Wannabe Clutter Free | Declutter, Simplify, Find Freedom

If you struggle to stick to your routines, create new habits, or find perfectionism running your life, this episode is for you.

I'm sitting down with Monica Packer, host of the top-rated About Progress podcast and author of the upcoming book Sticky Habits, for a conversation that completely reframes why habits feel so hard for busy moms.

Monica opens up about her own journey with perfectionism, and then walks us through something surprising: almost every popular habit book was written by and tested on lives that look nothing like a mother's. Most of us carry an insane amount of invisible labor every day. So when the standard advice doesn't stick, we blame ourselves, when really the method was never built for us.

Here's what we get into:

• Why perfectionism is really a misplacement of identity, and what it quietly costs us
• The invisible labor research that explains why habit advice keeps failing women
• How to redefine consistency so it's actually possible on your worst days
• The four qualities that make a habit sticky
• Monica's simple WTA formula (When, Then, After) for habits that finally hold

This is warm, validating, and full of the kind of slow, messy, sustainable growth we love around here. It pairs perfectly with the decluttering work you're already doing.

The thing Monica most wants you to know? You can change. Everyone can.

Resources mentioned:

• About Progress podcast
• Sticky Habits by Monica Packer, pre-order at stickyhabitsbook.com
• Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

Connect with Monica: Instagram: @aboutprogress Book and bonuses: stickyhabitsbook.com

Let's connect: Instagram: @wannabeclutterfree Show notes: wannabeclutterfree.com/319

If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, share it with a friend who's been beating herself up about her habits, and leave a quick review so more moms can find us.

You have probably said it at least once: “I’ll do the whole house this weekend.” And then Saturday came, and you either didn’t start, or you started and made things worse, or you finished and watched it fill right back up within a week. Today I’m explaining exactly what’s happening, and introducing the habit that finally breaks it.

The Lightning Tidy is five minutes a day. Same time, same routine, every day. I’m walking you through the neuroscience of why it works when every other approach hasn’t, including a deep dive into what happens in your brain with every unfinished task in your home, why large sessions create decision fatigue before you even begin, and why the Lightning Tidy is specifically designed to work for ADHD brains in a way that conventional tidying advice never has.

I’m also sharing what comes next: the weekly Mighty Tidy, a 30-minute deep dive into one specific area of your home, and why the daily Lightning Tidy is the thing that makes the Mighty Tidy actually possible.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The Zeigarnik effect: why every pile of clutter is an open loop draining your brain
• How unfinished goals degrade cognitive performance (2011 Masicampo & Baumeister research)
• Decision fatigue and why the Lightning Tidy bypasses it completely
• Task initiation aversion and why it hits ADHD brains differently
• Exactly what a Lightning Tidy looks like (with the family math that makes it powerful)
• Peggybacking: how to attach the Lightning Tidy to something you already do
• The identity-based habit shift from James Clear’s Atomic Habits
• The 66-day research on habit automaticity (and why it’s less daunting than it sounds)
• The Mighty Tidy: 30 minutes once a week for real decluttering progress

Mentioned in this episode:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Effortless Home: DAILY Edition: wannabeclutterfree.com/effortless-home-daily

Next week: Monica Packer joins me to talk about habits. If you listened to this thinking, great, but I can’t keep habits, that episode is for you. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

After that: the next solo episode goes deep into the neuroscience of why your cluttered home is affecting your mental health at a biological level. It’s some of the most important context I’ve ever shared on this podcast.

Have you ever decluttered your home only to watch it slowly fill right back up? This episode is for you.

Ashlee Piper is a sustainability expert, speaker, and author who has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and CNN, and in Vogue, the New York Times, and Newsweek. She created the No New Things Challenge in 2013. What started as a personal 30-day experiment turned into nearly two years of not buying anything new. The result? She saved over $36,000, paid off $22,000 in debt, reclaimed her time, and completely rewired her relationship with shopping. Her new book, No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity, guides readers through the same challenge.

In this conversation, Ashlee and Deanna dig into what she calls conditioned consumerism, the history of how post-WWII America reprogrammed an entire society from resourceful people into reflexive shoppers, and how that programming is the real reason your home keeps filling up no matter how many times you declutter.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the urge to buy new things is not a personal failing but a historical and marketing construct
• The SUPER System: five ways to get your needs met without buying anything new
• How to use a trigger-tracking journal to discover the real emotions driving your shopping impulses
• The 2-7 minute rule and why riding it out changes everything
• How the challenge builds creativity, community, and connection as unexpected side effects
• Why Ashlee says women are the most powerful purchasing cohort on the planet and what that means for your household

Pick up No New Things wherever books are sold. You can also find it secondhand at ThriftBooks.

Find Ashlee on Instagram: @ashleepiper

Learn more at: ashleepiper.com

Full show notes: wannabeclutterfree.com/317

Have you ever spent a Saturday morning deep cleaning your entire house, and by noon you still feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and a little annoyed at everything? Your house looks great. You should feel amazing. But you don’t.

That’s not you being a perfectionist. It’s the sneaky kind of clutter that almost nobody in the decluttering world ever talks about.

Calendar clutter (or the mental load of keeping everything running)

In this episode I’m bringing it to light and giving you a real system to clear it. You’ll learn the two distinct forms calendar clutter takes (an overbooked calendar full of other people’s priorities, and the quieter weight of undone decisions with no home), the weekly capture method that gets everything out of your head and onto paper, and why protected blank space is not wasted time, it’s the time that makes everything else work.

This is the finale of my four-part series on the invisible weight of clutter, the stuff that doesn’t pile up on your counters but piles up in your mind instead.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why a clean house doesn’t always feel like a calm house
• The two kinds of calendar clutter (most people only ever deal with one)
• How to build a “vision filter” so you stop saying yes out of guilt
• The weekly capture method for clearing undone decisions out of your head
• Why blank space on your calendar is not wasted space
• A simple script for saying no without feeling like a flake

Mentioned in this episode:

• Effortless Home: DAILY Edition (use code EPISODE316 for $10 dollars off, 48 hours only): https://wannabeclutterfree.com/daily
• Fair Play by Eve Rodsky: https://amzn.to/4wpuSwF
• Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing: https://amzn.to/4weJL4E

Your kid won't get rid of anything. You know their room has too much stuff. But every time you try to do something about it, it turns into a battle. What if you never had to be the bad guy again?

Dana K. White is the creator of the No Mess Decluttering Method, the blogger behind A Slob Comes Clean, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life. She has spent 17 years teaching overwhelmed, messy people how to get their homes under control without shame or perfection. And now she has taken everything she knows and put it into her very first children's book, Winnie's Pile of Pillows.

In this episode, Dana shares how to use a picture book as an actual decluttering tool, why her container concept works even better on kids than it does on adults, and how to get through a decluttering session with your child without convincing them of anything. This one will change how you approach your kid's stuff.

Covered in this episode:

• How to use Winnie's Pile of Pillows as more than a bedtime story
• Why the container concept makes the space the bad guy instead of you
• The five-minute pickup test that tells you if your child has too many toys
• What to say when your kid insists they need to keep everything
• How to declutter with your child without starting a power struggle
• Why you should never start with your kid's room
• The age when kids can really start to grasp the concept of having enough
• How to pass on a no-shame, no-guilt relationship with stuff to your kids

If you are fighting the toy clutter battle and losing, this episode is for you. Hit play, grab the book, and go find that trash bag.

LEARN MORE

Winnie's Pile of Pillows by Dana K. White: https://amzn.to/4afYyDH

A Slob Comes Clean: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com

Lenora and Her Super Duper Messy Room by Deanna Yates: https://amzn.to/4gDSp89

Show notes: https://www.wannabeclutterfree.com/315

CONNECT

Dana K. White on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aslobcomesclean/

Deanna Yates on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wannabeclutterfree/

LISTEN

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wannabe-clutter-free-declutter-simplify-find-freedom/id1485473251

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ATUIVONi0kyoVUKOQV4OT?si=f555de5388164b10

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wannabeclutterfree

Digital clutter doesn’t pile up on your counter, but it absolutely piles up in your brain. Every unread email, every unused app, every notification going off every eight minutes is quietly draining your focus and your energy.

In this episode I’m giving you three moves for your inbox, three moves for your phone, and a simple weekly habit that keeps all of it under control going forward.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Resources mentioned:

⁠If this episode resonated with you, share it with one person who needs to hear it.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and if you have two minutes, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts makes a real difference.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction to Digital Clutter

00:29 Understanding the Impact of Email Clutter

03:44 Reframing Your Email Inbox

05:03 Unsubscribing and Archiving Emails

07:45 The Archive Bomb: Cleaning Out Old Emails

11:49 Organizing Your Email Folders

14:30 Addressing Phone Clutter

16:42 The 30-Day App Audit

18:29 Resetting Notifications for Clarity

21:31 Creating a Favorites List for Important Contacts

22:29 Simplifying Your Phone's Home Screen

24:14 Establishing a Digital Maintenance Habit

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Have you ever looked at a "minimalist" home on Instagram and thought, well, that is never going to be me. My kids alone would destroy that in four minutes? Or convinced yourself that your clutter-free journey isn't working because your house just doesn't look the part? You are not alone. And this conversation is for you.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RESOURCES⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Connect with Desirae:

Follow Deanna Yates, the host of Wannabe Clutter Free on:

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Desirae Endres is the host of the Minimalish podcast, and her decluttering journey started in 2018 when she sat down as a brand new mom and watched a documentary that completely changed the way she thought about her stuff, her home, and her identity.

Since then she has built an entire community around the idea of "minimal-ish" living, not a perfect aesthetic, not a stark white capsule home, just a real and intentional life with less in the way. 

In this episode, Desirae gets honest about the postpartum anxiety that made her desperate for a calmer home, what it felt like when her husband said their house no longer looked minimal-ish, and the beautiful shift she had about what this whole journey is actually for. We also dig into how to get your kids involved in decluttering without it turning into a battle, and the single most powerful thing you can do to raise kids who genuinely understand how to let go.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Introduction

2:59 Desirae's origin story: the documentary that changed everything

5:37 Why changing your nature is harder than changing what you own

9:21 How decluttering helped manage postpartum anxiety

11:37 Letting go of clothes and letting go of past versions of yourself

15:02 Baby stuff, the "what if" fear, and letting go anyway

20:20 Feeling like an imposter when your home does not look minimal

22:45 The minimalist aesthetic vs. the minimalist mindset

24:56 Accepting certain areas of clutter in your current season

32:43 Teaching kids to declutter: where to start

37:21 The power of narrating your own decluttering out loud

43:28 What age should kids start participating?

47:07 What Desirae wishes someone had told her at the very beginning

49:13 Decluttering as a gateway to bigger life changes

50:09 Rapid fire questions

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Music: Fresh Lift by Shane Ivers - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.silvermansound.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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We’d love to hear how you’re applying the strategies discussed in this episode. Share your stories and tips with us on social media (@wannabeclutterfree). Don’t forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes designed to make your busy life a bit easier.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paper doesn't ask permission. It just shows up in your mailbox, your kids' backpacks, and somehow on every flat surface in your home. And if the piles keep coming back no matter how many times you deal with them, it's not a discipline problem. It's a system problem.

In this episode I'm sharing the exact system I use to keep paper from taking over, including what to do with everything that comes in, how to handle the stuff that's been piling up for months, and two bonus sections for the things nobody talks about: your kids' school papers and the one document organizer every family needs.

In this episode you'll learn:

Mentioned in this episode:

If this episode resonated with you, share it with one person who needs to hear it.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and if you have two minutes, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts makes a real difference.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 The Sneaky Clutter: Paper Invasion

01:47 Understanding the Paper Pile Problem

06:55 The Paper Jam System: Sorting Made Easy

16:26 Establishing a Weekly Processing Routine

23:16 Managing Kids' School Papers

27:18 Creating an Emergency Binder

30:16 Going Digital: The Future of Paper Management

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Time management expert and Secrets of Supermom host Lori Oberbroeckling joins Deanna to talk about why energy runs out before time does, how clutter quietly sabotages your best-laid plans, and the small routine changes that actually stick.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RESOURCES⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Connect with Lori:

Follow Deanna Yates, the host of Wannabe Clutter Free on:

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You bought the planner. You made the schedule. You had a whole plan. And then a super busy day happened.

Sound familiar? This week Deanna sits down with Lori Oberbroeckling, a working mom of four, corporate project management leader, and host of the Secrets of Supermom Show. Lori has spent years helping busy, ambitious moms figure out why their best systems keep falling apart. Spoiler: it is almost never the plan.

In this episode, Lori introduces her framework of energy bleeds, energy blocks, and energy boosts, and explains why your home environment plays a much bigger role in your daily productivity than most time management advice will ever admit. When your physical space is draining you before you even start your to-do list, even a perfect schedule cannot save you.

Lori also shares the moment she and Deanna both recognized in themselves: we think we need a better planner, when really we need more energy boosts built into our days first.

If you have ever felt like you are doing all the right things and still ending every day depleted, this episode is going to reframe everything.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction to Lori Oberbroeckling

03:05 Why home environment matters to your schedule

08:25 Energy bleeds, blocks, and boosts explained

10:01 What to do when you have to do an energy bleed task

16:18 How to find your energy boosts when you do not know what they are

20:24 Flying trapeze and other energy boost revelations

21:32 Why routines fall apart and how to build ones that stick

24:11 Small changes that create big impact for the whole family

26:58 Getting family buy-in with carrots, not sticks

29:28 Why the planner is not the problem

32:27 Where to start when everything feels out of control

34:26 Rapid fire: what clutter free means, what is making Lori happy, and one takeaway

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Music: Fresh Lift by Shane Ivers - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.silvermansound.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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We’d love to hear how you’re applying the strategies discussed in this episode. Share your stories and tips with us on social media (@wannabeclutterfree). Don’t forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes designed to make your busy life a bit easier.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Digital clutter doesn’t feel as obvious as a cluttered closet. But if you’ve ever had that pit-in-your-stomach moment of not being able to find a photo that matters, you know this isn’t small.

In this episode I’m breaking down the three phases of getting your photos in order (Declutter, Organize, Maintain), the two specific starting points that build momentum without making any hard decisions, and the triple backup system that means you’ll never lose a photo again.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Resources mentioned:

This episode is Part 5 of a series. Start with Episode 304 if you haven’t already.

Next episode: The Paper Clutter System That Took Me From 6 Piles to Zero

If this episode resonated with you, share it with one person who needs to hear it.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and if you have two minutes, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts makes a real difference.

TIMESTAMPS

02:03 The Invisible Weight of Digital Clutter

04:56 Understanding the Emotional Impact of Photo Clutter'

07:30 Framework for Organizing Photos

09:54 Three Phases of Photo Management

12:31 Practical Tips for Decluttering Photos

15:41 Maintaining Your Photo Organization

18:24 Quick Wins for Photo Organization

20:45The Calendar Method for Photo Management

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices