Ep. 211 | Clean Spaces (with Melissa Maker)

we are all writers now whether you want to write a book or a blog or better text messages or emails I want to help you with a free ebook call it 11 ways to write better you can find that at the minimalists com slash resources enjoy and minimalists hello everybody welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less my name is Joshua fields Milburn and I'm Ryan Nicodemus and together we are the minimalist to say we're going to talk about organizing we're gonna talk about tidying up we're gonna talk about cleaning your home with today's guest Melissa maker is here from cleanmyspace.com Melissa thank you for joining us I'm really happy that you're here today because I think you sort of formed this date on between the organizers and Ryan and I have spoken it like professional organizer events and watching the videos in your channel Jessica first sent them to me and I'm like oh she gets it cuz Ryan and I will often say like the easiest way to organize your space is to own fewer items and you understand that but also you understand that organization even with having fewer things is still important organizing is not the answer though it's not just well we need to go to the Container Store and spend $1400 and then we're gonna put all of our junk in our basement nice container the problem is we don't have enough storage containers or or we need a storage unit yeah our first question today is from a muna in Columbus Ohio hi my name is Emunah Marie I'm calling from Columbus Ohio I'm interested in pursuing the minimalist lifestyle and I'm wondering how you can work that out if you happen to be married to a packrat well I'm sure you deal with this people who live with pack rats or they themselves or pack rats are different from their significant other I know my my wife and I aren't exactly the same either and so it's all varying degrees here but when you run across this how do you how do you talk to people about dealing with a pack rat in their family kindly because you're Canadian well but really I mean when somebody is holding on to stuff we all know that that's an emotional response we know that there's something deeper we know there's a reason why they're holding onto it it could be a financial thing a fear thing a sadness thing and anger thing we don't know it could be a family thing there's could be guilt involved so it's not the symptom the stuff that we have to talk about it's what's really going on and how can we find ways to work together to part with some of this stuff it is very overwhelming at first which is why this situation has to be dealt with kid gloves like the person I'm unna would have to be very delicate in the way that she speaks to her partner about that because it can feel offensive it can it can hit you where it hurts yeah I think that also you have to realize a moment like I'm not how old you are but let's say you're 30 years old how long did it take you to stumble across simplicity or or minimalism and then finally embrace it maybe it took you 30 years or maybe when you first saw it maybe you saw our documentary or you read a Marie Kondos book or something like that and you realized like oh maybe this is something I'd like to consider but how long did it actually take for you to embrace it and oh by the way were you ready for that message when you found it maybe someone else in your family isn't necessarily ready for that message yet and so I think that kindness is also giving them the space that they need not to force the change but to be the sort of leader of the change in showing showing the benefits that they often appear from letting go or organizing or tidying up what are some of those benefits that you find and I know you talk about it in a lot of your videos over on your YouTube channel but let's talk about some of the benefits of of well cleaning the space obviously obviously we know it's easier to clean when there's less stuff there's less there's less dust there's less dirt less things to move when you're you know vacuuming under a surface or putting something away I just like under the bed if you have a ton of stuff under the bed how hard is it to actually clean under the bed becomes impossible right not that I'm a Feng Shui person but according to Feng Shui it's not good to have stuff under your bed mmm thank you my snowboards ooh well maybe if you took them out some really good things maybe well I have a loft so like it's there's very little which we don't need a lot of storage space but the snow words I totally stash underneath the bed I don't know what I'll put him on the roof I guess I don't know I find you know when I walked in and so full disclosure I hate cleaning I still do and that's always been my thing and you know I've just found over the years that cleaning is is it it's sort of an act of self-love I take care of myself when I keep my space clean tweet that so that's pithy yeah cleaning is an act of self-love I love it so you know I think taking care of myself by cleaning even though I don't love it it makes when I come home that much more enjoyable I can relax I can recharge I can calm down whereas on the flip side when you come in in your house is a mess and scattered and there are things everywhere there's no way you can relax no matter what kind of day you've had you can't come home you can't be in your zone you know you can't just recharge and let go of things it doesn't work because you look in the corner and you'll see a sock then you'll see dust then you'll see this and then things start to pile up and the anxiety builds yeah I totally agree like out yeah I mean with the munna the I know that she wants to relax and I know her partner wants to relax and that's what I have written down the advice for Munir's like start with the this the commonalities that you both have like what do you both want that's a great place to start they both want to relax so how can they get to that point I think and I've been there when you know I have a partner who has something going on in their life or a habit and I'm like why do you do that you know this is this is not what I want and this is you know this is different and I don't like it like and that is like - starting with the difference is right Twitter by right yeah different I don't like it different I don't like it but it's I mean that's what I project when what I have found especially with like Moriah like I mean this is the best relationship I've ever been in that we we go out of our way to find the commonalities and then work towards those commonalities and setting up like pointing if on each other and I'll tell you like that to me that is when you know you have a good relationship or good romantic relationship is when you have a partner that you actually want to go out of your way to like meet their work requirements or their preferences maybe that's a better way of saying it so for Mariah like I love her so much that I want her to be happy so I'm willing to compromise on you know some small things like nothing you know major I'm not gonna kill puppies for but uh but but there are some things that I compromise but I'm happy to do it because I love her so much and there's no there's no perfect relationship at least if I haven't found it if there is one out there I'm sure there is one out there where it's just like easy breezy and both people are on the same page but I have never experienced that myself Mariah and you're eventually going to be on a different page of course you're on the same page you're gonna find something where you're like yeah my preferences are obviously different from yours by the way that's the thing that makes a relationship fun and exciting and alive is in fact you have some variety between two people as long as that variety doesn't have to do with your morals with your ethics or with your values then you realize like oh yeah we of course we have some differences and then we have to deal with some of those differences I really love what you said though about the commonality we actually did a video a long time ago about it was such an interesting question it was how to get your spouse to clean and actually it was actually how to get your husband to clean that was the question we kept getting asked but we went gender-neutral a long time ago so we actually just I forget if it was partner or spouse but that's the terminology that we use and finding common ground was one of the first things that we talked about because you have to meet in the middle somewhere and there has to be a starting point one of the things that you are both such big proponents of is this is a journey it's not like I feel this way today and I'm getting there tomorrow and I feel the same way there's so much that she will have to work through with her partner it has to be a journey so you know opening his or her mind to what could be the possibilities what could be out there how would life be without this much stuff what are some materials that you can watch or read or listen to how do you feel about that start bringing that into the conversation so clutter the symptom I think it's gonna take a while to work that out I think a lot of it has to happen up here first yeah I mean the best thing a Munna can do is respect her partner's battle that they're going through I mean you know he's like you said there's some emotional trauma or not trauma but there's something emotional going on there's probably some sort of traumatic event or incite so the best way muda can get him to start coming to her side is by respecting that battle that he has so yes be kind find the commonalities that I mean just respect as all people want out of any relationship I think you don't always have to meet in the middle right now you might have to meet him where he is in order to understand where he is and what you're doing there as a leader if you're if you're going to be the leader in this situation you often have to meet people where they are and then lead them away from where they are now you do that through your behaviors not through your words you can't say well all right now you need to clean this up obviously right and the video that you mention most so let's put a link to that Shawn in the show notes we could find that and that way folks can can take a look at that as well Anna Mona I'd love to send you a copy of Melissa's book it's called clean my space which you can also find at cleanmyspace.com and we'll send you a copy of that our next question is from Caitlin in Pittsburgh hello my name is Caitlin Greg I am from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and I wanted to know what your thoughts were on keeping a hold of stuff like your a certificate in social security colors was the best was the best type of way to store these things Melissa let's talk about paperwork because she mentioned two things and I think everyone is either going to hold on today I just got a new social security card myself and dude I just ordered a social security card and when I did they try to talk me out of it why did you get that when you ordered it like on the Social Security website they were like do you actually need a social security card think about it there's very few situations a lot of the times when they ask for a social security card there's something else that will supplement it I think someone stole your identity no man it really was on the Social Security website maybe they took that off but but yeah so there are some things I mean I have it so the explain how I do love to actually talk to an expert about this and it's always melissa here but I have a file cabinet and I have it's a locked file cabinet such a phony no you have a filing cabinet you cut yourself one of the minimalist and and in there I have a file with important documents like my life insurance things that need to be printed out and most of my paperwork however is digitized and Ryan and I share a scanner well Ryan Sean Jordan and anyone else who wants to borrow the scanner we we share a paper scanner so in a photo scanner it's the same thing put a link to that in the show notes as well Sean the scanner that we use it's relatively inexpensive and it has alleviated the need for 95% of the paper because as Ryan just said most of the the papers that we need now they're fine if they're digitized there are a few things where it makes sense to have a printed out copy but even then you should have it digitized because what if you know the house burns down or something happens it's important to have some sort of backup somewhere and I think the problem isn't though Caitlin your birth certificate social security card those two things are gonna fit in one file and you're fine tape them to the snowboard yeah fine but I think that what happens is we then develop the same mindset around everything well I need to have 17 years of tax records and I have to well no you probably don't in fact even the tax records you could you do need to have whatever it is seven years in the United States but those can be digitized as well you don't have to have the printed out version of it in fact everything like that is being digitized now so I say digitize wherever you can and they're gonna be a few items and they'll fit it in fact my file cabinet it's absurd like there's it's maybe 1/4 full of papers and the rest of it is just empty and that's because unless I absolutely need to store it in there and I go through and I'll clean it out at the beginning of each year I just don't print it out anymore so first of all sounds like you can sell that filing cabinet and downsize I finally got a so I so I run three businesses and three of them so two are out of my house one of them is out of a space quite like what you're in we've digitized that business and we've reduced significantly the amount of paper that we use I love this question because it sounds so great but it is so overwhelming when you think about how you're going to do it so having a really small filing cabinet for those valuable things life insurance passport any important documents that you'll need SSN whatever I could even be a lockbox so we actually keep our stuff in a safe okay and if I are proof safe and then our business stocks that we do need and some other you know health forms that kind of thing we will keep that in a filing cabinet but I go through it every year and one of my favorite things in my house is a paper shredder okay yeah is anything that comes with my name address that gets shredded any documents that I don't need anymore it goes right into the shredder it's fun it's pleasurable like you wash it there's something very satisfying about watching so that's great and then digitizing is key so wanted so a couple things I want to point out retexe so the first one is there's a great app that you can get I think it's free it's called the Adobe scan app so you don't even need a scanner you can actually just use your phone as a scanner so that's awesome I use that a lot with business if I have to sign a doc and send it off to someone I will use that app the other thing now that I have I have an Apple pencil with my iPad so I feel Oh fell out a lot of Doc's just using that particular tech and then I save it it goes right to the cloud I have not printed out so much paper using that particular format it has been wonderful no you have a daughter as well and she's less than two at this point so there's paperwork involved with that as well right can we talk a little bit about that in record yeah I'm gonna keep that you know but other other things that come through like her daycare even sends all of their notes and handbooks and everything through PDF hmm so had they not done that I either would have requested a copy or I would have read it made any pertinent notes in my calendar and then just gotten rid of it when things come in I always say to myself am I going to need this like if I were to get audited no what I need it right if I don't it goes in this shredder if something were to happen there was a flood would I need this document yes I would so it has to be accessible but like my car insurance policy from 2016 by it's all about just paying very close attention to what the purpose of that document is do I need a physical copy of it and if I don't can I digitize it great and making sure that everything's current cuz the second you don't need it I always think about things like why why am I paying a mortgage or rent for you right yeah why is this document why am i paying a mortgage to house that document I'm isolating your stuff exactly yeah it's funny and so if you get a bunch of junk mail - you can obviously shred it app that I use is called paper Karma I'm familiar with paper Karma okay so so the the app is just called I don't know if it works in Canada I assume it does but it's it's called paper Karma's an app and you snap a photo the mail they send you and it automatically unsubscribe to you from from the list yeah and with with my daughter as my daughter got older she's six now and she'll bring home artwork and stuff and so this is another type of paper you have to deal with right now with us Ryan you noticed this when you were babysitting her last we have one piece of artwork on on the fridge yeah and that and if she wants to replace it then she has to remove that one and put the new one up now we'll take a picture of the old one just like all right now Ella you need to shred that immediately get rid of this memory therapy in 25 years but what we do is we help her better understand like the the memory or the experience is not in things we talked to her about that but also make her go through the the experience of lightening we're not gonna hoard all of this stuff but also it's ok to have a small for a kid to have a small collection of her artwork or a stack of these things but there is always going to be a limit and as parents we get to draw that limit the the kids can have some input but ultimately if you give them if you give them all the input then it's going you know it's gonna be tyranny within your household yeah yeah I would kaitlin's who don't let don't let this little thing like hang you up I know if Kaitlyn's like me these little things like prevent me from taking any action because they are so overwhelming but yeah it's don't freak yourself out too bad so we talked about living well versus if Achatz or social security card immunization records like what else death documents so go to the minimalists comm slash death we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well there is a essay they are called scared to death of death and because we we we actually don't talk about these things it's really unfortunate I have some close friends whose parents are in the later stages of their life and they still refuse to talk about like well do I want to be cremated and like in my wallet I have just a little card that says you know do not resuscitate and I'm an organ donor and all of these these things and you can set yourself up for success so that you you you and your family know exactly what you want you could have a living will you can have a last will and testament you you can have all of these documents and so there are some important documents there that give you a peace of mind so you don't have to worry about it once you set it up then you'll feel good about the fact that you and your loved ones know your wishes when you die now in my will it says Ryan can do whatever he want he can cut my head off and use it as a soccer ball things I'm gonna do things I'm gonna do this is I could be shot out of a cannon it's it's fun to inject some comedy into that too because it is some of the the the most serious things that we talk about but quite often the life's most serious challenges can be talked about only through jokes one other thing I do want to put in there something we call scanning party so put a link to that in the show notes as well Shawn having a photo scanner or a a digital scanner in general having some friends over to scan all the old photos and and put them in a digital picture frame instead of them just sitting in your attic or closet and collecting dust and no one's getting a way out of them you can find your favorites you can store them in a digital scanner and by the way if your house ever does burn down or you have a flood then they're backed up in the cloud you still have access to all those old photos that you scanned you're actually using them now so a scanning party is definitely something I would recommend Caitlin I'm gonna send you a copy of our book essential it's the essay collection with 150 different essays twelve different areas of intentional living I think you'll find a lot of value in two of the chapters in particular there's a chapter about stuff which is gonna be important for you but also a chapter about minimalism and the philosophy around minimalism so if you enjoy our podcast you'll enjoy the audiobook version of essential or if you want the book book or the e-book we're happy to send those to you as well Ryan what time is it you know what time it is it it's time for our lightning round where we answer questions from social media we do indeed we are at the minimalists on Facebook Twitter and Instagram Louis what were your what are your handles on social were you out on the social medias I'm at I'm at Melissa maker and @cleanmyspace there you go awesome we'll put a link to your website in the show notes as well so people can find you over there Ryan what question we got your first question is from Mika I've given up hope my dirty cluttered house just sits there and I just sit and stare at it I have creative plans but there's a mountain between me and those plans what should I do about my stasis now so here's the thing there's a mountain of stuff that's what she's seeing but the the that's the almost literal mountain or at least of the physical manifestation but the real mountain is there's a psychological mountain right you know that I mean that's what it is it's it's the procrastination it's there's so much to do I don't know where to start so I'm not going to start and then creative plans get put on hold and then a week a month a year passes our house isn't any cleaner and our creative pursuits haven't gone any further for that reason so I think first and foremost and I heard you speak about this earlier when you were answering Caitlin's question it's sort of like you have to stare the ugly things in the face like you have to stare death in the face you have to stare not in that way but like dealing with the documents you know we did our last will and testament to it was a horrible process when you think about it but then you get it done and it wasn't as bad as you thought it was and those documents are in our safe and we don't have to think about it anymore so that's nice but you know in this situation with Myka what it comes down to is saying what needs to be done I'm a list person so you know my book I talk about it like put a list together then I have what I call my M IAS my most important areas so think about what your most important areas are start with that put five minutes put one episode of this podcast on clean for that amount of time and start chipping away one bit at a time because you can't look at your whole house I find people when they get their most overwhelmed it's because they're looking at the big picture and they're like I can't do this sorry the entire elephant can't eat the entire elephant one bite at a time you talked about rastan ation and there's one thing that often says is don't let your crafts donation turn pro and that's that's kind of what we've done here I've got a pithy answer for you here oh by the way we try to collect all of our pithy answers and put them in the show notes Shawn does and then Jessica puts all of our minimal Maxim's in one place at minimal Maxim's calm here's here's my pitty answer you cannot get where you're going without moving from where you are so I think that's where Mika is right now she's she's sort of stuck where she is and she wants to be somewhere else she wants to be on the other side of the mountain of stuff right but just wishing you're on the other side of the mountain without beginning the journey you're just keep wishing in perpetuity yeah it's not a good place to be I also want to say that unlike diet or exercise cleaning you get results immediately like this so if you put in 5 10 15 30 minutes of cleaning yeah you will see visible results instantly and that can even encourage you to want to you know go on and pursue a little bit more cleaning yeah if you're in an entire house that when you've given up hope and and is there a place where you're like here's here's the best bang for your buck okay you know a powder room or a front entryway just a small space where when you put the time in you'll actually see the results after because if you tackle a huge room like you know your kitchen or your bedroom you might feel like oh my gosh this is gonna take three hours maybe you don't have it in you to do three hours at the beginning yeah so maybe you just have to start with a small space first and then at the end you really need to celebrate that yeah like you have to look at it and say wow you know take a picture send it to your friends whatever it is that you have to do reward is really important as well and just feeding that that positivity so you know seeing what you've done feeling really good about it and affirming that to yourself and just riding high on that like that's what like when I'm struggling with cleaning that's what I have to do I have to look at the space and say wow that felt really good where else can I apply this energy yes yeah I totally agree it makes me think about I had to paint our trailer in high school and like that's how I how I did it just one little piece at a time I remember like looking at the whole trailer and I'm like oh crap I'm never gonna get this done right but then I was like all right I'm just gonna start with this one wall today and if I can get this wall done I'll feel good about myself what's a single wide or a double wide it's double wide it was a nice double way to my pit the answer is this when you're hopeless find someone who's hopeful so Mika you might be down and out right now and maybe she's just in a state of depression and she can't even you know take those first initial steps I mean there's a saying Mika sometimes the bravest action you can take is ask for help and you might have to seek someone to help you deal with that emotional clutter that you have going on you might have to bring a friend in and have them help you just kind of tackle it to tackle it together yeah you might have to yeah I mean I really say this and it's kind of half true like you want to look at some inspirational things read books listen to podcasts the problem is that you don't want to get just stuck in looking at inspirational things it's a very easy place to get stuck in videos but then they they don't actually clean they're just progression cleaning right so so I do want you to get some inspiration from somewhere but if you're at a point where you've got all the inspiration but you are still having trouble taking the action I mean you got asked for help and there's nothing wrong with asking for help yeah thinking I had that creative pursuit that she has maybe that's really scaring her so as long as she's keeping herself in the cluttered mess she doesn't have to go and do the thing that scares her the most yeah all right before we get into our added value segment and our listener tips today it looks like we have a bunch more surprise questions this week indeed we do Ryan let's see how can we make holiday gatherings flow better with less after clutter I'm really loving this this new word after clutter also I'm out of storage space what should I do with the new clutter I can't organize we have old clutter and then the new clutter how can I be a minimalist as a student with all the supplies that come with being a student and how does your physical environment affect your mental state and how do I encourage my child's grandparents it's Heidi up their home for my own child safety plus just a million more questions for Melissa maker plus ten rules for a cleaner home that's from Melissa and also from Melissa five secret storage spots in your house and if you want to hear all that you can listen to this week's maximal episode available exclusively on patreon that's right you currently listen to our weekly minimal episode but each week Ryan and I record an entirely different much longer maximal episode on the minimalist private podcast which gives us the private space we need to talk about topics we don't usually discuss in public plus patreon is best way for us to fund this podcast and keep it 100% advertisement free when you subscribe to the minimalist private podcast on patreon you'll also receive a personal link so that our maximal episodes play in your favorite podcast app you find all the details and all the good stuff including an additional private podcast episode every week over at the minimalists comm slash support Ryan what else you got for us this week here are some voicemail comments and tips from our listeners hi Justin Ryan my name is Sandra and I'm from Norway I would like to share a quote that changed my view on minimalism I've been on this journey for about 7 years now and this month I have been doing my version on the minimalism game where I tried to let go of 500 items in total my boyfriend saw a pair of shoes I was going to sell and said that they were nice shoes I told him I agreed but that I didn't know where them and that it did not add value to my life anymore he then said this just because something is pretty doesn't mean you have to own it hey Ryan and Josh this is Muriel from Grand Haven Michigan I just listened to episode 210 about student debt I have a tip related to that topic I wanted to share I'm currently a senior at Grand Valley State University and I'll be graduating this may with no student debt I've put in a lot of work in many ways to get to this point but my number one recommendation for people looking to avoid student that is to apply for scholarships specific to who you are for example I'm studying natural resources management so I applied to many scholarships related to my field of study you can find scholarships based on your interests academic performance special talents your major and many other things I even got a $1,000 scholarship from my credit union there are scholarships for everything you just have to intentionally search out the ones you have the best chance of getting they may take a long time to apply for but it's worth the time you put in if they help you stay out of debt additionally check to see if your university has a list of available scholarships GVSU has a website called my scholarships where you can create a profile and they suggest scholarships specific to you and you can apply for them directly through the website you can also search for specific scholarships there this is what I found to work for me and I hope some of your listeners find this helpful all right Joe thanks again to Melissa maker for joining us today check her out clean my space com you can also check out her YouTube channel we'll put a link to that in the shows she has over 600 videos on her YouTube channel very practical very useful very helpful I think you'll find a lot of value in that also her book is called clean my space if you have a question comment or minimalism tip for our podcast Oh before that right here right now as a segment we do we talk about something's going on life of the minimalists we have two things for you so talk about our homes and cleaning your home we have video tours of both of our homes ryan and so we both did video tours this year of our homes and we'll put a link to those actually just go to our youtube channel you'll find them right there youtube.com slash the minimalist you can find a video tour of my home and my family and the Ryan and Mariah and their home and you own a surprisingly little amount of things I've always considered to be a messy minimus but your place is not nearly as messy as I thought the key is josh is you get rid of everything in sulk in an empty apartment it's a great tip pro tip everyone you could tweet that podcast shot alright if you have a question comment or minimalism tip for our podcast leave a voicemail for 0 6 2 1 9 7 8 3 9 or send a voice memo to podcast at the minimalists comm you can comment on this episode on youtube channel youtube.com slash the minimalist if you want our show notes in your inbox sign up for our emails over at the minimalists comm just go there in your email address at the top you can also find all of our free wallpapers over there and a bunch of other resources articles etc but we'll put our show notes in your inbox and also send you our simple Sunday emails anytime those come out you know we won't send you spam junk advertisements anything that won't add value to your life and of course unsubscribe anytime if it's not adding value speaking of adding value for our added value this week you know rust and Kelly he's Kacey Musgraves house and he had one of my favorite albums of last year and this year he released a covers album it's a short album it's maybe nine songs it's the album itself is called dirt emo and he sort of takes he's taking these these 90 songs like teenage dirtbag and he's covering it in a way where they actually sound way better than the original I love when that happens it isn't that it and it almost like brings out the it brings us something about the lyrics you didn't actually catch the first time dude it reminds me of Obadiah Parkers hey yeah we did and you realize how sad that Outkast so good with it they made that outcasts song where it's just like hey yeah and it's all I did when he plays it it's it's sort of downtrodden yeah and yeah you noticed different parts of the song that you normally wouldn't so let's finish today with teenage dirtbag from Rustin Kelly's new acoustic covers album that album is called dirt emo and if you live here today with with one message we hope it's this love people and use things because the opposite never works thanks for listening y'all we'll see you next time and minimus

Channel: The Minimalists

Views: 120,920

Keywords: contribution, decluttering, finances, growth, health, minimalism, minimalists, passion, purpose, relationships, simple, simplicity, the minimalists, podcast, Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, useful tips, tricks and tips, personal growth, finance, more with less

Id: VbyUjQayIYc

Length: 34min 10sec (2050 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019