139 - The Placeholder Method: Stop Waiting, Start Acting 'As If'

Summary

Have you ever stood in a room, able to see exactly what needs to happen, but nothing will move because one thing is waiting on another thing, which is waiting on another thing?

That is the bottleneck, and in this episode we're sorting it out.

I walk you through the placeholder method: a simple, slightly-messy-in-the-short-term approach that gets everything moving again, even when the thing you're waiting for hasn't arrived yet. We use the sideboard example, but this applies everywhere in your home, and once you see it, you will not be able to unsee it.

We also talk about why the placeholder does something that waiting never can: it gives you real information. About volume, about what you actually use, about whether the storage solution you've been dreaming of is really going to do what you think it will.

Spoiler: sometimes it is. Sometimes it absolutely isn't. Either way, you'll know.

In this episode:

• What the bottleneck actually is and why ND brains are especially prone to it
• The placeholder method explained, and what to use if you don't have the real thing yet
• Why messy short term is absolutely worth it for movement long term
• How placeholders tell you the volume of what you're working with before you spend a penny on furniture
• Test-driving a rehome before you commit to it
• Ditching the rose-tinted glasses on storage solutions that haven't arrived yet
• Where else this method works beyond the living room sideboard

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to the Waiting Game

02:50
Understanding the Bottleneck Effect

05:46
The Placeholder Method Explained

08:51
Testing the Placeholder: Real Feedback

11:30
Applying the Placeholder Method in Various Spaces

14:37
Encouragement and Community Engagement

Come and tell me where your bottleneck is. I genuinely want to know. Find me on Instagram or come into the Untangled Life community and let's talk about it.

Resources

• DeclutterCon

Transcript

heather (00:00.782)
Hello, untanglers, welcome back to another episode of Decluttering Untangled with me, your host, Heather Tingle. Right, so today's episode is one that I've been meaning to record for absolutely ages because this comes up so often with clients. It comes up in my membership, it comes up online, it used to happen to me all the time before I figured out why he's around it and what's actually going on. So I want to talk to you about...

the waiting game that we go through. So that feeling of being stuck because you're kind of waiting for one thing to happen before you can move anything else forward. So it's a like a bit of a domino effect where one thing impacts another, which impacts another, which impacts another, and you get stuck with it. I've got a bit of a solution for you that I use with clients all the time. It's really simple. It is also messy in the short term, but it's absolutely going to change how you approach this kind of thing. And there's some really good reasons why.

I guess we get into it. So the issue is you end up with a bit of a bottleneck. So the feeling where you stand in a room and you look around and you can see exactly what needs to happen and you can kind of figure out what order, but you can't make any of it move because there's like, there's a bottleneck like sticking point. And it's not because you're lazy. It's not because you don't care. It's not because you run out of motivation. It's just because something is waiting on something else happening. It's such a waiting game.

So you can't sort out that drawer because the stuff that needs to go in there is currently in the wrong place. You can't move the stuff that's in the wrong place because the thing that's been waiting to go into there doesn't exist yet. So like the whole system's kind of frozen. Nothing happens. You walk out the room, you close the door, you feel rubbish and like, well, there's nothing I can do. I'm stuck now. Like it's gonna have to just live like this until this thing happens. And that's the bottleneck. Shows up all the time in kitchens, bedrooms, spare rooms, lofts, all sorts.

It's also really common for neurodivergent brains, especially because we think in systems and in like full transformations. So we can see how it should all work. We just get stuck because the system isn't in place yet right to the end. And we can't take a step forward without the whole vision like being ready to go. And it is a real practical issue as well because if you haven't got places to put all those things, it causes a problem. Let me give you a bit more of a visual of.

heather (02:23.982)
what it actually looks like in real terms. So imagine that you want a sideboard in your living room. Like you've always wanted one, you can imagine how it's gonna be. Like you've been on Pinterest and know, the beautiful home magazines and all that stuff. Maybe you've had one in mind, you know exactly where it was gonna go. You know exactly what you're gonna put in it and it's gonna be brilliant. You can see it. The problem is you don't have a sideboard. Like you've not got the budget for it yet. You've not got the money. You've not had the time to shop for one, whatever. Usually it's a budget issue. So.

For example, with this, there is items in, say, the kitchen drawer. It's like bits and pieces that don't really belong in the kitchen, but you really need that kitchen drawer because the stuff that's on the kitchen side would be perfect for going in that drawer, but the stuff that's in that drawer needs to be moved into the sideboard in the living room, for example, or dining room that doesn't exist. So you're a bit stuck. So the kitchen still becomes a nightmare and you don't really know what to do about it. So you've thought, well, once you get that sideboard,

then the kitchen will be okay, then the living room or dining room whatever will be okay, but it all hinges on that sideboard. So the sideboard drawers will be perfect, so we have those random candles that in the kitchen drawer, a of paperwork, that random pile of things that you don't know what to do with, but you want to keep, that sideboard will be the magical solution for all of those problems.

So the kitchen drawer is waiting for the sideboard. The stuff on the kitchen surface is waiting for the kitchen drawer. And therefore everything's unusable. You can't tackle the kitchen properly till the drawer's sorted. You can't sort the drawer until you've got the sideboard sorted. You can't get the sideboard yet because you haven't got the time or the budget or you haven't found the right one. Therefore everything kind of gets stopped. You've got that bottleneck, you've ground to a halt. I'm hoping that this kind of feels familiar to some of you because if it is, listen on.

So I'm gonna give you a HSIO moment. So a Heather says it's okay moment. Just wanna pause for a minute and say, this is totally normal. Like this stalls everybody and it's not a failing, it's not a sign that you're bad at decluttering or that you've got to wait for this magical solution to randomly appear. You're not bad at life. You're not bad at being a grownup. We're all bad at being a grownups. The thing they don't realize about being a grownup is that everybody's winging it.

heather (04:36.406)
It's really a difficult problem and it's almost like there's no solutions, no blueprint you can follow. So you're stuck and your brain is correctly identified that system isn't there. And therefore it's responded with, well, we're just gonna have to wait till the system's there then I can't do anything about it. So that makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense to me anyway. So you're not alone in this because I see it all the time. But what you...

don't need is like more motivation or more willpower. What you need is a way around that bottleneck. And that is what I'm talk to you about. Now it is not a perfect solution. And a lot of people do not like it when I suggest it, but once they try it, they go, oh, actually this makes sense. And it's the placeholder. So what I you to do instead of waiting, being stuck is act as if you've already got the thing. So literally, physically in your home act as if the sideboard is already there.

Find the space where the side border would go and clear that space. This may mean that something else has to move and you need another place to hold it somewhere else. Get some cardboard boxes, Amazon boxes, whatever you've got. Some scub Ikea boxes are perfect for this. Those flat, like fabric ones that are great for this kind of thing. Get a basket, whatever you can use. Get whatever you've got going on, spare now. Do not buy new things.

because buying new things, might as well use the money for the actual sideboard. Just create a temporary solution, a temporary version of that storage that would be that sideboard. Now, obviously a sideboard will be vertical, horizontal, vertical. And you would maybe have a couple of drawers and maybe a couple of cupboards and you probably can't create that with a load of boxes stacking on top of each other. But you can say, okay, so my sideboard would be

two big cupboards and three drawers, for example. So you would have two boxes as the cupboard spaces and you would have smaller boxes as the drawers and they might just have to lay at the side of each other. So it might not so you occupy the same physical space. It might take up a bit more space, but you can like create that like temporary solution. So the items from the kitchen drawer can then go in the box, in the space where you want them to be right now.

heather (06:55.288)
Does it look perfect? No, it does not. But it does make everything look a bit messier, maybe look like a bit of an eye saw for a while. Yeah. But will it make things look temporary worse before they get better? Yeah, of course it does because that's what dechlorine does do. It is not perfect, but it's not about making things look better in the short term. It's about being able to remove that bottleneck, make everything else better.

in the long term and short term so you can start moving. You can unblock everything else. So the kitchen drawer is now empty so you can sort the kitchen. The stuff that was on the side can now go in the kitchen drawer. The items that were in limbo now have somewhere to be and the whole system starts moving again. So that's the placeholder kind of like version that I use. Create a standing for the thing you're waiting for so that everything else can just carry on getting on with it. So.

You could just stop there and go, okay, do the boxes, job done, okay, move on. But I wanna go a bit deeper into it and explain why this method is so much better than waiting for the real thing and being on pause for however many months or weeks or whatever it or years it's gonna take to get that thing. Because it does something that this fantasy sideboard that you've got in your head can't do. And what it does is it gives you real information and feedback on this new system that you've got. So first of all, you discover the volume.

So I see so many people and I'll go, right, where's this going? They'll go, that'll go in this, for example, the sideboard. And I'm like, right, where's this one going? this is going in the sideboard as well. Right, okay, and where's this going? that's going in the sideboard. And it's amazing because I can't tell you how many times I've seen people mentally assign a huge amount of stuff to a piece of furniture that in their head is like a magical Narnia.

that everything is suddenly gonna fit in there and then the furniture allows you like, okay, that is not all gonna fit in that space. There's not enough room. So when you use those placeholder boxes and start moving the thing into the place where you want it to be, it's a like it's part of the zoning method. You find out straight away the volume of the stuff that you're putting in this place. So you start moving things in, you realize, actually there's a lot more than what I thought or occasionally,

heather (09:09.226)
actually this is much less than I expected and I've got more room for things, what other items make sense to go in this place. So you've got real numbers and like real volume and it's not abstract, you can physically see it in front of you. So that's really helpful. And because of that, when you are then going to buy or find from somewhere this amazing piece of furniture that's gonna be the problem solver.

You then know the volume and the type of items you're working with. You can go and find the right piece of furniture for the job that you want it to do. So you're not like shopping on vibes and just, that's beautiful. And then realizing that these drawers aren't deep enough for the stuff you want to put in them, or it's not got enough space, or you're not falling in love with a sideboard that's got two shallow drawers when actually what you need is deep shelves. You know exactly what you need because you've lived with a temporary version of it. You know the dimensions, you know the volume, know the number of compartments you're going to need, you know how to separate stuff or what's going to work.

You know, whether you need drawers or shelves or just a deep cupboard, that will save you so much money and so much regret later. And the bit I love about it is you test drive the Rehome. We often say that we have got this optimistic idea of our future self. So, you know, I've talked about reality self and fantasy self, and this is another part of that. So...

We have this really optimistic idea about what we'll do when that home is there. So once those candles are on the sideboard, I'm actually gonna light them and use them. Once that paperwork is accessible, I'll actually file it way easier. Once those, I don't know, paints are in the dining room, I'm actually going to be painting in an evening. I'll reach for my book that I want to use, that I wanna read in my book nook that I've created. Yeah, okay, maybe you will.

Maybe you absolutely will and it'll be amazing and it wonderful and that is absolutely celebration time because that's what I want for everyone in our world. But maybe it'll actually tell you a bit of the reality truth, which is actually you're not gonna do it even if you move it. If the items are sitting in a box in the living room, you're still not touching them, that's really important feedback. That's your brain telling you that the proximity maybe isn't the problem.

heather (11:23.01)
that it wasn't the organization or the storage that was the issue. It was the fantasy self that was maybe not accessible to you for some reason, and you need to work on that rather than where the stuff was. That maybe you might not need all those volume of things as much as you think. And now you've got it all together, you can actually see the volume. Maybe this particular spot doesn't make sense because that's not actually where you use it. And what you're doing is you're getting things out of that spot and they're not going back because you're using them in a different place in the house instead. And maybe they need to be closer to that.

So that placeholder strips away the fantasy. It shows you what you actually do or what you don't do, not what you imagine you will do. So that's really useful. And then I guess the other thing is it gets rid of the rose tinted glasses because of all that, you go into this without the magical thinking that this sideboard is the answer to your prayers. Actually, it's just a piece of furniture. It's a really beautiful one, like a useful one, and you'll adore it when you get it, but actually isn't the thing that...

makes everything else work. What makes everything else work is the things being in the right place for you and how you live and you actually use them. Like that's what makes it work, not this wonderful magical piece of furniture that's gonna like solve all the problems. So what you might find is you need a sideboard with less stuff in it because that placeholder helps you realise that some of those things can actually go entirely. You're never gonna use them even if you give yourself six months in that temporary home. What you might find is this stuff needs to live somewhere else and a sideboard can serve as a different purpose.

or you don't actually want a sideboard altogether, you want something else. You might find that you've barely touched anything in that sideboard, temporary sideboard, for like six months or a year. And actually maybe it's time to re-look at that stuff and really decide, do you wanna keep it? So all of that information is so useful and that's what that temporary placeholder gives you. And that's not information you can get by waiting for that thing to arrive. So it's so useful.

So I've used the sideboard as an example because it's a really obvious one that most people can understand. I hope everybody listening to this understands what a sideboard is. Let me know if you don't. It's like an easy to picture version of this bottleneck, but the principle works like everywhere in your home. So wait and sort your wardrobe out until you've built the right storage for it. Create a placeholder version of that storage first. Okay, so do temporary boxes instead of drawers, or if you need a hanging rail, can you...

heather (13:47.939)
find somewhere to hang things instead first. Waiting to declaw your spare room until you move house. Can you create that like spare room automatically with like the fake bed in it or whatever? Or the under bed drawers that that's where that's going to live. Like even if you just labeled like a box as this is under bed storage and you have it somewhere else because it won't actually fit under your bed because you've got a divan or something. Like create that placeholder of okay, this is what I'm gonna use it for.

because waiting to tackle the kitchen until you've had new shelving fitted, get some like, know, see what you've got that you can reuse in your house, whether that's shoe boxes or an old bookcase or whatever, and use that as a stock gap to see what you really do need. And if it's worthwhile investing in that, anywhere.

the bottleneck is a thing that doesn't exist yet. You can create some kind of placeholder method to get things moving and analyzing. So that is your challenge this week, if you want one. Have a think about when you're home, you're on something. Where's that process like frozen? Where's the block? And is there something that you can do to remedy that? And then see if you can create a placeholder for that space.

So can you use the boxes, the baskets, whatever you've got, make a temporary standing so that everything else can get moving. Even if it's, know, bags for life or Amazon boxes that you've got laying around, they will be used, like use them for that. It doesn't have to be pretty. It really doesn't. It's about placement and being able to access it in the place you expect it to be. It may mean that you end up doing a whole house Tetris with different placeholders everywhere, but that gives you the opportunity to really

honing on decluttering and working out the best places for things and then getting it right when you get that solution bought. So if it feels uncomfortable to have those light boxes in the middle of your living room, good. Like that is really useful because that discomfort is the thing that will make you get to the end result quicker as well. Like it is that constant reminder and it's still temporary. know, everything in our homes we like live in this awful temporary limbo.

heather (16:05.74)
And actually you can still be moving forward in the meantime. Do you have to explain that to someone coming around? That's up to you. Does it still feel bad inviting someone around? Well, probably, maybe, but it's messy short term, but moving forward, it's like a massive long-term gain to get it right. Cause that's what decluttering is about, getting it right. Not these quick blitzes, not they're just shoving things in a cupboard.

it's about getting it right for long term and the placeholder will absolutely help you do that because it will create that standing and let everything else move around. So come and find me in the Facebook community or on Instagram if you're on there and tell me where your bottleneck or your placeholder is and let's see if we can figure it out together or let me know how you got on with it. Like I genuinely do love and need, because I'm a needy person, feedback. Like let me know how useful this...

information is for you and if you've got any suggestions on an episode, let me know, like what is your specific problem? And I will hopefully have a solution for you. And before I go, did you get your decluttercon ticket yet? Because it's going to be full of practical ideas like this. So go to decluttercon.co.uk and have a look at your decluttercon tickets because they are selling. So make sure you do not miss out on that. Until next time, remember you're not lazy, you are not alone. Be kind to yourself and keep untangling.