Raising Wild Hearts

Summer Organization Tips with Nicole Gabai From B.Organized

Ryann Watkin

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Needing some inspiration to organize your school, home or office space? You're in the right place.... With over two decades of experience in professional organizing, Nicole Gabai offers a compelling blend of art, design, and practical wisdom to help you create a serene and functional living environment. Tune in to hear about The Art of Organizing, common mistakes people make when starting, how to help our kids be more organized and more!

💕Check out Nicole's Work at B. Organized here 

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Speaker 1:

When I'm seeing the way people live and I mean I see it over and over, just the way people think about stuff. They get attached. It represents something. It's my dad's you know collection of leather bound books. It's my mom's sweater collection. You know things that you know. Then it's like my mom's dining set. So now someone had three dining sets in their house. It's like, well, I think we need to reevaluate that.

Speaker 2:

Welcome, revolutionary mama, to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, educator, mom of three, rebel at heart and passionate soul, on a mission to empower and inspire you.

Speaker 2:

Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home, in our own minds and hearts, and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is healing, and so it is. Hello friends, welcome back to the raising wild hearts podcast. So excited that you're here today. Happy official start of summer. Um, it's I think I already said this, but it's felt like summer here in florida for a hot minute now, pun intended. But yeah, now we're finally like officially in summer according to the calendar, and I'm here for it. I always have like a weird transition from spring to summer. I don't know why, but I always feel a little like the way that I'm imagining people who live up north feel when the wintertime comes. Uh, there's a little bit of like a a seasonal sadness that comes up for me. So, anyway, but I'm, I'm here for it now and I just got to own the heat and so that's what I'm doing here. So, fellow Floridians, uh, I know you're in solidarity with me and everybody else yeah, enjoy your, your cooler summer up north. We are heading to Michigan for a couple of weeks, so actually, as this episode is airing, we might be on our way. So, yay for that. We're excited for some cooler weather and some lightning bugs and some lake time and some family time. So, yeah, that's like our kind of our highlight of the summer. Other than that, we are pretty low key, which is different. The past few summers we've traveled for like six to eight weeks, and this year, because we moved in December, which many of you know, we are just taking it a little, turning the volume down, going a little more low-key this summer. So, yeah, that's what felt good. So, yes, welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Let's get into today's interview. I'm talking to Nicole Gabay. Nicole is a certified virtual organizing professional with over two decades of hands-on organizing experience. Using her art and design background, she helps people bridge the gap between beautiful and functional to maximize organizing capacity. She grew up in a very disorganized home and so she says she knows firsthand the challenges, frustrations and impact these have on our lives. At the age of seven, she began creating organized spaces while attending a Montessori school in Paris, france. Later in life, organizing became her passion. I love that. She also talks a little bit about her background in corporate America and how that set her up to really learn the ropes, so to speak, on how to run organized and efficient systems. So she's got a wealth of knowledge. She's been doing this for 20 plus years.

Speaker 2:

We talk about so much in this episode. We talk about my organizing style. We talk about common mistakes people make when they start organizing. We talk about moving. We talk about how to help our kids be more organized. We talk about executive functioning, the energetics of clutter and so much more. If you enjoy this episode or know someone who could benefit from hearing Nicole's wisdom, please send them the link, and if you have 30 seconds and are feeling inspired, hop down and leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcast. I so appreciate all the reviews and the kind words and I read all of them and I love them. So thank you. It also helps get this podcast in front of more minds and hearts who need to hear it. All right, without further ado, let's jump in to my interview with Nicole Gabay. Nicole, welcome to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thank you, ryan, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm so excited that you're here and, once you know it, today is a perfect day to talk about organizing for a few different reasons, and I'm going to go into a little context here and a story of my life so you can like kind of see what you're working with here.

Speaker 2:

I would call myself not an organized person traditionally, but here is my organizing style. This is what I do, like I've realized my pattern. I procrastinate, so I let the mail pile up, or I let the car get really bad, or I let the room, you know, go beyond what it should, and then I ruminate on it. I go, oh my gosh, this is driving me crazy. Oh, and then I get to a point where I frantically need to get it all done in a half a day, and so that's what I was doing this morning, before this very interview with my car. I pulled everything out of my car. I'm like, oh my gosh, I should have done this two weeks ago. So what's your take on people's organization styles? Do you see that type of pattern a lot, or what are some patterns that you do see with the clients that you're working with?

Speaker 1:

That's a really good question and the fact that you're even noticing a pattern is great, because that at least gives you a starting point of you know where in the process you are and what you want to accomplish. And yeah, I see that a lot, so that I wrote a book about this specific kind of task format, because it kind of relates everywhere, whether it's papers, car, house, kids, rooms, kitchen, like it's all. It all has a theme. I feel like there is a formula theme. I feel like there is a formula. In fact I call it. I have a six-step process and I feel like there are very basic principles that we all have to go back to.

Speaker 1:

Even I have to go back to on occasion, and the procrastination piece is also very common. So, basically, whenever I come to a client's house and I see what's going on, quite often the most obvious is going to be the piles of paper and mail. So I know from my experience a pile of anything is a lot of decisions that haven't been made. So every piece of paper is a decision to be made. So you either have a task, you know it develops into something to do, or you're going to file it for very near future use, we'll call it near future, and then we're going to call it future use, which is archival. So it's those three things, or it's going in the trash. So there's really four things to think about. So when you look at the mail let's just talk about that one piece the first thing you want to do is divide it up and you know, take an hour. If you don't have an hour, take 15 minutes a day, and that's it. If you just dedicate 15 minutes to that pile, for sure you'll be okay by the end of the week. So once you open up everything, you're already getting rid of like 70% of the bulk, Cause. That was all the envelopes, the fillers, the whatever else came in something, or the um, you know, solicitations or whatever. So get rid of all of that. Now you're left with the bare bones what's in your tray, what's in your you know, right in front of you.

Speaker 1:

So you kind of divide it up now into is it a task, pay a bill? Is it write a letter, respond, rsvp, invitation? Is it a flyer for something coming up? Whatever it is, then the to-dos or the task pile is in the task pile and then the next pile is going to be do I need to file. This Is this I just received a declarations page for my homeowner's insurance. They still send it in print. It's like we can be as digital as we want but there's still stuff that comes in print.

Speaker 1:

So that piece of paper taken up a little space in my pile but that goes to file. That's like for archival purposes. You know, it's like I'm not going to use it tomorrow, I don't need it next week, but it needs to go in a in a retrievable place. So so there's those piles and then there's anything over catalogs, magazines, stuff for kids' school, anything else that's got some sort of glossy paper to it. That isn't a task per se. So there you have your separate sections of the mail and then you go back to that first pile that we call the to-do pile.

Speaker 1:

I also call it the flats because it's all the flat paper and then you're going to divide it a little further and say, okay, here's bills that need to be paid, or maybe you paid them already. And I also recommend if you can find someone else or a computerized version of any piece of paper you have, there's no need for you to keep it. So if you can trace, okay, I know I paid that bill, then you don't need this piece of paper. If you ever needed to pull up a history for tax purposes or anything else, you can call that vendor or that company and say, hey, can you send me an itemized list of what I paid this year? And pretty much anyone, any company, any entity can do that. So once you start whittling it down to that, you might find you really only got a couple of bills that need to be paid by check, which sort of nobody does, but some people do, and maybe you have a doctor's appointment reminders coming up. Okay, that goes on your to-do list. Make a phone call, make appointments, whatever, whatever.

Speaker 1:

So now you've separated out your mail and it's a much more manageable pile, and you know there's a couple of different ways depending on your lifestyle of like okay, now what do we do with it? So as far as the things you notice that are being filed for archival purpose, for example, in my book I talk about how you create a system for your papers, but the key is filing for retrieval. You don't want to just throw it in a file folder, put it in the drawer and hope someday you'll find it. That's like, yeah, that would be like the worst nightmare something misfiled, because then you're searching everywhere. So you have to always think of recall. What will I think of when I need this piece of paper? Yep, um, so that's. That's to the filing side of it. And then when you have your pile of, here's the things I really need action on.

Speaker 1:

You can do a few things. If you have a home management desk, a little home office, whatever your space is to manage the home, or if it's in your business, either one, then that could be your action pile and you just are going to keep working on it as you get through all of your to-dos. Or you might want it to be portable. You might be like you know what? Today I'm going to be sitting in a soccer game for an hour, or I'm going to be waiting for the pickup line for the kids. I'll be sitting there for a half hour, whatever. Bring all your to-dos in a folder and then you can quickly flip through it and be like you know what? I have time to make two phone calls, I'm just sitting here. So there's your portable piece of it and that way it's in the back of your mind. But you know you're taking action. So in that regard.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully it doesn't feel like procrastination and then hopefully it doesn't create that ruminating Right, I love the idea of having a to-do file, like just a Manila folder, where you know that you need to take action on these things. Typically, like, I found a system. I'm mostly digital, but I do still like paper and so I get caught up between like, oh, my digital calendar, my paper calendar, all the paper things, and then all the digital bills and all the things, because there's stuff in every place, all the digital bills and all the things, because there's stuff in every place. You know what I'm saying. So I think what, like what I'm hearing you say, is to streamline a system, and I'm really excited to dig into your book, actually, because I, you know, one of the things that I get caught up to is filing and, you know, having things be accessible to pull up things that I might need be accessible, to pull up things that I might need, and so there's like, yeah, right, there's all these moving pieces to it. Okay, I love this so far.

Speaker 2:

And when you said, when you see a pile of paper, it's decisions that haven't been made yet, that blew my mind. I think this is where and I'm speaking for myself and probably many others I think that's where a little bit of anxiety comes in, where we look at this pile and we go, oh my God, I have 15 decisions that I have to make, and so that can feel overwhelming. It's not even the actual paper. It's the decisions that need to be made and the actions that need to be taken. So that was a big aha moment for me. I mean, it makes sense for sure, totally.

Speaker 1:

And I one little comment I have about that too is I I've been learning in my own self, growth and healing and all of that I come to find that overwhelm is a choice. We don't have to fall into it, because if we see that pile and there is a thing called free floating anxiety and it is something that I work with my clients on and that what you're describing is very real, it's a thing. It's that thing. That's like you can't put your finger on it, but oh my God, every time I look at that desk I know I'm missing something.

Speaker 1:

So that is a very real thing and that's why I recommend like carve out 15 minutes because I can, you know, I can imagine I don't have kids, but I work with moms a lot and I see the pattern and the busy schedules and I know moms are conscientious and you automatically take on that I need to make a decision. But I need time, I need like a moment of calm when I can think this through and actually make a sound decision, and I think just that process alone it's like when am I going to get those 10 minutes to really look at that paper and decide? And that is a challenge for sure, I do feel that, if we can carve out those 15 minutes at the end of the day maybe when the kids fall asleep or at some point when you still have a little more energy left maybe it's at 5am, you know, I know a lot of people do that wake up before the household, take those 15 minutes to say all right, I can do three decisions today and that's it. Make it, you know, bite-sized pieces.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like that and I love that. You said overwhelm was a choice. So let's talk about moving. We moved in December and I was like, oh, I mean, at a certain point I was like, is my life ever going to be normal again? Like I felt like I am never going to be normal again, I'm never going to feel normal again and I'm finally really coming up from air like for air on that. So it's been like six months.

Speaker 2:

But we thought, oh, we're we kind of downsized. So we moved into a different area that was closer to the beach and more of a metropolitan area. So we downsized. So I thought like, oh, we're getting rid of so much stuff, Like we're going to be minimalist, we like it's going to be so organized. And then we got there and it wasn't. And so I was like, oh God, this is not what I envisioned. And so we're still very much like tweaking the different things. We got everything in and then I've been going one room at a time, one closet at a time and, you know, pairing through even more and getting kind of systems going in each room. So let's talk about your best tips and tricks for moving, because I know that's universal across the board. We all need help with this.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. I mean in my book I do go into the planning for a move, the method of keeping organized before, during and after your move. So I do have a lot more in-depth suggestions on that subject. But in the process part that you're in now there is again. I go back to my six-step process and my primary three principles is always divide every room into sections, divide and within those sections, assign a zone to each item, and I'll explain that in a minute. And then the third piece of my system that is very foundational is then you think about the storage item that you want Containers, the pretty stuff, the whatever, yeah. So the key thing is yes, you know, the sorting and purging happens as you go. So I don't even mention that as a foundation because it happens naturally as you're going. The key thing where the decision part is is whatever space you're in you want to, there's like broad brushstroke and then it gets smaller and smaller. So say you've got the whole house. You're going to divide that house up into sections. This is going to be our cooking section. This is where we're reading section. This is kids play section. In our bedrooms we're going to have the closet. This closet is going to be. You know, depending where you live, it's going to be my spring summer clothes, this section is going to be the winter clothes or whatever sections you can group things into. And once you're in your section, so with your moving process and your opening boxes and you're uncovering things because maybe before the move you didn't do enough pairing down. So you're going to keep doing that as you go until you're till you find what I call back to one. But I'll go to that in a minute. But as you're dividing things up into the sections, really you're kind of sorting this, but it's a little deeper because you're assigning a specific activity to each section. So if your closet is going to be the toy closet, that's the activity To kids, anything related to playtime, whatever it is. So that's like the first broad brushstroke and it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be divided up into its final resting place. You know it's like first give it a, just a place to a holder, placeholder, you can have a box, you can have whatever, as just let's get things sorted basically. But you're into sections. So now you have an activity.

Speaker 1:

Now what I like to do next, I call the zones principle. It's extremely important. So what you do within each section is you assign, based on the um priority of use and priority of um, what that item is in your life. You set it up as zone one, zone two, zone three. Zone one items are the things you're going to use all the time. So if it's kids' toys, what are they into right now? Zone one items are there easiest to reach.

Speaker 1:

If you're in your home office, what papers are you using right now? That's zone one. All your supplies. Zone one your stapler, your Post-it notes, your, whatever else you have, your tape, your scissors, all the basics. Those are zone one, tax information.

Speaker 1:

I sometimes go to a client's house and it's like beautiful office. They've set up a home office and then they're opening the drawers like nothing fits. Oh, my God, I need to rent another storage facility. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no. I opened the drawer and then there's taxes there from 18 years ago. No, no, no, because it's not helpful in your current day life, because you want your zone one items at your fingertips.

Speaker 1:

All that stuff that's zone two is a little bit less used. Zone three even less. And maybe if you have a zone fourth, that's like storage, you need it on your premises. Someday you might need it. Maybe that's old family photos. Yes, you're that to the photo project at some point, but it doesn't have to sit in your living room all the time. So thinking of things, of moving things along in what zone it belongs in, that also relieves a lot of the um, what I call the bottleneck, because things get piled on top of piles and you're like how do I sort this? And it needs a way deeper level than just do I love it? Does it make me happy? Okay, that's a great starting point, but what do you do with it after that?

Speaker 2:

Right, this is like more nuanced than like just throw it all out, cause sometimes I'm just like just throw everything out, but it's not. It doesn't work like that, it's not that simple yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's not. No, this is like the zone thing. I'm feeling really inspired, as you're describing it. I'm picturing this photo project that I like, a scrapbook that I have in the corner of my closet. But then I'm picturing, you know, all the kids art supplies which are definitely zone one. We use them all the time and we have this cabinet where we just kind of like throw everything in, but every once in a while I get in there and kind of sort back Okay, the glue with the glue, the tape with the tape. You know that kind of a thing Exactly. This makes it more approachable, I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Right, yes, it allows you to really make decisions on what's in front of you, right, rather than I have all these things in front of me, okay. On what's in front of you, right, rather than I have all these things in front of me, okay. But the story doesn't end there, right, you know? And then, within that zone, process, like you said, all the art supplies you're using right now with your kids. Well, maybe in a year you'd have to re-evaluate. They grew out of this. They're not using Play-Doh or finger paints Now. They're using this other stuff, or finger paints Now they're using this other stuff.

Speaker 1:

And then, once you have your zone set up, then you think about your containers. Okay, depends on the age of the kids. Do you want, like a little rolling rack with drawers? Can they wheel stuff out? Do they need a box with a top on it that has a holder? Do they need a big box because they're bigger kids, or is it a small box Because they're not going to pull out a big, giant box, for example, filled with stuff? So that's your opportunity to really think it through. What would be ideal here? Would it be a box or would it be a drawer? Very different uses between a box and a drawer. Does that make sense? Totally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm curious what your take is on like the energetics of clutter and broken things and just stuff kind of sitting around Like do you have an opinion on why Cause for me, if I walk into a room and it's messy or cluttered or there's things everywhere, I don't feel right, Like something feels off, and so I like to walk into a room where everything has its place and like kind of like we're talking about. So do you have a take like a little woo take on the energetics of why some of us feel this um, you know, I want to say overwhelm, it is a choice but why we feel a little off when we go into a room? That's kind of messy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, no, that's very good. It's a very good question and a good observation about what it makes you feel, because really, the whole point of getting organized is so you have peace of mind. It's part of self-care. You have enough things in life that complicate your thoughts. You know walking into a room doesn't have to be one of them, yeah, so, yes, there are times when little sections of the room get a little overstuffed, overcrowded, whatever, and when you see anything like that, like too many, it could be anything I used to have last summer. I collected not that I bought them, but I had vases for flowers all over the place and I was like, well, I use them. But when I really stopped and took stock for 15 minutes, I go, wait, do I really use them? And then I was like, well, actually, this one is so old fashioned I think I need to donate that. Or actually, this one reminds me of an ex and I don't need that around. You know.

Speaker 1:

So, once you really start to pay attention, you can reevaluate. So, anywhere you see that what you're seeing, that pile of stuff, the grouping of things that looks cluttered, that's your trigger, that's your cue to say, all right, I need to sit with this for 15 minutes. What's really here? So the part about things broken, yes, right away. I mean in feng shui it's. It is part of the principle that we don't keep broken things. We don't if it's chipped, you're not going to use it. I mean, if it's broken and you really think you can glue it together, then I say I call it my Geppetto table, bring it to your little, your little work spot where you're going to pull out that super glue that the kids don't touch, you know, if you really think you can fix it. But other than that, if it's chipped and cracked, if it's broken, discolored, you're not going to use it. And it's not good, juju, it's like it's just not.

Speaker 1:

I know the feeling like I do have something special for my grandmother, for example, and it's like this beautiful little ceramic thing with like 10 flowers and I think one flower fell off. It's okay, like that thing isn't ruined and it was my grandmother, so. And then it's a matter of quantity, like how many pieces or items or whatever it happens to be kids' artwork, how many do you really need to keep? You know, depending on how much room you have and depending really on how much you really need to process Like, oh, I want to remember my kid's artwork when he was in first grade. Well, maybe he did, I don't know 150 pieces, but you only really want to keep the best 20. You know you have that sentimental connection. It's not gone forever, but once you start to evaluate and you look at each thing, it's the same with, like, greeting cards. You could have tons of cards from the holidays, from your birthdays, the kids' birthdays, and you're like, oh, my aunt, this and this one gave me that and that's all lovely.

Speaker 1:

I really say I suggest look at the inside of the card. Was it a written note that's really personal and meant something to you? Then you keep it. If it's just love Debbie, well I don't know, maybe that's not so meaningful. So it's those kinds of questions to ask ourselves in order to whittle things down further.

Speaker 2:

Right, and so I love that you're framing this as self-care. I love that we're talking about the awareness and like the mindfulness aspect of it, because this isn't just like organize my house, this is like how you do. One thing is how you do everything. Like you talk about your. The book of your title is the title of your book. Is it the art of organizing, an artful guide to an organized life, not an organized closet, not an organized car, and organized life so like this is all encompassing. It's not just like clean out the cabinet type of stuff. How long did it take you to discover that it wasn't just about the closet, it wasn't just about the kitchen?

Speaker 1:

I think as my career progressed and I was working maybe in bigger and bigger spaces, bigger homes, bigger apartments, so that if I heard somebody saying in a big house I'll have no room for anything, I think I need to get a shed in the back and I was like I would think to myself there's just no way. I'm sure there is so much underutilized space or decisions left unmade, things like that. And once I get into someone's home or it could be the office I think of it as a holistic approach, because it's never in isolation, it's never just my closet. If I got the closet done, the house would be great, because in my experience I've seen that once we get to that closet we're going to see things that didn't belong there. It's not in that section, you don't use it there, it ended up there. So now we start to pull apart things that didn't belong and put them in other sections. That made more sense for you. And once I see that, that's where I see this holistic process, that right now it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

I'm doing virtual organizing now as well. I just got certified. I'm one of only about 100 people in the world that are certified and it's fabulous because not only clients can be anywhere, but the client has a little more control over what I see Like they'll be like I want to work in this section only. Okay, that's fine. But inevitably I'm like do you think I could see what's behind that?

Speaker 2:

other door.

Speaker 1:

And how about that? Oh, you just passed a closet. Can I see what's in that closet? Once I start, oh, is this another cabinet? Can I see what's in that cabinet? And then I'll be like yeah, but no, this door is broken, it doesn't work. Oh, the hinge. She's like I can't deal with that. I'm like actually that hinge is the key for so much that can go in that cabinet. And suddenly the hinge is much more important than she thought. Originally she was like that door is a pain, I don't need to fix it, it's just a silly hinge. But because it represented opening up the bottleneck, you know what I mean. So now you start to see there's a flow in a home, there's a flow in an office.

Speaker 1:

So I think over time and just learning people better, you know, and like inviting me into their home is a very personal, intimate thing. You know I'm getting right in the trenches with someone, with a client. You know I'm seeing it all. Sometimes people have said to me you know more than my therapist does because I'm seeing the issues tangibly. You know it's not just theoretical. So when I'm seeing the way people live and I mean I see it over and over, just the way people think about stuff. They get attached. It represents something. It's my dad's you know a collection of leather bound books. It's my mom's sweater collection you know things that you know. Then it's like my mom's dining set. So now someone had three dining sets in their house. It's like, well, I think we need to reevaluate that.

Speaker 2:

Right, there's this psychological and emotional component to all of it which is so interesting and then, too, like, this is kind of reminding me or bringing up that a lot of this is about our daily habits too. Like, when we get the mail out of the mailbox, what do we do with it? Do we put it in the pile and not look at it, or do we right then take the three minutes to sort through it at the moment, right To not have the pile? And so, like, this habit thing is coming up for me because I'm really becoming aware of my habits on a daily basis. It affects the whole family. You know what we do as adults. It affects everybody. So, okay, let's talk about some of the mistakes that you're seeing. When people are like I'm going to organize, I got this, I'm imagining correct me if I'm wrong that one of the mistakes is going to target and getting all the cute bins first, which you alluded to already. So let's dive into what mistakes are we making.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, it's the buying, all the pretty things, and then that's the containerizing part of the principles, and you cannot do it. First, you just can't People come into their home and they'll say I just bought all this great stuff from Container Store, can't? People will come into their home and they'll say I just bought all this great stuff from Container Store. Look at how pretty it is. Why can't I get organized? Well, we have to first see what's left, what you're really keeping, how you want to use that, those things, and then you decide, like I was saying, is it a box to pile things or is it a drawer to pull stuff out? Is it a portable box with handles or is it a little cabinet on wheels?

Speaker 1:

So you really want to think about what it is you're storing before you go out and buy the stuff. You might need a bookcase, but you don't know yet, because once you've got the stuff together and anytime I see a pile on the floor, that generally means you need shelving, because shelving is like your best friend. So, but it's like what kind of shelving? Does the shelving need to move and be on wheels, or is the shelving part cabinet doors on the bottom and part open shelves on the top Is the cabinet, does it have to be kid height or is this going to be in the grownups living room side or whatever? So unless you know, until you know, what you're really keeping and what you're storing, it does not make sense to decide those pretty containers until after that.

Speaker 2:

That's a bummer.

Speaker 1:

I know People show me all this stuff and I'm like, hmm, how would we use this particular item? And they'd be like I don't know what. It was really pretty and it's on sale.

Speaker 2:

Totally. I have like a. I have a stack or a pile of bins that are all various shapes and sizes and colors. I'm like, where did these all come from? Every once in a while, I'll, you know, find one in the pile. That is like the perfect thing for what I'm looking for. But yeah, that makes so much sense. Let's talk about the name of your book. I love how you call it the art of organizing instead of like the systematic principles of efficiently organizing or something like that.

Speaker 2:

I love that you describe it as an art and maybe you could dive into why, to you, it's an art and where that came from.

Speaker 1:

Well, the background of that is definitely because I'm an artist. I have that orientation. Naturally I'm very visual. I studied textile design, I was a textile designer for a while. So I am you know by you know my heart's choice and artists.

Speaker 1:

So that's always informing what I do. I want it to look pretty, I want it to be functional, but it has to be beautiful. So I like to think that there's always a way to bridge that gap. You know, um, and then I also feel like the art of organizing is because it might sound funny, but we want to find workarounds that are intuitively helpful to my client. I feel like my job is to understand how my client thinks, get inside their head and see what they do, how do they live. So my job is to understand that and then create a system around that. And to me that's a very it's an artful way, because you're trying to quote unquote, think outside the box. So you want to.

Speaker 1:

That, to me, is the creative part of it. There's not like one formula with one kind of box. You know, I've seen styles of organizing where it's like we're going to put all the red things here, the green things here, the yellow things here. I mean that might look pretty because it looks great in a picture, but I definitely don't think I'm going to store my red bottle for cleaning the floor with my red shampoo bottle, with my red Tabasco sauce, with my. You know, it's like, wait a minute, we need to go. That's when the sections are necessary. So storing things by color, in and of itself, though it might look pretty, it's not really going to be practical, right?

Speaker 2:

So I love a good bookshelf organized like by the rainbow. I like that I can do you know, it is pretty. I don't do it personally, but I've seen pictures and I'm like, wow, that's really cool that that person did that?

Speaker 1:

What if you just combined your favorite novel with a book about you know your favorite recipes that you're going to use in the kitchen, and you mix that with your child's favorite bedtime story and that's combined with your husband's engineering book about lighting? It's like, oh my God, how would you ever find anything Right?

Speaker 2:

That is so true. I'm thinking about my bookshelf right now and we've got. We do have like a kid section and an adult section, but they are not organized by topic, but that would make more sense than by color.

Speaker 1:

That's for sure, I know. See, I don't know why people don't think of that, but I think of it. Like you go to the library, you don't go show me all the red books you have, right, I want to see the books on parenting for four-year-olds? Yeah, I want to see, you know uh, action thriller novels. Yeah, you don't look for the purple book, right?

Speaker 1:

that's so funny actually it's so true, I know, and actually it's very funny. I was seeing I think I saw some meme or something come up on my feed or whatever, and it was about librarians and the funny things that they say because of what questions people ask. And there was one that was like classic question. People ask a librarian and it'll say I'm looking for this book and I know it has a red cover and I know it has a red cover. So they actually the librarian set up an entire shelving unit with like 95 red covered books and I'll be like well, perhaps you couldn't find it there.

Speaker 2:

That's so funny. Oh my gosh, like Dewey Decimal System is a. I remember learning that in like first grade. It works, it works.

Speaker 1:

It's helpful it is, and I mean, all we have to do is really look at how stores we go into are organized. The big picture If you go to Walmart, you go to the automotive section, you go to the home decor section, you go to the kids section, you go to the kids section, everything's divided into sections. Yeah, that's everywhere. Home central, I mean wherever we go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

CVS even did it, so they streamlined it. In any CVS you go to, you're going to find the toothpaste in the same section, right?

Speaker 2:

So it makes so much sense. Like it's like oh yeah, that makes so much sense, it's so logical. So why do people, why do we have such a hard time doing it? Like, do you think it's an executive functioning thing? Do you think we just didn't learn properly? Like, are you finding that once you teach your clients like they can kind of like read your book, work with you and then kind of get up and go and like they they've got it on their own? Like, do we just need to learn how? Like, what's the what's the thing that's holding us up?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a great question and there's a couple of parts to it, but essentially I think it's a skill that anyone can learn and I don't think it's a problem in general for executive functioning. There are other. There are reasons why people have, you know, challenges with that. You know it could be ADHD, it could be other, you know very real challenges. But in general or for sure, I think it's a skill that anyone can learn. And two things about that If you didn't learn it at home from your parents like if their parents didn't have that skill then where are you going to really learn it? And the other thing is at school, when kids are young, it is there. This is the reading section for the kids. This is where they play with their blocks. This is the art section. This is where we take naps. Every kindergarten early learning room is set up in sections, so kids do get that, even if it's a short time. But if it doesn't translate at home, then there is too much confusion around that. So the next place where I think people can learn it but not everyone has the opportunity is to work in a corporate environment.

Speaker 1:

And once you, I worked in corporate America for about really for about 10 years, so in different capacities. So first it was an office environment, but then I worked in TV production, and so each of those areas has their like overarching organizing system. And I worked at MTV, which at first is like, oh wow, that's so creative and funky and oh my God, how cool. It's a corporation. Everything in there is systematized. That's where I learned everything. Filing for retrieval you have 75 different subjects and sections. This is where we do editing. This is where we store things for editing. You know what I mean? It's like. This is where we store fan mail stuff. So I learned, without knowing it at the beginning, that I was learning systems, and the corporate environment is where we can see that and how it functions, how we store for retrieval. I mean, of course, now more and more things can be retrieved digitally, but even our computers, we still need a method of retrieval.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so, yeah, so. I think it's something that anyone can learn, but if you are not exposed to it, you can't divine how to do it. It's just not, um, it's not like that. You know, and I've had a lot of moms tell me oh my gosh, why don't they teach this to the kids in school? And I love that idea. I would love to teach kids this and, interestingly, my book, because I illustrated the whole book. It's all got my original artwork and um and all that fun stuff. Kids love it and kids want to be organized. They need structure. Yeah, and I've seen eight, nine and 10 year olds love this book, so it's kind of reaches both audiences.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's really cool because through this conversation I've been thinking how to intentionally model this for my kids so that they can have some sort of sense as they go out and, you know, fly the nest, and so they can have an organized and efficient home life, you know. So I'm trying to figure out how to bring them into like some of the developmentally appropriate daily tasks, like daily, weekly, monthly that we're doing to keep the home running smoothly. So I've got that kind of in the back of my mind. So you've definitely inspired me to do that and to get your book and to share it with my kids.

Speaker 1:

So thank, you so much. Oh, awesome, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So before I ask you the few questions that I ask everybody at the end of the interview, I would love to know and tell us where we can find you, follow you, learn about your work and get your book too.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, Thank you. So they can go to my Instagram page, which is my name. It's at, Nicole Gabay, and pretty much everything on there is tips and ideas for organizing and whether it's kids rooms or travel or your car. You know I try to give ideas in every subject. Also, my website, which is my business name, is Be Organized. So the website is just the letter B hyphen organized O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E-Dnet B-organizednet. So that's my website and um, and yeah, so those are really the two main places where people can find me and the book is available everywhere. Um, definitely on Amazon, but if you support your local bookstore, it's uh, it I. The book is being distributed by a company that distributes worldwide to every bookstore, so you can ask for it if it's not already on the shelf, and um, and then look out on my Instagram I'm posting like I'm doing book talks this summer.

Speaker 1:

A lot of libraries, Um, and you know I've done some in Florida, I've done some. I live on Cape Cod, so I'm going to be all over the Cape this summer doing talks and, and then if you're interested in doing a consultation with me, please send me an email, drop me a note, call me whichever you want, and we could also look at whether digital, the virtual format of organizing, is helpful for someone or, if you want, in-person. So both are extremely helpful and in fact, I'll just quickly add something that you touched on earlier about how do people learn this skill. Another way that we have now learned about virtual organizing is what's called the skill transfer, Because I am with the client, one-on-one, in real time in their space and I am like an instructor. I'm guiding every single item and decision-making.

Speaker 1:

And now we've learned with virtual organizing that there is an actual. People are growing synapses in their brain on doing things differently because they don't have that skill, the synapses that was taking them in the wrong path to get to the mess. Now they're learning a new way of deciding things and those old synapses are going, they're disappearing. So people are also. You know there is a real learning here and and the repetition, the habit forming, is a real thing. So, yes, people are learning to do it themselves.

Speaker 2:

I believe that that's so powerful too. I mean, I started off this conversation saying I don't consider myself an organized person and, honestly, like I changed my mind. I already like I am and I'm learning like by doing it Right and but I don't think it was innate. I didn't learn how in school. It wasn't necessarily modeled at home like a little bit, but not super inefficient or, you know, streamlined way. So I think that we learn as we go and by doing. You're not like going in there and like doing this for somebody.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I'm sure that is part of what you offer Are some people that want that, but I think more and more people they just they want to learn it so they can maintain it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, makes so much sense. Okay, that's amazing. So I'll link all those in the show notes too, so you can go down and click and find Nicole and her amazing work. Thank you so much, and now I'm going to ask you the three questions I ask everybody at the end of the interview, and the first one is what's bringing you joy today?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. I'm going to go down into my art studio today and just paint and draw and just joyfully dig in to whatever's juicy. For me today, that would be the main thing. Did you say three things or one thing?

Speaker 2:

One. You can name three things or one thing. I've got three questions. That was the first, but that's amazing. Yes, Thank you.

Speaker 1:

I love it, the number one of my day, yes.

Speaker 2:

Love it. And then the second question is who or what have you learned the most from?

Speaker 1:

I guess what you know. I learned the most from the challenges where I fall flat on my face and be like, wow, well, that didn't work. So you know, I think experience is where I've learned the most. I did not grow up in an organized home at all. It was chaos and crazy and because of my work environment it was like sink or swim. I have to learn this stuff. So I started to learn it and I think, because I had to learn it, it became, you know, there were deeper and deeper levels of that. So I've actually spent an enormous amount of time thinking about some of these things and I'm finally like that's why it's so easy to find stuff in a Walmart, because the sections. So then you know what I mean. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about it when it was so hard at first to articulate it. So I think the challenges is what teaches us the most.

Speaker 2:

Amazing, thank you. We talk about that a ton on this podcast, and so that is just a perfect answer. And so, so true. And though the challenges quite often don't feel good and they are hard and they are like trudging through the muck, it is so valuable to come out the other side and go wow, I did that, I learned that, I got through that. So thank you for sharing that. And then the last question I have for you is what, if anything, are you reading right now?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I suddenly realized I'm enjoying reading psychological thrillers and I am almost finished with a book called Indigo Bird and it's by actually a local, uh, author from Cape Cod and it's fabulous, so interesting. I'm not a super fast reader, so, but this one took me only like days to read. It was so good and um, and it takes place in this local area on Cape Cod and it's brilliant the way he wrote it, so I'm loving that book.

Speaker 2:

Cool. That sounds like a good uh, what we would call here in Florida beach read, you know one of those stories that you just like can't put down. I love those. That's a good one for that, yeah, awesome. Thank you so much, nicole, for sharing your words and your wisdom with us today. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you, I appreciate you and thanks for having me.