Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 1: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 1: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 1: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in early August of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Sarah is going to be interviewing Amanda Jefferson, who is
Speaker 2: a decluttering expert.
Speaker 1: In particular, they're going.
Speaker 2: To be talking about digital clutter and how we can
Speaker 2: get a grip on the various forms of digital cluttering
Speaker 2: in our lives, how we can maybe limit what comes
Speaker 2: in and organize what we need to keep. So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: how is your digital clutter game looking these days?
Speaker 1: Eh? I think most people would expect my digital systems
Speaker 1: to be better organized, and they actually are, particularly saving
Speaker 1: of various files as well as photos. But I will
Speaker 1: say I tend to rely on redundancy, Like if I
Speaker 1: put a decent descriptor on something and save it in
Speaker 1: a bunch of places, including like sometimes emailing it to myself,
Speaker 1: I generally can find almost anything I need, so I
Speaker 1: haven't felt totally motivated to fix it. But then I'm
Speaker 1: also sometimes like disgusted by it all, like oh, this
Speaker 1: is saved, and this desktop folder in this place in
Speaker 1: Google Drive and also this. I'm like, I just want
Speaker 1: to start fresh and not migrate the contents on my
Speaker 1: laptop and like start over. But it is also very
Speaker 1: hard to build your kind of laptop universe from scratch,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. Maybe we'll learn about in this interview,
Speaker 1: which I have not conducted as of this intro, But
Speaker 1: I'm super excited because I have so many questions for her.
Speaker 1: But maybe she'll know some tools to selectively migrate things
Speaker 1: from like one device to another.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, I'm sure she's going to have all sorts
Speaker 2: of useful tips and tricks.
Speaker 1: Amanda is a.
Speaker 2: Decluttering expert for both digital and physical stuff. She works
Speaker 2: in the Greater Philadelphia area, so I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people will want to check her out. Yeah, my
Speaker 2: digital clutter, it's I would say similar to you. I
Speaker 2: don't have a problem finding things that I need. I
Speaker 2: can almost always find an email, find a file. I
Speaker 2: don't save things with any particular order. I just save
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, even on my desktop, that which
Speaker 2: is fine. It's so the desktop looks ridiculous on my
Speaker 2: primary working laptop. But I actually have two laptops because
Speaker 2: people may recall, laptop number one is from twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: and doesn't have the capacity to run things like Zoom
Speaker 2: and squad Cast where we record, and Microsoft teams and
Speaker 2: things like that very easily. And so I wound up
Speaker 2: with another laptop, assuming that my twenty sixteen one was
Speaker 2: going to die some sudden and horrible death in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two when I bought the other laptop. That has
Speaker 2: not happened. It is continued functioning. It just not for
Speaker 2: a lot of sort of higher tech modern things. So
Speaker 2: I've been slowly migrating things onto the new one, but
Speaker 2: not everything. And so a lot of my files are
Speaker 2: on the old one, but like different things are on
Speaker 2: the new one, and it's fine.
Speaker 1: Interesting like the Mac dump it all, because I feel
Speaker 1: like whenever I get a new Mac, they're like, would
Speaker 1: you like to dump everything from your old Mac. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, fine, be grudging that. No, I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that because a lot of it's junk.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of it's garbage. It's just or
Speaker 2: even if it's fun, it was I mean it was
Speaker 2: notes from like a recording session in twenty eighteen, Like
Speaker 2: I don't really need that, or it was some random
Speaker 2: article I wrote in twenty twenty, and I'm not going
Speaker 2: to ever deal with it again. I mean, there's no
Speaker 2: reason to dump it per se, given that it doesn't
Speaker 2: take much space. But I wouldn't migrate it onto a
Speaker 2: new active thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess that's I think, well, we're
Speaker 1: going to get deep. But I feel like that is
Speaker 1: a mindset of abundance and not scarcity. You're like, I
Speaker 1: can make that again, It's fine. I can read another article,
Speaker 1: like I kind of cause I do like every single day. No,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. And also photo storage, which seems to
Speaker 1: be like a big preoccupation. I'm like, AI, seems like
Speaker 1: it'll be so good at that very very soon if
Speaker 1: it isn't already that like I am not going to
Speaker 1: do it myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So all my photos made it onto my new phone.
Speaker 2: So I had this other issue with I had an
Speaker 2: old phone and then a new phone that I got
Speaker 2: in June, and migrating the information through my Apple was
Speaker 2: more complicated than it should have been for various reasons
Speaker 2: that were primarily my fault.
Speaker 1: But whatever.
Speaker 2: Eventually I was able to get the photos over to
Speaker 2: the new place, but not any of my apps, which
Speaker 2: you know, I've been slowly putting them back on as needed.
Speaker 2: My contacts came over, so that's really all that mattered,
Speaker 2: the contacts and the photos.
Speaker 1: I could rebuild everything else as I need it.
Speaker 2: But the photo thing, I mean, I have thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of photos. I pay for extra storage. I haven't
Speaker 2: really gone through and deleted a lot of the ones
Speaker 2: that are dupes or eyes closed or whatever. Sometimes I do,
Speaker 2: but I haven't really bothered to put much of the
Speaker 2: effort into it. But I've enjoyed seeing Apple's photo widget
Speaker 2: on the new phone that they pull up videos where
Speaker 2: they've pulled together, you know, a theme like visits to
Speaker 2: Cape May over the.
Speaker 1: Years and I're like, oh, this.
Speaker 2: Is so cute, or like visits to the Zoo over
Speaker 2: the years, or portraits together and it chooses like two
Speaker 2: of my kids, and every time the two of them
Speaker 2: are together, they've out. So clearly the AI is pretty
Speaker 2: good at this point that they can create an all
Speaker 2: Ruth and Henry photo album just through like knowing their
Speaker 2: faces of the things. So I don't know, I feel
Speaker 2: like we're not going to need much in terms of
Speaker 2: searching on that or labeling.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited for this interview and hopefully she can
Speaker 1: help me with my migration issues and maybe some easy
Speaker 1: ways to keep things a little bit more organized. Excited,
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's hear from Amanda Jefferson. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I am here now with Amanda Jefferson of Indigo Organizing,
Speaker 1: and we are going to talk all things digital clutter.
Speaker 1: So welcome Amanda. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell our
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit about you.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm so excited to be here. Yes, I'm Amanda
Speaker 3: from Indigo Organizing. I help people conquer digital clutter and
Speaker 3: reclaim their productivity, and I do that in a bunch
Speaker 3: of different ways, one on one coaching with people, I
Speaker 3: have some online courses. I have a club called the
Speaker 3: Get It Done Club, and I have podcast myself with
Speaker 3: my co host book for you called the good enough Ish.
Speaker 1: Podcast The good enough Ish Podcast. Well, how did you
Speaker 1: get into all this digital organizing? What is your professional background?
Speaker 1: And I guess let our listeners know, we're always interested
Speaker 1: in kind of what stage of life are you in?
Speaker 1: Are there kids in the picture? Or just tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about you? And where are you?
Speaker 1: By the way, So.
Speaker 3: I'm in Westchester, Pennsylvania. I actually don't think I live
Speaker 3: too far from Laura. She's in this same general area,
Speaker 3: I believe, yes, absolutely m hm. So I lived just
Speaker 3: outside of Philadelphia. I have one daughter, she's twelve going
Speaker 3: on thirty five, and I have dogs, cats, a home
Speaker 3: menagerie here. We live in beautiful Westchester. My husband is
Speaker 3: Chile and so we could call Chile home away from home.
Speaker 3: We go there once a year. And I got into
Speaker 3: this because, so what I do now has absolutely nothing
Speaker 3: to do with what I used to do, which was
Speaker 3: I was in consulting corporate world nonprofit leadership. I was
Speaker 3: the executive director of a nonprofit in Philadelphia, and while
Speaker 3: I loved the work, it was also a really long commute,
Speaker 3: stressful fundraising goals, people management that wasn't necessarily sort of
Speaker 3: my bag, and I was sort of looking at alternative
Speaker 3: ways of living my life making an income, and so
Speaker 3: I got very intrigued by this idea of becoming a
Speaker 3: professional organizer. And right at that time, Marie Condo started
Speaker 3: training people to be con Mari consultants. So I sort
Speaker 3: of embarked on a secret mission to go to New
Speaker 3: York get trained by Marie and her team in Japanese translated.
Speaker 3: And that was eight years ago. And for about four
Speaker 3: or five years I helped people with their physical stuff.
Speaker 3: I guess maybe about six years or so, and then
Speaker 3: I just became the elephant in the room, just kind
Speaker 3: of became everybody's tech. It was just like, oh great,
Speaker 3: you know, thank you so much. The house feels so
Speaker 3: much better. But do you ever help with emails? Do
Speaker 3: you ever help with photos? Like I'm completely overwhelmed. And
Speaker 3: as I get older, I'm almost fifty, the knees are
Speaker 3: getting a little bit more, you know, crotchety, it's harder
Speaker 3: to get up and down. So I just super interested.
Speaker 3: I'm a tech nerd. I love anything that has to
Speaker 3: do with tech and problem solving and figuring things out.
Speaker 3: So last fall I decided to sort of like hang
Speaker 3: my hat with physical stuff and try the tech world.
Speaker 3: And it's amazing because there's not a lot of people
Speaker 3: out there doing this. So I've got clients in Israel,
Speaker 3: the UK and all over that are now working with
Speaker 3: me to help simplify their digital life.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. I did not know you were
Speaker 1: Condo trained. That was like a I think that was
Speaker 1: on one of my someday maybe lists at one point
Speaker 1: to go ahead and get that training done. But I
Speaker 1: also think I've moved on from that idea. But I'm
Speaker 1: I love that you did it, and I love the
Speaker 1: idea of applying Marie Kondo like concepts because I have
Speaker 1: I love her. I mean, how can you not digital stuff?
Speaker 1: So this is getting even more exciting for me to
Speaker 1: talk about all this digital clutter. So I get logistically,
Speaker 1: a career wise, why you pivoted to digital clutter and
Speaker 1: also why the demand would be there. I totally see
Speaker 1: how as we get our physical spaces more under control,
Speaker 1: or maybe even as we don't, we still care about
Speaker 1: what is going on in our digital realms. But I
Speaker 1: guess some people might ask, you know, who cares. They
Speaker 1: might say, like, you know, it doesn't matter it's not physical,
Speaker 1: it's not taking up any space, Like, why not just
Speaker 1: have everything haphazard? I can search for whatever. Tell me
Speaker 1: about how do you find or how have you learned
Speaker 1: about how digital clutter impacts people and why do you
Speaker 1: feel like it's important.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there's not really a ton of data
Speaker 3: out there right now about the huge impact that it
Speaker 3: does have on us. There has been a lot of
Speaker 3: studies about the impact that our physical clutter has on us,
Speaker 3: but the Cleveland Clinic just recently came out and said
Speaker 3: digital clutter has probably about the same effect because it's
Speaker 3: so UCLA had actually done a study years ago that
Speaker 3: there was a relationship in women between the number of
Speaker 3: belongings that they had and their cortisol levels, their stress levels.
Speaker 3: So there's actually a direct relationship between the amount of
Speaker 3: stuff that you have and how you feel. And when
Speaker 3: we're talking about digital stuff, we're talking about magnitudes of
Speaker 3: like tens of thousands. When I hear from people, they're like,
Speaker 3: it's so common for them to just be like, oh,
Speaker 3: I have one hundred thousand emails, I have forty thousand photos,
Speaker 3: and it's just I think now more than ever, it's unrelenting.
Speaker 3: And now the marketers have learned that, like they can
Speaker 3: get our attention more if they text us, and so
Speaker 3: now they're texting us, and so we just have these
Speaker 3: notifications that are coming at us from all sides. And
Speaker 3: there's also some data that shows that we spend fifty
Speaker 3: five minutes a day looking for things, and a lot
Speaker 3: of times that is the email, the document, the kid's
Speaker 3: health assessment that you need for the summer camp and
Speaker 3: it's overdue for a week, and you just spend your
Speaker 3: time feeling so frazzled because you can't put your hands
Speaker 3: on the thing that you know is somewhere, but you
Speaker 3: just don't know where. So I see that stress taking
Speaker 3: over my clients all the time.
Speaker 1: So I hear it kind of in two ways. One
Speaker 1: is not being able to find things, and number two
Speaker 1: is just the sheer, I don't know, annoyance of having
Speaker 1: the clutter itself, like whether that is a desktop that
Speaker 1: is covered with stuff, as Laura has actually talked about
Speaker 1: in our intro, I believe, or whether it is just
Speaker 1: like having a Google Photo account where you keep getting
Speaker 1: those emails that it's two full. Not that I would
Speaker 1: know anything about that, right.
Speaker 3: I think for a lot of people, it's just like
Speaker 3: they don't even know what they don't know. They're just like,
Speaker 3: I don't even really know where my photos are. I
Speaker 3: don't know if they're backed up. I think they might
Speaker 3: be in Google Photos. I think they might be in Apple.
Speaker 3: I think I might be paying something extra, but I'm
Speaker 3: not quite sure because we're sort of handed these. You know,
Speaker 3: our phones are like fifteen hundred dollars supercomputers that we're
Speaker 3: walking around with than our hands every day, but we
Speaker 3: don't really necessarily know how to use them to make
Speaker 3: our lives easier, which they absolutely can. So people just
Speaker 3: sort of shrug their shoulders and say like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't really get it, so I guess I won't
Speaker 3: really figure it out, you know. And so that's where
Speaker 3: I come in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're bringing up the cost of all that
Speaker 1: data and all those millions of items, Like it's true
Speaker 1: at some point that storage is not free, and so
Speaker 1: maybe there would be a financial benefit from addressing your
Speaker 1: digital clutter as well, although I guess, yeah, it depends
Speaker 1: on the scale.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there's even an environmental aspect to it too.
Speaker 3: I mean, there it shows I read a'sistic the other
Speaker 3: day that was something like, we don't reference ninety percent
Speaker 3: of the things that we save three seconds after saving them.
Speaker 3: And so those photos of the ardvark at the zoo
Speaker 3: that your kid took seven years ago, they live somewhere.
Speaker 3: They live on a server that's being cooled in some
Speaker 3: sort of server farm somewhere. So all of that it
Speaker 3: has it takes up space. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually fascinating to think about as well. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and then we're
Speaker 1: going to get into your brain dump method. I love
Speaker 1: methods like this. I'm super excited to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it. So we're going to tackle that
Speaker 1: as soon as we get back. Okay, all right, we
Speaker 1: are back, and we've kind of I think established, or
Speaker 1: Amanda's established, why it's important to think about our digital
Speaker 1: clutter and how it can impact us in various ways.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to get a little bit I think,
Speaker 1: into the how do we actually tame this clutter? And
Speaker 1: we're going to actually talk about a number of specific
Speaker 1: scenarios and I think that part will be really fun.
Speaker 1: But first, Amanda, it sounds like you have kind of
Speaker 1: an overarching method that you call the brain dump. Can
Speaker 1: you tell our listeners all about this method?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: So my work is really at the intersection of tech
Speaker 3: and productivity, and so it is really figuring out how
Speaker 3: to harness the cool tools that are out there to
Speaker 3: declutter not just our inboxes and our files, but also
Speaker 3: our minds. So my love language is Google spreadsheets. So
Speaker 3: when I was working with my clients and really helping them,
Speaker 3: you know, they would come out was so overwhelmed. I
Speaker 3: have a million things to do. I can't figure out
Speaker 3: where to start. I taught them this thing that I
Speaker 3: call the Focus method, and it kind of comes from
Speaker 3: the idea of kN Mari in the sense of like
Speaker 3: does it spark joy? And something I talk a lot
Speaker 3: more about, which is is it fun and easy? Is
Speaker 3: it something that you really enjoy doing and something that
Speaker 3: you're really good at? And if it isn't, can we
Speaker 3: find a way to sort of declutter it out of
Speaker 3: your life?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So the focus method is an acronym and the F
Speaker 3: stands for finish it. So that is just things like
Speaker 3: it might be something that you absolutely love to do,
Speaker 3: like gardenings, so let's keep that on the plate and
Speaker 3: let's do that, or it could be you really just
Speaker 3: need to take the cats to the vet and you
Speaker 3: just need to finish that. Right. The O is outsource,
Speaker 3: So is there a tool, a person, an app that
Speaker 3: can do this for you? So I love grocery delivery,
Speaker 3: for example, saves hours of time, and so I outsource
Speaker 3: it to the lovely people who bring my groceries to me.
Speaker 3: Cut it is just don't do it at all? Right?
Speaker 3: Are you the leader of the girls Scouts and you
Speaker 3: kind of secretly dread it and you really wish that
Speaker 3: you had never signed up? Is there a way that
Speaker 3: you could get out of that? Uncomplicated?
Speaker 1: Is you?
Speaker 3: And I am the queen of over complication? So uncomplicated
Speaker 3: is really just about how can you make this simple? So,
Speaker 3: say it's the holidays and you're dreading decorating your entire house.
Speaker 3: Could you just put like a wreath on the front
Speaker 3: door and call it a day? Right, something really easy?
Speaker 3: And then the S is scooch it, and that is
Speaker 3: can we move this down? Do we need to be
Speaker 3: renovating our kitchen in the middle of a busy graduation season?
Speaker 3: You just have to be careful with the scooch because
Speaker 3: a lot of us tend to scooch and then scooch
Speaker 3: and then scooch and then scooch right, so you have
Speaker 3: to kind of decide is this a strategic scooch or
Speaker 3: is this just something that I'm procrastinating on. So I'll
Speaker 3: stop there in case you have any questions about the
Speaker 3: actual focus and then I can talk about a spreadsheet
Speaker 3: that I help people use to actually brain dump and
Speaker 3: use the focus tool.
Speaker 1: Well, first I would suggest changing, you know, since I
Speaker 1: am the authority on your method. I'm just kidding, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, scooch. It could be like schedule it or
Speaker 1: someday it. So you're either like giving it like a
Speaker 1: specific timeframe or you're like, nope, it's going to be
Speaker 1: like a someday like nebulous thing. So sorry, I just
Speaker 1: had to share my brainstorm while you were talking because
Speaker 1: scooch was a funny word, although it actually is very
Speaker 1: memorable because scooch is like a good image.
Speaker 3: Where were you when I was trying to think about
Speaker 3: good words for the focus method?
Speaker 1: I love that. That's so good.
Speaker 3: I'm using that.
Speaker 1: That's my unplanned contribution. But the method sounds really interesting,
Speaker 1: although it sounds more like a life philosophy. Then it
Speaker 1: does a digital decluttering strategy. So I'm super excited to
Speaker 1: hear kind of how that relates to your brain dump
Speaker 1: method and then your approaches to the digital clutter itself.
Speaker 3: Right, So what I have people do, and you can
Speaker 3: actually go to my website into go organizing dot com
Speaker 3: and you can download the worksheet and the Google sheet
Speaker 3: and all of that, and I'll walk you through it.
Speaker 3: But then what I have people do is I have
Speaker 3: them go ahead and brain dump all of the different
Speaker 3: tasks that they have on their brain into this Google
Speaker 3: sheet and they can assign a category. So I usually
Speaker 3: assign the four categories that my co host Brook foury
Speaker 3: uses in her planner, which is home, work, self and others.
Speaker 3: And you'll just brain dump everything and you'll ask yourself,
Speaker 3: does this park joy? Is this fun and easy?
Speaker 1: Is it a should?
Speaker 3: Is it something that I want to do in my life?
Speaker 3: And then you can there's a little drop down and
Speaker 3: you can identify is it an F, is it a O,
Speaker 3: et cetera. You can put the date that you're going
Speaker 3: to work on it, you can put the exact next step.
Speaker 3: Because a lot of times we'll say things like something
Speaker 3: I have on my mind, this launch a YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: Well that's not like a task, that's a huge project, right,
Speaker 3: So what's the first step that you're actually going to
Speaker 3: do and when are you going to do it? And
Speaker 3: then it gets fun because you can sort the spreadsheet
Speaker 3: by the priority, by the category, by the date, and
Speaker 3: so you get the power of this sort of little
Speaker 3: digital powerhouse to help you sort your brain and what
Speaker 3: you can see. You know, I have some clients that
Speaker 3: are super type A that are like, Okay, I did
Speaker 3: the spreadsheet and everything is priority one, everything is finished,
Speaker 3: and it's all due you know, next Friday, and there's
Speaker 3: seventy five of them, so it's like, okay, let's reevaluate, right.
Speaker 3: So it just really gives you a picture of like
Speaker 3: what is truly mathematically possible?
Speaker 1: Right. I love that. I love the idea. I still
Speaker 1: am like a little lost on like how that exactly
Speaker 1: relates to digital cluttering. To me, that is like you're
Speaker 1: using a really cool digital tool to clean up life
Speaker 1: kind of stress over like overwhelm of tasks. But I
Speaker 1: still there's so much value in that, Like I love
Speaker 1: that idea. I'm all about like making lists and the
Speaker 1: idea of having a list where everything lives in one
Speaker 1: place is going to be easily referenceable from every single device,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of ale. That is hot. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think to me it relates in the
Speaker 3: sense that so, like I said, my work is sort
Speaker 3: of at the intersection of tech and productivity. So some
Speaker 3: of the productivity tips that I have aren't necessarily always
Speaker 3: going to be about tech. But it's about decluttering your mind.
Speaker 3: And it's about not just digital decluttering, but also organizing.
Speaker 3: It's about how can I use the tools that exist
Speaker 3: in this world to actually make my life easier. And
Speaker 3: so the average everyday person might not think, oh a spreadsheet,
Speaker 3: like how is a spreadsheet can possibly make my life easier?
Speaker 3: And this is one of the ways that I demonstrate
Speaker 3: how it can.
Speaker 1: I totally love that, And actually there might be a
Speaker 1: decluttering aspect of it now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: because people have a tendency to try a whole slew
Speaker 1: of different tools and then they end up with to
Speaker 1: do lists in five different places. They have it on
Speaker 1: to do list, and they have it in an email,
Speaker 1: and they have it on a sticky note, and the
Speaker 1: idea that actually, you know what, we're just going to
Speaker 1: have one place, and it's going to be a very
Speaker 1: simple place. A Google sheet that like really doesn't take
Speaker 1: a huge on ramp to master. I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: There's some simplicity there, so very cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of fun and it can be
Speaker 3: your master lift. It doesn't have to be, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think people are going to be able to
Speaker 3: reference a Google sheet every day, but it's just kind
Speaker 3: of like maybe quarterly it's like, ah, my brain is
Speaker 3: on fire, let me like get all this down, and
Speaker 3: then when you get a sense of what you have
Speaker 3: to do next, then it gives you a good place
Speaker 3: to start.
Speaker 1: Yes, And the fact is that it's like searchable and sortable.
Speaker 1: It's really really fun. Have you seen people do cool
Speaker 1: things with like color and I don't know, how have
Speaker 1: you seen somebody's look And what is the highest number
Speaker 1: of lines you've ever seen on somebody's life Google sheet?
Speaker 3: Me, I've seen like one hundred and twenty five. So
Speaker 3: I went in there the other day actually added like
Speaker 3: a whole bunch more rose, you know, formatted rose, because
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, people have a lot
Speaker 3: on their plate, right, Yeah, And I think it's very
Speaker 3: similar to sort of what we do in con Mari
Speaker 3: when we pile all the clothes on the bed.
Speaker 1: It's like just that shock.
Speaker 3: Factor of seeing like, oh, this is why I feel
Speaker 3: the way that I do. This is why I feel
Speaker 3: so stressed out because my brain is trying to process.
Speaker 3: It's like that joke when they say like my brain
Speaker 3: has too many tabs open. My brain has one hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy five tabs open. That's why I feel the
Speaker 3: way that I do.
Speaker 1: And then do you instruct people to look at it
Speaker 1: at any specific cadence like once a week when they're
Speaker 1: doing weekly planning or is it more just like it's
Speaker 1: there for when you need it and feel called to
Speaker 1: look at it or add to it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of times when people do it
Speaker 3: the first time, they really do use it as sort
Speaker 3: of a real guide of like, Okay, let me organize
Speaker 3: this so that I have ten things that are priority
Speaker 3: one and I'm very clear on what the next steps are,
Speaker 3: and then when I get through the it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: what are the next ten?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So, usually my clients will use it as a tool,
Speaker 3: maybe for a couple of weeks, until they feel like
Speaker 3: they have clarity, and then they can kind of set
Speaker 3: it aside and then maybe quarterly they'll come back to it.
Speaker 1: Very cool fun aside, one of my friends actually has
Speaker 1: a daily planning method on Google Sheets where she will
Speaker 1: kind of like list out basically kind of keep a
Speaker 1: time record. She has her like top task for the
Speaker 1: day on there, and she even cuts and pastes like
Speaker 1: a photo of the day into her Google Sheets, so
Speaker 1: they become this beautiful life record. So shout out to Kay,
Speaker 1: who is one of my good friends as well. Now,
Speaker 1: but yeah, her method is super cool. I could see
Speaker 1: that meshing super well with yours. It's like you've got
Speaker 1: your long term and then you've got your short term,
Speaker 1: and you could have an all Google Sheets life system
Speaker 1: if you really wanted to.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it sounds like Kay could definitely be
Speaker 3: a kindred spirit of mine.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. All right, Well, we're gonna pivot into
Speaker 1: some common now. We're going to go back a little
Speaker 1: bit out of the like corraling every priority and into
Speaker 1: the like different digital realms that people tend to struggle with,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of themes that come up over
Speaker 1: and over with in twenty twenty four, as this is
Speaker 1: being recorded where people just feel like they have a
Speaker 1: mess and cannot get a handle on things. So let's start. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm adding one I just thought of as I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: Let's start with kind of like the most perhaps hated
Speaker 1: or obvious of all email. So, how do you help
Speaker 1: your clients that have incredibly unwieldy inboxes? What are your
Speaker 1: philosophies around email? And yeah, I'm super interested in how
Speaker 1: condo what a per email?
Speaker 3: So the thing that I do first with my clients
Speaker 3: is help them divide their email into better buckets. So
Speaker 3: about sixty percent of people use Gmail, so most of
Speaker 3: the clients that I'm seeing are using Gmail. And Gmail
Speaker 3: has this really cool feature called price already inbox. So
Speaker 3: instead of when you log into your email you see
Speaker 3: this huge blob of emails that it's really not clear,
Speaker 3: like what's important, what needs attention, it will divide it
Speaker 3: into four categories, which is sort of It starts with
Speaker 3: the important and unread, and then you can have starred,
Speaker 3: then you can add your own little section which I
Speaker 3: always have people add action needed, and then it has
Speaker 3: the everything else. And I help people understand sort of
Speaker 3: how Google works, that Google is basically, Gmail and mail
Speaker 3: in general is kind of this assistant that you've just
Speaker 3: hired and you're trying to train them on how you
Speaker 3: want them to handle your mail. So a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't even understand, like, oh, that little flag there
Speaker 3: that means that Google thinks that this is important. But
Speaker 3: if I click that, then I'm training it to tell
Speaker 3: to know that that email isn't important. Right, So we
Speaker 3: go in and we just sort of understand the basics
Speaker 3: of like, let's actually look at your email in a
Speaker 3: totally different way. Let's do a little bit of training
Speaker 3: and tell Google this is important, this isn't important. Let's
Speaker 3: create an action needed section, Let's create an online order section.
Speaker 3: Let me teach you how to drag and drop, And
Speaker 3: we just kind of learned those basics, and then usually
Speaker 3: at that point they're like they actually will say to
Speaker 3: me like this is fun, this is really cool, you know,
Speaker 3: and they start getting their labels colored and all of
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, and then usually I'll just instruct
Speaker 3: them to kind of bite size it. One of the
Speaker 3: fun things that you can do is you can search.
Speaker 3: I learned this tip from Laura may Martin, who is
Speaker 3: Google's in house productivity expert who just.
Speaker 1: Wrote a book and former best of both World's Guests
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, I forgot about that. I think that
Speaker 3: might have even been why I reached out. And she
Speaker 3: wrote a book name called up Time, and she has
Speaker 3: a little tip of searching in the search bar the
Speaker 3: word unsubscribe, and then that will actually show you all
Speaker 3: of these newsletters that you can unsubscribe from, and you
Speaker 3: can mass delete and mass unsubscribe and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: So usually with emails, that's where we start. Like I
Speaker 3: kind of say to my clients, is almost like clean
Speaker 3: before you cook. Like if you're going to cook a
Speaker 3: big meal and the kitchen is a mess, don't go
Speaker 3: in and just start cooking. You clean the kitchen up.
Speaker 3: So let's get your email kind of cleaned and organized,
Speaker 3: and then we're gonna start cooking.
Speaker 1: And inbox zero yay or nay.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't feel particularly passionate about in box zero. Interesting,
Speaker 3: I'm usually at like inbox thirty.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like one screen kind of a situation, correct, right,
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 3: I think some people are you an inbox zero person?
Speaker 1: I am, I mean, I don't live at inbox zero daily.
Speaker 1: I probably live more. Actually I live anywhere from inbox
Speaker 1: zero to inbox like four hundred, and I do like
Speaker 1: massive cleanouts. The reason I like to periodically get from
Speaker 1: thirty to zero is it tends to be once I'm
Speaker 1: at that thirty piece, I'm just procrastinating those things and
Speaker 1: if I just bulldoze through it, I can deal with it,
Speaker 1: and I probably should once it's been sitting there for weeks.
Speaker 1: So I do. I love my inbox zero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can be very satisfying. I use an email
Speaker 3: tool called Superhuman, and when you get to inbox zero,
Speaker 3: it shows a beautiful image, so it's very satisfying.
Speaker 1: I love that. All Right, we're going to take another
Speaker 1: quick break and then we're going to go into the
Speaker 1: next digital behemoth that everyone complains about or talks about.
Speaker 1: All Right, we are back. We have tackled email, and
Speaker 1: now I'm going to guess that you hear a little
Speaker 1: bit about people's photo collections, am I right?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, it's funny because I know you're a physician,
Speaker 3: so I'm sure when you're out in the world people
Speaker 3: are like, hey, can you look at this rash? Or
Speaker 3: like my shoulder is hurting. In my case, the people
Speaker 3: will be like can you look at my phone? And
Speaker 3: he help me figure out and photos is usually a
Speaker 3: lot of the cases with that, and again it's just
Speaker 3: people just not understanding where do these live and what
Speaker 3: is the cloud? And are they being backed up? And
Speaker 3: are am I own photos? So usually it's just trying
Speaker 3: to get to an underst standing of helping people understand
Speaker 3: the basics. So for example, if you have all Mac stuff,
Speaker 3: knowing that your photo library on your Mac should match
Speaker 3: your photo library on your phone, and then we can
Speaker 3: work with them to declutter if you have two different
Speaker 3: like mismat if you have an iPhone and a PC,
Speaker 3: those are kind of mismatched, so like how are we
Speaker 3: going to be saving things every backing up on Google Photos?
Speaker 3: Helping people learn that you can use the smart tools
Speaker 3: that exist in these things like facial recognition. So many
Speaker 3: people don't know that you can actually find like pictures
Speaker 3: of your dog that way, or pictures of your vacation
Speaker 3: in Spain based on the date that you were there
Speaker 3: and things like that. So teaching them kind of the
Speaker 3: one oh one and then also helping them have a
Speaker 3: bite sized goal to work towards so some people will say, like,
Speaker 3: I want to organize my photos, which is a really
Speaker 3: big task, but like, what if you just make a
Speaker 3: photo album of your trip to Paris this year? Right,
Speaker 3: and there you get the opportunity declutter and find favorite
Speaker 3: photos and move things into folders and you kind of
Speaker 3: get in the groove and in the momentum of it,
Speaker 3: and then you can move forward and be like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well how about a photo album of last summer? And
Speaker 3: my favorite tool for photo albums that is so it's
Speaker 3: like the Southwest Airlines of photo albums in the sense
Speaker 3: that it's so easy as chat books. I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: heard of them, Like they you don't have to do
Speaker 3: the landscape and the portrait and the captions and the formats.
Speaker 3: It's just one photo per page, delivered to your mailbox
Speaker 3: and it's so easy.
Speaker 1: I like that. So maybe like instead of saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to have every photo corral, you're like, I
Speaker 1: do a seasonal chat book every season and I call
Speaker 1: it a day. I think with photos, people get very
Speaker 1: in the weeds about like perfectionism that I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong, but I think AI will be able
Speaker 1: to clean things up. So nicely at some yes, very
Speaker 1: soon point that our efforts like, oh that one's blurry,
Speaker 1: let me delete it, Like that's just misplaced effort when
Speaker 1: you have like fifty pictures or something like that.
Speaker 3: Right, my favorite app is called the cleaner Kit app,
Speaker 3: and it's really cool because it will delete your duplicates.
Speaker 3: It will delete screenshots, but it also will if you
Speaker 3: took fifty pictures of your best friend in front of
Speaker 3: a tree, it will be like, this is the best one.
Speaker 3: Do you want to delete the rest? And that's exactly like,
Speaker 3: let Ai do the work for you.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. Cleaner Kit. So does that work with
Speaker 1: iPhone or it just works on your phone?
Speaker 3: I believe it works with all phones. I could be
Speaker 3: wrong because I am an iPhone user. I and most
Speaker 3: of my clients are iPhone users as well, but I think.
Speaker 1: So that sounds awesome, very cool. Do you have a
Speaker 1: preferred digital storage place that you recommend for people or
Speaker 1: do you kind of consider them all created equal, like
Speaker 1: Amazon versus Google versus Apple, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd like to choose tools that are a little
Speaker 3: bit more agnostic to the actual sort of software company,
Speaker 3: because everybody has their own things, so I Cloud wants
Speaker 3: to sell you their drive. Microsoft wants to sell you
Speaker 3: their drive. Google wants to sell.
Speaker 1: You their drive.
Speaker 3: Right, I like to use something that's like Dropbox that's
Speaker 3: a little bit more agnostic, so that if tomorrow I
Speaker 3: decide I don't want to have a Mac anymore, I
Speaker 3: want to have a PC, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 3: transition between those things, especially if you have mismatched software.
Speaker 3: So if you have like a PC and an iPhone,
Speaker 3: then you're going to want to have something like Dropbox
Speaker 3: because iCloud drive is going to be really clunky to use.
Speaker 1: On your computer.
Speaker 3: So I usually try to meet people where they are
Speaker 3: based on the software that they have. You know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to be like, oh, this seems to be
Speaker 3: working fine for you, but let's move you all the
Speaker 3: way over to Dropbox. But a lot of times they're
Speaker 3: getting frustrated and experiencing a lot of friction because they
Speaker 3: have mismatched companies that they're trying to make friends, and
Speaker 3: those companies don't want to be friends. They're competing with
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 1: Very interesting, I like that awesome, Well that's photos. I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe we've made a few people feel better
Speaker 1: and I'd say that name of that Apple one more
Speaker 1: time cleaner kit app, cleaner kit app. That sounds like
Speaker 1: very useful information.
Speaker 3: And I can send you a link for your show
Speaker 3: notes to.
Speaker 1: Loll Yes, definitely, Okay. The next thing I have on
Speaker 1: here is notifications, And this I think is interesting because
Speaker 1: this isn't just like data and it's not just like, oh,
Speaker 1: our screen doesn't look pretty, but this is like fragmentation
Speaker 1: of our time and attention. But it's also coming from
Speaker 1: the digital realm, and I think it's also so fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guilty of this myself. Like, if something
Speaker 1: is defaulted to notify me, how many times do I
Speaker 1: have to be annoyed by said thing before I'm like
Speaker 1: turn that off? You know how to do that? Like
Speaker 1: I'm not eighty years old. Well, and that's not even fair.
Speaker 1: Many eighty year olds are probably very good at managing
Speaker 1: their iPhone settings. But like, I can do this, but
Speaker 1: yet I don't. So how do you help your clients
Speaker 1: with notifications and maybe turning their phone into a less
Speaker 1: intrusive device if that's something they desire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is like a matter of just sitting down
Speaker 3: in the moment and doing it. Or when you get
Speaker 3: that notific being like, ugh, I don't want to hear
Speaker 3: from law and Taylor Loft, you know anymore. And then
Speaker 3: just clicking and you realize that you can actually press
Speaker 3: and hold click options and click turn off. You don't
Speaker 3: even have to go into the notifications. You can just
Speaker 3: tell it right then, I don't want to perceive notifications
Speaker 3: at all ever from these people, right, so you can
Speaker 3: turn that off there. But that's some of the things
Speaker 3: that we recommend that people do. We have the Get
Speaker 3: It Done Club that meets three times a week, and
Speaker 3: we give them a list of like, here's some of
Speaker 3: the things that you could do during this and one
Speaker 3: of them is change your notifications. I have a lot
Speaker 3: of clients who while I'm talking to them, they'll look
Speaker 3: at other Apple Watch like every three seconds because it's
Speaker 3: like New York Times, CNN, AT and T like the
Speaker 3: fragmented attention is insane, right, and they're like, oh, this
Speaker 3: watch is driving me crazy, not realizing. So a lot
Speaker 3: of times I'll be like, let's go into your notifications
Speaker 3: right now and turn it off. I'm one of those
Speaker 3: like now or never type of people, like let's just
Speaker 3: get it, and they're like, oh wow, and just turn
Speaker 3: on your watch so that it's literally nothing but like
Speaker 3: phone and text or just phone.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about the specific things you want to
Speaker 1: know about, and then you can also make use of
Speaker 1: those focus modes so that like maybe during work hours,
Speaker 1: like you don't even get your texts or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you need to regulate. I'm all about the
Speaker 1: do not disturb during podcast recording sessions or else. I
Speaker 1: don't know how I could focus.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I know I've got that on right now, but.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about the press and hold. So that's
Speaker 1: huge because I always just go to settings notifications and
Speaker 1: like toggle it off. So that's super cool. So when
Speaker 1: an actual notification pops up, you can press and hold
Speaker 1: it and you'll get the options to get rid of it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's either a press and hold or it is
Speaker 3: a like swipe. Actually it's a swipe. It's a swipe left.
Speaker 3: So I just got this text from Sunnyside, so I
Speaker 3: swipe left, I click options, and I get the choice
Speaker 3: of turn off all messages notifications for this particular message.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Does that work for app notifications as well or
Speaker 1: just text messages?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it should. Let's see, this
Speaker 3: is an app notification. Yes, options, I guess it's it
Speaker 3: got the same thing.
Speaker 1: That's huge. Okay, so hopefully everyone's listening. An even easier
Speaker 1: way to when your phone annoys you to nip it
Speaker 1: in the butt right then and there, all right. The
Speaker 1: last realm we're going to talk about is calendars, because
Speaker 1: digital calendars are so useful and yet they don't always
Speaker 1: play nicely with each other. And I will admit I'm
Speaker 1: like a very weird person and my rule my life
Speaker 1: calendar is actually paper because I find it easier to
Speaker 1: integrate all the various digital calendars that feed into me,
Speaker 1: and I've like given up on like having one digital
Speaker 1: place and instead I'm like, well, if it's in my
Speaker 1: actual paper one, then I've acknowledged it's real. But I
Speaker 1: am weird. So for those who prefer digital for their
Speaker 1: kind of master calendar but might be dealing with like
Speaker 1: the soccer calendar and the school calendar, and one's on
Speaker 1: Outlook and one's on Gmail and whatever, how do you
Speaker 1: help people clean this up? I find this very challenging.
Speaker 3: It is challenging, and usually I just have people kind
Speaker 3: of go all in on one place, so I check
Speaker 3: everything on my Google calendar, and so I have my
Speaker 3: personal email, I have my work email, and they all
Speaker 3: feed into so that I can actually see my personal
Speaker 3: and my work calendar kind of overlaid on top of
Speaker 3: each other. And then I subscribe to the cheerleading calendar
Speaker 3: and the school calendar, and I have all of those
Speaker 3: pulled in as well, so that I can see all
Speaker 3: of them at one place, and I can toggle on
Speaker 3: and off if I want to. But I have a
Speaker 3: lot of people who will like be in their Apple
Speaker 3: calendar and then add something there and then be confused
Speaker 3: about why it's not going over to the Google calendar
Speaker 3: because they added it under their Apple iCloud. So a
Speaker 3: lot of times it's just like a basic understanding of
Speaker 3: like where does this event live, where is it coming from,
Speaker 3: and how can I get this one calendar place all
Speaker 3: set up so that I am truly seeing everything. And
Speaker 3: so that's a lot of the heart of a lot
Speaker 3: of the issues that I deal with my clients is
Speaker 3: just not like a clear understanding of concepts that are
Speaker 3: fundamental to making these things work, like the difference between
Speaker 3: the leading or archiving, or what is the iCloud and
Speaker 3: what you know, all that kind of stuff. So usually
Speaker 3: it's just them sharing their screen and me digging in
Speaker 3: and figuring out, Okay, where is all this stuff and
Speaker 3: how can we get it all in one place.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, it's true, and it can become super
Speaker 1: confusing because if you've got these old legacy calendars and
Speaker 1: let's say one is syncing with iye caount, but like
Speaker 1: your Google is pulling in your eye clouds, so you
Speaker 1: think that the Google has that calendar directly, but it's
Speaker 1: actually like indirect and then you end up with like
Speaker 1: duplicates and anyway, I can see why sometimes you probably
Speaker 1: need to drill down and actually look at it. But
Speaker 1: this also seems like a solvable problem. Like if you
Speaker 1: actually sit down and you're like, Google calendar is my
Speaker 1: main thing, and how do I need to get all
Speaker 1: my things into that probably doable with the exception of
Speaker 1: I know, some corporate calendars don't sink because of privacy issues, right,
Speaker 1: So that.
Speaker 3: May be a case where you kind of have to
Speaker 3: have your personal calendar that has everything going on, and
Speaker 3: then you have your corporate calendar. But a lot of
Speaker 3: times there is like an export import that needs to
Speaker 3: take place. I had a client that was sort of
Speaker 3: accidentally putting a lot of stuff on her Apple calendar,
Speaker 3: so we just did an export, imported that all over
Speaker 3: to Google Calendar, and then she was forbidden to ever
Speaker 3: put anything on her Apple calendar again.
Speaker 1: You know that everything else stayed in the same place,
Speaker 1: so beware. I guess we're saying, or you're saying, amazing, Well,
Speaker 1: this has been super useful. I think there's been some
Speaker 1: nuggets of gold in this conversation in terms of ways
Speaker 1: to make things easier that really don't take that much time.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. Before we get to our
Speaker 1: Love of the week, where can listeners find you?
Speaker 3: So they can find me at Indigo Organizing dot com.
Speaker 3: And they can find me also on my podcast website
Speaker 3: at goodenoughish dot com.
Speaker 1: Amazing. All right, Love of the Week, I will go
Speaker 1: first to let you like process your thoughts because I
Speaker 1: had my planned. I think one of my my favorite
Speaker 1: digital uses is just group texts, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: how I would have stayed in touch, and I don't
Speaker 1: do social media, so group texts to me are like curated,
Speaker 1: like these are the people I actually want to have
Speaker 1: these conversations with and I have different ones for like
Speaker 1: different realms of life, Like I've got like my college
Speaker 1: friends and my running friends and my like trying to
Speaker 1: get pregnant in twenty twelve friends, and like my family
Speaker 1: and whatever. And I realize how much joy it brings
Speaker 1: me to be able to share different things in different
Speaker 1: contexts and kind of be able to keep up with
Speaker 1: these threads of people in that way. It works really
Speaker 1: really well for me. So super simple. But that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite uses of modern technology. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3: I was just fortunate to do a wellness retreat in
Speaker 3: MAYORCA a couple of months ago, and I met twenty
Speaker 3: two amazing women and we're now on a WhatsApp group
Speaker 3: chat together and we just had a zoom reunion yesterday
Speaker 3: because we were able to coordinate it on this chat.
Speaker 3: And it's like sparking so much joy, it's amazing love.
Speaker 1: That is that your love of the week or do
Speaker 1: you have another one?
Speaker 3: I have another one. So my love of the week
Speaker 3: is the Apple Reminders app, specifically the shopping list function.
Speaker 1: I use this all day long.
Speaker 3: You know, I have my Apple Watch, or even if
Speaker 3: you don't have an Apple Watch, you have your phone.
Speaker 3: You can just say to Siri, like, hey, Siri, add
Speaker 3: milk to the shopping list, and it will add milk
Speaker 3: to the shopping list. Not only to the shopping list,
Speaker 3: but it'll actually categorize it under dairy. And so you
Speaker 3: can say, add bread to the shopping list and it'll
Speaker 3: categorize it underbreads. And then that list is shared with
Speaker 3: my husband, so when he goes to the store, if
Speaker 3: I haven't had a chance to make a list yet,
Speaker 3: usually everything that we need is already on that list.
Speaker 3: So my love of the week is my reminder's shopping list.
Speaker 1: Amazing and so easy to just add the minute you
Speaker 1: see something's used up, so I can see how incredibly
Speaker 1: useful that would be. Yes, Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on, Amanda. This has been so much fun
Speaker 1: and I am like excited to put some of this
Speaker 1: stuff into play myself. Awesome.
Speaker 3: I was so great talking with you. Thank you for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 1: Well we are back.
Speaker 2: Sarah did a great interview there with Amanda Jefferson about
Speaker 2: digital decluttering, how we can get control of the digital
Speaker 2: clutter in our lives. Lots of useful tips and tricks there.
Speaker 2: So this week's question, this listener writes in. I wonder whether,
Speaker 2: while keeping your own children's information private, you guys could
Speaker 2: talk about general approaches to helping kids with learning disabilities,
Speaker 2: finding tutors, deciding whether and when to switch schools, helping
Speaker 2: your child with dealing like they are feeling like they
Speaker 2: are stupid or behind. Also, how do you deal with
Speaker 2: feelings about this as a parent. This person is an
Speaker 2: English professor, and so, to be truthful, it's been a
Speaker 2: little bit surprising, and she says a bit of a
Speaker 2: hit to her ego to have a kid struggling with
Speaker 2: learning to read. So, Sarah, what was your response with
Speaker 2: that one? That's super interesting about the early reader thing.
Speaker 2: I think I might have expected my kids to read
Speaker 2: on the early side, because lore has it that I
Speaker 2: did and my husband did. But Nope, most of them
Speaker 2: have not, and at least one of them has needed
Speaker 2: some very formal extra assistance learning to read. I have
Speaker 2: one child with ADHD, and I will say as when
Speaker 2: I read this every single time that I have sought
Speaker 2: some sort of professional help, I was like, so glad
Speaker 2: I did that.
Speaker 1: I could have done it even sooner. And I do
Speaker 1: feel like, yes, there are times that you want to
Speaker 1: let kids struggle and I really don't want to be
Speaker 1: like a snowplow parent to make you know, oh, my
Speaker 1: kid has to win every single thing and come out
Speaker 1: on top every time and make everything easy. But you
Speaker 1: have to figure out where that line is and when
Speaker 1: it starts to be crossed, to figure out when they
Speaker 1: would benefit from extra help. And then one thing that
Speaker 1: helps me is to remember, well, why do all these
Speaker 1: professions exist because lots of people need them, because it's
Speaker 1: really really common to need extra support in various things.
Speaker 1: So in honor of this question, I came up with
Speaker 1: a list of various services I've used with kids in
Speaker 1: the past. And I'm actually surprised at how long it is,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to read it. So we have done
Speaker 1: private psycho educational testing. We have hired a psychiatrist, we
Speaker 1: have worked with a reading specialist. We've had a behavioral
Speaker 1: tutor at work with one kid, I reading tutor, a psychologist,
Speaker 1: a speech therapist. Well that's actually newer, but that's okay,
Speaker 1: still on the list. And then I have switched to school.
Speaker 1: So that is a lot. And by the way, don't
Speaker 1: try to guess which kids which you might even be wrong,
Speaker 1: you probably are wrong. So keeping that part private, I've
Speaker 1: used a lot of resources and I have yet to
Speaker 1: regret a single one of these interventions. So I feel
Speaker 1: like if your gut is telling you that your kid
Speaker 1: needs more support in an area, than you should go
Speaker 1: for it and be happy that they are available. Now,
Speaker 1: I say this from a place of privilege, and I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of these took throwing significant money
Speaker 1: at the problem, and not everybody is able to do that,
Speaker 1: and that is terrible. I will say for my job,
Speaker 1: I know that they're a lot of times. You can
Speaker 1: get a lot of these resources in a low cost
Speaker 1: manner if you qualify for them. It just takes longer
Speaker 1: and perhaps more legwork, which again is a shame because
Speaker 1: some of the people that need it are going to
Speaker 1: be less equipped to find it. But the school system
Speaker 1: does have a lot of this kind of stuff, from
Speaker 1: testing to extra tutoring, and they in general are kind
Speaker 1: of obligated to meet various needs of kids. So if
Speaker 1: this is not something you're able to attack from a
Speaker 1: private standpoint, then there are still probably a lot of
Speaker 1: resources to investigate. And I'll say that I do think
Speaker 1: pre kids me would be surprised to hear this list
Speaker 1: would she even judge post kiss me for this list.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe, but you know what, she'd probably
Speaker 1: be surprised about a lot. So there we have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, you know, we've definitely used tutoring
Speaker 2: as well, and there's lots of places you can find
Speaker 2: tutors these days. You can use them online, especially if
Speaker 2: you're talking about I mean, I think this is a
Speaker 2: younger child, so that may be less of a good
Speaker 2: option for there, but as your kids get into middle
Speaker 2: school and high school, you could avail yourself of the
Speaker 2: world of online tutors. So we have definitely used online
Speaker 2: tutors for math. We have used them for writing help,
Speaker 2: which is theoretically I'm a professional writer, but sometimes people
Speaker 2: take it better from other experts, not your parents. We've
Speaker 2: done foreign language tutoring, which actually there's a world of
Speaker 2: options there, as you might imagine, I would definitely recommend
Speaker 2: looking into that. You can often find reasonably cost people
Speaker 2: who live in countries where they would speak whatever language
Speaker 2: your kid is studying, So look into that as an option.
Speaker 2: And because more of this is available online these days,
Speaker 2: especially for older kids, the costs in many cases will
Speaker 2: be over a range, and so you can choose the
Speaker 2: range that meets with your budgetary needs, and it might
Speaker 2: be more flexible as well, because obviously, if you are
Speaker 2: driving a kid to a tutor, that takes time out
Speaker 2: of your day and their day that they can't be
Speaker 2: doing something else. But if it is online tutoring, maybe
Speaker 2: it could be a little bit later, and since you
Speaker 2: don't have to drive there, it might be more you know,
Speaker 2: it might fit better with a busy family schedule. But
Speaker 2: we have not regretted trying tutoring in the situations where
Speaker 2: we thought it would be helpful.
Speaker 1: So definitely that.
Speaker 2: Now the ego part, because Sarah I didn't talk about that,
Speaker 2: but let's address that one, because I mean, I think
Speaker 2: one of the upsides of having lots of kids is
Speaker 2: you very quickly see that they aren't you, like I
Speaker 2: think we might know that all intellectually. It can be
Speaker 2: a little bit harder, perhaps if you only have one
Speaker 2: child to understand that this kid is not an extension
Speaker 2: of you in really any way, shape or form, like
Speaker 2: they are their own person. And because I have five kids,
Speaker 2: I can see the how different all of them are
Speaker 2: from each other and from me and from Michael. And
Speaker 2: maybe there are sometimes little bits that you can pick
Speaker 2: up like, oh, I recognize that little thing from me
Speaker 2: or from a grandparent or whatever else, but it is
Speaker 2: mixed with ninety five percent other.
Speaker 1: Stuff that is just all them.
Speaker 2: So given that this is an entirely separate person from you,
Speaker 2: it is not anything to do with you being an
Speaker 2: excellent English professor whether your kid can learn to read,
Speaker 2: because they no doubt have other things that are awesome
Speaker 2: that they can do and reading is maybe a little
Speaker 2: bit more challenging for them. But maybe they can do
Speaker 2: something that would have been harder for you. So maybe
Speaker 2: just think about, like remind yourself of what your kid
Speaker 2: does really well, Like you are a straight A student
Speaker 2: and your kid gets mostly be's well, oh well, but
Speaker 2: maybe he's really awesome at soccer, has a very close
Speaker 2: group of friends that he's managing those relationships really well,
Speaker 2: like very social. Maybe he reaches out to other kids,
Speaker 2: like he's always the one who finds that kid on
Speaker 2: the playground who needs someone to play with. Maybe he's
Speaker 2: incredibly polite to the older people in your neighborhood, Like
Speaker 2: there's something that your kid does awesome and that would
Speaker 2: be great to focus your whatever parenting, like need to
Speaker 2: feel like your kid is great on that and then
Speaker 2: just really not talk about the other part quite as much.
Speaker 2: I mean, get in the intervention if you can, but
Speaker 2: there's really no point in harping on I got a's
Speaker 2: why are you getting bs? I mean, that would just
Speaker 2: be awful to even like have that in your brain.
Speaker 2: Most of the time, like focus your ego on what
Speaker 2: you are doing and on the fact that you have
Speaker 2: an awesome relationship with your son, who is a different
Speaker 2: person from you.
Speaker 1: I guess if that makes sense. Yes, And for every
Speaker 1: perceived deficit that is different from what yours are, they
Speaker 1: may have a perceived talent that's different from what yours are.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of part of the fun of seeing
Speaker 1: how they turn out and like being ready for and
Speaker 1: appreciating those differences. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: Sarah has been talking with Amanda Jefferson about digital decluttering.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 1: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 2: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 2: work together.