Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #282| 2 Easy Steps To Tame Back To School Clutter And Set Yourself Up For A Productive Fall Season
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn two easy steps to tame back to school clutter.
- 0:04Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:33Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining me again on What's Causing My Overwhelm Wednesday.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: Today we are moving on to the letter C.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: If you haven't been following along on Wednesdays, I'm doing a series of short episodes that are talking about things that commonly cause overwhelm.
- 0:51Michelle Gauthier: And there are so many things that cause overwhelm that I'm just going straight through the alphabet.
- 0:55Michelle Gauthier: So we have A B and now we are on C.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: And today we are going to be talking about clutter.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: Listening to this episode is a great way to set yourself up for a productive fall season without clutter.
- 1:07Michelle Gauthier: I don't know about you, but when my kids go back to school and you might not even have kids, or maybe you have kids, but they don't go back to school anymore.
- 1:14Michelle Gauthier: This episode is good for anyone who has clutter of any kind.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: But one of the things that my kids do before school, because I force them to, is go through their whole entire room.
- 1:24Michelle Gauthier: It's mostly about the clothes, but it's also about the general clutter that just piles up in their room.
- 1:30Michelle Gauthier: For example, last year's backpack is still probably full of stuff.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: One year, this was one of the worst.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: Josie, my daughter, never took her lunch out of her backpack.
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: So at the end of the summer, we got to find the disgusting three-month-old lunch in there.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: Anyway, point being, my process with them is just to go through every single thing and say, keep or give away, keep or give away.
- 1:50Michelle Gauthier: And they choose it quickly because they want it to be over with, and they decide if they're keeping or giving away that item.
- 1:57Michelle Gauthier: And in the midst of doing that with my daughter, I'm actually doing it with my son after I'm finished recording this podcast, but in the midst of doing this with my daughter, you get to the point where you have this mountain of stuff.
- 2:07Michelle Gauthier: Even the keeps are just in a heap and the giveaways are all over the place.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: And it always makes me think, like, what am I doing?
- 2:14Michelle Gauthier: Why did I even open this can of worms?
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: My thought was in the midst of this process, this is a disaster and I've made everything worse.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: And that made me want to stop halfway through and shove it all back in the closet.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: When we talk about these things that are causing overwhelm on these what's causing my overwhelm Wednesdays, we want to think about a one-two punch.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: Punch one is how to think differently about the situation.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: And then punch two is how to take new action.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: So punch one to think differently.
- 2:44Michelle Gauthier: My original thought was this is a disaster.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: I've made everything worse, and it made me want to shove it all back in the closet.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: My new thought was this temporary overwhelm is worth the results.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: The mess in the middle isn't a mistake.
- 2:56Michelle Gauthier: It's just proof that the process is actually working.
- 2:59Michelle Gauthier: You can't sort through what's outgrown and what's not without that middle period of looking messy.
- 3:04Michelle Gauthier: I'm telling you the story about my daughter's room.
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: I think this is true of all decluttering projects.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: Step one, it looks way worse and you regret that you even started.
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: So punch one is to think differently.
- 3:15Michelle Gauthier: This is temporary, and this temporary overwhelm is worth the result.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: And punch two is to take new action.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: So the action to take is to not stop in the messy middle and to pick your category of things that you're decluttering so that you can get all the way through the keep giveaway decision for that one category in that same sitting.
- 3:32Michelle Gauthier: And that way you don't lose your mojo because the project is too big.
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: So maybe if decluttering your child's clothes sounds like too much, start with their sock drawer today.
- 3:42Michelle Gauthier: Let them practice keep giveaway, keep giveaway, keep giveaway, and then give away the stuff.
- 3:47Michelle Gauthier: Just put it in your bin, bonus points if you actually drop it off somewhere, but then you practice and you have just a little bit of a mountain of clothes and you get all the way through it.
- 3:57Michelle Gauthier: And then the next day do t-shirts or swimsuits.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: My daughter had like 15 bikinis.
- 4:02Michelle Gauthier: What?
- 4:03Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so that's it.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: Just like we have been talking about every Wednesday, anything that causes you overwhelm, you can make feel better by doing these two things that I just described to you.
- 4:12Michelle Gauthier: Think about it differently and take new action.
- 4:14Michelle Gauthier: I'll see you next week for D.
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 4:24Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.