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259: When Every Room Feels Overwhelming: Where to Start · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

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  I have covered this topic on a lot of different podcasts in various different
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  ways over the last few years, but it still remains one of my most asked questions.
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  So I just want to dig in again to where we start when every part of our home seems overwhelming.
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  Before I dig into the idea of where to start, I do want to sort of give a reminder
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  in case you happen to have missed it.
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  For March, I have been encouraging you to join me in what I am calling the Double Down Dig Out Challenge.
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  And if you want to know all the details about it, just pop back into episode 258 and listen.
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  But if you want some accountability and you want to do this with us or you want
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  just like extra printable even, I have in my free community a download that
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  allows you to kind of track what's going on.
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  And I am going live in there every Monday for 20 minutes to kind of work,
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  I'm using air quotes, but with you, if you want to jump up and have the sort
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  of body doubling accountability of working at the same time that I am working.
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  But you get to that free community by going to bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  And I will put that link in the show notes.
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  And then if you want some added accountability or extra help,
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  I have a $10 a month membership at joylovinghome.com slash membership.
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  And there I am trying to go live every time I'm doing the challenge.
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  So you're having the extra accountability. And then on Tuesdays,
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  we actually work together on Zoom calls.
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  So it's nice to actually get to know you all and see a face and work together on things like that.
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  So, but just in a real quick nutshell, this double down dig out challenge has
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  to do with us having the goal of 20 times over the course of the month.
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  We set a timer two separate times during the day for 20 minutes each time.
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  In one 20 minute session, we're just trying to hit a maintenance,
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  whether that's a kitchen or a laundry or a bathroom or those things that are sort of never-ending.
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  And in the other 20 minutes, we are challenging ourselves to either throw away, put away, or.
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  Giveaway, 20 items in our home.
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  So those, we're working all of that through.
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  And again, if you want to hear any more about that, pop back one episode and
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  you can check that out. Okay, so back to our topic at hand.
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  So where to start when just everywhere you turn just seems overwhelming and
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  you start to overthink it.
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  To get us going with how I want you to think about this, I'm going to share
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  a quote that I love from Lewis Carroll, who is the author of Alice's Adventures
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  in Wonderland, among other books. But this is from that book.
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  And it starts with Alice encountering the Cheshire cat.
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  And she asks him, would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
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  Because she's standing at a crossroads.
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  And the cat says, that depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
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  Oh, I don't much care where, says Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way you go, says the cat.
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  I have always loved that little blip because, for one, it is equally enlightening
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  and absurd all at the same time.
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  But as far as trying to explain my thoughts on how this works with your ADHD
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  brain and where to start, It's sort of showing both sides of a coin.
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  And one end, if you don't have your goal in mind of what you're trying to figure
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  out for your house, then you're going to have your goal in mind.
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  You kind of can go in any direction, right?
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  And so a lot of these people you'll
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  hear is to like have your vision and have your purpose and set all the things
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  in your brain and have all the things of like the ultimate destination in mind
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  so that you can keep your why in your heart while you're working on all the things.
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  And again, none of this is wrong. I'm not saying any of that is the wrong thing to do.
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  But if you find it causes your ADHD brain to overplan or plan without any action
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  or spend some deep dive in Pinterest and the next thing you know,
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  you're looking at 10 other people's vision boards and you're promising yourself
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  you're really doing work by pinning an entire board of inspiration picks for
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  every possible room in your home and nothing is actually changing in your home,
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  then maybe we've overthought the destination.
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  Yet the other side of this coin is to prove that, to the cat's point,
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  if you don't care where you're getting, any direction is going to get you there.
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  You will end up somewhere with action, which isn't the worst thing in the world, right?
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  Because what we really need as ADHD people is to quit being frozen and to start in our action.
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  Now, I know that you're like, okay, getting up and starting,
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  just doing motion can seem a
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  little spirally because we will suddenly roll into that other famous book,
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  which is if you give a mouse a cookie and find ourselves all over the place
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  without anything really to show for it.
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  And so I do see that either side of that coin has its pros and has its cons.
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  But what I'm loving about this is if we keep all of it super simple and we say our end goal is less.
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  Right? Ultimately, isn't that what we want for our house?
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  We want less stuff. We want it to take less time to look worthwhile.
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  We want there to be less things to worry about and less things to focus about
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  and less things to be overwhelmed by.
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  And so if your ultimate goal is as simple as saying, I just need it to be less,
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  then any direction you go will get you there.
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  And this happens to be something to pair really beautifully with this challenge
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  I'm doing for the month of March because every 20-minute timer you set and stand
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  up and get busy on is 20 minutes in the right direction.
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  Because if the destination is less, doing 20 minutes of maintenance will make
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  you feel less scattered about a space.
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  20 minutes of putting things that have homes away will make you feel like there's less chaos.
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  20 minutes of finding 20 things to take out to your car to donate is having less stuff.
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  All the actions lead you to the right destination.
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  If you think about it as a fabulously great labyrinth or maze in which it has
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  lots of entrances, but at the end, you're all going to end up at the same twist
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  and turn to the center, which is the less pile, right?
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  The less that all the routes are going to lead you to the right destination,
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  even if they feel a little chaotic on the journey.
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  And so that's the direction I want you to think about when it's time to start.
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  Don't overthink the start. Don't worry that you're not taking the right path.
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  Because as the cat said, if it doesn't matter where you want to get to,
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  then all the paths, it doesn't matter which way you go.
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  And since all of our paths are going to lead to less, then all of our ways are the right ways.
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  And if you're like, oh, but I didn't start at the beginning of March.
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  It's already March 10th.
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  I won't be able to do this challenge with joy. I'll have to wait for another one.
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  Not too late. As I spoke about in the last podcast, every challenge I offer has a loophole.
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  I am taking insane advantage of the loophole of my own creation right now because
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  I have had the most chaotic week since I introduced it last week.
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  And I have done probably five out of my 20,
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  maintenance minutes, and I have done two of my 20 item minutes out of the 20.
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  But the beauty of this challenge is I'm not saying every day for 20 days.
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  I'm not saying 20 times in succession.
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  I am not saying 20 of this, then 20 of that, or one of each every day.
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  I'm saying download the printable.
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  Mark off. There are 20 boxes. They're not numbered. They're not dated. They're not anything.
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  Just mark. I did check. I did 20 minutes in the kitchen. Check.
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  I did 20 minutes in the bathroom. Check. I did 20 minutes of laundry.
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  Check. I did 20 minutes in the entryway.
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  Whatever the case may be. Check. I, on trash day, definitely threw away 20 things.
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  I'm going to count that. That's my loophole that day.
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  The next day, I put away 20 items
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  that were scattered all over my living room, and man, it felt better.
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  And I'm discovering that the 20 minutes, sometimes I finish well ahead.
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  Sometimes I'm not quite to all 20 items at the end of 20 minutes, but I'm in motion.
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  I'm in the right direction, and it carries me through till I get to the end of the 20.
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  So just one more encouragement there, reminding you if you've tried to get into
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  either of my groups and you're struggling, you can always email me.
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  I'm joy at joylovinghome.com. If you are wanting some just added motivation,
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  you want to do one of the sessions with me in my free group or you want to jump
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  in all in with the membership group,
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  either way, I'm here to help and would love to help you have that accountability of getting in motion.
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  Every direction leads to less when you just stand up and get moving.
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  I will leave you with that thought, keeping it short and sweet so that you can
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  go set that 20-minute timer and get off in your direction.
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  Until next time, continue to choose joy.