6 Impediments to Staying Organized and How to Deal

If you’ve read through our blog posts, or even purchased and read our book, you now know how to identify your personality type in order to achieve optimal organization in your living (and storage) spaces. However, what happens when change occurs? (And it always, always does.)

In this article, we’ll lay out the top six obstacles to maintaining an organized home— and how to best deal with them. Though we will focus on general ways to do this, we do go into how each personality type can deal with all of these impediments in our book. For tips on how to deal with all ten, we would encourage everyone to order it— that way, you’ll have all the specific tools at your fingertips.

Impediment One: Moving

They say that moving is among the top three most stressful things one has to endure in life. This might sound dramatic, but it’s actually true. Just think about it. You’re uprooting yourself and your home. You have to pack— which involves purging (always stressful, especially for certain personality types) and knowing what to keep and what to toss. You have to then organize the things you’ve decided to keep into boxes in a strategic way, so that unpacking is easier (can unpacking be easy, ever?) and then you need to figure out where everything goes once you’ve arrived in an entirely new space. It’s like the third circle of hell in terms of organization— or at least, it can be if you don’t do it right. A few tips:

1. Get help– If you can afford to hire movers, DO. The potential stress level involved in moving can be at least minorly lowered by doing this. If you can’t afford to, enlist some friends to help you, make a day of it, and pay them with pizza or gift cards.
2. Make Time– Again, if you have the wherewithal, hire professional organizers to help you unpack and figure out where things will go and how. If you can’t do this, make sure you have a system in place and adequate time to put things away in an organized way that will work for you (see all of our other chapters for tips that will help you with this part).

Impediment Two: Marriage/Living with Someone

In our book, we talk about the movie When Harry Met Sally for this particular obstacle. (And no, it’s not the diner scene.) There are enough potential roadblocks in a marriage or long-term relationship that have nothing to do with organization— why create another one? Our tips for those cohabitating, particularly if you are of differing personality types organization-wise, are:

1. Negotiate- discuss, make pros and cons lists, explain each of your cases thoroughly and calmly. As in, “I want to keep this coffee table because it acts as a perfect footrest. Do you think you might agree to keep it for this purpose? It is also nice because it doesn’t stain, and I know you like to rest your coffee cup on it in the morning when you read the paper.” Something along those lines would be negotiating.
2. Compromise- This is just as tough, but can be done if both parties are willing and flexible. Imagine this dialogue: “If I agree to you keeping the coffee table, would you consider building those built-in shoe shelves in the closet like you said you would in 1999? If so, you can keep the table.” I think you get the point. Talk it out, and if you can’t agree, toss whatever it is that’s getting in the way of harmony.

Impediment Three: Remodeling

In our book, we call this (and we are paraphrasing), “Moving x 3”. We say this because not only does a remodel involve finding a good, reliable contractor, it upends your entire living space for what can be an ambiguous period of time. If you’re ambitious (or a Classic Structure), you’ll create temporary organizational systems around whatever is being done. If you are anyone else, this will seem impossible. Then, after the remodel is finished, you’ll have to organize everything all over again. Our advice :

1. Hire an organizer. Yes, we know. We are biased. But this could save you time and a bunch of energy in the process. Hire one along with your contractor — who, by the by, will know nothing of organizational systems and how best to fit YOUR organizational needs— you won’t regret it. Think of it as the difference between having a permanently wrong organizational built-in system in your pantry (one that won’t work for you) and the right one.

Impediment Four: Death of a Loved One

This occurrence can zap the body, mind and spirit of all energy. Whether it’s a spouse, a pet, or even a miscarriage, this obstacle can be immobilizing. Organizing tends to fall by the wayside, and yet so often, there is much of that kind of thing to be done. If you find yourself in this situation, get help. Ask friends to come over and help you sift through the stuff. Hire people to do it for you if it is too emotionally painful. Remember, you do not have to do this alone.

Some of these things might help:

1. If you have the energy, figure out what is worth keeping (and what to do with it) and what you’ll need to get rid of or sell. There is an online estate sale resource called EBTH.com.
2. Do not be ashamed if you can’t do this kind of purge alone. Ask your friends for help, or put it into the hands of professionals and take the time to heal without having the stress of enduring an emotionally-charged and painful purge.

Impediment Five: Breakups or Divorce

We have one tip for this messy and painful life change. PURGE. Purge not only to clear out your living space, but purge to clear out your head and heart, so that there is room for new things and experiences to come into your life.

Impediment Six: Kids

Unlike breakups, there is no one thing to say about the introduction of children into your living space, and the myriad of changes that brings. That is why we wrote a chapter solely devoted to spaces for kids and how to manage them (the spaces, not the kids— we are professional organizers, not professional parents)! When it comes to the change of having kids, the best advice we can give is to roll with all of those changes as best you can. No Shame, No Blame is KEY here. If your dining room table is covered in bills from your time in the hospital and the baby is crying and there are no more clean nappies, etc. — that is when you don’t focus on why the cookbooks are all stacked in a bookshelf in the living room and not the kitchen.

The Best Part

We know that change is inevitable and universal. No one escapes being affected by change in some fashion at some (or many) points in his or her life. In organizational terms, stick to what works for your type. Follow Pixie Principle no. 1: Accept Who You Are. Change will affect all of us differently, and that’s ok. If we accept who we are without shame, it makes it that much easier to move with (and not against) whatever changes are happening in our lives.