4 Key Factors Holding You Back From An Organized Home

cluttered filled hallYou work long and hard all day and as soon as you start walking up to your front door you begin to experience that anxiety in your chest.  Perhaps your breathing starts to accelerate a bit and you find yourself holding your breath as you reach for the door knob.  Pushing the door open, there it is…. that awful mess that was there when you left the house this morning.

It never seems to go away, no matter what you do.  Does this sound like you?  If so, there may be a few key factors that are holding you back from an organized home.

Horizontal surfaces and floors as “temporary storage”

stuff all over floorFloors are not there for you to drop down your stuff.  They are surfaces for walking and placing furniture and nothing more.  They are not there so you can drop that parcel you picked up from the post office nor  to drop the garbage bag that you used to clean out the contents of your car last week.

Counters, coffee tables, side tables, they all are hot spots for drop zones….places where you automatically place your “stuff” whether it belongs there or not.  If you start changing the way you think of your floor and horizontal surfaces in your home, you will see a difference.

Buying the wrong organizing solution

overflowing basket of scarvesI give you credit for your excitement and motivation to run out and get yourself some storage bins and baskets and the like to begin your organizing project.  The problem is that you are getting these items before you even know the volume of what you are storing.

Trying to shove 10 scarves into a bin that really only holds 5 will not only cause you frustration down the road, but it will ultimately fail to keep you organized because the volume does not match the size of the bin.

Do yourself and favour and don’t rush out to purchase any containers until you collect all of the same type of item from throughout your house and ascertain the volume of what you will ultimately be storing.

Paper comes into your home but it doesn’t leave

piles of magazinesDid you know that 80 % of the paper in your filing cabinet you will never touch again?  Only that 20% will you ever find the need to pull out once in a while.  Not to mention magazines, newspapers, marketing materials, and old mail.  Once the purpose of a piece of paper has ended, it’s time to have it leave your home.

Newspapers are old news the next day.  Magazines should be read once and then recycled. If you have a special article that you like, tear it out and then toss the magazine in the blue bin.  Better yet, bring it over to your doctor’s office (but check first that they will take it).

Not being open minded and accepting help

changePeople think they should be able to do everything but they are not willing to accept change in their lives.  If you are not open to change and doing things differently then you will have a serious obstacle to organization in your home or office.

If you are not inherently organized or have been disorganized for most of your adult life, then attempting to organize your space yourself will likely result in the system failing.

This is a result of many factors,  the most important of which is not fully understanding the basic principles of organization (which, if you aren’t inherently organized in the first place, how would you know what they are?) but also not considering what activities need to take place in a certain space and what “tools” are necessary for that activity.  Remember, organization is not taught in our school system (although I firmly believe it should be part of the curriculum), so don’t  be so hard on yourself.

Overcoming any one of these 4 key factors will get you one step closer to taking control of your home.

And if any of this seems overwhelming to you, simply contact me and I will get you on your way.  Your chaos.  Our solution.  Your peace of mind.  Guaranteed.

 

2 replies
  1. Linda Vanderkolk
    Linda Vanderkolk says:

    Hi Shaun,

    I don’t think laziness is the only factor. There could simply be issues with how things are organized making it harder to return things to their proper location. Sometimes its an easy solution.

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