In this episode, we dig into a surprising trend from a recent Harvard Business Review article: more and more people are using AI to “organize their lives.” But does organizing digitally mean we're actually taking action in real life?
We reflect on how technology—from notebooks to planners to AI—has always promised to help us stay on track. But in our experience, clarity is only half the battle. The other half? Doing the work. We explore what AI can and can’t do when it comes to organizing, and why the emotional, human element still matters most.
In This Episode We Talk About:
- Why “organizing my life” is now one of the top AI use cases in 2025
- The difference between making a plan and making progress
- How AI tools can support, but not replace, hands-on action and emotional decision-making
Mentioned in This Episode:
- Harvard Business Review article: “How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025” by Marc Zao-Sanders
- AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other generative platforms
- Common organizing tools of the past (planners, Pinterest boards, magazine clippings) and what they have in common with today’s tech
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
Hey friends. Welcome back to Organized and Cherish. I'm Stephanie, your host, and today we're diving into something I've been thinking a lot about lately and in a different format that I normally give you. Not too different, but more of a rant session. And don't worry, it's not in the negative type of feel and vibe, but I think this will also be helpful for all of you to hear and to start to talk about because it Im impacts all of us, and that is the topic of ai.
How does that relate to what you listen to here on Organizing Cherish? How does that relate to organizing and decluttering and downsizing and working with your loved one when it comes to their stuff and figuring out what that next phase of the physical stuff will be? Well, AI has quite an impact, believe it or not, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
But the reason that I say that today's episode is a little bit different is because I was listening to. The person that I follow. So she's somebody that I really enjoy listening to, has a different perspective. I use her, their software that her and her co co-founder Julie, um, have, and her name's Kathy Olson, and she's a really cool chick business coach, graphic designer, co-founder, really cool person.
And she was talking about rants, the kind of rants that you do when you, just talking out loud and sharing what's really inside of your head with your audience. And it really stuck with me because I happened to have just read an article on the Harvard Business Review, an article by a guy named Mark Zow Sanders, and the title of the article was How people Are Really Using Gen AI into 2025.
Then I, as I read, you know, I read the article and you'll see why this is relevant to you, the listener of our podcast in just a second. But I was, I read the article and I immediately had thoughts. And I had just heard what Kathy was talking about and sharing rants with your audience members that that might be a value, and that is also what you.
Many people want to hear, not always just like the scripted conversation. So that's what I'm bringing to you today because I do think it's a value and, and you know, let me know what you think and I'd love to have that conversation with you and how you are using AI in today's world. So let's dive into how and why my thoughts are coming into play.
And how I think this is of value to you today. Okay, so let's get to it.
Welcome to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. I am your host Stephanie, your compassionate and deficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we keep.
And let go with dignity and care because it's not just about throwing everything away, it's about respecting memories and simplifying life. Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. So let's talk about the article. This article is all about how people are really using AI in 2025. So this author did a survey study from last year, and because AI is changing so much, he did another one for 2025.
For any of you who are listening who are not familiar with what AI is, AI is artificial intelligence and or all of that, the learning models, like if you hear about chat, GPT or Gemini, Google's version, uh, you know, there's a whole series of them. You also have new robots that are being built, and so all of these automated ways that people now, everyday people, not just businesses, can be using for their everyday life.
And in theory it's to enhance it. To automate and make things simpler and better. Right. So that's kind of the, the thought process behind, or the sale selling point to all of us as to why we should be using AI and why so many people have adopted ai, artificial intelligence. So that's what it is and that's why it has, it has been growing so much in that article.
There are some expected uses, so you've got help with writing and research and summarizing. What really caught my attention was the second most popular use this year, and it climbed from last year, and that was organizing my life. So that's what it says on there. It's a graph in charts, and then he also has a writeup and over his thoughts and how he came to the findings.
I'll put the link to the article in the show notes and look, listen, I get it. We're all juggling a lot. There's family, there's work, there's caregiving, there's unexpected errands. The endless to-do list, and then in our conversation and how we have all come together, it's helping our loved ones with their stuff too.
So you've got our side of all that list and then you add theirs. And when it comes to physical stuff, we know that it is mental clutter When we visually see all the stuff that we have to deal with, it's a representation also of the small stuff that is being unseen. So it's like. You have to deal with all this stuff, physical stuff that you're seeing, but then you know you have other stuff that it's not being seen that you have to deal with, and then it becomes over really overwhelming.
Of course, the idea of having a tool that can sort things out for us and help us make sense of it all in the privacy of our own home, in the privacy of our own bubble, so that other people don't find out about how much of a mess stuff is right now. That sounds amazing. I thought, well, yeah, I mean, I can see why it's climbed up, but here's where I paused.
As someone who has spent over 20 years helping people get organized, I can tell you this, that clarity is only half of the battle. So getting to the clarity piece is only half of the battle. The other half is taking action, like actually doing something about it. So AI absolutely help us plan and so, and prioritize.
And it can even give us reminders. It, it like does a whole structure for us. It gives us the list and then color codes, it codes it if we want. And if you are a really big AI enthusiast and you're getting into it and you follow some of these coaches and mentors and people in, in your life, your business and or personal life, you'll see that it can be very convincing.
To use AI because it gets to know you on a personal basis. Now, we are not for the sake of this conversation today, we're not going to talk about the privacy piece because that is a really big part of this. I do want to mention it though, because you know this, these learning models, we don't know what the long-term effect will be.
How much exactly they will learn about us and what that will do to our privacy in the long run. So let's hang on to that though, but I, I want to make sure to mention it in here because I know if you are a listener of this podcast, you have probably thought about it and that is one of your biggest concerns.
So that is definitely something we need to be paying attention to. But let's just say that it's an innocent, truly helpful tool, right? As it gets to know you more and more, it gives you more advice and it gets to know your, uh, ways of doing things. If you're neurodivergent, it gives you kind of that path so that it makes sense to you.
So everything that you end up asking it to do gets tailored to your own personality and livelihood. So that's wonderful. But at some point, we still have to get up and do the thing. We have to open the box, we have to make the decision, we have to have the conversation. We have to let go of what no longer serves us.
We have to have that really tough conversations, right? Like we mentioned. So that is the piece that AI can't do for us right now. That is the part that we're starting to get into, like the robot part of the, them having to have our own brain and feelings, and we are not close. To being in that place. So we're gonna put that part of that conversation off to the side.
We're going to focus on the part that it does do, which is the other piece of giving you suggestions and making a plan for you, organizing your life on paper. But what it can't do is actually do it for you. Hi, cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter and everything in between.
That's why I created the Organized and Cherish weekly email. That goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox to help you keep the momentum inspiration going with tips and reminders of our upcoming events. All you have to do is head on over to organize and cherish.com and sign up for the email newsletter.
It's free and you can up subscribe whenever you'd like. It's my way of helping you simplify your life and respecting memories along the way. Now back to our show. It started getting me wondering. And then this is where the chicken scratches and the rant comes in. Like, will AI actually help people follow through with action or is it slowly becoming just another digital notebook, another place where good intentions go to collect dust?
That's the pattern that I have seen for years because before AI and all this new learning model technology, all of this, it was planners and it still is for many of you, quite frankly, and me as well, by the way. Before that it was binders of magazine clippings, right? Like you would go, you would get inspired by something that you saw, the recipe, the font.
If you were more of a creative person and you were looking to get inspired by the font and the colors and the person with the brand new fashion outfit, right? Like you would put it up on your vision board or something. Pinterest boards saved. Instagrams after that, like it started to evolutionize into all of that, like the Pinterest board and the saved Instagram post and the color coded spreadsheets.
And those were all great tools. Like I, I loved creating them. And as a pro organizer, I would see those all the time. Like I would get people to, to say like, this is what I want it to look like. This is what I want my pantry to look like. This is what I want my garage. Um, this is what my vision is. This is my personality.
I would use all of those types of notebooks to get a feeling of what the client and the, our community members were looking for, and they can absolutely help us build a vision and, and to communicate with others. Here's the thing, having a plan isn't the same as making progress. And that's where most of the community members that we would work with would halt, would stop.
That was the road. That was like the road that they were on, and then they would hit a roadblock and this would be it. It was I hell of all these visions, but I don't know how to execute them. So that's where we would come in to help them fix that, to get that problem fixed. But it would take quite a bit of self-reflection of acceptance and doing the work to hire somebody and then actually going through with it.
So just like printing recipes doesn't make the meal. Having a perfectly designed organizing list that a learning model AI has given you, doesn't mean the garage is suddenly clean. And for a lot of people, especially those in the sandwich generation who are helping their parents and raising kids and all that, and who we all talk about and work with, and we all bond over working jobs and managing homes, those tools can feel helpful until they become just another place where overwhelm gets stored.
So let's break it down a little bit. What can AI do for us? So AI can help us get clarity, right? We, we've established that piece. It can help us map out our options. It can brainstorm, it can help us organize our thoughts, but what it can't do is sit next to you while you go through the photo albums. It can't help you recycle the old electronics for you and actually drive it there and make it there.
It can't help you have a compassionate conversation with your mom or grandmother or neighbor about their overflowing storage closet that. You're trying to help them with so that they can move on to the next phase in their life or hold your hand while you finally tackle that room. You've been avoiding that human part, that emotional, sometimes messy part is where real organizing happens.
So here's my question to you as you get into using AI more and more, because what this review and this article noted is that more and more people are adopting it. Is your AI tool helping you move forward, or is it just helping you plan to move forward? That's the question I still want you to ask yourself.
This is a question that I would ask in the past, and sometimes the past really helps us with our future. It's happened before I've seen this trend happen, and so my rant for today is I'm just wondering if this is the same rhythm, the path that people have taken where they're just collecting information and they're making plans on paper or I guess in this figuratively speaking paper, but you're not actually implementing anything.
What's one thing that you've been thinking about organizing? Maybe you even gotten outlined, labeled, or color coded, but that still has not been touched this week. Can you make that one small action to make it happen? Whatever you've been telling your ai, if you're using it or you think you want to u use AI for is can you actually take the action and do something about it?
That is where you will find the value in these types of tools, in my opinion. So even if it's 15 minutes, right, like it's just one drawer. Can you actually implement what this learning model AI told you to do? Let the tool guide you, but let you be the one who gets it done. Because as of right now, there is no model, no robot that is going to do it for you.
And even when one does exist, there is still that part that you can only implement. It's the feeling, it's the conversation. It's the human touch that still needs to be there. So that is my thought on this article. I loved the article and how it broke it down as to what, what are, what is trending. Uh, one of the other ones that was trending that we won't go too much into detail because it's not our area of expertise, but it is related, was the therapy companionship.
So last year in 2024, therapy and companionship was number two, and this year it rose to number one. And then the organizing my life, which is what this today's small mini ran discussion was about, was not even on the list last year. So to me, this is telling me that. These learning models, these ais are helping people feel less lonely, helping them process their feelings and their thoughts and the way they move forward.
But. What I did not see grow in any of this is actually making things happen, like actually implementing it. So I thought it was very interesting. I'll give you one more insight. One of the other use cases, like it was healthier living and healthier living. So how are you using the ai? You know? And so people said healthier living, that was number 10 this year.
That's also growing, so that does tell me that people are starting to use it a little bit more to make hopefully true actions. I'll be very curious if this actually propels people to do something about it. So we'll hang tight and see if the author publishes one ano next year. We'll keep an eye out. Let me know how are you using ai?
And if you are using ai, are you also implementing what it tells you? So not just collecting the recipes, not just asking it how to live a healthier life or a more organized life, but are you actually taking those? Thoughts and those visions that it has for you and plans and making it happen. I love to hear from you.
Until next week, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. If you enjoy today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast.
Until next time, happy organizing.
