The Hidden Cost of Clutter & How to Finally End It featuring Pinky Jackson

Clutter isn't just piles of "stuff" in your home -- it's draining your energy, stealing your time, and quietly keeping you stuck.  In this episode with Pinky Jackson, we uncover the surprising ways clutter affects you mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually.  You'll learn how a cluttered space creates mental fog, emotional weight, and physical fatigue, and why it blocks your creativity and peace.  Most importantly, Pinky shares practical advice, lasting strategies to clear your home and your mind -- once and for all -- so you can finally step into the spacious, calm, and inspired life you deserve.  

This podcast will help you answer: 

• Why do I feel so mentally foggy in my own home? 
• Can clutter really affect my health and energy? 
• Why do I feel emotionally heavy when I walk into certain rooms? 
• How is clutter tied to my spiritual or creative blocks? 
• What's the simplest way to clear my space -- and keep it that way for good? 

As found of Gratefully Giving, Pinky helps clients, colleagues, and the community create organized beautiful spaces while recirculating household goods to those in need.  Drawing inspiration from organizing experts like Margareta Magnusson, Dana White, and Marie Kondo, she continually hones her skills to provide the luxurious, customized services her clients deserve.

Connect with Pinky Jackson: 

Website: www.pinkyjackson.com

Instagram: @pinkyjacksonorganizing

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:20

Welcome back to today's episode of Unapologetic Living. I'm Elizabeth Elley, and I'm your hostess, and I am excited to have Pinky Jackson of Pinky Jackson Organizing on the show today. Welcome, Pinky. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Well, the reason I know in my book, The Self-Lovely 29 Days, one of the practices is to declutter. And so I thought it would be great to have someone who... You know, helps people go in and do this on to the show because it's difficult at times to go into your home of these things and of stuff and figure out, you know, what and why. What do I need to get rid of? What do I really need to keep? Why is it actually even here? Yeah. And where is it? Maybe where has it become an obstacle in my life? I don't you know, so sort of the weight of the stuff physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And I have a feeling like you can help us unpack some of that. Or

SPEAKER_02: 2:33

I

SPEAKER_01: 2:33

certainly can. I'm happy to. So tell me, first of all, because I know when I met you, you were. I think, I don't know if the word director, or it's not even head of school, but you were at the Waldorf School.

SPEAKER_02: 2:51

Yeah, I was helping with enrollment. I was the enrollment manager, or I guess it was director of enrollment. Because our kids were all there, right? And that was one of the many nonprofits that I organized for my whole life without knowing that professional organizing was a career. You know, so... organize the events and organize the spaces and organize that office over and over again and organizing volunteers and legacy boxes and helping teachers with classrooms. Yeah, for 40 something years, I organized and I didn't know for the first 20 that that's what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01: 3:28

Right,

SPEAKER_02: 3:28

right. And so that kind of led you to this? That and everything else I've ever done. You know, my first client was probably my eldest sister, who was my fifth math teacher and I would organize in her classroom and I would organize for my sisters and organize for friends at college I just didn't know it was a career and that's that's kind of why I always tell especially when I'm talking to young entrepreneurs I've been doing this for over 40 years but I've only been getting paid for 20 so think about what it is you love and that you're gifting to the world and it doesn't need to be a side hustle doesn't need to be a career and you know, monetize and value yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 4:13

So you've been getting paid for it the last 20 years, but you would say you've been doing that, doing it for the last 40 years. So were you about like, I don't know, 18 to 20, 22 then? Actually younger.

SPEAKER_02: 4:29

Yeah, I'm 61 now, right? I'm 61 now. So I was actually quite young. I remember moving I remember doing it with my siblings when I was very, very young and I love doing that. I have two sisters who, let's just say they have no interest in having organized bedrooms. And so I grew up organizing their rooms for them and they would do like cooking and cleaning for me because we rotated chores. My mother taught us to be organized. She had charts and And she had rotation of duties and she taught us to be organized. And, you know, a couple of my sisters had no interest in that part of it. And I wasn't that interested in the cooking and the cleaning part. So we would trade, you know, and then I went off to college and my, you know, first college roommate said, I will buy you pizza if you will organize all my stuff. And so I just kept doing it. But I just I didn't realize it was anything other than something I loved to do.

SPEAKER_01: 5:28

I asked because I ran into Mary Holden. Oh, yay. And she is doing some work now. And I forget what it is. But she, Maddie's 19. And she said, in looking back in this work, she says, go back. to when you're 18 to 22. And oftentimes you'll end up, you will, in looking back, you are doing what you were really drawn to around then without even knowing it. And she called it something. And I can't remember what, because she's working, she's doing a lot of, golly, I don't even remember. I just remember bumping into her. I'll

SPEAKER_02: 6:19

have to check in with her because that's exactly right. That's why I always say I've been doing this for 42 years because it gets people's attention because they look at me and they're like, are you 90? You know, because I want to raise awareness that that thing that you love to do may be the thing that is your mission to do. And, you know, you know, might need to be something that's nurtured and supported. And I love supporting young entrepreneurs. And yeah, yeah, I'll have to check in with Mary. It'd be great to see her. You know, she was Victoria's teacher for four years.

SPEAKER_01: 6:53

Yeah, she was Madeline's too for a minute. She took over, I think, I think when Miss Bain was on maternity leave.

SPEAKER_02: 7:03

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:05

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, when she said that, I started thinking back to when I was like 18 to 22. And I didn't really know what I was doing. But And when I graduated, I graduated with a degree from the University of Louisville with humanities with concentrations in religious studies in Spanish. I haven't really done anything with the Spanish part, but I mean, just so many of the classes were philosophical and spiritual texts that we were exploring. And I was really fascinated with that. And that is exactly what I'm still incredibly fascinated with. But I didn't know at that time, like, I would be doing much with it, but it stayed at the forefront of sort of. Absolutely. So you started your own business after Waldorf though.

SPEAKER_02: 8:04

Well, I was doing it before that as a side hustle. I was doing that some evenings, some weekends, some summers. Again, I thought it was a you know, home organizer and event organizer. I have friends and family in Texas, which is where I'm from. And so I was doing it as just something really what you would do with your hobbies. You would make time for them and you would invest in them and you would learn about them. And I had, you know, I had folks paying me, but I let them decide how much they would pay me, you know? Um, so yeah. And then when I left Waldorf, I was like, yeah, I'm free. I can do this full time. I hope my kids, um, We're old enough that I could do it full time. I did it full time for several years solo. And then I started adding a team. And, yeah, it's just been really great. It's growing really well. We're helping so many people. And it just, you know, it's definitely what I meant to do.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

All right. So you come in. Somebody's home. And maybe it isn't someone's home. It could be, right? It could be, as you said, classrooms. Sure. Probably not.

SPEAKER_02: 9:12

Yeah, it's mainly homes. Oftentimes their business, their boutique, their office, their shared workspace, but it's almost always, you know, homes. And a lot of people, all of those uses are within their homes. Since COVID, so many people have opened up shop in their homes. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

So do you, I guess, what do you find is most, is the most common thing aside from I don't know, clutter or like, what do you find is, yeah, the most common theme or why? I mean, I think of stuff, but I usually think there's something beyond the stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 9:55

Absolutely. There's always something beyond this stuff, right? Like I say, I always say that it's not about the stuff. It's about how the stuff makes you feel. And then even in my job as a professional organizer is to help you transform that feeling into into something that feels good and allows you to function well and allows you to treat yourself and everybody else in your home the way that they want to be treated. So you have to kind of go backwards from that and say, how was I feeling when I let this stuff come into my house? Was I even paying attention? Was I doing retail therapy? What was going on? Was it that I was not claiming boundaries for people who like to dump stuff on me? But basically, the number one, I would say, adjective that people give me when they call for help is overwhelmed. You know, they're feeling overwhelmed. Most of my clients are women, not all, but most. And they have too many jobs. You know, they're taking care of a home. They work outside the home. They're raising children. They're helping with aging parents. They're volunteering in their community. They're just doing too much. And they've got not only the physical workload of that, but all the mental workload of managing all of that and managing all those decisions and managing all those schedules for their whole family. And it's just too much. Many of them have grown up to where they don't really have to worry about cash flow. So it's really easy to just buy something. And if you can't find it, you buy it. And if you can't find it, you buy it again. And so there's this big redundancy of inventory. And that's sometimes the only reason their home is really cluttered is because they simply have too much stuff. Some people just go through transition. You know, they have a death in the family, they have a marriage in the family, they have a new baby, they have a new job, they've moved. And even the most organized person needs help when they're going through something like that. We just organized a big, beautiful dream home for a client who I've known for many years, and she is very organized. And the move was just, it was just too much. And it was, you know, there's stairs, so everything takes a little bit longer. And so it's generally folks when they realize either two things. Number one, they have no idea what to do. They're overwhelmed and it is greatly causing them stress and diminishing their quality of life. Or they know exactly what to do. They just need another woman or two or three in there with them getting it done in a timely fashion. And then the other client is the one who has an understanding of what needs to be done and he or she has tried to do it themselves, but they can't get the strategy down. They put in a system because they saw it online or they saw it at the store, but it's strategically not the right choice for them or for their home or for the infrastructure or whatever it is. They just need a professional to look at it and go, how about if we tweak it like this, this looks like what you need instead. So it's usually those, those are usually the top three categories of people who need help. And the other thing we see is just folks who are really struggling with, whether it's depression, anxiety, chronic illness, they're really struggling and they're really judging themselves harshly and they're feeling shame or blame or guilt about the stuff in their house. And it is really, really important that they're treated just with love and compassion and no judgment whatsoever, but with a lot of discernment to help like you said figure out what are the obstacles and what thinking that do we need to do to help you overcome those obstacles what supplies may be needed to help you overcome those obstacles but mainly what decision making to get rid of the things that are not helping you be in the vibration you want to be in in the world

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

Yeah, and that can feel like a weight.

SPEAKER_02: 17:07

Yes, it absolutely feels like a weight. And for some people, because it feels like a weight and they don't know what to do, they're just paralyzed. And it just gets worse. And then if they have children in the family, the children start learning, this is how we do. And then the house gets to a state where they don't feel comfortable having guests. And it just really, really, really gets to be layers and layers and layers of anxiety overwhelm and clutter and confusion and it's very inefficient they miss appointments they spend too much money on things that they already have they pay late fees you know they have to replace uniforms that got lost it gets very very expensive mentally emotionally spiritually you know financially all the things

SPEAKER_01: 17:56

yeah i know when i first started my i guess In my first big move, see, my mother still lives in the home where we grew up. So she's been there since I was two and I'm 47. And when I, you know, chose to end my relationship with my kid's father after, I guess it was 10 years in the shared home, we moved. And that was the first time I started to like downsize. Because I couldn't take it all. And I didn't need it all. There was so many things I no longer needed. And that was the beginning of, I don't know, I guess the beginning of some decluttering that I did. But it wasn't until several years later that I realized there were a handful of things that I just kept carrying with me because I moved more times than I will care to admit after we broke up. And I was like, what am I doing? Like, these are things, first of all, a couple of them, I didn't really have attachments to. And I realized through reading, I think it's Marie Kondo's book. What's that one called? Life Change Magic, Tidying Up or something. Right. That was her first one. Absolutely. Well, I was carrying some, they were these coins that my grandfather had given me and they really weren't worth that much. They were never going to be that valuable, but they didn't spark joy in me at all. And when I read that, I was like, okay, so I've been lugging these coins around in this box. He loved coins. I don't. And I did take them in to the numismatic exchange and got some money for it. Now, my dad, if he, listens to this is probably like rolling over because he likes to hang on to everything. And there are people like that. But I realized for me, like, this isn't sparking joy for me at all. And I just continue to move this around and it's too much. Yeah. And that was just one particular item. But I realized there were several of those. And actually, as I did that with a few more like pieces of jewelry. And some people were like, why are you doing that? But I ended up taking that money and getting the tattoo I always wanted, which did spark joy. And, you know, what they wanted was for me to feel joy from their gift. But it wasn't sparking that in me the same way it maybe sparked it in them.

SPEAKER_02: 20:56

And so now it did. You allowed them to continue that gift by transforming it into something that serves your highest good now. And that's exactly what they want for you. You're exactly right. So many people are burdened by stuff that's just stuff, and they're keeping it because it was a gift. And if the person that gave you that gift wanted you to keep it forever, no matter what, They weren't giving it to you out of love. But if the person just loved you and wanted to give you something, then they absolutely want you to transform it however you need to for you to feel their love or love for yourself, which I think is the biggie. I think being able to detach from the material in order to really connect to the spiritual is the biggest gift anybody can give themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

So do you find that when working with people, I mean, that is something that you have to address and talk to and educate and share, and how do you help them transmute that so that they can actually part with the item?

SPEAKER_02: 22:07

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's very, very customized. Everybody is a little bit different. For some, there's one group of folks who are very, very practical, and they have a very clear understanding that they don't want to move or if they do move it only they only want the house to be x square foot and they want things to fit a certain way so if that and they have too much stuff right now that's why they called me so i do measurements i do linear feet of closets i do square footage i tape out their storeroom size and i say okay based on on what you're wanting we need to do a 30 reduction in this inventory to get you to your goal And I guide them through that reduction very, very strategically. And it's just based on the math. For other people, it's much more emotional. And they have this really beautiful vision of how they want their house to look and to feel and to function. But they are also, I look and based on that, I also say, okay, well, I'm looking at a 20% reduction or a 50% reduction, whatever it is I'm looking at. I may or may not give them that information if that's not the way their brain works. But as we're going through the phase one of organizing, which is the decluttering, if I see that they are keeping too many things for reasons that don't serve their highest good, as they've stated to me, I just bring their awareness to it. I just really gently say, hey, I've noticed that we have space in your vision for 30 pairs of shoes, and so far you've already kept 20. And we have a whole nother closet to go. I just want to draw your attention to that as you make more decisions. And then as we get closer, if it does go over the amount that they've that they've decided they want, you know how they want the room to look and how many pairs I know will fit. I say, hey, here's where we are. Do you want to change some decisions or do you want to change your goal? Which one feels right and safe and healthy to you right now? So that giving them a little bit of heads up that you're continuing a pattern of keeping too much. And if you keep that going, you're not going to get to your goal, but maybe you're not ready. We've got to make sure you're ready. And then for other folks, they just need some time to tell the story, just like you shared that beautiful story of the coins from your grandfather in the box and he loved them and you didn't and you thought about it and then you could let them go. For many people, they just need to tell that story and then they can make a more clear decision. Then they can say, oh, okay. So for some folks, it's that. So I look for two things before I even offer a client an organizing proposal. I look for their readiness and I look for their resources. And their readiness is based on what I'm observing in the home and their goals. And I go, are they ready to make the decisions or to delegate the decisions? Because I can do all of it for them. Are they ready? Most people want to participate at least a little bit, some a lot. Are they ready for the change that needs to happen to get to their goals? If they are, do they have the resources, which is almost always primarily time and emotion? And then, of course, it's a professional service, so it's also financial. They need to pay for my time. But the emotional resources, the mental resources, and the time to make decisions if they want to participate. And again, most clients want at least a little bit of participation. I'd say the majority want kind of a medium amount of Some of them are like, I don't care. Just make it look like this. I don't care what you get rid of. You know, we do have to spend some time establishing criteria. So that is a really permanent decision for them. But it's really customized if that answers your question about where they are on their path. So I need to meet them right there. That's where I need to meet them. I don't need them to meet me with a certain style of organizing. I've studied dozens of types and certified in lots of different things. But it's like any other type of modality, if you will. There's so many ways you can approach it. And the first thing you want to do is see what's real for that person right now. What do they need right now? And how do you bridge where they are now with where they want to be as far as the home? And it's also really important that you help them see through a nonjudgmental observer's eye that you help them see whether or not they're making goals based on their current life or their previous years, or if all of their decisions are aspirational, it's very important that you draw that to their attention and help them decide what they're going to make room for.

SPEAKER_01: 27:23

Yeah, I like that. And I also appreciate the way you use the word vision because to me that's, looking forward. But you do have to have a sense of readiness. How? And I wonder if, and it may not be you don't know, like, words, they're saying one thing, but you may not. And I don't know if this is true that you get in there and you begin and you realize, right, as you said, you gently point out that an individual is maybe repeating the same pattern without. Yeah. You know, like I think we can do that without and maybe even being in denial a little bit about that, about ourselves when we realize, oh, this. So it does help, I think, to have that mirror, which would be you or, you know, and somebody to help us like illuminate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:34

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that it's one of the reasons I do an assessment before I offer a proposal is to really take a look at that and have them give me a tour of their space. And for me to be looking on whether or not what I'm looking for is I'm observing and I can usually tell everything I need to know within the first five minutes of being in the home, but I need to know what they know, you know? And so me looking for the congruency between what i'm seeing as real physical evidence of what they're dealing with in the environment and their whatever they need to share and usually it's an explanation usually they're saying you know they're defending themselves and you know they don't mean to be because i'm i'm you know just completely non-judgmental just say tell me a story And they're, well, this is here because of this and this is here because of that. And so they're explaining how it got there, which is great. It's really helpful and it's really great. And the language that they use helps me understand how much ownership they have of the problem and therefore how much ownership they can have of this solution. And that kind of helps me determine what I should recommend for them, whether I need to help them, help them with a certain category or a certain room, or do we need to start with somebody else in the family? You know, what that looks like. But most people, and the reason I've organized my business the way that I do is that it allows people to reach out and really make an investment and have skin in the game. Because although I do a complimentary 30-minute assessment, other than that, you purchase time to get on my schedule you pay me in advance to show up at your house for three hours at a time either myself or myself plus team members another lead organizer whatever's best for you your schedule you're investing in advance and saying yes we're going to do this and I thought I was doing that originally just as a small business to not have to have an accounts receivable department, you know, but I also realized over the decades that it is a really healthy way to say, hey, are you ready to, you know, write this check? Are you ready to, you know, use your card and really make this investment? And it really helps people because then they're like, oh yeah, I want to, I'm not going to you know i'm going to be ready for this and i'm not gonna you know cancel appointments because i you know went shopping again and pinky's going to walk in and there's 13 amazon boxes and four target bags in my foyer you know they're like oh i need pinky to go over here i'm slipping you know um because i've already paid for it so it's really helping and helping people understand that their readiness is it it just is what it is it doesn't mean that they're a bad person it doesn't mean that they're making bad choices at all it's just at all it is just where they are right now what kind of support are they looking for how can i offer that support and then putting together a strategic plan for that that is very efficient but it's also very compassionate

SPEAKER_01: 36:00

yeah i uh hear that you're honoring the individual where they are. And I also think it's like hiring a personal trainer. And you really are, first of all, investing in yourself. And we are, I mean, it's proven, right? We're more likely to show up when we've made the investment. I mean, I am equally as guilty for, you know, signing up for a freebie and not showing up. But if I'm putting money down, I'm taking the, I'm invested. I'm taking the class because if I don't, I will feel guilty or frustrated or even have a sense of disappointment in myself. Those are things that will come up for me for not following through with a commitment I made to take the class or.

SPEAKER_02: 37:01

Exactly. nothing comes from nothing and it's important you know not only that we do that and but also that it helps us that the whole everything that went through our mind before we entered our you know entered our credit card number or however we did it everything that went through our mind is really educational for us to go oh okay finally it's usually i've hit rock bottom or i've tried to do this myself or no this would be so fun just to have pinky come and do it all with me or oh this would be so great just to give her the key code and do it for me while i'm at work or at play or on vacation whatever those things going through each individual each individual's mind helps them understand how they need to feel when they're when they're getting support what they need because everybody's a little bit different you know every some people you know need it to feel really hard and that they're it's real drudgery you know and they really need to feel that it's hard in order for them to feel seen in the world and some people just need it to be a party and for them to feel seen in the world and so whatever they go through as far as that process it's just a really helpful kind of inner growth for them to go, Oh, here's what, here's what I sound like and how I process information when I'm overwhelmed. Here's how I solve problems. Here's how I get support.

SPEAKER_01: 39:44

So now you mentioned customized. So that doesn't necessarily mean, I know like, again, I read Marie Kondo. That's about really the extent of the organizing that I've done. And I don't use all of her methods, but I liked the, the spark joy. And I also like, Still fold my clothes the same way she taught me. And that works so great. There are other rooms in my house that still need work. I know one of the things she mentioned is like, I forget which, you know, she has sort of an order of operations. And then I think something with clothes, throwing them all in the middle of the floor. I never did that. somewhere. And, you know, so do you find that you mentioned customized? So I think, well, that could look different for every single person. It might be kitchen and it may not be kitchen ever. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 40:35

absolutely. We have to look at, again, we look at the resources that we have available. And like I said, we generally find that working in three hour shifts is really efficient and it's really good for clients and allows them, whether we're whether they're working in the home with us or not, it gets a lot done and then a breath to the space and to the client and then a lot done again. So what we look at is what can we get accomplished so when we leave in three hours, your space looks better than it did when we started. And that would, for most Americans, that would not mean taking every piece of clothing in the house and putting it in the same spot, right? In fact, Marie kind of adjusted her space philosophy quite a bit when she moved to the States, got married and had children. Okay. All of those things change when you're a single person, woman living in Japan, who your primary job is a temple goddess. You just don't have as much stuff, right? Right. So, right. So she, but boy, I'm so grateful for her and in the approach. And like you say, the folding is fantastic. So many clients get into that and, it saves a ton of space and for some people their brain they cannot do it they're what i call tossers which my english friends said don't call anybody a tosser but they just can't fold it just it will make them you know we need another solution for them and that's fine there's many so so the idea is you look at marie kondo and a slob come clean and ladybug and a clutter bug and um the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning and the 5Ds, which is my program. And you look at all of the different programs, all the universal knowledge and how it's been distilled in different ways. And you do approaches that fit that client and that inventory that you're working with on that day. And it could be different the next day. It could be different the next room. it's definitely a little bit different the next client so you just kind of have to see what's going to be the most efficient and feel the best to the client because we are always going to be organizing our lives always whether it's our calendar our counters our mindset we're always going to be doing that so we want it to feel the best for that client and that's different for everybody you know we all have different things that make us feel better so Sometimes it's, yes, let's grab every book you have and look at it at the same time. Let's empty every shelf in this one cabinet. Let's empty. Sometimes it absolutely is that. And sometimes it's what I call reverse organizing. When I take a look at, and usually it's like a storage closet or something, you know, that's not used a whole lot. And I say, hey, I think we can make the biggest impact if we just help you only touch the things you love enough to store.

SPEAKER_00: 43:29

and

SPEAKER_02: 43:30

we pull we just pull those out and then we say is there anything in here that is paying its rent in your home is there anything else left in here and usually it's like no I don't want any of that get rid of all of it we get it all donated to wonderful places that's another thing that helps clients especially In our conspicuous consumerism, think about it, it appears on your shopping list and on your phone, people feel so much guilt about getting rid of things and they think organizers are just going to throw it all in the garbage. Although there are some people that that's how they operate, that's not what we do. We have so many nonprofit partners and we try to direct to give as much as we can and sometimes we just have to drop it off at a donation center because depending on what it is, they're the only ones who can process it. But letting that client know that, you know, we're going to be as intentional as possible with getting those things gone, but that our job is to advocate for them and for their home and getting the impact they need. So the reverse organizing, the donations, the other thing that works really well is coaching as we do it for the clients who want to do it themselves. And we will ask, we'll work on changing their brain. Basically, we'll show them the method, then we'll have them do it, and then we'll have them repeat it two more times so that they're really, you know, allowing their brain to change and getting that fingertip solidified. And this is where this goes. This is where this goes. This is where this goes. That's what a lot of clients also want once we get everything organized or if they have such volume. what they would call clutter in every single room. And they know they can't afford to have me working for them full time for 10 years because they have 8,000 square feet and four generations of things. So instead, what I need to do is coach them through what we're doing and how we're organizing it and what a system is to set it aside so that they only handle it once, not multiple times and the importance of labeling things that are going out of the house so you're not looking at it three times and wondering, Is it trash? Is it recycling? Is it consignment? Does it need to go back to the library? You know, any of that mental clutter we can get rid of to set them up with a system that's sustainable so that two things happen. Number one, their stress goes way down and they can make better decisions. And number two, they can maintain the organization that we set up for them.

SPEAKER_01: 46:16

Yeah, I think the maintenance might be the most, well, that could be probably my most challenging piece. Sure. I mean, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

SPEAKER_02: 46:29

No, for a lot of people it is. And for a lot of people that are entrepreneurs, we're also creatives. And there's just not a lot of dopamine or serotonin in maintenance of household inventory. It's just not. we're not creating it or maintaining it and we're natural creators. So what do you do about that? And the number one thing is you have a small enough inventory that it's just as easy to put it away as it is to leave it out. You have, you know, that's the number one thing. The number two thing is you go ahead and change the brain and say, I only have to do this on Wednesdays. This is what I do on Wednesdays from five 30 to six. That's it. I don't have to think about any other time. Um, And for some people, they just hire us to come back once a week or once a month or once a quarter and just put everything back away. So it really just depends on what they want to do, what resources they want to put behind it. But it's almost always about first getting the inventory down to where it's manageable. And

SPEAKER_01: 47:33

for me, I... noticed that it freed up more time. Is that something that you find a result? Absolutely. I

SPEAKER_02: 47:46

think we waste, I think it's about two weeks. I'll have to look at the latest statistics, but we waste many days per year by spending extra seconds per day looking for blank. Car keys, ball hat, school uniform, the book I was reading. We waste so much time. As a certified organizer, part of our certification is productivity. And you're not productive if you have to keep looking for things. You need to build it into your habit life. It needs to be automatic. You wake up and before you know it, you're in your car and you've made your bed. and you've brushed your teeth, and you've got your car keys, and you grabbed your tote bag, and none of it crossed your mind. I was doing all that this morning while I was listening to Cher's memoir on audiobook, you know, on Libby, because it's just habit. It's always in the same place. I don't have to shake myself to go, where was this? So it gives you so much more time. It also allows you to be kinder to yourself and anybody else you encounter. because you're not stressed and you're not blaming yourself or anybody else for, I can't find this, where is this? It also saves you money because you can look in your pantry and see what you're out of and not buy things that have gone bad because you forgot they were in your pantry because it was disorganized. It absolutely... Allows you to connect more with your spirit. It allows you to stay in alignment. It allows you more time to do your hobbies. It allows you more time to just be because you're not constantly managing inventory. And that's why I say inventory management instead of keeping your house organized because I want people to understand it's an entire job and you have to decide if you want it to be a full-time job. And if you don't want another full-time job, then have less inventory to manage. And think about the things that you do keep that make you so happy. I have a lot of books. Books make me happy. I love to read. And it doesn't upset me at all to have to organize my books. And I also know that I have just enough bookshelf space for all of the books I own. So if I bring one home, I have to take at least one out. Usually it's three. Usually it's three. One in three out is my goal of anything. But definitely time, definitely emotional well-being, time with friends, and just, you know, clearing up that space in our head and in our hearts so we can meditate, so we can just pause, so we can just stand there and observe. Yeah. And it also gets us off this hamster wheel of consumerism and this hamster wheel of competition and thinking that you have to have the next new thing that's out. No, you don't.

SPEAKER_01: 51:03

You know, unless

SPEAKER_02: 51:05

it makes you

SPEAKER_01: 51:06

happy. Yeah, we live in 937 square feet, which is pretty small. And I mean, for me, it's great because I'm not a housekeeper. You know, and I don't want to add to that load by having a bigger home. And I, I might have a problem with plants. But I hear you, it does. It lightens the load and then you can the overwhelm. I know when I felt overwhelmed, that might creep out to my children when they were smaller, right? Irritability, more easily frustrated. And that's definitely not the way I wanted to show up in the world.

SPEAKER_02: 51:55

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that I'm just so grateful for Marie Kondo and for Home Edit Girls and for anybody with a national platform who has raised awareness that there are solutions. And I think it's important for folks like you who are really looking deeper into what we can do to take care of ourselves and to really grow is to understand that less really is more. Yes, have this awareness of what makes you happy and what makes your home feel beautiful. But, you know, like I tell clients sometimes, we're not Egyptian. We're not going to take it all with us. It's not going to be entombed with us. What is it that we're going to feel great about when we transcend and what are we going to regret? And most people are not going to be thinking about their collections of things. They're going to be thinking about the time they had, the growth they had, the experiences, the relationships. That's what most of us are thinking about in our last quarter of our lives, in our last days of our lives. is the quality of how we spent our time, not the items that we collected. I

SPEAKER_01: 53:21

think I went to this estate sale in my mom's neighborhood. Oh, I don't know, like probably seven or eight years ago. And it was a woman, well, she had five kids. And there was a lot of stuff there. There was so much stuff there. And she had collected a lot of, I say she, I mean, some of the things were, you know, those little cast iron irons. There were so many. And I was thinking, okay, I mean, so many. If her five kids didn't take them or they took what they wanted and she still had this many. Yeah. I was, for me, it was overwhelming almost just being in the estate sale. And I definitely don't want to leave that to my kids. And I know my mom, one day she said, you better get over here and get your stuff or it's going in the garbage. I mean, she was finished. And so I went over there and she still had this box of like artwork we'd done from kindergarten. And I went through it. I went through it. I didn't want one thing. I chucked the whole box in there. The garbage.

SPEAKER_02: 54:34

Good for you. Yeah, that is such a gift that she gave to you to know this was happening and that she was keeping it. So many parents keep things thinking their kids are going to want them. And part of it is because a lot of our parents were raised by Depression-era parents where if you gave away all your mason jars, you couldn't get any more. You know, either they weren't manufactured fast enough or they weren't available in your town. or you couldn't afford them. And that was the thing to do. That doesn't apply anymore. It just doesn't apply. You don't have to be wealthy to get something. You can get it at a thrift store. You can get it from a friend. You can borrow it. And that is a big shift. It is hugely overwhelming and extraordinarily expensive. for estates to have to get rid of all of the things that were kept just because no one said stop keeping those. It is so expensive and exhausting. We have clients that will move into from two, three, four, five, 6,000 square feet, and they'll move into a senior facility. And it either takes months beforehand or months afterwards to get rid of all those things. unless they say, oh, just get rid of it all, which very rarely will they do. You know, they need to look at it. They need to touch it. They need to make sure their children, their grandchildren, their great nieces and nephews don't want it. And we can expedite that tremendously because we have the system to say, okay, we're given 72 hours for this and 72 hours for that. And we can make it go a whole lot faster, but it's still going to take a lot of time if that person has not been told early enough and often enough to declutter as you go along.

SPEAKER_00: 56:26

And

SPEAKER_01: 56:27

I'm sure kids, I don't know. I would imagine. I mean, I definitely know we've had the conversation with my dad. I know that's a difficult conversation to have because my dad and mom are not married and they are different. And he's not going to get rid of his stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 56:50

So that's just something that you need to know that what that. what is the impact and what boundaries do you need to make around that for you and any siblings or family members or anybody to have to deal with you have to know this is what he was ready for and then when it comes to our turn what are we ready for you know we had a client just recently who called us she's a very good friend of one of our teammates and so i gifted her with an hour-long consultation. So I do a free assessment that's just 30 minutes. I say, yes, I can help you or no, I can't. A consultation is me kind of telling you everything to do based on what I'm seeing. And I gifted that to her as a friend of our team's. And she had already been working on the house. Her parents had died and she'd already been working on the house for several months. And about a week later, she called and she said, no, I want to hire you. And I've talked my brothers into it because they had no idea that I was doing this as a full-time job for six months until you told me I had to tell them. They just assumed she'd take care of it because she was the daughter. And I said, well, the first thing you have to do is clock in and clock out, however that looks to you. And you have to tell any other heirs of this estate how much time you're spending and how much it's going to cost them. And it's expensive. And so, yes, you can hire someone or you can do it yourself. You can exhaust the family or you can let it go a little bit at a time. And not everyone can do that. It's just not emotionally safe. People protect themselves with their stuff and they can't do it. So then it's a matter of everybody else who's on the other branches of the tree, just knowing that and wrapping him in love. And then just deciding when it's your turn to manage that

SPEAKER_01: 58:42

inventory, what's right for you all. Right. I mean, that makes so much sense. I had not really thought of it in that light before with, as you mentioned, six months of this woman's time. It can take up time. And I actually know people where it does. It takes up a lot of time and where that energy could be freed up for something else, right?

SPEAKER_02: 59:09

absolutely absolutely and there's also if you look at it even deeper as far as the the stuff and the age of the stuff and the cobwebs and the lack of attention energetically it is very taxing and it is less taxing on an objective professional who's not part of the of the family but we still notice it but it's really taxing on the family having to do it because They bring in a lot of should-haves and could-haves and guilts and blames and what, you know, and it's just harder because you're thinking, ah, you know, all of those stories and all of that history and all of that trauma that may be from your great-grandmother that's represented in that is heavy. It's

SPEAKER_01: 59:56

heavy. So I know that, I think, you know, I think this is, it's like hiring anybody to help you, right? Whether it's a therapist, a personal trainer, having that accountability partner or someone sort of a coach. It's almost, you're not a coach, but you kind of are. Yeah, I actually am an organizing coach. Yeah, like a guide. And it's so helpful, right? When, well, I think it's great to have an accountability partner for a lot of things. So where does one find you and connect with you?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:37

What's pretty easy, you know, I'm into simplicity and my website is just my name. So it's Pinky Jackson and Pinky spelled with a Y. So P-I-N-K-Y. Pinkyjackson.com. And what I've done on the website is I've put a lot of information. but try not to make it cluttered. So the pages, there's a services and pricing page. You can know in advance, here's what we're gonna pay for how many hours, here's the services we do, here's some things we don't do. Just, you get lots of information. That's also where you can schedule your free assessment, which is where everybody should start. And for folks who are in the Louisville area, if they're local, most of those are done onsite. Occasionally with the timing, I have to do them via Zoom, but we know that when we book it, if it's onsite. And if it needs to be onsite, we'll just schedule a time where it can be onsite. But most of them are automatically done onsite. And that's where we start. And let's just take a look at it. And we have with the intake form on the website, a check mark that says, hey, I've read, I've reviewed your website, including your services and pricing. So people know this is a luxury professional experience expert website. who can come and help you if you're ready for that. And that will let people know, ooh, actually, no, I just want to look at all your free content because I have hundreds and hundreds of free videos about just everything. I need to do that and try it myself. Or no, I'm really ready to find out if I can get help professionally on it. So that's an easy way to start. And the website, and then we post, well, we, I don't. I have someone who helps me with that posting regularly. you know, videos just so you can get acquainted and kind of an understanding of, of how we roll. And

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:29

then I also know, are you, I don't know about Instagram, but I know you have a TikTok presence as well.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:36

TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then I'm switching over to blue sky and I need to learn about sub stack, all sorts of things that, know on on the list of things to do and then i what he's trying to do he is jose who helps me is trying to get everything on the youtube channel so there's just one place um if someone wants to go you know to one place but yeah all of those places the tick tock is just a daily video i think five or more a

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:09

week i think yeah because

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:12

that's

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:12

That's kind of where you popped back up in my world was on TikTok. I was like, oh, TikTok. I mean, I know that's been a great resource for entrepreneurs.

UNKNOWN: 1:03:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:23

Yeah. I'm really grateful for it. I don't spend much time on it. I'm still very hands-on. I personally organize four to five days a week. And so I don't, I make the videos, but then I just send them to Jose and he posts them and does all this stuff. So I don't get on the platforms as much as I would like to, to connect with other people. But I do find every time I hear the same question multiple times, that's usually when I go, I need to record something. And I used to, pre-TikTok, I would just record the video and send it to the people who asked me that question. And then someone said, you know, you might want to put those on social media.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:00

Yeah. And then you put more at once. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I am so grateful for your time today. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:09

Yeah, thank you, Elizabeth. I'm so glad and I'm so excited to find out about unapologetic living. I was so excited to see that and listen to some of the episodes. I can't wait to go back and listen to all of them and love that you're doing fascia work. I have a client who has been doing that. I don't know who her provider is, but she it has changed her life. Yeah, all you need. How does she say it? All you need is fascia blasting and a home organizer and your whole life changes. Yeah, I believe that. I'm so glad you're doing that work because I know how important it is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:42

Golly, I bet your fascia is constricted and adhesed and like tangly. And if, I mean, you know, I do believe, I really believe like what's going on in our external environment is taken on on such a deep level in our connective tissue, right? And if we're overwhelmed and tight or in fight or flight all the time, guess what's happening? The fascia is constricting. So, I mean, it's, you know, you just can't like, compartmentalize your life and you can't, it's just like, you can't take the arm off. If your shoulders hurt every, you know, we can't just isolate the shoulder. At some point, the hip is going to be bothered and then the knee and then the, right. And it's the same with the aspects of our life.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:29

Yes. What amazing work we came here to do. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Thank you for your time. And I wish you all the very best with doing this amazing work. It's just really important. So thank you for doing it. Likewise. Thank you so much. Great rest of your week. Okay, you too. Elizabeth, bye-bye.