As a personal organizer, one of the biggest challenges my clients tell me about is feeling pressure to create a perfect space. They picture their home looking like it belongs in a magazine, with everything in the exact right place and no visible signs of use. This pressure makes them freeze, overwhelmed by the amount of work they think it will take to get the job done. Here’s what I tell them: if your space is only improved a little bit because that’s the most you can do right now, it’s better than doing nothing because you are frozen. After all, clutter can have a negative impact on your mental health, so it’s important to overcome perfectionism to take this task on.
Personal Organizers Know the Secret
Nobody is perfect. And any space that people live in looks “lived in” instead of like a magazine layout all the time. Making perfection the goal can hold you back. Personal organizers focus on what can be done to create a better space by reducing clutter and bringing some order to whatever remains. After all, personal organizers are human, and they aren’t perfect either. Their kitchen junk drawers might be sorted and tidy, but they have thirty tabs open on their browser. So, it’s with humility and compassion that personal organizers help clients tackle their tough organizational challenges.
Try These 3 Steps
Organization is a process. What works for you now might change at a later stage, but it’s essential to get started and follow through. Here are the three steps that are essential to any organizing project:
- Be Consistent. Different personal organizers have different approaches to helping their clients with their decluttering and organization projects. One thing they all have in common is that they have a system. To be effective, organizing needs to be methodical.
- Be Decisive. Your garage and attic are probably full of things you think you might need one day, and all they do now is take up space. When organizing, you need to be decisive. Does it stay or go? Make a decision and keep up the momentum.
- Keep it Simple. Instead of minimalism, simplicity means you do organizing one step at a time. Tackle a single shelf or drawer instead of trying to take on the whole room in one day, and then build on the success to move on to the next step.
The satisfaction of bringing order to your space – however big or small you go at first – will inspire you to take on the next part. It is far better to focus on reducing clutter and organizing what you want to keep than trying to be perfect. Your personal organizer is there to support you with whatever you want to get done and cheer you on to the next step towards a decluttered, organized space. If you think you are ready to take on an organizational project, contact me to learn more about how I can help.
Consider joining me in an upcoming Talk & Tidy session. Here is registration link for the February 2023 session
