Beware the Hidden Danger of Being Organized

Once you have internalized organizing principles you have a dangerous power, a power that you ought not use indiscriminately. Keep this in mind. Because you know how to simplify, sort, and store and have learned tricks of the trade, you have learned to keep more than you should.
    
If there were one dictum we need to learn in order to live in a truly harmonious way in our houses (and offices) it is this,

“Live without crowding in the space you have.”
    
As a newly trained organizing person, you have learned the principles. You have grouped things together.You have learned to containerize. You have labeled. You have made storage lists to refer to. Because things are so well stored, perhaps you do not realize how much you have tucked away. Without realizing fully what you have done, you have turned your house into a hidden warehouse.
That leads to two considerations of problems.
    
MEMORY   We can only recall so much. If you forget what you have stored away, you buy another one that leads to more clutter. Even if we have room storing a lot, there is only so much we can remember.
    
CONVENIENCE   If you have a hard time accessing the items because they are so tightly packed, it is easier to buy another one to add to our storage problem.
    
The answer is to simplify further than you think you have to. Get rid of the extras you “may need sometime.” Discard duplicates. Don’t buy in bulk; let the store warehouse the products for you. You may have kept many “good” items because it seems right to do so. Let me tell you that if it is not good for you at this time, it does not belong in your house.
    
The following are clues you are probably keeping too much. You have:

Rented storage units

• Storage sheds in the yard
• Bed lifters so more can go under the bed
• Vacuum sealer bags so you can shrink the space items use
• Too much storage furniture like chests of drawers and bookcases.

Realize that you are more creative and have more ability than most people to see the possibilities of objects. That can cause you to want to keep too much. Pretend you are one of those people who do not struggle with clutter because they keep only what is of value to them in their lives NOW. Act like you think they would. One of the advantages of having another person come to your house to help is that you can learn how organized people think and act.

    

When you have less jammed into the space that you have, you will have come to the place where you can live organized without struggle. And that’s a wonderful, wonderful place!

    

Knowing how to organize gives you more power than you ought to use.

Warmly,

Sandra Felton

THE ORGANIZER LADY®

Founder, Messies Anonymous

Author: NEW! Organizing Your Day

http://www.messies.com/