Declutter Your Space, Clear Your Mind with Laurie Palau

Laurie Palau [00:00:00]:

There's so much shame that comes with disorganization, and that is what I want. That has been one of my primary goals throughout this whole career journey of mine, is to just dispel this myth of, like, we all are a little bit of a hot mess in some way, shape, or form. And there's no shame in that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:20]:

I'm a small town kid born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband, junior, and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you, too.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:55]:

I'm Tiffany Sauder, and this is Scared Confident. Okay, so I've been making fun of myself that before every interview, I say, I'm so excited, like a total nerd. And so I told Laurie, I have extremely positive emotions towards this conversation. I think it's going to be so cool. So let me tell you who Laurie is, and then, you guys, we're going to answer your questions. A couple months ago, you shot me questions, and I was, like, digging through them, and I'm like, we need to find an expert. So Laurie's going to actually answer your questions on this episode, which I think is going to be so fun and cool. Laurie Palau is a wife, a mom to two grownish girls, author of the book Hot Mess, a practical guide to getting organized, host of a popular weekly podcast called this organized Life with over 3 million downloads.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:43]:

I mean, cue the confetti. A founder of simply be organized, a lifestyle company helping people live simply and work smarter. Her advice has been featured on big time publications like real simple, better homes and gardens, and the New York Times. And we tell you all this stuff, you guys, not because you really care, but because it builds credibility that Laurie has been helping families like ours for a very long time. Her gifting in the world is to help us create peace in our space. And that, I think, as we'll talk about, is so connected to the peace in our heads, which is so connected to the peace in our homes. So that's really what we're all after. So, Laurie, welcome to the show.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:20]:

Talk about a woman who is full on living a life of.

Laurie Palau [00:02:23]:

Thank you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:23]:

Thanks for joining me.

Laurie Palau [00:02:24]:

It's very humbling when you hear that. Thank you. So much, yes.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:28]:

Well, that's kind of my first question to you, is, if I were to read this bio to 22, 25 year old lawyer Laurie and say, this is who you are becoming, this is what you're building towards, what do you think she would say?

Laurie Palau [00:02:45]:

Would she be surprised about why? I look back at the breadcrumbs of my life in different seasons, right? Because I always say I'm on, like, the back nine. I'm 53. And so I look and I see where I am now, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that had an indirect link to that, and that had a indirect link to that. But it wasn't a linear path. Let's just put it that way. I had a babe, I have a made up job. Like, let's just be honest. Like, you don't go to school.

Laurie Palau [00:03:12]:

To become a professional organizer isn't a thing. There wasn't even, like, an entrepreneurship track in college when I was back in school, at least not at my school. So how I ended up here was just through, like, a bunch of random events that kind of led me to where I am. So I guess it just doesn't seem like something that I would have ever thought, like, oh, yeah, this is where you're gonna be.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:38]:

Is it more entrepreneurial? Is it bigger? Is it in a different location? Like, what about it is, like, because I always say, I couldn't have told you all of the nouns in my life, but I think I could have told you how it was gonna feel.

Laurie Palau [00:03:52]:

Is I always wanted to be a mom, and I knew that I wanted to try to figure out a way that it could be a both. And so I, like, aspire to have a career. Wanted to. My family was a priority. I didn't want one to sacrifice over the other. So I didn't know what that. And then, like, legit. It's funny.

Laurie Palau [00:04:18]:

And maybe this will kind of answer the question in a roundabout way and feel free to edit whatever isn't relevant. So last year, my husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. And I. Back when we got married, someone gave us a time capsule thing. I don't know, like, again, I'm dating myself, but it was like a pop.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:35]:

With a piece of paper in it.

Laurie Palau [00:04:36]:

Well, wait, not only did pieces of paper, it had a. It had, like, a workbook, and it had a vhs tape of my wedding video. Okay. But we opened up, and I had our one daughter record us opening it, because I said, I don't know what's going to be in here. And let's see. There could be some, like, nugget. So, like, capture this. And so we're, we're opening up and we're reading it.

Laurie Palau [00:05:01]:

It's got, like, what was a popular movie? What were we watching in the day? You know, this was, again, 1998, people. And we're going through, we're reading all the things that we're laughing. And there's one thing it said where what will be whatever, whatever. It was 25 years. And I said, I want to do me full work, and I do be an active member of my community. And I want to be like, there were three things. And literally the only thing that wasn't true is I said I was going to be a mom to two boys. And I, because I really always thought I'd be a boy mom.

Laurie Palau [00:05:35]:

But aside from that, I said, and my girls were like, oh, gee, thanks. I was like, what? I always thought everything else was, like, really spot on. It was broad enough, but it was like, I really want to be entrenched to my community. I really want to do meaningful work. I want to. And I was like, I actually did achieve these things, even though I did picture of the specifics of how I kind of my life orchestrated.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:01]:

Let me ask this. Did you always work when you had kids?

Laurie Palau [00:06:05]:

No, I had a hiatus. No, I had a hiatus. So I'll give you, like, guys, the really, really Cliff notes version. So I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Before I started my organizing business, I was an executive recruiter. And there is a through line with that because I loved working with people. And motivation was always something. I always say, I pretend like I'm a therapist.

Laurie Palau [00:06:27]:

Cause I'm always like, what's your, why? What's underneath it? But for years, it was all about career. Like, what's your motivation for wanting to do a job change. So in 2000, I had our first daughter, and I was recruiting at that time in the.com world. And if anybody can remember what happened in 2000, it was like that bubble burst and all of a sudden, like, everything went sideways. And I had never intended that I was going to take off because I loved what I did. And I had my own recruiting business with a business partner. We went from, like, all the way up here to, like, no clients because everybody was going out of business. And we were at a crossroads where he was a primary breadwinner, and so he needed to, like, get a job that had more stability.

Laurie Palau [00:07:10]:

And I said, you know what? I really don't want to do this by myself. I'm going to take a little break and be a stay at home mom. And so it was always supposed to just be a temporary thing, and it wound up turning into four years that, because we wound up moving, and I was like, let me get situated. Then we had another baby, and I was like, well, let me just get that situated. So it turned out to this unintentional four year career gap. And I knew I always wanted to go back and do something entrepreneurial. I just didn't know what it would be. And so then I wound up going back into recruiting because I had this opportunity present itself.

Laurie Palau [00:07:46]:

And then in 2009, I mean, when the next recession hit, things went sideways again, and that's when I started my business. But I come with organizing people's homes from a perspective of being a working mom or working outside the home mom, a two career family, and also the struggles that you face when you live, breathe, and eat this all day, and that is part of your job. I'm air quoting because that's a whole other layer of guilt, responsibility, not knowing when to turn it off, setting boundaries. And so I think I was uniquely poised to speak because I wore both of those hats, if that makes any sense.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:29]:

It totally does. It absolutely does. And I say this, you know, this podcast is for two career families. But what I find all the time when I talk to women who've decided to stay home is it's the same. You still feel guilt when you're at home. There's messes when you're gone, there's messes when you're home. It's like the same stuff. It's just a slightly different season, you know, of, like, the same show, kind of like, I totally feel you there, so.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:51]:

Well, thanks for sharing that, Laurie. Let's dive into some of these questions. So I said at the beginning, I have four questions, I think it is that I've pulled from this delicious pile of feedback I got from my audience of, like, hey, what do you want to know? How can we be helpful? And so there was a lot of questions around the physical space. How do we make sure that is matching the way we want our lives to feel? And so let me go here to the first one. What is the relationship between our physical space and our mental energy? As I was reading, kind of doing research on you, you, like, dug into enneagram and a lot of these, like, deep pieces of us and our motivations, because our space is a manifestation of kind of what's going on in the inside fair.

Laurie Palau [00:09:34]:

Oh, a thousand percent. I mean, I think there's not necessarily one specific like, clear cut answer. But I do think that. I think there's a few things that come into play. Organization, on its most granular level, is a learned skill for people. And some people are more intuitively, like, natural added, just like some people are natural athletes or naturally musically talented. But it is also something that can be taught, like what I do, what I teach, I isn't hard in the actual steps, the tactical steps. What's hard is the discipline to do it over and over again and adapt it as our lives grow and change and our priorities change.

Laurie Palau [00:10:20]:

And with all the different things that we have on our plate. It's sustainability, right? That we need to create. And when I go into somebody's house and I see this level of disorganization, it usually, and I'm oversimplifying this, but it's either they don't have the tactical skills to know what to do. They were never taught them. They didn't have healthy model behavior. No one ever told you, like, this is how you do it. Just like you don't know how to cook. If you were never taught to cook or drive or any of those things, or there's so much chaos going on in your world, in your life, that it is spilling over into your physical stuff.

Laurie Palau [00:10:58]:

I find very rarely do I encounter somebody that is truly like. And I hate the word lazy, even though I've used it over the years. Like, there's usually a deeper reason why people aren't doing it. They either don't know what to do, they have self doubt, all of these different reasons, or there's so much other stuff that is just how it's oozing out. And I will tell you as, and this is really came to light when I started studying the Enneagram and looking at the connection points between people's Enneagram type and clutter is the same principle can be held true to somebody who is overly controlling, perfectionist, knee freak. When you see somebody that is so tightly wound and we all know that we have that friend, or we've been in somebody's house where you're like, I don't even want to put a drink down without a coaster because I'm afraid everything is almost too perfect. That is the when the pendulum swings so far the other direction. And the goal is to try to find this happy medium where the organization isn't the end goal at all.

Laurie Palau [00:12:04]:

It's just the byproduct to getting you to what that next step is.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:09]:

There's two things coming to mind as you're talking one is, I will tell my girls I can't think when this place is a mess. Like it is connected to my mind. Is that an. I'm an enneagram three. Is that an enneagram three?

Laurie Palau [00:12:21]:

That is 1000% an enneagram three thing. I'm telling you that for sure. My husband's Enneagram three. I have a bunch of friends who are Enneagram threes. And I've done if, like, seriously, if you guys can link back, if you're, any of your listeners are interested in, like, the Enneagram and the Enneagram and clutter stuff, we've done a bunch of series, and I can give you a link to that. You tell me if this resonates with you. It's almost like nails on a chalkboard. Like there's a visceral reaction when there is physical clutter around.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:51]:

I shut down. I'm like, I can't hear your words. I am so overstimulated by what is happening in the space. I can't do anything else productive.

Laurie Palau [00:13:00]:

One of the phrases, quotes, whatever that I wrote years ago, I wrote it in the book. Way before I even learned about the enneagram was clutter is less about the stuff that you see and more about how it makes you feel and that right there. And it's something that has been, like, quoted over and over again. And it really holds up today because so many people, it impacts their ability. You said it impacts your cortisol. It impacts your stress. It impacts your productivity. It impacts so many things.

Laurie Palau [00:13:34]:

When we have people that have sea clutter through different lenses, that's where we have, like, this breakdown of communication. Because there are some people that are, like, what I call clutter blind. Like, they just don't even say it. They can walk past that sink full of dishes. Doesn't bother them. They could just step over the toys where somebody else is like, what are you insane?

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:53]:

Like, with precision, I could put a post it note on each of my girls's forehead about the things that they have laying around the house. Like, at any given point in time. Like, did you not see your Alulemon fanny pack thing? Did you not see your shoes in the entryway? Did you not see. It's like this reluctant inventory that I carry around.

Laurie Palau [00:14:12]:

Yeah. And that's when the communication piece is so critical. Because when you're sitting down, whether it's with your spouse or with your children or even with roommates, if you're somebody that's living with roommates and you are saying this is how it makes me feel, and what can we do about this? And then if people then again choose not to, then you don't have a clutter problem. Then you have a relational issue. If people are expressing and creating, like, these are the boundaries we're setting. This is what we're going to do when we have this and we set that clear kind of plan out. If people still then choose to neglect that, then I say, your issue's bigger than your clutter. It moves into a different area.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:55]:

So let's push into that, because that was one of my questions. I have the life of Ann Academy, and it's a framework of, like, how do you set up your time? And one of the big questions I hear is, like, how do I get my family to, like, go along with the plan? So my question is out on the space. Like, it's a heavy load for one person to say, I hired Laurie and her team to come in. We did all the things. We got the labels, we've got this processes, we've got the systems. This is how this works. But one person cannot fight the gravity of pushing against five people who don't want to participate in it. Like, it's too much for one person.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:28]:

So how do you get families or roommates? But in my space, I would say, like families. How do you get families to say, no, we are choosing this. This is serving all of this. Even if we do have different relationships with clutter. How do you get that to stick to change the family culture and behavior?

Laurie Palau [00:15:45]:

Well, there's a couple things, and it's probably one of the most popular questions that I get asked. It's a real struggle that people face, I think. And you just did an episode, and you were talking all about identifying your values, right? And you were talking about prioritizing imbalance, and you talked about values. And I think one of the things is being clear in what are our family values? What is it that we are trying to achieve as a family? And then you and your partner, your spouse, are going to establish what that looks like. And maybe that means we're not going to be yelling in the house. Maybe that means we're not going to do this. Maybe that means we're going to treat other people's stuff with respect, whatever that looks, looks like. And so you're going to set these values.

Laurie Palau [00:16:31]:

So I think being very clear in what, what is it and how that, again, going back to how does that make us feel? I don't want to feel stressed when I come in. How do we want our home to feel right. We want us to feel this. And knowing that when we see things out of place, it's not because mom's being crazy control freak, it's because it stresses me out when I have to race around in the morning and or if I'm tripping over things or whatever it is. So I think it's that communication piece of explaining this is what we believe in, and how can this organization support that so that it aligns with that? And then I think the second piece is being very clear of what that expectation looks like in practical terms. So in our home, I'll just give you an example. When my girls were younger, I was like, here's the deal. Like, you guys can play all you want, but when you're done playing part of your play time, and this would go when they had play dates with their friends, is you're going to clean up and your friends are going to be part of it.

Laurie Palau [00:17:35]:

So if you have a playdate and it ends at 04:00 at 345, I'm going to start giving you guys a like, guess what? It's time. And you guys are going to clean up is going to be part of that process. And I just, first of all, normalizing it, that it just is what it is. This is what we do, right? It could be the same as, like, we make our beds in the morning, and if you're rushed, then we need to get up five minutes earlier or we need to go to bed, you know, whatever it is. But you need to set very specific things because it's not just going to happen. You have to create what that looks like. But it's also, when we're in common areas like the kitchen or the whatever it is, this is the expectation that you're going to do this and then, you know, you're going to follow it through. We're not going to leave our dishes out.

Laurie Palau [00:18:21]:

We're going to put our dishes in the sink and or in the dishwasher or whatever that is. But if they choose, and again, this is age appropriate, and it's going to be for everybody to kind of say how much gray area they want to have. I also was like, listen, if you don't want to put your clothes away and you feel like shopping out of the laundry basket once they get to be teenagers, because when you're younger, you have a little bit more control. Right. But as they get older, it's like, I'm going to pick my battles. And if you want to start looking through your, you know, laundry basket, to find your uniform, that's on you. This is what it is. So I just think having those clear boundaries of this is what we expect.

Laurie Palau [00:19:00]:

And as a family, I always say, we're a team, right? We're in a team doesn't mean that we're all equal, but we're all part of this team. We all have different roles. And so as part of the team, this is what is expected of you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:19:13]:

I love that. And I've observed in my own house that when there is a system and a process, kids are actually. There's a lot of sense of accomplishment that comes with picking up an area, seeing it clean, knowing where things go, makes them feel, like, smart. And when I find there's an area that just cannot stay neat, it often doesn't have a system that supports the way we use it. And so I have learned, as I've put, you know, my hacky version of organization together, it's like, when it's set up, even the pantry, like, they'll refill, the crackers all know what to order, and, like, we won't have a bunch of expired stuff because it's like, this is the way that it works. And so I found they are pretty good at engaging in it when it's set up in a way that makes sense to lots of people versus it being this really chaotic world. We do this thing called a ten minute pick and put at night, and it's like, pick something up and put it away. Just do that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:20:06]:

If we all do that for ten minutes, there's six of us. That is a lot of picking and pudding. It usually doesn't even take ten minutes.

Laurie Palau [00:20:12]:

So. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think as your kids get older, again, knowing the lay of the land, I think getting their buy in is also important, because if the goal is that you want to have an organized space or a, you know, a space that's free of clutter, asking them, you know, if you know that there's a pattern of them leaving their backpacks around or whatever it is. Right. It's. And you see, like you said, the same recurring things over and over again. Like you said, maybe the system's a little broken. Maybe the system needs tweaking.

Laurie Palau [00:20:45]:

I think it's not just okay, but I think it's welcomed, especially if they're going to be part of that, to get their buy in. What would make this easy for you? And obviously, it's not like the option isn't, we're going to leave it on the floor. But it's like, maybe I really just need hooks there. Or maybe I need XYZ over here. And designating that space and getting them to be part of the solution, I think, is really empowering.

Tiffany Sauder [00:21:13]:

Totally. And they're gonna have homes at some point in their lives, like, they need to know have these skills, too. For sure.

Laurie Palau [00:21:18]:

Well, that's my whole thing.

Tiffany Sauder [00:21:19]:

Okay, well, we won't go. Yes, they'll do that next time. Okay, this is the next question. That was very helpful. I need help cleaning out my closet. I have too many clothes I don't wear. I'm sure this is on repeat for you, too, but I think about starting your day with something that feels stressful and that you don't feel good about stepping into is a very big thing. It seems, I think, lightweight at the surface that, like, your closet's a mess.

Tiffany Sauder [00:21:44]:

But it has, to me, it's very connected to the way I feel, the way I walk, my confidence going into a room. And so how do you start with this? This was literally the question. I need help cleaning out my closet. I have too many clothes I don't wear.

Laurie Palau [00:21:57]:

Yeah. And again, on the surface, it sounds you would think the answer would be like, well, just get rid of them. Just get rid of what you don't wear. But here's the tricky spot. We talk about emotional clutter being the roadblock or one of the roadblocks for people in getting to a point where they can even have give themselves permission to start embarking on this decluttering journey. And so addressing and owning the fact that you are struggling with this out of either guilt or fear or some other emotion. And for a lot of people, their clothes, for a variety of reasons, are representative of who they were at a certain time or who they want to be and not having that. And I see it a lot of times with people who maybe have left a workplace, like, changed a lot of times when people used to dress up for work back in the day, and then they all of a sudden, a client was, like, working from home.

Laurie Palau [00:22:59]:

They would hold on to their working clothes because it was part of who they identified as. And it was like letting go of that, or again, letting go of those genes that don't fit you anymore. And. Or I know that my weight swings pendulum. And again, it's all of these ruminating thoughts that are just bottlenecks for us. So funny that you asked this question, because I literally just, and I swear my hand to God, I just answered a question I was being interviewed for real simple. And they asked me a question about closet organization. And I said, I gave them a couple different tips and I said, but at some point it becomes a math issue.

Laurie Palau [00:23:41]:

You only have so much space. You could fill in the blank for a pantry for others, but specifically with closets, at some point you can maximize the space all you want. But if you've got a six foot hanging rod, that's all the space that you have. So you have to decide, do I want to sacrifice my stuff or do I want to be able to have that freedom and that and enjoy what I have? And so once you can get through that emotional and make peace that. I know those shoes cost a lot of money, but I'm not going to wear them anymore. Or these jeans used to look good on me and they don't anymore. Once you can get past that and decide where is it going? Is it getting donated? Am I selling it on Poshmark? Am I giving it to a friend? What am I doing with it? Once. Once you can have that plan, and that's kind of what we work with people through, is giving them those tactical steps.

Laurie Palau [00:24:35]:

Once you know what you're going to do with it, then it makes that process easier because then it becomes more systematic and you can check some boxes of what am I going to do? But I think it's giving yourself back to your listener about I have too much stuff is if this were a clean slate, what would I put back in it? If this were empty, what are the clothes I would put back in it? Because I always we do this ESP method, it's like called empty sort purge. And so if you're emptying your closet, what are you putting back in? You're only putting back in the stuff that really matters to you. And then it's a matter of releasing the guilt that is holding you back from whatever reason, the other stuff doesn't make the cut.

Tiffany Sauder [00:25:21]:

Hey, it's Tiffany. If you've been listening to the show for a while and find yourself thinking, I just wish there was more good news. You can sign up for my newsletter. It's filled with my favorite products, recipes, tips, stories to help encourage you as you build your life of. And the link is waiting for you in show notes. See you there. So literally, if someone is going through this process and having this problem, you would start with emptying everything. Or you would start with saying, like, let's talk about some of the psychological stuff that's making you stuck.

Tiffany Sauder [00:25:51]:

Because let's be honest, it's not about the clothes. Like, where. Where would you practically start?

Laurie Palau [00:25:55]:

Okay, practically, if I'm working with somebody, I'm always going to start with a conversation. We're always going to have, like, tell me where you're struggling, why you think you're struggling, and what your goals are. Like, what do you want out of this space? Like, what do you want? So I'm always going to have that conversation. And sometimes people are so overwhelmed, they don't even know. Right? They don't know what they want. So I get it. Sometimes there are some people that are a little bit more analytical and they can articulate it better. Other people are just so big in their emotions, and I just know it stresses me out.

Laurie Palau [00:26:27]:

And that's like, that's fine. So you don't have to have this, like, clear, succinct answer. Some people do, and that's great. But when we get to like, here's what our plan is now, if I'm working with somebody, we're gonna start emptying the space. Now, what I tell people all the time is that doesn't mean you have to empty the entire contents of your space at once. It could be, I'm gonna empty this shelf. I'm going to empty just the shoes. You could empty in a variety of different ways.

Laurie Palau [00:26:52]:

You could pick a category. You could pick, I'm just going to do my hanging rod. Because you don't want to get to a point where you are just run out of time or you're, again, overwhelmed. So you're not, I don't want to recommend to somebody, empty your entire garage. And then you're staring at the stuff. And now I'm wearing. We're not going there. Yeah, we're not doing that, but I'm going to say, okay, we're going to start working these baby steps.

Laurie Palau [00:27:14]:

We're going to start these muscles, and we're going to say, let's just take off this shelf of sweaters. And then we're going to work through systematically, and I have this, like, four pile method where I go, keep, donate, recycle, relocate. Am I keeping it, and keeping it means, am I keeping it in this space? Like, is this something I'm wearing? Is it in current rotation? Not a memory, not a keepsake. Is this something that I wear, use, and is going to get life here? Yes. Okay, that's one pile. Second pile is it's stained trap. Like, gotta recycle it. Right? And I.

Laurie Palau [00:27:51]:

There's some great organizations that you can even recycle clothes to keep them out of a landfill. So that's like the stuff that's not even donate worthy, and then you can have your donate pile. You could separate it if you're like, I have a specific person in mind I want to donate this to. Or I'm going to donate to a charity or organization. So you have your donate pile, and then you have your relocate pile. Now relocate is I want to keep it, but it doesn't need to live here. Now relocate could mean I flip out my clothes seasonally. So I'm relocating it to my seasonal bin that I flip in and out a couple times a year.

Laurie Palau [00:28:26]:

Relocate could mean this is a keepsake, and I really don't want to get rid of it. So I'm going to put it in, like, a memory bin, and I'm going to put it away. Or it could be relocated. This just doesn't belong here. This is like a coat, and it belongs downstairs in the closet or something. It's just relocating. Cause it has a different home. I don't really talk about selling, but obviously, if you were like, there's stuff I wanna sell, you would add that into a separate pile.

Laurie Palau [00:28:49]:

But I don't wanna give people more work. They're already overwhelmed. So we wanna keep it simple. So if you just follow those four piles, and I know we're talking about clothes. Like, I just gave you my playbook. Like, this is what I do in every space. It could be your kitchen, it could be your garage. It could be the kids toys.

Laurie Palau [00:29:08]:

What are we doing? These are the four piles. I've been doing this for 15 years, and I'm a one trick pony. Like, it works. And because it just keeps you on track of what are the different spaces, and then when you're faced with, this is what's left. This is what I'm keeping. Then you can decide, how do I want to organize this? Do I want to fold it? Do I want to hang it? Do I want to color code it? Do I want to do it by category? What? You know what I mean? But I. You have to remove all the noise before you can do anything else.

Tiffany Sauder [00:29:41]:

This is a me question, but I feel like organization is, like, having its minute right now. You know, with, like, the home edit and, like, container store and, like, Instagram. Like, look at my fridge. Like, I feel like there's, like, being organized, and then there's, like, you can open my fridge at any point in time and take a public photo of it. That is, like, a different level in my head. Do you feel like it's creating this? Like, outsized, almost as outside? Like some, like, being organized, having systems that manage your stuff and allow you to decide quickly and know what you have and care for your belongings is one. The other is like, everything is perfectly toted. And all this kind of stuff, is it almost making the hurdle in our minds heavier than it needs to be because of kind of where we are? What's your like?

Laurie Palau [00:30:26]:

Yeah, I mean, again, reflection on that. Okay, so speaking of, from somebody who got into this before Instagram or Pinterest.

Tiffany Sauder [00:30:35]:

Exist before, it was cool, Laurie.

Laurie Palau [00:30:36]:

Like, it wasn't even. It didn't even exist. People didn't even know what I did. I spent so much of my time just explaining to people what a professional organizer does, because in 2009, it was reserved for two people. You were either a hoarder and it was like you needed, like, clinical help, or you were like, an uber rich that you hired personal trainers and chefs and all of a professional. But, like, it wasn't a mainstream thing. I would say, like most things, it can become access. And I think we have to be mindful of what, again, is our goal, because it's a really shallow goal.

Laurie Palau [00:31:11]:

If your goal is just to be able to have, like, an instagrammable refrigerator.

Tiffany Sauder [00:31:16]:

Sometimes it can make it more inaccessible. I think when we say, like, organize it, like, doesn't mean it has to look like that. It means there's a.

Laurie Palau [00:31:22]:

No, it doesn't. It doesn't. An organization, that picture in your mind is very different for different people. And I have this conversation a lot because I coach and mentor other professional organizers right. On how to run their business, because I feel like there's more people that need organizers. So where other people are like, oh, my God, you're my competition. I'm like, no, bring it on. We need more of you.

Laurie Palau [00:31:44]:

Like, come, let's do this. And I say a lot of people get into it because they have their own bar that they've set for themselves in their own homes. I said, you have to recognize that your client's bar might be very different than yours. And I think it's really important for professionals as well as the like to really understand, like, what are my goals? And that's why I do always start with the conversation, what is it that you're trying to achieve? To me, I always tell people, the foundational piece of living an organized life is being able to find what you need when you need it. It's not, because what makes me crazy is when I know I have something and I can't find it, because it's not where it's supposed to be, and I have to waste time looking for something because it wasn't put back or whatever. Like, that's the stuff that makes me crazy. So I am all about the ease of retrieval. Whenever I'm designing something for somebody, I go, don't over complicate it.

Laurie Palau [00:32:41]:

You want this to be easy for you. You want it to be easy for the kids. You want to be easy for your spouse. We want somebody to be able to walk in and go, oh, this is where the snacks go, oh, this is where my shoes go, oh, this is where this goes. And that is simple. You don't need to make it complicated. And sometimes the bin and the basket overcomplicates. It doesn't always, but you want to be mindful.

Laurie Palau [00:33:05]:

Like, having a lidded bin for toys is just an extra layer of making your kid not want to put it away.

Tiffany Sauder [00:33:12]:

Totally. I don't know. I might want eight kinds of cereal instead of the four containers that I have. Like, that stresses me out. I'm like, I need flexibility, but order.

Laurie Palau [00:33:23]:

Well, that's another thing. So when decanting got really, really popular, I would say, and I'd have clients that go, I want my, you know, again, I want my pantry to look like this. Or I would. And I'm like, we can totally do that. And I have no problem doing it. But let me just walk you through this. Are you going to come home from the grocery store and are you going to take your cereal out of the bowl or out of the box and pour it into here? Are you going to take your clothes off the dry cleaning hangers and transfer them? If the answer is no, then this organizing bin, basket, whatever, is going to just end up being more clutter. So what? We can still achieve a level of organization.

Laurie Palau [00:34:05]:

Let's just take a big, nice basket and put all your cereal boxes in that and corral them. You don't have to make extra steps. If you want to, you can. But that's part of knowing what is your commitment to this? And most people don't want to have to maintain it because they are balancing two careers and all the other things. And they're like, that's just another thing on my to do list. I don't want this to be complicated. This is supposed to be simplifying my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:34:32]:

Totally. Okay, last question. Love it. I'm so tired of living in a mess. Where do I even start?

Laurie Palau [00:34:37]:

So the loaded question, right? Because it's, we have so many pain points. And that's what happens when a lot of people would come to me, is like, they've hit their breaking point.

Tiffany Sauder [00:34:44]:

Well, they're kind of, like, embarrassed and a little bit like all that kind of stuff comes with it. Oh, yeah.

Laurie Palau [00:34:49]:

There's so much shame that comes with disorganization. And that is what I want. That has been one of my primary goals throughout this whole career journey of mine, is to just dispel this myth of, like, we all are a little bit of a hot mess in some way, shape or form, and there's no shame in that. And again, for a lot of people, they weren't taught the skills, they weren't taught the tactical way to do it. And we were just kind of thrown into this. And a lot of people, they're, either their parents did it or they, you know what I mean? And so they just were expected to know. And there can be a roadmap, but we're not necessarily taught this roadmap in school of this is how you do it. But yes, when, by the time people come to me, it's usually death by a thousand cuts.

Laurie Palau [00:35:33]:

It's not one spot that is stressing them out. My whole house, I'm overwhelmed. And that's when we need to look at that behavior change. What are the behaviors that we're doing? It's not just like we're going to implement some systems, but we're going to have to, like, maybe rethink how we, you know, before we walk in the house, what are we doing? Maybe we need to take stuff off of our plates. Because when I talk about calendar clutter, a lot of times people are like, there's more stuff that I need to do than time in the day to do it. Of course, you can't put your laundry away. Of course your laundry is piling up. Look at all of the other things on your to do list.

Laurie Palau [00:36:08]:

And when we talk about the five, what I call the five clutter pitfalls, time is one of them. And so when you are so overwhelmed and your house is a mess, one of the natural questions I'm going to ask people is, tell me about your day. Tell me what your life is like. And when they talk about, I've got multiple kids, we've got two careers, we're running into different directions. I'm helping to take care of my aging parents of this. Well, it's no wonder, because somebody, whether it's you or you're outsourcing it, somebody has to do the work. It's not just going to happen. And so for a lot of times, it's no wonder that it makes total sense of why? You're in a state of chaos because you have no margin in your day, and so there's no time to do meal planning and there's no time.

Laurie Palau [00:36:52]:

And you just keep buying things and there's no system. And so it's easier to go to the store than to go look for the thing. And those are all common things. And that's when we have to go. And that's with the work that you do comes in so critically because it's like, who's owning what? Especially when you have two career households, you're both working full time, you both have expectations at work. You both have stuff for the family. And, like, what piece of this am I owning? What am I supposed to do? What are we going to outsource? And so really kind of clarifying that is so important. And then you can start to say, let's prioritize the actual stuff.

Tiffany Sauder [00:37:30]:

The actual stuff. Do you ever interview, like, the kids and say, like, what's it feel like to live here? And what does that look like?

Laurie Palau [00:37:38]:

It's interesting. So my kids are grown now, right? They're 23 and almost 21. And so. But I'm still real involved in our community and we have a little town and that my kids grew up in. I still get invited back to come back for career day. And I come in and I was there a few months ago, and I was talking to a group of, like, third graders, and I tell them what I do. And it used to be that all the kids knew me because I was like, oh, Zoe, Logan's mom. But now the kids don't really know me.

Laurie Palau [00:38:06]:

And so I tell them what I do, and immediately they're like, because I'll ask them. I go, is your house neat? Is it organized? And I asked them, how does clutter make you feel? Or how does it feel to be organized? I asked them all these questions and they just open up and they're like, my house is a mess. It is so stressful when I walk in, I can't find what I need, and they're so open about it. I have kids that are like, can you come to my house? Can you come to my house? So, like, they crave that. And it's not because they're craving the label bin, it's they're craving that clarity. They're craving that sense of calm. They don't want the chaos. And as children, I mean, even adults find, can struggle with finding the words to articulate how clutter makes them feel.

Laurie Palau [00:38:52]:

But kids specifically, they don't always know and it's just, so what do we do? We avoid, we procrastinate, we leave the house, we shut the basement door, we shut the garage door, we shove it in a drawer, and we deal with it later because it is stress producing. And so as opposed to playing a long game, and again, I'm guilty of it, too, but we just go, you know what? I got a million other things I can prioritize and I won't do it. And then it finally catches up with us.

Tiffany Sauder [00:39:22]:

I think it's one of those things hiding in plain sight as you're talking about it, where if you would talk to. I think anybody who listens to this podcast is like, I'm desperately wanting to do my very best for my family. That's always where our intention is. And we're going and going and going. And I find sometimes the greatest gift I can give them is like, no, and a pause button and this, like, sense of we're going to be in our space and we're going to be together, we're going to be present. That's what we're going to do. And I think it becomes this. I can feel it in my body.

Tiffany Sauder [00:39:54]:

There were these seasons in our lives where we had this manic habit of being gone. And I think it is where there's, where home just isn't peaceful, it's not calm. There's not a place to sit. There's no place that feels like that matches how you feel on the inside. And so you just leave and it's almost repel off of it.

Laurie Palau [00:40:13]:

Yeah, absolutely. And I talk a lot about the differences between what I call situational clutter and chronic clutter. And I think that there's a very distinct difference that I want your listeners to just for their own, like, give themselves a little bit of grace, you know? To me, I define chronic clutter as it's an ongoing problem. Right. And it could be where our mail is always an issue, or we're always behind on our bills, or we're drowning in digital clutter, or we're drowning in our whatever physical, whatever the situation is, right. And we have to create, we have to establish some new systems and boundaries to remove that, to change the behavior so that this doesn't keep happening. But then there's also just situational clutter where you're in a busy season and it could mean, like, hey, and I know we're coming, like in springtime, everybody I know, if they have a kid who plays spring sports or there's the school concerts, and there's the end of the school year, this. And it's always like, we try to cram, like, six months worth of stuff into, like, a two month period.

Laurie Palau [00:41:14]:

And so it's okay if you backlog a little bit on the laundry or something falls a little bit by the wayside. Right. Because we know that when this season is overdeveloped, we have the system and the strategy to get back on the horse. We know as soon as I come up for air, I'm going to be able to put the clothes away and do this. Because you have that foundational piece, it just leaves something else that's moved up on the priority list for this particular season. And I think that's when we have to just go, you know what? My house isn't that Pinterest perfect or Instagram worthy or whatever you want to call it. And that's okay because, like you said, I'd like to be able to come home after we've been running from practice to rehearsal to whatever, and just sit down and relax and have a conversation, then feel like I have to go do a bunch of chores.

Tiffany Sauder [00:42:04]:

Totally. I love it. Laurie. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming and sharing your advice and experience with my listeners. It's such a big deal to be able to have home feel like home. And I feel like you've shared some great advice. So before I send you off, do you have one piece of advice from your two career family to those who are listening? And, I mean, this has been filled with it, but maybe in a season where you guys were starting a new chapter or a season of change, any piece of advice you'd share from your two career home to another?

Laurie Palau [00:42:35]:

Yeah. So I am a big believer in really just being clear on, like, kind of what your responsibilities are. And again, this can change seasonally. Like, it could change depending on what your lifestyle is like and leaning into the kind of chores or responsibilities. Like, we all have to do things that we don't want to do. But if there's one person that is better at cooking than another person and somebody's better at cleaning than another person, like, I feel like have those conversations. And so for me, kind of that division of labor, having that clear communication was always really important for us. And my husband traveled a lot when my kids were little, and then he went through a period where he was not traveling as much.

Laurie Palau [00:43:17]:

And when that happened, he said to me, I'm not going to be traveling because I always said I was a single mom with a paycheck because he was working and I was carrying like the mental load of everything. And when he went through this period where he wasn't traveling as much, he said, what can I take off your plate? And without hesitation, I was like, school lunches. And it was like, no backsies. So we had that communication piece of now that's your job. And when we, and I don't know if you guys know who Evradski is or you've had her on your show, but she was on my show. We were talking all about, like, when you own something, kind of owning it from start to finish. We kind of did that. So, like, if you're in charge of lunches, then you need to put on the list when we're running low on lunch meet or we're running low on snacks like you and we, but we established that, like, if that's what you do, if this is my job, at least for this season, then I'm going to own all of the moving parts about that job.

Tiffany Sauder [00:44:10]:

Love it. Ten out of ten. Well, Laurie, if someone is interested in getting access to your knowledge, your podcast, or any of your resources, where can you most easiest be found?

Laurie Palau [00:44:21]:

So website is the hub for everything. You can find all the things there. It's simply the letter b, like boy organized.com. and we've got tons of free resources obviously linked to the book, the podcast, which is this organized life. And then we have our paid offerings as well if somebody is interested in, you know, working with us. But we've got lots of free ways for you to work with us as well. So awesome.

Tiffany Sauder [00:44:45]:

Well, thanks for the work that you do. I feel like I'm just inspired to, like, give the gift of a calm home to my kids. I feel like that is one of my big takeaways of this is like, kids feel it just as hard as we do and we don't always give them the space to articulate it. So thanks for sharing your wisdom with us, Laurie. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:45:15]:

I will.