A graphic with a green background with the words Happy New Year and looking back on 2023
Episode 274 – 2023 – our best year yet

We can’t let 2023 come to an end without looking back to all the amazing things that have happened. We've done some cool things personally but we’re really here to talk about you and all the incredible progress you’ve made. We always recommend looking back and reflecting on your projects so you can be motivated for what’s coming. If we can call 2023 a project here's our podcast version of reflecting and finishing it off in style.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00

You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Hello, and welcome, listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering. And if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast, it all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group go to declutter hub.com forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook	
	
We can't let 2023 come to an end without looking back at all the amazing things that have happened. We've done some cool things personally. But we're really here to talk about you and all all the incredible progress that you've made. We always recommend looking back and reflecting on your projects, so you can be motivated for what's coming. If we can call 2023 projects. Here's our version of reflecting and finishing it off in style.

00:36
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hop podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player, so you don't miss an episode. And we'll see you next week.

01:01
Lesley, can you believe it? It's the last Friday of 2023? No, I don't think I can believe her. years like hurtling through a red dots aren't there? It seems like yesterday that we did are looking back at 2022 podcasts. And here we are looking back at 2023. And that's another 52 podcasts we've done since then.

01:25
But oh, gosh, can't believe we've done 50 podcasts or just can't believe we've done only 50 podcasts. Welsh can't believe it and tune in for 50 day. Are we still going to be here at like 550?

01:37
Well, we keep finding stuff we're going to talk about. So perhaps Yes, that's the baby. Yeah. Always finding sensible things to talk about. This is the question. I Oh, so well. I mean, I hope our listeners are still we listeners tell us are you still here? I think he's like 5050, whether it's sensible or not. But anyway, we're still here. Someone's listening. Actually, 1.5 million of you are still listening, if our latest statistics are anything to go by. So How incredible is that? In 2023, we surpassed one and a half million downloads for our lovely little niche podcast. Amazing, right? It's incredible. I mean, this year was the kind of a big numbers year wasn't it? Five years of doing the podcast 250 episodes 1.5 million downloads. A walk both nominations are shortlisted for Podcast Awards. It's like

02:35
we're gonna be hitting like the red carpet next or something.

02:40
Who knew that little old Ingrid and Lesley could do all these? No, no, no, these numbers right. But you know what, Lesley? You know what? I still love it. I still when we have a podcast, we don't just record podcasts here. They're everywhere. We have like, a day when we record a couple of podcast episodes, because we have so many like, we've never really even repeated one podcast. I mean, there's a new, new brand new podcast every Friday. So we record a couple because otherwise we'll probably lose the will. But I still laugh so much every time we have a podcast recording there. We love it, don't we? We do a lot of record. And we do a lot of podcast recording. So we start early. We start at like 930 in the morning, and we're still typically going at 530. And we do Ingrid saying a couple actually, our aim is three to four. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Are we so spoiler alert? We are not actually recording this two days before New Year's Day.

03:41
No.

03:43
But

03:45
but as if by magic, but yeah, but we, you know, we start 930 We go through to 530. How much time do we spend laughing in the record button making mistakes? Then cut that out Sunday now? Who's our podcast editor? Yeah. Anyway, a lot of that. So you know, we think that we're putting out probably two and a half hours of content, and it takes us all day, eight hours to be caught. That's actually not really good. I think we need to do better with that. Lesley

04:19
is so much fun wouldn't want the doll if you were just like doing like work and being serious and stuff. No. I mean, I think what does the podcast represent for us it it kind of represents our ability to go out to lots and lots of people who need our help and are self motivated to do it themselves. And we've got a lot of podcast listeners who are in our membership and like that additional boost have kind of more fun. I mean, not not that the membership is not fun, by the way, but more kind of light hearted stuff rather than something structured. Yeah. And we have lots of professional

05:00
organizers listening to our podcast as well learning their craft from the podcast or being inspired. So we have lots of different types of people. But every year that's gone by, we've got more and more people. And that makes us really happy, doesn't it anyway, because we think it's such a serious thing. decluttering or, you know, we obviously we try and make it light hearted, but it's important for the message of decluttering to be out there. Yeah. But I have a shadow of a doubt. And I think that we also I mean, we already we've known that always right from the beginning, we were like, This is not kind of some little vanity project here. We really want to spread our knowledge, our love for decluttering we want to help people all over the world. But I think this year, we were like, wow, we're now going on for five years. We need to make it better every time. And that's what we did this year on our YouTube channel is haven't really I mean, since 150, beginning we only did audio on YouTube. And then we set up people, they were like, We want to see you when you're chatting and declutter if we're talking about decluttering. So then, from Episode 150 onwards, we did audio and video at the same time and then with APA 250. We're like, Okay, we need to make the next step. And we made it all fancy. It's all fancy. Now we like nice colors and a little. I don't know, you like it and yeah, say you don't love a fancy, fancy schmancy don't Yeah, yeah, I love a bit of that pink and green and

06:32
fancy colors and transitions from one to another. You love that. Don't you? Think we'd love nothing more than seeing a name in lights?

06:42
Ingrid Johnson, she's like, Oh, that would be me. Oh, yeah, she's terrible. Honestly.

06:49
I know that is true. I'm not one kind of like a little wallflower hiding behind somewhere.

06:57
Exactly. So yeah, the podcast continues to be amazing, because we live recording it honestly. And how do we do it? We literally I think we talked about this a little bit in the tune and 50th episode, didn't we? So we we have a few ideas on the backburner. If we think of an idea, we pop it into a as the idea comes into our minds, we record it somewhere. And then when we look at the sort of schedule, we try and make different types of podcasts in a month that we've got a variety. And yeah, and then we just basically we just sit there at 930 in the morning and write our plan for that. And then completely go off plan. Yeah.

07:40
Yeah, we do love going off a tangent when we're talking about stuff. And you know, I don't know, we still think that we get lots of lovely reviews, we get people commenting how much they enjoy the podcast. We get people I mean, we met there was one little blip when we didn't go on YouTube one Friday morning, because we were running a bit late and immediately was like we're on

08:03
a Friday morning fix I got and it's like, Oh, I did that I thought was very sweet. You know, because it just shows you how loyal listeners are and because we just kind of speak to each other but into the abyss really began. So we don't know what you see on the numbers that there are people listening everywhere. But to get your feedback and to get your comments we try to we do we do? We try so hard to reply to all the emails reply to all the comments because we're just so grateful to every each and every one of you that takes the time out to let us know that you love it and that really good job or that you've got an idea or I mean, you know that there's so many wish lists.

08:47
And you know what the icing on the cake was to be nominated and shortlisted for those Podcast Awards in with that was incredible. Because you know, to be in the health and wellness category means a lot for the podcast, who recognized in the health and wellness category meant so much to us. So I think it's fair to say, do we think is the favorite thing?

09:09
Oh, oh, I don't know, Lesley. Now your whole it's just one of a suite of things that we I think it's fair to say more than anything else. When we are talking about our craft, as in on the podcast in live q&a. s doing live video doing challenges. That's when we are at our most by intern excited.

09:34
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt. I mean, how lucky are we that we found something both around the same time back around 2010 2011 where we both really realized decluttering and organizing that is that that's the thing. And we still equally have so much love for our profession for our industry for you know, for everything that we do and yeah, it's amazing. It's for me

10:00
anything. But of course, we've not only done the podcast this year have we will have totally I mean, that's just just this the beginning of everything else. Yeah. So we talked about something that we liked the outcome of, but don't necessarily like the process of I think that would be fair to say, right. So podcasts great. We just say we record amazing and off, it goes as off. It goes to other people, for them to work their magic, we do quite a lot with it, but they finish it off bit of it comes from other people. But social media is something that we I then mostly get quite heavily involved in. Right. And it's a lot of work, isn't it? Yeah. But this year has been a little bit more fun because we've introduced new stuff, haven't we? Ingrid? What have we introduced in 2023? Well, I think we can safely say, our our Of course, you know, we've got our Facebook page, we've got our Facebook group, and our Facebook group keeps growing and growing. And we absolutely love it. We were always a bit rubbish. Laughing we can say that we're always

11:09
doing rubbish.

11:14
No, write a single social media post in five years. And that's the audacity to say that we were rubbish. Oh, I'm sorry, Lesley. Oh, we need to cut this out. Because this needs to be a nice podcast at the end of the year. But I mean, let's agree that we were not very well on Instagram. Where are we? Oh, on Instagram, on Instagram.

11:36
On our Facebook group. I know. If you didn't let me finish my sentence I like we weren't like fabulous on the Facebook page, or the Facebook group and Instagram. We were not at our best let's let's be honest. Yes, yeah. And then we did. And this year, you were like, Ingrid, come on, we need to up our game. And I was like, I know, but why don't know how to do that. And you said, Come on. Let's do this. And we did, didn't we? We did. And we're having great success on Instagram. Not surprisingly, the thing is about Instagram, the thing which put us off was like, we know that Instagram reels are the thing people like reels on Instagram, right? And most of those reels, so the ones that really hit home for people are like less than 20 seconds. Now anybody's in our world knows that. Ingrid and I do not do well, in 20 seconds. We are more kind of two hour type people rather than 20 seconds. We can be quite long winded. And so we will. How are we going to say anything with any kind of substance in 20 seconds? Well, anyway, that was our biggest worry. I know, when we enlisted help, because we were like, Wait, we don't know how to do this. So we enlisted help. And it's really opened up a whole new world for us. I know. And I do. You do. So you did so much work. Lesley. It's a secret. I really honestly, I take my hat off to you. And I mean, I know I'm you're you're always like, Oh, you're the nice one. And I'm the the one and I'm like behind the scenes. You're. But honestly, I don't know how you do it. Oh, you're absolutely fantastic. And you've done a lot of the social media work, but I do a little bit more filming. But the bulk of the work is in the social media. But we had we had to give you help, because there's like no way we can do all of this with and tried to squeeze that in our week. Right? Yeah, exactly. So I think, yeah, so Instagram, which we we you know, we've had Instagram for ages, and we put stuff out there, but nothing very inspiring, I would say just was a bit functional, right? And so I think probably July, June, July in 2023. We were like Okay, it's time. So we got some help in someone to direct us about the world and the ways that Instagram hits home with people. Because it's important for us to find, you know, new people to share our messaging with and then to bring them into the podcast. And that's kind of the way that we want to do it. So Instagram is important for that. But it's actually been quite good fun, right? Hasn't it? Instagram. I have made a complete fool of myself and very early in the process. I told the lady who does our Instagram reels I was like I'm not doing any of those things that make you look completely stupid. Those are all going to Ingrid

14:24
I'm not doing I was literally getting annihilated by my whole family and friend. I was like, No, I'm not doing that anymore. Ingrid's doing that. So if you see any crazy point in videos that will all be Ingrid. There's one. There's one one of my clients said to me last week. Whenever I'm feeling a little bit down, I always go back to the point in video of us about self love. So if you want to see what people are talking about, go back to

14:50
June July time. And there's one where I decided that it was a really good idea to start acting like I feel like it was like no, no, we

15:00
La. So yeah, so but all those are gone now I'm just I'm just the serious one behind the camera and English the kind of less serious, stupid one.

15:14
And I am absolutely fine with that. But uh, yeah, we're having fun. We're having fun with it. And I never thought I would say that because I thought, oh, no, that's not for us. But yeah, I'm really enjoying it, although not gonna lie. It's a lot of work to do fill me, as you know, but what was really interesting and sort of like, wait a couple of what you would consider to be viral reels. And so anybody who doesn't know what viral is kind of when it goes outside your own kind of circles, and so obviously got followers on Instagram

15:47
followers on your Facebook page, but then Facebook or Instagram can kind of push that out to people that are not within your own audience. And that's when a real or video or whatever goes viral. So with a couple of examples of where the first one was a little bit crazy, right? angry because we went viral for all the wrong reasons.

16:09
It was like, it was our first experience. And it kind of took us a little bit unawares, didn't it? Yeah. But basically one of our videos, this the text on it was quite speedy. So there was like a load of text on the actual reel that you kind of bet you couldn't read fast enough. And so often on Instagram, you have to pause the reel to be able to read it through. And so we had a lot of people that were not happy with the speed of our real Yeah, didn't weigh. Yeah. And so people were commenting.

16:41
So there was like a sort of a kind of two sides. One side, were commenting about how ridiculous it was because it was too fast and you couldn't read it. And then the other side, were going, don't be so stupid. Just hit pause. And so basically, what they're meant, what that meant is there was this kind of argument going on, on our comments on our reel. And then Instagram was like, oh, people like this, because they commented on it. And they kind of pushed it and he went viral. And we got caught for a million views in one day. It was like,

17:13
totally, totally unintentional. And then, and then there's people in the comments go on, they do this on purpose. And we're like,

17:20
we are

17:23
scammers like this, is that that to make money that we wished.

17:29
It was, that was quite interesting. But we did have a real more recently go viral, like over half a million views for all of the right reasons that people loved. Right. And so yeah, and that makes a big difference. Because the viral real means lots of new people coming into our world. So it's been interesting. Yeah. And of course because then Lesley who loves looking at numbers and views and that kind of thing. Just and then I get this WhatsApp botanical cannot go on Ingrid. We're going on tick tock and YouTube short snacks. And I'm like, Oh, okay.

18:03
This is typically less than right? So you think I only see Lesley between like, nine and 530? Oh, no, in the evening, I got an idea. I've seen this. This is cool when it's and then suddenly you get the loving this whole insert rails. This is great. And I love it that we can reach so many more people with our important decluttering message weren't going on tick tock and YouTube short tonight and just went,

18:27
Okay, tell me what if I need to do something or what I need to do?

18:33
The problem is, the slight downside on our tick tock on YouTube is that we don't have help in that area. I'm kind of flying solo on that. Who knows what that's gonna be like, to me, but we're trying we're trying to. So if you are on any of those platforms, Instagram, tick tock or YouTube, or indeed Facebook.

18:56
Come and check us out. And you can just follow her like, let us go viral, help us go viral again. There's nothing more excited. I'm literally a kind of one of these ridiculously addicted people that is refreshing the reel like every five minutes to see how many more views I've got, like when I just I'm like, What am I doing it? My daughter was like, Mom, I was refreshing to see how many views is even my daughter's 30 as well. But this is not good, right?

19:26
Yeah, but social media is important to be able to get our message out to the right people. We have been brave enough to go onto other platforms and see what's going on in the big wide world of socials. Having kind of, sort of shied against it. We just were like, well, we just need to do what we're good at, which was the Facebook group, which we still absolutely love our Facebook community, right? Because we've got such a kind, warm, engaged, supportive community. And you know, we

20:00
Make sure that we've got the right kind of people in there with the right kind of attitude towards others. That's what we've tried to create. And, and so we're not just we don't just let anybody any old person in, you know, occasionally we get an odd person that comes in. That's not quite what we're doing. That's there for ulterior motives and we whip them out before we know it, because we're not having anybody. But like, we're like protecting our family. Right and good. And the failure? Oh, yeah, you know, the thing is literally, if I think about the fact that we've got now something like 19,000, or 20 40,000 people in that group, and we've had maybe, between five and 10, report posts in the whole year, I'm like, wow, how amazing is that? You know, and we're on that. And we appreciate each and every one that's in our group that also makes sure that group stays this warm, amazing place that it is because it's important. And it's very important to us as well. So, but Lesley, we have not only done the podcast and socials, right, we've done a lot in our I mean, the whole reason why we're here is because we've got a membership. And we help hundreds of people all over the world with their decluttering and organizing and our membership. And we've got lots, you know, we've got loads of courses, we have live sessions. I mean, you know, we've we've told many times all the things that our membership entails. But we keep building on that, although we were really getting there, aren't we we really getting there with all the information we want to put in. I mean, we started with, like, let's do a course about the kitchen, or the bathroom. And now it's like, wow, you know, you can really declutter and organize your whole house with all the information that's there. We've got all the support structures in place. We do live sessions where people can ask questions and do accountability. We've got our message boards, where our members can share how they're doing themselves. But we still keep thinking of stuff that we want to put in. And it was this year, not different. We did some fantastic things. Yeah, I think, you know, we're so we've had the membership for four years, obviously been working on it for that same five years as the podcast. And so what we've been doing if we built we've been building up our library of contents and so you right Ingrid in that we were, it was a kind of not a final product, but it was a whole kind of house done, almost. So every room in the house was covered right within our membership. And so now what we what we've done this year is we've we've looked at other things, peripheral things that are really helpful to people to move their decluttering journey forward. So for example, we did a room of doom training. So obviously, a bedroom might be someone's room of doom a kitchen, but what we talked about was the logistics, didn't we? So we were like, okay, so if you've got a room that's completely overwhelmed, and you're like, I don't even know where to start because I'm getting the door or it's just completely all over the place. So it's a mishmash of stuff. Then how do you do that logistically? So we did a couple of master classes on that, didn't we? Then we did.

22:58
We we've called in some experts as well this year, Haven't we already had an expert the previous year we had Sarah because you came into a couple of ADHD trainings for us, which were incredible. And this year, we built on that as well. So we had Lisa paneling come in to do two trainings on hoarding. So the first one was about what is hoarding? What are hoarding behaviors, what, you know, what exactly is it to get the terminology right to understand what that represents, for both people who have hoarding behaviors, and people within our communities, you need to understand what that is and how potentially it's different from having a lot of clutter. You know, it's important for us to, you know, use the right terminology understand what what the difference is. And so we talked about what it is, and then we talked about practical steps that you can take if you have hoarding behaviors and of course, all of the things that Lisa spoke about are equally attributable to people who don't have hoarding behaviors so it wasn't just know if you've got hoarding behaviors This is the training for you. Everybody loved it love Lisa's delivery and what she was sharing Oh yeah, yeah, it was fantastic Absolutely. And I you know, it's great to get some an expert that knows a lot about the subject in and I mean, the same we did a fool to organizing a web Mel coming I think it was last year already and such feels shorter doesn't it? But I think it was last year that we had to fold the organizer in Oh, it's got to be this year. No, you're saying it's last year? Yeah.

24:26
What like add in 2022? Yeah.

24:31
Feels way

24:34
where's the time going on life is hurtling along in front of me. Well, it's just because Lesley this year we did indeed, the room of doom training. We did the hoarding masterclass. And we also did remember, over the summer we did a digital deep dive when we went three months. We did digital content. We've never done digital before. So we did a live session about it.

25:00
How to Deal with contacts one about how to deal with emails and one how to deal with passwords. And they were so popular. So we did that. Remember, besides of course, our 80 Set challenge and our 40 days 40 items challenge. So we Yeah, quotes organizing was last year.

25:20
I don't know what to feel about the fact that that's, like, over a year ago. Anyway, so So yeah, so that's where we've gone. So we've still would still try to think about new ways to cover different topics that we've not covered before. I mean, obviously, all of these things that we've done master classes on things that our members ask us about in q&a S. And so we cover the content, any content about anything we cover in q&a, as people ask specific questions about digital about hoarding about photos from 2020 to

25:53
those things, we cover those things anyway. So you don't have to wait until there's a course on it. Because the question can be asked or in the forum or whatever. But I think that's where we're going with things at the moment, isn't it? It's more like, right? Is there an area that we're not absolute experts in or someone's got more expertise than us, or something that we've not quite covered? And we've got some great ideas, of course, for 2024 coming up as well, haven't we? So already in progress already in the bag and ready to go, which is exciting for 2024. So the membership, and we saw huge growth this year, we've had fabulous people, our community is stronger than ever. We're so proud of everything that our members do. And yeah, well, look, here we are like proud mums, aren't we? Oh, for sure. Lesley. Absolutely. I mean, every time, whether it's in our Facebook group, whether it's on our social, whether it's in our membership, and people do like cool stuff, or they've got to break through, if they got a mindset shift, we're like, Oh, my God, that's so amazing. We're so proud of you. And this is so fantastic. And of course, I get to do a lot of that, because I do a lot in the membership with the members forum. So I see a lot of the journeys that our members go through. And I'm like, oh, and I was like, Oh, well done. Fantastic work, keep going. Absorb it, because you know, it's so important to have that positive output and to hear it and set it on the people that are doing a really, really good job. Because I think we're always so hard on ourselves. So I think it's really important that you know, we say Go on, keep going and give yourself a pat on the back and well done. And I know you think it's a small step, but it's really big and be positive about it. So yeah, I love that. Yeah, it never ever gets old does it? You know, seeing success from other people never gets old. And when we stop getting excited by it. That's the time to stop right.

27:43
Now, before we carry on waxing, lyrical. Let us go to a break. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We're chatting about 2023. I've already thrown Lesley a curveball, because she's thought that something happened this year. Well, it's actually happened last year. So yes, time flies when you're having fun. And we've done stuff indeed, like we said before the break with the podcast in the membership on our socials. But there's been even more, there's more. Yes. Now there are two things Ingrid. And I know exactly when they happen. So this is a good thing, which is our reset your home challenge. We keep on bringing it back because it's so popular, and so transformational for so many people. And so every time when we because Ingrid and I have meetings about what we're going to do for the next quarters, and all that kind of stuff. And we always put throw the reset your home challenge into the hat to like, should we change it up? Should we do something different. And we always come to the conclusion. It's just so powerful people, for people that we're going to keep it as it is we're going to make some tweaks, we'll change some bonuses, we might change some rooms, all of those things. But ultimately, the concept of the reset your Home Challenge, which covers lots of different emotions and lots of different practical tips throughout little bits across the house is really powerful, I think so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As they say, I know. And I'm already so excited because we're like gearing up for a next week. We're starting right on the third of January. So yes, we are back. I mean, you know what it, we love it, it's got to be honest, it's quite tiring to go live five or six or seven days in a row. But we can see the impact it has on people and the light bulbs that go off and the way people change the way they think about clutter in themselves in their homes and the changes they can make and it's just wonderful. Exactly. So this is gonna be interesting because because of the where it falls and so we're always in a bit of a dilemma in terms of when New Year falls every year, because we believe that people who make a kind of whether it's the resolution or decision, whatever you want to call it

30:00
and ultimately people do you know whether we like it or not whether we agree with new year's resolutions people go, I'm gonna declutter my house in 2024. That's kind of a thing, right? And so and we think that once you've made that decision in your mind, you want to get on with it. Yeah, don't wait. You don't want to wait until the ninth of January or whatever, in our opinion. And we might be wrong. You'll I want to get straight on to it. And so we'll try and do it as soon as we can. Not New Year's Day. But we can after that, we will try and get going. And normally, we have time to do it, maybe Monday to Friday, or we might do a Saturday. But this year, we're going all the way through the weekend. And it'll be interesting, won't it to see whether or not people like the weekend slots don't like the weekend slots. But it's going to be Yeah, straight back into the new year with a bang for us to wake up in the first week. So yeah, but we do love it. Like we said right at the beginning, you know, going live and sharing stuff is, is really what makes us tick. So yeah, get ready for that sign up third of January have not got long now. We want as many people as possible, we get so many people coming back how many people have repeated the reset your home challenge keep coming back every year, just because you never know what's going to come out of our mouth. We said different things every single time. It's not. It's similar content. But it's definitely not the same, right? We have no idea what we're going to say before we even go live. So who knows Ingrid, that is true. That is true. And of course, in 2023, we also did the reset your home challenge. But we also had two other things that we did, we did a pitcher paperwork challenge, and we did a craft master class as well. I know the pitcher paperwork challenge was interesting, because we did it in a different format. It didn't work because it's not that exciting. Try as we might to make paperwork exciting. It's a little bit on the dry side, we did something with like pre recorded videos, and then live sessions. And it worked really well. So we're really happy with the way that people engage with the purge paperwork challenge. If you need to do paperwork, it was a great way to get things kick started, wasn't it? And then we delved into craft, which we had been putting off for, like forever, but we knew that people want to be like dog craft, and we're like, but we don't know, a button from a acrylic. Do you know?

32:16
And we worked out that actually, we don't need to know a button from an acrylic. And that we could deliver our content. And we did and people loved it. And now it's just been fab, you know, and we love thinking of new stuff. So we're already thinking ahead, right? Do you think you might be still be firm in 2023? But we've been thinking about 2024 for ages already. Because, you know, we want to think about okay, what's the next thing we want to do? Because we want to do other things as well. And just keep it interesting for you and for ourselves. Absolutely.

32:48
So it was a great year, right within the membership within our communities. What was also really cool in 2023 Ingrid, which was we kind of went back to where it all started for you and I so for anybody that doesn't know, Ingrid and I met on the board of the Association of Professional decluttering. And organizers. Ingrid was the president because she likes to be at the top and in the limelight all the time.

33:16
Basically, then I did all the hard work and she did it all about them. I write such a liar.

33:27
Ingrid was the figurehead and I was the lucky behind we did loads of work. But anyway, no by the by. So we met on the Association of Professional declutters. And organizers like I don't know, nine years ago, 10 years ago. Yeah, something like that. And we worked together on the board for many, many years. And we kind of gelled even though we're completely different people as you might have gathered. And while we were working for the Association of Professional declutters and organizers, one of the things that we did was started up a training program for professional organizers. So we wrote the first professional organizing course a starter course a big an intermediate course for professional organizers. And we loved loved loved training professional organizers, because we just love everything about decluttering. We love the people that go out there and help other people to do it. And so, but then that will stopped when the declutter hub started but then we had this like yearning didn't we Ingrid to kind of return back to our roots for training or the professional organizers. Certain share we did. Yes, Lesley? Absolutely. I mean, we've been talking about it for many years. If we wanted to do something again, we're professional organizers. And this year we just we've been we bit the bullet and when right let's just do it, how are we going to do it? What do we want? What do we want to share? And we said let's just set up a prosper program, because we want professional organizers to prosper in their own business and also have that wonderful feeling that you get when you work with people and you help them declutter and organize their home so it's been just lovely. It's been

35:00
An absolute lovely, no and, and the interesting thing about Ingrid is, you know, we've got a small number of people within the PROSPER program. And so we're literally more or less working one to one with loads of people, aren't we and we couldn't really, really make a difference. And so it's just so lovely, it's just such a lovely thing to do. So it's like parallel, we just have a nice time, don't wait shy, we know when it's the same as the q&a is we just have a lovely time really. And we're just doing it to a different a different audience, we're talking very much about how to how to build a business around professional organizing. And so you know, all of the stuff that we've been talking about, you know, social media and websites, and all the boring stuff that you kind of enjoy, hopefully. But it's a bit annoying to have to do. And the scenes when all you want to do is go out there. And in our case, talk about it, or in professional organizers case, go and help a client one to one in their home. Yeah, it would be amazing if we could do that all the time. It was a whole heap of stuff that you got to do to keep the wheels of business turning. And so that's what we do with our prosper program, which has been amazing, an amazing addition this year. Yeah, really, really enjoying it. And I think, as well, you know, talking about the association, we went to their conference this year, but not only as attendees, but we were also speaker. So we were actually on stage in front of 100 professional organizers here in the UK. And we delivered a talk and that was the first time we did that. So that was very exciting as well. It's a very excitable bunch. Isn't it a very organized, excitable

36:29
conference. Yeah, it's all very kind of meticulous and organized and happy, really, because everybody who is a professional organizer loves the job that we do, because we it's privileged position to be able to help people in their homes to sort of transform things, isn't it? So yeah, it's a nice place to be the app.com. So we were delighted to be asked to talk about it. So Ingrid, now we've spoken about you being you know, loving being in the limelight and your dreams came true this year. I know, I know. We got a request from ITV saying Harvey. Katie Piper's back on Sunday breakfast show, and we would love to invite you as a guest. And Eurodollar. So I was like, oh,

37:16
so and I actually, although I loved it, I was a bit nervous. And I was a bit you know, that was like, quite, quite scary. But yeah, I was on telly back in it was back in June already. Lesley, can you believe it? And I loved every moment. I mean, the whole TV thing is like crazy. You you wait around and you wait around that. And suddenly you get whisked onto the stage and boom, the lights and the cameras can Lights Camera Action, basically. And yeah, I absolutely loved it. And we were lucky enough to get the whole recording. And yeah, you can watch it on our YouTube channel if you want to. And everybody went, Wow, you can talk so well. When I'm like, Well, I've been doing this for quite a long time. You know, nobody say You know, it, just add a new dimension, really TV, you know, and cameras. And you know, you're not you're not the thing for me is you're not really in control of you know, they don't tell you like what you're going to talk about. They just put you on the spot. And you've just got to hope that you make sense, right? Yeah. And again, it's quite brief. You know, we're not known for our brevity. Oh, we and so. So no, it was fantastic. You did an amazing job flying the declutter flag on the Katie Piper show. So yeah, do do tune into our YouTube channel if you've not seen that, and see Ingrid in the limelight. Yeah. So talking about your year Ingrid. Let's let's we have done some personal things. I'm just saying. We've just hasn't said anything else besides work? I mean, I know it's kind of work and Hobi and all of that. But we have done some other stuff at our personal lives as well, haven't we? We have. So what's your highlight two of what's your personal highlight of the year? Okay, I'm gonna give you a personal highlight, and a business highlight. Okay, well, the personal highlight for me is easy, because of course, I turned 50 this year.

39:10
That literally a highlight. I was amazing. I love my party.

39:16
Pass and talk about the turning 50 Oh, no, it was the party. It was the highlight. Yeah, no, I loved it. And it was you were there celebrated with me? And yeah, my loss of friends and family were there and I just had an absolute blast. I'm going to enjoy looking back all those pictures in those videos. And every efforts just oh my gosh, what a what a day and what a couple of days I had people coming all in and flying in and coming by boat and by train by just to celebrate with me. And it was just wonderful. I had such a good time. So yeah, that was definitely personal highlight. How about you what was your personal highlight? Lesley? Yeah, I think mine is similar to yours, Ingrid. Because this

40:00
Something very nice about the bringing together a family and friends and but it was a whole new dimension. So I was married for 30 years back in September. And my kids threw a surprise party for me. I mean, yours was not a surprise, like you bought the whole thing and or arranged it may was a surprise. And it actually was a surprise, which for me, who's a bit of a control freak, not as much as you, I hasten to add, I was like, oh, gosh, they will.

40:26
They will want to do and, you know, thankfully, my house is clean and tidy, and all those kinds of things. So once I got over my kind of control freakishness, it was amazing. It was just so lovely. And they've been so thoughtful, it's extra special that my kids did it for me. And you know, I can't even believe that they got away with you. That all allowed without, you know, I can't, I literally can't because the signs, retrospectively the signs were there. It was obvious, really obvious, but somehow I just lived in a, you know, they told me we were going out. So I knew we were doing something. But I just had no idea that it was going to be a part, I suppose I just didn't think that they would ever be able to pull that off, particularly as a surprise, but they did. So it was incredible. So that was lovely. Back in September, that was definitely my personal highlight of the year. You know what it just shows you that really it's about family and friends and those special moments, isn't it? We we've not even talked about stuff or presence we be given or anything. It's just It's the time spent with family and friends. It's so important, isn't it? And okay, all right. All right. So then to wrap this up, if we look at our business and work highlights, you said you asked me what did stand out for me? Well, I think yeah, it must be of course I think the going on the telly with the Katie Piper TV show that was I think fantastic. And I think a full tcash Twice a really want to mention the fact that we were asked by Clutterbuck to go on their podcast, that was phenomenal to be to be asked to go into a show. And that gave us kind of the like, oh, we should ask Peter Walsh to come onto the podcasts. So that was fantastic. And also to have a call on array on the podcast.

42:13
I'm really proud of that podcast as well. I was really proud of how that interview went. And yeah, so that was definitely the highlights for me. How about you, Lesley? Yeah, you know, this is gonna sound a little bit strange, really. But I think my personal podcast highlight this year was the one that I recorded with my son, Luke. And so

42:34
basically, Luke came onto the podcast, I don't know, a while ago, to talk about his kind of ADHD journey got diagnosed with ADHD, I think last year, on that, who knows, it might be 2020 20. For all I know.

42:49
Thank you last year, and you know, so I invited you onto the podcast to talk about your journey, and the comments, the emails, all of the stuff that came through from that was incredible. So that one did really well with so many people. And, of course, because it was my son. Yeah, it adds an extra dimension of sort of pride really, doesn't it? So I think that was my highlight, because it was important to me. And it was lovely for him, because I was sending all the comments and everything on to him as well. So yeah, I think that was my personal highlight as well this year. I think that, you know, from a business perspective, it's really hard. You know, we've gone through all of those things that we've done. But I think what what am I my highlights? I think, really, it's two things to kind of choose to if there's I think the first one is, you know, I think our community, wherever that is, our podcast listeners, our Facebook group, our membership, you know, it just keeps on growing into this beautiful set of people with one common goal that all support each other. And that never ever gets old. You know, like I've said before, it's just so special to be able to be kind of at the helm, even though it kind of runs itself, right. So, you know, to be at the helm of that and to be steering the ship a little bit within that and to be making such a big difference to to people or building a community where people can support each other to make a difference. And everyone's doing their own work here. Do not to mean but it's just so lovely. And we're really lucky to be able to do that. But I think the other thing, which is it is a highlight is astonishing, that we are still here together, you and I are having fun and laughing through the year, even five years later. This is, you know, did we think that we'd still be having this much fun five years later, we actually have way more fun now than we did five years ago.

44:43
And the only way we can do it really is laughing. So I think it is a highlight to be able to spend pretty much every day with you as well. Yeah. Well right back at you, Lesley. So Happy New Year to you and to all of our listeners and also of course we're I wonder

45:00
Full assistant role so is there working away behind the scenes do all the other people that you've met in Episode 250 that help us to do what we love and treasure. So much. Thank you for being here. We hope you've enjoyed looking back with us. We hope you're excited about 2024 and all the fun that is coming your way here in the declutter hub. We can't do it without you. And, yeah, as always, we appreciate you listening in week in week out so much, and we'll see you in the new year.
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