Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 278: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 4 - Not Knowing Where to Start

Transcript

278: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 4 - Not Knowing Where to Start · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  Today is our final part in our four-part series that we have been examining
• 0:06
  the things that are keeping you stuck.
• 0:08
  And so far, just as a quick recap, I've asked you to measure your capacity and
• 0:14
  see if you're matching the type of activities you're trying to do on a given
• 0:17
  day with that capacity level.
• 0:21
  I've asked you to take note of your stress. not that artificial I feel so guilty
• 0:25
  that I can't get this together kind but like real stress the deadlines that
• 0:30
  you might have in front of you.
• 0:32
  And seeing if you have actually enough stress to take action,
• 0:37
  I've asked you to tread very carefully through the social media scroll,
• 0:42
  of all of the things you wish you were doing in your home and instead just focusing
• 0:48
  on one small step that helps you move yourself forward.
• 0:53
  And today we are going to wrap things up with one of the most common things
• 0:58
  I hear when we talk about why we can't get into that action.
• 1:03
  And it is the statement that I get, which is, I don't know where to start.
• 1:07
  I'm so overwhelmed. I don't know where to start.
• 1:11
  So let's dig into that. A wise person once said, everybody is a genius,
• 1:16
  but if you judge of fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole
• 1:20
  life believing that it's stupid.
• 1:21
  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 1:28
  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
• 1:32
  I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
• 1:37
  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
• 1:41
  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
• 1:45
  then I'm glad you're here.
• 1:47
  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
• 1:53
  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
• 1:57
  Okay, the ever elusive where to start. So monkey advice for climbing your tree.
• 2:05
  Is to start at step one. Simple.
• 2:10
  Okay, how do I know step one? Well, again, monkey advice.
• 2:14
  You define your project, you identify all the different steps,
• 2:17
  you put those steps in order,
• 2:19
  and then you schedule those steps on your calendar in the right time frame for
• 2:24
  the deadline, and you knock them out step-by-step until you've met your deadline. Easy peasy.
• 2:30
  Podcast over, right?
• 2:33
  It's so simple. And again, this is great advice.
• 2:37
  If you are a monkey climbing a tree, that is never how our fish brain existences work.
• 2:46
  Okay? We don't identify the things we're trying to get done as a linear progression
• 2:52
  from step one to step five.
• 2:54
  And here's the order. And I'm going to, you know, have that locked in.
• 2:58
  And I'm going to know each little smart goal along the way. and I'm going to make it all work.
• 3:04
  Great advice for a monkey. You're a fish, so we're going to throw that out the
• 3:09
  window and we're going to jump in the water.
• 3:11
  So here's what I need you to picture about how your brain sees the space or
• 3:17
  the task or the whatever it is that you are trying to get done.
• 3:21
  You are swimming along in a very nice clear,
• 3:25
  we'll call it a brook, I don't know, wherever you're swimming and you are seeing stones along the bottom,
• 3:32
  some of those stones are glittery some are like shiny and round some are very
• 3:38
  very tiny some are very large but you are encountering them in just random,
• 3:47
  order as you are wandering around they're they're not numbered.
• 3:52
  They're not lined up in a little path that you are following.
• 3:56
  They were scattered into that riverbed very haphazardly.
• 4:03
  And this is how you are encountering them. It is almost like your brain.
• 4:09
  Has not been given clearance to the way your life should work.
• 4:13
  It is top secret and you operate on a need to know basis.
• 4:18
  So until your brain is given the message, this is a need, this is happening,
• 4:24
  we've got to get this done, this is a need to know, it's just sort of out there.
• 4:29
  And the worst thing that we can do for ourselves
• 4:34
  is to actually say, the only way I'll ever get my life together
• 4:39
  is to get the quote unquote right system and the right cleaning schedule and
• 4:45
  the right plan and follow it exactly consistently because that's how,
• 4:51
  this is supposed to work, right?
• 4:54
  No, that is literally your brain is allergic to routine and to consistency and
• 5:00
  to the boredom of doing the exact same thing over and over again.
• 5:06
  Your brain wants to operate.
• 5:08
  In a way that I describe as like ad hoc.
• 5:12
  It is as needed. So when will the dining room table be cleaned?
• 5:17
  Right before Thanksgiving.
• 5:19
  That's when we need it. Before then, it's not a need.
• 5:22
  It's not necessary in our lives. We can function through our lives with the
• 5:27
  dining room table chaotic.
• 5:30
  When will the powder room get scrubbed? When there's a chance guests are coming over.
• 5:35
  When will I have all the things vacuumed and dusted and everything looking great?
• 5:42
  Maybe when the mother-in-law is coming.
• 5:47
  Whatever your ad hoc situation is, whatever you're like, this is actually real to me.
• 5:53
  I actually do have pride in my home. I do care about what people think about me.
• 5:58
  I want this to look great before the play date.
• 6:02
  Whatever the scenario is in your head, that is when those things are going to happen.
• 6:06
  I'm sorry to tell you. So now you're going, great, does this mean like for the
• 6:11
  rest of my life I have to live in chaos? Am I ever allowed to just have a beautifully
• 6:17
  clean, highly functional home?
• 6:20
  Would I ever be ready for surprise visits?
• 6:23
  Maybe. Not necessarily. But it's not out of the realm of possibility.
• 6:29
  Lots of fish brains can get this together.
• 6:33
  Not necessarily in the way you imagine, though. In a way where they still have
• 6:40
  that surge of energy, they still have that knowledge that something's about to happen,
• 6:45
  but they also discover along the way that they find times when they just want
• 6:50
  to do it for themselves, because they aren't forcing themselves into a box of
• 6:56
  this is the only way to do it and I have,
• 6:59
  to check off the checklist.
• 7:01
  That is not going to be the way you ever break through. The way you're going
• 7:05
  to break through is the discovery that as you're swimming along looking for
• 7:09
  the next rock you want to do, you eliminate some of the rocks.
• 7:15
  Literally minimizing the amount of things in your house to care for is the,
• 7:23
  surest way I don't know if that's a word the the most certain way to make sure,
• 7:31
  that you actually have an easier time of keeping up with your house much like
• 7:37
  an interior designer may say paint can make the biggest impact for the least
• 7:41
  amount of cost and effort,
• 7:44
  having less stuff will make the biggest impact for the least amount of cost.
• 7:51
  It's effort. I'm not going to lie, it's effort. But it is effort that we can
• 7:56
  do in a way that feeds our fish brain.
• 8:00
  So one of the most powerful tools that I push all the time is understanding
• 8:07
  how to create a non-linear pending list.
• 8:11
  This non-linear pending list, and I've spoken about it on several podcasts,
• 8:15
  is the brain dump onto anything.
• 8:20
  I actually enjoy it in the notes app with the little.
• 8:24
  Checklist bubbles. And I know you're like, Joy, you just said no checklist.
• 8:28
  Not a numbered checklist. Just one.
• 8:31
  The neat thing about it being digital is you can literally scroll through.
• 8:36
  This list can have 500 items on it. And you can scroll through till the rock
• 8:40
  with the shiniest edge, sparkle, whatever hits you.
• 8:45
  And you can decide to do that one. And when you check it off,
• 8:48
  it'll jump to the bottom and the others repopulate up to the top.
• 8:53
  On a day when your capacity is great, you can pick a big heavy rock to do.
• 8:58
  On a day when you have zero capacity and your stress is just not there...
• 9:03
  You can pick the tiniest one and see if that type of motion gives you enough
• 9:10
  of a dopamine hit to go, huh, maybe I'll do another.
• 9:15
  And you scroll through that list some more until the next shiny one pops in your head.
• 9:21
  It is wandering through your house and feeling overwhelmed at the front entrance,
• 9:26
  feeling overwhelmed at the playroom, feeling overwhelmed at a bathroom.
• 9:34
  And wandering into the laundry room and for some reason you get an itch to pull
• 9:38
  everything out of it, vacuum it, mop it, reorganize under the sink and create
• 9:45
  a huge mess in the hall. But man, that laundry room looks great.
• 9:48
  And you just keep walking by it and smiling. And it actually motivates you to
• 9:52
  go, okay, I'm going to start a little laundry.
• 9:55
  That felt great. I'm going to actually do another.
• 9:58
  And I'm going to do another. And the next thing you know, you turn around,
• 10:00
  you're like, I, the last thing I thought I was going to do today was catch up on laundry.
• 10:05
  But for some reason, scratching the itch of wanting to add a new diffuser in
• 10:12
  the laundry room changed everything that day. Like the sparkle comes from who knows where.
• 10:19
  But if you keep that non-linear pending list, the other really cool thing about
• 10:24
  it is you may scroll along and go, huh, I forgot I did that.
• 10:28
  Oh, actually, I did that too. Oh, actually, that doesn't even matter.
• 10:32
  That deadline is passed. I never thought another thing about it after I dropped it on this list.
• 10:36
  Because pending action also means that you can decide not to do something.
• 10:42
  You can discover that things you thought were important actually aren't important
• 10:45
  at all, and they just get checked off because they disappeared.
• 10:50
  They no longer were relevant to your life.
• 10:54
  It is amazing the amount of things that if we kept our super careful checklist
• 10:59
  and tried to get all the things done, that we are doing a lot of unnecessary things.
• 11:05
  That we thought we were supposed to care about. And then we discovered that,
• 11:10
  we didn't care about it. Our family didn't care about it. Nobody was harmed
• 11:13
  in the not doing of the item.
• 11:16
  And it just gets to fall off the list. And those are a dopamine hit too.
• 11:21
  It's really cool when you discover things that you thought were important just aren't.
• 11:25
  And that nonlinear pending list helps you get to that.
• 11:30
  The other super helpful tool is to give yourself permission to follow the interest,
• 11:40
  to follow the motion, because the motion leads the action.
• 11:47
  The motion leads to getting things done you weren't expecting.
• 11:52
  Getting anything done feels great.
• 11:55
  But then will often fuel your battery enough with those little dopamine hits
• 12:01
  to do the thing you thought was harder that you didn't want to start with right at the beginning.
• 12:05
  It's like jumping on a bike and being told climb this hill right now where you
• 12:11
  didn't get any momentum from coming down the hill on the other side.
• 12:17
  You can climb a hill faster when you've already started rolling down the one that was before it.
• 12:22
  That is what motion gives you.
• 12:25
  Any kind of motion is a positive. So you've got to quit stopping yourself when you're like,
• 12:32
  I just, I know, I know I wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up,
• 12:37
  but I walked into the mudroom and all of a sudden I found myself lining all
• 12:42
  the shoes up in size order.
• 12:44
  And then I realized 10 of these shoes we've never worn because they're two sizes
• 12:48
  too small for this youngest kid.
• 12:50
  And I bagged them up and I threw them in my car. And then I realized the floor
• 12:55
  was actually vacuumable.
• 12:56
  And then I turned the corner and because I was in motion, the next thing I knew
• 13:01
  I was running soapy water in the sink and I started the dishwasher because I
• 13:05
  crammed it full and I turned around and I was like, hey, I have this,
• 13:10
  really cool candle and you know what?
• 13:13
  I'm going to wipe this table off and set it in the middle and burn it while I keep working.
• 13:17
  And I really love dancing around to music while I'm in motion.
• 13:22
  You have got to give yourself permission to just start moving around.
• 13:29
  That is the swimming that will lead you to see the pebbles that are under there,
• 13:34
  that are calling your name, that are asking you to get busy.
• 13:39
  This stopping yourself and sitting at the bottom of a tree and trying to sort
• 13:44
  out which branch is the first branch to grab, and you don't have the arms to grab it, is killing you.
• 13:50
  It's killing your momentum, and you've got to stop worrying about that.
• 13:54
  And if you like this type of lesson, and you want to lean into these types of
• 13:59
  tasks, and you want fellow fish to swim with, that is why I'm pushing fish school.
• 14:05
  That is why I would love to have you in there with us.
• 14:09
  So that you have some fellow fish to be like, hey, what are you doing today?
• 14:15
  Well, I need to do this, but what I really want to do is this.
• 14:17
  Okay, in the first 15 minutes of our Zoom call, do the thing you want to do.
• 14:22
  And then when we regroup, see if the next 15 minutes you're ready to do the other thing.
• 14:27
  It's really helpful. The accountability is unmatched.
• 14:33
  I have had people ask before, why don't you put this as a course?
• 14:36
  Why don't you create a planner? Or why don't you create the things that you can sell?
• 14:41
  Because I can give all the information out free. I can give you all the things
• 14:46
  and you're still not going to do them.
• 14:48
  You could buy the courses, you're still not going to complete them.
• 14:52
  I want you to actually take action. I want you to actually feel like you're
• 14:56
  moving forward in your home.
• 14:58
  And the way I can help you do that is the accountability. Because that literally is the game changer.
• 15:04
  So I had planned to keep the carts open in Fish School, which you get to by
• 15:10
  going to joelivinghome.com slash membership, until Sunday and then,
• 15:15
  or sorry, Monday, because Monday's Labor Day, and then start,
• 15:18
  this new season of Fish School on Tuesday after Labor Day.
• 15:23
  But I have done a very lousy job of like getting my newsletter out and popping
• 15:29
  it into my free group which my free group by the way is bit.ly slash joy loving
• 15:35
  home community because I am not.
• 15:38
  I'm not I'm a fish guys I didn't launch according to a checklist anyway so what
• 15:44
  I'm going to do and I'm just deciding this on the fly right now is if you are
• 15:48
  in my free group I'm going to do the first week of Fish School for free in there.
• 15:53
  And if it's something you want to dabble in and you want to try,
• 15:56
  please, please get yourself into my free community. Again, I'll put the link
• 16:02
  in the show notes, but it's bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
• 16:07
  And it is a Facebook group. So if you're against Facebook, sorry,
• 16:11
  that's just where I house it.
• 16:13
  But you can jump in. I will do the motion lives. I will do the Zoom call links.
• 16:22
  I will do all the things in there so that you can sample it.
• 16:26
  And then I'll close the cart the week after that.
• 16:29
  It's a great time to jump in and see what accountability can do for you.
• 16:33
  So I hope you're with me. I hope you see the value.
• 16:36
  If you choose not to join me, at least, you know, replay episodes 275 through, what is this, 278?
• 16:46
  And And just try a couple things. You know, get into motion while you've got me in your ears.
• 16:52
  I think most of them are, you know, 12 to, this one's getting long, 17 minutes long.
• 16:58
  And just move around. Move around to wherever your brain feels like.
• 17:03
  And just see what a little motion will do for you. And if you want the extra
• 17:07
  accountability, join us.
• 17:09
  All right. Until next time, continue to choose joy.