Episode 426 – Why does my house feel cluttered again two weeks later?

Ingrid: You've done it. You spend the whole weekend decluttering, the house looks amazing, you're basking in the glory of your lovely clear space, and then two weeks later, it's like it never happened. In this episode, we're digging into why that happens and what you can do about it without adding more to your plate.

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.

Ingrid: If you like what you hear, be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. Share us with your friends or leave us a review. It makes a huge difference to us.

Hello, Lesley. Now, well, this is something we hear all the time, right? "I did decluttering. You always tell us, Ingrid and Lesley, decluttering is fun. I did it a whole weekend. I got stuck in, and now two weeks later, my whole house is a mess again, and I'm just, I'm just... What's going on here?"

Lesley: So the question is, Ingrid, when we tell them that it's fun, do you think anybody believes that after eight years? I think that's a very valid point. We do tell them that it's fun, but I'm not sure we've got loads and loads of people on board at this moment in time. Maybe some. Maybe some diehard decluttering fans. But mostly I think people don't think it's fun. yeah, you're right. Quite often it slips back, doesn't it? It takes years for that clutter to build up. You go for it, and it just slips back in two weeks, and you're back at square one, and there's nothing so soul-destroying as that really, is

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so, and I think because you, you're thinking you have, have worked really hard. I cleared a whole weekend. I, I, I, I did the living room or the kitchen, or I did the whole downstairs, and now we're two weeks down the line and I look around and I think, "It's like it never even happened. Was this a dream?

Did I imagine this? Why, I'm absolutely shattered from this, from this two weekends ago." And now it's like, "Oh, do we have to do this all over again? How is this possible?"

Lesley: Yeah, and you can be forgiven then, Ingrid, for thinking you're just destined to have a cluttered home all your life. But I think the most important thing is it's completely common. It's not a failure on your part. But we need to unravel and unpick what's going wrong, and it's normally, if we're honest, down to two things: how you're actually the decluttering itself, how you're actually doing that, and then also about your reset habits, and so about your routines and things like that. So it g- it's one or both of those things, right? So let's get started with the decluttering. We talk about it going wrong or not being done in the right way. Let's set... say st- straight up front, we think all progress is good progress, Ingrid? But we

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: are things that are gonna... habits and processes that are gonna cement a little bit more.

You need to get them nailed. So let's get started. Where is people's decluttering go wrong?

Ingrid: Well, Lesley, I think why does it go wrong often is because a lot of people who, have clutter and have cleared a weekend and are ready to jump in, they start with tidying. So they see their house, they see their living room, their kitchen, their bedrooms, and they think, "Right, okay, I can't...

This is all too overwhelming. I need to tidy away the stuff." So they start to try and put stuff away into cupboards and drawers and, and, and shelves and cu- and, and all of the things, but they're tidying, they're not decluttering. Tidying is super important. We know this, Lesley. But if you want to have success longer term, there's a lot more involved than tidying alone.

You need to declutter items from your house

Lesley: Yeah, definitely. And I think, Ingrid, it's fair to say we've got podcasts all about the difference between decluttering, organizing, tidying, and cleaning. That's a really important part of it, is, getting it nailed because

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: mistake that we find, as Ingrid says, is that people are jumping to the different things.

They're not organizing their clutter effectively. So we've got the kind of tidying things away side of things, then we've got people who are organizing their clutter but never getting rid of anything, so you're still left with the same kind of volume. So as you all know, as we've spoken about many times, when it comes to decluttering, we need to be ready for that decision-making, and that decision m- making needs to come from a place of emotion generally. is it about this item that means that I need to keep it or I don't need to keep it? So we need to really dig into that emotions-based decluttering and psych ourselves up for what's coming, right? We need, to be... clutter comes back because it's never gone anywhere in the first place.

We've just tidied it away, then we bring it back out again and then... Do you see what I mean? It's like we can only really lose the clutter if the clutter's actually leaving the house, and actually if we're tidying it away, then it's not leaving the house. And so it's really important to make those distinctions, as I said, without going into it.

We, and we dig into it a lot more in other podcasts, so do go listen to those podcasts because that'll really help. Honestly, it's the fundamental principles, isn't it, of decluttering, which is used as a catchall term for everything stuff and household related, and we need to break it down.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: you want stuff in your house to leave, if you want the declutter to go away and not to come back, then our volumes need to be lower.

That's the first rule of thumb, isn't it, Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yes, those volumes need to be addressed, and the only way to do that is by decluttering and not just moving stuff around. But of course, the place where you put an item is equally important as well. I mean, you know, we all know this famous saying, "A place for everything and everything in its place," which I totally love.

but it's important because you need to think through when you are working on your house, okay, what place makes sense for this item to live? You can't have hundreds of items just live on the side because it's handy, you can grab them quickly, because then your house will always look visually very cluttered.

And we know for a lot of people, that visual clutter, it can also be very triggering when they feel overwhelmed by their house. So you need to kind of flip it around and go, "Okay, I know this item has always lived in this certain cupboard, but does that make sense? Would I look for it there? Is that the right place for it?"

And everyone's home is different. Of course, you know, we see, threads through people's houses. You know, cleaning equipment is normally close to a kitchen, for example. You know, you can see things like that, but you need to think yourself, "Where, where would I look for this item?" Yes, of course, cutlery belongs in the kitchen.

No-brainer. But then, okay, within this kitchen, where would... which drawer would I pull open to look for this item? Aha, so that's where it needs to live. So then you can start to work with, okay, now I know where the place is, it's easier to return an item because you know where it lives

Lesley: Yeah. So I think, so far, Ingrid, we've talked about decluttering and organizing. So the decluttering is the emotional kind of do I need this thing in the first place? Hopefully many things can go and the volume decreases. I think then we've talked about organizing, which is a place for everything and everything in its place.

Really, important so we can organize things, so we have a chance of being able to put some things back, which really comes down to the tidying side of things. But talks about when things are going right, when we've been able to declutter effectively, when we've been able to find a place for something and organize effectively, and indeed when we've been able to put something away, when we're tidying. But there's a whole raft of items that form part of the decluttering process for many, people don't get tackled because we're not sure about them, or we don't want to do them or something, or some kind of barrier is standing in our way. So this is about the, the piles of stuff that build up that we, in our heads we think that we're gonna sort out later, that kind of maybe pile. And what this is churning. And so we think we've gone through the decluttering process. We've left things in piles on the cycles. We're not entirely sure what we're doing, and so we have not made a decision on those, so we are churning them around the house, or we are churning them from a drawer into a pile on the side, thinking that we're gonna deal with them later. It's important to recognize that trait in yourself because it's very common. We call it churning. It come-- it can... There's lots of things that can be involved in churning. Churning can also be something like deciding that you want to let go of something, and you wanna give it to somebody else, or you wanna sell it, or you wanna take it to charity.

If it's not left your house at this moment in time, it has not been decluttered. It has been churned. And so that's the kind of thing that is still gonna leave you with that feeling of having a cluttered home. That's gonna give you that feeling of I decluttered, but nothing's changed, that we're talking about, which is what this whole podcast is talking about. So recognize that churning, trait in yourself because it's one that causes big problems, doesn't it? And definitely, adds to this feeling of happened? We're back to square one again

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah, and, and y- you're absolutely right, Lesley, because, because the stuff hasn't been decluttered, it's now in another place. So it, it, it's might not be in the place it originally was, but it's still in your house, so the house still feels overwhelmed, and two weeks later, it still feels cluttered.

It's just because it's not left the building. And I think it's really important to realise as well that a lot of people think, "I just need to have a weekend or a couple of weekends to clear this all up." They see decluttering almost as a, a one-off event. When I, when I have a day off, and I can do that, or when I'm gonna do the weekend, I can sort that out, instead of going, "Hold on a minute.

As long as stuff comes into this house, stuff has to leave, so decluttering is not a one-off thing that I'm going to do a couple of times per year when there's time in the diary, but actually, oh gosh, decluttering is something that I need to be aware of all the time. And when I'm in the shops, for example, or when I'm scrolling online and I click that buy button, it will arrive at my house, and that means that something else has to leave, or I need to make...

because I need to make space for this new item." So your whole thought processes as well, you need to start kind of looking at yourself, at your behaviors, and the habits that you have and what you do, because everything that comes in has got to leave at some point. If you've u- if you've used it and loved it and worn it, fantastic.

Or if you're like, "Oh yeah, I kind of bought that on a whim, and now I feel guilty about that I spent this money," but it still has to go. So for, for clutter to not keep coming back and back and back and back and back again, you're gonna need to incorp- decluttering as a constant in your house

Lesley: Yeah, we talk about it all the time, don't we, that, decluttering is a process not a project. And I think it's a real big leap for a lot of people to,

move from this kind of one weekend idea. Now, naturally,

Ingrid: Ja

Lesley: has not formed part of your life thus far, you've not got to a stage where it's a process. We welcome the projects. We're just gonna say it out there. We welcome that you are gonna give a, a weekend or a week or a holiday or a day or a few hours to your decluttering because that's gonna kickstart it. So we're not saying you can't ever do a big decluttering project 'cause of course that's gonna form part of our life. But what Ingrid's saying is that once we've done those projects, in order to maintain what we have done, we need to then start thinking about constant ongoing process of decluttering, including not sabotaging, which is what Ingrid's talking about Yeah

with the shopping and the scrolling and all that kind of stuff. that, that decluttering muscle then needs to be built to get it to that stage of process. So it's not a problem to do a weekend of decluttering, not a problem at all, but know that until you get it to be more regular, it's really not gonna change long term. So think of

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: as a process not a project

Ingrid: Yes. And of course, once you've done a, a, a, a, a, a weekend, in this case, because that's what we're talking about, it's also important to communicate to other people in your home, right, I've... if, if you, if you are with other people in your home, obviously, to go, "Okay, I've done this, this, this decluttering now.

Some s- things have, might have moved location. This is where it lives now," so other people can also help you to go, "Okay, right, it's no longer here. We need to put it back," and we could actually put it back. So then it's, it's m- and maybe labels will help in this case because the thing is, once people know s- where something lives, it doesn't just start to float around.

If it has a place, it's easier to put it back to where it was

Lesley: Absolutely. So I think it's, again, that's part of creating systems, isn't it? So we're talking about this decluttering

process, and obviously it, involves all of the things, decluttering, organizing, tidying, and cleaning as well. I think, it's important for us not to just think about ourselves.

We need to be thinking about logic, but we need to be thinking about ease of use, 'cause one of the biggest frustrations in a household where there's multiple people is nobody else is helping me. This is all down to me. So if we try to incorporate systems and logic that makes sense to other people, like labels, as Ingrid said, then it's really gonna be helpful, and then things are not just gonna drift back, 'cause it's not you that...

It's not always you that's doing it, it's other people that are putting things, leaving them where they land. And so that's, that, other people in your house is definitely something that contributes towards things slipping back quite quickly, isn't it? think one of the other things that we wanted to talk about as well, Ingrid, was the fact that we talked before about weekend projects and things like that.

Now, sometimes it might not just be, "Oh, do you know, in September I'm gonna do that." It might be a forced deadline, so somebody's coming over, the house is being sold, Christmas is coming. It could be anything that is, that's forced you to declutter to a deadline rather than looking at it as a long-term project. And things like that are definitely things where it tends to slip back, 'cause what we do in those instances is we kind of skim declutter, don't we? Always skim tidy, always skim organize. That's when we get things like sweep bags, which is where we sweep things up into a bag and shove them into a cupboard and hope for the best. So temporarily it looks great, it looks much more orderly, but long-term, that declutter, no, that clutter is still waiting for you. So it's not actually been decluttered, it's been turned into a sweep bag in this instance. So now there's many other things where the decluttering can go wrong.

as we said right at the beginning, all progress is good progress, right? But we, what we want for you is we want for all this effort that you're putting into your decluttering to be rewarded with a tidy clut- clutter-free home. So you probably need to listen back to all 400 and odd episodes to look at where decluttering goes wrong, but that's some kind of hints and tips about the immediate things that mean that things sl- slip back quickly. Ingrid, there's more to it than just the decluttering process, isn't there? There's also, which we've only just touched the surface of really, which is the tidying of things, the resets, the routines. So why don't we pop to a break and come back and talk about resets and why your resets are not happening?

Ingrid: Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We are talking about how it is possible that once you've done a whole weekend of decluttering, the house looks amazing, and two weeks later you turn around and you think, "It looks messy again. It feels overwhelming. How is that possible? I did such a great job." So before the break, we talked a lot about, okay, why, why is that happening?

But now let's talk about, okay, how can you make steps towards preventing that from happening? Key, of course, is the decluttering, but, and very importantly as well, every day we need to incorporate resets into our routines, into our calendar, into our diary. We have to spend some time working on resets because that will be the game changer besides decluttering

Lesley: And we've talked about this a lot, Ingrid, like where we want all of our listeners to get to is a place where you don't really even have to think about resets, you're just doing it as habit every day in the same way that you're brushing your teeth or putting your clothes on or feeding your pets or taking your dog for a walk. Whatever that is, we want resets to become just like that, and so you just do them. And that is something that happens to Ingrid and I, so it is possible. And trust me, I'm not the tidiest person on the planet, but resets are just a thing that I constantly do. so we need to look at that, and we need to recognize where daily resets in particular need to happen.

When do we have time? And lots of people are like, I don't have time." here's the news, you need to find time if you don't want your house to constantly keep slipping back. Not having time is not work because you- then you're gonna constantly be living in a messy house. So we need to find time.

So when is that time gonna be?

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: minutes earlier? Are we gonna get other people involved in those resets so it's all not, down to us? When are we gonna do them? Are we gonna do them before, before we have our breakfast, while we're having our breakfast, before we go to bed, after dinner?

When's a good time for us to do our daily reset? And it might be that you need a morning reset and an evening reset. If you've got a house, you might need a morning reset, a lunchtime reset, an evening reset, and a before you go to bed reset. So we've really gotta think about what that looks like, because it will be different things that need to be reset at different times of the day. So for example, your bedroom, gonna reset your bedroom and your bathroom then, for example, probably early in the morning because that's when you're gonna be using it most, for most people. So you're making the bed, opening the curtains, te- putting the stuff in the laundry, all that kind of good stuff typically is gonna happen in a morning.

And then you can leave your bedroom because it probably then doesn't need to be done till the following day till you go again. But your kitchen's probably gonna need to be reset a couple of times a day, or indeed every time that you do some cooking or some kind of, you know, batch cooking.

Whatever you're doing, then your kitchen's gonna need to be reset. So we need to think about all those things. We need to start getting realistic about what our non-negotiables are. So what has to be done every single day. And then on top of that, that's when we, add extra things on as well. So we have our timings of r- daily resets, and then we have our non-negotiables and ascertaining what those are.

So Ingrid, what might some non-negotiables be?

Ingrid: Well, non-negotiables are things like I need to, clean my dishes. Whether I hand wash them or put them in the dishwasher, that's something that needs to be done. That sink needs to be clean. In the morning when I come down for breakfast, I am going to fit unloading the dishwasher, for example, in my non-negotiables.

You maybe want to, empty your recycling, and your, and your food, and your paper, and your plastic recycling every day if you've got them in your kitchen. You might say, "Okay, daily I want to make sure that those get emptied outside in the containers, in the big containers, so I don't have a buildup." you might say every day, "You know what?

After every meal, I'm going to quickly give my table where I've sat and had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, just a quick wipe for the crumbs and the things so all of that doesn't build up." You might say, "Okay, every day after dinner, I'm gonna sweep the kitchen floor," or every other day, whatever it is. Every household needs to do these tasks to kind of stay on top of these chores.

Because the big bonus is if you do these, you don't have... You don't create a massive backlog for yourself by the time it becomes to your day off, whether it's in the weekend or during the week. And then when you start to do these things, and you do these little micro things every day, then you start to create space in the time that is available to start tackling some, some, some more decluttering.

So a lot of people say, "I don't have time to do daily resets," but the time you lose washing up hand, washing up quickly things because you need it, and it... But, and you should have just put it in the dishwasher two days ago, but you didn't have a chance. But now you need that certain pot or pan, so you need to quickly hand wash it, so you can then put the rice on the stove.

That costs so much time and energy, and you will win that back when you start to get a, a control of those daily and also weekly resets

Lesley: Knowing, while you were talking about that, it just reminded me of an email that came in this week. 'Cause we were talking there about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And so somebody sent me an email the other day on our support inbox and said they were... They loved listening to you and I, and our accents, and things like that.

They love you. They thought you were very exotic. But the person that said it was... And exactly, very exotic. The person that said it is from near me, okay? So probably 30 miles from where I live. Now, I don't know whether you have ever picked this up. I think I've... I don't know what's happened. But in Lancashire, and in most places in the North, we don't say breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We say breakfast, dinner, and tea. And so

Ingrid: Yes.

Lesley: disappointed that I had started to say dinner instead of tea, and, dinner for lunch instead of, So yeah, dinner... So I say dinner at lunchtime, at noon. Yeah, that's dinner in Lancashire,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: is like 5:00, 6:00 normally. And so everyone think, people that are not from this country probably think that's like afternoon tea.

But no, that's

Ingrid: Ja

Lesley: We have our tea. And so it just reminded me, so I've become... What have I become? I've moved to Manchester, and I've become like somebody who says dinner and not tea. I've lost my Lancashire roots, and she was very disappointed. So you tell us in the comments, do you say dinner and tea like a true Lancastrian or Northerner, or do you say lunch and dinner?

I wanna know. Sorry, I was distracted from what you were saying because I was thinking

Ingrid: Listen,

Lesley: and dinner and tea

Ingrid: listen, don't even get me started on elevenses. When I heard that for the first time, I had... I was like, "What do you mean?" "Yeah, just a cup of tea and some toast at 11:00." I'm like, "Only at 11:00?" "Yeah, that's why it's called elevenses." I was

Lesley: Elevenses. But to be fair,

Ingrid: why would-"

Lesley: do elevenses, Ingrid. But you do elevenses.

Ingrid: No,

Lesley: You

Ingrid: have, I just have, a biscuit. I just have a biscuit with my coffee or tea, but don't tell anyone

Lesley: think elevenses can still be a cup of tea and a biscuit. I think that can also be elevenses. Do you know what I

Ingrid: Ah, I see, I see. Don't tempt me with biscuits.

Lesley: it just

means a

Ingrid: I can't...

Lesley: snack

Ingrid: I can't be having biscuits. I'm not allowed. I'm not allowed anymore. Mainly from myself, not from anybody else.

Lesley: just this week. Just this week then. There's plenty of

Ingrid: Oh, gosh.

Lesley: normally taking place. But anyway, a little bit of a distraction from the podcast with our dinner, tea, lunch, dinner, elevenses,

Ingrid: And then you got supper as well. Yeah

Lesley: supper's quite posh, Supper's, more highbrow, Home Counties, middle class Britain supper.

Ingrid: Okay. Okay.

Lesley: then some

Ingrid: So what is

Lesley: for what we call tea. It's complicated

Ingrid: yeah, no. So what is supper then in your mind? Is that like bis- biscuits with cheese or something?

Lesley: be, yeah, biscuits and cheese or a piece of toast or... But I d- but I wouldn't call that supper because supper suggests that it's I try and not have it, otherwise, if I'm having an extra meal into my day, I need to try and avoid that like the plague, right? But in my head, supper is something that happens... Yeah, it's like a posh person's phrase, I think.

Ingrid: Right.

Lesley: be

Ingrid: Okay,

so, okay, th- that's... I, I now know where I go wrong, Lesley, because I think I have, like, a snack or a supper every evening because I, I can't miss out on something to nibble when you've had dinner at 6:00.

Lesley: don't have it, for the avoidance of doubt. I'm just saying I don't call it supper, and in principle, I shouldn't be having it is what I'm saying. So

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: I'm not s- I'm definitely not saying I don't have it. anyway, so tell us in the comments what you do, dinner, tea, elevenses, supper. There's another one, afternoon tea.

Ingrid: Yeah. Gosh. To,

Lesley: we? literally.

Ingrid: I know. W- we were

Lesley: about sensible things, and we've gone completely off track as normal. okay. I think it's really, important for us to... we talked a lot about what those non-negotiables are.

We've talked about daily resets a lot, which is what we're talking about. I think it's useful... We talked in the beginning about the things that happen naturally for you, so it's about thinking, do I do without thinking?" It could be making your morning cup of tea. While you're making your morning cup of tea or your elevenses or whatever it is, can you stack another habit on top of that's

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: to a

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: So can you

load the dishwasher while you're waiting for the kettle to boil, for example? it's easier said than done, but once we start these little things, start these little habits that mean that we're doing little bits of things whilst we're doing something else. I do

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: to be honest.

I do. can easily put a cup of tea... I've got one of those Quooker taps, those hot water taps, so I don't have to wait for the kettle to boil. But I do have to wait for my tea to brew, right? Which is... they say three to four minutes for a tea to brew. I'm too, way too impatient for that, so I'm more, more a, a 90-second to two-minute gal, which is a whole nother debate, right?

Ingrid: Ja

Lesley: by the time four minutes comes, but anyway, that's by the by. But that's enough time for me normally to be able to unload the dishwasher and put everything away, right? And it's right there. The dishwasher is right next to where I l- br- have my tea. And so think about things like that 'cause what we do then...

make

sure that you're not brewing your tea and then scrolling your phone or what- or sitting down. try and do something while you're waiting for something else. Get into these little habits, and they just

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: of time here and there, and then we start doing without thinking.

So it's like

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: type thing. So I think that's really important to think about

Ingrid: Yeah, I think so too, and I think it also is important that you kind of, you know, w- do one of these, and then do it for a couple of weeks, and then do another thing. So don't try to go, "Okay, right, resets is the key why my house is decluttered. I'm gonna ma- make a massive list now of all the things that I need to do," and go, "Oh, I can't do that," because then immediately it feels too much, right?

So just start with one thing, and just build your way gradually up. And also, if there are other people in your household, see if you can delegate one or two bits, you know? "I unload it in the morning, the dishwasher, you do the evening, and this is where the things go," so you don't hunt, have to hunt for s- for stuff that they've misplaced.

Or, "I do the blah, blah, blah. Can you do the bins every, Tuesday evening before the bins get collected on Wednesday morning?" It's all of these little things.

Lesley: done. That's our, that's us. Tues-

Ingrid: Oh!

Lesley: is your, is yours the same day? Does your bins

Ingrid: Yes.

Lesley: Oh, so

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: Twin... We're like

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: Ingrid.

Ingrid: Bin twins. So yeah, so we actually always think about that, on when, on Tuesday evening. So when I'm normally, I am the, the, the person who has to put the bins out because I come home from tennis on Tuesday evening and then Jan kind of says, "While you're still out there, put the bins on the road."

I'm like, "Oh, oh, I hate that job." But yeah, I mean, because then he doesn't have to get up, you know? But he come, they come super early, like 6:00 in the morning. So every once in a while I just hear, 6:00 in the morning I hear him, like, running if I've forgotten the bins, and he's like, boom,

Lesley: nothing worse, is

Ingrid: up and he's like...

nothing

worse.

Lesley: than

Ingrid: Nothing worse

Lesley: morning call where you can hear the bin lorry outside your house and you're

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: "I've not put the bins out." Nightmare.

Ingrid: Sounds. Yep. Yep

Lesley: we were bin twins. Something else that we're similar on, Ingrid. We

Ingrid: I know, it's crazy

Lesley: gonna have to do, we'll have to do, we could do a whole podcast on putting the bins out. I'm, sure we could. like

cleaning

Ingrid: do a whole, we can do a whole podcast ab- we, we can do a whole podcast about rubbish, Lesley, let me tell you. There's so much to say. Anyway, so yeah, see if you can get some other people involved, to just to help you a little bit with these daily resets as well. Or if it's just you and your household, keep it small and build it up slowly but surely, and because that will really, really help you

Lesley: I think it's really important as well, Ingrid, to... I think you've said this before, is that start to build it up. What we can't do is go, okay, Ingrid and Lesley said it w- the reason why my house is slipping back is because I don't do any resets, so therefore I'm gonna think about three times a day, three resets a day, and I'm gonna...

These are all my non-negotiables, and I'm gonna do all of these things. Because it will become overwhelming too quickly, and so we need to start small. Don't go for an all or nothing sort of scenario. Don't go for perfection immediately. We need to start making that gradual progress, introducing these things.

And that's how we've seen, and particularly in, in our Inner Hub membership, that's how we really see people starting small and just adding

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: and adding one on. But it can take a couple of weeks to cement that habit. something... I think it's something like 40 days or something to cement a habit, something like that.

I've probably got that figure wrong, tell us if I have. But it takes a long time for a habit to really, become actual habit and be cemented.

So be patient with your daily resets, but always be working towards them. So yeah, interesting podcast I think. And so I think the reason why your house slips back is because of a combination, as we said at the beginning, of not doing the decluttering in the right way and tackling the volumes of stuff, or tackling it in an inconsistent or half-hearted way.

So we need to get some of those decluttering techniques nailed, and then we really need to focus on the resets and getting those nailed. And those two things in tandem mean that all the effort that you're putting in on that one weekend that you're working is really gonna start to reap rewards long term, and you're gonna slowly but surely start to see that clutter-free house that you're wanting. So but it's a kind of two-pronged attack, isn't it, Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yeah, absolutely. So listeners, let us know what is one small non-negotiable or one daily reset you're thinking, "Oh yeah, this has really made me think. I, I need to put something in place." Tell us about this. Let us know in the comments. And, yeah, we are looking forward to hearing from you, and thanks so much for listening.

And we're back next week with a brand new episode, so see you then