict upon myself when I try to do everything at once. Filing something away for another season is not the same as putting it off or procrastinating. It's being intentional about your time and energy so that it isn't scattered. And it also gives you something to look forward to. So in a few months, I'll go through the same process again. So wherever you are, whatever season of life you're in right now, you can make sure you're making space for your yeses and putting the maybes and the not right nows in their place to revisit later. That's it for this week's episode of More Like You. And I'm excited to tell you that the podcast now has a new home on Substack, right alongside my weekly letter Hello Friday. Hello Friday is the heart of my work, and it's my favorite way to stay connected with you. Head to angiemazelle.substack.com to subscribe.