TPM#14 Less stuff, less stress, more space and more time for what matters #shedtheshoulds with Amanda Jefferson

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Sign up here. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too.

Today’s episode found its own hashtag, #shedtheshoulds. My super spunky guest Amanda Jefferson said it at the beginning of our interview and then it kept cropping up as a theme.

If you’re feeling like you “should” be doing a whole lot of things — whether that’s in your business, in your parenting, or in life in general — then take some inspiration from Amanda. 

You don’t have to unschool your children, or completely change careers, or get a nose ring (not unless you want to!) but Amanda’s journey is proof that you don’t have to stick to a path that’s not working or that’s going to lead you to burnout. Instead, she encourages us to choose the “fun and easy.”

Amanda is the owner of Indigo Organizing and one of the world’s first KonMari consultants. She left an inspiring yet stressful 20-year career to start her own business because she felt frazzled with life and was on the point of burnout. Now, she helps people have less stuff, less stress, more space and more time for what matters.

This is something that Amanda has modeled in her own life. 2020 was a challenging and painful year for her. Not only did she have to deal with the challenges brought about by the pandemic, but she also lost both her sister and her father to cancer — within two months of each other. 

Amanda shares how this tragedy prompted her to let go of all the rules she thought she “should” be following, and instead do business and life her way. This has been another step in what Amanda calls her creative renaissance, which began several years ago when she decided to leave her job, start her own business and completely change careers!

If you’re looking for some inspiration to face your own challenges, then tune in! Amanda is incredibly wise with a delightfully quirky sense of humour — I know you’re going to be fist-pumping by the end of this episode.

Here are some of the topics we cover in the interview (many of them mic drop moments, I might add…):

• Amanda’s creative renaissance (no, it was not a mid-life crisis!).
• The events that led her to choose unschooling as an education approach for her daughter.
• How she left what was in many respects a dream job — but in other respects a potential catalyst for burnout — to start her own business in a field that was relatively new to her.
• How clutter creates cognitive load and how Amanda helps her clients to win the war on external and internal clutter.
• How Amanda has carved out an ideal schedule that works for her — even while homeschooling/unschooling and dealing with the loss of two close family members in 2020. In fact, her schedule has even made it possible to consider spending the US winter in Chile, for their summer!
• Why Amanda has chosen to focus on the “fun and easy” and how this has changed everything for her.
• Lots of book recommendations from someone who is clearly a bookworm: Untamed, Playful Parenting, Minimalist Parenting, The Untethered Soul.
• How to deal with our inner critic and the shift that has enabled Amanda to take life and business less seriously.
• Why finding a community of like-minded individuals can be so powerful — but why is it also important to “keep your eyes on your own paper”!

Connect with Amanda:

• Indigo Organizing Website
• indigo_organizing on IG
• Indigo Organizing on Facebook

Connect with Shelley:

• shelleysmithcreative on IG #shedtheshoulds