07/04/2018
As soon as most new personal acquaintances learn that I ❤️ organizing, they almost always say one of two things (if not managing to say both in a single sentence...) 1. "I bet your house is super clean." and/or 2. "I definitely don't want you to see my house then!" Both of these statements bother me so much but for different reasons...
1. "I bet your house is super clean."
First and foremost, I didn't say I love cleaning. I said I love organizing... There's a big difference. Cleaning has to do with removal of dirt, bacteria, etc. I believe this mistaken connection between cleaning & organization originates from the fact that for most people, in order to clean their house, they must first remove clutter. And considering the primary goal of organizing is to eliminate clutter, I think many people mistakenly link the two.
Let me be clear when I say... I'm no housekeeper. Although I don't LOVE cleaning like I love organizing, I can say that I definitely like cleaning more when my space is well organized. In a sense, good organization reduces, if not eliminates that pre-cleaning clutter reduction step and therefore makes cleaning much faster and easier.
2. "I definitely don't want you to see my house then!"
This is bothersome on so many levels, but mostly because people are assuming that just because I like to organize, I am therefore judging their lack of organization, which is fundamentally not true. No space is ever PERFECTLY organized, there is always room for improvement. And if you live with others (especially kids), organizing becomes the finding the most effective, compromising solution... A system that accepts that everyone is both willing and able to adopt for the good (and sanity) of all.
And believe it or not, I struggle with clutter too. In fact, I discovered my love for organizing as a young adult - I wasn't exactly organizing from birth. It's more like my gifts developed out of a desire to add more time to my day by reducing the amount of time mucking through clutter. I realized things like how often I was late for work because I spent so much time searching for things that weren't where I could easily find them when I needed them. Or that I was essentially losing an entire day every weekend trying to get my house back into shape for the week ahead only to have it back in chaos by Wednesday. I realized if I could just get more organized, I'd be able o essentially add a few minutes to every day, which would add up to having extra hours every week, extra days every month... Well, you get the point. If I was able to find maintainable systems that worked for me and my family, I'd truly get my life back.
Organization can be truly life-changing and thats why I started Simply Put. Not because I'm a judgemental control freak that what's to organize the world one house at a time... But because I wanted to share this newly discovered gift with others and help people find the freedom of a clutter-free life.
Moral of the story... Whether you use a professional organizer or are more of a DIY kind of person, I encourage you all to look for ways to eliminate the stress and burden of a clutter life/home... Being clutter-free really will set you free.
