Growing up, I was not organized. While my room was typically clean, and visually pleasing, my closets were stuffed with toys, piles of clothes and disorderly stacks of books, records and whatever else might have happened to be on the floor moments before a friend or relative was due to arrive! When I was in high school, we lived in a fairly large home with several spare bedrooms. My mother was constantly complaining about the fact that when I was asked to clean my room, my solution would be to merely shift piles of clutter from my bedroom to one of the closets in a guest room down the hall. Of course, I would forget the stuff was there, but eventually, when a guest would come to visit, you can imagine the horror on my mother’s face when she would show them to their room and open the closet door!
I wish I could say that I became better at keeping my environment clutter free when I moved away to college, or after I graduated and moved into my own apartment, or even when I finally scored my “dream career” and had my own office. No, unfortunately, the truth is, I fought disorganization most of my adult life. Quite honestly, it wasn’t until after I got married, had two children and settled into our own home, that I finally began to get sick and tired of spending so much time, money and energy shuffling things around, purchasing items I already owned but couldn’t find, and frantically piling paperwork and “stuff” into the garage, moments before guests were due to arrive (sound familiar)!
The funny thing is, I can’t tell you how many times I had attempted to become organized in the past. One of the things I would do in my disorganized days, was to continually vow to become better organized. January 1st would roll around and suddenly I was rushing out to the nearest office supply store, spending gobs of money on fancy, cool things and complicated systems that promised to get me, and keep me, ORGANIZED! The problem was, most of these things were so complicated and cumbersome to use, that after the initial RUSH of getting them home and setting them up, the newness would wear off. These things would then just simply become one more “thing” in the piles of things that complicated and weighed down my life – not to mention depleting my bank account!
At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when, it hit me like a ton of bricks - being organized shouldn’t be complicated, cumbersome, or confusing. What I needed was a system that worked for “me,” a system that fit “my” lifestyle, and “my” personality. It was also obvious to me that I wasn’t going to be able to just buy such a system off of a shelf or get my house and life in order in one day. I knew that this was going to take a little time, and that as much as I just wanted to drop a match into my garage and burn everything up so that I wouldn’t have to face what then felt like mountains of JUNK – that was not going to happen. I would have to roll up my sleeves, formulate a plan, and begin to move forward, one step (one piece of clutter) at a time.
It is now years later, and what seemed then like such an insurmountable and daunting task, has actually turned out to be one of the most rewarding and exciting journeys of my life! It is through this blog, and my website, that I will share with you the things that I have learned along the way – what has worked for me, and what hasn’t, and how easily YOU can begin your own journey towards creating a harmonious relationship between you and your STUFF!
