I bet you're familiar with the term clutter when it comes to cleaning up your home, but have you heard of digital clutter? On today's episode, I have an interview with organizational expert Amanda Jefferson. Amanda will tell us why it's helpful to clean up digital clutter. She'll also give us some great and simple tips for how you can keep your home more organized. It's a fun and informative episode, so stay tuned. Welcome to your Zen Friend. I'm your host, lauren Wolfe.
Speaker 1On this podcast, I will share wisdom from working as a licensed professional counselor for more than 20 years. Using storytelling and lighthearted humor, each episode will explore themes on personal growth, including tips and strategies to boost mental wellness and overall well-being. If you're a perfectly imperfect human like me, who's always striving to do better and feel better than this podcast is for you, let's get started. Welcome, zen Friend. I hope, wherever you are, you're doing well. I am excited.
Speaker 1Today I just interviewed Amanda Jefferson, the co-host of Good Enoughish. That might sound familiar to you. Well, first of all, I think many of you listen to the podcast. If you don't and it sounds familiar, that's because I also had the pleasure of interviewing Brooke Forrey in the past, and Brooke Forrey is Amanda's co-host. If you want to check out my interview with Brooke, you will find that on episode number 33, balance Bound with Brooke Forrey, on today's podcast with Amanda, we will be talking about organization decluttering, and not just decluttering our homes, but digital decluttering. I didn't even realize this was a thing and, as you'll hear, it's important that I know this is a thing and Amanda has some great offerings for individuals to work with her. You'll hear how I will be taking her up on that offer and how I could really use some help.
Speaker 1We mentioned author Gretchen Rubin in this episode. Gretchen Rubin has some fantastic books and has a podcast herself called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She's got some great tips for making life happier, including tips on organization and really just keeping your home clean and with less clutter. I love how Gretchen Rubin often says outer order, inner calm. That is so true for me. If my environment is orderly and there is not too much going on in it, as far as there isn't clutter on the counters and just stuff in every corner, I feel much calmer. When my environment gets cluttered and messy, I just feel irritated. So I think for me it's really important that I keep my environment clean and less is more.
Speaker 1I've got an episode coming up shortly with our Zen friend, laurie Simon my bestie in real life and we'll be talking about minimalism versus oh goodness, what is the word, I can't think of it Maximilism there it is. So that's gonna be a fun episode as well. So that will come out in a couple of weeks, but for today let's get into my interview with Amanda. She was so fun to talk to, so personable. I hope that someday I'll have a chance to go meet her and brook for coffee in Pennsylvania they're not that far away but for now it was just a pleasure to get to interview her for the podcast. Let's take a short break and then we'll get to my interview with Amanda.
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Speaker 1Let's get back to the show. Welcome, amanda, so glad to have you on the show. I'm so glad to be here, thank you. So I have been a fan of your podcast since really early on. You, of course, are a co-host with your dear friend Brooke Forrey to the Good Enoughish podcast, and you and Brooke describe yourselves as being two organization-loving friends. I believe that you left corporate America once upon a time to become one of the world's first Conmari consultants. Anytime you mention that, amanda, I feel like there is a fascinating story behind there, and I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience in becoming one of the very first Conmari consultants.
Speaker 2Sure, you know, I had a very beautiful, inspiring job. I was the head of a nonprofit in Philadelphia and it was one of the most exciting but also challenging jobs of my career. I had a big board, I had a big fundraising goal, a team. I was running back and forth on the train every day, like. And I also had another big, important job that was happening at the same time, which I had just had my daughter as well.
Speaker 2I have one 11-year-old daughter, but at the time she was really little and I was on the surface, you know, applying for $40,000 in Philadelphia and holding the big checks and taking pictures with Philadelphia Eagles, and on the inside I just felt so completely burnt out and overwhelmed and confused and I sort of knew that I wasn't where I was supposed to be, but I didn't really know where I wanted to be. And but I did have a little secret, which was that I love organizing and I remember moments when, like, there was literally a moment when I'm in this big important board meeting and we had hired, hired an intern to organize our supply closet and I was jealous of her. Oh gosh, like I want to be that intern. I like all her Sharpies and her little labels, like I wanted to be her. So around that time I actually decided, ok, I want to make a transition. And I hired a coach and I bought a bunch of books and Marie Kondo was on the scene.
Speaker 2And while I was sitting with my business coach, one day I got an email that said she was hiring the first ever crop of Conmarie Consultants. And he made me get out my freshly you know business card that still had the sticker on it and said like you're going? And so I kind of am in parked on an undercover mission. Nobody really knew what I was doing. I went and it was. I just remember walking into the room and feeling like, oh my God, these are my people, this is what I want to do, and kind of, the rest is history. So that was about seven years ago.
Speaker 1Wow, oh my gosh, I just got chills imagining that just walking into that room. I love how you used what you were feeling envy of feeling envy of the intern organizing the closet to really help direct you to know that that was something that you wanted to do. That's so cool.
Speaker 2Yeah, I always love things that are concrete, like I love making order out of chaos, and so, you know, like when I'm stressed out, you'll find me in a linen closet, you know, if I can. Just, I really love things that are really concrete and, yeah, this is very much suited to my personality, this new endeavor of mine.
Speaker 1Yes, oh, I love that. I find for me it's putting my kitchen back together, doing all the dishes, wiping down the counters, getting rid of my paper stack of mail on the side, because it is so concrete and it's so rewarding. You can really see and feel that difference afterwards.
Speaker 2For sure, and there's like a physicality to it. I talk to people a lot of times about how decluttering and organizing it doesn't have to feel like this ominous chore. It actually people kind of roll their eyes when they say this, but it actually can kind of feel like self care. You know it can. It can feel meditative, it can feel, you know, like put making order out of chaos, and that can feel really great.
Speaker 1Absolutely so. We've been in this house where I am now in Newtown, connecticut, for about 14 years. My children are ages 20. My daughter is a junior in college, my son is 18 and a senior in high school, so, as you can imagine, we've collected a lot of stuff. So, lately I'm feeling a bit of a sadness as he's getting ready to.
Speaker 1You know, go off to college next year I'll be an empty nest or I can't even believe it. But also I want to be in the present moment and I want my house to reflect where we are and not have like an Elmo sock stashed under something Because it makes me so sad to see it. So as I've been decluttering, I've been watching YouTube videos. It makes me feel like I've got a little inspiration and camaraderie and I've seen in some places where there is talk that Marie Kondo is a minimalist, but then I've also seen in other places where it said no, she actually is not a minimalist.
Speaker 1So I wonder if you can kind of clear up that mystery.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. Well, it's funny because none of us have ever seen the inside of Marie Kondo's home and I have so much curiosity about it what it looks like. But I do imagine, just judging from her persona and you know what she puts out there I imagine that she is more on the minimalist side. That said, konmari is not minimalism. It's about surrounding yourself with what sparks joy. So I always ask people you know, what is? What are you trying to create? What is this ideal lifestyle that you're trying to create? And it might be that you want it to feel like a really clean, crisp hotel room, or it might mean that you want it to be colorful and full of art, or it might mean that you want it to be more like the huga, where it's like you know the coziness and the candles and the beiges and all of that. So it's really about what sparks joy for you. So I'd be curious to know like what do you want your house to look and feel like?
Speaker 1Oh, I love that, amanda, and you might have just answered my next question, which is, I'm curious because I know for myself, like training as a therapist, I learned all the different theoretical.
Speaker 1you know ways of counseling, like there's Freudian and there's so many different types of counseling and techniques that can be used, and at first I went into counseling thinking, oh my God, which one do I pick? What do I do? I don't know what I'm doing. I wonder for you in studying the Konmari method, as you went in and started applying it to people's homes, I would guess that you probably found your own way too, and maybe change it up a little bit in a way that's authentic to you. Is that?
Speaker 2true.
Speaker 1And if so, yeah, what do you bring to your business that's maybe unique?
Speaker 2Yeah. So what I loved about the Conmarie method and being introduced to that at the beginning was I had never been a professional organizer before, so I didn't necessarily know where to start or what to do. But I had done it in my own home and I'm the type of person I get it. I'm concrete, I want a roadmap and the Conmarie method gives you that very specific roadmap of OK, we're doing five categories and we're doing them in order, so it's clothing, books, paper, kimono which is the Japanese word for everything else and sentimental.
Speaker 2So for me it was really nice as a new organizer and to work with these clients who are really overwhelmed. They don't know do we start in the attic? Do we start in the kids' playroom? Do we start in the kitchen? To say, no, we do it this way.
Speaker 2But then, as I got more experienced, I could absolutely see OK, well, we're going to do this way, and then we're going to shift and we're going to do things a little bit different, because it all depends on people's energy levels, their stamina, what's bothering them the most? I think for me the piece that I bring in the most is the idea of what are the habits and the routines that we're going to build on top of all of this that are going to help you keep it in place. For example, I make my clients promise me they'll make their bed every morning, stuff like that let's start the day on a great start, good tone. And then another thing is this nightly routine that I encourage my clients to do, which is this 2020, which I'm sure you've heard me talk about a lot on the podcast.
Speaker 1But yeah, if you could tell our Zen friends, I think that would be really interesting if people haven't heard about that.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it's basically just a nightly routine and it's timed. So the first 20 minutes is a reset, so that's where you're resetting from the day. So you're putting away the soccer cleats and emptying the lunchboxes and throwing the laundry in the laundry basket and things like that. The next 20 is prep, so that's when you're prepping for the next day, so maybe you're making lunches or checking the weather or the calendar or putting out the soccer cleats or whatever it is. And then the last 20 minutes is rest, so that is when you can put on your Netflix show and obviously Netflix shows are longer than 20 minutes but or the kids can be on their devices or read or go outside and play.
Speaker 2But I think it's just, it's like a high energy way to just sort of but in a container of I'm not going to spend all night long putting my house back together. The timer creates that sense of urgency, it creates some fun and everybody can have their own 2020. So the partner has one, you have one, the kids have one, and then you're all sort of Tasmanian deviling and then you get to relax. And it doesn't have to happen every night. If it happens three nights a week, great, but it's just a nice way to not feel, because your home is your oasis. You don't want to just feel like you're on a hamster wheel all day long, staring at the clutter, feeling resentful about it crashing into bed and then getting up and doing it all over again. So I think that's the special twist that I bring into the Conmarie method as well as like, yes, let's do that massive decluttering exercise first, but then let's figure out how to make your daily life a little bit more of a well-oiled machine.
Speaker 1Oh, I love that. I need to try that. I do make sure back to my kitchen, dishes are always done. There's nothing in the sink.
Speaker 1The counters are cleared off so that when I come in the morning it's a clean slate. But I love this idea, amanda, because I imagine that by doing it, even probably three or four times a week, it makes it a lot easier to keep up with things. So it isn't overwhelming where you're like oh, I really need 45 minutes to get ready for school tomorrow Because you've been keeping up on it as you go, you know where the sacriclits are. Things are relatively organized.
Speaker 2I know I'm a Gretchen Rubin superfan and I love it because she has so many, just little sentences that are so easy to remember, and she always says it's easier to keep up than to catch up. So that is always such a good reminder to me, and that's what that 2020 helps you do.
Speaker 1I too am a Gretchen Rubin superfan you are.
Speaker 2Listen, she's so great.
Speaker 1I love her books. She has enhanced my life quite a bit with her tips. I love her tip If it takes 30 seconds or less, do it now.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1I'm famous for just dropping my clothes next to the bed and then I stop myself. Nope, it takes 30 seconds or less. Lauren hamper, or hang it up. I love the. I think you and Brooke were mentioning this on the podcast recently too. Ohio, only wait, not Ohio, what is it? Only touch it once, that wouldn't be Ohio.
Speaker 2Only handle it once, only handle it once there we go, that's it.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh See this is terrible. So I heard this tip years ago.
Speaker 2And.
Speaker 1I was doing a therapeutic group for a bunch of really sweet middle school boys and I was trying to help them with their executive functioning, their organization, and I tried to give them that tip and I couldn't remember how it went. So I have to remember Ohio with handle and I was saying, only touch it once. And then I was thinking, dear god, that sounds totally perverted, like I'm talking about something else.
Speaker 2And you're getting a call from the school.
Speaker 1We got a report about oh my gosh, yes, and these sweet boys, like it went right over their head. Nobody laughed. And then I'm trying to keep myself from laughing. I'm like I'm going to get back to you with how we remember that tip. Oh my god, bad.
That's hysterical, I know. For me the one that works is don't put it down, put it away, ooh, like that. Like I drive my husband crazy because I am. I'm always running a buzzing, so it's very common for me to put like a dirty spoon in the sink Like OK, well, it's almost the same amount of effort to put the dirty spoon in the dishwasher. So I'm trying to get much better. I'm my own experiment, like I'm my own Petri dish, because a lot of the things that my clients struggle with I struggle with too. So I'm on my own little experiment.
Speaker 1Oh, I love that. I mean, I think that's the benefit of being a therapist in many ways too. People often reflect similar challenges as what I'm having, and so it really normalizes our life experiences for sure.
Speaker 2Yes, what is the book that was written by that therapist that I absolutely love?
Speaker 1Oh, I think I know what you mean, where she talks about Gottlieb. Yes, laura, Lori, lori, gottlieb I think yeah, where she talks about certain clients that she works with.
Speaker 2If there's a young woman dying, of cancer, yes, and then she talks about her own therapeutic experience.
Speaker 1Yes, because she's going through a divorce, I think.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. Yes, I can't remember what it's called. I can't remember it's so good, I'll find out. I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1but oh, it's going to bug me. It'll come to me at like two in the morning. Yes, I'll look it up, I know it's in my audible because I listened to it.
Speaker 2It was wonderful, but it's similar, what you're saying too, to what you know, I experienced, like a lot of people are like, well, her house must be totally perfect, or her life must be totally perfect. And I'm sure, with you, a lot of your patients and clients might think like, oh well, she's just right, you know, and she has a podcast that's called Zen, so she must be completely perfect. But obviously you're struggling with issues just to stay her as well.
Speaker 1So, of course I remember. So I teach yoga and bar classes. On the side, my daughter had come to. I don't remember what it was. One of the people attending looked at my teenage daughter at the time and said oh, you're so lucky, you just get to listen to your mother's voice all the time. You must love that and like you could see her like not knowing what to do with that. Of course, not, of course not, she's like.
Speaker 2it's my least favorite thing right now.
Speaker 1How about when she's screaming at me, when she like totally loses her shit? You know which I don't intend to do? Has it happened? Of course, absolutely, amanda. We're all human and sometimes we teach what we need to learn too right. So, I'm just working on it, just like everyone else, so good.
Speaker 2Exactly, and that's exactly why we have the name that we do of our podcast Good Enoughish.
Speaker 1I love it.
Speaker 2You know, good Enoughish, and if I had to change my name, the name of my, my business it's Indigo Organizing Now I could probably call it Good Enoughish Organizing, because that's kind of the message I mean, even like Dr Becky who's a parenting coach, that I love. She talks a lot of times about how like oh, by the way, I implement like these things that I'm teaching you like a third of the time. Absolutely Right, it's like so refreshing to hear like okay, thank God, yes, good enough ish.
Speaker 1Absolutely Makes sense. Okay, so, speaking of things that I am good enough ish on when you and I connected and you mentioned that you have a digital decluttering class coming up. I thought at first that you meant you had like a recorded course on just like home decluttering. And then it dawned on me no, you mean decluttering or digital devices. And then I thought oh shit, because I'll tell you a quick story. Amanda, I am terrible with digital decluttering. It doesn't typically bother me.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1So I have on my phone. I have two personal Yahoo emails and you know I have the little thumbnail on my phone.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1When the thumbnail got to 100,000 unread emails which my husband like nearly like he's a computer guy he nearly had a stroke. My solution was I found a way to have my email through like a I don't know what you call it. It's different now, where it no longer displays the number. So, I feel good about that.
Speaker 2You're like done, like done.
Speaker 1Problem fixed so clearly. I could benefit from your digital decluttering, amanda. So can you tell us what does that mean, digital clutter, and why is it helpful to declutter it and not just not look at it?
Speaker 2Yeah Well, first of all, I think it's such a gift when things like that don't bother you. You know what I mean. Like I would love to be the type of person that it doesn't bother me, you know, but for a lot of people it really does, and so a lot of people they do. They have the 10, the 20, the 100,000 emails that they have no idea what to do Other people have 100,000.
Speaker 2I feel like you're definitely up there. You're, you know, in the top 5% maybe with the 100,000, but I do hear multiples of tens of thousands, Like that's totally normal. So people have tens of thousands of emails that they don't know what to do with they. You know they have iCloud photos and they think they're playing for an extra subscription but like they're not matching up with what's on their computer. And then you know they're having a bachelorette party for their friend and they can't find all those pictures that they know that they have of her. And then their passwords are everywhere. They can't find any of the files that they need, and so I think those are a lot of things.
Speaker 2You know, Brooke and I in the podcast we talk a lot about friction and these things cause a lot of friction and a lot of wasted time. So I don't want to just teach people like some generic oh, do this, do this, do that, because that's too hard. So I'm actually launching a service now where I'm going to be working one on one with people, so you can come to me and say, okay, I don't care about photos, I don't care about emails, I really want to talk about my documents. Should I be using Dropbox, Should I be using Google Drive, and I can even like get in, like hack people's computers with their permission.
Speaker 1Wow, that's impressive.
Speaker 2And get in there and move things around.
Speaker 1And so it's very personalized.
Speaker 2And yeah, because it can be very, like I said, very overwhelming and cause a lot of friction, and I love the tech, so they can just kind of sit back and let me do my magic, oh, my God, sign me up.
Speaker 1I'm going to be signing up for this. So I mean, it clearly bothered me enough to figure out how to not see it right, correct, and I felt there was an easy solution. I would take care of it, because you know it does. I can feel it a little bit in my stomach, a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1I admit it, but it just seems so completely overwhelming and I have so many other pressing matters at hand so I like this, Amanda. It sounds like maybe someone like me that feels just completely overwhelmed by it having that support, that one-on-one support, could be really helpful. Ooh, that would feel good if I didn't have all of those unread emails.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, for sure. And there's so many good enough-ish approaches, I mean we're not going to go through one by one those 100,000 emails. Oh my God, now you know what I mean. Like you can literally create a folder named archive, take all of those emails, because if you're worried about missing something and like, dump them in there and then you have officially zero emails in your inbox, then you're done.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh okay.
Speaker 2It can be something as simple as that Amazing it's good enough-ish. It doesn't have to be this painstaking process, okay.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, I like that your wheels are turning.
Speaker 1You're like oh, I did have my daughter. I was paying her at one point to go through and delete all the spam, but I would really love to just get rid of those two, at least one of them, because it's just crap. And now I have oh my God, I have five emails, yeah.
Speaker 2It's a lot, and Yahoo, that's vintage. I mean that's yeah.
Speaker 1Totally vintage. So for my counseling practice I have a Gmail. For the podcast I have a Gmail, I have another random Gmail and then the two Yahoo. I would love to get rid of those Yahoo. Yeah, I really don't need them anymore and start better managing spam and deleting myself from things. Yeah, I barely look at those two emails and then someone will send me something important and I miss it.
Speaker 2Yes, no, that's what's going to be fun about this, because that's a unique issue that you have. So you have all these email addresses. You want to get rid of the few of them but you want to make so we would be able to dig in and actually say, okay, well, let's go into this Yahoo account and see are you getting any important emails here that we want to make sure that we're moving them to somewhere else? And so I love fixing problems and I'm much better at fixing other people's problems than my own. Oh, totally.
Speaker 1It's so much easier. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, all right. Now I'm like let's hang up and let's just open your Yahoo. All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1Oh my God, amanda, it was at 100,000 like that's amazing Five years ago, so I don't even want to know where we are. It could be a new record.
Speaker 2Well, that's the nice thing about the I call it the go nuclear option. You don't have to under. You know, you literally take 100,000 or maybe 200,000 now God I'm scared and you put it in archive and then you unsubscribe as you go. So then you'll see, okay, what is it that's coming in, and then you can unsubscribe as you go, and then you could pay your daughter. You know, like start from zero, and then you know, pay your daughter or pay a virtual assistant or whatever it is to help clean, yeah, but you don't have to go backwards, no, because that's just clearly a nightmare.
I cannot do that. Yes, yeah, no way, that would be so hard. So it sounds like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, people can work one-on-one with you. Is there also, when you say digital courses, that just one-on-one, or is there a way to work as a group or a different service?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I have an organized, an online course called Organized Everyday and that is four modules. So it's home where I talk a lot about Hanmari, but then we talk about. The other three modules are Habits, focus and Flow, so that's where we really dig deep on. We even talk about retro-rubens, the four tendencies and our even a blighter and all of that which I think is so helpful.
Speaker 2We talk about atomic habits with James Clear. We talk about something called my Focus Method, which is helping you declutter your to-do list and really figure out what you need to focus on and then how to actually finish it. And then the flow part is all about leaning more into fun and easy, like I saw. You even had a podcast episode about defining what is actually fun for you, absolutely, and it's like that. You know, it's kind of peeling back all the layers and really stopping to do all the things.
Speaker 2Like that's what my keynote talk is about is kind of letting go of the shoulds and just following kind of your own, fun and easy. So that's an online course, and then we also have a monthly Q&A that anybody can come on and chat with me and ask me anything.
Speaker 1Yeah, awesome, I'll make sure I have all those links in the show notes so people can reach out and connect with you. So I thought it would be fun. Amanda, I know that a lot of our listeners are also good enough good enoughish listeners I know you came up with I love that word. That's so good. So I thought we would do like a rapid fire question and answer segment and just get to know you a little bit. Okay, and I haven't told you any of these questions, so it's okay if you can't just go.
Speaker 2No, I'm a bit nervous. I'm nervous, okay.
Speaker 1Okay, number one, we're starting off easy Vanilla or chocolate.
Speaker 2Vanilla.
Speaker 1Number two if you had to be on a deserted island and stranded with one celebrity, who would you choose? Got a little harder there, that did get a lot harder.
Speaker 2Brooke's going to laugh at me for this. I mean it would have been Ryan Gosling. That's right, I forgot. You like him Ever since. Ken. That was like a weird twist for me. Yeah, I can see that. Yes, I'm a little stumped on that one, but he was the first name that popped in my hands. I feel like.
Speaker 1I have to honor that. Yeah, okay, awesome, let us know how that goes. That sounds amazing. A pet peeve of yours.
Speaker 2Okay, when you are merging and it's going like left lane is closing and you are, you know it's one in one. So one car, another car, one car, the other car. It drives me bonkers when people try to sneak in and they're not following the one in one rule. It makes it turns me into the incredible Hulk.
Speaker 1Yes, I hear you Same. Very much relate to that. If you could work in any other career, what would it be?
Speaker 2I have always been sort of fascinated. Well, I secretly would have loved to have been a backup dancer. Oh, I love this. I don't think I don't actually know if I'm a good dancer or not, because I don't have enough courage to do that whole like dance like no one's watching thing. But I imagine myself as an excellent hip hop backup dancer. Love it, that's so fun. Yes, with like cool outfits.
Speaker 1Yes, cool outfits and like big hair and just that would be so fun, yes, okay. So, speaking of dancing, what is one song that, when you hear it, it always brings you joy?
Speaker 2Probably anything. Indigo girls my favorite, so funny. Again, Barbie close to the find. That's one of my favorite songs of all time and I cannot believe it was featured in the Barbie movie. So fun, but yeah, indigo girls.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's good like summertime windows down music. I think they utilized it perfectly in Barbie. It was so fun. What is a song that, anytime you hear it, you turn the channel?
Speaker 2There is. What is that song? It's like Rob Thomas and Santana.
Speaker 1Oh, yes, doonit, doonit, doonit.
Speaker 2No, it makes me mad.
Speaker 1Oh, this is terrible. I would never last on a game show. I know what you mean. They play it a lot still, even though it's old.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's. No, it makes me mad. I don't like it.
Speaker 1People are probably yelling the name of it right now, as they're listening. Are you a rereader or do you read books just once?
Speaker 2I would say I would like to be a rereader and I say that I'm going to reread and I keep these books and I'm going to come back to them. But I'm kind of an only once gal, but I aspire to be a rereader.
Speaker 1Okay, do you read regular good old fashioned paper books or Kindles?
Speaker 2Both. Okay, it kind of depends on the book, and I actually will buy a book in many different ways. Oh, I forgot this about you. Yes, I will, because if I get it in Kindle and I'm highlighting but I really want to be underlining and all those, and then I want to be listening to the car. So some books, some of my favorite books, I open in three different ways.
Speaker 1I do the same thing. Yes, because what I don't like with Kindle is it's not easy to just return to a page. I don't know, maybe it is and maybe I'm not utilizing it correctly, but I find that if it's like a good nonfiction book that I want to return to quotes or return to a section, I need that paper copy.
Speaker 2Yes, and I. But I do like about the Kindle that it's so easy. I go back to my notes a lot. It's kind of hard to find your Kindle notes, but there's a page on Amazon that you can go to and I love it because it's like oh, here's the 30 things that I underlined about this book and it kind of without me having to reread the book, I can kind of very quickly get those good snippets. So that's why I kind of like it in all different forms.
Speaker 1That's good to know. I'm going to have to watch a YouTube video on how to get to your notes.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1I like it. I'm all about YouTube. Lately I feel like Grandma Lauren. I'm saying to all my clients like you can look that up on YouTube.
Speaker 2Do you know what I did this week? You know those oxo. Do you have any of those oxo canisters that have the little pop lid?
Speaker 1Oh yes, the weight with the little knob in the center that you pushed down.
Speaker 2Correct, yes, yes, so a lot of them. Either the button stays down or the button stays up. I watched a YouTube video on how to fix these and it turns out you kind of like take it apart and there's this little piece in there and you can kind of like take these little needle nose pliers and fix it. And I fixed all my oxo lids after watching this three minute YouTube video.
Speaker 1I felt so proud of myself. Had they broken.
Speaker 2The lids had broken, so it's like they have these two tiny little metal prongs kind of, and the prongs had gotten like a little squished so I had to unsquish the prongs.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean just an example of you can literally find anything out on.
Speaker 2YouTube. It's fabulous. Love it.
Speaker 1I'm a little late to the game, but I do love me some YouTube. And last question, amanda what is your favorite season? I know you're in Pennsylvania so you have really defined seasons like we do here in Connecticut.
Speaker 2Probably spring. I have a spring birthday. My birthday is in March and I always loved Easter as a kid, and I am not. I don't really like being hot, so I prefer, like you know, like 65 degrees is my perfect temperature.
Speaker 1I think similar to your co-host Brooke, who has a very a very small window of what she considers comfortable right, A small window.
Speaker 1I'm with you. I said to my husband the other day we have a pellet stove. I said we're going to need to get some pellets. He said, oh, so we can run the heat during the day and the air conditioner at night. And I said, yeah, exactly yeah, what's wrong with that? Exactly, that's exactly what we'll do. And then just one more question for you Doesn't have to be a rapid fire question, amanda. In my podcast I'm always talking about self care. I think that for parents, you know, we hear put the oxygen mask on first and care for yourself first, but pretty much none of us do this. So it's so important that we fill our own cups, and especially as a mom and also a business owner and a podcaster, brooke Brooke oh my gosh, amanda, I'm sure you are so busy. How are you caring for yourself lately?
Speaker 2One of the things that I realized a few years ago was that I am an introvert, and I always thought that being an introvert meant being shy, but it really just means that you can get overstimulated a lot and that you really need sort of quiet to recharge your battery. And so for me, self care looks like almost every single day finding an opportunity for literal, total quiet when no one's talking to me, nobody's asking me where their socks are, like, nobody's like, and just literal quiet. So even if it's just like 20 or 30 minutes a day, if I don't get that I can feel the, you know, I can feel kind of the tension rising, and so that has been an important revelation to me.
Speaker 1I love that because you became aware of it and then you find ways that you can get quiet time.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I have to be careful because a lot of times it can be like oh, it's quiet time, so let me scroll on my phone on Instagram or doom scroll CNN.
Speaker 1But a lot of.
Speaker 2but I have to be really good about being like no, like literal, no visual clutter, like no, just quiet, and that helps a lot.
Speaker 1I relate to that very much to Amanda. I need to do that more every day. I set that intention to be meditating or have just time sitting and being just completely quiet. Some days I do a better job than others. It can be hard.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think the therapist ones tell me just look at the leaves rustling, like the leaves are almost always rustling. So just look at the leaves rustling.
Speaker 1Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2And you know I can see trees really easily outside. You know my window and so that helps.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, that sounds like a good reset. I love it.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1So I'd love for you to tell our Zen friends where they can find you and connect with you and check out your courses. And again, I'll make sure to have all of those links in our show notes.
Speaker 2Perfect, so they can find me at indigoorganizingcom, and that's where they'll find lots of information about this new digital decluttering offering, and I'm happy to offer an extra 10% off for your listeners, so nice, and for you and all those Yahoo accounts.
Speaker 1Thank you, yep. I will be booking an appointment.
Speaker 2Yes, and so they can find me at indigoorganizingcom and they can find me on Instagram at heycom, and that's how I got Amanda.
Speaker 1J, awesome. Thank you so much, amanda. It has been such a joy to get to speak with you and I so appreciate you coming on the show Same. Thank you so much for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 1I hope you enjoyed my interview with Amanda as much as I enjoyed speaking with her. I thought it was so inspiring how she shared that she noticed feeling jealous of the intern organizing the closet and she made a huge career change. I'm sure that wasn't easy. It probably didn't happen immediately, but I think it's a great reminder that we can always make big changes and pivots in life and I think it's so wonderful when we do follow those things, as Marie Kondo would say, that spark joy for us. I think we end up having much better life satisfaction. I also found it really interesting how she shared about digital decluttering, something clearly I have not been thinking about, but I'm excited to work with her and get that in order. A little mortified for her to see my digital clutter behind the scenes, but I think it will be really helpful to get that organized. So I'll have to report back on how that goes.
Speaker 1Maybe some of you will join me in that journey. Anyone else there have a whole lot of unread emails. Let me know if you have more than a hundred thousand. That would make me feel much better. I hope you will connect with me. You can find me on Instagram at your ZenFriend pod. You can join our private Facebook group. That group is really fun. I'm constantly posting over there and I love connecting with our ZenFriend listeners. You can find that group. Just go to Facebook, search in groups for your ZenFriend and if you want to shoot me an email, shoot me an email at yourzenfriendpod at gmailcom. Until next time, friends, I hope you'll take some time today and every day to do something kind for yourself.