Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 3: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 3: love 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.
Speaker 1: 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 mid to late April of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. I am going to be interviewing Whitney English,
Speaker 2: who is an entrepreneur an author. She has a brand
Speaker 2: new book coming out later this month called Organized First,
Speaker 2: Decorate Second. That's obviously a certain worldview that I guess
Speaker 2: she wants us to follow there. So we're very excited
Speaker 2: to have Whitney on the show.
Speaker 3: I'm very excited for you to talk to her, just
Speaker 3: because I've known her name for so long. She created
Speaker 3: the day Designer and then she pivoted to her own
Speaker 3: line of planners, and you used one for a while,
Speaker 3: So did you guys talk about that at all.
Speaker 2: Well, we didn't really talk about it that much because
Speaker 2: it planners was not the major.
Speaker 1: Focus of our time.
Speaker 2: We've been talking more like organizing and spring cleaning and
Speaker 2: things like that. But yeah, I was introduced to the
Speaker 2: Whitney English line of products because I was a guest
Speaker 2: on a certain show called Best Laid Plans many years ago,
Speaker 2: when Sarah was doing her planner matchmaking. Do you remember that,
Speaker 2: I should do it again? Yeah, Well, she matched me
Speaker 2: up with a Whitney English week on a page I
Speaker 2: believe it was called planner, and.
Speaker 1: So I had those for two to.
Speaker 2: Three years, and then she transitioned out of making those
Speaker 2: with specific dates because.
Speaker 1: I mean, I for reasons.
Speaker 2: I think you've looked into the economics of this too,
Speaker 2: Like if one is going to sell a planner, the
Speaker 2: issues of making a very nicely created, good paper, well
Speaker 2: bound planner. They are expensive and if they have a
Speaker 2: specific year's date on them, they become totally obsolete by
Speaker 2: about two three months into the year, when people aren't
Speaker 2: buying yearly planners anymore. So she'd be on selling one
Speaker 2: that doesn't have dates. But you know, I kind of
Speaker 2: wanted to have the dates. I don't know that she's
Speaker 2: going to be selling those long term either, because she's
Speaker 2: a fascinating pushing there's a lot of different directions you
Speaker 2: can tell talking to her. She's so creative, and she
Speaker 2: I think has kept her business fresh and exciting by
Speaker 2: being willing to pivot frequently, and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Totally cool.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, the only way to get around that dated issue,
Speaker 3: which not that I'm planning on launching a planner anytime soon,
Speaker 3: but is that you only sell on pre order. So
Speaker 3: you tell your people, you're like, this planner doesn't even
Speaker 3: exist yet, to order it like four months in advance,
Speaker 3: and then once you've ordered it, I will print it
Speaker 3: for you for you, versus I have stacks of the
Speaker 3: expensive twenty twenty six planner lying around. That is a
Speaker 3: pure liability for me if they don't sell well.
Speaker 2: And I wound up going recently in the past few
Speaker 2: years then with plum papers, notes and days, I think
Speaker 2: is what it's called, and that's something to you pay
Speaker 2: to have it printed for you. It is custom designed,
Speaker 2: and so that's obviously its own business model as well.
Speaker 2: But we talked more about organizing and decorating, which Sarah,
Speaker 2: I would like to ask, how is your home organization
Speaker 2: project going. I mean, I know you've had other things
Speaker 2: going on this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I haven't done much. I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: ready to like make a very non aggressive list of
Speaker 3: things that I'd like to get organized over the next
Speaker 3: few months, like very specific, doable things. And especially because
Speaker 3: maybe I do have a little bit more time since
Speaker 3: I am not spending as much time running and I'm
Speaker 3: looking for things to do, I think I could get
Speaker 3: around that. But no, I'm not like even feeling ready
Speaker 3: to be like I want to organize my whole home
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: I can't decide if I even ever need that.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sort of I'm thinking I should try to
Speaker 2: channel I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: April is like ridiculous.
Speaker 2: This month is totally ridiculous and may will be too,
Speaker 2: So I don't maybe this is going to be a
Speaker 2: later project. I had this like spring cleaning energy. I'm
Speaker 2: just massively short on time. But there's certain things I
Speaker 2: want to do, like clean out the mudroom because as
Speaker 2: we're moving the coats to storage for summer, we could
Speaker 2: go through the bins of shoes. Many of which have
Speaker 2: shoes from like two years ago, because kids grow out
Speaker 2: of shoes and they get new ones and then the
Speaker 2: old ones are in the bin still and they're never
Speaker 2: going to wear the shoes from two years ago.
Speaker 1: So I don't know why we still have them sitting there.
Speaker 2: Tidying up the porch, I mean, we start hanging out
Speaker 2: on the porch a little bit more, doing chalk on
Speaker 2: the driveway and all that, and stuff just accumulates there.
Speaker 2: Still have stuff from last summer that's overwintered there on
Speaker 2: the porch and it is looking a little rougher as a
Speaker 2: result of having overwintered outside on the porch.
Speaker 1: I also want to clean out my car. It's time, Sarah.
Speaker 1: That's a twice a year activity for us.
Speaker 3: These days, we've moved from the once a year to
Speaker 3: twice a year, and it's oooh, it's about right.
Speaker 2: It's about right. Yeah, No, I think it could really
Speaker 2: use it. So I think of maybe a calling one
Speaker 2: of those services as they come to your driveway and
Speaker 2: like detail the whole car.
Speaker 1: I think, I think maybe I'll do that. You can
Speaker 1: totally do that a little treat for myself.
Speaker 2: All right, We're delighted to have Whitney English joining us again,
Speaker 2: the author of Organized First, Decorate Second, which will be
Speaker 2: out later this month.
Speaker 1: So let's hear what Whitney has to say.
Speaker 2: Well, Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Whitney English
Speaker 2: to the show. So Whitney, could you introduce yourself to
Speaker 2: our listeners.
Speaker 5: Hi, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 5: My name is Whitney English. I am an author and
Speaker 5: artist and designer, and I and a wife and a mom.
Speaker 5: I have three kids, ages fifteen, fourteen, and twelve. You
Speaker 5: have to do the math on that every time I
Speaker 5: feel it. And my second book is coming out on
Speaker 5: April twenty ninth. I think we're going to talk about
Speaker 5: that some and so anyway, that's the short version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. I have a couple kids around those ages too.
Speaker 2: My middle ones are fifteen and thirteen and ten, so
Speaker 2: appreciate how.
Speaker 1: That goes with the household.
Speaker 2: But yeah, let's talk about the book because you have
Speaker 2: a new one out called Organize First, Decorate Second, which
Speaker 2: seems to imply a certain worldview of how we should
Speaker 2: be doing things, what order we should be doing things.
Speaker 2: So I'm very curious why you decided to spread the
Speaker 2: message about that to order in which we should tackle things.
Speaker 4: That is a great question.
Speaker 5: Also, you've written several books as well, right, yes, a
Speaker 5: couple of which I've read.
Speaker 1: Oh well, well that's exciting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So there's nothing like a little intimidation factor realizing that
Speaker 5: I'm talking to an author who's written about productivity. So
Speaker 5: I have adhd I talk about this in the book.
Speaker 5: I know that that is a different experience for everyone.
Speaker 5: And I also love stuff, and stuff loves me. I
Speaker 5: am a magnet to stuff. I come by hoarding in
Speaker 5: a hereditary sense, I mean both sides. It's a strong gene.
Speaker 5: And I was just petting around the house one day,
Speaker 5: just tidying stuff up, and I thought to myself, it
Speaker 5: was that internal monologue that most women have, that just
Speaker 5: you're talking to yourself. You're telling yourself you can do this,
Speaker 5: or you're telling yourself you don't want to do it,
Speaker 5: or whatever it is. And I just thought to myself, organized,
Speaker 5: first decorate, second Whitney. And then as a writer, you're
Speaker 5: like that, that's a catchy ring to it. I don't know,
Speaker 5: and maybe that could be a book title. And then
Speaker 5: my editor said, give me some ideas and I threw
Speaker 5: that one out there and she said, yeah, let's explore this.
Speaker 5: I said, do you realize that I'm not naturally organized
Speaker 5: at all? And she insisted that that was the reason
Speaker 5: why I needed to write the book.
Speaker 4: So here we are.
Speaker 1: Here we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have learned to organize first and decorate second.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, what does ADHD do in terms of trying
Speaker 2: to create household systems and organize a home and run
Speaker 2: a family. I'm curious how exactly that plays out in
Speaker 2: terms of the challenges one might experience, how.
Speaker 5: It manifest itself. I think it's different for everyone. But
Speaker 5: for me, and I have not measured the chemicals in
Speaker 5: my brain, I don't even know if that's possible, not
Speaker 5: a neuroscientist, but for me, it feels like a lack
Speaker 5: of dopamine. The reason I say that is because whenever
Speaker 5: I do start getting stuff done, even if it's just
Speaker 5: small things, I notice a momentum that kind of picks up,
Speaker 5: that starts to feel like maybe we were going someplace
Speaker 5: here instead of just sitting here doing nothing or thinking
Speaker 5: I really need to go change the laundry. Or I
Speaker 5: really need to go prune the rose bushes. So sometimes
Speaker 5: I feel like exercising that mental muscle. I don't talk
Speaker 5: about this in the book, but I think, I mean,
Speaker 5: I think that the whole conversation is And really that's
Speaker 5: another reason for writing a book, because you're interested in something.
Speaker 5: You're like, I want to have a conversation about this
Speaker 5: and see if there are other people out there that
Speaker 5: want to talk about it too, even if their experiences
Speaker 5: might be different than mine. But in our house, several
Speaker 5: people have ADHD and it just ends up creating a
Speaker 5: lot of clutter over time. You know, kids drop their
Speaker 5: shoes by the back door. You can put a laundry
Speaker 5: basket right there, but they will drop the laundry right
Speaker 5: beside the laundry basket. And I do the same thing.
Speaker 5: So really, in writing it, I hope that people get
Speaker 5: the message that you just have to figure out what
Speaker 5: works for you. Yeah, and hack your own systems. That's
Speaker 5: really the crux of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so interesting because I think a lot of
Speaker 2: adult women realize at some point that they have ADHD or.
Speaker 1: Some other sort of neuro non typical wiring. Yeah, and it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't diagnosed when they were young because they're not a
Speaker 2: little boy jumping around in class, So it's not it
Speaker 2: doesn't manifest in the sort of stereotypical ways.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, I was diagnosed as an adult. In looking back,
Speaker 5: it made a lot of sense. I struggled as a student,
Speaker 5: just couldn't. Like there were just certain classes I could not.
Speaker 5: I think that's why I majored into your design. I
Speaker 5: think that's why I went into a creative field. It
Speaker 5: is because I'm like, I can do a project. I
Speaker 5: could stay up until four am and color pictures of
Speaker 5: interiors and paint things and craft things. But passing the
Speaker 5: marketing test was really tough for me, getting anything about
Speaker 5: a seventy six. I remember, I tried so hard. I
Speaker 5: just knew if I applied myself, I could do it,
Speaker 5: because I'm not dumb. But it's just really it was
Speaker 5: a big challenge.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Well, so let's dive into this a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of people wind up with that
Speaker 2: kind of spring cleaning energy at this time of year
Speaker 2: when this is airing and when as your book is
Speaker 2: coming out. So you've recasted getting organized. Part of this
Speaker 2: is decluttering. But you say you prefer the word editing.
Speaker 2: So I love editing myself when it comes to words.
Speaker 2: But why is editing the right way to think about
Speaker 2: our homes and our spaces.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great question. So I have two stories
Speaker 5: on that. A few years ago, we were in a
Speaker 5: different spot in life. I'm just gonna I'm gonna shorten
Speaker 5: the story, and I needed some help with my house,
Speaker 5: and so I reached out to a local interior designer.
Speaker 5: Even though I consider myself to be a designer, different
Speaker 5: designers have different skill sets. I don't like doing bookshelves.
Speaker 5: She liked doing bookshelves. Okay, you want to do my
Speaker 5: bookshlves do my bookshelves. And she said, okay, let's put
Speaker 5: together a Pinterest board. And we just started throwing things
Speaker 5: together and at one point in time, I can't remember
Speaker 5: how it came up, but she said, it really is
Speaker 5: just all about the edit. And I kind of let
Speaker 5: that sink in. She was a talented designer. I really
Speaker 5: appreciated her point of view and just the idea of
Speaker 5: reviewing these images and looking at them and editing the
Speaker 5: images to create a visual story. I mean, it's similar
Speaker 5: to using to editing words. We're creating a visual story
Speaker 5: on a private Pinterest board that tells us the direction
Speaker 5: that the story's going to go. So that resonated with
Speaker 5: me before that, and I do talk about this story
Speaker 5: in My mom I also say in the I grew
Speaker 5: up in a museum. We can talk about.
Speaker 4: We can talk about that too, if you want to
Speaker 4: unpack that.
Speaker 5: But I've unpacked that with my therapist a lot over
Speaker 5: the course of writing the book. But my mother came
Speaker 5: to visit me. I was living in Dallas. It was
Speaker 5: right after I had graduated from college, and I was
Speaker 5: working at a retail furniture sales job. And she left
Speaker 5: and I had gone to work that morning, and when
Speaker 5: I came home from work, she had left little tent
Speaker 5: cards all around my apartment on tabletops that said edit
Speaker 5: in big capital perfect handwriting letters.
Speaker 4: And it's funny.
Speaker 5: When I was writing that story, I told a few people,
Speaker 5: a couple of friends, and they were like, oh, my.
Speaker 4: Gosh, I would have been so offended.
Speaker 5: But I think the thing with my mom is you
Speaker 5: just can't get offended if you want a relationship with her,
Speaker 5: And so I didn't take it that way. I took
Speaker 5: it as Okay, someone loves me. They know that I
Speaker 5: have aspirations to have a beautiful home in a beautiful space,
Speaker 5: and she just means well by encouraging me to not
Speaker 5: have so many knickknacks lying around. I've noticed that in
Speaker 5: my own home, like if things start to feel too decluttered,
Speaker 5: I mean really, it's just going through and being like,
Speaker 5: does this serve me anymore? In picking and choosing and
Speaker 5: letting go of what doesn't.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: I mean with editing a story, editing a visual story,
Speaker 2: we were always just trying to remove what shouldn't be
Speaker 2: there in order to have the truth shine through.
Speaker 1: Well, We're going to take a quick ad break and I.
Speaker 2: Will be back with more from Whitney English. Well, I
Speaker 2: am back interviewing Whitney English, who is the author of
Speaker 2: the brand new book called Organized First, Decorate Second. She
Speaker 2: also has a great website, Whitney English, where you can
Speaker 2: find various wonderful things. I've purchased some planners off of
Speaker 2: there in the past, which.
Speaker 1: We could talk about later.
Speaker 2: But let's say that somebody is about to you know,
Speaker 2: they've got this spring cleaning energy, and yet they're like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: everything's a mess.
Speaker 1: I don't know where to start. Where should they start.
Speaker 5: You've heard that phrase eat that frog. I am not
Speaker 5: a fan of eating frogs.
Speaker 2: We're not eating frogs. And okay, I like, we're not
Speaker 2: eating frogs today. Okay, what are we doing?
Speaker 5: We are doing the easiest thing first. We are looking
Speaker 5: for the path of least resistance. You've probably also read
Speaker 5: Stephen Pressfield. He talks about the resistance capital R like
Speaker 5: that thing that creatives struggle against. And it's for me,
Speaker 5: back to the ADHD. It's all about just getting that
Speaker 5: dopamine going, just priming the pump, so to speak. And
Speaker 5: so if people pre order the book, the book comes
Speaker 5: on April twenty nine, but part of our pre order
Speaker 5: campaign is an email sequence. If someone goes to my
Speaker 5: website and orders the book, they will get added to
Speaker 5: an email sequence where I have recorded seven goofy videos.
Speaker 5: My twelve year old daughter edited them for me, so
Speaker 5: be prepared for goofiness. I mean, she did a good job,
Speaker 5: but it looks like it's just cute, you know. And
Speaker 5: we start with easy things. I am walking through a house,
Speaker 5: a maximalist house. I mean, you're going to see a
Speaker 5: basket of laundry in the hallway. In these videos, it's
Speaker 5: not perfect by any stretching the imagination. I'm trying to
Speaker 5: let people know that it doesn't have to be that
Speaker 5: it is totally. I think, you know, this day and age,
Speaker 5: with so much social media and so much perfection, I
Speaker 5: think theory. I think that especially with the rise of AI,
Speaker 5: we're going to be looking for signs from influencers that say, Okay,
Speaker 5: this person's real. I really think that those are going
Speaker 5: to become hallmarks. The fact that I totally have a
Speaker 5: ZiT on the side of my nose right now, a.
Speaker 2: Laundry in the hallway, yeah, walking through, and we're just
Speaker 2: doing the easiest stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what it sounds like right wherever you.
Speaker 5: Guys start, Yes, I was a rabbit trailing there. Yes,
Speaker 5: if you're getting there yet, yes, the easiest thing first.
Speaker 5: And I want to show people that that it is
Speaker 5: okay to have a basket of laundry in your home
Speaker 5: and still talk about organization and decoration. I would not
Speaker 5: consider myself to be an organization expert. Now, my friends
Speaker 5: do call me when they need help cleaning out a closet,
Speaker 5: and I'll go and ask them questions and help them
Speaker 5: get that stuff done. But I also kind of need
Speaker 5: someone to come do that for me sometimes too. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's so intimidating to think that someone's gonna think I'm
Speaker 5: the next Marie Condo or something.
Speaker 4: Definitely not.
Speaker 1: Well. I mean, you talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 2: I guess the way you put is more like gentle decluttering, right, Like,
Speaker 2: we're doing a gentle approach to this, And you actually
Speaker 2: have a couple of tips for making it more gentle, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, setting a time limit for any given day
Speaker 2: of how much temporal space you are devoting to organizing
Speaker 2: your home. What if you can talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about those ways of making it a little gentler on ourselves.
Speaker 5: Yes, So I learned that I did hire someone at
Speaker 5: one point in time to help me organize, and we
Speaker 5: were in my garage going through files. She was a
Speaker 5: nurse part time. She was kind of doing this organization
Speaker 5: thing on the side, and I was younger. I was
Speaker 5: this is probably twenty years ago. I got frustrated, and
Speaker 5: she wisely recognized she said, Okay, you're just tired, like
Speaker 5: your brain has made a bunch of decisions. We're done
Speaker 5: for the day. That story stuck with me because I
Speaker 5: learned something in that moment, this idea that if I
Speaker 5: push myself too hard, I'm going to burn out but
Speaker 5: in an afternoon, and I need to stop and rest
Speaker 5: and renew and find that balance. I think one of
Speaker 5: the things that the book talks about is the tension,
Speaker 5: like we live in an era of surplus, surplus of everything.
Speaker 5: There's marketing messages and all this stuff constantly coming at us,
Speaker 5: and we need to create space, both mental, emotional and
Speaker 5: physical space to let our eyes rest and our brains rest.
Speaker 5: But a little bit at a time, you know, you
Speaker 5: have to start somewhere. How do you eat an elephant?
Speaker 5: And by this time, yeah.
Speaker 1: We're eating elephants. No frogs today, though, that's right, but
Speaker 1: oh good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, so no, a little bit at a time,
Speaker 2: you know, like one drawer at a time or one
Speaker 2: shelf at a time, and eventually it all adds up,
Speaker 2: which is interesting because I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: have trouble sticking with things. And that was another topic,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, addressed through this lens of perhaps
Speaker 2: ADHD or other things. And sometimes people are like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm disorganized. They need a system. I need a new system,
Speaker 2: and then tomorrow they need another system. And a week later,
Speaker 2: it's going to be a third system. And you know,
Speaker 2: whereas sometimes the problem is like, no, you just need
Speaker 2: to finish whatever you started. Like whatever system is fine
Speaker 2: as long as you see it through to the end.
Speaker 2: And what I loved is you actually had a chart
Speaker 2: figuring out which flavor of chaos we were dealing with.
Speaker 2: Is this something that is from personal experience?
Speaker 5: I take it, yes, one hundred percent. I mean, as
Speaker 5: a creative, my world is full of half finished projects.
Speaker 5: I am sitting here looking at a painting that's halfway done.
Speaker 5: I mean, and there's nothing wrong with that, But I
Speaker 5: think that I've also discovered that that finishing things creates momentum.
Speaker 5: That's part of the dopamine hack, is finishing things creates momentum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so maybe so we try finishing a few
Speaker 2: things and then see if we still need a new system.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You also talk a little bit about a lot of
Speaker 2: people after we've organized and we're going to start decorating,
Speaker 2: I guess as the second step in the book title process.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, A lot of people don't know their style.
Speaker 2: And I think people who are very creative or who
Speaker 2: are oriented toward creating beautiful spaces. Trying that a little
Speaker 2: hard to believe, and people don't know where to start.
Speaker 2: And what I love is you actually gave people like
Speaker 2: a list of like five things you could buy as
Speaker 2: a basic styles starter and then figure it out from
Speaker 2: there to the idea of a basic couch. Right.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, So I love the design part of thinking.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's that's why I wrote the book.
Speaker 5: I want people to have like this access to these
Speaker 5: great design tips and these things that you can do
Speaker 5: that add so much beauty to the minutia that ordinary,
Speaker 5: even half finished projects are beautiful in their own right.
Speaker 5: That starter style was It's just something that came to
Speaker 5: my mind as I called through pictures and think about design.
Speaker 5: And I actually got a lot of these tips from
Speaker 5: a friend of mine, an interior designer named Holly Mathis.
Speaker 4: I talked about her in the book.
Speaker 5: She's a dear friend and she has a talented eye,
Speaker 5: and she was again helping me. We were just talking
Speaker 5: back and forth about how stuff and she's like, well,
Speaker 5: you need a white flip covered sofa. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: just it, like just start there. And she recommended Ikea.
Speaker 5: Now I actually recommend a different sofa in the book
Speaker 5: rather than Ikea, but for completely different reasons. I've learned
Speaker 5: that the back cushions on sofas floped down, especially with children,
Speaker 5: and so in the book, I say, you need a
Speaker 5: sofa with tight back, no crack by like one. Anyway,
Speaker 5: there is a perfect sofa out there. And then she
Speaker 5: taught me, you know a lot of designers say pick
Speaker 5: the rug first, but she said, go with a neutral rug,
Speaker 5: like go with the sisile or a seagrass rug. And
Speaker 5: then if you find cute little antique wool rugs, you
Speaker 5: can layer those on top of that rug. And that's
Speaker 5: a lot less expensive than going and buying a huge
Speaker 5: wool oriental rug from Pottery Born or whatever. And there
Speaker 5: are a few more tips for the starter style in there,
Speaker 5: and I really do love it when for a while
Speaker 5: on Instagram people were sending me pictures of their rooms
Speaker 5: and I was taking my iPad and drawing on top
Speaker 5: of them and showing them.
Speaker 4: What they could do.
Speaker 5: And there are so many little things that people can
Speaker 5: do that elevate and what I don't know and what
Speaker 5: I wonder and what I hope the conversation around this
Speaker 5: book leads to is there's a certain I think education
Speaker 5: of the eye that happens when you start to notice
Speaker 5: these things and then when you choose to go buy
Speaker 5: the sofa or use that strategy for decorating.
Speaker 4: I also talk a lot about lighting in the book.
Speaker 5: How is that changing things in a very subtle the
Speaker 5: ordinary can become sacred kind of way.
Speaker 4: That's what beauty does for me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it'll be interesting to hear what other people
Speaker 5: have to say about that.
Speaker 2: Too, particularly when you start with neutrals in for the
Speaker 2: basic big stuff. Then you could put in a lot
Speaker 2: of personality with smaller and perhaps more inexpensive items. So
Speaker 2: that's throw pillows or antiques or something interesting to put
Speaker 2: on the wall. Yes, you actually recommend, like shopping your
Speaker 2: own house. I'm really curious if you've had something like
Speaker 2: you've completely repurposed from one space to another that you
Speaker 2: felt like, oh, yeah, that was a big win.
Speaker 5: Oh I one hundred percent. Let me think I am
Speaker 5: constantly moving stuff around. I actually have an antique booth,
Speaker 5: and so things get shuffled back and forth quite frequently
Speaker 5: between the hanging hanging on the wall behind me was
Speaker 5: at the shop and it hadn't sold, and I didn't
Speaker 5: have anything hanging over my bed, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 5: I'll just hang that up there. So constantly shuffling things,
Speaker 5: I'm trying to think if there's a.
Speaker 4: One thing, one.
Speaker 5: Very repurpose space. We have a long, skinny room behind
Speaker 5: our kitchen. We call it the pantry, but it's a
Speaker 5: really big pantry for a pantry. We were going to
Speaker 5: have custom cabinet try put in there when we moved in.
Speaker 5: We moved in during twenty twenty, but we ended up
Speaker 5: putting in a septic tank instead.
Speaker 2: Not fun, not fun, but necessary, yeah, very and so
Speaker 2: the custom cabinet tree stalled out.
Speaker 5: So that room has never been finished, but little by
Speaker 5: little we have cobbled together different pieces. So somebody on
Speaker 5: Facebook Marketplace was giving away an entertainment center, you know
Speaker 5: those old big wall unit ones that nobody uses anymore.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I will take that. It was
Speaker 4: like in three pieces.
Speaker 5: We put one piece here, one piece here, and there's
Speaker 5: a metal wire. It's organized. There is a spot for everything,
Speaker 5: including the kids' shoes. They drop them right there when
Speaker 5: they walk in the door. There's a cabinet for them.
Speaker 5: Why they there's a cabinet. And then I actually the
Speaker 5: other day. I just I bought a shelf off Tu
Speaker 5: whatever it is. It's in the garage. I walked past
Speaker 5: it yesterday and looked down. I thought, why did I
Speaker 5: put a shelf there? There are no shoes on that shelf.
Speaker 5: But anyway, you try and try, and so yeah, our
Speaker 5: whole pantry has been a situation of repurposed and if
Speaker 5: I find something else that works better, I'll shuffle it out,
Speaker 5: re sell those pieces on Facebook, marketplace, things like that.
Speaker 4: One thing that never fails me is.
Speaker 5: And I picked up on this, I think by looking
Speaker 5: at people's Instagram photos, I like things, and I think
Speaker 5: we all like things that aren't plastic. I think we
Speaker 5: are drawn to natural wood. I mean, it could be
Speaker 5: pain and wood, but it's wood. It's just it's not
Speaker 5: for Mica, you know, it's not. And so that's another
Speaker 5: thing that I've noticed that gives things an enduring and
Speaker 5: repurposable value is if they're glass or organic in a sense.
Speaker 5: And those things actually sort of make up the basis
Speaker 5: of what I call starter style. This idea of somebody
Speaker 5: was actually a friend of mine that was a photographer
Speaker 5: was photographing my kitchen one day and she was like,
Speaker 5: how is your kitchen so photographable?
Speaker 4: Like you didn't do anything to it?
Speaker 5: And I just said, there's no plastic in it, Like
Speaker 5: everything that's on the counter is glass, or like a
Speaker 5: sitting in a metal tray, or there's no plastic. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 5: that's an interesting thought for listeners.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're going to take one more quick
Speaker 2: ad break and then I will be back with more
Speaker 2: from Whitney English. Well, I am back talking with Whitney English,
Speaker 2: who is the author of the new book Organized First,
Speaker 2: Decorate Second. But you've also had the whole business of
Speaker 2: selling planners and things along those lines, like notepads to
Speaker 2: help you organize your life.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could talk a little bit about.
Speaker 2: Like when you're coming up with planner concepts and all that,
Speaker 2: what are you thinking about, I mean, designing a planner.
Speaker 1: What is it really supposed to do for people that
Speaker 1: you need to get at in the design?
Speaker 5: So I created a planner called day Designer. Since sold
Speaker 5: that company, don't own it anymore, and then went out.
Speaker 5: It was really fun. We got it into Target. The
Speaker 5: company that licensed it for Target actually ended up purchasing it.
Speaker 5: I still work with them, still do some designs for
Speaker 5: them nowadays had a three year contract with them. When
Speaker 5: the non compete was up. After my consulting contract was over,
Speaker 5: I thought, you know what, I know how to make planners.
Speaker 5: I'll just make a planner again. I'll make a few
Speaker 5: refinements and adjustments. I think one of the interesting things
Speaker 5: about making a planner was that I like things to evolve.
Speaker 5: That when you build a customer base that's used having
Speaker 5: things one way, they don't like things to evolve. So
Speaker 5: starting another planner company felt like an opportunity to let
Speaker 5: the product evolve. And we're actually not going to be
Speaker 5: making planners anymore. I am licensing with different partners and
Speaker 5: still working in that space. But when I create a
Speaker 5: day designer, I used a wire rings notebook like just
Speaker 5: that student would use in college or high school or whatever.
Speaker 5: And I used pretty much a page a day. I mean,
Speaker 5: it was kind of like I would write down, this
Speaker 5: is my schedule, this is my to do list. It
Speaker 5: wasn't necessarily formalized like that. And I had always wanted
Speaker 5: to create a planner, and I work in all the
Speaker 5: Adobe Suitet products, So I laid something out in design
Speaker 5: and was just playing around with it. One thing led
Speaker 5: to another on a short story because the development of
Speaker 5: Datasigner happened over probably the course of three years.
Speaker 4: At first it.
Speaker 5: Was a weekly planner, and then I started realizing there
Speaker 5: were a ton of weekly planners on the market, and
Speaker 5: I really started thinking, I'm a very analytical creative. I
Speaker 5: can pick something apart figure out why it doesn't work.
Speaker 5: But I was standing in staples and I realized that
Speaker 5: what I needed was a daily planner. That's how I
Speaker 5: was using my viral notebook. And so middle of the
Speaker 5: night I was pregnant, went home, drew this thing out,
Speaker 5: took it in the next day to my production manager
Speaker 5: Anna and said, Okay, I need you to print this.
Speaker 4: And she did some.
Speaker 5: Amazing math and came back and said, if I print this,
Speaker 5: people are going to be carrying around a phone book.
Speaker 5: Whitney like, you're going to have to take some stuff
Speaker 5: out of it. And I mean it was a lot
Speaker 5: of math. We were like, okay, so it can't be weekly.
Speaker 5: We have to We wanted the paper to be a
Speaker 5: certain quality. We actually reverse engineered this. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: not just like sitting down and drawing gridlines on paper.
Speaker 5: That's the short version. The long version is we sourced
Speaker 5: covers in the United States. We sourced binding in the
Speaker 5: United States. We handmade those puppies for a solid year
Speaker 5: before we started producing in China. So it's actually interesting,
Speaker 5: especially with tariffs and stuff. Now I've been thinking about this.
Speaker 5: I'll just put this out there. But if anybody wants
Speaker 5: to make a planner and is trying to figure out
Speaker 5: how to make in the United States, I can tell
Speaker 5: you how to do that pro tip, right, so reach
Speaker 5: out or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Such a challenge.
Speaker 2: No, I mean to have the good paper, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the thing people have with dailyes is, of course there's
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days in a year exactly,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of paper, right, it.
Speaker 1: Is, it is.
Speaker 5: And so we ended up doing a combined weekend page. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and then we I realize now, in hindsight, if it
Speaker 5: had been a weekly and a daily together, it would
Speaker 5: have been too much. It really would have been too much.
Speaker 5: I talk a little bit about this in the book too.
Speaker 5: Different seasons call for different systems. There are times in
Speaker 5: life when I need a daily promoting The book right
Speaker 5: now is one of them that I am filling a
Speaker 5: page to day. There are times when I need a
Speaker 5: weekly spread and I just need to look at my
Speaker 5: week and see the three things that I have to
Speaker 5: do every day and mark those off. So I actually
Speaker 5: still have one planner idea that I've never executed on
Speaker 5: that I would love to execute on. I was thinking
Speaker 5: about this yesterday. I need to There's a few companies
Speaker 5: that I just need to reach out and be like,
Speaker 5: let's do this.
Speaker 4: Come on, we just need it.
Speaker 1: No, it's doing it. What's the whole of the market.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious just kind of.
Speaker 5: A weekly that I've never we've done. We still have
Speaker 5: a little bit of inventory on ours. People can still
Speaker 5: order them. We have dailies, and then we have a
Speaker 5: format called a week on one page, which is a
Speaker 5: fun format. It just it hasn't been sustainable. I'm really
Speaker 5: proud of the product that week on one page format.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 5: We did some really neat stuff with it where people
Speaker 5: could reuse the outer spine and there's just some cool features.
Speaker 5: But when you have to order fifteen hundred and you're
Speaker 5: only selling like two hundred on launch day, it just
Speaker 5: doesn't work to have a dated product that I mean,
Speaker 5: it's been pretty sad to throw away all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I notice that you switch to an undated one
Speaker 2: yet probably that you could keep selling at least for
Speaker 2: a few years. And in terms of inventory management, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it's a rough business. I've been fascinated watching it. My
Speaker 2: co host has a particular interest in planners, so oh
Speaker 2: really know it's the whole market, but yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 2: always love to see what people do to make themselves
Speaker 2: stand out.
Speaker 1: So wait, we always end with a love of the week.
Speaker 2: I can go first to I need give you a
Speaker 2: second to think about it, so I'm going to say
Speaker 2: online scheduling, like for anything, like for doctor appointments, for haircuts,
Speaker 2: for you know, if you can choose when the cable
Speaker 2: guy is coming, like anything where you don't have to
Speaker 2: go through a phone system, like you can actually just
Speaker 2: sit there like while you're waiting in line somewhere else,
Speaker 2: or do it at two am if you need to.
Speaker 1: It's just so much better. I wish everywhere had online scheduling.
Speaker 1: What's your love of the week.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go yesterday.
Speaker 5: I just really wanted a Slurpee from seven to eleven
Speaker 5: mm hm, and I wanted doctor pepper and cherry, you know,
Speaker 5: mixed together that the Doctor Pepper the cherry route still
Speaker 5: not frozen all the way so we can have them.
Speaker 5: So we might have to try again today, might.
Speaker 1: Have to try again. Yeah, that is a good combination.
Speaker 2: That's a you know, it's always sad when wait, we
Speaker 2: have wah wah around here. My kids go in and
Speaker 2: try and get their version of it, and like you know,
Speaker 2: if the red or the blue is like not in
Speaker 2: the proper texture, it's just a sad moment, not.
Speaker 4: Ready to go.
Speaker 1: It's not ready to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 2: Go around to different wallwas but yeah, Well, Whitney, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Where can people find.
Speaker 5: You at my website Whitney English dot com, on Instagram
Speaker 5: at Whitney English, and then more and more these days,
Speaker 5: I am really loving substach and I am Whitney English
Speaker 5: over there as well.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, Whitney, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, that was great, so exciting to have Whitney English
Speaker 2: on the show. I know Sarah and I have followed
Speaker 2: her career for a long time and we're fascinated to
Speaker 2: see what she's up to these days. So today's question,
Speaker 2: as we are coming into summer. We have somebody asking
Speaker 2: bathing suit ideas help Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yes, a perennial challenge for all of us. I think
Speaker 3: I will share a few of my favorite brands. I
Speaker 3: really like Athleta. They're kind of like my go to
Speaker 3: because they just have a ton of different cuts, including
Speaker 3: my favorite, which is like a two piece like but
Speaker 3: with shorts because you can then put a swim jacket
Speaker 3: over that if you want to and be just totally
Speaker 3: covered up, if you're like chasing k it not that
Speaker 3: you have to be, but if you want to be
Speaker 3: you just don't feel like having your body beyond display
Speaker 3: at like a kid's birthday party, it's just great.
Speaker 1: You're in like a workout outfit.
Speaker 3: You're good, and then if you want to show a
Speaker 3: little bit more, you take the jacket off, like whatever.
Speaker 3: Like I just think it's a nice happy medium and
Speaker 3: there's some like really different forgiving cuts there. I also
Speaker 3: did some browsing and Summersault is a brand I've ordered
Speaker 3: from before, and I saw this one piece that has
Speaker 3: like to me, it looked very well engineered, like there
Speaker 3: was a cut out, but it was like right in
Speaker 3: the right place, And I think that's a really popular
Speaker 3: brand for people kind of in their thirties, forties and beyond.
Speaker 3: And then another brand that I've heard a lot of
Speaker 3: about is Andy. One of my favorite fashion bloggers talks
Speaker 3: about this brand and I love that. When I went
Speaker 3: on their website, they actually have a category called chasing
Speaker 3: a Toddler and there are all these one pieces that
Speaker 3: are supposed to like stay in place. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm here for that category.
Speaker 1: That is good.
Speaker 3: And then my final note is that if you want
Speaker 3: to go two piece, but you're like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to show that much, there's a lot of high waisted
Speaker 3: stuff out there these days, and that can be a
Speaker 3: lot easier to pull off. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people are comfortable showing their skin like above their waist
Speaker 3: kind of versus like something really low slung.
Speaker 1: That's a look I'm going for these days.
Speaker 2: Yes, or too much flesh on the bottom of it,
Speaker 2: or many things that just don't need to be seen.
Speaker 2: So I wear the I have no great advice in this.
Speaker 2: I wear these speedo they're kind of rooshed rushed.
Speaker 1: How are you say that? Are U?
Speaker 2: C h eed at one pieces? And I am sure
Speaker 2: they are not the world's most stylish things. That they're
Speaker 2: a little stylish than your average more stylish than your
Speaker 2: average Speedo because I mean it's not for racing competitions.
Speaker 1: I think it's just more for wearing. But they don't move.
Speaker 2: I mean they stay put wide enough straps that they
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere, and the leg holes are at a
Speaker 2: place that is not going to reveal anything that you
Speaker 2: do not wish to reveal, so you might look into those.
Speaker 3: Speedo is an iconic classics swimbler brands, So I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: can't really go wrong, can't.
Speaker 2: Go wrong, can't go wrong? All right, Well, this has
Speaker 2: been best of both worlds. I have been interviewing Whitney English.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, 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.