Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 237: Organizing Priorities - Know Your End Goal for Less Frustration

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237: Organizing Priorities - Know Your End Goal for Less Frustration · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

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  Have you ever just really worked so hard to get a space in your home in order
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  before and then you just realize after a very little bit of time, it seems to fall apart?
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  Your immediate thought is that, okay, great, here it is, me failing at this again.
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  I just, it's not my skill.
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  And you start blaming yourself. I didn't declutter enough. I didn't set up my
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  right system, like they say.
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  I just, I'm awful at this.
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  It's possible, it's true, that
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  you could declutter some more or you could have a sort of better system.
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  But I want to argue a little bit about maybe you didn't have the right goal in mind.
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  And I want to sort of dig in to exactly what that means.
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  A wise person once said, Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
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  ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
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  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
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  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
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  I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
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  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
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  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
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  then I'm glad you're here.
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  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
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  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
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  First, just want to say welcome or welcome back to the Joy-Loving Home podcast.
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  I'm Joy, and today I want you to really hone in on the fact that you actually
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  can't have every little facet of what you want in a space.
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  And knowing exactly what you're targeting is going to make all the difference in the world.
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  I'm not saying you can't have pieces and parts of all the things you want,
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  but they're going to stack rank in order of your priorities.
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  And you have to ask yourself, what was I actually prioritizing here if I can't have everything?
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  So for practical reasons, I'm just going to illustrate this in the idea of a
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  pantry, but this would work for any space that you're trying to organize.
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  So if I start my plans for getting my pantry organized because it drives me
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  crazy and I'm looking at all these different pantries online for ideas and inspiration
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  and I've pinned and I know exactly what I want.
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  Did you pick it out because your priority is aesthetic.
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  Is your priority function? Is your priority efficiency?
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  Or you're a hardcore meal prepper?
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  Or you like cost savings above all things?
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  Really, these are all different approaches when you're going to tackle the type
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  of pantry you're going to have.
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  Do you follow food preppers? Do you follow family budget meal plans?
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  Did you literally just pick out the prettiest pantries you could find?
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  Because at the end of the day, yours is a very open space and every time you
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  open it, you just want the aesthetic.
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  And there's nothing wrong with any of these goals. They're all perfectly lovely goals.
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  But one of them has to come to the surface as the
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  most important priority to you and
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  the rest are going to stack rank under that and the type of
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  pantry you lay out for yourself is going to be different based on which one
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  you prioritize and you can't get frustrated when you set it up for one but you
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  really like a different priority and then it doesn't work the way you wanted it to work.
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  So let's think about how this would actually plan out.
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  For instance, a lot of times people will hire me because they have seen a pin
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  on Pinterest or a, you know,
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  a phone on Instagram where some organizer online did a beautiful,
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  beautiful, beautiful pantry.
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  And Organizing by Tracy is one of the most aesthetic, like if you ever just
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  want to look at aesthetic pantries that.
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  Seem super efficient and seem so well organized that there's no way they could
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  be messed up again because everything is laid out and everything is labeled perfectly.
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  She even has sort of, I'll call it a catchphrase, I'm sure she doesn't call
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  it that, where she'll say, hide the ugly, hide the ugly.
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  And wherever the door swings open to, she'll put all the ugly stuff behind the door.
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  And that's fine if your main priority is aesthetic.
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  And if that is the case, you're going to pull everything out.
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  You're going to wipe everything down.
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  You may paint, you may put up wallpaper, you might add new lighting.
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  I don't know. you might do all kinds of things to make sure the aesthetic,
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  if that's your goal, is ready to be met.
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  You're then going to buy all kinds of wonderful, beautiful containers to decant
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  things into and baskets and all the pretty labels.
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  And if this is the pantry you want, you're going to set it all up empty,
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  all the containers in there, until you get just the aesthetic you want.
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  And then you're going to turn around and look at your food and you're going to make it fit.
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  And if it doesn't fit, you're not going to buy that food anymore.
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  You're going to find a way to hide that ugly.
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  Even to the point where she'll say, if you have an open wire container or you
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  have a clear container, don't have a multi-pack of different chips with different bag colors.
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  Make sure you buy the same chip so that all the pretty same colors are lined up as the aesthetic?
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  Like, is that the way you do grocery shopping? If it's not, and your priority
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  is aesthetic, then you have to change the way you shop.
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  I'm sorry, you just do. It's the reality.
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  If your priority is minimalist, bare bones,
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  just exactly what we need based on what we use, then your priority starts way
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  before you ever have anything in that pantry.
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  Your priority starts with, I have a calendar with the meals that I prep for
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  weeks A, B, C, and D, and I have my shopping lists that coordinate with A, B, C, week.
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  And I will have the baskets in my pantry for, I will group together all the
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  items that go in dinner on Monday night, dinner on Tuesday night, dinner.
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  You will have seven baskets that go across the shelf and you will have a box
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  of noodles and a jar of sauce and a bag of croutons to indicate that the salad is in the fridge.
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  And you will know on Monday we have pasta and all of those things will be in there.
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  It will be a completely different setup and a completely different aesthetic
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  and a completely different, if your priority is function because you are a meal
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  planner, then that pantry is going to look differently.
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  Than that first one I described. If your main goal in life is that you all have
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  absolute budgeting goals and you're trying to follow the Dave Ramsey style get
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  out of debt and all you do is bulk buy and you follow those sales,
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  then your pantry is going to be set up completely different to be able to allow
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  for 20 cans of pasta sauce when the pasta went on sale.
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  And then next week, it's going to be the something else went on sale.
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  Sorry, I can't think of something else right now. The rice went on sale and
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  you now have 20 bags of rice because you know how to follow the sales cycles.
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  And you have to allow space in your pantry to have multiples of things sit there
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  for a while, and they're going to ebb and flow based on the sales cycles.
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  And that's okay, that's great, but that's not going to be the same aesthetic
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  as the first thing we described.
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  And all of this is fine.
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  Every goal is great, but you have to know, you can't be saying,
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  I want my pantry to look like this picture, but I don't live like this picture.
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  I know you get where I'm going here. So the next time you're wanting to say,
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  I'm ready to organize this space, and you look at your pinboard,
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  I want you to stop and first say, what was the goal of each of these pantries on this pinboard?
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  If the answer is aesthetic, aesthetic, aesthetic, aesthetic.
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  Then you have to remind yourself that people don't live in that picture.
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  Or if they do, it's because they literally, that is their whole goal in life.
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  And they set aside the time to keep up that aesthetic.
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  And they only purchase their groceries to keep up that aesthetic.
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  That is their goal. And I've mentioned it before in a way where I'm like,
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  be careful who you're following or what you're watching, because you have to
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  remember each person you follow, that's their whole goal. That's their whole job.
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  And so if you prioritize exercise, then you're going to put your energy and
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  your time into exercise and following those people.
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  But you have to know those same people have a different place in their house
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  that is falling apart because they're not prioritizing.
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  It doesn't mean you can't cycle through priorities.
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  It just means give yourself some grace for what you're prioritizing.
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  And if you're frustrated because you can't achieve what you're following,
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  then maybe put in some different keywords.
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  If your main goal is efficiency, then make sure you're following food planning
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  people, meal prep people.
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  Meal plan people, and start looking at their pantry aesthetic.
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  I bet you it's a whole lot different. Or if you're into budget and budgeting hacks,
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  then make sure you're following how those people do their budget meal planning
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  and look at their kitchens and their pantries and realize that it's a very different aesthetic.
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  And if you're like, okay, wait, none of these is pushing my button here for what my house is like,
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  then maybe you need to be following people who have tiny homes and look at what
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  they allow themselves to purchase.
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  Maybe they are not buying the giant Costco container of Dawn.
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  Maybe they have a tiny little bottle and they know it lasts them for that month
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  because all the space they have is for that tiny little bottle.
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  They didn't get to prioritize aesthetic. They didn't get to prioritize budget.
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  They prioritized space because they live in a small space.
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  So just know your end goal to alleviate some of that frustration and be okay with that.
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  As long as you know sort of the
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  race you're running, then you know you're heading in the right direction.
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  I hope that's helpful. And I want you to continue to choose joy because I actually
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  think that's the best priority.