Women have many unique strengths: multitasking, emotional intelligence and the ability to listen! Sadly, de-cluttering our homes and handbags just isn’t our forte.

Research by naturally good confectioners Ricola shows that 79% of women feel their lives are cluttered. Considering that more than one in five think that they could fill over ten car boots with their excess clutter and a quarter carry more than 15 items in their handbag this is hardly surprising. Two thirds of us say that we do plan to de-clutter our lives but we simply never find the time to get round to it.

Since spring is here and we think it’s time to stop putting off all that de-cluttering we’re hosting an exclusive webchat with TV psychologist Anjula Mutanda. Anjula is going to be explaining how to keep your home and your handbags clear of clutter and advise on what psychological benefits this can have for you.

So are you leading a cluttered life? Want to know how to start the clear out and find out the positive impact it could have on your stress levels? Then get your questions in and join our live chat.

H: Jayne Constantinis, host
A: Anjula Mutanda, broadcast psychologist

H: Hello and welcome to the Lifestyle Show brought to you today by Ricola, I’m Jayne Constantinis. Now everybody knows that we women have many unique strengths – multi-skilling, emotional intelligence and we’re good listeners. However de-cluttering our lives, our homes and our handbags is something we’re apparently not very good at! I’m joined today by broadcast psychologist Anjula Mutanda whose here to offer us some advice on how to manage our lives, and to start clearing out the clutter. And of course it’s a live show so if you’ve got a question for Angela then just put it in the box on the screen with your name of course, send it off and we’ll get through as many as we can during the course of the show. Angela thanks very much for coming in to talk to us

A: Thank you

H: This research has come out recently by Ricola showing that 79% of women feel that their lives are cluttered, now do you think we women are particularly bad at this?

A: I do think women are bad, because I think men are able to compartmentalise their lives, and women get absolutely overwhelmed by emotional attachment, and we feel guilty if we’re going to throw something out, we feel guilty if we’re not going to phone that friend up that we haven’t spoken to for a couple of years, and so we keep her number in our mobile phone, we feel guilty if we can’t be everywhere, being the perfect mother, the perfect work colleague, the perfect everything, and we feel overwhelmed and that’s why that statistic doesn’t surprise me at all

H: So we are in some ways our own worst enemies because we have this perfectionist thing, whereas is what you’re suggesting that men will just focus on the thing that they’re doing now

A: Yes

H: And forget that that phone call hasn’t been made, or the bin hasn’t been emptied?

A: I think actually men, because they have less emotional attachment to something, they’ll put less emotional store into it, so they’ll – well I want to go to this place, I’m not going to see that person, so I’m not going to ring them. I’m just going to go off and do what I was doing. We just try and think I’ve got to multi-task, I’ve got to meet everybody else’s needs, and I’ve got to be prepared to meet those needs, and I think we put pressure on ourselves to meet those needs constantly, and then feel overwhelmed, and then feel strung out, and then feel I can’t handle it

H: Yes

A: So I think that’s what happens to us psychologically

H: And what effect does that have on us? Because I feel those things most of the time

A: Oh yes

H: And it must be damaging, but I don’t really understand how

A: Well I think it is damaging, and what we discovered in the survey was over 50% of women were saying that having a cluttered life made them feel stressed out, and they felt that they couldn’t relax in their own environment and they also felt embarrassed about having friends over. Now these are emotional words that they’re using to describe how they feel, and it can have a knock-on effect on your health, because if you are surrounded by clutter, whether it’s physical clutter or emotional clutter, it can make you feel overwhelmed, you can get quite ill because of it, because your mental health is effected, you have poorer concentration, you feel more tired, so it does have quite a serious knock-on effect even though you’re thinking hang on a minute, we’re just talking about clutter

H: Yes. I read – I’ve been through a very prolonged building thing in my house because we had a flood, and it went on for eight months

A: Right

H: Real clutter, not of my making

A: No

H: In around me all the time, and I felt exactly what you’ve just described, physically stressed

A: Yes

H: I’ve heard that’s something to do with Feng Shui, is that right?

A: Well it can be to with Feng Shui but I think it’s about having everything out of order and being chaotic and disorganised. I mean that’s a dreadful experience, having to have everything moved around because it’s out of your control, and that’s the key, when things go out of control we kind of feel a little bit helpless and powerless, what can I do about it? And if it’s about very basic things, you know your house is disorganised, you can’t find your keys, your kids are saying “I need that letter signed off for school today” and you think I can’t find it, it’s not on the pin board, where have you put it, you kind of get into the blame game with family members, well it was your fault

H: Yes

A: And then the stress levels go up for everybody and it’s no good at all

H: And how, I mean you’ve mentioned children there and the family environment – how can it affect our relationships? Not just with our children but with our partners?

A: Well if you’re the cluttered one and if you’re cluttered with, let’s say, friendships, and you feel I have to have people round all the time or I have to make time to phone these people, you actually start to edit your partner out, so instead of communicating with them – how was your day? You’re talking to somebody on the phone, or you’re having people round constantly and that can be very damaging

H: It’s about – I think if you use the word space, how though can we in a very practical sense, without feeling guilty, eliminate some of the elements that are causing our lives to feel cluttered?

A: Well I think the first thing you’ve got to do is eliminate the guilt which is look at the problem objectively and actually make lists of what’s essential, what do I need in my life that makes me function well? What’s nice to have that you know I can regularly change, but it doesn’t really get in the way, and what’s way past its sell-by date? So you can look at that whether it’s de-cluttering your handbag, your wardrobe, or your life, and just those basic steps, very simple, you can just do – you can do them on a regular basis, and I think that’s the important thing, if you do things like that regularly it becomes habit-forming, so you never get to the state where you think I haven’t de-cluttered for a year, I can’t face it now. If you do it every few weeks or something then you’re always on top of it, and you know spring’s coming up, people always use spring as a time -

H: Yes

A: To kind of purge, and I think -

H: A new start

A: Exactly and I think it does create that sense of a new start and my belief is that if you have a cluttered home or a cluttered mental state, you prevent new opportunities or new friendships from coming in, because you’ve blocked them out. Oh you know I can’t even open the door for all the newspapers that are stacked up

H: Yes

A: Or you know I can’t make space for you, I like you but I’ve got 20 other friends that I’ve got to phone

H: Is everybody the same because I have the impression that some people certainly I’ve got friends who seem to live in a state of permanent chaos, and yes who seem to thrive?

A: They probably look like chaotic people to you, but if you asked them how their lives are, they’re probably better planned out, they know where things are, it might not be to your liking, but they’re organised in their disorganised fashion, and that can work for them. However if that was me I’d be in a muddle overnight

H: Yes

A: I wouldn’t know, because I need to be organised, I need to have that sense of stability and where I am and clarity

H: Yes, yes, order

A: Yes

H: There was, I saw a trailer for a film the other day and one of the characters said “order has been compromised” and everybody looked at me! Order has been compromised!

A: Perfectionist, too much

H: We’ve had a question in from Shelley Cooper, slightly off what we’re talking about now but we’ll come on to this kind of thing in a minute – “my boyfriend always gives me his wallet, mobile and keys to put in my handbag when we go out. I’ve told him that this makes my bag even heavier. How can I persuade him that man bags are the future?” so she’s having somebody else’s clutter imposed on her

A: Well first of all he is using her as his bag, that’s what -

H: Yes

A: He’s doing, and she’s got to be the one who puts an end to it and says “no, you’re not going to do that”. Now if he’s got a birthday coming up, or it’s Christmas, get him a man bag, you know all the metrosexual men have one now, now if he says absolutely no way, well just get larger pockets because I’m not doing it

H: Yes he could wear a jacket, why can’t he wear a jacket -

A: Absolutely and I think she’s given him too much permission to take advantage of her

H: Or she could dump him and get another boyfriend?

A: She could but maybe they’ve got a good thing going

H: I’m only joking

A: He just uses her as a bag

H: Yes, alright, good advice. Janice from Ealing, you know you talked about not making new friendships because you’ve got piles of newspapers?
H: Yes. Janice from Ealing says she’s got quite a few different friendships groups, and one her mates is quite demanding, she feels she can never say no and feels like she never gets any time to herself. She doesn’t want to lose her friends but it’s just too much. That’s a tricky one, that’s going to have a lot of guilt attached to it isn’t it?

A: That has a lot of guilt and I think she’s clearly identified what the problem is, she’s got this demanding friend and she can’t say no, well she’s got to learn to say no, because the trick is to think about it this way – am I going to let this friend run my life or am I going to take control of my life and have a more balanced approach to it, and I think if you’ve got a demanding friend, sometimes they become more demanding because they have permission to, so if she says “oh I’ve got to see you tomorrow and you know it’s really important”- I’m sorry, I’m really busy tomorrow, how about next week let’s get a date in the diary, that’s a lovely way of setting your boundaries and gaining control. You haven’t told her to get lost you never want to see her again which is an extreme reaction which tends to happen when people feel stressed out by somebody, but it’s giving you back permission and control of your own life

H: Yes I like that phrase giving permission, because that’s the business of being treated the way you allow people to treat you

A: Exactly

H: Just building on habits you talked about maybe getting into the habit of every year, well every few weeks doing your spring cleaning,

A: Yes

H: Just talk us through how we might manage a single day to feel in control of our life and our clutter and all the things that are within it?

A: Well if you look at how we run our lives you know sometimes we get up late so we run out of time, so we might be eating on the run, we’ve left mugs upstairs in the bedroom or cereal bowls here, you know there’s clothes strewn on the floor. Get up a little bit earlier and be much more organised about how you’re going to approach your day. You know, and as you’re going along through the day, do a little bit of a tidy up, you know don’t – be careful what you put in your handbag before you go off to work. Make sure it isn’t everything and the kitchen sink and the cat in case of a nuclear attack, which is what women typically do – well you never know what’s going to happen. Well why don’t you take control of what is going to happen and look at the essentials that you put in your bag, don’t become a slave to your children, who happily say “oh could you just put that in your bag – oh mum can you just put – “ get them, teach them to be organised about that. Look in your car. Now sometimes cars are extensions of our homes where we have half eaten apple cores and things like that. You know if you have a little rubbish bag, have a little clear out, you know and then make sure you put that in the bin, and so you can see how you’re running your life, you’ve got control of it from the start of the day. You’ve given yourself more time, you’re more organised, tidying up as you’re going along and you’re also setting the boundaries for other people and saying don’t overwhelm me with your stuff, take control of your stuff

H: Yes, where do you stand on lists? Because I think that I’m a little bit too wedded to my list of things – to-do, you know lists of things in the house, things for other people and all that – are they a good thing or a bad thing?

A: Well lists are ok until you lose control of them, so you can have lists for lists and lists for lists sake, so you’ve got to be very specific about what you’re listing down, and I think anything more than 5 things on a list, you’re already overwhelmed – I’ve got to get through all these things today

H: Yes

A: So have a list of 5 key things that you want to achieve that day, or remember that day and I think that keeps it limited, so it’s about taking control and keeping your list down to a set number

H: And having realistic and manageable expectations of what you can do in that hour, because very often we set our – the targets are too high aren’t they?

A: They’ve ridiculous and I think if you set yourself a ridiculous target you’re going to feel like a failure and you’ll try a lot harder tomorrow and then you’ll fail again

H: Yes

A: So I think that’s a really good point, being realistic

H: Yes. And you mentioned then the business of women taking on other peoples responsibilities

A: Yes

H: This is again it’s what we tend to do, women – how do we set a new precedent if you like within the family environment?

A: That - I think actually you’ve got to be quite honest about yourself, and I think if you are a bit of a perfectionist you could be bringing it on yourself, where you think “I could do this a lot better than everybody and a lot quicker” – so you don’t delegate to other members of your family, so you’ve got to learn to let go and say you know what, you can do it. You’ve also got to feel less guilty that if your child of 8, and my daughter’s nearly 8, is learning to make her bed, then that’s a good thing, rather than saying “no I’ll do that for you and I’ll give you breakfast in bed” and then you’re teaching her bad habits. So it’s actually about delegation and sharing the work out in a guilt-free way

H: Yes. Let’s talk slightly more practical matters now, the messy house, the messy kitchen, the drawers that you open and they’re just crammed full. How can people approach that very physical de-cluttering in their house?

A: I think what tends to happen you know, if you open a drawer and it’s crammed full, your immediate response is what? Shut it

H: Yes

A: So if you open it and it’s –you’re overwhelmed by the state of it, I think get a little – say I’m going to take 15 minutes and I’m going to de-clutter this particular drawer and I’m going to sort it out into essentials, absolutely have to keep all those cheque books and receipts and get rid of all the things that are pointless, like bits of cable that you thought might be useful but they’re not

H: You don’t know what they’re for any more

A: You don’t know what things are for. Now a classic for women is keeping their children’s drawings

H: Oh yes, yes

A: I’ve seen it

H: What all of them to go?

A: Not all of them, but actually I did sit down with my daughter and we went through them and we didn’t talk about binning, we talked about recycling. We talked about recycling her drawings -

H: Very good

A: And I said which one of these pictures do you want to recycle? And she actually went “I don’t want any of them, I did that when I was at nursery”

H: Oh yes

A: So you know they can pick out their favourites and you can have a little album so they’re not going out of control in their drawers, and you can recycle the rest, and actually getting your children to think about recycling – you can say to them this piece of paper, this drawing is going to have another life, and I think that’s a lovely way and a very practical way of teaching children about keeping their clutter down to a – you know – a minimum

H: Yes I mean children’s bedrooms again, classic territory for mess, so – but it’s a question of establishing these good habits right from the beginning

A: Yes and there is no point saying to your son or daughter or your children “tidy your room” when they walk round to your room and it looks like a bomb site, so you know you’ve got to really set the standard by being a role model

H: Yes. Now how do you deal with a partner who throws their dirty clothes on the floor next to the laundry basket but fails to bend down and pick them up and put them in

A: Well yes, that’s a classic actually and it’s very common. I’ve advised some people to just leave it for a couple of days until he’s practically falling over it

H: Yes

A: and leave little post-its and say you know, it’s not going to jump up in there by itself

H: Right

A: Or stop laundering the clothes

H: Yes

A: And they’ll go “I’ve run out of socks” – so there are different ways of tackling it and it depends which one your partner speaks

H: Right

A: So I think you’ve got to do it gradually and then have an ultimatum and go look I’ve left it this long, you know my husband is a classic one where he will do that with his socks – they’re everywhere, so what I did -

H: You don’t have a sock fairy. We have one of those in our house, or my husband thinks we do!

A: Very good – well I just took all his socks and put them on the washing line dirty

H: Good idea

A: And just left them there in the rain, and he was like “I get it. I get it”

H: This is where we get accused then of being fishwives don’t we by -

A: He could call me any name under the sun I’m not having those socks washing those socks

H: Exactly. Alice from Clapham has sent us a message “I’ve a really hectic schedule, but I’m so disorganised. I try to organise my life more but I find that even if I start I end up back in the same rut.” Quite a big problem. Can you give Alice one thing that she can start with and maybe achieve?

A: It feels a little with Alice, a little unfocused and it’s like I start and then I get overwhelmed, and I think it is going back to this achievable goals. Take one thing that is a priority in your life, it could be just organising your work desk or keeping a diary so you have a run of what’s going on that day. Things like that can really simplify your life, but I think you’ve really got to have the motivation and it sounds like Alice may occasionally get distracted, so it’s about being focused and using tools to help you, and I think having a diary is a great way of saying “I’m doing this at 9.30, I’ll need x, y and z, I’m doing this at 10.45” and then you’ve got control back. But that feels a little bit like I’m letting things control me, and once you look at it that way you think hang on a minute I’m not going to let this happen

H: Yes absolutely. Let’s just tackle another question because we talked then about our husband’s socks, in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of course, however Caroline says that she thinks her home, especially the kitchen, is very cluttered. Her husband and sons say she’s making a mountain – a mountain of mess – out of a mole hill. Do a lot of females in a male-dominated house feel like this? What can she do not to worry about the clutter? So it sounds like she’s sort of outnumbered by blokes who don’t think it’s a mess

A: Yes she feels on her own and what they aren’t doing is actually supporting her to reduce that clutter

H: Yes

A: And I think what she needs to do is get them rallying round as a team and say you know we’re going to tackle the kitchen cupboards together, there’s out-of-date food in there, we’ve got too many pans, and I want you to take that off to the recycling and I want you to – and actually when you get very practical with men, because that’s the language they understand, you do engage with it. I think what they don’t engage with is if you start worrying about, going “I’m really worried about the fact that I can’t get in the garage” they’ll go “don’t worry about it” and then you sit there going it’s getting worse and worse and worse and you feel completely isolated, so I think the thing is she’s got to be the managing director of her family, she’s got to take control and she’s got to farm out practical jobs for them to do

H: Yes

A: And they will rally

H: Sorry go on

A: No I was just saying once you gain that support in that practical way men understand what you’re talking about

H: Yes. It is very difficult isn’t it when you are a very tidy person living with a naturally untidy person who simply doesn’t see the mess

A: And you know that has caused huge problems in relationships where one person is very tidy and one person isn’t, and I think in a situation like that it is about give and take

H: Yes

A: Because it may be that you’re particularly anal and your partner is particularly expulsive and somewhere in the middle lies the truth

H: Yes

A: So you say rather than saying “I need to Hoover the house 7 days a week” – well I’ll cut down to 3 days a week if you -

H: Put your socks in the basket

A: Yes

H: Yes, yes

A: And then you feel like the partner doesn’t feel that they’re being got at because they’re somehow useless

H: Yes exactly. Well it’s classic relationship – managing relationship territory, we can go on for about 3 weeks on this subject

A: Yes I know

H: Absolutely fascinating and thank you for giving us those very practical tips and I’m certainly going to try just to de-clutter my head just a little bit

A: Good

H: Very interesting talking to you, thanks

A: Thank you

H: That’s all we’ve got time for sadly, if you’d like more tips on de-cluttering your life visit winwithricola.com. Thanks for watching, see you again next time. Bye bye

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