Organized Enough

There is a common misconception that I hear a lot when it comes to being organized. Thanks to beautiful magazine spreads and Martha Stewart-like Pinterest posts, most of us envision the perfectly organized home as being super clean, tidy, new, fresh and perfect. We often envision something that is far outside of our budget, capability and reach.
 
As a professional organizer myself, I want to be the first to dispel this myth. I have 2 kids, 2 dogs and 4 guinea pigs in my home. It is NOT perfect most of the time. It doesn’t always look orderly, and the laundry is usually piled a bit higher than I would like. It is not uncommon for my kids to pitch objects that they no longer want into the hallway outside of their bedrooms. I find wrappers stuffed in the couch and escaped Cheerios in places where they should not be. It’s not always pretty! Our homes need to be comfortable and functional, and living in one that resembles a museum is not achievable for most of us.
 
While it is important to have organizing strategies that reduce stress and enable you to bring your home back to “normal” when the mess gets too overwhelming, you will drive yourself crazy trying to achieve and maintain what society envisions as perfectly organized. Fellow professional Organizer and Author, Anne Blumer, said it best in her book “Get Rich Organizing.” She said “organization is not neatness. In my experience, stress does not come from clutter. It comes from not knowing where to put the clutter away.” She went on to also admit that her own home gets messy at times, so I urge you to give yourself a break and instead follow these simple rules to get and maintain a realistic balance of organization in your home:

1. Everything should have a home. To reduce and keep clutter at bay, everything: all clothing, toys, bedding, gadgets and collectibles, needs to have a place to live in your house. This can be a shelf, drawer, closet or bin, but it must belong somewhere. By assigning everything a home, it is easy to simply put things back in their homes when disarray strikes.
2. Tidy up every day. Successfully organized people are usually in a constant state of tidying up. Each day you should be performing small activities like addressing and managing incoming paper clutter, putting away shoes and misplaced items, clearing clean dishes from the drying rack, loading and unloading the dishwasher and wiping down counters in the kitchen. Stage a basket or bin in the foyer or at the base of the stairs to collect items that need to be put away in bedrooms and other spaces. Once an evening, carry the basket from room to room putting stray items back in their homes for the night.
3. Do laundry every other day. I know it sounds extreme, but if you throw a small load into the machine, fold it, and put it away on an every other day basis, you will never experience the mounds of laundry that we all dread. Can’t get to it for a few days? Don’t stress. Just pick up where you left off, wash what has accumulated and put it away right afterwards to get back on track. If your children are capable, assign them each a laundry basket so they can put their own clothes away once washed.
4. Practice the ‘one-in / one-out’ strategy to reduce the overflow. This strategy can be used to reduce the volume of things that might cause clutter and ensure that everything continues to have a home. This is especially important in spaces like closets and kitchens, where shoes, clothing and cooking gadgets can really overrun the space. For example, each time you purchase a new pair of shoes, donate or throw away an old pair.
5. Commit to the 6-month clause. We all find things when organizing that we seldom or never used but are hard to let go of. I give you permission to hang onto them…with a string attached. Instead of getting rid of these items right away, it is okay to “stage” them somewhere for the next 6 months. Set them aside in a temporary home and in 6 months, if the items have not been worn or used, out they go!
6. Involve the family. You can be the best, most amazing organizer in the world, but if others in your household are not on board with your strategies, it will be very hard to maintain good organization without a lot of undue stress and potential arguments. You may end up feeling sabotaged and in a constant state of cleaning up. Sit everyone down and explain your strategies and processes. Hear their thoughts and collectively come up with a plan. Create a chart to track progress and keep the kids, hubby or roommates involved in helping long term.

 
Getting and staying organized is an ongoing process that will likely need to be revisited and tweaked over time. Once you find a routine that works for you and the others in your household, remember to keep it going, but to maintain perspective. Remember that life is not experienced to its fullest if we are constantly stressing over a little clutter. It’s okay to step over that pile in the hallway and go play with your kids if you know that cleaning it up will be a cinch when time allows.