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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, 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's show.

Diana Rene: 0:50

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast. Today, we are going to pick up right where we left off last week. We are going to do some more odd, but it works house rules that we just live by in our house. It looks like I have eight more that I wanted to go over with you and hopefully last week's episode was helpful for you and I've been starting to get some DMs with your odd but it works household rules. I would love to continue to get those. So if you have any that you have in your house that you would like me to share in a different episode, please send them my way. I can either share them with your first name or I can share them anonymously. Either way, it's been fun to just kind of read about the rules that you have in your household and why Number one? Why you have them, how did they come about, why were they implemented. And then it's just kind of fun to see the different variety, and it's a good reminder that different things work for different households. Not like if I gave you 10 things to do immediately right now, maybe all of those would work, but maybe only four of them would work for your home, or maybe eight of them would work for your home and for your neighbor. All of them would work for their home, and so it's something that is obviously going to be different for every person, for their personality, for the time they have available, all of those things. But this is just kind of a fun two-part episode about the silly little rules that we have in our house at work. So let's jump into the first one for today, okay.

Diana Rene: 2:27

So number one is a weekly brain release every Sunday. This is non-negotiable and this has been a non-negotiable for years for me and honestly it's just to help me. Number one clear that mental load before the week hits and it makes me feel more in control. I have done episodes on what the brain release looks like. You can go back and listen to those episodes, but this again is a non-negotiable. We also, kind of side note, do family meetings on Sundays. I'll talk about that again on another episode because that's its whole own thing. That's a whole other episode. But the weekly brain release is something that if I don't do, if I miss it for whatever reason, I feel way less productive. That following week I also just feel more overwhelmed and I just don't feel like I have it together as much as when I do it, and so that is something that is really, really helpful.

Diana Rene: 3:29

Number two is full tank, empty car Sunday reset, and what I mean by that is every Sunday, if my tank in my car unless it's full or like very close to being full, I go and I make sure that I have a full tank. The reason I do that is because there have been many a times in my life especially when I was in my 20s and I was post-college getting used to going to a job full-time where I didn't have a full tank, maybe getting close to E. I didn't have a full tank, maybe getting close to E, and it was Sunday night and I was like I'll get up early and I'll do it before work tomorrow. That never happened. I was always late. If I did that, it was just a terrible idea. And so now it's just again a non-negotiable that I just need a full tank going into the week. It makes me feel better, even though I'm not going into an office Monday through Friday anymore at this point in the week. It makes me feel better Even though I'm not going into an office Monday through Friday anymore at this point in my life. It makes me feel better to know that I'm good for the week, unless I'm driving an insane amount and taking a road trip. I can usually get until the following Sunday, and so I just don't have to worry about it throughout the week when I'm tired or running late or we're supposed to be home and get dinner on the table or anything like that, or I'm in an area that I don't even know, and so I'm. You know, there might be a sketchy gas station. It's nice to just know that it's full on Sundays, and unless there's like a really weird week, then I'm good until the next Sunday.

Diana Rene: 5:00

When I say empty car, I mean everything needs to come out. We have trash cans in the car and so anytime I pump gas I empty those trash cans and then I also take out any other possible trash items, like if there's a leftover coffee cup or anything like that, then I throw that away then. But then I also make sure that I bring everything into the house. Now, this is something that I have my girls do most of the time, obviously not take my car to go get gas in it, but they will often be the ones who I tell them to go empty the car. So they will go and they will get everything out. We are pretty good about emptying the car each day, but every now and then we all know life gets crazy. You're running to like eight different things for the kids and sometimes things get left in the car, like a jacket or notebooks or books or whatever. Like just random things can get left in the car. So they bring those in and we put them away. We don't just bring them in and put them by the door or put them on the counter. It is one process to take them from the car and put them in their home, in our home. Doing this is something that has really helped me keep my car almost always tidy and that, you guys, that is a big thing, because I am naturally a messy car person. I have always been the person who has just stuff stacked in the passenger seat and the floorboard of the passenger seat and the back seat. It's never come naturally to me, and so I have found that if I force myself to have these resets every Sunday, then it just makes it easier, and it makes it easier during the week. It gives me incentive to actually bring things out of the car throughout the week, because then it's just less work on Sundays, all right.

Diana Rene: 6:52

Number three is Sunday outfit prep. So for me and the girls, five full outfits are laid out. This one is a little more flexible in the summer, but during the school year this is again a non-negotiable. If we have like a camp during the summer or we have somewhere that they have to be every day, then this is a non-negotiable. If we have like a camp during the summer or we have somewhere that they have to be every day, then this is a non-negotiable. But if it's just kind of we're hanging out or the babysitter's coming or we're going to go on a hike or anything like that. I'm a little more relaxed on it, but this is just something, especially during the school year, that we have to do, and all the outfit, the full outfit, including undergarments, anything that they want to put in their hair, any layers, all need to be laid out so that it's just easier in the mornings when it tends to be like a super rush time.

Diana Rene: 7:41

All right for rule number four. This is actually something the girls and I were talking about today at lunch while we were eating at In-N-Out, and that is that the first week of school weekend needs to be blank. We don't do anything, there's nothing planned. It is just like basically a 48-hour decompression time, because the first I mean, let's face it, the first several weeks, but especially that first week of school, is just a lot for kids and they are tired and they are overwhelmed and they've had been overstimulated by all of these sensory signals and there's so many kids and there's all this structure and so it's just a lot. And I have found that having that first weekend to do nothing, just be at home, watch movies, order pizza, hang out Number one is an opportunity for everybody to relax and decompress. But number two, I find that they open up to me on how the first week went, if we're just kind of in a relaxed atmosphere and we're not just on the go doing a bunch of things. I realize that I have an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old, and so if they become teenagers and it turns into a thing where they want to go with friends or they have a sporting event or something, it's not going to be like no, you must be home but it's there to help protect their energy for that first reset of a new school year. And so for the ages that my kids are and when they were younger, it has always worked really well for us, and so that is something that we do.

Diana Rene: 9:29

Number five is that a hair stuff basket or drawer lives in the kitchen. And I say basket or drawer because it's been different things, it's been different variations in different homes that we've lived in. Our current home has its own drawer and basically it's just everything we need to do. The girl's hair for the day is in that drawer, and so it makes it easy for me to be able to do their hair while they're eating breakfast. It allows us to multitask and it also makes sure that we know exactly where all of that stuff is and it's not just spread out all over the house.

Diana Rene: 10:06

Okay, we are moving on to number six. Yes, and I lied, we only have six. I thought we had eight. I wrote down the wrong thing. We have six. So this is the last one for this week. It is a short and sweet episode and that's great because then you can listen to it in one shot.

Diana Rene: 10:26

Number six is the naked fridge, and if you have ever done the five-day challenge with me, you know how passionately I feel about the naked fridge, and what I mean by that is just not having anything on the front of your fridge, because it tricks your brain into feeling like your kitchen is cleaner and less crazy. I've talked about this before with the study, and clutter affecting however many things you have on the front of your fridge actually correlates to how much clutter you have in your home, and that's all well and good, but the point is it's just a really great thing to have clear. It's so in your face when you walk into the kitchen and you. Most people spend a decent amount of time in their kitchen, and so it's just a really great thing where you just feel better in a space and without having to really do anything. It's just having an empty, naked fridge on the front.

Diana Rene: 11:19

All right, you guys, I told you this was going to be a short and sweet one.

Diana Rene: 11:22

I thought I had eight. I only have six more but I thought this was just kind of a fun two-part episode. Hopefully you liked it too. Again, I would love, love, love to hear your odd but it works rules for your household and if I get enough of them, I'll do an episode later this summer about it. But please DM me, let me know how you like this episode and if you could follow the podcast and or leave a review, that would be so wonderful. It will help the algorithm push this out to more busy moms to be able to help them as well. So, as always, we will see you next week. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. 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 stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom 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.