149 From Chaos to Calm Achieving Balance with Conny Graf

0:00 Well, hello and welcome to Connect, inspire, create. I'm your host, carol Clegg, a progress and mindset business coach, here to help you thrive and flourish and turn those challenges into opportunities for growth. I'm so pleased you're here. Join me for the discussions that I hope will not only encourage you, but also provide the dose of inspiration that you might just need today. This podcast is all about giving you your weekly dose of practical strategies, motivation and insightful conversations designed to boost your business skills, personal growth and happiness. So, whether you're looking to find balance, say goodbye to procrastination, or just in need of a friendly nudge towards your goals, remember we're all on this journey together.

0:52 So grab your favorite cup of something, be it coffee, tea or something else, and let's dive into this conversation today. In today's episode, our focus is on keeping the chaos away. Just a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away, and I have Connie Graf as my guest today, who is on a mission to help business owners create a clutter-free office, organize files, and then you're going to love this and, together with that, be in charge of their finances.

1:34 So welcome, connie. Thank you for being part of the show. Thank you so much, Carol, for having me. I'm looking forward to our awesome conversation, yeah likewise. So Connie is a certified expert in finance and accounting and she's a certified clutter clearing practitioner, so I love the fact that you help people create supportive, clutter-free environments. That's got to resonate with so many people, not only in their home but their office files and finances but, more importantly, that you help them develop intentional habits that prevent this clutter from creeping back, but I would just love to ask you, connie, come and share with us a little bit about your journey, from where you started and where you are now.

2:21 Yeah, so I always say that already as a little girl, like, let's say, like 11, 12 or so I don't really remember how old I was I was already noticing how the environment makes an effect on us. Right, and I would declutter and organize my room like as a teenage. What nerd was I? Right, but it wasn't so much because I wanted it to look pretty, it was more like okay, how does it feel better? How does it flow better? How can I work on my desk and do my homework better? How can I like just it was more this feeling, how does it affect me? Reason why I did it. My mom always said, oh, you're so, everything is just laying around and it's such a mess here.

3:06 But this was just because I was constantly rearranging and trying to figure out what works best and so. But back then nobody talked about decluttering or organizing. That was back in the 70s and 80s. Right, it ages me, but yeah and so. But then later in work life. So I became an accountant controller. I was working in corporate, very stressful job and most people always commented and said, oh, you must have nothing to do because your desk looks just like really nicely organized and everything, and I'm like I have so much to do, I can't deal with chaos, like it's the opposite. And so this is kind of how it all happened that I started to tell people how I do it, how I stay organized, how I have a clean desk, not because I want to put it on Instagram Back then there was nothing in Instagram, no social media right but because I noticed that if I have an organized, clean desk I'm actually more focused, it's easier for me to do the work, I'm more productive, but not for the productive sake, but more for, okay, I can function better.

4:17 And so this is kind of how I transitioned out of well, I didn't really out of finance. It was more like I started to combine these two. And I also noticed that a lot of people who have a very messy environment often also have a mess in finances, and vice versa, right. So then this started to become obvious to me that they kind of need to be a little bit together. And then later I did some extra training, like because you said I'm a certified clutter clearing practitioner. What I did learn there was not getting organized, but learning the psychological background of why people can get organized, why people hang on to things.

5:05 So this is a bit little bit the short story of kind of a 30-year-old. It's so fascinating because you're so real and I'm loving what you're sharing about the mental attitude towards it. And then you know people looking at you and saying, oh you've got this awful clean desk. You've got nothing to do, yeah, but the fact that we need that and it's funny because I share a desk with my husband and my side is very organized and I like to keep it that way and I like to do that at night and when I look at his side. I don't want to look at his side and the funny thing this morning he said to me I think I might have time tonight to clear the clatter off his desk.

5:46 I'm like I just want to sweep it all off, put it in a box and you can come back. But I know that you know wanting to learn a little bit more about this whole clatter clearing and it's not, as you say, just purging stuff. I want to do this desk, but it's also the limiting beliefs that keep us overwhelmed and stuck, so that you know we need to hear what you've got to say so that we can focus on what matters to us. So I'm going to ask you first you know what is clutter. How would you describe the simple word of clutter? How? would you describe the simple word of clutter? Yeah, so there is many definitions, right, but one is for sure like things that you don't use and things that you don't love anymore, like they might have been once very important to you in your life, and then we all develop new interests or we move on, we get older.

6:43 So anything that you don't use and don't love anymore is for sure clutter. Then anything that is untidy and disorganized this sounds maybe a bit harsh, but it's like goes into this. Yeah, how does it make you feel Like, if we all know that when we come into a hotel room it's nice and serene and clean, how it makes us feel right? And at home we can't get this because we're kind of well, a, we're living there, so it's a little bit different, but oftentimes it's almost the opposite. Right, it's just so much stuff and it's untidy, so we don't need to become minimalists. But I always say everything has its home and everything sits in its home, so you find it easier and it has a home to put it.

7:29 So then you don't have the excuse to oh, I need to put it here because I don't know where to go with it, so that's also clutter. Then oftentimes people cram a lot in small spaces. That makes it look cluttered, it makes it look cluttered, it makes it feel cluttered. So now we all have different levels how environment makes us feel. So this is not one glove fits all kind of like. That's where you have to actually tune into yourself a little bit and say, okay, how does it make me feel, and be honest, like you know, and not just, oh, I don't want to. And then the fourth kind of thing that a lot of people forget or are not even aware of it is anything that is unfinished or broken.

8:13 So, for example, in the household we might have all kinds of little things that here a knob that needs to be put back on, here is a faucet that leaks a bit and annoys us, and all these things are cluttered too, because maybe you got so used to. Oh, there is no knob on this drawer, right, you got so used to it, but in a way it's still an obstacle and it's still something that trips you up in your daily thing. So it is clutter. It's so interesting that you share that, because I'm wondering if you found, while working with your clients, that there's an age related to this, because the older I get, the less stuff I want around me, and I don't know if age plays into it at all.

9:02 Yeah, I'm not 100% sure whether it's age. You might have just come to the realization I had the opposite too that the older people get, the more stuff they cling on to. I think it depends on your mental how you're thinking. Like some people, the older they get, they realize that it's not about this stuff. It's more about the experience we have in life and that we always have our memories, and that memories are actually way more valuable in a way than anything that we could stuff our house or our offices full with. But there is also the other people that struggle maybe with getting older and struggle with not being as young anymore, like we're both not 20 year old chickens anymore, right?

9:50 So sometimes people really struggle and then they cling to the things from when they were younger, and so then it actually starts to accumulate. So I'm not quite sure whether we can just put it put everybody in a box in one basket. Yeah, yeah, that there needs to be. Yeah, looking at different things that affect, and I suppose it's the same thing. You know, I have moved an awful lot. You know, besides moving from my country, even with here in the united states, we've moved a lot. We've lived on a sailboat, so we've lived in small spaces. You know, now I I have my home with lots of land around me, so I think it's all those different spaces in your life which is interesting.

10:31 But then I also think of holding on to things. You know, I even think of whiteboard markers and it's like do I really need 10 colors? But then is that my creative spirit saying, well, I want it to look pretty, so I want all these 10 colors. I could just have two, yeah. Yeah, and see again, we don't need to become minimalists. Right, and as human beings we're kind of it's ingrained in us to collect things, like even if you look at these tribes that are still traveling like they have pack animals, they have donkeys or camels or horses or whatever, and they drag a whole lot of stuff with them, because that is human nature.

11:12 So I'm not saying we have to get rid of everything. I'm not a minimalist. I live on acreage too. I have a lot of stuff that goes with my lifestyle. But that's kind of what I'm often saying you want to create a supportive space that works with your lifestyle. What lifestyle do you have If you live in the city, in an apartment or in a studio? You have a different lifestyle than if you live on a sailboat, like you did. I lived for a while in a camper. Now I'm living in a fairly small house but on a big property with lots of gardens. So there's different stuff, to say it that way, that we need for different lifestyle. Right, but what a lot of people do is they change the lifestyle but then they never let go of the things that was from before because they cling to it for many reasons, like I said emotional and mental blockages and I wanted to go there with you because now we, you know, just touching basically on emotional clutter and that emotional chaos and suppressing emotions.

12:15 Where does that play into um, letting go when you have emotional clutter? How do you recognize that? so I'm a in my eyes when you feel it makes you not feel good. Like we are not really trained to listen to our emotions that much. We're more head heads driven right. So that's why I'm saying like when I was young I kind of noticed how the environment has an effect on us, so we can start becoming more noticed how the environment has an effect on us, so we can start becoming more aware how the environment has an effect on us. But there is a little vicious cycle too. It's like because we're so in our heads, we, we should ourselves a lot. Let's say like this, like I should, I should, I should Well, who says right?

12:59 And then what happens? When you should yourself, you start feeling not good, Like you feel like crap, you know to be honest, and so this is. Or then also sometimes we keep items that doesn't don't make us feel good. We think we have to like maybe aunt violet gave us something and we kind of like, oh my god, I would offend not just aunt violet, because she might not even be here anymore, but whoever in the family might know might notice, right. And so this is where the emotional clutter comes in and then we beat ourselves up. Most likely we we might. I have a lot of clients that say, oh, I know I should be more organized and I just can't do it and I'm such a bad, bad bad.

13:40 That doesn't get us anywhere. And I want to say I was one of these. Like I'm kind of like somebody who had to come around. I might have been always kind of organized, but I was good at beating myself up. I had to learn this also the hard way, that we can't beat ourselves. So I just yesterday said to somebody a client of mine also we can't beat ourselves to peace Like you can't do that. What we need to figure out is how can we be at peace or how can it feel good now and then move from from that forward right, instead of like standing behind us.

14:24 We stand behind us with the whip beating absolutely yeah, because you don't want to take those baby steps and you don't move forward and you don't get the momentum and the the movement. I have two spaces that I wanted to go with you and I'm going to come back to this one. But I mean, where do you start? When somebody says, connie, come and help me, yeah, what does that look like? I mean, are there specific questions that put people into a certain kind of collective chaos, or do you start with the emotional? Yeah, so it depends whether we're doing just a home, like, whether we're looking at the home or at the office, right? So, because there's two different like the home is way more emotional.

15:06 The office is oftentimes more mental and less emotional. It may have an emotional effect because they think they can't do it, but in the home the stuff is more, emotions are attached to it. So where I often start is with a I call it a love tour. So we're actually walking around and figuring out, okay, what places do you love in your home and why? And by that time we're also noticing what are the areas that actually have a negative effect on these nice areas. Right, so it's. I always say, like we, everybody knows where their clutter is, but what they're, and then they focus on the negative. But let's focus first on the positive and go and see where.

15:47 Why did you move here? What do you love about this house? What do you love about the room? How did you? How did you picture this room? Why isn't it working this way? And when I'm starting to talk like this, a lot of stuff comes out and a lot of, and then I know where to go, like whether I want to more go towards the mental and helping them reframing what they're talking to themselves. I call this mental clutter, right, and again, I'm the first one who had to learn this. I don't think we're ever done learning, because every time we try something new, we think right away we should be perfect already, which we never are, and then we beat ourselves up.

16:28 So no, so then when I walk around with them and I can actually since, especially since the pandemic, but before already we can do that on Zoom too, so they can walk me around with their phone. Like technology is amazing. I was going to ask you that. It's like, how does someone work with you if they're not in your neighborhood? And it's actually so. In the beginning I thought it was hard, but actually it's almost a blessing, because a lot of people have a little bit of trouble to let just some stranger into their house, right? And then oftentimes too, it's like I want to see the whole house, not because I want to judge you, but because I want to get an idea. Because, like you won't believe it, but most people put the most clutter in their bedroom, where they actually try to sleep, and you can't sleep.

17:13 The more craziness goes on around you, the worse your sleep gets right, and we know now from sleep studies that sleep is very important. So that's why I want to see the whole house. But if you have a stranger in your bedroom, that might not be very comfortable for everybody. Some people have no problems. So if you can put the computer screen in between, it's better. Also, sometimes, when we can do this and we even record it or we take photos, sometimes you that live in this house or work in this office see the clutter or the problem better on the photo or on the video than when you are in the room, because it puts you a little bit like it separates you a little bit from it right, and so that was, for example, one thing.

18:03 If you want to figure out where the problem is, you can always take a photo of a room, put it away and then intentionally or tell yourself I want to look at this photo as if it was somebody else's space, right. And then you look at it and what springs into your eye like good or bad, and then you know, kind of like, where you want to start. If you're a visual person, that works really good. Right, yeah, no, I love that concept because, yes, you kind of get this awakening yourself when you look at it and go, wow, is that what I'm doing to the space self. When you look at it and go, wow, is that what I'm doing to the space, you know? Or when you just you shift things and move them off to the side. I guess garages are probably the other place that collect the world.

18:46 Yeah, and that's where most people want to start, and I would suggest often don't start there, because this often, whatever we put in the garage and the basement, is something we don't want to deal with, and that is is oftentimes has a lot of emotions and stuff involved with it, and it's almost like anything. Even if you go to the gym, you don't put the heaviest weight on the machine. You start small, right. If you want to go running, you don't start with a marathon. You start walking a few minutes and then running a few minutes, right. So just as well, you have to train your decluttering muscle, and so don't start where, and also don't start with, oh my God, the China from my grandmother.

19:28 What shall I do with it? That's one of the questions I get a lot and I'm like, well, is that the only clutter you have in your house? Then don't worry about it, just keep it right. But no, no, I have the whole house full and I'm like, yeah, but don't start there. So this is why I'm saying don't start in the garage and don't start in the basement. Make first sure that in the house and less emotionally charged things are all taken care of. This trains your decluttering muscle. This trains your awareness of what works for you, how it feels to you, and then we can start becoming more advanced and go through these things that you shoved somewhere in a corner or in the basement or in a garage to not have to deal with them, because that's why they're there, because you don't want to deal with them.

20:17 You know one thing as you're sharing this, all that kind of makes me think what must be important or the area to go in is where do you spend the most time and where do you want to be sitting and feeling happy? And I mean for me myself. I have huge, big windows in my bedroom, so the sun, the moon, the light. We don't have curtains, so that is an important space to me. And then working from home in my office is my other important space. So do you help clients identify? Okay, this is my happy space in my home, so does this not deserve my efforts? Let's start here, which would make it happier, and then move on to the challenge.

20:58 The home needs your attention and your time and effort to do it there, but you yourself do too. So I often say too it's like clearing clutter is self-love, it has to do with you, and we can get into the woo-woo part. I don't like self-love word in a way, because a lot of people think then it's selfish. But it has nothing to do with selfish, it's kind of self-care A. There is all kinds of scientific studies how stress has a bad effect on our health, physical health, like heart health and all anxiety and all that. Well, clutter is number one contributor to stress.

21:38 So if we want to do something good for us, for our body, for our mind, that's where we can start right. And so, yes, your space, your beautiful bedroom with the beautiful windows, or maybe you have a living room with a gorgeous view or a beautiful chair that you love to sit in. Well, how does it make you feel to sit in that chair and look at chaos? Right, that's where I'm saying like, where the self-love comes in. Self-love, when we try to eat healthy, we make sure we're moving right, we listen and hear how we can live a healthier life.

22:19 Well, that is part of it. So that's so important and I know. Having a look at your website, I saw that you had something else about social chaos. Yeah, and that to me just sounds so fascinating, especially for my listeners, many of them who are are, you know, solopreneurs working from home, um, and you mentioned an overfull calendar, not working with ideal clients, which is, you know, something we often only find ourselves giving permission to ourselves later in life, and that often younger people who are starting off their business think they have to work with everybody. And then you even mentioned unresolved arguments. So I'd love to just touch briefly on the social chaos and clutter.

23:03 Yeah, so social clutter you have in the private life and in the business life. So in the private life it's more like we think we have to put everybody first and then it's 10 at night and you still haven't exercised if you wanted to, you haven't read in your book even though you wanted to, or whatever. So this is that part In the business. It is often like working with clients that are not ideal. And now I want to say sometimes we have no choice right. Especially maybe when we start we're taking on everybody and anybody. Nothing wrong with that, I think, because we may also want to figure out, we may think we want to work with these people, but then we realize, oh, actually it's much better to work with these people.

23:44 So there is times in business, or if we need the money, we just need to take on whatever we're taking on. But what a lot of people do is they never get out of this phase Like they think they need to accommodate to everybody. No, you don't Like. You don't do anybody a service if you work with somebody that isn't ideal. And then there is also clients that are simply not. How do you say that they're not ideal because they're not good people. They may try to take advantage of you, they may overstep their boundaries, they may want to have way more than what they're paying for, and if we're not having boundaries there, then that creates chaos in our business, right, it creates chaos in our calendar, because then we're spending way more time on these people, while actually our good clients and the ones we love to work with and the ones that deserve our best, like we're at our best.

24:43 We're not at our best with those clients because we're so freaked out and exhausted from these other ones. So this is one, for example, one scenario that I see a lot and where I was myself too. So I always want to say I'm not here. I mean, I may sound like I sit on the soapbox and preach, right, but it's a lot. I do this too. I do this too, and I had to let go of clients, which is very uncomfortable. But if anybody ever had to do something like this, they know exactly how relieved they feel afterwards, even though it was horrible experience to stand up for yourself, put boundaries up and say enough is enough.

25:25 But yeah, oh my God, you feel better afterwards, yeah. And it's a journey. I mean, it's just as you say. You know, if you hadn't taken this journey, you wouldn't have the expertise to be able to guide somebody, if hadn't touched it, felt it been part of it, having it as part of your path as you've moved along. So, connie, I wouldn't oh sorry, go ahead. No, you go ahead. I just wanted to add to this, and we often forget that on paper or so it looks much nicer oftentimes than when we're actually doing it. So experience helps a lot, and I'm not saying nobody should have the experience of a social clutter or a bad client. I think we all need it. Some people just still struggle afterwards to put boundaries up and it helps them to have some reassurance that they are allowed, like a lot of people think they're not allowed and so yeah, that I wanted to add.

26:17 Yeah no, and I, yeah, even just on the over full calendar, and I try to block in what I call white time, even if it's 15 minutes before and after a meeting, just to allow yourself to sort of decompress or to what you might have learned or you know, whatever it might be. But to go from meeting to meeting to meeting, um, is exhausting. That you know. Or whatever you do, if you even even working, that you put everything on top of each other without giving yourself a little bit of time. Well, we're not machines, right. What a lot of people do like. They learn about time boxing and time blocking and all these things and then they fill their calendar. It looks pretty. I love planning too. And then it looks so pretty, but it's not practical Again on paper. Then it looks so pretty, but it's not practical. Again, on paper it looks wonderful.

26:59 It's not working because we're not machines, we're human beings, right. Yeah, yeah, that we need to Now one of the things. Just before we wrap up, I said you know, sometimes you feel that clutter creeps back, even after you've decluttered. Where does one go with that's? You've done all this hard work, they've worked with you and now they find it creeping back again. Well, it's, it's a, it's a fact of life. I mean, I think it's like thinking we can take a shower once and then never have to again for the rest of our life, kind of thing. So what has to happen is and this is where a lot of people struggle with decluttering they think they can declutter once and are done with it.

27:44 I always say it's not an event, it's a journey, and you will always have clutter. I have clutter. It's not we can like. I know there is. I just watched a video of a guy in Japan and I think he has 31 items in his life or 33. I forgot now. He was very proud of it. He doesn't have more items and every item has dual purpose and whatever the hell. We don't need to become that way, right? And so we become, we stay, normal people. Not that he's not normal, but he just has this obsession with owning only 33, I think 33 items so, and so it's like it's coming in and out. So it becomes a problem when we're not constantly letting go and we're not constantly screening our environment and noticing what we're not using anymore or what doesn't fit anymore.

28:37 Right, once we are there. And this is where I'm saying like it's not an event, it's a journey. When you're, or you maybe get professional organizer or declutter queen or whatever in and they do your whole house and everything looks wonderful. But if you don't change your habits, if you don't change how you function every single day, it will be cluttered in no time. And this is why I'm saying it's not an event, it's a journey. We can get you uncluttered or as clutter free as you want to be and not everybody wants to be clutter free Like I don't take anything from you. Whatever you want to keep, you keep right. But we can get you there by. Also, while we're doing this, we're changing habits, we're figuring out which habits create the chaos in your home.

29:23 Like, for example, if you, every time you end your day and you just leave everything in a cluster and then the next morning you have the first meeting at eight in the morning and you just shove everything to the side or maybe even down to the floor. Like that's what I notice a lot. Let's just put it on the floor, and so after a week you have five days worth of stuff on the floor and then it looks very daunting to take care of it. Now, on the other hand, if you would either like, some people are more morning people, other are more evening people. So if you could clean up five, take five minutes at the end of the day and clean everything up. That's what I like, because then I come in the morning and I see a clean slate.

30:06 So then I don't have, at the end of the week, five days worth of stuff on the floor right or other people. They are so exhausted they don't want to even deal with anything in the evening anymore. Then, well, take five minutes in the morning before you have to jump on this call and create your work environment. And these are these little things. That's why I say a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away. What works for you and how can you make sure that you don't sabotage yourself by? And? And the thing is too is like oftentimes we set up our whole life, or our, especially when a professional organizer comes, or so we set everything up for when life works perfectly fine without any hiccups.

30:50 Well, when did you have a life without any hiccups or a business that doesn't get hectic? The stress test comes when it gets hectic, and this is where we have to start adjusting our habits, and only if we adjust and pivot our habits, our processes and our systems sounding corporeatory here, but when we start changing those, then the clutter doesn't creep in or not as easy, right, because we have habits in place to put the things back where they belong. Like I said, if they have a home, then we can put them back, not just here for now, and I talked with yesterday with somebody about files on the computer.

31:33 If we have a system, we save the file where it needs to be saved and not just on the desktop, and then a week later we don't find it because we have a jungle of files on the desktop, for example. And these are these little things that most people give me pushback and say, oh, I have way bigger problems than these. No, no, but that's where you start, right. And then we start and we solve all these little problems, and a few little problems on a string create a big effect. All of a sudden you will say, oh, wow, I'm way more organized and less cluttered and to me, what that all ties into is where we started is this whole peace of mind, which you know, as you, as a young child, discovered this need and, being in you know that's surrounding yourself.

32:16 So that is the payoff the self-love, the self-care the stress. We both thinking that at the same time, so yeah, yeah, and you can use. you show up when we talk about business. You show up for your clients from a completely different foundation and level than if you're frazzled and oh my God, and I can't find the file. And I know I wrote it down and where is it now? And you know. Yeah, stop that distraction. Well, Connie, this has been wonderful For somebody who wants to work with you. Where do they find you? work with you. Where do they find you? Yeah, so my website is ConnieGrafcom, and I write Connie with a Y, so it's C-O-N-N-Y-G-R-A-Fcom, so that's the hub.

33:00 There you find all the beautiful things that Carol also found. I also have a podcast. It's called From Chaos to Peace with Connie. Lovely. Well, I'm going to make sure to pop those all into the show notes. And then, is there any way on social media that you prefer to connect with your people, your community? Yeah, I'm probably most on Instagram, although it starts to become annoying with all the advertisement, but I guess that's just what we have to live with. But you can reach me on Facebook, you can reach me on LinkedIn, you can reach me on Instagram. I'm not so much on Twitter. I do have a profile, but if you try to reach me there I might not notice for a bit.

33:41 I'm with you. Well, we'll make sure we'll send them to your website, which is wonderful, and I'll have that in the show notes. Thank you, thanks for joining me and to everybody who's listening, go spend five minutes right. Just do five minutes today and see where that puts you. So until the next time, thank you. And today I encourage you, embrace your own unique way of connecting, inspiring or creating, and let it bring a sense of joy into your world. In my role as a coach, I love to work with women, business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and help them explore fresh ways to focus on their projects, find the right tools for accountability and learn how to build a positive mindset which, in turn, allows for more empathy, not only for yourself but for others and situations.

34:38 With my personalized accountability and progress coaching, which I combine with the powerful positive intelligence program, you will find ways to shift into an overall happier space. If you would like to take the complementary saboteur assessment, I offer a follow-up complementary coaching session to help you explore your results. Do take a note of the link in the show notes or visit my site, carolcleggcom. Until the next time, thanks for listening.