I had the opportunity to be featured on News Channel 8 to talk about easy decluttering strategies for the New Year.
Click PLAY to check it out!!
Why I don’t recommend organizing your home right now
This may be surprising advice coming from a minimalism and organization coach, however, as a (reluctant) homeschooling mom, I feed the need to say something.
I keep seeing information everywhere about taking this extra time at home to finally get organized. I understand the logic behind it. We’re at home, so we might as well finally tackle those organizing projects.
It just makes me laugh.
If your home is anything like mine right now, it is a circus.
I’m trying to find a quiet space to accomplish something that passes for legitimate work. My kids are running amuck and I’m not really positive that they’ve showered recently. I am using massive amounts of energy trying to wrangle them into doing their homeschooling. I’m cooking and cleaning and then cooking and cleaning. I’m putting out fires. Literally. My oldest has chosen this moment in time to become a pyromanic. I’m hoping it’s a phase. And, if there is any energy left, I use it to discipline them for beating each other up. No joke, my youngest just came to me with a bleeding foot because he stepped on his brother’s braces that are IN HIS BROTHER’S MOUTH! How does that even happen?!?
I don’t think you should be putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to organize your home right now.
A successful organizing project requires: an uninterrupted block of time, focus, and a desire to learn a new skill. None of which we have right now.
It’s like we’ve traded one type of pressure to achieve outside the home for another type of pressure to achieve inside the home. So American of us.
So, if you are like me and have kids at home right now who are getting dumber by the day, give yourself a break.
Use your short bursts of free time to be free. Or sit in your pajamas and eat ice cream. Or cry softly into a pillow. Whatever makes you feel better right now.
There is one caveat. If organizing is something that truly brings you joy and a sense of calm, go for it! However, if you are feeling like it’s something you should be doing and not something you want to be doing, let yourself off the hook.
There will be plenty of time to organize your home when those kids go back to school. I promise.
The crucial step in the organizing process that most people miss
Before you start any organizing project, there is one step that you must do first.
PRESS PLAY to learn the crucial step to organizing success!
To overcome organizing overwhelm, do this.
I have learned to recognize that crazy, desperate look in the faces of my clients when they are completely overwhelmed with the thought of tackling their organizing project.
They know they need to get organized, but they are paralyzed by the enormity of the task.
So they do nothing.
Spring turns to summer. Summer turns to fall. Their kids grow up and move away. And it nags at them the whole damn time.
While I’m a big fan of setting aside a dedicated chunk of time to roll up your sleeves and dig into an organizing project, I understand that sometimes it just isn’t realistic.
I prefer a different approach.
When you are overwhelmed with the thought of organizing, do this.
Start small.
Do just one itty bitty thing.
Pick a drawer. Just one.
Dump that sucker out, purge what you no longer use. (Don’t fool yourself! You are not hiding that Swiss army knife and 1,000-count pack of rubber bands from anyone but yourself!). Organize what remains.
What happens then is similar to a good first date:
You won’t stop thinking about that drawer. Every time you think of that drawer, you will smile. You’ll want to see more of that drawer. Heck, at the end of the project, you might even kiss the drawer! (I would understand, but please don’t tell anyone else!)
What you’ve done is planted a seed……the rest of your home can be like that drawer!
Next, you date one cabinet. Then, one closet. And, before you know it, you’re dating the whole house!
Now you are unstoppable.
That is the power of momentum. It catches like wildfire and then there is no turning back!
It all starts with one small thing.
Take Action: What is one itty bitty teeny weeny organizing project that you can tackle in ten minutes or less? Next time you are tempted to peruse social media, use that as a cue to spend ten minutes on an organizing project instead. The trade off will be well worth it. Happy dating!
The clothes don’t make the man.
Something that I discovered in my years as a professional organizer is that sometimes people hold onto clothes for the IDEA of who they want to be, not who they actually are.
For example, I own way too many cocktail dresses.
How do I know I own too many?
Because the last time I went to a formal cocktail party was a beautiful Saturday eve circa 2010.
It’s not my typical scene, although sometimes I wish it was! I often lose myself in a daydream, not unlike Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red” video. I float into a crowded room dressed to kill. All eyes turn to gaze upon me as my hair blows lightly in the breeze and my teeth sparkle as I smile….
Therein lies the problem. That is not my real life.
My real life is messy. I work out. I carpool kids to football practice. I attend business luncheons in flats! (I know. And I’m sorry.) I work with clients via phone or zoom dressed business on top and pajamas on the bottom.
That is reality.
Fancy cocktail dresses are not.
It is very tempting to hold onto a dream via your closet. Those skinny pants you were able to fit into once after you had the flu for two weeks. The ski suit you bought to jet-set across the country for a ski vacation that you’ve only done once. Still, you fancy yourself a skinny, jet-setting skier, so you hang onto all of it.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but you are not a skinny, jet-setting skier.
You are a mom. Or a dad. A friend. A chef. A chauffeur. A working professional. And those titles don’t require ski boots.
So, let go of the idea of who these clothes will make you be.
And embrace how you actually live.
See, what you are really purging is not the clothes, but the hope that your life was different.
And that is the heaviest donation bag that you will ever carry.
But, once you give it all away, you are FREE!
The mental weight you release will make you feel 100 lbs lighter!
And now you can get down to the business of being you. The real you.
It’s not true what Shakespere said. The clothes don’t make the man.
At the end of the day, you can be the powerful, amazing, loving, funny, inspiring, caring, and badass person that you want to be.
Just do it in sweats.