Back to School Summit: Your Back to School Clutter Bug Type with Cas Aarsen

I'm gonna close everything else. Sorry.

No problem.

Okay, we're good.

Cass, welcome back to the Organized 365 Podcast.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited. This is very awesome to spend time with you.

Uh, you've been on the podcast before. We're gonna dive into some of the things we've talked about before we've met in person since the last time you were on the podcast, which is so great. I love meeting Virtual friends in person, so we could become like in real life friends.

Yeah, it was nice to see you, and I was a little bit fangirling a little bit. I'm gonna—

I was like, yeah, we had fun. It's so funny, like we're just regular human people. Like we know we're regular human people, but then other people you meet online, you're like, oh my goodness, it's that person. Yeah, we're just— we're just people. So we We sat and talked for hours and hours and hours.

We did. It was so nice. It was nice to see you in person.

It was so great. So I wanna talk again about your clutter bug types. I, I just love that you have just such a great representation of how we organize stuff inside of our homes. And the little bugs are just so memorable that I didn't even have to look 'em up online. Like I have them memorized and I haven't even talked about them in over a year. So how did you come up with these 3 These 4 clutterbug types and, and what are they?

So I'm a naturally messy person, just a hot mess sandwich over here. And I struggled with clutter and disorganization basically the first 30 years of my life until I discovered that I organize a little bit differently than the traditional way. So I need more laid back, really simple solutions, bigger categories. I can't do a lot of detailed filing or detailed sorting. And so I thought, Hey, I'm onto something. There's 2 different ways to organize, a really detailed way or a more laid back way. And this changed my home, Lisa. Like, just embracing this less organized approach meant that the systems I was setting up, I could keep up and I was no longer having mess everywhere. And I started helping friends and family. And then eventually, like, I had friends of friends say, can you Do my house too. And I said to my husband, am I an— am I a professional organizer now? Like, is this— is this happening? And, um, I was so insecure about it.

Mm-hmm.

What I said was, if it doesn't stay organized— like, accepting money to organize someone's home for me was so stressful at the time because I didn't think I was a really organized person. So I said, if it doesn't stay organized for 30 days, I'll come back and do it for free.

Nice.

This was— no, it was terrible. It was terrible idea, because guess what? People started calling me and saying, it's a mess again, come back and do it for free. And I— my husband was like, we can't do this. We can't afford it. You're putting kids in daycare. You, you can't be an organizer anymore if you're gonna be doing it for free. So it was a sink or swim moment for me where I had to look at these families and say, why? Why isn't it staying organized? And what I really realized was not only are people like have a detailed system or a laid-back system, but some people are really visual too. And so the people who were calling me back, it was a situation like I was nailing whether they were detailed or non-detailed, but the people calling me back, they were pulling everything out because they wanted to see it. And so I realized there was really this combination of visual versus hidden and detailed versus non-detailed. And I call it the Clutterbug philosophy. It's basically how you sort and how you store your things. And when you know your natural tendency, then you can set up a system that kind of catches your clutter in a way. I already know your organizing style just because talking to you, I know you're a super detailed person.

No, no. What do you think mine— I think you might be wrong. What do you think mine is?

I think you're a cricket.

No, I am absolutely not a cricket. Crickets overwhelm me. Most professional organizers are crickets. I am not a cricket.

Okay, I just assume because you're so detailed, like you're, you're handling your life so well. So I thought you were really a detailed person. No, I'm sure.

I love this. I love this so much because I had the same philosophy. Like, if If your house got disorganized, I didn't say I would organize it for free, but I, as a teacher, I'm like, I'm teaching a skill so you'll learn the skill so it won't get undone. And I would ask so many questions when I was in-home professionally organizing. And I had the same moment. Now mine was like 4 months after the people have been organized. 2 ADHD clients, big, lots of things going on. I organized a couple spaces in their homes. 4 months later, they both called me in the same week and said, it's all a mess. It's all not working. I was like, I'm in trouble. Because organizing isn't working. And I came back into their homes, and the truth in my case was I said, show me the kitchen, show me the laundry room, show me your closet. They're like, oh, those are fine. But now the playroom and the office and the garage were driving them nuts. And I said, well, we didn't organize these. So in my case, I had organized correctly, and the, and the spaces were staying maintained. We just hadn't gotten to the other spaces, and they were used to living in organization in the areas we did together, and they needed help providing the scaffolding in the other areas. So I think this is really important because I just did an interview with Eric Tivers on his ADHD podcast, and he had hired a professional organizer, and they didn't ask him enough questions, and he was just wrecked from the experience. Like, it was the worst experience he's ever had. And I think that this is true. Like, you could say this in like lawn maintenance or appliance repair. You could say this in any industry, that you get a good one or you get a bad one, or bad to you. There is so much nuance in being a professional organizer. Like, first of all, you're going into people's houses in their closets where their underwear is. Let's just start there.

Yeah.

And then secondly, you have a skill set, they have a learning style, and you have to figure that out. And, and it is kind of trial and error. So I think that one of my hypotheses is is that the more you learn to get organized and be productive, the more you are able to show up well in all areas. I am really good at managing details now, but I'm not a detail person. Someone in our audience had me take this test. It's the new Patrick Lencioni book, Working Genius, and they were trying to figure out what my working genius was, and they had me down to like the follow-through and the detail. Those are my least strengths, but they thought that they couldn't figure out what wasn't a strength. And I think that as you continually do work on yourself, everything becomes a strength. Like, you literally can make all of these strengths. But no, details is the least. I mean, the least.

That shocks me. I am the— that is my biggest weakness too. I am not a detailed person. I'm a big picture thinker. And so that really does translate sometimes to your stuff too, to your belongings, because when we're done using something, our brains moved on to the next cool thing, and then we're not thinking about putting this away. Does that make sense? And so, absolutely. Yeah, we're, we're just kind of dropping it as it lays. And if we don't have systems that kind of have that drop mentality, then this is how spaces get really, really messy again. And I think you, you picked up on this naturally because you're a gifted organizer. But there is a lot of professional organizers that will go in and they'll be organizing a pantry and they'll just decant everything and they'll make it look, you know, super magazine worthy. But the next week the homeowners come home with groceries and they're not gonna put them away like that. Some people do want that though. So we, we need to know, like, we need to get to know our clients. And that's really where the philosophy came from. And you're right though, like, now that I have more confidence in organization, I am so— I, it may look like I have details from the outside, but I just have routines now and rhythms that kind of catch where my natural weaknesses are.

Yeah. And I think that I have become more detail-oriented because I know that the team that I work with at home and at work require more detail. The more details I can give them on the front end, the less, the less rework for them and the less decisions I have to make on the back end. And then at home, I was just doing way too much. So I have to do less things, But deeper, and then you have to clean up at the end.

Yeah, it sucks.

That part sucks. But I'm so happy when I do. Like, I'm so happy when I walk into a clean house now. And also, I don't think I would have been able to do that during the active parenting years, like when my kids were under the age of 10, because there was just so much to do. I just had to keep shoveling the snow while it was still falling, you know what I mean? But now that I'm an empty nester, like, I actually can have a house that's clean for like 36 hours instead of 3.

I cannot wait for that. I have teenagers, so my life's crazy. But, but you know what? And I have a 10-year-old, so I have a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 10-year-old. I'm in the thick of it, Lisa. I'm in the thick of it. But it also, like, it's helpful for me to understand that my kids don't organize the same way that I do. And so I can set up their systems for them that match their natural tendencies. So I'm not constantly like, Clean your room. Like, what does that mean? Does that mean hide everything under the bed? Does that mean just not seeing it? No, it means putting things back in a home. But a home is different for everyone, right? What that home looks like, it isn't one size fits all. And I think I am a much better mother now because I recognize that, and I'm not just like opening up the door, seeing a mess, and like, clean your room, and they're just hiding everything under the bed.

So I love your quiz at your website, clutterbug.com.

Yep, that's it.

Okay, clutterbug.com. You guys could go take the quiz if you haven't already. But just like you said, I know what I am. I also know what each of my family members are. So what are the 4 Clutterbug types just in a nutshell?

Yeah, so we have— I call it a butterfly because they're laid back and they're visual. So when you think of the bug, it's the same as the organizing style. Really visual, loves like bright colors, attracted to things like they want to see their everyday things, but there's not a lot of structure. They're kind of floating from one task to the next. So that's the butterfly organizer. And almost all small children are butterflies. So little kids, totally butterflies. They can't do details and they want to see their stuff. And then you have a bee, a busy bee, who is a really more detailed person. They're a bit of a perfectionist, like the A-type personality. They have it. They want things in a certain way. They want things sorted in lots of categories, but they're again really visual. So out of sight, out of mind. They want to see their important everyday things. And then we have the ladybug, which that's what I am. Really laid back, not big into— not laid back as in like I'm hyperactive, I'm a basket case, okay? I'm not, I'm not a laid-back person, but I'm laid back when I manage my stuff in that I don't do a lot of details. I'm a non-detailed person, but I don't want to see My things either, so I want them out of sight. I'm really stressed out by looking at a lot of things. And so Ladybugs love hidden storage but non-detailed. And last, there's the Cricket. Traditional organization. We're thinking Marie Kondo. I thought you were a Cricket. Very detailed, but prefers things hidden out of sight. So visual simplicity, but they love lots of categories. And please know, like, listen, you can't put everybody into 4 categories. It's just It's a, you know, you could be a little bit of this or more like that. It's definitely a spectrum, and you could be more than one organizing type in different areas too. But it is helpful to have some self-awareness. That's what this really is about. Like, it's about self-awareness. What works for me and why? And how can I duplicate and replicate this in my house, in my organizing systems, so it's easier to stay tidy?

I love when you explain that because everyone probably knows what they are, but they should probably go take the quiz anyway. As you describe it, it affirmed for me the categories that I have put my family into. As a teacher, I think that we often know that there are different learning styles and different ways that people process information. And so if you're thinking as a teacher how you present things in your classroom, you know, the Sunday basket works for all of the different clutterbug types, but you use it differently. So like crickets have, have slash pockets, and their slash pockets have slash pockets.

Yes.

Butterflies are like, there are slash pockets that came with this? Like, and if they do use a slash pocket, and then they put them in like this. Ladybugs love that you could just throw everything in the box and it's all there, and then when they want to process it, they can process it. So do you know what I am now?

Ari, are you a ladybug?

Busy bee. Are you a bee? I'm a busy bee. Yes, I mean, okay.

Yeah. So bees again. I, I see it, Ari. I didn't realize you were visual. Are you a visual person? So color coordinating. Okay.

So everything's love to like colored.

I mean, I should have, I should have known. Yes, I'm sorry.

No, not at all. Someone asked me early on, they said, could you make these Sunday baskets/pockets clear? And I was like, what? And they said, well, I don't even see color. I'm like, how do you live if you don't see color? Like, everything in my life is color coordinated. Like, as soon as I had a second child, they each had a color. Like, I mean, like, everything, everything is color coordinated. Yes.

I love that. So yeah, that's awesome. Bees need color coordination. They need— they also like Do like a lot of categories, but you're right, you could be a little bit— yeah, you could be on the spectrum of butterfly too. So love colors, but don't do a ton of categories. A beautiful butterfly. But it's good that you have the self-awareness to know what works for you. Like, that's, that's what it really comes down to. That's what it's all about. It really is. And you don't even have to call them these bug names. I don't care what you call them. Just know yourself. Just know And know your family, why things work for some people and why they don't work for others. And how can we compromise and how can we adapt shared spaces to catch the clutter? And I love the Sunday basket because you're right, it is so adaptable. You can have as many categories or as few categories as you want, but no matter what your organizing style is, we all have to show up and do the work.

Yes. Right.

We have to, we have to have some sort of schedule.

So when did you fall in love with organizing? Was it when you started your own organizing business? What made you fall in love with organizing?

Yeah, I always thought of organizing in the past, like until I was in my 30s, as a 4-letter word, right? Like it was like it was for weirdos and A-type people who were just like, ah, um, and I was like, I'm just gonna, you know, embrace the mess. Real moms have sticky floors. And then I I watched Clean Sweep, Peter Walsh.

Oh, yeah.

And I decided to try again. I, I was like, I'm gonna do this. And I tried this less organized approach. And I remember doing my, my bathroom hall closet, and I just used dishpans from the dollar store. And it was like medicine, everything's chucked in, and extra products, and everything's just kind of chucked in. And a week later, it was still tidy. And a week after that, it was still tidy. And I knew where everything was, and I wasn't hunting for the aspirin anymore. And I just was like, this feels so Good. And then I discovered if I can do one small project a day, it's immediate gratification, right? It's like you get instant results for a little bit of effort put in, and that felt so good. I was proud of myself. I was like, come, Joe, my husband, look at this drawer. He's like, I don't care. I'm like, look at it, it's so beautiful, you know? And it was almost like addicting.

Hmm.

It was giving me this little like High of of of like accomplishing a task, but also that task lasted and improved my life every day. I always said if working out was like this, I'd be a size two and I'd be so fit because I can run on the treadmill for fifteen minutes and just get kind of sweaty. I can organize a drawer for fifteen minutes and like da da da da! Look what I've accomplished. And so that's what happened. It was like instead of doing big jobs. I started doing little tasks a day, and it became like my crack, Lisa. I fell in love.

I know. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. So did you already have children when you started doing this? Like, how did becoming a mother change your organizing and your planning?

Listen, no, I already had children. I had a toddler and then a new baby when I first started getting organizing— organized. And having children Amplified my disorganization. That's what happened. It just magnified it. And I went from just me being a little chaotic and messy to now my house looks like Toys R Us vomited all over, and I could never find the umbrella or her shoe or the backpack. And I was so frantic and hectic and stressed out all the time that it was kind of like I had to do something or I wasn't going to make it. I was— it was— it felt like a desperate situation. And I think any new parent feels that. It's little babies come with a lot of stuff, and it's big stuff, and where do you put it? And then you now have to take care of another human. I could barely take care of myself. Now I had 2 humans to take care of. And so organization saved my life. I know that it saved my marriage, that's for sure. And it, it got me through the hardest times of my life and made things feel more effortless. And, and I'm just so grateful. I'm so, so grateful because being a mom's hard. Being a messy mom is almost impossible.

You know, when I was doing in-home organizing, um, I— most of the women, by the time they called me— and it was almost all women— by the time they called me to organize, they were so beat down, both by life, by their own internal thoughts, by sometimes the external vocalizations of their spouses and their parents and their in-laws. It's really shameful how women who need help getting organized at home, if it doesn't come naturally or life gets moving too fast, they become roadkill, are berated and made to feel less than because they can't get it together out of the ether. Like, I just, I just And I loved it, you know. So I'm coming in, I'm all happy, and I love getting organized. And you could just see they're like, I cannot believe I'm paying top dollar for somebody else to basically clean my bedroom, you know what I mean? And I thought about that on the long drives to and from all these organizing jobs. And this is where my mantra that men are not holding women back, your houses are comes from. Because I know there's a lot of talk in the media about how, you know, men need to empower women and they need to do their fair share at home, and we can have that conversation. But I think this other conversation is actually happening inside of the hearts of many, many women in that life gets moving too fast, whether they have a child, have another child, take care of a sick parent, are sick themselves, get into debt, whatever, that they're trying to do that and all of the other things that you see they're doing, and they just can't do it. And because they can't do it all, they get stuck in their house and their house gets messier and messier, and then their self-esteem gets lower and lower. And eventually you have these formerly high-powered people or people with college degrees or were awesome at volunteering or ran the 4K, 5K, whatever. I obviously don't run 5K for their city or whatever they used to do. And they just become more and more and more insular inside of their houses where they see deeper and deeper into depression, frankly. And it's like they are caged people. And when I would go in and I would organize and I would go in for a couple of sessions if they could afford the organization, and that's the big if, Because, you know, often when you're in these situations, you have no more discretionary money. And we would get them organized. You could almost see them start to come to life, and they would stand taller. And by the time I was done, they would say, I can go back to work.

I could do—

I remember the first person I did this with, and she said, I think I could go back to work now. I was like, what are you talking about? We had just done her closet. She said, well, it's been a year. I hadn't— I couldn't figure out how I could get dressed and the children could get dressed on the same day. I was like, what? What? Your closet disorganization is keeping you from— and she used to work at a Fortune 500 company. And I was like, are you kidding me? And I think that there are, you know, in my life, my son, my husband, my father have never closed a door for me. They have only opened doors for me and encouraged me in everything that I have done. So I don't think men are holding me back, but my expectation of how perfectly I keep my house and what it looks like when my mother-in-law comes over sucked so much time away that, that frankly slowed the growth of Organized 365 and all the other things I tried before Organized 365. So I think that it's important that we talk about when we learned to get organized, because often for women it was when we couldn't do it any longer. Like, we can no longer accept that this is going to be the rest of our lives, and we're like, okay, if something's gotta change, it's gotta be me. And it's so hard to do because you're doing it at home, usually by yourself, behind the 8-ball, with less than negative resources, and sometimes people literally negatively talking to you about it.

Yeah. And you probably have little humans being tornadoes around you at the same time. Yes.

And it is— I, I mean, Cass and I are here to tell you we made it out. You can make it out too. Um, but it—

and I love that you say this because Listen, caged is such a— you said caged, and cage is such a perfect example of how I felt. And I'm going to be really honest with everyone listening right now. I almost left my husband multiple times during those years because I went from running the Lung Association— I was the executive director— to now being a stay-at-home mom, not being able to manage my house, and I was mad. And for some reason I was mad at myself, but I was mad at him. And I, I like, why aren't you helping me? He was gone at work all day. He'd come home and I would just be furious, like it was his fault too. And, and it was, it was both of us. But man, I had to start with myself first. That was the hardest lesson. I'm like, I can only change me.

Yes.

And I need to stop pointing fingers. And I need to stop blaming and being resentful of the kids and resentful of my home and resentful of my husband. What can I do to push the needle forward today? And when I stopped focusing on everyone else and myself, oh my gosh, Lisa, everything changed.

And, and if, you know, you fast forward 20 years for Greg and I, now we're empty nesters and we're going on trips and, you know, we have more time to talk. So it's nice we did stay married. And he will say to me often, I'm so jealous of you and the life that you have because you had the flexibility and you had the time and the time with the kids. And I had to go to work and I had to provide the healthcare and I had to. So I don't think that the grass is like— it's not like men have everything and women have nothing. Like, it, it— life is hard. Life is work. It's not perfect. I don't— stop watching TV, I guess. Because it is kind of what you make it. And there are seasons that are just flat out super hard and there's really nothing you could do about it except survive them. And that is just reality. And so we're not here to say like, oh, if you like have a color-coded rainbow planner, everything's gonna be fine. But I think that we should talk more honestly, especially those of us that are like leading the organizational charge of the world, about what it's really like to be a human in different phases of life, in different seasons. It's not easy.

It's not easy. And there are still days like my life is a lot easier now. I am not a hard worker. You, Lisa, are a hard worker. I am kind of a lazy person, if I'm being honest. Aren't we all? I am. But I have to be consistent. That's the key. I have daily non-negotiables. I don't care if I'm sick. I don't care if I'm puking my brains out. I have daily non-negotiables that get done by someone in the house. It's usually me. But, um, and I, and I hold myself accountable to those. And you don't have to crush it every day. You just have to crush it sometimes. You just have to step up and say, I'm not— I'm doing something today and I'm getting something checked off that to-do list. And a to-do list is honestly probably— if I think of all the things that I changed in my life that had the biggest impact, that's the thing. Do you know how many people are not writing a daily list? You don't know.

I don't have it.

I die. I die. I need to do— and mine is 3 things and it's never more than 3 things.

Well, that's fine. Mine are on the calendar. 3 things. Yes, but no long list. I don't have a lot.

I'm not doing a lot. No, long lists suck. But if I don't write down like, these are the ways I'm pushing the needle forward today or this week, I'm just going to manage mess. I'm just going to flutter. I'm just going to— I'm not going to be focused and I'm not going to push the needle forward. And when I go to clients' homes to help them organize, the crazy thing is like I'm working with Carla right now. She lets me talk about her, so I'm allowed to say this. But she moved into her house 6 months ago, still hadn't unpacked. I show up on her door, she's get— she's gangbusters. I'm there with her. She's unpacking, she's going crazy, she's doing all this stuff. I say, okay, I'll see you in 2 weeks. Here's your homework. I come back, nothing had been done in between. Like, you know what I'm saying? Because I was there to push her. We have to learn to push ourselves a little bit.

That's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah. People say, well, what if you're not motivated? What if you don't want to? I'm like, do you like breathing? Do you like eating? I mean, like, nobody wanted to brush their teeth the first time either, but we all do it, don't we?

No, we cannot wait for motivation to come. There are times where we're like, I feel motivated today, but 99% of the time we have to make our own motivation and it comes from momentum. Get up and do something for 5 minutes, you're gonna be amazed at how you actually want to keep going. It's the getting up that's hard.

Yes. Okay. So now I think people have either stopped and gone and figured out what bug they are or already know, or they have a general idea. So now we're gonna talk to the adults first, and then we're gonna have you think about your kids. So when you think about these 4 clutter bug types, And you think about back to school, which first of all is not just the school supply checklist. It's like a million things. That's why we have the back to school blitz. We go through all of the things the second week in July so that you have identified them and you can get them done. Pick any bug you want. How, how do each of the different adult bugs handle the back to school time, and what tips can we give them for Doing it better or easier in less time.

Yeah. Okay. So right off the bat, if you are a visual person, so if you're a butterfly or a bee, and remember, most little kids are really visual. We need a spot to remind us about papers, tests coming up. We need a visual spot, whether it's color coordinated or it's something hung on the wall or it's a bulletin board. I call this like a command center. You can use your Sunday basket, but you have to have a designated spot for school-related things and reminders and paper. Give it a home and make sure that home is visual in some way. Again, it can be color coordinated or it can be up on the wall. And if you're a quick— even if you're not visual, we still need to give it a home. But know yourself and know that if it's out of sight, out of mind, we're not tucking it in a drawer. It's not going in a file cabinet. We need to remember. Right?

We need to like— So good. I always designate a laundry basket in the laundry room starting the first week of July for everything that I buy school-related. I could see it. It's out of sight, but I can see it, and I just keep adding things in there. You're spot on. That's exactly what I do.

We need to give it a thing. And, and so personally, for me, I like magazine racks on the wall for school papers that have to be signed. Or guess what? Your kids come home with a million things of artwork. And it's like, do I keep this forever? Listen, have a place where it goes for now, and then we go through when it starts getting full, or whatever your schedule is, and then we pull those things out and we decide if this is, if this is forever worthy to keep or not, because we cannot make the decision on the day it comes in our house. Because if your kid has drawn some like a masterpiece, it feels so much more important to both of us. And so give it time. So okay, let's talk about Butterflies in particular, which are— most little kids are butterflies. They need the most help when it comes to organization, and butterfly adults too, with creating systems for the extras that come with back to school. So I want you to think about homework, homework stations, and lunch making. That's key. So we've talked about paperwork, but how can we also create if If you're a bee or a butterfly, but especially butterflies, a homework station. And how can we create a lunchmaking station? And what I mean by this is station is just a fancy word for saying it has a place, it has a home. And my favorite thing to use for homework is a caddy system. So having like a cleaning caddy and filling it with markers and pens and their calculator and their rulers and all the things that they're going to need that they can move from space to space.

Yeah.

Because little butterflies, you know, they're very visual, they probably wanna do homework where you are, but when they're older, they might wanna do it in their desk. So having just a drawer for these type of things doesn't usually work for visual people. So just get a cleaning caddy.

Yeah. And when you're buying this back-to-school stuff and you're sending it into school with them, make sure you get doubles for home because they won't remember it to bring it home. So if you're sending colored pencils into school, you're probably gonna need colored pencils at homework. If you're sending glue sticks into school, you're probably gonna need glue sticks. For homework. Now, Cass, you talk about a lunch packing station inside of the Productive Home Solution. We set up a lunch packing station. We also set up a drink station. So the drink station— Cass, you need this right now because you said your kids are 10 to 16, right? Okay. Welcome to the drinking all of your calories phase of the next decade of your life. There will be, uh, well, you and Joe might like to have, you know, the nice liquids in the evening, but you're gonna have, um, Smoothies. The kids are gonna want smoothies and they're gonna want shakes. And then, you know, you may drink coffee and hot chocolates and like every— we drink everything in America. So instead of having like cups in one and mugs in the other and a blender in the other and then coffee stuff here, and then— I actually have 2 whole drink caddies right now, drink cabinets. One is for the alcoholic drinks and then everything related to appetizers that we do on Sundays. And the other one is for weekly drinks, which is coffees, Smoothie stuff, all the cups, all the mugs, everything in there, the pods for the coffee, all in one cabinet. Open it up, make whatever you want, close it. It's all there. You, you're gonna, you're gonna go do that after this.

That's so smart. So yeah, so when I talk about lunch making station, it's just that. It's like dedicating a spot for all the things kids use to make lunches. And you have drink stations too, which I think is really brilliant. And we do that with. Yeah, we do that with coffee and tea. So we've like zoned this as coffee and tea and everything you need, whether it's travel mugs, mugs, K-pods, tea, it's all together. And then we have the blender with the smoothie cups and everything all kind of organized too. This— it's important to do this so that you're saving time every minute of the day that you're using these things. If you have to walk across the kitchen and walk back again, you're wasting precious time.

So you look at—

you created like a, like a whole system for them to just do this. It's so important for every Very organizing style. But, but again, this is like, that's creating those details a little bit. Remember, if you are a cricket or a bee, to not go too detailed if you have little kids in the house, or if you have butterflies or ladybugs in the house, because I'm not gonna take the time to put something away properly if it's hard. If I have to open the lid, if I have to like, you know, get really detailed to put back the smoothie mix or whatever.

Yeah.

I'm probably just gonna set it beside. So if you notice that your kids aren't maintaining the system and they're making— leaving it a little bit messy, my suggestion would be just to go a little bit more broad in your categories, like a big basket where they can toss the snacks back in instead of having everything super, super, super detailed.

Yes. And so like when you're talking about the coffee station, so I put collagen in my coffee now because I'm 51. So, I put the collagen right in the cabinet where that is. And then when we make smoothies, we put protein powder in there. Protein powder is in the cabinet with the smoothies. So, I totally agree with you. You don't want to get overorganized. But when you think about all the things you add in a smoothie and all the things you add in your coffee, you might still be going over to the pantry to get the collagen and to get the protein powder out. Why does it have to stay in the pantry? Like, the pantry police are not coming to your house to make sure all food things are in the pantry and all non-food things are in the cabinet. to put food things in the cabinet, open one cabinet once I make everything, I make sure everything's put back. I close one because how I used to do it, Cass, hilarious. I would come down and I, and this is how I realized I had to make a difference. I was making like, I think lunch packing. And I, you know, opened the cabinet because that's a waste of time to close it if I'm going to open it again. So I'd like open, open, open, open. I looked around the room and 80% of the cabinets were open. Making breakfast and lunch. I was like, okay, this is not efficient. And that's why I was like, okay, well, if I open it, I take everything out and do it and put it back. Odds are better that I'm gonna actually close the cabinet cuz there's only one cabinet to open and close. And then you take in and out everything. It's kinda like turning a cabinet into a basket.

Yeah, it's exactly like that. And, and it's being efficient. So organization isn't all about like everything, this category goes here. It's how do you use your space? And I call them stations, right? It's basically all the things you use for that activity. store it together. So a drink station, a lunch-making station, a homework station, all the supplies you need for that activity, we're storing it together and it just creates less mess and you're saving so much time. And all visual organizers tend to leave cabinet doors open. I'm just gonna say that. And closet doors. It's like a subconscious thing. So I, if I would've spoke to you a little bit more, I should have known you were a bee because yeah, bees and butterflies tend to leave the doors open, especially if they're not 100% done with something. They're Yes.

Yeah. Waste of time. So my husband is a cricket. So he walks in, he goes, close, close, close, turn off, turn off, turn off. What are you guys doing? Close, close. I love it. Everything is going on. We drive him crazy. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine.

I turn on every light in every room and he goes behind me, turns off every light in every room.

Sounds a lot like my husband's a cricket too. And he's very like, These are the rules and everything. He he just think he's methodical in his thinking. I'm like done something. I'm like la la la. I've like moved on, and I'm not even thinking about you know what I just completed. It's it's a problem.

Any other specific things for parents, especially related to those category types that you could think of?

Yeah, so yeah, absolutely. So if you are listen, if you're a cricket or a bee, do something that's going to really ease your anxiety because you are a bit of a perfectionist, right? You've got You love the details. You want to be prepared ahead of time. Make yourself— you probably have, I know you probably have this system, but sort of like an emergency school folder or binder.

Yeah.

So just in case you're not there to get the kids off the bus, or if something— like, it has all the information. So your mother-in-law, your mom can come in, the neighbor can come in. What time does the bus pick them up? What time does it drop them off? What's the name of the school? What's the address? What's the name of their teachers? What's the phone numbers? What's the login and passwords for their— all their homework apps, keeping all that information together in like a binder or a folder or your Sunday basket. You know, you do you.

Genius. I do not have a system for this. I'm sitting here going, how did I miss that one?

It's— it really helps ease the anxiety. You don't need to go this far if you're, you know, a ladybug or a butterfly. I still think you should write this, this stuff down, but you could do like a scrap piece of paper, or you can have like Post-its on the side of the fridge. But again, if you are that really detailed cricket bee personality, this is going to give you peace of mind because this is the biggest thing with bees and crickets. Your mind is going a mile a minute, all the things all the time that you have to worry about and think about. So getting it out of your brain and putting it someplace is going to give you that peace of mind. In all honesty, you'll probably never use that emergency thing, but just—

Right, right. Oh my God, it's so true. It's so true, but have fun making it.

But creating it is going to be so beneficial for your brain because you are— it's going to be one, it's stressing you out whether you know it or not. What if I can't be there to get them off the school bus? Or what if— what if I want to travel? What if I want to go on vacation? Blah, blah, blah. Like, it's always there. So getting it out of your brain and giving it a safe place to go is going to give you a lot of peace of mind.

I love that. And also our friends know that we did this hobby work because we just couldn't help ourselves. And then they call us and go, hey, so do we have school on Election Day or not? And we're like, yes, no, you know.

Yeah, immediately put your school calendars and put the newsletters in there. Like, organize a school binder or a section of your household management binder or something like that for school. And I'm a ladybug, and I even have a section in my household management binder because my husband and I like to travel, and my mother-in-law or my Mom will come and stay with the kids. And I'm like, listen, you need— you have a question, it's in the binder.

That's great. I will say one thing that I started doing, oh, I don't know, 7 or 8 years ago, and this has been a game changer and I love it, is as soon as I get the school calendar, I put it on my Google Calendar all the way through the whole school year. So I put like all the days off. Now that I'm doing my PhD, like I already know the PhD breaks for the next 3 years for the school that I'm enrolled in. So I know when I can schedule vacations for 3 years. Like, I just love to know anything that I can possibly know so that I don't have schedule conflicts in the future. So yeah, like the whole school schedule, the whole— and it stresses me out until I get that school schedule. So if they delay giving it to us, I'm like, oh, not like I need to know, you know, before school starts, but I need to know as soon as I get it. Like, that's the next 90 minutes of my life getting that all inside of my Google Calendar.

But that's so smart because you So happy. If you didn't do that, listen, we can all say like, oh, just be more laid back. But as a bee, if you didn't do that, it would bother you. Like, that's one thing on your brain at all times. So anytime a bee or cricket can get something out of their brain onto paper, their life will be better, their life will be easier. And like, butterflies and ladybugs don't have that same anxiety. Like, we're just We're flighty, man. We're not thinking about that as much. So it's not as important for us to do that type of, I guess, planning. And but it is for you. You have, you have to make a priority because otherwise it's going to be in your brain bothering you.

All right, so let's go through the kids one by one. So let's just start with busy bees. So busy bee kids probably want to have their whole— they probably want a copy of the annual school calendar.

Yeah.

They probably want a planner or a— so that they could see when their spring break is gonna be, when their breaks are gonna be. They probably would like a big calendar on their wall and their—

Absolutely. They want a calendar on their wall. Absolutely. A bee child needs a calendar on their wall big time. And teach them to use their phone because they're pro— if they are a bee, they're probably older. So their organizing style starts coming out around the age of 10 to 13. Before that, almost everybody is a butterfly. So you'll start seeing this teen maybe getting a little bit well, I have this homework due and this, and they'll start being a little stressed about things coming up. That's when you know you have a B or Cricket on your hand. You must give them planning tools. Get— just like you need to get it out of your head, they need to get it out of their head too. And so if they're a B, you want a big calendar and you want to teach them to use their phone and those plans. That's a skill a lot of children don't know, how to use Google, Calendar and how to schedule.

Ladybugs and butterflies need to know this too, though. They do need— they may not love it, but they kind of need it.

We do need this, but they need something different. They need to use their phone with reminders. They need that, that they need to turn on alerts and reminders. Just looking at a calendar isn't— they're just not gonna— that's not enough. They need Alexas. An Alexa or a, like a Google Home is an excellent tool for a butterfly or a ladybug to have in a child's room. And you can say every day at 4 o'clock, set a reminder to do homework, and that will alert them every day at 6 o'clock. Set a reminder to make your lunch the next day, every day at blah blah blah. Using a tool like that, it's very inexpensive. Is more beneficial for a ladybug or a butterfly. A bee and a cricket, they just need a planning tool. They just need to have a calendar or a planner or something like that. But us ladybugs and butterflies need that external— it's almost like they need to be reminded more often with something external than just themselves regulating their schedule.

So I do set reminders. the night before, the morning of, for all my meetings so that I have a 5-minute reminder and I'm on, on time for my meetings. But as you're talking about this, and you're mentioning that this happens between 10 and 13, which is going to be those middle school years. When I taught middle school, I definitely could literally watch that happen from a 6th grader to an 8th grader. Now, in hindsight, you literally are becoming the adult that you're going to be by the time you enter high school, and obviously you're still You know, not an adult yet, but your personality, your way of being, the systems that you need. This is making me think it's even more important that we actually teach better organization and planning at the high school level, but with the kind of organizing that the student needs. So I'm going to be mulling this over.

So as a teacher, think of those students who have like their binders and they have folders and their papers are in them. Those are bees and crickets. The children with the crumpled homework in the bottom of the backpack, They're butterflies and ladybugs, right? Like, that's it. They're butterflies and ladybugs. So how can— so binders generally don't work for butterflies and ladybugs because they're not going to take the time to open the binder, click those things, put the sheets in. And so I always recommend like file folders where the kids can slide in. It's like blue's for homework that's done, red is for homework I need to do. So they're in class instead of using a binder. How can you slide it in a folder?

Yeah.

That works much, much better for that organizing style, so it's not a crumpled ball in the bottom of their backpack.

Yes. So when I do binders with kids, because I'm a bee, so we do binders. These slash pockets though, Organized 365 makes, has front and back. So that's— so it's so interesting. I can pull every single, um, bug into the Sunday basket or the binder that I make, because the binder that I make is you just get to shove it in the pockets.

That's it.

Every quarter I would go through and I would— for my kids, I would sew it. Actually, you can do a binder, but you have to have a way that you don't have to 3-hole punch. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. A slash pocket.

You need slash pockets because they can't 3-hole punch. My daughter is right. She is such a cricket. She will 3-hole. She will. My other daughter's a butterfly. Good luck finding hers if you didn't have a quick slot. And even then, she doesn't always use them. She needs a little extra organization.

Fascinating. Okay, so having been a preschool and kindergarten teacher, what I love about a kindergarten classroom, you can all picture one in your mind, is that you have all the, all of the shelves and all of the toys have a place to go and you have the labels. And yes, in my house we had the labels of where you put things back.

Yes.

It never looked like that at my house except for when my children were sleeping. Because you're right, ladybugs, they just take the toy box and they completely dump it out. They literally pull everything off of the Shelves like this, so it's like five seconds on the floor, half an hour for me putting it all back up there. I will say though, the as an early childhood educator, the fact that you as the parent are playing with your kids while you're actually putting it all back together so it looks like a kindergarten classroom again. Joey's listening in the background. If you heard that laugh, it is showing order to the kids, and they like they need to see order. So just because your Kids are butterflies doesn't mean everything should be a toy box. You actually do need to sort the—

You can't use toy boxes.

Toy boxes are horrible.

They're the worst thing. And that's the thing, when I say more laid back, you still need structure. Just you don't want all the Barbie shoes in one container and all the Barbie clothes in one. You just want one big bin for Barbies, but it has to have labels. You need to label for small children, especially picture labels. Just that's why it works in a kindergarten classroom. Because they're so visual and they— it's like subconsciously reminding them not only of where things are but to put things away. And a lot of parents are like, I don't want a label in my house. I'm like, okay, then just live with mess, I guess, because it, it's insane when you add labels how much tidier your home will be with visual people living in your home.

Okay, I'm glad, I'm glad we touched on that because I, I I misunderstood what you said. The other thing I'll say with a little person living in my house again, he loves to dump everything out. It's just, you know, he's almost 2, so that's like his big thing. So, I don't let him have the Legos.

Yeah.

Like the Legos only come out if Lovey wants to play Legos. And when Lovey is done, they go back in the laundry room and he forgets that he owns them because there's only so many things that I'm going to pick up. And I found that when the kids were little, like when I was a stay-at-home mom and they were under the age, I Yeah, I lived in Toys R Us and I didn't even care because, I mean, at least it entertained them for 5 minutes and I could go to the bathroom. But now that I'm an empty nester, we only have on the first floor where my grandson Grayson is the amount of toys that I want to maintain and organize. Otherwise, it goes to my daughter's house or it's out of sight and I pull it out on a special time when I want to organize, want to play with that with him.

So less is more. That's what the thing— I don't think any parent's house should look like Toys R Us threw up. Like, I think that is— I feel like Stressful for you and it's stressful for your children. That's the thing. So I use a system like behind me. I use Kallax shelving for toys. I ran a daycare in my home. I had 9 children and it was always tidy because here's what we did. We had bin systems like, like behind me, and every bin was a different small category of toys with picture labels. And at first we did one bin at a time. You couldn't get another bin of toys until that bin was picked up.

Mm-hmm.

up. And then when that was a habit, we could have 2 bins and then 3 bins at a time. But it's okay to pack up half your kids' toys and do toy rotation. It's also okay to declutter half of your kids' toys because less toys is more creativity, more happiness, and way less overwhelm with kids.

And I have a kid who's a butterfly, and we, um, so all kids are butterflies. I now understand what you're saying with that because they're not butterflies now, but when my kids were both butterflies, They got to choose. They had to have their bedroom picked up on Saturdays. My rule for pickup means I can vacuum. That's all it means. It just means that I can vacuum. So I had a ladybug, a ladybug/butterfly. She'd shove everything under the bed and there's just stuff everywhere. And the other one was a crickety butterfly and everything was like very individually organized and very perfectionistic. They both had way too much stuff. The one decluttered a ton of stuff so that they didn't have to organize and clean and they could get their bedroom done like lickety-split. The other one likes stuff. So they decluttered a ton so that they could get their bedroom organized lickety-split. And then they accumulated a whole bunch of stuff in 6 to 8 weeks, and then they would declutter. And it's just like a never-ending accumulation decluttering cycle. And they love it still to this day. Like, they love to get all this stuff and then they love to get rid of it. And, and their love language is gifts. So I think that, you know, when you start going with your learning style and then your bug and then your love language, the love language of gifts. Stuff means a lot more to people whose love language is gifts than people like me whose love language is words of affirmation. Like, you take my stuff away, if you keep talking nice to me, like, I'll, you know, do well with that. So, I think it is the more you understand yourself.

That's it.

And the more you understand your family, the better choices that you can make for your— the cohabitating. And especially, I just love this idea that you've, uh, talked about, about how it changes over time. Like, we're growing and developing and changing, and allowing for that and allowing for us to evolve as people. And even we as adults are evolving and growing and becoming more organized and productive all the time.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you talk about decluttering. Can I just say, like, as a parent, that's one of the greatest life skills you can teach your child, is that on a regular basis, just like We have to do the dishes just like we have to vacuum. We have to get rid of things. This is like, why weren't we taught this? So now we, as adults, we're like, we have everything and it's so hard to get rid of anything.

Yes.

Regular decluttering with children is one of the greatest life skills that you can ever teach them. That, you know, we are making room for new. You, you're done with, you've outgrown that. Let's just let it, it's no big deal. It's nothing. It's a big nothing burger. We declutter. That will make sure they don't struggle with clutter as adults.

Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness. Cass, what are you looking forward to in the Back to School Blitz this year?

I'm just excited for my kids to get outta my house. That's what I'm looking forward to. Can they leave yet?

No.

Uh, I, I, yeah, but no, but really that's it. Um, my kids are happier with structure and we're not a very super structured home. I I work from home. I have an employee in my home. And so having the kids here home all day, I'm not really able to kind of entertain them or give them structure. So they feel purposeless. If like, you know, do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

They don't really— they don't have to get up at a certain time or go to bed at a certain time, and they're not happy. They're not as happy. Um, school gives them structure and it gives them purpose, and that gives them more happiness. So I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again. How can people find you? Where can they learn out more, more about what you're doing?

So you can just search Clutterbug, or you can go to clutterbug.com. You can take the free quiz, and there's lots of free organizing advice and tips and tricks to help you and your kids get organized.

Cass, thank you so much for joining us again.

Thank you so much for having me.