Clear the Clutter & Find Your Focus with Angie Hyche Ep 89

Unlock a world of sharpened focus and productivity with certified professional organizer Angie Hyche, our special guest who masterfully unpacks the pervasive issue of clutter in our lives.

Whether it's a pile of unsorted mail that's taking over your kitchen counter or a calendar so crammed that it leaves you gasping for breath, Angie's expert guidance offers a beacon of hope. We traverse the landscapes of physical and mental messes, discovering the subtle yet profound ways they can obscure our paths to success and contentment. Angie doesn't just diagnose the problem; she prescribes personalized solutions that promise to streamline your environment and your mind.

Feel the weight lifting off your shoulders as we map out the art of calendar curation. Imagine a schedule that serves not just as a list of tasks but as a collection of purposeful actions steering you toward your ambitions.

The conversation shifts to a reminder about making time for strategic reflection, and the art of distinguishing the essential from the expendable in your professional life. This episode isn't just about finding time; it's about refining it to its purest form, making every second count.

For our Innovation Women and Speaker Friends, don't miss the exclusive event invite tucked in at the end—because sometimes, the ultimate decluttering is the fusion of brilliant minds in a symphony of shared growth and learning.

Connect with Angie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shipshape-solutions/

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC4en4y92lg?sub_confirmation=1

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

I want to welcome you to our latest episode of Enthusiastically Self-Employed. This is a series I've created which airs live on LinkedIn, youtube and later on will be converted to a podcast. And very excited because I have a fellow member of Innovation Women on with me this morning, angie Heist. Hey, angie, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 1:21

I'm great. How are you, Brenda?

Speaker 1: 1:23

Good, I'm delighted to have you and, for those of you that are watching, you can see the topic right above us. It's clear the clutter and find your focus. And, by the way, if you're watching us live right now, could you do me a favor? Could you leave a comment just to say hello or yes, the live stream is working. That lets us know that the live stream is up and going, and this is one of the challenges of producing a live event is you rely upon your audience to let you know that the live stream is working. Now, sometimes I will get the notification in the background and I've got like a dual monitor in the background running over here and I pay attention to that to see the notification coming in. But I also really like when those of you that are watching live drop a comment, because that makes me feel good. I'll be honest with you. It's like the studio audience, Angie, like applauding when your guest arrives. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:13

So, as we are waiting for those comments to roll in, I do see the live stream is working, so I'm going to give some shout outs right now. I see Jane is watching from Australia. Hey, jane, thank you so much for watching. I see there's actually some live stream software that looks like it's picking us up and pushing us along, so thank you to who is behind Live24, a couple other networks that are on there. I'm going to let that keep running in the background, angie, and while we're doing that, I know you from Innovation Women, which is a great organization for women speakers. Why don't you take a few minutes to describe yourself to folks that are just getting to know you today?

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yeah, so my name is Angie Heitsch and I live in East Tennessee and I love to talk about clutter. I am a certified professional organizer. I've been doing that since 2016. I was working in homes with clients helping them declutter and organize their stuff, and now my focus is all on writing, speaking and podcasting. But I love to talk to people about clutter because I think people don't realize how powerful it is, how much of a distraction it is, whether it's the clutter in their homes or offices or in their schedule or in their minds. It all distracts you from what's most important in your life and the things that you want to do. When I'm not writing, speaking and podcasting, I also love to hike in national parks with my husband and to act in community theater and to read.

Speaker 1: 3:45

So since we're both speakers too, through Innovation Women, I have to ask the question what's your signature talk or your signature topic when you do talks?

Speaker 2: 3:54

The one that I, the two that I do the most often. It depends on whether I'm speaking to a faith community or not. With the faith community, I'll do a presentation based on my book Unholy Mess, what the Bible says about clutter, and I'll talk about those three clutter categories. And then the one I do most often in just general groups is three simple steps to organize anything.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Oh good, Okay, I love it. All related to this concept of clutter. So I'm super excited. I know last night we were emailing back and forth about the event and I saw you posting about it and I said unintentionally I have a lot of clutter in my office right now, but I'm waiting for Angie's talk because I know that she says hey, if you can clear the clutter, it will help you to find your focus. So, Angie, we're going to jump right in here and I'm just going to lead with the big, wide, open question what advice do you have for us as it relates to clutter and focus?

Speaker 2: 4:47

Oh goodness. So I think this is a topic that is ripe for action and it honestly, it's more difficult than you would think to take a really honest, in-depth look at yourself to see the different areas of clutter. We can become blind to it. But I was thinking so many times I think about this topic and that feeling when you're looking for something and trying desperately to find it and there's just so many other things that are catching your attention and remember those books, the Where's Waldo, or the I spy when you're looking for something in particular and the page is purposefully just so cluttered with so many other things and you just wish, oh my gosh, just get this other stuff out of the way. You just want the thing you're looking for to glow or to beep or something, because you're just having the hardest time finding it. And that's what our clutter is Like. All those other things I don't care about that.

Speaker 2: 5:47

What I'm really trying to do is this or find, is this one certain thing and everything else is in the way, and that's what the clutter is, and it is a deep, soul searching effort to find it and to eliminate it. But oh, the rewards are invaluable to find it and to eliminate it, but oh, the rewards are invaluable. The other thing that I see so often when I talk about clutter, everyone always thinks about piles of stuff. Yes and for sure, piles of stuff is a huge category of clutter and probably the one queen of the group that have major clutter issues that are invisible and they can sometimes be the most damaging and pervasive of all the kinds of clutter. While I do like to talk about stuff and clearing the clutter related to our stuff, I also think it is so important to find the clutter in our schedule and our minds, because those are doing damage that we might not even realize is happening. That's interesting.

Speaker 1: 6:53

So you're talking about invisible clutter, but you were also talking about piles. So first, I'll be honest, I have the piles. I've got the things on my desk right now in front of me. You can't see them, but the things like. I need to take action on these before I file them away. I'm a visual person. If I put it away, I will forget it. Yes, so I'm sure I'm not alone in that, and but I will admit it might be two to three weeks before I get it off my desk and then finally, I just get sick of looking at it. Yeah, so what advice do you have? Am I alone in this, or do other people struggle with this? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 7:25

No, absolutely. You are not alone, and a lot of that goes to your style of how you prefer things. For me, I cannot if I have the things out. Yes, I'm reminded of it constantly, but it also just keeps me from being productive, because for me, a clear counter, a clear desk is. I just feel a peace from that. But I understand what you're saying. If you're the kind of person where, if it's put away, it might as well not exist, then you've got that battle between the piles. I don't like the piles, but I also know if it's gone, then if I don't see the piles, then I'm going to forget that it's happening. And so you have to figure out ways to coexist with the piles, to not let them get you too distracted, while also honoring the style that works for you, and there's some different tricks that you can do, depending on how much the piles bother you. Someone that I'm thinking about, a client that I worked with in an office, actually had a messy desk contest.

Speaker 2: 8:26

Yeah, with an office supply company, it was really fun. So people had to send us their before pictures and they had to try to convince us why they needed to win the contest. And what they won was free organizing for me and then free some supplies to restructure their office. The person that I was working with had a lot of piles, but she was also a someone if she didn't see it, it wasn't there. She was not a very digital oriented person and she loved post-it notes. They were everywhere. Yeah, I love you on those things. All over my desk right now. Post-it notes they're everywhere. Yeah, yeah, all over my desk. Yeah, we found an interesting way to use her whole Post-it note pile thing in a way that worked for her. She had a whiteboard beside her desk and so she loved the Post-it notes because every little post-it note was a thing to do One thing.

Speaker 1: 9:27

That's what I do. Yeah, okay, so what we?

Speaker 2: 9:29

did was we used the whiteboard. We had columns on the whiteboard for different categories and they all the post-its, were put in order that they needed to be accomplished in the category, and so she could look yeah, she could look at the whiteboard to know, okay, here are the things that are floated to the top because you could move them right. Yeah, this is at the top of my priority. And as soon as she did it, she'd just throw it away, and so she was constantly rearranging the post-it notes and then the file, the papers or the supplies that were associated with them. We had those in vertical file organizers on her desk. I think she had a few of the wall pocket kind of organizers for the paper. Those were still out in a way, but not in a way that they were piled on top of each other, so it took up less of a footprint on her desk.

Speaker 1: 10:20

So yeah, because in the drawer in files didn't work and that wouldn't work for you either so, yeah, because out of sight, out of mind and I don't know if I feel like once it goes into a filing cabinet, I'm done with it and I want to just I'm one of your earlier points, which was we were moving towards a more digital paperless yeah, trying to at least society.

Speaker 1: 10:42

And when I first, when we first moved into our, the house that we're now's, we've been here for about six, going on seven, I think, about six years now. But I had a very tall filing cabinet, a four drawer really wide, and that was all of my papers from my old office. And then pandemic happened, had some changes in my home office, the filing cabinet. There was some damage done to it and I had to get a new cabinet. And I'm like I actually got a smaller cabinet and I still have space in it, cause I threw a lot of those papers away because I was just hoarding papers that I didn't need. But I'm realizing now that I don't print proposals anymore, they're only emailed and they sit into a drive. So now I have more digital clutter than the in-person, but it sounds like that's common. We're moving more there, yeah, so I love the.

Speaker 2: 11:24

I love the wall pocket type things, the vertical file things that sit on your desk. I also love those, the kind of old school, like teachers would have these little slots for each student. It's like this tall thing, yeah, but there's lots of different ways to arrange it. And what you're talking about, the clearing out the papers really over 90% of the paper that we tend to keep we really don't need. But figuring out a way to have that visual cue for someone who does work that way is really important. So that's where we came up with that whiteboard system. There's so many different ways to structure it.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Yeah, I like that and I think the struggle is and I've heard you should try to only touch a piece of paper once, if it comes from the mail, pay the bill and then file it. The reality is sometimes my husband opens the bills and then he comes in and he throws things on my desk and I'm like where did this come from? And you're on top of the pile of important things. You're piling other things onto it. It's just, it's not feasible. But I do the creative, like the teachers do. The little file cubby organization system with the immediate to-dos and having some organization. I like that as a system. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yeah, yeah, what I use for my own like personal papers at home, I have a system where I have one container and then I have categories within that, but I go through it every week. I have a scheduled time on my calendar for that and that's for the active papers, cause there's two major types of active and archive. And archive is your marriage certificate and your you know, yeah, stuff that you, you have to keep it but you're not going to be accessing it. But that active things, things that are like an invitation to a party or a bill I've got to pay, or the bulletin from my club I'm in, or whatever yeah, the church bulletin my husband gets on Sunday.

Speaker 1: 13:15

that always comes home with him and it sits on the table, even though he's already read it. You don't want to throw it away right away and then it goes a couple days, but just figuring out those systems that will work for you, For me that works.

Speaker 2: 13:25

To go through those once a week so that I don't forget things, that I pick up something and go oh I've got that party this weekend and I've got to get presents, so let me get that on my schedule. And figuring out system is so key for all of this. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:41

And, by the way, for those of us that might be joining us a little late, we're here today with Angie Heisch talking about clear the clutter and find your focus, and I know a lot of us struggle with this, and she's already given us some great ideas. I think I'm going to try the whiteboard thing with a post-it note. Let me know, yeah, and what I like about it is the single, the single post-it notes.

Speaker 2: 13:55

I think that's a brilliant idea. Let me know.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Yeah, and what I like about it is the single. The single post-it note like this one right now I have is this podcast scorecard. I enrolled in a program and I'm supposed to every day keep track of what I'm doing to promote my podcast, and if I didn't have this in front of me I'd probably would forget. But I like the thought that I can keep my post-it notes because I get some security out of them. But, like, maybe put it on a whiteboard, which I've got, a whiteboard that I could use. And then I like the fact that I can move that. You gave that suggestion move them around and then throw it away when you're done with it. And so many great ideas here. Erin G, what other advice do you have for us on clearing our clutter and finding our focus?

Speaker 2: 14:36

Yeah, all right. So let's talk just a little bit about schedule. Clutter is a huge clutter category for many of us, and I guess the things I would say the most about schedule clutter is you've got to be really clear on what your goals and your priorities are and then be willing to just take a really microscopic view of everything on your calendar there's a lot of things that and your to-do list. There are things that are on there that, honestly, they're not moving you forward towards your goals and they're not aligned with your priorities. So why are they there? Yeah, and then sometimes I can't remember where I first heard of this, but I thought it was really cool. So the secretary.

Speaker 2: 15:18

this guy's George Schultz. He was secretary of state in the 80s, I think, with Reagan. He had something he called a Shultz hour, so he carved out an hour a week where he said I only want to be interrupted if it's the president or my wife. And those were when he talked about, when he thought about the big picture, long term planning stuff. Those are the things that tend to get just someday maybe. Yeah, but it was a weekly practice for him. I thought that was such a good strategy that I think is great to incorporate into our practice.

Speaker 1: 15:59

I like that and they always say what gets scheduled gets done. And if you're never making the time in your schedule for the big picture thinking or carving that time out, it's not, it's going to. That's the irony. It's like the big picture thinking type of stuff. One of my friends in LinkedIn Connections, sarah Larson, every Sunday she's been doing a I think she calls it coffee with Sarah or something where it's just come on and just do co-working together every Sunday and there's not discussion or dialogue. I don't think it's just like come on and you're there and there are other people that are hands down working on work, so it's helping you to keep accountable. So there's different systems like that which I think could achieve the same thing. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 16:37

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yeah, I think that's great.

Speaker 2: 16:39

I was thinking of another one of my favorite tips about schedule clutter. Okay, so that I got this from. Laura Vanderkam is a time management guru. She's written several books, she's got a great podcast, and this was an interview that I watched between Laura Vanderkam and Marie Forleo, author of Everything is Figureoutable. So she was talking. Laura was talking about how, when we get asked to do something, to be involved with something, and it's a long time away from now, we look at our schedule and we're like, oh yeah, that should be no problem. That's not for three or four months. I look at my calendar. I got nothing on my calendar. Sure, I'll do that.

Speaker 1: 17:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:26

But we forget that in three or four months, my calendar is going to be filled up by then. Yeah, and I'm going to be, when that time comes around, to be like, why did I say yes to that? So her advice was to, when we're presented with something, think in our mind, pretend it's tomorrow and tomorrow my schedule is so full. If you're not like, if you're not thinking about that opportunity oh my gosh, this is so perfect for me. This is just right in line with my skill set and my passion, and, okay, I will figure out a way to make this work then you're gonna. If you don't feel that way about it, based on tomorrow, you're gonna. You're not gonna feel that way in two or three months.

Speaker 2: 18:14

So yeah, good point yeah, think about it in terms of it's happening. Now Am I willing to clear my schedule? And, for the most part, if you don't feel that way, that excitement and passion about it now, you need to just go ahead and say no, yeah, because it's not.

Speaker 1: 18:32

That is important. Yeah, I want to add something to that. And then maybe we can talk a little bit about the focus element of this. But I've heard, and when you're self-employed, you got to protect your time because otherwise your time's going to be given away and you're going to be asked to speak for free and at some point you got to say no to this. And then also you get a lot of people let's meet up for coffee or a virtual coffee, or I want to pick your brain and you got to protect your time on this.

Speaker 1: 18:57

So I've gotten in the habit of now saying let's do a, let's jump on a call. Sometime I'll say can you help me understand? What are your goals for the call? Are you looking for help using LinkedIn? Do you want to hear more about my services or is this just a get to know? You talk and I've gotten comfortable with the uncomfortable because I might feel a little weird. Did she just sell them Like they were just asking to get to know her? Yes, yes, I did, because I need to protect my time. I need to understand.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Is this just a get to know you conversation or is this? Do you want to learn more about working with me, I'll make priority, I'll make some time for that if you're interested in working with me. But if it's just a get to know you, angie, I don't know about you, but I will say, if it's where I do these every Friday, different groups I'll say come on out to my office hours, cause then you can network with me and other coaches or consultants. Or I'll say I'm really busy right now working on a couple of program launches. I'll have more time in February and then I'll give them a Calendly link where the first opening is February and, as I'm saying this is December, right now. So if they can wait two months to check to me, they'll schedule it, and a lot of times they just don't because it's not that prior, that high of a priority for them. And I think we need to protect our time. We need to keep our focus on what we're looking for, Otherwise it gets away with us. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 20:09

That is so true, and this is something that you hear a lot. When you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else.

Speaker 2: 20:16

And it is absolutely true, and the thing about it is what we are when we say yes to that thing that we maybe is not, that it's not a perfect match for us. The thing that we're saying no to is most likely the thing that's most important for us, the thing that is really our priority, and that's why I'm so passionate about talking about that. That thing that you're, that wants to be someone, wants to schedule, that thing is clutter. Now, that sounds harsh in a way, because this is a person reaching out to you, but if it's not lining up with your priorities and your goals, then it's cluttered and it's taking away from how what I'm trying to do that does align with my priorities and my goals.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Yeah, I love it. And which takes us to the second part of this conversation. We were talking about clearing the clutter, and you gave us some great ideas for clearing the clutter on our desktop and digitally, and even with our calendar. And just to reiterate this point that you've already made, which is helping us to find our focus and, I think, also to keep our focus, would you agree with that, angie? Yes, definitely.

Speaker 2: 21:21

Absolutely Back to physical clutter. I forgot to give my number one tip for physical. I always give this tip and it's it's such an effective one and it takes almost zero time. So and I encourage everyone to do this. So I call this daily decluttering, and when we talk about physical clutter of stuff, the way I define it really easily is just to ask two questions about this thing whether it's in your office or your kitchen or your bedroom, whatever, Do I love it? Do I use it? And if you cannot say with absolute certainty yes to both those questions, then likely it's clutter. So the way to incorporate daily decluttering is to have one container in an easy to access place in your home or office and as soon as you see anything that you don't love and use, stick it in the container and then, when it fills up, donate it.

Speaker 1: 22:19

I like that.

Speaker 2: 22:20

And then do it over and over. My husband and I. When we downsized into this little loft we're in now, we got rid of 75% of our belongings. Wow, hundreds and hundreds of things. We still do daily decluttering and fill up that container on a regular basis because as consumers, we are constantly bringing things in and so if things are out, then you're accumulating, and I could speak for hours about problems with accumulation in our culture, but that is very.

Speaker 1: 22:52

I've been following you on. I think it was on Instagram. When you're talking as we're talking today, it's Tuesday, december 12. We're getting into the holidays and it's the stopping. You know, flurry, and I think it was on your Instagram you were talking about things that you can give to people as gifts that aren't physical items, or accumulating things that we really don't need. Do you want to touch on that at all briefly?

Speaker 2: 23:16

Yes, absolutely. I am a big fan of prioritizing experiences over things, so concert tickets, museum or zoo memberships, a promise of a date together or whatever. I love wish lists on. I happen to use stircom but just a way to be able to give some ideas and get ideas so that you don't give clutter. I like gift cards. I like getting gift cards more than I like giving gift cards. But if it's somewhere that a person enjoys, then they're going to be excited about it.

Speaker 2: 23:56

But yeah, nobody wants to give or receive clutter for Christmas, and so it takes a lot of intentionality to prevent that.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Yeah, I'm going to type that in and I'm going to say nobody likes to give or receive clutter. And I'll just say as a gift, to cover folks that maybe celebrate different holidays and even I think too we might be this podcast might be published after the first of the year where we're getting into Valentine's day or mother's day or father's day or birthdays or things like that too, and I think that statement can really apply Nobody likes to give or receive clutter as a gift. I think that's a really good takeaway there.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Yeah, and when you think about what is the most precious commodity that we have, it is our time. Yeah, and so we, especially with my husband. Between the two of us, we have five aging parents that are still alive, that are local, and I think about now what I can give them, the thing I can give them that is most meaningful to them as time, and so to think about giving that, whether we're talking about the holidays or whatever, yeah, I can wrap something up and hand it to them. But if I know for my parents, if my sister and I say, ok, what we're getting you for Mother's Day is we're going to spend the day with you, oh, that's like the most amazing. That's more amazing than flowers or whatever.

Speaker 1: 25:21

Sweater, a new wrap or something, or whatever Sweater or a new wrap or something. So I want to change gears a bit here, angie, and just I'll invite our audience for those that are watching live, if you do have any questions to feel free to drop a comment below to ask a question or to add to the conversation. I am keeping my LinkedIn open in the background because I am getting some issues this morning with StreamYard not pushing the comments out, and I've also noticed and I'm going to look into this a bit we've got some automated services that are reposting the comments, which I've never seen this before. So I'm going to look into it One second here. Okay, I'm sorry, I pulled it through live stream and it started echoing in the background there, but at any rate, it's services, they're called live stream and they're like reposting, reposting reposting within the thread, which is a bit odd. I'm not sure how that came about, but I'll make sure to report those services to LinkedIn. But for those of you who might be watching this live, if you do have any questions or comments that you'd like to add to the conversation, feel free to drop them right now.

Speaker 1: 26:19

And I'm buying a little bit of time here, angie, because there's about a 30 second delay from the time I say, hey, do you have any questions? Drop them below to the time that people hear it, and then it might take them another 30 seconds to a minute to type in their comments or questions and then for them to get back to us. I'm buying a little bit of time on that. While I'm waiting for that, I got to ask I mean, I get into these patterns of clutter and cleanliness and right now I'm in the, my desk is like midpoint, like I really do need to probably do a cleaning of it, file things away, do the to-dos that need to be done, and then I always clean my desk off, like actually get cleaner out, and everything smells fresh and clean and light a candle when I'm done.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Some of us just struggle with this, despite our best actions of filing and getting systems and things like that in place. So what do you recommend? Is this something we should like plan once a week, once a month? If we're getting the clutter build up, how often should we be decluttering so that we can be focused on what we need to be focused on? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 27:17

Okay. So, as far as decluttering, use my daily decluttering habit where you're every time you see something you don't love and you stick it in the container, so that's an easy one. But this whole daily habit thing is just such a key to clutter prevention, especially in the home. Um, there are three habits that I like to talk about as far as daily habits to prevent clutter, that there's a author and podcaster I like, dana K White a slob comes clean is her podcast she talks about something called procrastinate clutter, which is things like the piles of dishes.

Speaker 2: 27:54

You never put up, the piles of laundry, you never put up the things that you just oh, let me just set it here for now. Eventually you you're going to put it, you know, and we keep doing that, day in, day out. Eventually the counters are full and the bed is full of clean clothes and the sink is full of dirty dishes. It's that daily, daily five minute pickup at the end of the day can do wonders and just closing the loop. Daily dishes get, actually get them in the cabinets. Don't use your drainer as a storage unit for your dishes. I'm, I put my clean clothes on the bed so I can't go to sleep until I put them up. It's just, oh goodness, the daily, daily. And the more you do it daily, in little, tiny increments, the less it will pile.

Speaker 1: 28:45

That's a good point. Yeah, what about for those of us who are solopreneurs and work from home? We've got a home office. What about the office clutter? Same approach there. Or like, at the end of the day I'm in the dogs, ready to go for walks, just bugging me and I make dinner again. I'd like to tidy up the office before I leave my work for the day, but the reality is I had to just get out of here. So what's your advice for us?

Speaker 2: 29:08

So, if the end of the day is not the ideal time to do it first thing and I really like to end my day, or begin my day, with my top three what am I wanting to really accomplish that day? And that's the only thing that I do physically on a piece of paper. Everything else I do digitally. But there's something about just either it coming into that list in the morning or, if I didn't do it the day before then, starting in the morning. Okay, here's my master to do list. But what is today? What is my thing for today? For me, having a clear surface of my desk really helps that. And so, end of the day, beginning of the day, just starting with that clarity of how am I going to use my time really does wonders.

Speaker 1: 29:58

Okay, good, I like that and I got a question that came in. Hey, monica, thanks so much for watching, and I see another one from Elizabeth. I'll read that one next. Monica says how do you deal with feeling overwhelmed, like maybe the clutter is just feeling so overwhelming and it just feels like a mountain? What's your advice for Monica and for others there?

Speaker 2: 30:16

I will have to say that feeling overwhelmed is probably the number one thing that people say to me if they call me for help, or and I get this feeling myself sometimes, and so it can be it can paralyze you. I think I have about two or three blog posts about this whole, the paralysis of overwhelms, and I guess it depends on what clutter category you're dealing with. But I'm just gonna deal with it from a physical, because it's the easiest to wrap our heads around and sometimes, when we are overwhelmed, I think there's also different ways you can approach it. Sometimes the paralysis is such that if I just take a step, just identify one thing okay, I'm completely overwhelmed. Where do I start?

Speaker 2: 31:05

Okay, for right now, this, the counter in my kitchen, the Island in my kitchen, is my hot zone. Yeah, clear this right here. And then you're like okay, get a little piece from that, and now I'm going to go to this area. That just starts. Something is one thing that I always say if you're overwhelmed with clutter through your entire house, a good way to start, start your daily decluttering container first.

Speaker 1: 31:30

I like that yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Another thing is start at your front door. Pretend that you are a guest. What is the first thing that guests see? Okay, all the shoes and the dog toys, yeah. So where would the guests go? They probably go in the living room or the kitchen. Yeah, but it cleared those areas and then you can like slowly work your way into the lesser seen areas. That's another way to approach it. So, just getting started, pick an area or use the visibility rules. Dana k white, start at the front door, work your way back or start with what is interfering with your daily life the most. Yeah, pick that thing and daily decluttering.

Speaker 1: 32:14

I like that. And another question came in from Elizabeth. For whatever reason, elizabeth Streamnear is not delivering the comment to me on screen here, so I'm just going to read it out. Elizabeth says any tips on digital clutter? We did talk about this a bit earlier, so I'll invite you, elizabeth, to watch the replay of the full show, but do you want to give us any highlights of digital clutter, angie?

Speaker 2: 32:34

Yeah, digital clutter, this is one. It's easier to ignore it because it's not staring us in the face. It's not like the physical clutter of our homes. But we get this little unsettled feeling like I know I've got so many emails. Email is a big one. Email and documents One big one. I'll say. For email, and this one sounds scary to people A very common one is an inbox with thousands and thousands 32,000.

Speaker 1: 33:01

I'm not embarrassed about it at all. I'm not proud of any of their book.

Speaker 2: 33:04

All right, my gosh, I'm going to tell you what I tell people with the inbox problem, so there may be some really important ones in there that you need to deal with.

Speaker 2: 33:15

Put a star by depending on what email system you're using, whether you're Gmail or Outlook or whatever. But here is a radical way to deal with this Select all, archive the whole box. Yes, now, why am I saying that? Because because what it's not gone, okay, when you do that, it's still there. It is searchable, and so many times we spend I'm guilty of this I spend hours creating all my folders, all this stuff. Yeah, I can easily find it based on who. It is something that's in the meat of the email and just, oh, and unsubscribing. Oh, my goodness, unsubscribe.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Yeah, that unsubscribe is a big thing. And the other I do too, angie, is when people subscribe me to their email newsletters and I haven't given them permission, what I will do. I look them up on LinkedIn, and I started doing this recently. I look them up on LinkedIn. If they're a new connection, I'm like, okay, that's how they got mine. So what I've been doing is I've been replying back to them and saying hey, angie, thanks for adding me to your newsletter on clutter.

Speaker 1: 34:22

I'll also add you to my newsletter on LinkedIn tips. You're going to do it to me, I'm going to do it to you, and then I think it might also reinforce the fact that they might think to themselves I didn't want you to add, you to be added to your list. Neither did I, and if they unsubscribe, that's fine, I'm fine with it. I will probably eventually unsubscribe from their topic if I'm not genuinely interested in it. I don't like to reward I don't want to say bad behavior, but I don't like to reward you taking advantage of putting my email address on there. But I think you need to protect your inbox. I think a little bit too right.

Speaker 2: 34:56

Yes, and sometimes people say, oh, it's easier to just delete, delete, delete. The thing is it might seem easier, but if you can unsubscribe then you don't have all the ones to delete. And people think it takes too long because when I click unsubscribe then it takes me to a website that said, oh, are you sure what about the easy emails that you might still want these? The thing is you don't have to go to that next step. Email subscriptions are required to be one click, just unsubscribe and move on. And the thing it usually takes you less time to deal with your digital clutter than you think. I recently went through all my emails and documents in my work drive and I thought this is going to be taking me like five hours. It took me like an hour.

Speaker 1: 35:41

Oh really, yeah, yeah, and sometimes it does just take creating the time and making that the focus to do. The decluttering has to be the focus sometimes. So, Angie, I want to pull up a couple things up on screen as we start to wind down our conversation. The first is I want to share your LinkedIn profile up on screen and, as I'm pulling that up, angie, are you open to connecting with people that are watching this show or listening to the podcast?

Speaker 2: 36:06

Absolutely yes. I would love to connect. I geek out over everything organizing productivity, time management, all that kind of stuff and I'm a big extrovert. So connecting absolutely yes to that.

Speaker 1: 36:19

All right, awesome. And for those that are listening to the podcast, her name is Angie Heisch. It's A-N-G-I-E-H-Y-C-H-E. The name of her company is Ship Shape Solutions. So if you're looking for on LinkedIn, look for Angie at ShipShape Solutions and then also, angie, tell us a little bit about the products and services that you offer, and as you do that, I'm going to pull up your website here. Your website is shipshapesolutions and then remind us, if folks want to work with you, what are the products and services that you offer.

Speaker 2: 36:51

Yes, so I'm a professional organizer, but I'm not working with clients in homes. I do a little bit of volunteer organizing for local nonprofits, but my focus right now is on speaking, writing and podcasting. I have one book that published December 2020 unholy mess with the Bible, says. My second book is publishing in June. It's called Uncluttered Shaping your Heart and Home for what Matters Most, which is also the name of my podcast that I have with co-host Leanna George. I love to speak about clutter, about time management, and I will travel to speak, so I've got a speaker page that shows all my signature presentations. So that's my writing and my speaking. My podcasting are my focus right now and you can find all that on my website.

Speaker 1: 37:45

Awesome. I'll prefer folks to go to shipshapesolutions. If you'd like to learn more, if you're watching this in the podcast or watching the playback later, we'll make sure to have this in the show notes for you. So, angie, it's such a delight You've inspired me. I'm going to do a little bit of cleaning. Today I'm doing a team training at 11. So I'm probably going to have to prep for that, but if I have a little bit of time left in between now and then, I may do some cluttering, and I just want to thank you so much for the inspiration and for sharing.

Speaker 2: 38:10

I can't wait to hear about how your whiteboard system works, and let me know whether it works If it doesn't. You and I will brainstorm and find something else for you.

Speaker 1: 38:21

I love it. Thank you so much, angie. Great advice, great inspiration for all of us. So, as we wind down our conversation today, I want to let you know that Angie and I are self-employed. We don't get performance reviews anymore, so if you liked this show, we would love to hear some feedback from you. Go ahead and drop us a comment now and let us know if you found this discussion helpful. We'd love to hear that feedback from you and, angie. I'm going to direct you over to LinkedIn, if you're able to. Afterwards there was a couple more comments that had come in.

Speaker 1: 38:47

Due to the delay, we weren't able to get to everything here today, but I'll direct Angie to check out for those and then also for if you're watching this, whether you're watching this in live or in playback, as soon as the video's done playing, you're gonna see a share button at the bottom of it and go ahead and click on share and you could reshare it as a LinkedIn post and tell people why they should watch the video. When you do tag in Angie and myself and remember to tag you use the little at sign and you type in at ShipShape Solutions for Angie and at Brenda Muller for me, and then we'll get notified that you've tagged us in a post, we'll jump in on the conversation and thank you for that. It's a really great technique if you're struggling with what to post and you haven't yet posted this week, this month or maybe even this year, so we can help you to think of some great content items. And with all of that said, I'll remind you that we're doing this show enthusiastically self-employed, or enthusiastically self-employed through the end of the year.

Speaker 1: 39:41

At 9.05 am on Tuesdays. I will be taking a little break for the holiday and then, when I relaunch again in January, I'm going to be doing a time shift to 12.05 pm on Tuesdays. And, angie, I'm hoping I'll see you at the next Innovation Women. We do a Speaker Friends Friday. Will you be there this Friday? I think so. Yeah, I think I'm going to be able to join. Good, I think I'll be there too, and I'll make sure to share a link to the playback to watch it. Our fellow women can check in, check out that link and watch the playback of this. No-transcript.