I love organizing. There is something so satisfying about seeing a problem and actually being able to solve it. It’s a well known fact in my house that the contents of the kitchen cabinets will regularly rotate spaces, and every time my husband goes TDY, the furniture will be rearranged. Organizing my house lets me engage in creative problem solving, helps me see things from different perspectives, gets me physical movement, and puts me in control. It gives my brain all the happy chemicals. I. Love. Organizing.
However, this organizing superpower I have typically only appears when my house reaches a critical level of chaos. Clutter builds until the perfect storm hits and I am filled with what a favorite podcast refers to as “big black trash bag energy.” When this happens, I feel frustrated that we let it reach this point again. My initial reaction is to throw every possession in the garbage and embrace a fully minimalistic lifestyle. I lose steam after about one room.
After many cycles of chaos followed by a cleaning rampage, I have realized that I need to let go of the expectation that the clutter problem in my house will be “fixed.” To fix it implies that it is solved once and for all, that I won’t need to change it or adapt. But my life is constantly changing, therefore my needs are constantly changing. My home should adapt to what we need from it in that season. This means reevaluating what is working and what isn’t on a regular basis. “Getting organized” isn’t a one time challenge that we can do in 31 days, it’s an ongoing process.
If you are also feeling the frustration or desire to finally organize your house the right way, let’s set the trash bag down together. We may need it again in a minute, but before we blindly toss everything on the curb, let’s ask ourselves two questions: “What area is causing me the most stress?” and “What can I realistically do about it?”
For me, this recently became clear in my daughter’s room. It was the day after Christmas. Boxes were everywhere, toys were everywhere, clothes were everywhere. I couldn’t walk in her room without stepping on something. Pretty typical post-Christmas calamity. Except this problem had been going on for months. I would help her clean her room, and two days later, everything would be out again. The storage we had wasn’t working for her. She couldn’t use the spaces in her room the way she needed, so it all ended up on the floor.
For a while, I thought we needed to completely replace all the furniture in her room, so I had been waiting until we could afford to fix the entire problem. But the day after Christmas it was clear that something needed to be done immediately, even if it only fixed one problem. So I talked with her and we discovered the issue causing the most stress. She wanted a place to set her things that she just wanted displayed without it getting in the way, preferably out of reach of her little sister. I wanted her clothes to stop ending up on the floor because the cheap plastic bins we’d been using for them were overfilled. After defining the main issue for each of us, the solution became glaringly obvious: She needed a dresser. Fortunately, our local Target had one left in stock and we were able to solve both issues that day. This had a domino effect as we were then able to repurpose the old plastic bins to store some of her new toys. Stress relieved. For now, at least.
I am not naive enough to think that her room will stay perfectly clean, nor that one dresser will organize our entire house. Some days I know I will need that big black trash bag because the problem will be that we have things that we don’t use or need anymore. But instead of trying to organize my entire house this January, you’ll find me making adjustments as needed throughout the year.
