Get Organized to Live on Purpose | Jennifer Ford Berry

Episode graphic

In this episode:

Organize your time, spaces, energy, and finances to experience your best purpose. A Christian approach to organizing and making room.

About Jennifer Ford Berry:

Jennifer Ford Berry is a certified professional organizer and life coach, She is also a best-selling author of 5 books and the host of The 29 Minute Mom podcast. Her newest book, Make Room, was just released this summer. Jennifer is passionate about helping women clear away the clutter that is distracting them from living out their God-given purpose and life calling. She resides between Western NY and Indian Rocks Beach, FL.

(Article contains affiliate links. This means that when you click a link and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission from that purchase.)

Quotes to Remember from Jennifer Ford Berry:

  • If you're just feeling like you're ready for a new chapter, the first thing you want to do is clear out the old and make room for the new.
  • It's very liberating and therapeutic to just kind of start with space clutter, like physical clutter, that is no longer serving you and go space by space. And when you do that, you free up not only space for new things to come in, but you free up mental clutter, you free up energy that might be stuck, and you start to get excited.
  • It's not just knickknacks and clothes and shoes, it's also relationship clutter, mental clutter, physical clutter, emotional clutter, and that stuff really holds us back as women when we're trying to fulfill something that's inside of us.
  • We need to find out how we fill ourselves up that doesn't require more things.
  • Our homes should definitely represent who we are in our families in the one place on the entire earth that is just for us.
  • Parting with anything that is left to us from people from previous generations is not parting with them, it's still just a physical thing.
  • It really comes down to two main questions. Do I love this item? Do I use this item?
  • The more you make room for things, the more you grow as a person.
  • We fill our calendars, we fill our homes, we fill our closets, we fill everything, and there's no room for God to get through and say, "Hey, you're supposed to be over here doing that."

Resources

Book Make Room

29 Minute Mom podcast

Created Order Neighborhood – group and monthly coaching

Episode Sponsor

Classic Marriage: Staying in Love as Your Odometer Climbs (book)

Transcript

Michelle Rayburn 00:00
Do you feel as if you have too much of everything right now? Too much clothing, too many gadgets, too many electronics, too much in your schedule, too much in your mind. You're gonna relate to this episode. Jennifer Ford Berry is here to talk about how we can make room. She's an expert on organizing but also in tying the faith element into that. And just seeing how God is really the hub of all of the organization that needs to happen in our lives. So in her book Make Room, she goes through some practical ways to take control of your space, your time, your energy, and your money and live on purpose. And I think you're going to find some next steps that you can apply practically in your own life. When you make room, whether it's your time or in your stuff, you never know what great thing God has in store for you. I want to encourage you and help you find hope so that you can live on purpose.

Michelle Rayburn 01:07
You're listening to Life Repurposed, where you'll find practical biblical wisdom for everyday living, creative inspiration, and helpful resources. Grow your faith, improve your relationships, discover your purpose and reach your goals with topics to encourage you to find hope amid the trashy stuff of life. Thanks for joining me today. I'm your host, Michelle Rayburn. Let me introduce you to Jennifer Ford Berry. She's a certified professional organizer, and life coach. And she's also a best-selling author of five books. And the host of the 29 Minute Mom podcast. Her newest book, Make Room, came out recently. And we're gonna be talking about that today, Jennifer is passionate about helping women clear away the clutter that is distracting them from living out their God-given purpose and life calling. Oh, we need this, don't we? All right, so let's get into this chat with Jennifer and find out how we can make room in our lives. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jennifer Ford Berry 02:10
Thank you for having me. Michelle, I'm so excited to be here.

Michelle Rayburn 02:13
I looked at your book Make Room, and I knew that you were going to be a great fit for the Life Repurposed audience. So we're going to be talking about getting our life in order. And the back of your book, you talked about reclaiming your life from all the things. So that's pretty much that's the bottom line. What's gonna get us on the right track, right?

Jennifer Ford Berry 02:31
Yes, exactly. Just all the things meaning the stuff that is distracting us from our purpose.

Michelle Rayburn 02:36
So I'd love to know before we talk about some of that, what were your career ambitions when you were like in high school, or in college?

Jennifer Ford Berry 02:43
I wanted to be a marine biologist. Michelle, I wanted to train dolphins at SeaWorld. Organizing was not even on my radar. But looking back, I laugh because I loved to organize even when I was a little kid. I didn't know anybody that made a career out of it. So I definitely wanted to work with dolphins, and I feel to this day like get excited like a little kid when I'm in Florida and I see a dolphin. It's just like my favorite thing. And then after I went to college for business, I decided I didn't really love science and math enough to become a marine biologist. So I went in the business route. And I just wanted to work in corporate America, which I did for several years after college. And then once I became a mother, I had just been laid off my job recently, because of 9-11. They had made some cuts in my company, I worked for Clear Channel Radio. And they did some advertising cuts. I was low man on the totem pole, I got cut. And I had a couple of months to kind of reevaluate my life and being a new mom, I knew I wanted something with more flexibility. And I wasn't so excited about corporate America anymore.

Michelle Rayburn 03:54
Yeah, that's tough. I left a nursing career when my oldest was a baby. And so I know how that is to like transition, because I don't know, the pace of it is just really hard to balance it all out. So were you into organizing by that point.

Jennifer Ford Berry 04:09
So when I started thinking about, you know, kind of that epic question, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? I realized that I've always been passionate about organizing and creating space and designing space and seeing potential in space. And so I started to go in that direction, you know, started out small and it just kind of snowballed. Next thing you know, I was doing a weekly email blast that was about free weekly organizing, super simple and straightforward things that people could do on a daily basis to get more organized. And little did I know that that was going to turn into a book. And then I just kind of expanded my clientele. I ended up leaving—I was living in Charlotte at the time in North Carolina. So I went back to New York. And my business grew from there with every book that I put out, it kind of got, you know, to be more and more of a platform. And now, unbelievably, it's been 20 years later. So this, this has been a, what has started out as what I thought was just going to be a profession has definitely turned into a purpose. And I never realized how that would look until I was, you know, on my way. And part of the purpose is the fact that it's so much more than stuff and clutter. It's about helping women really see the potential in their life and helping to teach them not to be distracted by the stuff that weighs them down. And I think that was really, you know, that's a bigger purpose.

Michelle Rayburn 05:44
When I look at your book, I can see that you've made a ministry out of this passion, really.

Jennifer Ford Berry 05:50
Yes. And again, it wasn't planned that way. But as it kind of evolved, and I think this happens a lot with purpose. The more you step into it, the more you realize that it is bigger than what you could have imagined. And so yeah. And that's the exciting part about it. But there's no better feeling than waking up every day, knowing that you are on purpose.

Michelle Rayburn 06:12
A lot of my listeners are kind of in that midlife range, their kids haven't left home yet. And they're they're thinking about, you know, what do I want to do with the rest of my life. And as it gets closer, they're realizing that, you know, maybe the career that I started out in isn't the direction that really I want to go, it's not what I'm passionate about. So how does somebody figure out how to make room for that next purpose?

Jennifer Ford Berry 06:36
Well, it's interesting, because I don't think it matters what phase of life you're in. But the process can still be the same. If you're just feeling like you're ready for a new chapter, the first thing you want to do is clear out the old and make room for the new. And it's interesting, because you mentioned that I, you know, I went into a ministry direction with us. So even when I did that, I went through, you know, as an example, my home office, and I got rid of everything that didn't pertain to my new focus in life, and I just let the whole go. So I think there's a very...it's very liberating and therapeutic to just kind of start with space clutter, like physical clutter, that is no longer serving you and go space by space. And when you do that, you free up not only space for new things to come in, but you free up mental clutter, you free up energy that might be stuck, and you start to get excited. And that is what kind of draws in the new opportunities and the new possibilities. So I would encourage any listener feeling that way to just kind of start in a small area, a physical area of their home and go through and let go of the old that doesn't serve you and just be open to what the new could possibly be. I think as women if we can first believe that literally anything is possible. For all of us, not just for certain kinds of people not for certain age women, or certain demographics, literally, for anybody, it's all a matter of choosing differently in any given moment and grabbing on to a new opportunity and a new possibility and running with it. But you first got to shut that stuff, right? You got to shed the old and it can come in so many you know I always laugh about people clutter comes in all shapes and sizes. It's not just knickknacks and clothes and shoes, it's also relationship clutter, mental clutter, physical clutter, emotional clutter, and that stuff really holds us back as women when we're trying to fulfill something that's inside of us.

Michelle Rayburn 08:35
Yeah, it does. And, you know, I think about the times that I've wrestled with, you know, like my own thoughts, I can't do this, or you know, those limiting beliefs that's like huge clutter when it comes to taking next steps. But then I also love to like, not that long ago, I cleaned out a closet that drove me crazy. And I had to show my daughters-in-law, like come look at this, because I had gotten rid of so much stuff that you could see where everything was. And there's something good about that, too.

Jennifer Ford Berry 09:03
Yeah. It just that that extra free space. You just this looking at it gives us a boost of energy. And it shows us that there's a better way and that we it's it's within our control. I mean, we could have done that closet six months ago, right? But we didn't. And then there all of a sudden, there's a day where you can't take it anymore, and you fix it. And you re-do it better, and it just proves to yourself that you can do anything. It's just a matter of that quick decision of, you know, I'm sick of living this way. I'm going to make a change.

Michelle Rayburn 09:34
You talk about our relationship with material possessions in your book, you know, like freezing spending and engaging your marketing awareness, I think was how you worded it. So what did these actions reveal about us when we figure out our relationship with material possessions?

Jennifer Ford Berry 09:53
I think a lot of time that a quick fix a quick you know, run through Target can make us feel On the surface happier, that day we might be struggling, we might be feeling unsettled or just lack of joy. And we're not really sure what that entails, we don't dig any deeper to find out, we just kind of put a bandaid on it with retail therapy. And for a little bit, we do feel happier, sometimes, you know, we can feel that rush, where, okay, now it's a good day, I have some bags in the car, I'm gonna go home, where am I going to put this stuff, and you're excited, but that joy doesn't last very long, that's not, you know, going to be eternal joy. You need to find it at a deeper level. So I think when we're feeling that way, we need to, you know, we're fixing the problem a lot. And very often with retail therapy, we need to be aware of it and conscious of it and maybe start some new habits where it doesn't have to be going out and actually accumulating more, we can do other things like read a book, or call a friend or go do some exercise or, you know, journal, just so many things, we just need to, we need to find out how we fill ourselves up that doesn't require more things.

Michelle Rayburn 11:05
I've also found that I have a relationship with material possessions that I've acquired as gifts, or as souvenirs and things that I have like a emotional connection to them or a memory. So what do you tell people when they're really hesitant to part with something like that?

Jennifer Ford Berry 11:23
Yeah, I first of all, I noticed a lot of times people keep things out of guilt. And yeah, and that's one of my role is if it's your home, then it should represent you and no one else. And so a lot of times things are inherited and passed down generation to generation and, and clients I've worked with feel really bad letting go of those things. But when I remind them that everybody has their time on this earth, and they've had their home. So if it's your grandmother's, you know china and you just don't have a formal dining room or you don't, you're not putting on formal dinners, then really, when are you going to use a china if it's not going to get moved in it, by all means move it into the everyday dish cabinet, why not? Right? But if you're just keeping it because you are wondering, oh my gosh, what would my grandmother think if I just donated it, then that's keeping it out of guilt, it's not serving her memory, it's not serving you and it's not representing who you are in your home right now. I think our homes should definitely represent who we are in our families in the one place on the entire earth that is just for us. And you know, Grandma also had her home with her tastes and her personality and her era. That doesn't mean we have to take that on for ourselves. And we're not bad people we choose differently. Now, by all means, if you love, love, love that china and it makes you so happy and you're going to use it, then that's a different story. But also, parting with anything that is left to us from people from previous generations is not parting with them, it's still just a physical thing. And we're not bad people by letting it go. And actually, you can do a really good thing by giving it to someone that will need it or will use it, which is a huge passion of mine. And the book is just kind of helping people to realize that if we all went through our house, and we donated the items that we no longer love or use, there'll be no reason for anyone to go without because we have so much stuff in all these crevices of our home. So, you know, it just comes back to being honest with ourselves and making choices that really, it really comes down to two main questions. Do I love this item? Do I use this item? No matter what it is, whatever the category, you can really start with those two questions.

Michelle Rayburn 13:47
I think I could, you know, I've pared down a lot. But I can get rid of a lot of things still, because I have things I don't love or use.

Jennifer Ford Berry 13:55
I know, we all do. You have to be you have to be really conscious of this process. Otherwise, your house is full of things that you don't even know how they got there.

Michelle Rayburn 14:05
My kids have a lot to do with some of that.

Jennifer Ford Berry 14:07
Oh, yeah. 100% The more people that live in your home, the more stuff you're going to accumulate.

Michelle Rayburn 14:14
We've talked a little bit about some of the ways that you can make room. Essentially in the book Make Room you talk about space, time, energy, money. But I love that you chose the title Make Room because this implies there is something better. And a lot of the time when we think about... we think about getting rid of and that feels painful, like saying goodbye instead of saying hello to something better. Can you speak to that a little bit more?

Jennifer Ford Berry 14:41
That is such a good point. Michelle, I've never had anybody catch that that way. So I think it's really good when you make room. You're making room for something new, and potentially something better. And growth I mean, the more you make room for things, the more you grow as a person. And so I think that the room or the title Make Room just kind of opened up the ideas that you might let go of some things but not, not not to punish yourself, not to make your life harder, not to not appreciate the things that you have. But to be very intentional with your space to be, you get to decide what you are making room for. And sometimes when we go through the clutter process, we're making room and we don't even know what we're making room for, for example, a lot of times in the living room or main living space in a home, if we're getting rid of clutter, there might be free floor space when we're done, some space on the floor that used to be, you know, used to house something, and now it's open space, and people are kind of uncomfortable with that at first. They're like, well, what am I gonna put there, and I really encourage them to put nothing and just to sit back and think about it, rather than having to be on autofill, where we're just filling, filling filling. So who knows what the the room is going to be for that new that new space. But you'll know it when you see it, you'll know when you feel it, and it comes in it comes to the same. The same can be true for new relationships that maybe you didn't see I've helped people declutter their lives and live on purpose. And all of a sudden, a new relationship comes or they start to lose a lot of weight, or they get out of debt, or they start a new profession or new business like new things come into their life that they didn't have room for before.

Michelle Rayburn 16:40
I remember when my husband had a sabbatical, probably eight years ago or so. And I use that as a time to make room in my time really make room in my schedule. And I didn't know what was coming next, I just sensed that God was telling me cut some things out of your schedule. And actually, a couple of months later, a whole new career opportunity opened up. And I didn't know that was coming. So it's kind of exciting when you're just obedient to this idea of making room for some mystery thing that God's gonna reveal when you make that space.

Jennifer Ford Berry 17:14
You know, it's so exciting. I love that you said that. It's it's such a good feeling to know that if a new possibility came your way, you could be ready for it and you wouldn't make excuses. You know, like you mentioned you made room in your schedule. A lot of times we'll say, "Well, that would be a great idea." Or, you know, if I ask somebody, "What is your purpose, what's your lifelong dream or your calling?" And they'll have this hidden dream inside of them that they want. And they know it's part of their purpose, because it's been knocking on their heart. But they don't take any action because they make excuses like, I don't have time, I'm too busy. You know, I don't have room for that. And it's, it's so funny, because just being proactive and taking control and making room helps to attract those things quicker. It's just, it's a very neat process. I've seen it happen so many times. And that's why I love what I do. Because a lot of times I'll see that possibility for a woman before she even sees it for herself. Because I know the process works.

Michelle Rayburn 18:16
I've tried to not make excuses when I make room, especially in my time or when I get rid of something. Because you know, this is a learning process. For the listener who's out there: If you still feel like you need to make an excuse when you say no to something or you you resigned from something, we can take charge of our schedules just like we can with our space. And you have permission to not give an excuse for that.

Jennifer Ford Berry 18:42
So good.

Michelle Rayburn 18:43
Because otherwise I would need to have something to go in that space. Just like when you said that with the living room. I would feel like I need to have something new lined up before I tell somebody at church I can't do... I can't oversee this ministry anymore. And I'm practicing now over these last in this last decade, being able to just say, I'm no longer the person for this, this job right now. And being okay with that without them. I don't have to answer why.

Jennifer Ford Berry 19:10
Exactly. It's the same thing with our schedules. If somebody asks us to do something, or to commit to something we can always fall back to let me check my schedule and get back to you. And when we get back to them, we can just say we're not available. We don't have to explain it.

Michelle Rayburn 19:26
Yeah, I'm trying not to add I'm sorry at the beginning of that either.

Jennifer Ford Berry 19:29
Yeah, that's a big one, especially for women. That's another one. And it just, it could be as simple as you've decided that you need more time for yourself to journal and spend time with God. And that you know, time that they asked you to do something, it's just you doing something for yourself. You don't have to explain that.

Michelle Rayburn 19:52
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Michelle Rayburn 20:59
So I'd love to know for you personally, what has affected you the most when you've made room in your life? Has it been time, space? Energy?

Jennifer Ford Berry 21:09
I think for me, it gives me time to take a step back. And when I you know I'm a person that's very busy. And very—I'm a striver. So I have a lot of goals. And because I've mastered, you know, for the most part time management, I know I can, how much I can get done. And I try to fill up my schedule. And as I get older, I have learned to just have more space for the simple things, instead of the striving. And I'll give you a perfect example. This summer, I have just wrapped up as of last night, an entire summer of travel with my son who's going to be a senior this year and my husband because my son is in the middle of trying to be recruited for baseball for college. And, you know, it's hard because when you are used to being a striver and setting goals for yourself, I have not had the amount of time available to me to put towards work this summer as I normally would. But I chose to make room for this time with him because quite honestly, and everybody that has kids at this age now, once that senior year hit, they're very busy, and you just want to stop the clock. So I chose to make room for him. And this time as a family, because I know, there's no getting it back. And that meant that I had to let other things go and make, you know, put them to the side and or postpone things and even publicity for this new book, I have had to roll it back a little bit later. Just because I've made a choice that it was more important. And I think you need to know your priorities when you when you get on this journey. And so it it was a lot of a lot of days and nights on the road and on planes and in hotels and the you know, I didn't open my laptop as much and I don't regret it. I really don't. So there's plenty, it's I think it's great as women to to, to embrace the season that God has you in. Because seasons are short, they seem like they're long, but they're short, and they're constantly changing. And if we embrace that season we're in will be more present.

Jennifer Ford Berry 21:22
So it sounds like that has been a big shift for you from the past. So what has been the biggest game changer for you with how you use your time?

Jennifer Ford Berry 23:27
I really look at my life as almost like a pie chart. So I have like five main priorities which change, okay, so every season, there's the same categories, which mainly, you know, how family, work, my time, my relationship with God, and I look at my time is I have only a portion of my life can go to each piece of the pie. And so I have to be clear in each season. What am I working toward in that season? Like, based on you know, like I just said, for an example that summer would be it was family time, and I knew it what that look like. But then there's seasons where everything gets a little sliver, but I need to be touching them all I need to make sure that I'm in balance. So when I do my schedule, I color code it based on those five priorities. And that way I can take a quick glance at it. And if I see all the colors, I know, I'm not neglecting one important piece of the pie. If that makes sense.

Michelle Rayburn 24:44
I love that. Yeah, that's a great visual.

Jennifer Ford Berry 24:46
Yeah. And so I know that I can't just be all about, you know, my kids, my husband, I have to have time for me. I can't just be all about work. I have to also have time for God. So I need to be touching all of those parts of my life in order to know that I'm a whole person, and I'm being the best version of myself, and you know, sometimes it means that I don't have anything scheduled because I just want to sit on my porch and read a book. And if I don't have that time, you know, I'll never if I don't make time for it, then I'm never going to do it. So it's just knowing that there's seasons, and it's okay to be slower, and it's okay to be quieter. And there's seasons where it's fast and furious.

Michelle Rayburn 25:25
One of your key takeaways in the book Make Room is to partner with God. Why is this such an important factor?

Jennifer Ford Berry 25:31
For me, Michelle, if I didn't let God drive the car for my purpose, I would not be even on the show right now. Because I had no idea what the directions were, where the car was going, what the road looks like, I had no idea. And I think when the purpose is bigger than your imagination, the only way to get there is to partner with God to basically say, You're my partner, I'll do it your way, you know better than me. And I completely 100% trust you to guide me, because I know your ways are better than mine. And I feel like if you can do that, then you can also kind of let off and not feel like you have to control every single aspect and let God just take you where he wants to take you. And He will reveal these things about your purpose that you never even knew existed. Like, when I realized that I was going to go into organization, I didn't realize that this is a skill I had since I was a little kid, which is part of why it's my purpose. But I also didn't know that someday it would lead to ministry. So I think purpose can tie a lot of different parts of your life together. It's really what you're meant to do what God has, you know, intended for you when he put you on this earth. And sometimes I think our world, especially now, we fill our calendars, we fill our homes, we fill our closets, we fill everything, and there's no room for God to get through and say, "Hey, you're supposed to be over here doing that."

Michelle Rayburn 26:59
It makes it so much different than you know all of the organizing tips that are out there, or shows that come in and shovel out people's houses and just get rid of this stuff. It really takes that piece of purpose and puts God in the center of it. And I love that because it gives us a motivation. That goes down to the fact that we're fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

Jennifer Ford Berry 27:22
Absolutely. And that he is the He's the king of creation, He created order. And he he's done a fabulous job of organizing everything way before we even knew what the word meant. And the fact that is, you know, I think it's it's just when I wrote this book, I realized that the world has been this, in the last 20 years that I've done this career, organizing has changed a lot. So now we have these visual images in front of our face all the time on HGTV and Netflix and social media. And it looks like everybody's house perfect. And it's always got to be like the most updated design and the cutest containers with the best labels. And it's intimidating to people. They think, "Well, if I can't make my house look like that, then why even bother?" This is about more of a spiritual journey, about parting with things and eliminating clutter. So you can almost get down to a deeper layer of yourself and see what you've been missing that was distracting you from a life of purpose, but also covering up a lot of your feelings, covering up a lot of the things that you don't want to deal with, and giving you excuses to avoid it. So this isn't about creating a perfect home. This is about getting rid of the things that are not serving you things that are holding you back. And that finding a way you can create more space, time, energy and money to live out the life that God has called you to live. And that has nothing to do with Pinterest. And as it really doesn't have nothing to do and I love The Home Edit. But it doesn't have to do with rainbow-izing your stuff either. I mean, it really does not. So I want people to feel a —I want this to be a refreshing organizing book where they don't feel bad about themselves, they don't feel guilty, they don't feel like they're not good enough, they feel like they would just want to take a new approach. And once they do that, they're going to really get to the other side of why it's helpful to be organized. And it doesn't look the same for everybody.

Michelle Rayburn 29:27
It's really not a hard read either. For people who just aren't readers, you know, who want to go on Netflix and watch a series or something like that. I like that it's in a book form because I can look at each chapter and take that key takeaway that you have, and really apply that. So for the reader, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Make Room: Take Control of Your Space, Time, Energy, and Money to Live on Purpose. And I'm going to link to that in the show notes. But I would also like to know where people can find you online, Jennifer.

Jennifer Ford Berry 30:01
Absolutely. So my website's JenniferFordBerry.com. And same for all the social media, I'm on Instagram the most these days and also on Facebook, and Pinterest. But I am super excited because this past year, I started an online coaching program. So even if I can't work with somebody in their home, I can still meet with them virtually every week. And we have this fabulous group of women we call the Created Order Neighborhood. And it's just a, it's a neighborhood of women, online that want to live with intention and purpose. And we, you know, I teach everybody how to organize everything in their life and in their home, but with the intent of freeing up that stem for their purpose. And it's very powerful. And it's fun for me, because then I get to actually, you know, come out of a book, and make relationships with people that have read the books in the past. So that's just super fun in that, that's on my website, or CreatedOrderNeighborhood.com. So, and then I also have a podcast called The 29 Minute Mom, where we...

Michelle Rayburn 31:10
Yeah, I wanted to talk about that.

Jennifer Ford Berry 31:11
Yeah, that's all about inspiration, organization, and education for women, busy women. And it's super fun, there's so many shows up, that they can look up and find about organizing. But I mean, it's just something that I encourage women to not be scared of getting organized doesn't mean that you know, somebody like me says, throw out all your stuff and be a minimalist. It's not about that at all. It's just about kind of freeing up yourself so that we can imagine things again, I mean, I remember when we were little, and we, we would daydream. And we would imagine possibilities what we wanted to be like you asked me it to be in the show what I wanted to be in high school, I think as moms and wives, sometimes we're really bogged down. And we don't give ourselves the freedom to do that anymore. So if you can, you know, get rid of distractions and clutter, then you should be able to find who you are. Underneath that, again.

Michelle Rayburn 32:07
We've been talking about 29 minutes, I think that's really cool that you have a 29-minute podcast and that I just lo oked at the clock, and I'm like, hey, we've been going about that long. As we wrap up, I'd love to hear if people could get one thing that could change their lives, what would be the one thing, the one first step you would want someone to take?

Jennifer Ford Berry 32:26
Yeah. So find an area of your home that bothers you the most, that every day, you walk in, and you just get this negative emotion like there that one part of your kitchen countertop, or the entryway, there's, you're always tripping over shoes, something that just it literally bothers you every day. Because when that happens, you're feeling negative emotions, instead of positive emotions, you're losing energy. And if you can just tweak that one area, don't look at your whole home today, don't get fired up and think you're going to organize your entire home this weekend, because that's what a lot of people want to do. But we just don't have that kind of time available to us, we have to always break these projects down into little bite sized pieces. But if you do that if you fix that countertop, or you fix the shoe problem, or you make your closet more enjoyable in the morning, so it's not aggravating, you will get an energy burst. And it will prove to you that you can do this, that you can make little tweaks and changes whenever you need do it. And eventually it is a snowball effect where it'll spread out into more and more spaces. And you'll you'll get it's funny when I see this happening with my clients because they get hooked. They're like, okay, now I want to organize this now I want to organize that. And it's because I just had a client a couple weeks ago, she thought she was hiring me just for her closet, because that was the most annoying part of her home at the time. But because the closet makes her feel so much better every day, now she's like, "I'm ready to move on to other spaces." So start with something small that bothers you the most and fix it. It's not worth it bothering you on a daily basis in your own home, which is your haven, which is a place that you should feel good about.

Michelle Rayburn 34:12
Thank you so much, Jennifer, for sharing your wisdom with us today. I'm looking forward to sharing copies of your book with some of my friends who I know are going to love this. So thank you so much.

Jennifer Ford Berry 34:22
Thank you so much, Michelle, I really feel honored that you had me on your show today. And I appreciate you so much.

Michelle Rayburn 34:28
You're welcome.

Michelle Rayburn 34:29
Friends, just like every other week I create a blog post that goes along with the episode. It has a transcript of this conversation if you want to be able to skim through and read some of the things that Jennifer talked about. So you'll find that and links to everything we talked about in this episode at Michelle rayburn.com/145. I hope you have a great week and I will see you next time.

Michelle Rayburn 34:53
You've been listening to Life Repurposed with Michelle Rayburn. Check out tips, resources and inspiration At MichelleRayburn.com to get the show notes for this episode. Each week I share links to everything mentioned in the episode, graphics you can share, and guest quotes. I also invite you to join the Life Repurposed Facebook community for weekly conversation with others on the journey of discovering the repurposed life. Before you go, which friend needs to hear this episode? Share a link with a note to invite them to listen.

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