What Are We Really Buying For the Holidays? Implementing Tracy McCubbin’s Clutter Mantras
Over a year ago, I talked with Tracy McCubbin of DClutterfly and author of the book, “Make Space for Happiness, How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want.” As you listen to her wise words of advice about how we’ve been trying to shop our way out of unhappiness and disappointment and feelings of insecurity, keep in mind the holiday season. How might we apply her wisdom at tender time of year.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Tracy McCubbin, the expert behind the successful company Declutterfly, shares her insights on clutter and its impact on our lives. She defines clutter as the stuff that gets in the way of what we want to do and emphasizes that it's not about the volume of stuff, but rather about how it impedes the life we want to live.
The conversation explores the psychological reasons behind our shopping habits and the real holes in our lives that we're trying to fill and Tracy encourages listeners to rethink their relationship with stuff and prioritize creating a home that supports and uplifts them.
Flipping the Script on Clutter
Tracy discusses the misconception that decluttering is solely about minimalism and emphasizes that it's about creating a home that works for each individual. She highlights the importance of making conscious decisions about what we bring into our homes and letting go of the notion that more stuff equates to happiness.
She also provides valuable insights into the impact of clutter on our mental well-being, decision fatigue, and the hidden cost of keeping things we no longer need or love. And the conversation emphasizes that filling our homes with things we truly love and use can contribute to a happier and more fulfilling life.
Unveiling the Emotional Clutter Magnets
Tracy introduces the concept of emotional clutter magnets, which are the underlying drivers behind our shopping habits and clutter accumulation. Here are two of them:
True Connection: Tracy explores how our desire for connection can lead to over-shopping and highlights the importance of building genuine relationships rather than relying on material possessions.
Free Time: The conversation delves into the misconception that gadgets and technology provide us with more free time and encourages listeners to explore alternative ways of fulfilling their need for leisure.
Other emotional clutter magnets discussed in the book include buying for love, chasing self-respect, searching for purpose, and seeking lasting wisdom.
In "Make Space for Happiness: How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want," Tracy McCubbin provides valuable insights into the real reasons behind our clutter and offers practical solutions for creating a home that supports happiness and fulfillment. By understanding our emotional clutter magnets and reevaluating our relationship with stuff, we can make conscious choices that align with our true desires and lead to a more joyful and meaningful life. So, why not take the first step in making space for happiness today?
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Interview with Tracy McCubbin
[00:00:00] Zandra: Tracy McCubbin. Welcome to the style matters podcast. I'm really excited about this interview.
[00:00:05] Tracy: Zandra, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I, this.
[00:00:09] Is one of my favorite topics.
[00:00:11] Zandra: Oh, I know. It's, I know it's . Let, let's, let's just jump in. I wanna talk about this, this book.
Defining Clutter and its Impact on Life
[00:00:19] Tracy: For me, the, the thing that I talk about when I talk about clutter is that the way that I define clutter work. Is the stuff that gets in the way of what you want to be doing. So, if you want to eat dinner at your dining room table, but you can't because there's packages return and mail.
[00:00:37] And so you end up eating on the, you know, on the couch in front of the TV. Or you want to cook a breakfast, but your kitchen counters are so cluttered with, You know, unitaskers and appliances and dirty dishes. So it's really not, from my point of view, it's never been about the volume because that works different for everybody.
[00:00:58] It's really about, is your stuff getting in the way of the life you want to be living?
The Personal Aspect of Clutter
[00:01:04] Zandra: And that is such a, like you said, that's such a personal individualized question, which takes the judgment out of it. It's not, you're not going, you must become a minimalist and have nothing on your counters and, you know, no extra anything that, that's sort of a, that's a lifestyle choice that you are not.
[00:01:23] Prescribing saying this is the only best way. This is, you are saying it's really up to you to really ask yourself, are you happy? Is your life working? Yeah, exactly. And I think we get so used to, you know, walking around the junk pile, you don't see the, you know, the donation bin that's piled high. You, you know, you don't, you don't, you open the closet, things fall out and you just shove it back in and, and I think sometimes we.
[00:01:50] We actually even stopped seeing the clutter and we've we don't even realize why am I so
The Science Behind Clutter and Decision Fatigue
[00:01:54] Tracy: anxious and interestingly scientifically They have proven that we stop seeing the stuff. We don't want to see we literally our brain can't Oh can't process it anymore. So that's why when someone comes into your house and you're like Oh, right.
[00:02:10] That guest bedroom is now a storage depot. I just didn't even see it anymore. So that's an actual scientific thing that happens. And then the next level is every piece of clutter. Every piece of stuff in your house is a decision you have to make. Do I use this? Do I want this? Where do I store it? Did I pay for, you know, so you're, you're putting yourself in.
[00:02:34] Um, decision fatigue. If your house is full of a bunch of stuff. So my whole purpose, exactly what you said, nothing to do with minimalism. I'm not prescribing, you know, a family of five needs way more stuff than my partner and I, and his, you know, 18 year old daughter, like we just don't need as much as five kids and parents.
[00:02:55] So. Yeah. You know, it's never about that. It's about, is your house working for you? Is your house supporting you and does it make you happy when you come home?
[00:03:08] Zandra: I want to now step back a little bit before we even get the clutter.
The Role of Shopping in Filling Emotional Gaps
[00:03:13] Zandra: Why are we buying stuff in the first place? And you spend some time talking about this in the book.
[00:03:19] Could you give us some examples of how we're tricking ourselves into thinking that a particular purchase. We'll make us feel better.
[00:03:27] Tracy: Oh, this is, this is great. So to go back to kind of what I saw in the pandemic is this over shopping, like this huge spike in shopping. And you know, it was people feeling out of control and like, Oh, well, as long as I have a spiralizer and a bread maker, I have control of my life.
[00:03:44] Right. So I really, I've been a professional declutter and organizer for 15 years. And I really started to look at the. Upstream effect of clutter. Like we all talk about decluttering and letting go, but I was like, you know, no one's addressing how that stuff gets into our house, right? No one's talking about that.
[00:04:05] And it doesn't just show up by mask bandit. We bring it in, right? We're accountable for bringing it in. So I really was interested in like, Why is that happening? And I did such a deep dive on the science of it. And it kind of comes in addition to being advertised to which they're playing on. We're still hardwired to be hunters and gatherers, right?
[00:04:27] So when we were tribal, you know, we found an animal and we got the skin and we made a code or we found a pear tree full of pears. We got rewarded with a hit of dopamine. Because it insisted on our survival. Well, we haven't caught up with that. So now, when you go to the grocery store and Oreos are on sale, you get that same hit of dopamine as if it's life or death.
[00:04:52] Online buying is Particularly insidious because you get a little dopamine hit when you put it in your cart. You get a little dopamine hit when you hit buy now. Get a little dopamine hit when the package shows up. So you're, you're creating this ongoing sort of, Oh, I think this makes me feel better, but it's not lasting.
[00:05:12] To kind of go back to all the science behind it, this isn't about shaming people. This is about realizing that some of what's happening is out of our control. Right. And, and that we need to educate ourselves and be aware and make. Better decisions. I mean, I don't know.
The Impact of Over-shopping and Fast Fashion
[00:05:31] Tracy: I'm sure you have talked about this on on here, but you know, one of the biggest conversations I have with my clients is about fast fashion, right?
[00:05:39] Sure. Like what it's doing to the environment. You know what it's doing to the workers overseas. And, and the other thing is that stuff doesn't last. So people are like, well, I bought, you know, these t shirts are only 5 and I bought 10 of them or 20 of them, but there's no substance. There's no quality.
[00:05:58] They're not lasting. And so you're sort of getting in the cycle of buying the new, buying the new, buying the new, um, instead of investing in quality or things that fit you well, or things that you love. And so we've just gotten so out of whack with the
[00:06:13] Zandra: whole process. And, and the same thing is happening, um, in the, in the decor industry, fast decor.
[00:06:21] It's the same thing. There used to be four seasons, you know, spring, summer, winter, fall. Now there are all these micro seasons, which is exactly what the fashion industry had done, where you're changing out your vase and your throw pillows and your, you know, your, your, I don't know, your, your pots for your plants every three months or, or I'm sorry, every month.
[00:06:43] And then every three months is the big change because that's when the real season is. And, and, and it's just, it makes me kind of hyperventilate. It's so fast and it, and it's obviously so driven by product manufacturers, uh, that, you know, that's what their business thrives on. Not to make them completely evil, but it, but it's, um, because I think.
[00:07:05] Like you're saying that the, the root of it is this dopamine hit. It's this feeling that we get that this, this feeling of buying something, that's a control move, buying it, purchasing it. Owning it and then assuming or hoping or just praying that it's going to be the solution to an emotional issue. And that is what the bulk of your book is about.
[00:07:31] One thing that you talk about that I thought was particularly interesting that I hadn't heard before in this whole section about why we buy. Um.
The Specialness Spiral and Everyday Specialness
[00:07:40] Zandra: You talk about the specialness spiral. Yeah. Give us an example of a candle with a scent and then tell us what happens. So somebody buys a candle with a scent that they absolutely love and it's, it's an, it's a special candle.
[00:07:53] Tracy: Right. So maybe you're, you know, there's you. kind of splurge and get one of those higher end brands. And you're like, I love this scent and I'm going to do this. And this is really special. And then you get it home and you make this decision. I'm going to save this for a special occasion. And then because of that, your brain's like, well, I can't burn it because it's special.
[00:08:12] I'm waiting for something special. And so you create this spiral of you. Putting off using this thing that is now you've deemed special, but then the occasion is never gonna line up. So it just becomes something that you never use. And I wanna flip that whole thing and say every day is special , every day is special eat pizza off of the China.
[00:08:34] Right, right. Like right. Burn the beautiful candles. Like use the lovely stuff. I, I, um, so many of my. older clients who have beautiful, beautiful China. They're like, my kids don't want it, but I can't put it in the dishwasher. I'm like, then use it and put it in the dishwasher. Right. You love it. It's your wedding China.
[00:08:53] Like use it and celebrate it. Have the nice things. You are special. Your home is. Use it like it's celebrate you. And that's what I think where good design and good quality and, you know, style that you love absolutely. And fill your house with things that you love and use them.
[00:09:15] Zandra: It's funny you say that because like the, um, I think we do the same thing with clothes, speaking of which we, you know, we have well made clothes.
[00:09:24] But I'm not even talking about fancy dress clothes. I'm just saying a well made shirt, a well made skirt, whatever, but we save it because, because we've also spent money on the old Navy 5 shirts. And so then you end up wearing the old Navy 5 shirt every single day. You never take that nicely tailored shirt out, which why not?
[00:09:44] You'll feel better, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's funny. It's like, it's this whole, it's this whole, um. Uh, market out there of almost purposefully not special things because we need something to replace the special things with because we're not allowed to use the special things all the time.
[00:10:03] Tracy: Yeah. It's so, I have, I have a client who, um, had all these beautiful shirts and kind of blouses that she bought when she was dating a lot.
[00:10:12] And then she met her husband, they got married and they had a kid. So she's sort of one day was like, I guess I'm wearing these schleppy t shirts and she was like, you know what? I have this pretty blouse in the, in my closet that I have. And she put it on, she went and picked her daughter up from school.
[00:10:26] They went and got a cup of tea after school. And she was like, I ran into a friend. We chatted. Like, she was like, I just started wearing my nice clothes. Like, why was I, you know, she's a, she works from home. So she doesn't really have a chance, you know, and she was like, all of a sudden, like I put her on this beautiful blouse and I was, everyone kept saying, she was like, do you know how great it felt to be out in the world and have people go, Oh, Oh, you look so nice today.
[00:10:48] And that blouse looks so pretty on you. And that's why we buy the special stuff. So use it, wear it, fill your home with it. Absolutely. I just want to flip that whole script. I want to flip the script that things are special and you can't use them. I want to flip the script on
[00:11:06] Zandra: why we shopped. And I think speaking of flipping the script, I feel like this whole book is sort of the other side of the coin from your first book.
The Emotional Clutter Magnets
[00:11:15] Zandra: It is its own flip, right? In your last book, which was called making space clutter free, you introduced. us to the seven clutter blocks. And I'll tell you, we all have a few of them. Yeah. You talk about things like not being able to give something up out of guilt because of who gave it to you or the things that you hold on for this, like you said, this fantasy future life that we might have someday.
[00:11:39] But in this book, it's, it's the, like I said, the other side of the coin, you introduced us to introduce us to the seven emotional clutter magnets, the things that we are Attracting or attracted to that seemingly feel out of our control. So, um, you can do a better job telling my clutter magnets. So please do that before we dive into them.
[00:12:02] The way I see it
[00:12:03] Tracy: is that we have these little, almost little holes inside of ourselves, these little pieces of ourselves missing. And somehow we think, oh, if I, if I put this thing in there, if I put this, if I buy this spiralizer, I buy this. Dyson hairdryer, it'll fill this hole. So we're trying to kind of magnetize the stuff to make us complete.
[00:12:25] And really what's going to fill all of that is the stuff we all know, human connection, right? Like connect, like we need to look at what we're missing. Are we missing connection? Are we missing self confidence? Do not get me started on the term anti aging do not Well,
[00:12:47] Zandra: I might have to actually
[00:12:49] Tracy: You know, are you buying things for free time?
[00:12:52] Are you buying or giving gifts to get love? Are you looking for self respect? Are you trying to find your real purpose if I take one more online course or if I buy this book? What's my purpose? Or, you know, lasting wisdom. I'm, I'm going to spend all this money to get smarter. And yes, we are always on a path to self improvement and that is life, right?
[00:13:15] I want everyone growing and stretching, but I want, if those things feel like they're missing to you. Are you trying to fill them with the
[00:13:25] Zandra: stuff? Yes. And I, like you said, you know, you said, these are things we all know. We all need true connection. We all need to feel respected and self confident, all that.
[00:13:37] So, yes, I think that. If you're thinking about reading this book, it's, it's, you have to be prepared to do a little bit of soul work. Yes. You know, you have to be ready, like, I'm going to face some things. But, what I also liked about it is that there were things in there, these magnetizers, as you, as you refer to them.
[00:14:01] That I wasn't even aware I was doing. I wasn't even aware I was giving magnetic power to certain things. So that's another reason to read the book. I mean, it's going to take you through the soul work that you're going to have to do if you want to get really serious about confronting your stuff. But it's also going to open your eyes to the things that you really might not even have thought about before.
[00:14:25] So, um.
[00:14:27] Tracy: And, and that's such a great point. And the thing that I want people to know too is my whole life's work, you know, is to help people understand that they have power and control over their stuff, right? That we can change our relationship. Our stuff comes to us with no meaning that crystal you got that pencil that locket from your mother.
[00:14:49] And we. Pile all the meaning on it so we can take the meaning away. We can dial the meaning back. I want people to go into this book knowing, yes, you're going to have to confront some stuff. You're going to have to get real honest, but it's also really empowering. It's really like, I want you to go, Oh, right.
[00:15:08] I can have the kind of house that I want. Take the word when you, when you're talking about making a purchase, take the word need out of the sentence. I need a new pair of jeans. Okay. Do you? Do you really? How many pairs of jeans do you have? Now, you can want a new pair of jeans, wide legged, high waisted are coming back in.
[00:15:28] I'm like looking at, you know, I'm like, wow, people are looking cute in those. You may want it and that's okay. But don't. Don't conflate need and want, because we need very little. We really need very little. Right. Absolutely. So I think as soon as we get real with that need versus want, all of a sudden you're like, Oh, this is a want, you know, is there something else going on in me right now that I I'm pulling that one in?
[00:15:55] Am I actually just feeling lonely? Do I need to really, actually, should I? Call a friend and take a walk and have a good conversation. You know, I think when you start to go, all right, I'm feeling something not a hundred percent sure what it is. I'm going to buy to find it. Right. That's not, let me do some.
[00:16:15] Let me do some work on the icky feelings. Yes.
[00:16:18] Zandra: Putting on the brakes. But that's really important that you said that, that it's, you know, I don't mean to scare people off. Oh, this is gonna be some really tough soul work here, . I, I mean, it might be, but, but the point, it's, let's remember the point here, which is to empower you, right?
[00:16:31] Yes. So the, the ultimate feeling you're going to have is a feeling of, oh, I actually do have control of parts of my life that I thought. I didn't have control over. Let's talk about a couple of these, um, magnets, as you refer to them, these clutter magnets in particular. Let's start with the true connection one, which is, you know, that's pretty deep stuff. I mean, in the chapter, you know, you describe how a lot of the elderly, for example, they, they, they go out and they go shopping because it is the only time they have any human connection in their
[00:17:05] Tracy: day.
[00:17:06] You know, I remember years ago, my grandmother had a. friend who lived out in the country, 25 minutes outside of town. And they were both widows. And so they would call each other every night to say goodnight, make sure everybody was okay. And it came to find out that this, my grandma went out to her house one day and the house was.
[00:17:24] Full of very, very cheap, um, knockoff Oriental rugs and like full, like all rolled up. And it turned out that some salesmen had been calling her every night and would talk to her for. you know, half an hour, 45 minutes and sell her these rugs for 10, 000. And that was the first time that I really became aware of it.
[00:17:51] But, oh, she's out there, lonely out in the country, not driving like she used to, and not in community. And then all of a sudden this person calls up. So, you know, you can understand it. Totally, totally. And if you, We're isolated during the pandemic. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, I can at least go shopping in a mask and I can chat with that sales person.
[00:18:15] You know, look, I, that, that is a job. I, we all need to buy things. People need to sell things. I get it. But at the end of the day, most salespeople aren't your friend. They're friendly, right? Totally friendly. Great. But that is not a true connection. So much science has been done on how longevity relates to having relationships.
[00:18:41] Okay, right. That's like one of the driving factors of longevity is, is um, exercise. Yeah. Consistent exercise, brain exercises, playing cards, crossword puzzle. But the biggest factor in longevity is focus. Long term
[00:18:54] Zandra: friendships. Wow. Amazing. The power that it has.
[00:18:58] Tracy: Amazing. So if you're looking to fill that and you're sort of going outside of yourself and you're like, Oh, well, I'm going to the store every day where I'm chatting with my favorite barista and I ended up buying three more things than I wanted.
[00:19:10] I, I think. There's this whole thing I didn't know about, about people collecting these plastic Starbucks cups and every couple weeks they come out with a new color and everyone has to have every color of
[00:19:27] Zandra: plastic cups. Brilliant marketing.
[00:19:30] Tracy: Brilliant marketing. And, and there was a part of me where I, I saw this interaction between this young woman and the barista and she clearly goes in there and the barista's like, Oh, we have the new color.
[00:19:40] And they had this whole conversation. And I had this part where I was like, Oh, you two should just go out, like take a walk together. Cause you, they were chatting and laughing. I was like, this is a blooming friendship. You don't need the plastic cup.
[00:19:52] Zandra: That's right. That's right. Exactly. Exactly.
[00:19:55] Tracy: So I think we get, you know, we, I just want people to.
[00:19:59] Kind of go like, what am I trying to fill? What am I trying to magnetize towards myself with this stuff? And is there another way that I can get
[00:20:07] Zandra: it? Yes, absolutely.
Understanding the Concept of Free Time
[00:20:09] Zandra: You've already mentioned free time as one of the things we crave and we're using some stuff to replace. actual free time, but tell us what's going on there.
[00:20:21] There's some, there's some, you know, like you said, gadgets that, that supposedly free up our time, technology, that's technology's big promise. Does anyone feel like they have more free time because of technology? Um, but there's, yeah, but there's this other part of the free time wish, uh, the free time desire, that need that we crave as humans.
[00:20:44] Um, tell us about your friend Maggie and her mixtapes.
[00:20:48] Tracy: Oh, yeah, that's such a great one. So that this is a friend and a client and we, she had, uh, had been graduated college lawyer, all the fancy places, had a big job, got married, had kids, made the decision with her family to raise her kids. And, you know, as, as mothers who that is, A job beyond all jobs, you know, but she was all of a sudden, she's like, I'm just the cook and the bottle washer and the driver and I used to be this and it was sort of confronting and it was coming up as we were organizing her office, her home office.
[00:21:25] Okay. And one of the things that we found were these boxes and boxes and boxes of mixtapes she'd made in college. And I was like, Oh my God, these were so fun. And we remembered like dancing in our dorm rooms to that, you know, they were great. And I was like, okay, this is fantastic. Like, let's do, you know, and she's like, I'm like, but you can't play them anymore.
[00:21:46] And she's like, we're not getting rid of these. And I was like, well, do you have a cassette player? She's like, no, but I, I. No, we can't get rid of these. Like I, I put so much time into them. I put so much time and she was so wrapped around the axles about the time investment that she put into it. And it was like, I put all this time in, I can't just let this go because that means that time meant nothing.
[00:22:10] Yes. And in some ways. I think it was representative of, I'd gone to college, I'd gone to law school, now I'm raising my kids. Does that mean that meant nothing?
[00:22:20] Zandra: Right. Oh my gosh. Yes. And you can see that she's having, you know, she's questioning her identity, her value, her worth. All,
[00:22:29] Tracy: all the things that we all do, especially women, especially mothers.
[00:22:33] Yeah. And so what I said to her, you know, so what we got down to was, I was like, look, This, making these tapes, it was a, it was part of your personal development. It was part of you creating friendships. We all listened to them. We all love them. They, it was not a waste of time by letting go of them. It was not a waste of time.
[00:22:52] So how can you, you know, kind of rework this? How can you understand like this? You did this. This was the technology. You had a great time doing it. It created a great memory. You know, maybe there's a hole in your life that you need filling. Um, what we got down to the kids were older now. They didn't need her quite as much.
[00:23:15] They weren't, one of them was driving. She was like, Oh, right. She started volunteering. She took her legal skills, started volunteering, just was like whole new world, like happier, happier with her kids. And then she called me up and she's like, Oh, one of the young interns showed me how to work Spotify. So she just, she actually, because what the, the deal I did make with her, we got rid of the tapes.
[00:23:38] But she kept the, the little insert with what songs were on it. So I was like, okay, you can keep those. So she recreated all those tapes as playlists on Spotify. And much to her, you know, coworkers chagrin, she was blasting the eighties.
[00:23:53] Zandra: I love it. But that, that is such a great story because I think when we, we talk about free time, oh, I wish I had more free time.
[00:24:00] We are almost always referring to wanting to find gadgets that will help us get that. You are also talking about this idea of the investment of time, which we know is valuable into something and then having it feel meaningless afterwards. I'm sorry. I don't mean to repeat everything you've just said, but to me, it's it's almost worth repeating because I feel like the same is true.
[00:24:25] We talk about sunk costs. Right. In the poor and in furniture, you don't want to get rid of something because you spent a thousand dollars on that couch, even though it's the most uncomfortable couch in the world. And it's this, you feel like it's the sunk cost and it's going to be worth nothing to me.
[00:24:39] It's like throwing money away. If I get rid of it, instead of thinking about how much it's costing you to actually keep it.
[00:24:45] Tracy: Right. Right. And that you, that's such a great, because that, first of all. That sunk cost in the first book, Clutter Block, that's Clutter Block number seven, the stuff I keep paying for.
[00:24:56] Sometimes we just make mistakes.
[00:24:59] Zandra: Totally. Oh my
[00:25:00] Tracy: gosh. We bought a new couch. I bought it on an impulse. I don't like it. Yeah. It's not comfortable. I, it's just not comfortable. And so we keep, you know? Right. And we're sort of going back, well, we just bought this only a year ago. No. And it's like, I was like, I know, but we don't sit on, what happens is we actually don't sit on it.
[00:25:17] I'm like, you avoid it. We, yeah. We have this thing in the middle of our living room, but you're walking around. Yeah. That we don't like. I'm like, okay, so it doesn't matter what I spent on it because we're not using it. Right, right. What I'm encouraging people with this book make space for happiness. To be thoughtful, to be mindful, to invest in
[00:25:38] Zandra: yourself.
[00:25:39] Yes. Yes.
The Importance of Style and Confronting Clutter
[00:25:41] Zandra: I'm going to wrap up by asking you, why does style matter? Even though I feel like we're, we're really getting it. I mean, this is it, right? You just said it. It's it's make space for happiness, but how would you like to expand on that question?
[00:25:57] Tracy: Style matters. I love this question. Um, I just love it because I believe that your tool, your home is a tool.
[00:26:08] It rests you, it replenishes you, it restores you, it builds you up and so In that, the style of your home needs to lift you up, right, that your style choices need to come from, um, how they support you, not what it looks like for somebody else. I have been in those homes that they have hired the best of the best of the best and they've created it.
[00:26:38] I have heard the conversations of like, I want to get an architectural digest. I have organized those homes. Those people are not any happier and sometimes a little less. So style matters. Because I want a home that's your style, stylish to you, and supports you. And I think that good style, good design, quality pieces do that.
[00:27:07] Zandra: 100%. And final question. How does clutter Keep us from doing that.
Conclusion: The Power of Decluttering
[00:27:19] Tracy: It's, it's, uh, it's a waste of time. It's, it's your, if your house is full of clutter, if it's full of things that you don't need, want or use, you're using all this energy and all this time to move things and put things and get them out of the way that it, it, it really Like, it sounds so woo woo, but it clogs up your true
[00:27:40] Zandra: essence, Tracy, thank you so much.
[00:27:43] We really, for those of you listening, we barely scratched the surface of what her book touches on. Well, not just touches on, dives deep into the seven clutter magnets. Um, I'm saying that wrong. What, what, what, no
[00:27:58] Tracy: seven emotional clutter magnets
[00:27:59] Zandra: that, that. I just think it's eye opening. I think you're going to really, I think it's going to help you understand your own reasons for buying stuff.
[00:28:13] And yes, you're going to have to do some confrontation with yourself, but like we've been saying, it is, it's really empowering and energizing. And that's certainly how I felt when I finished the book. So Tracy, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it.
[00:28:29] Tracy: Thank you, Zandra. This was an amazing conversation.
[00:28:32] Amazing.