From Hoarding to Harmony: Zeenat's Journey to an Organized Life
Nov 11, 2023Season 2Episode 11
Shireen Botha/ Tanya Scotece
Ready to elevate your organization game with clever, actionable strategies?
Our guest Zeenat illuminates the concept of habit stacking, a method that transforms everyday routines into opportunities for enhancing organization. She offers relatable examples, such as unloading the dishwasher while brewing your morning coffee or tidying clothes as you put laundry away. You'll learn about 'invisible barriers,' a metaphorical shield that prevents clutter from invading your space. Let's also unravel the secret to combating the 'Sunday scaries' with strategic planning.
We also step into the intricate dynamics of delegation and business ownership. Discover how designing a structured environment that aligns with your lifestyle can drastically improve your productivity. Whether you're navigating life transitions, grappling with hoarding tendencies, or simply seeking a more organized life, Zeenat's insights are bound to enlighten. Lastly, we touch upon the crucial aspect of self-care in the midst of managing a busy schedule. Tune in for a blend of practical advice and heartwarming anecdotes.
Ready to elevate your organization game with clever, actionable strategies?
Our guest Zeenat illuminates the concept of habit stacking, a method that transforms everyday routines into opportunities for enhancing organization. She offers relatable examples, such as unloading the dishwasher while brewing your morning coffee or tidying clothes as you put laundry away. You'll learn about 'invisible barriers,' a metaphorical shield that prevents clutter from invading your space. Let's also unravel the secret to combating the 'Sunday scaries' with strategic planning.
We also step into the intricate dynamics of delegation and business ownership. Discover how designing a structured environment that aligns with your lifestyle can drastically improve your productivity. Whether you're navigating life transitions, grappling with hoarding tendencies, or simply seeking a more organized life, Zeenat's insights are bound to enlighten. Lastly, we touch upon the crucial aspect of self-care in the midst of managing a busy schedule. Tune in for a blend of practical advice and heartwarming anecdotes.
Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.
Tanya Scotece:
Amazing, amazing, amazing journey. I'm so excited just to hear about it. I have a question how did you pick the name of your company?
Zeenat Siman:
When we were living in New Jersey, one of the most fun things my kids liked to do was to go out into the park across the street from us and there was a little wooden footbridge over a tiny little dry creek bed and they would stand there and we would see fireflies and we'd go in. We would get jars from home and they would capture the fireflies. We'd poke holes in the lids and we'd watch the fireflies in the jars for a few days, that kind of thing, and then we'd let them free, and that, to me, brought up those memories the Firefly Bridge, Wow that's beautiful, what a beautiful story and journey on that, amazing, amazing.
Shireen Botha:
Yeah, I love that name. I'm just going to say I think fireflies are absolutely beautiful, so I think that name is stunning.
Zeenat Siman:
And, to me, that whole experience of going and hanging out with the family just watching the fireflies, that's the kind of feeling I want to have every day that laid back, carefree time of just relaxing and enjoying each other. That's why the name stuck for me.
Shireen Botha:
Yeah, that makes sense. In an organized area and space around you, that will become easier to do.
Zeenat Siman:
I like that.
Shireen Botha:
Yeah, Zina. Would you mind sharing five good habits to practice when it comes to staying organized?
Zeenat Siman:
Sure, well, okay. So one thing that is pretty important is learning how to stack your habits. So habit stacking is a term that became very popular with James Clear's book Atomic Habits, and what he means by habit stacking is you already are doing things that are habitual. Maybe you're not even thinking about them. Brushing your teeth is one, brushing teeth every night and so with each of these habits, can you add a tiny little action on top of it that you do at the same time or immediately following. That will, over time, become habitual also, and those little habits will help you to stay more organized. So, for example, for me, every morning I come to the kitchen and I start warming my water up to make coffee, and that's the one habit that I every morning. I come out and I make my coffee. That's my habit, so I stack. On top of that, while this water is heating, I'm going to start unloading the dishes from the dishwasher, and so unloading the dishes for me takes five minutes, same time that it takes me to brew a cup of coffee, and it's done. So those two habits stacked together helps me to get that dishwasher emptied. So then our breakfast dishes. When the whole family comes out to eat breakfast or whatever, they can immediately go into the dishwasher instead of piling up in the sink or on the countertop. That's how habit stacking will work.
Zeenat Siman:
Another example might be when you're putting away the laundry, or when your kids are putting away their own laundry that, as you're putting it away, you're just taking it Again. These are things that just take seconds. So instead of just focusing on and putting away the laundry, well, while you're putting away the laundry you can take a quick look and say that shirt isn't hung correctly, let me just straighten it up. Or this drawer's. You know my socks are a little disheveled here, let me just straighten those up. It takes seconds, but it's seconds. That why it results in more organized spaces while you're brushing your teeth. Right after you brush your teeth, can you just wipe down the counter real quick. Again, 10 seconds is all it takes, but it's those little actions that can help you stay organized long term. So habit stacking is definitely a huge, huge way to stay organized.
Zeenat Siman:
And then another one, I think, is what I call invisible barriers. So if you think about putting an invisible barrier to the entrance of your home, that invisible barrier acts as a filter to anything that comes into your house. So you scrutinize anything that comes in through the door of your house before you allow it to sit on your counter and become clutter Kids, papers, the mail that will sit there for days, packages from Amazon, returns that you need to make to a store, all of those things. Scrutinize them before they sit on your counter and become clutter and decide what you're going to do with them before they even enter your house. That's a huge one. And then there are other things that are more like creating a plan and routine. And so every Friday afternoon I do 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon is when I do my weekly planning and then every day, every minute, it encompasses planning. My weekly schedule, my work schedule, our appointments, when the kids have doctors appointments, when we have doctors and doctors appointments all those go on my schedule. But also on their go. The very important things date night with my husband, friday, pizza night with the kids all of those things also end up on my schedule. But that takes 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon. That's it.
Zeenat Siman:
And you know a lot of people tend to wait and plan on Sunday night for me, and that may be great for a lot of people and that may work for them. What was happening for me is again you know this was conventional thinking do the planning on Sunday night to plan for your whole week and then you'll be fine. But for me, do you know the terms that the Sunday scaries? Are you guys familiar with the Sunday scaries? Sunday scaries basically means all through Sunday your anxiety builds up with the anticipation of what's going to happen during your work week. It's almost Monday, it's almost Monday. Oh no, monday is going to begin. I hate Monday mornings and Monday is hard. And so you lose your entire Sunday building up anxiety about Monday. And I would also not want to take time out on my Sunday evening to plan. And so I realized that for me that wasn't okay. I would never, I just wouldn't do it.
Zeenat Siman:
And so if I plan on a Friday afternoon, I start my weekend with my entire following week planned, so I don't have to worry about Sunday, I don't have to worry about Monday. I know exactly what's going to happen. So another, the fourth big concept to keep in mind is meal planning also has to be part of that Friday planning. If you don't know what you're going to be eating or what you're going to be serving your kids on a Wednesday night and they have practices, your stress level on that Wednesday night are going to shoot through the roof and you're not going to feel enjoyment than I. That's where the irritation and the irritability comes in. And then that's when I start, you know, snipping at my kids and not my husband. Why, where's? Where are the scissors? Why doesn't anybody put the scissors away except for me? You know things like that tend to happen a lot. So that's a huge one. Get the meal planning done.
Zeenat Siman:
And I think the last one is simply to always build in schedule in the time for self care, whatever that might look like for you. And, funnily enough, I think that's a really pivotal, that's a key element of staying organized is being able to take the time to do whatever you need to do, to step back and take time. For some people it's meditation, for some people it's reading, for some people it's a bath, for some people it's just, you know, having a cup of tea looking out the window. Whatever it is, and for everyone it's different. For some people it might be run around, you know, go running, which I don't understand. I can never. For me it's not, it's not my go-to for self-care, but for a lot of people it is Exercises for self-care. Schedule it in, because if you don't put it on your calendar, if you don't put it on a schedule, it's not going to happen.
Tanya Scotece:
That's very interesting, very, very fantastic. So I have a couple of questions. What about how, in your research or from your perspective, we talk about a spectrum of people. So I'm sure there are people that are extremely, maybe non-cluttered, to extreme clutter, to the point of somebody that hoards extreme hoarding. Can you just share maybe one or two examples of that from your perspective, as far as what has been your experience as a professional organizer when people come to you, have you had the extreme hoarders? Have you had? Where do people come to you from, I guess is the question.
Zeenat Siman:
Right? Well, a lot of different places. I think typically, the place where people will start to call an organizer is when there's some kind of life transition, so a new job, a move, a new baby, pet, the loss of a loved one, or the realization that someone in your family has hoarding tendencies and you want to be able to help them Because now they're at an impasse, it's clean this, or they're having safety issues, there are safety issues in their home, so those things have to be Now hoarding tendencies. It's a real mental illness, and so that is something I'm not equipped to handle specifically. So if someone does present with hoarding tendencies and I believe they might have hoarding tendencies I will always refer them to someone who's able to help them, and within NAPO we've got organizers who specialize in hoarding tendencies and we can get them the help that they need. On the other end, there are people who are very structured, who need a lot of structure. So across that spectrum that you just talked about, there's what we call well, what I would say there's a level of structure that every person needs. Every person, I believe, needs some amount of structure, but some people do well to be able to have more flexibility and others need very delineated systems and structures in their homes for them to enjoy living there. So, for example, I need more flexibility.
Zeenat Siman:
I can't say from 3 to 4 in the afternoon I'm going to be doing the laundry. That's just not going to work for me. But what I can say is laundry days are Monday and Friday. What I wash, how I wash, what time I wash and dry things, what time I do the ironing, whatever that will depend on what's happening on that day and what's on my weekly plan, but I know that those are on my plan for Monday and Friday. There are other people who need everything in the containers that are clearly labeled. Everything goes in the same place every time and do not move my scissors out of this, not even in this drawer, but in this spot in this drawer, and they need that kind of structure. And so when I go into someone's home and we do the assessment, we're talking about how they live, what they want to do with their space. Those are things that I kind of clue into and that's how I know how they will need to structure.
Zeenat Siman:
So yesterday I was in a lovely lady's home who, as we were working on her master closet they're removing in after doing some remodeling, and so a lot of things were still in boxes, and so in her master closet, a lot of things were still in those plastic bins. And so, as we were unpacking a lot of those things, moving things, I started by folding all the t-shirts and putting them into a drawer all the t-shirts in one spot, all the workout pants in another spot, all of this in one spot, as you typically would think. Well, that's how people organize. They put all the t-shirts in one spot.
Zeenat Siman:
That's not how her, as she put it, that's not how my brain works. My brain works I need the top and the bottom together, and so that's how we organized her space the top and the bottom for whatever outfits she likes to organize in outfits. That's how we organized all her drawers. That's how she's going to organize all her hanging clothes the top and the bottom next to it, and so that's how we organized her space. You just have to understand that not everyone has the same type of organization means over that spectrum that you talked about?
Shireen Botha:
That is so interesting. Ladies, let me just pop in here with a buzz for advertisement. Zina has also her own podcast, so if anyone wants to go and listen to her podcast, her podcast's name is Zina's Organizing with ease. Please go and listen if you want to know more tips and tricks on organizing and just to relieve your life a little bit from some stress. If you are living in a little bit of a cluttered home and then talking about a buzz sprouts and talking about podcast, let's talk about buzz sprouts.
Shireen Botha:
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Zeenat Siman:
The first challenge that I faced was not understanding the time that it would really require for me to start a business from scratch With no one but me. I'm a solopreneur. When I go into homes with teams, I hire independent contractors to come with me to work on larger jobs, but everything is me. I'm the salesperson, I'm the marketing person, I'm the bookkeeper, I'm the everything. And so the time that it was taking was pulling me away from my family a lot. What I had to come to terms with was delegation. I needed to delegate more, and my husband was the first to step up and say okay, what can I take off of your plate? And so he took a lot of the. You know, I'll take the kids to school in the morning, you can pick them up in the afternoon, or, if there's something in the evening, I can take them to practice, and you can, you know, do your thing. That kind of support is priceless. That kind of support, that kind of this, is making you feel fulfilled and happy. Let's figure out a way to do it.
Zeenat Siman:
But I was very I'm a very I need to do it all person, so it was really difficult for me to ask for that help. So my husband was a great help. The other thing that helped is to use my network as my business partners. In a way helped me to market my company and call on you know, the community of podcasters for help with how to get a podcast up and running and continuing to grow and all that sort of thing. So delegation was the easiest of those. That was really my biggest challenge is understanding when I needed to get more help. The challenge for me was letting go of some things. I wanted to keep everything, do everything myself, but at some point you have to realize you can't, as a small business owner you can't do everything on your own.
Shireen Botha:
That's so that was eye opening.
Tanya Scotece:
Yeah, and I think that has to do almost like the lines of like a control, like we like. We like to control things right. So in the spectrum, you know, some people minimal, minimal control, people lots of control. So I think when we release that control that I think that's what I'm hearing you say yes.
Zeenat Siman:
Also because, as a new business owner, you think you understand how you want the feel of your company to be. What do you want the experience of your customer to be? And as soon as you give up a little portion of that whether it's social media marketing or whether it's bookkeeping, whether it's anything you start to wonder how is that going to affect my customer? I don't want it to affect my customer. I want them to see that it's all one unified front, and so it's very important, even as a small business owner, to think what's our mission as a company and to share that with whoever is helping you to do any portion of your work, whether it's a virtual assistant, a bookkeeper like Charmine. Anyone who is helping you share the vision of your company and what the culture of your company is, even if it's just you. But what's the culture of your company so that they're able to retain that? And your customer, your end customer, does not see any breakpoints, anything different coming from you, whether it comes from you directly or from someone who's helping you.
Shireen Botha:
I always say and I'm sure you ladies have heard me say that I get to know the fingerprint of my client's business, and that includes culture, and so by taking the time and communicating with my client on a daily basis, I'm getting to know how they operate their culture, so that when I'm moving, I'm moving with them. So I'm like, yeah, literally part of a part of their business. Oh, that's fantastic.
Zeenat Siman:
That's good to hear you say that, because I wonder, does that get communicated enough? But yes, exactly, fantastic.
Shireen Botha:
Right, I love that.
Tanya Scotece:
What is the vision of your business? What is like? Do you, for example, like as a solopreneur at the moment? Are you looking, where are you looking to go? Are you happening far? Are you looking to expand the vision for?
Zeenat Siman:
my company is not necessarily to expand in terms of employees, because that just builds in another level of complexity, and in this point in my life, I know what I want. I want the flexibility to be able to take vacations when I want to take them, and that's where I think, and so that's not necessarily where I want to go. What I am doing, though, is I'm expanding online, and so, while I still have our in-home clients here locally, and I bring in teams to work with these clients and we're doing a lot here now I do want to expand my reach, and my reach meaning I want to teach people who want to learn how to do this for themselves, without having to go through the expense and the time that it takes to hire a person to come in and teach them how to do it in their home, or do it for them in their home. If they learn to do it for themselves, it's a lifelong thing They've invested in themselves. Now for lifelong benefits, to streamline their entire life and to take back their life to love their homes again, love living in their homes, and so, by going online, I think I can reach more people, especially women, especially moms, especially mom business owners, who are going through what I went through and I want to shorten the path for them, to get them there much more quickly than it took me the years and years and years of the ups and downs and learning and understanding.
Zeenat Siman:
Let me find you a shortcut. Let me tell you what the shortcut is to get there. And so, for me, I have a 90-day online program that I take people through with the ultimate goal of you will have your home. Not only will you have your home organized, but you will have your home streamlined, and so that you know how to keep it that way in 10 minutes or less a day is because you'll learn things about how to do the habit stacking, how to create that invisible barrier at the entrance of your house, how those things, how you can incorporate those things easily into your day so that it takes just 10 minutes to keep your home organized.
Zeenat Siman:
I mean to do. The thing that I was doing is when, oh, it's my week to do book club at my house. You know that afternoon I'm running frantic, throwing things into closets, cupboards, take things out to the garage. I'm yelling at everybody pick up a pile and take it somewhere else so that I could have these women come into my home. I don't want that. I want to enjoy being in my home until the moment that they come. I want everything to be easy so that I can enjoy my life. I don't want to be organizing all the time.
Shireen Botha:
Tune in next week for part three of Friends from Wild Places.
Voiceover:
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