WEBVTT 00:00.111 --> 00:02.292 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, hey, my friends, welcome back to want to be clutter free. 00:02.392 --> 00:08.994 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Diana Yates, and today we are talking about why five minutes a day beats one big weekend declutter. 00:09.974 --> 00:10.555 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't believe me. 00:10.895 --> 00:22.939 [SPEAKER_00]: I know it sounds like a big claim, but here is why I want to talk about this, because if you are like me, you have probably found yourself in a situation where you are completely fed up completely overwhelmed. 00:23.299 --> 00:25.600 [SPEAKER_00]: you're standing in your kitchen one night after dinner. 00:26.080 --> 00:27.340 [SPEAKER_00]: This is taken from an example. 00:27.380 --> 00:31.362 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask me how I know and you look around and everything is a mess. 00:31.862 --> 00:41.465 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got messes from the kids in their creative projects on the table that you have to clear off so that you can actually sit down and eat dinner or you think that's never going to happen. 00:41.525 --> 00:45.086 [SPEAKER_00]: You give up and you eat in front of the TV and then you feel bad about it or 00:45.886 --> 00:48.067 [SPEAKER_00]: your desk is a mess from work that day. 00:48.447 --> 01:00.492 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got groceries that you went to the grocery store and you are so tired from planning and putting them away that now you're supposed to make dinner and you don't want to and so you just want to order to take out. 01:00.952 --> 01:04.315 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, or you just feel like I can never get my life in order. 01:04.395 --> 01:07.717 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel so behind, I feel buried, I feel trapped. 01:08.077 --> 01:10.579 [SPEAKER_00]: So you know what I'm going to do this weekend, forget it. 01:10.959 --> 01:12.941 [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to completely turn my life upside down. 01:13.061 --> 01:21.827 [SPEAKER_00]: And I am going to declutter everything this weekend because I know if I have the perfect plan and the perfect thing and my homes in order, then everything is going to change. 01:22.948 --> 01:25.770 [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, one, you're going to get overwhelmed. 01:25.910 --> 01:29.433 [SPEAKER_00]: Two, you're not changing your habits and three, it's not going to stick. 01:31.034 --> 01:33.047 [SPEAKER_00]: again, ask me how I know. 01:33.832 --> 01:34.094 [SPEAKER_00]: And so 01:35.421 --> 01:41.665 [SPEAKER_00]: You get into this vicious cycle that you take everything out, you think you're going to go through it. 01:41.705 --> 01:42.685 [SPEAKER_00]: You have your plan, right? 01:42.765 --> 01:44.546 [SPEAKER_00]: You've thoroughly thought about this. 01:44.586 --> 01:45.327 [SPEAKER_00]: You've researched this. 01:45.387 --> 01:49.209 [SPEAKER_00]: You've looked on YouTube, you see other people do it, and you think, I'm going to be able to do that. 01:49.549 --> 01:50.169 [SPEAKER_00]: And you mean it. 01:50.590 --> 01:51.450 [SPEAKER_00]: And so you plan for it. 01:51.910 --> 02:03.257 [SPEAKER_00]: And you're excited, you get, you gather your supplies, and you're ready, and then Saturday morning comes, and you start to take it all out, and you just, you're going through everything, and you're that Tasmania in devil, and then you look around in your home. 02:04.017 --> 02:22.632 [SPEAKER_00]: is a bigger mess than it was when you started and so you start to feel incredibly defeated right and deflated and you spent all this time in energy getting all the stuff out and now when you actually need the energy to put it all back or make those hard decisions you're wiped out. 02:23.653 --> 02:30.299 [SPEAKER_00]: And so now your home is a bigger mess than it was before you're feeling worse than you felt before and then the whole site cycle is going to start all over again. 02:32.026 --> 02:34.356 [SPEAKER_00]: I have done every single version of this. 02:35.199 --> 02:35.641 [SPEAKER_00]: I promise. 02:36.972 --> 02:45.519 [SPEAKER_00]: the not starting, the starting, the making it worse, the looking at everything and going, oh, what did I just do? 02:45.539 --> 02:49.903 [SPEAKER_00]: I have conmarried my clothes and left my bed at giant mess. 02:50.083 --> 02:56.048 [SPEAKER_00]: My husband walked in at that night and was like, what are we gonna do because we actually need to sleep in this bed? 02:56.168 --> 03:01.272 [SPEAKER_00]: So then everything ends up either on the floor, on the couch, somewhere else, I'm just stuff shifting all over my home. 03:01.392 --> 03:02.333 [SPEAKER_00]: I have 100% done that. 03:05.275 --> 03:10.579 [SPEAKER_00]: I always thought I just needed the perfect plan or I just needed to be disciplined enough. 03:11.079 --> 03:16.844 [SPEAKER_00]: I just thought the problem was me and my inability to finish something. 03:17.184 --> 03:27.592 [SPEAKER_00]: And you've heard me on this podcast, if this is not your first time, you've heard me talk about how I am a starter and I struggled to finish and I thought that I needed some secret motivation gene that I was missing. 03:28.939 --> 03:29.399 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't. 03:30.040 --> 03:30.880 [SPEAKER_00]: And you don't either. 03:31.161 --> 03:35.143 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because the problem isn't discipline, the problem is the approach, right? 03:35.203 --> 03:45.670 [SPEAKER_00]: That big weekend session, that big Saturday session is fundamentally at odds with how your brain works, how your life works and how real behavior change actually happens. 03:46.310 --> 03:49.092 [SPEAKER_00]: And so today, I'm going to show you one approach that I think. 03:50.533 --> 03:51.073 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it is. 03:51.473 --> 03:55.515 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to say that carefully because I think it's a big change. 03:55.555 --> 04:02.357 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's neurologically superior to other methods that are out there to things that have you tried that you tried in the past. 04:02.457 --> 04:07.639 [SPEAKER_00]: If you can do a giant weekend declutter and it's worked for you, then you're probably different than me. 04:08.199 --> 04:13.981 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's okay, but if you have tried to declutter and you just think I could never get this under control. 04:14.781 --> 04:18.767 [SPEAKER_00]: then stick with me because I'm going to tell you about the lightning tidy. 04:18.987 --> 04:20.129 [SPEAKER_00]: It's five minutes a day. 04:20.149 --> 04:26.097 [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to do it at the same time every day, hopefully, but it does have some wiggle room for life if that happens. 04:26.538 --> 04:29.623 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to show you why it works when everything else hasn't. 04:30.103 --> 04:30.403 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay? 04:30.904 --> 04:31.724 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into it. 04:32.245 --> 04:38.590 [SPEAKER_00]: Before I teach you what actually works, I want to explain the big session and why that keeps failing. 04:39.011 --> 04:45.076 [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you understand the mechanism that you're going to stop blaming yourself and you're going to start solving the right problem. 04:45.656 --> 04:51.078 [SPEAKER_00]: So there are three things happening in your brain that work directly against the big session approach, okay? 04:51.399 --> 04:54.000 [SPEAKER_00]: The first something called the Zignaric Effect. 04:54.080 --> 05:00.823 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1927, a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zignaric noticed something interesting about the waiters in a Berlin restaurant. 05:01.803 --> 05:07.044 [SPEAKER_00]: They could remember every unpaid order in perfect detail without writing anything down. 05:07.884 --> 05:14.465 [SPEAKER_00]: But the moment that a table paid and left the restaurant, the waiter had almost no memory of what they had ordered. 05:15.406 --> 05:27.708 [SPEAKER_00]: The uncompleted transaction stayed active in their working memory, and then the complete one was released, so once that loop was closed, they totally let it go, and their brains said, okay, done, goodbye. 05:28.628 --> 05:36.893 [SPEAKER_00]: So what she discovered through subsequent research is this, that your brain treats incomplete tasks differently from completed ones. 05:37.593 --> 05:41.195 [SPEAKER_00]: When something is unfinished, your brain keeps an open loop. 05:41.796 --> 05:44.637 [SPEAKER_00]: It's actively allocating cognitive resources to it. 05:45.037 --> 05:46.358 [SPEAKER_00]: It's keeping it accessible. 05:46.838 --> 05:48.920 [SPEAKER_00]: It's flagging it as required attention. 05:49.340 --> 05:52.722 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's doing this whether you consciously are thinking about it or not. 05:53.362 --> 05:55.002 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so now let's bring this into your home. 05:55.543 --> 06:00.184 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's look around with every pile, every cluttered surface, everything that needs to be dealt with. 06:00.504 --> 06:03.344 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want us to now think of that as an open loop. 06:04.084 --> 06:06.645 [SPEAKER_00]: So here's what makes this so significant. 06:06.885 --> 06:15.087 [SPEAKER_00]: A 2011 study by psychologist Masi Kompow and Brommeister found that unfinished goals don't just occupy memory, passively. 06:15.547 --> 06:19.048 [SPEAKER_00]: They actively degrade your performance on other cognitive tasks. 06:19.688 --> 06:25.053 [SPEAKER_00]: So participants carrying unresolved goals performed measurably worse on reading comprehension. 06:25.614 --> 06:33.101 [SPEAKER_00]: Their brains were still allocating executive resources to the incomplete goal, even when they were doing something completely different. 06:33.822 --> 06:36.664 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is why you can't fully relax in a cluttered home. 06:37.145 --> 06:38.626 [SPEAKER_00]: Your brain is not resting. 06:39.287 --> 06:44.132 [SPEAKER_00]: It's running a continuous background process across every open loop in your visual field. 06:44.692 --> 06:53.721 [SPEAKER_00]: the pile on the counter, the drawer that won't close, that project on the dining table, each one is a thread of mental tension that your brain is maintaining. 06:54.302 --> 06:59.347 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you have dozens of them running simultaneously, it doesn't matter how comfortable your couch is. 06:59.867 --> 07:00.728 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not resting. 07:01.449 --> 07:09.232 [SPEAKER_00]: The good news is, and this is important, is that research by Brahmai Stern-Mazikombo also found that you don't have to complete a task to close the loop. 07:09.832 --> 07:13.273 [SPEAKER_00]: You just have to make a concrete plan for when you're handle it. 07:14.153 --> 07:16.274 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is why the lightning tidy works. 07:16.774 --> 07:20.215 [SPEAKER_00]: So every night, when you do it, you're closing the loops for that day. 07:20.596 --> 07:24.477 [SPEAKER_00]: You're telling your brain, check, that's off the list, it's handled. 07:25.137 --> 07:27.919 [SPEAKER_00]: it's a system reset and your brain can actually rest. 07:28.540 --> 07:43.130 [SPEAKER_00]: It also allows you throughout the day to say, no worries, I don't have to worry about that right now because I know tonight I'm going to do a lightning tidy and so I can let that set that off to the side and compartmentalize it knowing that I'm going to get to it later. 07:44.351 --> 07:47.433 [SPEAKER_00]: The second mechanism that I want to talk about is decision fatigue. 07:47.833 --> 07:51.455 [SPEAKER_00]: So every object in a cluttered environment requires a microdicision. 07:52.215 --> 07:52.856 [SPEAKER_00]: What is this? 07:53.236 --> 07:53.976 [SPEAKER_00]: Where does it go? 07:54.356 --> 07:55.177 [SPEAKER_00]: Does it stay? 07:55.437 --> 07:56.097 [SPEAKER_00]: Does it go? 07:56.377 --> 07:57.438 [SPEAKER_00]: What is it used for? 07:57.838 --> 07:58.979 [SPEAKER_00]: All of these kinds of things. 07:59.539 --> 08:04.782 [SPEAKER_00]: And your brain has a finite amount of decision-making capacity in any given day. 08:05.442 --> 08:08.543 [SPEAKER_00]: and in a cluttered home, you are depleting it constantly. 08:09.064 --> 08:14.086 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is why standing at the beginning of a big weekend session feels so paralyzing. 08:14.606 --> 08:20.528 [SPEAKER_00]: You haven't made any decisions yet and yet you're already exhausted just from living in the space all week. 08:21.008 --> 08:26.010 [SPEAKER_00]: The lightning tidy bypasses decision fatigue entirely because you're not decluttering during a lightning tidy. 08:26.090 --> 08:26.971 [SPEAKER_00]: You are resetting. 08:27.811 --> 08:30.595 [SPEAKER_00]: things that have already have homes go back to their homes. 08:30.936 --> 08:35.062 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a decision, it's a known action, and the cognitive load is minimal. 08:35.522 --> 08:41.310 [SPEAKER_00]: Which means that you can do it at the end of the day when you're tired, when you have no mental bandwidth left for anything else. 08:42.862 --> 08:48.505 [SPEAKER_00]: And the third mechanism is what behavioral scientists call task initiation aversion. 08:49.125 --> 08:53.227 [SPEAKER_00]: The bigger a task feels, the harder it is to start, not because you're lazy. 08:53.688 --> 09:02.132 [SPEAKER_00]: Because your brain's threat assessment system is doing a cost-benefit calculation for your behavior and deciding the return is not worth the effort. 09:02.792 --> 09:06.054 [SPEAKER_00]: So a four-hour Saturday session fails this calculation. 09:06.634 --> 09:07.255 [SPEAKER_00]: Five minutes? 09:08.015 --> 09:27.065 [SPEAKER_00]: okay that's easy anybody can do five minutes so it's gonna pass this barrier super easily okay and I want to say this real quick for anybody specifically in this community who has ADHD or suspects they might I am someone who suspects they might have ADHD so working on getting to the doctor for that but that's a work in progress 09:28.025 --> 09:31.467 [SPEAKER_00]: task initiation is not just harder for ADHD brains. 09:31.867 --> 09:33.768 [SPEAKER_00]: It is neurologically different. 09:34.388 --> 09:39.150 [SPEAKER_00]: The dopamine pathways that signal this is worth starting work differently. 09:39.570 --> 09:46.574 [SPEAKER_00]: And that means that traditional decluttering advice which is basically just start and it'll get easier fails you specifically. 09:47.174 --> 09:50.055 [SPEAKER_00]: The lightning tidy is not traditional decluttering advice. 09:50.555 --> 09:51.416 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a five minute 09:54.277 --> 09:59.285 [SPEAKER_00]: And that is a completely different cognitive task and ask, and that is why it works. 09:59.886 --> 10:05.596 [SPEAKER_00]: So let me tell you exactly what a lightning tidy is, because this is the daily habit, the changes, everything. 10:11.590 --> 10:13.231 [SPEAKER_00]: Aligning tidy is five minutes. 10:13.971 --> 10:19.575 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to try to do it every day at the same time and do a similar routine every time. 10:20.235 --> 10:22.076 [SPEAKER_00]: The goal is not to clean your home. 10:22.556 --> 10:24.057 [SPEAKER_00]: The goal is not to declutter your home. 10:24.417 --> 10:26.338 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you might find things that you're cleaning up. 10:26.519 --> 10:28.199 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you might find things that you are. 10:28.380 --> 10:29.380 [SPEAKER_00]: You would actually clean. 10:29.700 --> 10:32.782 [SPEAKER_00]: You might find something that you are decluttering, but that's not the goal. 10:33.002 --> 10:34.343 [SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to reset it. 10:34.823 --> 10:40.907 [SPEAKER_00]: So you are just returning things to where they belong so that tomorrow starts at zero instead of digging out from yesterday. 10:41.787 --> 10:44.290 [SPEAKER_00]: In our home, aligning tidy happens right after dinner. 10:44.650 --> 10:49.556 [SPEAKER_00]: We put on music, something upbeat, and we move through our main living spaces as a family. 10:50.076 --> 10:54.081 [SPEAKER_00]: We make sure our shoes are lined up by the door, backpacks are in their spot. 10:54.281 --> 10:57.204 [SPEAKER_00]: Blankets are back on the couch, dishes are done, counters are white. 10:57.404 --> 10:59.006 [SPEAKER_00]: Things go back where they live. 11:00.928 --> 11:01.869 [SPEAKER_00]: five minutes done. 11:02.009 --> 11:05.871 [SPEAKER_00]: If my daughter got out a bunch of craftings, they're getting put back in their craft bins. 11:06.412 --> 11:11.475 [SPEAKER_00]: If, you know, my desk is still a mess because I was working really hard. 11:11.495 --> 11:14.137 [SPEAKER_00]: I was in flow and I had to stop and work on dinner. 11:14.197 --> 11:17.059 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then I'm going to spend some time putting my desk back in order. 11:17.739 --> 11:19.900 [SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't have to be perfect. 11:20.260 --> 11:24.061 [SPEAKER_00]: It just means that we are working to make our space as better. 11:24.881 --> 11:31.223 [SPEAKER_00]: And as we do it over time, I know I'm going to go against my earlier thing, where I said, just start and it gets easier. 11:31.943 --> 11:34.004 [SPEAKER_00]: These tasks do start to get better. 11:34.384 --> 11:36.464 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything with practice will get better, right? 11:36.504 --> 11:38.765 [SPEAKER_00]: Practice makes better, practice makes progress. 11:39.565 --> 11:44.969 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want us to start doing these things on a regular basis because your first day is going to feel weird. 11:45.189 --> 11:45.830 [SPEAKER_00]: It's new. 11:46.130 --> 11:48.011 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything new feels a little weird. 11:48.412 --> 11:51.234 [SPEAKER_00]: Your second day you're going to be like, okay, I know how this works. 11:51.274 --> 11:52.895 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, and you're going to be a little more efficient. 11:53.175 --> 11:55.197 [SPEAKER_00]: Your third day, it's going to get even better. 11:55.497 --> 12:00.961 [SPEAKER_00]: And by the time you have a week under your belt, you're going to be like, oh, yeah, now we're all in the groove. 12:01.081 --> 12:03.303 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're wearing that groove really well. 12:03.683 --> 12:05.544 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it makes it really easy. 12:05.964 --> 12:06.305 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. 12:06.885 --> 12:09.526 [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to do five minutes and done. 12:10.006 --> 12:13.308 [SPEAKER_00]: And when I mean done, I genuinely mean done. 12:13.468 --> 12:14.428 [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to set a timer. 12:14.468 --> 12:15.568 [SPEAKER_00]: The timer is going to go off. 12:15.909 --> 12:17.929 [SPEAKER_00]: We stop even if everything isn't perfect. 12:18.049 --> 12:21.391 [SPEAKER_00]: Because my brain knows, look, I just did something and I actually made progress. 12:22.011 --> 12:25.492 [SPEAKER_00]: But the beauty about the timer is you are racing against it. 12:25.893 --> 12:29.034 [SPEAKER_00]: So instead of thinking, oh, I have all afternoon to do this. 12:29.614 --> 12:34.596 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the task will take up all afternoon, you say, I have five minutes, and I've got a rush to do it. 12:34.976 --> 12:38.678 [SPEAKER_00]: And it also works really well for your kids, because they love that. 12:40.078 --> 12:41.079 [SPEAKER_00]: Start and stop moment. 12:41.099 --> 12:49.745 [SPEAKER_00]: They love to know I only have to do this for five minutes and then I can stop and mom's not going to keep nagging me to keep doing this all afternoon until it's perfect. 12:50.105 --> 12:51.566 [SPEAKER_00]: I only have to do it for five minutes. 12:51.946 --> 12:52.887 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get this knocked out. 12:54.296 --> 12:56.497 [SPEAKER_00]: And that last part matters enormously. 12:56.877 --> 12:59.637 [SPEAKER_00]: The lightning tidy is not a perfectionism exercise. 12:59.757 --> 13:01.658 [SPEAKER_00]: It is a consistency exercise. 13:02.058 --> 13:17.141 [SPEAKER_00]: So a five minute tidy that happens every day will transform your home faster than that four hour session that happens every once in a while or when you finally get fed up and you're like enough as enough and you're now your angry decluttering or your rage cleaning. 13:17.681 --> 13:21.962 [SPEAKER_00]: Those can be cathartic 100% I have had moments where I'm like, 13:24.463 --> 13:33.348 [SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't happen regularly, and it doesn't happen consistently, and I have found that doing these five minutes a day is such a game changer, and I don't feel so wiped out. 13:33.388 --> 13:34.348 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel so depleted. 13:34.408 --> 13:39.711 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't get to that moment of anger and rage-cleaning, and that part is so nice. 13:40.391 --> 13:43.412 [SPEAKER_00]: The power is not in any individual session. 13:43.792 --> 13:52.676 [SPEAKER_00]: The power is in the cumulative effect of never letting the baseline get too out of order, and really letting that baseline get over to the point where you are rage cleaning. 13:53.316 --> 13:55.457 [SPEAKER_00]: So I want us to think about compound interest. 13:55.677 --> 13:58.818 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take this totally to a different realm so you can see how it works. 13:59.398 --> 14:06.365 [SPEAKER_00]: small amounts at a consistently over time produced results that looked dis-proportionate to the individual contribution. 14:06.626 --> 14:11.591 [SPEAKER_00]: That just means that the more you add to it, it starts to get that hockey stick effect, right? 14:12.512 --> 14:14.654 [SPEAKER_00]: The landing tidy works exactly the same way. 14:15.074 --> 14:17.357 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not doing dramatic work each night. 14:17.717 --> 14:21.881 [SPEAKER_00]: You're just preventing dramatic dramatic work from ever being necessary. 14:22.682 --> 14:30.044 [SPEAKER_00]: And now I want to talk about why this habit is especially worth understanding if you have ADHD or if you live with someone who does or you suspect you do. 14:30.844 --> 14:33.644 [SPEAKER_00]: Traditional decluttering advice tends to rely on three things. 14:34.504 --> 14:43.886 [SPEAKER_00]: Long periods of sustained attention, complex decision making in the moment, and the ability to visualize and hold an end state in mind while you work. 14:44.546 --> 14:48.867 [SPEAKER_00]: And these are exactly the executive functions that ADHD affects most directly. 14:53.008 --> 14:58.329 [SPEAKER_00]: People with ADHD often develop what's called visible storage as a coping mechanism. 14:58.969 --> 15:01.810 [SPEAKER_00]: And so if something goes away, it effectively disappears. 15:01.950 --> 15:04.330 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's that saying out of sight, out of mind. 15:05.031 --> 15:09.551 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not a metaphor, but it is a neurological reality for someone with ADHD. 15:09.612 --> 15:13.332 [SPEAKER_00]: So the ADHD brain keeps things visible to remember them. 15:13.792 --> 15:17.053 [SPEAKER_00]: But remember that visible things create visible clutter. 15:17.533 --> 15:21.534 [SPEAKER_00]: And so that can create that cognitive load and anxiety that we already talked about. 15:21.894 --> 15:29.096 [SPEAKER_00]: which makes everything harder and it's a trap that isn't your fault and that conventional tidying advice makes worse. 15:29.850 --> 15:33.994 [SPEAKER_00]: The lining tidy works for ADHD brains because it's short enough to initiate. 15:34.574 --> 15:41.821 [SPEAKER_00]: It's structured enough to not require active decision-making and done at the same time every day, so it doesn't depend on remembering when to do it. 15:42.361 --> 15:45.144 [SPEAKER_00]: The routine carries the habit so the brain doesn't have to. 15:45.624 --> 15:54.172 [SPEAKER_00]: And because it happens every day, that chaos never really builds to the level where it becomes so visually overwhelming that the whole system collapses. 15:55.253 --> 16:03.003 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm working on something right now that's going to make a lightning tidy even more natural, especially for those of us who have struggled to build this habit alone. 16:03.524 --> 16:04.305 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a course. 16:04.645 --> 16:06.167 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to sit through any lessons. 16:06.548 --> 16:13.237 [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to make the tidy feel easy, and it's going to make it feel fun, and it's going to get your whole family involved without any nagging from you. 16:13.817 --> 16:16.358 [SPEAKER_00]: And so just keep your ears open for that. 16:16.739 --> 16:17.939 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm super excited. 16:17.999 --> 16:21.921 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm putting the finishing touches on it and I cannot lead to get it out into the world. 16:21.961 --> 16:24.763 [SPEAKER_00]: My husband's helping me on it and it's gonna be so good. 16:24.783 --> 16:25.463 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited. 16:25.503 --> 16:31.466 [SPEAKER_00]: We've been testing it in our home and it's made a huge difference and it's so simple, but it's so amazing. 16:31.847 --> 16:36.789 [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so in the meantime though, before that comes out, I want you to start your lightning tidy tonight. 16:37.350 --> 16:40.691 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to set a timer for five minutes 16:42.273 --> 16:43.856 [SPEAKER_00]: see what happens, right? 16:43.997 --> 16:45.340 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to just try it. 16:45.420 --> 16:49.791 [SPEAKER_00]: Please try it on before you completely say this isn't going to work for me, okay? 16:50.292 --> 16:50.533 [SPEAKER_00]: All right. 16:55.997 --> 17:01.122 [SPEAKER_00]: So now you know what the lightning tidy is, but knowing a habit and doing a habit are completely different things. 17:01.603 --> 17:03.765 [SPEAKER_00]: So let me tell you how to make this one actually stick. 17:04.325 --> 17:10.171 [SPEAKER_00]: Habit research consistently shows that new habits from fastest when you attach into something that you're already doing automatically. 17:10.712 --> 17:12.934 [SPEAKER_00]: Behavioral scientists call this habit stacking. 17:13.435 --> 17:19.280 [SPEAKER_00]: I like to call it piggybacking because it's just a little more fun and I like the visualization of putting things together. 17:19.941 --> 17:25.948 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you take an existing trigger in your day, something that you do without thinking, and you use it as the cue for the new behavior. 17:26.389 --> 17:36.941 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I were doing something on my own, I might use a cue of brushing my teeth or having a cup of coffee, but for us with the lightning tidy, this is something we want to do as a family. 17:37.682 --> 17:41.365 [SPEAKER_00]: So, the trigger is actually putting our plates in the sink after dinner. 17:41.926 --> 17:46.209 [SPEAKER_00]: That action is the cue, because that is something we all do together as a family. 17:46.530 --> 17:49.472 [SPEAKER_00]: At least right now, in the stage of our life, we're all still home. 17:49.812 --> 17:53.496 [SPEAKER_00]: Right around the dinner hour, we eat dinner together, and so that is our current trigger. 17:54.877 --> 17:58.800 [SPEAKER_00]: And so now we don't have to remember, we know, oh, dinners done, lightning, tidy starts. 17:59.540 --> 18:02.883 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the tidy follows almost automatically, right? 18:03.063 --> 18:05.685 [SPEAKER_00]: That one domino is going to follow the other. 18:05.745 --> 18:09.847 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that little like dink and reminder that the light bulb goes on and goes, oh, yeah, right. 18:09.948 --> 18:10.548 [SPEAKER_00]: It's time for that. 18:11.108 --> 18:12.750 [SPEAKER_00]: So your trigger will be different. 18:13.610 --> 18:15.431 [SPEAKER_00]: you get to decide what works for you. 18:15.731 --> 18:17.212 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's when you start the dishwasher. 18:17.552 --> 18:19.133 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's when you're eating show ends. 18:19.253 --> 18:23.976 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's when your kids head up to brush their teeth if they're too little and you don't want them to help you with the lightning tidy. 18:24.436 --> 18:30.699 [SPEAKER_00]: But I really encourage you to get everybody on board because it is such a game changer when everyone works together. 18:30.919 --> 18:33.441 [SPEAKER_00]: It's exponential time that is actually... 18:33.801 --> 18:37.223 [SPEAKER_00]: tidying your home in one quick five-minute burst, right? 18:37.243 --> 18:39.784 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you have three minutes, it's 15 minutes. 18:40.265 --> 18:40.525 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry. 18:40.745 --> 18:45.188 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have three people, it's 15 minutes of human power tidying your home. 18:45.508 --> 18:48.509 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have four people, it's 20 minutes, five people, 25. 18:48.970 --> 18:57.595 [SPEAKER_00]: All within the same five minutes of actual physical time that's on your timer that we are living in right now, right? 18:58.275 --> 19:06.159 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and so I want you to think about something in your home that happens every day without you having to remember it. 19:06.659 --> 19:10.381 [SPEAKER_00]: So brainstorm on that, find that moment and then attach your lightning tidy to it. 19:11.121 --> 19:14.423 [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that makes habits stick is identity. 19:14.843 --> 19:18.044 [SPEAKER_00]: So James Clear, who wrote atomic habits, makes this point beautifully. 19:18.405 --> 19:21.986 [SPEAKER_00]: The most powerful form of habit change is not saying I want a tidy home. 19:22.547 --> 19:26.328 [SPEAKER_00]: It's saying I'm the kind of person who resets their home every 19:27.809 --> 19:30.391 [SPEAKER_00]: that behavior follows identity, right? 19:30.751 --> 19:36.135 [SPEAKER_00]: When you do a lighting tidy every night, you are not just tidying, you are reinforcing a self-concept. 19:36.555 --> 19:39.217 [SPEAKER_00]: A self-concept that is remarkably durable. 19:39.417 --> 19:45.002 [SPEAKER_00]: Research on a habit for patients suggests that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. 19:45.502 --> 19:53.608 [SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds long, but 66 lightning tidies is 66 times five minutes, which is five and a half hours total. 19:55.525 --> 19:58.687 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, 66 times five is five and a half hours. 19:59.147 --> 20:01.088 [SPEAKER_00]: You could watch a couple of movies in that time. 20:01.568 --> 20:07.551 [SPEAKER_00]: That's that giant decluttering session that you are going to try or have tried in the past and hasn't worked. 20:07.831 --> 20:14.594 [SPEAKER_00]: Now we're just splitting it up and we're doing it and I know that you're like, oh my God, it's gonna take me 66 days to do it. 20:15.174 --> 20:19.356 [SPEAKER_00]: But when I tell you that this starts to compound, it is, 20:20.830 --> 20:22.251 [SPEAKER_00]: It changes everything, right? 20:22.351 --> 20:28.455 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not the same as one big giant decluttering session because we've already talked about how that has failed you in the past. 20:28.955 --> 20:48.166 [SPEAKER_00]: So try this and just know that those five minutes is creating that habit that keeps your home reset for the rest of your life and you are setting your kids up for success because now they are going to know how to reset their spaces and that's going to just go out into the world and make a difference for them going forward as well. 20:48.746 --> 20:51.669 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is one of the best trades available to you, right? 20:51.769 --> 20:58.134 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of watching two movies that aren't going to actually change my life, I'm going to do five minutes a day and it's going to make a huge difference. 20:58.715 --> 21:00.717 [SPEAKER_00]: And then one more thing before I tell you what comes next. 21:00.817 --> 21:03.979 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say this briefly because it does deserve its own full episodes. 21:03.999 --> 21:06.321 [SPEAKER_00]: So I will talk about it at a later date. 21:06.441 --> 21:10.325 [SPEAKER_00]: But once a week, because I know you're looking at me going, okay, look. 21:10.525 --> 21:20.294 [SPEAKER_00]: I can reset my space, but that's not really helping me declutter, which is what I actually need to do because you keep telling me I just need to get rid of more stuff because I have too much stuff in my home if I can't manage it, right? 21:20.314 --> 21:22.156 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what all the declutter and experts are telling you. 21:22.957 --> 21:23.197 [SPEAKER_00]: Great. 21:23.898 --> 21:25.419 [SPEAKER_00]: Once a week we're going to go a little deeper. 21:25.700 --> 21:30.965 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do 30 minutes and one specific area of your home, and it's what I call a mighty tidy. 21:31.405 --> 21:35.909 [SPEAKER_00]: So you might be your kitchen one week, but if your whole kitchen sounds too big, then you're going to start with one drawer. 21:35.949 --> 21:38.691 [SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to see how long is it going to take me to do this drawer. 21:38.771 --> 21:42.594 [SPEAKER_00]: And if I finish that before my 30 minutes are up, I'm going to go to the next drawer. 21:42.874 --> 21:44.095 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do this one cabinet. 21:44.175 --> 21:45.256 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do my mugs. 21:45.316 --> 21:46.257 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do my plates. 21:46.277 --> 21:47.277 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do my Tupperware. 21:47.698 --> 21:52.502 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is, you're going to pick one small area and we're going to dive deep once a week. 21:53.362 --> 22:02.564 [SPEAKER_00]: And that is going to help you keep going without having to do dry incestions while you're making progress. 22:02.604 --> 22:03.744 [SPEAKER_00]: You're seeing the change. 22:03.944 --> 22:12.366 [SPEAKER_00]: Now when you go to your landing tidy the next week, it's going to be easier because you're going to have less stuff in that drawer when you go to put things back where they belong. 22:12.866 --> 22:15.967 [SPEAKER_00]: It just makes it so much easier as you keep moving through your spaces. 22:16.547 --> 22:35.340 [SPEAKER_00]: So, the mighty tidy is where the real progress is happening, where you're actually decluttering instead of just resetting, so in some future episodes, I'm going to actually walk you through each room specifically, so that you know exactly how to run a 30-minute mighty tidy session, you can just pop this podcast in your ears and follow along as we do it. 22:36.040 --> 22:49.046 [SPEAKER_00]: but you cannot do an effective mighty tidy in a home where things have piled up all week right because you're going to spend your 30 minutes resetting, putting things back, you know, getting to the baseline before you even get to do the declutter stuff. 22:49.486 --> 22:52.147 [SPEAKER_00]: So the lightning tidy is what makes the mighty tidy possible. 22:52.687 --> 22:54.948 [SPEAKER_00]: Daily resets enables that weekly progress. 22:55.348 --> 22:56.209 [SPEAKER_00]: That is the system. 22:56.469 --> 22:59.090 [SPEAKER_00]: That is what I want you to keep in mind as you go forward. 22:59.710 --> 23:04.854 [SPEAKER_00]: So now you know why the big sessions fail, you know what to do instead, you can start your lightning tidy tonight. 23:05.274 --> 23:08.336 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to think about same time every day, five minutes. 23:08.517 --> 23:08.957 [SPEAKER_00]: That's it. 23:08.997 --> 23:10.158 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the biggest ask. 23:10.598 --> 23:11.639 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not that hard. 23:11.699 --> 23:14.261 [SPEAKER_00]: If you say you don't have time, I know you have five minutes. 23:14.321 --> 23:17.523 [SPEAKER_00]: We can all sacrifice five minutes from something. 23:18.404 --> 23:22.047 [SPEAKER_00]: Five minutes from scrolling, five minutes from TV watching, five minutes from 23:23.278 --> 23:25.901 [SPEAKER_00]: just fathom about doing whatever in your home, right? 23:26.081 --> 23:27.763 [SPEAKER_00]: Five minutes, we can all do five minutes. 23:28.283 --> 23:31.607 [SPEAKER_00]: Even if you give five minutes less sleep, it's not gonna change your entire day tomorrow. 23:31.627 --> 23:33.869 [SPEAKER_00]: So five minutes is totally possible. 23:34.630 --> 23:39.855 [SPEAKER_00]: But before you go, I want to play something in your brain that the next solo episode is going to dig into. 23:40.816 --> 23:44.058 [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever walked into a messy room and felt your chest tightened? 23:44.399 --> 23:47.541 [SPEAKER_00]: Like felt your thoughts scattered before you consciously registered why? 23:47.561 --> 23:51.764 [SPEAKER_00]: Have you had your mood drop the moment you came into a space that needed attention? 23:52.945 --> 23:53.405 [SPEAKER_00]: I have, too. 23:53.625 --> 24:03.652 [SPEAKER_00]: There is measurable neuroscience behind exactly what your brain is doing in a cluttered environment and it starts within the first 200 milliseconds of walking through the door. 24:04.533 --> 24:05.554 [SPEAKER_00]: That's fast. 24:05.674 --> 24:07.095 [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost instantaneous. 24:07.695 --> 24:09.197 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the research is specific. 24:09.317 --> 24:10.838 [SPEAKER_00]: It's peer-reviewed and explained. 24:11.078 --> 24:15.741 [SPEAKER_00]: It explains something that most people in the decluttering space never actually explain. 24:16.282 --> 24:20.345 [SPEAKER_00]: It shows you why your home affects your mental health at a biological level. 24:20.545 --> 24:23.227 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think understanding that is going to change everything for you. 24:23.547 --> 24:25.729 [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to change why you declutter. 24:25.869 --> 24:31.574 [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to not just change how you declutter, but it's going to make you go, oh, this is why I'm doing this. 24:31.714 --> 24:35.697 [SPEAKER_00]: This is why it's important and I think it's some of the most important context I can give you. 24:36.097 --> 24:40.463 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're listening to this before the next solo episode comes out, make sure you subscribe, so you don't miss it. 24:40.904 --> 24:43.747 [SPEAKER_00]: Next week, I have a guest episode with Monica Packer. 24:43.808 --> 24:45.310 [SPEAKER_00]: We are talking all about habits. 24:45.630 --> 24:47.773 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're listening to this going, that's great. 24:47.933 --> 24:50.477 [SPEAKER_00]: But I do not keep habits. 24:50.577 --> 24:51.678 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to set habits. 24:51.758 --> 24:54.282 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not great at keeping them or I set them, but I don't keep them. 24:54.782 --> 24:57.987 [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you check out next week because it is amazing.