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A former hoarder gives life-changing hacks on how to declutter your world

"I was literally drowning in clutter."

Photo by Samet Kurtkus on Unsplash

A hoarder's home.

Sometimes, it simply starts with one pile. Some receipts, pay stubs, and bills. Then another pile forms—a shirt you meant to hang up, some workout gear. The piles begin to multiply, and before you know it, they've erupted like tiny volcanoes spewing lava (and junk) around your home. If you don’t even know where to begin in terms of clean-up, you're not alone.

cleaning, clutter, piles, hoarding, hoarderCleaning Hoarding GIF by 60 Second DocsGiphy

Mai Zimmy, on the TikTok page Mom Life & Cleaning, knows this feeling all too well. With over 400,000 followers and 9.1 million likes, she's living proof that an inability to organize is more common than one might think. In one post, she confesses that she was once a hoarder while showing screenshots of her cluttered house in 2020. Her voiceover exclaims, "I was literally drowning in clutter" as the camera pans over a junk-filled bathtub she dubs the "trash tub."

Now, just a few years later, she has helpful tips on how to remedy the situation. She mentions, right off the bat, that she learned the fundamental methods from "Queen" Marie Kondo. Questions like "Does it spark joy? Have you used/worked with it in the last year? Remove duplicates" and more, made famous by Kondo, help her begin. This leads to the truthful realization, "You can't clean clutter."

The first step, she says, is to "Learn to let go." Per Kondo, she shows how to put things into categories and work through them one step at a time.

@maizimmy

Ok. Maybe I was 1% of the problem 😆😅 people ask me all the time how I got my house in order when it was SO FAR GONE. The decluttering and cleaning schedule was HUGE. But even more than that was how my life has changed and just gotten easier over time. The babies aren’t helpless babies forever. It gets easier there for sure one they are in grade school. Plus, the obvious elephant in the room 😅 being a divorced mom in MY situation is about 100 times easier than what I was going through as a “married single mom”. I by no means want to promote divorce, but I do want to promote healthy marriages. No marriage counselor would have ever said my marriage was healthy and that is abundantly clear with how stress free life feels after leaving. #momlife #motherhood #cleantok #cleaningmotivation #cleanwithme #declutter @Procter & Gamble @Clorox

Step two is to "Implement a cleaning schedule." The idea is for that decluttering becomes an actual habit, etched into your mind. She urges people to "find cleaning schedules that work for you." She writes over a cleaning video, "I personally aim to do a nightly reset of the kitchen and living room before bed because these are the most-used parts of my home." She adds, "Then I have my weekly 1.5-hour reset and the occasional 'panic clean' before people come over lol."

Zimmy tells us that the third step is the most important to remember: "Give yourself some grace." She confesses, "When my home was at its worst, I was a 'married single mom' of three kids, two and under." She further relays that she had a full-time job, only to come home "to the second shift of taking care of everything for everyone." She then, adorably, throws some clothes into drawers, writing she still believes in the #NoFoldMethod.

She stresses the idea that "sometimes we're just in the thick of it. Things won't be so crazy forever, and to make the effort to do what you can in the free moments you have." She jokes, "As kids grow and life sorts itself out, you'll realize you were never the problem. Everyone else was." (She then notes in her TikTok description, "Okay, maybe I was ONE percent of the problem.")

Many in the comments seemed to really connect to her use of the phrase "married single mom." Zimmy also writes, "I by no means want to promote divorce, but I do want to promote healthy marriages. No marriage counselor would have ever said my marriage was healthy, and that is abundantly clear with how stress-free life feels after leaving."

In Zimmy's vulnerability, she gets to the root of what was or wasn’t working for her without vilifying anyone. Decluttering is so much more than tidying up, and many therapists explain what it can do to lift depression and anxiety. In her piece "The Many Mental Benefits of Decluttering" for Psychology Today, Diane Roberts Stoler, Ed.D. writes, "Excessive clutter often leads to feelings of shame, hopelessness, and guilt. The feelings can spiral, making it difficult to find the motivation to address the clutter. If someone is already suffering from depression, a cluttered home can worsen that depression. It is often a cycle. The more depressed you get, the harder it is to clean and organize."

Big and small changes, with a game plan and grace for yourself, can help break the shame spiral and get your living space actually "livable" again.

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Parenting

Mom dissects one of the little "piles" around her house and her rant is so relatable

All parents will recognize the mental exhaustion brought on by these innocuous piles of junk.

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Piles of junk are driving one mom bonkers.

Running a household, especially with little kids running around, involves a lot of stuff. The kids have stuff, they bring stuff home from school, the grandparents give you stuff, other parents pass along stuff they don't need anymore. And of course, you've got your own stuff! That's to say nothing of the daily mail, which is a good 90% junk.

Where does it all go? Well, it either gets put away in the proper place, thrown away, or donated. But that doesn't always happen right away. First, the junk has to build and accumulate to the point where it annoys you and you're motivated to do something about it.

A mom is going viral for perfectly explaining the bane of her existence: All the "little piles" of junk.


Piles are usually at least 50% junk mail. Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The natural form of junk is piles. As it accumulates, the piles will begin to form all over your house. The piles especially like the kitchen counter and the stairs.

"Here's what the single hardest thing for me is about being a mom," mom and Instagrammer Bekah Martinez begins in a video. "There's these little piles that accumulate. Mini piles. And I’m the only one who acknowledges these piles. These piles require so much mental energy all the time. Because there’s so many little decisions attached to every little item.”

In the video, she approaches a piano in her living room. Of course, because she's a mom and the piano's top offers a flat surface, there is a pile of random stuff on top. For our entertainment, she dissects and explains each individual item.

There's:

  • A lightbulb
  • A pacifier clip
  • A Shrinky Dink parrot
  • A small black plastic piece that broke off of something
  • A Sharpie

Martinez explains that she can't just throw all the stuff away, or even put it away! The lightbulb is a rechargeable lightbulb with a charger that needs to be tracked down. Her son has aged out of the pacifier clip and throwing it away seems wasteful but donating it is another chore to do. The Shrinky Dink was a gift and it will feel bad to throw it away but no one really wants it. That mysterious little black plastic thing might be needed at some point if she can ever figure out what it's from.

"No one else in this family at this point in our lives is going to do anything with these little piles," she says, getting more and more hilariously worked up, as if the piles have broken her very spirit. Watch the relatable and entertaining reel here:

Parents everywhere — especially moms — felt so seen by Martinez's rant.

Parents and non-parents alike know all about the piles. Parents just have the added bonus of their kids finding things in the street, collecting worthless plastic Happy Meal toys, and bringing six-dozen pieces of artwork home from school every week. It all goes into the piles.

Commenters had a lot to say about it.

"I have two full draws of 'little piles' that I didn't have the mental energy for"

"[Piles cause] 90% of my overstimulation"

"This is single-handedly the most relatable reel I've ever seen"

"Death by a thousand little piles"

"I've been a parent for 12 years and this is the best video I've ever seen which explains it"


simpsons, junk, clutter, house cleaning tips, organization tipsJunk drawer, anyone?Giphy

Some people had productive tips for dealing with all the junk:

"Get a basket and throw every little pile in it. If you don’t go to the basket to look for something within a month, you don’t need it so throw it away or donate!"

"I'm a professional organizer! ... Create 3 baskets that live in an area that you can ignored for a while. 1. Needs home (think the light bulb) 2. Donate (think the pacifier clip) 3. Memories (think the shrinky dink) ... Then, once a week, or at a cadence of your choice, revisit the baskets and take a solid 20min-hour creating a more permanent home or getting rid of those items!"

Others were in favor of getting revenge on all the people in the house that don't help clean up:

"I like putting the little piles on the stairs so I can watch the people, to whom they belong, walk by them on the stairs on their way to bed."

The greater point of Martinez's rant, besides the fact that the piles are annoying, was that it too often falls on one person in the house (ahem, you can probably guess who) to deal with them. The piles are invisible to everyone else, she claims, including her partner. It seems silly to complain about a light bulb and a Sharpie, but she's right: Dealing with the piles is far too big a mental load for one person to take on.

Some people get so overwhelmed by it all that they create "doom piles," which are especially common in people with ADHD. It's like a giant super pile, where you take all the junk and put it together in one place. It makes things look more tidy outside of that one area, but it creates a major headache for future-you. Experts say the best way to attack the piles is to do it in small chunks so you don't get overwhelmed, and ideally offer yourself a small reward for your efforts. A great way to approach it is to work on separating the piles into trash, put away, and donate for 10 minutes before you watch TV at night!

Oh, and partners who supposedly "don't notice the piles" (you know who you are), let's get off the couch and into the game. Go team!

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17 life hacks people swear by and 'can't believe' others don't do

"Open bags of chips upside down! All the seasoning settles on the bottom."

via ProFlowers/Flickr, RDNE Stock project/Pexels and Tod Perry

Three amazing life hacks that people swear by.

The great thing about the internet is that it allows us to interact with hundreds, if not thousands, of other minds to find the best ways to handle everyday experiences. As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one, but with social media, that can be expanded to thousands.

A recent post on the AskReddit subforum asked people to share the life hacks that they “can't believe other people don’t do” and received many responses. Over 13,000 people shared their hacks or commented on the popular ones shared by the group of Redditors.

The cool thing is that at Upworthy, we’ve done many life hack stories and this thread had many that we had never heard before. Examples include the Redditor who only opens bags of chips on the opposite end and another who drives around with a camping chair in the back of their car, just in case it’s time to sit and enjoy the view.

We looked at the list and chose 17 of the best life hacks people “can’t believe that other people don’t do.” Hopefully, these make your life a bit easier and more enjoyable.



1. Shortcut we can all use

"I have a keyboard shortcut on all my devices where @@ automatically enters my email address. On an iPhone you set it up by going to settings, general, keyboard, text replacement."

2. Be prepared... to sit

"Keep a camping chair in your trunk. You never know when an opportunity for a good sit might arise."

"This is a great one. We've started leaving a giant picnic blanket in the car and have made use of it when we are out with the dog. We find ourselves with some coffee or food and feel like sitting outside somewhere."

3. Flower deal

"Two color-matched £10 flower bouquets ($13) combined are normally more varied and bigger than a £20 ($26) bouquet."



4. The 5-minute rule

"If it takes less than 5 minutes, do it right when you think about it. Flip laundry, respond to an email you left in the inbox, load the dishwasher, change that bulb in the vanity you've been looking at forever, etc..."

"This is the most effective way for me to deal with my ADHD. If I think of something, I have to either do it right then or set an alarm to do it on my phone at a time when I know I’ll be free to do it. I finally feel like I have some control of my life after years of being completely dysfunctional."

5. Do favors for "tomorrow you"

"Car getting low on gas? Do tomorrow you a favor and get it on the way home. It's almost bedtime, but there are dishes in the sink. Do them as a favor to your future self. While you're at it, get tomorrow's clothes together and get your lunch packed when you're not rushed. Tomorrow you will love you for it! And, when today you is enjoying all the things that yesterday you did to make your life easier, remember to thank yourself for doing it. I know it sounds silly, but this really helped motivate me to get stuff done promptly instead of at the last moment."

6. Set 'do not disturb' hours on your phone

"Set nightly 'do not disturb' hours on your phone (mine is 11P - 7A). You can allow notifications from favorite contacts like spouse, children, et al."

"I don’t get why so many people don’t do this. That’s literally why the feature exists. You still get woken up during genuine emergencies but don’t get random people spamming your phone up with memes at 2am."



7. Need or want?

"Do I need or do I want. If I need it, I get it. If I want it, I wait for a few weeks, do some research, see if I can fit it in and if I still want it a month or two later then I might go get it. Turns out my wants are not always there after a while waiting. It’s new for me but has changed my mindset drastically."

"I learnt to do this because my parents (mostly my mum) fell victim to this. Also, just because it’s on sale, doesn’t mean I have to buy it. I’m not saving money if I didn’t need nor want it in the first place."

8. Zip-lock junk drawer

"I use zip lock bags in my 'junk drawer.' It’s not organized, it’s just a hand full junk filled bags. It makes looking through the junk easier. Instead of shifting through a bunch of junk and loose items I’ll pick up a bag and inspect it for something I’m looking for. Junk bags inside a junk drawer."

9. Stock up on essentials

"For household essentials, buy more than you need right away. Example: I have two packs of toilet paper rolls. One is 'Now,' and I store it in the bathroom. The other is 'Later,' and I store it in a closet. When Now is empty, I get out Later. Later becomes the new Now, and next time I go shopping, I buy a replacement Later. That way, I very rarely run out of anything."



10. Change first

"When handing someone their change, give them the coins before the bills. This allows them to hold the coins in their palm while using their fingers for the bills. Otherwise, they have to do this careful balancing act before they pocket the money."

11. Clean your fridge

"Clean out your fridge before grocery shopping! Eliminates mystery Tupperware and always reminds you of something you need to pick up."

12. Just because

"Buy her 'just because' flowers. Seriously, apology gifts always have the stank of the original mistake all over them. 'Just because' gifts actually make her smile every time she looks at them and not think of the dumb thing I did."

"When dolphins are trained, they get a fish every time they do a trick or exhibit good behaviour. But, you also have to give them a fish every once in a while that they didn't earn, because they need to know that the trainer's relationship to them isn't purely transactional. My family has always had a policy that we need to occasionally give each other 'unearned fishes' because it's important to that we know that we care for each other."

13. Flip your chips

"Open bags of chips upside down! All the seasoning settles on the bottom."

"This is an especially good tip for when you are pouring out all the chips into a bowl (like for a party). All the crumbs from the bottom of the bag end up in the bottom of the bowl, and the pretty, perfect chips are at the top of the bowl."



14. Parking photo

"I take a quick photo of where I park my car in large parking lots. Saves so much time wandering around looking lost!"

"I drop a pin in Google maps when I get out of my car. Not only do I have the exact location on the map, I get step by step directions to it."

15. Chop sticks

"Eating finger foods with chopsticks to avoid getting my keyboard, mouse, phone, or game controllers dirty."

"This was me when I ate a bag of hot Cheetos at my wedding, in my white gown."

16. One sock solution

"Only ever buy on kind of socks that way I never have to match them after the wash, just throw them all in the drawer. And if one gets hole in it you dont need to throw out the pair, just throw it away and stock up on more of the same sock when running low. I really hate folding socks."

17. Use your points

"Get a credit card with good rewards and use it for everyday purchases, then immediately pay down your credit card every week or so to avoid interest rates. My husband and I almost exclusively use our credit card and have been able to use the points to book flights, rental cars, hotels, spa services, lots of things we wouldn’t normally splurge on."

"You don't have to pay it weekly to avoid interest, you just need to pay the full balance at each monthly due date. You only owe interest if you carry a balance over to the next month."


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