Weight Loss Made Simple

118. Why Getting Organized Feels So Hard—and the 15-Minute Fix That Changes Everything

• Dr. Stacy Heimburger

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Feeling overwhelmed by clutter—but also overwhelmed by the idea of getting organized?

You’re not alone.

In this week’s Coffee Talk, I’m joined by professional organizing coach Tracy Hoth, who’s been helping people get organized for over 17 years. We talk about why most organizing attempts fail, how identity plays a huge role in clutter, and why 15 minutes might be the only habit you actually need to get started.

This episode is all about simple baseline habits—no perfection, no weekend-long purges, and no buying a bunch of containers. Just practical, realistic systems that work for busy women.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why identifying as “disorganized” keeps you stuck (and what to think instead)
  • How to use the 15-minute rule to make organizing doable
  • Why sorting first reduces decision fatigue
  • How to avoid creating a bigger mess while decluttering
  • The power of assigning “homes” (and getting your family on board)
  • Smart questions to ask so clutter stops coming back in
  • How organizing your space can also help organize your thoughts

If you’ve ever said, “I’ll get organized when I have more time,” this episode is your permission slip to start small—and actually follow through.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

👋 About Our Guest

Tracy Hoth is a professional organizing coach and the host of The Organized Coach Podcast (Top 1% globally with 100K+ downloads). She helps people create simple systems to organize both their homes and businesses—without overwhelm or perfectionism.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. As you can hear, my voice is not really up to recording new content today for you, but what I wanted to do was give you a glimpse inside of Kickstart 2026, our January seasonal challenge. Inside that program, I host these coffee talks with expert coaches that come in and just add so much value to that program. So. So I'm going to plague you. My coffee talk with Tracy Holtz. She's an amazing organization coach.

She talks to us just about simplifying, because that's what week two and the challenge is all about. Each week has a focus, and the focus where we had Tracy on was just about simplifying, Simplifying your routine, simplifying your decisions. And she's helping us simplify our environment. She's really amazing. Her organization is simply squared away. She does a 15 minute declutter challenge. She has a podcast called the Organized Coach. Of course, she's on Instagram.

I'm going to have everything in the show notes, but I want you to just sit back and listen to my conversation with Tracy. And if you think, wow, I didn't even know Stacy did things like this. I do. And there's going to be three more seasonal challenges this year, so you don't want to miss out on those. But I hope you really enjoy my conversation with Tracy.

Welcome to this week’s Coffee Talk. We’re so lucky to have a guest coach with us, Tracy Hoth, organization coach. Thank you so much for being here. Do you want to tell everybody a little bit about what you do?

Yeah, Stacy, I’m so glad to be here. Thank you so much. I help people get organized. I help them get organized in their homes—I have a program for that—and I also help people organize the backend of their businesses, which is fun as well. I work one-on-one, and I have programs for both of those. I’ve been an organizer for 17 years, so I’ve seen it all. Combining that with life coach training and certification, the two really work together to get results.

I love that.

I love that. So this challenge is really about setting some baseline habits. We want to start our year off with things that aren’t too much, but that we can reliably do. I know when I’ve tried to get organized, I kind of get overwhelmed. What is one of the most common ways you see people get overwhelmed, or a bottleneck that derails their best intentions?

Yes, I think the biggest bottleneck is starting from the identity that you’re disorganized.

Oh.

And I know that seems counterproductive—like, I can’t think I’m organized until I’m organized—but when you start from a place like, “I’m a mess. I’m a piler. I’m sentimental. I don’t make decisions fast,” that’s what you’re going to create.

And as a coach, if you’ve had coaches, that makes sense—but that is so key. Play around with the fact that you could even go extreme, like, “I’m extremely organized,” and start from that. And if that feels too hard, go into something like method acting or an alter ego. Pretend you’re someone else who is super organized and take action from that place.

I think that will be so helpful as you start organizing.

Yeah. So you hit on two things—this thought ladder that we like to teach. If you just need to get a little bit further along from “I’m a mess,” you could say, “I’m learning to be organized.” I love that. “I’m learning” is always a good thought ladder. Or, “I’m not organized yet, but I’m working on it.” And then, “I used to be disorganized, and now I’m really organized.”

And this idea of future you—what would organized you do? When you are this organized person, how would you handle this? I love that.

What if someone just wanted to get started and wanted one thing—where would you say, “You could do this today to get started”?

I would say, first, treat organizing like a project. Yes, you could just pick a drawer—I totally agree. I have a 15-minute organizing challenge, and I’ve been having people do this. It has literally changed how they view organizing because they think it’s going to take so long and be so complicated.

When they do this, they start a timer, and I give an example of me doing a drawer. It took 13 minutes to completely do my neighbor’s junk drawer.

It wasn’t mine—it was my neighbor’s—and it took 13 minutes. You can do so much more than you think you can. I think we spend more time dramatically spinning about how long it’s going to take and how we’re not good at it.

I also like to treat it like a project. Plan it out—put a start time and an end time, decide what area you’re working on, and stay with the project. We tend to think, “I have to organize my whole home,” or “I have to do my entire business or all my files,” and it becomes overwhelming.

Instead, think of it like a project you’re going to work on this quarter, this month, or this week. “I’m going to do my bathroom,” for example. Then you have a timeline for yourself.

I love that. Do you recommend people do an entire room at once? Sometimes I think, “This weekend I’m going to do this whole room.” Do you think that’s harder than the 15-minute approach?

I can see both, but I love the idea of 15 minutes. You’re right—if you set a timer, you get so much more done than you think.

That’s a great question, and I think you know yourself well. Even me—and I’ve been doing this in people’s homes forever—there comes a point where you have no focus left. You can’t endure it to the end, and you leave it a big mess.

If you want to do it all in one chunk, like your closet on a weekend, still work in 15-minute segments so you don’t end up with chaos. For example, take out all your tank tops and spend 15 minutes going through those. Put back the ones you’re keeping where they’re going to live—assign them homes. Then take out your jeans or pants and do the same thing.

You can do it in one or two 15-minute increments per category. That way you can pause without being overwhelmed by a huge mess.

Oh, I love that idea.

Sometimes I’ll organize in small moments—like if I’m getting ready in the morning and waiting on something, I’ll clean out a section of my makeup and ask, “Is there anything I can get rid of?”

I talk a lot about asking better questions. I used to be a little bit of a hoarder—maybe my husband is worse than I am—but I started asking, “Can I live without this?” instead of “Will I ever use this?” Do you think that’s helpful? Are there other questions that help people let go?

Yes. I like the method of choosing favorites. My acronym is SPACE: sort, purge, assign homes, contain, and energize. The first step is sorting—getting like with like.

Once you have a category together, you can choose your favorites. You pull out the ones you use and love, and then you’re looking at what’s left. Another helpful rule is making your default decision to not keep something. In order to keep it, it has to earn its place.

It helps to know where you’re going—like having a destination in the GPS. Maybe that’s a limited container or drawer. Or maybe it’s a feeling. For example, with pens, I only want my favorite pens around me. I want to feel elevated. Because I know that destination, it’s easy for me to let go of all the pens that don’t write well or that I don’t enjoy.

Setting little rules and knowing where you’re going makes it much easier to use the favorites method.

I love that. I remember pulling out all my shirts once and realizing how many nearly identical tan shirts I owned. Until I had them all in one place, I had no idea—one was in the closet, one in a drawer, one somewhere else.

Getting everything together makes it easier to see duplicates and say, “Oh my gosh, I have ten staplers.”

When it comes to assigning homes, I find teaching other people where things go can be hard. Any tips?

If you have a family, buy-in helps. Ask, “Where do we all want this item to live?” Labels are also incredibly helpful. When people know exactly where something goes, they’re more likely to put it back.

I worked with a woman who had five boys. We redid her pantry and used simple tubs with labels for snacks. The boys got excited because they knew exactly where to get things and where groceries went when unloading.

Labels don’t have to be fancy. Blue painter’s tape and a Sharpie work just fine.

I love that. When my boys couldn’t read yet, I used picture labels—balls, trucks, vehicles. They figured it out pretty quickly.

Sometimes they can do better than we expect.

As a busy woman, I tend to overcomplicate things. For this January challenge, I want the simplest baseline possible. What would you suggest?

The first thing that comes to mind is putting a recurring appointment on your calendar—maybe the first of every month—called “Plan Organizing Project.” I usually do this early in the morning so it doesn’t interfere with other appointments.

At the beginning of the month, decide one thing you’re going to organize. Then block off time—15 minutes, an hour, whatever works—each week to work on that project.

Keep it small: four kitchen drawers, under the bathroom sink, your jeans. Just one project per month.

I love that. Last year, I did something fun—I bought colored trash bags and used them for purging. Seeing the roll get smaller helped me feel accomplished. Are there other tricks to feel progress when it’s not visible?

I love that idea. I’ve never heard that before. Another option is having a donation bin or bag in one spot, maybe with extra bags underneath. When you run out, it’s incredibly motivating.

Another great strategy is scheduling donation pickups. If a truck is coming once a month, it motivates you to get things out by the curb. Even if you’re scrambling the night before, it works—and things leave your house.

I love that. One challenge I’ve had is purging while still bringing new things in. Any tips for that?

Before you buy something, stop and ask, “Where is this going to live?” Everything needs a home. When I was organizing homes, clients would offer me items, but I always declined because I knew I didn’t have a place for them.

Another helpful question is, “What do I need to get rid of to bring this in?” Sometimes that decision alone stops the purchase.

It’s the same with opportunities—if you say yes to something new, what are you saying no to? We’re all at capacity.

Any final tips?

Yes—sort first. Most people walk into a space and immediately try to decide what to get rid of. Sorting removes decision fatigue.

Also, use an “elsewhere bin.” If something belongs in another room, put it in the bin and keep going. Don’t leave the space you’re working on or you’ll get distracted.

If you end up with multiple elsewhere bins, bring them together later, sort by location, and put things away in batches.

You are so capable of doing this. Once you learn the steps, you can apply them to anything.

You can get my 15-minute declutter challenge to learn the steps and exactly how to do this.

I love that. We’ll make sure everyone has the link.

Thank you so much. This was incredibly helpful—especially for me. I get overwhelmed easily, and the 15-minute approach feels very doable.

And Stacy, once you learn the five steps to organize anything, you can also use them to organize your brain. You get the thoughts out, sort them, purge, assign homes, and contain them. You can use this for everything in your life.

Perfect. Thank you so much—we really appreciate it.

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Stacy Heimburger

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