Uncluttering is not a competition
Janine Adams, owner of Peace of Mind Organizing in St. Louis, in her guest post today reminds all of us that we should make things as simple as we need things to be instead of uncluttering to impress others. When she’s not helping clients in person, she presents the electronic course Declutter Happy Hour. Welcome, Janine!
I had a dozen professional organizers come to my house for a social gathering recently. I’m a professional organizer myself, so that probably doesn’t sound like such a big deal. But it was.
I came to the organizing field by way of being a messy person who yearned to find organizing systems that work for me. I have huge empathy for my clients, which they love. I’m open about not being “born organized.” But there was something about a dozen organizers, whose homes in my imagination are beautifully organized (I’ve seen some of them and they are!) that made me quake in my boots. I’m president of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers, so I felt like I had to live up to some unstated standard of organizational perfection.
As I looked around my 101-year-old house, envisioning what the organizers would see, all sorts of oddities that had been invisible to me for awhile jumped out. Like the heavy oak door that had fallen off its hinges, so it’s resting on its side in the dining room. Like the cluttered sun porch that really serves as a storage space. Like the dead TV in the dining room that’s waiting to be taken to the recycling place. Like the kitchen, last renovated in the 80s, that any normal middle-income couple would have renovated (probably more than once) in the 17 years we’ve owned the home.
I thought about trying to whip the place into a more presentable shape before the party (though I knew there was nothing I could do about the kitchen). I did tidy and clean, and the house looked as good as it ever does. But I decided to let go of this notion that I should present my home as some sort of paragon of organization. I decided to leave the heavy things in place, to just take out the recycling that had gathered in the sun porch and leave everything else there. I let go of worrying about someone opening the bathroom closet and seeing that it’s been on my decluttering to-do list for ages. I didn’t even make the bed–I just made our messy bedroom off limits.
And you know what? It was all good. Folks complimented the beauty of our old home (its wood trim and stained glass windows really are lovely). No one even looked out the kitchen window to the sun porch. They were all focused on one another, on chatting and having fun. Oh, and on the delicious cake my pastry-chef husband made.
This is a great lesson for me. I now know I can invite people into my home even if it doesn’t look perfect. I don’t have to be who I think people want me to be just because of my profession or my standing within it. I just need to be me. I’m comfortable with having a door on its side against the wall in my dining room, and everyone else seemed to be as well. Who knows, maybe my less-than-perfect home made some of those organizers feel better about theirs.
Posted by Janine on Aug 12, 2009 |
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31 comments posted
Posted by Michele Connolly, Get Organized Wizard - 08/12/2009
What a wonderful example of balancing organization with a happy, relaxed life!
I like to aim for 80% organized everything – home, fitness, healthy eating, good habits, etc.
I always allow that 20% buffer because it leaves room for a sense of flow, spontaneity and creativity in my life.
I find that balance works beautifully!
Posted by Geralin Thomas - 08/12/2009
Everyone has a different idea of what being organized looks like–even organizers.
Janine, I applaud you for being genuine and authentic and focusing on the people in your life–not the things.
Now, about that cake your husband made . . .
Posted by Jenny McIntee - 08/12/2009
I hear what you’re saying! I’m an architectural designer but I am too embarrassed to meet clients or business contacts at my house (I work from home) It’s messy and we can’t afford to do it up to anywhere near the standard that I achieve for my cleints home extension projects. One day when kids are grown up and I’m earning more money ….but I don’t want them to grow up too soon or have to spend my time tidying when I could be working or spending time with the family. You can be too organised for your own good and be miserable.
Posted by anniep - 08/12/2009
You know, it is refreshing to hear this. I maintain a clean, organized house, but I have three little kids, so sometimes I don’t clean as much as I would like, or the beds don’t get made or horror of horrors I have piles of clean laundry around my room waiting to be folded. I have a group of girlfriends, who have put me on pedestal for all things organized- while embarrassed, I am touched by their kind thoughts of me – at the same time there is immense pressure to maintain – I’ve never not let someone come over because of dust or dirt or laundry – but it is something I think about – I am glad I’m not alone.
Posted by Janine Adams - 08/12/2009
@Michelle – I like the way you’ve applied the 80/20 rule! The notion of a 20 percent buffer for spontaneity and creativity is fabulous.
@Geralin – Just to make your mouth water, I’ll tell you that the cake was a banana cake with vanilla buttercream/praline filling and chocolate ganache icing. Yum.
@Jenny – It sounds to me like you have your priorities just right. Organized shouldn’t equal miserable; I think it’s important to maintain the standards that make you comfortable and are easy to maintain.
@Anniep – I’m sure your friends are there to see you, not to judge the state of your laundry! Try not to feel that pressure, though I can certainly relate to what you’re feeling. I just try to shake it off.
Thanks so much for your comments!
Posted by Ruth Hansell - 08/12/2009
Yipeeeee! Thanks to Janine for this very balanced and sane post. I’m a professional organizer myself, and my neat/tidy to clutter ratio cycles through heavy on the neat/tidy end to heavy on the clutter end and then back.
My own PO story: when I got married, (in the last century), instead of a traditional wedding shower I asked for a work party. Twenty of my colleagues showed up to clean, pull wallpaper off, put a file cabinet together, etc.
I was very grateful for all this incredible help, but for the first couple hours, I kept having to take little walks, I was so nervous at all that organizing energy in my home! However, everyone had a wonderful time and my friends still talk about what a great idea it was.
Thanks to both Erin and Janine for a really nice post about the value and balance of it all.
Ruth
Posted by Jodi Granok - 08/12/2009
Janine,
As someone who attended this social, I have to say it’s hard to decide what I feel more: Impressed with your beautiful home, or surprised that you were anxious about hosting! I really enjoyed your blog – I had no idea you were nervous that night. Your home is lovely and it was a fabulous social.
Perhaps you can give my husband a pep talk, he is terrified about my hosting our next social in October!
Jodi
Posted by Debbie Periman - 08/12/2009
I’m also an organizer, and really enjoyed this post.
I recently had a client come to my home to pick up some paperwork I was organizing for her, and I ran through this same gamut of emotions. At first I felt like my house would certainly not live up to what her idea of a PO’s home must be, and that she might wonder why she was paying me to help her. Then it occurred to me that SHE might be uncomfortable, knowing I know her darkest secrets, and that I’m able to maintain control over my own household AND help her at the same time. I finally settled on “hey, we are who we are,” and we had a nice visit while she thumbed through the files.
Wouldn’t the world be better if we didn’t put so much pressure on ourselves…and others…to meet standards that, well, just don’t really matter so much in the big scheme of things!
Posted by Sarah - 08/12/2009
Thanks for this post. I want to be a professional organizer, so I really appreciate posts like this (even if they don’t have much to do with the business itself)
Posted by Nina - 08/12/2009
Thank you for this post. I always take visitors as that kick in the butt I need to clean/tidy a bit more toroughly then I normaly do.
I myself have thought about starting an organzing buisness and have wondered myself if my own home would live up to possible clients. It’s nice to know that others have those feelings too and also that at the end of the day having a good time with family and friends is more important then laundry not being put away immediatly or box of things still sitting somewhere to be recyled.
Posted by Sue Anderson - 08/12/2009
I was so surprised when Janine said she was nervous about hosting the social event. As I told her, and can vouch for, Professional Organizers are the least judgmental people out there. Your home was immaculate! The cake beautiful & delicious! The snacks were unique, delicious and you could tell they took alot of time to prepare. You & your husband were fantastic hosts. As I always say when getting together with friends, it’s not what you eat, where you meet, what you bring, but to put the focus on what’s important…spending time together.
Posted by Janine Adams - 08/12/2009
Thanks so much for the comments.
@Jodi and @Sue – your comments prove my point that it can be silly to get all wrapped in weird expectations of judgment. I’m so glad you had a good time. And, Jodi, have your husband call me and I’ll talk him down.
@Ruth and @Debbie – I just love hearing from other POs that they can relate to this sort of thing. It actually does a nice job of putting ourselves in our clients’ shoes, doesn’t it?
@Nina and @Sarah – You certainly don’t have to have a perfectly organized home to be a professional organizer! I figure the empathy I have for my clients is part of what they like about me.
Posted by Sylvia - 08/12/2009
I love this post, just this past weekend we experienced a similar situation. We had some friends of a friend stopping by at an unknown time to pickup some borrowed music equipment and my husband and I were immersed in yard work when they finally made it to our house. We had forgotten about the state of the house inside (Sunday laundry on the sofa, dishes, dog toys, etc.) and much to our surprise our visitors were full of compliments despite our mess! I guess most people realize that you have to LIVE in your home, it can’t be perfect all the time!
Posted by Amanda - 08/12/2009
This is tangently related but some comments made me think it. Worrying about the state of your home can affect your kids too. I knew kids growing up who couldn’t easily invite people over because their parents were worried about the state of the house. I fortunately had parents that let me invite over friends freely, for dinner, to stay over on non-school nights. It made me happy and relaxed to know I could do that, and that my friends were welcome. As a result my parents knew all of my friends, even the weirder ones.
Posted by Jay - 08/12/2009
I would not hire a professional organizer whose house was cluttered. I would not go to a dentist whose teeth are rotten. I would not take my car to a mechanic whose car runs poorly. I would not hire a financial planner who has no money.
While I understand that other things besides the person’s talent or skill could result in those negative consequences, I am not going to give that person my money for their services. Seriously, would you hire a roofer whose roof leaked?
Posted by Erin Doland - 08/12/2009
@Jay — You know how much money your financial planner has in his bank account? Do you work for an intelligence agency or at the bank? Wow. I have friends who are big-wigs at the SEC and even they wouldn’t tell me how much money my financial planner is actually worth.
To be fair, Janine’s house is more organized than most every person’s house you’ve ever encountered. Her standards are much higher than the average person’s. What she calls “cluttered” you probably call “organized.”
Posted by allen - 08/12/2009
It really is free-ing, in a real sense, to know that even the “perfect” ones aren’t perfect, that we’re all Human, doing the best we can.
Posted by Catherine Cantieri, Sorted - 08/12/2009
Excellent reply, Erin.
Jay, your examples indicate that you think organizing is something mechanical, a set of processes that can fix a problem. But it’s actually an art form that has to be customized to each client, each situation, each style, and it has to work with everyone’s individual life. Which Janine’s solution does. Great post!
Posted by Shannon Wilkinson - 08/12/2009
It’s exactly your empathy and understanding that has made working with you so helpful to me. I don’t think I would have felt as comfortable with a “born organized” organizer, who I didn’t feel got what I was dealing with.
The event sounds wonderful. And the cake, that’s practically enough to get me to St. Louis!
Posted by Karyn - 08/12/2009
I’ve been uncluttering and organizing most of my adult life, and I still have pockets of clutter to be dealt with. (Most of it papers, as I’ve been writing, in various forms, for over 20 years.) A lot of sorting and weeding yet to do, and I suppose a Clutterphobic Purist would disdain the state of my home.
But you know what? It’s not perfect, but I can breathe. And, here’s the big one: I CAN SEE MY FLOOR. I don’t have to carve a path through a carpet of two-foot-high clutter in order to move about. And for whatever untidiness exists, when I have people over, they always remark on wow, you’re so ORGANIZED! — even if I have a handful of dishes waiting to be washed, or a basket of laundry waiting to be put away properly.
Maybe they just like looking at my laundry.
I can’t remember where I read it (here or elsewhere), but someone once made a very good point about distinguishing between “mess” and “clutter”: “Mess” is the ordinary, temporary messiness of daily living, short term, not a chronic condition. “Clutter” is the stuff that just sits and grows “stale,” as it were, entrenching itself in unattractive globs of stuff rooted into the the living area itself.
Anyway, thanks for bringing up this excellent point: We unclutter to improve the quality of our lives, not to live up to someone else’s standards.
And as for the bad-teeth dentist
well, hey, maybe he grew up with bad dietary and dental habits, so he can’t help the bad teeth he reaped, and that’s what motivated him to go into dentistry: to do good and help prevent other kids from following in his footsteps!
Posted by Jay - 08/12/2009
@Erin Doland, Of course I do not know how much money my financial planner has, but IF I knew he was broke, I would take my business elsewhere.
@Catherine Cantieri, Sorted, I am aware that organizing varies with the client, but I would guess that most people who hire a professional organizer do not want clutter.
Please note that I was very careful to say what _I_ would do. I acknowledge that I could be missing out on some great service providers.
If your job is to provide a service, you should let potential clients see your best work. If you are a professional organizer, and your home is cluttered, I would suggest that you keep potential clients from going inside your home. You do not know which potential clients will take their business elsewhere.
Posted by twosandalz - 08/12/2009
When I was in high school, my friends’ response to my mother’s immaculate house was negative. They felt uncomfortable there because it was so perfectly clean and perfectly tidy. The ironic part was that my mother wouldn’t let me have them over if she felt the place wasn’t perfect.
What I’m trying to say is, in my experience, a balanced home is often a more comfortable home not just for ourselves, but for the people who visit us too.
Posted by Janine Adams - 08/12/2009
This is such an interesting discussion; I’m glad my post sparked it. Thanks so much for the comments.
@Karyn, I love how you put the take-away here: “We unclutter to improve the quality of our lives, not to live up to someone else’s standards.” Thanks for that.
I’ll just add that for me, personally (like @twosandalz’s high school friends), I’m more comfortable in a home that has a little messiness going on. Perfectly tidy tends to make me itch a little. (But what really matters is how the occupant feels about his or her home.)
Posted by Tiffany - 08/12/2009
Who said, “If you want to see me, come over anytime. If you want to see my house make an appointment.” So true. So true. Thanks for sharing your home and your story.
Posted by Lotus - 08/13/2009
Janine, thank you for a lovely post. It really resonated with me.
@Jay, wouldn’t it make much more sense to look at the dentist’s PATIENTS’ teeth and the financial planner’s CLIENTS’ finances? I’d want to know how good a job the professionals have done for their customers. How they do things for themselves isn’t really relevant. (What dentist does his own teeth anyway?)
Posted by Marie - 08/13/2009
@Jay, your system breaks down in personal maintenance services. My mom always told me to patronize the hairdresser with the worst hair in the salon–the idea being that she’s probably the one doing everyone else’s hair. That advice has never let me down.
Posted by Karyn - 08/14/2009
@Janine Adams – You’re welcome.
Uncluttering should be a means to an end, not an end in itself! Kind of like the saying, eat to live, don’t live to eat.
Posted by Margaret Lukens - 08/15/2009
This is such an interesting conversation! I loved the post, and I’m also loving all the comments. For me this subject speaks to the question of professional integrity.
If an organizer is truly personally disorganized (and I know very few who fit this description), it indicates a lack of integrity in their work and life. But when clients ask whether my home and office are always perfect, I answer that life is messy for all of us, we all have more demands coming at us than we can comfortably handle, and professional organizers are not immune from becoming overwhelmed or overloaded from time to time. We all need a little help to stay on top of our time, paper, and stuff. Also, since opposites attract, I am sometimes forced for the sake of familial peace to live with more clutter than I would prefer — you should see our shed right now, or rather, you shouldn’t see it!
Still, I recall the old joke about the father proudly pointing to the harbor where all the successful stockbrokers kept their yachts. The young child asked innocently, “But where are the customers’ yachts?”
@Marie, I love your mom’s wise advice. Good cobblers sometimes have barefoot children, and bad stockbrokers sometimes own yachts. And excellent organizers, like Janine, sometimes have unhinged doors in their dining rooms.
Posted by Tanna - 08/19/2009
What a great conversation going on here! Great points by Lotus and Marie. Maybe just maybe some organizer’s, dentists, financial planners are working so hard to make sure their clients are taken care that they let things slide personally.
As an organizer and mom of 3 I have my days. I cannot personally keep my house completely organized 100% of the time. I air my dirty laundry on my blog as well. I will show my messy room and then what I do to fix it. It doesn’t always stay fixed either. My kids get older and their needs change. I have to change the organizing systems to meet their needs.
A life event could happen to anyone that turns everything upside down. Organizing is a process that goes on forever not “There, I am organized and it will stay like that”
You could walk into a person’s home on a bad day and things can be out of place, to not take their services based on that would be a shame. We are only human.
Jay, A financial planner could have had his account drained by a family illness or death or something else personal in nature. But if he has been taking care of you well why stop his services based on facts you do not know?
Posted by Open Loops 9/8/2009: Articles I Think Worth Passing Along | SimpleProductivityBlog.com - 09/08/2009
[...] points out that “Uncluttering is not a competition”. The goal of decluttering is not to make me get rid of everything, or to be as organized or [...]
Posted by Kat - 09/13/2009
What a wonderfully honest post, Janine! I have actually just posted it to my website (www.katandkaboodle.com.au)to point out that not all organisers are perfect (something my friends love to point out to me when I am in a rare state of disorganisation!)
Thanks for keeping it real.
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