#139| Why Organization is the Key to Productivity (Even if You Think You’re Not Good at It!): Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing

Do you ever feel like you're drowning in clutter or wasting time hunting for files you know you saved somewhere? 

If you’re a working woman constantly juggling life, business, and family while feeling buried under chaos—this conversation with organization expert Tracy Hoth is your lifeline. You'll discover how clutter (physical or digital) might be stealing your time and sanity, and what you can do today to finally take control. 

In this episode, you will:

• Learn a 5-step method to get organized in a way that actually sticks—whether it's your home, inbox, or business.
• Discover the mindset shift that makes decluttering feel empowering instead of overwhelming.
• Find out how to create lasting systems that save you time, reduce stress, and make everything easier to find.
  
  

 Press play now and start organizing your life with simple steps that even self-proclaimed “messy people” can follow and love. 

Featured on the podcast
SimplySquaredAway.com
The Organized Coach Podcast 
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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.

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Chapters

• 5:36 What Being Organized Really Means
• 8:00 The Five-Step SPASM Method
• 16:10 Applying the SPASM Method to Digital Files

Transcript

Michelle Gauthier: 0:00

If my whole house is clean at the same time, I feel like I can solve world hunger, whatever needs to happen. I got this. You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:40

Hello friend, I'm glad you're here today. I have a great guest for you today Tracy Hoth. She's a professional organizer with 17 years of experience and in today's conversation, she's going to give us the scoop on some simple, practical ways to get organized without the overwhelm. So she's going to teach you her five-step organizing method that works for everything from your closet to your digital files, to even the way that you're thinking about things. She's going to share the biggest mistake people make when trying to get organized and what to do instead, and how small, daily organizing habits can save you time and reduce your stress every day.

Michelle Gauthier: 1:16

So if you feel like you just weren't born with the organization gene. This episode will change the way you think about organizing. Let's dive in. Tracy and I were just having a side conversation before you all joined us, before I hit record about how we kept circling around each other and our names kept coming up to each other and we just feel like we were meant to connect. So I'm really excited to have you as a guest today. Thanks, Tracy, for being on.

Tracy Hoth: 1:41

I'm so glad to be here and it was fun. We're from the same place. We've lived in the same three states. Yes, I mean, what are?

Michelle Gauthier: 1:50

the chances of that happening so weird? Yes, and I feel like I pitched to be on your podcast and did you pitch to be on mine? I can't remember. I think we were like simultaneously trying to get each other to be guests on our podcast. So it's just fun. Here we are, here we go, here we are. Yes, so will you tell us a little bit about your business and who you help, and then we'll jump into some some questions.

Tracy Hoth: 2:13

Yes, I have been helping people regular people, anybody get organized for 17 years. I've been a professional organizer going into people's homes and offices and businesses. I've been a professional organizer going into people's homes and offices and businesses and in 2017, I found life coaching and continued working online and in person with people to help them get organized, and I started a program called Organized Life Academy where I help people declutter. We're on our fifth year. We go over. Like some years, we focus on decluttering, some organizing, we have book clubs, we just do all sorts of things. This year, we're focused on routines and decluttering different areas of our home.

Tracy Hoth: 2:54

And then, about two or three years ago, because of my own experience starting an online business and feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff, I started having to apply like go back literally through my five steps and put it in place for my online business, for all the digital stuff and the time and all of that being in a whole different environment. So I did that for myself and I thought, oh my goodness, other people that are not, that don't know the steps, that aren't naturally organized or have never felt like they were good at it how in the world are they running their businesses? So now I also help people organize and systemize the back end of their business so they can find everything they need in seconds. Okay, that's great.

Michelle Gauthier: 3:46

I bet that could probably work just for someone's work as well. You know, if you're just working at a job and you can't find anything, you don't know where your files are, you're disorganized in your process. I bet that could help just about anyone A hundred percent.

Tracy Hoth: 3:59

And that is so true because even my bookmarks bar, which is one of my favorite time-saving, the biggest return on investment if you organize your bookmarks bar, your favorites bar I learned from my son and he was just working in a regular job and he was like look, mom, and I said, wow, look at that, that is amazing. I want to do that and it has literally been one of my favorite things.

Michelle Gauthier: 4:22

So yes, yeah, and that could work anywhere. One of my kids has like trouble staying super organized or really organized at all. Like his brain just isn't made that way. And having that bookmarks bar for him for Google, classroom and all the things that he needs to go to every day it sounds like such a small thing, but if you could add up all the time wasted to trying to find stuff, it's, it's amazing. Yes, I listened.

Michelle Gauthier: 4:46

I was listening to the episode of your podcast where you talk about like 10 things that you could do to get organized, and you guys should go listen to that episode. It was really good and, by the way, she says in there just choose one. You don't have to do all 10 things to get organized. But when I was listening to him, I was like this is the sister of my heart. Yes, you had some great ideas I hadn't thought of and some that I was like, yes, that is amazing. I totally agree with you on that. So where should we start? If you think about our audience here, we've got an audience of women who are working and feeling overwhelmed, and something that I consistently hear from them is that staying organized and decluttering is something that can helps their overwhelm continue. So where should we start? What kind of tips or what should we talk?

Tracy Hoth: 5:36

about. I think the first place to start that's helpful is to just define what being organized means. Okay, Because organization just means that you know what you have and you can find it when you need it.

Tracy Hoth: 5:51

Now I did listen to your episode where you're saying that your dad said you have bins within bins and they're all color coded, which totally is great, and once you get to that level, that is perfect and it's so fun and it feels so good. But to begin with, being organized just means that you know what you have and you can find it, and people in your household can find it as well, so it helps to you know. Add some labels so they know where things are too. But once you think of it like that, it's not. Like does my space compare to the pictures I see on Instagram and then always feeling bad about yourself. So it doesn't have to look like those pictures, it doesn't have to look like anybody else. But if you know what you have and you can find it, then you can feel good about it. You have evidence that you are organized.

Michelle Gauthier: 6:40

Yes, I love that. That's so good. And just last night, yesterday, we had a snow day here and I was like I've got to get out of this house and so I went where is a great time to get out of the house and kill time? Marshall's and I walked around and I saw this cutest white like puffer vest and I was thinking that would be so cute with black leggings and a black T-shirt under. And I'm going to get it. And I came home and I showed it to my daughter and she's like mom, don't you remember that, like two months ago, you just got one of those? Like you found it on Facebook marketplace and you were so excited. And I went to my closet and, sure enough, there it was. And I was like this is a sign. Anytime I don't remember that I already own something. It's time to declutter my coat closet, cause I did not know that I had that. I mean, I knew when she reminded me. But and then she's like are you losing your mind, mom?

Michelle Gauthier: 7:27

Like not helpful, and maybe because yes, I love that definition because when I do feel super organized, I have a single of everything. I don't have duplicates of stuff and I know where their home is and I know where to find them. So I love that. That's a great definition. So people say right now, like if someone says to you I'm just not organized, or I just don't have the skills to organize, or what, what do you say back to that? Do you believe that's a skill that can be learned?

Tracy Hoth: 8:00

100 percent. Yes, it's a skill, and I have five steps that I've used for 17 years and they literally work with every single thing, meaning physical stuff, digital stuff, your mind If your mind feeling overwhelmed, this works for that, it works for planning a project and looking at your calendar. It works for everything. And so the acronym spells SPASM - very goofy and I don't know what I was thinking when I did this, but I've never changed it just for that reason, because it's memorable. Yes, but when your muscle has a spasm, you can go. Think of organizing.

Tracy Hoth: 8:40

Yes, but the first step to organizing is to sort, and so you don't have to make any decisions. And that's the key to this step is that you just begin to sort. So, let's say, your desk is really piled with stuff, or your kitchen counter. You just pick something up and put it in a category, like with like. So you have office supplies, you have pens, you have paper, you have maybe a pile would be elsewhere in the house so you just start sticking things in piles and then until the space is cleared, and then you go to the next stage, which is to purge.

Tracy Hoth: 9:17

The next step of the reason why we sort first is so that when we do begin to make decisions, we can see everything that we have. So one time I helped a lady sort her or organize her closet and she, if I would have went in and pulled out a white short sleeve t-shirt, she would have said like no, I wear that all the time. But when we sorted she had 19 white short sleeve t-shirts. But when we sorted she had 19 white short-sleeved t-shirts. And then, you see, so now she can make decisions when. If we go in there and we try to make decisions first, it just doesn't happen.

Michelle Gauthier: 9:53

That is such a great example, that makes so much sense and that makes me feel less bad about my two white vests, because I didn't have 19, but I probably have seven vests.

Tracy Hoth: 10:07

How many days a year can you actually wear one? Yes, and that's a great thing, speaking of closets to pull out all your jeans everywhere in the whole house and then you can purge that one pile so you don't have to dump all your clothes in the entire house in one spot and sort them. You can just do jeans one day, short sleeve shirts that weekend, and you can keep going on that process and get something organized in a less overwhelming, less time consuming way, where, in the middle of it, you're stuck and you're like wait, oh, I'm too tired now. This is stupid.

Michelle Gauthier: 10:40

Why did I even do this Totally been there the first time I read the life changing magic of tidying up that's the thing that she says to do is like get every single thing out and I had it all over the bed and then I couldn't go to sleep and I had to push it on the floor and it was like a two week thing. It was such a mess. So I love that, just piece by piece doing it, yeah, and when you're pulling, it out.

Tracy Hoth: 11:01

sort it too, because I think that's better. And her show? She just put a whole pile on the bed. I'm like, oh my gosh, please at least sort it when you pull it out, so that it's in categories, yeah. And then that next step is to purge. So now you have everything in that category and now you can make decisions. One of my favorite things is to use the favorites method, where you choose your favorite thing out of that. What pen do you use all the time? What style of planner do you like? What vest do you wear all the time? And then you can go to the other things and make decisions.

Michelle Gauthier: 11:33

Yes, I love that. That's so good and it's like shifts your mindset into what do I want to keep, instead of being so focused on what am I giving away? I love that.

Tracy Hoth: 11:43

And with kids especially too. When you say, what do you want to give away, what should we get rid of? Immediately, you can just feel them shrink up like grasping for their stuff because they think you're going to get rid of it. So it's so helpful. I agree, yes.

Michelle Gauthier: 11:56

Kids are. They are just built in little hoarders and I don't understand why when mine were little and I would get ready to give away some toys, even to their cousins, I'd try to sell it like it's just going to be at Jocelyn's house, you can play with it again. But then all of a sudden it would be like their favorite thing ever. Like a broken McDonald's Happy Meal toy was like their pride and joy. So I love that. That's such a great tip. Okay, so we've got the S, the P, the A.

Tracy Hoth: 12:23

The A. Now that you know what you're keeping, you assign homes to the things that you're keeping, and so that's the puzzle part of it. Like what do you use the most? It needs to be the most accessible. What do you? What kind?

Tracy Hoth: 12:39

One of the things I like to do is work in zones, and so you would have the home for that item be where you use it. Like maybe all the baking stuff is together near the counter where you bake, or maybe you have a reading zone where you have books and stuff you want to read, and a lamp and a you know your pens or whatever all in one spot. So think about a zone and then also think about what needs to be accessible. When you're deciding where the home is needs to be accessible, when you're deciding where the home is, and then the S is set limits. Now this is sounds like one of your favorite things. This is the container step, where you go out and you find containers for things. So this could be a bookshelf, it could be a drawer, it could be the drawer divider or a basket, anything that helps you contain it or set a limit on it. And I call it set limits because it's going to give you the signal that it's time to go back through the steps when the limit is reached.

Tracy Hoth: 13:36

Oh, I like that, yeah, so your socks start overflowing the section of the drawer and then you realize, ok, it's time for me to go through those and get rid of a few.

Michelle Gauthier: 13:47

I love that. That's such a great visual too that you can think about it Like if you have a little bin for I don't know something in the kitchen baking stuff, we have a little bin for baking stuff and, yeah, it needs to be it needs a second look right now.

Tracy Hoth: 14:02

Yes, and if you have an inbox for paper and it's overflowing, then it's your signal. You need to get in there and go through the paper. Go do it, I love it. And do not buy any containers before you get to step four of the organizing process, because you don't know what you need, you don't know where the home is going to live and what size container you need. And then the final step is to maintain. So, just like our gardens, our weight, our laundry, like everything needs maintenance, and so I like to say tie it to something that you already do. So tax time comes, you know you're going to do that. Also, go through your file cabinet or paper wherever you keep that, and clean it out from the year or seasons especially with kids, seasons are a good time or the beginning of school, end of school, to go through closets. That kind of thing is helpful. To tie things, tie maintenance to stuff you already do.

Michelle Gauthier: 14:59

Okay, that's good, and I can just imagine, thinking down the line, if you clean out your paperwork once a year when you do your taxes, versus 10 years of not doing it, and then how long that's going to take. It's like spend 10 minutes or spend four hours later on on doing it.

Tracy Hoth: 15:17

Yes, or avoid it for 30 years. One of my clients just said she she's done more in a month than she has in 30 years. Because I think you have a plan. You're told OK, this is what we're decluttering this month, this is what we need to work on, and then she's doing it. It's so fun and she knows the steps done.

Michelle Gauthier: 15:43

Yes, and I bet that really helps when you have people in your group so that they can celebrate and get encouragement and share wins and all that stuff. That's just always so, so much more encouraging when you're trying to get stuff done.

Tracy Hoth: 15:50

Yes, I love it.

Michelle Gauthier: 15:52

I love your method. It's so simple and straightforward. Let's now that now that the audience kind of understands what the steps are, will you just take us through an example of, say, I don't know email or some other way that they could apply it, and just run through all five steps again?

Tracy Hoth: 16:10

Yeah, let's go through it with their computer. Okay, so you get on your computer and I like to think of so there's two concepts I would teach with. This is the power of one, or I call it the wonderful one is to decide the one location that something's going to live. And so on your computer it would be your computer, possibly, or it would be an external hard drive or a cloud storage You're going to decide the one place that everything's going to live and then you're going to. First step is to sort. Now with paper or with your schedule.

Tracy Hoth: 16:48

You always try to sort into categories, so you might have some categories you already think of with your digital files or with paper that you're going to sort into. There's files, so I think of a funnel, and when something comes into your computer, if you have a business, you'd have a business file. If you have just home, it would be home. So then let's just look at the home. I have five files for business that I teach people. But if people don't own a business, let's look at home.

Tracy Hoth: 17:18

What are the things that you need in home that you would probably have a category of? There would be family, so I like to label really broad. There would be a family file, maybe health, maybe money, and so you have family, health, money, and let's see what else you would have. Don't make too many categories ahead of time. And then you just take every file on your computer and you sort them into those categories and then you go back through each of those and you decide what do I want to keep, what do I want to get rid of? Sometimes you want to rename something if it doesn't even have a name, and you can go through then the steps you would assign, homes to subfolders possibly, and in that case the limit is actually your storage. How many people have had a computer that isn't running because the storage is full.

Michelle Gauthier: 18:10

They're like nope, you have too much crap on here.

Tracy Hoth: 18:14

A lot of podcasts.

Michelle Gauthier: 18:15

You know this a lot of podcasts makes up a lot of space on a computer.

Tracy Hoth: 18:19

Yes, so you know that's your signal to go back, or a lot of people would just add some more storage, but you could go back through then and purge and keep it nice and cleaned up.

Michelle Gauthier: 18:31

I love that I love it. So same concept, same could be true for your schedule anything really in life you could just use those five steps, okay, so I want to ask you the two questions that I ask everyone who's a guest on this show, and I feel like you'll have some great answers for this because of your line of work but tell us one thing that you can do to make yourself feel less overwhelmed.

Tracy Hoth: 18:56

Oh, this is perfect because the first step to anything when you're feeling overwhelmed is to sort. So I would sort everything that's in my mind and I like doing this by putting things on a piece of paper so it might be calls I need to make computer work, I need to do things for my business, I need to do home things or family things, and then thoughts as well. Sort all that out on paper and get it out there and then follow the organizing steps For the purge process of those categories. I like to think is there anything here I can delay? I'm not even thinking about it this month, or for 30 days or for the week, or whatever.

Tracy Hoth: 19:38

Delay, delegate Is there anything I can delegate? Is there anything for sure I know I can delete? And then, finally, what am I on here? Am I actually going to do? And same with thoughts? You can delegate those thoughts to after 5 pm. You do not think those until after 5. Or you're going to delete that thought or you're going to delay that until next month, or whatever it is you're going to delete that thought, or you're going to delay that until next month, or whatever.

Michelle Gauthier: 20:03

it is yes, perfect. And then what do you end up with at the end, like the list of things that you really need to do and you feel clear about it. Is that the end result?

Tracy Hoth: 20:11

Yes, the end. After I purge those categories and then I assign homes to those, then they would go on my calendar, the thoughts that I want to think. Maybe would go in my journal, or I'd put them on a spot on my calendar, even like, make sure I go think these thoughts and then my piece of paper is gone, everything's assigned home and I do. Yes, my shoulders drop. I can feel it already.

Michelle Gauthier: 20:36

Yeah, Just even talking about it Relaxed. Yeah that's great. And then the other question that I always ask is what's something that you do in order to do less?

Tracy Hoth: 20:48

The main thing that I love the most that I have done to do less is to have a cleaning lady come in and clean my house.

Michelle Gauthier: 20:58

Yes, yes, clean my house.

Tracy Hoth: 21:00

Yes, yes, now purge or declutter could be part of that, but it has. It is the most like. I don't know why I waited so long. Well, probably because we were on a really tight budget. But it is been the biggest joy and I love her so much to have the entire house cleaned at one time and me never have to think about cleaning again.

Michelle Gauthier: 21:23

Yes, it's amazing. And do you feel guilty about it? No, I'm like why?

Tracy Hoth: 21:31

Why would I feel guilty?

Michelle Gauthier: 21:32

I'm always encouraging people to outsource things, and I find that for them to think about getting someone to clean their home. For some of my clients, they feel guilty, they feel bad about it, they feel like they should be able to do it themselves. So I was just wondering if you struggled with that or if, as soon as you had the budget for it, you were like I'm doing this. I'm doing it?

Tracy Hoth: 21:55

No it is so much joy and, if you think about it, you're giving someone else an opportunity to earn money for their family and you have so much time to do other things. It's the best thing in the world, yeah especially for someone.

Michelle Gauthier: 22:09

I'm speaking for myself here, but I bet you're the same way. I have a very low tolerance for clutter and a mess, and so if my whole house is clean, at the same time I feel like I can solve world hunger, whatever needs to happen. I got this, and so just the mindset that it puts me in and the things that I can get done when I know, for example, that my bathroom that I can't even kind of see from here is clean, it's just crazy how it works.

Tracy Hoth: 22:35

I love how you said that. I've never heard it like that before.

Michelle Gauthier: 22:38

That is so good heard it like that before. That is so good, yes, yes, okay. So where can people find you if they want to learn more about your program or anything else about you.

Tracy Hoth: 22:50

Yeah, my website is called simplysquaredawaycom. That's been my business name for 17 years, so you can go on there. You can find my personal course called Organized Life Academy. If you're a coach or if you have an online business, you can find Organized Coach Academy on there, and then my website or my podcast, the Organized Coach. I talk a lot about business stuff, but I also talk a lot about personal stuff, so it overlaps and you can learn a lot on the podcast.

Michelle Gauthier: 23:23

Yes, it's a great podcast. I love it. So thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for being on. Thanks to the universe for bringing us together giving us those nudges. It was great to meet you.

Tracy Hoth: 23:36

Nice to be here, Michelle. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Michelle Gauthier: 23:47

Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegothiercom. See you next week.