156 - Organizing with an ADHD Brain - with Megs Crawford

One of THE coolest people out there, Megs Crawford, was so kind to be on the podcast and share some organizing assistance for us ADHDers. Please have a listen because she shares some amazing nuggets from her expertise as a professional organizer, and helps me get myself organized!

Definitely check out all that Megs has to offer:
Her webiste: Mindful Moves Organizing with Megs

To book a FREE chat with Megs to discuss organizing and/or coaching: CLICK HERE

Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organizing.an.adhd.brain/

Her Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@organizing.an.adhd.brain

And DEFINITELY check out her podcast: Organizing an ADHD Brain

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So here's the deal. Having a podcast gives me an opportunity to talk to some really amazing people. Today's no exception. I got a phenomenal opportunity to talk to organizing expert for the ADHD, Megs Crawford. She's here. Like I'm doing this live. She's here. She's waiting in the green room. Let's talk to Megs Crawford. You are listening to ADHD, brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD comorbid depression symptoms. I'm your host, Russ Jones, author of The State at the Top, believer that you can actually have a smile in your life despite this diagnosis. So let's make some sense out of this struggle. Let's learn some stuff. Let's laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. And welcome to the podcast, everybody. How are you doing? You doing pretty good? Good! Hey, uh, this is a long episode. So I just want to just uh we'll do the mental health update and then we're just gonna get into talking to Megs. So if you're new to the podcast, the mental health update is just basically me telling you where I'm at with my mental health, talking about my school spaghetti. It's uh in honor of getting rid of that uh the shame, the guilt, the feelings like, oh, I I can't share my good, bad, and weird. You know how we all are in society in the normy world where everybody's fine, the weather is always interesting, and we all just kind of ride the surface. We're all just kind of floating on the surface. I am here to peel the onion a little bit and let's get into it. Sometimes it's gonna be good, sometimes it's gonna be shitty. Let's just talk about all of it. This has been a really, really solid week. I had an amazing date last night. We went to the Hollywood Bowl, we watched Dudamel conducting the Infinity. It's what was it called? The Infinity Saga. It was the 85th anniversary of Marvel, and it was epic. Great show, amazing company. I had the time of my life, so I am riding that buzz and feeling great. I'm still struggling with getting up and doing my walking in the morning, but I'm making some commitments and I'm moving, I'm nudging, I'm using the community to help nudge me forward on that. So it's mental health update is great. So, Meg's Crawford, get a load of this. Okay, this is from the buttons. She has a podcast, which is awesome, and you guys should be subscribing to her. It's called Organizing an ADHD Brain. And check this out. This is from her podcast. It is a podcast about what it's like to have ADHD and different techniques that one can apply to their life to harness their superpowers. Megs is a professional organizer with ADHD and shares how organizing your brain while understanding how it works provides the key to living your best life. God dang it, she's good. And she gave us such juicy nuggets. So without further ado, let's just get right into this. This is the conversation with me and Megs, already in progress. Cue the music. Yeah. You know, everybody's like, oh, what's your niche? I I yeah, some people are like ADHD in general, but your organization, how did that come to be?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Oh gosh, you know, I think one of the things that I have focused on a lot when I worked in the corporate world for almost nine years. I worked in leadership. And so I would constantly be working with my team around mindset and helping them understand, you know, making these little changes and talking to yourself in a positive way and like getting to your best best, oh my gosh, words, and getting to your best self by focusing on your strengths instead of your weaknesses was something that I talked about a ton. And so when I left the corporate world, I wanted to go back into the corporate world, mostly because I thought that that was the box that I fit into. I now understand I don't fit into any boxes, which is kind of cool. I know as I grew through this world. Yeah. And yeah, so I originally thought about interior design because I have an eye for design. I love art. I love doing things with my hands. But about eight years ago, I started decluttering my home. I noticed that I just had a ton of stuff. My husband and I met each other when we were both 28, and we both had lived on our own for so long. And so we were combining, we had like two sets of plates and silverware, all of this stuff. And I grew up in a home where we had kept everything. There was never a process for getting rid of it. And so I started watching programs like The Minimalist. I watched Marie Kondo. I watched anything that would just kind of inspire me to start to downsize. So I did in a smaller sense, and I sold things on Facebook Marketplace, but I still had this corporate job that took up all my time. And then I had two kids and in true ADHD fashion, I started a small business on the side of my corporate job when I had my first job. So there was just all kinds of things going on, right? But after I would worked with this career coach, I was like, you know what? I don't think anyone in the corporate world could give me exactly what I'm looking for right now. As far as being my own boss, setting my own schedule, allowing me to live this life that I want to. And I didn't necessarily want to go into the interior design world because I'm an again, ADHD. It's all or nothing for me. I want to do like for interior design, I'm like, well, I've got to sign up for school and I've got to do 15 years of research before I do anything. But I had already had some experience in the decluttering and organizing realm. And I had made so many mistakes. Me going in so confidently was kind of hilarious. And it's cute to see who I was a year ago because I'm like, oh gosh, this girl. But I was so sick of people saying that people with ADHD couldn't be organized. Like I was just sick of society saying we can't be organized. So originally when I said I want to be a professional organizer, I wanted to create these beautiful Pinterest spaces that people could look at in awe and say, wow, now I'm organized. But after working with people with ADHD and understanding the struggles that I had when it came to organization, I just wanted to start approaching it in a way where people could feel more comfortable with approaching organizing. So one thing that inspired me, yeah, I've talked to a bunch of professional organizers and I was asking them, you know, do you organize with people or do you just go and organize for them? They said, oh, well, we just let the clients decide. But it is kind of annoying when we come back and, you know, things are messed up and things that didn't stay organized the way that they should. And I'm like, well, how could you possibly expect things to stay organized if you organized for them instead of with them? So I did organize for some people initially, and that's when I learned I'm like, oh gosh, if these people have any sort of ADHD whatsoever, I need to be working with them to understand how they live their current lives so that I can help them come up with the solutions that are gonna make the most sense for them.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That makes sense because wouldn't they just it'll just go right back to the disorgan because they're not changing who they are or they're not changing any of their routines or their behaviors, right? Yeah, they have to have the tools.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Part of it too is like you go, we'll take a kitchen, for example. You could go into a kitchen, and if I'm doing it on my own, I'm organizing things that I don't know if you use or not.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

So why would I you're organizing for you? You're you're organizing what you in your way of living seems right, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. I have my neighbor, is my client, and we did her kitchen, and it's so funny because her husband has ADHD, but through working with me and all these other memes, she's like, I think I have ADHD. But but we're working together, and I'm like, okay, so tell me a little bit about how you use your kitchen aid mixer, like when you get it out, and she's like, Well, we don't because it's annoying over here, and this is why. And she's telling me all the reasons why it's annoying, and I'm like, cool, okay, so then we get to start to come up with these other options. So I I absolutely love what I do because I ask so many questions to pull out of you the questions you're not asking yourself and the questions you're not really thinking to ask yourself because you're just expecting to be good at something. And if we're not good at something right away, I know I like to give up almost immediately and just tell myself that I'm not good at it. But the truth is, yeah, yeah, you're not gonna be good at it right away because you never did it before, and that's I relate to that big time.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

I do relate to that big time. It's the the the the it's an overwhelming feeling, it's like a feeling of tension that it this is too monumental and I can't see it done right at the moment, so I can't even get started because I don't know how it's that's a really hard nut to crack. I think for me, particularly with organization, uh, my biggest hack is I gotta be cool with myself because I'm it's gonna get shitty again. And I have to be like, oh, I'm only 20 minutes away from having that figured out again. But I wish I had confidence in my tools for being organized. Is that what you give people?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

That's what I need for you, eggs.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

I need to know.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Will you please help me? Um, totally can I ask you something then? Like in general, what is what are some questions that I would need to ask myself? Um, let's just take my office area and my like what would I need to ask myself in terms of getting this because right now I'm looking at my desk and it's cluttered, it's got a bunch of shit everywhere. Paperwork. Cool. What would I ask myself?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

So take a look at your desk and take it all in. Uh give yourself a second and just what take a look at what's there.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Okay, so like I'm gonna out myself right now. No, you're totally cool. Let's go. This is good. Hit me with it.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Okay, cool. So start to look at it. Yeah, what what what do you have the most of on your desk?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Paper.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Okay. So now take a look at the paper. What does it consist of?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Um old podcast episode that I wrote. Um a marketing thing that I wrote down. Um a bill. I paid it. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Heck yeah, man. Yeah, that's a that's a celebratory win right there.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, I'm gonna go have a drink real quick. I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Okay, good, good. I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

And then my the webinar that I did, sometimes I'll print it out as a um as a bunch of slides, as like six on a slide so I can track it.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

That's it. Next question, next. Go.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Okay, all right. So you got the all these papers, each of them have different jobs. What do you do with the podcast episodes when they're done?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Throw it in the garbage.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Okay, cool. So throw it in the garbage.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Oh, Megs. I kind of see where this is going. I kind of see what you're doing here.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

What about the webinar?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Okay, that's in the garbage. The webinar. I I'm even gonna have a jump on. I just threw away the bill. The actual bill bill goes in my organizing. I have can I say something real quick? I know we're fixing my death situation, which I am so thankful for. I'm getting free help. It's really it's me taking advantage of you. No, this is brilliant. Stealing your coaching. Um, what do I um oh I I lost my thought. What was I saying?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Oh, the bills, the paperwork, you have like a pile of paperwork.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Oh, I have one bin. I so I don't have paperwork piles, I have a bin. And when the bin gets too full, that's when I go through it. But I think I have to go through it sooner. So then the uh all this stuff, the webinar deal, that goes in that pile. Done and done. Now again garbage.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Garbage. Okay, cool. So you can start to you you start to acknowledge the stuff in your space to actually ask yourself, what the heck is this and what's it for? And that's some of the basics. And we are so we are so good at just letting things blend into its environment that it just that's its new home. That's that's where it lives now because our we are so good, we have too many other things distracting us. We can't let these things distract us. And so part of what I help my clients understand, and anyone who listens to my podcast, I talk about breaking up tasks into the smallest tasks imaginable. Because if we think about it like climbing a mountain, we can't climb a mountain in a day unless you're in Colorado and you happen to go do a 14er, but like even that, you got to assimilate to all the, you know, the altitude, blah, blah, blah. But when we think about doing these big things, like if you think about decluttering your whole house or organizing your whole house and everything has a place, you can't do that in a week or a weekend. So we avoid doing it at all because we know that we think that we have to stop our entire lives in order to get this shit done. But the truth is that if we break it up into the smallest task imaginable, something that we can actually say, I can tangibly do that in five minutes or 15 minutes, that's when the real magic happens. And that's when you start to see. Like, have you ever read um James Clear, The Atomic Habits? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

So he talks about making 1% improvements every day. And if you improve by just 1%, just make that teeny tiny little step in the right direction, then you're gonna see this monumental change over the course of a year. It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I totally believe in that. Like the the the way that I view that particular aspect is that uh if you think about doing like one little thing, I usually think about exercise because it's so easy to to relate to like like weight loss or muscle building. But like if I just go on a walk every day for a week, it's not a big fucking deal. But if I go, okay, I'm gonna go on a walk every day for a week, and then I'm gonna add five push-ups a day for the next week. Okay, the next week I'm gonna add sit-ups. By the end of 52 weeks, you've added 52 things. Yeah, you're probably pretty in shape.

unknown 15:46

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

By the way, side note to all this, yeah, I want to add the fact that like that question that you gave me about my desk created momentum in me. And while you were talking, while you're talking, just stop for a sec. I'm literally in my seat, kind of organizing my post-its over here. Uh, it it gave me enough juice just to start going. So that question was a catalyst, it was a great get started thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

So thank you. Just side note, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

I love that. And I I love I have a story for you. I have this woman that I work with, and I absolutely love and adore her. I helped her in her home so much to the point that we were able to start to decorate her home because she's got all of these hobbies. It's it was when I realized this profession was for me. We organized, wait for it, her rock collection. Uh and I'm not even joking. I was like, oh my God, this is the best job ever. But we we found like we set it all up, and she's got these twinkly lights that she had been saving. We had organized them in a spot so we knew where they were, and we were finally able to set them up. But we stopped working with each other for a little bit. She had been going through remission. She actually got diagnosed with breast cancer like the minute I had started working with her. So we knew this was coming, but it was perfect because she had made so much progress in her home that it wasn't dwelling over her anymore. But I came back to work with her after a couple of weeks and I asked her about some stuff. I was like, hey, what do you want to do with this? And she's like, Oh, um, you could see it on her face, like this anguish and this turmoil. And she's like, just throw it away. And like, I'm like, whoa, what's happening? Why? Why are you having so much angst about throwing this away? And she goes, Well, I just know I should. I know I should be throwing that away because that's you know, kind of like she was expecting me to say, like, just throw it away. But I'm that's not the way I work. I don't want you to think that I want you to throw it away. I want you to make the best decision for you in your life. And oh, good.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

It was that hurt me.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

I was like, I know, like, don't know. So I'm like, if you're gonna throw it away, I want you to feel comfortable with throwing it away. And so come to find out, it's these uh, it was a cardboard box, but on the back of it, it had a picture of a flower, and it was for these plates that she had gotten in Australia. And each of these plates was a different flower in Australia, and she they had the description of the flowers on there. So she said to me, Well, I'd really like to know a little bit more about the flowers because she really likes plants. But she's like, But I also honestly know I'm never gonna read the back of that box. I said, Okay. So what if? Because we know where the plates are, we decorated them in her house. We have them. I said, What if you used something like Google Lens to look up the plates so that you could know what kind of flower it was if you were to ever look this up again, right? Like that box still exists somewhere. You can find the description, and she goes, I do that for my flowers to learn how to take care of them. If I don't know how, like what it is, so it was a connection of sorts. So we know that this isn't the end to having that thing, it is just the process of understanding why you're letting go of a cardboard box because the thing you want to do with that information still exists in your home, just in a different form. And we came up with a solution for that. So that's brilliant. It was it felt really good because I'm like, whoa. She was gonna chuck the plate. Yeah, my stuff. No, not the plate, just the cardboard box. Okay, what the no, we hug up the plate. So, you know, I think that's another thing is like we learned something once with ADHD, and then we expect to be experts at it again and again and again. And you know, I I lost my brother-in-law earlier this year, and it was devastating. And one of the things I just kind of expected to pick up and continue to live my life with the grief. And I knew that there was a lot of grief and I was really sad about it, but I just kind of expected to continue to live life as I always did. But one thing I noticed was I started sleeping in a lot more. I stopped writing in my journal as much. I stopped writing down my gratitude, I stopped taking care of myself in the way that I knew to be taking care of myself. And honestly, that's something that I needed in those moments. But I've it's been months now, and I've just now in the last month gotten back to waking up early again and doing some of the things that I'm used to in my routine, but it's changed a little bit. And part of the reasons why it's changed is because I just haven't reminded myself of the things that I used to do to make myself feel really good. So it's, I feel like because we're um, I don't know, our working memory is not great. Research shows our working memory being kind. Yeah. And so when it comes to stuff like that, it's okay if someone in a profession is reminding you, or if you have like a list of reminders that you read every day to remind you of why you're doing the different things that you're doing. And then eventually it can come, it could become more of a routine.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

But yeah, I always thought that I was I'm sorry, uh, I was gonna say that plays into like my like when I get depressed and stuff is because I I I feel like I know who I could have been, or I know I who I could be, or I know at what levels I can operate on. And so then if I even if I get sick, I was talking about this recently. If I get sick, if I have a depressive episode, I then fall. It's that's what it feels, and then I'm back at square one, right? And I it's like the but I know what I'm capable of, so it's very frustrating to be like back down here and go, Okay, well, I'm back down to guy that wakes up early and tries to get that walk in, as opposed to I'm the guy that works out three times a week and da da da. Right. Do you ever frustrate with that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Totally. And I would argue, though, that you're not back at square one because you know how well you can function at a level when you're doing these different things. So like you're so familiar with what that feels like that even if you fall, which we all do, because we all hit a dip, we also know what it feels like on the other side. And so totally. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

I say eliminate the number out of the square. It's just, I mean a square. It's not square one, it's just this particular square, whatever that is. And I'm on my way to that square.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah. So yeah, I would say I hit that a lot. I have this um this craft closet in my house. And I'm it's kind of embarrassing, but it's not at the same time because I just want to be really honest. I do still have ADHD. I just also know how to organize really well. But when it comes to your own stuff, when I don't I don't have my professional self there, I have me who thinks I know what I'm doing in my own space, not asking myself any of the questions that I ask my clients. So I did a podcast episode recently where I talk about this and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm so annoyed. So the other day I finally went through this closet again after decluttering it like three or four times, and I finally took all my own damn professional advice and put it together in a way that would make sense. Not only that, but then I communicated with my family what is supposed to happen here if you were to do all of these different things and what all of these different spaces are for. And I put labels on it so that people would remember even after I told them because it's literally written down.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

You've got labels.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Can you really quick because you just mentioned it is uh you have a podcast, which is awesome. Can you tell people what the podcast is and then what's going on with it?

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yes. So podcast is organizing an ADHD brain. And I do solo episodes, I do interviews, I talk a lot about how people are organized with an ADHD brain, both in the physical sense. I know it's crazy, but both in the physical sense and uh, you know, just in our daily lives. I have uh an episode on schedule organizing and just like how to get in front of some of the stuff that I don't know, we think we're so scatterbrained, but there's also so much proof out there of so many incredible people that are successful with ADHD. Really? Like, I mean, look at you, look at me, right? We're doing damn things.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

We are doing things, come on, right? And skin of our teeth. By the skin of our teeth. We're making yeah, oh my gosh, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

So, you know, thing that we can actually do things, but then it's also recognizing giving ourselves grace. I talk about that a lot on my podcast. It's just like, hey, if you've never organized before, you're gonna suck at this. So welcome to the suck and enjoy it for a hot second because you're gonna grow from that.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

I love we have the same language mind, by the way. Yeah, like it's yeah, like, oh, I love it. It's like uh I I really resonate with everything that you say. Okay, let me ask you this then, because when you were looking into like organization as your thing, um, I think the way that you were talking about it resonated with me in terms of like the way that I help people is like how to get your shit together in terms of uh productivity, moving your needle forward. It's it's kind of depression specific with ADHD years of like little so for me, it was that's who my heart breaks for the most. It's me 10 years ago and the self-loathing is off the charts, all that stuff. Is there I sensed that in you when you were talking about organizing? Is that like is there an emotional component in you that makes you want to niche down into organizing? Because I know I know there's more to it than that, but like is that who your heart breaks for?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Who do you cry about every night, Mags? Who the fuck are you crying about? That's such a weird way to ask it.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

No, it's so real though. I I my heart breaks for the moms out there or non-moms, late diagnosed women or men with ADHD, who have been told they're lazy, have been told they can't be organized, and now they have all of this crap in their lives that's distracting them from the incredibleness that they could be pursuing. Like one thing I love about our brains is like, and I have to pause because I get very all of the people that I work with who have ADHD, guess what? They have hobbies. And how many hobbies do they have? Guess how many hobbies do these people have? Like five, 10 hobbies. Yes. So I actually have to, I have to give myself a rule. I'm not allowed to adopt any of the hobbies that my people tell me about and how incredible they are because I have my own damn hobbies already, so I have to keep blinders on.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

So you get juiced up on people's when they when people start talking about exciting things, yeah, it's like you grab, oh, that would be fun.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Yeah. Like one of my clients knits, and I was like, Well, that I've knitted once. What an I should also take up, so I have to, you know, keep myself grounded when it comes to stuff like that. But that's so funny, people with ADHD have these incredible hobbies that they can, you know, sometimes we alternate between them, sometimes we do one thing or another thing, but we've got all of these things that are distracting us from the things that we could be doing to elevate our lives. Like I would much rather be like planting flowers. And honestly, once I started decluttering my house and now I don't have anything on my counters but my flowers, guess who remembers to water their flowers on a regular basis? Yeah, I swear to God. So I used to be an awful plant mom and I used to joke around that I couldn't keep a plant alive to save my damn life. And most of it is because I didn't remember that they existed until they were so dead that I'd have to throw them out. And actually, because of one of my other clients, I would observe her in the way that she took care of her plants. I started to expand. I was like, oh, maybe I should split this up. So, like, I was able to expand my hobby of taking care of my houseplants and even my garden outside. I can focus on these things that make me so much more happy instead of like having a pile of this and that and a pile of things that I think I might need one day. I get to focus on what my life is now. And that's what I love so much. It's been really neat to see people just own what they love to do. I have this one client who she has she stays at home with her kids now, but she was a dietitian. And she loves to make food, she loves to cook. And so we worked on her pantry together and we found these really cool things to keep all of her pasta in. She's got like all kinds of different pastas. And she said the first day when her son came home from school, he was so excited to go into the pantry and he's like, Oh my god, can I pick the pasta tonight? Because he could see them, he could see like what was available instead of it being like just this jumbled, you know, just trying to put stuff where it goes. You could see everything you have available. So it just makes cooking or living your life that much more enjoyable because you know what you have.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Oh my god, Megs, you're awesome. The you're awesome. Well, oh good, good talk. All right, we'll see you later. Click. The how do you how do you do you mind me asking, how do you work? How do you or I like let's say people are are like, man, Megs is the shit. How do I work with her? Like, what is your style or what is what do you have going on that how people would work with you?

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yeah, so I I have a 90-day program that I put together, and it's um, I first caught like book a oh my gosh, words, how do you work with me? Okay, so book a time.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

You get in a bus, you drive where do you live? Utah, Colorado, where are you from? You're like, Megs, you make it really hard. You buy property next door to me and I'll help you out.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Exactly. Yep, yep, precisely. Uh so if you go to Instagram or TikTok or any of my social media platforms, it'll connect you to either my schedule or you can go directly to my website, which is mindfulmegs.com, and you just book a 30-minute meeting with me. I like to ask you a lot of questions first just to ensure that we'll be a good fit and just to make sure that I'm exactly what you're looking for. And so for my 90-day program, we meet once a week and we talk about what's going on in your life, and including understanding what our brain is, like what executive function means, what it means to be time blind, what it means with all of the emotions that come along with being ADHD. And then we connect that to what it's like being organized. Like, why is the time blindness preventing us from being organized? Why is executive function preventing us from being organized? So understanding the why behind the why helps you understand how you can put it together. And so from there, uh like 90 days allows us to transform yourself from thinking you can't do it to understanding how much you can do it and believing in yours, believing in yourself in a way that you've never believed in yourself before.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

That's right. So yeah, really just even to the like buying into that that feeling. Just I would love to have that feeling, regardless of how pristine and storybook or you know, like out of the architectural digest magazine. Uh to have the feeling of like I can do this is huge. Can I put your calendar? Uh yeah, uh well, I don't know. I I don't know if that's perpetual. Maybe well, yeah, all the links to your socials will be in the show notes, but then yeah, yeah. So or how people can connect with you. We'll put that in the show notes, whatever the best way is.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

That's so cool. What else do you got going on? You told me about something called digital decluttering, so you might as well talk about digital decluttering, yeah. Get into that.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

It's super cool. We meet one-on-one like this over Zoom, and I I send you a bunch of questions before about the space that you want to work in, and then I help you understand the space in a way that helps you declutter it. And so we make some pretty big progress in an hour, and I do a lot of telling you what to do, but I do a lot of asking questions, kind of like I did with you or in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I'd say you literally digitally decluttered my desk while being interviewed on a podcast, so you really crushed it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Pretty damn organized right here on my little desk. So this is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

So we talk about that, you know, we talk about those things, and then after the the session is over, I send you a follow-up and talk about you know what we did and some some additional steps you can take from there. And that's something that we can do on a regular basis, it's something that you could do once, one and done, right? Depending on your level of support that you need. So that's pretty cool. And then um, and then on my podcast, if you just want to follow along, get some tips and tricks. Uh, I do have my Patreon. So if you want to follow along that way and support the podcast, I do, I will be having tiered levels coming out in September where you can join. And I will be doing a QA once a month so that you can come and ask more questions about how you could possibly be organized while also having an AHD.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Oh I need some good stuff. I really I need to pick your brain more. I I almost want to just walk you around and be like, hey, let's randomly talk about my kitchen. And what question would I ask myself in the kitchen? Is it really just look at like I want to revisit this a little bit because this was this is the summary, the takeaway. In usually most of the episodes, I really want people to leave with like, okay, what's the challenge? So why don't I tee you up? Why don't you do the challenge? Like, what would you challenge people who have cluttered messes going on in their house or their apartment? It's not just one room, it's every room. Laundry on the floor, desk crazy, bookshelves the best. What's the challenge?

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Cool. All right. So my challenge for you is to set a timer for 15 minutes. Ooh, I already love it. Yes, set a freaking timer. We're time blind. You don't know how long something's gonna take you, but you can do something in 15 minutes, yes. So set a timer for 15 minutes and then put on a freaking playlist that is awesome, that like fills your cup up. What is your jam? Put on a playlist, and then I want you to go to one space, one space in your home, and put some figurative blinders on, some like blinders and give yourself a little bit of rules and tell yourself if I'm working in this space for 15 minutes, I am not allowed to leave this space until that timer goes off. So that's one of the rules that you can give yourself and then see what you can get done. Are you decluttering? Are you organizing? Are you throwing away trash? You get to decide because everyone's space is a little bit different. Um, and so kind of like I did with you, notice what's around. So if you're working in your kitchen and you open up your junk drawer, what does your junk drawer mostly have in it? Is it receipts that you thought you should keep? I don't know. Make a pile of receipts and now go through them. And if that's all you get done in 15 minutes, that is what you get to celebrate. And I was talking to someone about this the other day because we're so used to celebrating. Yeah, celebrate. Yes, all right.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

My playlist, by the way, I have this playlist called 80 saves, so it has my 80s music. So it has uh survivor in there, Billy Squire, it has um it actually has Barry Manilo's Mandy. Oh my Mandy juices me up. Oh, I'm not afraid to say it.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Absolutely, I like so and like it should it should be fun. Like music gets me going, it fuels my soul, and so when I'm jamming out and I'm singing and I'm also decluttering and doing something that fills me up, I start to look forward to it. And oh, also getting rid of stuff gives you the same dopamine rush that buying stuff does. So, like, if you yes, sir, absolutely. So getting rid of stuff and like literally like the full circle, like not just putting it into your garage to make more decisions on it. I mean like literally taking the stuff, putting it in your car, driving it to the donation place and dropping it off, it fills your cup up the same way you would going shopping and bringing home, you know, a bunch of stuff. And yeah, so I wanted to come back to celebrating this, the small wins though. Like the smaller the win, the better to celebrate because we're so used to celebrating these big wins, and we're so used to seeing these monumental things that we're trying to achieve that if we're only celebrating that, we know how freaking hard it is to do that. So we're going to get so used to celebrating that instead of giving ourselves credit for the little things. And it's the little things that actually add up to the big things. It's those little things that we do on a regular basis, those little tiny habits or routines we incorporate into our lives that make the biggest difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

I I want to speak to that just for a minute, though. Is that sometimes in in ADHD town, it's like the the those insignificant moves forward, uh they uh you have to like force feed the win. And a lot of times I will my my win is that I get to quit. That's why I fucking love timers. 15 minutes and it's a night, uh cleaning to me is a nightmare. So if I get to the end of the 15 minutes, I reward myself with saying I get to stop, and no matter what, it's gonna be better than it was before. I have another thing I wanted to ask you. Um because it's the questions that you ask. A lot of us don't know. And I see this in coaching too, sometimes with like people don't necessarily know the questions to ask. So, like when you say things like when you look in a drawer and you say, What do I mostly have in here? I would never ask myself that. And I'm like, Oh my god, like when you said to me, like, what's mostly on your desk? And I was like, Oh, the answer is paper. But I would never think to ask myself that question. And look what it led to, it led to some great forward progress. So I want to extrapolate from you organizing questions, that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Totally. Oh, I have a really good juicy one for you. Dude, yeah, given to us.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

You're totally kind and generous. Thank you. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Thank you for the general this, I just posted this on threads too, because it's not mine. I just read a lot of books. And so this is something that just really spoke to me. And this is from the book Decluttering at the Speed of Life. I forget the author, but like so good. Go read it. Um, but instead of putting something away, and you know, with ADHD, when we're cleaning up, it's kind of like, well, let me hide this. Where does it fit? Right? What is there room under my bed? Is there room under here? Exactly. Which means that now you're losing everything. You are literally putting things away to lose everything because you're not doing it with any strategy, you're doing it with the intent to declutter, but ultimately just to put things away. You're um, have you ever heard of the term doom pile?

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Okay, so doom means didn't organize, only moved. So, in some cases, that's what we're actually dooming our cabinets and the things that we're just putting things away in. So instead of putting something away, you take one thing and you say to yourself, Where would I go to look for this if I was trying to find it? So instead of saying, Where does it fit or where does this go? Because where does this go and where would I go to look for this are actually two different places, which is kind of hilarious. Like, I don't know, it's like we have two different brains in here sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

It's the normie world, like there's a proper place for these things. I'll tell you, that's exactly why I have I have Tupperware in the cupboard with my glasses, yeah, and I have measuring cups. Yeah, those all don't go to the same spot, but they they they do because that's a cupboard I want to open to find them. And it's like it feels natural, so that's where it goes.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

And that's cool. And you get to decide what being organized means to you. So just because it's portrayed one way in the media or on social media or on Pinterest, you get to decide if you're organized or not based on what your goals are. So that is organized for you because it makes sense. So yeah, so like if you're, I don't know, I don't have anything on my desk right now. Okay, I do. I have a mini magnifying glass. I have no idea where this is.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

What a cluttered mess you are. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

I have barely anything on my desk, but my children like to play in here. So I'm I literally I would probably go throw this away because my kids are never going to be looking for a magnifying glass. And I have no idea where I would go put this. I like, I would like, where would I go to look for a magnifying glass? I just wouldn't be looking for a magnifying glass. I'm like, I don't think in my entire life of living have I been looking for a magnifying glass. Plus, it's tiny and plastic. So um, to make myself feel better, I might put it in my donation box. So wow.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

And then your kid's gonna be like, where the hell's my magnifying glass? I heard I put it where I'm gonna look for it, which is on your desk, mom. Yeah, wow. Yep, so that's another thing. Let's go to Goodwill because that's what I bring. Right?

SPEAKER_02 42:58

I actually avoid Goodwill now because I'm like, we're not allowed to go there because you're gonna see a lot of things that you're missing.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Wait, those are my shoes. Oh it's a popular shoe brand, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

I I do include my kids in a lot of what we do now because I I got rid of a stuffed two stuffed animals earlier this year, and my girls were so sad about it. And I was like, okay, rule, from now on, I'm gonna involve you in this process. We're still gonna let go of some stuff, but I teach them what I've taught myself because I want them to start doing it now. Um, but yeah, so like magnifying glass, that's not a thing. Uh, and you know what? I just thought of where I would go to look for it. I have a science kit spot. So I have science a science kit spot for my daughter. So that's probably where that's gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

But I embarrassingly have I believe it's I I guess it would be a doom pile. It's a Tupperware of kid shit. And it's like a pencils. It's got all kinds of random stuff. And I'm like, if it's a kid thing, I'll just okay. I don't care if it I don't I have no feelings of like if so, if they ever wonder, like, where is it? I was like, I don't know, check that Tupperware. Because if I ever picked it up, it's that's where that's where it is in that big messy Tupperware bin.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Okay, but if it has a job though, like I would say a doom pile is more like a cluttered mess of everything belongs in all the different spaces, whereas that I would say that's that's organizing. You've designated a spot for kids' stuff, and you have a rule in your head for what means kids' stuff to you. So if someone's looking for something, you're literally pointing them in the right direction. So, how about that?

SPEAKER_00 44:49

So maybe I do have my shit together. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

See, that's what I'm saying. And then, you know, you were talking about your box of papers, and we talked about that on my podcast too. And you were like, Oh, I'm so disorganized. And I'm like, There it is. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

So if you're watching this on the YouTube channel, you're seeing it. If you're listening to it on the podcast, I just pointed at a big bin of paper.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

But you have a process, right? So you have a system. You say, if I have this piece of paper, it's gonna go here. When this gets too full, I'm gonna go through it and I have a rule for where I put things, right? But you said earlier in the podcast that you wanted to come up with a better way to do things. So I would ask you, yeah, what about the existing processor system doesn't work right now?

SPEAKER_00 45:37

I can tell you exactly because there's actually a member in our community that does this, she does this weekly, and I was like, Oh, that would have saved me. Because some I, if you'll see, I'm gonna show the world this. I I push it to the limit. I'm like, no, there's still room. I can here, I can squeeze a piece of paper right up in there. Sure, absolutely. So, but I will maybe miss uh I won't necessarily miss a bill because I have that all that stuff on auto pay, but yeah, I'll miss communications that I should have gotten to. Um it's uh things uh kind of get too far away from me. Yeah, because that that'll maybe last a month. Okay. Maybe even longer. It just depends. So that's what I'd say doesn't work for me.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

So how often would you like to be visiting that pile?

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Zero times.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Never I want someone else to do it for me.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I want to make enough money to have an assistant that goes through my gym pile. Yeah. Okay, done. I think realistically, maybe once every couple of weeks. Cool. Would be the goal because weekly to me uh feels overwhelming. Yeah, it feels like uh usually for chores and things like that that are not fun, they feel like the rest of my life. They feel like this is what I'm um a prison sentence. And so the it doesn't go well with my my mood. But once every other week seems more like, oh, it's not gonna get above the top. It might actually I might even be able to do it every once every three weeks. I don't know. But I think uh the goal would be to actually know what it would be to to take care of it before it gets too tall, before it gets over the the lid. Yeah, that might be a way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Cool, and it sounds like just looking at it is overwhelming, especially right now, since it's there's a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

I don't give a shit. You don't? Okay, cool. No, that's the problem, right? So for me that sorry, I'm getting over uh being sick again. So I that lingering cough is awful. Yeah, no, I I will choose to forget about it. It's it I have no feelings for it, I don't like it. When I think about dealing with it, it's I don't know about overwhelming, but there's tension. There's like I don't wanna, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:13

That's interesting. I do you think that every piece of paper in that pile needs to be dealt with, or do you think that some of it could be thrown away?

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Uh I'm gonna say 70% of it is gonna be garbage. Okay, and then a lot of it is gonna be letters that I never opened. Oh you know, but they're bills on autopie. Uh but I for some reason I don't throw them away. Um and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Okay, cool. So you get a bill, it's on Autopie, but you keep it. So why not throw it away as soon as you get it?

SPEAKER_00 48:56

That's a great question. Cool. I'm gonna cut out the pause in here, just so everyone knows there's a pause of me thinking about what she's saying. And people be like, man, he had an answer for her instantly. Yeah. I guess I could. I that there's that maybe that normie feeling of like you're supposed to open it and file it.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Cool, and and so that would be my question to you. Why?

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yeah, why indeed? What I 2024. Why am I not paperless? God damn it.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

And even if it's coming to you in paper, do you have a version of this where you could access it somewhere else?

SPEAKER_00 49:45

I can log in to my account.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Cool, dude. Okay, so here's where you get to solve some of your paper issue. This is what I do with my mail, and this wasn't going to be my solution, but like I'll give you this idea. When the mail comes in, I make the decision right away whether it stays or goes. And so that way, like I'm just opening it all and I'm like, do I need so I have to ask myself specifically?

unknown 50:15

Do I need it?

SPEAKER_02 50:18

And I critically think about each thing. Now I have been challenging myself to do this for a while. And so you might not know the right questions to ask yourself right away, but part of it is exactly what I just did with you is like, am I keeping this because I think I should keep it, or am I keeping it because I actually do need it for my life to live more effectively?

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

And so there's things like that. And then for things like communications and stuff like that, sometimes I'll even add a reminder in my phone to come back and look at it. And like, like I saved a video on TikTok the other day that I wanted to look at and I was saving it and I was like, shoot, I know who I am. I have so many saved videos that I'm never gonna go back and look at. Like I'm that person, but I literally added it to my to-do list and then for a whole month I brushed over it because it wasn't a priority. And then guess who sat down and watched that TikTok video yesterday and implemented some of the tactics that I oh you did because I had to do that. Yeah, and then I like set a reminder to do it, so it was pretty cool. Like, you know, there's there's systems and things that work for us, but you're so right about the normie thing. Like, we think that we should be keeping certain things, yeah. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

I haven't I noticed that. Can I say something really quick about like that decision? That I think that's a skill set that uh needs to be adopted, where uh it in my world, if I everything I I want a quick answer to everything, right? So I I'm very impulsive, and um, so if I'm grabbing the mail and I'm saying, what am I doing with this? I'm having to stop down and ask myself a question. And if the answer doesn't immediately come to me, that that momentary microscopic bit of tension automatically kills me and says, put it in a pile, put it somewhere. Yeah, move away. So that I believe that that's a skill set to be learned of stopping down and taking a breath and asking the question. Um I just wanted to touch on that really quick because I know who I am, and I'd be like, unless I'm deliberate, I'm gonna do Meg's thing, and this is what I do. And oh, okay, I'm in the moment, so I'm stopping down, I'm asking a question, waiting for an answer and allowing it. Isn't this crazy how that would take maybe 15 seconds max? Right, it feels like too long, it feels like the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Yes, okay. So I because I feel the same way, I poured myself a glass of kombucha the other day, and it comes in this glass bottle, and I put it on the counter, and I looked at it, and I was like, I do not want to walk over to the sink and rinse it out and put into the recycling right now. Nothing in any bone of my body wants to do that. And then I asked myself, how long would that actually take me? And I'm like, oh fuck, 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

So then I did it.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

And so, like, part of it is, you know, like adopting these questions. And I got this from um, I think her name is Tracy Atsuka. She wrote a book called Um ADHD for smart ass women. She has a podcast too.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Yeah, she's a big podcast. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

So cool. But she was talking about this woman who had a son who had ADHD, and he loved like doing science experiments and things that could get him in trouble, things that could actually cause some safety issues. And so instead of making it a big deal and getting really angry, she actually gave her son a set of rules to ask himself every time he went into doing a new experiment. And so that's what I teach some of my clients to do too, is because like the other day I was decluttering and I was like cleaning and I was like, oh, I should get out the paint and I should paint the walls because that's what I want to do right now. Like all of these things. I was like, actually, I could wallpaper and I've got all of these things going through my head. And if I allowed myself to go down these crazy trains, I would be doing that. And then I would be exhausted and I would be like, why do I ever do anything because it it's too exhausting to live my life? Because I allow myself to do it. But like establishing those rules. So, what I would say is like just knowing that you can do that is the first step. And then, like, don't listen to me, but just think about it the next time you get your mail for the next month. And like, just think about it. And how could that apply to you? Because the way I live my life is going to be different than the way you live yours, no matter what, in the end. Like, just because I give advice doesn't mean that my way is the right way. It just means that you could adopt a form of that as your own way. And I think that's what's so cool about sharing how we experience ADHD because we get to learn from one another.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

I love that a lot. So, and that's a challenge. That's challenge number two. We got two challenges going on right now. Oh, I'm slipping you off. That was an accident.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

We have two challenges going on right now. First one is a 15-minute timer, done. Second one, mail. Yeah, I'm gonna actually post that in my community because we do it challenges. I'm gonna freaking put the mail challenge for 30 days. We look at our mail and we think about it. Yeah, I do like the idea of uh there, there's no rule on what to do with it. Yeah, just think about it, get to know who you are, and then insights start to bubble up. Oh, I could do this or I could do that. That I love Megs. This is so much fun. This is awesome. By the way, so everything's gonna be in the show notes and all that pizzazz rasmatazz. Um, everybody should go check out your podcast, which is badass. Um, and all that stuff, the 90-day, the digital decluttering.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Link will be in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

Yes, please come follow. I'd love to chat. This has been so fun.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

And all your socials. Yeah, thank you so much for coming by. And we'll let's do this again. I just love talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

So oh my gosh, yeah, let's absolutely do this again. It's been a blast.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Done and done. All right. That was unbelievable. Okay, so we have challenges, we have things to do. We have two Megs Crawford challenges. The first one, you got your 15-minute timer, we're recapping here. One space, 15-minute timer, put on your blinders, and if you're you're have to stay in that space and see what you can get done. Let's see what we can do on that one. And the second one is the mail challenge. Let's do that for 30 days. Come on, who's with me? Let's let's make Megs proud. Um, all right, you guys, all these links are gonna be in the show notes, but please, please, please go check out organizing an ADHD Brain. That's her podcast. Actually, I think I'm on it. I think we're releasing at the same time. So double check today. Uh, maybe you'll hear me bullshitting about my own stuff over there. And then go to mindfulmegs.com, check out her 90-day program, check out her digital decluttering, and then her Instagram and her TikTok, all that's gonna be in the show notes for you to clickety clackity. And with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic week. And I'm gonna talk to you.