No one is born with clutter

Being organised or not can be a hot topic.

I personally think being organised does not make the best dinner party conversation. Why? Opinions and standards vary – and so they should!

It is your life journey, including your upbringing, which gets you to the place you are now in relation to belongings and to being organised. On top of that circumstances do change: share houses, moving in together, babies, teens, ageing parents – and with all of that expectations can also change.

A good part of my private consultations and public workshops are revolving around conversations on the topic of being organised. We discuss the whole attitude we have towards our homes and our (overstated) expectations. This is often fuelled by social media and sometimes the people we surround ourselves with.

What is really important to you?

• Do you want stuff to make decisions on how to live?
• What is really important to you?
• Is your life about stuff?
• Are you happy with this?
• Would you like more time to do ‘things’ and be with ‘people’, experience life and laugh?

This is a great opportunity to investigate your relationship with the material things surrounding you. Is the attachment to things your own, or did you maybe ‘inherit’ it from your parents? Or are you maybe 100% different from your parents?

Are you hanging onto stuff out of obligation, grief, overwhelm?

In this local print article I was asked my opinion about the Japanese bestseller and subject of a Netflix show, Marie Kondo, and my response is: everyone has their own relationship to their stuff; some people have a lot of things and live happily with them.

It’s when it starts to impact on our life and our stress levels that we need to do something about it.

But as much as your stuff journey is different from the person next door, you should have a method of dealing with it.

Not everyone is able to tackle all their oversupplies in one go – as Kondo suggests in her book ‘The Live-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” (and by the way – we don’t tidy up, we de-clutter and we organise). Not everyone has the time to fold their undies into neat little squares. It’s not wrong, but one size doesn’t fit all!

Not everyone is able to de-clutter and organise by themselves.

Asking for help is hard.

Many of us have the belief we should be able to do this by ourselves.

Many of us tried with more time at home during various COVID related lockdowns – and it still did not get done.

But, as I tell people who enquire with me frequently: picking up the phone and asking for help is the hardest part of getting organised!

Once you started the journey you will very likely live with less mess – and happier; you will also have an insight into your relationship with stuff, which then allows you to live with it or live with less stuff – on your own terms!