Are You Stuck in the Cleaning Trap
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[00:00:00] Does it feel like you are constantly cleaning, tidying, dec cluttering and organizing, but your house still doesn't feel under control?
Like, no matter how much effort you put in, no matter what you do, the mess keeps coming back on the counters, the tables, the floors, the laundry, the dishes, the, the baskets full of stuff. It's nonstop and it's everywhere.
So let me know if you can relate to that because you are definitely not alone. But what's really important for you to understand here is you don't need to do more. You don't need to try harder. You don't need another. Cleaning schedule or another organizing bin. You don't need to put in more effort.
And the reason why I say that is because at the core of it, that is what a lot of homemakers subconsciously believe. Because of hustle culture, we start to inherently think that we need to work harder or do more or clean more, and that will be the secret to [00:01:00] finally getting our homes in order. So in today's episode, we're gonna dive into the real reason that your house is a mess, and why cleaning and tidying more is not the solution.
So let's start with something that I call the Cleaning Trap. The cleaning trap is when you're stuck in a trap where you are always cleaning and tidying.
And the reason this happens is because we have been led to believe by the home organizing industry, by society in general, that if we just clean a little harder, if we stay up later, if we do one more load of laundry, if we finally tackle this one pile on the table, that will finally catch up that our home will finally be in order.
But that's never gonna work because cleaning and tidying. It is all about putting things back where they belong. It's about resetting your space and getting it back in order, but it's never going to help you keep it in order. What you actually need are systems that run in the background to keep [00:02:00] your home tidy without you having to constantly clean.
So when I think back on my journey. When I had four kids under eight, it was the first two years after my youngest child was born. She actually turns nine in a couple of weeks. So it's a little bit, um, crazy to think about how fast life is flying by.
But anyways, shortly after she was born, when my house was a mess, I had actually moved us to a bigger home because I thought it would solve the problem. Spoiler alert, that didn't make any difference at all. So the next thing that I did was I got caught in the organizing trap. I organized our entire townhouse with baskets and bins in every drawer, cabinet and closet.
And spoiler alert, that didn't work either. And throughout all of this, I was cleaning and tidying up constantly. So I'm not really gonna get into my story today, but what I do want to point out to you is that. Several years had passed before I finally figured [00:03:00] out this missing piece about putting my home on autopilot. And I wish somebody had told me back in 2016 before I moved us to a bigger home before I organized every inch I wish somebody had told me before I spent two years tidying up every single day, cleaning up after my children's childhoods and missing out on precious memories that I will never get back. I wish somebody had told me this, and that is why it is so important for me to share with you what's really happening here so you can really, truly understand the reason why you are doing the things that you're doing.
Because for some people, that is the key to finally snapping out of it and making a change. We get stuck in these ways and sometimes we need to hear things a certain way, and so I will always shout it from the rooftops about the reason why we're doing the things that we're doing [00:04:00] because when it comes to our homes, it's such an important part of our lives. So anyways, I digress. My point is the reason why you're stuck in this cleaning trap is because we've been taught that where there's a mess, it needs to be cleaned up. And of course that makes sense in the traditional sense, like that is a normal concept that we are taught as children. If we make a mess on the dining room table, we need to clean it up. If your desk at work is a mess, of course it needs to be cleaned up, but this belief that when things are messy, it needs to be cleaned and tidied. What ends up happening is you're trying to implement that for your entire house, and you're doing it every single day, and that is why it's a trap, because constantly cleaning and tidying is not going to fix a messy home.
So think of it like this. Cleaning and tidying is something that we do in order to maintain our [00:05:00] homes and keep things picked up. But when your house is at ground zero when it's a cluttered mess, when it really kind of feels like everything is a disaster, cleaning and tidying will not prevent it from getting messy again and again.
Now, let's shift gears here for a second, because maybe you're not stuck in the cleaning trap.
Maybe on the other hand, you are stuck in the organizing trap, which is when you are organizing and trying to arrange your things in a more organized way.
So this could really look like using bins and baskets or buying new, uh, a new planner or downloading cleaning checklists or decluttering checklists or labeling your pantry, or even just neatly arranging piles to make them look more orderly.
That really falls under the organizing trap because subconsciously you are trying to organize your space. So, the reason why you might be stuck in this organizing trap is again, [00:06:00] because society has taught us to believe that these tools are a magic solution to getting organized and making your house run better.
Now, here's the thing, of course those tools can help. It can be helpful to have a cleaning schedule. It can be helpful to buy a basket to organize your paperwork at your front door. Of course, all of those things are super helpful, but they're not going to solve the problem for every room in your house, for your entire house as a whole.
So what this really all comes down to is two types of clutter that are leading to your house being such a mess. You've got accumulated clutter, which is the stuff that's accumulating in your storage spaces. Like your closets, your cabinets, and your drawers. Basically your storage areas are too full with an accumulation of stuff, and then that leads you to leave items left out [00:07:00] on the surface area of your home because you have no space to put them anywhere.
Well, those items that you're leaving out, the things that are piling up because you don't have anywhere to put them, those are what I call homeless items because they are literally homeless. They do not have a permanent home where you can put them because again, there is no storage space for you to put them anywhere. So homeless items could be mail that is just left on your dining room table because you don't have anywhere else to put it.
That was definitely me back in 2016. Or it could be chargers and cords and batteries that are left on your nightstand every night because you've never found a permanent home for them. Or it could be random, broken toys that you need to fix that are just sitting on your stove for months on end, or, um, receipts and items that you need to return or scrunchies or, um, you know, lone socks that have lost their mate. I'm looking at one on my desk right now. [00:08:00] It could even be half finished projects that kind of just sit on your coffee table for weeks and weeks until you finally move them somewhere else. So these homeless items. They look very cluttered, but they're not clutter in the traditional sense because you actually need and want to keep these things.
They're just items that don't have a home, and when something doesn't have a home, it's going to pile up, and that it's how the domino effect starts because clutter attracts more clutter. So if you have one pile of random homeless items that's sitting on your coffee table. Within a week, that could easily turn into three more piles.
So then that means that your brain is left on always on, always trying to keep track of where things are, what you need to do next, and what on earth you should do with all of these things because even if you are [00:09:00] not consciously aware of it, your brain is, even if you think you can look at your coffee table and completely ignore this pile of homeless items, your brain, your subconscious mind is taking all of that in.
That's visual stimuli that is impacting your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that is responsible for decision making, which is exactly why, this is the scientific reason for why having too much stuff in your home is literally making you feel overwhelmed and preventing you from being able to make good, effective decisions as a mother, as a wife, as a person, as a parent, because you are physically incapable of doing so when your prefrontal cortex is bogged down with too much visual stimuli in the form of too much visual clutter around your home.
So we've talked about cleaning and tidying and organizing, but here's the [00:10:00] kicker, de cluttering is not the solution either. De cluttering will not solve the homeless items because they're not true clutter. De cluttering means to let go of the excess stuff. So if you have a pile of things that you want to keep and you are trying to dec clutter, of course you're not going to make any progress because you can't let go of homeless items.
Now with that said, when we go back to the root of this problem. The accumulated clutter that is piling up in your storage spaces, in your closets, in your cabinets, in your drawers. Those areas do need to be decluttered that way you can have more space because when you have more space in your home, then you will have more space to store the homeless items and therefore they will no longer pile up.
So if a good portion of the clutter in your home is homeless items, well, the truth is you will not be able to have a tidy home until you get them under control because you will spend [00:11:00] all of your time managing your home instead of feeling supported by it.
But on the other hand, when you are able to get these homeless items under control and give every one of them a permanent spot to go back to, and when you're able to clear space in your storage areas and create breathing room, then the daily messes will stop spreading. And then when you can set up systems in your home, that means you can keep things tidy in half the time, so your mental load will lighten.
Which means you can spend quality time with your family without having to worry about everything that you need to do around the house. You can have somebody knock on your door and you can let them right in because your home is running smoothly in the background.
So instead of trying to clean and tidy every day for the rest of your life, juggling this invisible load like you're some one woman cleaning crew, instead of trying to maintain your home when it was never even [00:12:00] on track in the first place, instead, you need a simple method to put your home on autopilot so you can keep things tidy in half the time.
That is how you can keep your counters clear because the drawers behind them are functional and spacious.
That is how your laundry can actually get put away because there will actually be room in your closet to put your clothes away. That is how your paperwork can stay organized because it has a system that works for everyone. That is what makes your home run on autopilot.
That way you'll finally know what to do with all the things you want to keep. And best of all, you can sit back at the end of the day, put your feet up and relax for a change.
So if you can relate to what I've been sharing with you today, I want you to remember that you are not bad at this. You're not bad at managing your home. You've just been taught the wrong solutions. [00:13:00] But once you can build structure into your home and have systems for the laundry, for the paper, for all of your material items. Well, then everything else will start clicking into place. You can stop reacting to the messes and instead start running your home on cruise control. And that is when your mental load will lighten and you will have more time to do the things that actually bring you joy.
So if you're ready to get started as soon as possible, I am very excited to announce that we have a brand new free three day tidy home challenge where you will get the step-by-step plan for a home that stays tidy in half the time.
During this free bootcamp, you will reset your home so it feels manageable again. You will clear space and create breathing room, and you will set up a simple system to keep your home tidy without spending all of your time cleaning. This is gonna be our last free event of 2025, and it's gonna get your house back on track and reduce your [00:14:00] mental load just in time for the holiday season. I'm gonna drop the link in the show notes. So go get signed up, get your free ticket because there will be live training sessions, accountability, prizes, fun, comradery, and even a chance to ask questions and get your house back on track.
these challenges are one of my favorite things to do because it gives you the opportunity to do this together with a group of other homemakers who are going through the exact same thing as you. So each day we can focus on one small step, and that way you can really put this in place for your entire home without trying to figure it out on your own.
Because there are a lot of different ways and ideas to get your home in order, but there's not a lot of agreement on any of those ideas. So that is exactly what we're gonna be diving into during this challenge to give you a step-by-step plan for a home that runs on autopilot. That way you don't ever have to [00:15:00] wonder what to do next.
So that's really all that I got for you today. I've taken a little bit of time away from this podcast because I have been dealing with another venous ulcer on my foot that marks three in less than three years. And I'll tell you when this one came up in August, I was very defeated and very depressed.
My last one I dealt with from October until July. It finally closed in July. I was so happy, and then a month later I had one come up out of nowhere on my right foot. So it's definitely been a long road because at this point in my journey, I am dead set on really getting to the bottom of this and getting an answer for why this keeps happening and what I can do to
make it stop. I'm sick and tired of it. They're super painful. Many nights I cry myself to sleep in pain. But anyways, that's a story for another day. I've taken a little bit of time away from this podcast because of that, but I'm hosting one [00:16:00] more free challenge through the rest of 2025, and I would love to have you join us.
After the new year, I plan to get back into the swing of sharing new podcast episodes every single week, but for the time being. I really hope to see you at the three day Tidy Home challenge. We're gonna have a popup Facebook group where we can all chat and get together and hang out and really help you get your home back on track before the holidays.
So go get your free ticket at the link in the show notes. If you have any questions, you can always send me a DM on Instagram, and otherwise I will see you in the Facebook group. Bye.
