August 7, 2025 • 51 mins
All summer long, we’re bringing back some of our most-loved episodes from the This Organized Life archives—because let’s be honest, good conversations deserve a second (or third) listen.On today’s show, I am joined by Kath Younger. Kath is the mom of two boys, and the blogger behind the website Kath Eats.
Kath has been in the online space since 2007 and over the years her website has grown from a recipe and nutrition blog to a complete lifestyle brand, where she talks about motherhood, beauty, budgeting, and home organization.
One area in particular that Kath gets really excited about is streamlining Digital Clutter, specifically emails and photos an area that stresses most people out!I invited her onto TOL to share some of her proven strategies with y’all.
Kath has been in the online space since 2007 and over the years her website has grown from a recipe and nutrition blog to a complete lifestyle brand, where she talks about motherhood, beauty, budgeting, and home organization.
One area in particular that Kath gets really excited about is streamlining Digital Clutter, specifically emails and photos an area that stresses most people out!I invited her onto TOL to share some of her proven strategies with y’all.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to This Organized Life. If you're a mom, wife,
or coffee lover seeking advice on how to reduce clutter
and reclaim time, look no further than your host, Louri Hellau,
Founder Simply Be Organized and author of hot Mess, a
practical guide to getting organized. For a lot of people,
clutter is their dirty little secret, but it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Each week, we will share practical tips, chat with experts,
and provide strategies on how to keep you organized. I
hope that by sharing our stories you feel a little
less alone and more empowered to tackle the areas that
are holding you back. So let's get started.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And Hi everybody, and welcome to today's episode of This
Organized Life podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'm your host, Lori Palau, and I am very excited
to talk about today's topic.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Joining me today on the show is Cath Younger. And
Kath is actually by trade a disturb dietitian, but she's
also a mom.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
She's a blogger.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
She's like an og blogger, which I'm dying to talk
to her about. From I think back in two thousand
and seven is when she started. And in addition to
all of her blogging about nutrition and healthy eating and
the whole journey that she's had in that lane. She
loves organization and specifically an area that is a source
(01:26):
of stress for a lot of people, which is digital clutter,
so much so that she's developed a whole framework around
digital clutter and reducing that. And I am always looking
to talk to other experts to learn their tips and
tricks and hacks and ways to help streamline because one
of the most common questions I'm always getting from people
(01:48):
is how do I manage digital clutter? Because, like anybody knows,
in the day and age, it's like drinking from a
fire hose, whether you are trying to zero out your
inbox or unsubscribe vibe to emails or whatever it is.
As soon as you get them to a manageable amount,
they're like gremlins. They just seem to multiply. So I
(02:11):
can't wait to learn more about Kath her story and
hopefully just share some great information with all of you.
So without further ado, let me welcome Kath Younger to
the show.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Welcome Kath, thanks so much for having me. I'm really
excited to talk about digital clutter with you. Guys.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I am very excited to have you here, so I
just gave our listeners a top line overview.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Of who you are and a little bit about what
you do.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But in your own words, can you just give us
your background, your story?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah? Sure, So I will start my story with graduating
from college, because I feel like that's where my professional
story begins. And I graduated from college and I started
to cook on my own and and just like live
that like adulting lifestyle, and that resulted in me losing
about thirty pounds, and so I started a blog. It
(03:11):
was kind of weight loss themed back then, and it
was you know, healthy living weight loss what I ate style.
It was every meal that I ate. And this was
back in two thousand and sevens. It was this free
blog spot blog. It was very you know, you can
still go look at those old posts and you know
it's it's horrible quality. And so I kept I just
(03:33):
kept doing it as like a hobby. I never saw
it as a career. I was working full time in
publishing at the time, and just this like snowball effect
happened of starting my blog and then deciding to go
back to school for nutrition, and so I went back
and did two years to two and a half years
to become a registered dietitian. And then by the time
(03:54):
that I graduated from that program, my blog was doing
so well. Made more sense for me to focus on
that full time than it would have for me to
go get another job and try to blog like nights
and weekends, and so yeah, my blog has been kind
of my full time gig since then, and it has
it has evolved and grown and shifted and pivoted many times.
(04:18):
I had my older son in twenty twelve and realized
very quickly I could not photograph all my meals and
be a mom. I had my hands very full, and
so I shifted from I used to blog three times
a day and people would say, like, how did you
come up with content? Well, I was always eating, so
there was my content.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Oh my gosh, three times a.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Day, yeah, twenty one times a week. And so when
my son was born, I went to once a day,
seven days a week, and it was just I would
write in the evenings after our day was over and
just kind of like recap my meals and our adventures
and what we did. And then life shifted some more,
and I now have two boys, and so you know,
(05:01):
if you've ever been around kids, regardless of whether or
not they're your own. You know, like it's impossible to
get anything done. So I have found that necessary to
work ahead, and so that has forced me to do
more topic based blog posts. So I still recap kind
of our life and our adventures, and I still like
will always showcase like what I'm eating because my original
(05:23):
blog title is Kathy's Real Food, and so I feel
the need to just always share those like breakfast bowls
and you know, dinners that we have. But it's really
much more of like a lifestyle blog these days, and
I'm really interested in lifestyle design and trying to like
optimize and make your life like the perfect balance between
(05:47):
happy and then healthy and always trying to get more
efficient in that kind of stuff. So I still take
I think my camera role. When I upgraded my phone
had something like twenty fouves and photos on it and
we can get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
It was like, oh my gosh, I just still can't
as somebody who really likes to write, and I do.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I still write all my own content.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I do have people that help me sometimes, you know,
push it out from the technical side, but just to
think about writing that with that intensity and being a
mom is I just can't even Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well remember I wasn't a mom when I did that
three times a day.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah, but even so it's still it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So all right, So you obviously have a passion and
an interest and a huge following with your nutrition based
blog and all that talk a little bit about because
it's funny when you reached out to me and I
was looking at your content and I was like, yeah,
(06:56):
this woman is like the guru when it comes to
life style, healthy eating and all the things.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And then you have this.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Digital clutter component. Where did that shift come from? And
how did it evolve into like not only something that
you're just doing for your own self and streamlining your
own life, but now for other people.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah. So, like I said, I branched out into a
bunch of different topics over the years, and everything from
like clean beauty to parenting. And one of the one
of the topics the theme that I would write about
I called the home neat Home series, and it was
(07:40):
all about organizing your home, so before and after closets
and my favorite way to organize my pantry and my
silverware drawer and the linen closet I talk a lot
about decluttering and how to declutter, and so you know,
all the topics that you love.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I was like, oh my gosh, I was like to
go back and walk you know, read them. I was like,
this is like right up my alley. And was it
all just out of curiosity?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Was it all your own journey like stuff like from
your house that you were doing like you were chronicling. Yes,
you know, I just decluttered my pantry and this is
how I did it, and here's some photos.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yes, And I moved several times. I moved from Charlotte,
North Carolina, to Charlottesville, Virginia, to a rental home, and
then I moved again. So I had a lot of
like here's how I'm doing this in this house, and
here's how I'm doing this in this house in kind
of a span of a couple of years, and so
it was easy. I mean, we all know with decluttering,
like once you declutter a closet, like hopefully it stays
(08:39):
perfect for forever. So it's hard like to find another
messy closet if all of your closet's so neat. So
during that time, I did a lot of homemat home
stuff and just like how I'm setting up this kitchen
versus how I'm setting up that kitchen. So it was
very authentic, and I think that's why people loved it
is it wasn't this Pinterest perfect like container store showcase.
(09:00):
It was like my kitchen and like how to take
like real pots and pans that maybe aren't perfectly matched
and make them look as nice as possible and that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, and I love that because, you know, and I've
tried to do a pretty good job, and it's always
worth like reinforcing and reminding people that it's not an
all or nothing. First of all, organization is a spectrum.
And just because you don't have every single thing matching
and everything is clear and acrylic and you know, there's
(09:32):
you can have an organized home and feel really good
about your space regardless of your budget, the size of
your home, what materials you have, and it's not you know,
I don't want people to say, well, I don't have
a lot of money, so I can't do this, because
everything's achievable, and I try to showcase people from all
(09:54):
walks of life where yeah, if you want that beautiful
like magazine em ready Pinterest space, sure you can do that,
but it doesn't have to be that way because most
people don't live like that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Right, And I live in Charlottesville. We don't have a
container store in our town. So I try to always
emphasize using what you have for your containers. And I
have so many different boxes and bins and stuff that
I've collected over the years, and I will actually like
play musical chairs with them, Like I'll need like this
perfect size for the perfect drawer, and I'll go steal
(10:32):
it from my medicine cabinet or wherever my linen closet,
and then I'm like, Okay, now i need a new
one from in there. And I'm constantly like shuffling things,
which is part of the fun, right.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Agree.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
And I'm a huge fan of like finding out of
the box no pun intended, you know, organizing solutions, you know,
like you can use like an old cigar box to corral,
you know, as a drop spot thing. So I think
finding those unique things, whether it's at a garage sale
or flea market or just recycling. Like you said, something
(11:06):
that's in your home already can work just as well.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
As if you go and have everything you know perfectly
matching from.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
A store, right right, totally, So okay.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
So now so you're chronicling this, you're going through all
the things with your house, where does the digital part
of things come into play?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So as a blogger and an entrepreneur, I feel like
I have more than the average person in terms of emails, photos,
calendars that I'm juggling. I mean, you know, not to
say that I'm busier than anyone who works full time,
but just in terms of like the blog flow I
(11:53):
have taken. Like I said, I have twenty thousand photos
on my camera roll the last time I upgraded my phone,
and so I take a ton of photo and I
get tons and tons of emails per day, like pitches,
press releases, all that kind of stuff. So over the
years I have developed two systems around photos and emails
specifically as well as my calendar. That it was almost
(12:17):
like out of necessity that I've like honed these systems
over time and they work really well. And I knew
I wanted to create content and then eventually a course
that would help people in the organizing space. But I
knew that like closet and physical stuff, clutter courses and
(12:38):
stuff already existed. And I was asking myself. They say,
what do you help your friends? What do your friends
and family come to you for? And I always joke
with my people. I know in real life, I'm like,
welcome to CAFFS Digital Technology Consulting Company. Like I'll say,
I'm sending your invoice tomorrow. And people would come to
(12:59):
me with like technical questions like how do I how
can I get rid of the twenty thousand emails in
my inbox? How can I set up my iPhone this way?
How can I automate this problem that I'm having? And
I said, Okay. I feel like there's this this connection
between being like sort of tech savvy and then being
(13:19):
really good at organizing that I can bring those two together.
And I feel like digital organization is something that everybody
needs help with, but yet there's not a lot of
support out there. It's so it is so new that
you know, even the latest devices are new, and it's
(13:41):
changing so fast that you know, we've had closets to
organize for how many hundreds of years? So over the time,
Like there's there's some pretty tried and true methods to that,
but like email organizing is one of those things where
it's like you think Oh, I'm just going to like
create a hundred folders. And you think, like, oh, Gmail
(14:02):
has these four tabs now promotions tab that'll keep you organized, right,
But I actually think it's the opposite. I think a
lot of times people unnecessarily complicate their digital devices and
all the different categories, and so it just becomes this
snowball of a mess and you can't get it under control,
(14:24):
and it just keeps getting worse and worse because more
stuff keeps coming in. Like you said, the garden hose,
that's a perfect example. And so my objective was like,
how can I take everything that I know and boil
it down into a signature method and really like simplify
this as much as humanly possible. And so that's kind
(14:45):
of what I teach is the instead of the mistakes
that people often make, which is like making stuff so
complicated that you don't ever have time to do the system,
what is the bare minimum that you need to do,
You make this as simple as possible so you will
actually do it. And so that's kind of where everything
(15:05):
kind of came together.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, I love it, and we're going I want to,
you know, we'll dive a little bit into it.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
But I think another thing, and I don't know if
you find this, but.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
One of the struggles with digital is because it's not tangible,
you don't see it. When you have a cluttered closet,
the space actually starts closing it, right. You can only
have so many shoes, that rack can only hold so
many clothes. But like you said, your phone doesn't get
heavier as you have ten, you know, twenty thousand photos
(15:38):
on it. Okay, yes we're going to have like, oh
we need to up our storage, or you're not going
to have it. That'll be an indicator. But the volume
that we can consume and ingest digital information comes at
a rate faster than we can get rid of it.
And so I think that's another place where people struggle,
(16:01):
where people go, you know, I've got tens of thousands
of emails that are unopened or unused or whatever, old files,
but they're just there. They're taking a digital space, like
not physical space, and so it can snowball, like you said,
pretty quickly, and then before you know it, you're trying
(16:22):
to find something. And for me, this is where I
think the struggle with digital is really an issue, and
it's no different than with physical stuff, but it just
again takes longer for us to connect those dots. Where
the whole purpose, for my opinion, the whole purpose for
any organizing system is the ease of retrieval.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
How quickly can I go to get it? Yes, a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Closet or pantry looks wonderful, but it's really about freeing
yourself from the stress and anxiety of going, oh, you
need the human I know exactly where that is, as
opposed to digging through a million things.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
And you can apply that same principle with digital clutter,
and it's.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Where is that email? Where is that document? Where is
that photo? But if you don't have that system, you're
sitting there scrolling through thousands of pictures or trying to
do searches on your computer or wherever to find basically
a needle in a haystack. And I think for a
lot of people it's until we have a pain point
(17:30):
that we want to solve it, and at that point
you're ready in.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So deep right, it's the volume I think is the
biggest problem. I mean, especially because you know digital photos
most of us. You know, I'm almost forty so since college.
Basically it's like your whole life, and you're so attached
to them even though like ninety nine percent of them
(17:53):
you haven't looked at since you know you took the picture,
and going back to search. That search is actually our
best friend for the digital particularly with email. A lot
of people the mistake that they make is they treat
their inbox like a filing cabinet, and they whether it's
(18:13):
one hundred or twelve thousand emails, they let them sit
in there and live in there because they think that
will make them easier to find. But whether it's in
your inbox or in your all mail folder, which is
your email archives, you probably still like you probably know
who sent it or a keyword that was in that email.
(18:34):
For example, I had this nice pottery barn couch behind
me and someone asked me recently what the fabric name was,
and I was able to search my email that I've
had this for six years I think for pottery barn order,
and I knew the name of the couch and I
pulled it up like that and it's like, here's your
(18:54):
order for your recycled denim fabric. And so obviously I'm
not going to let that six year old emails sit
in my inbox, but I could still find it so
fast because I knew the right keywords to search for.
So I would tell people like archive all the emails
in your inbox and start treating it like an inbox,
(19:14):
and you can always search for stuff at a later date.
The photos is a little trickier, but for email, at least,
the search is your best friend.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
All right, So what I want to do right now
is we're going to take a quick break and when
we come back, I want to dive into because I
think that sounds I love that, but I want you
to break it down really simply for our for our folks.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
So hang on and we'll be right back, okay, kath.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So right before break, you started kind of talking a
little bit about using search as your friend, and I.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Too believe that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
But again, what I want you to almost break down
to a granular level is how not to use that
inbox as your filing cabinet, because I think for emails specifically,
that's what a lot of people do. They'll use that
or you know, some people will create folders, but a
lot of people will just say, I'll just keep it there.
(20:13):
Can you give us just some And again I don't
want you to give away all the secrets in your
course and all the things.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
And we're going to link up to all that later.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
But some specific things that people can do to help
simplify the process for them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, So for email especially, I think we all would
agree that the first step is to simplify via unsubscribes.
And I tell people there's a couple of ways you
can do that. You can hit the button every time
you know one comes in, especially if you're at a computer,
or you can create a label or a tag that
is called unsubscribed, and then once a week you go
(20:51):
through and you just batch do it. And it's one
of those things where like the first week you're gonna
be a lot, and the next week you're gonna have fewer,
and then it just gets easier and easier over time.
So the less you have, the better. And then the
second tip for email is turn off your multiple tabs,
especially in Gmail. I know there's a lot of different
email clients out there, but I think that most people
(21:14):
use Gmail these days, and those tabs are designed to
help you sort your emails, but I think what they
create is now you have four places to check instead
of one. And so I tell people turn off those tabs,
and then I also my goal is always to sort,
to prioritize the important and then everything else. So important
(21:38):
emails are ones that you either need to take action on,
you need to respond. They are emails that might take
more than one minute to open, read and address, and
separate those every day from the emails that are newsletters
to scam or sale coupons or like anything that is
just not that important but you don't necessarily want to
(22:01):
subscribe from it. So doing that simple sort, and I
teach a method called the Starbucks. Not to be confused
by the Starbucks if you live in the South. Sometimes
it sounds like I'm saying Starbucks, but it's the star Box.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And so what this is is a it's using Gmail's
multiple inbox feature to kind of create two tiers. So
your top section is your inbox, and you want that
to be empty at all times. Stuff's coming in you
either star it, read it, or archive it, just get
it out, So you want that to be clear. And
then your Starbucks is where you tag those important emails
(22:41):
that are going to need to be either replied to
take an action or archived after you've done the action
and so that's kind of like your follow up area,
and those emails I try not to let them sit
there for more than twenty four hours. There are a
lot of different tips and tricks in Gmail that I teach,
using the snooze feature, using the multiple inboxes, and using
(23:07):
filters and labels to kind of automate as much as
you can. For example, if there's an email that you
want in your archives, let's say it it. Let's say
you get you know, a transit like a paste of
or some something that you know that you want to keep,
but it's not something that has to be filed or important.
(23:29):
You just want to be able to reference it in time,
like receipts or order confirmations. Is a good one. You
can actually set up a filter that will mark that
as read, tag it as whatever you want to tag it,
and then actually remove it from your inbox so you
don't even see that email. It's just in your archives forever.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
But you can but if you search on it, you'll
be able to find it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yes, and I'm trying to think of a perfect example
of something that would this would you would you would
want to use that auto filter for especially if like
you have someone else who works in your inbox, like
a virtual assistant. You could have like anything like order
confirmations or something that that he or she needs to
address automatically go to their folder and then they could
(24:11):
just check there. So anything that you can do to
minimize what you have to do when you sit down
at your computer, you want to be able to prioritize
and automate so that your worktime is as minimal as possible,
because we all want to get away from screens.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Right, Yeah, So I'm sorry, I didn't need to cut
you off. I had a question, but finish, finish yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I was just going to say, like, the whole, the
whole reason that this is important is because I don't
know anyone who says I want more screen time in
my life. Like we all are trying to get offline
and get outside, but email, you know, working, it's a
fact of life. We have to do it. But let's
just make our time at our screen as efficient as possible.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
No, I love it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I think some people are probably on like information overload,
and especially people that are like tech phobic or not
super comfortable. It almost might be like a little bit
like you're talking a foreign language, but I'm sure as
we walk through the method it's super step by step
and clear. I have more of a more of a
(25:15):
like practical question. Do you have any specific rules of them,
because obviously I have my own digital practices that I
do in terms of the frequency that you're checking email,
frequency that you're responding to email, Like, do you have
any specific kind of hard and fast rules or things
that you do to be more proactive? I always tell
(25:38):
people to be more proactive versus reactive with the email.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
I'm just wondering your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't have any rules in terms of like how
many times a day I check in. I wear an
Apple Watch, so I'm sometimes even starring and archiving, like
from my watch. If I see something that's junk come through,
like a press release kind of thing, I archive it
right from my watch. So it's just one less thing
that I have to do when I sit down, and
(26:06):
that's usually I try to work during work hours, so
you know, not at all times of the day, and
then I try to get to inbox zero each night,
so that is my that is my goal, and occasionally
I let an.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
E would hate me, you would hate my inbox if
you saw my inbox because people ask me all the
time if I'm a zero inbox person, and I'm not,
and I'm not gonna lie to my people, so I'm like, right.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, so part part of the secret. Though, that doesn't
mean that I have done every task that was an email.
So for example, somebody like Okay, my son is getting
ready to go to a summer camp. They send a
packing list. The camp is two weeks away. Some people
(26:54):
would let that sit in their inbox for those two
weeks so they would know where it was when it
was time to pack for camp. What I did is
I copied the list and I paste it into the
Google Calendar event that I have for his camp. So
all the camp stuff went in the calendar, so I
didn't have to look at that email anymore. So while
(27:15):
that task wasn't complete, necessarily I knew where that information was.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Well, I do that kind of stuff. I don't post
it to the Google anundler, but I do that.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'll take action, want it right, like I will do yes,
I'll do a version of what you just did yes,
or what you just.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Said yes okay.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And I get to the point. So as I mentioned
the Starbucks, this is where all of the emails that
come in that data. Those are the things that I
have to do something with right action, archive or move
the information. Sometimes I will have something that's there that
I know I'm not going to reply to it for
like two or three days, I'll snooze it. So like
(27:55):
if it's let's say it's Friday afternoon, and I know
I'm going to answer that email on Monday morning and
not over the weekend, I don't want it sitting in
my inbox all weekend, so I snooze it for Monday
morning at eight am, and that feature enables the email
almost to like arrive to you.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Again, that's Gmail specific, because I don't okay it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Is, and maybe Outlook and Yahoo and some of the
others are kind of getting these more smart tech features.
I don't use snooze all that often because sometimes I
want stuff to kind of bother me during the day,
so I like do it. But if I know there's
going to be more than twenty four hours, I'll snooze
it and then it literally just appears in your inbox
(28:37):
again like it's brand new, and then you're like, oh,
there's that email. Okay, I'm going to do I'm gonna
reply right now.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
See, I like that, So I'll just do a So
here's so my hack for that because I use Macmail.
Even though my stuff is through Gmail, I don't use
the Gmail interface. So if I see an email that
is important, but I don't need to, like I'm not
prioritized dealing with that, now, I will. I'll go into
(29:04):
my to do list that is, like I have an
app that's a to do list, and I will say,
respond to Clemson email. I don't know my daughter, you
know what I mean, wherever it is on this date,
and I'll post date it. So then I'll that'll be
my trigger because I don't want to rely on my memory,
that's the bottom line. And I think what you're saying
(29:25):
as well, I don't want to rely on the fact
of now I have to remember to go back to
this email.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So I'll just set.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Us snooze almost on my thing of like go back
and check that email because I and maybe Macmail has
that news feature and I just don't know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
I'm going to look into it to remind me to
do it. Yeah, I like that. Let's talk. Can we
talk a little bit about photos?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yes? Yes, So I have what I call the mirror
method for photos. So I feel like most people they
have their camera roll and then most people back up
their camera roll to whatever cloud is paired with their phone,
and then they feel good about that. They're like, great,
I will never lose a photo ever again I have
(30:14):
them backed up. Then the problem is now you have
twenty thousand you know, ten years from now, you have
a million photos, and how many times do you like
pick up your water bottle and you're like, hey, look,
here's a picture of my new water bottle. And then
that photo of your water bottle is sitting there on
your camera roll and in your iCloud and it's next
to like your family vacation from the previous week. And
(30:36):
so now you are paying to store the water bottle
picture because you have two choices. You either don't take
it or you have to go through weekly and delete it.
And so the method that I have developed is called
the mirror method. And what I recommend people do is
they have their camera roll and that's kind of like
that's kind of like your inbox or your feed per se,
(30:58):
like those photos just are going to stay there because
sometimes you do need to find that photo of your
water bottle to send it to another friend two weeks later.
So sometimes deleting it isn't always the best choice. But
your camera role dies with your camera, so, or excuse me,
dies with your phone when you get a new phone.
(31:18):
Like I said, I had twenty thousand, and it's a
clean slate, get a new phone. I don't bring any
of the old ones over because I don't back them
up in eCloud. So what I do instead is a mirror,
which there are a couple of different ways you can
do it. Google Photos is one. Adobe light Room is
actually what I use because I do edit my photos
(31:39):
for my blog. I think if you're someone who really
loves photography and wants a little bit more of that
editing power, Lightroom is what i'd recommend. It is paid,
and then if you want to freate, the free option
is Google Photos. But your mirror is the one that
you are going and it mirrors your camera role. Okay,
(31:59):
so the photos are auto uploaded to whatever you choose.
Let's just use Google Photos as the example. So your mirror,
that's the one that you're going to edit, and you
are only saving your most precious, archivable photos to that mirror.
So once a week, I tell people do a power
(32:19):
hour where you address all of your digital clutter. During
your power hour, you should spend ten, maybe fifteen minutes,
maybe five minutes, not a lot of time, and on
your mirror you just delete all the photos that are
not the wonderful memories, and then you take the ones
(32:39):
that are left. And my recommendation for most people, but
obviously you can do, what's best for you is to
store them by person rather. I feel like a lot
of people store photos by date or by event, but
when I actually use my photos, I'm usually looking for
(33:01):
each person. So I have a folder for each of
my kids. I have a folder for family like group pictures,
and I don't really say that many pictures that aren't people.
So for me, like those three big folders are kind
of my archives. And so moving forward, I have my
most precious memories saved in the cloud organized, and then
(33:24):
my camera roll dies with my phone, and that's where
all the junk pictures and the screenshots and all the
photos that I don't care about go.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
That is fascinating, I really, I really like that.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And I also agree about the backing up every single photo.
I tell people don't do that, so I'm totally with you.
What are your thoughts on like third party sites like
a Shutterfly or you know, for storing photos? Do you
(33:58):
have an opinion about that?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I use Dropbox o mine because it has like gobloads
of storage and I just know I'm not going to
fill it up. So and I also, you know, remember
my I'm always in what is the most simple solution,
So for me, Dropbox is photos, files, work stuff, personal stuff.
(34:22):
It's like my all in one.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I'm a big drop Box person as well, so.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, it's like I don't have to go different places
to look for different things. It's like all right there,
auto synks to my computer. I am a huge, huge
fan of it. I know everyone can't afford the paid
you know, Adobe light Room or drop Box, so I
do like try to always talk about like the free option,
(34:46):
in which case Google Photos I think is the best
for photos because it has a lot of smart search
features that are pretty cool and Dropbox doesn't have those
yet I don't think so for free I would use
Google Photos, Shutterfly. I mean, I I want it to
be as seamless of a process as possible, So if
(35:08):
you have to manually uploads that's getting into the Like
am I gonna do that every week? I don't know.
So if it's a site where you have to manually
do stuff like that, now I do want you to
go in and delete, But deleting usually involves like select
select selex select delete. It's like really fast versus like
(35:30):
an upload process you probably would want to do on
your desktop computer versus on an app, and it just
you know, upload time or whatever. It just would take
a little bit longer. So that's my only hesitation with
the third party. It's like how much time is this
going to take? If you think it's going to take
the same amount of time, like, go for it, right, And.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I guess you know because I know for I'm ask
you for a friend because that's.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
What I do. I mean I and I just started
using it years ago.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And I do have some photos like you have that
like professional family photos taken and stuff, and if they're
sent to me or if I do headshot stuff like
that all goes into dropbox and I.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Store it there.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
But I started using and this is just I'm not
endorsed by Shutterfly, but I just started using them years ago,
and I created a couple of event ones, but most
of them I just did it by year. And what
I did is I do a manual upload. I don't
do become again for the same water bottle analogy. And
what I do is I actually it's funny because I
(36:33):
actually like uploading from my phone better than using my desktop.
I think it's easier in that particular case. And I
don't do it weekly. And but for me, what I
can do is so and I keep it pretty broad stroke.
So I'll just unless there's a special event a graduation
of this that I just do it by the year.
(36:55):
So every year we have an album and I'll go
in there and I can literally just tap whichever ones,
So it is manual. Either way, you're still involving time.
You're evolving time. You have to do some editing in
order to make sure that you're having the best versions
of that. And also we now, you know, you could
(37:15):
have twenty pictures of the same thing that you've.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Just been you know, right right, So you're not going
to want that.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Either way. I think the theme is you want to curate.
You want to curate the photos to the ones so
that when you need them you can access them, and
you can access them.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Quickly, right, and that sort step is the one. And
you know, I always say too that your brain, like
you took the photos, your brain is the best thing
to sort, like you know, the important photos from the
unimportant photos. And so it's so quick for you to
go through and delete all the ones versus relying on
(37:55):
like an app to just save them all like that,
you're never gonna if you don't do it now, you're
never going to do it later. And so whatever method
you choose to sort, and then whatever method you choose
to save, so by year is great. I like that.
I think by week or by month is a little too.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, and you could do it by person. I love
the by person.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Also, I think you know where I could see my
brain getting And I don't know if any of our
listeners would feel that way. It's like, Okay, so I
have a family photo and it's got both the kids
in it.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Whose photo does it go in?
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Like I'm always trying to think of, like what's the
path of least resistance for that he's of retrieval And
so that is why I feel like it's good for me.
I like that, But there are times, and I know
plenty of people and I also am not somebody that
is overly I love photography, but I'm not overly interested
(38:52):
in photography, Like I don't want to spend time doing that.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
That's not my passion.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I can appreciate it, but I don't personally want to
have been in the doing mode of it a lot.
So for me, it's like, how can I do this?
And then when I need those photos, I can quickly
go back and get.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
What I need.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
And I think too, how you organize your archive should
reflect how you're going to use those photos. So if
you are a photo book person, by here or you know,
by category, as in like family travel versus school, you know,
like whatever category you think that you will do your
(39:32):
photo book in or want to reference, like you know,
kids stuff versus grown up travel or whatever. I just
tell people three to five categories. Don't have a different
folder for every single family trip, because then you're just
like clicking. Like again, I'm all about saving time, whether
you're talking hours at a computer or just seconds of
(39:55):
like clicking a folder and having to click it, Oh
photos not on that folder, go to the oh not
in that folder? Like that's my worst nightmare is hunting
for files or photos in like a Nest archive or
a Nest hierarchy of folders.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That is that's gold right there, because I agree, and
then you touched on it very nonchalantly earlier, but I
picked up on it, which is people over complicate things,
and I talk about that, yes in any category you know, listen,
it doesn't have because the more complicated you make any system,
(40:34):
the harder it is for not only you to maintain it,
but if this is something that other people in your family.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Are going to be contributing to.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
And again I don't know, Like for me, I have bigs,
you know, and if we do something and they take pictures,
I want them to be able to upload them.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I want to make it simple.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I want to make it simple for them to in
you know, play offense and put stuff in, but also
to trieve it if they want it. They're like, hey,
I want to do something. I want to work on
a project. I need stuff from when I was in
fourth grade. Here you go, go find it, go pull
it up. I want to make it super simple because
then that removes.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Me from the equation exactly, and.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
That's you know, to I think that's what where a
lot of people get tired and frustrated and want to
just like throw in the towel is because it becomes
labor intensive.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And another beautiful thing about the photos also being in
like one big folder versus you know, like a lot
of people do like year, months and then trip and
so you know, you're tugging three levels deep. You can't
skim that. And if you like, if your daughter wants
a photo of her, like in the fourth grade play
(41:50):
that she was in, and you have one folder called
you know your daughter, you can sort that by date
and pretty quickly just skim the thumbnail when you get
to that area and spot the photo that you're thinking of.
Because photos are visual, so that's a little bit harder
to do with files, although you can do the you know,
the little icon version of the files. But I say
(42:15):
use the built in organization that the computer magically gets
to you, which is the date stamp, to sort them
if you need to sort my date, and then use
your eyes just to skim, because a lot of times
you'll be able to find what you need pretty quickly
that way.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Okay, so you've given us so much great practical information.
Love it, love it, love it. Obviously you have a course,
you have a website, all the things. Before we go
to our last break, tell everybody where they can go
to find you, learn more, get your course all that.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, So if anybody wants a little bit deeper dive
into kind of the topics that I've talked about and
wants to know more about the course, you can go
to Digital dash clutter dot com slash workshop and I
have about a forty minute workshop that will walk you
through this all of those things, and then we'll tell
you about the course at the end. And then you
(43:09):
can find me all over the internet at cath eats
that eats as in eats real food. And you can
find my blog at catheads dot com.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yes, and it's really great. I was on your website.
I love it. It's got lots of great information and
super fun.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
So everybody will have links in our show notes to
all things CAF digital and otherwise. So we're gonna take
one more quick break, of course, we're gonna take one
more quick break, and then we're gonna come back and
we're gonna just put you in the hot seat for
our wrap up questions and sit tight everyone, all right, Cath, So,
(43:48):
first of all, thank you so much for sharing that
I know that this is such a source of stress
and anxiety for people on so many levels. And one
thing that I actually just wanted to mention that I
didn't mention at the time, but when you were talking
about your files before we were talking about photos, and
(44:08):
you were talking about emails and just kind of the
method that you use about having them in like three
different categories.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I recently did.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Depending on when people are listening to this episode, when
we had our Clutter Clinic series and I was talking
all about our clutter Clinic paper control, and I talk
about how when I get the mail every day, I
sorted it into three piles my action pile, my reference pile,
my recycle pile, and I make that distinction in that
moment in real time. That doesn't mean, though that I
(44:40):
take action. It doesn't mean that I pay the bill.
It just means I assign it a category in that moment.
And when you were talking about your method, I was like,
it's really no different than what we do with the tangible,
right It's assigning it a category. And that way when
you do sit down to say now I'm going to
(45:03):
take action on these emails or now I'm going to
do this. I know exactly where to go because I've
already archived. I don't want to say that word. I've
already corralled it into the right category.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
So it's really no different.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Totally agree.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Anyway, I just was thinking about that I wanted to mention. Okay,
so we always ask our guests before we let them
leave us a few questions. First of all, you have
inspired us, and so we love to know what inspires you.
So can you share with us a book or could
be a couple books that have been really inspirational and
(45:40):
maybe transformational in your life.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Sure, so I wish I had an organizing book to recommend.
But I'm actually going to swing back to nutrition because
I read a book early on in my nutrition journey
called Superfood's Health Style, And I feel like, prior to
that reading that book, I had always thought about health
(46:04):
and nutrition as what you don't eat. So are you
skipping the doughnuts? Are you skipping the sugar? Are you
skipping that extra glass of wine? And this book really
like turned my brain one hundred and eighty degrees and
made me realize that nutrition is all about what you
are eating and what you are nourishing your body with
(46:26):
and why all of these super nutritious foods should be
in your diet and if you eat all of them,
you don't really crave the other stuff.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
So I'm getting that book. See this is why I
love this question because I get so much great content
Superfood's Health Style. You said, that's the name of it, right, yeah,
write it down.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
It's a little maybe out of date. I mean it's
over a decade old, so the content is still really
good in it, and it just talks about all the
research about why you should eat like brown rice and
yogurt and wild salmon and nuts, and it's just it's
going to make you want to go make a big
full of like.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Oh oh, I'm so exciting, especially if somebody's telling me
something I can eat, because, like you said, so much
of it is what are we not allowed? What's bad
for us? So giving me like the green light to
go eat something.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
I'm all in.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, me too, Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
And so the last two questions are fun questions that
we ask every single guest, which is all about honesty
and authenticity. We clearly know that you're organized when it
comes to digital clutter, so I'm not going to let
you use that one as your scapegoat.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
Fine, we ask exactly.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
So we ask all of our guests, where in this
particular season of your life are you feeling the most organized?
Not allowing you to pick digital, and where do you
feel like a little bit of a hot mess.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Okay, so for the most organized, I'm going to say
my closet, because if I can tune my own horn,
I'm actually very good at not buying clothes and or
getting rid of anything that I don't feel completely fabulous in.
And I'm a big fan of you only get the
space that you get. So if you have a huge closet,
(48:09):
well you can have a few more outfits. But my
closet is not tiny, but it's not huge, And so
when it feels a little cluttered, and I'm like stuff's
going out like pit out with the old in with
the new, So it always feels kind of neat, and
I actually will probably blow some minds of people if
they go. I have a YouTube video called how Not
(48:30):
to Fold laundry, and I actually don't fold like probably
fifty percent, like my workout clothes, my pajamas, my underwear.
I just stuff them in drawers and I think in
the organized community that's like there, people are like, what
that's like Lastery, you know right right, it's like you
(48:52):
don't like, you know, kN Mavie like perfectly fold everything.
And you know, if you've noticed the same during this
interview is that I try to be as efficient and
like time is our most valuable, non renewable resource, and
I'm not going to waste any of my precious time
in my life folding laundry. So I, you know, hang
up my shirts and I fold like I put socks together,
(49:15):
but like I just step the stuff that's just wrinkled.
It's just closed in a drawer. It looks neat from
the outside. And so I would challenge everyone to kind
of think about how much time you pull laundry. And
I am definitely is it cheating to say that my
kids toys is where I'm a little bit of a
hot mess because I'm not the only one involved with that.
(49:40):
So I'm gonna put a little bit of the blame
on them. But it's hard to I want to be
the minimalist mom with like the montesssory blocks, but the
reality is we have loving grandparents that give us toys,
and how many birthdays. Do my kids have a year?
Oh my gosh, I feel like they have a birthday
every year, right, and they're getting more toys and more toys,
(50:02):
and I buy them toys sometimes, and so it's kind
of like digital clutter, right, there's just stuff's always coming
in versus like my closet. I'm the one that's like, no,
I'm not going to buy anything today. But if my
kid comes home from a birthday party and has like
twenty trinkets that he loves and wants to save him
in his nightstand, like I have to open that nights
tan all the time and be like, why are there
(50:24):
all these drink gets in here? So good noises.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
The good news is, as someone who's been there, done that,
that that starts to reduce over time, Like that's a season.
As they get older, there's less of the little things.
Right when they're babies, there's big things, and then there's
all the littles, and then as they.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Get older it starts to weed out.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
So yeah, yeah, but I think given the toys that
we do have, we have as organized. I have these
great bins and it's pretty neat.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
So yeah, Well, for those of you who are watching
us on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
I'm looking in the background of your house and it
looks super neat and organized where you are, so I
love it well, I appreciate it, so Kat, thank you again. Everybody,
I encourage you go check out kath Eats.
Speaker 4 (51:15):
We'll have the link to.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Her digital course and framework and all the stuff that
she's got there. If this is your first time tuning in,
thank you so much for being here. We've got lots
of great content. We've got over two hundred plus episodes.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
Go back.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
You could search on which episodes are of interest to you.
If there's a specific topic, definitely check them out. We've
got lots of good stuff on our website as well,
so check out our website for any type of free resources,
and make sure you click subscribe buttons so that new
episodes get downloaded each and every week. So I'm Luri
(51:54):
Palaut until next week. Peace out.
Welcome to This Organized Life. If you're a mom, wife,
or coffee lover seeking advice on how to reduce clutter
and reclaim time, look no further than your host, Louri Hellau,
Founder Simply Be Organized and author of hot Mess, a
practical guide to getting organized. For a lot of people,
clutter is their dirty little secret, but it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Each week, we will share practical tips, chat with experts,
and provide strategies on how to keep you organized. I
hope that by sharing our stories you feel a little
less alone and more empowered to tackle the areas that
are holding you back. So let's get started.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And Hi everybody, and welcome to today's episode of This
Organized Life podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'm your host, Lori Palau, and I am very excited
to talk about today's topic.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Joining me today on the show is Cath Younger. And
Kath is actually by trade a disturb dietitian, but she's
also a mom.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
She's a blogger.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
She's like an og blogger, which I'm dying to talk
to her about. From I think back in two thousand
and seven is when she started. And in addition to
all of her blogging about nutrition and healthy eating and
the whole journey that she's had in that lane. She
loves organization and specifically an area that is a source
(01:26):
of stress for a lot of people, which is digital clutter,
so much so that she's developed a whole framework around
digital clutter and reducing that. And I am always looking
to talk to other experts to learn their tips and
tricks and hacks and ways to help streamline because one
of the most common questions I'm always getting from people
(01:48):
is how do I manage digital clutter? Because, like anybody knows,
in the day and age, it's like drinking from a
fire hose, whether you are trying to zero out your
inbox or unsubscribe vibe to emails or whatever it is.
As soon as you get them to a manageable amount,
they're like gremlins. They just seem to multiply. So I
(02:11):
can't wait to learn more about Kath her story and
hopefully just share some great information with all of you.
So without further ado, let me welcome Kath Younger to
the show.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Welcome Kath, thanks so much for having me. I'm really
excited to talk about digital clutter with you. Guys.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I am very excited to have you here, so I
just gave our listeners a top line overview.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Of who you are and a little bit about what
you do.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But in your own words, can you just give us
your background, your story?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah? Sure, So I will start my story with graduating
from college, because I feel like that's where my professional
story begins. And I graduated from college and I started
to cook on my own and and just like live
that like adulting lifestyle, and that resulted in me losing
about thirty pounds, and so I started a blog. It
(03:11):
was kind of weight loss themed back then, and it
was you know, healthy living weight loss what I ate style.
It was every meal that I ate. And this was
back in two thousand and sevens. It was this free
blog spot blog. It was very you know, you can
still go look at those old posts and you know
it's it's horrible quality. And so I kept I just
(03:33):
kept doing it as like a hobby. I never saw
it as a career. I was working full time in
publishing at the time, and just this like snowball effect
happened of starting my blog and then deciding to go
back to school for nutrition, and so I went back
and did two years to two and a half years
to become a registered dietitian. And then by the time
(03:54):
that I graduated from that program, my blog was doing
so well. Made more sense for me to focus on
that full time than it would have for me to
go get another job and try to blog like nights
and weekends, and so yeah, my blog has been kind
of my full time gig since then, and it has
it has evolved and grown and shifted and pivoted many times.
(04:18):
I had my older son in twenty twelve and realized
very quickly I could not photograph all my meals and
be a mom. I had my hands very full, and
so I shifted from I used to blog three times
a day and people would say, like, how did you
come up with content? Well, I was always eating, so
there was my content.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Oh my gosh, three times a.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Day, yeah, twenty one times a week. And so when
my son was born, I went to once a day,
seven days a week, and it was just I would
write in the evenings after our day was over and
just kind of like recap my meals and our adventures
and what we did. And then life shifted some more,
and I now have two boys, and so you know,
(05:01):
if you've ever been around kids, regardless of whether or
not they're your own. You know, like it's impossible to
get anything done. So I have found that necessary to
work ahead, and so that has forced me to do
more topic based blog posts. So I still recap kind
of our life and our adventures, and I still like
will always showcase like what I'm eating because my original
(05:23):
blog title is Kathy's Real Food, and so I feel
the need to just always share those like breakfast bowls
and you know, dinners that we have. But it's really
much more of like a lifestyle blog these days, and
I'm really interested in lifestyle design and trying to like
optimize and make your life like the perfect balance between
(05:47):
happy and then healthy and always trying to get more
efficient in that kind of stuff. So I still take
I think my camera role. When I upgraded my phone
had something like twenty fouves and photos on it and
we can get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
It was like, oh my gosh, I just still can't
as somebody who really likes to write, and I do.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I still write all my own content.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I do have people that help me sometimes, you know,
push it out from the technical side, but just to
think about writing that with that intensity and being a
mom is I just can't even Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well remember I wasn't a mom when I did that
three times a day.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah, but even so it's still it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So all right, So you obviously have a passion and
an interest and a huge following with your nutrition based
blog and all that talk a little bit about because
it's funny when you reached out to me and I
was looking at your content and I was like, yeah,
(06:56):
this woman is like the guru when it comes to
life style, healthy eating and all the things.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And then you have this.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Digital clutter component. Where did that shift come from? And
how did it evolve into like not only something that
you're just doing for your own self and streamlining your
own life, but now for other people.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah. So, like I said, I branched out into a
bunch of different topics over the years, and everything from
like clean beauty to parenting. And one of the one
of the topics the theme that I would write about
I called the home neat Home series, and it was
(07:40):
all about organizing your home, so before and after closets
and my favorite way to organize my pantry and my
silverware drawer and the linen closet I talk a lot
about decluttering and how to declutter, and so you know,
all the topics that you love.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I was like, oh my gosh, I was like to
go back and walk you know, read them. I was like,
this is like right up my alley. And was it
all just out of curiosity?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Was it all your own journey like stuff like from
your house that you were doing like you were chronicling. Yes,
you know, I just decluttered my pantry and this is
how I did it, and here's some photos.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yes, And I moved several times. I moved from Charlotte,
North Carolina, to Charlottesville, Virginia, to a rental home, and
then I moved again. So I had a lot of
like here's how I'm doing this in this house, and
here's how I'm doing this in this house in kind
of a span of a couple of years, and so
it was easy. I mean, we all know with decluttering,
like once you declutter a closet, like hopefully it stays
(08:39):
perfect for forever. So it's hard like to find another
messy closet if all of your closet's so neat. So
during that time, I did a lot of homemat home
stuff and just like how I'm setting up this kitchen
versus how I'm setting up that kitchen. So it was
very authentic, and I think that's why people loved it
is it wasn't this Pinterest perfect like container store showcase.
(09:00):
It was like my kitchen and like how to take
like real pots and pans that maybe aren't perfectly matched
and make them look as nice as possible and that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, and I love that because, you know, and I've
tried to do a pretty good job, and it's always
worth like reinforcing and reminding people that it's not an
all or nothing. First of all, organization is a spectrum.
And just because you don't have every single thing matching
and everything is clear and acrylic and you know, there's
(09:32):
you can have an organized home and feel really good
about your space regardless of your budget, the size of
your home, what materials you have, and it's not you know,
I don't want people to say, well, I don't have
a lot of money, so I can't do this, because
everything's achievable, and I try to showcase people from all
(09:54):
walks of life where yeah, if you want that beautiful
like magazine em ready Pinterest space, sure you can do that,
but it doesn't have to be that way because most
people don't live like that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Right, And I live in Charlottesville. We don't have a
container store in our town. So I try to always
emphasize using what you have for your containers. And I
have so many different boxes and bins and stuff that
I've collected over the years, and I will actually like
play musical chairs with them, Like I'll need like this
perfect size for the perfect drawer, and I'll go steal
(10:32):
it from my medicine cabinet or wherever my linen closet,
and then I'm like, Okay, now i need a new
one from in there. And I'm constantly like shuffling things,
which is part of the fun, right.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Agree.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
And I'm a huge fan of like finding out of
the box no pun intended, you know, organizing solutions, you know,
like you can use like an old cigar box to corral,
you know, as a drop spot thing. So I think
finding those unique things, whether it's at a garage sale
or flea market or just recycling. Like you said, something
(11:06):
that's in your home already can work just as well.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
As if you go and have everything you know perfectly
matching from.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
A store, right right, totally, So okay.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
So now so you're chronicling this, you're going through all
the things with your house, where does the digital part
of things come into play?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So as a blogger and an entrepreneur, I feel like
I have more than the average person in terms of emails, photos,
calendars that I'm juggling. I mean, you know, not to
say that I'm busier than anyone who works full time,
but just in terms of like the blog flow I
(11:53):
have taken. Like I said, I have twenty thousand photos
on my camera roll the last time I upgraded my phone,
and so I take a ton of photo and I
get tons and tons of emails per day, like pitches,
press releases, all that kind of stuff. So over the
years I have developed two systems around photos and emails
specifically as well as my calendar. That it was almost
(12:17):
like out of necessity that I've like honed these systems
over time and they work really well. And I knew
I wanted to create content and then eventually a course
that would help people in the organizing space. But I
knew that like closet and physical stuff, clutter courses and
(12:38):
stuff already existed. And I was asking myself. They say,
what do you help your friends? What do your friends
and family come to you for? And I always joke
with my people. I know in real life, I'm like,
welcome to CAFFS Digital Technology Consulting Company. Like I'll say,
I'm sending your invoice tomorrow. And people would come to
(12:59):
me with like technical questions like how do I how
can I get rid of the twenty thousand emails in
my inbox? How can I set up my iPhone this way?
How can I automate this problem that I'm having? And
I said, Okay. I feel like there's this this connection
between being like sort of tech savvy and then being
(13:19):
really good at organizing that I can bring those two together.
And I feel like digital organization is something that everybody
needs help with, but yet there's not a lot of
support out there. It's so it is so new that
you know, even the latest devices are new, and it's
(13:41):
changing so fast that you know, we've had closets to
organize for how many hundreds of years? So over the time,
Like there's there's some pretty tried and true methods to that,
but like email organizing is one of those things where
it's like you think Oh, I'm just going to like
create a hundred folders. And you think, like, oh, Gmail
(14:02):
has these four tabs now promotions tab that'll keep you organized, right,
But I actually think it's the opposite. I think a
lot of times people unnecessarily complicate their digital devices and
all the different categories, and so it just becomes this
snowball of a mess and you can't get it under control,
(14:24):
and it just keeps getting worse and worse because more
stuff keeps coming in. Like you said, the garden hose,
that's a perfect example. And so my objective was like,
how can I take everything that I know and boil
it down into a signature method and really like simplify
this as much as humanly possible. And so that's kind
(14:45):
of what I teach is the instead of the mistakes
that people often make, which is like making stuff so
complicated that you don't ever have time to do the system,
what is the bare minimum that you need to do,
You make this as simple as possible so you will
actually do it. And so that's kind of where everything
(15:05):
kind of came together.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, I love it, and we're going I want to,
you know, we'll dive a little bit into it.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
But I think another thing, and I don't know if
you find this, but.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
One of the struggles with digital is because it's not tangible,
you don't see it. When you have a cluttered closet,
the space actually starts closing it, right. You can only
have so many shoes, that rack can only hold so
many clothes. But like you said, your phone doesn't get
heavier as you have ten, you know, twenty thousand photos
(15:38):
on it. Okay, yes we're going to have like, oh
we need to up our storage, or you're not going
to have it. That'll be an indicator. But the volume
that we can consume and ingest digital information comes at
a rate faster than we can get rid of it.
And so I think that's another place where people struggle,
(16:01):
where people go, you know, I've got tens of thousands
of emails that are unopened or unused or whatever, old files,
but they're just there. They're taking a digital space, like
not physical space, and so it can snowball, like you said,
pretty quickly, and then before you know it, you're trying
(16:22):
to find something. And for me, this is where I
think the struggle with digital is really an issue, and
it's no different than with physical stuff, but it just
again takes longer for us to connect those dots. Where
the whole purpose, for my opinion, the whole purpose for
any organizing system is the ease of retrieval.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
How quickly can I go to get it? Yes, a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Closet or pantry looks wonderful, but it's really about freeing
yourself from the stress and anxiety of going, oh, you
need the human I know exactly where that is, as
opposed to digging through a million things.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
And you can apply that same principle with digital clutter,
and it's.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Where is that email? Where is that document? Where is
that photo? But if you don't have that system, you're
sitting there scrolling through thousands of pictures or trying to
do searches on your computer or wherever to find basically
a needle in a haystack. And I think for a
lot of people it's until we have a pain point
(17:30):
that we want to solve it, and at that point
you're ready in.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So deep right, it's the volume I think is the
biggest problem. I mean, especially because you know digital photos
most of us. You know, I'm almost forty so since college.
Basically it's like your whole life, and you're so attached
to them even though like ninety nine percent of them
(17:53):
you haven't looked at since you know you took the picture,
and going back to search. That search is actually our
best friend for the digital particularly with email. A lot
of people the mistake that they make is they treat
their inbox like a filing cabinet, and they whether it's
(18:13):
one hundred or twelve thousand emails, they let them sit
in there and live in there because they think that
will make them easier to find. But whether it's in
your inbox or in your all mail folder, which is
your email archives, you probably still like you probably know
who sent it or a keyword that was in that email.
(18:34):
For example, I had this nice pottery barn couch behind
me and someone asked me recently what the fabric name was,
and I was able to search my email that I've
had this for six years I think for pottery barn order,
and I knew the name of the couch and I
pulled it up like that and it's like, here's your
(18:54):
order for your recycled denim fabric. And so obviously I'm
not going to let that six year old emails sit
in my inbox, but I could still find it so
fast because I knew the right keywords to search for.
So I would tell people like archive all the emails
in your inbox and start treating it like an inbox,
(19:14):
and you can always search for stuff at a later date.
The photos is a little trickier, but for email, at least,
the search is your best friend.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
All right, So what I want to do right now
is we're going to take a quick break and when
we come back, I want to dive into because I
think that sounds I love that, but I want you
to break it down really simply for our for our folks.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
So hang on and we'll be right back, okay, kath.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So right before break, you started kind of talking a
little bit about using search as your friend, and I.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Too believe that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
But again, what I want you to almost break down
to a granular level is how not to use that
inbox as your filing cabinet, because I think for emails specifically,
that's what a lot of people do. They'll use that
or you know, some people will create folders, but a
lot of people will just say, I'll just keep it there.
(20:13):
Can you give us just some And again I don't
want you to give away all the secrets in your
course and all the things.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
And we're going to link up to all that later.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
But some specific things that people can do to help
simplify the process for them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, So for email especially, I think we all would
agree that the first step is to simplify via unsubscribes.
And I tell people there's a couple of ways you
can do that. You can hit the button every time
you know one comes in, especially if you're at a computer,
or you can create a label or a tag that
is called unsubscribed, and then once a week you go
(20:51):
through and you just batch do it. And it's one
of those things where like the first week you're gonna
be a lot, and the next week you're gonna have fewer,
and then it just gets easier and easier over time.
So the less you have, the better. And then the
second tip for email is turn off your multiple tabs,
especially in Gmail. I know there's a lot of different
email clients out there, but I think that most people
(21:14):
use Gmail these days, and those tabs are designed to
help you sort your emails, but I think what they
create is now you have four places to check instead
of one. And so I tell people turn off those tabs,
and then I also my goal is always to sort,
to prioritize the important and then everything else. So important
(21:38):
emails are ones that you either need to take action on,
you need to respond. They are emails that might take
more than one minute to open, read and address, and
separate those every day from the emails that are newsletters
to scam or sale coupons or like anything that is
just not that important but you don't necessarily want to
(22:01):
subscribe from it. So doing that simple sort, and I
teach a method called the Starbucks. Not to be confused
by the Starbucks if you live in the South. Sometimes
it sounds like I'm saying Starbucks, but it's the star Box.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And so what this is is a it's using Gmail's
multiple inbox feature to kind of create two tiers. So
your top section is your inbox, and you want that
to be empty at all times. Stuff's coming in you
either star it, read it, or archive it, just get
it out, So you want that to be clear. And
then your Starbucks is where you tag those important emails
(22:41):
that are going to need to be either replied to
take an action or archived after you've done the action
and so that's kind of like your follow up area,
and those emails I try not to let them sit
there for more than twenty four hours. There are a
lot of different tips and tricks in Gmail that I teach,
using the snooze feature, using the multiple inboxes, and using
(23:07):
filters and labels to kind of automate as much as
you can. For example, if there's an email that you
want in your archives, let's say it it. Let's say
you get you know, a transit like a paste of
or some something that you know that you want to keep,
but it's not something that has to be filed or important.
(23:29):
You just want to be able to reference it in time,
like receipts or order confirmations. Is a good one. You
can actually set up a filter that will mark that
as read, tag it as whatever you want to tag it,
and then actually remove it from your inbox so you
don't even see that email. It's just in your archives forever.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
But you can but if you search on it, you'll
be able to find it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yes, and I'm trying to think of a perfect example
of something that would this would you would you would
want to use that auto filter for especially if like
you have someone else who works in your inbox, like
a virtual assistant. You could have like anything like order
confirmations or something that that he or she needs to
address automatically go to their folder and then they could
(24:11):
just check there. So anything that you can do to
minimize what you have to do when you sit down
at your computer, you want to be able to prioritize
and automate so that your worktime is as minimal as possible,
because we all want to get away from screens.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Right, Yeah, So I'm sorry, I didn't need to cut
you off. I had a question, but finish, finish yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I was just going to say, like, the whole, the
whole reason that this is important is because I don't
know anyone who says I want more screen time in
my life. Like we all are trying to get offline
and get outside, but email, you know, working, it's a
fact of life. We have to do it. But let's
just make our time at our screen as efficient as possible.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
No, I love it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I think some people are probably on like information overload,
and especially people that are like tech phobic or not
super comfortable. It almost might be like a little bit
like you're talking a foreign language, but I'm sure as
we walk through the method it's super step by step
and clear. I have more of a more of a
(25:15):
like practical question. Do you have any specific rules of them,
because obviously I have my own digital practices that I
do in terms of the frequency that you're checking email,
frequency that you're responding to email, Like, do you have
any specific kind of hard and fast rules or things
that you do to be more proactive? I always tell
(25:38):
people to be more proactive versus reactive with the email.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
I'm just wondering your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't have any rules in terms of like how
many times a day I check in. I wear an
Apple Watch, so I'm sometimes even starring and archiving, like
from my watch. If I see something that's junk come through,
like a press release kind of thing, I archive it
right from my watch. So it's just one less thing
that I have to do when I sit down, and
(26:06):
that's usually I try to work during work hours, so
you know, not at all times of the day, and
then I try to get to inbox zero each night,
so that is my that is my goal, and occasionally
I let an.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
E would hate me, you would hate my inbox if
you saw my inbox because people ask me all the
time if I'm a zero inbox person, and I'm not,
and I'm not gonna lie to my people, so I'm like, right.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, so part part of the secret. Though, that doesn't
mean that I have done every task that was an email.
So for example, somebody like Okay, my son is getting
ready to go to a summer camp. They send a
packing list. The camp is two weeks away. Some people
(26:54):
would let that sit in their inbox for those two
weeks so they would know where it was when it
was time to pack for camp. What I did is
I copied the list and I paste it into the
Google Calendar event that I have for his camp. So
all the camp stuff went in the calendar, so I
didn't have to look at that email anymore. So while
(27:15):
that task wasn't complete, necessarily I knew where that information was.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Well, I do that kind of stuff. I don't post
it to the Google anundler, but I do that.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'll take action, want it right, like I will do yes,
I'll do a version of what you just did yes,
or what you just.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Said yes okay.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And I get to the point. So as I mentioned
the Starbucks, this is where all of the emails that
come in that data. Those are the things that I
have to do something with right action, archive or move
the information. Sometimes I will have something that's there that
I know I'm not going to reply to it for
like two or three days, I'll snooze it. So like
(27:55):
if it's let's say it's Friday afternoon, and I know
I'm going to answer that email on Monday morning and
not over the weekend, I don't want it sitting in
my inbox all weekend, so I snooze it for Monday
morning at eight am, and that feature enables the email
almost to like arrive to you.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Again, that's Gmail specific, because I don't okay it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Is, and maybe Outlook and Yahoo and some of the
others are kind of getting these more smart tech features.
I don't use snooze all that often because sometimes I
want stuff to kind of bother me during the day,
so I like do it. But if I know there's
going to be more than twenty four hours, I'll snooze
it and then it literally just appears in your inbox
(28:37):
again like it's brand new, and then you're like, oh,
there's that email. Okay, I'm going to do I'm gonna
reply right now.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
See, I like that, So I'll just do a So
here's so my hack for that because I use Macmail.
Even though my stuff is through Gmail, I don't use
the Gmail interface. So if I see an email that
is important, but I don't need to, like I'm not
prioritized dealing with that, now, I will. I'll go into
(29:04):
my to do list that is, like I have an
app that's a to do list, and I will say,
respond to Clemson email. I don't know my daughter, you
know what I mean, wherever it is on this date,
and I'll post date it. So then I'll that'll be
my trigger because I don't want to rely on my memory,
that's the bottom line. And I think what you're saying
(29:25):
as well, I don't want to rely on the fact
of now I have to remember to go back to
this email.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So I'll just set.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Us snooze almost on my thing of like go back
and check that email because I and maybe Macmail has
that news feature and I just don't know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
I'm going to look into it to remind me to
do it. Yeah, I like that. Let's talk. Can we
talk a little bit about photos?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yes? Yes, So I have what I call the mirror
method for photos. So I feel like most people they
have their camera roll and then most people back up
their camera roll to whatever cloud is paired with their phone,
and then they feel good about that. They're like, great,
I will never lose a photo ever again I have
(30:14):
them backed up. Then the problem is now you have
twenty thousand you know, ten years from now, you have
a million photos, and how many times do you like
pick up your water bottle and you're like, hey, look,
here's a picture of my new water bottle. And then
that photo of your water bottle is sitting there on
your camera roll and in your iCloud and it's next
to like your family vacation from the previous week. And
(30:36):
so now you are paying to store the water bottle
picture because you have two choices. You either don't take
it or you have to go through weekly and delete it.
And so the method that I have developed is called
the mirror method. And what I recommend people do is
they have their camera roll and that's kind of like
that's kind of like your inbox or your feed per se,
(30:58):
like those photos just are going to stay there because
sometimes you do need to find that photo of your
water bottle to send it to another friend two weeks later.
So sometimes deleting it isn't always the best choice. But
your camera role dies with your camera, so, or excuse me,
dies with your phone when you get a new phone.
(31:18):
Like I said, I had twenty thousand, and it's a
clean slate, get a new phone. I don't bring any
of the old ones over because I don't back them
up in eCloud. So what I do instead is a mirror,
which there are a couple of different ways you can
do it. Google Photos is one. Adobe light Room is
actually what I use because I do edit my photos
(31:39):
for my blog. I think if you're someone who really
loves photography and wants a little bit more of that
editing power, Lightroom is what i'd recommend. It is paid,
and then if you want to freate, the free option
is Google Photos. But your mirror is the one that
you are going and it mirrors your camera role. Okay,
(31:59):
so the photos are auto uploaded to whatever you choose.
Let's just use Google Photos as the example. So your mirror,
that's the one that you're going to edit, and you
are only saving your most precious, archivable photos to that mirror.
So once a week, I tell people do a power
(32:19):
hour where you address all of your digital clutter. During
your power hour, you should spend ten, maybe fifteen minutes,
maybe five minutes, not a lot of time, and on
your mirror you just delete all the photos that are
not the wonderful memories, and then you take the ones
(32:39):
that are left. And my recommendation for most people, but
obviously you can do, what's best for you is to
store them by person rather. I feel like a lot
of people store photos by date or by event, but
when I actually use my photos, I'm usually looking for
(33:01):
each person. So I have a folder for each of
my kids. I have a folder for family like group pictures,
and I don't really say that many pictures that aren't people.
So for me, like those three big folders are kind
of my archives. And so moving forward, I have my
most precious memories saved in the cloud organized, and then
(33:24):
my camera roll dies with my phone, and that's where
all the junk pictures and the screenshots and all the
photos that I don't care about go.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
That is fascinating, I really, I really like that.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And I also agree about the backing up every single photo.
I tell people don't do that, so I'm totally with you.
What are your thoughts on like third party sites like
a Shutterfly or you know, for storing photos? Do you
(33:58):
have an opinion about that?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I use Dropbox o mine because it has like gobloads
of storage and I just know I'm not going to
fill it up. So and I also, you know, remember
my I'm always in what is the most simple solution,
So for me, Dropbox is photos, files, work stuff, personal stuff.
(34:22):
It's like my all in one.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I'm a big drop Box person as well, so.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, it's like I don't have to go different places
to look for different things. It's like all right there,
auto synks to my computer. I am a huge, huge
fan of it. I know everyone can't afford the paid
you know, Adobe light Room or drop Box, so I
do like try to always talk about like the free option,
(34:46):
in which case Google Photos I think is the best
for photos because it has a lot of smart search
features that are pretty cool and Dropbox doesn't have those
yet I don't think so for free I would use
Google Photos, Shutterfly. I mean, I I want it to
be as seamless of a process as possible, So if
(35:08):
you have to manually uploads that's getting into the Like
am I gonna do that every week? I don't know.
So if it's a site where you have to manually
do stuff like that, now I do want you to
go in and delete, But deleting usually involves like select
select selex select delete. It's like really fast versus like
(35:30):
an upload process you probably would want to do on
your desktop computer versus on an app, and it just
you know, upload time or whatever. It just would take
a little bit longer. So that's my only hesitation with
the third party. It's like how much time is this
going to take? If you think it's going to take
the same amount of time, like, go for it, right, And.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I guess you know because I know for I'm ask
you for a friend because that's.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
What I do. I mean I and I just started
using it years ago.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And I do have some photos like you have that
like professional family photos taken and stuff, and if they're
sent to me or if I do headshot stuff like
that all goes into dropbox and I.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Store it there.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
But I started using and this is just I'm not
endorsed by Shutterfly, but I just started using them years ago,
and I created a couple of event ones, but most
of them I just did it by year. And what
I did is I do a manual upload. I don't
do become again for the same water bottle analogy. And
what I do is I actually it's funny because I
(36:33):
actually like uploading from my phone better than using my desktop.
I think it's easier in that particular case. And I
don't do it weekly. And but for me, what I
can do is so and I keep it pretty broad stroke.
So I'll just unless there's a special event a graduation
of this that I just do it by the year.
(36:55):
So every year we have an album and I'll go
in there and I can literally just tap whichever ones,
So it is manual. Either way, you're still involving time.
You're evolving time. You have to do some editing in
order to make sure that you're having the best versions
of that. And also we now, you know, you could
(37:15):
have twenty pictures of the same thing that you've.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Just been you know, right right, So you're not going
to want that.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Either way. I think the theme is you want to curate.
You want to curate the photos to the ones so
that when you need them you can access them, and
you can access them.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Quickly, right, and that sort step is the one. And
you know, I always say too that your brain, like
you took the photos, your brain is the best thing
to sort, like you know, the important photos from the
unimportant photos. And so it's so quick for you to
go through and delete all the ones versus relying on
(37:55):
like an app to just save them all like that,
you're never gonna if you don't do it now, you're
never going to do it later. And so whatever method
you choose to sort, and then whatever method you choose
to save, so by year is great. I like that.
I think by week or by month is a little too.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, and you could do it by person. I love
the by person.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Also, I think you know where I could see my
brain getting And I don't know if any of our
listeners would feel that way. It's like, Okay, so I
have a family photo and it's got both the kids
in it.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Whose photo does it go in?
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Like I'm always trying to think of, like what's the
path of least resistance for that he's of retrieval And
so that is why I feel like it's good for me.
I like that, But there are times, and I know
plenty of people and I also am not somebody that
is overly I love photography, but I'm not overly interested
(38:52):
in photography, Like I don't want to spend time doing that.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
That's not my passion.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I can appreciate it, but I don't personally want to
have been in the doing mode of it a lot.
So for me, it's like, how can I do this?
And then when I need those photos, I can quickly
go back and get.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
What I need.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
And I think too, how you organize your archive should
reflect how you're going to use those photos. So if
you are a photo book person, by here or you know,
by category, as in like family travel versus school, you know,
like whatever category you think that you will do your
(39:32):
photo book in or want to reference, like you know,
kids stuff versus grown up travel or whatever. I just
tell people three to five categories. Don't have a different
folder for every single family trip, because then you're just
like clicking. Like again, I'm all about saving time, whether
you're talking hours at a computer or just seconds of
(39:55):
like clicking a folder and having to click it, Oh
photos not on that folder, go to the oh not
in that folder? Like that's my worst nightmare is hunting
for files or photos in like a Nest archive or
a Nest hierarchy of folders.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That is that's gold right there, because I agree, and
then you touched on it very nonchalantly earlier, but I
picked up on it, which is people over complicate things,
and I talk about that, yes in any category you know, listen,
it doesn't have because the more complicated you make any system,
(40:34):
the harder it is for not only you to maintain it,
but if this is something that other people in your family.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Are going to be contributing to.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
And again I don't know, Like for me, I have bigs,
you know, and if we do something and they take pictures,
I want them to be able to upload them.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I want to make it simple.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I want to make it simple for them to in
you know, play offense and put stuff in, but also
to trieve it if they want it. They're like, hey,
I want to do something. I want to work on
a project. I need stuff from when I was in
fourth grade. Here you go, go find it, go pull
it up. I want to make it super simple because
then that removes.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Me from the equation exactly, and.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
That's you know, to I think that's what where a
lot of people get tired and frustrated and want to
just like throw in the towel is because it becomes
labor intensive.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And another beautiful thing about the photos also being in
like one big folder versus you know, like a lot
of people do like year, months and then trip and
so you know, you're tugging three levels deep. You can't
skim that. And if you like, if your daughter wants
a photo of her, like in the fourth grade play
(41:50):
that she was in, and you have one folder called
you know your daughter, you can sort that by date
and pretty quickly just skim the thumbnail when you get
to that area and spot the photo that you're thinking of.
Because photos are visual, so that's a little bit harder
to do with files, although you can do the you know,
the little icon version of the files. But I say
(42:15):
use the built in organization that the computer magically gets
to you, which is the date stamp, to sort them
if you need to sort my date, and then use
your eyes just to skim, because a lot of times
you'll be able to find what you need pretty quickly
that way.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Okay, so you've given us so much great practical information.
Love it, love it, love it. Obviously you have a course,
you have a website, all the things. Before we go
to our last break, tell everybody where they can go
to find you, learn more, get your course all that.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, So if anybody wants a little bit deeper dive
into kind of the topics that I've talked about and
wants to know more about the course, you can go
to Digital dash clutter dot com slash workshop and I
have about a forty minute workshop that will walk you
through this all of those things, and then we'll tell
you about the course at the end. And then you
(43:09):
can find me all over the internet at cath eats
that eats as in eats real food. And you can
find my blog at catheads dot com.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yes, and it's really great. I was on your website.
I love it. It's got lots of great information and
super fun.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
So everybody will have links in our show notes to
all things CAF digital and otherwise. So we're gonna take
one more quick break, of course, we're gonna take one
more quick break, and then we're gonna come back and
we're gonna just put you in the hot seat for
our wrap up questions and sit tight everyone, all right, Cath, So,
(43:48):
first of all, thank you so much for sharing that
I know that this is such a source of stress
and anxiety for people on so many levels. And one
thing that I actually just wanted to mention that I
didn't mention at the time, but when you were talking
about your files before we were talking about photos, and
(44:08):
you were talking about emails and just kind of the
method that you use about having them in like three
different categories.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I recently did.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Depending on when people are listening to this episode, when
we had our Clutter Clinic series and I was talking
all about our clutter Clinic paper control, and I talk
about how when I get the mail every day, I
sorted it into three piles my action pile, my reference pile,
my recycle pile, and I make that distinction in that
moment in real time. That doesn't mean, though that I
(44:40):
take action. It doesn't mean that I pay the bill.
It just means I assign it a category in that moment.
And when you were talking about your method, I was like,
it's really no different than what we do with the tangible,
right It's assigning it a category. And that way when
you do sit down to say now I'm going to
(45:03):
take action on these emails or now I'm going to
do this. I know exactly where to go because I've
already archived. I don't want to say that word. I've
already corralled it into the right category.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
So it's really no different.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Totally agree.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Anyway, I just was thinking about that I wanted to mention. Okay,
so we always ask our guests before we let them
leave us a few questions. First of all, you have
inspired us, and so we love to know what inspires you.
So can you share with us a book or could
be a couple books that have been really inspirational and
(45:40):
maybe transformational in your life.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Sure, so I wish I had an organizing book to recommend.
But I'm actually going to swing back to nutrition because
I read a book early on in my nutrition journey
called Superfood's Health Style, And I feel like, prior to
that reading that book, I had always thought about health
(46:04):
and nutrition as what you don't eat. So are you
skipping the doughnuts? Are you skipping the sugar? Are you
skipping that extra glass of wine? And this book really
like turned my brain one hundred and eighty degrees and
made me realize that nutrition is all about what you
are eating and what you are nourishing your body with
(46:26):
and why all of these super nutritious foods should be
in your diet and if you eat all of them,
you don't really crave the other stuff.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
So I'm getting that book. See this is why I
love this question because I get so much great content
Superfood's Health Style. You said, that's the name of it, right, yeah,
write it down.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
It's a little maybe out of date. I mean it's
over a decade old, so the content is still really
good in it, and it just talks about all the
research about why you should eat like brown rice and
yogurt and wild salmon and nuts, and it's just it's
going to make you want to go make a big
full of like.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Oh oh, I'm so exciting, especially if somebody's telling me
something I can eat, because, like you said, so much
of it is what are we not allowed? What's bad
for us? So giving me like the green light to
go eat something.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
I'm all in.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, me too, Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
And so the last two questions are fun questions that
we ask every single guest, which is all about honesty
and authenticity. We clearly know that you're organized when it
comes to digital clutter, so I'm not going to let
you use that one as your scapegoat.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
Fine, we ask exactly.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
So we ask all of our guests, where in this
particular season of your life are you feeling the most organized?
Not allowing you to pick digital, and where do you
feel like a little bit of a hot mess.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Okay, so for the most organized, I'm going to say
my closet, because if I can tune my own horn,
I'm actually very good at not buying clothes and or
getting rid of anything that I don't feel completely fabulous in.
And I'm a big fan of you only get the
space that you get. So if you have a huge closet,
(48:09):
well you can have a few more outfits. But my
closet is not tiny, but it's not huge, And so
when it feels a little cluttered, and I'm like stuff's
going out like pit out with the old in with
the new, So it always feels kind of neat, and
I actually will probably blow some minds of people if
they go. I have a YouTube video called how Not
(48:30):
to Fold laundry, and I actually don't fold like probably
fifty percent, like my workout clothes, my pajamas, my underwear.
I just stuff them in drawers and I think in
the organized community that's like there, people are like, what
that's like Lastery, you know right right, it's like you
(48:52):
don't like, you know, kN Mavie like perfectly fold everything.
And you know, if you've noticed the same during this
interview is that I try to be as efficient and
like time is our most valuable, non renewable resource, and
I'm not going to waste any of my precious time
in my life folding laundry. So I, you know, hang
up my shirts and I fold like I put socks together,
(49:15):
but like I just step the stuff that's just wrinkled.
It's just closed in a drawer. It looks neat from
the outside. And so I would challenge everyone to kind
of think about how much time you pull laundry. And
I am definitely is it cheating to say that my
kids toys is where I'm a little bit of a
hot mess because I'm not the only one involved with that.
(49:40):
So I'm gonna put a little bit of the blame
on them. But it's hard to I want to be
the minimalist mom with like the montesssory blocks, but the
reality is we have loving grandparents that give us toys,
and how many birthdays. Do my kids have a year?
Oh my gosh, I feel like they have a birthday
every year, right, and they're getting more toys and more toys,
(50:02):
and I buy them toys sometimes, and so it's kind
of like digital clutter, right, there's just stuff's always coming
in versus like my closet. I'm the one that's like, no,
I'm not going to buy anything today. But if my
kid comes home from a birthday party and has like
twenty trinkets that he loves and wants to save him
in his nightstand, like I have to open that nights
tan all the time and be like, why are there
(50:24):
all these drink gets in here? So good noises.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
The good news is, as someone who's been there, done that,
that that starts to reduce over time, Like that's a season.
As they get older, there's less of the little things.
Right when they're babies, there's big things, and then there's
all the littles, and then as they.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Get older it starts to weed out.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
So yeah, yeah, but I think given the toys that
we do have, we have as organized. I have these
great bins and it's pretty neat.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
So yeah, Well, for those of you who are watching
us on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
I'm looking in the background of your house and it
looks super neat and organized where you are, so I
love it well, I appreciate it, so Kat, thank you again. Everybody,
I encourage you go check out kath Eats.
Speaker 4 (51:15):
We'll have the link to.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Her digital course and framework and all the stuff that
she's got there. If this is your first time tuning in,
thank you so much for being here. We've got lots
of great content. We've got over two hundred plus episodes.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
Go back.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
You could search on which episodes are of interest to you.
If there's a specific topic, definitely check them out. We've
got lots of good stuff on our website as well,
so check out our website for any type of free resources,
and make sure you click subscribe buttons so that new
episodes get downloaded each and every week. So I'm Luri
(51:54):
Palaut until next week. Peace out.
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