Several organizing challenges commonly occur with my clients. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of talking with my friend, John Hunt, from Smead, about the top five organizing challenges and strategies for overcoming them. I’m thrilled to share these two podcasts with you.

If you’re stuck or overwhelmed or know someone who is, keep reading. You’ll learn how to shift your perspective, engage new strategies and possibilities, and confidently take next action steps forward.

Top 5 Organizing Challenges . . .

1. Transitions

Life transitions such as a move, new job, birth of a child, or loss of a loved one can create “situational” or temporary disorganization. Transitions can be overwhelming because they can involve something unfamiliar. Current organizing systems may no longer work and require adjustments. Watch the video (Part 1) to learn transition strategies like making a list of areas that need editing and organizing or recalling other past transitions that were successfully navigated.

2. Papers

While we live in a digital age, papers are still a big organizational challenge. Overstuffed and outdated files, unopened mail, and the management of paper can easily cause us to feel overwhelmed. Watch the video (Part 1) to learn paper management strategies including creation of a simple system to process incoming paper.

Organizing Challenges: Transitions and Paper, and How to Overcome Them (Part 1)

Linda Samuels' Smead interview with John Hunt - Part 1

3. Emotions

Organizing can be more challenging, especially when we have a strong emotional attachment to our possessions. This can happen when we’re experiencing grief or loss. Decision-making can be more difficult making it harder to let go. Watch the video (Part 2) to hear about possible strategies, which include engaging the help of a supportive, non-judgmental friend, family member or professional organizer and allowing your belongings to have “safe passage.”

“Organizing can be more challenging, especially when we have a strong emotional attachment to our possessions.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO

4. Maintenance

Organizing involves not just establishing workable systems, but also maintaining them. Maintenance is an often overlooked, yet integral part of the organizing process. Watch the video (Part 2) to learn some maintenance tips including building in regular daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly stopgaps.

5. Mindfulness

Distractions interrupt our focus and frequently disrupt the organizing process. When organizing, we can focus on the future or past instead of the present. Watch the video (Part 2) to learn some mindfulness strategies including using “Full Circle Thinking”, where you purposefully pay attention and are mindful of what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Focus on one “circle” at a time until it’s complete such as “I’m opening the drawer and closing it.” Or, “I’m unlocking the door and placing my keys back in their home.”

Organizing Challenges: Emotions, Maintenance, Mindfulness, and How to Overcome Them (Part 2)

Linda Samuels' Smead interview with John Hunt - Part 2

What is your top organizing challenge? Are there strategies that work for you? What are the possibilities? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!

From the perspective of being a professional organizer for more than twenty years, I consider my field to be one of the helping professions.  There are many ways I assist my clients, which involve helping them with their “stuff.” I use that term loosely because it isn’t always the traditional physical things of life that are part of the work. The “stuff” extends to emotions, time, transitions and more. While the list is extensive and ever changing, I’d like to share a recent sampling of how I’ve helped. While my clients have a wide range of needs, I specialize in working with individuals who are chronically disorganized. I have extensive training and certification in chronic disorganization through the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD.)

What are some of the ways organizers help their clients? Depending upon your perspective, as you read ahead you might identify ways that you might benefit from hiring an organizer. Or perhaps, you’ll discover new options to provide organizing help to others. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

10 Ways Organizers Help Clients With “Stuff”

1. Assessment Stuff -Organizing involves doing but also thinking. Assessing is done at various stages in the organizing process. It’s always done before work begins so we can understand the organizational areas that need attention. Assessments don’t end there. They continue once the work begins. Each organizing visit includes an assessment before, during, and at the end to help clients stay focused, adjust the scope as needed, and acknowledge their progress.

2. Physical Stuff -No matter how much the digital era has infiltrated our lives, we still have an abundance of physical things to manage, maintain, evaluate, and organize. From papers to clothing to toys and gadgets, helping to organize the physical possessions of life and the space we live and work in is a major part of the work I do.

3. System Stuff -With all of this stuff, we need systems to manage everything from paper flow to recycling, donation, or return centers. Those are some of the ways I help my clients organize.

4. Emotional Stuff -There are distinct boundaries between organizers, coaches and therapists. You might more readily equate “emotional stuff” with a therapist’s work than you would with an organizer’s. I’m not a therapist and respect the professional boundaries. However, organizing and going through “our stuff” can bring up an array of emotions. So while I don’t counsel, I am there to support my clients during the organizing and letting go process, which can be highly emotional.

“Organizing involves doing but also thinking.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO™

5. Maintenance Stuff -Even after all “things” are organized and in place, there is often a need for periodic maintenance, especially with the chronically disorganized population. This can involve clearing spaces, closets, or surfaces that were previously organized. It can include processing and filing papers, updating financial records, or switching seasonal clothing. Scheduling maintenance builds in time to reroute and restore things to their designated homes and evaluate changes that might be beneficial.

6. Project Stuff -Instead of ongoing, overall organizing help, some clients enlist help for specific projects. This can include everything from organizing a closet to house linens, clothing or gifts to setting up a unique paper management system for college applications, committee work, or writing projects to making lists and packing for a trip. The help needed is often short-term, clearly definable, and has a distinct beginning and end.

7. Routine Stuff -There are times that clients need help for managing routine items like making calls for research, setting up, reviewing, or canceling accounts, making appointments, logging receipts, updating check registers, processing mail, making lists, or writing correspondence.

8. Resource Stuff -More often than not, I’m asked about specific resources for my clients. Their requests range widely for help finding best places to purchase organizing products to sources for donating furniture to companies that remove junk to therapists that specialize in compulsive buying. I’m constantly collecting new resources, generously shared from other professionals, friends, and family.

9. Time Stuff -Many clients are overwhelmed by their overflowing calendars. Their schedules can feel as cluttered as their spaces. The busyness also affects their thoughts, which can create mind clutter. For many clients, I help them evaluate their time commitments, establish their priorities, work on planning, and design a more comfortable version of the 24 hours they have each day.

10. Transition Stuff -A favorite aspect of my work is the long-term relationships that develop. Especially because of this longevity, I have the privilege of helping clients navigate the organizational parts that life’s transitions bring such as marriage, birth, graduation, job change, children leaving, children returning home, moves, divorce, loss, death. Transitions are dramatic periods of change. Being able to help clients organize during the tumult gives them some sense of control, normalcy and comfort. 

I’d love to hear from you. Are you thinking about enlisting help from an organizer? Are you an organizer that helps others? Perhaps you’re in another helping profession. Which ways to get help with “stuff” resonate with you? Introduce yourself and come join the conversation!

Lorie Marrero, Clutter DietThe excitement continues with our recently launched “Ask the Expert” feature on The Other Side of Organized blog.  In the past few months, we talked about change with John Ryan of The Life Change Network, next steps with Yota Schneider of Open for Success, and letting go with Geralin Thomas of Metropolitan Organizing. This month, I’m thrilled to introduce you to the energetic author and organizing expert, Lorie Marrero to share her wisdom about clutter.

Lorie is wonderful colleague and industry dynamo. I remember a conversation we had together many years ago at a NAPO conference when she was about to launch her unique Clutter Diet concept. It’s incredible to see how much she’s accomplished and given to the professional organizing industry in such a short time. My appreciation and thanks goes to her for taking the time to join us. Before we begin, here’s some background about Lorie.

Lorie Marrero is the author of The Clutter Diet book and the creator of ClutterDiet.com, an innovative program allowing anyone to get expert help at an affordable price. Lorie serves as the spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International, and she is a sought-after expert for national media. She writes regularly as an organizing expert for GoodHousekeeping.com and lives in Austin, TX with her dog, two sons, and spouse and her 30,000 bee daughters. You can connect with Lorie on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, blog or website.

Linda:  You’re an expert on helping others manage their clutter. What are your favorite clutter management tips?

Lorie:  When you’re creating an organizing system, whether a closet or pantry or garage, assume that laziness is the norm. Nobody wants to take extra steps, use more than one hand, or take a long time to put something away. Make things as visible, easy, and obvious as possible so that other people can help maintain the space. Labeling and grouping really help, and products like hooks and open baskets are easier and work with our “lazy” tendencies.

Just like weight loss, getting organized is really about Prevention (cutting the clutter calories coming into the house), Reduction (working off the accumulation you already have), and Maintenance (creating a pattern of habits to maintain your good work). Most people focus on the Reduction part, meaning doing projects like organizing their closets or garages, but they forget to think about Prevention and Maintenance, so their spaces soon revert back to being cluttered.

We have lots of resources at www.clutterdiet.com/freetips, including our popular Clutter Prevention Wallet Reminder Sleeves, which you can print out and use to store your favorite credit or debit card. On them are the five questions you should ask before buying anything!

Linda:  Why are we so clutter obsessed?

Lorie:  In North America we have innovated and worked hard as a culture to raise our standards of living, and we’ve reached an unprecedented level of abundance. We are faced daily with hundreds of advertising messages that insist we still don’t have enough, or that what we have is no longer in fashion, so we keep acquiring.

Linda:  Is there such a thing as “good clutter?”

Lorie:  If you realize your clutter is a result of your fortunate abundance, you can look at it as a great problem to have. I would rather have this problem than having no clean water or war in the streets, which is what many in the world live with each day. Also, one person’s clutter is another person’s treasure, so perspective is everything!

Linda:  Do you have a philosophy about clutter?

Lorie:  One of my personal missions is to remind people that this “problem” of clutter is a result of our abundant lives. I believe we should activate our gratitude for this abundance by being responsible donors. Donating household goods IS philanthropy, so always be aware of how your donations will be used. Latest numbers from Goodwill® show that 82% of your donations’ collective revenue goes directly to their mission of helping people find work. This message is very important to me! It’s why I am the ambassador of Goodwill’s Donate Movement, and it’s also why at the end of my YouTube videos, I always say, “May you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.”

Linda:  What has been your biggest personal clutter challenge?

Lorie:  My kids! Definitely. I have two teenage boys, and they are naturally not as conscious of keeping their parents’ house as tidy as they probably will be with their own homes.  In various ages and stages we’ve had different challenges with different kinds of toys. Right now it’s clothing and school papers that are their biggest clutter problems.

Linda:  Is there anything you’d like to share about clutter that I haven’t asked?

Lorie:  Fear is a huge factor in this topic of clutter and organizing that I feel needs addressing. I hear a lot of fear out there:  fear of waste, fear of loss, fear of offending someone, fear of not doing it perfectly right, and fear of missing out or not keeping up.  Fear is there to keep us safe, certainly, but it’s also there to challenge us, and its presence makes our victories sweeter. We have to push past it confidently to get clutter out of way so we can do the important things that really matter!

What inspiring thoughts, Lorie! I’m grateful that you shared your insightful, clear ideas about clutter, fear and abundance with us. I invite all of you to join Lorie and me as we continue the conversation. What are your clutter challenges, successes and stories?