No Shame, No Blame: How Your Attitude Can Help You Get Organized
If you’ve read our book or visited our website, you know our mantra: No Shame, No Blame. We believe in this basic principle when it comes to assessing your personality and helping you find YOUR way of getting and staying organized. But what does that really mean, particularly in the context of home organization?
Well, to us, it means prioritizing happiness over perfection. When your loved one doesn’t always (or ever) put the throw pillows back on the couch properly, it might make you feel a little anxious. Instead of making waves about it, you just think to yourself, “Meh, I’ll just keep straightening them. Harmony in the home is more important than the placement of a few pillows.” It means recognizing, accepting and being patient with your own organizational quirks and habits. So, you tend to accumulate piles around the house? We’ve got a perfect solution for that habit in our book!
But, before you start seeking out solutions, you’re first going to have to pinpoint the problem. You are going to have to take a good hard look in the mirror and, being completely honest with yourself, accept the personality type that you feel best resonates with you. Once you do this, the rest is easy — all you have to do is read our book and you’ll have some handy, tried-and-true home organization tips right in your back pocket.
Acceptance is a Winning Attitude
One of the keys to self-acceptance is the willingness to look at yourself squarely, most of the time utilizing a helpful tool or with the guidance of a professional therapist. That tool or therapist will help you look at yourself in a more objective light than you normally would — this is where our Pixie Quiz comes in. We formulated it based on the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types, and encourage you to go with your initial instincts when answering the questions. It’s important to go with what you would ACTUALLY say or do in a situation, and steer clear of responding in a way that you THINK will place you in a certain category. To be this honest with yourself requires a willingness that doesn’t come naturally for most people — it has to be intentional. So, in a way, you need to prepare yourself for total honesty and full disclosure when taking our Pixie Quiz. The magic (or Pixie Dust) of our approach only really works when individuals are able to classify themselves based on actual behaviors. Only then can we recommend counter behaviors that remedy the organizational issues that become problematic over time. For example, your honest and truthful answers might lead you to fall into a specific category that could be surprising, The personality type you have always identified with may not be the one you fall into when it comes to organization. That Susie Homemaker type might not be you, but guess what? THAT’S OK! Stay with us, because a Smart Structure or Smart Freedom might have other great qualities that a Susie Homemaker Classic Structure doesn’t have. For instance, these Smart types have an uncanny ability to command a room, or be incredible visionaries. For these types of people, maybe “homemaking” doesn’t necessarily come easily. That is OK too. That is the basis for our book. Besides, the true meaning of being organized is NOT having a home that looks like Oprah’s or Martha’s. The meaning is found in the fourth Pixie Principle, found on p. 5 of the book. If you’ve taken the quiz and bought the book, you’ve already taken the first steps to organizational freedom. You’ve expressed a willingness to try something new — something that works. So stick with us. You’ve come this far.
What It Really Means to Be Organized
In our book, we have radically redefined what it means to be organized. When you think of home organization, you think of everything being neat, tidy, and clean. No dust bunnies hiding in the corner, no crumbs on the kitchen counter (from yesterday morning), and definitely no clothes on the floor or hanging on the bannisters, right? WRONG!
Being organized is actually much simpler than that. In our book, we define being organized as having the ability to easily find things. “The basic aim of organization is to know where things are and to be able to retrieve these things with minimal to no fuss.” That’s a direct quote from us, and it means no rushing around at the last minute in the morning to look for your keys, or that pesky doctor’s note for Tommy’s teacher, or that bill you’ve been meaning to mail for ages now (too many ages, actually).
What we do is take your great, open mind and fill it with information and lifesaving organizational tips and tricks so that no matter how you behave or what your house looks like, you’ll be able to retrieve whatever you need, whenever you need it with just a few changes to your routine. You’ll be that magic word we all know and love, no matter if you’re a Classic Structure or an Organic Freedom or a Fun Structure or a Smart Freedom: You’ll be ORGANIZED.