For many people plagued by clutter and disorganization, just getting started can feel overwhelming. Many professional organizers will suggest their client start with organizing or de-cluttering one drawer at a time: baby-steps.
That approach can work for some people, but others need to first get some guidance on “what is clutter.” It may seem amazing to most people, but if you have seen just one episode of the Hoarders TV Show, then you know that many people with clutter problems have irrational attachments to even random possessions they neither use or which have no significant monetary value.
Even when someone knows how to distinguish the crap from the valuable stuff, they may still not be able to just “roll up their sleeves” and get to work. Some people need an Action Plan before they even attempt to clear the clutter or to organize what they have. A person will be more motivated to make these changes and put in the effort, if they first figure out what their goals are, and then how they can achieve those goals in an order of priority and necessity. In some cases, there truly is an ideal order to do things, which could save a person both time and money.
As a theoretical example: If a person is not getting good sleep, which can affect many other parts of their life, they may want to clear the clutter in the bedroom first. If a person has a goal to cook their own food with some life-saving dietary regime, then it may be a priority to address the kitchen and pantry first, so that the person has access and ease of mobility in an important part of their home. If a goal is set, then it seems logical that there would be more momentum behind the efforts to toss and organize. Otherwise, the task-at-hand may just feel like self-punishment and back to living with mom and dad (Clean up your room!)
It may be necessary to sit down and think about the plan to de-clutter and organize before any actions take place, so that time and money can be saved. This recommendation goes along with the practice of making an inventory of what one has first. This is no small issue. One of the reasons that decluttering may be so unappealing to the worst offenders is because their time is not organized. Because of that, there are never enough hours in a day to get to it.
I have a friend with serious clutter and procrastination issues, which permeate other areas of her life and which extend into more than just the physical space she lives in. This friend had so much stuff packed to the ceiling in two public storage units that she could not even enter them safely to sift through what she had. She decided to rent out a THIRD storage unit, just to use it as a staging area to go through things she could pull out of the other units! What sounded like a good idea initially just became another waste of money because she didn’t address the stuff in her storage units and showed no progress six months later.
This same friend needed to do three important things in her life: 1) clear out those storage units which were costing her rental fees each month, 2) find a new place to live, and 3) get a new job. The most intimidating issue at hand was for her to get a new job. Without going into details, for her to get a new job after being laid off during the COVID lock down, was going to really take some effort. Three years later, she still had made no attempt to find employment. She was weighed down by a number of things, not the least of which was the clutter surrounding her in her tiny apartment.
Her landlord had given her a soft notice that he would be asking her to move out “soon.” But he did not state if that meant in 30 days, 60 days, three months, or by the end of the year. He left it open and she did not try to get him to be more specific.
I knew that this friend was going to have a real challenge finding a new place to live, with her limited budget and with other lifestyle requirements which would narrow her options. I encouraged her to not delay her new apartment search and not wait for the 30-days’ notice to arrive in her mailbox. I was hoping she could move on her own terms and time-line, instead of panicking when she got the landlord’s notice to vacate. For a person with clutter and procrastination issues, having to do more than one thing at a time can feel like a tornado has landed on your head or that you’ve been buried alive in quicksand. But in order to dig your way out of the sand pit, you do have to come to terms with the reality of the situation.
In a similar way, if a person wants to lose weight, they shouldn’t just proclaim how much they want to lose and never make a plan for how they will achieve it. When a person has a lot of weight to lose, they need to understand and plan for exactly what sacrifices and discipline need to be made on a daily and weekly basis, before they can bask in their success months later. Wishful thinking alone won’t make it happen.
With my friend’s daunting life issues surrounding her, I tried to offer the best advice I could, to help reduce the stress and help her not waste more time and money. I saw an immediate, logical order to her situation. She was initially trying to deal with her storage units, but I could see that this was a backwards approach.
I emphasized to her that the most important thing for her to do first is to find a job. All the stuff in public storage can wait. Sure, it’s costing money each month. But the stuff is parked there and could stay there indefinitely, whereas she may be forced to move in the near future.
Wouldn’t finding a new place to live be a top priority? Well, I broke it down for her this way: If you get a new job first, then it’s going to more clearly define what you can afford in a new rental situation and it will also narrow your search in terms of where to look for housing (saving time). Without a job, she had already become overwhelmed that all of Southern California could be a possibility. Anyone who knows about the daily traffic nightmare that is Southern California, knows that no one would choose to live far away from where they work if they didn’t have to.
I also reminded her that a new landlord would more likely consider her application to rent if she had a job. This was so obvious to me, but not to her until I pointed it out. This is what I mean about organizing to get organized. There can be targeted preliminary planning which can save a person time and money instead of looking like a dog chasing its own tail. If she gets a job first, she can then proceed with finding an appropriate new place to live without having wasted time on places that were not realistic, not the mention the hassle and expense of possibly having to move twice!
I also reminded her that once she had a new place to live, she would then have a definitive mandate of what things in her public storage units she would have room for in her new home and what things she would have to part with. Even with this input from a concerned friend, she chose to visit her storage units first. I did understand why: It was the least threatening thing for her to do. But it wasn’t the most practical or organized approach, considering her other more urgent obligations.
This is when I began to understand how “hard wired” her level of procrastination really is. No doubt, these self-sabotaging behaviors were created out of stress and probably from childhood trauma. Procrastination and clutter are coping mechanisms, similar to the person who self-medicates. It’s just another version of self-medication, where there is relief on a temporary basis, to just zone out.
But with each passing day, week, month or year, the anxiety mounts. Procrastination and clutter almost always go hand-in-hand. There are exceptions, of course. I do know a couple of very successful professionals (one is a doctor and another is a chef—both with families), who are perpetually messy and disorganized. However, they have always had the means to hire housekeepers and organizers to keep their living spaces manageable. These people do not suffer from the typical depression, anxiety and all-consuming procrastination that most people with clutter have.
Someone with life-long clutter and procrastination issues may not be able to plan their recovery without help from coaches and therapists and others to hold them accountable. If you are not too far gone in the clutter and procrastination department, you can try, unassisted, this method of planning what you will do first and understanding why. This could make the biggest difference on the motivation meter.
In my own life, I often set business goals this way. I write down things I want to accomplish and mull over which projects can be done quickly versus which ones will take a long time. I contrast this with which marketing projects may yield the best financial pay off and whether there is a natural order I should do things. For example: I have a ton of old Feng Shui notes from classes taken decades ago. I also have some ideas about writing more Feng Shui books. It makes sense that I should prune and re-read the Feng Shui notes first. Mining those old notes may also give me more material, with which to write future articles and books. One project supports another.
I think that changing one’s approach and planning methods can be a skill that one perfects over time. The more you do it-the more natural it becomes. One of the first books I ever read about decluttering, Organizing from the Inside Out, was written by Julie Morgenstern, a self-described former clutterer who had reformed her habits to such an extent that she became a highly regarded Professional Organizer.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Tao of Organizing Blog Series
