#26: The Decluttering Mindset That Actually Works for Messy People with Dana K. White

Messy. Overwhelmed. Always behind.

At some point, you start to wonder…
Is this just who I am?

In this episode, I’m talking to Dana K. White — creator of the No Mess Decluttering Process and author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life — about what it actually takes to get your home (and your life) under control… especially if you’re not naturally organized.

Because here's the thing you need to remember:
You don’t need a perfect system.
You need a system that works with your brain.

We talk about:

•  Why clutter feels so moral (and why that’s not helping you) 
•  The mindset shift from “done” → “better”
•  Where to start when your house feels completely overwhelming 
•  Why dishes matter more than making your bed 
•  The real reason laundry feels never-ending (and how to fix it) 
•  How to handle a partner or family who isn’t on board 
•  And why decluttering might be the missing piece for your nervous system 

If you’ve ever felt like:
 “I should be better at this by now…”
 This episode is for you.

✨ Want more support with this?

If this episode hit something for you…
 If you’re tired of trying to fix yourself and just want a way to support your real life…

I’m working on something for you.

It’s not ready yet — but you can join the “First to Know” list here:
👉 Get on the list

📚 Resources + Links

Dana K. White:

•  Books (start here): https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/books/
  
  
•  Podcast & Blog: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com
  
  
•  Find a certified decluttering coach: https://declutteringcoaches.com
  
  

From this episode:

•  Try Dana’s method: Start with trash in your most visible space
•  Mindset shift: Better > Done

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Messy, disorganized, always behind, always trying to catch up. At some point, you start to wonder, is this just who I am? And for a long time, I believed that. That this was just the way I was built, and that there was no real way out of it. But at this phase of life, I am done with that story. I want a life that feels calmer, clearer, and less chaotic. And I am starting with my environment. Today's guest showed me that change is actually possible, even if you feel like the last person on earth who could ever be organized. Welcome to the Next Phase Podcast, the show for millennial moms who are ready to stop fixing themselves and start listening to themselves. I'm your host, Stacey Hudson, and today I am talking to Dana K. White, creator of the No Mess Decluttering Process and author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life, a Wall Street Journal bestseller. She is also the voice behind A Swab Comes Clean, a blog and podcast where she shares her own very real, very honest journey of learning how to manage her home as someone who is not naturally good at cleaning or organizing. And by the end of this episode, you are going to understand house management in a completely different way. Because it is finally being explained by someone whose brain works like yours. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Next Phase Podcast. I have Miss Dana K. White with me today. Dana, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I'm doing okay. I was gonna say great, but we just had the conversation before we started recording that I had said I'm okay. And you were like, thanks for just saying you're okay and not great.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I really think we all need a little bit more honesty these days, huh? I am so excited to have you on because one thing that has come up a lot with my audience is feeling scattered, feeling overwhelmed. I had a previous podcast called the Mother Plus Podcast that was all about ADHD and motherhood. And I found myself and my people through that and have transitioned to this podcast, which is about entering paramenopause and how we change so much hormonally, physically, mentally in this stage of life. But something that keeps coming up for me and for my audience is that we have spent a lot of our lives being really scattered and a slob, and we're over it. It just you reach this breaking point where you're like, I don't want to live like this anymore. And it's why I like you so much because you are the declutterer, the organizer who wasn't just interested, who wasn't just naturally good at it. So everybody came to them because, oh, Dana knows what she's doing. It's oh no. Opposite of that. Yes, we like you because you are like us. And so tell us a little bit about your story.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah. So almost 17 years ago now, which is wild, a couple of years before I started my blog, I had discovered blogs and thought, okay, I want to be a writer. That was something I always thought maybe when I have kids, that would be a creative outlet that I could turn into a job. And so when I discovered blogs back in 2008-ish, I thought, this is it, this is the thing I need to do. And I didn't start my blog for a year and a half because my house was a disaster. And I thought, I've got to get my house figured out first. And my house had always been a disaster. This was not a new thing for me. I've literally always been the messy person. I was the kid with the messy room. I opened up my locker in high school and everything fell out. Like that was me. So I had always been messy, but I never liked being messy. I hated being messy, but I always assumed the next phase of my life I would get it all together. And then it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't suddenly be neat and organized once I had kids. And then turns out that even people who used to be organized once they have kids struggles. So I was just very frustrated with this, my inability to figure out how to get my house under control because I had been trying and trying, trying. And I was like, I gotta do that before I throw myself into this creative project that I know how I am. I throw myself into creative projects and it takes my focus even more away from my physical space. And then came up with the compromise to temporarily start an anonymous blog about getting my house under control. Like I just always like to be clear. Now I teach this stuff in the beginning. I wasn't teaching anybody anything. I didn't even tell my husband what I was doing. I just was like, this is a way for me to go ahead and learn about blogging. I thought no one will ever read this, but at least I'll learn some things I can use in the future when I start writing about things I'm qualified to write about. I was just journaling. This is what I'm doing. These are the roadblocks I'm hitting. These are the thoughts that run through my head when I hit these roadblocks. These are the things that I'm doing that actually, wow, this is the effect of all these different things, journaling it. And that was 2009. It's now 2026, I think. But here we are. And I now teach this stuff because what happened was as I was writing, thinking this was temporary, using a fake name, I assumed that I was the only one. And so I wanted a way to stay focused, but I didn't think I would build an audience based on that. And I learned pretty quickly that there were so many other women who thought the way that I did, but I'd never known that before. I thought, what is wrong with me? I'm the only one who struggles with this, who sees things this way. And people were like, your thoughts are my thoughts. And I started to see that the people who said that were all highly creative people. And I realized, oh, okay, there is some sort of a relationship between high levels of creativity and struggling to keep the mundane things done and the house stuff done, right? And so that helped me accept myself because I was like, I like being creative. So knowing that the creativity and the messiness are related to each other helped me accept, okay, this is how my brain works. Because, like you said, most of the people who write about this stuff write about it because they like it, they enjoy it. This is natural for them. And so I had always read what other people wrote, and I was like, I don't, you can't even imagine my starting place. Like their before pictures were my dream after pictures. I was like, you don't know where I'm starting from. And then I was lost on page three, and it just I never could get anywhere. And so it honestly took several years of me resisting and people saying, please teach us what you're doing. And I was like, just read it because you don't want me to teach you this. Like this, that doesn't make any sense. But I did finally realize that while I can't tell anybody how to have a perfect house, and I still don't, I can absolutely tell you my unique thing is that I can tell you how to go from completely overwhelmed to, oh, I can absolutely do this. That was what was missing in what I had searched to find for many years. And so that's where I come in. I explain things that naturally organized people are born knowing and that they don't know that we don't know. And these are the things that need to be explained. These are the gaps. This is the communication gap when they're like, how what are you not getting? I'm the one who's like, I know what we're not getting, and here's how it can explain it in a way that makes sense for people like me.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yes, exactly. So in my previous podcast, I actually had a friend on who was a side professional organizer. She's the cleanest person I know. I go into her house, everything's color-coded and labeled, and there's never anything on the floor. And I said, You have to be on my podcast because I want you to teach us what you know. And I never aired that episode because she could not explain it. She didn't know how to explain the way her brain worked. It just did. It was natural to her. And to be able to communicate with people like us who don't understand, it was like we were speaking a different language.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I consider myself an interpreter.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I really do. And so that's why I'm grateful for people like you and there needs to be more in this space because honestly, we're the ones who need the most help.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

You have to be able to talk to us. I was at when I was in college, I remember a professor one time saying, if you have never gotten a B in your life, you're gonna be a terrible teacher. And I was like, What? And he said, Because you won't understand that it does not come easy for people. You need to have gone through the struggle. But I think about that often when I realize in this situation, that's exactly what was going on. I was trying to learn from people who had not experienced the struggle. Their house had never gotten to the point where I needed to dig my way out of.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Absolutely. And it's funny you mentioned the good grade thing because it's actually another niche I have found within this market of a lot of us were actually really good students, creative, high achievers, right? Gifted and talented program, high honor role. And so we were very successful in the structure that was school, and sometimes in careers too. As long as you tell me where to go and what position I'm climbing, I can do that just fine. And then what happens is just like you said, you became a mom and you just thought that all of the knowledge of taking care of a home would just land in you suddenly because you've been good at everything else.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yes. That's it. That that is the thing that that is so that I think that's the thing that keeps us all feeling like I think I'm the only one. Yes. Because in other areas, I expect to be successful. Yes. Because I have been able to figure it out in all these other areas. And I'm like, but that's what makes this problem feel extra shameful. Yes. Is that I'm like, okay, this seems to be easy for a lot of people who can't figure out the things that I seem to be able to figure out. So why is this so hard for me? Like, why is this issue so hard? When in reality, we all have different things that we're good at, right? But when you're focusing on, but I'm supposed to be good at things, why can't I not figure this out? Then you start to feel like there's this disconnect and then it feels shameful, which is never helpful.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Never helpful. Exactly. The shame, the guilt, the embarrassment relate to all of it. Perfect transition into why does clutter feel so moral? Like, why is it so connected? Ready to get into that.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Something is wrong with me. What is that? I think it's because a lot of times when a parent is teaching their child, right? Like we we do feel that as a mom. I want to teach my children how to manage in their spaces and all that. I remember one time I had a kid come over. My son was turning nine, and he had decided at the last minute that he wanted to have a slumber party before school started. And I was like, Wow. So I thought I had a month and a half till his slumber party, and I had four days or whatever. At the time, it was a big deal. The fact that I was at the point where I even could do that was great, right? But I focused on the spaces where they were gonna be, and I was like, they're not gonna be in the boys' room. And so I worked in there a little bit, but I was like, I'm not putting my focus in there because they're not gonna sleep in there. There's not room for all the boys to sleep in there. Guess where they all wanted to hang out was in that room, right? And this kid came to me and he goes, Why is his room so messy? Good parents make their kids clean their rooms.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Oh he did not.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Oh, yeah, he did. I do mostly like that kid now. But for years I could not stand that kid. But here's the thing: I get it, right? Like I get it. Kids say stuff, I know that. But the reality is his parents had used that as a justification for them making him clean his room, right? Like good parents make their kids clean their rooms. And I think because a lot of people don't struggle in this area, they don't understand that it is a legitimate struggle for a lot of people. And so in their minds, they view a mess as a lack of motivation because for them that's what it would be. I was highly motivated, but thought I was doing what the people said to do who didn't have these messes, and it wasn't actually working for me. There's that disconnect. And I personally find cooking and meal planning to be really fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Ditto.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I enjoy experimenting and honing all of that. And I realized that I had been teaching that on my blog and in my podcast from the perspective of the person who loved it. And then somebody emailed and they just said something like how made her feel bad when I talked about that. And I realized, okay, so I feel negative feelings toward people who don't understand that this is a legitimate struggle. But it was a good experience for me to go, okay, it's normal and it's natural to assume. If you're not going to cook at home, are you really serious about budgeting? That's the kind of stuff that would go through my head. Because for me, that is true. Right. But there are people who view cooking in the same way that I view my home. There's people who view interpersonal social situations the same way that I view my home, which is like, what in the world? Why is this so hard? And it seems like it's easy for everybody else. There's we all have those things. And it is just very normal to assume that if for me, the reason why I wouldn't do this was that I had made a choice to be lazy in the moment. But that's not the case for other people. They may legitimately be trying and not able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I agree. I also think there's something to becoming a mother, right? I think there's something about that transition in you're in your 20s and you're climbing the career ladder, and you were a good student, and now you're a good corporate girl, and you know how to do all of those things well. And then you settle down, you become a mom, and suddenly you're expected to do the house things. And that isn't natural to a lot of us. Some of us it is. See, they keep going, and here we are being like, wait, wait, why aren't we good at this? And then it becomes this moral issue. We're so confused because we're like, but I never really learned. Was I supposed to, did I was I supposed to know this?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

I don't know. And we view it as our report card because I think especially I know what for myself, when I became a stay-at-home mom, I'm not earning a paycheck anymore. And so then you feel like, okay, I've got to do this thing to make up for the fact that I'm not but and there's just all kinds of absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

That is so insightful. The home is your report card. When your husband comes home and the home isn't clean, then you got enough. But it's not.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

That's what we're saying. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

It feels that way. So, what I like about your platform is when you say a slob comes clean, they understand that kind of type B creative personality. And if you've been like that your whole life, what is possible for us if we want to change? Just paint us a picture because you've been through it, like what it looked like before and what your life looks like now, which you readily admit is not perfect, but it's worlds apart from when you were like, I have no idea where to start and why this is so hard for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

A lot of it is acknowledging that I have a project brain, which is the reason I was very successful in my job. I was a theater arts teacher. I can put on a production, I can do all the planning, I can implement everything in a super organized way, and then be done at the end and accept the applause. And what I realized was that I had always been trying to treat my house like a project. Because I was good at projects, I would say, all right, this time I mean it. I am going to make my plan. I'm going to figure it out, and then I'm going to implement that plan. And then I am going to finally be done with my house. And then it'll make sense for me to actually maintain it. Cause why would I do any maintenance stuff right now? Because I don't want to maintain this, was what I thought. That was wrong. And that was actually the problem was I would get ready for a party and look around my house and think, oh my goodness, this is what I want it to stay like. And then three days later, I hadn't done anything because I thought I deserved to take a break after all the work that I did. And then it was back to being worse than it was before I started cleaning for the party. And it was just this really bad cycle. What I learned was the power of changing my goal from done to better. So that mindset shift is incredibly powerful for the project brain person like me. So I used to look at where I wanted my house to be and where it was at the moment. And the distance was so far between those two things that I could not even get started. I was overwhelmed. I couldn't figure out how do I go from here, stuff everywhere to here where I want to be. But when I said I'm just going to make it better, then I immediately could do something because literally, if I do anything at all, I have achieved my goal of better. Anything. I can throw away one piece of trash and I have been successful at my goal of better because this is better. And I had to throw away one piece of trash and then another piece of trash and then put something else away and then get rid of something I so those teeny tiny little steps was how I ended up getting my house where I always wanted it to be, that I never could get there when where I wanted it to be was my goal. But changing my goal to better worked. And then the daily habits, like I always say decluttering is the most important thing, and daily stuff is the most important thing. You can't do it without both of those things. But if you don't know where to start, I would say start with the dishes. And that's really discouraging because who likes doing the dishes? Not me. But I had always had that project brain, right? And so I would look at a pile of dishes and I would think that's not worth my time to stop right now. I need to wait until there's enough to be worth my time. The next time I noticed it, I would think, I don't have time to do all those dishes now. Who has time to stop and do that? And so I would put them off until I had to do the dishes. And then it would take me five hours to excavate my kitchen. And every time I was ready to clean my house, change my ways, I would start in the kitchen. I would use up all my energy and time that I had in the kitchen. I would never get to the rest of the house. So I was like, I know there are people who don't have kitchens that are disasters all the time, like mine is. So I'm just going to focus on doing the dishes. And that's when I realized there's this thing called dishes math. It's called that because I made that up, which is it doesn't work the way I thought it was going to work. So I had thought if I wait five days to do the dishes and it takes me five hours, obviously, logically, that means it takes an hour to do the dishes every day. I don't have an hour to do the dishes every day. How are people spending an hour on their kitchen every single day? That's just crazy. Like I was just like, who does that? Yeah. Anyway, I just have too many other things going on. I can't do that. But when I did the dishes every day, I realized, oh, it doesn't take an hour. If I do them every day, it only takes 15 to 20 minutes. And that was mind-boggling to me. But the truth is, if I do it every day, I'm only doing one day's worth of dishes. And I don't have to finagle. I don't have to do two sink fulls or run the dishwasher more than once, or I have everything fits to dry. It's crazy how it works. But that was transformational. It's like starting with that and realizing this is a function pivotal task. The dishes. Making your bed is not function pivotal. Some people will say you have to start wait with making your bed. And I'm like, I am proof that you can get in your bed at the end of a long day. And if it's not made, you can still go to sleep. But if your dishes are not done and you don't have anything to cook in or any cutting boards to chop stuff on, your day grinds to a halt if the dishes are not done. So it's that was big for me was going, I don't need to know about all the things I should do. I just need to know what has to be done. And when I identified the dishes as that function pivotal thing for my house, then it was like, okay, if I don't have time to do anything else, I'm gonna do that. And as long as I do that, things don't get completely and totally out of control.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I think you can apply that to many things. Yep. And I'm sure you did. I what I find fascinating about what you said is the daily maintenance aspect. And again, going back to that what. Who I never aired. I think the people who are naturally organized and clean have this need to constantly declutter, pick up, tidy regularly. They can't help it. They need everything to be like that. People like us don't think like that. They think, like you said, project-based. So I'm gonna spend hours doing this big thing. And then when it's done forever. That's how I think every time I declutter, every time I finally declutter my closet, I'm like, well, that's it. I'm done. It's like the way my daughter thinks about bathing. But I bathed last week. It's done. And exactly. Yes. To switch you.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

This is a recurring task. Well, and it's reoccurring. And the more often it reoccurs, the easier it is. And so because we've always put things off, we don't have a real understanding of what it would mean to do this task every day. But also, I love what you said about that because one of the main things that naturally organized people will say is you need to get your house organized or under control so you can be more productive. Have you ever heard something along those lines? Is they're telling me that. And I'm sitting there thinking, I am very productive. First of all, you're saying I'm not good at something that I am good at. And you're acting like the goal is to do even more, which then makes me feel completely overwhelmed already before I'm even started. And I was already overwhelmed in the beginning. And so there, this idea that you can't get things done, you can't focus whatever if your house is a mess. And I'm like, I will say the reason our houses are a mess is that we can focus when it's a mess. That's why I personally think we're amazing, right? Like, absolutely, that we can focus on that. All of us have our struggles and our strengths, and we all need to be grateful for the ones that we have. I have a very lovely friend who is like, I can't take on anything big unless I have every little thing already done. And so therefore, she doesn't take on anything big. I take on big things without ever considering all the little stuff that I'm not going to be able to do because I'm doing the big thing. And the world needs both kinds of people. But that's a big part of the miscommunication, is this idea that, oh, you have to do this so you'll be able to focus. And I'm like, I know it doesn't look like I can focus to you, but I actually can.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yes. And we get so much more excited about the big, juicy, exciting stuff. We don't want to concern ourselves with the laundry and the dishes. We're trying to write a book. We're trying to change the world. We're trying to organize a women's retreat. Like, why would I do that?

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Exactly. But then at the exact same time, we can ignore it all until all of a sudden we can't anymore. And there's there comes a point where we're like, I've been productive, I've been doing all this stuff. And then I look up and I'm completely overwhelmed and I'm frozen because it's already at a point where I just don't even know where to start. I just don't even know what to do. And so it's not that we're fine with it, it's that it happens without us realizing because we're focused on being productive in other areas.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

And like I said in the beginning, personally, I feel like there's something that happens when you reach a certain age, a certain stage of life where you just realize you don't want to keep living this way. And even though I can do the big projects with laundry everywhere and dishes, I realize it does affect my nervous system. It's kind of a slow gnawing until it just tears you apart.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

That was my experience. Yes. One of the reasons why I write and speak so many words on this subject is I know people like me are like, wait, what? Because it takes a lot for us to go, oh, I was wrong about it taking an hour. And so I lay out exactly, and then I'm like, hey, you go experiment and see that it's this way. Time yourself doing the dishes today, time yourself doing the dishes again tomorrow before there's a bunch of dishes. Go through this process so that you can understand, okay, now my motivation for doing the dishes is not just, oh, everybody's supposed to have their dishes done all the time. My motivation for doing the dishes is if I will do these every day, then I have so much more time available to me to go do those fun things like writing books and having a podcast and all this stuff. And so I had always thought my goal was, of course, to have this beautiful house that everybody was like, oh, wow, that's amazing. And then I decluttered and I decluttered and I worked on my house and I realized, oh, my goal actually is just not to be held back by my house. I don't want this to hold me back because there's so much guilt and oh, the things I should be doing when there's piles and piles of things that I know I need to go through and I need to do this that keep me from even doing the fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yes, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Let's get a little practical. I feel like we've talked a lot about the mindset, right? And we all understand that because the people listening are like us, right? But for the woman who's listening who feels like she's drowning and she's completely overwhelmed, there's so much clutter everywhere. Where does she begin?

SPEAKER_00 27:10

As far as physical location of where you begin, I recommend that you start in the most visible space, meaning the place that people would see first if they came into your home. So your entryway, wherever a guest would be and what they would see, start decluttering there. Because, first of all, for me, I had to have a place to start. Every space in my house was a disaster. And so I needed a way to prioritize where was I gonna work first? This is a way to do that. And just having a way to do that is helpful. But the other thing that happens is when you get inspired to declutter, like sometimes people will listen to this podcast and they're like, okay, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna declutter. It is very normal to go to your top shelf of your closet that nobody ever sees and start there. Partly because it's maybe a bunch of random things. Also, there's this if I declutter there, nobody uses that space. Maybe it'll actually stay decluttered. But the problem with that is you put all this time and energy and effort into it, and then your house doesn't look or function any better because it was an obscure, non-visible space. If you will put your time and effort into a visible space first, then you experience the benefits of having decluttered. You are able to function in that space better. Somebody rings the doorbell and you open the door and go, Oh my goodness, I'm not embarrassed to open the door. Like that will inspire you to continue decluttering in a way that as opposed to all your decluttering energy draining when that doorbell rings and you're like, I just worked all day decluttering my house and I'm still embarrassed to open the front door. Like that, that will drain all your energy. So that's the way to start to build momentum. So you work in the most visible space, you're gonna be inspired to declutter again sooner because of the progress that you made that you've been seeing. And then you're gonna go to the next most visible space and the next most visible space. But as far as what to do first in a space, look for trash. Even if you're convinced there's no trash, first of all, there is always trash, but even if you're like, she's wrong, there's none in mine, there's actually value in looking for trash because trash is non-emotional, is decision-free. So we're not talking about things that your mom told you was trash and you had an argument about it. We're not talking about you deciding that something is trash. You are literally saying, is there any trash in this space? Do I see anything that I immediately know is trash? What that does is it takes me from seeing a pile where I know there's important stuff in there. I'm overwhelmed at the thought of dealing with this. And when I know there are going to be some hard decisions in this space, it feels like the whole space is full of hard decisions. When in reality, it's not. And so by starting with trash, I am now looking at individual items and my brain starts adjusting to what is actually in this space. It's no longer the unknown. And I make immediate progress because I put a couple of things in the trash, and that gets me moving in this very low energy point of entry where I'm not expending emotional energy. I'm not making any hard decisions. Those first three steps of my decluttering progress are all decision-free. They don't use any emotional energy. So it's trash, easy stuff that I already know where it goes. Go ahead and get that out of here, and obvious donations. So those are the things. If I can get those three things out, just what I can access. I don't pull everything out of a space. I just get what I can do. We're not a recondo. No, we are not. So as I do that though, the every item that leaves that pile is just a little bit less overwhelming and I'm more ready to keep going. So that's how I recommend you start in the visible space with decision-free stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

And I like how you said the most visible space because I think it goes back to that moral piece where when somebody enters your home and you feel ashamed because the first area they see is a disaster, mine always has goodwill bags near the dining room. It just reiterates to yourself that you're bad at this, you're embarrassed, you can't have people over. So if you're starting at the place that not just other people enter, but you enter, right? Every day and that you are capable, then you start feeling more motivated and more empowered.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

You do. And the thing I didn't know how much easier it was going to be to live in a house with less stuff. And having less stuff in a space that you actually move and work and live in means that I experience how much easier it is. There's nothing more motivating than that to me. At this point, I will often look at something and I'm like, life would just be easier just to not even have it in my house. I'm that took me a long time to get there. And I have a process for making those decisions in the beginning. But that visible space being better means that you experience that ease.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Experience is a great word because I've been really focused on my nervous system over the last few years. And like you said, we can operate, we can achieve and be productive and do the things, but it's oh my goodness, what are we capable of when we remove all of the mess? If we could do all of that with the mess, right? And what does that feel like in our bodies? Because I really struggle with anxiety and stress, and a lot of it is my environment. I know it is. So can we talk about the laundry? Do we have time to talk about the laundry? Yes. So what is your system for getting on top of laundry?

SPEAKER_00 33:00

You're not gonna be excited about it until you try it. Bring it on. I had heard all the experts say one load a day. Have you heard that before? That never worked for me. I couldn't do it. I would put a load in and I would set alarms and I would give myself reminders to go change over the load. And then the next morning I would go put a load in for that day and realize I never changed the one out from the day yet before. And so I had to rewash that one and then I would forget it. And it was just constantly happening like that. So I do a laundry day. Here's how that works. Okay. It is less about the 24-hour period and more about the one week's worth of laundry and only one week's worth of laundry. So it takes three weeks to believe me. So it is a commitment. But here's how it goes: the first laundry day, gather up all the dirty clothes in your house and sort them into piles. Okay. And then start working your way through those piles. If you are as behind on laundry as I used to be, it may take an entire week to do the first laundry day. But once you have sorted things into piles, any newly dirtied clothes, do not go into those piles because that is what causes you to feel like laundry never ends. So any newly dirtied clothes need to go into next week's laundry day. Okay. Hampers, piles, wherever you put that kind of stuff. Okay. Work through those clothes, get them put away, which is hard because especially if you're really behind on laundry, you get to the point where once everything's clean, it doesn't all fit in the drawer, which is a whole nother container concept thing that I teach, but we don't have time for everything today. But anyway, so you work through that first week of clothes. And even if you started on Monday and you don't finish until Saturday night, you need to start your second laundry day on the next Monday, like on that Monday, seven days from the first one. Even if you spent six whole days working on laundry and you're going to be like, what in the world? This is not fun. That lady's crazy. Whatever. Do your second laundry day because now you're going to see that even though I was so behind on laundry and I had 38 piles of laundry. Now I know what one week's worth of laundry is. Because I am only doing the clothes that were worn from last Monday to this Monday. And it will blow your mind. I will have people who are like, no, no, you don't understand. Laundry Day wouldn't work. So they're saying they haven't tried it yet. It wouldn't work because this is how much laundry it would be for my family. And I'm like, you cannot know until you do two laundry days. But that second laundry day, even though it took six days the first time, this time it only takes a day, maybe a day and a half to do. And then any new laundry that is happening as of Monday is for the next laundry day. That third laundry day, you will have gone an entire week without thinking about laundry, without doing laundry, without feeling guilty about laundry, and with everybody having all the clean underwear and all the clean socks they could ever possibly want already ready. And the way that frees your brain is shocking. Like it that is when you experience now I know because I've had two days of one week's worth of laundry. I know for a fact what one week's worth of laundry looks like in a normal week for my family. And I know that it's possible to not constantly feel like laundry never ends. This is the way that laundry ends. Like the people who say, Oh, laundry never ends. If you have laundry day, it actually does. It's all about those six days of not having to worry about it. And I totally understand that people do not want to hear about laundry day because it sounds so overwhelming, but it is life-changing. And I, so many people send me long emails about it. And it's funny because in my first book, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, there's two chapters on laundry because there's one where I tell you this is how to do it. And then there's a whole nother chapter where I answer all of the objections that you have to even trying this.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Okay. This is actually new to me, which it says a lot because I feel like I've done my fair amount of trying different tactics. And what I like about it is that I feel half accomplished all the time because yes, I do have dirty clothes over there in my hamper, but I also have lots of clean clothes in the hampers that need to be folded and put away. And so I think I have done the laundry, but what that does is constantly reminds me of the unfinished business day after day. And what you're saying is don't do the laundry and just have it sitting in baskets everywhere all week. Just do that one time so it's not surrounding you, taunting you every day.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

The thing that nobody wants to do is fold straight out of the dryer. Right. I used to just resist that. And I was like, no, I had all these reasons why it did not make sense to do that until I tried it and it changed my life. But I did laundry day, and laundry day changed my life even when I had the love seat full of clean clothes or the laundry basket sitting around. So do laundry day even if you're not willing to do that. But if you can get yourself to fold straight out of the dryer and immediately take things to their homes, I don't even have laundry baskets anymore. Oh, what? Because I don't need them.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

I'm shocked.

unknown 38:42

I know.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Isn't that wild? Now, that may be too much to tell people at this point when you're like, that's not possible. She's crazy, whatever. I get it, right? Don't worry about that yet. But what happened was as I was actually putting things away immediately, it naturally helped me declutter. Because the other thing about doing laundry every single week was as I went to put things away, I saw the things that people weren't wearing. Because before we were always behind on laundry. And so we just used up all the clothes that we had. Therefore, we didn't know what our favorites were. We had no idea. But once things were actually consistently clean every week, I saw that my kid always chose this t-shirt first, this pair of shorts first, because why? They were the favorites. And so when I go to put things away, the things that are left in the drawer, I know are less favorite, and it's easier to declutter those. Then I am actually getting my house decluttered to the point where all of my clothes, when clean, fit in the spaces that we have, which is necessary for my house to be under control, which is a whole nother thing that I teach that is a game changer for people like me, right? For the creative brain, which is that space does not expand because I want to keep more stuff. And if I try to keep more stuff, then I have space for it. There's no hope of it, my house ever being under control. Did not understand that before. I was like, oh, I'll just bring this stuff in and I'll figure out a method or a color-coded system or something in the future. And yeah, that doesn't work. When I started putting clothes away, immediately my house changed because I didn't have piles of clean clothes all over the place. And a lot of times when people say, I'm doing all this stuff and my house still feels messy, that's actually the question I'll ask is, are you putting your clothes away? I call it procrastinator. You go into work in your living room and you're like, I'm doing all this work. I'm making all these real hard decluttering decisions. This is so much better. And you're like, it doesn't look any better in here. If there's an entire love seat or a love seat and a recliner piled high in clean clothes, I don't see those things anymore because that's become normal, but it's keeping this room from looking the way I want it to look. And so if I can do that, then it's like those clothes just disappear and it just really takes a level of constant messiness away when I'm immediately putting things away. Even though it's not fun. But when I understand the results and experience those results, that is my motivation. Yes. Not because it's the right thing to do. Eh, whatever. But the real motivation is if I will do this, my house will not feel and look messy the way that it did for most of my life.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

You get motivated by that feeling of relief and this new, oh wow, I can live like this. What about the places and the spaces that aren't ours? I feel like as I go through this journey of realizing I don't want to live like this anymore, I don't want to live like a slob anymore. My husband and I are similar people. We both have ADHD. He is also a slob. Sorry, babe. And I feel like I don't want to be responsible for his mess, but it also bothers me as I get better at cleaning up mine. And so, how do you deal with the other family members in your household who may not choose to be as clean and decluttered as you?

SPEAKER_00 42:15

I mentioned at the beginning that when I started what I call my deslopification process, I didn't even tell my husband what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

What I didn't know was that I couldn't expect him to get on board because I wasn't even telling him what I was doing. And always before, when I had tried to change my home, I thought that one of the first steps was to have the talk about how we're going to start doing everything differently. But there was no frame of reference for anybody in my family because it had always been messy. And so for me to say, oh, we're not going to have this mess anymore, they just were like, What are you talking about? This is what our house looks like.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Which is not fun to take on that responsibility, but it is true. And so because I didn't tell them what I was doing, I was forced to focus only on what I could do and what I was doing and what I wasn't doing. And I focused on my own stuff and neutral stuff. And our house changed just by me focusing on the things that were mine or neutral. Okay. And I, my kids were young, and so I obviously their stuff too. We worked together on that. But as our house started to change, like I was talking about with the visibility rule, you experience how much easier it is to live in a house with less stuff, which then motivates you to have less stuff. As our house had less stuff and was just easier to manage, then the people in my house, their relationship with stuff started to change because they started to experience how much better it was and easier it was to live in a house with less stuff. I am never going to tell somebody how to make your spouse care as much as you do, because that's not possible. I always tell people who listen to my podcast, I'm like, you're the one listening. You're the one who cares enough to listen to some lady on the internet ramble on for hours about laundry and dishes and decluttering. And it is top of mind for you. So focus on your thing. The other thing that happens, especially when I say start with the easy stuff, a lot of people are like, Well, easy stuff is his stuff because it's easy to you. I remember throwing away a shirt of my husband's that was literally like more holes than fabric. And I was like, of course this should go. And him pulling it out of the trash. And he couldn't explain why, except it was extra offensive to him for me to throw that away when I had my own pair of shorts from a memory from 10 years before, before we were married, when I had to buy these shorts during a flood and we were all doing cleanup crew, and it was such a fun day. They are literally hanging on by a thread that I couldn't get rid of those. And so it's very normal to see their stuff as easy, but you got to earn some credibility first. And you can go ahead and absolutely change your house just by focusing on your own stuff and neutral stuff. So the main thing I say is it is possible that you literally have not a single piece of clutter in that house and that it's all his, but I doubt it. And so if there is anything of yours, go ahead and do that. And then so many times family members will get on board. And it may take a long time, but even if it does, your house is going to get better and easier to manage because of the stuff that you are getting rid of. Where it's so easy to fixate on the thing that I can't get rid of because someone else, in the meantime, there's so many other things I could be doing.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yes. Yeah. Yes. It's a personal journey first, and then it sets the tone, and then there's a domino effect. I like, I like that. Last question What about beauty? Because something else I've noticed in this stage of my life is that I don't want to just survive anymore. I think a lot of that comes with my kids getting a little older. My daughters are now six and eight, and their survival mode is baby toddlerhood. And once they start functioning more and you open your eyes and you look up and you look around, you don't want to just say, eh, good enough. At least for me, I'm starting to crave beauty. And I've never been great at that. I've always been the girl who moved into my dorm room and didn't put anything on the walls and then moved into an apartment, didn't buy any furniture, like literally use my old couch cushions and put them on the floor. Like I could care less. But I care now. I don't know why, but I do. And I'm curious if that has happened to you too. And how do you go from just upkeep to like like loving your home?

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Two things. Decluttering often has the same effect that you think you need to decorate to achieve. A room will look a hundred times more beautiful when you get the clutter out. So I would start with that first before you worry about any of that. But the main thing that I have really shifted in my thinking is slow decorating, meaning find the piece that you love and bring that in. Because I was always thinking, I'm gonna get this figured out at some point. I'm gonna get this figured out at some point. So I was like, oh, I like that. I like that. Oh, look at oh, here's somebody at a garage sale selling all of their stuff and this everything to decorate, an entire room. And I would bring it all home and then it would just turn into more clutter. Yeah. So instead to say, I love this piece. Now I have decluttered, and now this piece has an actual place where I can really enjoy it, live with it for a while, and then you realize, you know what? I think actually it needs another small thing here. And now I go through the joy of searching for that one small thing. And so that slow decorating. Now I say this as someone who often says, I don't teach decorating. So I am not giving this as any kind of a designer stuff. I'm saying from the clutter perspective of someone who used to gather, gather thinking, I'll figure out eventually how to make this beautiful, and then had to declutter, declutter. That's my advice.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

I love that advice. I have a lot of framed pictures that are leaning up against walls rather than on the walls.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Let's talk about that. I consider it decluttering to hang that picture on the wall. It can be like, oh, that's decorating. That's no. As long as it's on the floor, leaned up against the wall, it's actually clutter because it's not in a real home. And so if I put it in a real home, which is hung on the wall, I have decluttered and that achieves a lot of that decorating. Because my definition of decluttering is things going to their real final home and having space in that home or leaving my house if there's not a place for it to go with real space for it.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Oh, I like that. That is a good mindset shift. Oh, Dana. I enjoy you so much. This is so fun. Tell the listeners where they can find you, where they can find your book, how they can work with you. I loved this conversation. I love talking to people who understand the way I work and it feels like everything's gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

It is gonna be okay. There is hope for us. I think that's the thing is I always felt so hopeless when I was confused by traditional organizing advice. And I'm like, oh, I just needed to declutter. That was what I needed to do. So yeah, if you search Dana K. White, always put the K in there because there's this man named Dana White that's not me. And if you put Dana K. White, wherever books are sold, anywhere you like to buy books, most libraries have my books as well. The one that most people know is decluttering at the speed of light. But I do have my first children's book that came out in February. It's called Winnie's Pile of Pillows. Winnie realizes that just because she loves something doesn't mean that she can collect as many as possible because then it makes her room get to a state where she doesn't love her room anymore. And that makes it not worth it. That was a really fun experience to write a children's book. But my daughter needs this book. She has about 103 stuffies. Yes. Yeah. But here's the thing. We as moms, we want our kids to love the things that they love, but also not let those things take over the home. Same thing I needed. So that's what Winnie does. But I also train and certify decluttering coaches in my methods. So if you're looking for someone to work with you personally through my Nomess decluttering process, you can go to declutteringcoaches.com. That's my site, and find somebody to work with there. I have a podcast and I'm on YouTube every week.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

And I'm so curious. I already looked into this certification program. I'm like, I feel again, the best people for those jobs are the ones who understand the ones who are struggling so much.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

So yeah, I have some amazing coaches.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Yeah. Wonderful. Dana, thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you come back again.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

Oh, anytime. Let me know.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

If you're listening to this and thinking, yes, this is exactly what I've been struggling with. I am working on something right now for women who feel this way and who are tired of trying to fix themselves with more self-help and just want a way to actually support their real life. It's not ready yet, but if you want to be the first to hear about it, you can join the first to know list in the show notes. Thank you again for joining me on another episode of the next phase. I am so honored to have you, and I am really excited to continue this conversation with you.