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[00:00:00] Diana Rene:
You're listening to the Decluttered Mom Podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Renee, and in 2017 I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in. Okay. Not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me over the next 10 months. 

[00:00:30] I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today. 

[00:00:50] Welcome to the first episode of 2023 for the Decluttered Mom Podcast. I am really excited about this year. As I [00:01:00] talked about on the last episode, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen. I talk all about how. The new year, while some people fight against having a resolution, the new, you cannot deny the new year doesn't bring about like a new feeling, a fresh start. 

[00:01:19] And when we are dealing with clutter, sometimes we need that extra push to be able to actually take action. So the new year is a really good time for that. And I'm just, I just, I have so many ideas for this year, you guys. So many ways that I can help you and I'm really excited for this year. Before I jump into today's episode, I wanted to let you know that I am on the tail end, hopefully, fingers crossed, of a really bad strep infection. 

[00:01:50] Um, miss eight and I both got really sick a few days before Christmas, the first Christmas in our new home. We also were going to host [00:02:00] Christmas for the very first time ever. Like, I've never hosted Christmas because, um, we, we've always had a smaller space and it just made more sense to go to other people's homes that were, had more space and now we have more space. 

[00:02:14] And so we were really excited to be able to host this year and the world was like, um, just kidding you. Are the proud new owner of a strep infection, you and your daughter, and it is going to be miserable. Um, I had strep throat all the time as a kid, and I just remember it as being like a sore throat and like I was tired and I took naps. 

[00:02:37] But like as an adult, it is no joke. So if I sound funny, that's why , that's, that's the whole reason I went into that story is that I st. I still kind of 

sound a little bit funny. My voice sounds a little weird. My throat still hurts a little bit, so that's why I sound the way that I do prior to. 

[00:02:58] Decluttering and [00:03:00] putting in systems and routines and just living with less, getting sick really, really stressed me out. If one of my kids got sick or I got sick, it really stressed me out because I knew we were going to be even more behind. in an already behind home like our home already felt chaotic. 

[00:03:21] And then to put being sick on top of it, which usually means more laundry and more food left out and just, you know, things don't get put away as much as they normally do when we're feeling all right. Side note, um, I am recording this podcast in my master bedroom closet, which is right next to the laundry room. 

[00:03:43] And now I know that the washing machine makes a lot of noise in here. I never knew that before, so I apologize for the background noise, but it is what it is. You guys are moms, you get it? So we're just gonna keep rolling. Now when I get sick, I get stressed out for lots of [00:04:00] reasons, but my house is not one of them, and here's why. 

[00:04:03] I know that when the sickness has run its course, when we start feeling better, when we get those bursts of energy at the end of the tail end of the sickness, it'll be pretty simple. It'll be pretty quick to get my house back in. . Why? Because there's just less stuff to deal with, and that's what I wanted to kind of go into today is how the three different ways that clutter is stealing the little free time that you have as a busy mom, you. 

[00:04:33] If you are listening to this, you are, uh, probably a mom. If you're not a mom, then you are just a busy person who has a lot on their plate, right? And clutter is stealing the little free time that you already have. The first way I wanted to talk about. It's just by looking for lost items. And this can look like a lot of different things, right? 

[00:04:58] It can be like, [00:05:00] um, looking for the, the scotch tape that you swear was in that junk drawer, like the last time you opened it and, and now you can't find it. And so now you're like scouring the whole house looking for it and you're yelling out and wondering who took the tape. And it's a big ordeal and you're stressed out and you're annoyed. 

[00:05:17] And you also have just lost nine minutes looking for. , maybe it is your second kid's left shoe as you're walking out the door for school. Can't find it. Who has been in that scenario before? ? Um, why ps Why is it always a 

shoe? I feel like it's always a shoe. Um, and then like another one might be the orange sweater that you really need to find before the fall fest that you. 

[00:05:43] Coming up in two days, like there's just always something that you are looking for because it doesn't have a designated home and there's too much stuff. So when we declutter and when we make [00:06:00] space, we, we have valuable real estate in our home. We have spaces in our. That shouldn't just be piled upon, right? 

[00:06:10] Like we shouldn't have to just throw a bunch of junk onto every valuable piece of real estate we have in our home because it's valuable. And when we declutter, we are able to assign homes to every single item we own, and so we know where it goes. Does that mean you're never gonna lose something ever again? 

[00:06:30] No. Especially if you have kids in the house. We all know they like to take things and make them disappear at times, but it's just a much less frequent thing. It's not, uh, a thing that you're dealing with on a daily basis. It's more of just like an an every now and then thing. So that's like the first way that I see clutter. 

[00:06:52] Stealing your time. . The second way is all of the time that you are spending picking [00:07:00] up, uh, and we are coming off the week of Christmas, so I'm sure this is even like the blood pressure has raised even more lately regarding this because there's probably even more stuff all over the house. Right? But I'm talking. 

[00:07:18] The clothes, the toys, the papers, the shoes, the toys, the snacks, the schoolwork, the toys, the crafts, the clothes, the toys, right? Just stuff everywhere. And every single thing that we choose to keep in our home, we are basically assigning a time to it, right? So like if you go to Target and you are brows, the dollar spot. 

[00:07:45] Yes. We're going there. , you're browsing the dollar spot and you see this really cute thing, um, that your daughter really probably will like, and it's like a craft thing. And so you decide to buy it. And [00:08:00] then she does like, looks at it and she plays with it for like seven minutes and then she's done. Um, but she, but it's really special and important to her now because it's a craft she made and it's special. 

[00:08:11] Right. You're gonna have to pick that up. Um, and then like three days later, you're gonna find it again on the floor somewhere, and then you're 

gonna have to pick it up and then a week later you're gonna find it in the bathroom cabinet drawer and you're gonna have to pick it up. Like there's, we have to constantly. 

[00:08:33] pick up and put away things that we bring into our home. Um, let me think of another example. So clothes , the more clothes that we have, the more we end up picking up. And, and same with laundry, which we've talked about before. And a lot of people are like, nah, I don't really agree with that, because you're gonna have to wear the clothes. 

[00:08:54] That's okay. That's fair. But how I see it is if you have like an entire wardrobe, like an [00:09:00] entire closet packed full of clothes, you are more likely to go through more clothes if you have more options. What I mean by that is you are going to take something out, try it on, throw it on the floor, throw it on the back of a chair, cuz you're not. 

[00:09:16] Exactly what you want today. So you go and grab something else and you try it on, you throw it down, you grab something else. Or if you're, if you have kids, then they're gonna put something on and then they're gonna be like, oh mommy, I wanna put that dress on. And so they go, they're gonna go change and they're gonna leave the clothes on the floor and then they're gonna like get dirty and then they're gonna put more clothes on and. 

[00:09:39] They're going to go decide that they wanna be a princess, so they're gonna put that outfit on, and like the more options they have, the more they're probably going to be wearing their clothes. Then on the flip side of that, as as the parent in the house who does the laundry, um, if your kids [00:10:00] are really young, then you are going to be doing more laundry because the more clothes that people are circulating through, they're going to do have to be laundered. 

[00:10:09] Right? But not only that. . Oftentimes we don't stick to our routines, right? Especially when we're feeling overwhelmed, especially when things feel chaotic. And we just want to like lay on the couch and scroll on our phones instead of doing the routines, because it just feels very overwhelming to us. And so we are like, oh, we don't have to do, we're supposed to do laundry today, but we don't have to. 

[00:10:35] we still have so many clothes to pick from, and so that builds up and builds up and builds up. So then what happened? We have to pick up more. There's more things to pick up. So that is just something that I know like. I talk 

about a lot, um, because I think it's just so prevalent to busy moms today. I think it always has been, but we [00:11:00] have more stuff. 

[00:11:01] We have so much more stuff today than we ever have in the past, and the more stuff that we have, the more we have to spend picking up, which means, again, it's stealing your time. And then the third way I wanna talk about. Is, this is a way that we don't really think about really. Okay. And this is the overwhelm that clutter brings into our home and into our mind. 

[00:11:24] It just causes you to kind of throw your hands up in the air and detach, scroll, Insta, watch Netflix. Scroll TikTok. Watch Hulu. Like. . It's not necessarily time wasted . Most pe here's the thing most people would be like, and that's wasted time and like, I'm like, hi. I love TV . I love tv, I love social media. I really enjoy doing those things. 

[00:11:52] Um, it is, it's, it is probably maybe an unhealthy way to decompress, but it's my favorite way to de. [00:12:00] But what could you be doing with the time in excess, right? So like maybe all you intended was to watch one show on Netflix tonight, but you ended up binging and watching like four and a half shows because you would sit up, you'd watch one show, you'd sit up, you'd look around, and you remember all the stuff you have to get done. 

[00:12:24] And that overwhelm. would just put you into that paralysis mode where you're like, I can't do it. And if you have a D H D. This is extra for you because it's extra paralysis mode. Like you shut down and you're like, I can't do it. Like the executive functioning skills are, are shut down even more when you have all of this clutter around you, surrounding you, reminding you of all the things you have to do and all the steps you have to take to be able to get 'em done. 

[00:12:58] And next thing you know, you're like, you know [00:13:00] what? Too much. I can't do it. I'm too tired. It's overwhelming. I'm done. And you shut down. And that's life like honestly, like especially over the last few years with the collective trauma of everything that has happened. But it's also something that we can help. 

[00:13:20] Prevent a little bit by decluttering and by making our atmosphere not feel so overwhelming to begin with so that we can stick with the systems and routines at least a little bit. To take a little bit of that edge off, and so then when we are laying on the couch and we are watching our favorite show, we can really enjoy it and we can really relax and we can really actually feel like we're 

decompressing instead of just laying there knowing that you are just ignoring what you need to be doing. 

[00:13:54] And so it's not even that enjoyable because you feel stressed that you still have to go do [00:14:00] those things when you. . Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. It just steals your time and it steals your patience and it demands more out of you when you are already, uh, stressed out, possibly burned out, mom. 

[00:14:17] And that's not fair because moms already have too much on their plates and so. The goal this year is to take the extra off your plates, is to take the excess out of our homes, the excess out of our calendars, the excess out of our minds, so that we can finally breathe again and be not only the moms, but the people that we want to be, and we can not feel like all of our time is being taken. 

[00:14:53] from something that we don't even care about in the first place. I hope you really enjoyed today's [00:15:00] episode. Uh, we are, this is only a couple days into the new year when you're listening to this, and so we are still doing our five day challenge right now, and I would really love for you to join us. It's five. 

[00:15:13] Days of a simple decluttering task. You're not too late. If you sign up now, you'll get the first few days sent to you right away. They're only 15 minutes long, and so if you're able to just knock 'em out, then you can do that. Great. Or you can just go in order and do day one today, even though it's not January 1st, and you can do day two tomorrow. 

[00:15:36] That's totally awesome and acceptable too. Baby steps are a okay. in this little neck of the woods because we know that any progress is progress, and we are going to help you build that momentum to making 2023 a really peaceful and calm year for you in your home and in your life as a busy mom. So join us. 

[00:15:59] You can [00:16:00] either DM me on Instagram or you can find the link in the show notes, and I'm really happy that you guys are here. Send me a dm. Let me know what you think about today's show. And as always, if you can send this to a friend, I would be forever grateful. Thanks for hanging out and listening to the Decluttered Mom podcast. 

[00:16:21] If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world. If you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow [email protected] and send me a 

DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.