Why involve your children into the home organization process?
Lauren is the co-founder of Get Littles Organized. They’re approach is to involve kids into the home organization process to get kids motivated to be organized and practice organization skills during their toddler years. It is not about just teaching your kids organizational skills, but rather to build life-long skills that your children are going to need to access as adults.
At a very young age, kids want to be around their parents no matter the activity. So, doing an activity together like chores will teach them important skills while also allowing for quality time with family.
While doing an organization task together with your child, it’s important to break down the tasks so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming for the child. For example, saying “you pick up the toy cars and I will pick up the toy blocks”. Or, give them the option of which they would like to choose.
Networking within the organization profession:
When looking into the professional organizer career field, Lauren had the organizing part down but had to learn how to run a business. Through networking and surrounding herself with like-minded people, she was able to see how the industry flows and be mentored by others.
Lauren is a part of NAPO, the National Association of Productivity and Organizing, where she is able to get advice and give advice around how to run an organization business and how to find/work with clients.
Being a generalist in the field vs having a niche:
In the beginning, most organizers will start with general organizing without a specific niche. When starting out with a specific niche, there isn’t much availability for business growth or job opportunities. Being a generalist allows you to find more job opportunities while also experimenting with which type of organization you most prefer.
After 5 years as a general organizer, Lauren decided to narrow down her specialty area. This was a great timeline for her because she was able to have her niche while also having the skills she learned as a generalist.
You can connect with Lauren and find her upcoming course at https://getlittlesorganized.com/ and follow them on Instagram @getlittlesorganized.
Sean McCormick 0:01 This week on Earn More Tutoring, I talk with Lauren Mang about how she went from a career in the arts to being a certified professional organizer, how she was able to teach a 10 month old to do laundry, and why she disliked apples. Lauren Mang 0:16 I loved the way that he made learning, fun, and relatable, and laughable and I like to think that when I'm giving my presentations or I'm teaching my clients, I'm trying to do the same thing and we do that too. With get littles organized. We want kids to laugh and enjoy and have fun with doing the organizing. We don't want this to be this stupid chore they have to do. Like Sean McCormick 0:41 Welcome to Earn More Tutoring. Our mission is to eradicate educator poverty. I'm Sean McCormick, your host and the founder of Executive Function Specialists, an online coaching business that helps middle high school and college students develop goal orientated behaviors. My guest today is Lauren Mang. Welcome to the show, Lauren. Lauren Mang 0:58 Hi, thank you so much, John. It's great to be here. Sean McCormick 1:00 Happy to have you. So let's let's start by talking about what you do. You know, I know we were chatting earlier about get littles organized, maybe you could give us a little background on that and, and what's going on with that so the audience can understand. Lauren Mang 1:13 Absolutely. So get littles organized is a business, I started with my best friend who is a busy working mom of two littles who also has a great partner at home, who does help out with a lot of their around the house stuff, despite also holding down three part time jobs. And it just kind of came about because during the pandemic, everybody was at home. And a lot of moms were feeling like the house was exploding with things. Because since everybody was home and doing, you know, activities to keep to keep busy and entertained, but then also doing school from home and work from home. It just felt like nobody had control over their homes anymore. There was never any time where the kids were out of the house and occupied in a different way to get things done. And I said, Well, you don't need them out of the house to get things done. They need to be a part of that process. And then discussing like, well, how early can kids start to learn organizing skills, and a lot of people are surprised to learn that kids can begin to grasp organizing skills before they even turn a year old. But certainly around that year mark. So that's kind of how the business was born. And it's been really fun to run that with her on Instagram. And we're having a fun time connecting with other moms, but also stay at home dads. So it's been great. Sean McCormick 2:32 I know it's gonna be so big, because just, it's it's like it's such a pain point, right for people. I mean, I hear it all the time as an executive function coach. One of people's biggest pain points is my kid doesn't pick up after themselves. My kid doesn't have their backpack, prepared for school the next day, and they show up and they don't have things and then school is challenging. So being able to teach those skills at a young age is so vital. What kind of response have you got from releasing the Instagram and creating the wait list? Like what what are you experiencing as you start to roll this out? Lauren Mang 3:07 Well, we are noticing that a lot of the followers are feeling the same way. So we'll try to engage through stories and comments on the reels and find out where the pain points are. And really helping the audience understand that we're all kind of coming from the same place, we all want to feel a little bit more in control of our home life after it was kind of turned upside down for a couple of years. But then also, you know, educating people to understand like one of the followers couldn't believe that at eight or nine years old, her son could do laundry. Now saying I've I've had literally a 10 month old help out with laundry, she was old enough to pull herself up and balance against a front loading washer dryer unit that were next to each other. And her mom showed her how to pull things out of the dryer and put it in the basket. She showed her how to pull things out of the basket and into the washer and instructed her how to do it. And so even though she was not walking yet, or verbal, kids are sponges, they're soaking that stuff up. So that's what I mean when I say that they can learn these organizing skills that young like, are they sitting there and actually doing the laundry on their own at that age? Absolutely not, but they're doing what they know how to do and they're being exposed to it early enough to understand that this is a part of daily life or if this is a part of weekly life. And so I think it's just creating a community where people feel supported, and are able to get information about exactly how to get kids motivated or interested in doing organizing. What's interesting is...
Check out the full interview below!
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