The Pressure to be Organized
Hello Sunshines, I'm here to talk to you about organization.
Now before you run away or decide to never invite me to your dinner parties, hear me out. The Graceless editors didn't bump their heads or drink too much whiskey and decide to prescribe "Supposed To’s" all of the sudden.
Promise. I'll bet my favorite bottle of champagne on it. (That I might even bring to said dinner party.)
The majority of organizing information out there shows us the extremes: minimalism and hoarding. Between the organizing book du jour, a kajillion articles, Pinterest, TV shows, and more devoted to the topic - and yes, I'm aware I contribute to this as well - the message seems theoretically clear:
To be organized you must be a minimalist; anything else means you're a hoarder.
I'm calling bullshit. Complete, total, utter, Grade-A. Bull. Shit.
Being “Organized” is pushed as a virtue. As we scroll through impossibly futzed with and staged photos of organizing porn on Pinterest, “Organized” feels like a far off, magical place where children don't throw tantrums, nutella is a health food, and toilets are covered in glitter.
In truth, being organized is merely about finding what you need when you need it and putting it back when you're done. It's about letting go of the shit that isn't serving you - mental and physical. It's about creating space for everything you love.
Nary a hipster chalkboard label in site.
Admittedly, I do dig those things if you have pretty handwriting, but that's beside the point.
We all have our own clutter threshold. This is the level of clutter you can get to before your clutter starts to make you batty. For some - like myself - it's low. For others - like one of my assistants - it's higher. Some people need a little mess in order to function better. In hoarders, it's broken. Point is, you don't have to become a minimalist or set everything on fire to be an organized person.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.
Don't get me wrong. Being organized comes with major benefits. It will help your sanity and can help ease some mental illnesses. (Way too much info to go into detail here. We can save that for another post.) It will help you save time because you're not always searching for lost items. It can save you money because you're not purchasing double, triple, or quintuple of what you already own yet can't find. Best benefit of all is that it helps you stay on top of your game when life throws monkey-wrenches at you - because life will throw monkey-wrenches at you.
Monkey-wrench throwing jackwad….Anywho.
Bottom line - you can be an organized person without donating your entire life's possessions to the worthy cause down the street and you're not automatically a hoarder just because you have a few things laying around. What we want to do is find your personal organizing sweet spot - that fabulous place between "too much clutter is making me crazy" and "too little clutter is making me crazy trying to maintain." After all, your home shouldn’t make you crazy from too much clutter. It also shouldn’t make you crazy from desperately trying to maintain an impossible level of clean.
In future articles I'll tell you how to go about getting to this sweet spot, but for now luxuriate in the knowledge that no matter what you see on Pinterest or read in the current organizing book du jour, the level of organizing that makes you feel best is the one you should rock.
And please invite me to your next dinner party. We don't have to talk about clutter and I'll only ask where the wine is.
Or where your glitter toilet is.