Dr. Regina F. Lark
Owner at A Clear Path, LLC
Women Empowerment
Education: California State University, Northridge - Ph.D., University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Biography
Dr. Regina Lark delivers keynote addresses, retreats, and corporate speaking engagements on women’s leadership and emotional labor. Lark has been speaking since 2008. She joined the National Speakers’ Association in 2014 and launched her speaking business Speaking of Clutter in 2021. Audience members say she makes intimidating concepts easy to understand and that her presentations are fun and interactive.
Armed with a doctorate in women’s history and as a historian of women’s history, Lark’s expertise lies at the intersection of feminist history and professional organization. She links our historical past to our contemporary lives, answering the question of why women still do so much work at home. An early brain-hacking entrepreneur, Lark speaks on how both the brain’s executive function and unequal distribution of labor in the home affect household management and organization.
Lark assists organizations in navigating the role gender plays in employee productivity, engagement, and performance.
Passion
Lark lives for seeing the "light bulb" go on over the heads of women when they understand that they have the power to change. She is passionate about teaching people to recognize gender equity inside of the home so that they can reorganize outside of the home. She finds it especially rewarding when she can reach professional women in male-dominated industries and believes no other career can compare to what she does.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
I sometimes get paid for speaking
Topics
Best Story
One of my professional organizing clients, Sylvia, was seriously struggling with her executive function. She hired me to help her get organized because she felt so overwhelmed by the work of managing her household.
When I met with her, she told me that she felt like a bad wife and mother because she couldn’t stay on top of everything. Her disorganization felt like a personal failing – like she was supposed to supposed to have been born knowing how to cook, clean, and maintain order.
I sat down on the floor with her and told her, “Sylvia, being a woman doesn’t make anyone a natural at this. It’s okay that you don’t already know how to do it.”
Sylvia breathed out. I could see the relief in her eyes. She really had felt like it was her fault she couldn’t keep up with the tedious, mind-numbing, and repetitive work people expected her to do as a woman.
I feel so grateful that my background as a professional organizer, a women’s historian, and expert on the neuroscience of clutter brought me to this moment. Without all three of my passions, I would never have been able to recognize Sylvia’s situation – ashamed of her messy home, laboring under patriarchal expectations, and hampered by her own executive dysfunction – and I would never have been able to say, with so much evidence behind it, “Sylvia, it’s not your fault. No one should expect you to be doing all this perfectly.”
Origin Story
Lark worked in higher education for years, directing and managing feminist and women’s studies centers. But budget cuts at UCLA eliminated her position there during the 2008 economic recession.
Lark was 50. There were no openings in academia for her. She needed to find something new. Lark had always been talented at decluttering and organization. She knew she could help people who were struggling with their messes – she just needed to figure out how to start a business to reach them.
Lark started networking. Her roommate introduced her to professional organizer Katherine Macey, who referred Lark to the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. From there, a door to professional organizing opened for Lark. Later that year, she founded A Clear Path.
Ever since, Lark and her team of “ninja organizers” have been helping clients clear a path through their clutter, whether they deal with possessions left behind by a deceased loved one, feel overwhelmed with downsizing for a move, or need a reminder that they don’t have to declutter everything by themselves just because they are a woman.
Lark is proud to have launched a business that makes such a big difference in her clients’ lives. She and her growing team of ninjas are thriving, and so are their clients. She always figured she’d organize until something better came along, but by combining her “trifecta” of passions, nothing is better than what she has now – she gets to teach, write books, and help people.
Example talks
EMOTIONAL LABOR: WHY A WOMAN’S WORK IS NEVER DONE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Dr. Regina Lark examines women’s relationship to emotional labor throughout history (including the COVID-19 era) and provides actionable steps to change the narrative.
Emotional labor is the invisible, unnoticed, unwaged, unwritten, undervalued work women do at home and in the paid workforce. It is the thinking about what’s coming up, what needs to happen, how to look into the future to anticipate birthdays, school permissions slips, family meals, holiday dinners, do we have enough toilet paper, how come we don’t have any more ketchup? Granted, all of these little tasks are each one of them easy to do but also supremely important to the functioning of a well-ordered home and to family happiness. The tasks are like part of the clothing that women wear. It falls onto her shoulders like a giant set of shoulder pads.
Regina Lark’s Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work is Never Done and What To Do About It explores historical and contemporary themes for why the work is called, “women’s work” (even though the work doesn’t require lipstick or a bra!) and provides three ways we can begin to disrupt the narrative.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
• To understand how the historical past informs emotional labor today.
• To identify the components associated with emotional labor.
• To understand the value of emotional labor at home and in the workplace.
• The value of understanding emotional labor to our clients
• Applying practical solutions
Based in Los Angeles, Regina is the author of "Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work is Never Done and What to do About It." She speaks to domestic and international audiences at conferences, in boardrooms and via various media. With intelligence, insight and humor, Regina engages with diverse audiences, providing authentic support to help them change their lives.
De-Clutter 101: From Chaos To Clarity
De-Clutter 101: From Chaos to Clarity is a fun, interactive, and inspiring workshop that offers an insightful, humorous and mindful way of looking at the chaos of stuff and clutter.
Do these conditions sound familiar?
• Floors piled high with clothes and cupboards stuffed with stuff.
• Books and articles on “how to get organized” don’t seem to make a dent.
• The clutter makes you feel stuck, overwhelmed, and anxious,
• You’ve been meaning to go through your closets and bookshelves, garage or kitchen, but you don’t know where to begin.
• Paper piles are all over the desk and stacks of papers line the floor
• You have a lot of “stuff” and nowhere to put it;
Learning Objectives:
• Why our stuff has a tight hold on us, and the personal challenges to letting go.
• To understand the difference between “cost” and “value.”
• How to determine what to keep, sell, or give away.
• How to create your DIY de-clutter plan
• Strategies to help transform your relationship to the “stuff” you may need someday, and the “stuff” you believe you need to keep near and dear to your heart (or at least in garage!).
Hoarding: An Excavation Beneath the Piles
In May 2013, Compulsive Hoarding was first defined as a mental disorder in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the handbook for mental health professionals. It is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by:
Excessive acquisition and an inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects;
- That cover the living areas of the home;
- And cause significant distress or impairment
“Help for Hoarding: It Takes a Village” is a workshop designed for professionals and family members affected by people who hoard.
Learning Outcomes and Goals
- Identify when disorganization becomes chronic disorganization, & chronic disorganization becomes hoarding;
- Understand the history and nature of the hoarding disorder;
- Become familiar with the “Do No Harm” model for helping people who hoard;
- Identify the 5 levels of hoarding on the ICD “Clutter-Hoarding Scale;”
- How to create support systems for people who hoard.
In 2008, Lark founded A Clear Path: Professional Organizing and Productivity, a nationally accredited senior move management company. As a Certified Professional Organizer CPO®, Regina is a specialist on issues associated with life transitions, ADHD and procrastination, and senior downsizing.
THE EMOTIONAL LABOR CUPCAKE
Baking cupcakes for your child’s school project involves more than mixing up a batch. It’s planning, processing, sequencing — from idea to oven to school — and involving your child! Regina explores reasons for looking at all functions and tasks of the household through the lens of project management and delegation.
Based in Los Angeles, Regina is the author of "Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work is Never Done and What to do About It." She speaks to domestic and international audiences at conferences, in boardrooms and via various media. With intelligence, insight and humor, Regina engages with diverse audiences, providing authentic support to help them change their lives.
NAG, BITCH, SHREW: THE EMOTIONAL LABOR OF THE PERPETUAL ASK
If you asked once, you’ve asked 100 times, and now … you’re a nag. What is it about “the ask” that turns “please wash your cup” into a full-blown argument? Regina suggests that a woman’s work is never done because others in the household aren’t doing their share. She discusses why listening and noticing are skills everyone in the home could adopt as their own.
Based in Los Angeles, Regina is the author of "Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work is Never Done and What to do About It." She speaks to domestic and international audiences at conferences, in boardrooms and via various media. With intelligence, insight and humor, Regina engages with diverse audiences, providing authentic support to help them change their lives.
WHAT IS “WOMAN’S WORK” AND WHY IS IT NEVER DONE?
Regina examines the historical underpinnings for “a woman’s work” and provides strategies to disrupt the narrative.
Based in Los Angeles, Regina is the author of "Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work is Never Done and What to do About It." She speaks to domestic and international audiences at conferences, in boardrooms and via various media. With intelligence, insight and humor, Regina engages with diverse audiences, providing authentic support to help them change their lives.
UPLIFT AND ELEVATE: REIMAGINING THE SISTERHOOD
In the 1960s, Betty Friedan called it “the problem with no name.” Today, we call it “emotional labor.” Women’s bodies and brains are being crushed under its weight, and we think we’re the only ones experiencing the heaviness of it all. Regina makes the case for reimagining our sisterhood and why developing these relationships can be so damn powerful.
“I HAD NO IDEA IT WOULD BE SO MUCH WORK!”
“I HAD NO IDEA IT WOULD BE SO MUCH WORK!”: THE EMOTIONAL LABOR LIFECYCLE What if you had a template that would highlight ALL the labor that goes into developing our relationship to emotional labor? Regina introduces the concept of the “emotional labor lifecycle” to help young couples and established families identify, navigate and delegate work.