Clearing Out the Clutter

This is John Fuller, and on today's Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we're going to take a look at what it means to live clutter-free.

And it might be that home organization isn't a problem for you, or perhaps like most of us, it's the story of your life. Where is my tie? I'm in such a hurry. Honey, where is my green tie? Oh, honey, I think you left it by a bowling ball. Honey, where is my bowling ball? You know what, I think it's on top of the dictionary.

Honey, where is the dictionary? Behind the couch. Behind the couch? What would it be doing behind the couch? Alright, I don't think it's quite that bad at my house.

At least you could find the couch. Well, right, that's the key. Okay. I mean, how many times have you stood in front of a refrigerator, John, and said, Dina, where's the milk? You mean like in the past 24 hours? Pretty much. How many times have you? I mean, I've done that more than once.

You know, the yogurt, whatever it might be. If it doesn't jump out and bite you, you're not going to find it. Pretty much.

I think there's a gene that men possess that blinds us to something right in front of us. Quite possibly, yeah. But you know what, I try to be kind of organized. You're very organized.

Well, I don't know about that. Very might be too generous. But I think if Jean were here, she would say she's quite the opposite. She's a busy mom. She's actually the definition of a perfectionist because it so overwhelms her that she just finds it hard to get started. And she does much better than when we were first married.

But she's not here to defend herself. So I'm going to say my error is I'll throw stuff away. She'll say, where's that phone number I had on the counter? And I'll go, oh, it's in the bottom of the trash. Because you efficiently came through and cleaned everything up. I'm a little too fast with that. That's my problem. You are kind of quick at throwing stuff away. But today we want to talk about that idea of becoming clutter free. And this is one of the big issues in marriages.

And if I'm not scratching where you itch, I think at the end of today's program, you're going to feel, yeah, maybe I do have an issue here. And we have a clutter free expert with us. Did you say clutter freak? Well, that could fit. I don't know. Let's find out. As we talk to Kathy, let's just find out if she's a clutter freak or a clutter free expert.

There's going to be a diagnosis involved? Awesome. Well, you're at focus on the family.

We specialize in that. No, it's great to have Kathy on. She is such a humorous, energetic, insightful person. And she could deliver bad news with a smile and you'd feel good about it for some reason.

I don't know. She's got this gift to make any idea make sense. And, and you just want to try it. So I'm really looking forward for other people in my life to hear this. You are in bad shape. Kathy, welcome back to focus. Best intro ever.

And I love being with you guys. You know that I don't know about that. But now you did not start you didn't come out of your mother's womb all buttoned down, organized.

You had to learn this the hard way. So that makes a lot of people feel better right there that you're not perfect. Oh, people get terrified when I'm coming over to their house. They're like, it's the clutter free lady. I'm like, you know what, let's be honest, your house may be more clutter free than mine.

I would say my journey has probably been more significant than most people. I actually was born to a hoarder and people use that term kind of lightly and funny. But really, my dad was a hoarder.

What did that look like? A lot of people don't experience that? Yeah, you know, people ask me all the time. Have you seen the show? And I'm like, No, that's childhood trauma on TV for me. But my mom had to work really hard to keep him contained. So I remember growing up, he had the garage, and he had what we called the office. And he things were stacked up.

I'm not exaggerating, probably four or five feet. And there was a path in the garage to his desk. He had a little desk out there.

He's an electrical engineer. So he was soldering stuff and things like that. And a path to the mailbox, which was in our garage. And up in his office, there was a path to his desk. What created the path?

What do you put around you that, you know, that would allow you to walk in certain spaces? Very funny. When I was writing this book, my editor said, you know, you said that your dad had piles and piles of stamps. He said, Do you mean postage stamp?

And I said, Yes. He goes, How could you have five foot piles of postage stamps? And so I send him a picture, because people don't believe me. But there was, it would be in binders and things like that. But so many postage stamps. So many postage stamps from all over the world. That was one of the things he collected.

Electronics parts, National Geographic magazine. I like your dad. That is awesome. You know, he was a guy who went deep in his interests, and but he had a lot of interests. But I would say that a lot of his stuff caused a lot of barriers in our family, physical and emotional, because my dad was so into his stuff. And I'll never forget when we they moved houses.

It took all of us. I and I'm talking my husband, my kids, my brother, his friends to go through all that stuff. And it was a pretty traumatic experience for my dad was that your mom's plan to clean up was to move house. Well, I think you know what it really was it forced the issue and we got to a point where the only person my dad would talk to was me because he felt so attacked and we weren't attacking him but we were asking about his stuff. Well, let me ask you this because growing up in that kind of environment, it can make you anti clutter, but you weren't that No, I didn't really know how to deal with things.

And I formed some kind of weird emotional attachments to things which I thought were weird at the time. What does it? I don't know. Well, here's I really think that clutter comes down to a couple of things. It's well three fear, guilt and shame. Fear if I get rid of that, what if I need it later on?

Like maybe like four years from now, right? Exactly. And exactly. And to think about spending the money a second time on something is paralyzing. My, my mom was raised by people who went through the depression. And so this idea was passed down to me that we don't waste. And so if I could possibly use it again, then I would do it. So the fear, the guilt, oh, you know, Edna made that for me. Now, I would never wear that, but she made it for me. So the guilt that is associated stuff, and then shame, I spent so much money on it.

How could I ever give that away? You know, those boots that will they pinch me every time I walk and so I don't walk in them, but I spent so much money on them, I had to have them, I have to keep them. And that really built up a lot of my clutter. Kathy, in your book, you refer to a popular motto that existed in World War Two, Jean and I talked about it, we fail to remember because we weren't here, but our grandparents, for example, who knew what it meant to live in a rationed world. I mean, clothing and food and butter and milk, right? You wouldn't have six gallons of milk in your refrigerator. What was that motto?

And how how was the attitude of people during that time? Yeah, the motto was, use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. And what that really said is, we have limited resources, whether it was because of the government, you know, whatever was going on there, there wasn't enough finances, whatever that was. So they really had to either figure out how to do without it, or use up what they had, you know, it's very easy in today's day and age, to you get disenchanted with your hairspray. So you go buy a new one. And then you have 16 bottles of hairsprays that are half you sitting in your bathroom. And so one of the things that Roger and I challenged ourselves to do, and it wasn't as big of a challenge for Roger, let's just be super clear, was to use up all the cosmetics, I already had the hair products.

And if I said, Oh, I'm never going to use it again, either pass it on to one of my girls or get rid of it. Because what was happening is, I felt like I didn't have the stuff I wanted. But I had so much stuff. And so I didn't know what I had anymore, because there was so much stuff.

So, you know, just using it up wearing out. I, I now really try I buy expensive shoes, because we talked about plantar fasciitis, when we were talking earlier before the broadcast. My shoes are very expensive. Your feet are important to you. My feet are very, very important to me. I kind of I've grown attached to them.

Yes. And so instead of buying new shoes, I have mine resold, which sounds like such a 1950s kind of thing. Yeah, but so I'm going to wear it out, I'm going to make do with what I have, are there, especially when my kids were in school, you know, we would go to Target and buy all these supplies every time they had a project, till you realize you have everything you need.

And so can we just make do with what we already have? And then can I do without it's very, you know, there's something that happens. For me and my friends, when you get something new, it's very fun and exciting for a second. But it's not so fun and exciting when you're buying it with a credit card, and you see that come through. Or you really you get home and you realize I had something almost exactly like it. And so there is kind of a pride that I have now, when I say you know what, I'm good. I don't have I don't have a lot of money.

I don't have I don't need to have that I have everything I need. And I feel smarter because I actually am really trying to make things work that I already have. It's a good way to live. It really is.

That's really good insight. You know, I remember Jean and I did a garage sale. And you know, I was very aggressive and getting rid of all that I could get rid of Jean was, you know, holding some things back.

But we put out and it was well organized. Let me tell you, I've had books and books and all kinds of things. But unfortunately, I had some books from friends. I had read the books. I was done with the book, but it happened to be signed to me. Yeah, like Dear Jim and Jean. Yeah. And I put that out on the table for 50 cents or $1.

I want everybody to read that fine book. Yes. And then Jean had a scarf that she had received from a friend from Africa. Yeah. And that was out there. And lo and behold, those two friends came to the garage. Now, that may have been a big mistake.

We didn't know they were going to come by. Right. Right. And, you know, I would say that 90% of the stuff we hold on to is for issues like that.

What if this person finds out they're going to be broken hearted, that kind of thing. I totally get that. So yeah, maybe the garage sale.

For stuff that people who live locally could see. Maybe that's a rethinking kind of don't put their gifts out on display for sale. Yeah. But you know, I also think about it like that. I also think about it like this. One time when I moved, I probably gave away I mean, 2000 things, you know, to friends and stuff like that.

And one thing I regretted, you know, one thing, and I kept beating myself up. Why did I give away it was a silverware basket was one of those little baskets when you're eating outdoors as a place for the fork knives and spoons $15 not a big deal, but I kept regretting it. And then I realized, Kathy is $15. Wouldn't you love to be free of all those other things for the price of $15? You have to think about that. You're right. You have to think about that you are going to make some mistakes.

Hopefully they won't crush anybody's spirits. But you are going to make some mistakes. But here's the thing, almost anything can be bought again, almost anything, you know, and maybe next time, you know, you you go through it together and you figure out okay, what should we hold on to that's not going to affect our dear relationships.

That's my advice. Let's talk for a minute about the impact on your marriage on your family. Why is this inability to keep clutter free, such an impact on a marriage just There are two things that come immediately to mind is that one, the number one question I get is how do I deal with somebody else's clutter? And two, I think about all the money that is spent rebuying stuff that you can't find. Yeah, you know, you have it somewhere, right?

Yeah. This is why we have like four, four jars of mustard in the room. Yeah, we could you go to the store and you think, I thought of mustard like six months ago, I bet we need some mustard. And we we buy stuff, we're not going to use or we rebuy things that we already have, because we can't find them. Our houses are so cluttered. Our drawers are so stuff. And I think that's why a lot of women end up buying clothes again and again and again, because they feel like they have nothing to wear. But it's because they have so many clothes, things or stuff. And I'm not just picking on women. Because guys asked me all the time, what do I do about my wife's clutter?

But then women also asked me, what do I do about my guys? So that works both ways? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, answer the question. Okay. So what my first thing is, before you start pointing the clutter finger, look at your own stuff, because our stuff, we know why we have all of that we know what our treasures are. But then if somebody is really dealing with clutter with a spouse, I always say don't fight about stuff.

Discuss space. And so what I mean by that is can we agree that your stuff I'm not going to tell you that your model airplane that hasn't worked in 24 years is clutter. I'm not going to go there because our stuff is very personal to us.

But can we agree that you get this gorilla rack in the garage and I get this gorilla rack. So first clean up your own house. And I mean that in your relationship, clean up your own stuff, and then to agree on space. And so even if it's an extra room, maybe your husband has and you say, as long as I can close the door, that area is yours. And when you start taking the emotion out of it, it becomes much easier to discuss.

But it is a highly emotional area, especially in marriage. In our current home, I remember when we moved in and I got things organized and Jean was doing her part. But not long after, I thought, you know, we could probably get one of those big, I mean, big, flat trash bins that get delivered to your house for construction sites. And I think I could fill that up with stuff. So I ordered it. I did ask Jean if she thought that would be okay.

She said, No, that'd be fine. And I started throwing stuff away. And it was so funny because at night, I'd come back to the house after work, you know, working on the weekend.

I had it for about two weeks. So I'm loading stuff in there. And there'd be stuff pulled back out of there. And I thought, wait a minute, this isn't accomplishing the plan. Who were the trash fairies that were going in there?

The trash fairies were Jean, Trent and Troy. And, you know, they're working against my great plan. Right. Well, one of the things that I say to people is when you're trying to discuss as a family, what you're going to keep and what you're not going to keep is Sherry Gregory, who's a good friend of mine, who's helped me on this book. She went through her garage, and she finally came up with this motto, which I think is absolutely brilliant. I'm going to keep what I care about.

And I'm going to care about what I keep. And so instead of keeping all of our treasures locked away in a closet, because we're going to do something with them someday, what she did, this is brilliant. Her father-in-law served in the military, and they had the flag from his memorial. And it'd been in a box for years and years.

Well, you know, it happens to things when they're in a box, you know, the rodents, all this kind of stuff. So what she did is she got that and she had it mounted. She had it mounted in a display case and surprised her husband with it.

And he said that's the best gift that she had ever given him because she cared about what they were keeping. So all those things that aren't working that you're going to get to later, if you're going to keep it, care about it. And if you don't care about it, somebody will. Somebody would love to have that shirt that doesn't quite fit or that pair of boots that hurts you. It won't hurt them.

They've got younger feet than you do. Make sure that you we want to be good stewards with our stuff. And when we're hoarding and hoarding can be just your closets or stuff. It doesn't mean that, you know, you have rooms that are unusable. It means that you have, you know, closets that are unusable.

And I know that that's a very intense word for a lot of people. But I really do believe that oftentimes we are hoarding stuff because it's a sense of safety. If I give it away, there's a lot of fear attached to that. And what I've come to understand when we work with especially women in helping them get clutter free. The freedom comes when they give this stuff away.

They were strapped down by it. And our little motto around our office when we're talking about clutter free is we want to help people get clutter free so they're free to go change their world. God has a mission and a plan for each of us. And so many women are weighed down by their clutter that they're not doing what they feel they're called to do.

And we want them to be able to go do that. Well, quite an inspirational twist on a godly perspective of getting rid of stuff in your home. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller. And our guest today is Kathy Lipp as she shares practical help from her book, Clutter Free.

Request a copy of that and a copy of our conversation as well the entirety of it when you call 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459 or stop by the program notes to learn more. And as we return to the conversation with Kathy, I asked her a question about being prepared, you know, having stuff around your house for those what if situations. Well, and a lot of what ifs and I'm not saying this about you John because I but let me just say a lot of what ifs are a form of not trusting God.

Yeah, if I'm going to keep everything around me because I'm going to be prepared for every situation. And sometimes we are called to give I'm thinking about our space time energy and money. And some of us are hoarding some of our stuff and we're spending so much of our our money to maintain it.

Yeah, the amount of storage lockers that Americans use in order to care for their stuff that they're really never going to use is amazing. But we can justify it a million different ways. But when we think about the space time energy and money that we're spending really on all of this stuff that we may never use again. It can sometimes be a way of saying I don't need anybody else.

I can take care of myself. And as Christians, we really have to examine those motives. That's really good insight. You know, I'm thinking of the command that Jesus gave to the disciples to go and not to worry about what they take with them that he'd provide for them. Right. That's kind of the application there spiritually, isn't it?

Go light because you don't want to be burdened by a lot of stuff. It's so true. Everything that we own costs us, you know, whether it's insurance or how we're going to maintain it.

Everything costs us in some real way. And I want to be in a place where if God says you need to move to Oregon because we've got ministry there for you. I want to be able to say I don't want my stuff to be a factor in that decision.

I want you to go give to this family. I don't want my stuff to be a factor in that decision. Kathy, in your book, Clutter Free, you talk about this visual aid or this visual concept.

Describe for us what you're driving at. If we see it, it's good. If we don't see it.

Right. For so many of us, the reason we have clutter is because we're putting everything out. We feel like if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. And so we leave the permission slip on the counter.

And instead of just signing that permission slip and putting it back in your kids backpack, you're leaving it out to remind yourself. But when you have so many visual reminders that it becomes clutter, then that's a problem. And there was just a study done recently about if you have six unrelated things on your desk, the distraction that that causes is like loud music blaring in your ear. The visual distraction is as much as hearing rock music when you're trying to work. So that's why having a clear workspace is usually a really good thing.

There's a small subset of really creative people they kind of need a mess to be creative in. But for most of us, we're using it as an excuse to never clean our desk. There's that old saying that a cluttered desk is a sign of genius.

And we use that as justification, I guess. Right. I think it's also a sign of a cluttered mind. Here's the thing, if your cluttered desk is working for you and you're getting done what you want to do, awesome.

That's great. But for most of us, clutter means that we're distracted and distracted is the big thing that we're trying to overcome. Let's move to the strategies on how we cope with all of this. I mean, we've got a bit of time to talk about that. You specifically encourage people to ask three questions, right?

So what are they? Okay, the three questions are, do I use it? Do I love it? And would I buy it again? Okay.

And so if you can answer yes to all three of those questions. Well, what's the timeframe for do you use it? Because I might use it every three or four years. Well, yeah, if you know if you have an intention in mind of when you're going to use it. Now, one of the things like one friend, her husband justified keeping a car that he's had for seven years that doesn't run.

And why? Because he used it because he worked on it and he loved it. Now that is a marital issue that needs to be discussed.

But we can really eliminate a lot of clutter if we ask ourselves those three questions. Because if if say a scarf, let's talk about scarf not to bring back bad memories. But, you know, I liked it one time it went with a couple of things. But do I use it? No, I don't use it.

I haven't used it in a while. Do I love it? Well, no, I haven't worn it. You know, that's not something it's not my go to. Would I buy it again? Definitely not. I need to let that go because somebody else would absolutely adore that.

Now, I do want to say this. It's great to give things away without any attachments. Because sometimes our parents try to give us stuff that says, well, I don't like this anymore. But you should have it because it has a family thing attached to it. You're great.

No, no, no, no. If you're not willing to keep it, it's you're not allowed to force it on family members. That is verboten.

Yeah. And so if you if it's not sentimental enough to keep to you, then you can ask your kids if they want it. But you can't make them feel guilty if they don't want it. And Kathy, you have the do I use it? Do I love it?

Would I buy it again? That's a good one for a lot of guys. Yeah, exactly. You know, my husband likes a very particular kind of sweatpants. He he's a runner and he likes very certain things. And so I said, why don't we get rid of all the sweats that you're not using? And he said, well, you know, I, I might use them again someday if I ever stop running. I said, would you buy those again right now? No. And can we close your drawer currently with the sweatpants you have? No. And so I didn't want to shame him into anything.

But these are very good clarifying questions. He said, you're right, we can give those away. And I know as a woman who's been a single mom. When I went into a thrift store and somebody had cleared their clutter and I found a pair of Nike tennis shoes that my son wanted and they were his size with our clutter.

And I'm using air quotes when I say clutter. That is somebody else's treasure. And I will never forget being able to buy those shoes.

I think they were probably eight dollars. But it meant that my son could go to school and have something that he was proud of. And that's because somebody cleaned their closet. We can be a gift to somebody we don't even know because we're we're being good stewards with our own stuff.

John, I so appreciate that closing story from Kathy Lipp because that's really the point of our program today. Organizing your home and freeing yourself of all the stuff that tends to accumulate are good things to do. But the point is what Kathy said about being good stewards. Stewardship was one of the first commands God gave to Adam and Eve in the garden. Genesis 128 says, Be fruitful and multiply, subdue and have dominion over the earth.

God has given us so many blessings to enjoy. Homes to live in, food to eat, clothes to wear and countless other comforts. Let's steward our stuff well, using it to bless others and further God's kingdom in the process. And you can start with a copy of Kathy's great book, Clutter Free.

I want to recommend you get it for your family or maybe a family that you know. This is a great resource not only for home organization, but also for choosing the right priorities in our lives. And in addition, Kathy has her annual 2000 Things Challenge, where she encourages us as families to identify and purge at least 2000 unnecessary things from your home this year.

I'm thinking of Legos. It's time to get rid of those things. And that sounds like a great idea, John. 2000 Things.

It's hard to think you can come up with that. But how do we sign up? Well, we're going to post a link to the 2000 Things Challenge on our website, where you can also request Kathy's book, Clutter Free. Make a donation of any amount and we'll send that to you. We certainly appreciate your generosity toward focus when you contact us today. The link is in the episode notes or call 1-800 the letter A in the word family.

Well, we hope you have a great weekend with your family and your church family as well. And make plans now to join us on Monday for a conversation with Justin and Lindsay Holcomb about children and body image. Your son's more than handsome. He does need to hear that he's handsome.

Mom and dad need to tell him. But think of all of the other ways. You're so creative. You're so empathetic. You're so thoughtful, like things that they actually do.

Let's pick some way better adjectives. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for listening to this episode of Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. She loved you and I'm so glad that she made the choice that she did.