Your Home Might Be Tiring You Out. Here’s Why - Lucy Wahl

0:00 OK, so there's a couple different things going on here. Number one, it's like the clutter in your visual space is very distracting #2 clutter represents something that needs to be done. Each object that makes up clutter is a decision that needs to be made, or a task that needs to be done, or a question that needs to be answered. That's why it's clutter. It becomes clutter because you're like, I don't know what to do with this. And so I just put it down and it becomes clutter. So clutter represents work you're going to have to do, energy you're gonna have to expend, time you're gonna have to spend to deal with it.

0:34 And that's part of why it's so stressful to us because we're like, oh God, I know that that pile is waiting for me and it's going to be tough.

0:44 Most of us have probably been told to clean up your mess at some point by a parent, a spouse, or that voice in our own head. And while I can feel nagging or necessary, today's conversation revealed something deeper. The state of our space is closely tied to the state of our mind. My guest, Lucy Wall, helped me uncover how organization quietly supports our mental well-being and why it's so much more than just having things look nice.

1:16 Welcome to the show Mind Blend. I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of incredible people, each an expert in their very own way. Together, we'll uncover insights and share ideas so you can be inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey in life. Ready to get curious and discover what's possible? Let's blend. Hello, our guest today is someone you wish you had on speed dial. She doesn't just organize homes, she helps people clear the mental and emotional clutter that holds them back.

1:54 For over a decade, she's shown everyone from busy families to CE OS that getting organized isn't about perfection, is about creating space for the life you actually want. Please welcome. Lucy Milligan Wall, founder of LMW Edits, a company that helps busy professionals and their families create organized spaces they love to make everyday life easier. Hi Lucy, welcome to Mindline. Thanks for having me, happy to be here. So I, I got a fair amount of episodes, I have talked to guests about clarity, clearing space in their mind, organizing their thoughts, but we haven't really talked about the physical aspect of mess.

2:35 So I'm really excited about today's conversation. So for our listeners, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into this field? Yeah, so I grew up as a very organized kid. My dad was a very organized person and he taught us how to be organized. And it was very important to him that we do that. But I, I took to it naturally. Like when I was a kid, if I'd get like a box of crayons for like the new school year, the first thing I would do would dump, be to dump them out, put them in the order of the rainbow and put them back into the box.

3:09 So I do come by a little bit, honestly, but I never thought I would make it a career. I, you know, did what you're supposed to do. I went to college, I started a career in nonprofit fundraising. I got a little impatient. I went and got an MBA and the MBA was what changed my life. And weirdly, although I don't recommend, this led to me starting a small business. I was in my MBA program, learned a ton. I was going to go back into nonprofit fundraising, and when I started interviewing, the nonprofit industry didn't really know how to take advantage of somebody with an MBA.

3:41 And it was basically, I was going to be interviewed for the same job I had done before, except more zeros at the end of the goal. And I just thought, man, I just had the best two years in my life learning so much, figuring out how to be a leader, meeting so many cool people, being inspired. And I'm just going to go back where I started. Like that's not good. And I was pretty down about it. And it was actually my husband who said, you know what, like I've got a job. We're fine. Like, take some time, think about it, figure out what you really want to do.

4:10 You don't have to get a job right now just to get a job, which is a huge gift, right? Like I'm so lucky. And then it was, what am I going to do? I don't, I'm not wild about any of the other industries I was exposed to in Business School, but everybody was starting companies out of Business School. And I thought, you know, if the dude sitting next to me in the same class I'm taking can start like a tech start up, I can surely start something, you know? And so then it became a process of what am I good at?

4:38 What can I start without going to more expensive school and talk to friends and family? And what came back to me was you're really organized. You should try and make something out of that. And this is back in the early twenty 10s, Bree Condo wasn't even famous yet. The organizing industry was much smaller. People don't even know if it if it was a thing. And but I did some research and thought, you know what, this number one, this is a thing. And #2 I think I can bring something different to the party because a lot of the organizing industry and organizing content at that time was focused on a very like typical suburban American life.

5:13 And that was not the life that I was living. It was not the life my friends were living. And I thought, if I can do this for busy professionals in a city, I'll really have something here. So that's how it started. When you were just describing the when you went through Southern Living, was it Southern Living? The magazine came to my. It's still around, Yeah. Southern Living, Martha Stewart, real simple, all of that, Yeah. It is so frustrating to just do the same job but with all the school loans.

5:45 Yes, yeah, I know it was, it was, it was a daunting prospect and I'm really lucky that I had sort of a way to take a left turn and do something else. Well, I'm glad you did So in the beginning, how did you market your business? So it's always been word of mouth. I've never paid for advertising except for a very ill advised stint on Yelp early on. I do not recommend. But I it was always word of mouth and also social media and SEO. So from the beginning I had a good website. I've been blogging since I launched the website and have done my own SEO optimization the whole way along.

6:25 And I, I talked to everybody about it. I mean, so this is the interesting thing about having an MBA and that experience applied to small business. So in Business School, they were really honest about networking. You need to be going to networking events when you show up. You need to be going up to people, introducing yourself, talking about what you can bring to the table. They were big on having your 32nd elevator pitch to be able to pitch yourself to whoever, whenever. And I always found it incredibly cringe and incredibly awkward.

6:52 And I think it was partially because I didn't really believe that I should be selling myself for any of, to any of these people. I didn't think I had the skills in this, in this department. And so it, it always was a mismatch. As soon as I realized I wanted to start an organizing business and I started talking to people, I found that I could not shut up. I and still to this day, if you get me going on home organizing, I will go forever. Like I actually have to work at like really looking at the person I'm talking to.

7:23 And is this person really like enjoying what I'm saying or are they kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're crazy, lady. OK, stop. So it's it's, I'm super passionate about it. I love it. And the second I found this, this job, this business networking became no problem at all, in fact, kind of fun. And so that's kind of why word of mouth has really been my thing because I don't find it awkward to like, say to a client, it's been so great working with you. We really loved it. Would you recommend this to your friends?

7:52 And it feels authentic and it doesn't feel gross and achy so. So what was your 32nd elevator pitch? Gosh, back in the day, I don't even remember now would be, well, I'm a professional organizer and I love helping busy professionals organize their homes. I find it really makes everyday life a lot easier. And then people are like, really? You're an organizer like Marie Kondo? And then we're off to the races.

8:19 Do you see yourself like a merry condo? Because I know her big thing is organizing, but there's a lot of dumping. Yes. So I am very inspired by her. I'm very impressed by her and and the sort of empire that she's built. I don't work in exactly the same way she does. There are organizers who can get a certification to do her method. I don't have that certification. I don't sell myself as having that, but again, I'm super inspired by her and I agree with her that getting rid of as much as possible is most of the work.

8:49 And when I work with clients, that is in fact most of the work that we do. So I'm sure when people come to you, they all have like one problem, yes, organized, like it's a mess. What are some of the surprising psychological patterns that you have observed in your? Clients, there are so many. There's a lot of behavioral science research that's come out in the past few years that has been very popular in the popular press. And a lot of these things weirdly show up in organizing. For example, delayed gratification.

9:17 Humans are terrible at delayed gratification. We want the hit of dopamine now. We do not want to go through pain now for pleasure in the future. Organizing success at being organized is all about delayed gratification. It's taking the moment to tidy up now so that this weekend isn't terrible and I have to spend all day Sunday putting away mess. So I talked about that very openly with my clients because I think a lot of people judge themselves like I can't seem to tidy up. What's wrong with me? Nothing's wrong with you.

9:48 You're a human. Your brain has been wired to try and get that dopamine hit right now. And so instead I try to reframe it for my clients and talk about like, how good are you going to feel when you you look around this room and it's tidy today. And and and to emphasize that this is just the way your brain works and not that you're a terrible person who doesn't know how to do this. Yeah, that's a very good point because you will never see instant gratification. No. When it comes to organizing. No, I mean I felt organizing under things in life that bring immense rewards but require a lot of work.

10:21 Those things include fitness, diet, parenting, like these things are all about the long game. If you don't put in work every day, you're not going to get to the place that you want to get to. There's no instant gratification available. There is no magic bullet and being organized, Having a tidy home is the same way. There's no there's no silver bullet. There's no container you can buy that will make your home organized. Yeah, something that like when a lot of people, they start on this, I'm going to organize my home journey, they go and buy containers.

10:52 Yes they do. Since you mentioned containers, that's just like one thing that came to mind. What are some of the struggles? That you see, I think a big struggle that I see is if you don't know what it's like to have an organized home, you don't even know what you're missing. So this has a lot to do with family of origin. If you grew up in a home where nobody was doing the tasks of organizing regularly and teaching you how to do them, you're not gonna grow up knowing how to do them. And there's also, like, a lot of sociological assumptions that we make, like, you know, if you grow up and get married, you may have unconscious expectations that your spouse is going to take care of certain things and you won't have to think about them.

11:31 Your spouse may think the same about you. Now we have a fight, right? And, and we didn't intend to have a fight, but it's just these unconscious expectations that we have for how we keep our homes and who's going to be responsible for doing it. So some people, some of my clients have told me that I saved their marriages. I can see it just. By calling out, here is the stuff, here are the things that have to be done, who is going to do it? And that that question I feel like we don't ask because life is moving at such a fast pace.

12:01 It's just like we're just trying to survive from day-to-day. And I come in and I and I sort of take the pressure off and go, let's be intentional about this. Let's make decisions about our stuff in our space, holistically in the context of our lives, rather than like I need to survive this minute and move on to the next. So do you see it as a cause of stress like clutter? Is it cause of stress or is it assembly in terms of something deeper that's going on in someone's life, just from your observation?

12:30 OK, so there's a couple different things going on here. Number one, it's like the clutter in your visual space is very distracting #2 clutter represents something that needs to be done. Each object that makes up clutter is a decision that needs to be made, or a task that needs to be done, or a question that needs to be answered. That's why it's clutter. It becomes clutter because you're like, I don't know what to do with this. And so I just put it down and it becomes clutter. So clutter represents work you're going to have to do, energy you're going to have to expend, time you're going to have to spend to deal with it.

13:04 And that's part of why it's so stressful to us because we're like, oh God, I know that that pile is waiting for me and it's going to be tough. And so when people are used to clutter, they don't kind of realize the weight that that's adding to their lives. I mean, so many times I'm with a client and we've done the decluttering and we've done the organizing, and I bring them into the room to see the final project product. And you literally see their shoulders drop. And they're just like, oh, this is so much better.

13:32 And they didn't even realize how stressed they were until the clutter was gone. And they're like Oh my God this is a different feeling. I literally had a client tell me when she was like I feel like I've lost 10 lbs.

13:45 So like besides the subconscious weight, what are some of the things that you think clutter at home may affect their life, like their relationship or their work or leadership? Can you share a story about how it shifted people's professional confidence besides the saving the marriage? Yeah, yeah, it definitely saves marriages. So home is a place where we recharge, right? Like we can't be effective at work if we don't have a way to recharge. And if you come through the door and you're faced with clutter you have to deal with, that's not a recharge.

14:23 And that makes you tired. It weighs on you. It's not the necessary that your performance will suffer, but you're missing out on a major upgrade that you won't experience if you don't have a tidy home. So I the people I work with are extremely high power CEOs, people in tech, lawyers, doctors, all these kind of people. And usually I work with couples, They both have these high power jobs. They have a family, they're going 90 miles an hour all the time. And in that case, it's even more critical that when they come home, that's a place where they can recharge and it's not taking a lot of their time and energy to deal with the mess.

15:06 So one of these couples, I think he's a works at a hedge fund. She does law for a tech firm. They had two little kids, beautiful home nanny and a housekeeper. And part of what what their struggle was was with all these people in the home going 90 miles an hour. Everyone in the home was doing their best to declutter and tidy and put away, but they were all doing it different ways. And so no one could find anything after someone else had cleaned up. And so our job was to not only remove the clutter, but also to be very intentional about where everything went, being very clear about labeling.

15:40 And the photos from that project are kind of insane because there's labels absolutely everywhere. But that was necessary in order to get these four different independent people on the same page in the same space. And when we were done, the the wife looked at me and she was like, you've just improved our quality of life. So how were you intentional? So we put labels wherever we think we need them. It's typical to put them on containers. That's great. But also sometimes you don't need a container, but you should put it on the front of the shelf or you should put it on the top of the drawer so that when you open the drawer, there's a label right there just to make sure that there's no like empty space where someone can shove something when they're not quite sure.

16:20 Because that leads to clutter too. If, if, and we do this a lot where if there's an open space of any kind, whether it's a shelf in a closet, whether it's a dining room table, whether it's some drawer, we will intentionally fill it so that it doesn't accumulate random clutter. We, we have a location for stuff that you put with that you have to deal with and that's it. We don't allow it to spread anywhere else. So that could mean styling a dining room table as if people are going to sit down and eat so that there's no place to put stuff.

16:51 That could mean like putting containers on a shelf. They don't have anything in them, but there's containers there. So that so that whoever lives there has to think, oh, there's a container there. Is that where I want to store this type of thing? Should I put a label on it instead of let me just shove it on that shelf and be done? That's interesting. So growing up, I was fortunate enough to also have a housekeeper. So the housekeeper would be tidying things like after three seconds of you leaving whatever on the table, it would have been cleared away or at least like stacked up nicely.

17:23 But I can't find them. Yeah, open the drawer. Things don't belong together, but they're together. But I like, it doesn't bother me because that's not my drawer. But when I open something, I'm like, why is this here? So I'm really impressed of the label and just not letting someone shove things in it. You're not stationed there permanently. Right. Exactly. And and that is something we really focus on is setting up systems that our clients can maintain themselves. We and we're teaching them throughout the process like This is why we're doing this.

17:55 And we keep asking them like, here's what we're thinking, is this going to work for you? Does this make sense to you? And it's a lot of back and forth and really creating systems that make a lot of sense for that particular family, whether or not it looks the prettiest to an outsider. But yeah, I mean, we this is a lot of this is a frustration that a lot of people who have housekeepers have that is sort of not nobody talks about it, but they have this frustration because the housekeeper is trying to make you happy.

18:21 And they know that you will be happy if everything is clean and you can't see any clutter. But the housekeeper doesn't know what your organizing system is. So what they're going to do is put the stuff that the closest place that they see where it can fit to give you what they think you want. So if you want them to use an organizing system, you have to show them. Yeah. So like there are so many things, bias, misunderstanding about organizing, like, oh, it's supposed to be your job, but without communicating.

18:52 So I want to give you a few situations or excuses or reason that people want to postpone the organizing. And I want to see how you would reframe their mindset. Often times you hear I'll get to it when I have more time. Yes, I hear this a lot. When have you ever discovered that? More time. I mean, this comes up with a lot of things with, with hobbies, with craft projects, with, you know, some sort of long term thing. Oh gosh, with making photo albums. That's a big one. People will just put all their photos in a bin in the garage and say, oh, I'm gonna make photo albums when I have time.

19:26 When have you ever discovered any extra free time? Especially for clients like mine who, again, are going 90 miles an hour with their work and their kids and everything. Getting organized and setting up organizing systems is just like any other project. You need to block the time for it and commit the time to it, and that means you're prioritizing it. And now you have to make the choice to prioritize it. If you say I'll just do it whenever I have more time, that means you're not prioritizing it, and that's fine.

19:52 That's your decision, But if you really believe in the power of an organized town, which I do, and you really want to prioritize it, then you do have to set aside the time. Or talk to you or. Talk to me exactly and I will. They can buy some time. They can buy some time by talking to you. Exactly. OK, the next situation is I know where everything is, even if it looks messy. So that can be the case. And that is a, a flavor of an organizing system that someone has developed, right? Like this three typical with pilers.

20:29 Pilers are like, oh, well, I can, I can lay hands on it in a second. And that may be true. And I always tell people, if your system works for you and it's not bothering you, I don't have a problem with it. If you don't think you need to be organized, I'm not here to convince you that you do. I would invite you to consider, as we mentioned, the effects of clutter on your cortisol levels, and I would invite you to consider whether or not it's affect it's affecting anyone else in your home. If you live alone, you can do whatever you want with your space.

20:57 If you live with other people, you are gonna need to compromise on some level. And I talked to my clients about this all the time. And I, by the way, I'm not always making the less organized one come to the organized one. I'm often making the organized one loosen up a little bit and say, give them this space. They can do what they want in it and that'll and you have to let it go. And I have to do this myself. I mean, my husband has a Home Office. I am not allowed to talk about the. Organization.

21:28 Systems they're in unless he invites me to contribute, right? And that's because I really believe that everyone needs to own their own stuff and own their own space. When you don't feel ownership, when you don't feel empowered to own your stuff, you are not likely to take care of it. You're not likely to be organized, and you're likely to resent everybody else in your home for getting all up in your business. So I'm a really big fan of very clearly delineating spaces and tasks and assigning each space and each task to one person.

22:00 Like, I don't want you to mix and mingle your clothes in the closet. I want you to draw a line. And this is 1 spouse in the this is another. Even with kids, I want you to draw a line down the middle of the room. If they share a room, This is one side, this is the other. Because if you don't assign specific people, then there is a vacuum of responsibility and nothing gets done and everyone gets mad at each other. Wow, that's life changing. Coming into this conversation, I was thinking you would organize a space.

22:26 Everyone would need to be OK starting today, you have these new rules. Yeah, but I, I it didn't come to mind that you would like. You can do whatever you want with the space if you don't feel like that's affecting you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I never, ever tried to sell my services to someone who doesn't actively want them. It doesn't work. The number one predictor of whether I will have a success, have success with the client is whether or not they're willing to change their behavior. If you are not willing to change your behavior, I cannot help you.

22:56 So yeah, but people often kind of like, Oh, my mom, some needs you or like, oh, my best friend needs you. I'm like, great, have them call me. They never do because they don't see a problem. And that's fine. I'm here to help if you see you have a problem and if you are happy with the way your life is and your spaces, that's great with me. OK, and I have one more evise. I work better in chaos. It's just how I am. Yeah. My question would then be, have you ever tried it another way? If you've tried working in a tidy space and you just really hated it, awesome, great, do what works for you.

23:31 But I do find that again, like I'm saying, if you grow up in kind of chaos and you've always been in chaos and that's just kind of how you understand life to be. You don't know that a different way would work, would would not work better for you because you haven't tried it. And I'm often in a position with a family where one of the spouses has brought me in and the other spouse is a little skeptical. They're like, what are you? What are you really going to do here? Like you're going to put some stuff in boxes and put a label on and call it a day.

23:58 This is not going to change my life. And I do not try and push them. I work with whoever wants to work with me and we leave the other person alone. It's a it's kind of a process of show not tell. Like I'm going to work with this person and you're going to see that their life is is changing and you're and you're going to want a piece of that. And that's usually what happens. I mean, I had a client, this is now years ago. It was a couple and the, the main point of contention organizing wise in their marriage was there was a pile of clutter in their bedroom.

24:25 And the story was it was her pile. And if she would just figure out how to not pile, then everything would be fine. OK, so she and I started going through the pile. I would say maybe 30% of it was his stuff and he had no idea it was in there. And so, but by just showing him like, hey, here's the stuff she says it's yours, what would you like to do with it? And he was just like, Oh my God. So I I do believe that if you can try another way, it might work better for you, and I encourage people to be open to considering alternate methods, especially if they've never tried them.

25:05 Yeah, the what you brought up about if you've worked in a really tidy space and you hated it, fine. Because, like, sometimes people don't realize it because I don't know if you've seen this movie, is Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. So the Intern. Oh. I haven't seen it, but I've heard of it, yeah. So spoiler alert, there's basically there's one scene where there's a pile of mess in the office. People just keep adding to it. But then one day it got cleared up and then it made like such an impact.

25:37 So I was just thinking of that when you were describing it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, I think you know when you're used to something, when you're used to clutter, you don't know that it's affecting you and you'll only know if you experience something different. Absolutely. I have family members who said I it makes me feel more like home. It makes me feel like it's my space. Well, so here's the thing. I think people don't understand that you can have a space that's full of personality and mementos and color, color and life without clutter.

26:13 So clutter and design are different. Clutter does not mean design. Clutter means stuff you haven't dealt with. I work with clients with various design styles and I will, I will style all of your colorful, wonderful, meaningful things to look beautiful in your space, but that doesn't mean clutter. It's those are two different things and I think people conflate them. So for this last part, I'd like to play rapid fire questions so we can get to know a little bit about your style. First one, if your life were a drawer, what would be in the top section?

26:49 My life were a drawer what what would be in the top section. Oh gosh, probably like my passport because I love to travel. Smart. And when there's fire, hopefully there is not. You should grab your passport. Yeah, I mean, I do live in California. You never know. Yeah. OK, what's the first thing you do getting out of bed and the last thing you do before going to sleep? First thing I do getting out of bed is let my dog out. OK. Because she is like the light of our lives and we do everything for her.

27:25 And my husband and I joke that our we bought our house because of our dog. We have a schedule because of our dog. Like, we, we are those people. So yeah. And then the last thing I do before going to bed at night is I read and my husband kisses me on the cheek. Nice. OK, when when was the last time your house was a mess? And what was in the mess? OK, so after we throw a party, it's a mess. And so my husband and I love to throw parties and we are not precious about it. We like it's just glass of cups everywhere.

28:02 We put out trash cans, but they can't keep up with the mess like food everywhere. Like we do not. It's, it's interesting because people kind of expect organizers to be very formal in their lifestyle. And we have, we are lucky enough to have a beautiful home. We worked with an interior designer to make it pretty, but we want everything to be comfortable and casual when we have people over. And so we always put food out in a buffet. It's always like grab your own drink. And so after a party, it is, it's a situation it takes like all morning the next morning to run the dishwasher and wipe down the surfaces and take out all the trash and all that stuff.

28:38 So, but I mean, it's, it's temporary mess. It's not permanent mess. And as long as we keep up after it the next day, it's like it's you're, you're kind of going around cleaning up and you're like, well, this kind of sucks, man. It was worth it. We had such a good time last night. So I'm glad you're not Monica Geller. No, Oh my God. You know, it's, it's actually interesting. A lot of organizers are perfectionists and really do want everything to be exactly right and perfect and formal. And I am actually not that way.

29:08 I'm very much a satisficer. Like good enough is good enough. And I, I really want to pass that on to my clients too, because a lot of my clients, especially those who suffer from ADHD, have a feeling that if I can't do it perfectly, why would I do it at all? And I really want to dispel that because your, your, your quality of life is improved by incremental improvements, not by being perfect. Yeah, I know the listeners can't see Lucy, but she does have a really beautiful home and is very organized.

29:38 Thank you. So for anyone who wants to get your help, what can they do? I know you only do San Francisco right? So I do in person organizing. So that's the kind you see on TV when we come into your home and we do all the things. I do that in the Bay Area, in San Francisco. I do that at the Lake Tahoe area in California, and I do that in the Santa Barbara and Ventura area in California, because those are the places where I have family. But I do virtual organizing for anyone, anywhere, so if you want to work with me on Zoom or FaceTime, we can do that.

30:09 Great. I'm going to leave your website and your contact, your info in the show notes so people can reach out to you. Lucy. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming to mind Glen. Like this is something that I think everyone should hear. I mean, I agree. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

30:34 Thanks for listening to this episode of Mind One. If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to follow and share it with anyone who needs to hear it. And let's keep the conversation going. Connect with me on LinkedIn or leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious, keep exploring, and let's continue to blend our minds and discover what's possible.