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250: The Most Important Things to Focus On if You Want To Finally Get Organized in 2026 · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  Welcome to the first episode of 2026 here at the Joy Living Home Podcast. I am Joy, your host.
• 0:07
  If you are new here and have just found me by searching for organizing tips
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  or organizing for ADHD brains, you are in the right place.
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  I focus on helping ADHD moms feel confident in their homes.
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  We cover subjects like decluttering, organizing, productivity,
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  planning, and especially mindset. However, if you're not diagnosed with ADHD or you're not a mom.
• 0:35
  You're still welcome. If you struggle feeling good about your home,
• 0:42
  then I hope you'll hang around and see if the way I talk about things maybe
• 0:48
  makes more sense to your brain than you ever realized.
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  Because it doesn't have to be just for ADHD people.
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  It's just I focus on that because particularly in the organizing industry,
• 1:01
  we've been overlooked or misunderstood probably.
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  So anyway, I'm super happy that you're here.
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  And January is this wonderful time in the organizing industry.
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  It hits a peak because people have so much fresh start energy.
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  And I want to harness that fresh start energy.
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  I just want to harness it in the best possible way for our brains to take action
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  in a way that's actually going to make a difference this year.
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  And so if that sounds like something you're interested in, then let's jump in.
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  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
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  ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
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  Well, fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
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  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your
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  life. I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
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  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
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  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
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  then I'm glad you're here.
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  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
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  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
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  If you listened to the intro, you noticed two things.
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  One, I am a professional organizer and mom of four.
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  It doesn't dive into how I got to be here. It's definitely not what I went to college for.
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  I found myself as a professional organizer by accident. You could listen to
• 2:42
  old podcasts if you want to hear how that happened.
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  But just what I did go to school for is I have a communication degree, which I did not use.
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  Shocker, so many of us do not use the degree we went off to college for.
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  I also, while I was there, got certified to be a teacher and I started my career in that direction.
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  But while I was in my communication major, I did have to take journalism classes.
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  And I want to focus in on what is the fundamental framework of at least what
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  I would consider old school journalism before news was a 24-hour existence and
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  everybody was trying to beat each other to the punch and sources don't seem
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  to matter as much anymore.
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  But back in the day, I had a very stodgy old professor who ensured that we had
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  the five W's intact with two sources to verify before he would even consider
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  running our story in the school paper.
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  So those five W's, as I'm sure you all are familiar, are who,
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  what, when, where, and why.
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  And then sprinkled in comes an H.
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  What I want you to know, and how in the world does this have anything to do
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  with organizing, is that we're going to talk about what's actually the most
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  important part of all of this.
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  Because you might think how to get ourselves organized is the key indicator.
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  Spoiler alert, it absolutely is not.
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  So let's dive in a minute, and I'm going to talk to you about where that how falls at the end.
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  So back ourselves up to the five W's. The first thing I want you to reflect
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  on as you're jumping into your house this year with this new energy is the who.
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  Who are you trying to get your house together for?
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  Are you doing it for you? And that's none of these are wrong answers.
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  Absolutely. If nobody else in your house cares what your house looks like and
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  you've been beating yourself against, you know, your head against the wall,
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  being frustrated that nobody's helping you, then maybe you need to realize that
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  you're doing this just for you.
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  And if it happens to be a side benefit to everybody else in the family, great.
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  But if you're doing this for you, that's enough.
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  If it's your family because you live with monkey brains that get really frustrated
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  and sideways when you're constantly losing things and can't place things and
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  can't find something and the house is always feeling stressful because it's
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  always chaotic and you're tired of watching your family go through stress or be late to everything.
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  Not have the stuff they need when they need it because the laundry's not done
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  or we can't find this or that and that kind of thing tends to fall on your shoulders,
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  then you might be doing it your who might be your family and yourself.
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  The only, and I'm using air quotes here,
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  wrong answer could possibly be that you're doing it for the occasional person
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  who might walk into your house.
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  Although if we're honest with ourselves, that's actually for ourselves as well
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  because of the embarrassment we feel or the smaller life we are living because
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  we don't let anyone in our house.
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  That is a way to do it for yourself.
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  The other sort of air quotes wrong person to be doing it for is,
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  and this one I'll stand by, for the photo you want to post online.
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  If you want to create a fake existence so that your online pictures look like
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  you have it together, it's probably the wrong person to be doing it for.
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  But take a second as we're jumping into your 2026 excitement and ask yourself, who is your who?
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  All right, now let's jump into the next one. What? All right,
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  what are we trying to get organized?
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  This one I actually think is important. The what might sound like my home or all the stuff.
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  Two very valid answers.
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  Those are ones that are going to take a little more time to carve out what we're
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  actually organizing and what we're getting rid of and what is necessary to our
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  existence and what is holding us back and holding us down.
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  That is what this podcast is going to be about over the next weeks and months and years.
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  But you can think about what your what is right now to you so that you can reflect on it later.
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  Maybe you're writing these down somewhere, even if it's something you keep on
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  your phone so you can look back on this date and see how much you've grown over
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  the year you might spend with me.
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  All right, the next one is when.
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  When are we wanting this done by? Is it, I don't really have a timeline,
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  like I'm just sick of it and 2026 is my year.
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  Do we have a year runway to get your home feeling really great?
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  Do you have an actual deadline?
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  I'm hosting Thanksgiving and I have all the way till Thanksgiving to get it together.
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  I am putting my house on VRBO over the summer and we're going to travel and
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  it has to look like a VRBO type home by summer.
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  Is it, I don't care about my deadlines, so it's just going to kind of happen.
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  That one will be interesting. And then we'll talk about the when based on our
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  brain's need for urgency?
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  And can we place a couple urgent timeline, real deadline type of needs to help
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  get us going and keep us going?
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  So the win is an interesting one, but reflect right now. What is your win in this scenario of 2026?
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  Next is where. Now, where is an interesting one because you might be like,
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  well, my whole house, my absolute whole house, and that is very good possibility.
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  But let's break it down a little bit. Is there a specific place in your house
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  you want to focus on first?
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  If you love Dana K. White over at A Slob Comes Clean, she's going to tell you
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  to always start in your visible areas.
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  If you're trying to catch a small win, your where might be the smallest,
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  most hidden space in your house that you can get a quick win for because you
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  kind of know what it should be.
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  If your where has to do with the house is so chaotic, I don't even know what should go where.
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  Those are two things we're going to link a lot, the what and the where of how organizing works.
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  And that is something, like I said, we'll elaborate as things go on.
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  But you can write down your immediate thoughts on what your where might be, where you want to start.
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  And then there's your why. And your why is another one that kind of coincides
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  with the who of why am I doing this?
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  Am I doing this because I am sick and tired of feeling the way I feel every
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  time we're looking for something or every time someone's going to come over?
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  Or my why is my spouse who works a super stressful job deserves a place to come home and breathe easy.
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  My kids who struggle at school because they are also ADHD and everything just
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  feels so big and huge and overwhelming that the home is the sanctuary and right
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  now our home doesn't feel like that. Is that your why?
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  Think about what it is that's really driving you, that you feel like this year
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  could be different for you if you just find the right how.
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  And now we're going to dig into that how for a second.
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  The how seems really most important in our DIY how-to culture that is everywhere
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  all over YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and all of the things.
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  The quick tips and the the hacks that
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  people share that are the how of
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  getting this all done and if you're tuning in
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  for me into me because you're like oh here's a
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  professional organizer she says she specializes in ADHD she's
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  going to tell me exactly how to do this correctly for my brain I'm here to disappoint
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  you because I'm not going to give you a one I don't have the way mostly because
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  I don't believe there is the way to do anything.
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  Dana K. Wade's method works beautifully. Minimal Moms Minimalism works beautifully.
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  The type A follow the space acronym coming out of the national organization NAPO.
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  Why can I not think the acronym right now? National Association for Professional
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  Organizers, who taught me how to organize spaces based on a very specific process.
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  All of them work, and all of them don't work.
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  And that's the point. No one person, no one house, no one space,
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  no one's family scenario,
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  no one's actions of how they live are all so identical that one way is going
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  to work exactly right for each person for all time.
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  And that's what you're getting if you come to me. The how to me is the least
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  important part of all of this.
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  Knowing why you want to do all of this, knowing who you're doing it for is sort
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  of that maybe feelings-based that doesn't help me joy, but it does.
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  It does help keep you focused.
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  The what am I organizing and where am I putting it to me are far more important
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  than how you're going to actually go about doing it.
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  What is it that I'm actually organizing? And where is it actually going to go?
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  Who cares how it gets there? My best illustration of this, and I'm going to
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  include a photo of this in my group later, is my daughter and I have been doing
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  one of those diamond gem paintings.
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  I don't know if you have seen those.
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  Apparently they were all over TikTok. I don't have TikTok, So I don't know.
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  But if you literally Google diamond painting, you're going to see what I'm talking about.
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  So we have had this very large. And when I say very large, it's probably 11 by 14 photo.
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  Ours happens to be a highland cow because who doesn't love a highland cow and
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  Christmas tree and a snowman. It's very cute winter scene.
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  Of these little tiny diamond gems. And when I say little tiny,
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  they like would fit on a pencil point.
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  And the mat of this photo is sticky.
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  And there's all these teeny tiny little squares that have numbers or letters in them.
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  And we match the color of the diamond gem to the letter or color on the mat,
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  and we one by one by one put them where they go.
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  It gave us the what and the where.
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  How do we get all those little gems on the mat? That's up to us.
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  My daughter, who is much more type A, monkey brain, will go line by line with
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  one letter and work her way through the whole thing until she's got all of that letter down.
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  I will grab a letter and just go, oh, look, there's a B, and over here's a B,
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  and over there's a B, and over there's a B, and over there's a B, and over there's a B.
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  And I am just haphazardly putting all the bees where they go.
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  I still know my what and I still know my where and at the end of the day the
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  result is going to be the same.
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  It's going to be a beautifully organized picture perfect painting at the time
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  that we are completing this but she will have done it very, quote unquote,
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  organized in an organized fashion.
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  And I am still helping and I'm still doing it very helter-skelter and in a scattered
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  manner because it suits my brain better and her suits her brain better.
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  My brain and my method allows for some things to be missed or left behind. But guess what?
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  We still bump into a B down when we're on the E's. And we're like, oh, there's a B I missed.
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  Well, go over, grab another B and stick it in place.
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  There's more than one how to do things. And that's the whole point of why you're here.
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  And because our brains crave novelty, our how needs to change on a regular basis.
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  And that's what this podcast is all about.
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  So I was using today as sort of an introduction to me, an introduction to the
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  podcast, an introduction to the goals of what we're going to try to walk through this year and.
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  I also want it to be a little reintroduction to yourself and your home and a
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  moment to reflect on your five W's.
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  We'll deal with the H later, but spend a few minutes until we talk a little
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  more tomorrow about how to zero in on what we're planning to do this year.
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  But this is a reflection day and all this week, we're just going to build this
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  runway of getting ourselves started right.
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  And we're going to try and nurture the way we do things in a really loving,
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  enthusiastic way where we don't stumble too quickly because we're going to build
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  this nice runway to get ourselves going.
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  So your homework, if you would like some, if you'd like to call it that,
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  is sit down and actually talk yourself through and maybe jot some notes,
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  whether on your phone or in, you know, a notebook somewhere about what your
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  five W's are, and then join me again, and we'll talk more about the house.
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  If you would love to reach out to me, I would love to hear your thoughts on
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  this. I am joy at joylovinghome.com.
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  I also am on Instagram, although I don't post. I do check my DMs.
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  There I'm just joylovinghome.
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  I have a free community that is bit.ly slash joylovinghome community.
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  So bit.ly slash joylovinghome community. If you want to join me there, you can post here.
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  We can talk about this episode and what your W's are.
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  I would love to hear from all the feedback of how you're thinking about that,
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  if you would like to share with like-minded people who are also in that group.
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  And until tomorrow, I hope you continue to choose joy.