So you may have read the title and thought, I don't know if I need to listen to this one because I have no plans on moving anytime soon. But there are just some general life lessons we've learned from helping in four different moves this summer that I think can apply at any time. So just might want to still hang around, listen. Listen, if you're trying to clean up your house, it may still be entertaining enough.
And I have a feeling this might be a little bit longer than normal just to reflect on these four moves. But maybe you'll get a lot done while you're listening. Also, pay attention to the intro because I'm going to talk about how being a monkey brain or a fish brain impacted these various moves along the way. And maybe that will help kind of you keep it in the back of your mind how you could be helpful if you're ever helping in a move situation even if you don't plan on moving soon.
A wise person once said, Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid. Well fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys. It's time to jump in the water. And learn how to swim with the current of your life. I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow fish brain.
If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement, and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks, then I'm glad you're here. Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique. Together, we could have a joy-loving home. All right, before I jump in, I actually have a request from my Fishbrain listeners. So I got an anonymous question from a person who listens to the podcast.
And what made this one unique, and I want your input, I am going to answer it as a podcast because I think it's actually a really valuable question that I should sort of share at large as well as responding to this person. But they are a parent of a fish brain. They did not discuss whether they are a fish brain themselves or not. But they see their adult child with her own young children kind of struggle with her house. And their heart is absolutely in the right place.
She wants to be super helpful to her daughter, but is met with resistance. And she just asked if I had any suggestions on how she can be helpful when she sees, you know, that sort of fish brain overwhelm. So I guess my question to you, and I would love for you to email me joy at joylovinghome.com and just say, Hey, here's my thoughts on the question you asked in the podcast.
But the question was, you know, how, how can she be helpful without stepping on toes, or without making her daughter feel like she's judging her housekeeping skills. So if your mother or mother-in-law was trying to be helpful, what would actually be helpful? So I'm just curious your thoughts on if you were approached, what would be actually the most helpful thing they could do? All right. So now that I've talked about that, let's jump into this sort of our summer of four moves.
So just to give you a little background, the first move was our grown son who was moving from an apartment to a different apartment within the same city. And he is a monkey brain. And he is a monkey brain minimalist. Move two was helping downsize from. Of over 16 years, so it could have been worse, could be decades and decades long, to a smaller two-bedroom, two-bathroom place in a retirement community. They are both monkey brains.
Move number three was from one unfurnished college apartment to a different unfurnished college apartment, complete fish brain, that one. And then the last one was from the solo like bedroom bathroom space within an apartment to now ending up sharing a bedroom bathroom space with inside of that same apartment. Also college kid, also monkey brain.
That one's a little little unusual because where the apartment is that they live near the college was not intended for college kids so it's more set up for a family he had the sort of kids bedroom with the bathroom across the hall but one roommate moved out and the new roommate moving in wanted that scenario so he had to move into what was set up to be the primary bedroom bathroom space but it is much larger. And so he now has to share it.
Yeah, so we'll talk about how each place is a little unique and what sort of life lessons or thoughts I had along the way as we were experiencing these, these various moves. So move number one, that very, very minimalistic, organized kid, And I call him a kid because he's my kid, but he's early 20s. Handled literally 99% of it by himself. So our efforts to be helpful ended up in us flying down. He picked us up at the airport.
Everything was pretty much done. He let me help hang anything that had to go on the walls. So we ended up taking him out for a nice dinner, made sure that the apartment he left behind was, you know, he would get a security deposit back because it was in good shape. And yeah, easy breezy, easy breezy. The main takeaway there for me was less really is more. He has not accumulated much in his life yet and he... Is he just likes order. He just does. Yes. And somehow he's my kid.
It's where I tell you all the time, if you are afraid you are messing your kids up because they're not learning organization or structure or, you know, calm in your style of parenting, I really believe people are who they are. And your influence will not change them, good or bad.
So just, just don't overthink that part of your parenting all right move number two my my takeaway from that one was no matter how early you start it will always get chaotic at the end so this obviously was by far the biggest move and because my in-laws are both monkey brains and they had.
So they had been on like a wait list to get into this community for nearly two years and during those two years she was always actively thinning things out and and thinking things through and downsizing and then we were on a 90 day clock and she ramped up like all every part of each day was her you know going through stuff and narrowing it down and deciding what she wanted to take versus what she needed to leave behind and living in the midst of it.
And she was a really, she is a very skilled mover because the only reason they had been in this house for 16 years is the other part of her married life was some frequent moves. So she was really good at it. I don't want to say was like she's not around, just she got to stop moving at that frequency. So she might have been a little rusty at everything she knew, but it all kicked back in.
But that to say there's only so much you can do when you're actively trying to live in the house and you're trying to go well let me leave this out but we will pack this last but we'll think about this here we'll think about this there it still gets chaotic at the end and you just the older you are the more tired you get even if you're a dynamo it just it's the reality of life So my lesson there is you have to allow for the chaos to just be no matter how prepared you are.
And everybody in the situation has to work to stay calm and positive. And it's just if you're in a situation where you're being helpful just tell yourself you need to exude that sort of calm positive energy and not let things rattle and not blame and not you know not let anybody blame themselves like it just moves are hard they're just hard.
All right. My main takeaway from move number three, which is the only fish brain in this group, is that even if you're chaotic and everything is chaotic, it's all going to happen. Like it all has to happen. So just as a little more deep dive for those of you that are fish brains, and you're like, okay, this, this would be like my move. So our kid who was leaving his apartment, but we owned it, owned it.
We were leasing it because if none of you have college kids yet, this is the great racket of a college apartment. You have to pay for all 12 months, even though they're only using it for a school year. So he knew officially we didn't have to be out until July 31st. The new apartment, we ended up starting like July 15th. So we had this two week window where we could have done the move, but it still had to happen within when we could get down there to move it.
But when school was over, he was so ready to be home. He basically picked up his clothes and his bathroom stuff, like the immediate need of his bathroom stuff, and walked out the door. There's absolutely zero prep ahead of time. So when we went down to move him from one apartment to the other, we walked into somebody like being told, hey, you're moving today. Let's get started. So we went from zero to emptying an apartment in a matter of hours.
One of the reasons that could happen is because in college you only have so much stuff. And we had to move the furniture out and everything and we had to make sure it was cleaned behind and we had to get it all moved in and pseudo set up into the new place. And if you've never had college age boys, they're just gross.
I'm sorry. They're just, so there was a lot of cleaning involved, not just of like what I had to leave behind, but, you know, dust that had sat on items for a year that you would like to take into the new place. A little cleaner so that you're not introducing the dust from step one. Our huge bonus is that he brought two friends with him and he has a pickup truck. So my husband and I were able to go, you guys just start moving furniture and we'll start figuring out the stuff.
When you are dealing with a fish brain's existence, it's not like the stuff was in there organized to start with. So if I had brought boxes and tried to say, okay, here's the kitchen box and here's the bathroom box and let me pack it up all nice and let me, okay, don't overthink it in a move like this. Literally the, your best friend on earth. If you have an Ikea near you or you have ever been by an Ikea or you ever want to order this online or have ever experienced an Ikea.
They have these giant plastic tote bags that you can buy because if you buy items at an Ikea, they don't bag anything for you. So you tend to buy these things. I am not remembering the actual price at this point because they have varied in price over the years. My guess is they're still $3 or less. I could be wrong. Y'all can correct me if I'm wrong. But over the years, I have accumulated probably. Seven to 10 of those giant plastic bags.
They fold up so lovely. I use them in my professional organizing all the time to haul away donations or to sort things in because they're so easily collapsible and packable that when I'm trying to take donations away from a client's house, I don't want to have boxes or rigid moving things that I sort with taking up valuable space that could be used for their donations to haul away because when we're done using them if I used them to sort they literally can fold up and slide under one of my
car seats and then my whole rest of my car can be used to take their donations away so I literally grabbed those bags we waltzed into the apartment. I opened them and just scooped stuff in. So I just scooped everything in the bathroom in and hauled it out. I scooped everything from the bedroom in, maybe took two, and hauled it out. Scooped everything from the kitchen in and hauled it out. The time in a situation like that to situate and organize and rethink is on
the other end. And it also didn't help that it was July in Alabama. It is the oldest apartment on earth with an AC that does not work at all. So it was probably 98 and 80% humidity outside that day. And inside, it was probably 103 and 99% humidity. The goal was just get out, get out, get out. And so my point being, even if you are a chaotic, chaotic fish brain, and you're not doing some sort of long distance move, don't overthink it.
Just allow it like every tip you've ever seen about how to move in an organized fashion, just out the window, just put stuff together and get yourself moving on. So that was my big takeaway from that one. And then in move four, the biggest takeaway was you cannot control other people.
So in the scenario we were in, the roommate that was moving out was trying to wait until his apartment opened up, but the roommate that was moving in was trying to move in from the time he started paying the lease, understandably.
So we were trying to negotiate with my son had to have his stuff out of the room that was being moved into and I wanted to clean it properly so that kid got a fresh start but we had nowhere to move it to unless the other kid moved his stuff out but he was trying to linger so we were like could you move the stuff at least out of the bedroom bathroom into the living room and then we'll deal with the living room later but at least I can move the bedroom to bedroom and it's,
that's not like that kids wanted it clean from top to bottom before he moved out or cared and as a parent again reiterating college-age boys are gross I just wanted people to feel like they could start with a fresh start and the kid we were moving out I don't know him well enough to know whether he's a fish or a monkey brain but my kid is a very.
Very organized monkey brain and the idea of moving his stuff into a space that was dirty was not, a thrill for him so anyway there was a lot that went on there that I just had no control over and you just have to let it be you just have to let it be so even if you're not moving. Like, what are your just life lesson takeaways at this point?
And if you are thinking about moving, and you're thinking about helping with a move, or you're just like, I'm going to file this away for later in my life, I have just sort of three main tips and an overall observation. So my tip number one, invaluable in every move, is have a grab bag of cleaning supplies, including a toilet paper, a soap, and like a roll of paper towels.
So that you can have a bathroom set up quickly and you know where when something needs cleaned either before it gets moved into place or the place that it's moving into needs cleaned up quickly, you know exactly where that grab bag of cleaning supplies is. In the same tip, a little grab bag or cooler of some cold drinks and some quick healthy-ish snacks goes so far. So if you do nothing else for anybody else in any kind of move, set up a essentials bag and an essentials food.
They will love you forever if you show up for those. You will love yourself forever if they are part of your move. That is like one tip, number one, start, you know, be the awesome neighbor if somebody's moving in and show up with those as a welcome gift. I'm telling you, you will be like the favorite neighbor forever. Tip number two, less really is more in life, in your move, in your attitude, or your ability to sort of be riled up. So...
My minimalist kids, even though moving is always going to be hard, it is the least hard when something like that goes on. And when you're accumulating a lifetime of stuff, you realize how little of it you care about when you start thinking about what you really want to take with you.
So as you go through life giving yourself less inventory to deal with is always going to be a positive existence it's just it's going to help you whether you're moving or not just think about do I want to keep up with all this inventory now during a move ever all right tip number three is live your life for you. And don't worry so much about the next people or the next phase.
Because where I'm trying to say this is a lot of people will never really settle into a space if they know it's temporary. You can't live life assuming it's temporary, like jump all in, be where you are at, do things for you, do things that make you happy, whether that's a paint color or a decision. You can always paint over it when it's time to move if the house isn't selling. You can do things later, but live for you now.
And that includes my mother-in-law who is so good at trying to decide, what do I need now? What do I need later? How do I decide this? How do I decide that? I was so proud of her for not overthinking everything.
Like she did the things she could do that were the easy things to downsize ahead of time but she lived her life in that space right up to the moment that it was time to now think of it in the new space and because the new space was so unique and so it was such a new phase of life that infused so much energy of just this could be fun this is something new like don't work so hard to make a new place feel like the old home that you're not embracing the new.
I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Live each space for the moment you're in in that life. Don't cling to the old stuff so hard that you're not allowing room for the new. And don't prepare for what's next so much that you're not living in the now. Maybe the quick and easy way to say that is live in the now. Now. now and worry about the rest when the rest comes because it will be there and it will all happen. So that was a really clunky way to give tip number three, but tip number three
is live in the now. It's going to be okay. And then my overarching tip, if you are a helper, and this is huge. Is literally the worst part of a move is the cleaning the old space. Because now that you've You've gone through all that work and the energy is so expended. Your only excitement and adrenaline is towards setting up the new space.
And the idea of turning around and having to go back to the old empty space that could make you sad and make you frustrated that you didn't do more sooner is the act of now cleaning a space that you get no, I don't want to say benefit from, but it's the hardest part. It just is. So if you're a helper, be the person who says, oh, you go ahead, get started, do what you need to do, go ahead and start the drive, start the move, start, be there to tell people where to put things away.
I'll stay behind and I'll get it cleaned up. It's okay. And if people are like, oh, but like, I'll be embarrassed. Like, no, nobody is moving every piece of furniture out of a room and cleaning little dust bunnies and cobwebs and scrubbing down baseboards behind heavy furniture that you've never seen. There is no judgment in the cleaning up of where things have been left behind. It is a nice way to save someone money.
But I will also say if you're like, I have zero desire to clean anybody else's space, I have zero desire to... I'm not getting any help. I'm the one who has to go in there and clean up behind. Consider giving yourself the gift of paying a cleaning crew then to come in behind you and clean it. Because literally, that is the hardest part. And the gift I'm glad I gave my in-laws is my sister-in-law and I, we stayed behind and we did the cleanup and we were trying to get it done in a timely fashion.
But we knew people needed to eat dinner at some point and we knew everybody just needed to rest because it had been a really long day. And so we got everything as we cleaned, we just moved towards the back door, towards the back door, towards the back door. And what was left behind was just a little bit of just wiping down everything in the kitchen, which was where the back door was, and mopping that last floor because we had done everything else.
And my mother-in-law was, this is great, girls, because I just, I need a moment back in the house to kind of say goodbye. by. So allow them that, you know, allow them to be like, I get to do the last little gift of closing this house down the way I feel good about it and walking out the door. So if it's a final move like that, where you were attached to the place, allow them to have that moment.
But if it's like an apartment and you have moved on and you can be the gift of just scrubbing it out and walking away from it and letting them be excited about the new space, then do that. So I am looking up before editing. This is already 25 minutes. So it may get slightly smaller, but I'm going to stop. I hope that you can have some sort of takeaway in there, even if you just have to file it away for a future. But I did want to wrap up. This has been an interesting summer.
And it was interesting seeing different personalities, different fish brains versus monkey brains, different scenarios all sort of happen in in the window of 10 weeks probably so. I need to turn it into a podcast so I can listen to it one day and remember it. Anyway, I hope that you all are continuing to choose joy. I almost forgot. I did have to add one other thought.
And that was in our free membership, not free membership, free podcast group right now, the podcast community, we are doing a 10-day declutter decathlon in honor of the Olympic The game's just ending and it's a fun way to work to get 100 items out of your house. We have 10 categories, 10 items in each category. If you complete the whole 10 days with us, you leave at the end of August with 100 less items in your house. So if this sounds fun to you, it's absolutely free.
You just join the community and you can get there and I'll put the link in the show notes by going to bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity. Join me there. I go live every day and show you what 10 things I'm getting rid of and talk about what that category means. And you can play it. You can watch it live and do it with me. You can play it later and do it with me, however it works for you. But it's a fun little let's get 100 things out of our house. All right. Hope you can join us there.
The membership will open right at the end of the month, so I thought it was a nice sneak peek to see the kinds of stuff we do in the membership. If you want to get on that wait list, it is joylivinghome.com slash membership. All right, continue to choose joy.