The Organizing Objective

If you watched my April 11, 2019 VLOG for Goodwill Industries of Alberta (click here to view!) you were introduced to three snippets of sage suggestion to help you start your organizing journey. While getting organized is a great first step, staying organized is your ultimate objective.

Understanding the WHY your home, office or life is unorganized is important.  Disorganization can significantly impact our well-being, leading to illness of the body or mind, relationship discord or isolation.  In turn, illness of the mind or body, relationship discord and isolation can impact our emotional & physical well-being, leading to increased disorganization.  The cause of our clutter is a classic example of “which came first – the chicken or the egg?”

Being disorganized does not mean you’re a failure; sometimes life, love, work or health simply get in the way.  Acknowledge life’s pressures and forgive yourself.  Organizing and de-cluttering are tools that you can use to help you and your space breathe.

As a professional organizer, many of my clients assume my home is the devoid of disaster, that "I must be cured of clutter."  THIS. IS. SO. NOT. TRUE.

My two-year-old insists on emptying the dinosaur bin 2,345 times a day, my six-year-old is incapable of putting his clothes in his hamper and my partner shows indifference when it comes to a clean bathroom.  I have a disdain for emptying the dishwasher and have been known to hand-wash an entire meal’s worth of pans and dishes just to avoid that unholy task.  This disorganization often impacts my emotional outlook or my relationships with family members.

On the flip side, an unexpected illness or trying emotional time is almost certain to lead to increased disorganization – unfinished tasks, unfolded laundry, unopened mail.  The resulting ‘to do’ list further impacts my ability to heal.

In order to combat the effects of disorganization on our well-being AND lessen our well-being’s impact on our organizational ability – we need organizational solutions that are simple and intuitive.  A place for everything and everything it its place.

We need to ask for help. Unless you live alone, you cannot be expected to do it all.  Involve others; ask for their support, their input, their ideas.  Sometimes a fresh perspective is all it takes to turn things around.

Make tidying a habit.  You’d be surprised how well you can maintain your life with five-minute spurts of uninterrupted effort.

In our home – I tidy when I can – and I enlist my family’s help!  Our toy bins are labelled with both pictures AND words so that both boys know what goes where without me having to tell them.  My eldest’s clothes hamper is right beside his door – easily visible and accessible.   Bathrooms?  The kids & partner share a bathroom and its cleaning schedule is left up to Papa Bear.  I will empty the dishwasher while preheating the over for dinner.  Without my determination to stay on top of things and our family’s intent on doing it as a team – we would be much more vulnerable to feeling suffocated by our space.

Remember, commit to making your home a place that collects memories, not things.   Do you really need 14 baking sheets?  Would Grandma Gertrude really want you to hang on to her tasseled tea-towels just because they were hers?  With purposeful intent, choose to discard that which dims your light.  You are awesome.  You’ve got this!

Courtesy of Shannon Belanger

Simply SOS