Clutter Free, Lighter Weight, and Better Sleep?

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25 milligrams of CBD and 25 milligrams CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not clutter-free. I sit at my desk, AKA the dining room table, and I can count 5 piles of unique content, just reduced from 6 because I have one sitting beside me on the chair ready to toss. I'm not proud of this. I know the direct correlation between inability to focus and the mess I see., but it happens in some kind of effort to keep it top of mind so that I get to it next. Thanks for not asking how well that's going. Apparently 55% of us are stressed by the clutter in our homes, assuming now that this is also work for many of us, meaning it's the office as well as the dining room table, right? And yet over 94% of us from a survey from Organize My House, the business, say that a clutter-free home is important to us. Clutter also contributes to cortisol, which in turn contributes to weight gain or weight loss resistance. A 2015 study, which I'll include in the show notes, showed 77% of individuals with cluttered homes were also overweight. Other studies have shown sleeping in a messy room isn't as restful. And so it's not just a way of being. Cleaning up your environment may actually improve your physical health. So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns, but mostly we hope to inspire you. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and the vitality that you want, need, and deserve in the second and better half. I can't wait to introduce you to my guest, and this is a little off the beaten path. Who We've had somebody come in and talk about clutter and organizing before. And of course it's not a, a hot topic. We're usually talking about muscle, how to keep it, new studies about muscle and muscle loss and menopause and aging, loss of strength, longevity. You get the drill. But this is actually an indirectly related topic, as you can hear from the introduction I just gave you. And my guest at first honestly came to me and I thought, I need it to be a little bit more specific to why my guests listen. And I think right away you will get this and you will hear that she's one of us. She can actually belong to the club and she totally understands where we're all coming from and what we all juggle. So without further ado, my guest is Tracy McCubbin. She's a decluttering expert, the author of Making Space Clutter-Free and her latest book, Make Space for Happiness. I think we gotta love that title. Tracy looks at the root cause of our clutter to find the real cause and ways to get real solutions. As the CEO of Declutterfly, she has helped thousands of clients clear the clutter in their lives to create space for the positive life changes they want. So let's begin. I think you're gonna love this. And if you happen to be a health and fitness professional, something special for you is Tracy's coming on to do a short for fitness pros only, and that'll be at She Means Fitness Business out tomorrow, the day after this podcast releases live. Tracy McCubbin, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you, Debra. I'm very excited to be here.

So first things first, I always like to know whatever got you into doing this. I mean, were you a kid cleaning closets and loved to do organization, or were you the opposite and needed to clean your closet?

What got you here? Oh, that's such a fantastic question. So I had spent many years working as a personal assistant, and I loved it. I loved solving problems. I loved that it was different every day. And after about 10 years of doing that, doing that, I would sort of get basically loaned out by the people that I worked for. They'd be like, oh, my, you know, my assistant's amazing and she's got some extra time. And so I started helping people, like their business would have failed and they were, you know, their office was full of paperwork, or they made a big change in their eating habits and they wanted to clean out their pantry and, you know, fill it with a different kind of food. And so I started doing these jobs and my phone, I joke, my little flip phone started ringing and people started calling and I just loved I didn't even know that professional organizing was a business. And then I did it for a while and it took me a minute. And this is sort of life teaching you lessons. I grew up the child of a hoarder. So my father is an extreme hoarder. He's still dealing with hoarding disorder. And I spent my whole life watching him struggle and watching him struggle with his relationship with his stuff. And it took me a minute to realize that. What I had gone through in that experience enabled me to help clients, that I could sort of see through the judgment and the shame and really just get clear about wanting them to make— help them make their lives be better. So I sort of say that my great psychic wound became my greatest gift.

Wow, very powerful. That is awesome. Okay, so, and we are of course all about decreasing cortisol levels. If there's one topic I talk about day in and day out as it's related to menopause belly fat and that lack of sleep and, and muscle loss, you know, it is cortisol. And so this is really how it's so very connected. Let's talk a little bit about the correlation between clutter and cortisol levels.

Yeah, it's amazing. You know, when I first I started doing my work instinctually. Like, I just would see the results. I would come in and declutter somebody's house and I'd see them get a little brighter, you know, be a little happier, a little more up. And then I started to see clients kind of losing some weight and sort of getting out and exercising. And so I dove into the science of it and it is fascinating. But clutter increases your cortisol, especially in women. Being in a cluttered environment, it just absolutely jacks it. And I think people don't realize that, you know, and I think there's a lot of correlations to it. And I think one of the things is that, you know, I joke, but it's true that every piece of clutter in your house is a decision you have to make. And you have to decide what to do with it. And you have to decide where it's going to live. And do you want it? And should you have spent the money? And so in that decision-making process, you're increasing your decision fatigue, you're stressing yourself out, you know, you're giving yourself all these choices and it's just jacking your cortisol. I mean, one of the first things I ask a client when I work with them, I'm like, how are you sleeping? And they're like, oh, you know, I have insomnia or I'm not sleeping that well. And we will go in their bedroom and I will see like boxes of old taxes lined up along the bedroom wall and, you know, stuff on the nightstand and the closet vomiting out clothes. And I'm like, well, Why don't we start here? Because this is not an environment to sleep in. If you're staring at, you know, 17 unread books and boxes of old paperwork in your bedroom, you're not going to get a good night's sleep. So the amount of stuff that you have, it's more decisions you have to make and more things you have to deal with it, and it stresses you out.

So good. So good. Okay, so I want to I wanna point like back and forth. You know, this is something we say about exercise, which is scientifically true. Exercise influences hormones and hormones influence exercise. So can we say the same about your clutter influences cortisol? We just established that. What about the opposite? Does your, your stress level impact or, or clutter? Are we more likely to be literally a hot mess if we're under stress?

Definitely. I think that, you know, when people's lives get out of control, they sort of give up, right? I go in and I work with so many people after they have had a health battle, or they've been dealing with their mental health. And, you know, the first thing is they're like, I need to get control of my home, of my space. So I think Absolutely, that, you know, I always say like I can tell the state of a woman by the inside of her purse. You know, if it's full of old receipts and unwrapped gum and half a protein bar and, you know, dried-up lipstick, things are probably not going very well. So I think absolutely when we're stressed, it's, it's one of those things. And I think this is a correlation to eating. You know, when we're stressed out, we sort of lean into eating food that doesn't make us feel better. Because we're, you know, we're like, oh, well, just maybe these cookies will make me feel better. And we know a box of cookies does not make us feel better. It's sort of the same thing. Like, when you're stressed, if you can get organized or stay organized, stay decluttered, it's going to help you. But sometimes it's the hardest thing to do.

Okay, so we'll talk about this because, of course, in direct correlation to fitness or being active, staying active, is the kitchen and someone's eating habits. And I know this is what it is. I'm telling tales on myself, maybe I'm telling tales on my niece. So I want to know if you're listening, you know who you are. She was here with a friend and it was the first time they'd been in this home. And so I was giving them the royal tour and I was like, and look at this kitchen and look at this pantry, it's cool. She walked in and she was like, oh, I could do so much with this. And like, her fingers came up and it's just like, I could tell she wanted to reorganize me. It almost bothered her. I was like, I didn't think it was all that bad. Wait a minute, you know, talk to me about a cluttered kitchen and eating habits.

Oh, this, you know, I get, I get brought in a lot when people are making big changes and want to especially change their eating habits. Look, if you walk into a kitchen and it's cluttered and there's like 17 small appliances on the countertops and the sink is full of dishes and there's, you know, stuff everywhere, you're not going to want to cook in it. You're going to turn around and you're going to go through the drive-through or you're going to order in. You know, it doesn't— if you think about this, Debra, your, your whole home, but your kitchen is a tool. Right? It's a space where you cook healthy food, delicious food for you, for your family, and you serve out of it. But if it's a hot mess, if it's completely cluttered and disorganized, it doesn't make you want to cook. You know, one of the things, and it's such an interesting correlation that I draw for clients that they don't ever think about this, but they'll call me and they'll say, you know, I want to organize my closet and I can't get out of it in the morning. And I, I open it and I cry and nothing fits me and I can't find anything that I want. And so we sort of talk through their morning routine. I'm like, look, if you're starting the morning out and your closet is disorganized and you can't, you know, stuffed with clothes you don't wear anymore, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage because you're going to run late, right? You're not going to be able to get dressed and get out the door in a calm start your day fashion. You're going to run late. And if you're running late, chances are you're not going to go into the kitchen and cook yourself a nice breakfast. Chances are you're going to do the mobile drive-through at Starbucks. And then when you're there, like, oh, that lemon bread looks delicious, and then you're consuming all this sugar to start your day. So if you can start your day decluttered— your closet, your kitchen— it's so much easier to do those habits that we know are better for us and make us feel better.

So good. Say a little bit more about this. So you say— you said a couple of times, you know, when I go in. So are you working one-on-one with clients, and how broad is your reach?

I am. I still, I still see clients. We are based in Los Angeles, and right now I have 10 organizers that work for me here. So we are in there in the trenches. We provide the hands-on service. So we will come in. You know, one of the things people hit up against is they— is double. It's one is the decision-making process. Like sometimes they just need to say the things out loud, right? Like, do I need this? Do I not need this? And then some is the physical help, you know, especially a lot of my older clients. They don't have the stamina that they used to, or, you know, it's a very physical job decluttering. So we do go in and we do help. I— you'll love this— I about a year ago started working with a trainer. I'm in menopause and my body was changing, and kind of how I was working out wasn't— it just wasn't working for me anymore. And I was like, you know what, I sort of want a different point of view. And I started working with a trainer and And I love it. And I love it for a couple reasons. One, I just love her. I love what's happened to my body. But there's also this accountability factor where I pay her, I show up, I'm like, well, I'm paying good money, so let's do this. And that's a bit about working with a professional organizer, that you make the date, you know that this person's going to show up, they're going to help you get over the finish line. You know, when I'm working out by myself, I'm like, ah, just lift the 3-pounders. You know, when I'm with her, she's like, get a 10, get a 12. You know, so the encouragement and the accountability can really help the decluttering process.

Oh, I love that. That was so good. Okay, so how, how deep cleaning do you go? Do you do like organizing the inbox?

I do.

You know, uh, can I just send you all 10,000 of those?

I will say it's interesting, you know, I'm, I guess I'm Gen X, right? I'm 58, so I'm Gen X. Um, Digital organizing is not my biggest strong suit. The young women who work for me in their 30s, they're like, "Oh no, here's what we do, and you make folders and you move it all around." And you know, they're sort of digital natives, so I always have to catch up, but I'm a big fan. I make folders, I move all those emails that I think I might need into a folder. It's organized by client or project, and you know, I just try and get as much out of my inbox. The other thing, Debra, and if you don't have this, and this is such a great tip somebody gave me years ago, I have a separate dummy email that I use for online shopping. So all those promotions and all those things and all that, that's just— it's just over there. And I go into it when I order something, and the rest of the time I just don't look at it. And I don't use it for any correspondence or any business. And it's just when you have to put an email in for something.

Very cool. Very cool. I would imagine There's— I'm sorry, do you have something else?

Well, I just wanted to jump back if this is okay, because I think this is super relevant. But, um, they— when we're going back to talking about a cluttered kitchen, there was a study done. I believe it came out of Yale. I have to double-check. Um, but they put people in a cluttered kitchen and they offered them a snack, and they offered them the choice of a cookie or a carrot. And the people in the cluttered cluttered kitchen mostly took the cookie. And then they did the same experiment and they put people in an uncluttered kitchen and they offered them a carrot and a cookie. And the people in the uncluttered kitchen mostly took a carrot.

Hmm.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. Yeah. Love that. And I would, I would say there's probably a lot of emotion that comes up around clutter. I mean, isn't it? Somewhat emotional people not wanting to— they want to rid themselves of the clutter, they want to feel better, and yet getting rid of those things is also very hard. How do you handle that?

That is my superpower. I have that ability. It's almost all emotional. You know, we— things come into our lives, stuff, things, items, meaningless. They're just something that showed up or a gift or, you know, came through Amazon. But we attach all this meaning to them. Well, you know, it was my great-grandmother's and I have to keep it, or my friend Sally gave it to me as a gift, or I spent a lot of money on it. You know, we make these stories up around it. And then because we tell this story about it, it gets a hold on us, right? We can't let go of it even though we don't want, need, or use it. You know, I think I hear a lot of people use this languaging and I know people use this around exercise, right? Where they're like, well, I'm just not an athletic person, or I'm just, you know, It's like, well, I just like my stuff. You know, they kind of forget that they can rewrite their story. You know, you don't have to be athletic to go take a walk, right? That's one of the greatest things you can do for your body. Go take a walk, get the vitamin D, get out, you know, take— get your steps. And it's the same thing if you used to be a cluttered person and being cluttered isn't working for you anymore. You have the ability to change it. You have the ability to rewrite this story. You have an ability to like make the adjustment of the hold your stuff has on you. It's, to me, it's so exciting. Like you can change the trajectory of your home. You have the power. It's just a mind switch. And I love, I love when those moments happen with people, when they realize, you know, that the hold that their stuff has on them, that they can flip that script.

So good. So, so good. Do you have a couple stories that you can share, like an outcome or a transformation that maybe wasn't even expected from the work that you've done?

Oh, I, you know, I had— wow, yeah, I had a client whose house was very cluttered. Her husband had passed away. She was you know, in her 40s, not, you know, not sort of in her 80s, and was, was like, I just got to do this. The house was super cluttered. It was full of a lot of his stuff. She just was, you know, just like in it and living in her grief. And she— we came in and we were there for 2 weeks and we just did every nook and cranny and every, you know, got the house looking exactly like she wanted it and working it, you know, working for her and like kind of helping her work through her grief. And she texted me about a month after that, and she goes, you won't believe this. She said, I got a job offer. I got my dream job offer in South Carolina. And if I had gotten this 2 months ago, I would have like said, I can't do this. I can't take this job. Like, how am I gonna do this? She's like, but because we cleared all this stuff out, I see the path to this happening. Wow. Like, I can I can pack, I can move to South Carolina. And she moved and she started her amazing job and she met someone else. And, you know, it was just this like switch that she didn't see the correlation. And we, you know, I get those calls all the time. People who are like— one of my favorite, I had a client who had a very, very cluttered apartment, and to the point that she really wasn't even letting people in. She was like, she called me because she was like, you know, my I need some plumbing work done and I can't— I'm embarrassed to have a plumber come in. Can we do this so I can work through my house? So we worked, we got— she did great. We got rid of so much stuff. She just felt so fantastic. And I got a text from her after we did the work and she said, I just have to tell you, a friend of mine texted me and they said, oh, we're in the neighborhood, you know, we'd love to see you. Do you want to come out and meet for a cup of coffee? And she said, no, why don't you come over to my house? She said, I haven't had a friend in my apartment in 15 years.

Oh my gosh.

And she said, and my friend was like, I didn't even know this about— like, she was a painter. She's like, I didn't even know this about you. I never had seen this. I've never been in your home. You know, that she had been limiting her social interaction because of the clutter. And all of a sudden, she was free to have people over to her house to share her space. And those are the stories that make me so happy, you know, that people are isolating themselves because of clutter. You know, I think sometimes I see this with people who are dealing with excess weight, you know, that sometimes that excess weight becomes— I don't know, it's almost like, like a, I don't know, like a way that they keep people away, you know, that they put this block— protects them. Totally. And I see it with clutter in the same way. If you have a house full of clutter and you don't want to have friends over, you're keeping people at arm's length. And so a lot of times for my clients, the sort of decluttering also goes with the decluttering of their diet and like wanting to make changes. They start to feel better and they're like, I, you know, I took a big walk today and I also wasn't dealing with my stuff all the time so I could join a pickleball league. You know, it's so Fantastic to see what they get when they declutter.

That's amazing. So I'm really curious what— and maybe this is anecdotal, um, if there's nothing else, but that's probably a lot— what happened to us collectively during the pandemic? Did we get better or did we get worse?

No, we got so much worse. We got so much worse. I mean, I was driving around, I saw those towers of packages on people's doorsteps. We got just— actually, I wrote my whole second book, Make Space for Happiness, about this. We just started shopping like nobody's business. We were isolated. We were out of control in the same way that they saw, like, you know, drinking go up and drug use go up and overeating go up. It's the same thing with shopping. We got so much worse. A client called me after when we started to be able to go out again, and she was like, okay, you have to come over because remember all that stuff we decluttered? And I was like, yes. And she's like, I bought it all again and double. And I was like, okay, because everyone was just scared and everyone didn't know what was going on. And shopping is so easy. So it is not anecdotal, it is proven. And, you know, I think the other thing that people have to keep in mind is that, you know, so much information is coming at us, and so much information is coming at us on social media, and there are so many people that can just say they're an expert without having to prove that they're an expert. Yes, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? People make these— I don't even have to tell you. Enough said, right? Yeah, enough said. So we've lost our media literacy, right? We have this sort of, you know, our— what are they called— parasocial best friends, right? We have these people that we see online and, you know, we, we just, we just take them for their word. And they come when they're telling us to buy a product and buy this thing and this thing will fix us. And, you know, meanwhile it's Photoshopped and it's, you know, the age spots removers and, you know, all of that stuff. So we've lost our ability to to just have media literacy. I was watching some guy the other day and he was talking about bananas and how they were the worst possible thing you could eat. And he literally was like, he just said, well, you know, bananas have 500 calories. And I was like, well, I mean, really? 30 of them? Yes. And he didn't back it up with anything and he just held up a banana and he just And he had like 50,000 followers. And I was like, wait, that— wait, what is happening? So, you know, I think we've just— I think the pandemic, we lost our social connection, which we cannot— you know, they have shown in studies that one of the biggest predictors of longevity is your social interaction. You know, isolation is the toughest thing, and especially on elderly people. And so when you have a house that's cluttered and you don't want to have people in it, they use you know, you get isolated. We just worked with a couple, lovely, like just the cutest you'd ever seen in your life. They were in their 80s, and she— her daughter actually called for her, and it was bad. She had been shopping like nobody's business. I mean, she had two whole rooms that were just full of boxes. And we started talking, I was like, well, you know, tell me a little bit what the pandemic was like for you. And she said, oh, Well, it was awful. She said, first of all, right before the lockdown, I retired from my job of 35 years, which was an incredibly social job. I went to the office every day. We had a lot of events after work. She's like, so I did that. Then my church moved to online, so I wasn't going to church anymore. And I stopped playing bridge. And she was like, and I just started shopping. It was like playing a slot machine. And so the first thing I was like, okay, Well, great that we realize that. And I said, so the first thing I said, are you feeling comfortable to go back to church in person? And she's like, I am. I'm gonna wear a mask, but I'm feeling comfortable. And I was like, great. And I said, and what about bridge? And you'll love this, her husband like couldn't have run into the room faster. And he's like, there's a bridge game at 4 o'clock tomorrow. I made you a reservation. I'll drive you. And she went back to playing bridge with her bridge group. And she was back in church and she was connecting with people and like, she was like, oh no, the shopping's stopping. I just don't need it. So, you know, that correlation between when we're feeling lonely, when we're feeling bad about ourselves, in that same way that we go for that dopamine hit of like, yep, well, that cookie will make me feel better for 17 seconds. Shopping is the same thing. Yeah, make you feel better. And then it'll make you feel worse.

So true. Dr. John Gray has been a guest a couple of times, and that was something that he mentioned too. And actually, he didn't mention it in a bad way. It was just, uh, you know, these are things that promote dopamine. But clearly, if you're not getting it one place, you're gonna look for another alternative, whatever that might be.

Absolutely. You know, one of the things I talk about a lot in those moments where you find yourself wanting to shop, you know, especially late at night and you're on— I mean, I will just say this for anybody who's listening. I, I've been doing it for 2 weeks now. I do not sleep with my phone in my room anymore. I got a good old-fashioned alarm clock. It stays in the kitchen. I have the ringer on in case there's an emergency. You know, my husband has He still sleeps with his phone, but I cannot tell you how much better I'm sleeping. I'm not looking at Instagram. I'm not comparing myself to other people. I'm not shopping. I'm reading a book. I'm doing a little meditation, and I am— it is, Debra, it is unbelievable the difference.

Yeah, it is.

So, you know, I think when we really realize that we, you know, we're dope, we want the dopamine, of course. But when we look for it in the food or the cocktail or the shopping— so I always kind of tell people, you know, before you're about to make a big purchase or a purchase you're not sure about, maybe just check in. Like, what are you actually feeling? You know, could you call up a friend and say, I'm having a bad day, do you want to take a walk? You know, is there something else you can do? And then wait a day or two, and maybe you still want the thing. But buying in that immediate knee-jerk, I gotta get that dopamine hit. Those are the purchases that we regret.

So good. This is so, so rich. I want to make sure that everybody knows where to get these. I'm probably pretty sure I know the answer, but your two books, Making Space Clutter-Free and the latest, Make Space for Happiness, where can listeners get their hands on those? Absolutely.

So I always like to start with They are available in almost every library in the United States. I am a big fan of the public library.

No more books.

I get it. I also just love California is doing this thing right now. If you have a library card, you get a free entrance to all California state parks. I mean, it's unbelievable. So they're available at all public libraries. If you have an Audible account, they're free right now on Audible. Otherwise, Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes Noble, they're everywhere.

So good. And where can listeners follow you for more fantastic advice?

Absolutely. So TikTok and Instagram. Instagram's my biggest platform. I'm @tracy_mccubbin, M-C-C-U-B-B-I-N. I do challenges. I do these 5-minute decluttering challenges which people love, love, love, love. And then my website TracyMcCubbin.com. I have a quiz on there so you can figure out what your clutter block is, what's blocking you from letting go of your clutter. I have a fantastic newsletter that I don't clutter up your inbox. I only send it every 2 weeks. But I'm very, you know, Instagram is the, is turning out to kind of be the bigger platform. I like it over there and I have just a great group of followers. They're really supportive and we just, we have a good time.

I love it. Well, I was just going to comment. So you said you weren't all that, you know, tech savvy, or you hand those things off, but you're on TikTok.

I'm pretty impressed. Yes, I do.

So you can dance and point?

Exactly.

Okay.

Exactly. Yes, exactly. I have a 23-year-old niece and I have a 24-year-old assistant, so they, they help me. They help me too. I haven't quite gotten to the dancing part yet. I, I sort of feel like I'm I have my relationship with dancing is I feel a bit like Elaine on Seinfeld. I love to dance and I think I'm fantastic, and then I see a video and I'm like, hmm, maybe I shouldn't take it out in public. But I don't know, I'm 58, I don't really care what people think anymore. I'm gonna dance my shoes off.

One of the, one of the best things to celebrate. Okay, listeners, now it's up to you. So if there was a question that I should have asked that I left out, you can leave that for me at flipping50.com/clutterfree. And of course, we'll include the links to connect with Tracy on social and on our website as well. If you've forgotten the book, I will include the book titles and links to those where books are sold if you're not using your library card. So what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today.