A graphic of various household items, kettle, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine, iron, fridge, freezer
Episode 156 – Taking care of your stuff

Episode 363 – Before you blame the clutter are you doing these 10 things?
Episode 362 – The Roots of Clutter: How Britain became a nation of stuff with Professor Jane Hamlett
In the early 21st century a throw away society sadly reigned supreme. Luckily over the past few years there has been a shift towards sustainability, less waste and more make do and mend. But what can we do at home to take care of our items to make them last longer?
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Transcript of this podcast episode
[00:00:00] Lesley: In the 21st century, a throwaway society has sadly reigned supreme. Over the last few years, though, there's been a definite shift towards sustainability and definitely that make do and mend era. But what can we do at home to make sure we look after our stuff

[00:00:17] Ingrid: So in this episode, Lesley and I are going to be chatting how you can take care of your stuff because we've got so much stuff and we need to take care of it. So we don't have to replace our items all the time. And we save ourselves a nice bit of dosh as well. Right? 

[00:00:37] Lesley: Lesley. Yeah, definitely. And it's quite interesting actually, 'cause you and I prepared for this podcast a minute ago, then I went upstairs 'cause Ingrid said you need to put some lipstick on.

[00:00:46] So I was like, right, okay. Because I was obviously looking a little bit, bit dred, so I went upstairs, put some lipstick on log. I have my lipstick Ingrid. And just as I was walking downstairs, I felt this weird kind of like movement in my foot and this is what's happened to my shoe . Oh 

[00:01:04] Ingrid: my gosh! 

[00:01:04] Lesley: So how apps that we are doing a podcast on how to take care of your stuff, and my sundial that I've had to be fair for quite a few years, it's just broken.

[00:01:14] Clearly I did not take care of my stuff. Well, you know, 

[00:01:17] Ingrid: stuff breaks, Lesley. There's, that is, that's the thing. Stuff just doesn't last as long as it did in the olden days. But by taking care of it, we can make stuff last longer and maybe you can now have a look if you can actually fix your shoe. If you can't, it is just a shame, but maybe there's 

[00:01:37] Lesley: no, there's no, there's, there's no fixing.

[00:01:39] There's no fixing. 

[00:01:41] Ingrid: Oh no, no, no, no, no.

[00:01:46] No, okay. No, never. Nice try Ingrid, not going to happen. So yeah, stuff breaks. That's part of life, but there is lots of stuff we can repair and we can fix, or we can have mended, which is a fraction of the cost of what it would be to buy new. 

[00:02:05] Lesley: I mean, I always think if you want to fix something, there's two go to places, aren't there?

[00:02:10] One is Google or ANN or the search engine. And the other one is YouTube, which is absolutely fantastic. It's fantastic for those how to fix things, how to sort things, how to clean things, how to mend things and all those kind of things. YouTube is definitely your friend because some kind people decide to put videos on telling us how to do pretty much everything from changing the filter on your washing machine to cleaning shoes to fixing random things on ovens and things like that.

[00:02:37] And so if in doubt stick it in Google search and potentially either something will come up on Google or something will come up on YouTube, won't it? Yeah, 

[00:02:47] Ingrid: because I think the thing is don't just start fiddling yourself with it. You kind of need to have the right information to get this job done. Or you maybe want to reach for the manual if it's It's an appliance that is, don't just kind of start pressing random buttons on things because you will just confuse the machine.

[00:03:06] But have a look at the manual. They almost always have in the back kind of a, what happens if this happens or what there's a kind of problem solving part in a manual at the end where you can kind of see, okay, is there anything in here that, that. Connects with my problem on my machine. And what do I need to do to fix it before having an expensive repair person out to fix something for you?

[00:03:29] You 

[00:03:30] Lesley: know, I'm going to, I'm going to be honest with you though, Ingrid. I don't know what you're saying about manuals. I think that the information that you can get on YouTube is often better and explains things. Much more than in a manual, because in a manual, it's normally written. I mean, sometimes the manufacturers now are kind of switching onto it a little bit more and they're doing their own videos and things, aren't they?

[00:03:50] But in general, I find the YouTube stuff easier to work through than the manuals. And of course, what we're talking about is not necessarily just fixing things, but we're talking about. Taking care of things in advance of them breaking. So my shoe has broken and so I clearly did not take care very well.

[00:04:07] But as Ingrid said, I have had them for a few years. And so it was just that shoe's time. It was the shoe telling me it was time to get recycled. But yeah, so let's talk about some of the things in life. that we need to look after so that they don't break and we don't get to that expensive repair? 

[00:04:24] Ingrid: Well, I think, of course, Lesley, there's, there's, there's a long list of things that we can do so we can make items last longer.

[00:04:32] For example, if you have a lot of expensive, nice leather shoes, You can polish them so they look nicer and they last longer. You can have them rehealed at the menders. So if it's only the heel that's broken or then needs a little replacement, you can walk around with them for another two years. So it's, it's not always, it doesn't always have to be massive, expensive repairs.

[00:04:56] It can be small things as well. It can be, if your coffee machine says change the filter. Actually change the filter or descale the machine to descale it all of these kind of, and you know, the annoying thing is these little jobs, especially if you don't do them very often, they take a bit of time. But on the other hand, you do save yourself a lot of time later.

[00:05:20] If you ignore changing the filters and descaling your machine, then the problems get bigger. 

[00:05:28] Lesley: I mean, if I'm honest, the biggest thing that I come across that is a problem that could have been avoided. is vacuum cleaners. And so definitely people just go and go and go and go and never ever look at filters or if they've got the brushes underneath and never sort them out and then wonder why they're not picking up so well.

[00:05:47] So quite often if I'm working in a house, one of the first things we're doing, if we're getting to that stage of cleaning is we'll be like, well, Let's change your vacuum filter. And often it's the first time that anybody has ever done that in their life. And they're like, Oh, I didn't even know you do that.

[00:06:02] I've never done that, you know? And so there's no wonder that it's not working at its optimum level. So if there's anything that you want to do based on this podcast, go look at your vacuum cleaner or your Hoover as we like to call them in the UK and take, and take a moment to change those filters and to look and to make sure that they're working, because honestly, if you change the filters on a vacuum cleaner.

[00:06:23] It is incredible the difference that that is going to make, isn't it Ingrid? Yeah, 

[00:06:27] Ingrid: without a shadow of a doubt. And I actually have, um, several, a box with filters. So I replace them on, because I live on a main road in quite an old house. So all that fine dust is like all the time here. So I actually have a box with filters.

[00:06:43] We don't even order one by one. We have a box of them, so they're easily replaced, but you can definitely notice the difference. If, for example, you have a, got a cooker hood above your, um, cooker or your hob or your stove, however you want to call it, change those filters in there. Or if you've got a newer system, you can normally take the kind of iron things to filter out and put them in dishwasher.

[00:07:08] So that's also a good way to make sure that smells in your kitchen stay down. So that's also one of those jobs, very random, but very good to do. 

[00:07:18] Lesley: That is the kind of thing that we don't really Get around to, and we're going to talk later on, aren't we, about how to make sure these things get done. I think another thing that gets neglected actually, Ingrid, is things in the bedroom.

[00:07:29] So I think mattresses, pillows, duvets, those kind of things definitely get neglected. And we don't really look after them in the way that we, that we should. And so I think turning mattresses, now not every mattress needs to be turned. So some are non turn. Some of them you turn 180 degrees. Some of them you turn over.

[00:07:48] And so it very much depends on how your mattress has been constructed as to whether it's a no turn mattress, but quite often people don't know whether they are a no turn mattress or not. And so, but if they are a turn mattress, then it's definitely designed that every now and again, like, I think it's like every three months or something, isn't it?

[00:08:06] That you should turn those mattresses around. It'll differ from mattress to mattress, but take a look at that. And next time you're changing your bed over. Have a look at the mattress and say, right, you know, now's the time to turn it because again, it does make a difference to the way you sleep, which is super important to have a good night's sleep.

[00:08:23] I think connected to that as well as your pillows and duvets as well, make sure that if they're washable, they do go through the washing machine every now and again. And so that. Well so that they smell nice, you know, there's a lot of kind of, I don't know, gunky, horrible stuff that comes off our skin and sweat and everything at night, isn't there?

[00:08:42] And so these things need to be washed, um, at a high temperature to get rid of those kinds of things, don't they? That's something else that often gets neglected. If we look after those pillows, if they are washable pillows, what that then means is we don't get to a stage where they're so grim and grimy and horrible that we just want to throw them away and get a new one.

[00:09:00] So that's what we're trying to avoid really. 

[00:09:02] Ingrid: Yeah, I think another thing that will help there, Lesley, is having pillow protectors and mattress protectors, so you kind of protect that, and you can wash the protectors a little bit more often, so you keep the mattress and the pillow themselves in a better condition in the first place.

[00:09:18] So it's all those tiny little things that a lot of people just don't think about, but we can do. Same going back to the kitchen. A bit of salt in a dishwasher, if you live in a very hard water area, a bit of extra salt can really help. Um, if you have a specialist wooden floor in your living room or anywhere around your house, maybe just a weekly mop is fine, but maybe once or twice a year, you need to treat that, that floor or maybe a wooden table or whatever it is with some specialty cleaning products.

[00:09:48] Or if you've got a special stone floor somewhere in your house. Oh, the job of getting the job done once a year or so with that specialty little bottle they gave you when you bought the floor, you're like, Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Just one of those jobs you just don't want to do. But if your stuff is looking nice, you want to take care of it.

[00:10:11] And it lasts so much longer. 

[00:10:14] Lesley: Yeah, it's kind of quite a lot of these things are quite sort of old school on, you know, when you watch films and programs from like the 19 I'm going to say 40s and 40s and 50s. People did a lot of stuff manually then and we were so lucky that we've got all these gadgets and gizmos to help us.

[00:10:28] But you know, you remember don't you people. Beating curtains, you know, to get the dust out of the curtains and stuff like that. And, you know, it's just things like that. Isn't it a mopping steps outside houses and things like that. So there's loads of things that we're looking at. I mean, you can, of course, if you've got the right attachment, things like curtains to get the dust off them, cause the dust settles on a curtain in the same way as it does any other flat.

[00:10:51] You know, you need to make sure that that just goes so that you keep the curtains or drapes or whatever you want to call them at their, um, looking their best really, as that dust is not hanging around, you know, 

[00:11:02] Ingrid: your house. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I, I've got a, let me, let me call the curtain whacker. I've got an, I'm old school, you know, I'm old school, Lesley, but things like this, I've got a curtain whacker in my house.

[00:11:14] So once a year, normally over the kind of summer months. At one point, suddenly I just climb up ladders and take all my curtains down and everybody's like, what is she doing now? And I'm like, and it's like, Oh, the curtain whacker is coming out. 

[00:11:28] Lesley: We neglect, can't really see it often depending on the curtain.

[00:11:31] It's really hard to see that dust, but as soon as you do give it a go, it's huge. I mean, I've got pelmets over the top of my curtains and the top of the pelmets. A really full because it's a flat horizontal surface rather than, you know, the dust does, does stick to the vertical surface as well. But the horizontal surfaces are really quite, quite full of dust, but they're very high up.

[00:11:51] And so they're quite So it is only something that you're going to be doing every now and again, really. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, lots and lots of things. Things that we need to do to keep on top of things. Cleaning is a biggie, isn't it? And so little and often is gonna, you know, we've talked about things that you need to do on an occasional basis as well.

[00:12:08] But if you can keep on top of, you know, wiping your doors down, wiping your architraves down, cleaning your windows, then what happens is it doesn't become this colossal job that takes like forever because you're doing it on a regular basis and so it never gets really bad. So that's the key, but it's not always possible, is it?

[00:12:24] And we need to do that kind of spring clean. Typically people don't actually do spring cleaning anymore, but people do regular cleans anyway at, at um, a certain type of the year, a certain time of the year. Sorry. So do, do keep on top of your cleaning, that's gonna really help, isn't it? 

[00:12:40] Ingrid: Yeah, I think it's very interesting because actually, um, I, you know, I love a bit of cleaning.

[00:12:45] I think most listeners do know that. So at one point it was like, Ingrid, how do I do this in my house and how do I do that? And we actually. Have created lots of videos about maintenance of equipment and machinery. And if indeed the Hoover is one of them, uh, a shredder, a microwave, how do you clean your kettle, all of those things, how to do your fridge or freezer.

[00:13:08] And we've now created a whole course with all of these little videos, because a lot of our members were like, this is fantastic. I had never realized that I actually. How often I need to do this and why do I need to do this and why it's important? Or what do I need to think about? And I love doing my little videos, don't I, Lesley?

[00:13:26] Yeah, no, no, you're 

[00:13:27] Lesley: absolutely right. You know, we, we put every week, um, you know, it's now a full course, isn't it? But we put what we call quick wins out, don't we? So. You know, not everybody has got time to do a big decluttering project every week. So we have challenge of the week. We have quick wins and those maintenance things, maintain your kettle, sorting your fridge out, all the things that you've mentioned are all in there.

[00:13:46] And people love them because as we have said, a lot of people, it's like a revelation that these things have to be done because you just buy things. Because we talked about that throwaway society feeling that we kind of had. It's so cheap now generally to replace these things and we don't believe that things should have like a really long lifespan.

[00:14:04] We're like, Oh, we've done okay. We've got five years out of it. It's fine. But just by doing a little simple bit of maintenance, you can really prolong the life and absolutely save yourself some money. 

[00:14:14] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:15] Lesley: So welcome back. We wanted to also talk about laundry and clothes, didn't we Ingrid? Because it's super important to keep on top of your laundry. What we find quite often when we're working in clients homes is that there may be a floor drop. So just in case you're not familiar with that term, it means when you're.

[00:14:32] Clothes are not in your wardrobe. They're in your wardrobe or on your wardrobe. And so we can all imagine what that look that looks like. And so, and that means that things are kind of not being looked at. They're not being hung, they're not being kept, they're being trampled on maybe that kind of thing.

[00:14:48] Quite often as well, we see laundry baskets that never become completely entered. And so the laundry baskets about, they've always got this kind of dampness. I haven't they, it's kind of interesting, you know, they're just never getting to the bottom of the laundry basket. So we have a full laundry course also in the membership where we talk about how to do that and emptying the laundry basket every single week is definitely one of the things that we recommend.

[00:15:11] And so make sure those baskets are getting emptied the same goes for ironing baskets as well I know a lot of people around the world don't have to iron or don't iron or choose not to iron. But if you do have an ironing basket, make sure every now and again. or every week if possible, which is what I do, then get to the bottom of the ironing basket.

[00:15:27] So those clothes are not laying and kind of, I don't know, getting musty and fusty and damaged and things. And so it's really important to have a good laundry routine, isn't it? 

[00:15:38] Ingrid: Yeah, for sure. Because, and I think it's very important what you say, if a lot of clothes live on the floor, you know, if you're just getting out of the shower and you drop something on the floor and you pick it up five or 10 minutes later.

[00:15:49] Not a problem. But if close gets left, kind of through through strewn strewn tripping off my words, Lesley strewn over the floor. Um, 

[00:16:00] Lesley: then again, say again, 

[00:16:02] Ingrid: strewn, just 

[00:16:05] Lesley: put me through it another time. Yeah, just because you can, because you can, it's quite a tongue twister.

[00:16:15] Strewn and tongue twister. So, um, we're getting diverted now away from the topic in handing, 

[00:16:23] Ingrid: aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. So no, but if so, if clothes get on top of each other on the floor and then something else gets on top of it and something else, and then you kind of think, Oh, let me quickly open a window. Let me just step.

[00:16:33] In the beginning step carefully and then there's a pile of things and then you're going to have to step over it. Things get really get damaged. You know, zippers can get stuck behind something. A button can be, can be, can break or get stuck into something else and then create a hole. And then you get all these repair jobs or, you know, you're just giving work for yourself.

[00:16:57] And the thing is, once you get on top of these things a little bit more, in the beginning it's a lot of work, but later you get that pay, that payoff of time, it's the same with the decluttering. In the beginning, the decluttering is like, oh! I have so much to do, but once you kind of get over that hump and you kind of start to break the back of it a little bit, it's like, wow, this is actually amazing.

[00:17:24] I can actually find things, I can put things away and be, and now I can do my daily resets. And that's the thing we wanted to talk about next, isn't it, Lesley? 

[00:17:34] Lesley: Yeah. So we love our Reset Your Home system, don't we? And so we firmly believe in daily and weekly, in fact, and seasonal, in fact, but first daily, then weekly, then seasonal resets.

[00:17:47] And that's super important to keep on top of putting things away and having things in the right place. If you don't do those daily resets, what then happens is. We get in a panic one day when someone's coming to visit and they're like, yeah, I'm just popping in for a coffee in 10 minutes. You're like, no, no, no, no, I'm not ready.

[00:18:02] I'm not ready. And, and so what we then do is what we call the sweep, which is we gather loads of stuff together, chuck it in a box, chuck it in a bag, chuck it in a cupboard, and then we forget about it. And so what happens is that again, we're not looking after our stuff because we're bundling it all together in inappropriate storage, which is.

[00:18:22] All together in a bag, all together in a drawer, all together in a cupboard or something like that. And so we really need to, by doing these daily resets and sometimes depending on the makeup of your house, that reset might be more than once a day just to depress you even more. But basically what that means is you just tidy up and put things back where they belong.

[00:18:40] Um, it's nothing more complicated than that, but we just need to do it regularly. Because what that means is the. Stuff doesn't build to a point where we are in a panic, and we have to throw everything into a box as we said by doing a sweep. So that's super important to do those daily resets. Conversely means that we are then going to look after our stuff better.

[00:19:00] It's going to make it easy for decluttering an organisation. We're then not going to have to buy things. Cause when we do a sweep quite often, we forget what we've got. So we then go out and buy double. And so there's loads of benefits to doing these daily resets. Isn't there Ingrid? But one of the main thing is that our stuff doesn't get damaged because when we get back to one of those carrier bags, boxes, where everything's been stuffed in, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be things that are broken or damaged.

[00:19:24] Weren't there Ingrid? Yeah. 

[00:19:25] Ingrid: Always, always. And sometimes it's something really inexpensive that doesn't matter so much and other times it is something that is really either meaningful or sentimental or especially when it goes to either photographs or important, um, um, ornaments or things like that. And if they then are broken because they've been flung in the back somewhere in a book somewhere.

[00:19:49] And then it can really, that can really hurt that can really hurt. And then I think that it almost hits home. Like, wow, I need to take better care of my stuff and not do these sweeps. Because if it's like, if it's something cheap, normally people are not so worried about it. But I think the more you tidy up and declutter and do your resets, the better you take care.

[00:20:11] And it's actually, this reminds me of somebody who put something on a Facebook group a while back. Like... The more I declutter, the more I clean, and the more I clean, the more I keep cleaning. Because you start to see stuff that you haven't, it's almost like when you see have clutter in your house. It just builds up so gradually over time you don't see it.

[00:20:35] It's the same thing with cleaning in the beginning. You don't, when you're cleaning, it's like, oh yeah, oh yeah, it is a bit dusty here. But when you then start to dust and tidy up and declutter, it's like, Oh my word, have you seen the dust here on my curtains? Have you seen the dust behind the radiators?

[00:20:52] Because you start to look at your house with a completely new set of eyes almost, and the more you peel away of that clutter, the more it becomes obvious that Probably there hasn't been done a lot of deep cleaning because it's just too difficult to reach all those nooks and crannies and corners. And the more you start to do that deep cleaning, the more stuff you see that has been neglected.

[00:21:16] So it almost goes hand in hand, doesn't it? Decluttering, the organising and the cleaning, and then also taking better care of your stuff. It all fits 

[00:21:25] together. 

[00:21:26] Lesley: It does all fit together and the bottom line is it's not easy, you know, to do all this is not easy and you need to have in your schedule every week a way that this is all going to get done.

[00:21:36] We need to write notes, we need to put actions together, we need to, if we haven't got time to Clean our shoes and we think, Oh, they need to clean. And, but I'll do that later. I'll do that later. It needs to get recorded somewhere so that we can come back to it and make sure that it's done at some point when we're doing some kind of what we call life admin.

[00:21:55] So there's a combination of things really that we wanted to talk about in this podcast, doing those daily resets is going to absolutely. Make sure that things don't get damaged and pulling lists together while you're decluttering, while you're doing those resets, while you're organising, you can put things on those that aren't on your list, and then that can become part of your life as I'm in tasks as that makes sure that these tasks that we spoke about at the beginning of the podcast, maintenance tasks.

[00:22:21] cleaning shoes, changing filters, don't do them all in one weekend because you're going to lose the will to live. We need to do them gradually. And Ingrid would probably do them all in one weekend, but nobody else would, but let's face it. And so, um, Yeah. So it's really important to have that recorded somewhere.

[00:22:38] And that is what we call life admin. We have got a podcast on life admin as well. Ingrid, the kind of things that we consider that to be, and we will write in the show notes what that was. That was one that I recorded with my right hand clutter fairy, Katie. And so, yeah, so we talked about life admin in that, and that forms a big part also of our routines course in our membership.

[00:22:58] So, yeah, so taking care of your stuff, I'm going to. not be able to take care of those shoes. They're going to have to go in the bin. I can't even donate them. And so, but Hey, but I 

[00:23:10] Ingrid: want to do, I want to do, I do not do all my life admin jobs in one week unless the, I am the queen of breaking things down. So I do, you know, I really like Every weekend, I think, oh yeah, let me just clean out the kettle or, ooh, it's been ages since I've done the fridge or, ooh, let me, uh, change the, the pillowcases or the, the, the pillow protectors and the mattress protectors, put them through the wash.

[00:23:35] I never do all these jobs in one. It is impossible to do. But every weekend, I try to pick one little thing. And. Then over time, that really adds up. I think you can really kind of get the benefits of it because it just gets a lot less job. So I'm going to correct you on that one. But yes, I thought he was super 

[00:23:56] Lesley: woman, no, I'm not really, no, you're absolutely right.

[00:24:01] When you're doing it, when you're doing, when you. Deep diving on a room, whether that's a decluttering projects and organising projects or a cleaning project. That's the perfect time to see little things that might need to be done and write them down so they get done. There's nothing more satisfying than ticking these kind of things off your list, is 

[00:24:17] Ingrid: there?

[00:24:18] Yeah, yeah, definitely. And. You know what? I think it is really, you know, just so lovely to do that. So satisfying. And I think when you see your house kind of improve like that and, and you can really like be proud of yourself and it feels so nice to sit in a room that you've, you know, that you think, Oh yeah, that's been done.

[00:24:38] And I feel comfortable. You can, I think, relax a little bit more in your house when all these jobs are done and you're not looking at clutter and lots of dust and dirt everywhere. 

[00:24:48] Lesley: Yeah, and I think, I know it was one of our members, wasn't it, who, because you did the quick win, didn't you, on cleaning your kettle out or descaling your kettle.

[00:24:57] And I think she had said in the membership that she had descaled her kettle, and then she'd have this amazing cup of tea. So I think there's other benefits, like when you've not got a fuzzed up kettle, that mean it's like, Oh, actually things taste nicer and look nicer and work better and things like that.

[00:25:12] Yeah. But anyway, you're in your element, Ingrid, today, aren't you? 

[00:25:16] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. I do your streets. Yeah, it is. I think because I find it very, just very satisfying and you know, I load spending money. I'm one of those frugal Dutch people that just, if I, if I can, if I can do some small job to make something last longer, so it takes longer for me to replace it.

[00:25:39] And I can spend my money on doing something fun. I'd rather do that. So I think it's a complete win win. So I think on that positive note, I think we need to tell everybody what we're talking about next 

[00:25:51] Lesley: week. So next week our podcast is all about decluttering CDs and DVDs. I can't believe that we've done more than 150 podcasts and not talking about CDs and DVDs.

[00:26:02] Where, where, where have we been with it? Next week we're going to talk about CDs and DVDs. So do tune in and listen to us next week. Yes, 

[00:26:11] Ingrid: we can't wait to see you then. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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