Is your brain and home/workspace space a MESS? In Episode 34 of the Shining Brightly Podcast Show, my guest Kitti Andrews shares the “do it now” strategy to get organized one small step at a time. She helps us get clear in our brains, set priorities and clean up the space around us which leads to clarity and greater productivity. Come listen, download, review and share! Keep shining always!

Mentioned Resources

Website: http://declutterthebrain.com 

Social Media links: 

https://www.facebook.com/kitti.andrews.21 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kitti-andrews-87644055/ 

https://www.instagram.com/kittiandrews_mckay/ 

https://twitter.com/kittiandrews 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLEvVsveSkzaUdmoKvke6g

Giveaway: Downloadable PDF: 7 Easy Steps To Conquer Your Physical & Mental Clutter https://www.declutterthebrain.com/declutter/ 

About the guest – Kitti Andrews, Your Thought Organizer

For over 20 years Kitti Andrews has been helping people to get unstuck and out of a state of overwhelm by getting their physical and mental surroundings under control by helping them to declutter their space and brain. Kitti has written, directed and performed over 800 online videos devoted to decluttering the five life pillars, which furnish the content for her daily newsletter. Her speaking career spans interviews on top podcasts and summits as well as Stanford and Harvard.  She has contributed articles that have garnered her front-page status in the Los Angeles Tribune Magazine as well as an upcoming interview in USA Today.

About the Host:

Howard Brown is a best-selling author, award-winning international speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, and a two-time stage IV cancer survivor. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant for corporate businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. Howard has co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He is a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Howard, his wife Lisa, and daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan, and his happy place is on the basketball court.

Website

Http://www.shiningbrightly.com

Social Media

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/howard.brown.36

LinkedIn - https://wwwlinkedin.com/in/howardsbrown

Instagram - @howard.brown.36

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#organize #clutter #messy #hoarder #physical #mental #declutter #strategy #coaching #office #home #business #growth #motivation #education #inspiration #podcast #download #listen #share #review #shiningbrightly

Hello, welcome to the Shining Brightly Show. This

is Howard Brown, your Maestro of the mic. I got another good show

here today. I have to tell you if you've ever been disorganised

scattered, just overwhelmed, I said, this is the guest for you.

Kitti Andrews. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. How are you today?

Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me.

Well, we're gonna help a lot of people today, I

can tell you that. So let me just introduce kitty and tell

you a little bit more about her. So for over 20 years, Kitty

Andrews has been helping people to get unstuck get out of a

state of being overwhelmed getting their physical and

mental surroundings under control really important. By

helping them to declutter their space in their brain, we're

going to learn a little bit about decluttering it is written

and directed and performed over 800 online videos devoted

decluttering the five life pillars we're gonna learn about

that, which furnishing the content to her daily newsletter.

Her speaking career spans interviews on top podcast

summits, as well at Stanford University, Harvard, Harvard

University, and as we say, in Boston, Harvard, and she

contributed articles that have garnered front page status in

the Los Angeles Tribune magazine, as well as upcoming

interviews in USA Today. Oh, boy, this is amazing. City.

Welcome. Tell us a little bit more and share something that we

don't know about. Yeah.

Well, again, thank you for having me. And I

have just recently discovered that I like watching buildings

go up. I know right? You know, they say little boys have have a

fixation with with with toy dump trucks and all this kind of

stuff and cranes and all of that. Well, I'll tell you what,

I've just moved into a brand new apartment building and I was

warned that there's one going up right next door. And I have had

the privilege and I say privilege of watching this right

from the foundation, watching them for cement watching them

have to dry it and dry out the ground after a horrendous

rainstorm. There they've nailed yesterday in the pouring rain

again. It's easy. I am in Eastern Canada, it does rain a

lot. They they erected seven storeys worth of worth of

girders thinking, How do these people do that? It's just

absolutely fascinating. And it makes me realise everything

needs a foundation. And I think we'll be able to talk about that

today.

Oh, thanks for sharing that. Wow. Nope,

everything's great up in Nova Scotia land. So you are known as

the thought organiser, correct? I am indeed Yes. So we're

talking about clutter, right. And clutter can take many forms,

but it can hurt your business, your bottom line, and you

personally so take us deeper into that, about how we all get

cluttered or stuck.

Well, it's funny that you mentioned the sort of

the thought organiser thing because you know, a client once

said, Thank you for getting me organised and saying, you know,

I'm not an organiser, think Martha Stewart with the little

flowery box was right. And she said, No, you help people to

work and eyes, their thoughts? And what I find is that, well,

how does this relate to clutter is physical clutter and mental

clutter, I believe are so inextricably entwined. That it's

it's difficult you're one begets the other which begets the other

In other words, your physical clutter can be a clue to what's

going on between your ears. And it's just, it just ends up being

a vicious circle. Now how can that affect you is as as an

entrepreneur, for example, if your surroundings are cluttered,

then you will find that, that you're just plain and simple not

thinking as clearly. Why because of distractions. Plain and

simple. You just feel any and it's a you don't even realise

you're being distracted. But really you are my Oh, I gotta

get to that. Okay, back to the email. Yeah, I really should do

something about Yep, back to the schedule, whatever it is, that

is this landing is making sense

it is landing because we live in a very fast

moving world we're coming out of COVID where we all had to do

something different and we were restricted as to where we could

go out whether we're gonna get a shot and and then we'll also a

coupling that with this very fast moving digital world. So

right we've got email distraction, text distraction,

Facebook, LinkedIn, tick tock, oh, it goes on and on and on

YouTube. And what happens is, is that The shiny objects sort of

leads you off your priorities or off what you're supposed to be

doing. And we live on these little devices called cell

phones, or iPads or our computers. And it is really easy

to get sidetracked. And so I have to tell you, it's very easy

to get overwhelmed, and stuck to it nowadays. And so business

must be good for you, kitty.

Yes, yes, it is a nifty it's actually, a lot more

people have been asking me this year about digital decluttering.

As opposed as opposed to the physical they say, if I say if I

say to them, which is more damaging to you mental clutter,

physical clutter, though, say, oh, mental clutter, you know,

that noise that starts in your head, when you start to when you

wake up, you're starting to get ready for your day. And you

start to ask yourself, did I email that person? Did I write

down to room to do this to do that? The other thing, so the

more that you can eliminate things that you can eliminate,

like the physical clutter, or, or noises on your phone, I'd

like to speak into that for a moment, then the more you can

eliminate the stuff that you can control, then the rest of it.

Well, you might you might just have to deal with it. Right?

Well, the reason I say that is that there's there's

a lot of distraction, and setting up that discipline to

focus on the priorities of the hour, the day, the week, it gets

you off track. So you have a system to start building that

foundation, you call it the one system, please, please tell it

tell my audience about the one system.

I developed it partly, well, it's an ADHD or

St. We ADHD years cannot be kind of all over all over the place.

Well, we are. So we need something that is simple. Now

this one is the physical one, but it can be applied to any of

the five pillars of your life. And it goes like this one room

at a time, one area of that room at a time, one thing at a time.

And by one room at a time. I mean, it's counterproductive to

start in your office, do a little bit there and then get

bored and well go do some in the spare room. All right, do what

what happens is by the time you've come back to your office

correctly, you forget where you are, and it takes you 15 minutes

to get back into character and pick up that momentum again. And

then when one area of that room at a time means you're just

niching it down a little bit, you've decided on the room, and

now you've decided on an area and that can be difficult. But

once you have chosen, okay, that corner or this part of the desk

or whatever, a category, if you will, then it's easier again to

pick up that momentum and see your results which fuels your

confidence because many times people won't declutter because

they, they they just don't think they can or they've tried

before. And then it hasn't. It hasn't worked for them. So they

say, Well, I can't No, you want some confidence. And that spills

over into all the rest of your life into your dealings with

your clients, everything like that. And then one thing at a

time. One thing at a time. Now, that can be tedious. Yes, it can

be time consuming. Yes. But it's also the number one way to train

your brain never to get cluttered again. Can I give you

a quick example?

I would love that. Yeah, absolutely. All right,

my first client in Michigan seriously, yeah, she

she was what is an entrepreneur, she had a very large L shaped

desk. And it was not a word of a lie six, six inches of paper, if

you didn't know what covered desk was. And so our very first

call I said was okay, well, I guess we're going to start on

this pile of paper. Her mission was to clear everything off so

that her assistant could work in the office. And she said, she

looked at me and she said, You're out of your mind. We're

not going to go through this one sheet at a time. It's my first

client, Howard. I didn't know what else to do. So I'm

thinking, Oh, my God, I don't have another I don't know what

else to suggest other than one thing at a time. So she

relented, and I tell you five minutes into it. She started to

say, I don't need this. I don't need bank statements. My

accountant doesn't need statements. Why are we Why do I

even have this? And she started flying Thanks for flying through

it and saying, I can do this online. I can do this online.

But the kicker here's here's the real kicker was a couple of

weeks later, she reported that she, we did get through the desk

by way, nice. Two or three weeks, but during that time, she

she said, You know, I was in the store where Oh, the trade

magazines, sorry, I didn't give you the follow up on the she

needed trade magazines for her business. But we used to we

threw away six or eight of them that she hadn't read. She had

never read she had bought and never read. And she said maybe I

don't really need to buy as as many anymore. Next time she's in

the store. She goes to just automatically reach for that

trade magazine. And she said, Wait a minute, now I just threw

away 50 bucks worth? Do I really need this issue? It's like no.

Oh, what's up, puts it back eliminating clutter coming in?

retraining the brain? So it makes sense.

Yeah, that's she showed some discipline there.

That's great. So I'm seeing the physical. Give a hint to how

that works. In the digital world. When you've got a million

windows open your phone's ringing and email keeps coming.

never stopping and texts keep coming, never stopping all hours

of the day. How do we do? How do we apply it to that?

Now as to the tabs open Guilty as charged. The

first thing I will address though, is something that is

quite literally, you can't operate without it. And I

suggest to everyone does it put your phone on Do Not Disturb.

Plain and simple. I get complaints from people well, I

phoned you in and it goes straight to voicemail. Yes, it

does. Because every time a beep or bird or that comes on. I

completely lose focus on what I'm doing. What does that do?

That takes time to get back into as I said before it get back

into character get back into the email that I was doing whenever

I am very easily distracted. So it is on Do Not Disturb unless

I'm expecting a particular thing. Yes. And that that frees

up a lot of mental energy, which is so important. You know that

little bit the little battery icon of like your iPhone, at the

top of your brain gonna be there. Every time something's

going I should look at it squirrel brain, right? Yeah,

yeah. So that is the first thing now when it comes to tab I am. I

cannot put like many people who weren't born with a computer in

their mouth. Over the age of 40, you know, it's a it's like an

English as a second language. So it's not something that comes to

me automatically. But most people have a gazillion tabs

open. And what's gonna have to happen eventually is, number

one, try to discipline yourself that when you're done with that

tab, oh, but I might need it, I'll probably need to refer back

to it right? Yeah, bookmark it, okay, well, then that can turn

into a miasma can all turn into a miasma? At some point, you are

going to need to take an hour on a weekend and just go through a

bunch of these emails, or tabs or whatever. That's easier said

than done. Yes, I know. But if you can discipline yourself,

excuse me, along the way to doing that. But I was just

thinking about something just before we came on the air start

to unsubscribe to things, you know, they say sent was a

simplicity. And before you sit down before you download that

freebie or or what have you just really think about what's going

to be coming into your inbox and the quality of preventive

maintenance, if you will, and starting to actually look at

what's coming in and say, Do I need this and it's just the same

as physical clutter. Does it serve me now? Yes, when you

signed up, it probably served you very, very well. Thank you

very much, much. Now, maybe you've grown and changed and it

doesn't serve you as much well, but I might need it right. You

know, the the refrain goes. It takes it takes being really

thinking, really thinking and don't try to do that in the

middle of a workday.

Well, I like the fact that you're actually saying

schedule in your house cleaning but just Do you clean your house

or do the lawn or go to the gym, schedule it in schedule in a

time when you're going to house clean only and make some

decisions? Really, if I haven't looked at this thing and a week,

a day or a long, exit out, delete, unsubscribe. So I think

that's very important. That's a part of the discipline as well.

Now, you actually, you can use this that one system for other

things besides decluttering, what what are those? Wow,

it's all it's all about niching down things down

into categories, say, for example, you're just you're just

feeling overwhelmed, about about what, what has to be done.

That's your relationships. For example, if you're starting to

think I have to if you're starting to feel overwhelmed by

how many people you may have to please, in one day, whether they

be your mother in law, your partner, your your your family,

deal was one of them at a time, there's, there's a lot more to

do that I was really T is thinking about physical. But

when you think about my company name is declutter the brain. And

if you're feeling overwhelmed by all of these things that are

crashing into your brain, you have to finally say, Alright,

I'm going to pick one thing, and work on it with one category,

whether that's emails or texts, or whatever, and I'm going to

binge them, I'm going to do all of them at once, and try to set

yourself a time limit so that you don't get decision fatigue.

And then, if you're still feeling overwhelmed by there's

so much here that your analysis paralysis, you don't know where

to turn next. I like to think about who needs me first, The

Who, because so often in this world, where we're consumed with

the what, what needs to be done, when the something needs to be

done, but we forget about those people that are around us. Like,

say, for example, your assistant who has been waiting for you to

provide her with names of people that she's supposed to contact?

Does she need me? Does my partner need me right now? Does

my Does my child need me to feed, feed and feed them? Break

it down into the most simple thing in that particular

category? And then and then do that? And then move on to the

next thing in your health? All right, well, I want to lose 20

pounds. Okay, that's great. I'm overwhelmed. How am I going to

do that? Okay, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to walk up

and down the hallway. I live in an apartment building. So let's

use that for an example. I'm going to walk walk up and down

the hallway every three hours. Once, I'm going to start small,

and then I'm going to build up, do you see what I mean about

just breaking it down to the easiest thing that you can do?

I do, it's setting priorities. And it's taking a

small bite, that first step making it potentially a baby

step before you're taking lots of either larger steps or many

more steps. So I think that's very important. But so, boy, I

just see myself where I cleaned out everything right? And then

it just starts filling back up again. And so how do I stay? You

know, stay organised stay unstuck.

Are we talking? Are we back? Are we well? Could

it and can I address that in physical terms? And then we can

we can? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Okay, because it's easier. Most

people come to me with their physical clutter that's not

realising at all, that there's something in behind it. There's

always a why why do have clutter of any of any kind, and

sometimes you can be needed as neat as a pen and still upstairs

and that's okay, too. But you've got you've got, oh, Lord. The

question was, I'm sorry. I went, Oh, well,

the question you will use wonderful physical, I

said, what happens you fall off the waggon. I mean, I was saying

I was using the example that my email box is cleaned out. Now.

It's just filled up again. And so how do you stay? How do you

how do you stay, you know, organised and that that was

really the question like you've started, you've made great

progress, and then all of a sudden you're disorganised

again.

Okay, from a physical point, I've got a

couple of I've got a couple of checks. And then remind me about

the digital if I don't, if I don't, if I don't address it,

okay, from a physical point of view, say for example, it's your

desk. And we're both entrepreneurs, so we can relate

to this. At the end of the day, Chad, I think your your, your

listeners will awake this too. At the end of the day, take five

minutes is probably going to take you three. But take five

minutes, no more, and just straighten up your desk. Makes a

world and sounds really, really simple, doesn't it? However, it

sounds overly simplistic, but you'd be amazed at how many

people don't do that. And they just oh, okay, well, alright,

that lifting is done. I'm gone. When you walk in, in the

morning, you want your brain is already fresh. Do you want to

sully for lack of a better word? So your brain with? Yeah. Okay,

this isn't looking very good. You want to walk in to something

that's nice. So how do you do that with regular maintenance,

just short and sweet, good at back and put your desk back the

way it's supposed to know tip number now to look so that you

feel good first thing in the morning, and you're not using up

that most important thing, mental energy going? You see the

little battery icon going down? Yeah, believe it or not at

worse. The next one is a wait is the waitress tip. I was a

waitress for many years, never walk from one room to another

empty handed. There's always something that you can carry,

whether it's the mornings coffee, or a shirt that's

supposed to go to another room, anything like that. That's just

like, never walk. If you find yourself with an empty hand, say

what are you doing? There's got to be something you can carry?

Because there always is. Now how does this translate? You're

going to ask to save, for example, mental decluttering.

Take a few minutes at the end of the day. And this is not easy,

because I tell you my brain is buzzing at the end of the day.

And so I almost forced myself to just stop and say, Wow, that was

a good productive day. I'm not quite sure what I got done. But

I know like it was productive because I feel good. All right,

let's examine this. What did I accomplish? Oh, well, Erin, ah,

I, I fixed my Calendly invitation so that they reflect

properly, whatever is important that you got done that day, give

yourself a little pat on the back a little yay, you. You

know, we we strive powered all the time we push and we push and

we push. But we don't give ourselves enough credit. What

does that do? Adds to the mental clutter of I gotta keep pushing,

I'll never be good enough. How much mental clutter like that is

there in the world.

I have to tell you, I have to give my mom a

little credit. So since I was little, and again, this happens,

I saw a talk with a military general, I make my bed every

day. So that's I start my day with doing something

constructive. Not not everyone does that. But I know everyone

in the military does that they make their bed every day. That's

the first constructive thing that you're doing because you go

back to that bed and it's made and then you undo it to get in.

And I like that at the end of the day to take the five minutes

of decluttering your desk making sure it's good when you kind of

come back to it. And then also giving yourself a pat on the

back for what you did accomplish that day and not for what you

didn't accomplish. So that's really important. So I would say

what are some more key ingredients to successful

decluttering?

Yeah, don't try to do. Don't try to do don't

pick the biggest project. Buy that for in the physical realm.

I mean, don't say okay, well, I'm going to declutter the

basement which has 30 years worth of Christmas decorations,

but that's okay. I can get through it in an afternoon. No,

no, no, don't do that to yourself. You're just setting

yourself up for failure and, and oh, well, I should do of course

I shouldn't try decluttering because I can't do it. Well, why

of course you can't. Because you pick the biggest room no matter

what you want to do is pick preferably the smallest room

within the smallest room maybe the spare bedroom that has that

has a closet Yanet just so that you can see, like we were

talking about a few minutes ago, you can see you can see those

milestones you can see the momentum happening, and give

yourself credit because it's it. Well, it is overwhelming. So

just don't take the biggest, the biggest project in the house and

give yourself time. cut yourself some slack. Well, I should be

able to get shirt out of your vocabulary. We all should. Don't

wait. Howard. Yeah,

I liked that, because you schedule it in. But

again, taking the biggest room could be overwhelming, take the

smaller rooms and start getting started. And that works well for

digital and your projects. You've got to chip away at them.

You can't You're not just like the your building next door to

you. It didn't get built in one day, they laid the foundation,

then they're starting to add the girders and then they'll add all

the the additional stuff that you need to make it safe. And

then the internal stuff, the electric, and all that in the

floor. So I like that analogy as well. What? So you do this? All

over zoom, you don't get it, you know, not going into people's

homes and doing this do you? Are you doing this all over zoom?

No, I do do it only only on Zoom. I know I did

use to go into people's houses. And then someone suggested I

look into it. And this was before when I looked it up? What

is virtual decluttering? Because my mentor suggested this and

there were I only saw I could only find three practitioners in

the whole world. This was back in 2017. And I watched watch one

of them a demo. Okay, well, let's try it what a realtor

friend of mine has described it as is a less intrusive, more

focused way to get rid of years of clutter. And the the key

there is the less intrusive because don't we always feel

like we should clean for the cleaning lady. You have somebody

in your home, you're embarrassed that you have that you have the

clutter note if she's seen it all he or she have seen it all.

But you're still you're one is still embarrassed. Whereas if

it's if it's on Zoom, then all we need to do is concentrate on

how many one room and one area of that room and we just laser

focus on that. Until it's until it's done. And then you get that

that swagger feeling and go okay, yeah, we can do it. Oh,

no, that we I can let her see that or yes, you can. Let's do

it. You got through this, didn't you? Okay, so we're gonna do the

next thing and the next thing. And people new people have

always always taken to it. The ones who don't are the ones who

want you to do the actual lifting and fair. Fair enough,

right?

I understand. So let me let me ask you, you have

for those that will see this on video. You have clear the

clutter calm the chaos. Is that is that your quote?

Yes. Yes. It's been my tagline since 2018.

I love it. So just for those are listening clear,

the clutter, calm the cast. So this is the part of the show get

you where I'm going to put on my glasses, my white glasses with

gold ran dangerous there because we're shining brightly on you

right now. I would love for people to tell them how to get a

hold of you. Also, I think you have some type of downloadable

that you can help as well explain what that is. And then

give some final comments and we're going to wrap up the show.

Sounds sounds good. Although I don't what I'm

having such a good time with you. I don't want to wrap up but

we have too easy to get hold of me the will give you the easiest

way. Go to declutter the brain.com you can book a quick

free call there and we'll see if you're a fit for one of my

family of custom design programmes. And yeah, because

not everyone is ready to declutter and I only work with

those who are truly ready and downloaded. You can also there

at declutter the brain.com Download my seven easy steps to

conquer your physical and mental clutter. It is meant to be a

grounding tool for your declutter journey and beyond

meaning you can use you can refer to it any time and and it

will serve you well.

So give me give me some final comments that you

want to share before I close the show.

The clutter did not whether it's physical or

mental, or relationship or health or your habits, the

clutter did not accumulate overnight. It will not go away

overnight. Take it one step at a time.

Oh yeah, that is such sage advice. I'm going to

add one more to that get started now, because it's just gonna get

you're gonna keep building if you don't get started. So I want

to thank you kitty for for being on my show. I appreciate that.

This is Howard brown. This is the Shining Brightly podcast.

You can reach me at shiningbrightly.com There's all

things about my book and the my speaking. Absolutely speaking on

lots of podcasts and lots of stages. There's also stuff about

free handouts on survivorship and mentorship and interfaith

relations. Lots of goodies there. I'm very interactive. So

please see me there. So again, thank you, Kitti for being on

the shining brightly show. You taught us some great lessons,

please contact Kitti at declutterthebrain.com Get her

giveaway. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Howard.