Welcome to Part Two of my delightful conversation with Erica Palmer of Calm Your Space. You can catch Part One here! Our conversation took several different turns – talking about motherhood, starting your own business, finding your passion, and of course, organization. Calm Your Space is Erica’s small business in which she helps people become more organized and because of that, calmer.

We also talked about mental health. You know I’m a big mental health advocate, but Erica pointed out how mental health and organization can go hand in hand. Some people are very messy, like being messy and can have a messy desk and still know where everything is. Others, can be clean and organized. But there’s such a thing as too much mess and too organized.

Let’s pick up where we left off!

AS: What’s your best advice on organizing as a parent? I have friends who have three kids in three different schools and I don’t know how they keep it all straight.

EP: Honestly, I just do the best I can. When people hear I’m an organizer, they say things like, “your house must be perfect and you must have everything in order.” Literally, not one person has that. At least no one I know. And if they do, then that’s all they’re doing is putting stuff away all day. For me it’s about:

• Knowing where things are; as best you can. We still have a problem finding shoes when it’s time to leave the house. There are shoes everywhere, and I even have labeled bins.
• Only do what you can do and then it’s up to your children to start adopting the systems.
• Teach your kids how to organize and how best to keep your things.

She told me how she spent one-on-one time with each of her three children taking their rooms completely apart and then putting them back together. They made piles for donation, keeping and selling. She always used to get rid of the no longer used toys on the sly. Throwing them out when no one was looking.

But, she realized it was important for her children to be part of the process. “If they’re not seeing the stuff leave, they’re not understanding the concept of I have too much stuff and I need to trim this down.” As you can imagine, she works with many adults who don’t have this skill, which is why she thinks it’s so important to teach it to her kids.

As she points out, if you do this bit by bit over the course of your life, you won’t have to spend 15 days in a clean out situation, or leaving your mess for someone else to clean out. Once the clean out was done on each of the rooms, she helped her kids create a space in their rooms that was just for them.

If you have a small space to work with, a loft bed works great. Underneath the loft can be individualized by each child by using pillows, blankets, Christmas lights, and electronics. When they were finished, her middle and most organized son told her, “this feels so good coming into my room.”

Even though it didn’t stay that way for all of them, they now know and pay attention to when stuff starts to take over. She says to work with your kids and lower your expectations because nobody has a perfectly clean and organized home 24/7. Thanks to Instagram and some home organization experts, the idea vs. reality can be very different.

“Nobody has 100 perfectly sharpened white pencils sitting in their junk drawer,” she said. She has chosen not to post pictures on her social accounts of her clients end result, because while it looks better than the beginning, it’s organized using systems that are going to work for each individual person. And that’s not perfect.

EP: The scissors in the junk drawer are, say, orange. Not everything in that drawer is going to match, but if you can find the scissors, that’s what matters. Not everything can be organized in a rainbow in real life.

AS: I always hate it when people think they have to spend hundreds of dollars on organization systems.

EP: Most people think buying more will help them stay organized, when really, it’s about buying less. I’m not a minimalist by any means. It’s about how you manage the stuff in your house so you only have the stuff that will fit.

AS: I know there are people who thrive on chaos in their homes, but I’ve never really understood that chaotic mind.

EP: It’s definitely a mental health issue. I’m talking about ADHD, OCD, Depression and anxiety. If it’s a situation where things are a little worse than say the average person, there’s usually a mental health thing going on. It can also be situational, say a close relative passed away, moving a parent into a nursing home, usually life transitions. Kids going to college. The emotions are so high, they can’t focus on cleaning out the mail from the counter.

We talked about how organization is very much connected to your mind and your emotions. She points out that most of the things we keep are because someone gave them to us or because we feel guilty getting rid of it. Guess what? You don’t have to keep it. You can donate it, sell it, or re-gift it if you know someone else would really enjoy it {re-gifting has a bad rap, but it’s actually quite sustainable.}

AS: I’m the worst about that. I always feel guilty. I have worn clothes I hated because someone gave them to me. Even though I never felt like myself in them, I would feel horrible if the person knew I gave it away.

EP: To do something like that for someone else means you’re not honoring yourself. That’s not a kind thing to do to yourself. I think really hard about a gift before I give it. I try to be very intentional about gift giving. I don’t want to give someone something that’s going to end up in their basement because they’re worried I’ll get mad at them.

Let each other live. Say thank you for the gift. Write a thank you note and then do what you will with it.

I think that’s pretty good advice! I had so much fun doing this interview, I hope you enjoyed reading about Erica and her organizational skills. Her final piece of advice, remember, it’s not about being perfect, it’s about knowing where the scissors are.

Amen.