Professional organizer Donna Barwald offers expert tips and practical advice on how to declutter and downsize your home.
Donna Barwald, an LA-based professional organizer and educator with 20 years’ experience, shares how she has helped families, seniors and businesses organize, declutter, and downsize.
Donna explains how organizing helped her regulate her own ADHD, discusses supporting neurodivergent clients by creating systems that match how they use space (including entry “drop zones”), and describes how visual clutter increases stress and decision fatigue. She contrasts fight/flight/freeze responses to mess, describes body doubling, and connects decluttering to feng shui-style energy flow and a calmer home.
Donna addresses downsizing for current and future life needs—including preparing for assisted living or moving in with a child. She talks candidly about handling guilt, “might need it” objects, what to do with gifts, keepsakes and collections, and why hoarding is a separate mental illness.
She offers practical tactics like one-in/one-out, favorites-first packing, labeled storage, drawer-based organization, and planning moves by infrastructure and layout.
Note that the audio on Christi's part is a little faded, but Donna's audio is fine.
Contact Donna Barwald
Website: https://neatlyarranged.com
Email: DonnaBarwald@gmail.com
Contact Donna for a free consultation!
Donna’s Books
This Mess Is Making Me Stress
Improve Your Move: How to Downsize with Ease and Move On to Your Next Adventure
Timestamps
00:00 Donna Barwald Introduction
01:16 The Impulse to Organize
04:21 Donna's Mission
04:56 Creating the Environment in Which to Succeed
05:39 Drop Zones
07:53 Growing Up in San Jose, California
10:20 Finding Peace by Creating Space
11:33 Fight, Flight or Freeze
14:32 Body-Doubling
16:29 The Value of Decluttering
18:58 With Clutter, People Feel Bad About Themselves
21:53 Keeping the Judgment at Bay
27:37 Downsizing
32:25 "But I might need it"
34:40 You Don't Need a Presidential Library
35:42 Inner Peace Is More Important
35:54 Resistance, or 100 Pairs of Socks
37:05 Saving Things for the Future You...And Here You Are
37:40 Hoarders Are Not the Same as Collectors
40:11 Sticking with Your Favorites
41:11 Little Known Secrets of Downsizing
45:06 Crap Equilibrium
47:07 Dealing with Gifts - Wanted and Unwanted
49:04 Dealing with Keepsakes - Wanted and Unwanted
50:03 How to Handle Children's Keepsakes from School
55:36 Garages: The Home of Old Dreams
56:47 Cut Your Losses
01:02:27 Organization Is 90% Infrastructure
01:04:54 Drawers Are Key
01:07:05 Get in Touch with Donna Barwald
[00:00:00]
Christi: Welcome to Moving Along. My guest today is Donna Barwald. She is a professional organizer and educator who has spent the last 20 years helping people organize, declutter, and downsize. Donna lives in LA, working with families, seniors, and businesses. She is the author of [00:01:00] This Mess Is Making Me Stress and Improve Your Move: How to Downsize with Ease and Move On to Your Next Adventure.
Christi: Welcome, Donna.
Donna: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Christi: Oh, I happen to have you. You help people with their organizing offering, as you say, the lived wisdom of a Jewish mother who raised two neurodivergent children. Which came first. The Jewish mother or the impulse to organize.
Donna: The impulse to organize actually I just found out recently, and this isn't in any book, here's a hot exclusive that I myself, am ADHD. So I have ADHD. I didn't know I've been misdiagnosed my whole life because I somehow have executive function skills, which most people don't. So you'd say my special interest, I [00:02:00] guess, is organizing, but I learned at an early age it's what I needed to do to regulate myself and to calm down. And so I would get up early in the morning and reorganized the kitchen, before anybody got up. And then they'd get up and start complaining where is everything? And it made sense to me since I was the one having to put away the dishes. I wanted it to be easy. I didn't want to be aggravated all the time. So I would reorganize. And then I found out later actually, that my mother. Also, she never got diagnosed, but my mother must have been ADHD because she'd start all kinds of projects. She'd be in the middle of something and then start something new. And she had kids running around the house all the time and she'd just put things wherever was convenient and out of the way in the moment so that kids couldn't get to them. Later on when she had a daycare out of her house, I saw her do this and I'm like, oh, that must be why this was always in [00:03:00] the cabinet instead of what was supposed to be, this is why we had the junk drawer. Everything was never where we were supposed to be. And it was always just convenient, I guess, for raising kids. But it drove me crazy. I couldn't do it. I guess I must also have a touch of OCD. And things needed to make sense to me. I needed calm and nothing seemed calm in my house. I grew up in a little house with two sisters and a cousin who became like a sister. and I just needed my own space.
Donna: I shared a room. I didn't have my own room, so I didn't have much control over anything. But when I got upset, I'd locked myself in the bathroom, which must have really been upsetting now that I have kids who spend forever in the bathroom. and I'd clear under the sink, and I'd rearrange it.
Donna: And I had some control over something. And so the organizing impulse came from there. The Jewish mother came later. I have a Jewish mother, but I didn't grow up Jewishly. And I decided in my early thirties that I was going to start living a Jewish [00:04:00] life.
Christi: Ah.
Donna: And then I had kids and my second kid is ADHD, autistic and ADHD, although we only knew about the ADHD part first. My daughter, my first kid was also ADHD, but because there was so much going on with my younger one, somehow that got missed
Donna: so it's frustrating to not be able to create the environment you need in order to succeed.
Donna: So that's why I'm helping people create the environment they need to or 'cause the very thing they need in order to feel comfortable is the very thing they can't do themselves often, except somehow I can. So I feel like that's what my mission is to help.
Christi: Creating what they need. I was going to ask if it's about seeing patterns
Donna: Yeah, well that's one thing is that people are neurodivergent. People can see patterns and I can see also far ahead
Christi: in what way?
Donna: and I can see. So
Donna: I can see things like how people are going to [00:05:00] use the space and what the problem is. And a lot of people say it's, I don't have any, space to put anything anywhere. You know, I, I don't have enough room to put anything anywhere.
Donna: And really what I can see is just structurally there's not created the environment in which to succeed.
Christi: Okay.
Donna: and when you're downsizing, that's really the important thing is to use your space wisely because you can live with 2000 square feet of space or 200 square feet of space and still be just as organized or disorganized. As you would be because it's the way you operate and it's the way your space is set up,
Christi: So you don't think this is an innate thing, like some people just are clutter bugs and some are neat and tidy Virgos?
Donna: Well I am a neat and tidy Virgo. I try to be, but, but that's the other thing is that, you know, Virgos they think are very and organized and, a [00:06:00] lot of people have piles and stuff scattered all over the house because they come home and there's nowhere to put their purse and the papers and, and the packages and whatever else they're bringing in from the car. Right? There's nowhere to put it. So they go right to the first surface, which is often the dining room table or the kitchen counter.
Donna: And you think that's just the way that people are going to always make piles? Well, if you create a space by the front door where you always put your stuff and it's created for that reason, and I'm, I'm using my hands, you can't see, but your audience can't see, but I'm like hanging up the purse.
Donna: I'm I have a space for the mail. I have it all set up. When you first come in the house, then you know exactly what you're doing and you can create a routine for yourself, that makes sense for you and that works with you. And I don't impose my routines on anybody else. I just know how many people operate and I spend time with you enough to see how you operate.
Donna: And then I figure out what's going to work for you so that you know exactly what to do. And you don't just drop things because you have no idea what else to do with it.
Christi: [00:07:00] Right. Drop zones, that's what you're talking about?
Donna: Yes.
Donna: So the drop zone is like the creative thing. And one of the biggest proudest moments of my life is when my kid looked at my house. I, my, my autistic kid is now 20 years old and looked at the house and said, mom, we need a drop zone. And I'm like, oh. It's like, okay, what do you think we can do? Where can we put this? What's going to work with you? Because, you know, I can do all kinds of things for myself, but I live with all these other people, so you know, it's gotta work for them too. So then got excited about me giving them the autonomy to create the space.
Donna: And so then we went shopping and they loved to do online shopping and and we created this drop zone, which works pretty good. Assuming you remember that the things you drop are only supposed to be the things that keep going in and out. They're not supposed to live there forever and forget about them.
Christi: That's fair. So, let's go back for a second. You grew up in San Jose, what did moving and [00:08:00] relocation mean to you as a child?
Donna: As a kid, I always wanted to move. I always wanted to be the new kid. I lived in the same house from when I was three years old until 24, something like that. I mean, I, I went away, not went away to school. I still went to school in San Jose, but I lived in the dorms. I came home, I lived in an apartment, but it was still in San Jose. And I didn't get to move out of the area and be somewhere new and be someone new until I was 24. There's a comfort with being in the same place, but I was eager to reinvent myself Plus I was a twin. I am a twin. I have a twin sister, I always used to fantasize about people just knowing me and not knowing me and my sister as a unit. You know, could be just Donna and not the twins, or not Donna and Dawn, my twin sister's name is Dawn.
Christi: Did you both go to the same college? I.
Donna: Yeah, we went to San Jose State and and [00:09:00] we had a pact that if anybody waved to you or smiled at you, know, or said hi in passing on campus or whatever, just wave, smile, be nice. Don't look at them like, who are you, kind of crazy person because chances are they knew the other one of us in a class.
Donna: But you don't see people in class enough, especially at the beginning, to know that they're not actually you, that you're your sister. So just be nice and and be pleasant. And then, you know, we did our own thing for a while and we ended up together in the same honor fraternity,
Christi: Oh, that's great. So your strategy worked.
Donna: yeah.
Donna: Yeah. And, and people get think. Here's the other thing is that you get a lot of attention as a twin and people love to see the two of you together. And it doesn't matter if you are little kids, you know how you delight in seeing baby twins, right? And little kid twins. Everybody does, no matter what age people love it. Because you figure twins are the same, you don't realize how very different they could [00:10:00] be. And and in our case we may look similar, but our outlook in life and our organizing abilities are dramatically different. And I was the one who was always organizing.
Christi: she's not neat and tidy.
Donna: She is not able to organize the chaos,
Christi: You've said that part of your mission is to help people find peace by creating space, why does creating space help us find peace?
Donna: Okay, so, imagine going into a hotel room. Everybody loves staying at a hotel. Think about why that is. You walk in, serene. There's nothing there except the basic things. Nothing is catching your eye. And it looks like you have nothing to do, but lay down on the bed, right? I mean, that's really, there's nothing
Christi: It's true.
Donna: in a hotel room.
Donna: It's just very peaceful because [00:11:00] clutter, visual clutter actually induces a stress hormone, cortisol. There's studies and that's my first book was about that with you know, This Mess Is Making Me Stress, literally mess, visual clutter. Makes you stress, it brings on the stress hormone. And when you're in that state, it's really hard to make decisions or get anything done, because you are just flooded with cortisol and that's the fight, flight, freeze or fawn. You've heard the, that
Christi: Yeah.
Donna: Response flight fight. in my world mess brings on the fight, right? I'm going to tackle this clutter. I'm going to look, think of the words, what that we use. You know, I'm going to tackle this clutter. I'm going to get it done. I'm going to overcome this, you know, mess. And. That's very rare. not very many people have that fight response. When it comes to mess, most people have the flight response, which [00:12:00] we saw during COVID. Everybody was home. Everybody had plenty of time to organize in their home downsize
Christi: Digitize all their photos.
Donna: right? And nobody did it You just close the door, open the closet, you stare at it, the feelings start coming up. You close the door real quick and you go watch Netflix. It's what people do, right? So that's the flight response. People just don't want to see it. They spend as much time out of their house as they can because being in their house just reminds them of all the things that they feel that they gotta do and they don't want to do.
Donna: And they wish their house looked like an HGTV reveal, but it just doesn't because that's not real. That's staged. And nobody's house looks like that, except the minute before the party starts. You get your house to look like that
Christi: Yeah.
Donna: the party starts. And most people just stash things places, right? There's a Friends episode, I guess, where Monica just throws everything into the [00:13:00] oven. All the piles, right? It's like the closets are full, they're going to come crashing down if anybody opens the door. So you just, shove things away. And my husband's idea of getting ready for company means putting everything into the garage,
Donna: doesn't help because I still have to then go out into the very overwhelming garage after you've done this two or three or four or five or hundred times, and organize what's there or put it all away from there or whatever. But so fight this flight, there's freeze. of people just, don't know where to start. They just can't, they're just overwhelmed and they're like deer in the headlights. And that's when a professional organizer can help because. They want to, they, they haven't run away yet. They're willing to actually be there.
Donna: They just don't know what to do. And they're very happy to have somebody guide them through getting the job done. Somebody who feels confident and not overwhelmed. And anyway, that's, my forte.
Christi: But where do you start? don't you think you gotta do something before [00:14:00] you pick up the phone to the professional organizer?
Donna: Yeah, well that's why people buy books and,
Christi: Yeah.
Donna: listen to podcasts and all of that kind of stuff.
Christi: Right. It's like, oh, read a book about clutter. Then I,
Donna: so that's why everybody is putting their books on audiobook. In fact that's my next project is recording the books. Because as you're cleaning, you're listening. you feel like you're doing something because you're not just sitting down and reading a book or listening whatever,
Christi: that's what a podcasts are good for too.
Donna: And, and somebody's keeping you company while you do it, because a lot of times people just need somebody to keep 'em company. Body- doubling is the word that everybody's using now.
Christi: It is.
Donna: back, yeah. Body doubling is, is the term. But back when I was writing my first book, I have a, I have a section called Eating a Plum, because that's what we call it in my friend group. There's a story about it where you just need somebody to come and sit with you and not do the work. Just [00:15:00] sit there.
Donna: They could be eating a plumb and and psychologically it helps you do what you have to do. So whenever you have something. Onerous something, you know, is anxiety producing something you just can't do. My best friend hates filling out forms and she's got four kids. So imagine all the health forms, all the school forms, all the, she couldn't do it, so, so she'd ask me to just come and now I can't know all the information for everybody.
Donna: I mean, I may know their birthdays of the four kids, but that's kind of it. And so she has to do the work anyway, but I'm sitting with her and it makes it a lot easier, you know, because and no matter how old you are, I have another friend whose wife had taken care of the business of the household, he forever. And which allowed him to go out and do what he does. And he's a musician and he's clergy and he was always out of the house helping everybody else. But she ran the house and then she developed Alzheimer's.
Donna: [00:16:00] so now he has to deal not only with the grief of that and the practical realities of a wife who's losing function, but now he's gotta take over all that stuff that he can't do and never has been able to do and never had to do.
Donna: And he's 70 something years old, So I just sit with him and just sitting with him keeps him calm enough and focused enough that he can get the job done. And that's body doubling.
Christi: It seems like there's a lot of theories behind the value of decluttering. And I'm thinking of Marie Kondo's very popular work, but also Feng Shui also very popular and something I'm a big fan of. And I wondered what your reasoning is behind decluttering.
Donna: So let's talk again about that hotel room. Why people love the hotel room when there's nothing in the way of the energy flow. The energy flowing actually [00:17:00] feels like something. That's the idea behind feng shui is that things block energy and you want to position things in a way where the energy isn't blocked so that it can free flow and you feel better.
Donna: it's hard to describe this to somebody who hasn't felt it, before, but this is the goal and everybody always gets it after because this is what I do. When you come into a room that's cluttered and the energy is blocked and there's piles and that blocks piles, or you can't get to cabinets because other things are in front of them, so it's blocked. I mean, there's a lot of things that block the energy and physical access to things. At that point the air feels stagnant. You don't feel good. It just it just doesn't feel right. But you can't describe it. It's like trying to describe what love feels like. You don't know it you feel it.
Donna: And when you feel it, now you're wanted, right. That's a, a state that you want to be in all the [00:18:00] time. So when you declutter your home and the energy can flow around and the air feels lighter and you feel lighter and your head feels clearer, and it feels like a, I don't know, like a cool breeze kind of thing, to me it always feels like a, cool breeze is coming through, but not cold, just refreshing.
Donna: And it just feels like you're in the flow. And when people talk about, get in the flow or, you know being in the flow of things, that's what it feels like. So that's the goal is that everything is just flowing. the energy is flowing smooth, and you float through life. I feel like it's floating through life.
Donna: Like, it's not a struggle, you know, you're floating through what you have to do and everything feels, you know, like like a Disney song. No. I mean, everything feels easier and gentler and calmer, and your mind can focus on the good things, and you don't get bogged down by feeling bad about yourself.
Donna: That's one of the biggest [00:19:00] things with clutter is people feel bad about themselves. Like, it's a, a personal flaw their house is cluttered as opposed to thinking, well, let's see. I'm this many years old and I have a bad back, and I'm afraid to get on ladders because I can't. Balance isn't so good anymore and my shoulder hurts when I try and reach, and so I can't put things away the way they need to be put away because physically it just doesn't work right, because I'm not able to do it. But they still feel like they should be able to do it, and then they feel bad about themselves. And I hate the fact that people feel bad about themselves for what their house looks like because we were isolated for so long with the pandemic, we weren't allowed to have anybody over. And when you invite somebody to your house for whatever reason, the relationship changes people are so excited to be invited anywhere. People want to go and be included and they don't care about your [00:20:00] house. They want to be with you. They're happy. I mean, they might care about your house. If you live in a nice place and they've always wanted to, you know, be in that neighborhood or, or they've heard your house is beautiful or something like that.
Donna: But it doesn't matter because really it's the relationship and how they feel being with somebody else. And we were isolated for so long. I don't want people to have to isolate a minute longer than they need to anymore because they feel bad about their living space. I want them to feel proud about inviting people in. I want them to not worry about if it's not all the way finished. If it doesn't look like HGTV, you know, if not, every house is perfect. Look, if you want to have people for dinner and your kitchen, you just can't get it together. You know, your dining room's a mess or whatever. Go have dinner outside.
Donna: You know what I mean? It's like you can create one space that you can love and feel good in, and then invite people into that space. Whatever it takes. I just don't want people to feel like it's a personal [00:21:00] failing. If you can't play piano like Mozart. Do you feel bad about yourself? Did it ever occur to anybody to feel less than because they can't play piano like Mozart or they can't paint like Monet or, they're not a genius like Einstein?
Donna: People don't feel bad about themselves for things like that, but organizing is skill that some people have an innate ability and other people can develop and get better at. But if you don't have it to begin with, and most people with ADHD autism or whatever don't have executive function skills and organizing is one of those, right? If your executive function skills are weak, it doesn't make you a bad person. It just means that you have less of a skill of that and more of a skill of something else that other people would love to have.
Christi: How do you keep the judgment out of your interactions with your clients?
Donna: First of all, I [00:22:00] tell them, look, if this wasn't a problem for you, I wouldn't have a job. So who am I to judge? Right?
Christi: Yeah.
Donna: And,
Donna: and second of all, most of the time really, most of the time it's circumstantial. People get into. A mess because of things that have happened to them that they haven't been able to stay on top of. It's their health. It's a parent dying and having to bring all of their stuff into your home. It's family that had to come back home and live with you before you were quite ready for it. And so things never got organized and ready to begin with to accept another person into that space. Or you lost the big house and the grief of losing the big house was too much to deal with any of your other stuff.
Donna: So you just put it all in storage and you're going to deal with it later on, or, you know, I mean, stuff happens. Most of it is explainable. And people love to tell me why they have certain things in their house that when I actually go through the house and we look at things. 'cause [00:23:00] all I ever do is make people look at their stuff. I never tell you what to keep or what to get rid of. I tell you to look at it and then make a decision. And I have this whole decision making flowchart that I've been presenting to groups now about how to decide, what to keep in your life and what to let go of. And most of the times when you just see what you've got, people realize, oh, they can get rid of a whole lot of stuff. It's just they never look at it and they never look at it for circumstantial reasons, for time, for emotions that it brings up all kinds of stuff, whatever it is. But we're all human and everybody feels it. And. Everybody always wants to see what my house looks like because they think, oh, I'm, you know, a professional organizer, I must look like HGTV and I have to keep telling them, no, that's staged. My house can get to look like that in an hour people are coming over or I'm having a party or whatever. when you [00:24:00] are organized, it doesn't mean that everything is all nicely, neatly put away constantly your whole life. 'cause that doesn't feel good. I have a friend, they're the oddest couple. He has ADHD and never puts anything away. So he's Oscar, like in the Odd Couple.
Donna: So he's Oscar, and she is overboard on neat and tidy. Like you can't sit at her kitchen counter with a drink of water and you bring up your glass and she wipes it down.
Christi: Oh my.
Donna: down from the water ring that's on a counter, that's not going to make a ring 'cause it's granite.
Christi: She doesn't just give you a coaster.
Donna: It's like extreme. Who's more comfortable. I'm not comfortable in the very, very, messy house, but I'm also not comfortable in this beautiful woman's house in the, richest part of Southern California. Because it's just not comfortable to be either way. So you want to have to be lived in and you want it to [00:25:00] be functional and you want to have things stored or available where you use them.
Donna: So you don't have to get up and go get something and then having to go put it away, Somewhere else. Because the more you have to pull something down, open something up, take something out, bring it to wherever you're going to use it, and then have to bring it back. Put it in something, close it up and put it back on the shelf or something like that. The more steps you have to take, the less likely it is going to get put away. you want to create a world where you don't have to do all that, that you store things where you actually use them. And chances are, if it's easy to take out and access and it's easy to put away, it will get taken out and used and it will get put away. But so many people have this idea that everything needs to be, in a certain way, that then it's a pain to go get, it's a pain to go put away and then they never use it. So if you never use it, why have it? That's the first thing. And then [00:26:00] if you do use it and it stays out and it never gets put away and the whole house ends up like that, and then it's not comfortable to be in because a mind like mine, like learned from. Even before Sesame Street, you know, three of these things is, are kind of the same. One of these things is not like the other. Like, I see the thing that doesn't belong there, and that's all my mind focuses on, is the thing that doesn't belong there. I'm not an interior designer. I can't create a space from scratch. That's not my, talent to create a space from scratch. But anything that's in a space I can tell you would be better over here. And that should be there. And this should be here and this should be not stored here. It should be go over there and that should, you know what I mean? It's like, that's what my mind sees is where things are out of place and should be placed in order to function better for the use of this room. but your original question was how do you keep the judgment out?
Donna: There is no judgment because I'm the worst. And if I showed you my room right now, you would [00:27:00] laugh at me and think I'm a fraud. And having imposter syndrome is a huge thing with me. But I have the ability to
Christi: change
Donna: people's lives and people are always thankful. And so it doesn't matter to me much what my house looks like day to day in order to feel like I know what I'm talking about. but I do pride myself in arranging my home and planning storage and doing all of that so that it works. And so you don't have all this kind of stuff out. So other people don't have to come in and feel uncomfortable in my house. I just want people to feel comfortable.
Christi: What's an example of one of the more challenging cases or clients you've had?
Donna: Challenging cases of clients. The hardest part are seniors who've never moved. They moved into their home however many years ago, and they still have all the stuff of their lives as throughout their lives. You can [00:28:00] uncover every chapter of their life in their home 'cause you can still see it all, or it's hidden in the closets when you open the closets.
Donna: And their current life isn't very well organized or contained or arranged because they think they don't have any space for it. For example people whose kids have left home decades ago, and the rooms are still the kids' rooms. Meanwhile, the sewing and the crafts are taking up the dining rooms, so you can't. Have people over for dinner anymore, right? Because cleaning up the dining room would be like a major deal. Okay? You are trying to do your physical therapy stretches and yoga on a tiny sliver of carpet in the living room in front of a TV or whatever, when you could have a 10 by 10 bedroom become the exercise room and have a whole gym in there if you wanted. It's like their lives just don't match what their house looks like [00:29:00] now. Their lives now don't match what their house looks like, but could very easily if they would take the time to look at everything and downsize and only have the things in their home that serves the life that they have now.
Christi: Well, that was one of my questions for you too, s the only reason. For downsizing to anticipate moving to a smaller space. So what I hear you saying is no, you can downsize and make better use of the space you have.
Donna: Right, right. So, so I talk about decluttering and downsizing as a goal to just make sure that your life now matches your environment now. Whether that's in 2000 square feet of space or. Again, you know, 1200 square square feet of space, Whether that's in the house that you have lived in for 45 years, or whether you want to be closer to the grandkids.
Donna: The idea is, is that if you did want to move, if you [00:30:00] downsize now with the intent of just getting down to the basics of what you need in life, not ba not just basics, but basics and wants, but only what serves you now in the life that you're living now, then if you want to move later on or have to move later on, right?
Donna: Because it's very likely that those things are going to happen and you have less energy and less ability to do this all quickly by yourself. You know, as you get older, you want to be able to, to, be agile, I guess, in the way that if you found that perfect community that your best friends are now moving to, and you'd love to, but the idea of, downsizing at your house and, and looking at all this stuff and how, what am I going to do with it all?
Donna: And it's overwhelming to you, right? If you do it all in stages now, before you have to, or want to, then when that opportunity comes up and you want to go the 55 plus community, or you [00:31:00] want to try the RV life, or you want to be closer to the grandkids because being a right there with your kids is a huge difference than having, the out of town grandmas like I had. And the relationship is different. And so when you want to be able to do that, it's so much easier if you're already. Modernized you know what I mean? Like modernized, like your life now is just what you're doing now. You know, you used to be a tennis player and you still have all that gear, but you blew out your shoulder and now you're into swimming, So swimming, you have a, a swim bag packed with all your gear, and that's all you need. And you don't need all this other stuff. You are not bicycling anymore. And if you were you could rent the bike when you get there, so why is that taking up space, leaving you unable to imagine being anywhere without a [00:32:00] garage to put your bike or whatever, you only want the things around you that are going to be serving the life that you have now or that you want, so that when your life. Changes or when you want to make a move or if you had to go into a home, or God forbid, you're no longer here, it's not a huge, huge undertaking for you or the people you leave behind,
Christi: but I might need it.
Donna: Yeah. But I might need. It. So here's what happens now with Amazon, you can get almost anything overnight if you're in a place where you are rural and it's hard to get to things. I have a friend who was living in Colorado, and it was very difficult to get out, down the mountain to get stuff or for deliveries to come in.
Donna: I understand keeping a little bit more but then she moved to Iowa. And Iowa, she's in a regular town with regular deliveries So she doesn't need to keep as much on hand because she's not going to need it. [00:33:00] Also, if you need it. Give it to your neighbor who has the space, and then when you need to borrow it, you can borrow it. Or if you can get it in two days for less than $20, there's no reason to clutter up your home with it, especially if it's something big for the off chance that maybe you'll need it. Unless you're on an extremely fixed income, in which case you have to think about why would you need this thing anyway?
Donna: And is there any other way I can accommodate that need without this big thing, because my space might be better served by keeping something else, You know, a lot of people also say, but I spent so much money on it. Right?
Christi: Right.
Donna: so then you say, well, you spent a lot of money on it, whether or not you're using it whether or not you keep it or not, you still spent the money on it. So I tell people to think about it as the experience of the shopping that
Donna: you had when you spent a lot of money on [00:34:00] it, Say you went out to dinner with your daughter or your best friend and you had a spa day and you had dinner and you went shopping and you brought home whatever the purchase was and it was impulse purchase, but 'cause you were out shopping Okay. Even if you don't keep that thing, there was still. A value to the money you spent that day because it was a lovely experience that you remember. You don't still have the food that you ate and you don't still feel the effects of the spa treatment that you had, but it was still money well spent.
Donna: Right. So even if you pass that thing on or let go of whatever that is, 'cause you spend a lot of money on it. You still had the value of it at the time when you had it.
Donna: And I also tell people, you, you're not the president. You don't need a presidential library. You don't need to keep evidence of everything that ever happened to you, just because it happened to you.
Donna: Yeah. If it's, you know a medical thing. Sure. Keep evidence. 'cause that may come back to haunt you if it's, the papers for the custody battle that was going on between you [00:35:00] and your husband forty years ago, and the kids now have their own kids. You don't need to keep those papers with you. All that does is, make you angry when you see them. And chances are you're not seeing them. You've put them away somewhere because number one, you don't need them. And number two, you don't want to see 'em 'cause you don't want to get angry. So I tell people to look at what's in their house if it has some sort of negative emotion that comes up when you see it, nobody needs that.
Donna: So if you feel guilt every time you see this thing that you bought, that you spent too much money on, or that you feel like you got taken on or that belonged to somebody else and it reminds you, you of them, or any kind of negative emotion, you don't need that in your life.
Donna: Your peace, your inner peace is more important, more important to your mental health because all of that affects your mental health. And when your mental health isn't good, your house gets worse.
Christi: Well, and that goes back to, clearing the space to have a sense of peace so what are [00:36:00] some of the other kinds of resistance you get from people?
Donna: I have a client who has, I would say more than a hundred pairs of socks.
Christi: Okay.
Donna: This person is in their eighties. They could wear a pair of socks every day and throw them away and still have enough socks, you know, to last them all year Maybe more than a hundred. I started counting them. It was dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens, and for some reason, they enjoy. Even knowing that they're there. Rationally, he knows this is dumb to have so many pairs of socks,
Donna: Because I can't wear them all and I don't wear them all. I didn't even know I had them until I looked at them with you. That's where that's at. But now it's like they don't want to get rid of it because now they just found it again.
Christi: Huh.
Donna: know? So now it's like, okay, well now let me wear them before I get rid of them, because otherwise, why did I keep them so long? A lot of [00:37:00] times people also they've kept something for so long, they can't imagine not having it with them.
Donna: And I tell them, this is the moment that you saved it for all those years ago, former, you saved something that they thought future you was going to love seeing when you got to be this age and here you are, and now you see it, and now you can have it around you for a week or so and enjoy it. And now the moment is over and now you can let it go.
Donna: Because everything is emotional, you have to appeal to their emotion and logic at the same time. To just make them see it just a tiny bit different and that way it helps them get rid of things.
Christi: Not sure if you've ever worked with hoarders but I did wonder if the process was different.
Donna: Actual hoarding is a mental illness that you can't organize out of. There's no, hoarding is one of those things where it's people just keep things around them of other issues [00:38:00] and not any of this kind of stuff. And so it's not logical and so it's not anything that you can deal with and the minute you clear out a hoarder's space, it'll just accumulate again. It doesn't get better. It just accumulates again. And the only way you have any control over what a hoarder hoards is if you are actively there every day, not letting things come in or getting rid of things as they go. So that's a whole different thing. Early in my career, of course, I found hoarders.
Donna: I figured that one out early on that I couldn't do it. And a lot of people joke about being hoarders and people like tell me their husbands are hoarders because they're collectors. A lot of people are collectors.
Donna: But true hoarding, you wouldn't even have the presence of mind or the inclination to call a professional organizer in somebody else might call.
Donna: But then they're also misguided. They don't realize that all you can do is just clear out and, you know, change their space and their [00:39:00] circumstances so that they're not able to accumulate again. If that's, but. Yeah, we don't deal with hoarding.
Christi: That's a different process.
Donna: But collections are also interesting because, most people have more of a a collection than they can actually display. And at that point you talk to them and you say, well, the idea of collecting is if you're doing it for, for money, let's just see if it's actually worth money. You think that it's worth because nowadays, much is not worth what you think it was. And so I make people actually, um, or I'll help them or I encourage them to look it up, I mean, to get appraisals to contact dealers to, you know, find out what what things are worth.
Donna: If that's why they're keeping it. If they're keeping it because they like it. And I then I tell them, well, you know, having it put away somewhere, you're not enjoying it anyway, so why don't we pick out your favorites? If the house were burning down, which ones would you reach for? And a [00:40:00] lot of times when you just tell people to appeal to their favorites, then they're okay with grabbing less because everybody has clear favorites of everything all the time.
Donna: And I tell you, if you just play your favorites of everything know, and only keep your favorites because why bother? You can have your favorites and you can have a backup. But when your backups have backups, that's too much because you generally don't have space for that. And it's going to make it harder for you to transition to something else, either a different location or a different interest or moving things around when you just have more than enough. And so the more than enough is different for everybody. can usually get people on the track of cutting down few. And the more space you have, the more freedom you have to keep. But if you're out of space, the unhappiness of being out of space and having everything else sitting out and cluttering your mind occupying [00:41:00] your, attention is less than the satisfaction of keeping the things that you've got. but it's much easier to downsize people when they know where they're going next because then they have a real clear idea of space.
Christi: What are some of the little known secrets of downsizing that you can share?
Donna: Rather than talk about what's being left behind, you want to talk about what you're bringing with you into your new life. So I always tell people like especially women's closets, you know, their clothes, closets or whatever it's like. Really difficult for them because every piece of clothes has an association with something. I said but when you're going on a trip, you very clearly bring your favorites. You immediately go to your closet and you start pulling out things you know you're taking with you, Everybody does it. Those are the things that you going to want to keep with you. If you imagine that you're going two weeks in, every season, and you pack for a two [00:42:00] week trip for every season, and you're going to bring your favorites, the things that make you feel fabulous, the things you know that fit, that look good that you have all the accessories for, whatever.
Donna: You have your favorite outfits, everything else then is candidates for consideration of downsizing because they're not your favorites and you want to go through life feeling great. Looking great, feeling great, feeling fabulous in things that feel good to you. so if you talk about packing as opposed to getting of, so you pull out the things that you're bringing with you rather than things that you're removing from your closet, then it's easier to go through the rest of it with a critical eye.
Donna: And you put all your stuff together and you put all your 10 pairs of black pants together. And then you say, okay, what's the difference between these? And can you at least eliminate one or two? And the other thing is downsizing and decluttering. It's not a one-time thing. It's not like you say, okay, this is the year I'm [00:43:00] decluttering and I'm never doing it again.
Donna: It's an ongoing practice. It's like exercise. It's a form of self-care actually. And so you're doing this for your mental health, If you think about all the time when you're getting dressed and you put something on and it doesn't make you feel fabulous, and a lot of people just put it straight back in the closet, right? Why doesn't make you feel good. If it didn't make you feel good today, it's not going to make you feel better tomorrow. I really don't think so. So I think at that point, that's a candidate for getting rid of. And so if you're constantly decluttering, you keep a box or a bag or something in your closet or in the rooms or you use, a donation bag by the front door. Anything that you pass over when you're making a decision of what to put on or what to use if you've passed over this one thing for another one, like a coffee mug, you are always going to reach for your favorite coffee mugs, right? So if you're always reaching for your favorites, and the other ones are always [00:44:00] staying in the cabinet, unless you like to look at them for decoration for some reason. And you have the room so that, but most people don't. So it's a pain to put dishes away because you have to like, play treacherous all the time because you don't have enough room in your cabinets
Christi: Have you been to my kitchen?
Donna: it's everybody. So if it's going to be aggravation. Aggravation is motivation. That's my big expression.
Donna: Aggravation is motivation and done is better than perfect. So if you're going to go through your closet, you don't have to do the entire closet. Let's just do the pair of 10 black pants today because I chose this one today. I would probably choose it tomorrow. Maybe there's another one in there that would be an okay one.
Donna: If this one was in the wash and the others are always going to get passed over, then why clutter your closet with it? Things feel better when you have room to slide. You know, when the hangers can slide and they're not all packed in. And so you do that with everything just as you're going through your day every day.
Donna: If you choose one thing over [00:45:00] another, the thing that gets passed over, if it continually gets passed over and you know, what does.
Donna: You may have liked little mugs once, but now you like the big ones 'cause you don't have to keep refilling, you know, Then you keep a bag or box in your house, maybe in the drop zone as we talked about. And everything goes. 'cause that's where mine is. And everything that isn't staying with me goes into the drop zone. And you keep what I call crap equilibrium. One thing comes in, another thing goes out. Because when you go shopping or you bring something home, chances are it's not unique. You've gone shopping on, there's pillows on display, and they're on sale.
Donna: And you love this pillow and you bring it home and you love this pillow better than something else you've got, which is why you bought it, right? Because if you loved what you have, you wouldn't be buying anything else. So the thing that, it replaces instead of shoving it in the back or sticking it in the cabinet or the garage, which is full of [00:46:00] stuff like this, get it out of your house. You just switch one for the other, get it out of your house while you're putting the one thing away. Say you come home with tablecloths you know, you love a pretty table, but your tablecloth drawer only holds so much and you don't want it to be a pain to try and find the tablecloths that you want each time. So you put the new one in and you take, an also ran, you know, the, the, the one that you used to like 10 years ago, but you know, actually doesn't even fit the table you have anymore. Take that one out and it goes. And so you do it little by little, but ongoing all the time. Then you make for a very streamlined life so that when it comes time to set the table, you only have the ones that fit and that you love, and still love and that aren't stained When it comes to anything, you only have the things that you absolutely love and you don't have to keep passing over the [00:47:00] things or shoving them to the back and then not having any room for the things you love now or the things that you need now.
Christi: What about keepsakes and gifts? how do you recommend people deal with that?
Donna: So gifts people give you because they want to make you happy. And if a gift that somebody gave you is not still making you happy, it's taking up space, or it's giving you a bad feeling about the friendship that was lost or it's just not your taste or whatever, it doesn't make sense to keep it because that wasn't the giver's intention to make you feel bad, to clutter your house or to do any of these negative things.
Donna: They wanted to make you feel good. If it's not feeling good, it's not a gift. And if it's not a gift, you don't have to feel bad about. Letting it go, or gifting somebody else with it. got
Donna: it so now imagine how somebody else is going to love it. if you didn't love [00:48:00] it when you got it, it doesn't make you love it anymore or endear you to it anymore by having it sit in a closet or a drawer. When I first met my husband, his mother was a teacher she got gifts all the time from her kids, Her students and their parents. He was living in the house that they had shared at one point, and I would open the desk drawers and I'd open cabinets and there'd be presents in wrapped paper that had been carefully unwrapped on one side, pulled out to see what it was. She must have said, oh, that's nice. Put it back in and put it back in a drawer somewhere. And so her place was cluttered with stuff didn't have to be there that she wasn't using, wasn't even. I mean, she wasn't even living there anymore. So it certainly wasn't our stuff that needed to be kept. Wasn't doing anybody any good. However, a new teacher probably would've loved the pencil cup, And so I always tell [00:49:00] people, bless someone else. Bless someone else with what you've been blessed with.
Christi: Then what about keepsakes?
Donna: Keepsakes, so I have a tub, a plastic tub, of a certain size that fits under a, you know, an under the bed.
Donna: That has wheels, that wheels out and one side flips up because this is important. You don't have to pull it all the way out. You can just pull it up a little. And every program I get, or every picture or whatever, any kind of keepsake goes into that tub. when that tub gets filled, then you go through the tub and you look and enjoy your keepsakes and things that you don't even remember anymore have no idea why it was that you kept.
Donna: You don't need to, and you whittle it down so that your whole memories stays within a certain amount of space. So you still have your space, you're still going through it regularly, so you can appreciate the memories,
Donna: but it doesn't take over your entire life.
Christi: You don't hang them on all the walls. That's what my mother would, why don't you [00:50:00] have these photos up on the walls? Why don't you.
Donna: Well, I mean, you could, and if you're going to do that, you could have a gallery treat your hallway as a art gallery, curate the space and switch out the contents. Every once in a while, I do that with kids. You know, when your kids were constantly bringing things home and your refrigerator could only hold so much, right? So you have frames that fit the paper that the teachers use, and then you constantly switch out what's up and the rest go away. And at the end of every school year, we'd go look through when all the stuff came home from school, all the tons of stuff. Look through the past years, pick the best, and add to the pile so that, like, elementary school became one tub for each kid. And then middle school and high school, one tub for each kid. And then. Ideally when they get their own house, those tubs go with them to their house.
Christi: Yeah.
Donna: you make it so that there's not a lot, they'll actually take it because they don't want their house [00:51:00] cluttered with old memories necessarily either. And I can't wait for my daughter to come and actually be settled in a place where she can come get all of her stuff, but at least I got it out of her bedroom, now it's on the shelves in the garage. And when she gets a space settled she'll come and she'll get the most important things because kids will save forever until it comes to having, to come get it, and then they're going to say, I don't want any of it. And, but the parents are paralyzed because they don't want to get rid of anything that was their kids.
Donna: You know, I have to ask my kids, I'm halted in my progress with seniors so often because people have to ask their kids about things. And I'm thinking if they cared about it, they would've gotten it out of here 10 years ago, 15, 20, 25, you know, however old they are. clearly they didn't, they don't remember it and they don't care that much about it, or they would've taken it with them they went to college, even, you know what I mean?
Donna: It's like people only leave things alone out of convenience, [00:52:00] laziness, forgetfulness. Most people just never look at anything. And when they do look at it, it's easier to throw away. But if you have issues, then I have, ways of helping you through the emotions of what to keep or what not.
Donna: But the thing to keep in mind is, does this serve the life that I'm living now? if I have space, I can have other things. But if I only have a bedroom in my daughter's house, that I'm living in with my grandchildren. What's really important to me and the things that I wanted to pass on to my kids. you're keeping things that you want to pass on to your kids, ask them now assuming that they have their own place they even want it? Because a lot of times they don't want things anymore. whereas you may have kept tons of your mother's things, one thing from their mom may be enough, and it may not even be the thing that you thought they'd want. They might have wanted, you know, the horse bookend because. You know, it was tactile. I have a horse bookend that I kept of my [00:53:00] parents because out of everything on the shelves, it was pretty and shiny and black and and tactile and I liked it. And I don't need to keep everything else of theirs. One thing is nice and it actually can be used in my house 'cause it's a bookend. And if it's small, like a napkin ring, I can keep those. 'cause they're tiny and they don't take up space and they fit in the drawer where my napkin rings are. I talk about napkin rings in one of my books. But you don't have to keep everything, to get the same memory out of it, to get the same feeling out of it. But you have to identify what that feeling is and and then realize that I can keep this little piece of this and takes up this much space. And I'll still be reminded of my mother every day.
Donna: I don't need, the roll top desk that. Sits in the corner collecting dust that nobody uses. Yeah, it was my mom's, but I don't need that big thing to remind, you know, of [00:54:00] my mom.
Christi: Right. Time to sell it to the Antiques Warehouse. For you, does downsizing apply to the TV, the utilities, cutting the cord, that kind of thing? The technical stuff.
Donna: When you look at your life, yeah, getting rid of excess is really important, because it also saves you money that then can be used for the things that are in your life now. Like if you used to watch Disney Channel because the, grandkids came over every day and now they're, you know, in their twenties living across the country and you never turn on the Disney Channel.
Donna: Do you really need to pay for the Disney Channel? So you want to, you want to look at things. I'm not telling you what to get rid of. I'm just telling you to look at things and make sure what you have in your life, in your home, on your computer, in your closets, in your rooms that they fit, that the life that you have now [00:55:00] not the dream that you thought was going to happen. A lot of times people keep things 'cause they were going to share this hobby with their grandchildren and their grandchildren, turned out to be non-existent. They never had grandchildren or they were, Autistic like mine, and their special interest was their special interest, and they weren't interested in anything else.
Donna: And so that stamp collection that my, father-in-law had that went to my husband that has stayed with my husband and is never going to go down to my, you know, to my kid. And who knows if my kid is ever going to have kids. That's the kind of thing you just want to look at and make sure that, it's aligned with your life now.
Donna: And it's not just some old dream that you're still holding onto. I call garages the home of old dreams because things that you used to do or wanted to do or wished you could do, or had the idea that you'd be that kind of mom who did all the scrapbooking or you'd be, that kind of grandpa who played catch with the kids and then you ended up with four, [00:56:00] instead who, could care less about catching, It's like have to align yourself with what is, and not just the what could be when you're younger, there's a lot of what could bes. But as you get older and there's more to downsize because you've accumulated more through your life, you have to get down to really what is, what's the world?
Donna: If you were a business person and you wore beautiful suits every day to work and you realize now nobody's not, not only are you not working, but even if you went to go visit somebody, it'd be in their home office and you wouldn't be wearing a suit. You have to think about what life is now as opposed to what it was and the dream of, and not feel married to keeping it because you've kept it for this long already.
Donna: Cut your losses. 'cause you never know what opportunity's going to be around the corner and what new adventure awaits and you want to be ready and lean and able to take advantage of the new adventure. And you don't want to have to worry [00:57:00] about, taking the time to have to get rid of everything and all of that.
Donna: Now. And if you were keeping a collection because you thought it was in, you know, increasing in value, well now that you are of a certain age now is when you need the money. So like, cash it in, that's why you kept it, don't, don't keep it necessarily for somebody else 'cause you don't know what's going to happen with the market and the value of things and what people aren't going to appreciate anymore. And if you were holding onto those VHS tapes 'cause you thought, they were going to be something and then everybody realized that tape is not where it's at and it's going to digital. Do you really need to keep the VHS tapes?
Christi: You can digitize them and then you still have the videos of your great grandparents you know, walking in black and white down the aisle. which has got a lot of value too, in its own way, digitized, it takes up no room,
Donna: but most people just don't think, they don't look at it. They don't think, they forget that they [00:58:00] have, they never open the closet. They never go in that room. there's good reason why not, because there's really no value to going in that room. So then why keep those things in their room if there's no value to it? If it doesn't add to your life, why have it? It only makes it harder to make the changes that you want to make as you get older. And if for some reason you have a health event that causes you to have to. go into assisted living or something like that, it's going to be so much harder if you've never done the downsizing.
Donna: If you are continually doing it, it's much, much easier, to just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And if you have the chance to live in some place, you know, that has a lot of space. Whatever closets you have, you're going to fill no matter what size place you're in. And even if you get down to, assisted living bedroom, you're still going to be downsizing forever because things come in and things have to go [00:59:00] out because there's only so much room. So if you get in the habit now of, doing that, and the mindset of only keeping what serves you, what you love, what you makes you feel good to have around you, then the energy will be kept up you'll have good energy, high. Energy in your home and you won't feel dragged down by the stuff which then drags you down and makes you unable to take advantage of the things that you want to take advantage of.
Christi: All right, and on that happy note, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Donna: Well you can, you can see my books on Amazon, and
Donna: If you are planning a move, and even if you're not planning a move yet, chances are you will be at some point soon and Improve Your Move. my second book is really designed with seniors in mind, but, the practical things are for everybody. But I did a lot of psychology with the seniors in mind, so it's helpful. I wrote it for me because, you know. I want to remember [01:00:00] all the details of practical things to do, in addition to encouraging everybody to do the decluttering and the downsizing. But also it has things about like how to plan a layout and how to know what space you have so you know what to bring with you and you know, a lot of good information that keeps you on track so you don't, because your head is swimming when you want to make a move, your head is swimming with every single thing you have to do, and you feel like you have to do it all at once right now while you think of it or you're going to forget, right? So it's nice to have a book that that has it all there for you in the timeframe and has it chopped up by things for moving out, things for moving in, things for finding a place, to look for when you're finding a place, which is probably the most important.
Christi: You mean like closets and things like that?
Donna: don't pay enough attention to thinking about how they live when they see a place.
Donna: you could be charmed by an apartment then you go back moving day and [01:01:00] you realize are no closets, right? And that it's not going to fit your lifestyle because you, there's something important that you just don't have in there. Or that place the setup, the flow isn't right or whatever.
Donna: And so there's advice for looking at. Your space at different times of day times of of weeks and all of that kind of thing to imagine what your life is going to be like there so that you can make sure you pick a good arrangement. Because a lot of seniors don't have a lot of experience moving around anymore.
Donna: They got settled and they got settled, and so they're dazzled by new and pretty because they've been living in the same house for years, but they don't realize that their house, even if it was, small and whatever, and it didn't have much of this, it doesn't need much of that. Like, don't be dazzled by the kitchen because how much cooking are you going to be doing?
Donna: What you really need is space for this, that, or the other thing, you know?
Christi: right. Your furniture.
Donna: yeah. [01:02:00] And, and if you have a choice of furniture, always buy something that has storage built in.
Donna: Of furniture. Every
Christi: oh,
Donna: that you have or you bring with, you have some sort of built-in storage because most places do not have storage at all, enough for anything. And that's why lots of people cannot get as HGTV perfect as they want to be because there's just not the infrastructure for it.
Donna: And, you know, organization is 90% infrastructure. That's how it seems to me. And you can always adjust your closets. You're never stuck. Most shelves adjust. Most people don't think about that. And they, get frustrated. And the first thing I do is I go in and I move the height of a shelf and they're like, oh. And it makes it, and they've been living like this for years and it makes such a huge difference. And it's like such an obvious thing that you have. choices now,
Christi: Especially if you're a person like you are, that sees the patterns in the, [01:03:00] larger picture. Yeah.
Donna: Yeah. You're not stuck with what exists. there's very little that you're stuck with, and if you own something, you have even more flexibility. But even if you don't and you can't, like, affix things to the walls the way you want there's so many products out there now that make your life so much easier and people don't even think to look at them. and so there's a whole, That's a whole thing in itself of all the different products. Every time I go into a house and I see some solution that somebody came up with, I'm like, oh, that's brilliant. And I immediately make notes. I'm like, okay, I need to remember this for somebody else, because there's all kinds of solutions.
Donna: But just 'cause it works in your neighbor's house doesn't mean it's going to work in your house. Not just 'cause of the space, but because of the way you live and the way your mind works. So you have to have lots of options available to make sure, and if something doesn't work the first time, it, you're not stuck with it.
Donna: You can rearrange your life, [01:04:00] rearrange your house, rearrange your rooms, rearrange your cabinets millions of times. Don't write anything in Sharpie on the surface of something. Put it on a piece of blue tape. know, the blue
Christi: A painter's tape.
Donna: tape, right? That's how I label everything. Everything goes, and the more you label. The more chance that you're going to have people help you keep things organized,
Christi: Oh.
Donna: if you've got caregivers adult children, partners, roommates, whatever. If you label containers with what's supposed to be in them, but you put it on the blue tape, not the containers themselves, and you label the shelves with what's supposed to be on that shelf and you can match a container to the shelf.
Donna: Think about, you know, the most organized preschool teachers that you've ever seen. There's, there's reasons for that, and everybody then knows where everything goes and they can access it easily.
Donna: And drawers, is really the most important thing. Drawers are [01:05:00] key. not use your drawers for junk drawers and only use drawers for things that you access all the time. Do not use your drawers for just general storage, because the easiest things to access are things in drawers So if you want to get to something easy, take it out it back put it away. Drawers are the things there's no top staff to worry about, you know, take time, you know, making sure lids fit or, you know, any of that.
Donna: You don't have to take it off of a shelf and take off of a lid and put it in. Drawers are the key. So the more drawers you can put into a space, and even making shelves into drawers, they have inserts that you can make them pull out.
Christi: It seems like a lot of kitchens now are all drawers where they didn't used to be.
Donna: Right, because that's, that's the way to keep things organized and easy to put away. If you want somebody to unload the dishwasher, make your kitchen [01:06:00] organized in a way that they all, that everything fits, that you only have what fits and, and that it fits. And if it only fits in a certain way, take a picture of what it looks like. When it's organized and put it to the inside of the cabinet
Christi: huh.
Donna: so that anybody can take something out and make, arrange the cabinet so that it all fits right.
Christi: There you go.
Donna: It
Christi: I.
Donna: to me, that makes total sense. I haven't seen anybody do it. I tell people to do it all the time. But just the idea of it, they're like, oh yeah. Just knowing that if people know where things go and there's room to put it, they'll put it away, helps.
Donna: If people don't know where things go and there's no room to put it, and it's always like Captain Kangaroos closet with a carrots coming down on you. If it's always like that, people are not going to want to put anything away in your, house will look like a mess no matter how much it could be organized.
Donna: It's not a matter of room usually, ever. It's [01:07:00] just a matter of setting it up the way it needs to be.
Christi: All right. And Donna, how can people get in touch with you?
Donna: I have a website, neatlyarranged.com. My email is also DonnaBarald@gmail.com. Everybody who wants a free consultation with me, just has to contact me and tell me that you heard me or you read my book or or whatever.
Donna: And you can do wherever you live in the world, you can do it by phone or by video or if you're in the LA area within a certain amount of miles, I'll come to your house and you can pick my brain for an hour and I can give you all kinds of advice.
Christi: Well, that's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. And boy, I feel like, okay, there's some things I could actually make a start on.
Donna: I, I hope
Christi: It's inspiring.
Donna: people. done is better than perfect, and anything is better than nothing. And [01:08:00] anything that you do today just helps build the habit you want to make organizing and decluttering a healthy habit your mental health.
Christi: Thanks Donna.