Lorie Marrero Clutter Diet 2
Lorie Marrero Clutter Diet 2
[00:00:00]
Kim West: Hi, it’s Kim West, The Sleep Lady here with Lorie Marrero, the bestselling author of the Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. Lorie is a certified professional organizer and is the creator of , an innovative program allowing anyone to get expert help at an affordable price. Her organizing books and products are sold online and in stores nationwide.
Lorie is a spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International and is a sought after expert for national media such as CNBC, Family Circle, WGN News, and Woman’s Day. She’s also served as a spokesperson for many other companies including Staples, Brother, and Microsoft and she writes regularly as an organizing expert for Good Housekeeping.
She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, two human sons and 30,000 bee daughters in her backyard beehive. I bet you their rooms are neater than my teenage daughters’ rooms. [Laughter]
Welcome, Lorie. Thank you so much for coming back for sharing another great interview with your wisdom.
Lorie Marrero: Thank you. It’s so fun to talk to you, Kim.
Kim West: So today, I thought we would talk about -- I really want to talk about tips for getting ready for going back to school and also, before we do that just you know to talk again about you know getting organized and some of the benefits of getting organized besides the obvious which is just feeling less stressed and overwhelmed.
Maybe you could share with us some of the other great benefits.
Lorie Marrero: Oh, sure, you know I think when we are trying to make any change in our lives and again, you know like losing weight or whatever it is, we can stay motivated if we really focus on the benefits and we know why we’re doing something. So I think everyone has this general idea that they want to be more organized like you said because of the stress. But let’s think really about some of these benefits because they’re really powerful.
One of them is just to save time too you know. You can find things more easily, that means you’re not going to waste time looking for things. You are going to be able to get out the door faster in the morning. You’re going to be able to have you know fewer trips back out to the grocery store to get what you forgot. There’s a lot of time savings and think about what your time is worth. And especially some of the entrepreneur your time is very, very valuable, I mean everyone’s time is you know, but there’s a lot of -- you could quantify it actually per hour sometimes and that’s really a powerful exercise.
Also, you can avoid embarrassment. I mean one of the things we hear from people a lot is that, “I’m afraid of the door bell,” you know [Laughter]. If somebody rings the door -- your door bell, I don’t want to be embarrassed about my house, I want to be able to you know have guests more easily and feel good about my space.
And then, there’s this huge, huge one which is saving money. And I mean we -- I read an article like you know 8 different ways to organizing saves you money or ways of disorganize -- disorganization is costing you money. And I mean think about late fees, think about lost things that we -- we found over $5,000 in someone’s home when we were working there in uncashed checks and just cash and some of that was unopened mail that they hadn’t dealt with.
Think about the duplicate purchase you make because you don’t know that you already have it. So you know all that stuff is really strong for your why of why you’re going to make all this effort.
Kim West: Uh-hm. Yeah. And again, like we’ve talked about before just taking one area at time and have the one like the area that bothers you the most, so you sort of know where to start ‘cause otherwise that -- it could be overwhelming and stressful just to think about getting organized and where to start.
Lorie Marrero: Oh, you’re right. I mean that is a huge question that we get all the time, “Where do I start.” And so, you know we were saying on the other interview it’s whatever is going to give you the most release and you can feel the most impact on a daily basis in an area that’s bothering you. You know the laundry room, the kitchen, and the area right in the back door when you walk in the house that kind of stuff is just going to make you feel better every day.
Kim West: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think for me too. Just taking one area at a time is great. Yeah, I like that idea. I’m sure that I have gone out and bought things that I lost to only find them later and God only knows what other way I could have save money by it if I was more organized for sure.
I think even just the time like how it saves you time in the end, it’s so valuable.
[00:05:00]
Lorie Marrero: Yeah, I mean think about how frustrated you get when you can’t find something then you know you have it. It’s like, “Man, I spent $50 on that. I know it’s right here,” you know.
Kim West: Yeah, exactly. Well, great, thank you.
So let’s talk about getting ready for school and tips for being organized and prepared for that because it’s such a huge transition just like it’s almost like we could do another talk on tips for getting ready for summer because it’s like no schedule on routine to complete schedule on routine. And there’s all these adjustments needed not only in you know sleep for me, but in getting ready. So I’d love to talk about some great tips for getting ready for going back to school.
Lorie Marrero: Well, you’re right, it is a big transition time in fact around here we kind of joke around that it’s the second New Year of the year.
Kim West: Yeah.
Lorie Marrero: Because you know we really kind of have -- everyone sort of has this back to school resolutions that they have, “This year I’m going to do this better,” and “I’m going pack lunches every day,” and “I’m going to do…” you know it’s so similar.
Well, so let’s start by having some infrastructure in your house that will help you with back to school in general. And so we have these different stations that we talked about. There are four stations that I think are really helpful for every home for back to school.
So, the first one is called a destination station. So this is the place where you enter and exit the house the most often and it’s the place where your mail comes in and the backpack and the purses and the phones and the shoes and everything.
And you know you mentioned that you had done your mud room recently when we were talking before and it can be a mud room, it can be a hallway just there by the back door where you just put some sturdy hooks and maybe you repurpose a piece of furniture for that area or it can be a you know a dedicated thing that you even build in. People have gotten very serious about this kind of launch pad area, so just being deliberate about homes for all those items that are just typical for everyday. To put your chargers there, definitely a place for your keys, but just getting very conscious about needing that little station to be set up that can really help getting out the door in the morning.
The second station is called the education station. So where are the kids going to do homework and where are their school supplies going to be located when they’re needing a new pencil or something. So a lot of kids like to work at the kitchen table, that’s totally fine, but just make it deliberate. Make it a place where, “Okay, you’re going to work at the kitchen table, let’s just set up a little cart next to the table where we can store your stuff when we need to eat.” A little caddy is often is often very useful for that, so you know the caddies that we would take into the shower when we were in college? [Laughter]
Kim West: Yeah.
Lorie Marrero: Those kinds of little things. You can have pens and pencils and markers and a calculator and a ruler and things like that that they would use often and just be able to take that on and off the table easily, so again, you can clear it quickly.
Kim West: I like that idea, yeah.
Lorie Marrero: Yeah.
Kim West: Otherwise, it’s like another thing to clean up.
Lorie Marrero: Right. So if these are the habits that they have, well, work with those habits and let’s just make it official.
So another station we call the communication station. So everybody’s got you know their very busy family activities, their calendars that they need to keep for the family. They need to have a place for phone messages. We mentioned one time we were talking about the mail pile and so a place to put the mail.
Also, sort of corkboard area where if you do need to post up something, there’s a place where everyone knows that’s going to be. And then something called the family binder that goes in this area. And this is a great tool. I think a lot of people don’t do this and it’s just so simple, a three ring binder. You probably have one lying around. All the stuff that’s reference material that you get especially that first week of school like when you’re supposed to call the nurse and what are the policies for sick days and teachers’ e-mail addresses.
Kim West: Oh, yeah.
Lorie Marrero: And just you know the -- if it’s the soccer team roster or whatever those reference things are that you’re going to look at a lot, punch holes in them and put them in the binder. And you will find a lot of uses for this binder even printout your frequently used phone numbers, so that when people say, “Mom, you know what’s grandma’s phone number?” it’s right there you know. [Laughter] It’s a place to have that family information and just keep it where everybody knows where that stuff is.
Kim West: I like that.
[00:10:00]
Lorie Marrero: And then, the last station that we want to talk about for back to school is the donation station. So often at back to school time, this is when we are taking stock of all the clothing that has been outgrown and we’re going to go to all the back to school sales and buy new stuff for the school year and it’s great to have a permanent area in the house where donations can be gathered before you go and take them you know to Goodwill or if you you know have other charity that you like to support.
So, we like to use paper sacks for this because when you take a donation, if you have it in some kind of other container that you want back, it’s a little awkward and you might not get your container back. So just say paper when they ask paper or plastic at the grocery store and get a little stock piles of paper bags and then everybody knows when they don’t need something anymore they just go put it in that spot.
So those are the four stations for back to school.
Kim West: Right. I like that idea. And so I’m sure you probably have some wise things to say about being organized in terms of you know knapsack getting out the door. Any other little tips you’d like to add about that?
Lorie Marrero: Sure. You really want to work with your kid’s habits. Things that are more useful to kids are things like hooks. Things that are low at their eye level. You know they more likely to take a jacket off and hang it on the hook than they are to get a hanger out and use two hands to properly hang -- you know what I’m saying so.
Kim West: Oh, yeah.
Lorie Marrero: And think about just simple changes like what if they didn’t have to store their shoes in their closet upstairs and you were constantly not saying, “Please take your shoes upstairs.” What if they were all by the back door? What if you had a little shoe rack there a basket of socks and everybody just kind of deals with their shoes right there and they usually kick them off right away when they come in the door anyway, so what if that work for you? You know I had two boys, so we all had white socks all the time and it was very simple, so we just do it that way.
Kim West: So you had two baskets, one for shoes and one for socks?
Lorie Marrero: Yeah, we basically have a basket for socks and then we have some shoe shelves that I bought from Target that were just stackable shoe shelves and I put them in the bottom of a closet that we had near the back door.
And they wouldn’t always neatly stack them on the shelf. I can’t say that they would, but -- but that was a place where they could go. I mean they could kick them off and they knew generally where they were and you know we could as parents go along and stick them on the shelves if they got too in the way. But you know they pretty much would wear the same shoes every day. Every day really like their tennis shoes and they were just by the back door, so it was great to not have to chase them back and forth from the bedroom.
Kim West: So you know I’m kind of combining this, the back to school, these destination places you’re talking to -- talking about in connection with you know the mail area. So would it make sense then that that destination place where like that set up station you were saying where you have you know keys and chargers and you know school supplies and a family binder. Does that make sense to that to have that mail pile with the action -- you know there so that’s it’s like in a sense move that you know first of all get it out of my kitchen and as I’ve shared before that’s my area, the pile of the mail in the kitchen and put it in my mud room and like, “Here’s the station everybody.” Is that also like where the groceries list goes sort of like a little office station if you will?
Am I picturing that right or am I being an over achiever? [Laughter]
Lorie Marrero: Oh, no, you can definitely do that. We talked about the destination station. You can put your incoming mails there if you want to. It kind of depends on your house and your set up to what -- what people would naturally kind of think you know. “Oh, should I walk in and go in this door and put it here?” you know where would the flow be? But the communication station is another area where you might have the incoming mail. It just kind of depends on how you set it up.
As far as the grocery list, I would say that definitely goes in that communication station area. There is a really neat little system that’s sold by Pottery Barn and it’s a modular system and we have it in my house. It is a rail that you mount on the wall and then these various modules will slide onto that rail, so you can have a chalkboard, you can have a corkboard, you can have a half a corkboard and a chalkboard or you know they have little cubbies and all kinds of things and it’s -- it’s a great way to customize a communication station for your family on a blank wall.
[00:15:02]
Kim West: I like that idea. Great and so you don’t have everything sort of spread out in different areas in the kitchen. Okay, great. I love that. I love all of these ideas. Okay, excellent.
Well, is there any other thing that you think is really a helpful tip? This is probably a good idea to get started now, right? Or maybe we should talk about that. Do you usually encourage families to start setting this up in August?
Lorie Marrero: Yeah. I think that there certainly is a countdown that you could do for back to school. I mean I actually have that. Maybe we’ll just provide that. Why don’t we do that? I will give you that article and you can post it right here where this interview is posted.
But there is a countdown calendar of kind of three weeks before, two weeks before, things that you should be thinking about and doing for back to school.
One of the things I like to caution people about especially if their kids are just starting school maybe kindergarten for the first time, is that they kind of gear themselves up for that first day of school like,”Okay, here we go. It’s the big finish line,” and “Okay, it’s the first day. Great. Done. Now, they’re in school.” Well, what you have to know is that first week of school is really where it almost gets a little more challenging because that’s when all the stuff is going to start coming home from the teachers. And like we’ve talked about the family binder, all those papers are going to be coming through and it’s going to be a little bit more of a stress because not only do you have the regular dinner and bath time and everything you have to do anyway, but you’ve got to sort of deal with forms and all the stuff that’s coming back. And inevitably you will buy everything on the list and then one or two of the teachers will say, “Well, actually we also have a couple of other you know boxes Kleenex or something that you have to buy.” So all that stuff you need to be prepared for mentally that that first week is going to be a little bit more of a hurdle.
Kim West: Yeah. Oh, for sure absolutely. And then those papers that if we at least have the binder ready, we can start adding them in there and maybe have our list of things to go back and do. I love the idea of the family binder.
I just thought of another thing. How about -- I just have to ask this question. I know this is an issue when my kids were little is that do you have any thoughts about how you decide what to save of their school work and their…?
Lorie Marrero: Oh, [Laughter] that is -- that’s a big question. Yeah, so we have a principle that we teach called the Limiting Container Principle. So it’s very tempting to keep every single scribble and they’re all adorable and everything, but you can’t do that long term. So choose a container that you’re happy with, so maybe it’s a certain kind of a plastic bin or a basket, whatever that is for you. And make sure that you’re going to be happy with the demand, but you know one per year, if you want to think about it that way.
Kim West: Okay.
Lorie Marrero: And then that’s your limit. You know when you have filled that container, if you want to put anything else in it, you’re going to have to prioritize and get rid of something that’s there so that you make room for whatever the new thing is. So it’s a great way to just make yourself make decisions and prioritize you know how cute and how important these things are.
On a daily basis, you can ask your kids which things are more important to them. Sometimes they have a real sense of that like, “Oh, I work so hard on this, mom,” and “I’m -- oh, I love this piece of artwork.” And the other one is going to say, “Oh, yeah, that was just a worksheet,” and you know so let them help you with that.
Also, you’re going to get a lot of papers that come home that are really ambiguous. You just do not know what they are. You don’t know if the teacher still needs them back. It’s impossible to know all of that. So we have another limiting container suggestion that we have for each kid having a tray.
So a little tray like a stackable set of trays you can buy at any office supply store and when you get those “I don’t know papers,” put them in there and when that tray is full, that’s your cue to clean it out and you can see, “Okay, so this was a worksheet from months ago that was already graded and the teacher never asked for it back. I think we can throw it away now.” [Laughter]
Kim West: Okay.
Lorie Marrero: So sometimes those are hardest ones, if you just got to have a place to just let them sit and wait.
Kim West: Yeah. Yeah, like the -- like I’ve said in an earlier interview with you, the pending file for the action items.
That would be like that would be an example of where it’s like well, we just have to let that you know sit somewhere and see. So if I have a tray area for that in my education or communication department, [Laughter] right? Okay.
[00:20:13]
Lorie Marrero: Yeah.
Kim West: That’s great. That’s great. I would -- I would just add to the limiting container principle that I noticed that my -- my daughters wanted to save more than I necessarily wanted to and I once got caught throwing some of it away. [Laughter]
And so I would just add if you’re going to put some of the stuff in recycling that maybe you -- you know put it in another bag, so they don’t see. [Laughter] ‘Cause they get particularly attached to it even though my -- you know not -- and I’m not talking about me throwing away some beautiful piece of artwork obviously.
Lorie Marrero: Oh, yeah, I mean you definitely know your kids and there’s some that are going to be more sensitive to that than others. Definitely both of my boys were very different in that regard. One just didn’t care about throwing anything away and the other was, “Oh, my goodness,” and so you know I mean sadly, yes, you do have to secretly sort of take away because it’s just not realistic.
Every scribble is not the best thing. So you know if you think about it, it’s like photograph. You know when you get your photographs off your camera, you’re going to delete some of them because they’re going to have some in them or they’re going to be you know one is better than the other and you have to make those judgments.
Kim West: And maybe you know that’s a good idea. Maybe some things you take a picture of.
Lorie Marrero: That is definitely something we recommend. You might have something that’s sort of really nice right now and then you know in the future they’re not going to care about it anymore. But, yeah, if you take a picture of it, you can even make a book out of it which is really fun. It’s so easy to make books now. Apple has a great program and there are all kinds of things online and you know really inexpensively you can have a collection even for you, if you want to of their masterpieces. [Laughter]
Kim West: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Lorie Marrero: Like they have one of the photo books.
Kim West: Great. Well, thank you for all these wonderful tips on back to school and how to do it more seamlessly and/or in a more organized way which will be less stressful.
And thank you also for sharing the countdown article. I’m sure that all the parents listening to this will really appreciate that. Thank you, Lorie.
Lorie Marrero: Oh, it was my pleasure.
Kim West: And please feel free everybody to go check out . Thanks, Lorie.
Lorie Marrero: Thank you, Kim.
[00:22:43] End of audio.
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