207: Consciously Uncoupling and Crafting the Ideal Workspace with Melissa Coleman

In this episode I chat about a new series on the Food Blogger Pro blog and that Bjork interviews Melissa Coleman from the Faux Martha about designing the perfect workspace. Hey, hey, hey, lovely listener. You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. We hope you're having an incredible day. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by none other than WP Tasty, our sister site for plugins for food bloggers. WPTasty sells three different plugins, Tasty Recipes which is a recipe plugin, Tastypins which is a Pinterest optimization plugin, and then Tasty Links which is an auto linking plugin. They are all built and designed to make your blogging life easier and optimized. And if you'd like to learn more, you can head on over to wptasty.com and for today's little nugget of advice, we like to call it the Tasty Tip around here. I'm excited to announce the start of our new A series on the Food Blogger Pro blog. Our membership site Migration from expression engine to WordPress so as you're probably aware, we recently migrated Food Blogger Pro from a CMS called Expression engine over to WordPress. It was a multi month process and we learned a lot about how to methodically move through a big project. From discovery to development to QA to launching. We're covering it all. In this series we'll talk about the plugins we're using, the information we needed to move forward, the problems we faced, and the decisions that were crucial to our success. We published the intro post for this series this week and in it we talk about the why behind our migration as well as a high level overview of how we approach the migration and you can check it out@foodbloggerpro.com intro. Now the episode. You may recall that Melissa Coleman from the Food Blog, the Faux Martha, was actually on the podcast just back in December, actually talking about her Year of the Pivot. Today she's here to continue the conversation and talk about the project she's been working on recently, designing the new Pinch of Yum offices. If you don't have a dedicated office to work from, you're not alone. But that doesn't mean you can't make intentional decisions to refine and optimize your workspace. In this episode, Melissa talks through her process for designing a space as well as the tips that you can apply to your own workspace. It's a really interesting different kind of episode and I think you're really going to love it. So without any further ado Bjork, take it away.

Melissa, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you for having me back. This feels really big to be back.

Yeah, for sure. In the same year, too. It's not like there's this huge gap in between. We thought it would be good to spin up another podcast because we are in the middle of a really big transition, and you are helping us with that. And as people who listen to the podcast know, I have recorded the podcast in all sorts of places recently in my car, at a park, at home, here in this little makeshift office we have. And it's because we currently don't have a space. Right now, we don't have an office, but we are working with you to help design and polish off our office space. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. But before we do that, I wanted to do a little callback to the first episode that we did. It was the Year the Pivot. And I'd really encourage people to go back and listen to that. And you talked about how transitional and how impactful 2018 was as you viewed your site and what you do. And as you've gotten into 2019, you've kind of rebranded this year as well, or branded this year. It's not rebranded, but you've come up with a little catchphrase. And I remember we were talking about. I don't remember what you called it or the general idea behind it, but can you talk a little bit about how you've viewed 2019 and kind of some of the thoughts that you have around the transitions in your business?

Yeah. Yeah. So last year, 2018, I called it the Year of the Pivot. And I realized, now in. Are we in 2019? We're in 2019.

2019.

Oh, my gosh. Halfway through, somebody asked me the other day, what will I be doing in 2024? And I was like, gosh, I don't know if I'll still be alive.

I hope that I will be alive. I'm going to start with that. And if I am, I have no idea what I'll be doing.

Yes, exactly. Likewise, I have no idea what I'll be doing. But last year, I called it the Year of the Pivot. And what I've kind of done is I realized that this year is actually my year of the Pivot. Last year was figuring out if I would actually be staying or not in the blogging world, as I was traditionally blogging. And that answer was yes, after a year of soul searching and bringing someone else onto the team, because I'm one human with a creative brain who doesn't handle a lot of business, logistical, everyday information well. So now there's a right side that's me, and then a left side that's Kimberly. And that's been a really good fit. And once we've had those two brains, it's kind of enabled me to figure out more of what's going on, of what the problem actually is, which is why I'm calling this year. Still in some ways, not really publicly, but I guess now I am. This still feels like the year of the pivot. I have decided to stay, but I'm not staying in the same way that I stayed before. That still wasn't healthy. Even choosing to stay and getting back into those old rhythms, they still weren't good or healthy. So now I'm in the process of pivoting or shifting and I'm moving more towards design and figuring out how to keep the blog because it's so valuable for me as a creator to create and write, but also for other people. It's that human, real, honest connection. So I'm trying to preserve and maintain that. And in doing that, I am actually trying to create a different revenue stream besides the sponsorship model, which is what's probably been, I would say, 90%. I'm not a numbers person, but 90% of my revenue has been from sponsorship and I would like to change that and move kind of back into design. I was a graphic designer by day. That's how I made money for a lot of years. And then I jumped into blogging full time and made money from sponsorships and those relationships, there's a lot of really good ones. And then there's a lot of really hard sponsorship relationships that are kind of taking ownership over some of my blog. And I want to get that back. And I think I'm not very sure of much in life, but I think that this is a good, healthy transaction of services and money and the ability to share this content that's valuable to people and also extremely valuable to me.

Yeah, that's awesome. It almost feels like In a sense, 2018 was pivoting some of the ways you view things. Like there's obviously some ground level changes that happened, but it was almost like sorting through stuff in your head. And it seems like in 2019, some of that is manifesting in literal shifts in terms of how the business is operating and what it is that you're doing. And. And what's exciting about that is thinking creatively. You are a creative person. Thinking creatively about a situation and saying, what is it that I don't like about this? And it sounds like one of the things that you didn't like about sponsored content, which was the main revenue mechanism for your blog before. One of the things that you didn't like was this idea of somebody else kind of siphoning off part of who you were and owning that, at least for a period of time, and so saying, like, okay, I don't like this. What can I do to shift and change into something that feels like it aligns a little bit more? And that for you was something that you're really good at, which is interior design and pivoting into that space and saying, okay, I'm going to use the blog. And I think this is a really incredible thing that people don't often think about using the blog essentially, as a platform for me to write about this, to speak about this, to document this, you know, in a sense, uncoupling that from needing all of that to be you, which is also kind of nice. So now you can document the remodel process that we're going through with a pinch of yam offices, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. So uncoupling that from you and saying, okay, I'm going to evolve this a little bit and use the blog not as a way to do sponsored content or ad income, but I'm going to use it as a way for me to showcase this thing that I'm really excited about in this new area where I'm going to work with people in a different type of business, which is, you know, a more tactile relational, working with somebody to design a space, which we're going to be talking about today. But do you feel like that kind of at a high level, accurately describes the transition and were there any gaps in that analysis?

Yeah, that's a really good analysis. I kind of feel like Gwyneth and Chris Martin conscious uncoupling, consciously uncoupling from something. But it's not all going away. There will be a preservation of some of that relationship, that blogging relationship that was so valuable, and then moving more towards something that's really healthy for me as a human and as a business owner.

That's great. It's one of the things that I. If everything disappeared for us today, the first thing that I would do is if I wanted to be building a business or be an entrepreneur, the first thing that I would do is create something online where I'm publishing and have a small audience and then have some type of service attached to that. I think for me, it would be maybe something related to online marketing. That's a place that I love and I'm interested in and also love working with. There's a couple of companies that advise and love working in that capacity to help other people along the way with that. So I think point of saying that is for people that are listening. If you're interested in being an entrepreneur, if you're interested in building your own thing, it's using. The only way to do that isn't to build a site and to monetize that with ads and sponsor content. And the shift that you're making, Melissa, is a great example of another way that you can take things online, whether that be an Instagram account, a website, and complement that in another area. And in this case, it's working with individuals or companies to help them design spaces, which you're doing for Pinch of Yum. And we're so excited about that because as I described, like right now, if you were to see the office, it's this, like, Apple crate with my laptop sitting on another stand. And like, it is this monstrosity of cords going everywhere. It's just totally makeshift. And we've been living without a space for so long, long. And so we're finally getting to this point where we're close to having a space that we're going to move into. And you're helping us to really craft that space. And people can follow along with that online on your Instagram account, is that right? So can you quick little in the. In the middle of the podcast plug, because people that listen to this in real time will be able to see it. How can people follow along with that?

Yes. So it's on Instagram. It's in the highlights for stories. I'm just plugging them all into there, which is so cool to see the progression because whenever you see the final product, you're like, oh, yeah, that's how it was always supposed to look. But when you get to see the progress and go backwards, it's like, mind blowing.

Yes, for sure. So if people want to follow along with that, they can check that out on Instagram at the Foam Martha, and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. But let's talk about space, because space, as creators is such an important thing to make sure that we do well, to make sure that we're intentional in crafting the space where we spend the majority of our time creating. And for some people, they might Spend time in the kitchen, doing recipes, things like that. But for a lot of us, we're sitting at a computer, we're thinking, we're typing, maybe we are brainstorming and we have a little board. But my guess is that there's a lot of opportunity for us to create a space that allows us to do work. Even better, there's untapped potential in the spaces that we have. So before we get into talking about specifically how we can do that, can you talk at a high level about why space is important? Why is it important that we take time to not just do work, but take some days, take a week out of your year to work on the space where you will work? Why is that important for us to consider as creators?

Yeah. As a reader, as a writer, I often hear, you probably often hear that words matter. Words matter. Words matter. Words matter. And I feel the exact same way about space. Space matters. It matters. It matters. It matters. Our physical space matters. Our mental space matters. The space on our walls, the space on our calendar. I love, I could probably do. I could talk way too long about the idea of space. I love considering the idea of space at my desk. And then mentally, like there is no bounds to what space is and then how much impact it has on our day to day tasks. For example, how are you feeling? Like you're sitting at this makeshift desk.

Yeah.

How productive are you? How does, how does work feel sitting there?

For sure. Standing. I'm not even sitting. That's how bad it is. It's actually probably good that I'm standing. I think it feels. And I was telling Lindsay this, and this maybe applies to what applies to this situation. I'm actually thinking. So I'm going to describe what's on the desk right now so people can visualize. So it's a wood. It's like a vintage woody type desk. Woody meaning literally it is just wood. There is a Dan Gladden autographed baseball card in the corner, which I just bought from this kid that's in the building here doing an autograph sale. There's an empty wrapper of a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich that I had, a cup of Coke. My. There's a bunch of cords. There's a empty Soda Stream that's in the corner. And then there's my computer and all that junk and a monitor that I'm not using. And a succulent, believe it or not. And I was telling this to Lindsay the other day about the construction that's happening here, but I said, I feel like that it's the. My mind parallels the space and I think if I were to take an hour and like organize this space and that's naturally where I go. Like people. When I was part of the in college, I won the clean room award. Like it was a bunch of these guys and it was just like super like trashed out rooms with like mice around and I would like vacuum every week. Like my natural bend is not towards chaotic space, but I feel like because of the number of things we've been juggling lately, it's. It's been so chaotic. And I think that that reflects my mind or. And I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. My mind is reflected in the space. I think it's maybe a little bit of both. Like, I think the chaos of the space makes me feel like things are chaotic. But I also feel like in a time that is more chaotic, I don't dedicate the time that I need to create like the space that feels like the best fit for me. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that, that is kind of a quick snapshot. It it in a sentence, I would say what it is is like the disorganization. The. The fact that these things are so unorganized makes me also then feel unorganized, which doesn't feel good.

Yep, yep. They feed off of one another and they're cyclical. And oftentimes if you are looking for an answer, like if you're feeling chaotic or if you're feeling sad or stressed or depressed or whatever it is that you can't quite pinpoint, just look around your physical space, wherever you are at that moment, and identify the emotions with the space because they are feeding off of one another and contributing and influencing. You know, it's like we can think about spaces positively. That's easier for us to do. We go to a restaurant over and over again because we have a really good experience, not only with the food, but with the space. Atmosphere, ambiance is a common word that we use. And we go back to get that experience. And a huge part of that experience is the space. And that's a happy experience. But all around us, usually in our everyday spaces, in the spaces that we cook our meals, that we do our work, they are naturally chaotic because we're moving pretty fast and that has influence on us. We continue to make them more chaotic and then we feel chaotic and stressed.

And how do you. So let's start with that as a consideration before we get into crafting a space Kind of more high level, just at a low level. How do you build in rhythms and routines in your life that allow you to deal with the daily chaos, kind of the micro chaos that exists? And should you address that before you address kind of the holistic look, feel, ambiance of a place?

Absolutely. I like to start with function first. Whenever I'm looking at a space, and usually if there's piles around me, which, if I'm being honest, there are piles right now, I don't like or enjoy piles around me. But usually if there's piles around me, it means that all of these things, they don't have a home. My space isn't functioning like it should. Part of a space is that it needs to have some storage. You need to be able to retrieve something easily. There's a lot of just basic things that we would need a space to perform for us. And if they're not, then it doesn't matter how beautiful you make it look. The space is going to function and it's still going to make you mad. At least that's my response. In a space that doesn't work, it makes me mad. I think that's why I'm a designer, because as a designer, I can fix that response. It's a very common response because my spaces are often chaotic.

It's one of the things that was like, oh, duh. And yet we didn't do it. That when we were working with you, one of the things we did. So the space that we have, it's maybe. I don't know how big it is. 1200 square feet or something like that. 1500 square feet. I'm just guessing. Terrible at remembering those kind of things. But it has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 rooms and then kind of a general area. And one of the things that we did when we were working with you, walking through it, is in each space, you stopped and said, like, okay, what are you going to use this for? It was like, oh, like, that's. It sounds so obvious. But it's really helpful to sit back and say, okay, so we're gonna be doing podcasts in here. We're gonna be doing courses. We might meet in here maybe. And we have this list. And what I realized is like, oh, there's actually multiple different uses for a single space. Another example is Lindsay's office. So it's like, okay, it's gonna be her desk, but it's also gonna be storage for props and things like that. Like, that changes what will happen for the. For the function of that room. So if somebody, if somebody is taking a step back and they're saying, I want to be intentional about crafting a great space, would that be what you recommend they start with? So start with defining what it actually is that you're going to do there.

Exactly. Just write out each of the rooms. It's a simple task of list making, which is so simple when you go to do it, but it's actually kind of hard to get to that task. So write out each space, write each function in the space, and then take it a step further. So the functions are easy. It's like, I'm going to work in this room and I'm also probably going to meet with someone. But the harder part is, what are the philosophical spaces like, what else will you be doing? Do you want to think in this room? Do you want to relax in this room? Do you want to be inspired by this room? And when you can begin to think there in that space and identify those, then you can. The function of the space will begin to inform the form. So in design, we talk about form and function all the time, and you can't really have one without the other. When we think about design, we think about form, the color on the wall, the furniture. But design as a designer, we think about both of those things, form and function. And when you start with a function and you can identify those, then it's going to inform the form. So you're not really starting from a blank canvas. You're starting with a whole lot of quality information, and then you're designing beautiful solutions for each of those things, either problem areas or spaces that you need to work in. You can design around the function, and that makes something really beautiful, user friendly, and it doesn't make you mad. When you work, you're not having to solve problems, you're not having to solve everyday problems. When you can work, you can solve your work problems. Everything else that you know is going to happen every day in the flow of a day is handled so that you can handle your work.

Yeah. So I would assume that a lot of people start with form, where they say, hey, what is the. The color of the walls and what type of carpet do I want? And you know, yes, for sure. And, oh, this looks good and this feels good. But instead you're saying, okay, and we can talk about this, let's say, in the context of an office, knowing that this applies, you know, across the board. It could be interior design, it could be homes, it could be a bathroom, it could be a kitchen. But we'll Say office. So we're starting with that and defining it and saying, like, okay, so for me, I know that in the office, I want to have an area where it'd be really easy to do analog type work. So maybe it's brainstorming, writing on a whiteboard, something like that. So we have that as a function. I know that it's also really important for me to have multiple monitors. Like, so I do a lot of work in where I would have something off to the side. I'm using that as a reference. So that's a function of how we're building the space. Maybe it's. I want it to be easy for somebody to come in and sit down. Okay, well, that means there's probably going to need to be at least two chairs. So you start to fill it in with the function, and then what you're saying is from there, then you can start to. To backfill or fill out the picture as it relates to the form. But how do you do that? Like, for me, I feel like I get the idea of writing stuff down and saying, like, okay, these five things are important pieces of the puzzle for me. And then I feel like what I would do is I would just then go to Pinterest and be like, oh, cool chair. And then like, oh, cool desk. And. But not really have a cohesive theme. So if we're trying to craft a space that is going to be. And we'll talk about it in the context of office and work, because this podcast bends towards people who are interested in creating quality work. And so the space is important for that. So we're thinking about that. We know what we need to do with it. But then how do we fill out the picture of what that actually looks like from a form perspective?

That's. You're leading right into where I was headed. So you've got your list, your function list. And then I go super old school. Like, right in front of me right now, I have all the drawings. I have a floor plan, just a basic floor plan that you could. I'm drawing it on a computer. You could just draw it out on just a plain old sheet of paper. And then what I'm doing. So I've got this function list. And then I'm now talking with you. I'm standing in your office. You're telling me these things. I have a space for you to think, not on the computer, just a space for you to kind of think out loud and capture it through writing. I know that you want a traditional working space, but you have two computers. So that tells me, okay, he's going to need a really long desk to perform this task. And then number two, he's going to. He wants a meeting area. And then you don't know this, but what also came out in our meeting with Lindsay is a reading area, a space for you to do a different kind of thinking. So that tells me that, oh, I'm gonna give him a library. I'm gonna give him a chair. I'm gonna give him. I'm gonna create a reading nook, a place that feels really good to read. When you create those spaces, then they will come, or then you will use those spaces, not necessarily the other way around. So I've got this floor plan in front of me. It's a really basic floor plan. I have a pencil. I've drawn in a long desk. I have a little circle area, and I've written thinking space because I know I need to solve that. I don't really know what I'm going to do there yet, but I know it's a thinking space, and it's a space for you to stand. I want you away from your desk so that you're not staring at a screen, because it's really hard to do both. And then on the other side of the room, I have a chair. It's a cozy chair. You can't see that. I've got a little side table that can also work as a desk. It can kind of swing over you so that you could type there if you wanted to, you could write there. And then behind you will be a big bookshelf. Yeah. So all of that.

This sounds awesome. This sounds like my ideal office.

Lindsay was a part of that meeting, and she was very good at taking this idea of philosophical spaces, filling them in with how you might navigate this space. And then we're just slowly building on this. And I think that's the beauty of design, and that's what I also have to remind myself of. These are just building blocks. We're starting really, really small. We're not jumping to the final product. We're gonna get there, but we have to take all the little steps to get there. And so right now, I still am working on this. I have this floor plan with pencil drawings of rectangles and circles and squares. And then from here, I know what I need in this room. I'm then gonna go look and start to categorize this information I have into a visual system, or how are we going to visually communicate these needs that each of these routes Needs to have.

And what can you give example of what that means? Like, when you say visually communicate, is that colors? Is that like, oh, this is a theme that's kind of postmodern?

Or, like, what.

What does that look like?

Yep. So this is the part when you think, I'm hiring a designer. This is what you think of. I will. As you know, in our process, it's taken us a really long time to get there. But now I'll start to assemble some mood boards, and I'm going to give you guys three different mood boards. And I kind of know now that we're this far in the project, I know a lot about you guys. I know what you like. I know what you gravitate towards. So I'm going to give you three. Three different options, all centered around things that I know you like. Three different visual aesthetics. So we're gonna do like, a modern Minnesota or like, maybe a modern Scandinavian. And that's Scandinavia. That's what I'm gonna. I'm gonna start giving each of these identities a name. So then once you pick one of the three identities, we begin to know how to make decisions. We can finish out this room and based on this visual identity, because there's.

There's parameters around what would like. We know that we wouldn't include red because we have these. These colors in general themes. And so it's like. To include, like, a red tile floor, it's like, oh, that doesn't really fit in to this theme. It could in a certain theme, but it's not in this one that we picked out.

Yeah, that's a really good point, too, because what this process is, it's a process that we're going through. It's helping us build parameters. We're not building parameters from the outset. We're building them as we go. And it helps you make decisions. Parameters, always. I think of them as these parameters and rules as these guidelines. I use it when I'm doing my kitchen. I have a class called the Minimalist Kitchen and a book called the Minimalist Kitchen. I'm performing all these same tasks about giving myself parameters. And what those parameters show me is that I can still like that red tile. It doesn't make that red tile bad. I just can't put it in this space in order for it to be cohesive, and then I can go do another project. But it just. It begins to. There's lots of different options and decisions that you have to make in this process. We're building parameters to help ourselves make good decisions.

Yeah. So one of the questions that I have, and I'm guessing some people that are listening, would this would be eye opening for them to step back and think about this. How do you know if the space that you have that you are currently working in is suboptimal? Are there, are there indicators that maybe you're even unconscious to that exist that allow you to start to see, oh, actually, I'm underperforming. Whatever performing means in the context of work, it would mean, you know, effectively and efficiently working in the allotted amount of time you have in the kitchen. It might mean that, you know, you're not being. Feeling like you're having to spin around 100 times in order to get stuff that you need. How do you become aware of the space when so often our continued exposure to the same thing over time dulls the response that we have to it? Like, you can start to not notice a box that you haven't unpacked for three years because it's always been there. Whereas if you were to move in to the exact same space in a week, but it was new, you'd see it. So how do you start to recognize that in order to then start improving it?

This is such a good question. And it's the same process I take people through when I'm doing the minimalist kitchen course. It's the same process I take people through when I'm designing contiguous. I do the same thing every time, but it's a very simple task. It's where we started in the room. We started with the function. We started by making a list. And I would tell someone if they're trying to figure out what exactly is going on, how they're spending their time during their day, what their problem areas are. I would say make a list in the workspace. I would tell people to document how they're spending each hour. So maybe you don't have to track your time with work, but for the purpose of figuring out this problem, I would say track your time and write down how long are you spending searching for a file? What are some other problem areas? How long are you spending cleaning your office at the end of the week or just tracking just the simple act of taking notes. It's kind of like hiring a consultant because the notes don't lie. And you can look at the list and say, oh, oh my gosh, that's what's going on. But it's really hard for us to perceive that with our, with our eyes without writing it down and having a physical list.

Yeah, that was Something that kind of a version of that. There's this book called Designing youg Life, I think is what it's called, or something like that. It's. I think it's by two Stanford professors, but they recommend doing essentially like a time log of your entire day and going through it. And what they have you do is like a little empty to full gas meter and saying like, hey, where does this land in terms of filling you up versus going towards empty? But I, for me, going through that process is really helpful to see. Oh, there's a lot of stuff that I do that I'm not even. Not even aware of that I'm doing. I mean, obviously I know I'm doing it, but you. It becomes so routine that you don't even notice it. And I would guess there are similar things that exist with a. Using the office example, like, oh, every time that I sit down, I'm having to rearrange my desk in order to get my laptop there. Because there's stuff like, well, that's probably not a good thing. Let's make a note of that. So essentially you're doing a little bit of an inventory on how you are behaving as it relates to that space, Is that right?

Exactly. An inventory. Or you could call it an audit, which both are kind of happening. You can perform those tasks, you can take notes first and then begin to audit what's going on, how you're feeling, what makes you mad. And good design, you know, we see it when we're looking at a website. Good design is efficient design. The next click is below your fingertip. That's good user interface. And those same ideas apply to our physical life. Are there inefficiencies? What are those inefficiencies? Those are the things that are keeping you from either doing the things you actually want to do or your work. And when I design, I typically lean towards minimalism or simplicity because I often find in my own life the problem of too much. And too much creates inefficiencies, which is what my desk looks like right now. The tiny mountains that are being born on my desk. And there are things that I haven't attended to. And the interesting thing is because I have piles, if I'm paying attention to who I am, I know that I'm probably not going to attend to these things. They're like little to do list piles. I'm not going to attend to them. If I haven't already, I'm not going to. And so I try to pay attention to my habits, which is hard to do and recognize. You know, as much as I want to do this, I'm probably not. So I need to handle this right now, get it off my desk, say, no, I can't do this thing that I said I was going to do or whatever the case may be. Then I know this is a common problem for me. This is going to keep happening. I need to develop a system or design a solution to keep this from happening so that you don't have to continue to revisit this thing.

You gave some examples. Essentially what you're doing is you're using then that audit of how you're using that space. So in our case, we were talking about, you know, you sit down, the place that you were doing work, you're auditing how you are using that place and the things that stand out as problem areas or inefficiencies, things that aren't optimized or whatever you'd want to call it from that. Then you are building, recognizing it and then building a long term solution to fix it. So do you have an example in your life of a way that that's happened and the benefit that then comes from doing that?

Yeah, I don't, I don't want to move into the kitchen, but the kitchen is probably the easiest place for me.

And it's, it's also the office for a lot of people that listen to this podcast. Like it's, it's where they are doing work and creating. And so I think, let's go there. We are opening the door of the office, we are stepping out and we have entered into the kitchen.

We're in the kitchen. And five years ago, maybe six years ago now, my kitchen was kind of a mess, but it was okay because I didn't have my daughter yet. I could cook all day. Nothing had to be efficient. And then when I had my daughter, I looked at the pantry and things were spilling out. Things that I needed for the meal, they weren't in there. I had to dig to find things in my drawer. And then sometimes I might even get stabbed. That's an inefficiency. That's a pain point in the process.

Literal pain point when you're getting stabbed.

Yeah, exactly. Trying to find something just like user interface, when you continue to have poor experiences, that gives you a feedback to quit doing that experience.

What do you mean by that?

So I was having a bunch of poor experiences in my kitchen. It was inefficient. I couldn't find what I needed. I couldn't produce dinner, I couldn't produce it without losing my mind. It was poor experience after poor experience after poor experience. I got to the point where I said, I think I'm done cooking in the kitchen. And then I also said this because I can't be too dramatic. I'm either going to figure out this space, I'm going to fix it, or I'm quitting the kitchen altogether because it was that frustrating for me. And I know I don't need to live my life in a constant state of frustration. So how can I solve that? I am a problem solver, and I solve that problem through paring down my kitchen. I had way too many things. I was only grabbing the same couple of things in that drawer I was getting stabbed in, and everything else was just taking up space. So I took inventory, I looked the space, and then from that list, the list doesn't lie. I was able to see what I needed and what I always used and then get rid of the rest. And from that list, too, I was able to see, oh, I actually use a spatula every single day. I only wash my dishwasher, run my dishwasher once a week. I need a couple spatulas, and I'm going to treat my spatula like I treat an undershirt. I'm going to get five of the exact same spatula. I don't want to make a decision when I'm picking up that spatula. I just want to pick up the spatula. So I was breaking down all those pain points, which there were a lot of them. I think I just mentioned, like three or four right there. And one thing that's important to mention that you're hearing me as I talk, but I'm not saying this is when I'm looking at a problem like the drawer that is too full, I'm thinking about it. In an ecosystem, that drawer exists in the kitchen with a bunch of other things, with three other people using that same kitchen. And those are right there, three variables off the bat that exist within my ecosystem. Another one is how often I run the dishwasher. So we have to begin to think about these simple. What looks like a simple problem in the complexity of the ecosystem, and then solve those problems within the complexity of the ecosystem. And a simple way of saying all of this is the problem is usually too much. How do you solve too much? You pare down. However, if I just say that, then you're not getting the nuances of that spatula that I talked about.

Got it. So the, the problem for let's. Let's Use another example and see if we can work through that.

Yeah.

So the.

This is my favorite game, by the way.

It is. Okay. Do you have a good, do you, do you have a good problem that we could start with, that we could work against, or do you want me to propose one?

Oh, I. Yeah, I have plenty for the kitchen.

Okay.

The. The chips always go stale.

Okay, so then how do you work through that? What does that look like?

Okay, so let's take. There's one open bag of chips. There's probably four open bag of chips because how do you decide which chip you're gonna buy at the store? So you get a couple of your favorites. And then I like one chip, my husband likes another chip. So we've got multiple bags of chips opened at once. We're all eating from different bags. They're stale the next time we go to use them. So when I look at that, I look at, you know what? We both. Kevin and I. Kevin's my husband. Kevin and I both like pita chips. So let's pick one brand of pita chips that we really, really love. And when we go to the store, we're gonna just buy that one chip. So when I'm standing in the aisle, I'm actually standing in that aisle less. I've made the decision on behalf of us, my family, ahead of time that I'm gonna go pick up that chip. I'm not making a decision in that aisle, which was a pain point for me. I'm buying that chip and then when I bring it home, I have actually a permanent container. I've said I've on behalf of myself in advance that I'm going to always buy this chip. So I have a container for this chip and I put this chip into the container. When I get home, I put on the airtight seal and everybody can enjoy the chips for weeks at a time. They're not going to go stale. I've just solved three different problems that I was having on an everyday basis.

So what does that concept look like as we try and craft a workspace that is the ideal workspace. So if somebody. We could apply this specifically to Pinscha Vyam and what we're working through. Or it could be a version of somebody who has a place at home. How do you minimize the decisions that are involved in the day to day things that you're doing as it relates to the space where you're working? Is there a way that you can. Can structure things? Is there a way that you can lay out things so you're not having to, for instance, go into the other room to get a scissors or I don't know what it would be. But do you have any insights as to what that will look like as we start to design the space for the Pinch of Yum Studio and considerations that we would make in how we will use that mindset and kind of framework for decision making as it relates to that space?

Yes. So a couple things. Number one, when you haven't already lived or worked in a space, it's really hard to understand how you're going to navigate and use this space, which is what you guys are in the middle of. So you're going to take. And this is what we're going to do. We're going to take our best stab, our best effort at guessing what your habits are going to be, and then we're going to design and build around that. Now, maybe a year from now, we say, oh my gosh, we use this space differently and it's a movable space. It's not a permanent space like the kitchen. Then we can kind of change some things around. Which in the meeting the other day, Lindsey was probably like, oh my gosh, this girl is a one trick pony. I was like, you know what? Let's put it on wheels, let's put it on wheels, put it on wheels. And it's annoying to say, but the beauty of that is it makes spaces transitional. When you haven't lived in a space, worked in a space, you don't exactly know how you're going to use it. You can just expect that this space isn't going to look like it does when we finish in a couple weeks.

It reminds me of a story, and I don't know where this was or even if it's true. It's one of those stories, but it was people who were designing a college campus and when they finished, they didn't put any sidewalks in and they just waited for three months and they saw where the ground was worn from people walking and then they put the sidewalks over those spaces as opposed to guessing where people are going to be and then realizing, oh, everybody just cuts across the yard here and then there'll be this, like, dead patch of grass. They waited for that to happen and built around it. So for those that already have a space, they have those grooves built in. Do you reset that in order to see how you truly use a space?

Yes, depending on your budget. So if you're already living in a space, when I say what's working for you, when I talk about when I ask the question about function, you know, with you guys were guessing the function and with someone else, let's say you guys had already lived in this. Worked in this office space for five years, and you were. It was five years of frustration when I asked you about the function. You'd be able to just spout off a list of all the things that aren't working. So we would go off of that list, and depending on budget, we would create design. I like to say design creative solutions around these problems. And the beauty of design is that I get to solve a problem and I get to do it beautifully. So it's like eye candy. But what in actuality it's doing, if you strip away the candy, it's solving a problem. And that's how I think about every single thing I'm doing. What problem can I be solving? Because I want you guys, I want this space to work so well. So a designer or a professor in design school said, design it so well that they never consider the designer. So when you're in this space, I want it to be so fluid that you're just. You're just able to work. You're not having to do all these other things that are slowing you down. When you start think, when you start hitting the problem areas, you're gonna start thinking about me. You're gonna think that Melissa didn't hit this area. She didn't hit this area. This is a low point. But if it works really well, it's gonna work so well. You're not gonna think about me. It's just gonna work like it always should. Like, yeah, like, it's just gonna work like it always should.

It's very similar to the role of, like, an audio technician where you don't. You go to concert and you're like, you never think of the audio person until there's this. This nasty feedback. And you're like. You look behind you and you're like, what are they doing? Which is like a very. It's a very humble role to take because you are only noticed when it doesn't go well and there's a problem. Yeah, but that also makes a lot of sense. And that's one of the things that we so appreciate about working with you, is that we know that that's the intent of what you're trying to do. It's not like this thing where you're like, hey, I'm going to make this huge statement by doing something super over the top. It's more of, I'm going to do everything I can to create a beautiful, workable space that you are excited about. And that's so awesome. And we feel so lucky to be working with you on the off. We still need to figure out what we're going to call it. Office Studio. We still have to figure out what the actual name of it will be. But the place that we will work. We are excited to be working with you on that space and designing that. So we're coming to the. To the end of the interview, but a couple things that I want to do. Any. Any final thoughts first, Any final thoughts for people that are considering how to. How to create that space, that is the. The ultimate space for them? We talked about kind of the office. We talked about the kitchen. So it could be any of those spaces. But any advice for people who want to kind of start that journey in reevaluating what it is in terms of how that is structured and what their space is like? Any advice to people that are looking to kick that off?

Yeah, I'll give you a piece of advice for form and a piece of advice for function. So let's start with function, which is my favorite place to live in. As you're organizing your stuff, you have a lot of stuff. How do you begin to organize it? I like to think about spaces as nearby spaces and then far away spaces and nearby spaces, or any spaces that are near you that you would want to put any objects that you're using every day in these nearby spaces. And you need enough nearby spaces for your stuff. It's a parameter. So let's say you have too much stuff. Do you need to add more nearby spaces or do you need to get rid of some of your stuff that will help you kind of solve that problem? And then all the things that you would use maybe monthly or not as often those can go into the faraway spaces. So I, as I'm designing a room, I have both of those two storage spaces nearby and far away. And then that helps me categorize my objects. Which ones do they belong in? What do I need to keep? What can I get rid of?

That's great.

So that's function and then form. Form is the pretty stuff. Form is dynamic. It can be hard. You can do whatever you want. So I'll give you a couple of tips, especially if you're not a designer. And that would be to limit yourself, limit your color palette, limit the textures you use, and repeat those things over and over again. Repetition is a design philosophy. What's that word I'm looking for? It's a common practice in design. So when I'm designing a home, I'm going to repeat the same handful of elements all throughout the house to make it cohesive. So when you're starting out, use a couple elements and repeat them. Also think about scale. This is what's going to make or break a room when you can understand scale. When you think about a space on a wall that has a really tiny frame that looks like a mistake, it's gonna look like a mistake, and everybody's gonna notice it. So understand the size of the wall in context with everything else that's in there and replace that frame. Sometimes we make mistakes. No, not sometimes. All the time we make mistakes. In design, it's hard to understand scale. Whether you're working on a computer program like SketchUp or CAD, that's to scale, you still make mistakes. So know that designers make mistakes and change the size of that object. You want big things and small things, and the small things help draw attention to the big things.

That's great. So you had mentioned this idea of people who aren't designers, interior designers. I would consider myself one of those people, which is why it's been so great to work with you along this process. But you had also mentioned that this is something that you're starting to do for the foam, Martha. It's a new area that you're growing into, and we're honored to be first or one of the first people that you're working with, groups that you're working with, clients, whatever you'd want to call it. Um, but you are slowly starting to build that list out. And you had talked about this before the podcast, but you are somebody who goes. Is conservative in how you grow. So it's not like you're looking to scale and bring on, you know, tens or hundreds of people right away, but there is a select group of people that you're going to consider working with as you start to expand this out. So if there are people that are listening to this and they think, gosh, I would love to have your help and insight in designing a space, knowing that is something that you're starting to do. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like, maybe who those people are that should reach out to you. What. What the good. What a good fit would be for that, and then also how to connect with you if they want to reach out to.

Yes. So let's talk about scale really fast. I am trying to grow this business on successes rather than a bunch of failures, and that's why I'm pursuing this new endeavor slowly, so that I can do it methodically and thought through and make good decisions and build on those successes. And part of having a successful project or relationship is knowing if we are a good fit. So I will help guide that process and you will be more thankful for that too, especially if I tell you, no, we're not a great fit. Because as a designer, I have a perspective that I'm going to bring to a room and you might want my perspective or you might not. So I'll help guide that process. But you can reach out to us at hello, the faux faux martha.com and Kimberly is on the other side of that email and she is taking project inquiries and then we will slowly begin to work on those projects. I am really excited. I love working on your space, this studio space. But my sweet spot, I think as I said at the beginning of the podcast, I'm not sure about much in life. Life is dynamic. But my sweet spot is the everyday, the ordinary spaces, which I guess is an office space too. But the home, I love thinking about the home and how it influences who you are as a person, who you are as a family, how many things are working against you that are keeping you from either being a better person or having better relationships or pursuing the things you actually want to do in your home rather than this long task list. So I think I want to stay in the home. That's where I'm headed right now, doing interior design in home spaces. And we will talk about all the things we talked about today on this podcast. Design for me is a relationship. If it's going to be really good design. And so whoever I work with, I'm going to know you all, I'm going to understand what your habits are, what you want your habits to be. And then we're going to design around those things.

Awesome. That is great. So if just to repeat that if people are interested, the kind of initial filters would be preference leaning towards home. It would be somebody who wants somebody to come alongside them, help make some of these important decisions. Would you say it would would be anybody? Could it be a digital or would relationship or would you say locally Twin Cities?

Right now I'm looking for local to Twin Cities. I want to see your face and I want you to see mine and I want to have that personal relationship.

That's awesome. So if there's anybody listening that you check those boxes would really encourage you to reach out to Melissa. And if not, you can follow along with the progress for a Pinch of Yum. And what we're doing, it's Pinch of Yum. It's Food Blogger Pro. It's kind of the catch all for all of those. And we are going to be posting updates along the way and especially you on your Instagram account are going to be posting updates kind of as they come in in real time. So we'll link to that in the show notes. But Melissa, thanks so much for coming on the podcast again, giving a little bit of an update of what's happening behind the scenes and also sharing some insights for people on how they can create that perfect space.

Thank you for having me, and thank you for having me to design your space. Spaces are so incredibly intimate. You spend a lot of time here and this is, it's a really huge honor for me to be able to create this space, this place for you guys to play and make and do stuff.

Thank you. Yeah, appreciate that. And I'm gonna throw out this trash on my desk and file away this autographed Dan Gladden card now. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Melissa.

Thanks for having me, Bjork.

And that is that. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Food Blogger Pro podcast this week. But before we wrap up, it's time for our review of the week. MacGT Their review says, while I'm not yet a member of the Food Blogger Pro community, I'm waiting for the next enrollment period. I am still able to learn a ton from midging on this podcast, tons of great info and a well researched podcast on the business of blogging. Thanks for sharing such great free content, tips and tricks of the trade. Thank you so much for that review and you'll be very happy to know that FoodBuggerPro enrollment is opening again real soon and we can't wait to welcome you and fellow listeners to the community. We really, really appreciate the review. And thus ends this episode of the Food Lawyer Pro podcast. We'll see you next week, same time, same place. But until then, make it a great week.