Organize 365® Reality KIDS TV Show with Maura

Maura, welcome to the Organized 365 podcast.

Hi, Lisa.

So you are the either lucky or crazy person who responded to my request this summer when I said I would like to organize some children, and you were like, please come to my house. And I'm saying, why did you let me come into your house and organize your children knowing I was bringing like 5 different iPhones with me to record the whole thing?

And I think I have to correct you. Because I raised my hand and said, me, me, me, even though you said somebody in Ohio.

Yeah.

So I said yes. Of course I said yes. I think that over time, you realize as a parent, you just, you get to, you always talk about overwhelm. And I feel like it's such a beautiful way to put it because I think overwhelm is the perfect adjective. And it doesn't matter if you have 1, 2, 4, 4 kids, which is— we have 4. Um, you, you just get beat down with overwhelm and you're constantly trying to stay afloat. Um, and the way I like to say it too is like the spigot is turned on all the time. It's like the spigot, like nothing slows down. It's not like I— before we had kids when I could spend 3 days painting a room. You can't spend 3 days Cleaning up their rooms, which is what— their rooms had become a disaster. There was— we were having a hard time communicating through it, and I don't think that they really maybe understood exactly what a clean room was. So you coming in was the perfect middleman to just be a new face to, you know, bring them to, to maybe care about it a little bit more than they did. Because I think they cared about it, but I just, I don't know that they had the tools to do it.

Yeah.

And I wasn't going to get them, apparently.

Tell everyone you have 4 kids. So names, ages.

I have 4 kids. 12, Bodhi. 10, Lucy Belle. 7, Finley. And 4, Blaze. Yeah.

And I read Blaze a book, but we did not organize his room.

No, but you're still his best friend.

I know. I was like, I'm gonna go read your brother a book now. You sort, Bodhi.

You did a good job. You made him feel included. That's all he wants.

And I think I love organizing children. Like, I love organizing children. One of the very first people I ever organized was a 7-year-old girl, and her mother was so frustrated with her bedroom. And when I went in her bedroom— this was long before Organize 365— like, this is like you know, 15, 16, 17 years ago. And I went in her bedroom and I looked around. I knew immediately what the problem was, and the problem was the mother. And so I said, I said, I will organize your daughter's room. I have 2 rules. One, you're not allowed to be in here when I do it. And 2, she's allowed to either get rid of or put in the top of her closet anything that she wants, and you're not allowed to change your mind. And she said, okay. And so as soon as I went into that room, I said, Do you even like this stuff? Do you want it on display? And so everything that the child wanted was shoved in the closet and everything that the mom and grandmother wanted on display was on display in the bedroom. And once I did that with the child without the mom there, that bedroom stayed organized for 7 years. And I was like, huh, it really is.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, and that's true for children, for adults, for anyone. You really have to honor how you wanna use your space and what you want to display. Versus what you think is supposed to be on display or what someone else wants on display. And then it does stay organized. So I think that's the first one is really giving kids the autonomy to make the decisions in their room. And I will say your kids already had that. You'd already given them that.

Well, that's good.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

They didn't have anything in their bedroom because you told them to have it in there or that they didn't want, or you said they had to keep something in there that they didn't want. So You'd already checked that box.

Well, thanks. Yeah. Okay.

So that's good. So I would say that if, if you're thinking about your kids' bedrooms, because, you know, people are thinking about their kids as we're having this conversation.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if you're thinking about your kids' bedrooms, are there things in that bedroom that are in there because you had them in your bedroom when you were a kid, or you or your parents or your spouse's parents bought them something and it should be in there to honor those people? It's not a good reason.

Yeah, and you also tapped into their personalities, which I don't think really drew that line. I know with school, Bodhi is Mr. Facts and knows everything about everything. Yes, or drew the dotted line to what that means and translates to in his room, which I think was a really beautiful thing that you did, is that you wanted to spend each time with each child individually and you got to know them a little better. And obviously you took what I had to And to say into consideration, and then you bridge the gap.

Yeah.

And, you know, figured that out, how it translated to their rooms and how their living space.

How long did you think it was going to take me to get their rooms organized? And did you think I was actually going to be successful? Hmm.

I know you, so I knew you were going to be successful, but I thought for sure it would be a multi-day process. Like I thought maybe you'd be like, hanging out in a hotel nearby and coming day after day, because to me it feels like days and days. And I think that's important to tell other parents that you're not the only one that feels like it would take— I, I, you no longer have time to do long period, long stretches of projects. It's kind of like with my workouts, if I could draw a little parallel, I wanted to start running again. So I started by saying, okay, I'm just going to get on for 10 minutes a day and I'm— and that way I can get myself back where I can do anything. You can find 10 minutes. So it's kind of the same thing with you and your 15 minutes and all of your programs. But I think that that's important to, to, to note that it is manageable if you take small bites is, is what you want, you know.

And I think I was there 4 hours. I think I was in and out in 4 hours. Yeah, we got all 3 kids' rooms done. I think I was able to do that, one, because This is just like my unique thing. I just love it.

Yeah.

And I also think because I'm a teacher, so I know how to have different kids doing different things at the same time and managing all those balls. So, yeah, I was able to do that. As a mother, when I would do it with Joey and Abby, I did exactly what I did with Finley and Lucy Belle. So I would go in one room, I would get them started, I'd give them an assignment, I'd go in the other room. I'd work with them. And so 2 kids, you can do 2 kids at the same time if you have a good night's sleep and some coffee.

Yeah. Then you could do 2 kids, but you have 4 kids.

So 4 kids means there's always, even if you're working with 2, there's 2 more that are vying for your attention or need a snack or fell down and got a boo-boo or whatever. And so it's nearly impossible for you to do what I did. You should know that.

Okay.

If you were doing what I did, one way to do it would have been that you had one child per day and you just spent that time for that day. So like you took a whole week and you're like, this is this person's day and this, and then the rest would have to be at camp or with your husband. And so it'd be a concerted effort that the two of you would've had to take a week off of work in order to pull it off.

Yeah.

Or you could have done The girls together in one day. You could have done Bodhi in one day and then not done, um, the little one.

Yeah.

So you could have done it in 2 days like that. But still, you and your husband would have had to take those 2 days off in order to juggle kids. You just have a lot of kids.

Yeah, it's, you know, 100 miles an hour every day.

There's no way to do what I did in 15 minutes a day, and there's no way to do what I did While you're the only parent there with 4 kids. I just want to be clear. Yeah, there's no— otherwise you're setting yourself up for failure.

Yes, and that's a difficult thing to transition out of too, I think, as a parent. And it's not just the social media world of, you know, seeing highlight reels. I think we, we are— I have to remind myself very often to be more realistic of what I expect of myself and what is actually realistic. Without being a crazy person. You know, I think that I can have a tendency to just start being a crazy person because I'm not reminding myself to settle down, calm down. And also spend quality time with your kids. All these things that are pressing for your, for your attention are important things. I think it's important not to get too off track to that having a clean room is more important than spending quality time with your kids or cooking for them or cooking with them or whatever the case may be.

Yeah, and I think another way you could have found this time is that if you were like, over the course of the summer, I want to do each of the kids' rooms.

Yeah.

And so let's say that Bodhi had a camp he went to, then you could have done the girls that week, or if one of the kids has a birthday party to go to, and then the other one can, you know, where you find pockets where you have one child, you need about If it's your first time doing a bedroom the way that you're gonna see in the video that I do the bedroom, I would say 2 to 3 hours. If you can block out 2 to 3 hours, and it really is helpful for kids if you do it all at once, and they can, they can hang in there with you for a full 2 hours, but you need the, the last hour to move all of the donations out, to clean up everything, to vacuum, to make sure you've got it all the way done. Because if you don't have it all the way done, it'll never get all the way done, and then it was kind of not even worth it.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

So maybe you just say, we're gonna do it the month of June and every Saturday is a different kid and your, your day's coming.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, everyone else is watching TV or whatever, eating Froot Loops.

Yeah.

This kid is in the room with you. So it's just, it, and then it gets faster and faster and they love it. Kids love to organize their bedrooms. They love the one-on-one time. They love talking about their stuff. They love getting able to make decisions. They love someone helping them. Like they love everything about it. I have never I've never organized any child, including my own, that did not love the result and usually the process. Like, they love it.

Odie was a little apprehensive because he's 12, so he was a little bit— I don't know, he was a little apprehensive. But the way that you involved Finley, she's 7. Yeah, she was still 7 at the time. So she was 7, she just, she really felt important, and that was really cool for her. She really enjoyed it, and I didn't think that I didn't think she would enjoy it as much as she does. My messiest kid loves to organize. Tell me how that makes sense. How does that make sense? Is that going to the ADHD branch?

I think because they have so many ideas, they just like to organize them so they can have more ideas. And I did Bodhi last, and so he kind of watched what I did with the girls. And I think by the time we got to him, I had a little bit of my extra energy out, so I was maybe moving a little bit slower, and I just listened to all of his stories. He had Every single thing he touched had a story. Oh, and I just listened to the stories. And as a professional organizer, that's what you do. Like, some people don't wanna share much, they just want you to do it for them. And some people, you're their paid friend and they really wanna tell you every story with everything, and then they're able to let it go. And so you just have to follow the pace of your child.

Yeah.

Not the pace of your to-do list. That's why you really need to give yourself 3 Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, I did nothing with clothing. So if I did clothing, I would've been there another 4 hours at least.

Yeah.

So your kids already had their clothing organized and it was all put away. And so I just didn't even go there.

Okay.

So that's another thing to note. I did books, I did passion projects. Both of the bigger bedrooms, they had like Little closets that were under the roof. I did not organize those closets under the roof, so I didn't do every single space in the bedrooms either. I got the main—

After you left, they kept them intact. I don't know, you know, and I'm not saying they were perfect, and maybe you changed my perspective of what they should have looked like too, so it adjusted that a little bit, that lens. Um, but they did care more. I mean, I'm not saying Finley was probably the hardest to keep To keep on it. But, um, they, they did phenomenal after you left. So your magic wand.

So, and you guys can watch the video of this. The link is inside of the show notes. We've got on YouTube, we've got it everywhere. You'll find it. Um, but one of the things that I realized right away was I came down the day before, or maybe a couple days before, to meet with the kids. One, because then they would feel more comfortable. I think that probably worked really well for Bodhi. The girls would have been like, whatever, let's go.

Yeah.

Um, but also to see what I was walking into, like, how organized or unorganized is this? And the first thing I noticed was these kids' rooms were pretty clean and fairly organized. Like, my expectation of clean and organized was totally different than your expectation of clean and organized.

Interesting.

So when I came there, because we talked about that, recorded it, it's in the video. And I said to the kids, I think your rooms are clean. They're like, yeah. And I said to you, I think they're clean. And you're like, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think this is— and so I think that's really an important conversation to have because our expectations sometimes for other people in our family is different than our expectations for ourselves. I remember when in 2012, when I was organizing my whole house and I was all over my husband about like the 3 things that were not put away. And I really looked at our house, and there were like 89 half-finished projects all over the place. I was like, until you have every single project picked up and put away, Lisa, you cannot say anything about Greg's projects. And I've never achieved that. So I've never had to mention it, because we know what we're doing with our piles. We don't know what other people in our family are doing with their piles. So then we just see them as stuff that didn't get put away.

Yeah.

And you have very active intellectually active kids, not just active in, in sports and busy, but they have like huge imaginations and they love reading and they love researching and they have Legos and they have dolls. And, and so with that kind of an imagination, they're going to be little piles of stuff because these are all in process for them.

Yeah, I never thought about it that way.

It's their work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what— maybe that's what came out with Finley, the 7-year-old, is that, that you got— you gave every single— I mean, you sat on that floor for, I don't know, I guess an hour, but a long time on your butt on the carpet and like picking up all those little pieces of all those things. And you listened and you put things in places that maybe I wouldn't have thought were something that needed to be put into something, but it made her feel so good to have These little treasures put in something with a place on a shelf.

And your kids were really good at getting rid of stuff. Like, none of your children were like, no, I wanna hold onto that. And it wasn't really something that I thought they were going to reference again. They were pretty good at decluttering.

Good.

Some kids are not, and that's okay. Eventually the kids will get good at decluttering because they know that they're not gonna get out of getting their rooms organized. And this is gonna take, you know, 6 hours instead of 4, and eventually they're gonna wanna go play more than they're going to wanna sit on the floor with you. And eventually they'll say, you know what, just get rid of all that stuff. Yeah. Even if it's like the 3rd or 4th time.

Yeah.

Um, the other thing was you thought we were gonna have to buy a whole bunch of containers and stuff for the bedrooms.

Yes, I did.

So when I came there and I met the kids, I was like, okay, what sorting items do we have? So we went in the basement, we went in your basement. I did not put that in the video. And I looked at your pile of containers and I was like, bring all these upstairs. So you brought all of them upstairs, and I think you went out and bought more.

I bought a couple shelves because I think we needed— I don't— they— I have never invested in storage for them, in real storage for them, thoughtful storage. I think very easily as your family grows, you just repurpose, repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. You don't actually find new— I think you gave me very parameters around what you needed, and then that's what I went with.

I said I needed one bookshelf for— I knew I needed a bookshelf for Finley's room. She had a little, um, Mickey Mouse toy box. Toy boxes are totally pointless. But like, even with Grayson right now, he's 14 months, you need a basket or a toy box or something because all the toys are pointless. They don't go with anything. But quickly, toy boxes don't— do not work very well for children for more than like a year or 2. Bookshelves work really well. So I asked for a bookshelf. And then I went to the store and I bought a bunch of $1 clear, um, shoeboxes. And I also bought a little, uh, 3-drawer thing that we ended up using in Bodhi's room that was 8.5 by 11 for papers. And that's all the containers we needed. So I think I, I bought like maybe— oh, and clipboards. I bought them each clipboards. So maybe $40 in supplies on my side. And you bought a bookshelf that was what?

$50, $100, something like that.

Okay. So less than $100 on supplies to organize all 3 rooms. So I think that was great.

Yes.

Um, and they— we didn't label them, so we just sorted them. And so with each child, if you don't go in with like, oh, we're trying to fit it in this organizer and this size bins— if you watch the video when I'm organizing Lucy Belle, we start with big containers, then we go smaller, and then we just end up with $1 shoeboxes by the time we're done. And the containers go in and out and in and out. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to use the cuter containers, and we ended up with They're gone.

Yeah.

Um, just because she had so many different collections, it was better to sort by the collection than by the bigger container.

Yeah.

Because then she knew where to put things back.

Right.

And with Finley, Finley's the younger of 2 girls. She had scissors, but they were like the scissors that don't work. She had crayons, but they were all broken. And I said, I think that we put in a requisition to your mother for some new crayons. Like, 'cause clearly you're allowed to have crayons in your room and you're 7, so maybe you can have a new set of crayons. They're like 50 cents. Um, and so then she was like, oh yeah, new crayons. Oh yeah, I knew this. And like kind of getting her her own supplies. When you go through your kids' stuff like that, that's when you realize, oh, this needs to be replaced.

Yeah.

But you don't really think about it when you're just like, put your stuff away, put your stuff away.

Yeah. What are you putting away? Ask yourself, what are you putting away? Being mindful of that.

Yeah. So when we talked about clean versus organized, I was thinking organized is when the kids do wanna put away their stuff, or like, let's say the house is gonna be cleaned, or let's say you were gonna move and you need to show your house, like where would they put their stuff away if they were done playing with it? And when they put it away, do they have good enough crayons, good enough scissors, all of that kind of stuff? You mentioned the feeling you have when you tuck your kids into bed and what their rooms look like when they tuck into bed.

Mm-hmm.

Can you, can you express that?

Yes. I had a hard time putting them to bed. I would have my husband put them to bed often because it would make me crazy because there you wouldn't be able to walk in their rooms. And I, things were just everywhere. Yeah. It was really hard. And that was, that was why I raised my hand when you posted that on the, you know, stretch possibility that you crossed the river.

To go to Kentucky? Yes.

Because I hate that. I hated not being able to put them to bed without being filled with so much Frustration. And obviously we all carry our own stuff, but like, I, I, it was very frustrating to put them to bed and have things just be such, such chaos in chaos.

So I came down, spent the morning with them, got them all organized. I left with containers everywhere. Like, it wasn't like all vacuumed. They did vacuum their own rooms. Um, I don't even think I did after pictures because I probably had to get to a meeting or something.

Yeah.

Um, so after I left, what were the kids' reactions? What'd you and your husband talk about?

They were so excited. They had their clipboards with their checklists, and they felt— you could tell that they like kind of felt that ownership that they needed, that I think that was missing all along. Like, I don't know, I think hearing them and listening to them, your hearing them and listening to them went really far, and their commitment to like understanding how they can keep their little mini apartments, you know, and keep mom happy. Make mom happy. You know, I think they feel that. I mean, obviously your kids want you to be happy. So I think it just, it's like this big circuitry of, you know, of joy and relief and communication. Just all these lines were opened.

And have they kept their rooms straightened and organized since I left? I left, let's see, how long has it been?

Couple months.

Yeah, about 3, 3, about 3, maybe 4 months. Yeah.

Lucy, they have very much. There's been a couple of, you know, what was happening before was before you came and the way things had gone would, it would just be like, get worse and worse and worse and delay, delay, delay. And then I'd finally just spend an entire day where I'm a raging lunatic and trying to clean it up. And what happened after you left was they kept it orderly. It never got to the point of, of where it was before, so they don't even get near how messy it was before. You basically reined them in so that the spread is a little bit more, you know, like they're, they're, they definitely keep it more orderly. Lucy especially, you know, I remember being a kid and my dad lifting up my bed for me to clean all the junk from underneath my bed when I was a kid. And that was me, and that is Lucy. So Lucy Belle had the same problem. We— she no longer has a bed she can put stuff under, so we fixed that because they share a room now. But Lucy, for before, we— she kept her room clean. I can't even— it was week after week after week, to the point where it was just a given. She just— we knew that her room was— and that is huge for her because She's like a, she's like a whirlwind. She just, and she loves to keep all these things. And so you gave her all these places for all of her special things, and it just meant so much to her. And I think that she finally understood where things could go. And I don't know that I ever spent the time with her to be thoughtful about things having a place, even though that's like the oldest organization rule in the book is things in its place and everything in its place, or a place for everything and everything in its place. I think you gave that to her. And Bodhi too. Bodhi does all right. He didn't keep it as clean as Lucy did. And Finley, she struggles a little bit. She's still a little bit young. But they— the barometer, I mean, it's just crazy. The improvement since then has been—

it's—

and now the girls share a room, so they almost earned— they earned that because Lucy was doing such a good job keeping her room. So that actually ended up all working out really nicely, just provided us a nice little path to it.

So, when you would go in and you would organize your kids, when it got to the point where you couldn't stand it anymore— Yeah, I've been there, so I understand. Would they be with you while you did that, or would you do it without them? Or like, what was that process like?

I think I would do it without them because, and I, again, and it, I mean, it's just not, it was just, And it was just not pretty and it was not enjoyable. And it was just like trying, you know, trying to rein in something that was just impossible. Like I said about the spigot, I think that that's especially with the clothes and all that stuff, it really very— the spigot just never gets turned off. So like, I think I would just get into a panic. And then finally have a pocket of time where you say follow your energy, like I was trying to, you know, you finally have your follow your energy, follow your energy, and you finally have the time to do it. And then it just— ends up being one-sided, me, you know, doing what I need to do and cleaning it out, but not having them, them having any say. And it's my— that's a big thing as our kids get older, is listening to them and seeing them as they get older as individuals and just hearing what they have to say. Um, so yeah.

You know, this reminds me, I first started doing this with my kids where I had them help me organize their bedrooms when they were 3 and 4 years old. That's when I started saying, okay, I'm not gonna do this without them anymore. I'm gonna do this with them. And the first time I did it was only their stuffed animals. So what I did was we took all the stuffed animals outta their bedrooms and we put 'em in the loft. And any stuffed animal I could find anywhere in the house, I was like over it. We had like 100 stuffed animals. I was like, this is ridiculous. We're getting rid of the stuffed animals. Like 5 Clifford the Big Red Dogs and like the whole thing. And I was like, we need to get rid of these stuffed animals. So I put them all in the loft. They were not in either of their bedrooms. And then I said, okay, first I want you to both pick your 5 favorite and grab those and put those in your room. So they went and did that. And I said, okay, you're gonna have a baby, um, cousin, and he's gonna need stuffed animals. So I want you to both pick 5 stuffed animals to give him. And so then they made that pile.

Aw.

And then I said there had been a fire in our neighborhood, and I said, you know, there was that fire, and I found out that— and this is true— that the fire department gives every child who's in a fire a stuffed animal to hold. And so they need more stuffed animals now. Would you want to share any of your stuffed animals with the kids that end up, you know, having a fire? And they like took like 30 stuffed animals and put it in that pile. And so now we're down to like I don't know, it's like 30. I was like, okay, pick 5 more. And I had one child who wanted a lot of stuffed animals and he was like starting to have a panic attack. I'm like, go ahead and take 10 more, take 10 more, um, until we got done. So we got rid of more than half of the stuffed animals, but it was kind of like, and this is what you have to do with yourself. So you should have to do this with children. Like, okay, what do you definitely wanna keep? What do you definitely wanna get rid of? If you have a reason to get rid of it and it would help somebody else, what more could you let go? Okay, now we're at your level where you really wanna keep a lot of these. And over the course of 3 years, we got down to 7 stuffed animals. But it took 3 years. And every single time we did this, like 3 times a year, it's like, okay, all the stuffed animals in the loft. And they started to realize like, oh, she's making us get rid of our stuffed animals. But they learned. They learned a lot. And I think that, you know, when you look at the stuff that's in kids' rooms, I remember organizing a 14-year-old boy and his mother was like, wait till you see the collections. And yeah, he had marble collections, rock collections, card collections, like collection after collection.

Oh.

And I was like, you know what? I said to her, he's not getting rid of any of these. So what kind of a storage solution do you like? Because these collections are staying, because this is a collector kid. And once you understand, like, so Mara is a cookie baker, and her cookies are amazing. If I went into your amazing cookie office and I see all of these cookie cutters that are on the wall, Mara, they look very similar to me. Hmm! But you're like, no, no, no, that heart, that one's a little straighter, and that one's a little plumper, and that one's just the right size when I want to add it in. Like, you have all— like, I, I guarantee I could not get more than 5 cookie cutters off that wall, and there are hundreds of cookie cutters on that wall. And the same is true for your kids, like their uniqueness, their passions. You're going to see them the most when they're little. And so Yeah, everything having a place. To you, it looks like a bunch of scraps of paper and broken stuff, and can't we just trash all this? But to them, it's like, no, this is my mini restaurant, and this is my this. And, and they could tell you exactly what all this is.

Yeah.

So once they tell you what it is, then you make these little $1 plastic shoeboxes. You're like, this is for pretend restaurant, this is for pretend storytime, this is for, you know, and have them start to store that. I think the mistake with kids is not that Everything doesn't have a place. The mistake is you're trying to make their bedroom look like a Pottery Barn catalog, and really it's their whole ecosystem.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And Bodhi is my collector kid. I mean, it's— and I, and I think when I would go through my rage episode— terrible— but I mean, when I would go through my, like, you know, ransack, whatever, um, they, uh, they would donate things. But I just never asked, posed questions to them. So that's a really important note, I think, for any mom or dad.

Your kids are readers.

Yeah.

We spent a lot of time going through books. I was like, all right.

Yeah, you moved some books out. Yeah, for sure. And I, I have a hard time letting go of any of the books because I've lived this life of, well, there's always a younger kid, there's always a younger kid. So, but then what you realize, what you brought to my attention was You know, there's books in there that she doesn't even like Fancy Nancy anymore. Fancy Nancy's going to the donate pile. You know, just things that you finally need to let go of that, you know, once the kids are finally— like, I don't have another little, little girl who's interested in Fancy Nancy, so I'm not going to hold on to those I Can Read books anymore. So little things like that. And that, that those— I mean, really, when you pare that down, that's huge. Now these things are in containers, they're clear containers. You know that they mean something to the kids, and then the books that are in their rooms are books that they actually are interested in, it starts to feel more in control.

Yes, and I think it feels more in control for the kids too. Like, you found what collections they like. And the hilarious thing was when they would say, well, that's not my book, that's so-and-so's book. And you get through all the rooms and every single child said it was somebody else's. I was like, that means they don't want it, but they don't want to tell you they don't want it. And you just have to learn, like, that's the same thing we do. We're like, well, maybe I'll wear that if I get invited to, you know, a presidential reception someday, which is never gonna happen. But we keep it because, you know, like we have these things. So your kids' rooms are not going to end up being perfect.

Right.

They're not gonna end up being devoid of all clutter and they're not gonna let go of everything they could let go of. Just like you won't let go of everything outta your closet that you could let go of. And so when we start seeing children as humans, yeah, not little robots, then we realize they each have their own uniqueness, their own passions, their own amount that they're ready to get rid of, the own, their own level of minimalism or maximalism they like to have in their bedroom. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. It's like they go from being little baby ducks following their mama duck. Yeah. And then you realize the baby ducks are growing up.

Mm-hmm.

And they have opinions and, and Likes and dislikes and things. And then, and it really did, it made everything feel— that's what you did is you made everything feel in control for everybody. It was a good way to put it.

Are they spending more time in their room than they used to?

Oh, for sure.

I knew it.

Yeah. And then when we, you know, and I was able to translate it to Blaze's room too because we moved, we did musical rooms and now we have a guest room where Blaze's room was. So Blaze is in his own room and he has so much more floor space. He has the perfect little amount of stuff. So when you went through the kids' rooms, it gave me a good gauge on how much should be in the room. I'm not a packrat, but I believe in like using stuff and really using stuff. So we don't buy them toys all the time. So they really take care of their things for a long time. I grew up with teachers too. I feel like they're always practically minded. My aunts are teachers. So like, I think that, you know, I just never get rid of things. But when we fixed up his room, he now has a corner, a play corner. And there's some, some of the bins, some of the cute bins that we bought, we use for his stuffed animals and his cars, but he has his little things and it's not too much and it's very manageable. And then the girls now share a room with their bunk beds and, and they— Lucy has done a very good— they each have their own cubby closet, which they kept. Lucy kept both of those organized. Her whole room just stayed organized after you left. It's crazy. But it's just been It's been a really nice transition. It's not a source of contention anymore.

So the training table that was in the loft, is that now in Blaze's room?

Oh, we got rid of that.

Okay. So that loft at the top of the stairs, is it more like a landing space now?

Well, I, with transitioning their rooms, I had my own— this is like my phrase that I coined. I don't know if I got it from you, but the command operations. It kind of became command operations because I had to pare down how much the girls each had, and it just took some combing through with some of the leftover bins of all the little things. So that— I just actually got through a lot of it yesterday. But yes, I think it'll either be a command operations for laundry, because clothes obviously are one of the spigots that's always on, and the laundry coming in and out. Um, so I thought about maybe having just kind of a landing space for laundry to be put away up there. But yes, it's open and available for whatever I see fit.

Yeah, I love that. I love that, especially as they grow, because they are going to start to grow up pretty quick. Yeah, that you have that almost like— and, and I know some people might think this is too like clinical or whatever, but I love that all your kids are upstairs and like your bedroom is downstairs. And it's almost like as you go up those stairs, you're going into their apartment zone. And like, that's like the central communal area because there was Is there still a dresser out there?

I think we talked about—

we got rid of that.

Okay. I got rid of some stuff, so it actually is really pared down now.

But as they clean and organize their rooms, like as Bodhi outgrows things that, you know, you want Blaze to have, it's gonna go into his closet so that it's ready and just kind of continuing that triage.

Yeah. The bottlenecks, the bottlenecks are real and, and the, That I don't think that's something— and my husband and I were just talking about it last night or the night before— that how the— it's not something that anybody tells you, especially if you have multiple kids. The compounding effect of them outgrowing clothes. Yes.

Oh my gosh.

And it's such— it is a job, a full-time job in and of itself. So like freeing up all these bottlenecks that you did by giving them the control of their rooms, um, allows for the space for me to now have places in each room For the things, like you said, that they're going to grow into or that they're growing out of, and then they can be staged and phased out. Yeah, space.

And you work from home full-time?

Yes.

And your husband works from home almost all full-time?

Yes.

So you, you live and work most of the time in this space?

Yes, yes.

And so you can sometimes Um, end up feeling kind of like claustrophobic and you've gotta take action on something. And then the kids' rooms are the ones that get it taken out on.

That's ex—

I wanna just say that's very, very normal. It's very normal.

Yeah. It's crazy. It's a lot of pressure. It's, uh, I, I don't have a break from it, so it does get, it does get overwhelming at times. Hmm.

So this week as we are launching this real time, I like to say that I really know what the female American homeowner is thinking most of the year. And so people will say to me, you know, when I realized this when I was a teacher and when I was a stay-at-home mom, that parents around December 19th— and I don't know why it is December 19th, actually on December 19th, we're releasing this on the 21st. Parents are ready for the holidays, like they've already done all their shopping, so they know what is coming as they celebrate the holidays. Children are no longer going to school. Children are anticipating the holidays. They are ready for what they may or may not know are coming on the holidays. So there's this higher level of anxiety in the house from December 19th to the 25th. Because children are hoping that parents got the message and got the right thing. Parents are hoping that the kids like what's coming and everybody is in anticipation with what is coming. And like, how are we gonna fill these 6 days? Because we don't wanna spend any more money cuz we already spent more money than we thought we were going to do.

Yeah.

So I always cleaned out my kids' rooms between the 19th and the 25th.

Mm-hmm.

Because I was off school too cuz I was a teacher, so I wasn't working. So I was off and they were, they were off. And that is when we cleaned out the rooms and we decluttered the toy room and we decluttered the kids' rooms and I decluttered as much as possible. Before I celebrate Christmas, before Christmas. And then I would organize the kids' rooms from the 26th to the 31st. So they actually got their rooms done twice over winter break. One was the decluttering, because it doesn't last. As soon as you get the gifts, and then the grandparents get the gifts, and like, like all the gifts come in, well, then they need homes. And as soon as they need homes, there's even more that they're willing to get rid of that they weren't willing to get rid of. So I actually set aside a day before Christmas and a day after Christmas for each child to declutter and organize their spaces so that when we got to the new year, everything was leveled up to whatever their next level was.

Smart.

And that's why we do the Out with the Old Blitz for everyone. Adults and children are all sent to their bedrooms because adults, you should do it too. So a lot of times, I mean, some people go on vacations. I never have. We don't go to a lot of— I mean, like, go to church. We used to go out to dinner, but we don't even do that now. Like, we don't do a lot on that 2 weeks. It's a lot of time to fill of people not being at work and school. It costs a fortune. So if you're home anyway, go to your room and clean it and organize your closet like adults too.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Now, um, I also would do this with my kids over spring break, and I also would do this with my kids before they went back to school, and I'll tell you some tips. When your kids are getting ready to go back to school. So when you do this in August, you can declutter as much as possible, as much as they want, because they're moving into a new grade level. They're moving into— they're becoming an older child. In the winter, if they have not played with it since school started, they're pretty much over that, and they're never gonna play with it again. So you can go ahead and get rid of it, and they likely will before the holidays. And if not, they might get rid of it the last week of the year. But here, when you get to spring break, you're ready to declutter everything, and I will caution you not to. Declutter as little as possible over spring break because you're going into summer, and summer is long and expensive. And I don't care if they don't like that toy as much anymore. If it gets you 1 hour in the summer, you want it.

Yeah.

But in the fall and in the winter, declutter as much as possible. In the spring, Move stuff around because you're going to need all that stuff to get through the long summer.

That's so smart. Having a rule like that is so huge because I am the practically minded mother who is the so-and-so got you that, you know, I'm seeing the sentiment in these things and instead of the practicality of you're right, they're moving into a new grade, they probably are not going to touch it again if they haven't touched it, right?

But over the summer they'll kind of regress one year. So like whatever they uplevel to in September, when they get to the spring, they will, they will kind of process through the last school year. So anything they played with in September, they might play with again in the summer, and then they'll really let it go in August.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

All right.

So one last question, Mara.

Yes.

Would you do it all over again? Would you have me over again?

Oh my gosh. A million times. A million times over. You could come over anytime. And I will send you home with cookies every time.

Yes. Oh my gosh, the cookies are so good. It's definitely a win-win. So I don't want you to feel like, oh, but Lisa can't come to my house. I can't— you can do this. Like, you can do this yourself listening to this interview, using the kids program. Like, the Organized 365 Kids Program is, is me coming and doing it with your children. Like, it is step by step. I go through every area. Kids like the videos. I don't talk to kids— I talk to kids like they're humans, not like they're Juvenile. I mean, like, I talked to Finley like I talked to you. Like, I just talked to kids like they're humans. So you can walk through those and then also watch the video that we made where you can literally see me doing that. And if your kids are excited, like, grab onto that. Like, you have to learn the skill of organizing. You can have a professional organizer come and help you. Just like you, Maura, went and you organized the kids' bedrooms for them. But they didn't keep them organized. You can hire a professional organizer as an adult to come organize your house. Usually what happens is you have to hire them again because you have to learn the skill of organizing. You either have to learn it or you have to continually pay for somebody to come and do it for you, because it's not like, oh, if, if someone comes in and does this for me, it's not going to get unorganized again. You have to learn that, and you have to learn that sometime in your lifetime. So if your kids are interested, get them the kids program, get them to organize. Let me just tell you, it'll pay off for you like a hundredfold.

Hundredfold, for sure. For sure. I agree.

Anything else you wanted to share?

Um, I think the only thing else, I mean, that what I said about my command operations area, I don't know if that's something that I got from you, but I think that any parent that feels overwhelmed, if you have like, I, I'm using the, we have a landing that's in the center of all the bedrooms upstairs. So that landing, and then I have one in the basement now because our basement has been a long, arduous process as well that I've been working through over years. These are all long-haul projects, and I think that if you— if you don't feel like you have the time, if you can set up a space, because I have all these categories: donate, I'm going to give this one to cousin so-and-so, give this one to cousin so-and-so, I'm going to— I forget what the other categories are. It could just be a hand-me-down that's going to go for the next season for the next kid. All these categories. I got index cards.

Ooh.

Right, index cards. But I have index cards and a command operation set up a little space, and those piles can be in a dedicated space like you talked about the piles. So like, I feel like you don't have— it's not like you are waving a magic wand. I think you have to find the functionality in your day-to-day where you can find those 10 minutes, 15 minutes, the index cards, so you can come back to it in the chaos. And if you don't have a minute to or 2 hours to spend with your kid, maybe you just start the piles and set up a little command operations area. And that's been a saving grace for me to be able to feel like I'm still in control without it being piles where they shouldn't be and then adds to my angst. So yeah.

You definitely need a coming and going area if you have children. Like, once you're an empty nester, maybe not. And when you are single or newly married, maybe not. I mean, those piles came and went. Yeah. But when you're in the active parenting years, I mean, I, that's, and it's not a marathon. It's like, I, I don't even know how you describe it.

Firehouse.

Your house is, yeah, is just never-ending activity. Never-ending coming, going, returning, outgrowing, whatever, needing, whatever. It's just constant. And you need to have these spaces that work for you on a, don't try to get it all organized so that you're done. You will not be done until you're an empty nester, like, period. So, so stop it. The bar is just gonna keep moving. So pace yourself. I don't know how to say it.

Yeah.

But you can work on this a little bit at a time. But kids really do need a, a chunk of time to get them reset, and they need to be reset a minimum of 3 times a year— August, December, And whenever their spring break is, and ideally 6 times a year. So sometime, like if you do it in August, doing it again like around Halloween, a little quick pick-me-up and then a deep dive, and then a quick one in February, and then a deep dive in April, and then a, you know, up and down and up and down because it's their whole apartment.

Right.

Like everything they have is in there and they're growing so fast intellectually, in their passions, in their stuff, in everything. Like they're growing really, really fast.

Yeah.

They have this. But then they can keep it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they can own it. I think that's a beautiful thing is teaching them to own it.

Yeah.

And then they feel attached to their things and they take better care of their things. So it's wonderful.

Mara, I cannot thank you enough for letting me come in your house. No, absolutely. And work with your kids.

Anytime.

And video it all and put it on the internet.

Anytime. Anytime.

I remember like talking to your husband. I'm like, you do know I'm putting this on the internet, right?

And he's like, yep.

It's like, okay, totally fine.

Yeah. And my husband, he was like, you're doing what?

I made you both sign the waiver. I'm like, you have to sign this waiver. I'm putting your children on the internet.

No, I meant the messes in their rooms. He was worried about those being projected across the land. But that's okay.

And it wasn't, other than under the bed. I mean, that was hilarious. That was, that was definitely my fake reality TV superstar moment. Yeah, I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. Mari, thank you so much.

Thank you, Lisa. Always a pleasure.