45 | Decluttering with Intention with Kenika Williams

Dec 6

45 | Decluttering with Intention with Kenika Williams

On this episode, I’m joined by Kenika Williams, a home and lifestyle connoisseur and founder of Tidied by K. Kenika's mission is all about helping high-achieving women and families create intentional, functional, and streamlined living spaces, allowing them to present their best selves to the world.

Listen in as Kenika shares her journey from a lifelong educator to a professional organizer and business coach, practical insights into decluttering, organizing, and the power of a positive mindset. We also explored the philosophy of embracing an organized life, with Kenika highlighting the importance of being intentional about what you own. And she shares a creative and practical strategy for staying organized as an adult that you may find helpful as well.

Tune in to join the conversation as we discuss:

The role of organization in our personal and professional life
The impact of coaching and collaboration in achieving success
Practical tips for normalizing decluttering
The parallel journey of developing a positive mindset and embracing an organized life
The benefits of living in an organized space, including comfort, peace, and increased productivity
The importance of priorities, systems, and finding a routine that works for individual lifestyles

GUEST INFO:
Kenika Williams, CEO of Tidied By K + Coach for Pro Organizers
Website | Instagram @tidiedbyk | Instagram @kenikaandcompany

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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 45, “Decluttering With Intention with Kenika Williams.” I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest, Kenika Williams, a home and lifestyle connoisseur is the founder of Tidied by K. Her mission is to help high-achieving women and families create home environments that serve them through functional, intentional, and streamlined living, empowering them to present the best version of themselves to family, friends, and the world around them. As a lifelong educator, Kenika uses her platforms to share simple, practical, and action-based tips that can help move the needle for busy women and families struggling to keep order at home. Her expertise spans decluttering, organizing and productivity, inspiring other women to take action in creating peace in their homes. Kenika has been featured in Good Housekeeping, Essence, Martha Stewart, Yahoo, Apartment Therapy, eHow and countless other press and media outlets sharing her knowledge on a variety of topics ranging in entrepreneurship, decluttering and organizing.
As a loving dog mom, self-proclaimed vegan foodie, entrepreneur and expert in home organization Kenika is dedicated to using her gifts to educate people on how to live more organized to fully enjoy what life has to offer. I encourage you to listen for some golden nuggets, laugh along and implement two tips you'll learn within the week ahead. Make sure you're following Kenika too.
Amelia: So I am so excited for today's guest because we're friends, we're colleagues, and we have known each other for a little over three years. And the first time I learned about Kenika was when she presented at a Black Girls Who organized meeting and I saw her present and I was like, she is my people. You were offering coaching support to new organizers, especially around visibility and social media. And so I hired you and look at me now.
Kenika: Yes, look at you now. Look at us now, friends three years in the game.
Amelia: So good. So just give a brief introduction and then we'll dive into all the goodness.
Kenika: Yes. So my name is Kenika. I am a professional organizer and business coach, two professional organizers. So I launched Tidied by K, which is a home organizing company based out of Atlanta, Georgia back in 2019 and I've been doing that since then. And for the coaching component I have a coaching company called Kenika and Co. I launched that back in 2021. So yeah, that's just a little tidbit about me and the businesses that I have. And yeah, I'm super excited to be here.
Amelia: Yeah, we worked together for a couple months and I just took off from there. So she's good y'all, I love to start my conversations by inviting guests to take a step back to their past and feel free to share as much or as little as you'd like about what organization looked like for you as a child in your childhood home.
Kenika: Yes, I was very organized as a kid. I enjoyed doing it. So I was the kid that was excited to tidy up my closet. I probably did it once a month and just kind of reset it and changed things around. I was the go-to person to unload the dishes or unload the groceries, set the pantry up, put the dishes back like it was just things that I enjoyed doing. So I was pretty organized. My notebooks for school were always organized. I always took the time to label my tabs and make sure that everything was neat and tidy in my bookbag. So that was me as a kid. So organization has always been something true to who I am and something that I just naturally enjoyed doing.
Amelia: And I know we're not going to dive into this too much today, but you were a teacher and then became a professional organizer. So I'm just kind of curious a little bit about that component, maybe how it shows up now that you're an entrepreneur, that teaching element.
Kenika: So you know what's so funny, when I was a teacher and I didn't think about organization as like an industry or a skill back then, it wasn't until I started the business that I realized like this is an actual skill that people will pay for support in. But my classroom was organized. I had an exemplary classroom where other teachers would come and look and see how I set it up. But yeah, so organization has always just been a part of me. And then with the teaching component, I enjoy relaying information. I think I'm naturally good at that as well. And so yes, all of it kind of segues into what I get to do now as an entrepreneur.
Amelia: And you just led me like right into my next question. Brilliant. So again, one of the things that you do so well is educate your audience. You meet them exactly where they are without judgment, which is one of the reasons why I think we are aligned so much. I'm always like, you got a mess. Cool. You got items that need to go. Cool. You want me to make the most of this beautiful functional space you've ever seen down to the last detail? Cool. You're like, you can do all the things. Why is it so important for you to empower clients to start right where they are right now?
Kenika: It's so important just because you have to get started. Like there's no, I think a lot of times people have this vision of things being perfect immediately or being just how they want it immediately. And that's not realistic. Start with what you have, start with where you are and just make progress. And baby steps are still progress and six months down the line, a year down the line, even a month down the line, if you just get started you'll see progress and you'll see a transformation in a short amount of time as long as you're just diligent. And so I always work to give people action items that they can do that kind of meets them where they are to empower them to get started or to just take action to see the change that they want to see.
Amelia: I think that's really important because when you are stuck, it is hard to see that place where things might change. And I like to talk a lot with clients. The analogy I would give is a ball rolling. When it's not in motion it feels very stuck, it's still. But you give it a little push, you get a little movement, you push it harder, it moves more. And so just working alongside a professional is very helpful and you are gaining momentum with each decision. You're better understanding yourself what you want, how you see a space. And I love that you really start by meeting clients where they are because you're teaching them that with every decision, every step, every space, the pace will actually pick up for them. They're in their understanding
Kenika: For sure. Once you get a good repetition of taking action, you'll start to notice like, huh, this isn't as hard as it was a month ago or two months ago. So it's all about just getting started, taking intentional action on changing the environment that you're in or changing your habit and long-term you'll see the benefits of it for sure.
Amelia: And you'll get those rewards by decluttering one drawer or one closet. We often think it has to be all or nothing, the whole home.
Kenika: I'm going to do my whole garage this weekend. And then when it doesn't happen, you're like, you failed. But it's like, no, get a small space and make change there and you have progress.
Amelia: Yes, I wrote a newsletter about that, how just one room, one transformation can be enough and getting into that mindset is a great place to get started. In the professional organizing community we know that decluttering is essential and people love to go out and they love to buy their products and bins and boxes and all the beautiful things first, but decluttering is essential and it's one of the main parts of the process that clients are nervous about. How do you normalize decluttering for your clients and help them see that it's exactly the right path to meeting their goals?
Kenika: I think one of my big messages is about just being intentional about the things in your home. So when you go with it, when you approach decluttering from a sense of like, is this intentional? I think that helps people normalize like, oh, maybe not, maybe I can probably pare down or give this away or donate or whatever the case may be. But normalizing this question of is this something that's intentional? Does it serve me? Does it serve the space? Is it something that you absolutely love and need? That kind of helps people get more comfortable with the idea of letting go because if you can't answer yes to those things, then in your mind it triggers, oh maybe I don't need to keep this thing. So that's my approach with it. And again, when you're being intentional about what actually lives in your home, you can be more comfortable with the goals that you've set for the space. Like I really want this office space to be a guest room slash office space slash hangout. But if it's overly cluttered, you know that your goal is to turn this into a functional space. What needs to happen for that to be a true statement? So that's kind of how I like to approach normalizing decluttering.
Amelia: And what I hear for listeners is first of all there's the pause and the awareness that you want change. There's potentially seeking support from a professional organizer but like intentionally making choices. And that is the decluttering process is pausing long enough, slowing down long enough to look item by item, area by area. So it sounds like work honestly, that you're going through a space, picking up each item, making a decision that is the intentionality that you're speaking about because we end up with an excess number of items in our home and we forget that in the future only more will be coming in. So the decluttering process that you really help clients with focuses on that pausing, that slowing down, that intentional choice making for sure. Anything else you'd like to add around decluttering in terms of practical questions people can get started with in their own home?
Kenika: Yeah, so first one, asking yourself, is this something that you absolutely love, use, need? And go through each of those things. Do I love this thing? Do I use this thing? Do I need it? Also, if your house was burning down, is it something that you would go back for, like you would absolutely want to have it, is it replaceable? Can you replace it easily? Is it going to be a pain in the butt for you to replace this thing? Like really trying to get to the solid understanding of like, is this something that I truly need to have and does it serve the space that it's in? Asking yourself those questions I do think can kind of guide you in better decision making for the different things that you're sorting through and trying to discern if it's going to stay or not.
Amelia: Which is why I think professional organizers as a whole recommend starting small with a small group of items because those decisions can get tiring after a while and you will build up resilience to that process. But yes, starting small.
Kenika: I'd say start small and start with low-hanging fruit. Like I said with the garage example, don't decide that you're going to go into your cluttered garage over the last seven years and say that you're going to declutter the garage. It is too big of a project probably for you to tackle for it being your first like entry into like this whole idea of decluttering. Start with low-hanging fruit. If you have clutter, look at a flat surface. What visible trash can you easily get rid of? What visible thing that you know like, oh I haven't touched this thing in six months in a year, I don't need this. What are those things that you can pare down in a designated small area?
Amelia: So good and so useful because it is warming up that decision making muscle and the things that are easy decisions to get things moving along. So you've decluttered and organized countless homes. You got to follow Kenika on social media and we'll link her information at the end. You also do public speaking, you've been featured in articles and there's this element of inspiration that you bring to the audience as well.
Kenika: Thank you.
Amelia: You're welcome. I would love for you because I know you have a very specific organizing philosophy. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that and just this idea of embracing an organized life. I know that you and I are aligned in that so maybe a way that it shows up for you shows or for your clients.
Kenika: Yeah, so my philosophy around organizing is before you can even get to the organizing component, you really, again, I keep stressing the intentionality behind what you own. You have to be intentional about what is in your home. So if it's already there, like really trying to discern what needs to stay there and if it is new, being a better gatekeeper of what you allow in your space. And that's before you can get to the organizing component because you really have to handle what currently is in your home
Amelia: And define for people what gatekeeping is.
Kenika: So gatekeeping is ensuring that you are the leader of you knowing what is coming in and out of your home. You get to decide if you want something. So your mother-in-law is always trying to give you something and it's not anything that is going to serve you or your home or your space, graciously decline it. Thank you so much for considering me. This is actually not something that I think we have space for right now. I'm happy to take it and maybe donate it on your behalf or I'd love to re-gift it, being gracious about it. You don't have to say yes to everything, especially if it is not something that aligns to what you need or services you well that's being a better gatekeeper of what is in your home. But yeah, so you want to make sure you're doing that and then you have the opportunity to now set the systems, organize it in a way that fits your day-to-day routine, your lifestyle, your family's lifestyle, so on and so forth.
So that's really the approach that I like to take when I'm thinking about organizing and what that means in terms of just living it's comfort at home, it's peace at home, it's function at home, it's higher productivity at home and outside of the home because you're not scrambled and disheveled when you're entering work or other areas. That's what living in an organized home is like. And so my goal is to get clients to that space where they just feel on top of it. And even when their home gets a little messy because we live in our homes, you can reset it relatively quickly.
Amelia: Yeah, I love that you said that because the truth is we live in our homes, homes get messy, you will have to tidy, you will have to maintain. And that looks different for everyone. Sometimes it happens on a daily basis, weekly basis, the more frequent the better. But I love this idea of just knowing that you have the tools and the skills to reset the space like you mentioned.
Kenika: For sure. Yeah.
Amelia: So one of the reasons that you and I are so connected is because we both love to talk about mindset in particular. You're a close colleague who understands the beauty and importance of untangling long held beliefs, getting curious about inner obstacles and seeing where in our lives we are holding ourselves back. And that's what I talk a lot about with clients and work with them on. And I would love to hear how mindset work shows up for you, either internally for yourself with your in-home clients or even your pro-organizing coaching clients.
Kenika: So for me personally, it's like a daily practice of like positive self-talk. I think before starting my business, before being an entrepreneur, it wasn't something that I felt as closely tied to or aligned to. I just kind of went with the day-to-day. But being thrust into entrepreneurship, it forces you to kind of sit with self a little bit more and really become a little bit more cognizant of how you treat yourself in terms of your mindset. And so because of starting Tidied by K and launching K and Co, I have dived a little bit more deeper into mindset. And so for me personally, I am doing a lot of positive self-care talk. I am journaling a little bit more. I never thought I would be the person to sit down and write down my thoughts and look to see the progress that I've made over the course of time and it's been very helpful.
I've had conversations with Amelia to kind of help me overcome some of the mental blocks that I have. And so I believed mindset to be a powerhouse. When you have a solid positive mindset or even just trying to adopt better practices, it allows you to do so much more and be so much more than you ever thought you were probably going to be capable of. And so with me understanding that, how I try to present it to my clients is the same. Now I don't consider myself to be a mindset professional. I don't take on that approach of trying to coach people through that. But I do try to help them acknowledge that hey, mindset is powerful and if you can work to adopt a positive mindset, you are going to be able to accomplish so much more and you're going to feel better about how you're living daily. And so that's like my thoughts on it.
Amelia: Yeah, I think I heard two powerful things. So the first is the process that you mentioned, like writing out your thoughts and seeing them over time because there's getting the mental clutter that's in our head kind of out. However you do that, whether it's voice notes, journaling, talking to another individual, just kind of decompressing what's inside and then adopting a positive mindset. And when it comes to home organization, managing your schedule, your time, like that's huge to switch into the possibility of being someone who does X, Y, and Z. It's not like jumping full into the belief that like I'm a hundred percent completely organized individual, but that I am on the path to becoming. And entrepreneurship, like we're doing that internal work of saying, it's almost like decluttering your mind, these are the things, intentional thoughts, creation, these are the things that don't belong here and then these are the things that do. So I love that you are just kind of bringing that awareness for your in-home clients and of course with the pro-organizing coaching clients that you have as well. Just highlighting that for them because I think it is just for every human being like a supportive path forward.
Kenika: And then just to kind of reiterate, it's a journey. So just like decluttering and organizing, it's not a one stop thing. You hire an organizer to come help you declutter and set the systems, but you still are working to maintain it. You still are working to be a better gatekeeper and honor your home and your space. It's the same with mindset. You acknowledge that okay, there are some things here that I probably need to address and you are going to journey through the process of developing a higher power of self, a higher more quality mindset to kind of help you accomplish your goals in a way that feels good.
Amelia: And that's really why I settled on embracing an organized life as a title for all the things because it is a process for sure. Anything else you would like to share before I offer the last question of our conversation?
Kenika: I think it's really the intentionality and embracing the journey. Whatever it is that you're embarking on, whether it's mindset, whether it's organizing or decluttering, being intentional about whatever your goal is for that and then honoring the journey and the path that you're going to embark on to get to the end goal that you see for yourself.
Amelia: And I can hear into the minds of the listeners right now. If it's coming up for you, well that's good for you. Or I don't have the time, I'm too busy. If you hear those kinds of freezes, those are the internal obstacles that we're talking about. Those are the internal obstacles to intentionality. And looping it back to a few minutes ago, why pausing and creating space, making that decision to be intentional as Kenika is sharing is so very valuable. So what is one way that you employ organization now as an adult? It can be a creative, out-of-the-box way or it can be sort of yeah, whatever's fun for you.
Kenika: So one of the ways that I stay on top of vegan food and meal prepping and just being organized, I freeze my food, y'all, I will cook because as an entrepreneur, I am just completely busy with work. And at some point, at one point I was really good at meal prepping every Sunday. I would go grocery shopping at the start of the day and I would spend pretty much the whole day at home meal prepping, having all of my food sorted and ready to go for the upcoming week. But as business has gotten busier, I have been challenged with meal prepping every single week. And so what it looks like for me now is Saturdays I will go get my food, I'll prep everything and I'll start cooking Saturday and finish up Sunday. And so that means I'm making like maybe three or four different things.
And so I'll freeze some of the food and I'll leave some of the food out for the week. And so it'll last me two or three weeks as opposed to having to do it every single week. And that's one way that I've been able to kind of stay on top of food, not have to eat the same food every single week because I've created three or four different meals on that Saturday, Sunday and it stretches for the two or three weeks, and then I do it again. And so I stay on top of good food, healthy food or something that I cooked myself and I just freeze it and when I'm ready for something else, I just take it out the freezer, put it in the fridge, and that's my cycle. And it has been a godsend because being a vegan, when I'm out. It's hard to find food, fast food for me so it's been a great solution.
Amelia: That is absolutely amazing because a couple things, I hear that it is a priority for you so that you set aside the time and you make it happen. I hear you have a system and that system you've broken down into parts that make the process more manageable. So I just want to highlight that for listeners because I'm sure it's not something you came up with overnight, but that you have perfected and practiced and now found a groove that makes sense for you that now you can just swap out the particular recipes but the system and the process are in place, which is what organizations is all about.
Kenika: Absolutely.
Amelia: Thank you so much for chatting with me today. It was fun.
Kenika: Thanks for having me.
Amelia: Yay. I want to let the listeners know that you have a YouTube channel, you have resources on your website, you're based in Atlanta, but I do believe you travel as well as an organizer. So please tell everyone how they can follow you, connect with you, get all your nuggets of wisdom, all the places.
Kenika: Yes. So like Amelia said, I am on YouTube, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on TikTok, I'm on Pinterest. All of those platforms are the same for Tidied by K. And so it's the at symbol @tiediedbyk. So wherever you are, whatever platform, that's where you're going to find the resources that I have to offer or just the information and the support that you may be looking for. And then when it comes to coaching for professional organizers, that is Kenika and Company on Instagram.
Amelia: Amazing y'all she's so good.
Kenika: Thank you.
Amelia: It's been my pleasure and I will talk to you soon.
Kenika: Awesome.
Outro: Hey y'all, I'd be honored if you'd take three minutes to leave a review of this podcast. Your time is precious and by leaving a review, A Pleasant Solution will reach more listeners and lives. I'd also love to hear your feedback and share your review on a future episode. Talk to y'all soon and remember, you are more organized than you think.