Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to start with the trash. If you are tackling a huge cleaning or decluttering project, simply getting rid of the trash can make it all seem more doable, a strategy that is helpful in more broader contexts too. Today's tip, like another this week, comes from Casey Davis's book,
How to Keep House While Drowning. This book is about how to maintain an organized home even if you are in a very busy stage of life, or if you are struggling with mental challenges that make executive functioning difficult. Davis notes that when you survey a mess or mound of clutter, you are really looking at things in five categories. There is trash, dishes, laundry, things that have a home but aren't in their home, and things that don't have
a home. If you tackle one of these five categories at a time, you will have a fairly functional space. By the end, things might not be in rainbow order, but the space will be functional and that is a major win of those five categories. She suggests starting with the trash, Get a bag, grab the stuff that is clearly garbage, and get it out of there. I love this suggestion because some stuff is in fact clearly trash,
like food wrappers, packages, things came in. For the most part, it is not mentally challenging to figure out what is trash now. Later on you might decide that many of the items with no home are also trash, but that involves more decision making. Decision making can be hard when you are tired or depressed or anything along those lines, but trash that is easier. You just grab and go, and in many cases, by the time you have gotten all the trash out of any given space, it will
look better. The bulk has been reduced, the stuff that might attract pests is gone. With obvious trash out of the picture, the next steps of cleaning won't be quite so overwhelming. I find that this mindset, starting with the trash can help with lots of big projects. Sometimes I've written things that need to be quite a bit shorter than my original draft. On the first edit, I can start with the trash, throw away lines and the throat clearing that all first drafts have. The work will get
more challenging later, but the first part is doable. Or if you need to clean up how you are spending your time, some things will be challenging. Should I focus on this project at work or another? Do my kids need more time? Or does my marriage need more time? I don't know what the answer is to those questions, but getting rid of the trash first, the mindless time not spent in enjoyable ways, is going to help clear
things up at least a little bit. If you're trying to clean up your finances, there might be big questions of downsizing or looking for a different job, but you can buy yourself at least a little breathing room on the way there by getting rid of any expenditures that are just garbage fees you forgot you were paying paying too much for cell phone bills or insurance. Start with
the trash. We all face difficult decisions in life, but when you get at least a few of the easy ones out of the way, maybe the difficult decisions will seem slightly less overwhelming, or maybe not, but at least you'll have less trash, and that is often a good in its own right. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's b E the number four, then breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much. Should I look forward to staying in touch.
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