EP 242 Decluttlering to Lessen Your Mental Load with Guest Bridget Flynn
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Hello, bold goal crushers. I'm very excited about this episode because we've been talking about all things business. And today we're going to talk about business and home decluttering. So I want to introduce you to my guest, Bridget. She's the owner Of divine organizing, a boutique home organizing firm that focuses on closets, home offices, and residential moves.
And she clears stress [00:01:00] and clutter by creating systems tailored to her clients needs. As an intuition coach, Bridget believes that clutter can block the connections to intuition and teaches her clients to clear clutter and listen to their inner voice. She lives in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and serves clients all across the U.
S. I am so excited to talk to you about this topic. I know when I saw you in our little group Momentum, I knew I had to have you on the show, so I'm so excited to jump in. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Perfect. So you are in business of, and you help people declutter their homes, their lives, their businesses and everything.
How did you get into this? I started my business in 2014. I was out in Silicon Valley. The Mecca of tech and business and startups and entrepreneurs and I've always had a love of homes and of creating [00:02:00] homes. And I had a friend who said, you're so good at this. Why don't you try it out in my home?
And I'll spread the word if you're good. And I was good. And I got to work in the homes of some of the top Silicon Valley angel investors down to like students who, who are like, I have 300. What can we do? I've served them all. And I just, I love the process of. of hearing people's stories and getting to know them, seeing how the clutter was created, connecting it to the stories that they're telling me and everything and helping them to clear it out.
And then I moved back home to Connecticut and and set up shop here five years ago. Wow. What a cool story. I'm sure you've seen lots of things and I'm also sure that people, there's like this thing where people clean up their home before the cleaning lady comes. I'm also sure that you've seen some people who are maybe a little embarrassed or not very excited to have somebody come into their home.
Can you put some, [00:03:00] put our listeners at ease about that? Oh, yes. Yes, I can. I do advocate cleaning up before the cleaning lady comes. I do that. But when it comes to your home organizer coming into your home, we don't care. We just want to help. We're in service. We're there to serve you, to help you, to understand you, and and to solve a problem that you have.
So if you, it's a judgment free zone. Any good organizer will say, don't worry, no judgment, and there is no judgment. I go into a home and I see all the stuff all over the place. It tells me a story. I don't want you to clean up. I don't want you to hide things. It's you're very vulnerable when you invite somebody to come in and like root around your underwear drawer root around your junk drawers, we see the intimate details of your lives and it takes trust and a leap of faith to hire a home organizer.
But you there is no [00:04:00] judgment. I look at that mess. And I'm just like, I just want to transform it. Just give it to me. I'm happy to see it. I'm happy to see it. It probably does allow you to see more of the story of how they got there. Like when they straighten things up or put things in a different place, it may paint a different picture, but if they could actually see where it typically lies, if you could actually see that it's probably easier to piece together what a solution that may work for them.
Yes, it shows me how you think and function. So I from day one was all about setting up intuitive systems of organization, meaning that I will streamline what I see happening here. So if I see that you were always dropping your hats and gloves, keys and everything in one spot in the kitchen, I will notice that and I will ask you why you do that.
And if you're like it's just the easiest path to the door, I'm like, great, let me put a [00:05:00] bin right here for you, a little cute little basket, just to support that, rather than making you like, or a whole new system, like I'm going to hang hooks by the door, you're going to do this, if the client wants that, I will do it, I give them the option, but it's really all about supporting how you already think and function, and I need to see that going in.
Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great point. I think that's where a lot of times we as business owners, as leaders, as women we have all these systems and things that work for us and sometimes don't, but it's really about finding the system that will work around you and your family and in your business life.
Yes. A thousand percent. Yes. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about the impacts of having clutter or things not in an organized fashion? What are the impacts that has on our lives? Yes. So [00:06:00] especially for women, our clutter speaks to us. We are always in communication with our stuff. So we have, we see things in our periphery really well.
We're biologically wired to do that. It goes back to the hunter gatherer days, where you need to know that the berries that you can eat are down by the river, on this on the slope next to this tree. And the bad berries. Are on. We're four feet away. Don't eat those berries. So it goes back to those days that we are just constantly absorbing our environment.
And it is a huge distraction, because even here now I've got pens all over the side here, and I'm like don't clean those up, Bridget, just focus on Sarah, talk here. So our clutter is very distracting and and it's always asking us to do something, to. It's asking us to be put away put me away.
It is reminding us that we have we have this breakthrough to do. It [00:07:00] is it's also aesthetically not pleasing. And to me, as someone who's focused on the energy, like creating home is also about the energy of home. And clutter that piles up in the corners that sits there for weeks or months and years.
I've seen that happen. It blocks the, it blocks your connection and it blocks the flow of the energy in the home. It makes it stale. Wow. And then how does that impact, like if somebody's working from home, how does that impact them? It's hard to focus when you've got, it's like having four kids all vying for your attention in a way.
It's really, it's distracting and it's hard to focus. That's the main thing because let's say you're focusing on your work, and then you want to, um, you get up to use the restroom, right? So you're just like, oh, I'll just take my, this bowl here, it's been sitting there, and I'm going to put it in the living room where I've been wanting to put it, and then you put it there, and then you're like, oh, I, [00:08:00] oh, shoot, I forgot to fold the blankets, so you fold the blankets, and before you know it you are just you're Taking care of your house from one end to the other, or you're making a phone call, you're sending a text message, and then half an hour has gone by and you are just distracted. Get back into all you need to do is go to use the restroom, but now half an hour has passed and you have to get back into the flow of focus.
And that is hard. Once you've been distracted. Yeah, and you talked a little bit about how it's like the mental load. It's Oh, I need to do something about, you mentioned pens on your desk, or I need to do something about that. And then it clogs it really takes a toll, but it clogs up our brain.
So we're not able to focus. How does one get started? Because I think about it and I'm like, it's overwhelming to even think about organizing. Organizing always starts with decluttering. You have to get rid of what no longer works, what no longer serves you in your home, what's no [00:09:00] longer you. If we're talking just a short I'm going to give myself five minutes to declutter because I'm going insane.
This is driving me nuts. Then I just recommend setting a time, I do this for myself. Set a timer for five minutes and I will just put things away. Push, push push, push. It works for me. I can clear a room in five minutes because I already have systems in place like it works, because we're human.
There's always going to be mess. I'm not saying like we have to live in these like sparkling minimalist, minimalist homes. That is not my vibe. But it is about having systems in place already to support us so that, you have that pile of paper sitting on your desk. You're like, all right, I'm just going to take five minutes and file them.
You already have a file system in place. Boom boom. You can open your desk drawer. You can drop your headphones, your Bluetooth whatever, your mouse into the tech side of your drawer. You can drop your pens and your post its into the post it side of your [00:10:00] drawer. Then everything else can just go in.
It's really about having systems in place to help you. Yeah. Yeah. Then it's hard. And if somebody has, no systems or they're looking for new systems where could they start? What would you suggest? Everybody actually has. I call it like organized chaos. Anybody who's really messy understands this.
But you already are organized. You keep your pens all in one spot. You keep all your money stuff in one spot. I have a freebie and I call it the, it's the five minute decluttering challenge. It's an intuitive decluttering challenge. And it's designed to help people understand like what to keep and what to let go of because that's where a lot of my clients get hung up because you can organize something for just like five minutes, in a room, but then there's the overarching decluttering question of, I don't even know where to begin to declutter my home.
And so this five minute decluttering challenge [00:11:00] helps you to quickly just decide if it's going to stay or it's going to go and all you do is you hold it. I take my lipstick, right? I'm like, all right, it's actually I love this color. Okay, great color. So I am, I'm going to hold it. And I'm just going to say, all right.
I'm holding it, feeling it, and I get the instant answer of do I keep it or do I toss it? Do I let it go? Is it yes, no, or a maybe? All right, so I, but I have to trust that initial reaction. I have to respond to it, so I have to do what it says, and that helps me. Me and whoever does this to trust their intuition and to build that connection more.
I am a firm believer in the connection between our clutter and our intuition, our clutter and our mental load. And so I hold this lipstick and it says, I'm like, yes, it makes me happy. I love it. I'm going to keep it. It goes in the key, this pink pen, this pink Sharpie, same thing. It's Oh, this color.
No, [00:12:00] actually I it's dried up. I don't need it off. It goes. So it's always, it's just, it's very small ways. Helping you to one declutter to build a connection with your intuition. Three, trust yourself. All that. Yeah, and I think there's so many things that we collect in life like I also have a pink sharpie Which is funny if you're watching on YouTube, it's right here.
I have three here do I need three? I'm not sure if I need three and so sometimes things just build up so I'd love that really ask people to trust their intuition because I never heard anybody say we all have a system. It's just organized chaos. And we know what to do. Everybody knows how to organize.
It's just sometimes overwhelming, like where do we get started? And so I like this process of really trusting ourselves to be able to do it.
How do I ask this? So if somebody's [00:13:00] like house is out of control and they don't know, they don't know if they could or should hire somebody, how would somebody go about making that decision? So if your house is out of control and you're like, do I hire an organizer or do I not? I think the question of hiring someone can often just be daunting.
So maybe it's let me just talk to some organizers and See what's up, see what's available, see how they work, see if this is something that I can do, and you'll learn a lot in that process. Cause every organizer is different. I love to focus on helping women in business, especially in their home offices and their wardrobes.
And Because I am too. I'm a woman in business with an office and a wardrobe. I love that stuff. So that's my focus. But every organizer has their own focus. So talk to some, see who you jive with, it really is that jive, that's the most, it's that connection, that's the most important thing.
And I know every organizer is [00:14:00] different, but what might somebody expect, like what does an organizer do when they come into the home? Like how does that process work? So an organizer should always perform a consultation. Some of them do it just through photos. I like to be in the house again, because I want to feel the energy of the space.
I want to see what you have. You can always expect that consultation to, to have some questions about how it, how the clutter accumulated, tell me what's going on here. Tell me, what are your biggest problems? What kind of a solution are you looking for? How do you want to feel in your home? Every organizer will, 90% of us will declutter and organize for you.
There are some that just focus on decluttering and they don't give you the systems, but most organizers will declutter the home for you and with you, and then they'll set you up with systems of organization. So that you can, that will help to eradicate the clutter and keep it away.[00:15:00]
And you can always expect a no judgment zone. I love that. So somebody comes in, they take a look at what's going on. They help to create like a new pattern or system. What would a client do then to maintain that? Like, how do you advise clients to, to really adapt that new way of living? I say give yourself two weeks to really adapt to it and just, and follow the system.
So no one's perfect. So I always abide by the 80 20 rule. 80 percent of the time, you'll follow the system. If you catch yourself not doing it, then just go back, correct, and put your keys in the right spot. Pull that paper out, put it in the right folder. It's very easy to get lazy and let your old habits come back in.
But when you have a space that is just so perfectly set up for how you work, it is almost a joy. As I've heard from my clients, it is a joy to use the [00:16:00] systems, to use the beautiful supplies that I've given them. So work it for two weeks and then see what needs to be tweaked. I always say give yourself the five minute reset.
So if room is out of control, you can just take five minutes and then boom, put things away. It's, All it takes is five minutes. Cause when you can winnow down the task into a timeframe, I think we're all eight year olds at heart, it's I bet you can't do it in five minutes.
Here I go. So yeah, it's just, it's a very simple reward to get to even do some of it in five minutes. So I really recommend just a reset. Yeah. And I love that you break things down into five minutes cause you can do almost anything in five minutes. My mom has this quote of saying that everything is really a five minute job.
And I, yeah. We put it off. And so we put it off for like weeks, but it's really, once you sit down and do it, it's really only a five minute job. It's how that came about. [00:17:00] And it really takes the pressure away. Sometimes I think about organizing for myself and I'm like, Oh, that's an all day thing to clean out the garage or that's an all day thing.
And it doesn't, yeah. have to be. It could be one section or one table in the garage, and I'm going to take five minutes, I'm going to straighten that, and then move on. So I love that idea of breaking it down into five minute jobs. And when they're, when it comes to those larger projects is they seem endless, yeah. And like when you say all day what is all day to you? Is it nine to five? Is it 10 hours? Is it, I'm just gonna keep going until it's finished? That is overwhelming and draining. In that instance. I would always recommend you do what the professionals do, which is our days are six hours.
And that like studies show that is the most amount of time that that a person can actually be productive after six hours, our productivity significantly dips. So there's no point in [00:18:00] hauling trash bags after six hours, just not in a good space. No you get cranky after that, no matter how many good tunes you've got going or how icy cold the lemonade is or snacks you've got going on, it's gonna suck.
After six hours, you're just done. Your body's done. Your mind is done. Your spirit is done. So in order to maintain your momentum into the next day for an ongoing project, like a garage or an attic or a basement clean out, or even your wardrobe, if you're doing it yourself maximum six hours and then just shut the door on it away.
Yeah, and I'm sure you have so many tips and facts, but what are some things that maybe are not as well known that you use to organize spaces? So I. Get down to the nitty gritty. And cause I have to get down, every last thing has to be organized. So I create categories and this is something that like, what a lot of people don't do when they're [00:19:00] decluttering.
They'll just like throw it somewhere and then it. It immediately gets lost in another shuffle because I just created another shuffle. So one is when you're decluttering, always create categories. I use post its and sharpies and I create distinct categories. So if I'm going through, yes, give me a pink sharpie every day.
So if Sarah, if we're organizing your wardrobe, we're going to create a skirts category, right? So we'll just put, we'll have summer skirts. We'll have fall skirts. It'll go by the season or it can be short skirts or long skirts, whatever you've got, you just see what you've got, you organize it into categories.
And there from there, you can really see everything that you have, see what you love, see what needs to be mended. And you can really take care of your wardrobe and yourself in that way. That's one tip. Another tip is to follow the acronym called Ohio only handle it once. And I do this myself. I find myself saying Ohio Bridget, Ohio, because it's so [00:20:00] easy to pick up something like, Oh, I have to call Tommy and then I have to write this check and I do that.
And then you just like when you put it down, because you don't want to deal with it. It's No, write a note on a poster that says, call Tommy right check and then put it in your to do file, you don't have to do it right now, but just give yourself actions. And that is key is always to give yourself an action because you will follow a command more than you will think about something.
So makes it a lot easier. That's a great tip. I love the Ohio acronym. It works really well for email too. Many times we peruse things and we, we don't actually have time to do them. Like we'll be sitting there and Bob's asking us for a spreadsheet and we're sitting in the doctor's office. And then. Then we don't send Bob the spreadsheet because we don't have a computer to do that.
And then we forget about it and then we're like, Oh, I got to get back to Bob. And by the time we actually do the five minute job of the spreadsheet, we've [00:21:00] thought about it for hours and days on end. I hate that. I don't, I'm always wanting to move forward. And if something is constantly sticking in my mind like that, because I just put it off and Oh, I'll get back to that later.
No. It is now we do it now, but we free up our mental load and we free up the time in the future to do other things or to relax. Yeah, and we've talked a little bit about mental load, but there's a lot of research out there that women do carry more of the mental load in the household in some households.
How might someone go about redistributing that or helping to take some of that pressure off the mental load and maybe tell listeners what mental load is? Sure. Okay. So mental load is how much stuff we carry in our minds and that is related to the tasks that we do around the house. So typically women are expected to do [00:22:00] most of the housework.
For example, whether you have a family or your duo or you're single, you are expected to do most of the housework. Okay When it comes to and I work with mostly women who are working and what I see is that she has to carry the mental load for her job, whether it's her clients or her boss or her team.
She's carrying around the load of work and then she's carrying around The the load of caring for her children, caring for her house, caring for her husband or her partner. What I like to do is when a woman comes to me and says there is, there's too much here and I'm overwhelmed, I can feel the heaviness on her.
And I want to just just pull these things out, they feel like sticks to me, it's or rocks and it's like I want to take them off of her. And so I see what those things are. And usually it involves tasks around the home. And because it is. I have yet [00:23:00] to meet someone who is truly enthralled and loving loves to clean the house or constantly do laundry because it's like those things that.
In business, it's all the things that you do, but at home it could be like Bobby needs a soccer cleats and they need to be washed. And then when they're washed, they need to be turned upside down to dry. They can't go in the dryer. And then his shoelaces need to be removed before washing, like all those things.
And then they smell. And so we put air fresheners in them or whatever. And. Then they need to all be put back together before he goes to soccer. So it's not just taking him to soccer. It's all those things around that. It's all the things that are related, soccer related so that Tommy can get there on time and be the soccer star that he is.
So I, I believe I'm a firm believer in sharing the load. So you it's about having your children participate in the care of the home. I have I have seen children. I met them when they were [00:24:00] four. And their mother took care of everything. She did everything for them out of guilt. She did everything for them.
And now they're in college and they don't know what to do. They don't know how to take care of themselves. So teaching your children how to care for a home, how to care for their own things. Is really important because yes, you will still have to remind them to do their chores. You'll have to remind them to do this and that, but they are doing it and they are learning.
And at some point, if you're like my parents, you put the fear of God into your children and you don't do those chores by Saturday noon it's there's repercussions. Yeah. I had a client who was a kindergarten teacher. So this explains a lot, but she made everything into a game.
And so she didn't mind doing the laundry. So she would do the laundry and then she would toss it all in a basket. And so Friday night they would have a family race. to find their clothes and put them in their own baskets, go upstairs and put those clothes away, whatever that [00:25:00] meant. So one child like to hang all their clothes.
The other child liked to fold it and put it in drawers. And whoever came down first got to pick the movie for movie night. And that was like the race. And so she had kids of different ages. So she let some kids had a they got to start. Five minutes early because they were younger and that was their game on Friday night and they loved it.
They came home every Friday, super excited for the relay race. That is fun. That is fun. So yeah, I, I will recommend games. Just make it a game, and we'll create a game for the very specific task, like your friend, your client did for the for the laundry. Older kids, it's a different kind of reward system that happens, But it's really if we can bring joy into something, bring fun into something, then that, that lightens the load immediately, and then when it comes to, which is spouses or significant others or roommates it's an adult conversation about [00:26:00] how this, how Like you taking care of everything is impacting you and we need to have an equitable distribution so that, you can show up in the relationship with lighter, happier, more in desiring to connect more.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause if you're always doing dishes, you're always doing laundry. You don't have, you're tired and you don't have time to connect with your significant other. Yeah. Yeah, really great points. I could talk to you all day. I know that you have a free resource. Would you mind sharing that with the listeners again, how they might grab that and then what they might expect from it?
Yes, absolutely. My freebie is the five minute intuitive decluttering challenge. I spoke about it earlier. And it will teach you how to release, know what to release and what to keep. And you just do it for five minutes and it will connect to you with your clutter. It'll show you why it's there and it will teach you to trust yourself.
So I, and I love it for that. It's really, it's very [00:27:00] simple, but it's quite revealing. Perfect. And we'll go ahead and drop that link in the show notes for you to grab that. Thank you so much for being on the show. Again, I could have talked to you forever, but I truly appreciate you coming on and helping us declutter our lives and our businesses.
Likewise there. Thank you for having me. I really enjoy it. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Bold goal crushers. It's time to crush your goals and everything that gets in the way, including clutter. So you don't have to work double time. So let's get to it.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
