I’ve had the opportunity to be part of several organizing makeover shows (as the organizer, not the client, mind you) and really enjoy seeing the client’s excitement as they view their transformed space for the first time. While you may be hoping there’s a television crew about to knock on your door to announce that you’ve won an organizing makeover, odds are that’s not about to happen. So here are some quick tips to help you jump start your own home organizing makeover:
- Choose a small space to get started, such as a kitchen drawer, linen closet or under the bathroom sink. This will give you a sense of accomplishment, as well as the confidence to tackle bigger spaces. As an alternative, choose the area that bothers you the most, such as the entryway that makes you hesitate to open your front door for fear that your cluttered home will be revealed to the outside world.
- Schedule regular organizing sessions to keep yourself moving forward. Try setting a timer for 20 minutes a day to chip away at your organizing transformation.
- Find an accountability partner – someone who will check in with you to keep you on track and remind you to honor your commitment to tackle your clutter bit by bit.
- Gather all of your random piles of paperwork and put them in a box or bin (or maybe it will take multiple boxes and bins) to be gone through during your regular daily organizing sessions. You’ll enjoy the instant lift you’ll feel as the paper clutter is cleared from your surfaces, and will be able to see visible progress as the piles in the boxes and bins get smaller and smaller.
- Schedule weekly pickups by a charity that makes house calls to effortlessly move out the items you choose not to keep, and to motivate you to honor your daily de-cluttering sessions and let go of things that don’t enhance your life.
- Promise to reward yourself as your reach significant milestones, such as a cleaning out a closet or finishing going through a box of papers. The reward should be something you find motivating, as long as it doesn’t mean bringing more stuff into your home.
- If necessary, schedule someone to watch your kids during your organizing sessions so you can stay focused on organizing.
If after a few weeks you aren’t making the progress you’d hoped, or you feel stuck or overwhelmed, it may be time to call in a professional. I can’t promise to transform your home as seemingly effortlessly as the television shows make it look, but it will be faster, easier, and possibly even better than working on your own.
Wishing you simplicity, harmony and freedom,
I recently encountered a situation with my client, whom I’ll call “Ann”, which exemplifies how some people think neatening is the same thing as organizing, and how detrimental that can be. Ann has several chronic medical conditions that generate lots of paperwork, leaving her buried in piles and overwhelmed. She also tends to be an over-shopper, buying things because they’re fun or pretty, not because she’ll necessarily use them, although she says she intends to give them as gifts someday. In addition, she has emotional attachments to gift boxes, greeting cards, stickers, ribbon, and other gift-giving supplies. Ann also envisions herself as being a great cook some day, so she stockpiles recipes and cooking supplies. I’ve worked with Ann on and off for several years to set up systems for her paperwork and create space for the emotion-evoking things that fill her small condo.
As I did around this time last year, I just saw a Disney-Pixar film that offers some great organizing lessons. This year it was Toy Story 3 that lured me from the comfort of my couch. The premise of the story is that Andy, who we met as a young boy in the first movie of the series, is getting ready to go to college and must decide what to do with his toys. This story tugged at my heart not only because I have son named Andy who’s in college, but also because I see many of my clients face the same struggles as Andy while they move towards creating a new, better life for themselves. Here are my observations:
Did you ever notice that clutter seems to attract clutter? When you plop something “here for now” does that one item seem to multiply? Often a few out-of-place items seem to give us permission to continue adding to the jumble. We drop the bag of items from the store by the door because we don’t feel like putting them away right now. We set the mail on the counter “for now” because we don’t have time to deal with it. We dump the laundry from the dryer onto the couch because we don’t have time to fold it just yet. Pretty soon our home looks like a chaotic mess because our habits have allowed the clutter to creep up on us.
It’s hard to believe, but we’re half way through the year – how are your New Year’s resolutions coming along? Was one of them to lose weight? It may not quite be what you had in mind, but if you’re trying to shed a few pounds, one quick and easy way to do that is to clean out the purse, wallet, briefcase and/or bag you’ve been lugging around. Besides lightening your load, it will make the things you carry with you every day more organized and easy to find.
I hear it all the time: “If I only had more energy I’d be more organized.” It may be a case of the chicken and the egg – your disorganization depletes you so you don’t have the energy to get organized and visa versa. While there are certainly physical conditions that can zap energy, our own habits sometimes deplete us as well. There are two common areas clutter in most people’s lives: visual and electronic. I’ll talk about visual clutter this week and electronic clutter next week. 
