This Empty Nest Life

119. Downsizing Without Drama: A Practical Path For Empty Nesters

• Jay Ramsden • Episode 119

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Downsizing and decluttering can be overwhelming—it's not just lifting boxes, but making tough decisions while battling guilt, perfectionism, and “what if I need this?” In this episode, professional organizer Tracy Hoth of Simply Squared Away shares a clear, compassionate path to lighten your home—and your mind.

Tracy introduces her proven SPACE method — Sort, Purge, Assign, Contain, Energize — which applies from small junk drawers to whole-house moves. Tracy redefines being “organized” as knowing what you have and being able to find it easily. Using favorites-first purging and the “triangle of fit” (your body, space, and life) simplifies decision-making, while practical tips about zones, containers, and sorting strategies make the process manageable.

Whether you’re downsizing, caring for aging parents, or just clearing space for the next chapter, this episode provides a grounded, achievable approach to letting go and making room for what matters most—without overwhelm.

Highlights & Key Takeaways:

  • Redefine organization as knowing what you have and where it is.
  • Set a clear vision and timeline for downsizing or decluttering.
  • Use the SPACE method: Sort, Purge, Assign, Contain, and Energize.
  • Save money by “shopping your house” for containers and setting limits.
  • Handle big spaces with full-sort or box-by-box approaches.
  • Overcome guilt about heirlooms and gifts with healthier beliefs.
  • Plan a life-and-death binder to support your family.

Feeling overwhelmed by clutter? Ready to create a home that supports your next chapter? Tune in and learn how the simple SPACE method and mindset shifts turn chaos into confidence. 

Tracy Hoth Bio
Tracy Hoth is a 17-year veteran professional organizer and certified life coach who is on a mission to empower women to create streamlined and organized lives. She is the host of the top 1% globally ranked Organized Coach Podcast and creator of Organized Life Academy, where she helps empty nesters simplify, declutter, and become organized life CEOs.

Find Tracy Online: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook,

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SPEAKER_01:

One of the women in our group, her dad just died. And I remember messaging her and just saying, What can I do for you? And she said, Tracy, just please make sure you keep telling people. Don't leave your kids a mess. Don't leave them all this stuff to go through. Start now, start when you can and take action.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to this empty nest life. Join Jay Ramsden as he leads you on a transformative journey through the uncharted seas of midlife and empty nesting. If you're ready to embark on this new adventure and redefine your future, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the empty nest coach, Jay Ramsden.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey there, my emptiness friends. I don't know about you, but one of the things constantly on my mind as an empty nester is how do we get prepared to downsize? What are the best practices? How does it work? And what the heck do we even do with all the things we have? Because, you know, deep down, we know the kids really don't want any of it at all. Today I'm joined by expert organizer Tracy Hoth of SimplysquaredAway.com, and we're gonna get into it right now. Tracy, welcome to This Emptiness Life.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks, Jay, for having me. I love talking about organizing.

SPEAKER_03:

It's interesting because I am I am super obsessive compulsive about being organized. But when I see things, but the attic, the garage, the closets, the drawer, basement, whatever, out of sight, out of mind, then my OCD doesn't kick in. So I'm just like, let's let's have a conversation. Because I know lots of people who are empty nesters are in this exact spot. Oh my god, we need to downsize, but where do we even begin? So let's let's tap into that organizational brain of yours and decluttering brain of yours. Where do we even start?

SPEAKER_01:

Where do we start? I always start first just by what organized means. So you're organized when you know what you have and you can find it when you need it.

SPEAKER_03:

No just oh yeah, okay. Game changer right there, right? Where can I find it? Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's what I think. A lot of times we think it means that it has to look a certain way and it has to be extra special and color-coded, and it really doesn't. And so once you have your shoulders can relax and you can just think, okay, do I know where it is and can I find it when I need it?

SPEAKER_03:

That's I'm like my mind is racing right now, literally around my house. Do I know where it is? And because people move, right? They have circumstances that come up. I know for us, we lost a house in a fire, had a rental, bought a new house, and my mind is constantly like, Well, I think I had it at some point. Yeah. And that but so, but I mean I imagine regular folks who don't have those things happen move too. And how do you even be like, I don't even know where to begin. I'm so glad we're talking, and I'm sure others are, but like, where do you even start?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So I think first to think about this is a project that you're gonna do. And anytime you do a project, you have a start time and probably an end time that you want to get it done by. And you can break down if you're gonna downsize your whole house, you can break it down into sections, and maybe that's a little more realistic or less overwhelming of a start and end time. And then I always think you start by following the steps to getting organized. And I have an acronym for the steps, it spells space, and we can talk through that in just a minute. But when you first start in thinking about downsizing, take a minute just to look at your future self. Like let's say in a year from now, in six months, whatever amount of time, and just imagine them with the project completed and just take down some notes. What does that look like? Where do they are you in the same house? Have you moved? What size house do you live in? How much stuff do you imagine yourself you're gonna move or you're gonna keep? Just to get this really clear vision of what we're even going toward. Because when we say downsize, that could mean anything. And then you don't even know what your like what destination is in the GPS.

SPEAKER_03:

Got it. All right, so start at the end, like with the end in mind.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Look at it, imagine it.

SPEAKER_03:

Imagine it. Let's say I was actually had talking to somebody before who is an entrepreneur who's RVing. And so we had some similar conversation about stuff and the overwhelm of stuff. So if we start with the end in mind, that person, the end in mind was an RV, and that's what they do, they travel the country in an RV. But what does it look like? And it's so open-ended for people. So what if they can't even answer that? Is there is there like a halfway point for them where you advise them here's an here's here's someplace you can start with that? It's like even like for me, even a drawer that we can tackle. Like where that's where my brain goes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So there's no magic answer. So it would depend. Like if you can imagine the future and you know you want to move in six months. Like, I have a couple that's gonna move in six months. And so they know the size of house they want. And now, as they're going through each room in their house, they know what they need to do. And one of the things we talked about was in each room, put a box of donate, a box that you're gonna keep, and pack each room up individually with the things that you're gonna keep. And then you know these things are gonna go into the guest room. You can be as perfectionist as that as you're going through things. So you're kind of packing up the things you want and then leaving some maybe things out if you're not sure, putting some donate stuff in that you're sure of donating. So that's one way to go about it. But let's back up a minute, even just in learning how to organize. If you know the steps to getting organized, you can organize absolutely anything in your life, your mind, your house, a drawer, your digital files, your attic. Like you can organize anything, your calendar by following the steps. And in order to get good at the steps, break it down into small areas, like you just said, a drawer. Grab your purse, do the front seat of your car, do a counter, a section of a countertop. Just pick an area and then follow the steps. So I have a 15-minute declutter challenge that you can download and follow these exact steps. It spells it out for you perfectly and walks you through exactly what to do. But the first step to organizing anything is to sort.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, that's the S in space.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the Sort.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. And the reason what most people do is they walk into a space and they're like, okay, I gotta get rid of some stuff. And they first look at something and they're like, Well, I don't know. And then they leave because it's too overwhelming. They try to make decisions. So first step is to sort.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. First step sort.

SPEAKER_01:

And you just put like items with like items. If it's a drawer, you take the things out of the drawer and put pencils here, office supplies here, paper here.

SPEAKER_03:

Closet, it would be you know, suits and put you know, PJs there and whatever else that you have in your closet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Next is P a P. What's that?

SPEAKER_01:

Purge. Purge. And so I like in this step to do there's a couple options. I like to choose my favorites. So you if you do the favorites method, and I used to teach this to kids, like if parents are gonna help kids do it, but then I'm like, well, this works great for parents too. So you pick your favorite thing. If you're looking at uh your pile of pens, you pick the favorite pen that you use all the time. If you're looking at your jeans, you pick the ones that you wear all the time that are your favorites that fit. And so then you go to the other things, and then there's a list of questions like, have I used this in the last six months, 12 months? Does it fit? Does it work? All those types of questions that are helpful. Does it fit into the future that I'm envisioning? Does it help me get to my goal? If so, keep it. If not, then you can let it go.

SPEAKER_03:

I like the fit piece, Tracy. Does it fit my body, but also does it fit my life, like in a regular way? Because we all know people who have closets. I used to, you know, my I actually got my closet to a point where I think I would you would be like, okay, Jay, you've done a good job with this closet. Okay. Is I used to have a closet of double X and XL and large, and I was like keeping everything of ooh, I could might need this at some point in the future if I get off this habit of exercise and eating. Oh, just hold on to it, but I've done away with that. And so I I think that's what you're saying. Is like, does it fit into my life and does it fit into the space? Does it fit me? It's like almost a triangle of fit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I love that. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Feel free to use it and take it away.

SPEAKER_00:

I will.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so then the A, we've we've sorted and purged.

SPEAKER_01:

So now we know what we're keeping, and now we assign a home to it. Assign homes.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, assign. I love it.

SPEAKER_01:

And this part's a little bit of a puzzle. You're deciding where's it gonna go? Can I access it quickly? Does it fit into a zone? Like if we have the baking stuff, all could be together. We have a reading zone that has everything we need for reading in our bookshelf and a basket of pens or whatever you need. But think about how is it fit in my life? And sometimes it's a little bit of a testing. You're gonna test it and see if you like where it where it is, and then you can always make changes to it.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So for people who are thinking about you know, downside it, but they kind of have an idea of what they place, but they don't have a timeline for that. Like they could literally test and rerun the system again.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, for sure. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_03:

They could test it out and be like, oh, I'm gonna sort and purge and design again.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And then also the C and E, but we're not there yet. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah, yes. And you're gonna do this. I think of it like an onion and it has many layers. So the first time, especially if you have a lot of stuff, the first time you can get rid of 20% of it or whatever, is just anything that's easy. And the next time you go through that space or that room, you get through a little more stuff, and then the next time you're like, Why did I even keep this? And you're able to get rid of that. So it could be this process, and there's not necessarily a rush unless you want to move in three months. Then maybe you do want to do it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's no timeline. Yeah. Okay. So we've done the sorting, the purge, the assigning.

SPEAKER_01:

Once you assign home, the next step is to contain. Now you know where it is, you know what it needs to help contain it, to help it keep keep it neat. You might want to add some baskets because it looks good, but it also keeps it in space in the spot. And the purpose of that is so that when it reaches its limit, you know to go back through the steps.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, so if I had a whatever a drawer, a drawer, a box, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And your drawer is full or your section of the drawer is overflowing. You're like, okay, I need to go back through here and go through the steps.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. That does the contain piece also include, I've heard people say as well, like it inflow into the home, right? Other items coming into that house. Does that piece play into the containment too? Like you try to contain not having more stuff coming in to have to do something with.

SPEAKER_01:

I haven't really thought of that, but I that did make me think of when you think about the container of your house, you have that size, and you can think this is the right size for me. This is what I have right now. The container of the house breaks down into the container of each room, breaks down to maybe the drawer of a dresser or the size of your closet. That is your container. So you break that further down and use containers, drawer divider, shelf dividers, pieces of furniture, bookshelves. You can use all those things to contain what you have. And a lot of people want to start here.

SPEAKER_03:

They oh, for sure. I can see it.

SPEAKER_01:

Buy Target to Target and buy all the cute bins. They look at pictures and they're like, oh, I need all these containers. I always say, do not buy anything until you get to this step. And then shop your house first, use what you have, and then you can go buy something more beautiful or aesthetically pleasing if you want to, after you know that it works.

SPEAKER_03:

Shop your house first. I love that. That's going to be the golden nugget, right? Because there are so many things in our house where we can be like, oh, I have extra bowls. We can use that to put the carrot coffee things in.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, Tupperware that you can use as a drawer divider in your bathroom. You know, there's so many different things you can use. Plus, when you what I see when I have, because I've been organizing in people's homes for 17 years, I don't do it anymore, but you are emptying all these containers out when you're sorting. So then when you finish sorting, you have a lot of empty containers or bins or baskets that you are piling up. And sometimes it's the hugest pile that for sure you can chop there first.

SPEAKER_03:

Got it. What do you do with all the extra hangers? Before we get to the E. Yeah. That just popped in my head, right? When you're decluttering a closet, you end up with all the extra hangers.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. Then what we do is we move them into the laundry room on the rod in the laundry room, and then eventually they just disappear again. I don't know what happens to them. But you can donate them.

SPEAKER_03:

They leave the house with the socks that go missing. The hangers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. But you can donate them, you can give them away. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I guess they would people that take clothes need hangers too, right? Yeah. So goodwill or whomever. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

What about the E?

SPEAKER_01:

And then the E is energize. So when you organize, people think it's draining. No, it energizes you. When you look at that, go back to it and just revel in the beauty that you've just created in this organized space and then ensure that it stays that way. So you're going to maintain the space so that you maintain your energy. And when I think about this, I think we have cleared space so that we can put our energy in other things. We don't want to be organizing for the rest of our life. We want to organize it and keep it that way so that we have that free flow of energy and time to be put into the things that we love and relationships and the things that we want to do in our life.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. Like you could change space to spacer or spaced and for either repeat or do it again.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_03:

And then it's not a one and done, right? You're going to do it multiple times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And in the in this last step to maintain something, the secret is to tie it to something that you already do.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. If you do taxes every year, you tie cleaning out your file cabinet or your paper, wherever that goes, you clean that out at the same time. If you have live in a place where seasons change, you can go through your closet when the season changes. Or an easy one is you buy groceries and you bring groceries into the house. Before you bring the groceries in, you clean out your fridge or clean out your pantry. Just do a quick tidy up check. Make sure everything in there is relevant. And then it always stays that way.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. Yeah. I've started doing that with my closet. If I do buy new clothes, then I when I bring the new clothes in, I have to take out some clothes that I don't use regularly. That's that's where I've gotten to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If everybody would just follow that rule, we would all it would be so much easier.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, what it came, what it came to for me, Tracy, is I do our wash, right? I'm the guy who does the wash and the cooking and the cleaning and everything. And I was like, I wear the same stuff over and over and over. We all do, right? But we don't really internalize that this is what we wear all of the time. Even had that conversation with my wife. I'm like, we get rid of some of these pajamas, and she's like, No, I wear them all. I'm like, No, you don't. Here's the three or four that you wear because I wash them and it's the same ones over and over and over again. Because they go back in the top of the drawer and you just pull them out and we recycle them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So okay. I love the acronym because it gives people a way to be like, okay, what's the next step? So, but when we finish it, we talked a little bit about it, like the repeat or the do-it-again. But do how do we keep how do we keep the momentum going?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Well, to keep the space maintained, you're gonna create a habit to keep it that way. But then you just move to the next space. And I always say start with something that either would have the biggest impact on you or that would make you the happiest, like the easiest place you could start for a quick win, and it would make you be appreciative that you have that win. So it doesn't necessarily matter where you start and then you just keep going. The key is to schedule it, right? Because if we don't schedule it, I was just talking to my the group of empty nesters and organized life academy, and they were saying, Well, I would probably do better if I scheduled it. And I'm like, Yes, we have to schedule what we want to get done, even if we don't put it on a specific time of the day, but schedule it, look at the week and put it on the day you're gonna work on it or the days and make that a priority for that day to get the job done.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so my mind goes, We have a basement in this house. It's um, you know, a conditioned space that was built for somebody at some point who owned the house. And I know that's basically our addict. So we've got everything when we moved here, anything that wasn't going in the top part of the house is still in boxes down there, literally four years later. And my brain goes through this sort, purge, assign is I look at it as oh my god, I gotta do the whole thing. But do you recommend gridding it and being like, oh, I'm gonna do this two foot by two foot square and do the sort and the purge and the assign and the cane contain for that, or that just the sort and the purge part? Like are there can you break the the five steps into a couple steps in a larger room like that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, there's two ways that you could do it that I think I would help someone do. One is that you're gonna sort everything before you move to purge.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you would empty everything out in the space and sort it all around the space into categories because then when you go to the purge step, you have everything that you own in that category there so you can make decisions. Making decisions is easier to be able to do that. Now that comes first if you have the space to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, there's no floor space. Okay. You dance around boxes to try to find seasonal things in there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So you could move everything out, you could pull it out and move it into another area. But the other option then is you take one box at a time and you go through the steps.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you sort that box, you purge the things you don't want to keep, you assign homes to things. So then you're you when you're organizing a lot of stuff, you get to the point where, like, well, Tracy, that doesn't really have a home. You decide where the home is gonna be and you put it as close to the home as you can get it. Or in a temporary home. So if it's some stuff in that box were Christmas things that you want to keep, you're gonna decide where Christmas is gonna live until you finish the space where Christmas is, or you stick it in there as best you can get it to be by the home that will be its home. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03:

It makes perfect sense. And now that I think about it, like it's my son's stuff, my daughter stuff from the move. You know, they have their own apartments now, but they're like, we we don't have room for it in ours. We don't have rooms from there. Yeah, exactly. And then it's like kitchen stuff and seasonal stuff, and so it's kind of sorted from the box. Okay, so it's really more opening the boxes and starting to organize it to purge that type of those types of things.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, yeah, and when you think about that, one box could be the 15-minute declutter challenge. Like you could just take one box, do the steps on it, and then you'll have a free box. And then you take the next box and you follow the organizing steps, and you get through one more box. And that could take just 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour once a week, and you could be moving through that stuff instead of looking at it like, oh, this whole space, there's so much stuff, it's so overwhelming. So I think it's helpful, and that's why I made the 15-minute declutter challenge so that we don't stay stuck, that we can get started and that we can break it down into little chunks.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I mean, this is literally and I think it's helpful for the listeners to hear an actual scenario, right? Because their brain goes, Oh, I have one of those. Yeah. And so my brain goes, Well, these are all moving boxes. So I can't put stuff back into them because they're all old and crappy and decrepit moving boxes. So then my brain goes, I gotta run to Lowe's and get a bunch of containers.

SPEAKER_01:

What? No, exactly. That's where my brain is bringing containers. No, wait until you know what size container you need. That's why I say the middle of organizing is kind of messy because you're gonna put the stuff with that category. And then once you go through the category purge, then you know where it's gonna live. And people that buy bot containers, a lot of times the containers don't even fit on the shelves that they have, so you have to wait and see like, is it gonna fit on this shelf and the container? I need to measure then, and now I know exactly what I need.

SPEAKER_03:

Got it. Well, what if it's an attic? What if it's a it's just a big space where containers can live free?

SPEAKER_01:

Then maybe you can start a container. Like, if you know that, here's an example. We have an attic space, and our kids are in their transition years, they're kind of moving past that. My youngest is 21. But as they've moved out of the house, they've had memorabilia type stuff where we've cleaned their room out and they've had stuff. So we do buy the big tubs with the yellow lids from Costco. And we I bought some for each kid, and then we've been putting stuff as we find it into that category. So that is its home, and we know exactly we have free space, we don't have shelves, so we can stack those on top of each other. And when our kid moves out, then we can just give them the tub. So in that instance, we know where its home is gonna be, eventually their house. And we know that it doesn't have to fit on a shelf. So you're right. In that instance, buying a container for that to put things in as we gather them was helpful.

SPEAKER_03:

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You just said something interesting, like sorting kids' stuff into boxes that they can take into their house. What's the timeline for keeping that stuff?

SPEAKER_01:

I know. I talk to so many people and they're like, well, we have our kids' stuff and they just don't have room at their apartment or their, you know, whatever. And so I don't think there's any rule, whatever works for you. I mean, if you're downsizing and you run out of space, obviously you take it to them. Sometimes it's helpful for when the kid comes home, they go through it and they decide, like, what do I even really want to keep in here? After they've been away for a while, they come back and they're like, Oh, well, do I really want this to live at my house? I don't think so. So then they're able to get rid of it more than they were when they got out of high school or college.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, when they finished. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

What's what's one of the biggest? I mean, you talked about a little bit, it was in the st the steps, but what's one of place, a couple of places people get stuck in the process?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's so interesting talking to different people. Some people can make decisions. I'd say the biggest thing is making decisions, like keeping things because they meant something to their parents that they inherited, or they got them as a Christmas gift. And it's wrong to give away gifts, or it's wrong to let go of family heirlooms. So they have a belief in their mind that's causing them to hold on to the item. That's where a lot of the breaking down your belief system and questioning it and seeing if you want to continue. Does that having that belief get you to the point where you're downsized, you're able to move into a house? And is it even true? Who told us?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, is that even true?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, who told us that giving away a gift is not appropriate or that it's gonna hurt someone's feelings? I mean, we might have seen one person in our life get their feelings hurt. Now all of a sudden it's wrong to give something away that was a gift. Yeah, it may be wrong to give it back to them as a gift, to be clear, but so it's just breaking some of those beliefs down, but the decision making I think people that have a hard time getting rid of stuff, it's that decision making is the challenge.

SPEAKER_03:

Decision making, okay. What goes into a good decision-making process, or is it unique to the individual?

SPEAKER_01:

It's looking at where they want to go and then what's keeping them from getting there. So how much stuff do they want to keep? And then how do you let something go? And it's looking at so if you one thing I've seen is that people are worried they're gonna need something.

SPEAKER_03:

I might need Oh, that's the biggest, yeah, absolutely. The biggest worry. Oh, I could I might need that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's useful. I might need to use that for something. Maybe, but what else could be true? I might not need it. Like I might never use it. Someone else could use it right now, they could be using it. I tell this story about the things in our lives have little lives, like they have little personalities. And do we want to stick this little personality of this thing in the attic for the next 20 years when it could be out having an adventure and living its life with someone new? So being abundant and and a good steward of the things that we own.

SPEAKER_03:

Could it be useful daily to somebody or weekly as opposed to yearly for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, or every 10 years or whatever, or maybe never.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, yeah, like that thought process because that happens all the time. For me, even as the the cook and and the chef in the house, it's oh yeah. Like literally, I went downstairs to go find something the other day. I hadn't used it in Bromboli four years. My kitchen aid mixer, but I needed it to mix some dough, and now it's in the kitchen, and so it's not in a proper place in the kitchen, it sits on the floor because we have a really tiny kitchen, but I I use it more now because it's there, yeah. So it's out of sight, out of mind, or do you bring it into where you want it to contain and sign and contain and have it be useful to you?

SPEAKER_01:

And what could you have gotten by without it if you had given it away four years ago?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh the recipe says you could hand knead the dough, but we recommend of course it took me 20 minutes to find what box it was in downstairs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and so we could, and a good question might be what is the worst thing that could happen if you let this item go?

SPEAKER_03:

You buy it again, probably is the worst.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, or you ask the neighbor to borrow theirs. We used to borrow the I don't know, punch bowl like every year when we had a graduation, or this huge stockpot, because I don't want to buy a stock pot, but if I needed one, I just went to the neighbor and borrowed hers.

SPEAKER_03:

Love it. Now you're you said your youngest is 21.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So are you empty nesting? Are you close to empty nesting?

SPEAKER_01:

We're almost there. She just graduated from college, and then my other ones in her doctorate finishes in December. And so we're we're almost there. They've both been gone for a little bit, but then they're here at the here now.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Are you are you considering downsizing? And how are you gonna tackle that?

SPEAKER_01:

And I know we kind of started looking at houses and then realized, well, it would cost a lot more to move. And so then we think, but what excites me is to imagine that we're gonna move and go through every room of the house in an organized life academy. Each month we have an area of the house that we are focused on, and so it's fun for me because I get to go in that space with a new eye each year when I do it and get rid of some more stuff and downsize some more things, and so it's been fun, but now I I do, I'm almost to the official point, I guess. Maybe it keeps coming and going, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it keeps getting real more real and more real. Well what you mentioned it twice now. What is the Organized Life Academy?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's my one year program where we go through every room of the house. We learn the steps to organizing and the mindset that you need to go with it. And we declutter and organize our lives.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I love that. Okay. So it's yours. It's your yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Organized life academy.

SPEAKER_01:

It's been in it's in its fifth year. 2026 will start its sixth year.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. And is it is how is it a like a cohort each year? Does it continue to grow? Do people stay in it? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. It you can join anytime now. I just switched that. So you can join anytime. The first four weeks are the organizing boot camp where you learn everything you need to know. And then you jump in and work with us. We have calls each week. People have stayed in it, I think, more because of the community. They love the community. We have a live event every year, and they just know each other. They keep working, they keep downsizing and have new goals each year. Like someone's goal one year might be to downsize and move, but then the next year it might be just to go through and get their closet more organized or get their photos organized. This last month was photos, so we worked on our photos. So just depend on your goal and what you want to accomplish.

SPEAKER_03:

That's amazing. Well, it just popped into my head too, right? We're talking about empty nesting, we're talking about downsizing and organizing, but another aspect of that is being the in-between between our kids launching and then our parents kind of declining. And my brother and I have just gone through that and we moved them. And so we did the whole downsizing thing for them, but also you end up with the records. Is that something that you help people with too? Is like organizing things digitally for you know basically end-of-life type of things.

SPEAKER_01:

I can refer them to people. Like we just had a woman come in and teach us. I have expert guests. So we had her, she came in and taught us about organizing your photos, paper photos, and she's doing a digital photo class for us. And we can find resources for those things. Um, and we talk through it a lot. Like one of the women in our group, her dad just died. And I remember calling and saying or messaging her and just saying, What can I do for you? And she said, Tracy, just please make sure you keep telling people, don't leave your kids a mess. Don't leave them all the stuff to go through. Start now, start when you can and take action to get it to where it's uh not a mess, I guess. A legacy for your kids.

SPEAKER_03:

A legacy, yeah. So good. I appreciate that. Yeah. That my parents are both still living. We moved them from a two-bedroom house into a two-bedroom apartment. Wow. You still have bosses. My brother has done a great job kind of getting through them, but there's still some remaining, but it's like so much less so than what it had been.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And so it it's for us, it's like just a big relief to be like, we don't have to worry this in a time of grief.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And we're also in there, we create a life and death binder which has everything you need to prepare, like to leave if something were to happen to you. So people know where to find things. And in 2026, too, we're gonna I'm revamping that whole program to make it like 12 sections, and you can do one section at a time to actually like really get that done and have it done. But we've we've done that in the past, and like it's so neat seeing our oldest member is 92 years old, and she has all that ready if something were to happen to her.

SPEAKER_03:

And what a gift for wow, that is a gift for sure. And that's inside the Organized Life Academy. Yes, is that there amazing? Sounds like a fantastic opportunity for people who may be listening to go check it out. So we'll make sure that we get it in the show notes, yes, for people to see. And that for me, this this conversation has been so enlightening as someone who likes to be organized. I say that I look around, I'm like, I've I've got piles of things here. I need to see it, but I like organization. So it's like even when you feel like you're organized, there's even more that you can do. It sounds like right.

SPEAKER_01:

There's always stuff we can do, but if it has a home and you can find it when you need it and you can clean up quickly, you're organized. And I always tell people too if you can find things 80% of the time that you have, I mean, that's good. That's good enough. You don't have to spend your life organizing unless you love to, because we want to be living, yeah, for not necessarily organizing.

SPEAKER_03:

But for the people who have the perfectionist tendencies, they want it to be perfectly organized as opposed to, you know, organized well enough. Yes. Perfect. What is what is one thing you've learned about yourself teaching other people how to be organized?

SPEAKER_01:

That I experience some of the same challenges, and that I'm not, I don't know if the right word would be analy organized. I am down to earth organized. Like I don't want to decanter everything into perfectly matching, color-coded everything. I just want to know what I have and find it when I need it, and that's good enough. And then I want to be doing other things.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that you said down to earth organized. It takes the pressure off.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm a normally organized person.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I love it. So good. So good. Tracy, say thank you so much for being here today. I think this episode is going to be phenomenal for folks. It's just such an enlightening conversation. And hopefully somebody finds the spark to start to declutter and to get ready for what comes next in their emptiness life. And hopefully, some people will come over and join the Organized Life Academy if they feel like they can't get jump started themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Jay, thanks for having me. And do the 15-minute declutter challenge. Start there and then see where you go from there.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. We'll throw those into the show notes as well so people have both and can kind of get rolling with it.

SPEAKER_02:

Are you ready to start living and enjoying your empty nest years? If so, head over to jasonramsden.com and click work with me to get the conversation started. This Empty Nest Life is a production of Impact One Media LLC, all rights reserved.