Blossom Your Awesome Podcast A Clear Path With Dr. Regina Lark

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast A Clear Path With Dr. Regina Lark

Dr. Regina Lark is here with us. She is an expert in women's history and emotional labor with a PhD from USC. She worked in the women's studies department at UCLA and left in 2008 to start a Clear Path.

There is a direct correlation between clutter and organization with the brain and Dr. Lark knows all about it.

She offers all sorts of great insights and tips to clearing your own path and getting rid of clutter one project at a time. 

Check out her site here.

To see more of my work check me out here where I cover optimal health and wellness.

Or at the link below -

https://blossomyourawesome.com/mindfulness-1

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

To support my work - my Patreon 

Transcript

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Sue:
Hi there, today on the show, Regina Lark is here with us. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Regina Lark:
Oh, thank you Sue. It's nice to be with you.

Sue:
Oh, I am so excited to get into your story, the work you do. You are the founder and owner of A Clare Path, professional organizing and productivity. You've got a PhD in US women's history. You're an author. I mean, the list goes on and on. So

Regina Lark:
Okay.

Sue:
give us the back story here, how you got into this line of work, why you founded this company, and then we'll take it from there.

Regina Lark:
Well, like you, I didn't have enough work to do, so I thought I would create more work for myself. No.

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
So

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
I, okay, well, I was a non-traditional student. I spent 23 years in college from the start, from right after high school to finishing my PhD. I always worked full-time. I always found jobs on campuses. I'm scrappy. And I am fearless. So all of that has always worked in my favor. And I finished my dissertation in 1999. And I spent a couple of years as an adjunct professor of history and women's studies. And then I was hired at UCLA as a full-time employee. And I thought, okay, my career trajectory is gonna go from teaching to administration. So I was an academic administrator and it was good. I enjoyed the work. Every time I went in, you know, I would go into a new office space from being a graduate student with a job on campus to whatever jobs I had after that. I always decluttered and organized the spaces because I have to work in a calm environment. Well, so that is innate to me. And I can explain why it's innate in some people, why staying uncluttered can come naturally to some people and is very challenging for others. So if you wanna know about that, we'll be sure to get into it. But when I was at my job at UCLA in summer of 08, I went to Jerusalem to visit a very good friend of mine. And while I was there, I said, a tourist today, how about if I do your kitchen? And she's like, Habibti, what does that mean? And I said, Nathara, your girls are in their 30s, you got sippy cups in the cupboard, just let me do what I do. And so Nathara let me do what I do. And again, it's innate to me. In my family of origin, there are six of us, four of us are like me, two of us need us. So I spent a day decluttering and organizing Nathara's kitchen and. It was a good result and I get back to my desk at UCLA and one week later I learned that my unit was being dismantled, my position eliminated. It was the beginning of the recession and I was out of a job and I had never been out of a job. I hadn't, I started working at age 14. So

Sue:
Thank you.

Regina Lark:
to be out of work was so, such an anomaly to me. Two months into my layoff, I told Ronnie, my roomie, I'm gonna organize until something better comes along. And so we looked up organizers in the zip code we were living in. And the first person to come up is Katherine Macy. I noticed she has a PhD in mechanical engineering. And I went, oh, organizers are smart people. We called Katherine, because my roommate knew her. She invited us over for dinner. I learned everything about the industry of professional organizing. Katherine hired me as an assistant a couple of times and I thought, wow, people pay you to do this? And indeed they do. And I just was off and running. That was 15 years ago. I have published books. I have 13 employees. We cover a huge territory in Southern California, two large counties. And my days are often spent either talking about clutter or networking or writing proposals for new clients. It's nonstop.

Sue:
Wow. Well, I love, love that you have found success in this. And I'm always like, to me, as I'm sure is the case for you, it always just affirms that you're passionate, you love what you do, you're great at what you do. And so the business takes off. I love that. Now let's get into this. Give us the details. What is the difference between an organized and unorganized? Why are some people, you know, what is the difference?

Regina Lark:
So based on, back up, when I started organizing, in my first few months, I'm meeting really interesting people. And one of my first clients, she called me in because her mom had passed and her house was just filled with all the things of her moms that she brought to her house. We're in there, I'm over there maybe 10, 30 minutes, something like that, very short period of time. and she holds up an embroidered eyeglasses case. And she said, is it okay if I let this go? This was my mother's, is it okay if I let this go? And my very first thought was sure. And then I kind of held myself and I thought, she's asking me permission after she's known me for 10 minutes. I was so curious about that. It just, it didn't occur to me that someone may have a question about that, about something that benign, seemingly benign. Also in that first year, I'm talking to, I'm getting hired by smart professional women who are having a hard time making decisions. They are completely overwhelmed by the volume of work in the home. And the volume of work in the home is just falling on their shoulders, even though there's another adult in the household, typically a spouse. Um... So what I did was embark on a lot of programs of study. I'm an educate, I appreciate education very much. And I took classes and coursework that helped me learn more about the brain in terms of its relationship to their environment, to stuff, to decision-making. And here's what I've learned. I learned that 50,000 years ago, as humankind is beginning to develop and evolve, the first human

Sue:
You missed me.

Regina Lark:
has a brain that is still with us today and it's the fight or flight brain. So I think of Maya, the cave woman, and she's standing there and she wakes up and she rubs her eyes and she sees a beautiful soothing body of water. And she says, I don't have language for that, but it looks good, I'm diving in. She also may come out rubbing her eyes and see a saber-toothed tiger and like, I don't know what the hell that is. I don't have a language for that, but I'm getting away. And that fighter flight brain. The fighter flight brain is really how we respond emotionally without even thinking. It's that knee-jerk response. Well, we've evolved and developed in what we live with right now. is prefrontal cortex. Our gray matter is here toward the front of our cranium. And the prefrontal cortex

Sue:
It's a science. It's

Regina Lark:
includes

Sue:
science, but it's

Regina Lark:
what's

Sue:
science.

Regina Lark:
called the executive functions. And think about it. If it's that terminology, it's planning, it's linear, it's prioritizing, it's being able to have... a healthy relationship with time. It's having an internal time clock. I could close my eyes and I could probably tell you when a minute has passed. Our executive function allows us to stay emotionally managed. A tweaked executive function is there when we see ADHD. ADHD could be called executive function dysfunction. people with depression, people with anxiety, people with neurological challenges, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, people who are going through major life transitions, marriage, death, birth, divorce, cancer, COVID, if they've got weak executive functioning skills, then they're going to meet these transitions, these life transitions. It's gonna be very challenging and difficult. My executive functions are usually operating on all systems. I don't live with depression or anxiety. I don't have ADHD. My decision making is quick. I'm pretty emotionally managed. Like I said, I have a pretty good relationship with time. So the folks who call folks like me, the people who call people like me, they're more than likely dealing with executive function challenges. They have every intention to clear their desk, but... Probably because they don't know how long it takes them to do any one particular task. Clearing the desk becomes a huge challenge. And people will say to me, I cleared it off, but it came back. It doesn't have legs. We return it, we continue the

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
behavior.

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
to continue that level of mess. So what I've learned is that my mom and my younger sister both have ADHD and they're brilliant, creative, wicked smart. They have vision. They're beautiful. They dress, you know, they're just, but they just don't wanna hang up their clothes or file the paperwork, you know? They've got all of these other really great skills, talents and abilities. But when it comes to the linear, logical, streamlined, prioritized way of life, oy, it's a struggle. Does

Sue:
Wow,

Regina Lark:
that help?

Sue:
that does help. I mean, now let's break this down. Can we break this down some more? Really get into the nitty gritty of the, you know, the difference between, so then the person who is able to keep things clutter free, give us, who is that person?

Regina Lark:
It would be somebody who is... you know, who has a functional executive function. You know, when I was a kid and my mom told me to go clean my room, it was like, yay. Other kids, they get in their room and they're like, la la, I don't know what to do. I'd rather color, draw, talk on the phone. And oftentimes a parent or a guardian will have to go in and sit with them while they do the work. So we're born with an executive function. Everyone is born with executive functions. And depending

Sue:
You

Regina Lark:
on how the brain developed from birth, or if you're diagnosed later on with neurological challenges, we don't see, we don't see, we don't see anxiety, depression, and other brain-based challenges until later in life. I don't know, and again, I'm not a brain scientist. I don't know if you're predisposed to depression from birth. I don't know that. But I do know that whatever is going to have an impact on the executive functions of your brain, the chances are pretty good that you're gonna have clutter. I... My to-do list, I'm always checking it off. I work with clients who have multiple to-do lists over years of time. And again, it's these executive function challenges. So if any of your listeners are sitting there going, wait a minute, everything Regina says makes so much sense to me right now. Try some little strategies to really get a handle on what your particular challenges are. And so one quick and dirty way to look at this is to look at your typical week, write down tasks that you do during a typical week. Laundry, shopping, whatever it is. Waking up, getting dressed, taking a shower, dealing with children. or two or four legged, the two or the four legged in your home. And then for each task, what the hell, just write down how long you think it takes you to do it. No filters. Don't even think

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
about

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
it. I'm in and out of the bathroom in the morning and 10 minutes. It takes me 20 minutes to get to Trader Joe's and back, whatever it is, assign a time value to it, and then as much as you're able, as close as you can, start timing yourself. You're gonna be so surprised by what you learn about your relationship with time. Because from the gate, if you think, so I always said, I'm in and out of the bathroom in the morning in 10 minutes. That was always my thing. I always knew that about myself. What I learned when I timed myself is the shower is actually like three and a half, four minutes. The other, the six minutes are drying off, the six minutes are everything else. But I am in and out of there in 10 minutes. So whatever we can learn about ourselves and our relationship with time, because if you say you're in and out of the bathroom in 10 minutes in the morning, and it's really 20,

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
that's

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
your first clue about why your day has already backed up before you even grabbed a first cup of coffee. Clearly

Sue:
Wow.

Regina Lark:
I can talk about this forever.

Sue:
So now help us understand this relationship with time and stuff, right? Time and clutter, what is the correlation there?

Regina Lark:
Well, say you're working at your desk all day and through the day, you're pulling out a notepad and pens and you've got a file folder and whatever you're doing through the day. And then your desk gets stuff on it. And then the phone rings and you have to leave and you're done for the day and then you come back and you still have this pile of stuff on your desk. And then the day starts. Again, you pull out another file in another folder. If you're not building into your day. a block of time to put everything away. Or if putting away doesn't come as natural to you as taking out. Taking out is often not thought about, even if you have to push this book over to get this book out. Putting the book back is gonna take, takes work. Pulling it out, not so much work. So if you're not able to manage your internal clock, your relationship with time, Back up. This is what I hear people say a lot. And, you know, this would be another fun way to see if time, we call it time management, but you cannot manage time. You can manage your relationship with time. Because right now it is 2.40 Pacific Coast time. There's nothing I could do about it. No matter how much I wish it was 2.30. Ain't gonna happen. So. Your listeners can start paying attention to how many times the word time comes out of their mouth. I have no time, there is no time. I've run out of time. I'm always late. Time was always getting away from me. What did I do all day? I don't know what I did all day. Where did the day go? Is it May already? People who have a compromised or challenging relationship with time, they're known for being late. They, and then it builds and then it becomes stupid with, you know, people are criticizing you. And then you start feeling badly about yourself and you start judging yourself. And, you know, you've got self-criticism and it just, it's like this layered bunch of, of not good thoughts and feelings if one doesn't have a good relationship with time. Because they're not. blocking time to put everything away again. I've done a lot of workshops and seminars in the corporate setting. And I always tell employees,

Sue:
Peace.

Regina Lark:
if you're clocking out at five, pretend you're clocking out at 4.30 and use 4.30 to five to right your wrongs, right? To put your stuff away, to clear your desk for the next day, to open up. the folder that you're going to want to look at as soon as you sit down the next morning, not the folder you looked at the end of your day. It's that, it's, you know, we have to understand what our relationship to time is, where it impacts or challenges us. have people hold you accountable. You know, it's time. Hmm. Doing a big shift on your relationship with time is no easy task. So you've got to be kind and gentle with yourself. It's a process. And, and. You know, I just hear so many people label, judge, and criticize themselves. And it's so unnecessary because your lousy relationship with time is how your brain is wired from the shoot. versus who you are as a decent human being.

Sue:
Right.

Regina Lark:
It's outside your control, but what you can control is your perception of it. You can control your knowledge and understanding that this is something you have to work on managing better. But it's not something for you to just pull out the billy club and start beating yourself over the head going, you idiot, you're never on time. It's like, stop that. Be kind

Sue:
Wow.

Regina Lark:
and gentle. Find out more about your brain. Do these little tasks about how long it takes you to do stuff.

Sue:
This is so fascinating, because I would imagine, Regina, much like myself, I'm having these kind of, my brain is going in places as you're explaining the relationship to clutter and the brain and then incorporating time as a factor. You know, I've never really considered time in this way in relation to disorganization or, but it, uh-huh.

Regina Lark:
I wanna, and before you go on, because this will be an interesting thread throughout all of this, it's not only one's relationship with time, but one's relationship to their emotional wellbeing. And this is what I see a lot. People are holding on to things they think they may need someday. So the time value part to the side, right? So we hold on to things we think we may need someday, but we're not able to identify what someday has to look like. And we don't know if someday arrives and I don't have this thing now, a catastrophe will befall me. We catastrophize the outcome of letting go of something that we think we may need someday. To me, that's emotional mismanagement. We're afraid of letting go of someday because we don't know what our lives would look like as someday comes and I don't have this, now what? It's not like most of us live in the Adirondacks, right? It's not like we don't have a 7-Eleven, a 99-Cent store or a Macy's within reasonable distance. So we're holding onto things we think we may need someday. There's fear of letting go of someday, the future. And we're holding onto things we're afraid of letting go of from how it got into our life in the first place. From report cards to bowling trophies to shoulder padded business suits. All of these things represent to us something that we have inscribed it with. Or that someone told us, well, you can't get rid of these dishes. They were grandma's good dishes. Oh, okay. Even though I don't like the pattern, whatever. Ah, grandma's good dishes. Keep those. Because I'm afraid that if grandma ever found out that I let go of these dishes or a fan. So we tend to hold on to the past. I had a guy say, Regina, if I got rid of all my concert t-shirts, and he had them all from the 60s. He had them all. He goes, if I get rid of all my concert t-shirts, how will anybody know I used to be cool? I said, Bradley, you're still cool. It just looks different now. So we have fear of letting go of things from our past, fear of letting go of things in our, you know, that we've identified for our future. And the present is just a cluster of clutter. because we're afraid of letting go over here. We're afraid of letting go back here. I look at public storage. What state are you in?

Sue:
I'm in California.

Regina Lark:
Okay, well, where I live in Southern California, there are major

Sue:
Alright,

Regina Lark:
streets

Sue:
we're just

Regina Lark:
with

Sue:
gonna

Regina Lark:
two

Sue:
stop here.

Regina Lark:
or three or more public storage units, with 50 to 300 units. I call it the land of emotional mismanagement, because these storage units are filled with that which we think we may need someday. or Grandma's Rocker. So the emotional mismanagement side, the time mismanagement side, and then the inability to process, prioritize. Those all work in contribution. They all work to contribute to clutter.

Sue:
Wow, this is just so eye-opening, so fascinating. Yeah, it's interesting because we don't, I mean, you as a pro and a professional, someone who has studied this and you do this for a living, people on the other side, they don't know this, they don't see it in this way. You already know that because you're always probably, you know, having, giving your clients epiphanies and aha moments, right?

Regina Lark:
Thank you.

Sue:
But You know what I was gonna say earlier, Regina, is just in relation to time, it's so interesting because really when you get rid of the clutter, it can probably save you a lot of time because there's a lot of less shuffling and things to do with

Regina Lark:
or.

Sue:
it. But right, we're telling ourselves, oh, this is gonna take me an extra minute to go clean this up now. So I'm just gonna, I don't know when we're putting it off for, right? What are we?

Regina Lark:
Most

Sue:
What?

Regina Lark:
people won't, most people will say, give me a sec. And it's always, there's no such thing. I'll be, I'll get back with you in a second. Nothing happens in a second. You can't even say the word second in a second. So we don't have, even the words coming out, if we, we never think something, if we think something's gonna take a minute, we'll probably do that, but we never think it's gonna take a minute. Unless we think it's going to take a minute, we have such a lousy relationship with time that it takes 10 minutes. There's a principle in organizing land. And if it takes two minutes, take the two minutes. But if we don't know how long it takes us to do anything, then that's where we have to start. We have to start in a very remedial way, I think.

Sue:
So

Regina Lark:
and trust.

Sue:
now,

Regina Lark:
Yeah.

Sue:
I'm sorry, continue there. You were gonna say in the last.

Regina Lark:
No, and trust that it's a process and it's not gonna happen overnight.

Sue:
Wow, and now, okay, so give us like a hypothetical scenario. You're sitting at your desk or your end table or somewhere and there's just like piles of stuff, right? And bunch of clutter. There's gotta be some kind of mindset shift, like some reframing that we have to do in our mind to decide to do it and then do it. Right? And determine, okay, I don't need this and I'll keep this or let me find a good place for this little note card and this posted over here and let me organize this. What needs to happen in the brain to get to that point?

Regina Lark:
Well, you can't organize. I don't. I'm all about decluttering first. You've got, it's so much bigger than what you described. So if I had a bunch of pie, if I just had stuff everywhere, in the closets, the cupboards, under the bed, whatever, what I would do is I would go around my entire home with a pad of paper and a pen, and I would write down every single area that needs to be worked on. Make a list. Then assign a time value. How long do

Sue:
And then

Regina Lark:
I think

Sue:
I'm going

Regina Lark:
it's

Sue:
to like...

Regina Lark:
gonna take me to clear the junk drawer, my desk? Doesn't matter. Mine, without thinking about it, just say it's gonna take me 10 minutes to do this, I could do this in five minutes, it doesn't matter. Then the next thing I would do is to put one of those projects on your calendar. Rarely will it happen that we just sit down and go, I'm gonna declutter this pile if it's not on the calendar. So I would put

Sue:
I'm a

Regina Lark:
something

Sue:
jerk.

Regina Lark:
really benign, unemotional, and I would start with the junk drawer because if it's junk, why are you putting it in a drawer? But people do. So we have junk drawers in our kitchen. Everybody has a junk drawer. What I would do is I would put declutter and organize junk drawer on my calendar. And I'm gonna give myself 30 minutes because how hard could it be? That's what we say to ourselves. So the junk drawer

Sue:
Attention.

Regina Lark:
is there for 30 minutes. And for every declutter project, you need some supplies. So the junk drawer, you need a trash can and a recycle bin and an old sheet or towel. And for me, for a junk drawer, I like a bowl of warm, sudsy water, little one. The calendar, it's Friday morning, it's five minutes to nine. I gave myself from nine to 9.30. At five minutes to nine, I go over to the drawer and I shove over all the things on the countertop. So I have cleared space and I lay the towel down. I put the bowl of warm sudsy water on it. I hit the timer for 30 minutes. I pull the drawer out, I dump it over, and then I sort. And I have a trash and recycling bin next to me. And then I just go to town. I don't need this, I need this, I don't need this, I need this. Whenever you find

Sue:
Thank you.

Regina Lark:
keys or coins, put them in the bowl of warm sudsy water. Don't leave your workstation. Don't try the keys. Just let them soak, because they're usually sticky. And you're gonna be so surprised by how many ketchup packets you have. And why do I have so many sets of wooden chopsticks? I love my very nice chopsticks. Why do I need all these Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, Bed Bath & Beyond isn't even taking coupons anymore. So we just start sorting and trashing and then 30 minutes goes by, the timer goes off and you're not finished yet. Really, really good information.

Sue:
Thank you.

Regina Lark:
It's worth exploring. Why do you feel it took you more than 30 minutes to do a project that you thought would take your 30 minutes? Don't label, judge, or resent yourself. Just be really curious. Because for every declutter project, you need to schedule a block of time, whether it's 15 minutes or an entire day. So if that table next to the couch is filled with clutter, do that as an experiment. Give yourself 30 minutes. Whatever information we get out of these experiments, if we're paying attention, can go a long way toward helping us work in all of the other areas. But we've got to be armed with some kind of knowledge about how long it takes us to do something. Why did I get bogged down with the junk drawer? Oh, I found a bunch of postage stamps and I'm not sure what to do with the postage stamps because some of them are... They look good and I need to take them off the end, you know, so we'll start ruminating on what's in there. All of this is good information. Another big suggestion is to bring in a friend. Just have a loving, kind, objective friend go into your bedroom closet with you. And as you pull out all of your clothes and try them on, your friend is gonna go, honey, that didn't look good on, that never looked good on you. Let's put it in the bag. You want them to be loving and kind and objective. You don't want them to take your stuff home with them.

Sue:
I'm

Regina Lark:
Yes,

Sue:
sorry.

Regina Lark:
I see that a lot. But what I would do is I would reciprocate, let them spend the day with you. You go spend the day with them. Because when we have a lot of clutter, we sort of lost all objectivity on, on how we're going to deal with it because we've just been in the weeds with it for so long. And, and we get calls from clients. Who. You know, they feel like failures. And that to me is the heartbreaking thing. Rather than seeing this through the lens of the executive function, and like you said, people don't know this. They hold themselves up to other standards. I can't tell you how many Pinterest pages I see with the ideal closet, which also helps them feel more shamed about what they can't achieve. I mean, it's kind of a... I want to say it's ridiculous because we're raised to compare. We were raised with comparative analysis, and it just becomes comparative paralysis. And instead of just like totally loving and embracing who we are, we need help, we find the help. I'm always good at getting help for free when I have no money. And then I was able to pay for a bookkeeper. You know what I mean? It's. I started out saying I was fearless and scrappy. That has served me well and I know it serves others well. It's about not labeling, judging and resenting yourself.

Sue:
Hmm

Regina Lark:
And being accepting of your magnificent self, your awesomeness. To coin a phrase, blossom your awesome. You're, you know, folks with a lot of clutter, I think that's just super smart, super creative, super wonderful, they just can't hang up their clothes.

Sue:
Wow. And now you know, Regina, I mean, retail therapy, that's a real thing, right? So even

Regina Lark:
Well,

Sue:
when you've

Regina Lark:
it's funny,

Sue:
got a...

Regina Lark:
I go to, when I speak at conferences, you know, you go to a conference and everybody gets a swag bag.

Sue:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Regina Lark:
And I'm awful. I'll say, dump the bag, like you would dump the junk drawer. See if there's anything in there that you need. instead of taking home another water bottle. I go into people's homes and they have, they devote entire cupboards to all of their water bottles. There's only two people living there. Pick from the best. Use one or two. It's okay to have only one or two water bottles. You know, it's about being mindful of anything that comes through your front door. The only stuff that gets to live with me, the only things that have permission to live with me, it has to feed me intellectually, it has to feed me aesthetically. I love all of the things in my place. I love my three plants. I love the art on my wall. It has to feed me intellectually, aesthetically, or it's like shampoo and milk. It's like, it's the stuff I need for daily living. That's the only, there's three categories of what gets to live with me. My own principles, there's no rule about it, but I've learned that my space is this big. I want to be able to get what I need when I need it and to be able to put it back just as easily. And if that's gonna be the case, then I'm not gonna have a lot of things around me. But that's my organizing principle. And it goes with how my brain is wired.

Sue:
Mm-hmm. And now, you know, let me ask you, this is just so insightful. You've had so much great practical guidance that we're not being given. I love this idea of putting it on the calendar, setting up, because, you know, when you're just looking at that big full closet, it's scary. It's like you don't even know how, but once you kind of lay it down, it's in the book, it's on the calendar, then you've got to, you know... you've got an assignment and you're ready because you've kind of laid it out in that way. So I can understand the power of that. Now, what about people with, like you were talking about the woman with her mom stuff, what about old sentimental things that are just so hard to let go of? These are not just little old coupons or whatnot. This is something really, and you may have a lot of it. You might have a lot of... your mother's things or somebody's things.

Regina Lark:
couple of things about that. First, How do, you know, it's like looking at. looking at things through the lens of what everybody has. Everybody has dishes, everybody had a hairbrush, everybody had perfume and clothing. And so when I look at artifacts of daily living, then I think, you know, hold on to one or two of those. Some people will hold on to an empty perfume bottle because the fragrance just reminds them of their parent. That's fine. You know, it's like, it's fine. For other, you know, hold on to

Sue:
Hold

Regina Lark:
what

Sue:
on

Regina Lark:
you

Sue:
to

Regina Lark:
have

Sue:
the...

Regina Lark:
room for. Hold on to things out of love, not guilt. hold on to one or two items and then donate or sell the rest. There's not one way of looking at any of this. There's a lot of strategies and suggestions, but if your home can't bear... these items, again, it's like looking at the things that came into our life from who was in our life and the things that we think we may need someday. What you're describing, sentimental items, memorabilia, these types of artifacts, we didn't come out of the chute knowing that this book was valuable. Someone told us it had value. We can reassign the value. I had a client once who we worked, we did several projects in her house and one of the projects was to clear the dining room because she was going to turn it into an art studio. So the hutch, where all her dining room things were, the bottom of the hutch had a bunch of quilted pouches from her grandma's good dishes. And we moved those to a big area in the kitchen that could handle it. And so we got her art thing done. And then a few months later, it went back to start on the kitchen and we came across grandma's good dishes in the quilted pouches and we were gonna now move them to the garage. So I opened one of the pouches and I said, wow, these are beautiful. Your grandma had good taste. And she goes, yeah, I never met my grandma. I went, oh, that's interesting. So I bet you remember a lot of really fun dinners with these dishes. You know, since your grandma shows, well, we actually never use them because they were grandma's good dishes. So I took her hand and we went

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
over

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
to the part of the kitchen where her everyday stuff was. I opened the cupboards and I said, Lori. You've got shitty dishes in here. They're mismatched. You have five dinner plates for, I said, why don't we just use these dishes in the pouches? She said, I said, why don't we use grandma's good dishes? She says, you could do that. I go, yep. We're about to reassign the value. Now they're your dishes and you can call them good or just dishes, but we're going to use them. And we donated everything else that was in her cupboard and now she's using the dishes. So again, who provided the value of these artifacts and why do we continue to believe it has value? These are questions to ask. I'm not saying that these things no longer have value but become a little bit curious as to who decided it had value. How much stock do we put in their ability to value something? I mean, I don't know. But, and if it's got tremendous value, call an auction broker. Call somebody who deals privately in gold and jewelry. These resources are everywhere. Call me. I will help them find resources in. I can help you find a me all over the United States and parts of the world. There are professional organizing associations in Canada, Japan, the UK, uh, China, what did I just see? The Netherlands. Uh, So if we feel unable or ill-equipped to make those types of decisions on our own, avail yourself of help that's out there.

Sue:
Wow, and now Regina, you know, what do you find when, is there a particular something or what happens when you have a lot of clutter and what do you find leads people to you? What happens

Regina Lark:
Mm.

Sue:
generally for them to get to a point where they realize, hey, maybe this is not good, I wanna clean this up?

Regina Lark:
It's so many things. It's starting a new relationship. It's ticked off that they can't find their keys again. It's being shamed by somebody else or tired of having shame from themselves. It's a spouse that's constantly haranguing you as though this is all your fault and all your job. The work of the household to get it done. doesn't require a vagina, it requires executive function skills. And yet we call it women's work. So that's a whole other layer of shit going on in people's lives. This idea that, well, this should be your job. Aren't you, aren't you wired for this? So people come to us from a variety of, um, emotional insight, or they're just, they've been harangued by others. and they're sick of it.

Sue:
And what can you say to people? I mean, what can they anticipate or expect when they get things, the clutter cleared away?

Regina Lark:
Uh, so I tell folks the two hardest parts of, of this kind of work for the client is the decision, making the decisions about what to let go and then how to maintain it. So the maintenance part is spectacularly important. And the only reason you're going to be able to figure out how to maintain it is if you start really doing some heavy duty work on your relationship with time. If you start doing some heavy duty work on how long it takes you to do stuff. If you start, once the path has been cleared, I tell clients, pretend you're a drone. Start hovering above you and around you and see what the hell are you doing in there all day? Without labeling, judging, or criticizing, or resenting, just observe and be curious. Bring your organizer back in a month. to help you work on the maintenance part of all of this. It's really hard. The maintenance is... The maintenance is a big challenge. It's not impossible, but it sure takes some mindfulness. It sure takes a strong desire. Napoleon Hill calls it the white hot heat of desire. You have to want it more than anything or pay someone to do it for you. Either way, you either develop the skills needed for yourself, whatever a clear path looks like to you, whatever it feels like, smells like, whatever it is for you. Those are the skills you want to develop to maintain whatever it is for you.

Sue:
Wow, oh my God, I just,

Regina Lark:
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Sue:
this is so mind blowing and I love it, it's so enticing,

Regina Lark:
What?

Sue:
I think, for so many people, because we all have, some of us may have more clutter than others, but I know we all have things that we could part with, and it would probably just be so liberating to do so. So I just, a couple of things, Regina, one, I wanna... Just thank you so much for your time

Regina Lark:
You're

Sue:
today

Regina Lark:
welcome.

Sue:
and all of your amazing insights and you had so much practical guidance for people. I know people are gonna have so many takeaways from what you've shared. Yay,

Regina Lark:
Yay!

Sue:
and then two, we didn't even touch on the emotional labor, so I would love to have you back to have a whole different

Regina Lark:
Oh, I would love

Sue:
conversation.

Regina Lark:
to talk about

Sue:
Okay,

Regina Lark:
that.

Sue:
yes, I would love to have you back and have that conversation with you. closing if there were just one message, your hope for everyone out there, what is that closing message?

Regina Lark:
Do not label, judge, or resent yourself. Stop that.

Sue:
Oh, I love it. Is that it? Is that the whole message?

Regina Lark:
That's it.

Sue:
Oh, I love it. What an awesome close. You have been so great, Regina. Thank you

Regina Lark:
Thanks, Sue.

Sue:
so much.

Regina Lark:
All right,

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
you.

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
I'll

Sue:
Thank

Regina Lark:
talk

Sue:
you.

Regina Lark:
to you again

Sue:
Okay.

Regina Lark:
soon.