C. Steven: Hi. Today at The Writer's Mind, we're welcoming Laura Ellis. Laura Ellis...full disclosure...since the last name is the same...Laura Ellis is my cousin, but she has also been a dancer, an actress, she's done sketch comedy, she had a one woman show, and now, of all things, she is...and I'm looking at my paper to make sure I get this right. She is the president of the Los Angeles Chapter of NAPO. What is NAPO?

Laura: NAPO is...there you go...is the National Association of Professional Organizers. Did you know there was such a thing, that there's that many organizers that we have our own association? And it's and national. There's one in every major city, and I'm the president here in Los Angeles.

C. Steven: To me this is fascinating on several levels, and this is why really I wanted you...despite the fact that we're related...this is why I really wanted you on the podcast, was because, to me, you're a fascinating character unto yourself. You know, it's like, how many people put professional organizers in their books as a character? Can you imagine? You're a professional organizer, but you're on the run from the bad guys, but first, you know, you notice that by organizing the bookshelf somehow you find the secret compartment, or something like that. And...

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as organizers, we're in people's homes and spaces. It would be very likely that we could find something.

C. Steven: I bet you you do. Have you ever, just as a side thing...I gotta come back to this. Let me make a quick note. Finding this stuff.

Laura: Okay.

C. Steven: Okay. So also though, on the second level, it's writers as...you know, I don't wanna characterize us as being sloppy people, but just look around my office, for God's sakes. It's, like, nothing but clutter. And the same thing with a lot of other writers I know. Their desk has mounds of paper. They're trying to create characters. They get scene ideas. It's a Post-It that suddenly goes onto the middle of their monitor, and then they don't even remember why it was there, etc. So kind of wondering how somebody like you could bring some clarity ,and perhaps, you know, well, I hate to use the word, but organization to their life.

Laura: Yeah. That's what I do. You know, I do work with creative personalities and industries. I've got artists, and I do have writers. The thing is it all depends on the client. It's what they want, and what they need, and what works for their life. I can't impose my organizing vision onto what they do. But having said that, usually when people call me, it's because they need to solve a problem. So something is not working for them, and that's why they pick up the phone call me. So if a creative person calls me and says, "I just cannot find my notes. I don't know where to put anything. It's total chaos over here," I meet with them. We go into their space. I see how they work. I talk to them about their process, and then we create something that's gonna work for them. For example, if your process is to have index cards all over the wall and create your storyline, I'm not gonna tell you, "Well, maybe you should really put them in a box." Because out of sight, out of mind. That's not gonna work for that person. So it's really tailored.  

C. Steven: Okay. But to me, I would think, especially since I'm using myself as an example, you have to kind of pry it out of them, you know? you have to force them to let go of some stuff. Because if you walk in, and like...you know, I'm looking around my office. If you see books everywhere... I've got computer cables everywhere. I've got records, LPs that I haven't listened to as an LP in, I don't know, 15, 20 years, but they're all sitting back there on the shelves. You know, you've got to somehow finagle or charm your way into getting them to give up some of their ideas.

Laura: Yes. I have a lot of education and experience in working with people and getting them to let go of their items, but I will never tell someone they have to get rid of something. It is up to them. But when we go through the process, people begin to see that perhaps they don't need those albums that they haven't listened to in 12 years. That's why we always start with a vision. So if I said to you, "Craig, what is the vision for your office? If it's not working, if having the LPs around and all the cords and cables that you have, if that's not working for you, what is working? Like, what's your vision? What do you want it to look like? What's your dream writer's office?" And then we work from there. So as we go through the items, we go back to the vision. And I say, "Does this fit the vision? Does having these piles of papers, does that fit the vision of the office?" And they start to see that it really doesn't, and maybe it's okay to let go, you know? So yeah. I have lots of little tricks, though.

C. Steven: Well, okay. We're gonna circle back to that, but I actually forgot to start this way, and that is really how does somebody get into organizing? I mean, you didn't wake up when you were five or 10 and go, "You know what? I wanna be an organizer."

Laura: No, I didn't. I mean, not officially, but it is something that I've always been good at. And I know people are gonna think this is crazy, but I actually like it. When I see a disorganized space, it looks like fun to me. I see the potential there, so it's something that I wanna help people with. So I like it, and I've always been that way. I used to reorganize the utensil drawer in the kitchen or help my mom do the linen closet. I mean, I was always...my mom tells a story about me sitting in front of my changing table...so you can imagine how old I was if I was, you know, still in diapers...tossing all the stuff out of the table because...I don't know. It wasn't good enough to me. I just wanted it to be neater. So I'm going, "Mom you gotta organize this stuff!" without words.

C. Steven: So just a touch of OCD?

Laura: Well, but if you come to my house, yeah, I can see why you would say that. Here's the difference. It doesn't make me anxious if it isn't organized. That's the difference. So if you come into our house, although you're usually over for an event, so it's really, you know, sparkly, but it looks lived in. It's not about having everything in place and having a staged home all the time, because I think that's, you know, a level that's very...it's unattainable, and why would you wanna put that pressure on yourself? We live life. The trick is, how quickly, if you had to when pushed, could you have your space organized? Is there a place for everything? So he looks around the room. Yeah.

C. Steven: Yeah. No, I look around this room, and I'm thinking, first of all, my wife is, like...she sits there, and she looks around. She goes, "You know, let me organize your office." And I said, "Well, what would you do?" She goes, "Get rid of everything!" "Why, no! You can't do that. This is my stuff. This is my little cave." So I don't know.

Laura: Well, that's a great reason why people hire an organizer. I am not...no seriously! I'm not attached to their stuff. I don't have a relationship with them. So if, for example, you were to work with a professional, I'm not gonna go and say, "Get rid of this." You know, it's a different relationship, and perhaps you would be more open to it, because you know, when it's your spouse telling you something, it's much easier to say, "Get out of here. I don't want you to tell me what to do. Stop telling me what to do?" You know? So...

C. Steven: Right. In this room, stop telling me what to do. You can tell me what to do in other rooms, but this room...

Laura: Well, that's up to you.

C. Steven: Yeah. So all right, so then how do you...because I know that you, you know, you studied dance, you studied acting, and theater, and you you were in improv groups, and you did a one-woman show, and you're...and I'm, you know, again, I know we're related, but you were fantastic. You were hysterically funny in your shows.

Laura: Aw!

C. Steven: And I wanted to know, how do you go from doing that to actually saying, "All right, I'm going to be a professional organizer and actually get into this is as a living?"

Laura: Right, making the leap from just something that I'm good at to a profession, and having a company. Well, like I said, it's something that I've always been good at. I always did on the side. And while I was pursuing my creative endeavors, I didn't wanna go the route of waitressing. I needed a little bit more stability in my life, so I had day jobs. And that's how I learned how to organize offices. Because I worked as an executive assistant in New York, and I was living in Manhattan, which is a very space-challenged place. So all my friends who had difficulty putting their things away in their apartments would come to me and say, "Can you help me do this?" And so I started to do it on the side for them, and that just kind of grew. And then when I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my big dreams of acting, and I did, you know, "Second City," and I did some plays. And all the while, I had my day job, and then I was also doing this organizing on the side. And it just developed. I worked for real estate developer, so in 2008, as we all know, the market crashed, and a couple of years later the commercial loans hit. And that's when I got laid off. And I had been with this company for 10 years, which was an amazing experience, learning how to grow a company from the ground up, because it was a very small business. So it was just me, and him, and a phone on the floor when I started, and I helped build this, all the systems in the office, the filing systems, and the computer systems, and the marketing, and we grew to two offices. And all while that was happening, and also acting, 2011, I got laid off. And I was sad for about two minutes. And as I'm carrying my box down to the car with all my stuff, I'm, like, thinking, you know, and I called my at-the-time boyfriend-now-husband, and I said, "I just got laid off." And he said, "Congratulations." And I was like, "Yeah. I think this is the kick in the pants that I really need to start my business." So I had a little help from the universe or whatever pushing me in that direction.

C. Steven: So at what point did you find out that this was a profession, that there were organizations?

Laura: Right, that NAPO existed. Well, I was investigating it for a while because, you know, it just seemed like an interesting thing to me. I discovered NAPO, and I started going to their meetings. They have Chapter meetings, and they also have classes. So people think of organizers really as someone who comes into your home, and puts away the clutter, and you know, makes your house nicer. But there are all kinds of specialties. There are people who specialize in chronic disorganization, which is a thing, in hoarding, and in photograph organizing, in electronic organizing, all kinds of different specialties. And they teach classes in the best ways to approach this, and how to deal with clients, and how to set up your business, and they're really an amazing resource. And on top of that, they have really good SEO. So if you're a member and you join...when I started my business, like, who am I? If you Google, you know, "professional organizer in Los Angeles," I'm not gonna come up. But NAPO does. And people will go, and they discover it, and they'll look for an organizer on there. And so that helps build your business.

C. Steven: It's funny because it's one of those professions that, once you do it you're, like, so glad I've done it, but you don't think about it. And I address the novelists in the crowd, because novelists have to do so many things beyond just writing and creating their book. And if they're saying, "Okay, I'm gonna actually treat this as a business," the benefit from an organizer would be tremendous. Because not only do you help, like, clean up space and things like that, but you also help organize time, right?

Laura: Yes. We do time management, and productivity, and process. So we can really even streamline your creative process. That's a huge thing, but the first thing is always clutter. And, you know, I have two types of creative and writer clients I would say. One is the type of creative personality that needs things around them to feel comfortable and creative. The other is the total opposite, and I have both. So just because you're creative doesn't mean you have to live in clutter. I worked with someone yesterday, and she is a writer, and we've been working together for quite a while. They just moved into a new home. We set up her new office, but she wants everything in its place, labeled. Because she doesn't wanna waste her time thinking about that. It's a distraction for her. She wants to get to the business of creating.

C. Steven: And that's really the key to anyone, really, feeling overwhelmed, because you're occupying too many places in your mind for too many things.

Laura: Yeah. There is a limit. There's a limit to how much you can hold in your brain. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there's been studies on this, you know? And if your energy and your focus is being pulled every time you go into your room, or your house, or wherever you're creating, and you see a big pile of papers, or you see the record albums that are distracting you, there's a little bit of thought that goes to that. And you go, "I really gotta get rid of those records. I really gotta handle that." And it's really pulling your attention away. Also creative personalities love procrastination.

C. Steven: No. What make you say for that?

Laura: It's true. I hate to break it to, you but this is a reality. Yep! They love procrastination, and looking for things, finding things, all that is a nice, creative distraction, so to speak. So it's really something to look at, you know. There's a lot of psychology involved in organizing.

C. Steven: I would think so.

Laura: Yeah.

C. Steven: As a matter of fact, I would think...and again, what we talked about at the beginning, I mean, even though somebody calls you to come in and help organize them, there's got to be a lot of pushback for your thoughts and your ideas.

Laura: What, you mean from the client?

C. Steven: Yeah, from the client.

Laura: Sometimes. Sometimes. But when people call, they're ready. That's why...

C. Steven: Yeah, I know I guess that's the, you know, first stage of any kind of disorder is realizing you have the disorder, and so then you're calling for help, right?

Laura: Yes, exactly.

C. Steven: Yeah, okay. So...

Laura: Some people do push back. Some people do. Here's a funny thing. So sometimes what happens with the client, if I make a suggestion, and they say, "Oh, I don't wanna get rid of that"... They'll pick up something, you know, like, I don't know, a stack of business cards, and they'll say, "Oh, I don't really need these," you know? And I say, "Okay, well, maybe you can get rid of them." "Well, no. I think I might hang on to them." So I take note that there was a little pushback when I made a suggestion. The next time, I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. So if they say, "Oh, these books, I probably don't need these," and I just sit with the silence. And it is the funniest thing how they talk themselves through this process. It's hilarious. It happens all the time. They'll go, "Oh, well, you know, I don't really need these. Well, maybe I...I don't know. I think I can probably get rid of these. I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say to get rid of them." But I haven's said anything. I haven't said one thing, and they go through this whole thing, and they finally let go. So sometimes just my presence, just being there, is enough.

C. Steven: Well, you know, this is similar to an interview technique that I learned just from watching, and I'm old, so watching Johnny Carson. But what he would do is he would always repeat the last thing said, but restate it. And then the person just goes off. So it's like you say, "You know, I really don't wanna get rid of these books, or "I wanna get rid of these books, but I wanna keep most of them." And it's like, "You really want to keep most of them?" And then they're off, you know, and it's just a matter of letting them work through it themselves, right?

Laura: That's it they have to just go through the process.

C. Steven: Okay, well this is fun. So questions that I have, let's see. We talked about people being overwhelmed, so I'm gonna ask you some organizing tips that I think writers in general would...

Laura: Anyone in mind?

C. Steven: Anyone? No, I don't know, anyone of mind or not, but I think writers in general would get some ideas out of. So I know, you know, writers  tend to be voracious readers. So that means that we have books, we have magazines, we have printed articles, and we have brains that can't hold on to anything, you know? Because we're too busy. We're too busy being scattered, we're too busy trying to create, and the fact that the brain can't hold onto anything it's like, "Well, we better keep this article here for it." And I know that you are also...one of the tools you use is Evernote.

Laura: Yes.

C. Steven: And I wanna see how do you employ Evernote into that kind of, you know, "I got to get rid of the magazines. I got to get rid of some of these books that I haven't read in years," things like that?

Laura: Okay, well, I'll go backwards from the list that you asked. So you talked about books, magazines, and Evernote. So Evernote. I'm a Certified Evernote Consultant, and that means I know a lot about Evernote, probably more than you will ever want to know. It's an amazing tool. It's not the most user-friendly when you first start it. So I often hear people start to use it. They say, "I don't really like it," and then they abandon it. I would say stick with it. There's tons of videos and resources out there for how to set things up. One of my favorite things about Evernote is the scanning feature and the web-clipping feature. So when you're browsing the internet, you come across an article that may be wonderful for your next novel, you know, something  juicy that you wanna file away. You can clip it on the internet, and it goes directly into a notebook, which all becomes searchable text in your notebook, which you now have on your phone, on any device that you're carrying around. So if you're traveling, you still have the same information. It's not locked up in your office. You can also do the same thing with scanning. I love the Fujitsu ScanSnap. It's this little, teeny portable scanner. It's so fast. It's amazing. It's a little pricey, but for me it's worth it. And if you have a lot of articles, clipped paper, I find it very very helpful. Because you can scan that stuff into Evernote too, and it all becomes searchable.

C. Steven: So let me ask you a question here, and this is a technical question, then. What what is a difference between, you know, taking your iPhone and taking a picture of something and sending it to Evernote or scanning it?

Laura: Not really anything. It's just it's...if you take a picture of it from your phone you have to make sure that it goes in as a PDF. So you know, not as a JPEG.

C. Steven: Because JPEGs are not searchable but PDFs are.

Laura: Correct.

C. Steven: Got it, okay.

Laura: So you have to use an app on your phone that's...I think there's one called Scannable for iPhone. And so it's basically the same thing. You're taking a picture of it, and it will go right into your Evernote notebook, and it's searchable. And I think, as a writer, that would be super useful. It's so much easier than flipping through that file and all those clippings, which probably will take you down some other rabbit hole. Because you know, there's a lot of distraction in a paper file with clippings, and you're gonna look at another article, go, "Oh, look at this shiny thing. What's over here?" Right? Instead of keeping focused on the task at hand.

C. Steven: So you're saying writers are like cats.

Laura: Well, yeah, maybe. Or dogs. "Squirrel!" You know?

C. Steven: Exactly.

Laura: Okay, magazines. Just stop ordering magazines.

C. Steven: See that mess? I don't know if you can see it but in the...

Laura: I can see it.

C. Steven: Yeah, it's massive. And they're all wine, or cooking, or you know, food, and wine, and all that stuff, and...

Laura: Now, here's an interesting thing. I know you're a big cook. Do you refer to those magazines for recipes? No! Right?

C. Steven: Absolutely not, right? I used to go through this tremendous process of where I would, you know, find the magazine recipe, then find the recipe online, then copy the recipe into my recipe program, and it's like, by that time, it takes me an hour to do like four recipes, or something like that. And quite frankly, you know, especially running a novelist business, running that full time, it's crazy. I just don't have the time for that. And it's also, like you say, it's, like, legitimized procrastination to do.

Laura: It is, yeah, yeah, and it's not getting you anywhere. So here's the funny thing, what I heard you talk about in there, which is very common. So you get a magazine. Then you go online to find the recipe. I mean, isn't that where everybody gets anything? The worldwide interweb has so much information, and it's just...it's there. We don't need...listen, I love magazines. I love going to a Barnes and Noble, if you can find one anymore, and getting a big stack of design magazines and a cup of coffee, and flipping through all the shiny, glossy pages. Love it. But will I ever subscribe to one? No.

C. Steven: Have you ever subscribed to magazines?

Laura: Actually I do. I get "Real Simple." People gift it to me, but...

C. Steven: Oh, because that's a...it's also...that's an organizing magazine, right?

Laura: It is. It's an organizing magazine, and here's how...how many of them do I have right now?

C. Steven: Well, actually I don't see anything behind you.

Laura: One! Well, I don't have it in here, but yeah, I have one.

C. Steven: As a matter of fact...

Laura: Let me tell you what magazines are good for.

C. Steven: Yeah.

Laura: Boot shapers.

C. Steven: Boot shapers.

Laura: If you have tall boots, which I hope you don't, you roll them up. Put them in your boots...

C. Steven: Hey, let's not get too personal, all right? You know...

Laura: Okay.

C. Steven: I mean, I don't have tall boots, but it's okay if I did, okay?

Laura: It's okay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

C. Steven: Not that there's anything wrong with that. Especially since, you know, I'm not exactly a tall guy, so anything that  increases the stature is good for me.

Laura: Gotta do it.

C. Steven: Gotta do it. So again, so magazines, just stay away and realize that almost anything in a magazine, you can get online. And on top of that, there are programs now that actually source their content from magazine articles all the time. And I'm thinking of Flipbook, I think, is what I'm thinking about.

Laura: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

C. Steven: So when you start going through that, you can even search the things that you're interested in, and then you can come across that article about wine or that article about... And then also search anything in Google with the word "news," and you're good to go too. Speaking of Google, do you teach people how to use Google? Do you know, like, the qualifiers that you can use to search Google?

Laura: You mean how to do a search?

C. Steven: No, no, not just typing in a name, but for example, I could type in something. If I type in my name, for example, I will get all of these articles about some Australian soccer player who apparently is quite good, but nothing about me. And I know that in Google, you know, there are qualifiers that you can use. You can, you know, say my name, and then in parenthesis, or minus, not "soccer player," or something like that. I actually don't know how it works, so I'm wondering if you do.

Laura: I would have to Google that.

C. Steven: I think, you know, just as...ladies and gentleman, thank you. Good night, everybody.

Laura: Yeah. I don't. But do you...? This is a question for you. See? Do you set up Google Alerts for yourself?

C. Steven: No, not on my name, because I'm not...

Laura: Because you get the soccer player.

C. Steven: Right.

Laura: Maybe there's some way of doing it, so I would have to Google that.

C. Steven: I think that...I mean, not that it's a suggestion, not that I'm making anything about your business or anything like that, but it certainly is kind of an interesting niche to teach people, especially people who, like, need to use the internet and want to be more concise about their internet usage. Anyways, sorry. So...

Laura: Curated information is a huge time-saver. So you're talking about, like, Flipbook or Google Alerts, any time that you can have specific information sent to you, that will save you a step in searching for it if you're running a business. You know, I have Google Alerts set on my name...not much comes up...or the organizing business, but very specific things about it, how to organize this, or that, or your business. Evernote, NAPO, these are all Google Alerts. So in the morning, I will get articles sent to me based on that.

C. Steven: I've never used that, but I think I should because I...

Laura: It's super useful.

C. Steven: Yeah. Let me ask you something. Now, you are in a business, and you are, you know, as a business, trying to increase your business. What do you do for promotion?

Laura: Well, I am in a networking group. I'm in BNI, which is amazing.

C. Steven: B-N-I?

Laura: Yes, Business Network International.

C. Steven: Wow.

Laura: Yeah. It's a fantastic organization, and I happen to be in a really amazing chapter. We have 55 members, and the way that it's set up is there's only one profession per person. So I'm the only organizer, and there is no competition. So for all of those people, I am their organizer. So now they go out into the world, and they're my sales force, and I'm theirs. So you know, if someone asks me for handyman, or a contractor, or a computer guy, which I get a lot when I'm working in offices. People need either cord management, or whatever problems are having. I've got the guy to do that, and I call them and say, "You've gotta talk to Lawrence. He's gonna help you out." So they are my sales force, and that has been huge.

C. Steven: Wow.

Laura: NAPO is very helpful that way, especially because I'm in a leadership role, so I'm out there in front a little bit more. Word-of-mouth. My clients my, you know, if I can turn a client into a fan, that's the best thing.

C. Steven: Social media?

Laura: Social media, yeah. Instagram, yes, @organizedbyellis on Instagram.

C. Steven: Have you done any paid advertising?

Laura: I've done some Facebook ads, and that's helpful. I haven't really seen any, you know, nothing that I can qualify on ROI for that. Instagram, I get questions about contributing, so people will want me to contribute to their blog, which is great. It's exposure, you know?

C. Steven: Right. Well, that's interesting. I like that. You know, I haven't really learned a lot about Instagram, and again, I'm sounding, like, 100 years old, you know, saying, "What's this Instagram thing?" Like, turning it into a verb, you know, "Hey, let's go Instagram-ing," you know. And...

Laura: Are you Instagram-ing?

C. Steven: Yeah, exactly.

Laura: Hire a young assistant. That's the key. You gotta get something young who knows what the heck is up, because I cannot keep up with all of it, you know. And they put emojis in everything. I...you know.

C. Steven: All right, so I wanna get to your favorite question. We talked about this earlier. So what, if any, allegory exists between cleaning and organizing your space, and cleaning and organizing your mind, you know, your ability to get things done and be a little bit more organized up here?

Laura: Yeah. Well, it's never about the stuff, ever. People call me because they think they have a clutter problem, and there's always something deeper. There's always another reason why that clutter is sitting there. So as we go through the process, usually when I open the door, I can see the weight, and the embarrassment, and the shame, which for me, there isn't. There's no judgment about anything I do for my clients. But I can visibly see it. And after we have a session, and we get things going, and we start the organizing process, and things start to feel a little lighter, there's a change. There's a physical change in their body, in their presence. They look lighter. I can see their mind  is more clear, and that would just be after one session. And it continues to happen, and I have seen people change their lives in so many ways. Nothing makes me happier than when I go back to a client's home and it is exactly the way we left it. Because guess what. They changed a habit, they created a new habit, and now they're moving on to things that really matter in their life. Big events can be a big cause, so if there's a death in the family, if there's a divorce, these are things that cause clutter. Maybe someone left you, you know, an aunt, a relative, a grandmother, left you a bunch of stuff. Or you're the person in the family that they're like, "Okay, well, you know, C has a garage. Let's just dump all the boxes from grandma's house in his garage," and then cut to five years, later, nobody's gone through them. So those kinds of events can create...

C. Steven: I don't want to be gauche, but what do you charge?

Laura: Oh, that's not tacky at all. It's posted on my website. So I'm $85 an hour, and if I work with a team, it's $75 an hour, per person. And it's much more effective to work with the team. We get a lot more done. It's like an exponential experience. It just happens much faster.

C. Steven: I mean I'm gonna come right out and say it. That's a deal. I thought you're gonna charge a lot more than that. That's a deal. I mean...

Laura: Oh, maybe I should raise my rate.

C. Steven: And actually, you know, I know that when I've cleaned something up, like with just my desk, there is that feeling of satisfaction. And if you're doing that on a much grander level, an office, a house, a garage, or you know, the boxes that you got sent over from grandma's old house, or whatever, that's such a deal. And hours, in terms of hours, is there an average there that kind of takes place?

Laura: It varies greatly. It really depends on the client's decision-making ability, so how fast are they gonna move through stuff? Usually, I would just say, if it's very cluttered, but kind of average office, we can make a big difference in 24 hours.

C. Steven: Okay.

Laura: A really big difference.

C. Steven: So we're running out of time, and I've got so many more questions, so I wanna trying circle back to one, which I just thought would be funny and amusing. When you're going through stuff, have you ever found something where somebody's like, "Oh! Uh...uh..." and they're just like, you know, something inappropriate? I don't want any names or anything, but you know, just something fun that was, like, "Oopsie"?

Laura: Yeah, all the time. All the time.

C. Steven: You don't have to tell me what it is.

Laura: No, but I mean, I have organized...

C. Steven: Does it begin with a P and end with an N?

Laura: Listen. I've organized everything, from a weed drawer... It's legal here in California, so you know. I'm not kidding. We had a section for edibles, we had a section for paper, and the bedside goody-drawer.

C. Steven: Okay.

Laura: Yeah, all kinds of stuff. But sometimes someone'll be like...there'll be a box in the closet, and all of a sudden, that sort of like mysteriously gets put off to the side. So I just ignore it. I can sense when people...I go, "Okay, well, why don't you just do that on your own?" You know.

C. Steven: Yeah. I love that. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about, and I know I'm all over the place here, but we were talking about Evernote. And I was just thinking about my Evernote. And it's like, Evernote is great, but even my Evernote is bloated. Because I don't know how to use it properly, or it's just bloated, and maybe it's okay to be bloated because of the way Evernote works, in terms of searching and finding stuff.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, I have heard people say that it doesn't matter to matter to them and they can just search. That drives me crazy. I think your brain still ends up looking for the notebook. So just here's a question to you. Do set things up in terms of notebooks? Is that your bloating? No, it's no?

C. Steven: No. I've read something once. I had set it up as an inbox, and then the idea was that I would, you know, put things in...so here's the thing. You know, you set up. You put it in the inbox. The inbox is for review, and then you move things into the notebooks when you review them. Guess who never reviews anything.

Laura: Right. So it just ends up...

C. Steven: Right, so  it's just like this massive...

Laura: Do you use tags? Tagging is a great...

C. Steven: So yes, I have used tags, and I'm actually learning to use tags more from my Twitters, my Twitter feed, you know, by putting out the Twitters. You know, you're tagging. You're hashtagging, you're doing the "@" sign, you know, to get people or things like that. So I'm learning to tag more, and so I'm constantly doing that on my Evernote. But still, I know I suffer from Evernote bloat. I even have, like...

Laura: Evernote bloat.

C. Steven: Evernote bloat. I know. I'm coining the phrase. I want 50 cents every time somebody says it. But I know that...I have, like, "Inbox," and then I have "Old Evernote," you know, like the stuff I didn't tag, so it's crazy. So yeah. So that's another niche, I suppose, that...

Laura: Yeah. Well, Evernote is easiest when it's simple, any system is. The more simple you can create a system, keep the structure flat, meaning don't have a bunch of notebooks, you know, tags are the best way to find things. I'm believer in having just a couple of notebooks and then using your tags to find things. And then of course, it does have an amazing searching tool, so...

C. Steven: Right. And when you say a couple notebooks, you're like "Personal, "Business," something like that?

Laura: "Personal," "Business," right, and...

C. Steven: And then you can tag photography, recipes, things like that, because you don't need to have a single notebook for every little thing in your life.

Laura: Yeah, because for me, I don't wanna look at all that.

C. Steven: Right.

Laura: I just wanna get what I want, and that's it.

C. Steven: Okay. Well, you have been an incredible interview. Thank you very much. I want you to tell everyone how they can get a hold of you, and if they need to be organized in Los Angeles, they call you, but also let everybody know how to get a hold of the organization no matter where they are?

Laura: Okay. Well, my website is organizedbyellis.com. You can reach me there. Should I give my phone number?

C. Steven: If you want.

Laura: Okay, 310-493-7201. Also follow me on Instagram @organizedbyellis. And if you're looking for an organizer in your city, you can Google NAPO, N-A-P-O, and the National Association of Professional Organizers will come up. And there's a search function on there, and you can find a professional organizer in your area.

C. Steven: Thanks so much Laura, this was terrific.

Laura: Thank you! So fun.

Laura Ellis tells us how to organize our life

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