Ep 6 - The Benefits of Decluttering:Featuring Tami Hackbarth- Part 2

We’re back to conclude our two-part interview with Tami Hackbarth where we discuss the power of mindset, decluttering as a learned skill that anyone can master, and how self-care and decluttering go hand in hand.

You can listen right here, on Apple Podcasts, or you can read the transcription below. Enjoy!

Tami’s take on the 15-minute tidy

Carly: Okay, Tami. I know you are a fan of the 15-minute Tidy taught in the course. I would love for you to tell us how it works in your home. What works and what doesn't work for your family?

Tami: It is absolutely magic. It kind of breaks my brain. This is what I learned when we did it. We have my 15 minutes, my kid's 15 minutes, and my husband's 15 minutes. That is 45 minutes of tidying every day. It's mind-blowing how much you can get done in 45 minutes a day. It's like a fake 45 minutes because you're only doing 15 of the 45 minutes. It is shocking how much can get done.

Tami: Then, for so many of us, it works. So what do we do? We stop doing it. Everything becomes a cluttered mess. And we're like, oh my God, who lives here? Who lets these messy people in here? And what's the deal with all this crap?

Carly: Then don't say to yourself... Well, I guess I'm not organized. You don’t just give up because you know, we double down.

Tami: We doubled down.

Tami: One of the things that we do is focus as a family. We have a family meeting. One of the things that we do is focus on what problem we're trying to solve in our home. Then this summer, because family meetings work too, right? We stopped doing them.

Tami: We re-kicked those off again recently. I said, what is the biggest problem that we're having? everybody just sat there. I was like, cool. I'll tell you what our problem is. We have too many things and we need to declutter. Everybody looked around. they're like, that's legit truth because you know what decluttering makes us do?

Tami: bicker. Decluttering makes us argue and nitpicky with each other.

Carly: Yes. That's half of the reason I have in-home clients. Absolutely.

Tami: Yeah. And so I said, okay, ]what's our solution for this problem? we're all in summer break mode, we can do 15-minute decluttering in whatever room you pick, but we do it 15 minutes at a time. Our kid has requested a parent be with her for hers because she has a harder time letting go of stuff.

Carly: fair.

Tami: if I'm sitting with her for 15 minutes, he's sitting with her for 15 minutes. Each parent is doing two or three 15-minute declutters at a time. That's a lot of decluttering.

Tami: I'm not a weight loss person at all. That's not my deal. I don't think better of bodies that are presenting smaller or larger. It's no big shakes to me. However, I heard an interview with somebody who had lost a tremendous amount of weight. It really stuck out to me because he was like, look, I'm going to tell you the deal that no one wants to hear. And they were like, bring it. He says I did not lose 150 pounds. I lost one pound over and over and over and over and over. I was like, God, he just said, unsexy self-care. unsexy decluttering. dammit. Life does happen in 20-minute increments.

Carly: dude.

Tami: And you can't do all your 20 minutes in one damn day.

Carly: Exactly. Which sucks. That's why my nemesis… I'm sorry, if you wrote one of these, then it's not specifically at you, it's at the whole thing. I am not a fan of articles and things that say how to declutter your whole house in a weekend. I'm like, what did you just whip me up a recipe for burnout and fighting with my family? Is that what that is?

Tami: Well, that's also the same thing as like. Okay. I'm also going to, I'm going to, let's go. we'll get on the weight loss train. Shall we? But it's the same as saying everyone can “lose weight”. That's not the issue. The issue is maintaining it, right? Yeah. That's the deal.

Tami: Maintenance is fucking boring. But, you're in a long-term relationship with your body. You're in a long-term relationship with your house.

Tami: I recently had an epiphany. I'm in a long-term relationship with my teeth and I should stop acting like they're somehow expendable and that the dentist is the enemy. No, no. They’re on my team. team teeth. I’d like to keep them, but the maintenance is not sexy.

Tami: You know what is sexy? marketing.

Carly: Oh yeah. Way sexier.

Tami: We should talk about weight loss and self-care and all that as a quick thing. Then when we get people together, we hug them and we're like, I was totally lying. That was marketing. I got your attention. It's 15 minutes a day. Sorry.

Carly: Self-care declutter your house.

Tami: Here's a carrot and a nap.

Tami: The bait and switch. Let me tell you what you want to hear. You can totally get in a day.

Tami: No, you can't

Carly: The title of the workshop will be magic weight loss pill, and how to lose all the weight you want in one day. Yep. Bait and switch

Tami: bait and switch. We're doing it. That's our new marketing strategy for life. You got it here folks.

Tami: or we're going to be frank and be like, yeah. You know, who has to do decluttering every day? Carly.

Carly: A hundred percent. if you think I don't have decluttering projects on my list right now, you're outta your mind. We all have them.

Tami: It's kind of like, oh, do I not do self-care every day? No, really? I do. I have to.

Carly: I had to sit and set a timer earlier today to tidy my desk. Not decluttering, just tidying because I was like, why am I so stressed at this moment? I know why it's because my desk has gone to shit and I need to tidy it up so my brain can function.

Magic in the reset

Tami: Another thing that has been helpful for me is the concept of the reset.

Carly: I have a blog post on the magic is in the resets.

Tami: Oh, my God, that is almost as magical as like, when you're training for a half marathon and they say, go out six and you're like, okay. then halfway to 6 miles, you're like, fuck, I have to walk the other 6 back. That's 12 miles you got but nobody ever says you're doing 12 miles. They're like go out for 6. you're like, all right.

Carly: I say this in my free course, but they're like marathon runners. They don't think about running 26-plus miles. They think about running 1 mile 26 times.

Carly: And the reset. like when we talk about the 15-minute Tidy, just know that could be decluttering for 15 minutes. It also can be reset for 15 minutes.

Tami: Your 15 minutes could be trash, put the trash in the trash. Because sometimes people are like, I am too overwhelmed. There's too much. I don't know where to start.

Tami: You start by picking up the trash. Then you start by putting the dishes in the place you're going to wash them. It could be on the counter. It could be in the sink. It could be in the dishwasher. Right?

Tami: This is all right from KC Davis's book.

Tami: The third thing is you're going to pick up all the laundry. If you do laundry, do those three things.

Tami: then you go to the reset of putting this stuff that already has a home where it goes. if by then you're tired. That's all right. You put this stuff that doesn't have a home yet in a box. You're like they need a home.

Tami: And then maybe when you get up in the morning and your willpower cup is fuller. You can be like, just kidding. I hate this shit. I don't know how it got in here.

Carly: Right. then you could figure that out one at a time. Where's the best home for this? It doesn't have to be the whole thing. It could be one a day.

Tami: That's one of the things that you and I had recently talked about. We live in a pretty small house. we have decluttered and decluttered and decluttered and I keep going, why am I up to my eyeballs in things?

Tami: so, we're getting rid of the COVID grocery bags. The other day I said to my kid,” you just have too much stuff.” And she's like, “I don't know how much more I can get rid of. So I went into her room and I looked and I was like, okay. she's actually kind of legit there with that. I don't know how much more I can get rid of, but I was like if this is the part that's bugging me.

Tami: So I went back to the original question. We're like, what's bothering you? Well, friends, What we struggle with is when somebody begins a new activity and new activities begin, they come with stuff. our daughter learned how to sew on a sewing machine. Now we have a sewing machine and extra scissors and so many scraps of fabric that I was like, oh, I figured out why this is driving me bonkers. I want her to have all of these activities. I want her to have all this stuff. I want her to be creative and oh my God, what do we do with it? Things come up organically, right?

Tami: she's going to learn how to sew. then it's later that you're like, oh my God, I'm swimming in things I hadn't anticipated.

Carly: Then it just goes back to the space role at some point. How much space do you have? You can get creative with storage all you want, but there will be a point at which you max out the storage, and then you just have to make more decisions. which is why for my fashionista clients, a lot of times we end up doing a closet twice and it's hard, but the first time around, it's about making decisions about the things that you don't like anymore.

Carly: Then it ends up being the second time around because it still doesn't fit, figuring out like, okay, we've gotten as creative as we can. We've done the seasonal switch. We've done storage under your bed. We've done storage elsewhere.

Tami: It's a good thing is a good thing. And then you're killing your darlings as writers say.

Carly: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And if you're still stressed out by all the stuff and you've used the creative storage solutions, now we have to make some cuts and that's really hard for people to swallow, but it is what it is because we can't have it all the ways. We can't park our car in the garage and keep everything. we can't have it all.

Tami: It's like your container is your container is your container.

Carly: And there are only so many ways that we can get creative with storage before it's just maxed out.

Declutter your mindset

Carly: So we've worked together for a long time in-home and you’ve been a student in the course community from the very beginning. From the perspective of a self-care coach, what are the benefits of decluttering?

Tami: it frees up bandwidth. It seems ridiculous that too many things, too many things, too many things in your environment. as defined by you, not Carly, not me, but as the person. they suck your energy.

Tami: The two things that people come to me with are I want more time and I want more energy. Okay. You have to declutter your life. You have to declutter your mindset and you're like, what the hell does that mean? It means stop talking shit about yourself. It means stop comparing yourself to everyone else.

Tami: It means to stop thinking you're the actual worst. You're probably not. You're probably somewhere in the middle, precisely where everybody else is. You're kind of a dick sometimes, usually when you're hungry or you're tired, right? Or you're cold or whatever. We have to stop with the all-or-nothing and our spaces truly matter.

Tami: I interviewed Rebecca Plumb, one of our friends, who's an interior designer and like interiors matter, keeping your car clean matters and it's not because you're going to get some prize. There's not going to be like gold stars at the end. you're going to be like, I know where my stuff is.

Carly: You're streamlining your life.

Tami: It also helps with self-talk. I'm a garbage person, I don't have my shit together, or I'm a hot mess. If your house and your car and all of it are decluttered, suddenly you have to look around and go, well, maybe I have to tell a different story about myself.

Carly: And that's a big part of self-care, right? That I don't have time, or I'm not this, or I'm not that, or you could tell a different story. and when you tell a different story, then your behavior is different. getting onto the track of why it matters. I was starting with a new therapist once and this stuck with me.

Carly: One of the first questions they asked is what is your home environment like? Is there a lot of clutter? One of the first questions was with a new therapist. I just thought that was insightful. I started laughing because they didn't know what I did for a living. I was like, actually, I'm good there. That's the thing I can do.

Tami: You’re like not anymore. before, not anymore. That was really stressful.

Carly: hundred percent. It was ruining my life. It was such a fair question.

Tami: Back in the olden days, either before we got married. (we did counseling before we got married.)

Tami: or right after we got married, within the first couple of years, we went to this therapist. We were trying to figure out how to communicate better. the first thing we sat down and she said, are you guys here about chores? we both were like, oh, that's definitely on the list! Then she says, I'm going to tell you something right now.

Tami: We were like, oh, I like her. She's just going to be direct. she goes, you're going to get a house cleaner. If you still have issues with chores after you have a house cleaner, let's talk about it. Nobody does this alone. get as much help as you can. get a team of people to support your life.

Tami: What I heard her say multiple times is a house cleaner, a professional organizer, whatever…is cheaper than marriage counseling. so if you're bickering with your spouse about snowboarding equipment they come in and drop it all. it stays in a pile for months until they put it back on and they go again.

Tami: when they come back, they just drop it wherever they land. Maybe you create an intentional space for that. So their stuff is better cared for.

Tami: You don't feel like low-key murdering them or high-key murdering them, depending on how many times you walk by it. it can legit change how you feel about the person that you live with.

Tami: Yeah. And if your kids can help, oh my God. Suddenly you're like, I am a great parent because I am not doing all the things for these people.

Carly: A hundred percent. That's the whole goal with everything that I'm doing.

Tami: Right. and if you're not doing everything yeah. If, as the person who's like, I take on all the things. If you're not doing everything and suddenly your partner can reset that part of the house or reset the garage or reset the kids and the kids can help with the resetting. Guess what? you get back your time and your energy.

Carly: I feel like we just came full circle.

Tami: You're welcome. Get a bow. Woo. Tie it on.

Carly: It's perfect. It's perfect.

Decluttering is a learned skill

Carly: Tami. Do you have any final thoughts for us as we wrap up?

Tami: Yes. You can do this organization/decluttering as a hundred percent learnable skill. it is the best gift that you can give your future self.

Carly: I love it. On the learned skill front, I've said it before, but in case you haven't heard me say it lately, person listening to this right now, I learned all this from scratch. I was not born an organized person, legit. If I can do it, you can do it because I am not that special. This is all learned. we just want to give you the shortcuts. So you don't have to do the hundreds of hours of research.

Tami: hundreds of hours of research, trial, and error. we’re like, come skip it, come with me, skip it, skip that part. We're going on a hero's journey. You're the hero. You're the hero. You're the hero. We have some things to tell you.

Tami: you're going to feel better. 15 minutes a day. Oh my God. And people with more than one kid, I'm like, seriously, you are going to be amazed.

Carly: You got three kids. That's 45 minutes that someone else is doing for you. You're in the mix. That's an hour.

Tami: Slash for themselves.

Carly: Exactly. It’s not your job, mama. It’s not your job papa. The added benefit is that you are creating future adults who have mad organization skills.

Tami: Oh, my God. I wish somebody would've taught me all things organization. explicitly taught me like, okay, we're going to do a project and we're going to start here. We're going to get there. And these are the steps. I'm doing the steps backwards. That's how you do it guys. You're like, I want this. And then how do I get there?

Carly: Yeah. Right. Get that action plan. no one taught me as a kid or a teenager or in my early twenties. I did some project management work at work and my boss sat me down and showed me how to do that. I was like, how many ways could I apply this thing to everything else in my life? And I was like, must investigate. As someone who married a project manager. I gotta say. The shit comes in handy more often than you would think

Tami: It totally does. You're like, oh my God, I can see where we're going. Cool. I'm going to follow the guy with the map.

Carly: And the extensive spreadsheet. It's fantastic.

Self-care in the workplace

Carly: Tami, where can folks find you?

Tami: I do hang out the most on Instagram, @Tami Hackbarth. I'm also loving LinkedIn lately. I know that sounds funny, but I love working with people at work to make work life feel better.

Tami: I've got a bunch of clients right now that I'm working on personal working systems. Here's the thing, at the beginning of the pandemic, everybody went home to work. Some people went back and some people were like, oh, I guess we're doing this now. they're like, okay, well, if I'm going to do this forever, I need help figuring out how to set up my day.

Tami: How do I do my self-care? How do I have time boundaries? I love working with people at work. So LinkedIn @ Tami Hackbarth. IG @ Tami Hackbarth. And you can always come over to my website, at tamihackbarth.com, where you can find, my blog, my podcast, all the things.

Carly: Guys. I also just cannot reiterate this enough. Her podcast is a gold mine of inspiration and happiness. So you're going to want to check that out and subscribe immediately.

Tami: I have to say I love doing a podcast because I get to have cool guests to talk about the things that I love, right? This is why I'm so happy that you started this podcast because I know how much you love it now that you know how to do the thing you're like, oh my God, I must tell the world. I want to talk to everyone about this.

Carly: Yes. It's my favorite thing to nerd out over. Speaking of things that I love nerding out over, will you tell us a little bit about your book club?

Tami: If you want to read with me and find out what that's all about, I'm doing a very, very slow read chapter by chapter of Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab over on the fable app. if you haven't yet checked out fable, it's amazing.

Tami: It's kind of like social media for readers, where you go and you read books and you discuss them online. It's amazing. So come on over to fable. you can find the link to join the book club in the show notes for this show

Carly: You are not going to want to miss it. I am also in this book club. I'm loving this book and I am loving working on resetting some boundaries.

Carly: Thank you for being here today. I appreciate you.

Tami: I appreciate you too. This was the best way to spend my afternoon.

Carly: Thank you so much for tuning in today, listeners.

Head to tidyrevival.com to learn more about how I work with people, one on one, or in the Clutter-Free Home Process course community. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe. Then you'll always have access to the latest episode. We would also love to hear your biggest takeaways. Feel free to tag us @tidyrevival on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

The Tidy Revival podcast is written and hosted by me, Carly Adams, and edited by Brittany McLean. The title song, Maverick, is by Dresden the Flamingo.

until next time, remember that…