Episode Description
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What if getting organized wasn’t about perfection… but about peace?
In this episode, I’m sitting down with El Donna Coats — a 71-year-old pickleball champion (yes, really 🏆) and member of Organized Life Academy — who joined not because her house was a disaster… but because she wanted more clarity, more calm, and a completed Life & Death Binder.
And what happened next?
Less stress.
More space.
A totally different relationship with her calendar.
And a granddaughter who now proudly says, “The first step to organizing is SORT.”
I love episodes like this because you get to hear what it actually looks like when someone does the work. Not perfectly. Not overnight. But consistently.
El Donna shares what shifted for her, what surprised her, and how she’s peeling back the layers of what she calls her “very, very, very big onion.”
If you’ve ever thought:
- I’m organized… I just have a lot of stuff.
- I’m a collector — that’s just who I am.
- I don’t want minimalism… but I do want less stress.
- I’m afraid to start because I might fail.
This episode is for you.
We talk about real change. The slow kind. The sustainable kind. The kind that actually sticks.
You’ll Learn:- Why “assigning a time” to tasks eliminates procrastination (even the 5-minute ones)
- The mindset shift that helped her stop fearing failure
- What it means to peel back the layers of your “onion”
- How decluttering collections can shift your identity
- Why writing down 3 wins each day rewires your thinking
- The surprising ripple effect organization has on your health goals
- How to become “company-ready” without panic cleaning for hours
- Why awareness is the real transformation happening inside Organized Life Academy