Declutter Your Life: Transforming Chaos into Calm in Your Physical Space

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to the Make Time For Success Podcast. This is episode number 174. Today, I would like to introduce another mini-series on this podcast. I'm deciding to call it "Declutter Your Life" because clutter is a really big impediment in our lives sometimes, whether it be in the form of procrastination and avoidance or in the form of that pile of paper in the corner that just never seems to go away. So I thought, let's talk about these issues and let's see if we can make some movement, make some strides and unclutter our lives. So today we're gonna start with the first in this 3 part series. And today, we're going to talk about physical clutter and what to do about it. I drop a lot of really useful, very effective and real tips.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:04]:
They really work. I think that's what I need to share with you. So listen in, perhaps keep this on when you are trying to deal with your clutter in your home and it might just make the whole process a whole lot more fun. Okay. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:25]:
Hi. I'm doctor Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:09]:
Hi there. Hope you're doing well today. I am looking forward to getting into this

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:17]:
new series

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:17]:
that I've created on clutter. Today, we're going to focus on the topic of actual physical touchable clutter. And before I do that, I wanted to give a shout out to my dear listener, Erin, who sent in just the most beautiful review and words about her experience listening to the Make Time For Success podcast. Erin writes 5 stars first of all and she says episodes 167 dash 181. She said, I am so impressed with doctor Li. Thank you for these excellent episodes. Extremely helpful and inspiring. You are clearly doing what you are meant to do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:02]:
You have a natural gift for motivation through positivity, understanding of common struggles people face, and excellent suggestions to help people move forward. I look forward to listening to more episodes. Erin, thank you for putting into words what sometimes I have difficulty expressing, and thank you so much for your support of my work and the show. I'm so glad to have you as a listener. And for all my other listeners, if you are interested in supporting the show, please take a minute or 2, go on your smartphone, find the area to submit a review for the show, and I would be happy to feature your words and your name on the show in an upcoming episode. Thanks again, Erin. So now let's get to the meat of the matter, the heart of the matter about physical clutter. I had the thought of putting this episode together because I've just recently wrapped up a live event.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:07]:
It was called reenergize your home. And the idea was to get a lot of people together in a Facebook group to go through a 5 day series of lessons about how to think about our space, how to think about your clutter, and how to finally sort what gets to stay and what gets to leave your home. We ended up having 470 people in the Facebook group. So as you can imagine, there was a lot of energy. There was a lot of enthusiasm. There were a lot of pictures of before and afters inside this challenge, and it was a lot of fun. And this is the 4th time I've run the challenge. And for whatever reason, this was probably the most magical of all of the challenges that I've run on Clutter because people were saying that they were getting rid of clutter from 10, 25, even 48 years ago.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:09]:
So you can imagine what was being unearthed, what was being refreshed, and all the energy that was happening. And I thought I would love to share with you what the key points were in the challenge and to see if I can help you to get started on your own decluttering journey in your own home or in your own space. So people who were participating in the challenge were finally understanding that they actually have power over the clutter because that's the thing about clutter. Right? Clutter makes it seem like we're helpless and we're hopeless and that the clutter is just always gonna be there in some corner or under your work desk or in the medicine cabinet. It has a way of just expanding, especially when we don't pay attention to it. So this challenge was just a quick experience for people to say, you know what? I'm setting aside some time and my attention and some energy to really see if I can change my relationship with the stuff in my home. So here's a list of some of the lessons that I taught my challenge participants a few weeks ago. The first one is that you are made of energy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:29]:
If you didn't know that, welcome to the fact that you are basically a walking collection of energy particles. And you emit energy and the blood inside of you was running because of the energy of the cells, and the thoughts that you have are electrical firings in your brain. So everything is really in motion, and you are one collection of energy. And that is the power that you possess. You're made of it, but it's also something that you can use. That's point 1. Point 2 is that everything around you is also made of energy, consists of energy. The lipstick on my desk, the cup that I have my drink in, the drink itself, all of these things, all of these liquids, the solids, the gases, everything is made of energy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:29]:
When I said everything, I mean everything. So therefore, your clutter has energy too, and that's something that we have to think about. 3rd point is that clutter kind of has supercharged energy. I'm making that up. I'm not a physicist. So but I do believe that clutter amasses this this power in our space because it has energy, but it also has our thoughts projected onto the clutter. So it has our memories. Think about who gave you that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:04]:
Think about when you put that piece of paper into that pile. Think about all the things you were avoiding by putting the piece of paper onto that pile. The feelings you have about having it staring in your face now as clutter, that's also energy. The dread you feel about thinking about touching that pile of clutter, that's also giving the clutter a lot of energy. And therefore, it feels like the clutter has power over you. And the 4th point is that clutter in general, if you have it in your home, it is a symptom of some procrastination. It just means that you avoided making some sort of decision to deal with it, to throw it away, to file it, to give it away, or to put it in some other reasonable space. You just decided to avoid making that decision in that moment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:01]:
So clutter is a very powerful, energized, supercharged reminder that we have more to do. We've been procrastinating. So that's that. The 5th point that I taught was that in order to have any change with our clutter situation, we need to develop a more powerful idea about ourselves in relationship to our clutter. We have to understand, believe, and act upon the fact that we are way more powerful, way more talented, way more energized than the clutter could ever be. But it's a mindset shift. We have to decide, you know what? It is worth my time. I am strong enough.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:50]:
I could put gloves on if it's, in the garage and there are heavy things to lift. I can ask people for help. I could join a challenge one day. I could take a course somehow. I could follow someone or I could look up podcasts and read books about clutter and organization and time management, and then I could actually get stronger in this situation. So when you understand all of these things and you decide to take action, your energy is going to shift. The energy inside of you, the energy with which you think and plan and envision things for your good space, everything's gonna shift. So now I'm gonna take some time to just talk about that last piece of advice, which is that we need to have that energy shift because the question I get a lot, not just about clutter, but about procrastination, anxiety, learning disorders, relationship problems that people are having.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:52]:
The whole question is, how do we make this change happen when all along we've been thinking we're not capable of it? All along we are thinking that this is just way more trouble than I have time for. The way to do this is multistep. So I'm gonna share with you the different steps that I've come up with for facing things in my life, like clutter, that have given me trouble or difficulty. The first component is you need to decide that you're gonna believe in yourself. This is often the central, most massive, most glaring missing point in people's operating systems. If you do not believe in yourself, what is supposed to end up happening? We're gonna end up feeling a little bit unenergized. We're gonna feel disempowered. We're gonna feel like somebody gonna make fun of us.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:44]:
We're gonna feel x, y, and z, and all of that is just gonna be mental clutter for us. So the first thing that we have to do is decide, I believe in myself, this is possible. The second thing that is necessary to shift your energy is that you have to decide that you're gonna touch 1 to 3 items in the clutter pile, in the clutter area, in the clutter zone, in that doom room that you have. And you're just gonna do 1 to 3 items because you're gonna avoid getting and feeling overwhelmed. The whole thing about clutter, the whole reason it has power over us is because it's overwhelming. So we have to just decide, you know what? No longer am I gonna back down when I look at this stuff or enter that room. I'm gonna decide just 1 to 3 things, 1 to 3 minutes, and I'm going to take action. The third idea in this category of how do you shift your energy that I have is you need to have a vision for the space that you're dealing with.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:43]:
Even if it's like the, what do you call it? The dashboard, the thing in your car where you open up the drawer and you can stuff manuals and your gloves in there, the glove compartment. That's what it's called. So even if it's as small a space as your glove compartment, you need to have a vision about what you want it to look like because if it's just, well, whatever, whatever ends up happening, then again, your clutter wins because you are not directing the show. The clutter is deciding. You know what? I'm filling this space up. There's gonna be no room to move. There's gonna be dust everywhere, and you just don't want that. You wanna be the boss on the scene.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:21]:
Alright. The 4th point that I have for you is that you have to know and understand and believe that taking care of your clutter does not have to be a dreadful, awful, painstaking experience. Actually, it can be really fun because you end up deciding, oh, wow. It only took me a few minutes to kind of clear up the stuff that I thought was gonna take me an hour. And lo and behold, I find that I really enjoy my desk now. I really enjoy being able to exercise here now. I enjoy having a clean walking area through the kitchen. And I think these things can be really uplifting.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:03]:
Decluttering definitely does not have to be painful, so remember that. And then the last bit that I have on this list is that you need to have some form of support. If your belief in yourself is not exactly gonna get you over that hump of, well, I'm gonna start the decluttering, Call in a friend. Call in a group of friends. Make a challenge of your own. Challenge your family members or your roommates or whoever is with you in the moment and decide, you know what? I'm gonna put on some music, and I'm just gonna do what Christine suggested on the make time for success podcast. I'm not gonna let my past influence my future. Just because I've had clutter in the past does not mean I want to have it in the future.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:51]:
I actually really want it to be far away from me, cleared out, cleaned out. I want this space to feel energized again. Feel free to relisten to what I just said over and over again if you need to while you're decluttering even while you're on your way to work, it is okay because these factors of dealing with your space and your clutter can bear repeating because sometimes it's just a new habit that needs to get put into place. And then once you get this little habit going, big things can happen. And I wanna share with you what happened inside the challenge when a few 100 people participated. We ended up having the equivalent of a cleaning tornado. People were chucking stuff in garbage bags, people were cleaning up their window areas, their window seat areas, people were having sparkling kitchen counters. People's husbands and children and partners we're noticing the shift in the space, and we're pitching in.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:04]:
So if you've ever wanted your housemates or the people you live with to be a little tidier, this is the way through to that end vision. You need to start by changing your own energy around doing these chores and tasks and decluttering things in your house first, and then the energy will shift and people will notice. There's no way that the people you live with and the people who visit will not notice, and that's a lovely thing. So it was just an inspirational experience with 100 of pictures of before and after scenes, before the decluttering and then the after scenarios, and it was just a lot of fun, very supportive vibe in the group, and just, I think, a great accomplishment for all. And by the way, I also learned a lot from this round in the challenge. It was a special round, like I mentioned a few minutes ago, because people were really taking action, and they were really understanding my own philosophy of energy and changing your habits and shifting things for the better, and that was very gratifying. But I also realized in a moment of reflection by myself that I had never really fully connected to the idea of teaching people about clutter because I myself oftentimes am a clutter bug and oftentimes have a clutter problem. So I've always seen clutter as kind of this lower level issue, something that maybe you wanna get away from rather than get closer to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:44]:
But I realized that as the leader of this challenge, I needed to really embrace this topic, this issue for people, this issue in my own life fully. I needed to go full heartedly into this experience so that I could show up as my full self. So I could have my full creativity available for the participants so that I could run this challenge with the right kind of energy, which is invested, which is excited, which is energized. And so that helped me to be a better leader inside this particular challenge. It also helped me to see that clutter is not insignificant. It is actually not a low level thing in our lives. It's actually a doorway for all the other issues that we might struggle with, but also all the other issues that we want to invite into our life. Better time management, better energy management, better mindset management, better space and environment management.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:52]:
And of course, believing in yourself and just eradicating any remnants of any self doubt that might be lingering from past experiences or just from clutter. When you clear out your clutter, you have just openness in your heart, in your mind, and in your space. Your animals get to roam free. Your children get to play. Your books are the ones that you love to see and read, and it just goes on and on. It's a great model for how to change your habits for the better. You no longer have to feel stuck. You no longer have to feel powerless or ashamed or embarrassed about the way you are living in your space.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:33]:
It can really change overnight. I've seen it happen, and I'm glad that I can share some of this stuff with you. In and at the end of the day, we're all working to release ourselves from the factors of our energy and in our life that are holding us back. And this is the lesson that I learned from this clutter challenge, reenergize your home. I'll be running this challenge in the future, and I look forward to promoting that to you and other people who follow me on social media and on my email list. And I invite you to join in live the next time that I'm running one of these challenges. And you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna share with you, since we're at the end of this episode, a free workbook that you can request that will help you to break free of your clutter habits so that you can start living with more present mindedness, more mindfully, and more calmly, and more joyfully. So why don't you start typing and request this workbook, it's free, by going to make time for success podcast.com /clutter.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:51]:
Again, it's make time for success podcast.com/clutter. And I will because I'm just thinking about this now, attached to that workbook, message about how to put yourself on the wait list for my next challenge. I'm not sure when it's going to happen, but I would love to know that you're interested in joining the next live round. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of my words and my thoughts and my experiences on the Make Time For Success podcast. I really do hope that they help you to know that you are made for success, that you are made of positive energy, and that you've got all of this stuff covered, especially the clutter. I will see you next week when I drop another episode on clutter. I think next week's episode is going to be about mental clutter. I'll see you then.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:49]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a d.m. and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:29]:
Talk to you soon.