How to Get Motivated to Declutter

I'm Dana K white I'm the author of decluttering at the speed of life and today I'm going to answer a question I get a lot which is how do I get motivated to do this how do I get started when I just feel like I can't even make myself get up and and do the first thing okay rest assured that I am not going to cheer you on in this video my my answer to this question is not to assure you that you can do it or convince you that it's worth it you know all those things and I know myself I rebel against excessive cheerleading and encouragement so I'm going to tell you the way that I get myself to get going when I'm feeling what you're feeling if you're feeling a lack of motivation right so the best way to motivate myself is to see visual progress even if it's a very teeny tiny amount of visual progress so my goal in those moments is to identify the very smallest thing the very lowest energy task that I could possibly do that I can complete all the way the smallest task that I can complete completely that ultimately does move me forward in the overall task that I want to accomplish that's so overwhelming to me that I'm not motivated right now okay because that's the problem so many times this lack of motivation comes from the big idea of what you want to accomplish being so far down the road from where you are right now and so you look around at what you're dealing with right now and it just feels like is there any point is anything that I could do today actually worth doing because I'm never going to be at that point today so I have a video hopefully I'll remember to link to it there um where I talk about the value of making the goal better okay it is not possible to fail at the goal of better if I do even one single thing and that mindset shift has changed my home because when I started making my goal for the space to be better than it was was before I started then my house started to improve where before when I would just feel overwhelmed and unmotivated because where I wanted to be was so far down here and I didn't do anything my house never got better at all in fact it got worse because it I continued living in it and it just kept piling up while I was feeling unmotivated but when I made my goal better that's when things started to change so if you're sitting there right now feeling feeling like I just can't do the things that need to be done identify one small thing and I'm talking really small that you could do completely that would move you forward on this overall goal trash is one thing that's very easy to do completely and when I say that I don't even mean get rid of all the trash I mean one piece of trash thrown into the trash bag or the trash can or whatever you have or the recycling bin one thing thrown away is one thing done completely and that has to be done anyway to ever get to this point where your house would be at the place that you're envisioning that you want it to be in the future right giving yourself permission to to identify the smallest lowest energy task out of the overall goal that you have and do that task and then if you can do another small thing completely and then another small thing completely but even if you give up after the first one or the second one and you say that's it for today I can't do anymore you've still done that thing and there is so much power in that to motivate so it's giving yourself permission to identify the very smallest thing and count that towards your overall goal okay so along with this is the visibility rule this is my entryway right here okay you can see I've got my um I don't know if you can see the brown paper on the floor for the Workman coming through and the the uh it's hard to see where my hand is and see the rug back there that is uh rolled up things are not perfect right and that that kind of chaos can often make it feel like what is the point what's the point of doing anything and instead I do the same thing especially in these visible spaces what is something I can do here right right now all the way I can throw away trash I can pick up the shoes that got left by the door and go put them where they actually go I can take the dog leash and take it off of the little table and into the actual basket where it should have gone in the first place but whatever I can do those things completely and for every one that I do it looks a little bit better and I'm making visual progress and visual progress is the best motivator okay so the best motivator is not jumping up and down over having moved the dog leash 6 in over into the Container where it goes but the motivator the thing that motivates me is seeing Oh that made a visual difference oh that made an impact that was worth my time it was worth my incredibly small amount of energy that I put into that that was worth it and then living with that is the thing that motiv Ates me okay couple of tricks on this which are not tricks cuz I don't like to be tricked but a couple of things that I like to do is take a before photo with no commitment okay like low commitment I'm not going to do a big thing here it will probably there probably won't even be an after photo but I'm going to take a before photo with zero commitment of what all I'm going to get done today and then do one thing at a time that I can possibly do all the way completely okay small things done completely that move me toward the overall big huge and daunting goal as I do those things every time I think of it maybe every 5 minutes maybe just when I'm done maybe after just doing the one thing take another picture so that I can see I can swipe back and forth on my phone oh that made a visual difference I can see that this space is better and that is highly motivating just remember that the key here is the done completely if this is the first video of mine that you've ever watched I encourage you to go watch my decluttering process my No Mess decluttering process that is the basis for all of this okay the one thing done completely is very different from okay I'm going to start this decluttering process if you're doing things in the way that most people encourage you to start a decluttering process okay what I mean by that is don't let the one thing that you do be to pull everything out of a space because if you're lacking motivation anyway and if you're the kind of person who has ever experienced pulling everything out of a space and then losing all your motivation and all your energy are getting distracted and then that stuff is spread everywhere for the next 3 weeks or four years whatever uh don't make that the thing that you do that's not what I'm talking about that's the difference between something small done completely versus something started it can feel like oh I'm starting a decluttering project by pulling everything out I don't do that with my nestic cluttering process instead I go one item at a time final decision acting on that final decision and that way I can stop at any time because the most demotivating thing is to end up with a bigger mess and your house worse off because you started decluttering okay just to be clear I'm saying it's much more effective to motivate yourself to see real actual small progress instead of big dramatic starting of a project that you barely had any motivation to start in the first place anyway okay so really embrace the key to the Ness decluttering process which is take it there now okay whatever small thing that you're doing completely that's why trash is the best cuz you hold the trash bag and it is taken there now when it's put in the trash bag that is completed all the way that is very valuable more valuable than half doing something okay so really focus in on what is a small thing I can do completely that moves me toward the overall goal and every little small thing that I do even though I'm not feeling any motivation even though I'm convinced it's not going to make a huge impact on my space every time I do a small thing I am moving toward that goal and that's what ends up motivating me the best way to be motivated is visual progress and the only person who can do that is you right okay oh did that sound way too encouraging and happy okay just alter that for whatever it is that would work for you okay cuz I don't want to sound too Cheer littery because I know how I rebel against that all right this has been fun funish right I will talk to you guys next week bye for

Channel: Dana K White

Views: 47,133

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Id: lnxFhE7GjL4

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2024