ADHDeclutter 101
This week on the show, we tackle the daunting task of decluttering for those with ADHD. With our upcoming Declutter Challenge in July, we invite you to join a supportive community and gamify your decluttering process alongside us.
As we dive into the episode, we share the importance of starting small and focusing on one space at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed. We guide you through our four-step process of organizing any space: planning, sorting, organizing, and maintaining. We help you choose a space that would have the biggest impact on your daily life and offer practical tips on how to sort through your belongings efficiently.
We also explore the emotional aspects of decluttering, recognizing when it's time to take a break and how to deal with feelings of guilt or obligation when letting go of items. We provide a list of questions for you to ask yourself during the sorting process to help you make those tough decisions.
Remember: perfection is not the goal and that progress should be celebrated!
If you're struggling with ADHD and the challenges of decluttering, this episode of Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast offers valuable insights and practical strategies to make the process more manageable and rewarding. Join us as we explore the upcoming Declutter Challenge and learn how to take the first steps towards a more organized life together.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow, what an announcement. I love it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's reference to our previous conversation about how you should be a talk show host, and I could be the announcer. Oh wait, maybe I had that [inaudible 00:00:36].
Nikki Kinzer:
No, no, no. That was, yeah, it was the other way around. But you would be a good announcer too.
Pete Wright:
That would be very fun. That would be very... I'd love to scream at a studio audience.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
That would be ideal.
Nikki Kinzer:
And get them all hyped up.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I'm a crowd man. I could do some crowd work for sure. Oh, I love improvisational crowd work.
Nikki Kinzer:
You could do it.
Pete Wright:
We are talking about decluttering today, which is, oh, the sweet spot for us. My goodness. This starts a... I think we have a three-week series. This wraps up our season 28, and we have a fourth bonus. This is not even a bonus. It's episode one of season 29 that is also going to be sort of decluttering.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, yes, because I wanted four and we only had three slots, so we thought, you know what? We'll just make the fourth one be the first show of season 29.
Pete Wright:
Season 29, which is a great way to kick off a new season by the end of an old season. Weird. What are we thinking?
Nikki Kinzer:
It makes sense. It totally makes sense to me.
Pete Wright:
It totally does. It makes sense on our spreadsheet for sure. And so we're very excited about talking about decluttering and we're starting this week with Declutter 101. This is for, if you just don't know how to get started, we're going to start there. Next week we're going to do organizing principles with ADHD, and the week after, we're going to talk about... I'm going to be honest with you, what I really need is what it means to stay organized with ADHD. So I'm totally into it for the first two, but for the third one, you're talking to me, not at me. How about that?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. So I'm very excited for this series. I think it's important, in spite of all of the episodes we've done over the years on clutter, it is still something that we are all collectively dealing with in this clutter filled culture that we have. So we're talking about it. Before we dig in. Head over to Takecontroladhd.com, get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list, and we'll send you a new episode each time one is released. If you want to hang out with us though, and this is my goodness, so cool. The Discord server is really, really great, and I have to just call out the conversation between two of our members, Dr. Dodge, and Angela. Angela had asked a question about anger. It was an incredibly astute introspective question, and Dodge gave what I thought was an incredibly astute and introspective response, and it just created something really special in that community, and it just highlights, it's a gem of what the community has grown to become.
So if you want to check that out, head over to Takecontroladhd.com/discord. You can get into the free channels there if you really want to get to see all of the secret channels and get to be a part of some of those conversations that are really transformative, head over to Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast for a few bucks a month. You're supporting this show specifically, you're supporting the work that Nikki and I and Melissa and the rest of the team do to make this show a reality each week going on as we wrap up season 28, going on to season 29, that's what Patreon fuels and funds. And so head over there, Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more. Thank you for your support. Nikki declutter me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
All right, let's do it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Welcome. Well, first of all, I want to say the ad that I couldn't do in front of people, that people that are listening to this will hear it, actually probably before we even start talking about this right now, they're going to hear this ad that-
Pete Wright:
They'll have already heard it.
Nikki Kinzer:
... I wasn't able able to do. So I was not able to do that in front of a live audience. But I do want to talk about it because it is the declutter challenge, and my intention has been to do this twice a year, and it's in January, and then it is going to be in June, but my daughter is graduating high school this June, and so that has been filling my time, so we're going to do it in July instead. And the focus of this challenge has always been to just clear the clutter. It is not to organize or think too much about maintenance or anything like that. It's just to get the things out of your house or your home or space, wherever you're decluttering. Storage unit, could be anything. But to get the things that you don't love, that you don't need that are just cluttering your space, your mind, and letting those things go. And we gamify the process, which is great because who doesn't love games? It just makes it more fun-
Pete Wright:
Savages.
Nikki Kinzer:
And we're doing it as a community and it's just a really great thing. So I really encourage everybody to get on board with us and declutter in July because it's a lot of fun. But again, the purpose is to let things go because we accumulate things, we just do. And no matter any of the organizing rules that you've heard, like one in one out. In theory, that's great. You buy something and then you let something go. But nobody does that. Who does that? So we accumulate these things. So where I want to-
Pete Wright:
I should say I do that with clothes. I do that with clothes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, with clothes.
Pete Wright:
I'm a one in one out clothes guy.
Nikki Kinzer:
You are.
Pete Wright:
But that's hard to do with anything else. Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
How do you stick to that? Because I have never done that. I have never actually thought one in one out. So tell me how do you do that?
Pete Wright:
Because I have a fixed amount of space.
Nikki Kinzer:
So you can't get the skinny hangers and push them together and make more space?
Pete Wright:
Nope.
Nikki Kinzer:
No?
Pete Wright:
I have a fixed number of hangers. If I want to get a new shirt for a new hanger, something has to be donated.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's actually pretty smart because I just go and buy more hangers. You're saying no, this is-
Pete Wright:
I started this when we were still an organizing podcast and talked about one in one out and the value of, remember when we had this thing where you talk about turning all your hangers around.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, I remember that.
Pete Wright:
So they're backward and as soon as you wear something off one of the hangers, you turn the hanger back around and at the end of some period, the hangers that are still facing the other way, ditch the stuff. And so that kind of started me on the one in, one out. And then I got on Stitch Fix for a little while, and once they're sending you new clothes on some regular-
Nikki Kinzer:
Basis.
Pete Wright:
... Then you got to get rid of old stuff. And so I don't do Stitch Fix anymore, but that was kind of when I got on that thing. When somebody gives me new clothes for Christmas, if I like them, something else has to go.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow, okay, well you proved me wrong.
Pete Wright:
I stand as your servant.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it. I think that's great. And I love the number of hangers. That's a really good idea. All right, so we're off to a great start.
Pete Wright:
Can I tell you a thing? I should not say this. I'm going to say this out loud. There are people in here who know my wife, and this is a thing that might embarrass my wife, but I have to say it anyway because it's important. It's important for people to know what can happen. My wife does not share the number of hangers thing that I do. And so one day we're in bed reading and we hear this crack in her closet and her curtain rod broke out of the wall.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh no.
Pete Wright:
And fell under the distressing weight of all of the clothes jammed on that curtain rod.
Nikki Kinzer:
So it's time for her to declutter.
Pete Wright:
That is a reinforcing behavior. It's reinforcing behavior for me. She's a great warning to others. I don't want that to happen. I didn't like fixing that.
Nikki Kinzer:
This was not fun.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, this was not fun. All right.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's interesting. That's very interesting. So the clothing thing, it may work. It may work.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, good.
Pete Wright:
And let me say, it hasn't worked with anything else in my life.
Nikki Kinzer:
But that's a good thing for it to work on because that is one of the areas that we definitely accumulate a lot of stuff. All right, so in organizing your space, we have an online course that's all about organizing your space. And in the month of July it's going to be 30% off. So I want everybody to know that because we are celebrating organizing in all of July-
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
Not just the declutter challenge, but everywhere. And there are four steps to organizing any space. And these are the four steps that when we have talked about organizing in the past, this is how we break it down. We have step one which is planning, step two, which is the sorting and decluttering. Step three is the organizing, putting things back, and then the fourth is maintaining. So this step one is really about figuring out which spaces you want to tackle. So where do you want it to start? And that's a hard decision sometimes to make because everything feels important, everything feels cluttered, everything feels like it's a burden in some way.
So what we want to do is when we're starting this process is just choose one space first. Don't worry about every space because that's looking at the whole forest and not just one tree. So we want to look at one tree and to decide that space, we can think about what would be the biggest impact on you, other people you live with. It could be a space that you use daily that if you made it or cleaned it up a little bit, would it make it easier for you to live in that space? But we also don't want to necessarily tackle the hardest space you have either. So there's got to be a happy medium here so that you get used to this process and get a rhythm in how you're doing this. You don't want the most difficult one. For me, I wouldn't just start in my garage.
I would probably start with the closet or a drawer or something like that. So then the step two is the decluttering. That's the sorting. And what we're doing here is we are taking an inventory of what you have, what you own, and you are making decisions on what is going to stay and what is going to go. And this decision making is mentally exhausting. So even with the easy decisions, it's still really... It takes a toll on you mentally because you have to look at everything and consciously make a decision if this is important or not. So one of my tips right off the bat is when you are doing these sorting sessions, do it at a time where your mind is the clearest it is. So maybe right after you took your medicine or right after you exercised, you want a clear mind, you want to have some high energy.
So we want to choose your work time intentionally because it will be sometimes physically and mentally exhausting, depending if you're moving a lot of stuff around. But when you are starting in a space, we want to make those easy decisions first. So that's kind of the second tip is easy decisions. So we're grabbing a box for donations, trash bag for trash, a container of your choice for recycle. And my recommendation is to always start at one corner of the space and work yourself around. So if you're doing your office, start in one little corner and just make easy decisions.
So what are the easy decisions? It could be anything that's trash, broken items that you have no intentions to fix. They've been broken for years, duplicates if they're not necessary. Now sometimes duplicates are necessary. And I had this whole conversation on our last challenge around this. So sometimes duplicates are good, they're not always bad, but you have to just decide what your boundaries are around them. And then anything you don't want or love or need that you can make that decision within seconds, you don't have to think about it.
Pete Wright:
So question.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, of course.
Pete Wright:
All of this-
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I could keep talking all day. So yeah, you need to stop-
Pete Wright:
No, I know, we're just we're going to ride it all onto the end of the day. But the question is this, and I know we run into this when you start this process, is you run into something that you do want to keep. That is important, that's an easy decision, but it doesn't belong in that space that you're currently decluttering.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, good. Good point. Okay. So in that situation, I would have a box and I would label it relocate or it could even be a corner where you just throw things, toss things, and this doesn't belong here. But then put a little sign in the corner that says relocate, just so that you don't forget. And what the intention for that is we don't want to stop your momentum. Because you have ADHD if you were to take that item and then go put it in the room that you think it belongs in, there's a lot of time that is in between those two action steps. And there's a lot of stuff around you that's in between those two action steps that could distract you or get you off of course.
Pete Wright:
Oh yeah. I mean, that's my thing. If I find a hammer in my office closet, I'll take the hammer to the garage where it belongs and start decluttering the garage.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
And that's what I think is so important, that relocate bucket, having something to introduce friction that prevents you from leaving the space where you currently are decluttering is really important. Don't leave the area of operation.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
Until you're ready to stop doing the work for a little while.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. And that's why also we want to make the easy decisions because as soon as you don't know, you just keep going, keep it. You just keep going because we want that momentum because as hard as you... Or as difficult as it may seem like, well, I don't think I have any easy decisions. You probably really do though. I mean, and that's the thing is that those easy decisions, once you get those things out of the room, it makes a difference. And one thing I want to say too is that it doesn't have to necessarily be the corner of a room. It could be just the floor. I was talking to someone recently and we were talking about organizing her office and her craft room, and we were talking about where to start. And she's like, "Well, I can't even walk in it." And I'm like, "Okay, well let's just start with the floor." So there are other things that-
Pete Wright:
Right around the door.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, so you can get a path. So it's not necessarily one way or the other, but what we want to avoid, and this is important too, is what we call churning. And this is an organizing term like churning butter, but it's churning things. So basically what you're doing is you're just moving things around, but you're not making any decisions. It's kind of like that procrastivity that we were talking about with Dr. Ramsey is that it feels like you're productive because you're in your stuff and you're moving stuff around, but you're not making any decisions. And maybe the piles are tidier, but you're not seeing any kind of progress because you're not really letting anything go. So we want to be somewhat strategic about where we start so that you can see your progress. And that's the biggest thing is we want you to walk away feeling like, wow, look at what I did today and feel good about that.
Pete Wright:
How do you know you're finished with your first sort?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, so if easy decisions start to feel hard, if you start to feel like nothing's coming to me that's easy, then we need to take a break and we need to come back to it later and keep doing it. So if you don't go through the whole space and you're starting to feel that way, take a break, come back to it later. Now when you've gone through the whole space once, then it's time to do a second sort. Because right now all we've done is the easy decisions and now we have to do a second sort. And this is where it gets more complicated.
Pete Wright:
This feels like I just want to throw up a red flag between the first and the second sorts because it feels like this is an ADHD thing where I can start my first sort and I can have all the best intentions to make the easy decisions first, but invariably I'm going to pick something up that's a slightly harder decision and my brain is going to fixate on the second sort behavior instead of the first sort behavior. You know what I mean?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, not only that, but it's also going to jump if you have something that is something you're going to keep, it also jumps to where am I going to put it?
Pete Wright:
What am I going to do with it? Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Where does it go? So there's a lot of different ways that this can go sideways. And so I would say for your first point, that the first and second sort, you just have to keep reminding yourself that, nope, this isn't an easy decision. I'm going to do this again and keep going. So you may need a little reminder somewhere, a post-it note somewhere that says, "First sort." Just to remind you of what you're doing. And then when it comes to the organizing piece, I would say again, first sort, sort. Just keep those reminders. That's all you're doing is making decisions on what's staying and going, but not where they're living. So that's the third step. It's a different step and that gets people stuck. So it's really important to remember that as well. So you need the reminders just to remind yourself what your intention is for this session. And we're going to talk about where things go in our next podcast because that's the third step. And then the fourth step is maintaining, which will be the third in the series.
Yeah, so that second sort gets a little trickier. This is where you might want to have someone do this with you if you have a good friend or a family member. If you know that both of you have areas that you want to work on, work together, it just is easier if you have somebody to work with than doing it by yourself. ADHD-ers are verbal processors, no doubt about it. And so when they are picking up an item and they're looking at this coffee cup and they're like, "Do I keep this?" Well, I know I would keep it because I love this coffee cup and I use it every morning, but what about the other coffee cup that I don't use? That's going to be a harder decision to make. And so me talking to Pete about it is going to come up with things that you are thinking and you're going to say verbally. And then it's just sometimes easier to make the decision because you're like, oh, right, I use it for pens. So it's still useful.
Pete Wright:
It's useful.
Nikki Kinzer:
I have pens in it.
Pete Wright:
I have a pen. Look at all your pens that you're showing. I have a pen.
Nikki Kinzer:
I have a lot of pens.
Pete Wright:
wow.
Nikki Kinzer:
But just talking it through. But then there's also these coffee cups that I have in the cupboard that we haven't used for years. And so I could say, "Well, I don't use those. I just use them in case company's here, but we have other ones they can use too." So just being able to talk it through can make a big difference.
Pete Wright:
Well, and this is an interesting thing that I run into, which is that I find myself emotionally attached to objects while I'm talking about them. But once I declutter them and get rid of them, I don't think about them anymore
Nikki Kinzer:
Out of site, out of mind.
Pete Wright:
I've gone through the steps of saying, oh here's... Let's just say mugs again, because apparently this is mug casting today. Here's a mug that I got when I was... It's like it took a long time for me to get rid of my University of Colorado residence life mug that I got when I was a hall director at CU and I had that for years because it was attached to a moment in time, but I never drank out of it. It was too small and it just sat in the back of our cabinet. It was taking up all kinds of space. But I loved the mug. I was able to get rid of the mug and haven't thought about the mug until right now as an example of what a great thing it was to get rid of this mug. The mug, I didn't need the mug, and I don't think about that. I don't miss the mug, and it's fine. I got rid of the mug. So I think the act of second guessing my hyper focus on objects is really important because my first gut reaction often can't be trusted.
Nikki Kinzer:
And so you do have to kind of work through it. And that's the thing is that we want... And I have a set of questions that I feel are really good questions because it really gets to the point of usability of some of these things, and I'll go over those in a second. But there is a book, and we'll put it in the show notes once I remember who wrote it. But there was a book that I studied when I was a professional organizer, and she had three categories of where your items live or how you are emotionally attached to them I guess. One is the family and friends. This is a family member, this person, this item is a friend. You want them in your home.
This item is an acquaintance. You might say hi to them on the street, but you don't necessarily invite them over for sleepover. And then you have the third, which is a stranger, and you don't want this person in your home. And so it's a way to sort of attach your items to the feelings that they sort of come alive with because we are so emotionally attached to some things. And so it's just another way of saying, okay, is this a friend and a family member or is this an acquaintance or is this a stranger? So it's just another way of thinking. The other one that I really like is, does it bring you joy? And that's the-
Pete Wright:
Marie Kondo.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. And I am not a huge advocate for all of her things for ADHD, but I do love that question. Does it bring you joy, I think is really important to think about and why? How, why? Why are you going to keep it? And then there's some other questions too, some basic ones. Do you use the item regularly? But it's not just yes or no. When was the last time that you used it and how often do you use it? What has stopped you from using it? And what are your plans for using it in the future? I want to know when. If I was working alongside you and you were questioning something, I'd be like, "Okay, well you haven't used it in the last year. When was the last time?" Well, I don't even remember. All right, well, what stopped you from using it? I never really needed it. Okay, when are you going to use it again? Well, I don't know. Then you know what? That's probably something we can go ahead and let go of.
Pete Wright:
Get rid of it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Is the item taking valuable space? And when you and I were doing the organizing podcast, I remember us talking about this, is the item worth keeping the space that it is taking from something else that you really do value. And that's an important thing to think about. Is it worth its space? And if it's not, then go ahead and let it go. Can it be replaced or can you borrow it if you need it in the future, are good questions to ask. And I would also say, What would happen if you didn't keep it? And this is to your point, Pete out of sight, out of mind.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
We forget that we even had it-
Pete Wright:
We forget.
Nikki Kinzer:
... In the first place.
Pete Wright:
Now, that is where I run into trouble with that is when I forget that I have it and I go borrow it. But that also proves my point. It proves that I didn't need the thing in the first place because it's easily replaceable on short notice.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Pete Wright:
If I were to get rid of it and I don't use it very often when I do need it, I could find one or rent one or borrow one and it'd be easy enough to get.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Well, and the items that still have price tags on them, the items that we bought on sale, impulsive purchases that have never been used, it's hard to get rid of those sometimes because of the guilt of the wasted money. I already paid money for this and I'm not using it, so maybe I will someday. And so those are hard to make too. And in that situation, I would say, well, when is that someday? Really ask when would it be and could someone else benefit from it more than you at this point? And would you be okay letting it go so that someone else could actually use it? And are you keeping the item just purely out of guilt or obligation? Because that's not always a good thing either. I mean, if we kept every single gift that we've ever gotten or received, you're filled with a bunch of stuff that you don't necessarily use.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. So those questions are important to just keep digging in deeper and figuring out what is important. But after that first and second sort, take a step back and acknowledge the great work that you just did because this is no small accomplishment. This is huge, and it's hard and it's something you will notice a difference, and it's something to be proud of. That's something I definitely want people to walk away with and stop when it's good enough. I think that that's another thing is how do you know when the sorting step is done and you go into organizing. For every space it's different, but I think at some point you just have to be that this is good enough, this is good enough, I can find it, what I need for the most part, because perfection can get in the way here. Because if you feel like you're not finished until it's perfect, you're never going to be finished.
So it's a matter of like, can you walk in the room now? Okay, great. Do you have a general idea of where your photographs are? Great. All right. Do you have a general idea of where your gardening tools are? Okay. They may not be beautifully displayed, but at least you kind of know where they are, and they're not being cluttered by too many of them, you can see what you have and what you need. So really getting to that point where you feel like you can function in the space better, and then you move on to step three and that's really organizing the space and putting items back in their homes and creating homes for the things that don't have homes yet. Because that's a lot of what our clutter is. If you look at clutter, a lot of times it's just things that don't have a home yet.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that implies the next step of first sorting the rest of your spaces because so many of these things become cascading exercises, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh yes.
Pete Wright:
We talked about the box that says relocate. How do you think about moving to the next space? At what point do you free yourself from moving on from the office closet to the hall closet or the bedroom or the living room. Because at some point they all connect.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's such a great question. And I think it's around prioritizing. And again, this is where the planning, that step one I think is important because we're not just running into a space and starting to organize it. We're really thinking through how this works. And the best example I can give you is what I'm doing currently in my own home right now.
Because of graduation, we are going to have people staying at our house and we're going to have a party. And I have to think about, okay, what areas are going to be the most impactful and which areas are people not going to see? So my attic? Not going to worry about it. Does it need to be done? Absolutely. But does it need to be done in this season? No. So I'm not going to worry about the attic. Now if I am in the garage, my good enough in the garage, people are going to think this is funny coming from me because they probably expect this really beautiful garage. But my goal is that you can actually walk on the steps from the garage door into the garage, not the garage door, but the door to the house, to the garage. We have these steps, and I want the steps to be clear.
Pete Wright:
It seems like a low bar.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, low bar.
Pete Wright:
[Inaudible 00:31:27].
Nikki Kinzer:
I want the steps to be clear. And then I want it to be very easy to get into the car.
Pete Wright:
Well, here's an interesting low bar that you implicitly already got to the top of, which is, you want your car in the garage.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, one car. That's all that we can fit in it. But yeah, one.
Pete Wright:
See that's a thing because that's another choice to make. Maybe you're someone who's like, I'm going to use the garage to deal with my clutter and organizing problem and park the cars outside. That's fine. I don't know. For me personally, that becomes a potential sore spot later. Your garage could end up being a disaster. And so for me, putting the cars in the garage keeps some order in the garage. It keeps me on top of decluttering because I don't use the garage to fill it up with stuff.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, you don't have the middle part of it filled up. Well, and this is also an example of what's good enough. I'm not organizing the whole thing, I just want to make sure that it's a clear path so that when my in-laws are getting into our car, they aren't tripping over a dog crate. So that's kind of how I'm looking at it. And then they're going to be staying in the guest room. So I need to make sure that the guest room is prepared and ready to go. And that guest room ends up being kind of a dumping ground when there's not a guest in there. So there's some cleanup that has to be done. So it's a matter of getting into the next step is really thinking about what is the most impact. If I started with the guest bedroom, then the bathroom makes sense to go to next. I don't necessarily just go to where the relocate box is. Because what I found in the guest room may go... There are things that probably could go in the garage or attic.
Pete Wright:
Relocate is not space specific.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, no. So it's really kind of going by what would be the biggest impact and how much time you have. I have a hard deadline, and when we have deadlines like that, that motivates us. But when we don't have deadlines and we just want to clear it because it's annoying us, it's harder to do because there isn't any kind of clear deadline. So it's also just kind of deciding what kind of energy do you have to put into this, how important is it? And really defining what the good enough is so that you don't have to spend a bunch of time on it and get your people involved. If you're living with other people, family, partners, whatever, get them involved in it too, because it just goes faster if it's not just you by yourself. And that's also not an easy thing to do because I have more of a lower threshold of what to keep. And my husband has definitely more of what he wants to keep. And so sometimes there is some back and forth, but that's being married.
Pete Wright:
Right. Okay, last question and then I promise I'll move on because we may want to save this question to the end of the last episode. But when you're looking at... No, I'm going to keep it for the end of the last episode. This is a teaser. It's about maintenance. Turns out my question's about maintenance. Didn't even know it. It snuck up on me. So keep listening to these episodes because eventually we're going to get to my great question.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it.
Pete Wright:
I can't wait. All right. Thank you everybody for hanging out and listening to this part one of our organizing series for the year of our Lord 2024. What a weird way to say that on my part. We appreciate you hanging out with us. We appreciate your time and your attention. Make sure to head over to Discord, people are talking about organizing and decluttering, and it's going to be a great place over the next month to talk about how you want to get your spaces in order. And don't forget the declutter challenge for July is coming. We're very excited about that too. So that's it. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
