251 | Hiring your team for your own house with Missi Mills!

BusinessPodcastMarketing

Apr 14

Written By Melissa Klug

Missi’s team does thousands of hours in houses all over Minnesota.

Here’s a story about hiring Missi’s team—for HER OWN move!

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You can listen right here by pressing play, or you can read the full transcript below!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Melissa Klug: But guess what? At the end of the day, we’re like—I get tired of organizing. When it’s time to organize my own house, like right now my mudroom closet, it doesn’t look great. And I walk past it and I’m like, ugh. Just the thought of spending the time on it is not enjoyable to me because it feels like then I’m at work, you know?

Missi Mills: Correct. Yeah. Because there are enough things going on that it’s nice to have a place that we can come home to and feel at peace and at rest. And this is what we’re creating for other people, right? But it’s so important to have it for us too. Asking for help when life is kicking your butt—I think it’s so needed.

Melissa Klug: Hey Pro Organizers, it’s Melissa, and I am back with my friend Missi, who runs a wildly successful organizing business. And she’s talking about some of the best self-care that you could ever do as an entrepreneur.

And I’m going to let her tell you what she did, but I hope that you are able to take something from this. I know I have been trying to practice more of this—asking for help, asking for people to assist me, and being vulnerable and being open to help is really a great thing. And I think sometimes entrepreneurs are not great at that.

Missi has so much wisdom for you, and I hope that this helps you. Have a great day, organizers.

Melissa Klug: Okay. You ready?

Missi Mills: I’m ready.

Melissa Klug: Okay. My friend Missi is back on the podcast. If you’re watching this on YouTube—or I think this might be our first video podcast, because they have those now. So congratulations. I think if I get my act together, you’re gonna be our first video podcast.

But you can see Missi has a great sweatshirt on, and it also blends in with her couch. So this sweatshirt, if you can see it, says Lake Superior, which is important to those of us who live in Minnesota. And it’s like birds flying away, and it’s so cute. You look so cute. And you’re on your pink couch, and you’re in your new house, which is something we’re gonna be talking about today.

I’m so happy to have you back.

Missi Mills: Thank you so much for having me here. If you are watching this on video, it does this weird auto-zoom thing that I don’t know how to turn off.

Melissa Klug: It does, because every once—

Missi Mills: It does, yeah.

Melissa Klug: I know. And every once in a while it’ll be like extreme close-up, and you’re like, okay, I don’t think anyone needs to see my face that closely.

Missi Mills: So we’ll roll with it.

Melissa Klug: You’ve been on the podcast several times, but you have recently had a unique experience that I wanted to talk to you about. But before we get to that, I do want to just do a quick five-second recap.

You are the owner of Clear Spaces Organizing here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. And you—this is important to the story—you are a crazy good businesswoman. Your business was en fuego last year. I know details that other people don’t know and just say Missi is a badass queen. That’s what I want to say.

But it’s important to the story because you’re running this extremely sizable business. How many people do you have on your team now?

Missi Mills: Right now we’re at 12.

Melissa Klug: Twelve people. So you have a 12-person team plus yourself. You have an absolutely amazing business, and so many people are coming in and so many people need help.

And in that, it’s very easy, as we all know—because it’s happened to me, and on the podcast I did last week I was very upfront about a client disaster that invaded my home—we know that our businesses can interfere with our lives. Not interfere, but become a big part of our lives.

Missi Mills: Yes.

Melissa Klug: Take over.

Missi Mills: Yes.

Melissa Klug: And the reason I’m giving that background is because I think it’s really instructional to what we’re here to talk about today. And it’s that you hired your own team for your own house and your own move.

Missi Mills: I sure did. And when we first talked about this, you were like, “Oh my gosh, we should talk about that on the podcast.” And since then, I have done it three more times.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: Because it was so helpful.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: It’s so helpful.

Melissa Klug: And I wanted to talk to you about this for several reasons, but one of the reasons is it actually ties a little bit to the podcast I had last week.

If you haven’t listened to it, I had a client that kind of—you know, we messed with some boundaries and I had a bunch of her stuff in my house and I needed to get it done. And the funny part was that I was transitioning that business to a new set of organizers, and they even casually mentioned like, “Hey, if you’d like us to help you with this garage situation, we’d be happy to.”

And honestly, I was insulted because I’m like, I do this for a living. I’m actually pretty good at it. So I kind of took offense to it a little bit. But you were just fully embracing of it. I’m hiring my team. I know that I need help with this.

And I think that is a really lovely thing—to be that vulnerable and be like, I also need help. And the way that I always phrase it is, therapists have therapists, right?

I have a friend who’s a therapist who is in a group with other therapists, and they all talk about the things they’re going through. And so I actually think it’s really beautiful that you were vulnerable enough to say, “Hey, I need help.”

Missi Mills: Yeah. Well, thank you. That’s very kind. It didn’t feel like a vulnerability thing at the moment. It felt like I was drowning.

Melissa Klug: It was a crisis thing. Yeah.

Missi Mills: And I was like, SOS. Who can save my ship?

Melissa Klug: Right. Yeah.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Well—

Melissa Klug: So tell us a little bit about kind of what evolved. So you were getting ready to move and yeah, it was just crunch time, as we all have experienced.

Missi Mills: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know anyone—unless they’ve hired you as their organizer maybe—who’s happened to have an organized move. But there’s always that moment at the end where you’re just throwing everything in a box.

Melissa Klug: Yes.

Missi Mills: And you’re just like, tape it up, I’ll figure it out later. And I didn’t want to do that. That sounded stressful and worse on the back end of unpacking it.

And yeah, it just worked out that the team had some availability. And I was like, you know what? I’m gonna take it. And so I just threw my name on the project.

Melissa Klug: You took your own team’s time.

Missi Mills: I did. And I love that. I did ask. I said, “Would it be weird if you came to help me pack, or would you be up for that?” And they were like, “Oh my gosh, we’re totally up for it.”

So I had two team members come over to help me pack up. And I said, “If you can just do the office, that would be amazing.”

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: What I didn’t realize is how much stuff I had crammed in the office. And so on the day that they’re coming over, I started to feel all the same things that our clients feel and that they talk about.

And I was super embarrassed. I was like, oh my gosh, they’re gonna be opening up my closet. Anybody who’s watched Friends, you know, like the Monica closet, right? And half of it was organized and half of it was everything I owned, is what it felt like.

And they were gonna be going through extremely personal stuff. Personal business stuff. Like just all of it. I didn’t have the bandwidth to go through anything and do a cursory, let me make sure this is tucked away. I was just like, it all needs to get packed.

And the team is very good at what they do. And so at the end of day one, they said, “We’ve pulled aside some papers that look personal and we’d like you to go through them so you can just decide what to keep or what to let go of.”

And I said, “Oh my gosh, that was so thoughtful of you. I’m not going to do that.”

Melissa Klug: No.

Missi Mills: You know, just no. I’m also just sounding like our clients who are at their absolute wits’ end to be like, just throw it in a box. And I’m like, you can label it however you found it—top of desk, fantastic. Put it in a box labeled top of desk.

I have everything that I know is important right now, but that’s probably second important. So probably good to give that some sort of headline that I know what it is.

But yeah, they were incredible. I—it was unique to be on the client side of it, even though we’re working with clients all the time. And so we’re hearing them say things like, “Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” or, “I don’t want you to see this,” or, “I can’t believe that I didn’t figure this out.”

And also there was this relief of, oh my gosh, it’s finally getting done and I’m watching it get done. I’m watching the boxes get packed up and I’m watching them move out into the landing.

And I, of course, am using the team as body doubling. So while they’re in there, I’m in the closet, you know?

Melissa Klug: I want to go to the word embarrassed because I know that we all know that our clients deal with a lot of shame, embarrassment, all those emotions. And it’s an incredibly important part of what we do.

Was that the weirdest part for you? Like knowing that we’re non-judgmental when we go into a house, but knowing that you have a personal connection with these people—did you worry that it would be a little different? Was that kind of that feeling?

Missi Mills: Yeah, I think—I mean, yeah, I think so because I’m at the helm of this organizing business, right?

Melissa Klug: Yes, correct.

Missi Mills: And I have never talked in such a way that would give anybody that works for me or a client that we have worked for the impression that I have all of my poop in a group, as my sister-in-law likes to say in front of her child.

And yet it felt—yeah, I think there were some “shoulds” or some guilt or some shame there around, this is what you do for a living, Missi. Perhaps you could do this for yourself.

And this is where it is no different from working with a client. Could our clients organize their own spaces? Most of them probably could if they had enough time and if they had some good guidance and resources of what to buy or what products to use or how to create a system. Like, it’s not brain surgery. And yet it’s so normal to need help that we as business owners are not immune.

Melissa Klug: Yeah. Yeah. And we all reach a point at which, you know, there is something time-bound about it, and we go, oh gosh, we’ve run out of time because we’re doing all these other things.

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: And also, none of these things that you’re talking about are easy to do alone. It’s not easy to pack by yourself. It’s not easy to pack up a house and move by yourself. It is not easy to go, oh gosh—especially when you’re in a time crunch—oh, I really shouldn’t just take all these papers with me. I really should go through them and decide what stays and what goes.

And then it becomes this overwhelming feeling. We all know the overwhelming feeling. And I think when it’s your own stuff, sometimes you don’t have perspective on it at all.

Missi Mills: Totally. Yeah. No, it’s so accurate.

And I ended up actually hiring the team to help me on the back end of unpacking at the new place as well. And then once I got settled even more, I was like, there’s still a pile of paperwork I’ve been avoiding. And so I had another person come over from the team and help me just go through the paperwork.

And that was—oh my gosh—that was liberating. Yeah, it was liberating. So much left the house. So much got shredded. She said, “Do you want me to just shred this right now?” I was like, that’d be amazing. Do it.

Melissa Klug: Yes. That sounds great. Yeah.

Missi Mills: Yeah. You shred while I keep going through the next round of stuff. I mean, there was old stuff. Really cool to see how far we’ve come, but I was just like, woo, don’t need this anymore, you know?

But I couldn’t make those decisions on the day of. It’s packing day. “Would you like to go through this?” That’s a lot. Absolutely not. I do not. No. Yeah. No, thank you.

Melissa Klug: This is just something that I wonder—were there any times, did you ask the team if they felt pressure working with you or for you? Do you know what I mean?

Missi Mills: That’s a great question. I did not ask them that. Okay. I can go back and ask.

Melissa Klug: I’d just be curious if they felt like, oh, we have to be extra buttoned up, or if they were just normal as they would be with a client.

Missi Mills: Oh no, they had their music going. They were singing.

Melissa Klug: Okay.

Missi Mills: I mean, they were themselves. We were having a good time.

There were also times where I had to—we call it holding court, you know, when a client just has to have everybody’s attention while they process something. And I totally had that where I was like, oh my gosh, do I want to keep this? I don’t know.

And in our world, if it’s an “I don’t know,” it’s a yes. We’re keeping it, you know? There’s no pressure here. We’re not winning any awards for how much somebody lets go of. We just err on the side of keep it and decide later.

And so there was a lot of that, but I found myself having to verbalize it to see, what do I think about this? And our clients do that too. And so it was funny to be like, oh, I’m doing that thing. But also I am a verbal processor, so it’s not surprising.

But yeah, there were just different moments through the day where I was clocking, oh my gosh, I am our ideal client.

Melissa Klug: I am doing the things that we talk about with clients all the time.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yeah. And we’re attracting more and more people that think that same way and process the same way. So yeah, it was just fun to see little glimmers of, oh, that’s familiar. But now I’m the one doing it.

Melissa Klug: Yeah, for sure. So what were some of the things that surprised you or maybe you weren’t prepared for?

Missi Mills: I have an incredible team, and they did a great job at what we call managing the client.

Melissa Klug: Okay. In this case, it was just an interesting client to manage.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yeah.

And I laughed out loud when they said what is very normal for them to say during an organizing project if the client has either bitten off more than the team can chew—

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: That may have happened. Or circumstances change throughout the day, you know, and you just need to have a conversation to let people know.

And so sweet Grace—my God, I love her—she says, “Okay, so it’s two o’clock and I just want to let you know where we’re at.” They were coming back another day, but no, they weren’t. This was day two.

And she goes, “We can either finish packing all the boxes in your office and get the office completed, or we can carry all these boxes down to the garage. Which would you prefer?”

Melissa Klug: Mm-hmm.

Missi Mills: And I was like, oh. In my head I was like, both.

Melissa Klug: I want both things.

Missi Mills: I want both things to happen, please. Right? But she was right. There was not enough time in the day for both things to happen.

And I was just like, oh girl. Now I know what it feels like to be the client when we say that. Because you do want both. You want it all, even though you have procrastinated—I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s the right word. You have had weeks and months for this space, or years, to become what it is.

Melissa Klug: It’s years. Yeah.

Missi Mills: Right. And it cannot all be done in a day just due to the volume. That’s just physics, right?

Melissa Klug: Sure.

Missi Mills: And yet we’re like, well, let’s just get it done. Our client is like, just make it happen as fast as you possibly can.

Melissa Klug: The other day, you and I were talking about the movie When Harry Met Sally, and we were talking about that line—when you decide, you know, that the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start now.

Organizing is the same thing. Like when you decide you want to get organized, you’re ready to get organized fully right then. Like you want it to just be done—

Missi Mills: As soon as possible.

Melissa Klug: As soon as humanly possible. And to hear, oh, we’re probably going to have to wait until another day or another week—

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: You don’t want that.

Missi Mills: Correct. Yep. Yep.

So I heard her and said, okay, just finish the office. That would feel amazing to know that the office is done.

And then this is what I’ve seen our clients do too. I was like, well, I do want both things. And so I shifted away from what I was working on, and I was now the box mover. And I carried every single box down to the basement, stacked it up, and categorized it.

And they did a phenomenal job labeling. It was so clear where everything was coming from and where it was going. They were working so hard in the office that when they came out and all the boxes were gone, they said, “Where did they go?”

I said, “I brought them down.” And they were like, “Oh my gosh.”

I did the thing. So it’s a good reminder too that if anyone is motivated enough, they will jump in to get to the result that they want completed if they’re able to.

Melissa Klug: What do you think would’ve happened if you didn’t hire them? Would you have just said forget it? What would’ve happened?

Missi Mills: I think I would’ve cried a lot more. Yeah. I mean, I just would’ve been so overwhelmed. There gets a point when there’s so much to do that you just kind of go into—I don’t even want to say a meditative state, because that sounds too relaxing. It’s like a freeze state.

Melissa Klug: Mm-hmm.

Missi Mills: Where you’re like, I can’t do anything.

And so what hiring the team did was bring in the non-attachment to the stuff, which is huge, right? The woman power to just get things done. And the fun—they’re playing their music, we’re singing along. There were moments of overlap in what we were doing or talking through different things that they’re coming across.

But yeah, it made it more fun and it made it done. And I think that was what was most important to me. I was like, this just needs to get finished.

I still wasn’t going to do it alone anyway. I would’ve probably had to call in friends, but my friends work full time and then we’d be having to cram this in during dinner hours, you know?

And to have the team was just a gift, truly. It was a gift. And when I was able to reflect on it later, I was like, that’s what this was.

And I know that some of our clients—you know, some clients are not super expressive and they just look around and they’re like, okay. They don’t even say thank you. They’re just like, okay. That’s what they were expecting.

Melissa Klug: My least favorite thing as someone who just dies for the validation. When they’re just like, yeah, okay. And I’m like, no. I need you to be much more effusive than this.

Missi Mills: Please jump up and down.

Melissa Klug: I really need a lot more validation than you’re giving me right now.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yes. And then you have those clients who are jumping up and down and they’re like, this is amazing. What you do is just magical. And you’re getting all of that.

And I felt that. I was like, oh my gosh.

And so I used this example to open up our next time together as a team, just to say, the work that you do is incredibly life-changing. And I know I say that to you all the time, but now I’m saying it to you because it made my life easier.

And I shared this story that I just shared with you—of how they did it, and what they were so good at, and what was so helpful, and how they did just treat me like any other client. They weren’t tiptoeing around.

No, it was such a gift. And then yeah, they came here and helped unpack and put things away, and I had double-booked myself and wasn’t even here.

Melissa Klug: That’s even better because you really got the full fairy godmother treatment. You probably came home and it was like great. It went from nothing to great.

Missi Mills: It did. The hilarious part is that my mom felt like she needed to project manage, so she showed up. And I mean, she did take some great pictures of the team doing their thing, so that was fun. But it was very cute.

But yeah, she just wanted to make sure that they were doing what they were supposed to do. I was like, they got a list. They’re fine.

Melissa Klug: Yeah, they’re good. They do this for a living.

Missi Mills: They’re just fine.

Melissa Klug: So—

Missi Mills: And they probably can do it a lot faster without me being like, hey, you want to hear a random story?

Melissa Klug: Right. They’re like, by the way, we got everything unpacked in about two hours because you weren’t here.

Missi Mills: All done. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It was wonderful.

And like I said, it continued to be so helpful that when I would get to a place where I was stuck in the basement, I literally had a team member come over and together we were cutting and flattening cardboard, because there’s so much cardboard when you move.

So yeah, it’s just a gift to be able to have an extra set of hands to help you find your way, to help you achieve the things that you’ve already done in your head like a million times. Oh, I know what the space is going to look like when it’s done.

And this is our clients. They’re reaching out to you, but not because they just had an idea about getting organized. They’ve been thinking about it for quite a long time, and they probably have an idea of what it looks like when it’s finished, and we’re just helping them get there. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, this is my plug for hire your team, man. If you have a team—

Melissa Klug: I think it’s really smart. Or hire other people. By the way, you can also hire someone else. If you are a solo organizer, hire someone else.

Missi’s team has—I’ve had several of Missi’s team members come on jobs with me if I ever needed them. I know I’ve got your team, I’ve got—we have our couple of other friends that I know I would happily have in my house at any time.

But I just think getting over that feeling of—I talked about at the beginning—I was kind of offended that these other organizers were like, oh, we’ll help you with your garage if you want. And I’m like, no, I got it. Leave me alone. Don’t talk to me.

But guess what? At the end of the day, we’re like—I get tired of organizing. Like when it’s time to organize my own house, like right now my mudroom closet, it doesn’t look great. And I walk past it and I’m like, ugh. Just the thought of spending the time on it is not enjoyable to me.

Melissa Klug: ’Cause it feels like then I’m at work, you know?

Missi Mills: Correct. Yeah. It’s like all the carpenters who have unfinished projects at their own house. Right? Right. Yes.

And this is how I can always tell when I’m in a good mood, when I’ve had enough sleep, when I’m okay—when I organize something, I’m like, oh, look at me, check me out, you know? Because I think there are enough things going on in—gestures around the world—that it’s nice to have a place that we can come home to and feel at peace and at rest. And this is what we’re creating for other people, right? But it’s so important to have it for us too.

I recently went on—we’re calling it a retreat because that’s what the place called it—but with my best friend. And I called her like three or four days afterwards and I was like, you know how they say you can’t pour from an empty cup? I’m like, I think I was for, like, potentially years. Sure. And this is the most filled up I’ve ever been. My capacity has returned in a way that I’m like, oh wow. It was barely hanging on there for a while. Yeah.

And part of that was what you were referencing. Last year was bananas. And there were parts that were fun and there were parts that were really hard. So yeah, asking for help when life is kicking your butt—I think it’s so needed.

And we do this in other areas of our life. Like we’ll pay someone to cut our hair or color our hair or do our nails or change the oil in our car, right? This is just another thing that we can ask for help for. And even especially as people who are in this service industry and know how big of an impact it can have on someone’s life—if you are sitting around looking at your house and being like, wow, I could really use an organizer—I mean, just consider it.

Melissa Klug: And I think just getting over that, you know, whatever word you want to use for it—like pride, I think would be one of them.

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: Why can’t I do this? I can do it. I just am busy doing 212 other things.

And I don’t like the feeling of—I’ve said this many times—whenever a client goes, oh, I bet your house is perfect. And I’m like, no, my house isn’t perfect because human beings live there. And the only way you can keep a house perfect is if you have help. If you have full-time hired help, like a celebrity’s house is probably perfect. My house will never be perfect.

But I do think there’s a little bit of that pride of, oh, I’m supposed to be really good at this and my house is supposed to be perfect all the time.

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: And that’s just not accurate for any of us.

Missi Mills: Yeah. It’s true. Almost every consult, they’re like, I know I could do this on my own.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: And I say, well, it’s always easier to do it for someone else. You could probably go to your friend’s house and help them with their basement.

And they’re like, yeah, I could.

I’m like, this is the same idea. We are just going to come and help you with yours because we don’t know your stuff. So all the questions are coming out of genuine curiosity. There’s no judgment. We don’t know what’s important, so we’re going to ask.

Melissa Klug: Yeah. We’ve said it 800,000 times. Whenever I love it when a client—when you give them the simplest solution ever—and they say, oh my gosh, you’re a genius. And I’m like, why didn’t I think of that? And I go, because you look at it every day and it’s just different.

And that is exactly the same for us. No matter how good we are as organizers, we don’t have perspective about our own stuff and we don’t have perspective about what is actually important. And so having those people ask you that—I just think it’s an awesome idea.

Do you think your team felt glad that they were able to do it?

Missi Mills: Oh yeah. They were just thrilled to be invited in. And I feel like they take some pride over the house.

Melissa Klug: Sure.

Missi Mills: They’re like, we did that, you know?

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: Yeah. And it is fun to have them be a part of making the house a home and making it cute and setting everything up. They did a lot of the initial legwork because I was flying around doing consults, you know? I mean, we all have our different responsibilities. And yeah, this is what they do best. So I just let them.

Melissa Klug: What do you feel like you are taking from it as you think about them working with clients? Or are there things that you have talked about from your experience and how you can make your clients’ experience better?

Missi Mills: Yeah. I mean, some of it they’re already doing naturally.

So on the paperwork day, I just did one-on-one with a team member. And she came in and I was like your typical harried client, running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And I said, okay, the first thing we need to do is make a list because there’s some things that I need to do, like personally or for business, and I need to break it all out because right now it’s just all in my brain.

And she goes, okay, have you eaten breakfast yet?

And I said, no.

And she goes, why don’t I go get paper to make a list and you eat breakfast?

And I was like, well, I don’t want to eat breakfast.

And she goes, I know you don’t.

Melissa Klug: Dang it. And you’re like, oh, she’s right.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yeah. This is literally something I taught them to do, especially with our ADHD clients, because we’re not eating breakfast. We are onto the next thing. We’ve got important things to do. A million of them. Let’s get them done.

So yeah, there were some things that I was like, keep doing. That’s really important. There was nothing that they did that I wanted to correct. It was more just affirming of, you guys are really fricking good at this.

Melissa Klug: Right. Jobs. Yeah.

Missi Mills: And it’s so helpful, and you’re so gentle about it, and you’re so respectful about it. I think it was really a treat to see what our clients get to experience from the same people and just to be like, yeah, you are getting this unbiased support and extra set of hands to help you find your way. It’s so valuable.

Melissa Klug: Do you envision that you’ll do this kind of on a regular basis? Do you have moments where you’re like, I’m just going to do it every six months?

Missi Mills: I don’t know why I wouldn’t. Yeah. Because I think especially with paperwork, I feel like, man, I tend to hang onto it longer than is necessary, or I tend to think I might revisit this great idea I had. I have a whole file called Ideas.

Melissa Klug: It’s funny that you’re saying this because I just was going through my mail yesterday. And you know, from a previous podcast, I keep my mail for quite a long time before I go through it.

And I was going through it and I found like a—I keep things on Post-it Notes. I’m obsessed with Post-it Notes. I have 8,000 Post-it Notes of things that I’m like, yeah, I’m going to get to that. When am I going to get to it? I’m keeping these Post-it Notes for infinity for what reason? And I think someone should challenge me on it.

Missi Mills: I could see that.

And then also the team has started inviting each other over to take turns at each other’s house.

Melissa Klug: Oh really?

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yeah. So one is having someone come over to help with their closet, and then they’re going to go help another person with their basement. And they’re just kind of trading back and forth because they also see the value, right?

And then get stuck in certain places. And I think that’s—and I know it’s not true for everyone—but for us, maybe type B types like that, places get stuck and we just go, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with that anymore.

And so to be able to call on a friend or an organizer or just somebody to help you. Before I hired the team, I would just have a friend come over and do straight body doubling. Can you just sit on the couch while I do this hard thing?

And I introduced the concept of body doubling. Should I talk about what that is?

Melissa Klug: Oh yeah, please, because a lot of people don’t. I thought everybody knew what it was.

Missi Mills: Yeah. A lot of people don’t.

Okay, so body doubling is this idea that’s been scientifically proven: when there is another person, another human, in your space with you—they don’t actually have to do anything, I mean in the same room is best—but you can feed off of their energy and it can ground you in a way that you can put your focus on what you want to focus on.

And so we talk about this a lot with clients because they’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t know why I can’t do this on my own, but when you’re here I can do it. And I’m like, oh, well that’s body doubling. Let me tell you about it. Right?

And so I was explaining it to a client last week, and she’s a business owner. And she goes, sometimes I’ll have my staff come into my office and say, can you just stand there while I write this email? And she’s like, I didn’t know there was a name for that.

There’s a name for it.

Melissa Klug: Yeah. And it really does work. Like when you have someone just there. Even though they’re not hovering over you, it’s not like they’re judging what you’re doing, but literally there’s something about it that tweaks my brain into, I’m supposed to be doing something right now.

Missi Mills: I’m legit going to ask you after this if we can body double to just silently do work because I’ll get it done.

Melissa Klug: Yeah, a hundred percent. And it really is. We’ve talked about this a hundred million times, but that’s what organizing is for clients. Sometimes the people who are like, why can’t I do this on my own? It’s literally just because you’ve set aside three hours that you have to work with me, and you’re paying me to be there. And that then motivates you.

Like you can’t start and then after 15 minutes be like, I think it’s time for a snack. And then I’m gonna go— You have to devote the time. And it’s just something about that pressure that feels good.

I know we’ve talked about this too—there are people now doing admin nights at coffee shops or bars.

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: Where they all bring the things they haven’t done and they just get them done. And I’m like, I’m here for that. Like a cocktail and looking for new insurance? Fantastic.

Missi Mills: We need to do that. Yeah, we need to do that because I have a long list of things I need to do. It’s silly little things like call and make an appointment at the vet for the dog.

But yeah, I don’t know, man.

Well, and for me, the insurance thing was real. I was just appalled by how much money I was paying for insurance and I’m like, it has to be better than that. There just has to be something better. Well, guess what? There was. But did it also take me several hours to get it all figured out?

Melissa Klug: It sure did.

Missi Mills: Yeah.

Melissa Klug: And it was really a slog to get there. But I’m like, if I would’ve had something where we’re like, hey, we’re doing all the things we’ve put off for literally years.

And when I think about it, I go, oh, I have paid thousands of dollars to unnamed insurance agency for very expensive car insurance.

Missi Mills: Right.

Melissa Klug: And I have lost thousands of dollars because I didn’t want to devote this time. That’s silly.

Missi Mills: And I talked about this before. Yes. Do you remember—was it a couple summers ago—where I was like, oh, I just negotiated my cell phone bill and my wireless bill and I’m going to save this much? And you were like, what?

Melissa Klug: Yes, correct. I legitimately am certain I have tens of thousands of dollars that has just gone out the window because I’m just like, la la la, don’t want to do it.

Missi Mills: So I know. I have this new bill that came up, and for some reason the online autopay has not been working. So every month they message me and are like, yeah, you’re going to get a late fee.

And every month I call them and say, don’t give me a late fee. And I’m pretty sure they didn’t take it off. And I’m like, at some point I don’t care. But also it hurts my heart to know.

But I’m just like, I can’t keep calling you and asking you to do your job. And I don’t know why this isn’t working.

Melissa Klug: Well, and I think there’s a lot now—I was talking about this with a friend of mine, and I do a lot of “well, it’s COVID’s fault,” but a lot of things really are COVID’s fault. Like customer service has really gone down the drain for many companies.

And now a lot of companies are just straight using AI for all their customer service. You’re not even getting a human. And there are so many things now where it feels like there are so many places putting the burden on you. You have to do a lot of the work even though you’re helping their company or whatever.

So I think that adds to the administrative burden that we have for a lot of things. And then it just feels like there’s too much.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Klug: At least that’s how it feels for me.

Missi Mills: No, I agree with that. I agree with that. And yeah, you used to be able to just push zero and get through to a human, and now it’s like invalid number. And I’m like, ah.

Melissa Klug: Sometimes, by the way, the AI bots do a really good job, and I appreciate them. Every once in a while I get an answer really quickly, and I appreciate that. But when you need a human, you need a human.

Missi Mills: You do. Yeah. And my Gen X is showing here, but I trust a human more. I do.

Melissa Klug: Oh yeah, for sure.

Missi Mills: And I’m like, can you navigate me through this thing that I’ve never done before? I just want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.

I had a lovely lady last week help me through some online stuff. She’s like, now click here, now click there. And I was like, oh my gosh, you’re so wildly helpful.

Did it take 48 minutes?

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: Yes it did. But now it’s done.

Melissa Klug: Yeah. Adulting is really not that fun. There are a lot of parts of adulting that are really overrated.

Missi Mills: Not for the faint of heart, really.

Melissa Klug: This is totally—we’re going down, as you call them, rabbit trails.

But my younger daughter, who is a legal adult, recently there was a doctor bill that insurance didn’t apply correctly, and there was a problem. And so we informed her that she had to call Blue Cross Blue Shield.

And she had a heart attack. And we were like, hey, welcome to adulthood.

And she declared it the worst thing she’d ever done, to which I said, that means you’ve had a pretty good life. But also she was like, that was terrible. And I’m like, oh sweetie, you have so many more of those phone calls to make in your life. Please get used to it.

Missi Mills: Oh, heaven help her. Yeah. We all hate it.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: And I’m trying really hard not to say “to circle back,” but this is coming full circle here. This is what we do for our clients.

The number of times I’ve sat on hold for a client to order them a new credit card, update their billing address, things that to them—like you said—are slogging through it. But to me, when it’s not me, I’m happy to sit on the phone and sort your paperwork while I’m on hold. No problem.

Melissa Klug: Well, we’re getting paid really well to do it. I don’t mind doing it when I’m getting paid really well to do it.

Missi Mills: Exactly. It’s just this whole thing of you can do for others things you can’t always do for yourself.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: And this is what’s so true about our clients. They are crushing it in a jillion different ways in their life, and then their home is a place where they’re getting stuck. And this is somewhere that we can come and relieve that pressure for them and bring in some more peace to their life. I know this is Marie Kondo, but it is life-changing stuff.

Melissa Klug: It is.

Well, and I also think too that we have so many clients who keep coming back to that embarrassment or the shame. They go, I kill it at work. I have a lot of clients who are wildly successful business women, or doctors or lawyers or whatever—high caliber professions with high results and a lot of work required.

And then their house is complete chaos, and they feel like, why can I perform in one aspect of my life and I can’t perform in the other? And the answer is because you’re performing so hard in that aspect of your life. There’s nothing left at the end of a day.

Missi Mills: True. Yeah. I mean, your executive functioning skills are all being spent at work. And you’re coming home, and you’re DoorDashing dinner, you are running the kids around—when exactly would you have that time and energy to dedicate to your house? I don’t see it.

Melissa Klug: Entrepreneurship too. We hear so many people who are like, I need to do X, Y, and Z, A, B, C. We all know owning a business means you have a hundred thousand things going through your head. And it’s just applying what’s important.

And it might be that the thing that kind of loses out is the stuff around your house. And great news: there are people that can help you with that.

Missi Mills: Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Klug: I love it. Is there anything that you would do differently? Would you have started sooner? Would you have cried uncle sooner? Or do you feel like it happened exactly the way it was supposed to?

Missi Mills: I’m not a big believer that everything happens for a reason or that the world’s timing is always perfect. And in this particular case, I feel like that was the right move.

And I think it was easier actually to get help moving—

Melissa Klug: Mm-hmm.

Missi Mills: Than it would be to be like, let’s go through all my stuff, which we did end up doing later. But that was an easier entry point because it was just like, can you just pack this up please?

Melissa Klug: Yeah. It was finite.

Missi Mills: Right. It wasn’t like, let’s delve into my scraps of paper I’ve been hanging onto for 15 years for the book that I started writing and didn’t finish.

Melissa Klug: Right.

Missi Mills: Yeah. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to that in the future.

Melissa Klug: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I think that’s why I wanted to talk to you about it, because every time you talked about it, you talked about it so effusively that I’m like, we need to talk about it.

What I hope people will take from this is if you are sitting and waiting for permission, or if you are—our clients need permission sometimes, right? So do we.

If you’re sitting there going, I’m swamped, I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired, I don’t want to organize when I come home because I’ve already organized all day, or I’ve thought about organizing all day, or I’ve talked about organizing all day—whatever it looks like—give yourself that permission. Let go of whatever it is you’re holding onto. Just let it go.

Just get someone to help you because it’s so amazing how someone can come in and see it with a different set of eyes and ask questions.

Like I had an organizer come over once, a friend of mine who organizes out of state, and she was like, I want to organize your office when I come over.

Missi Mills: And I was like, girl, you can enjoy.

Yeah. And so we were going through some stuff, and I was like, ugh, this is stuff I barely ever use. I don’t really know where to put it.

And she goes, well, what’s in that cabinet?

And I said, I don’t even know.

And she opened it up and she goes, Missi, it’s empty.

And I said, oh, is it?

And she goes, can I put those things in here?

And I said, yeah, that’d be a great place for it.

And I did have a moment of feeling pretty stupid that I had a whole empty two-shelf space that I didn’t know about. But it’s also just a great indicator for some of our more visual clients: if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist, right?

Melissa Klug: Correct.

Missi Mills: But then I put something in there that I used so rarely that I knew it was in there, but it gave me space where I needed it.

So all this to say, yeah, just another set of eyes can be so wildly helpful. And another set of hands. And just freeing you up to do what you need to do so that this other thing can get done. I can’t recommend it enough.

I love it.

The other thing that I want to thank you for is recently you gave me the name of a very lovely—I don’t like this phrase, but it is what they do—junk hauler.

Melissa Klug: Yeah.

Missi Mills: This guy in particular does way better. Like he takes things, repurposes them, he has a nonprofit that he donates things to people in need.

Melissa Klug: Like, he’s great.

Missi Mills: But point of the story is, I cried uncle—which I’m not good at, and I admit that I’m not good at it. I’m not good at asking for help. And I was like, oh my gosh, just this client project in my garage—I was like, I just need someone to take care of it.

And you gave me this guy’s name, and it was so freeing to just be like, all I’m doing is gathering it into one part of my garage. And he showed up and I was like, here it is. Knock on the door when you’re done.

And he was lovely. And it was such a good feeling because by the way, same thing—could I have taken it all to a donation place myself? Yes. Do I have a good trash place for things that were legitimately trash? Yep, sure do. Could I have done it all myself? I just didn’t want to. I was too tired.

Missi Mills: Right. And it’s one phone call for all of it to go away.

Melissa Klug: One phone call.

Missi Mills: And you don’t have to lift any of it.

Melissa Klug: No. It was tremendously reasonable. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.

And yeah, I could have made all the runs myself, but I didn’t have to. And that was lovely too. So just surrender. Ask for some help. I’m a work in progress, but I am working on it.

Missi Mills: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Klug: Well, tell us a little bit about what’s coming up for you. Another crazy year. I know you are jam-packed. You’ve got tons of clients.

Missi Mills: What’s coming up for me is I have my TV debut coming up, and I’m very excited about that.

It is actually—never have I ever, except for last year, February 2025, I put on my vision board—but it was just an 8½ by 11 sheet of paper—the specific show. And I got connected to them through another miracle. And yeah, it’s happening next week.

And so I’m really excited about that. I’m just excited for the opportunity to—and to just share more about how normal it is to need help. That’s my entire message.

Melissa Klug: Well, and something you and I talk about a lot just personally is, you know, we talk about some of the dynamics we see when we have clients that come in, and maybe women who are really dying for help and their spouses are less than helpful about wanting them to get help. There are a lot of those dynamics.

And I just think the more that we can normalize organizing as just another service like anything else. We have very much normalized house cleaning as a service. People are not weird about that anymore. It’s a very regular part of a lot of people’s lives.

I think the more that we can all do media appearances and talk more about organizing, I think it’s a great thing for all of us.

But I’m excited to watch you live this week.

Missi Mills: Thank you. I’m excited for it. I appreciate it.

Melissa Klug: Well, we will see you on the internet. You’re at creatingclearspaces.com. You are on Instagram at Clear Spaces Organizing—I forget.

Missi Mills: Yeah. I’m impressed. Way to go.

Melissa Klug: And you are around our Inspired Organizer groups all the time, which I love. You give great advice, and I’m excited to keep seeing what you have going on for the rest of the year.

Missi Mills: Thank you. Me too. It’ll be an adventure. I’m looking forward to it.

Melissa Klug: Yes, for sure. Well, thank you, Missi.

Missi Mills: Thanks for having me.