Episode 420 – 10 Small Clutter Problems that Create Big Stress

Ingrid: When people think about clutter, they often imagine overflowing lofts, chaotic garages, or spare rooms packed to the ceiling. But sometimes it's not the big clutter that drains us the most. It's the tiny, everyday frustrations that quietly chip away at our patience, energy, and mental bandwidth. In this episode, we're talking about 10 small clutter problems that create surprisingly big stress

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Now, Lesley, 10 Things podcast, can't be happier. As you know, I love a 10 Things podcast, and I have a sneak suspicion, we are not gonna be too bad on this, but we might gonna go, "Oh, oh, okay. This is a good reminder, a good reminder." And, yeah, let's, I think we should just dive in because it's all these small, little annoying things, right?

It's, it's, it's not the, the garage that's full or the loft that, you know, we see, like, the, the rafters in our ceiling squeaking and thinking, "Oh, I have to do this up there." But it's the everyday stuff, right? That really can get to us.

Lesley: Exactly. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's dive straight into number one, Ingrid, 'cause Ingrid felt very passionately that this needed to be number one. She was

Ingrid: I did!

Lesley: want to switch." So you, have to wait for number four she definitely 100% would not allow number four to be at number four and number one to be at number one.

She wanted number four at number one and number one at number four. So

Ingrid: Yes

Lesley: wait carefully for number four, but for now we have number one, Ingrid's favorite one. Go for it

Ingrid: Yes. It's the, honestly, this, this would absolutely drive me crazy. It's overflowing coat hooks. So when you, come into a house and there's, like, coat hooks, but there's, like, so many things on them that when you even actually acc- accidentally brush past it, things start to fall off, whether it's in the, like, gloves or hats that are squeezed in between or just too many coats on one hook.

And then, of course, you always need to have the bottom coat, right? It's never the top coat. It's the bottom coat. And that's why I actually, let me tell you why, I actually changed coat hooks in my house because this was happening to me when all, everybody was still here. Now, of course, Max is off to uni, Anne's off to uni soon, so less and less of a problem.

But when the kids were little, and you're, like, busy, busy, busy, and when they start to grow up, the coats get bigger, so the little, the kid coat hooks on the bottom don't work anymore. So their, all their coats go... And I was like, "Okay, this is not working for me." I mean, that's why I'm so passionate about this.

I remember this happening at my house, and I'm like, "I, you need to..." So I actually bought, bought a complete new coat rack for my hallway, and it's perfect. Perfect

Lesley: I do get it, of course, because I think with ours, that kind of bulge at the bottom, isn't it?

You hang them all at the top and then there's that kind of bulge at the bottom. So I think you need to almost go back a step and look at your coat ho- hooks, because what we do is we see a coat hook in a shop. It's like a really... And we're, "Ooh, it's lovely, that coat hook." forget about what it looks like.

It's literally gonna be covered over with coats. it's not gonna matter one bit. Those coat hooks are never not gonna have loads of coats on them. So I think it's really important to go for function over form when it comes to coat hooks. As many coat hooks as you can possibly get because whether we like to think about it or not, we're gonna have loads and loads of stuff. there's

Ingrid: not just coats on coat hooks. There's, dog leads, and carrier bags, and bags with, trainers from PE in there and, isn't there? And things that we're gonna

Lesley: send to to the dry cleaners, temporary-type items. And so that's why they are a tiny, like a clutter trigger, aren't they, Ingrid, coat hooks?

Ingrid: Mm,

Lesley: are you

Ingrid: yeah

Lesley: now that you've got that resystem, Ingrid?

Ingrid: well, it's interesting because it said small clutter problems, but actually the way I was ranting, you would think it was a big clutter problem, right?

Lesley: I know exactly,

Ingrid: no, I think it, it's really... You know, and you pass this room every day. This, this is impacting e- unless you live, like, in a tropical climate and you don't wear coats, this is something that...

So I think it's really important. It, it, it can be a really big annoyance every day. So in- if you get that under control, you're like, "Oh, okay, this is... I can actually hang my coat up and get the one that I want without having to dig through 35 coats before I get the one I want." So I think this is a brilliant number one.

So let's go to number two. This used to not be a problem, Lesley. This used to not be a problem. But of course, with all the technology that we have now, this is, like, our number two of our list, which is tangled cables

Lesley: Yeah, they're a nightmare, aren't they? They really are a nightmare. And so you've got the volume with the coats, and with the cables, you've not got as much volume, but you've got the mayhem of the tangled up nature of them and the complete lack of knowledge about what it's for. And throw

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: the fact that you find what you think that you need, and then you find that Apple have recently changed it from a lightning cable to a USB-C, and many frustrations.

frustrations when it comes to cables, but we still don't feel content enough to let them go, and so that's a problem. So I think this is really high on people's micro frustrations. They're not actually micro frustrations. big frustrations. If we

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: our cables labeled up, knew exactly what they were, just had the ones that we need in the right place at the right time, life would be so much calmer, right?

Ingrid: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's especially if there's no, in your house, no real, like, a charging area and kind of every kind of plug around the house that's empty has a random plug in it with a cable sticking out. Nobody knows, was this for the current phone, the previous phone? It's for no phones at all, so what on earth is it for?

Because, you know, we kind of, we need so many more plugs these days and, and, and, and outlets because we have so much more stuff to plug in that, but our houses are not yet there often. So we kind of find any random plug around the house we can, we can use, and then we forget about it, and then something gets lost or somebody borrows something or one convenient spot always gets taken by your children, for example.

Yeah, hold on a minute. This is actually my cable from my phone, so why am I constantly scrambling around to charge my phone? So I think there's a lot, haha, tangled up in this.

Lesley: Oh, look, she's so proud of herself. So proud of herself for that little joke. Look at you, big joker. Big joker Ingrid. The g- the, hits keep on coming. okay. Yeah, so ta- tangled charging cables. I think you will all

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: our pain with that. I know that it is a little mini,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: mini micro frustration that affects us all on a very daily basis and is annoying. And I'd like

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: g- I think the coats is a quicker fix than the cables. The coats, I feel,

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: you could things, chuck things, try things on. And I think, a- an hour could sort that out. Cables, ugh, few hours to sort that out, right? 'Cause you've got a lot of

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: digging in to

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: and investigation, and involving other people in the house.

And so I think that's a longer project. But nevertheless, a mini project. It's not a

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: it's just a few cables. So that is it. All these

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: mini projects that you can do. Okay, so we're gonna go on

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: I'm not gonna allow Ingrid to start ranting straight away now, so I'm gonna take this one. So we're gonna talk about bedside tables. I feel like Ingrid and I probably feel more micro frustrated about other people's bedside tables than we do have problems ourselves. And so I think that as we see so many people with so much stuff on bedside tables, like library

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: old, lip balms, like hand creams, glasses.

a- to be fair, I am, of the empty glasses. We've got tissues, we've got more chargers, we've got headphones, we've got alarm clocks, we've got old letters, we've got important documents. They're all there on these bedside cabinets. And, I think the reason why it's a little micro frustration is because we need our, bedrooms really to be a little bit of a sanctuary when we're going to sleep.

We need the calmness there. And the bedside table has become more of a kind of a s- a mission control kind of center, don't they, with e- everything that we need, and

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: overthink what we do need. And there are some people, if you've got a disability, if you can't get out of bed easily, of course you're gonna mo- need more things at hand than a lot of people.

But need to be realistic about that. Do we need all of those things all the time, or can some of those things go elsewhere? How many of these things are we actually using every single night? really important

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: sort out your bedside table

Ingrid: Yeah, definitely. I think it's a ve- because you see it when you go to sleep. It's the, almost one of the first things you see when you wake up in the morning. I think that's why it's really important to tackle it and go through it. But I think it's also quite daunting because it's such a mishmash of things.

So I think if you're going to tackle this, it's really important to kind of group like with like first, and then within each group go, you know, actually does all of this need to live here? And what other random items that have over the years just ended up in here that should really be somewhere else. So a really nice project to do, and I think might not take as long as you think.

I mean, of course, it depends on what's there, obviously. But I think it can be something that can be really satisfying. And we've had members in the membership in the inner hub do, do this and go, "Oh my gosh, this is so nice to wake up with like a calm space and just have the few, few things that I need there at hand.

I'm not rummaging through these drawers here, coming across loads of stuff that should've been chucked out ages ago or put in a different place." So yeah, really, really, good pro- little project to do. which, it's not gonna take half a day, but I think you will really benefit from doing this, little project.

Lesley: Absolutely. now we come to number four, the one that got rudely, to number four from number one. Ingrid, would you like to share what that is?

Ingrid: Y- yes, it's an overflowing handbag. So it's a, you know, your purse, your bag that you carry around maybe to work or to the gym or to tennis like me. I'm just kinda thinking what else, because I've really slowly but surely stepped away from using a handbag. But, yeah, there's other bags of course that we can use, and they really become dumping grounds for stuff.

You know, when you've, for example, got a gym bag, it's the, the, the locker keys. It's the padlocks to put on when you go to the gym, so you can close your locker. It's the empty toiletries from, like shower gel if you shower in the gym and all of those things.

But like with tennis, it, I actually cleaned out my tennis bag the other day, and I was like, "Wow, what is all this stuff in here?" Because somehow, bug spray ended up in there, lots of sun cream, and, and, and hats, and then a winter hat. I'm like, "It's, it's summer. Why is there a winter hat in my tennis bag?"

so I think it's all of these kind of bags do need to be cleared out, especially if there's a bag that you grab every couple of days or every week. If, if you don't do a handbag anymore, there are other bags, I'm sure

Lesley: I think it's really interesting, isn't it? 'Cause whatever it is, and whether it's a gym bag or a shoulder, a handbag or a work bag or whatever, nor- we don't cl- think about the fact that we're literally carrying clutter around with us every single day, and we normalize that, right? and so we need to, take care of that.

if we've got a fairly empty handbag, like I do take handbags out with me all the time, but they, have three or four things in them, like my keys,

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: maybe a perfume, my phone, and that's about it. what else do I need when I'm out, really?

Ingrid: Tissues. I, oh, tissues and a pen. That's like

Lesley: what would

Ingrid: always.

Lesley: for? What do I need a pen for?

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: me what, tell

Ingrid: yeah, I always have a pen with me.

Lesley: yeah, but what for?

Ingrid: I don't know.

Lesley: For what reason

Ingrid: I don't know, but it's just really handy. I just, I don't know, I just always like write things down and make little notes and

Lesley: to write this

Ingrid: yeah

Lesley: I'm just go- going into sale to, to go shopping, I'm not

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: never. I'm gonna use my

Ingrid: No, no.

Lesley: a f- picture of something, or I'm gonna write it in my notes or whatever. I'm very rarely... And I know some people are more, prefer to use a pen and stuff. But I think

we

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: like we have to have this stuff. Same with the bedside table. We feel like we should have this stuff. We had this conversation before with you. I've got a pen in a bedside cabinet. do I need a pen for in a bedside cabinet? Same as I don't, I've decided I don't need one in my handbag.

So why do I need one in my bedside cabinet? I'm just not gonna stop writing things down at, 2:00 in the morning. Do you know what I mean? So, but I think because we've done it, we've always done it, we've always, "Oh, yeah, pen's

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: really handy by the..." And sometimes you might, if somebody gives it.

But this day and age, we don't get, oh, let me write that number down. You just take a

Ingrid: Hmm.

Lesley: send a

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah

Lesley: we started to develop different ways of doing things that mean that some of these things we don't need anymore. And, because we've got so many things, we spend our time, our time rummaging through our bag trying to find things.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: That's why we're

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: this,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: the time wasted with scrabbling through the clutter to find the things that we need. And we've got that in our rooms, in

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: Of course we do. We can't find what we need. But we've also got it in these tiny things that we're taking out with us, like handbags, so yeah, like bedside tables, all that kind of stuff. So really important to get on top of it and to think about it and to go,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: am I doing that? Why am I, why do I feel

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: that? And when was the last time that I used it?" And you might want a pen, need a pen,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: you're talking nonsense.

Of course you need a pen." Do you know what I mean? But I would challenge you. I would challenge some of you as to whether you do need a pen. Ingrid, I wouldn't, because

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah

Lesley: writing things down. But I don't believe I've ever seen you writing anything down when we've been out on a day out on the rails in London.

Ingrid: true.

Lesley: But, you've still got a pen. I

Ingrid: on the rest.

Lesley: your handbag, haven't you? I bet you have

Ingrid: I don't know. I'm, I-- But now I just, even for like quick trips and things, I just have my phone, tissues, and keys. That's about it. And maybe add a lipstick, that's it. Because you don't need anything, because with your phone you can do everything, like everything.

Lesley: Yeah

Ingrid: as my sister found out when we were traveling together and her phone died and she couldn't find our bed and breakfast.

So yeah, it was interesting that, it's important to have your phone fully charged

Lesley: imagine the poor, woman with the smugness of Ingrid, who was all organized and "Oh, I got back home, I think you might be like you want a phone charger. Just have your phone charger." I can just imagine you loading it out, loading it over your

Ingrid: No, I, I was, I was very, very, I, I... No, I actually felt really sorry for her, and I was ac- actually on the lookout for her for ages, so. But we got it resolved in the end. But yeah, I think we both realized how much we're, like, reliant on our phone now. So when, when your phone dies, you really are in big trouble.

we are totally digressing, as always. Let's just get back on it. Number five of small clutter problems that create big stress is, of course, the dumping ground in the kitchen, that one place in the kitchen where all of the things just get put because there's a flat surface there, a piece of kitchen counter that says, "Just put me here, and I'll stay here forever.

I don't magically disappear. I am here. Just put something down on me." And how hard you work by every week, for example, trying to clear it, it's like every, every time there's stuff come back here. The kitchen dumping spot, yeah, number five on our list

Lesley: Do you know, it, it's a funny one, isn't it? Because we also, advocate a kind of mission control where you have a sort of, command station where you do put things that perhaps you need that are coming in and out. But it's when that starts to become not fit for purpose, I think, isn't it, when it does become

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: ground. And it's a tough one to

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: it? Because not everybody has got completely clear work surfaces with no dumping grounds anywhere. We've all got some little area of our kitchen or whatever that we put things, but the key is to keep it under control and to not allow it to breed, 'cause clutter starts to breed really.

if we put paper... we put one piece of paper there, and all of a sudden, more pa- pieces of paper come on top of it. We've got, bags of shopping going there, and then we've got more bags of shopping on top of it. Lunchboxes for the kids, and we've got clean lunchboxes, and then we've got dirty lunchboxes, and we put things in there that are waiting to be dealt with.

And so it just all starts to breed. But it is a constant form of frustration, isn't it? And so

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: areas, little spaces that cause, that causes problems. But sometimes they're not that straightforward to actually, because we've really gotta think through, where am I gonna find this thing?

'Cause we've got that kind of idea that we want these things visible to us, so we m- remember to do them, remember to grab them, remember to, to remind the kids, all of those kind of things.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: so it's not always that simple 'cause we need to think about systems and logistics, don't we?

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: that's why these

Ingrid: yeah

Lesley: because it has been difficult logistically and systematically to deal with these things.

And so we feel your pain because it's not one that you can completely eradicate, but just try to let it not breed, and

Ingrid: Hmm.

Lesley: answer

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So Lesley, how are we doing with the first five? Do, do we need to do a tiny little tally and see where we are? I mean, I think the ta- tangled charging cables is definitely... I'll, I'll take that one because that's, that's one that I find really hard to do. I, I, electricals and stuff like that and cables.

So I mean, I, I can find my own charger, but as soon as I need to find anything else, I'm like, "Jan, help me."

Lesley: I think, I think I've done a lot of work trying to label them all up, and I've, have got them in a designated spot. So I think I'm gonna go no on that one. definitely

Ingrid: Hi

Lesley: table, definitely not the overflowing handbag. Kitchen dumping spot, it's

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: It's not breeding.

So I'm gonna go no. I'm

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah

Lesley: out of five on the first half, and you're gonna go one out of five, right?

Ingrid: You won. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, it's, it's all fairly organized here, but like I said, as soon as I need to find a cable because somebody forgot their mobile and needs a thingy, and then I'm like, "I got no idea." So I'm gonna take that one for the team because I think I have to be honest here. Right.

Let's go for a break, and then we'll see you after for the next five

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. yes, I have taken one for the team before the break. I took the cables. So now let's chat about number six to 10, because it's a 10 things.

Lesley: team. You've not taken one for the team. My cables are

Ingrid: I thought that's like a saying. I think that's a saying.

Lesley: It is a

Ingrid: No?

Lesley: but only if I've got a problem with

Ingrid: Oh.

Lesley: cables, like

Ingrid: Oh.

Lesley: take that for the team. but I'm like, I've not got a problem with that. You don't need to take it for the team here, by the way. But thank you for doing so. Thank you for taking one for the team. That's really impressive.

It's nice that you... Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say, Ingrid no I

Ingrid: Exactly. Exactly.

Lesley: could bring out all of the team stuff here. We are such a wonderful team, I believe. People tell

Ingrid: Well, that's true. That's true. That's true. And that's true. They don't only tell us it's really true.

Lesley: But for now, we need to go to number six

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. Right. Number six is overflowing bath products. You're in a bathroom, and you open your little bathroom cupboard, and things just kind of go boop. They just fall out, and you're like, "Oh, avalanche of shampoos and nail varnishes and, and little, dentist things or, or, or, or dental floss or whatever."

It's just all, it's just all a little bit too much. But you're in that bathroom every day, so it's really nice to have it at some sort of decluttered a little bit. That doesn't mean you have to go cold turkey. We're all about using up here, right, Lesley? I mean, we're not just like, "Well, just throw it away."

Please use up as much as you can, but there needs to be a little bit of a plan because bathroom, showers, teeth brushing, it's all happening every day

Lesley: Exactly. And so I think that it is a real problem because it's there first thing in the morning. You want to be efficient, don't you? Doing what you need to do to get yourself ready for work, for school, for whatever the day brings. And so just having this, having to fight through the stuff or pick it up off the

Ingrid: Hmm.

Lesley: out or, or deal with your kids who's "Mom, where's the blah, blah?"

Do you know what I mean? All of those kind of things are like micro frustrations, which is what we're

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: So absolutely. Now bring some containerization in there. Do some decluttering if you can of those things that are absolutely, not used. Make sure you've got a use first container. We all know what that is.

Do we? Do we all know what that is? I'll explain it just in case we don't. So all these little half-used toiletries, bring them forward into a container. We use those first, so we're not wasting anything. But what that means is that slowly over time then space will free up for your full, bottles of kind of shampoo and all that kind of jazz. And so really think about that use first container. Containerization is so important in a bathroom cabinet if you can introduce it. bathroom cabinets come in all different shapes and sizes. I think we've got a, we've got a course somewhere where we go through the different types of storage containers in the, a Hub course, and there's so many different types, and we all have to make it work in what is typically quite a small contained room.

we don't always have an abundance of space, so we really have to

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: outside the box sometimes for storage. But containerization is definitely key. So yeah, let's eradicate that micro frustration. Let's bring some containerization in. Let's do some decluttering, and let's try and minimize what we've got so that it's not all falling out everywhere

Ingrid: Definitely. Definitely. let's move on to number seven, piles of paperwork. Oh, actually, I think one of the me- members in the Inner Hubba said, "I have a lovely bay window, but I've got old piles of paperwork in there, and I need to go through it and sort it all out." Or it can be a pile of paperwork next to the front door, right?

Of post that you haven't opened yet. Or maybe you've been sitting on the sofa watching a bit of TV, opening some post that's been laying around for a couple of weeks, and then you suddenly think, "Oh, there's actually some stuff in here that I need to deal with. Let me put it to the side to look at it later."

And then you just think, forget about it, and then that pile of paperwork is still kind of living there and other stuff gets put on top of it, and before you know it, everything is muddled. And I think that can be re- that can cause big stress. So that small stack of paperwork, maybe on one, two, three, four, five, 10 places in your house, can cause big stress because you feel out of control.

You don't know what's what anymore, and then it can kind of go, oh, and you dread, then you start to dread it, right? Really dread it because surprises then come, can come out of that. You think, "Oh gosh, I should have filled that in. I should have done that. I should have paid that. I should have phoned them.

I've neglected this." And then it all starts to become very overwhelming

Lesley: It's all really to do with this breeding situation, isn't it, that we were talking about before, and a lot of these

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: about today have a habit of breeding and becoming more than they were intentionally. And th- this important papers pile that we keep because we feel a little bit nervous about losing things, that's what it starts to...

It just gets to and added to and so it's

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: try and... need to deal with paperwork straight away. we can put it to one side, and we can deal with it once a week, once a fortnight even sometimes now, because everything's... of stuff's coming in online, and we get of sight of it online. But the stuff that's coming through our door, we can deal with it a little bit less frequently. But we need to put it somewhere intentionally that makes sure that we are going to deal with it and not just leave it on the kitchen side or something like that. So yeah,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: tackle those, that important papers pile. so yeah, that's our number seven. Now, number eight, I wonder how Ingrid feels about this because she felt quite passionate about the, the, clo- the coats at the door. So how do you feel about shoes piled at the door, Ingrid?

Ingrid: I think, you know, I think it- it's, shoes are really, really tricky to get right, and almost all of the, the, the houses I've come through over the years, shoes is a problem because especially when there's different sizes of shoes, it's a problem. I think it really depends on if people are shoe people or not, right?

And if people wear different shoes all the time, or if they really have kind of going out shoes and work shoes and, and when it never gets tidied away, it just gets dumped mainly next to the front door or in the hallway, and there's no system or r- no routine or no reset in place for shoes, it can really become c- chaos.

And shoes are tricky to kind of sort out. I mean, they're not e- tricky to sort out, they're sor- difficult to store and organize because there's... I mean, there's tons of solutions, but not a, a lot of solutions work on everywhere, so you have to really kind of think through like what kind of shoes have we got?

How do we wanna store them? How often do you like... If you need wellies every day, oof, notoriously tricky, because they're really big and chunky, and they take up a lot of room. But if you live on a farm, you probably need to have them every day and at hand. So you need to really bespokely think in each house like how is the shoe situation going to work here, and how we're gonna try or do an attempt to solve this.

I'm forever tidying up shoes,

Lesley: Yeah,

Ingrid: and I mean, I'm, I'm... And I do it as well. When I come in, I've got things, and I quickly kick my shoes off next to my stairs, but I'm like, but the shoe thing is in, in my front little hallway. So three, four times a week, I just grab a couple of shoes and put them back where they belong, but because I've got it in my system, I see it, I notice it, I'm like, "Oh, sh- three, four pairs of shoes in the wrong place.

Let me just put it away," and it's a four-minute or a four-second job. But if you leave it and leave it, and things get muddled, then it becomes a problem

Lesley: I think, you really do need, you typically have multiple places for shoes. And so you've got the shoes by the front door

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: and then you've got a kind of more

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: home for shoes. but it's... And so a lot of it is about moving things around, as you say. So every Saturday morning when I do my weekend reset, that's when I re-home shoes back to where they go. outdoor shoes, I've got a little space in the outside hall. But when we come in, they all get kicked off at the same place. which,

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: not

Ingrid: yeah.

Lesley: door. Mine's I've got like a, coat rack and things like that. All just there, quite messy. Sometimes I might tidy them up during the week, but on a Saturday I'll take the outdoor shoes to the outdoor place, and I'll take the rest of the shoes upstairs in a basket and put them away, back in my wardrobe or Steve's wardrobe. when the kids were home, I used to chuck theirs on the bed and they could put them away in their wardrobes as well. And so I think it's finding that out and, it's one of the things that, as professional organizers, really struggle with because quite often the solution is not p- even if we c- we do, everywhere in the house we can find more perfect solutions for things. Shoes is something that often we can't, can we? Because most people have got more shoes than they've got space for, is the bottom line, and

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: more

Ingrid: yeah

Lesley: than they've got space for. And so you've either got to compromise and give, close the space over to shoe space, or you've gotta make do with something that's far from perfect.

And so I think it's a

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: so we feel your pain. even though our sh- in our shoes course in the Hub, we come up with lots of practical solutions, but we still know that a lot of people, it will be an imperfect look aesthetically then, would say

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: we're talking about.

But there are loads of great shoe solutions out there, and it's about looking for them and trying to find one that works for you. So yeah,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: by the front door is one of those things because as soon as you walk in the door and you're like, "Ugh, look at all those shoes there, look at all those coats there," it We want to cross the threshold into our house and for it to be calming, but often it's not 'cause the

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: that greets us is clutter chaos, right? it's a

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah,

Lesley: one.

Ingrid: yeah. Yeah, definitely. number nine is a, a messy fridge. a fridge that has tons of leftovers that nobody knows how long they've been in there. Sauces which have expired but nobody eats. Lettuces that kind of look like they've been in there for, like, four weeks and you think, "Oh, this used to be a lettuce.

Why- what's that dripping in the bottom of my fridge?" A fridge is something that has to be regularly sorted out because it can really cause big stress because I think on the one hand, it then becomes tricky to put stuff away when you buy new stuff because you feel like, "Oh, I need to move lots of stuff around because the new stuff I know should be more in the back so I eat the old stuff first."

I think it also causes stress because you feel guilty of not eating it and wasting the food, and you feel frustrated because you're like, "That was money. I know I've not eaten that. I feel bad about the, you know, the waste of the lettuce, but that's also two quid that I should have eaten." You know what I mean?

So you waste the money or however much a lettuce is, but I mean, just, re- you're understanding what I'm saying. So I think there's a mul- there's multiple things going on in there, right? When you're, like, meal planning and when you're trying to think about what you're eating and the process of putting stuff away when you've been shopping.

Obviously, you can see I'm never weekly shopping, right? Lesley, because I don't know the price of a lettuce because my husband goes weekly shopping every week. Maybe... How much is a lettuce? 79p,

Lesley: I don't

Ingrid: an iceberg?

Lesley: But we both, both our husbands do, the shopping. would say

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: Yeah, I'd say £2.

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. But anyway, but it's a waste of money, isn't it?

Lesley: shop in one shop and, it depends where

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: doesn't it? You know what I mean? um,

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: s- I'd say £2, but I wouldn't really know.

But definitely not £5 or £4.

Ingrid: No,

Lesley: a

Ingrid: no.

Lesley: £2

Ingrid: in, but it's still money that's been wasted because it was in your fridge somewhere. You haven't eaten it. So there's a whole combination of things I think with fridges going on that can cause really stress

Lesley: Can we talk about feta cheese? Do you use feta cheese? Yeah, because I've got don't do feta. No, 'cause you eat all them Dutch cheeses, don't you? I bet you don't have any, anything that's...

Ingrid: I

Lesley: bet you only

Ingrid: do like feta actually.

I do like feta. I just wouldn't, wouldn't buy it. I wouldn't buy it, but I do like it if it's in a salad or something.

Lesley: Yeah.

Ingrid: I do, I do like feta actually

Lesley: I, we do eat feta, but I can put a feta... it comes in, a plastic wrapper,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: enclosed plastic wrap, wrapper. So I can put it in my box with all my other cheeses, then it's completely-- There's, water dripping out of the feta wrapper, even though it's completely covered in plastic every time.

I'm like, "Where's the w- where's the moisture coming from?" So honestly, it's like a, I think, I suppose I just need to Google it or something. But this feta is like... And it really is very smelly as well, when it opens like

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: it leaks out of

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: and it's definitely my feta

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: else has got a feta problem, do let me know what's the situation with feta. I wonder if it's because, 'cause the ch- the container that I use is enclosed. It's like a Tupperware container that I put the lid on. So I wonder whether it's not

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: or something like that.

I don't know. But it's a real worry 'cause I throw more feta away than I eat because of the leakage and smelly situation. So this is not good. I need to resolve this issue after 30 years of looking at it and going, "Oh, there's that feta leaked again. I'll buy a new one next week," and then buy another feta.

Do you know what I mean? So there you go. That's

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: would we

Ingrid: Oh gosh

Lesley: these lovely th- thousands and thousands of listeners to tell us the answers to these questions? Why would we not ask? We can tell them about

Ingrid: Yeah, exactly

Lesley: solutions, and I'm sure there's somebody here who can tell me about cheese and feta solutions

Ingrid: So if you're a cheesemonger or know somebody who is into cheese, let us know. Leave a comment or send us an email. We would love to know. Lesley needs help here. let me then go on to number 10, Lesley, which we are going to very briefly discuss because otherwise we're gonna have a whole situation.

Number 10 is a chair covered in clothes. So these are clothes that you've worn maybe once that can be worn again. You kind of put them on a chair or on an exercise equipment or at the bottom of your bed or at a, a wardrobe rail in your hallway. I'm just immediately gonna say it because otherwise Lesley's gonna tease me, but of course, the thing is it builds up, right?

And I think that's where... That, that's the key of the situation. It builds up because sometimes you then come home, if you've done laundry and there's clean stuff, you think, "I'm gonna put it down here." Come put it away, and so then the clean stuff gets muddled with the half-worn stuff, and then the chair becomes a whole thing, and that can cause a lot of stress.

Lesley: It is definitely a micro frustration. I'd like to say that I definitely added this in as a number 10 so that I would win this, little tally of our 10 things because we know that one person, it may not be a chair drobe, it is a drobe of some kind, Ingrid, and there's only one of us

Ingrid: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah

Lesley: chair drobe. I think it, it is an, a common frustration for a lot of people because people, when we do our clear out your clothes challenge, people are like, "What's your biggest frustration?" The fact that I've got chair, I've got piles and piles of clothes on my chair that I can't fit in my wardrobe or I can't put away.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: of frustration, doesn't go away.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: the bedside cabinet, you see it every time you get into bed. And so it's something that needs to be tackled, but it's a bigger problem because it's all about laundry s- solutions and processes. It's about whether you've got too much stuff in your wardrobe.

and then there's all of the emotions and the tiredness and all that kind of stuff that come into play that leads to us having a chair drobe, or some of us, having a chair drobe. Hey, Ingrid, do you concur?

Ingrid: yes, my bannister drobe is well known by all. but it's, it's under control. I think that's the difference. But if you want me to take this one, Lesley, because of, of the five then I will. So have you got overflowing bath products?

Lesley: No

Ingrid: Me neither. like paperwork in piles and stuff around your house randomly? Me neither. Shoes piled by the front door

Lesley: I feel like if you're taking care of it once a week, then that's good enough. we're not asking for perfection here. We're asking for things that have got a controlled process, and I think I deal with those once a week.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: good enough for me, so I'm gonna

Ingrid: Yeah. fridge, I mean, only if, if only your feta leaks, then, you know, that's, I don't think that's a big fridge problem, is it?

Lesley: No. I think we've all got expired sauces every now and again. You d- you do have to go through your

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: you, on a regular basis

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: stuff

Ingrid: Yeah.

Yeah.

Lesley: but I don't

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah

Lesley: long until it... I don't see much m-

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: situation going on. I see a smelly

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: but that's about it.

So I'm gonna say no to number nine, and I'm 100% gonna say

Ingrid: Okay

Lesley: So how many have you got, Ingrid,

Ingrid: So you, you actually, so you have actually got zero in this whole list.

Lesley: Yeah.

Ingrid: Wow. Okay. I've got two. I've got two. So I've got kind of, tangly cables. I think that's more because I don't know what's what. Not necessarily because they're tangled, just because I

Lesley: one for the team, I actually don't think it's tangled cables. I think you, you just don't know what the cables are. I think that's something completely different. So I

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lesley: that one, even though you said you were gonna take one for the team. I'll let you not have that one, there's no way you're getting out of number 10. Still one-nil. Still Lesley

Ingrid: Yeah, one-nil. Yeah, Lesley wins in this instance, absolutely. So yeah, that's our 10, 10 small clutter problems that create big stress. So let us know, listeners, which ones are you gonna take for the team, right? Because there's no I in team and all that. So let us know. Leave us a comment, in the show notes or send us an email.

We, we l- we love it when you guys get in touch and tell us these things because it makes us laugh and it makes us think, "Ah, yeah, good. You know, this, it resonates. What we're talking about resonates with people." So, absolutely brilliant. I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast, and, we look forward to seeing you again next week