123. Downsizing Tips: How to Let Go Without Regret with Tracy Hoth

Professional organizer Tracy Hoth shares downsizing tips, staging tricks, and the mindset shift that makes letting go of clutter easier, without the regret.

Professional organizer and coach Tracy Hoth joins me to talk downsizing, and she keeps dropping golden nuggets the whole time. We talk about decluttering tips for the fear of regret, the mindset shift that makes letting go so much easier, and why staging every room like you're moving is the fastest way to see what actually matters to you.

✨ How to reframe the fear of "what if I regret giving this away" so it stops paralyzing your decisions
🔑 Why staging each room as if you're moving instantly clarifies what you'd take with you
✅ What Tracy's grown kids said about their childhood stuff 
✨ How to work through downsizing when everyone in the family is at a different level of readiness
🔑 A simple, honest definition of "organized" that is clear and simple

Tracy Hoth's website: simplysquaredaway.com
The Organized Coach Podcast (Tracy's podcast)
👉👉 Tracy's free 15 Minute Declutter Challenge: simplysquaredaway.com/declutter

If you know what you have, and you can find it and put it away easily, you're organized. That's it, that's the whole bar.

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Transcript

Welcome to Organizing for a Beautiful Living. I'm Zee Siman, the Choosy Organizer. This is episode 123.
 
Tracy Hoth and I spoke a few months ago about the mindset of decluttering and organizing, especially during a downsizing decision. Tracy is both a coach for small business owners and a professional organizer with many years' experience. The golden nuggets that she kept dropping during our conversation have stayed with me, and I know they're going to stay with you too.
 
I especially loved what she said about how to deal with letting go of things that you might regret, or how to overcome that fear of letting go of something that you think you might regret later on. I don't think I've heard it said this way. This mindset of making the decision right is so brilliant to use at those times.
 
And then another fun idea she has is to stage each room of your house as if you're moving. What that does is it makes it really clear which things you would move with, or if it's important to you and your kids. And then listen to what her grown kids said that they absolutely don't want from their childhood home.
 
It's actually quite funny, but it's not uncommon. She also said something that struck a chord with me. She talked about a neighbor who felt some shame about the state of her home.
 
I was there once. Logically or illogically, I felt that way at one point. Happily, I'm not there now.
 
All in all, this is a fantastic conversation about how to think of your identity as an organized person, but without taking on anyone else's mandate of what organizing must be. Because when you know what you have, and you can find it easily and put it away easily so that it doesn't affect your daily living, but instead it enhances your daily life, well, then you're organized. So here is Tracey Hoth.
 
Hi, Tracey. Well, you've been a professional organizer for a long time, but now you're also an organized coach for other business owners. So how did that come about? Yeah.
 
Wow. That's amazing. And yeah, you must be kept very busy.
 
So how do you plan around that? When do you take vacations? Around your schedule, around the kids' schedule, and around your husband's schedule. Everybody's kind of working together to get that done. And is it- I'm always- Right.
 
Right. And I'm always busy. And when could we possibly take a weekend away? No.
 
Well, it sounds like you make that a priority too. Okay. Yeah.
 
Okay. Well, so, okay. Over the years of you being a professional organizer, I imagine you've come across a fair share of people who need your help to downsize, whether that's entire families with kids or just the empty nester couple or the retired couple.
 
But what happens, what do you do when like within that one family, there are different levels of attachment and just a motivation to want to do this, to get rid of stuff, to be able to downsize? How do you work with each individual or do you not? How do you approach that? Yeah. Okay. And if there are kids involved, at what age are they able to kind of understand that, do you think? Okay.
 
Yep. Rather than- I love that. And it's more like, instead of telling my child, okay, you must get rid of half of your stuffed toys and a quarter of your toy cars.
 
It's more, you're modeling the behavior for them. You're showing them, I can get rid of stuff too, all around our house. And we need to do that in order to be able to live in our house.
 
Yeah. Yeah. So, and I imagine it sounds like your training as a life coach has really helped you to work with people through all of this, because I can just imagine husband and wife are not on the same page.
 
They know they have to downsize. They know they have to declutter. They know they need to, to let go of some things, but what happens when there's an impasse? Right.
 
Right. Right. Right.
 
And so we, I mean, we're talking about then the decluttering and downsizing. It's not about the space necessarily, or only, it's about our identity too. So what have you seen with people when you've helped them to kind of let go of some of these things that maybe they've been hanging onto for years and years and years, what has their reaction been after the whole process? And they've, they've moved and they've moved and they've downsized.
 
What has, what have they come back to you with? Yeah. Right. Right.
 
Oh, that's great. I really like that. So you've heard of Swedish death cleaning.
 
I love looking at my own stuff in that way. Like, what am I leaving for the people that I love? And yeah, hopefully that's many, many, many years in the distant future. But looking at that, how do you work with people to kind of make those decisions? Like, what am I leaving for, for my loved ones? Okay.
 
Yeah. Yeah. Can we start? Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
 
Amazing. Yeah. Oh, so good.
 
Yes. Yeah. Right.
 
Right. I found that people are kind of afraid you mentioned paperwork. People are afraid of even starting with a paper.
 
It just feels like such a huge thing. And once you get started, that you're just going to be drowning in the papers. Have you found, I've found this a lot, actually, when people actually start going through the papers, they get on a roll.
 
It actually goes faster once they begin. Is that kind of your, your beauty? Yeah. Exactly.
 
No, that doesn't come out of any people's mouths. I don't think. Yeah.
 
When people pass, and you're faced with all of their stuff, there's a real time limit. There's a time crunch to get through all of those things. Yeah.
 
So it even makes sense to do that now. Do you have a, a way of people to how people might start to think about, okay, what legacy am I leaving for my family? What are the things that make sense? Are there categories that you look at? Or what do you think? Right? Yeah. Yeah.
 
Right. Right. Yeah.
 
Yeah. Right. What else do you need? Yeah.
 
Oh, no, I get it. Is there anything that your kids have told you? Mom? I have no way. I don't want that.
 
Absolutely not. Right. I'm Amazon.
 
It gets delivered to your house. You don't even have to step out of your door. That's crazy.
 
Yeah. No. We've had the only thing that that my kids have looked at, we haven't had the conversation about the furniture, because I really doubt that there's any furniture that they would want.
 
But the one thing I worry, I wonder about is your clothes, because everything goes around on a cycle. And at some point, will your kids say, Oh, I want that vintage, that vintage piece of clothing you have in your, in your closet. Don't get rid of it.
 
Because I have clothes from, you know, the nineties, a few pieces, like a jacket and things like that, that I've kept in that, you know, for a long time, I was saying, you know, it's time to move on time to get rid of these. And my daughter said, No, don't get rid of that. Because I might want to wear it someday.
 
Is there anything like that? Have they have they thought about that? There you go. There you go. For current, I keep thinking, since when did my stuff become vintage? I'm still here.
 
But yeah, that's, that's the only thing I can really think of that, that my kids might even be interested in. Sure. Yeah.
 
Their style, and their, their, their wants? Yeah, no, 100%. So is there anything that you would tell those people who are going through this deep downsizing process for the first time? Are there any watchouts? Anything that you know, could be major roadblocks for people that maybe we haven't thought about? Okay. There you go.
 
That's good. That's good. Yeah.
 
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
 
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
 
But I really love that thought that the decision I made is the right decision. I really, really like that. And that's really great.
 
That's awesome. That's awesome. What made you decide to become an organizer all those years ago? Yeah.
 
Wow. Oh, did she did she I'm sorry, I interrupted, but did she say this out right? Like, um, no, not in my house. Right.
 
Right. Got it. Got it.
 
That's shame. Yeah. Yeah.
 
I love that. Oh, fantastic. Do you have you always thought of yourself as I'm an organized person? Has that always been your identity? Okay.
 
Yeah. Okay. No, I hear you.
 
Do you remember that movie with Julia Roberts, where the cans had to be facing the right way from those years ago? Yeah. So I think people like have this have this vision in their mind, and that's what organizers are. And I want to tell them, oh, my gosh, my house is messy because I live in it.
 
But yes, I know where everything is. And I know that I can clean up in 10 minutes, because I know where everything goes. So that doesn't worry me.
 
There's no work. Yeah.
 
That’s it, that our stuff has homes. It fits in the home, so that when we throw stuff on the bar when we walk in that can be put away quickly because things have homes.
 
But very simple. And I did go into an organizer’s house in Kansas City when, I don’t, this was probably 20 years ago, or no I guess not. 15 years ago. And she did. Her cans in her pantry were alphabetized. And I was like Oh my goodness. I am a failure. How am I helping people? So, don’t compare yourself to anyone else. It’s use the definition. If you can know what you have and you can find it when you need it, then you are organized.
 
And you can find it eighty percent of the time.

Eighty percent of the time. And don’t compare. Don’t compare. Don’t compare. That’s good.

Well thank you so much. So tell us where we can find you online. How can we get in touch with you?
 
Yes. My website is simplysquaredaway.com. Everything is on there. And my podcast is The Organized Coach Podcast. 
 
Awesome.
 
And yeah. There’s a, I have a free download. It’s new and it’s like blowing my mind because women are loving it, sending me before and after pictures. So it’s the fifteen minute declutter challenge. And it’s at simplysquaredaway.com forward slash declutter.

Awesome. OK, we’ll put that in the show notes too. All your information there. Thank you so much Tracy.
 
Thank you Zee.
 
For chatting with me today.

It’s always fun to talk to other organizers.
 
I know it is fun and realize we’re so much alike. And that we teach the similar things, and they’re making a difference.
 
Love it. Thank you so so much.