The Emotional Aspect of Organization with Spring Courtright

Ready to learn how to make your home happy and neat? Meet Spring Courtwright, the person behind Tidy Wild Organizing. She helps us understand how to make our homes look nice and organized. We'll explore how she decorates for holidays and learn about her job organizing things for people.

But making things tidy is just the start. We'll also find out how getting rid of extra stuff can make a big difference. Sometimes, when our rooms are too messy, it makes us want a change. We'll share tips on how to stay focused and motivated, like using the Pomodoro technique and hearing stories from others who've cleaned up their spaces.

Next, we talk about the feelings connected to our stuff. We have a guest who is an expert at organizing and coaching. They help us understand how our things remind us of the past and make us feel certain ways. We'll see how our thoughts about organization affect our emotions. The talk ends with a cool idea: to be more organized, we need to change how we talk to ourselves inside our minds. Join us in this interesting talk and find out how seeing things in a new way can make your life better!

Visit my website to start your journey on decluttering your mind, by taking my FREE quiz...... Why Midlife Feels So Hard
Kristi Falany Coaching.com
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Blog Posts we discussed:
Just Do It Now: A Lifestyle Choice
The B*tch In My Brain
My Top 5 Tips to Declutter & Organize-by Spring Courtright

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Transcript

Kristi: 0:01

Hi, I am Kristy Ballard Fellini. I am a certified life coach who found herself at 42, freshly divorced kids off to college and having never dated in my adult life, I was starting in the middle. If you haven't yet hit, start on your middle time in life, let's do it together. Let the journey begin. Hello, hello, my friends, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, I want to ask you this last weekend you know, the weekend right after Thanksgiving did you get all your decorations out? Did you find yourself in overwhelm by pulling out all of your decorations and trying to fit them into all the little nooks and crannies that are already filled inside your home? Or do you go through, like this whole process of taking down the things that you have in your decor on the daily and replacing them with your Christmas items? I'm just curious because I know sometimes, when I start pulling all of that stuff out and I spread it out throughout the living room and see what I have to figure out where I'm going to place things, man, sometimes it causes me to feel very anxious and very overwhelmed. So I have a very special treat for you today.

Kristi: 1:41

I have my friend Spring Courtwright on the podcast and I want to give you a little bit of information about Spring before we dive into the conversation. Spring is on a mission. She's on a mission to help the world be a healthier, happier and more peaceful place, and she likes to say one home and one life at a time. Spring has been a home organizer since 2014 and has also been an outdoor guide since she was 19. She is the owner and operator of Tidy Wild Organizing and calls herself a midwife to a new life. Spring does virtual coaching as well as in-home organizing and has a self-guided online course called Five Weeks to Freedom. She has trained under Marie Kondo and uses her wide array of unique skills and experiences for a personalized approach that goes deeper than organizing stuff.

Kristi: 2:54

So are you ready to jump right into this week's episode? Here we go, all right. So you guys, I have a very special guest with me here today. Her name is Spring, and her and I met about. It's been a year now. Almost a year ago, we were both at a conference together in Arizona, and the conference itself was beautiful, but the cool thing about it was all of the relationships that came out of it. And so, spring, why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself to our guests?

Spring: 3:35

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here and I love that we've stayed in touch and I love that the conference was called Fearless. Yes, all right, so I'm Spring Court Wright. I'm the owner and founder of Tidy Wild Organizing. I started out about 10 years ago as a professional organizer before I actually knew that I was a professional organizer. I just I was. It was an in between thing. I didn't know that it could be a profession. I left my past, my last career as a program director for an outdoor company, and was like what do I want to do with my life? Yeah, I just started helping people organize as a side thing and then I had so much fun and realized that this was really anxiety provoking for people. But when we tackled it together it was so much fun for both of us and it you know, the impact that it was having on people's lives was amazing. So I eventually started Spring Cleaning Home Organization, which was a mouthful, and then, with COVID, I did some soul searching and decided to call it Tidy Wild. And in between there, like a couple of years in, I studied with Marie Kondo.

Spring: 4:59

Everybody was asking me have you read the life changing magic of tidying up? And I was like what is this? What have you know? I'll get to it. And eventually it was. There's so many questions about it. I finally read the book and as I was reading it I looked up and was like I'm, I want to redo my whole house. So I ended up redoing my whole house which is that's its own story and trained, flying to New York from Washington and training with Marie Kondo, and went through the whole process to get certified, decided not to in the end because I didn't want to be constrained to just her techniques Because it doesn't fit everybody. And eventually that's how Tidy Wild came to be, because I was like I'm not Marie Kondo. I did not grow up as like organizing as my hobby. It was more like making a mess was my hobby.

Kristi: 5:55

Right, yes, I like that.

Spring: 5:58

And I had to learn how to deal with that and with some coaching, I came to the Tidy Wild, where it's like it's okay, we're humans, it's okay to make a mess. I actually encourage people to make a mess, like be creative, have fun in life but take the time to tidy so that you have the energy to make the messes, to be creative, to do the things that bring you joy, but make a place for everything. So that's the Tidy part. So that is a really big nutshell of an intro to Tidy. I love that.

Kristi: 6:33

No, I love that Because, as I'm listening to you describe it and to tell your story about how this all came about, and like really thinking about the title Tidy Wild, and then how you describe that you want people to make messes, you encourage people to make those messes. I love the name and just kind of like what it brings to mind for me about. It makes me think of like allowing yourself to be creative and allowing yourself to make those messes. Not too long ago, I went to a fundraiser with some girlfriends of mine and part of the fundraiser was, you know, they had a theme for it and they wanted you to wear derby hats, you know, like either derby hats or fascinators, and I had none of those, you know, and my girlfriend that went with me she didn't either, and I was like you know what? I'm going to make these and I dropped everything that day and spend the afternoon doing that and, man, it was. It's so fun to allow that side of you.

Spring: 7:59

You know, to just allow that creativity and it was a mess.

Kristi: 8:04

I mean, I'll have to send you pictures of how they came out, because they were beautiful, you know, and we ended up getting, you know, a lot of compliments. I had no idea what I was doing. I looked at a picture on the internet and I was like, okay, what do I need? I need, you know, those tie wraps. I need some hot glue, you know I need some tool, you know, and went with it, you know, and it's kind of crazy because, like, when you look at it and you see how it's put together, you're kind of like, oh okay, I mean, you can't see it in my hair.

Spring: 8:42

You know I will have to send you that picture.

Kristi: 8:44

But I love that title, you know I mean because it does offer you, you know, that freedom, you know, to still be creative, you know to open up yeah and part of it.

Spring: 9:01

it really came from a painting that I did. I have about a million hobbies and one of them is watercolor painting and working with a coach, virtually, you know, through COVID. I was having this hard time of, like, spring cleaning, home organization, like what is that? Who am I? What am I doing? How can I help people without killing myself? Like there's only one of me? You know there's a lot of people who need help. And also, how do I incorporate?

Spring: 9:35

I've been an outdoor guide for 20, more than 25 years, since I was 18. And it's been a huge part of my life and it was you know. All of a sudden, I'm an organizer and it was like, but I had this long history of all this outdoor, like being in the wild, encouraging people to get outdoors and play and have fun, like that was a big part of my world and environmental education was part of my background. So how can I incorporate that into organizing? Because it's not just about like none of us just want to get our houses looking nice just for the sake of it looking nice, like, yes, we say we want to. That's the surface level. Like, yeah, I want my house to look like a magazine and I want people to always feel happy. You know like, always be ready. Like June Cleaver opened the door and welcome people in, you know right.

Kristi: 10:27

Yeah.

Spring: 10:29

And in reality it's more messy than that and like and being able to like, play and have fun and enjoy our lives and not constantly beat ourselves up about these messes that we're making. That frees up so much energy, and I did that. The painting was rewild. That was what came out of me over this weekend of like soul searching, what am I doing? Rewild, and then tidy, wild came out. But so I love that you. I'm so excited. It was a fascinator that you made. Yes, I'm excited to see those pictures. I absolutely. I still do kayak trips to Belize with a friend of mine. We lead women's trips down there and this last one we made fascinators like out on this little tiny remote island oh my goodness, fascinators out of things we found on the beach and they're just. They are so much fun.

Kristi: 11:28

Oh, we're going to do it every year. Yes, we need to swap pictures then. Yes, and I just now remembered that I wanted to ask you again about kayaking, so we will definitely have that on our agenda for another conversation. Okay, good, so talk to me about, like, about what type of clients are reaching out to you.

Spring: 11:50

I have, I mean all ages, like any human suffering from too much stuff.

Kristi: 11:58

Yeah, and I think that the question kind of comes to mind because, like, when I think about having an organizer, you know like, the picture that I have come into my brain is kind of like someone who, who has like the overboard, you know like, almost like to the hoarding aspect of it.

Spring: 12:19

Yes, Good question. I have people who think that they're very unorganized Like. I just worked with a woman yesterday. She's probably around 70. And if you walked into her house you most people would not think this is an unorganized house Like. It looked tidy. There are a few things out on the counters, Even when you know.

Spring: 12:45

She took me on a tour and showed me her closets and cupboards and they didn't look like it was not like a hoarding situation at all, Like, not even close. But for her it caused her anxiety and her biggest thing right now is she's having health challenges and she is turning all of her attention to healing and her home doesn't feel healing Like. It feels overwhelming and anxiety provoking and a lot of things don't have homes. Her healing supplies are in like five different places. Oh yeah, and so for her she was reaching out to me to help her with the transition from like having her stuff everywhere and not really focusing on her healing to 100% making her home. We actually called it a place of healing, which is what I've called my own home, Like. So she just wanted help with that transition. Last week I worked with a woman who was she has her own business and you know it's like a $2 million business. She wants to take it to the next level. Her home office was feeling like a disaster for her.

Spring: 13:59

You know, again, it's all about how you feel about it. It isn't like you can only get an organizer if you can't walk into a room. It's like, yeah, it's like I hired you because I want to feel better. My office is overwhelming, it feels unorganized and I want to feel better when I walk in there. So, you know, that was another one. And also, like her, you know tools and household supplies. Just she couldn't find anything.

Spring: 14:27

I also worked with an 11 year old daughter. So you know, her daughter just had her room remodeled. She tends to be a stuffer, like she just, you know, shoves everything in drawers and doesn't really have any organization to it. And so we're talking with her about, like, what is organizing, what is decluttering, what does it take? Like, we worked on a space that her whole family had just given up on. It's like her creative space, but it was piled high with all kinds of stuff. She didn't even know what. We set a timer for 15 minutes and she was like all over the place. And as soon as she honed in, we had those 15 minutes. When the timer went off, she was like, I think we should keep going. Oh, I love that.

Spring: 15:13

So like, and then there's people all in between, and I do work with people who have rooms that they can barely walk into. So the biggest thing, though, is people who are reaching out to me are ready for a change. Yeah, they're. They know that their stuff in some way is holding them back from living the life that they really. They know that they want to live, and they, like, can't see their way through. You know they they look at a room and go, or their house, or their garage, or their office, or whatever the space is, and just go. I don't even know where to start, and then they're turning and doing unhealthy things. You know, like right, eating crap food and watching Netflix, and you know, meanwhile, there's like there's this constant buzz and they don't get to fully relax because they're like there's I should be doing these other things and their home isn't supporting them fully resting. So, yeah, just want to feel better.

Kristi: 16:22

But like kind of like walking into that space and then and then seeing you know all the different things all at once and then thinking, you know, well, I'll get to it later, I'll come back to it and let me move from that being uncomfortable and not knowing where to start to something that feels more comfortable at the time.

Kristi: 16:47

Absolutely, yeah.

Kristi: 16:49

And something else that I loved about what you, what that little girl noticed you have the 11 year old girl was how, when she stopped and focused on just one task because I see that in myself, you know, as being an entrepreneur you know we have like X amount of things on our list for that day and we kind of, you know, bebop around to each one, you know, and not really doing our best on that one.

Kristi: 17:21

You know, on one thing at a time, and that is definitely something that that I'm focusing on for myself, you know, in the month of December and moving forward, you know how can I decide and focus on just one thing and doing it the very best possible? Because there was not too long ago and I cannot remember the book, but it popped into my head where the author was talking about multitasking and how we all think we're just so great at multitasking right, and the true actuality of it is is that if we just focus on one thing and do that one thing and put all of our best energy into that one thing, you know, then we're not like our brain isn't constantly bobbing back and forth and then later on being disappointed that whatever it is didn't turn out as well as we had hoped for it to.

Spring: 18:28

Yes, that is so true. The value of focus and honestly that's a lot of what I do in my work is just keep people focused. You know all, sometimes on a call like sometimes we're working through the emotional mental piece, but sometimes, once we've kind of moved through that, we are just I'm just there to help them focus They'll we'll pick a task and they'll set the phone aside and I'll just be there. They like being a body double where I'm just there and they're just focusing on that one task. Or sometimes they pick a tip. We like get on a call, they pick a task. They say I'm going to, you know, spend this much time and then they call me afterwards and we do a check in and like a celebration, yeah. Or just setting a timer. I mean there's somebody told me about the Pomodoro method which is basically just set a timer. They say for 30 minutes.

Spring: 19:30

You know, different people have different thresholds or timeframes but you set a timer and then take a little break and then come back and just setting the timer and being this thing. This is I am doing this one thing for this amount of time and it's like our brains click in to a different way of moving, a different way of doing things, and I use that all the time. I'm so excited that you're doing it like choosing the one thing. You know that's like in life Choose the one thing that you want to focus on in that moment.

Kristi: 20:14

Yeah, you know. I mean because the truth is is like you can focus on that one thing you know, for the 20 minutes, 25 minutes. However, you know whatever, like you said, you set the timer for and do it well and finish it, and then you can move on to the next thing. You know and do the same method, and I actually do use the Pomodoro method. My coach taught me that. No, my gosh, it has really.

Kristi: 20:42

It has been a game changer, you know, because how do you use it? So, the way that I use it, I have a timer and I set it for 25 minutes and let's say, for instance, I know for sure that I want to draft, you know, in my email sequence, I want to draft some emails, right, and so I'll set my timer and I, you know, I put my phone on do not disturb, so I don't even hear it ping, oh, and then I will sit there for that entire time and knock those emails out, and then, if I end up having additional time left over, then I do go ahead and move to the next task and maybe, you know, just kind of do some brainstorming around it, you know, jot down some notes around it, really just kind of like, start to mentally prepare and then, when the timer goes off, I physically get up out of my seat, you know, and change my environment. You know, maybe it's just a walk into another room, Maybe it's go grab a water, or sometimes even go outside. And sometimes I do take the longer breaks, you know, if I feel like I need some more energy, I might, you know, take a longer break and maybe go take a walk down the street, come back, but a lot of times what I find is that after that five minutes, I'm ready to go, you know, because I've checked it off my list, I'm ready to move to the next topic.

Kristi: 22:19

You know, kind of like the 11-year-old girl, you know where, after her timer went off, she was like let's keep going. You know, yes, because you have that. That. You know, dopamine hit of being able to check something off. You know, and, like you said, to celebrate about it and you know, and celebrate that accomplishment of I focused, I got it done, it's ready to go. What's next?

Spring: 22:45

Yes, exactly, and it actually feels good to focus. Yeah, exactly, to choose something to do and focus on it. It's, I find it almost meditative. I mean, when I'm working in homes with people, I our sessions are actually between four and six hours and we focus for, you know, two to three hour chunks at a time. Once, and once we get in the flow, time just flies by. Like at the end of our time always like, oh my gosh, I feel like I blinked and the time is over. But it's because we were focusing, you know. And that doesn't mean that we're like working for five hours straight nonstop, Like we'll take a break and go to the bathroom, but it, it, those focus chunks are very energizing.

Spring: 23:38

The woman I was talking with yesterday has some major health challenges right now and towards the end she was saying I'm pretty tired, you know, I can feel myself winding down and I was like, okay, let's, let's take a box and walk through your house and just pick, like things that jump out at you that you know you don't want, because she's been about this for a while, this letting go. We'll just put some things in the box and I'll take those away for you today. And you know, I knew in my mind it was probably 20ish minutes that until she was just really done, yeah, and she started to get into it and she said I can't believe how energized I am right now. Like her energy was plummeting and then, as we were actually doing things and knew we just had this one focused task, her energy went back up and it was a great reminder of, like a lot of times, our thought about something and how hard it's going to be.

Spring: 24:42

Yes, it's way bigger and crazier than it actually is. So the starting setting the timer is actually like just getting us to start. Uh-huh, is that hurdle? Sometimes it seems so high. You know, I don't know how to start. If you just pick the one thing like I'm going to clear this spot on my desk or I'm going to go through my glasses today, yeah, I'm going to give myself 20 minutes you just do that one thing and it is incredibly energizing and fulfilling.

Kristi: 25:16

And the other thing that comes to mind too is like the aspect of having someone else there, you know, and an unbiased person there.

Spring: 25:27

Yes, so talk to me about that. That's one of the things that people say they appreciate the most is completely non-judgmental, and you know any organizer that's been doing this like for a long time and gets referred. They have to be non-judgmental because it's easy to see through it. If you're not, yeah, you do not have a preconceived notion of how somebody's house should look, how many things people should have, how things should be organized. I want people to feel good in their spaces and so you know, having just like not worrying about how it's supposed to look at the end, that's an incredibly important piece of it, you know.

Kristi: 26:20

Yeah, yeah, and you talked a little bit about you know, the mental health aspect of it, and so, as I was preparing for our conversation, you know I got to thinking about. You know, like my own mom, and how many things that she was hanging on to, how many of the things that she was keeping that we didn't understand, you know Right. So talk to me a little bit about that. You know how often do you go in and you find that a lot of these things that the people are hanging onto, there's a purpose behind it.

Spring: 27:08

Right, yeah, there's. I mean, like I was saying before, like there's no right or wrong way to have a house organized. There's no right or wrong number of things you know to keep and there's no right or wrong number of you know emotional things to keep. What matters is if we feel overwhelmed by it, and I really believe that everything in our home is a. It's something from our past, it represents something from our past. Every item in our home, yeah, and I think that for the piece of furniture, it's, you know, a memory, a hope, a goal, a dream, a dashed desire.

Spring: 27:55

You know, every spoon you bring into your house, like I want to entertain people, so I have 25 spoons, you know. Or I really love, you know, these, the photos. I love family, so I have lots of photos, you know. So all the things that we're holding on to represent something. You know so with your mom, things that she's holding on to for her, they might all have the same value. They might all remind her of something, and it might not be like in the forefront this, you know, this box of photos might not be like it's evoking joy. You know in in all of the memories that it contains. But she knows this is something that contains joyful memories or things from my past. You know they're all representing something that doesn't mean like it does. I do encourage people to go through those things and find the gems.

Spring: 28:59

Yeah you have 1000 items that are all remind you of family and oh I, you know I need to keep all of them because they're all memories. None of them actually get to shine, you know, none of them get like an art. They call it the negative space around it. You know, like like I see the things displayed behind you. You know, if there were 1000, you know things hanging on the wall, you wouldn't actually be able to see what you have. Yeah, so it, you know it. I do see people hang on to a lot of memories and they can often not even know. Sometimes they know they feel burdened. Other times they just don't know why they feel anxious, but they're just being weighed down by all those memories, like literally down to the people who are like people look and feel lighter when we're done going through their things, because it is a weight.

Kristi: 29:59

So talk to me a little bit about how you integrate the coaching aspect.

Spring: 30:07

I do a lot of people with online virtual organizing and you know I have people from all over the world and a lot of times people think they have to have an in home organizer. Like I need somebody, I can't do this. It stems from I can't do this. That's usually why people are reaching out to me like I don't know how I can't. It's too hard.

Spring: 30:30

But I think it's a good start, when in reality maybe they never learned, maybe there's just a mental block, and oftentimes through coaching, we find what that internal conversation is. You know what? What are we saying to ourselves about? I'm an unorganized person, I'm just a messy person. I can never figure this out, which that might be a deeper thing of I'm not smart enough or, you know, I don't have enough money to replace things if I let go of them. Is that actually true? You know a lot of the things we're telling ourselves that create clutter. They're just simply not true. But without figuring out what this internal dialogue is, it's just moving stuff around.

Spring: 31:21

Yeah, and I did that for years. I would go into people's homes, I would help clear it out, it would feel great, it's amazing. And then six months later, it's a mess again and they feel bad about themselves. And now they feel even worse. They're like more guilt and shame because now they've had an organizer and it's still a mess. You know, and I'm just not interested in participating in that cycle anymore. The coaching piece involves my clients in the process and we're actually changing the internal programming.

Spring: 32:02

Yeah that they become an organized person. And that doesn't mean they become Martha Stewart or Marie Kondo or Oprah Winfrey, right? Like they become their true selves, like we find out what is being, what is being organized in quotes for you individually how does your mind work? What, what thoughts can you think that will help you think like an organized person, right? No, from moment to moment, because it's those moment to moment thoughts about ourselves that actually create our lives. Yes, it's a moment to moment actions that result from those thoughts that create our environment and, you know again, create our lives. And part of coaching is also, if we don't work on the internal stuff, if we're a mess inside, if we have major trauma, self-confidence, sadness, all the things that we deal with in our lives, if it's a jumbled mess inside, that's going to be reflected to us outside.

Spring: 33:18

I had one woman I worked with for about two years, purely virtual, and the majority of what we did was internal work, and by the end, the last few months and now continuing on, we still are great friends. Her space around her is naturally reflecting the cleaned up, less messy internal piece that she has. That internal piece is driving her to clean up areas and go through things. She's excited about her future because we've talked about her goals and her dreams and we've let her subconscious mind know this is possible. It's okay to have those dreams and believe that they can come true and having those clear and not having all the internal clutter of like, well, but I don't deserve it, I'm never going to get there. I can't figure it out, I don't have enough money. My, you know, are like broken records. The post called the bitch in my brain which excuse my French, but the whole thing on that. But now, and I've given her the skills and we have worked through, like how do you actually declutter and how do you organize? Like what are the steps in the processes? Because we practice those and then, because she did the internal work, now she has time, it's no longer work to declutter, now it's fun because it's internally driven. She has this internal fire and love for herself that it's not work Like.

Spring: 35:06

I experienced this in my house where it was like, as I got more and more coaching, I would find myself, like on a Saturday morning, in my bathrobe on the kitchen floor with all of my Tupperware around me. I don't even know how this happened, but I know that this is bothering me and I am worth it. I am worth the time that this takes. My future is worth it for me to not be irritated every time I open this door and lose my mind trying to find a lid. Like how much of my life is wasted, how much energy is wasted on looking for things and not knowing what to do with things and telling myself I'm not smart enough to figure it out, like the time and energy and joy that has been freed up in my life and clients' lives who have done the deep dive. It's just mind blowing.

Kristi: 36:06

Yes, yes, and I think a lot of times we don't realize the internal work, we don't realize how much that is impacting our surroundings, absolutely.

Spring: 36:22

And.

Kristi: 36:23

I think, for me, something that I adopted years ago, is that when I see something, do it right. Then, yes, like something, like a speck on the floor, right, yes, right. Then. And I tell myself because, yes, we all have a ton of things going on all the time and oftentimes we're coming home at the end of the day and we're just exhausted from everything that we've dealt with all day long, and then just to put something down and just think to yourself, like, for me, it's like how long does it actually take to put that in its space? You know, yes, yes.

Kristi: 37:10

Versus. Let me just leave it there, and then I'm going to sit down for a bit and, like you said, your brain continues to go to that speck on the floor. That's speck on the floor. Are those keys that you left out of place? You know, mm-hmm? And so it's just so much easier to just say, okay, I'm just going to do it, I'm just going to do it now, let it go, and then your brain lets it go. Yes exactly.

Spring: 37:38

I have a whole. I have another blog post on changing, just for now and to just do it now.

Kristi: 37:45

Oh.

Spring: 37:45

I love that, because the example I give is when we walk in the door and our hands, like you were saying, you know your hands are full of stuff and you're tired and you just want to like put the things down and sit down and just like, I just want to chill out, yeah, and so we tend to walk in and just and that, just, I'm just going to put this here for now. That's why I have a job, like because of just for now. Those three words are costing people billions of dollars on organizing and coaching support. If we can just work on changing that, to just do it now, it can make a huge difference. And that doesn't mean, like that, we're always going to put everything away all the time. And the part of the issue is, if there isn't an away, if we haven't made a home for those things, if we don't have a spot for our keys, our wallet, our purse, our mail, our you know grocery bags.

Spring: 38:53

If we don't, when you're walking in the door and you have things in your hands and you, they don't have a home. We haven't taken the time to give them a home. Of course we're going to say I'm just going to set this here for now, and then those just for now things that we don't deal with turn into a clutter magnet Like. It's literally like a magnet. Like the next time you walk in the door and you're like I don't know what to do with this, you see a pile, your last piles of just for now, and you just automatic Well, I'll just put it here for now because I'll deal with all these things later. Well, when is like, do it at the same time? Yeah, when, when is that? Like what? When people reach out to me, they're like and the time is now Like ready to just do it now, and the sooner you do that, the less you have to deal with later.

Spring: 39:40

I mean, I work with a lot of women in their, you know, late 60s, 70s, sometimes 80s, who have raised families. They've, you know, they've had a whole lifetime of just for now, oh yeah, and they've put themselves on hold. And if we start earlier in our you know, 30s, 40s, 50s you know 40s tends to be this time like late 40s, and 50s tends to be this time when kids are moving out we're like we're going through, you know, a hormonal shift. Yeah. So just a life transition is happening and it's a great time to look at those habits. When is my brain saying, just for now, yeah, and figuring out systems and homes? If you create a home for everything in your house, including things you don't know what to do with, like you can make a place in your home these are the things I need to deal with but you just make one or two places instead of like the whole house. Right, yeah, right, because that's exhausting. Then you sit down. You're just surrounded by things yelling at you.

Kristi: 40:54

You said you were going to do something with me, you know shouting voices and I remember, like when I was younger and you know and had the kids at home, you know a lot of that was going on, you know, and then, and we were busy with going back and forth to the sports and stuff like that, and then that one weekend when you planned to entertain, like how much time you had to spend to get everything organized, find a spot for it, do all the cleaning, you know, whereas if you just do it now, yeah, all that time, yes, Even if that's, even if just do it now, is that setting the timer?

Spring: 41:40

Yeah, you know, for 25 minutes. Just pick the thing and do it now. And if you have to get up early in the morning to do an extra little bit, like, yeah, do it. You know, the first thing is just get the things out of the house that no longer serve you, that no longer support the person that you are becoming.

Kristi: 42:05

Yes.

Spring: 42:06

You know like spend that time getting that stuff out of the house and then organizing, like the organizing actually comes second and you can spend 25 minutes going through a cupboard pulling out, like with a box next to you for donations and a trash can. Yeah, then 25 minutes in one cupboard, just letting go, not even organizing, not even like making it look pretty. Just pull the things out, yeah, and that space will be transformed.

Kristi: 42:40

Now Spring, do you have a blog on that particular process, on how to get started on, just you know, taking those things and evaluating what you don't need anymore?

Spring: 42:53

Yeah, I have. Actually, my most visited blog post is I think it's called my top five tips for decluttering and organizing. Okay, and it's like just how to set yourself up and stay put Good.

Kristi: 43:12

Okay, so what we'll do, Like the full process. Good, so what we'll do is we'll post that in the show notes as well. But, I think a good note for us to leave our guests on is the idea of instead of just for now, just do it now. I love that.

Spring: 43:33

I love that. There's another little piece that can be really helpful with that Uh-huh, and it's the two minute rule. Okay, I learned at the Konmari consultant training. Yeah, I've used it in my life ever since and it's the idea that if you come across something or you're like decluttering or whatever you are, if it's gonna take two minutes or less, just do it now. Oh, I love that.

Kristi: 44:01

Yeah.

Spring: 44:02

Because we get a lot of things. We think it's gonna take a really long time. My thing is like emptying the dishwasher. I really have a thing about dishes and laundry. My internal dialogue is ridiculous and I'm teaching myself over the many years I've been working on this, like as my coffee is brewing or as I'm heating it up yeah, how many dishes can I put away In two minutes? One minute. It's amazing what we can do in two minutes and it's also amazing the story we tell ourselves of how long something's gonna take.

Kristi: 44:40

That's so true. Two minutes.

Spring: 44:43

You can make a list of the phone calls you need to make. Yeah, Then the next time you have two minutes, you can make one of those phone calls. Absolutely, you can pay a bill, you can cancel, you can you can unsubscribe from a few emails. Yeah, you can organize your, you can delete a bunch of photos. You can do so much in two minutes we spend. We do a lot of two minute things like scrolling through Facebook.

Kristi: 45:09

We do yeah, how many two minute sections of time. Do we spend just scrolling and throwing that time when like you said, you can be in there deleting all of those burst shots that shoot off 50 of the same picture at the same time. Well, Spring, tell me what else you have going on in your world.

Spring: 45:32

I have some big things. I am, when I have an online course that I've just finished, oh, that's awesome, and yeah, I'm really loving it and I like to sell it with a coaching call and that is really. I did this during COVID and it's been really fabulous and as I've been working on that, I've realized it's actually a book. So I'm planning on writing a book about Tidy Wilde and what I've learned along the way, but right now my biggest project is a book I'm writing about my mom and my experience with her end of life journey.

Spring: 46:21

She was like one of my biggest, most favorite organizing clients.

Spring: 46:28

We helped her downsize two different times and she ended up living in this really wonderful co-housing community and we organized and organized and organized until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and my grandma had Alzheimer's also and my mom decided to use a process called voluntary stopping eating and drinking to end her life and that was pretty intense and we spent a lot of time organizing, like her papers, talking to lawyers, coming up with plans, talking to her doctors, getting all of her paperwork in order, and then her home was so organized in the end that she was finally ready to have a big celebration of life party instead of a funeral, and so we had this big party with like 70 people.

Spring: 47:26

Her community has a co-housing space and then she had the open house she never had before and then she passed away and it was a really like. It was a phenomenal experience and something I've heard a lot of people who have dementia in their families are curious about, because the options are pretty, they're extremely limited and it's an extremely painful experience to have someone who has dementia for multiple years. And my mom didn't wanna do that. She was fiercely independent. She was very clear I don't wanna live like that, and I was her biggest fan and wanted to support her wishes and so, yeah, and so I'm working on this book and actually next week I booked a little Airbnb in Portland to just focus on writing the second half of the book.

Kristi: 48:27

Oh wow, that is so amazing and such a legacy, that's so beautiful for you to do that.

Spring: 48:35

Well, she asked, as you know, multiple times, cause she would forget in between. She said I really hope you'll write a book about this, or will you please write a book about this? And I promised her I would. So my soul can't rest until I write this, and I also can't write my tidy, wild organizing book until I finish this. And it's a small processing for me, you know. It allows me to go into my grief and come back out and move on about my life.

Kristi: 49:09

And such an amazing service to be able to provide to other people as well, yeah. It's such a beautiful thing, good for you, thank you. So, spring, tell us where we can find you on Instagram?

Spring: 49:24

on Facebook, where Maria yeah, so I am on Instagram as tidy wild. You can also see some more personal things on my Spring court right Instagram. Same thing with Facebook. I have a tidy wild business page and I also have a tidy wild Facebook group, which is really a fun, supportive place to be, and then my website is tidy wildcom, and I have a blog there that you know has all kinds of things. The biggest thing, though, that I would love is for people to join my newsletter. I get feedback every time I send it out from you know, people all over the world. Just that it like touches them. I really speak from my heart and my 10 years of experience organizing. So getting on the newsletter, and there's a link on my website that people can sign up right there.

Kristi: 50:22

Yes, and I get your newsletter and I absolutely love it. Yes, yay, I'm so glad, thank you. Well, thank you so much for this time together and thank you for sharing everything you know about. You know about why it is that we hang on to those things about. You know how it is actually an internal thought process thing as to how things end up. You know becoming cluttered and feeling overwhelmed in creating the spaces that we actually want for ourselves. So thank you so much for sharing today.

Spring: 50:57

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here. This is going to be so cool.

Kristi: 51:01

And, like I said, we have to have a separate conversation about kayaking.

Spring: 51:06

Yes, I would love that All right, sounds good, thank you.

Kristi: 51:11

Who is your life coach? I would love the opportunity to work with you as you are rediscovering the woman you were meant to be. Visit Christyballardfalaniecom for more information on how we can work together to ignite that passionate, enthusiastic woman who may have been tucked away for some time. Let's start in the middle together. Traffic lights.