The Joyfulicity Podcast
Let's face it - in a world full of pain and troubles, couldn't we all use a little (or a lot) more joy? But how do we find it, keep it and share it? We'll dig in on that and explore it together here, on the Joyfulicity podcast. What is Joyfulicity? It's my made-up word for the art of living happy. I'm your host Laura Wakefield, a single mother of 9, certified midlife discovery life coach, writer, travel host and yoga and beach lover. Dedicated to helping others discover and maintain greater peace and personal empowerment. Dare to Dream - Plan to Play - Live to Learn. Here's to living life with a smile.
The Joyfulicity Podcast
Priscilla Yocum - Sorted Bliss Home Organizing
Ready to start the new year off right, and feeling the call toward cleaning out and getting organized at home? Priscilla Yocum, of Sorted Bliss, is a professional home organizer that's here to tell us how to create systems that simplify and order our spaces and lives.
Visit Priscilla's website: https://www.sortedbliss.com
and follow her on Instagram: / sortedbliss
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Welcome to the Joy Felicity Podcast. I'm your host, Flora Wakefield, and today I'm privileged to have as my guest Priscilla Yocum of Sorted Bliss. Priscilla is a home organizer from Southern California, a mom, and she told me before we got on camera that her primary goal in home organization is to free up space in people's lives for more intentional living. And I love, love, love everything about that concept. And I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today, Priscilla. Welcome. Hi. Thank you for having me. So we chatted a little bit before we got on camera, but if if you wouldn't mind starting by just telling people how did you get involved in this? You you mentioned to me beforehand that you were kind of an accidental business owner. And I want to hear more about that. Tell us how you got started in organizing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think as I was telling you, it's being organized or organizing the process of it has been very innate to me from a really young age. I've always been aesthetic driven. So I like things to look a certain way, but also to have a high functionality behind it. And as little as, you know, my mom tells a story of my brother and I being in the toy aisle together. And my brother would literally, he's two and a half years ahead of me. He'd be going through like a Tasmanian dabble, kind of ripping it up. And I would be following behind him, putting everything in order and lining things up and putting like categories together. And so um that's always kind of been a part of my personality. When you were really small, like yeah, really young, like as young as like six and seven years old. Wow. Um, and I have a daughter, and when she was about six or seven, she started doing the same thing. So her crayons she would put all in color order and things like that. And not to say that I didn't have my moments where my room looked like a bomb went off of in it with clothing and whatnot, but I always had this kind of innate sense about how things could function and flow better and be organized in categories. Um, and then when I was in college and starting my first jobs, um I gravitated towards administration, so admin work. Um, I would find the first thing I would do would be to reorganize the supply closet or the lunchroom because I would walk into these spaces and be like, oh my gosh, this is so dysfunctional. Like, you know, we put this into shape really fast. And so it's always kind of been a part of me. Um, and I've also always been interested in homes and how people live. I would cut out photos and pictures of houses and I would take the Sears catalog and cut out furniture. And so I was always really interested in design too. And uh, and so in my 20s, I was in real estate and mortgage for a period of time because I thought, okay, I'm really interested in homes. Maybe this is the avenue. But it really wasn't. I was very stressed by the sales process, um, you know, and mortgage, you start from zero every single month. And I was so stressed out by that and I didn't find a lot of joy in it. And the um mortgage industry tanked in 2007. And I thought, okay, I have to start over. What do I want to do? And I'll go back to school for design, interior design. So I went to interior design school and they encourage us to help other people kind of get our feet wet, try and find an internship after the first year. And I had a friend who wanted me to help her revamp a couple of rooms in her home. She was going through a divorce. She wanted it to feel more like her and less like them. And um, I didn't have children. I wasn't married at the time. And I walked in and she had two small children. And I said, Well, before we can really do anything, we kind of need to clean this up. And she's like, What do you mean? I'm like, Well, you know, there's memorabilia, there's toys, there's errands that needed to be run. There were things from parties. Um, and you know, so I'm like, all these things if you put away or gotten rid of. And so that's really what we did in the first part of the process. And she said, You're really good at this. You should be a home organizer. I'd never heard the term before. Um, and so I literally said, What is that? And she said, Well, just what you did with me, you helped me find places for these things. And, you know, I have so many mommy friends that would love this. Um, you know what? I'm gonna enter you into a holiday um raffle that we have for services. Come up with a little like four-hour package or something and I'll put it in there. And I was like, what? And so I start Googling, you know, home organizer fine, because this was about 13 years ago. There were not a lot of home organizers. There wasn't the show the home edit. Really, the closest thing that you knew about it was corridors, which was horrifying to me. Which is the extreme burden. Yeah. Yes. And so I Googled it. I looked up the nearest organizers, very naively, sent an email to the 10 that I could find in my local area and said, How did you get started? What type of certificate or degree do you need for this? Is there a class? And one very kind woman responded and said, you know, you don't need a certificate or a degree. It's good if you have some business sense. Really, it's usually an innate thing that you have. Um, if you want to go to lunch, I can answer your questions. She went to lunch with me. She offered me an internship on some of her projects on the weekends because I was still working full-time and said, you know, it's one thing to organize for yourself, another to organize for friends, and it's a whole nother animal for strangers. Um, and so you want to figure out if you really like it. And so I did and I loved it. And she encouraged me to go out on my own. She was a godsend, she was really an angel. And um so I decided that I was gonna start my business. Um, I was newly married, uh, was talking to my husband about it. And he said, Well, you know, he has an MBA, so it's very traditional. And he said, Why don't you come up with a business plan and let's figure out if people will really purchase this? Like you gotta, can you actually make money doing this? Like, you need a proof of viability that this is actually a business that people want or a service that people want. And so for about six or so months, I was kind of trying to figure it out. Um, and then I got this idea to put my services on something called Plum District, which was for moms. I knew that was my target market because of what my friend had told me. And it was like a group on for moms. And they said that they'd never had a service like mine. They would love to. It was a little high priced, but to expect to sell over a four-day period, maybe three or four packages. And I thought that's perfect. Like if I sell three or four, that tells me people want it. Uh, I sold around 37 in a one-day period. Called, panicked, told them they had to take down my ad. And because I was one person who was doing it on the weekends. There's no way, like I was just testing it to see if it was a real business or not. I didn't even think I had my business name yet. And um, and so I went to my husband and I said, I think I've got a business here. And he said, You've got a business, you can quit the job if you want to. Um, and so it's, you know, been I've been um sorted bliss, Priscilla was sorted bliss ever since, and I love it and I it's evolved over the years. Um, I started out as just myself, kind of trying to figure out who my exact target was, what their needs were. Now I have a team of junior organizers underneath me. I specialize in specific types of projects now. Um, I have um clients that have worked with me year after year as their seasons of life change, um, as they move. And so it's been really wonderful. And now I'm venturing into branching out and I have an online um digital product that I offer to people who are not near me, who can't work with me one-on-one to learn all the systems that I implement for my clients. So yeah, I'm I've got to like an online coaching package then. Exactly. Yeah, uh kind of go at your own pace. Um, you know, eventually I'd love to add maybe a membership component to it where, you know, every month we're kind of tackling themed spocks and things like that. But right now it's all of the systems. There's probably about eight to 10 systems in four various categories that I tend to put in every home. I've used in my own home. And they really do reduce the clutter and really get to the problem of um what what kind of clutters up the space.
SPEAKER_01:So well, I want to get into asking you about those. Before I do that, let's talk for a second about why this matters, because I think there are people like you that are just kind of born organized, you know, they just sort of like that. And then there's the rest of us that kind of, well, you know, life kind of is like that a little bit, and and our outside environment sort of reflects what's going on in here, I think, typically. And usually I think when people are disorganized in one area, they're probably disorganized in most areas. I think that holds true from my coaching that I've done. But why does it matter? Because if you tell somebody that, there's people like my teenagers will argue with me about this. Mom, I know where everything is, I know it looks like a disaster, but I know where everything is. I'm fine, I don't need to clean this up. Yeah. So talk to me about that. Why? I mean, it why does it make a difference to have an orderly space?
SPEAKER_00:Well, just from science and what they've discovered is that when you have cluttered spaces, the overwhelm, um, the it's it's almost like a computer that has a bunch of tabs open at the same time. And it runs slower and less efficient if you have a lot of things running in the background. So if your phone starts to run slowly, then what they tell you to do is they tell you to start closing out or deleting apps, right? And that is very much the same way with clutter or with things that are just sitting out. So your brain is very efficient and very smart, but it can get bogged down really easily. So if it sees a bunch of things, then it's kind of looking at them and saying, is this something I need to pay attention to right now? Is this something I need to do right now? And so it's it's processing without you subconsciously, without you understanding that. And it's taking away from the thing that you need to focus on or need to be doing at that moment. So it's causing overwhelm in the background that you don't really, you aren't privy to unless you were really going to think about it. So that just on a really like simple level makes you kind of aware of how unaware you are of how the things in your environment can slow you down. It's kind of like obstacles. Like if you were running on a pass and there was, you know, a puddle and then a tire, and then, you know, all these things that you had to jump over because you're trying to get to the finish line, you're gonna go a lot slower than if that path was clear. Um, and so having these cleared spaces really allows you to just focus and do something much quicker. And a lot of times people keep things out because they're afraid if they don't, they'll forget about them. Yeah. But the truth of the matter is that you're not anymore aware of it. Your brain just starts to skip over it. Um, so you're subconsciously aware of it, but you're not consciously aware of it. And you need conscious awareness when you're trying to accomplish things.
SPEAKER_01:So really good point because I know, like, if you leave a pile of something over in the corner, eventually, honestly, you don't remember it's that it's there. It becomes sort of like furniture that it's just you don't really process it and think about it and deal with it. Whatever was keeping you from dealing with it initially is still in place and you're still not dealing with it.
SPEAKER_00:You might get this agitated feeling inside because you know there's something out that needs to be attended to, but you're not, you're not consciously processing. Oh, that pile of mail there is bills that need to be paid. Instead, you have an inner agitation that's like, I need to do something in this room, but I don't have time to focus on figuring it out right now. So it really does slow you down in a lot of ways that you don't realize.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and and I've seen it work in people's lives too, where they start to clean up their physical space and then that spills over into problems they were having in their relationship and their job and depression and all kinds of other things that felt disorganized when the physical starts to fall in line. It probably is like you're saying, it just kind of frees up more space to deal with those things, but I think also you start to feel a sense of empowerment that I tackled this and I can tackle other things too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the one of the um first comments I get from somebody af right after we've organized a space is I feel lighter. And if you think about how that feeling or that sensation is in your body, you are a better partner when you feel lighter, you are a better parent when you feel lighter. The opposite of lighter is heavy, burdened, right? And it's really hard to be the best version of yourself or to even think ahead of what that relationship might need or that career that you're working towards with that goal or that health or wellness goal that you have. You can't think ahead when you feel bogged down and heavy. And so the more areas or ways that you can feel lighter, including in your space, the more space you have for the things that are important to you, like your relationships and your goals and your business, if that's what you have, and or you know, volunteer work, whatever it is that's important to you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So who are your your primary people that call you? What are they saying when they I need help with this? What's what's the biggest one you hear that people struggle to stay organized in?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I don't think people are always aware of why they're contacting me exactly. To them, it's their stuff. So they think they have a stuff problem, but it's not usually. It's usually what I like to say are three problem areas: their fear, their shame, and their guilt. So a lot of times when people have too many things, it's guilt related, which means they might have shopping issues, so consumer issues. And so they feel um uh maybe shameful that they've overspent. And so they're hold on to things that aren't serving them. Oh gosh, that still has tags on it. They don't have any intention of wearing it or using it, they don't need it, they don't love it. Um, but there's this shame component because they've spent a resource on it. It's that sunk cost um method or or uh thought process that they put money into it now and now they're stuck with it, or they put some sort of resource time or something into it and they're stuck with it. And to justify it now, it's continuing to cost them, but they don't realize that. So there's shame, or there's guilt, meaning somebody's given you things. So you have a sister-in-law who has children a year or two ahead of your children, and she gives you all the clothes and the toys because she's done with them and she wants to give them to people that she cares about, but you don't like or use or need these toys, but you feel bad, or a mother-in-law who gives you gifts that aren't really things that you use or need or like. Um, and so it's this guilt that you're gonna let someone down if you don't continue to acquire and have these things. And then the last one I think is fear and it's scarcity. So it's fear that you'll need something and not have it. And there have definitely been generations, parents, grandparents who have lived in times where they didn't have food or things that they needed. And they certainly struggle with getting rid of things, but I find that for the most part, our generation, younger generations, there it's the abundance issue. So there's a lot of what you don't need. When you think about it realistically, have you ever needed, you know, a hammer and not been able to have one? So why do you need to have five of them? And have you ever, you know, needed a pair of shoes and not had a pair of shoes? Or maybe our grandparents only had one pair of shoes that had holes in them or something. Um, so it's uh this like fear that isn't necessarily a legitimate impediment for them, something that's holding them back. So usually what I end up doing with my clients is I'm working with them on those things by asking them gentle but pointed questions. So tell me how you use this. Oh, you don't use it. Why are we keeping this? Oh, your mother-in-law gave it to you. Okay. Um, you know, and so it's really getting them to understand their stuff and how they're collecting and seeing it all too, because sometimes when it's in various places of the home, you don't realize when you put it all together that you have 10 uh, you know, blues blue guns or you know, you that's so true.
SPEAKER_01:I just moved recently, and in the process of that, there were things. It's funny that you mentioned hammers because we've joked about it in our family. We had seven. When we gathered them all together, and we don't even know where they all came from or why we had seven. Of course, you can find one when you need one, and so because you're not organized, you go buy another one. Yes, and next thing you know, you have seven, right? Like really excessive amount of hammers. So I don't I don't even know how that happens, but it does.
SPEAKER_00:So it's in the consuming, the upfront part. So it happens in consumption, that is the part of people's things, but then there's another part of organization, the next level of it, because really there are three parts to organization. There's your stats and decluttering, which most people think of automatically. Oh, I just need to get rid of stuff. I need to, but then their spaces are no more organized a day, two, week later, month later, year later, they're in disarray again. And that's because there's this second level, which is systems. And so when you don't have the right systems in place, your cammers end up all over the house in places where you can't find them when you need them. And so you go and get new ones. So if you have efficient systems that say basically a system is this category lives here in this container, whether it's a drawer, a bin, you know, or some sort of customized container for it. But it that's what a system is. And so if you have systems that support your things, then you usually don't end up buying a lot of the same thing because nowhere to look for it because there's a system that supports it. And then the third part of it, which I can't do for my clients, but I I try to teach them this, is the habits. Uh, or there, they are the habits that they have in place that says we put the things back in the system. Or, you know, every night we do a five-minute tidy. Um I have a tidy bin system that I do with all of my clients. It's a stair bin. Everything goes in there during the day, five minutes at the end of the day. I put everything away upstairs, downstairs. It literally takes a couple of minutes while my kids are brushing their teeth. And that's how I keep my house clutter free and my clients' houses. But it's little habits like that that allow me to maintain the spaces so that once a year I'm maybe doing a declutter in a specific area or category. And it literally takes me 20 or 30 minutes to do that decluttering versus people who have to declutter for hours because they haven't put a system in place and they haven't put in small, what I like to call tidy habits to support those. And so really it's organization is a little bit multifaceted when you're doing it properly. And it sounds overwhelming at front, but it's really not. It's super, super simple.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think it can be overwhelming when you've let it get really out of hand. And yeah, avoid it because it feels overwhelming without realizing that if you just put in the time and tackle it once and then do the systems, it won't be overwhelming anymore. But because it feels overwhelming, you know, like like with the dishes, if we wait too long to do them, then there's so money that it takes forever to do them. And then we think we don't like doing dishes. But the truth is, if you keep up with it, it's really not a big deal. Right. So, what do you do about people? So you have gone to all this trouble and you have gotten in there and organized it all, and you've got these wonderful habits, and then you've got kids or a spouse or somebody that is not a particularly organized person, doesn't understand the value of it, and seems to be kind of derailing your systems behind you. What advice do you have for people in situations like that with roommates or spouses that are not helping?
SPEAKER_00:Um, so this is really, really common uh that there's one person who cares more than maybe everybody else. So you feel outnumbered in the home. What I tell my clients is that part of it is in the system. So labeling is really helpful and important. It's kind of like street signage. People know when to stop because there's a sign that tells them to stop. People know when to yield because there's a yield sign. And that's very much the way labeling can operate too in a home. And so if you want your family to help you, then labeling makes it more obvious for them. The other thing is to actually walk them through the system. So not assume that just because there's a system in place, they understand it. Um, and I feel like sometimes that is forgotten to just walk them through and say, hey, it would be really helpful to me if we could all start doing this with these things and get them to, you know, get familiar with it and buy in with a little bit too. And then also when you're dealing with family, it has to do with boundaries a lot. So um, if it's difficult for you to have boundaries with your kids around anything, you're going to have a difficult time in organization as well. So it's about being able to say no, it's about holding them accountable. It's about saying, hey, I noticed that you didn't put your shoe, your shoes back in the shoe bin. Can you please put your shoes back in the shoe bin? And, you know, holding them accountable for these systems. And, you know, I have a five-year-old and a 10-year-old. And so it's a lot of, okay, what are we doing with our shoes when we get in the house? Putting them in our bin, you know, so it there is a lot of reminding. And that's not always convenient. But now when I say to my kids, you know, okay, what do we need to do when we get home? They're telling me the things that they need to do because it's so a part of the routine. So implementing these things into routines as well, um, it makes it really helpful. But also just having that conversation with them and telling them this is important to me. I feel overwhelmed with this right now. I mean, most of the time, if you tell a spouse this, they want to be helpful. Um, now, if you're make giving them really complicated things to do, like you have, I tell my clients this who have pantry systems that are incredibly intricate because they want it to look a certain way. They want it to look Pinterest worthy and beautiful and Instagram worthy. Don't expect a lot of help there because that's not the way they think innately. So be prepared that you're gonna be the one lining up the granola bars. If they need to be lined up, be prepared that you're gonna be the one, you know, lining things up a certain way. So the systems need to be really simple if you want to have a buy-in with your family. If you want things to be intricate, leave that to the things that only you use, like your closet or the spices or the baking items, you know, things that aren't everyday traffic with everyone else. Otherwise, keep it simple, label it, walk them through it, get their buy-in, have good boundaries around it. And that's really the best way to have success around it.
SPEAKER_01:I love that because it's really not fair to have this super elaborate, intricate system that matters so much to you that's maybe kind of over the top for most people, and then be mad that no one else is jumping on board. You know, I like that advice to just keep it super simple. I have learned so I'm on my eighth and ninth teenagers right now, and I've kind of honestly learned to kind of shut their door.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And to and that maybe sounds awful, like I'm just abandoning the situation, but but to some extent, I've learned that that is just a battle that will be a daily battle that isn't necessary.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So I let them have a similar story. I have a 10-year-old daughter, and I wanted her to start doing her own laundry to be responsible for it. And so we do this thing for our birthdays where you get both a responsibility and a privilege. And so she gets to choose her privilege, and I choose the responsibility. And I said, Well, this year you're going to start doing all your own laundry from start to finish. But when she was about eight, I started having her help me put away her laundry. So I would still fold it and then I would give it to her, and she would go put it in her drawers. So she had a drawer for uh undergarments, uh, pajamas, pants, and shorts. And then she hangs all of her one pieces and her shirts. So those are wrinkled. Last year, before I had her start doing her laundry, I said, okay, I'm not folding your clothes anymore. You're folding your clothes. Actually, you don't even have to fold your clothes if you don't want to. You just need to put them in their proper drawer. So as long as you're keeping the categories, that's the boundary. The boundary is they need to be in the proper category. And the reason for it, and I explained this to her, the reason for it is that when you're getting dressed and you're trying to find pajamas, I want you to know where to find pajamas right away. When you're getting ready for school, I want you to know exactly where to find your underwear, your socks, your pants, and your shirts right away. That's the reason mommy's not letting you just put them in whatever drawer you want to. But if you put them in their proper drawer, their proper category, I don't care how you fold it, I don't care if you put it in a ball and put it in there. And for me, that was the hardest thing to let go of. Yes. Because I used to literally fold her things in like perfect Marie Kwando, like folding style, and have everything lined up the drawers. So amazing. But I knew that that was too much for her. And that was a battle that I didn't want to fight every day. And more than that, it was preventing her from being able to be autonomous and take responsibility for her own space and her own responsibility. And so part of having some autonomy and learning how to take care of yourself is having enough freedom to do it your own way. So guess what? I don't look in these drawers, so I don't even care what they look like anymore. They're in some sort of order for the reason that she can get ready quickly, but I've let go of how it looks. And that's probably pretty similar to your teenager's bedrooms.
SPEAKER_01:It is. But the thing is, you know, they've been taught that way and they know how to do it. So eventually it's kind of surprising to me. So I have I have an older son, he's 31 now, he's on his own. Um, but when he was younger, I was very, you know, this is how you have to do this, this, and this. And he didn't really recognize the value of it until he was on this scout camp out. And there was a boy there that couldn't pack his bag. He he had taken everything out, he couldn't pack it back. He didn't know how. And he was so overwhelmed. And my son comes home and he goes, you know, Mom, I always thought I never understood why you pushed us so hard and to teach us these things, but he could see it himself. And so their drawers are going to be a disaster for a while, but they'll know how. And at some point that value will kick in for them or not. But if it does, they have the skills, they know how to do it. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And that's all that's what it's really about, especially in parenting, right? Is preparing them for life, exposing them, but then also letting them be their own individuals, you know, having some boundaries and some rules, like I do with the categories, but um letting them be a little autonomous because you don't want them to get out into the wild. Right. And, you know, and not know how to care for themselves. And there's a balance between teaching them and then being really rigid and not having not allowing them autonomy.
SPEAKER_01:So let's talk just a minute about life stages because I know for me, and we were talking before we got on camera also, at different times of life, your issues tend to be different. When I was a young mother, the biggest thing I struggled with was uh kind of what your friend was that you know that you helped initially. Uh all the kids' stuff, mostly their artwork, they would bring volumes of paperwork and all of this stuff home, or just paperwork generally, uh where it just multiplies. What's a simple tip that that you've got for somebody to deal with the mountains of papers?
SPEAKER_00:So knowing the difference between memorabilia versus action um paper is a huge way to be able to tackle it right away. So if something is memorabilia, it's something that depicts the way your child viewed themselves or the world at that time. It's kind of like time capsule stuff. So do you want every stick drawing that your child drew? Probably not. But do you want the first photo that they drew of their whole family with the dog and everyone's a stick figure in front of the house that's like a stick house, you know? Probably because that's special. It's the first one. Um, you know, I save anything that has a hand print on it because it shows how big their hands get over the years. I save essays that talk about their worldview. So if it's just, you know, on Martin Luther King Jr. or something like that, probably not. But if they talk about their favorite experience over the summer with, you know, their dad camping, then I'm saving that. Um, so it's really a time capsule of who they were, how they saw the world at that time or that stage in life. And those things automatically go off to a bin. And I have a three-bin system that I implement with my clients and my own kids that tackle different stages. So it's anything before elementary school is one phase. Um, anything within elementary school is a second phase. Every family is different. So I have some families that use the big totes that are like Christmas size totes for Christmas decorations for each stage. And then I have some families that are like, nope, we're just gonna use a shoebox for each stage. Um I'm somewhere in between there. So I've got the, you know, maybe uh they're a little bit bigger than a boot box um for each phase. And then uh junior high and high school are the last phase of memorabilia that you keep. And you might have uh some things that don't fit nicely. So maybe those are taken photos of, you know, like a big poster board or something like that. And you take a photo of it and put the photo in there instead, or it might be the favorite blanky or the t-shirt that they insisted on wearing every single day to preschool, and you had to wash it every night because that was like the shirt or whatever. So those things might go into memorabilia. And then there's action paper, and that's paper that you have to do something with. So it's you know, the paper that needs to be signed and returned to the school. It's you know, the thing that you have to keep because it's about summer camp. And so you've got to reference it and sign them up for it in two weeks or two months or whatever it is. And so those papers are different, but having systems for each of those will keep you from piling it in drawers, on countertops, in cabinets. Um, I've found memorabilia in the funniest of places. I found it in, you know, drawers in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I've found what was the thought process there?
SPEAKER_00:I don't probably their kid brought it to them, you know, while they were getting ready and they're like, oh, this is cute. I gotta finish putting on my makeup and they put it away in the drawer or something. But it's really, really helpful to have a system for those things because you just automatically have a place to put them. And so I don't have memorabilia out and about in my house. And not everything is memorabilia, but it's not something you can get away with throwing away right away. So you might have displays in your home. Like we have a pin board where the art project that they just did goes in there, but they only have a certain number of pins each. So they have to replace an old piece of art with a new one. And so they decide which one they're ready to get rid of, or if it needs to go to the memory bin. Um, and so that's also really helpful too, is having some display areas in your hall where art or memorabilia kind of stuff comes in and then it gets put away or tossed.
SPEAKER_01:Total sense. That makes total sense because yeah, I think when my older kids, when my oldest two boys were little, I saved everything. Everything went in these giant bins, right? And I've learned now because I started having adult children while I still had babies, because I have nine children altogether, so there's been a big span. And I started, you know, when they would get independent, they got married, had their own place, giving, gifting them the bin of all of these precious things that I had saved, right? That's when you find out what was precious and what wasn't. Because most of it they're like, okay, they're chucking it. They're like, Well, I don't want that, you know, I don't need that anymore. So I've I've really honed down what I will save and what I won't. Yeah, take photos of, like you said, versus keeping.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And in part just knowing and understanding your kids, like you know when they're very sentimental and when they're not. Uh, I tell people keep firsts of things. So if they have a first, second, and third place ribbon, maybe part with the second and third place ribbons, unless third place was really memorable because they almost didn't finish the race or something like that. There was like some story attached to it. But if otherwise, just keep the first because that's all they're gonna care about. Um, I also have a records box system, and that's just for um report cards, achievement awards, the class photo. And those are important records for each grade level. And usually that's all the kids care about when they get to be adults is what were my grades? When did I break my arm? Uh, when did I get the student of the year award? You know, like that kind of stuff. When did I have perfect attendance? Um, so that's when they want to know those things. And also it can be helpful for college admissions to know, oh yes, I volunteered that summer at this thing and that I have this certificate for that or whatever. It was between 10th and 11th grade. Um, and so it's helpful for records are different than memorabilia because nostalgia is a little bit different than having an actual record of what your education career entailed at the time. So yeah, I have systems that tackle those things individually as well. That's that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:So in the next phase of life, I found that I started, you know, upsizing my homes, my family was screwing, my homes were growing. I had more space to put stuff. And I went through a period where I was pretty organized on the surface. Like somebody walking into my house would see that it was fairly organized. However, that was accomplished by just shoving everything in the closet. Because if I had more closet space, there was room to do that. But with feng shui, I've studied feng shui a little bit here and there. They talk about kind of what you did that your brain still knows it's there. It's still holding your energy or your qi as they talk about it down, even in there. So talk to me about that, about the importance of sort of those deeper dives beyond just the surface stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So a lot of my clients, I'll walk into their home and I'll say, Why am I here? Like it's beautiful. What's the problem? And then we start opening drawers, closets, cabinets, and I'm like, oh, this is why I'm here. Yeah. Um, and sometimes it's because your family members are shoving things at sometimes it's you're getting ready for company and you just throw things in a closet. Sometimes it's your housekeeper who is only there to clean, they are not actually there and to put things away. So I tell people often you should be tidying before your um housekeeper. If you're blessed enough to have a housekeeper who comes in, you should tidy before them because typically that's not gonna be their focus. Um, they just want to clean surfaces. So they're gonna put things in drawers that they don't belong in and in closets and and and cabinets that they don't belong in, just so they can clean the surface for you. So you saying that those areas kind of became troublesome. Um, that's kind of the next, that is where the systems, so that second level of organization really benefits you, um, is to create the systems. So not every closet is a tool closet, not every closet has, you know, um memorabilia in it. Um, there are specific places where you hold things based on how you use them in your family and in your home. And so that's where systematizing really makes a difference in those interior spaces that are maybe behind doors. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:So the cis, the the live stage I'm at now is the downsize. Yeah. Kids have grown up and moved away. I just moved about a month ago from and I talked about this from 4,300 square feet to 1800 square feet. So that's been quite a thing. But what I've learned is that if you stay organized enough and if you are really intentional, you don't need as much space as you think you do. But but so talk to me about the downsize. What what do you see with people who are going through that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I've been really lucky to have clients. I start with them when their kids are elementary age, and we start downsizing because now I've been in business for 13 years. A lot of them are off at college now. So they're downsizing to smaller properties or just getting rid of the things that they don't need any longer. They're ready to feel lighter. Um, and so a lot of it is designating what's memorabilia and then also parting with things, any heirlooms that you might have inherited that maybe you had cabinet space for or garage space for at one time that you don't necessarily use or you don't necessarily look at, are things that you can consider parting with, um, whether it be an estate sale of some sort um or you know, selling them or giving them away to other family members who maybe felt, you know, that they would want to have a piece of that family member and maybe only keeping the one or two things about that particular family member that really meant something to you. So uh I had a client who kept all of her grandmother's china because she remembered having Thanksgiving every in Christmas every year with that china. And so she pulls it out at the holidays um and she uses it as part of the decor. They don't eat on it because there's not enough pista and things like that, but she'll incorporate it in a charcuterie board or um, you know, in part of the decor and things like that. But she got rid of all of the silver. So, like they had silver platters and things like that, and she's they just don't use stuff like that. She doesn't like stuff like that. So she gave it to a sister or something like that. Um, and so it's just knowing what is important to you um in memorializing that particular family member and only keeping what's important to you and that you can actually house, right? So I've had clients who have had furniture from, you know, grandparents that maybe they made or they loved, but they didn't really have space for it. And so it was taking up precious space that they needed for other things. And um, so it's really being honest with yourself about what you have space for. And if it's in a closet or in an attic and it's never being visited, anyways, is it really serving its purpose of being that reminder of that person? It's not. Um, so being realistic and then finding a way to really incorporate it into your life and honoring their memory that way, I think is is always a good thing to remember. And then also when you're downsizing um and you're creating different kinds of systems, it's thinking about who you are now versus who you were then. So um I know that right now I'm deep into traditions with my kids. So we have a lot of um holiday decor and traditions stuff, elf on the shelf kind of stuff. And and so happy when that went away. Sorry, I hate to say it, but I was not listen to this with your children, turn it off right now with your children. Um uh, but yeah, I have a lot of those things. You might not be in that phase anymore. And so you can now part with the things that are about the traditions um or parts of parenthood that are no longer applicable to you. That's also a good downsize too. The biggest downsize that I tell my clients in their everyday life is in their bathrooms and in their master closets. And that is letting go of clothing that is not currently fitting you. Um not having those daily reminders of who you want to be or used to be. Um, I think there's a level of cruelty with that. Oh no. And so I always tell clients, you know, be kind to yourself and stop holding these memories of a size that you used to be, or some people shop for the size they want to be to be realistic and embrace who you are now. And the same thing goes for the products in your bathroom. Um, you know, people buy tons of products to feel and look youthful or for wellness, but at the end of the day, they really only have time to wash their face, brush their teeth, and maybe use a cream if they re if they have enough energy. And so every time they open those drawers and they're full of all these products that they're not using, they feel guilt. They feel terrible because they wasted this money and they're not doing the thing that they say that they want to do because they've made it so complicated for themselves. So there's an element of kindness to yourself when you're downsizing too, where you're just thinking about who am I really? Like who do I really want to be and who can I be? Letting the things in your environment reflect that.
SPEAKER_01:I really love that because it is true. You know, we we keep thinking, oh, I'm gonna I'll use that. Oh, I forgot about that. I'll use it, I'll use that. But if you haven't used it in the last 15 years, why do we have this? Is the other thing that I've noticed is that when you said that about bathroom products, I'm laughing because I have so many scented lotions. I've got them as gifts and this, but it's more scented lotion than I'm gonna be able to use in my lifetime. Like it would I could moisture 10 times a day and never go through all of this stuff. And yet somehow you're like, but I but I like it. I don't want to get rid of it. And this is where all these emotions come up. The things with tags still on, your grandmother's china. It's a very emotional process sometimes starting to organize and declutter, much more than I think people expect it to be. And I think that's part of what we run away from is all the emotions that come up. What do you say about that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you have to you have to be realistic about it and understand that it is gonna have some sort of emotional component to it. If it didn't, you would have already gotten rid of it. You wouldn't have avoided it, you wouldn't have put this off for so long. So know that it's gonna be a little emotionally taxing. And that's when working with somebody is great because they can keep pushing you through when you're getting stuck. It's also a little bit about ambiance, right? So I always tell clients like, put on good music that like, you know, makes you feel happy and joyful and like you want to maybe work out or something because you want to feel a little uplifted. Um, set timers, give yourself uh, you know, for 20 minutes, I'm gonna power through this and then I will take a break. And so what sometimes I have clients do is for 20 minutes they clear something and then they're exhausted and they're like, oh, I just put all this stuff out on the counter and have no like energy to put it away. Well, if you're only setting 10, 20 minutes for yourself, do 10 minutes of pulling stuff out and then allow yourself 10 minutes to put things back away. So don't use that whole time pulling stuff out. Um, you know, so it's gonna make it worse, make your environment. It's a little bit about the preparation up front, right? It's having a garbage bag handy and also having a donation bag. It's also not allowing guilt um to set in. And so a lot of times I'll have clients will say, okay, I have 30 lotions. I'm gonna give these away to my friends. Well, you've now made a a task list for yourself where you're going to deliver 10 lotions to people who you don't know if they want them or not, um, so that you can feel better about getting rid of them. But now you have a big to-do list. Like, is that helpful to you? Maybe it is just parting with it and just tossing it or putting them out and saying every day I'm just gonna wear a different one and I'm gonna throw it away. I'm gonna try it one day and then toss it. Um, and so making little deals with yourself, but also just being prepared up front that there is gonna be some emotional tax that you're gonna pay.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I think we do that. Then we create the giveaway box that sits in the hallway until we don't know to sit anymore or sits in the back of our car for six months before we take it. And I have learned that if it sits there in the hallway, what starts to happen is people start to pick things back out of it. Like I have to I've learned for myself, if I make a donation box, because I take a lot of stuff off to you know, the thrift stores and things to donate, but I have to do it almost immediately. Yes, because otherwise, and if I do, I never regret anything I got rid of. But if I'm getting there, then I'm like, oh, I might need that. And I start to take stuff back out of the box.
SPEAKER_00:It's called giver's remorse. Yeah. And so what we do as a part of our service is we actually take the donations for them at the end of every declutter session. Um, but what I tell clients who are working individually is to set up an appointment with a pickup service for the day that they're going to or the next day that they're going to declutter. One, that forces you to declutter because you know they're coming on a certain day. But two, it gets it out of the house right away. And then also, if you are being kind and giving your things away to friends who say that they want them, then have them come get them and tell them, okay, it's gonna be out on the front porch, put it on the front porch in a bag so you don't see it. It's gonna be on the front porch until tomorrow morning. And if you can't make it till tomorrow morning, that's okay. But I'm gonna have to take a donation before you know one of the kids pulls it back in the house or something. So giving, setting some boundaries, giving them a certain time to come and get it themselves and not creating more tasks for yourself.
SPEAKER_01:And also if they really secretly didn't want it, that gives them a way to kind of get out of help if they were just you know, like percent.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm so sorry, I can't make it. You should just give it, you know, to a little bit. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:I do think it helps to have somebody helping you. If somebody's interested in finding out more about your services, where do people find you? Where do they go to learn more?
SPEAKER_00:Uh so they can go to my website, which is sortedbliss.com, and I have my online services as well as my in-person services there. I spell it out pretty easily. Um, my in-person services start with a complimentary consultation where I then give an estimate and a quote, and we work from there. Um, if somebody is utilizing my online services, then they'll be given my systems and a quick overview of how organize home organization works utilizing the decluttering, the systems, and then the habits that support it and a method. So they'll have a method to implement themselves and a way to contact me if they need some more, you know, one-on-one um virtual assistance on it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I think you know, it it's organizing is something that it's easy to talk ourselves out of getting help with because we think, well, I don't want to spend the money, I can do it myself. But the thing that's so important to remember is that you haven't been. You know, if you you can, that's true, you can. But if you haven't been, why? And there's probably something deeper going on there. And to have somebody to help you could make all the difference in whether or not you ever actually accomplish it or just keep thinking about it and talking about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And if it's not innate to you, meaning you aren't naturally an organized person, you won't always know where to start and what the process should look like and how simple it can be. You might be complicating it. You might maybe be making it harder than it needs to be. And so sometimes working with somebody in just one space can really give you a blueprint for how to implement in other bigger spaces that you can do better on your own. So I've had clients that have, you know, we worked on the kitchen and the pantry together, and then they went on and did the playroom by themselves or the home office or something like that. And so it's it's a lot like personal fitness or losing weight, where sometimes you just need the accountability partner or the person who kind of makes the blueprint for you. Okay, this is what I'm in a meal plan. These are how many days a week I'm gonna go to the gym. This is how many steps I should be getting in a day. They're really giving you a blueprint, right? You're still implementing, but you've got this partner who's kind of doing the heavy lifting for you in the beginning. And then as you get better and better at it, maybe you don't work with the personal trainer anymore. Maybe you don't have the wellness coach who's telling you what to do anymore because you've kind of learned what you need to do because you've gotten to some sort of milestone or marker in your health on your own or with their help, and now you can do the rest on your own. And and uh home organization is very much like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can see that. And also just having that person that's not as close to the situation emotionally because it can be really hard, you know, those questions of is this actually memorabilia or is it junk? Right when you're too close to the situation and all of those emotions are at the surface, it can really be helpful to have somebody who is distanced from those emotions to help with the reality check on the situation. Listen, do you really need seven hammers? You know, or do you really need that particular item from your grandmother? Right. You know, maybe you this one. So I think I think it's super important to have somebody to help you because again, if if you were going to do it yourself, you would have already. And then for those who are a little bit more independent but just need a little structure, your online program may be the perfect fit just for yeah, you know, some boxes to check because that helps keep us moving sometimes to have a program or a system to help us. So well, so I have one more question for you, and we've kind of covered this a little bit, but this podcast is essentially on how to find greater joy in daily living. And I want to just ask you, you know, what have you seen with your clients or yourself or just the knowledge that you have about how taking the time and making the effort to organize your spaces can create greater joy in your life?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's funny because I think people assume, because I'm a home organizer, that I actually love organizing, that if I'm not in a client's home doing it, then I'm at my own home doing it all day long. And that, you know, I'm just looking for another project. And the truth of the matter is that I don't. Um, I like to create systems that allow me to live more intentionally in other areas of my home. And I like to help clients do that too. And so for me, what's really important are traditions and memories with my kids and experiences. And you can't do experiences and make new memories if you're constantly working on your house. So, my house, I like it to flow, I like it to be really simple. I like my kids to be able to help me with it so it doesn't all fall on my shoulders. So I have bandwidth to plan an outing to make time for us to go somewhere, to create memories, um, which are important things to me. My health is important to me. Um, over the last five or six years, I've really started to see the benefits of taking care of yourself. I lost a family member who uh had um diabetes, and a lot of that is about the habits that you have in place. Health-wise, it's the food that you're consuming and the amount of exercise that you're getting and um those boundaries that you have with yourself. And so for me, it's prioritizing meal planning and prepping and getting to my favorite yoga class and lifting weights a couple times a week. And I can't do those things if I'm constantly reorganizing or organizing my home. So another area for me are my connections, the people in my life, my friendships, my family members that I adore and cherish and that really bring me joy as well. When you have a full life like that, where you're really trying to optimize those areas and seek joy outside of the things that you have, it really needs to be supported by a home that functions easily and well because aesthetics are also important to me, right? And not having a cluttered environment so I can focus on these things. Um, and so uh yeah, they go hand in hand for me. One cannot exist without the other. I can't focus or optimize my relationships and the things that are important to me if I'm being weighed down by my environment. And I can't focus solely on my environment and enjoy people. So I need it to be simple. I need to not be revamping it all the time. I need it to run smoothly. So they go hand in hand for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I love that because I think sometimes it feels like, oh, if I do all of that, it's so much work, and then I'll just be working all the time. No, actually, the truth is you put in the initial work up front and then you just free up time. Things run so much more smoothly. Yeah. Once it's done, it is hard work in the beginning sometimes, depending on how far out of control you've let it get. But it's not like committing to this means you're working like that forever. It actually makes it simpler, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. Decluttering for me, like I said, takes maybe 20 minutes per category or space. It's really not a difficult thing. Um, my systems are already in place. I update them as things in our life change. So, you know, at one point we had these little shoe bins for my kids. Their feet have gotten bigger. The shoe bins don't work. We now have shoe shelves. Right. Um big shoes. You know, so we had to we had to revamp that. Um, you know, they have uh activity bags now that they didn't used to have for soccer and and a big violin and things like that. And so, you know, our our like mudroom space has to operate a little differently than when they have those cute little backpacks and a little lunchbox and that was it, you know. So for most, for the most part, systems remain as for a very long time until a phase of life changes and I have to change a system. But I'm not doing that often. It's it's very rare. I'm just doing the everyday tiny tidy habit that kind of maintains it and then a once a year declutter. And then the rest of my time is for my family and my interests and my hobbies. I love to play pickleball, I love to, you know, go to yoga and I'm a foodie, I love new new experiences and restaurants and things like that. And so um the rest of my time is really on stuff like that. Um, it's I'm not I'm not organizing all the time.
SPEAKER_01:And I love what you said too, that it allows you to, once you put the initial effort in, to then focus and prioritize things besides your stuff, it kind of makes your stuff less of a priority. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I mean there are people who are more drawn to things and they love things, and and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to honor who you are, but just know that then you're gonna spend more time taking care of them. So if you're not a person who wants to take care of things and maybe you don't enjoy things so much and you should, you know, not collect as many of them. I don't tend to enjoy taking care of things. I enjoy being with people, trying new experiences, being active. And so things just get in the way of those priorities or things that bring me joy. Um, and so I've learned to prioritize and not collect. Collect too many things.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Priscilla, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. And I know that I would recommend to everybody to go to sortiblist.com and check out all the different, you know, organizational things that Priscilla has to offer there and see what you can do to just pick one small goal, one small space maybe that you can clear out in your life and see how much better that makes you feel. And then I think you'll be so excited to move on to the next and the next and the next. Thank you so much, Priscilla.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. It was so nice to be with you today. Have a great day, everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for joining me today on the Joy Felicity Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and share, and come follow me on all major social media sites at JoyFelicity or on my website, joyfelicity.com. You can follow the link in the description for this episode to all of the places that we can connect. Have a great day, everybody, and remember dare to dream, plan to play, live to learn.
