Interview with Mia Keenan, Owner of Tidy Evolution
I am so excited to introduce you to Mia Keenan, Owner of Tidy Evolution. Mia is an educator turned professional organizer with a life history full of unpredictable changes and transitions. As a result, Mia has been drawn to systems of organization ever since she was a child. During adulthood, it has led her to realize something… The world can be an unpredictable and chaotic place at times. By controlling the physical items in her immediate surroundings, Mia was able to create an orderly, calming space that provided her with a sense of safety, reliability and comfort.
When Mia discovered the KonMari Method®, it was the perfect process not only for getting and staying organized, but more importantly for moving gracefully past unresolved life changes and forward towards big dreams and more joy. Calm, order, and space for more joy… sound good to you? Mia loves supporting her clients along their tidying journey because these are the exact results they achieve.
As a parent, she also is familiar with the challenges of balancing family, career, self-care AND the clutter that accumulates along the way. Mia is here to help and would be honored to guide and support your Tidy Evolution!
The Interview:
Shemeika Fox: Hey everybody, welcome to our channel. No, I’m just kidding okay. I am super excited today to introduce you to Mia Keenan. She is the owner operator of her company called Tidy Evolution which is an organizing company. She will come into your home and make it what you want it after a full complete consultation and she specializes in, now you have to take over ’cause those are words that I just can’t seem to remember.
Mia Keenan: Thank you, Shemeika. So the method that I specialize in is called the KonMari method. And this is the tidying approach developed by Marie Kondo. What I like about the KonMari Method is that it’s very wholistic, right? So we start with a lifestyle vision pertaining to your home. Maybe what you wanna change in your home, what activities you’d like to increase in your home. And we take it from there. What is specific about the KonMari Method is also that we tidy or we organize your possessions by category versus just like one corner of your home and then another room of your home and the categories are, number one, clothing. That might be something that, that you remember.
Shemeika Fox: I’m gonna need you to come back, off camera, for the clothing portion. That is not gonna be public.
Mia Keenan: Sure, so you start, but yeah, clothing, then category number two is books. Category number three, papers, which includes your personal kind of administrative papers as well as if you have an office at home, you know work from home, or that could also be in your office, your location of work.
Shemeika Fox: Yeah, I’m gonna need that one too.
Mia Keenan: The fourth category is miscellaneous or called komono. And this category really encompasses the largest amount of possessions that we tend to own. Everything that isn’t clothing, books, or papers, or specifically sentimental. So miscellaneous is like all of your utilitarian items. And then as we go through those first four categories every time we encounter something that is sentimental, that tends to be harder for us to decide whether to keep or let go, we set that aside into its own section or pile for the very last and fifth category, which is sentimental.
Mia Keenan: The reason this is a great approach is that, you know especially for clients who are going through hard transitions and they really need more time to think about or kind of feel into those sentimental items, you know? So we put those all aside until the very end. And then that’s when you really, you kind of take a bit more time to go through those and photos are large, usually a large category of sentimental. If you’ve gone through the KonMari Method you’ve practiced deciding whether you want to keep or let go items on easier items like clothing. You know, your kitchen spoons, your pots and pans. By the time you get to sentimental you’ve kind of, you’ve kind of built that muscle of what brings you joy, what you need in your life what you want in your life moving forward, what you’re no longer needing and can let go of. And so it’s just kind of a nice evolution to get.
Shemeika Fox: So Mia so kindly and graciously is gonna organize my miscellaneous kitchen cabinets which she directed me to allow to get as messy as possible. So please no pre-photo judgments, people.
Mia Keenan: So first of all, this is a lot of really beautiful storage space. Tell me so far like what you have going on here. What is, if there’s anything that’s frustrating you.
Shemeika Fox: Okay so, well obviously like I’m not super tall. What do they say, vertically challenged? So I can’t reach anything on the top shelf really at all, like tippy toes or whatever. I do, I have all my cookbooks up there which I guess I could climb up and get as needed. I don’t, they would be the thing that I use probably the least amount of the time. Besides like that food saver thing and then everything down here I use the most so I can access it pretty easily. Obviously liquor cabinet, cups, which need all brand new eventually to replace what we have going on there which is an eclectic mess.
Mia Keenan: So yeah, as we, as I work today I’ll just kind of be checking in with you here and there. You know, maybe questions about the cookbooks. I definitely like the idea of bringing the mixer back in, especially if that’s something that is used kind of frequently. Basically the process is like taking everything out, reassessing and seeing if there is, you know better, better ways to use a container or something for the space. Also, It’s okay to have a cabinet or a shelf that remains empty. And often in homes that have a lot of storage, if the family or the individual tends to be more minimalist and really not need to have a lot of possessions, we end up with some spaces that are just empty. And that’s okay. It really is surprising how much you had, you know, in a small space so.
Shemeika Fox: Like, what is that stuff? Who even uses that?
Mia Keenan: We’re discussing the cookbook situation. And my idea is to have some pulled down that are a little bit more accessible. So Shemeika is identifying those cookbooks that she uses more often. And what kind of would spark joy for her to have more accessible. I would rather like gaze more readily upon the cookbooks versus this thing. But obviously that’s up to you.
Shemeika Fox: No, I never never use it. How long does your tiding process generally take?
Mia Keenan: Yeah, so when I work with long term clients who are doing the whole KonMari process, the entire KonMari process in their home, it can take a year, it can take six months. It can take more than a year. We usually do one session per week. And like one 4 hour session per week. I find that if you do more than that, it’s a little overwhelming because each organizing session will often generate like some to do items. And so we kind of have to catch up in between. And it might be small to do items that the client does like ‘return this dress to my sister-in-law’ or you know just little things. Or it may be things that I help with. I take away donations, I take confidential documents for shredding. So the process just can go on for months, months, and months.
Shemeika Fox: Yeah. Danny is tall, he can reach up there. So I’ve never used that distilled vinegar once.
Mia Keenan: Okay, well that’s a good use of the high up space.
Shemeika Fox: That’s beautiful.
Mia Keenan: Okay Shemeika, so I’m gonna do little reveal, explain how I rearranged some things. We can talk about if you think it works and we can always like make adjustments. Let’s see. Here we had…
Shemeika Fox: Holy cow.
Mia Keenan: So if I recall, we previously had…
Shemeika Fox: A mess. A mess. Just let’s call it what it was.
Mia Keenan: No, it wasn’t. We previously had the cookbooks kind of higher up that weren’t as accessible even though I know you said you don’t like use them that often. Food saver equipment was down here somewhere. You had had the great idea of bringing the mixer down so that it was more accessible for your daughter, for other family members. So that worked out awesome. But we did a little bit of downsizing with the glassware. And kind of rearranged this more. This is a bit more of like a joint station I guess if you will. When we talked about cookbooks, you identified these as the ones that you use the most. And even though you don’t pull out the recipes from your, what was this, your grandmother’s?
Shemeika Fox: My Bubby.
Mia Keenan: Yeah, your Bubby. We wanted to have this front and center just to like be a little joy sparking memorabilia for you. So that’s what we did here. More of your canned types of goods and sauces. And there’s a little bit of an addition here of this riser. So this is just, it’s like a ladder kind of, like it has a few little steps. That’s helpful for cans or spices. We added in some of these same containers which are super fancy lovely storage containers. And these can be used for anything really. As, as one product empties out you can refill it with the same product or, you know, if you’re like ‘oh, I’m tired of these white beans, I’m gonna get a different type of bean’ or whatever you can do that. This empty one back here as we discussed is waiting for your husband’s white rice item. This space is really flexible. You can flex it according to what you purchased that week during your grocery shop or whatever. And then here we have a space for your, what do you call like cold cellar items I guess, like onions, potatoes type of thing. So that can live here. And then this is just some more packaged, mostly savory items. The top shelf is again for the least accessible items, we have some dried chili peppers right now. And whatever type of thing that you know you’re only gonna use occasionally.
Shemeika Fox: I freaking love it.
Mia Keenan: Does everything seem reachable for you? Is there something that you’re like, oh, I already know you know, that’s too far up or anything like that?
Shemeika Fox: Nope, that looks amazing. I am so excited. I super thought I was an organized person until just now. Yay, thank you.
Mia Keenan: You’re welcome.
Shemeika Fox: If you want your life organized, Tidy Evolution.
Mia Keenan: This was so fun and already such a great start.
Shemeika Fox: It’s beautiful.
Mia Keenan: I love this, this area. I just love that you can open this and like, you know, see your cute little cocktail glasses and also some memorabilia. So I think that’ll be nice.
Shemeika Fox: Really, really amazing job. Like and subscribe.
Mia Keenan: @TidyEvolution.
