How to decide what can & can’t be dropped

Music (00:00:01) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration and possibility meet. When this show airs. It’s either going to be in the busiest times for you, or possibly in the emptiest of space, as the world tends to shut down during the Christmas holidays. And this show is scheduled to drop on December 22nd, 2023. And maybe you’re listening to the show after the holidays. And there’s that big empty space. The other holiday parties are done. Maybe you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, you’re done with the New Year’s. And then there’s this void because all the gatherings of people, and then there’s that emptiness afterwards. And it can be that bit of white space, which again, feels very vulnerable to have that white space, even though so often we want that white space.

Koren (00:01:17) – But it can also be a lonely space. So at that time, if you’re listening to this between, you know, New Year’s, Christmas and New Year’s, or at some point in the turn of the new year, there’s going to be a lot of messaging about 2024. What can you do to live better, do more ra ra right. And as high achievers as we are, we’re like, yes, I can do more. We have this unrealized expectations of, I’m just going to do more. I’m going to keep adding more and more to my list. And we forget that when we add we also need to figure out what can we take away. It makes me think about Peter Walsh, who’s an organizer and who’s been on the show a bunch in the early years of the show, and he’s been on Oprah and had his own show on Oprah. But he’s a great clutter expert, and he gave me this great concept that I’m going to share with you that can be an example of what can be dropped.

Koren (00:02:12) – So 30 years ago, I remember I wanted to like, get our house organized and my husband was taking off some time for a vacation. And how I chose to spend that vacation was to work really hard because that’s what I knew how to do. And we were going to declutter our house. Right? We’re going to do kind of like when I would later see Peter Walsh do on TV, you know, in the early 2000, but we’re going to declutter our house and we would just go at it because, like, I was just full. We’d go 12 hour days and work really hard. And by like day two and a half, we’d be arguing, bickering, exhausted and eventually push everything back in and get rid of some stuff but not ever feel really complete. Well, Peter Walsh taught me this a long time ago on this show of instead of that whole like, all or nothing approach, when you have ten minutes and you can look in their space and say, what do I want from this space? And what can you do in ten minutes? Maybe it is you can clean out a drawer.

Koren (00:03:11) – And to celebrate that last night, I had a whole bunch of boxes, right, for all the holidays. And they were sitting in our entryway and I was pretty exhausted. I had some big travel, and I thought, you know what? What if I just unpacked them and took a look at them? And I did, and then I decided to wrap them there. All done. The presents that I currently have are under the tree. This is the earliest I’ve ever done that right. The boxes were taken care of. It took an hour and it was beautiful. Much better than when I used to wrap presents on Christmas Eve, which I hated. So one of the concepts here is that I learned from Peter Walsh is what can you do in a small amount of time? And then the other concept that he taught me is, if you’re going to bring in something new to your home, what are you going to remove? And as I talk about 2024, we have this idea of, oh, I need to do more.

Koren (00:04:12) – I need to work harder. I need to be better. Right. But before we go into that, what can be dropped, what can be removed, and how can it be in a small step like I shared with you, whether it’s a draw or taking out, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes and cleaning out a closet and do it simply instead of having to be the whole house. So today’s show, I’m going to be asking you what can be dropped and even what can be dropped completely. So here’s the thing. When we’re talking about dropped completely, it’s about something that’s no longer relevant. But you continue to do it because you’ve always done it. You know, right now I’m in that stage of my life where our youngest kid is now 22, and I was thinking about as we’re wrapping presents, like, it’s not really my favorite thing. And is this something that can be dropped? My kids still really like to get presents, but I made it a little bit better because I got it done well in ahead of time.

Koren (00:05:07) – But what can be dropped completely? So here are some examples of what that looks like. Now that’s post-thanksgiving. You know, one is some people, including us, dropped turkey from Thanksgiving. And I get it. Some of you may say that’s ridiculous. And we had two Thanksgivings. One we had at a friend’s and they had a beautiful turkey and was fantastic. And then the next day when we had our family Thanksgiving, our small one, my husband and daughter, they roasted a chicken. Very delightful, much less time, you know, and we enjoyed it. A client of mine, they had ribs. They don’t even like turkey. They had ribs. So those are very specific examples of dropping what is supposed to be done. A different example in business is evaluating what can be dropped from your business. So back in the fall, earlier in the fall, I dropped a six figure line of income for my company. As I was focusing on what do we need to shift, what do we need to move forward? And I made a really deliberate decision about doing that.

Koren (00:06:07) – It wasn’t from a place of scarcity. It was a very deliberate, proactive decision. That was something that I dropped completely. Maybe for you personally, it’s about dropping, putting yourself last on your priority list. Or maybe like I have some clients that are dropping the travel that they do, or limiting putting restrictions about how they travel. Some of them are putting, dropping, working on weekends at clients who dropped doing laundry for their family, realizing their kids can do their own, or there could be other people that could do it. It could be dropping, making lunches for your kids and then having the skill sets to then make their own lunches and the empowerment. Maybe it’s dropping. Going grocery shopping. Here’s one that I my invitation for all of us is dropping doing the emotional regulation for fill in the blank. It could be your spouse, a boss, an aging parent, a colleague, right? Dropping doing the emotional regulation where you then help them regulate emotionally versus you be responsible for your energy that you bring into the space.

Koren (00:07:14) – And here’s an example that I did personally a couple of years ago. I dropped being the quote fixer for my then 22 year old daughter. She’s like, but mom, you’re really good at it. And I was like, the cost to you was really high to be your fixer, because it was about me then having to afterwards come in and handle a situation versus being proactive and not having to go through all the turmoil of fixing something after there’s been a fire, a metaphorical fire. Maybe it’s dropping, cleaning out the laundry room and saying, like, you know what? That’s okay. It works. It’s functioning like I’ve got some boxes in there and like I’m dropping that. It needs to look like something on Pinterest. My laundry room is the laundry room. It functions. There’s some boxes in there. And it’s really I mean, it’s not totally clutter free, but it works. And then here’s my new one that I decided. This morning because I saw the stack of these blue folders that you used, like in college.

Koren (00:08:13) – I remember like you would put like reports in them and then turn them in. They were then those folders that had like three holes and a clip. So I was cleaning out my office. I don’t even know when earlier this year, and I had like probably 15 folders and I took them out. Try to give them to family. Nobody wants them because I think my kids in college now submit everything electronically, but I’ve been holding on to them and I had to have this. I must find a good home for it that somebody else will use. Well, this morning I decided to drop completely finding that and I can just recycle them. I know it’s not green, but I can let it go. I can simplify, right? And I can create that space physically that it was sitting in the bookcase, which I’m not thrilled about, but I can create that space for myself. So as you move into the next year, it’s easy as high achievers to do more, add more. What if you drop something completely right and when you’re dropping something? I gave you some very specific examples, like the folders.

Koren (00:09:13) – It’s not hurting anybody, right? Like I mean, well, the fact that I used a resource or have a resource that I didn’t use and it’s wasteful. So there’s context. Is everything in this about what you can drop completely? There are certain things that I’m going to be there for my loved ones. I’m not going to drop that. But what are the things that I don’t need to carry around anymore with me getting clear on that? So what could that be for you to drop something? Maybe you decided to drop doing holiday cards. If I was on your list, I would be sad. And that’s okay for me to be sad. Just. I love cards, but that’s something that I even rumbled with and I did do them. What I dropped is finding the perfect picture. It’s so funny how my brain works, right? Like, oh, I have to have this. I found the pictures that worked and it was great. Got it done right. So what can you drop? Whether it’s completely or drop for the time being to create space for you.

Koren (00:10:16) – All right. I’m smiling big for you. Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you’ll love my weekly emails. I know you’re thinking, Koren, really? Do I want another email in my overflowing inbox? Yes you do. Yippee skippy you do. These are short. They’re sweet. On Fridays, I send out the Friday podcast. It’s a great reminder that there’s a new show, and it comes straight into your inbox of the latest episode. Awesome. You click on it, you go straight. Because we all need reminders. We have busy, full lives. And then on Sundays I have my Sunday Love column and these are emails I write from the heart. They’re filled with love. We need more love. We all do, myself included. These are short emails where you get a quick takeaway so you can incorporate this into your life, because people often want to know what to do and how to do it. And maybe sometimes it’s a story that you get. Or there’s like one time I wrote about the ten ways to practice gratitude, and that became such a great tool when one of the readers was struggling and the middle of the night, because it can be a scary place in our brains in the middle of the night.

Koren (00:11:32) – And she remembered the email that I sent about ten ways to practice gratitude. And she was able to practice gratitude and fall back asleep. And that was an awesome lesson for her to incorporate into her life. Go to the show notes, and there’s a link in the show notes where you can sign up and get these emails in your box.

Music (00:11:51) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.