Excellence may be Eclectic
Organizing excellence is the heart of MM Organizing LLC. You probably already know that Marta’s company, MM Organizing LLC, is famous for it’s fierce commitment to client service. That fierce commitment overlays a compassionate adherence to the client’s vision for their home.
In this brief guide we lay out the foundational principles that inform Marta’s approach to organizing and encourage you to apply the same principles in your own home.
You may have read Marta’s article Beautifully Organized versus Simply Tidy is My Obsession. If you’re exploring organizing professionals to assist with your home you should definitely watch Marta’s video where she articulates her organizing approach.
Marta believes that organizing starts with a solid underpinning of functionality. The space must work for the client’s real life, not just for the photographs. Life in a well-organized home should be easier and less stressful. Orderly arrangements are easier to maintain and much more comforting to live in. They reinforce the desire to keep things tidy. Workflows in the kitchen are designed to facilitate the food preparation process and enhance your culinary arts. Cabinets and countertops need to be tamed and maintained rather than slammed shut and avoided.
TWO QUESTIONS TO START ORGANIZING
Organizing starts with two simple questions. What is your vision for your home? Who are you? Pretty fundamental. Let’s explore these in more detail.
INTERATIVE ORGANIZING VISION
Your vision for your home should be iterative. The reality is that your vision will evolve as your organizing efforts progress. If your house is a full-blown disaster then your vision may be as straightforward as “I want to eliminate the obvious junk.” This may literally refer to junk. Most of the world does not have this problem, but we need to explore the full gamut of the organizing art.
By dint of illness, infirmity, or psychological trauma some homes fall into extreme disarray and the first order of business is to make them safe again. These situations usually require some assistance from a professional.
At the other end of the spectrum, your home may already be pristine. Your vision is to take your home to the next level. You’re somewhat beyond tidy, but feel that you’ve fallen a bit short of beautiful. This is the stage where a professional organizer, obsessed with beauty, can be a useful partner. Professional organizers often have the “eye” of an artist. With clutter a non-issue, then the aesthetics of a home can be clearly assessed and your full vision realized.
WHO ARE YOU?
With your vision established and ready for iterative elevation, it is time to ask the more existential question. Who are you? The best way to determine the answer is to take our quiz. The quiz separates the whirling dervishes from the incrementalists. These two types of people approach organizing in a very different manner. The whirling dervish will tear a closet apart, throw everything onto the bed, rapid fire sort, and re-stack all the keepers. They may take a break for lunch, but they will bang that closet out in a day–come hell or high water. Most professional organizers take this approach. Their energy doesn’t flag. They don’t need enthusiasm to keep them going. They just do the work, whatever it takes.
The incrementalists may start the same way but they never finish the same way. Incrementalists who are fueled by optimism or delusion, will start organizing in a fever and turn on the TV around three-o’clock. Once they realize that all hope is lost they will go to sleep that night snaked around a pile of clothes and dream of shoe boxes attacking them.
Incrementalists need to follow incremental rules. Take on less than you think you can accomplish in a set time. Whether that is fifteen minutes or two hours–I wouldn’t suggest going any longer than two hours at the start–an incrementalist should always time-box their efforts. After they’ve successfully done two or three time-boxes then they can rethink those time frames. Unlike the whirling dervish, the incrementalist is not fueled by will, they are sustained by success. An incrementalist should only putt on the gimmes. Take on things where you know you’ll succeed.
FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL
How many times have you heard this maxim? Your home organizing plan does not have to be very elaborate. A very simple plan is described in this article. Write your plan out on a cocktail napkin, anything will do. Take a mental or actual walk around your house and jot down what you’d like to accomplish and how much time you estimate it will take. Stick to your plan, more or less, but be prepared to update it as you gain experience.
I can tell you, as a professional organizer, almost every client drastically underestimates the hours it will take to do any space. If you think it’s going to take you five hours to organize your closet, I suggest doubling or tripling that estimate. Then if you do get done in the original time you’re way ahead. On the other hand, if you’re wrong, sometimes the disappointment saps all your energy.
DE-CLUTTER THEN ORGANIZE
Plan in hand, expectations under control, nerves steeled, now we start the process. The process varies a bit from room to room and we’ll cover that. This guide will eventually add a few remarks that are unique to each room. At this overview level we’ll stay a bit more generic.
First we de-clutter, then we organize. De-cluttering refers primarily to the activity of taking things out. Organizing is usually associated with putting things back. The hardest part of de-cluttering is detaching. Do we have an article about detachment you ask? Your wish is our command. Please read this article about the Zen of Enlightened Detachment.
DID THE CLOSETS SHRINK?
It is time for an honest assessment of the problem. Is your house too small or are your possessions too large? There are many clever ways of adding shelving and storage space to your house. I loved the homeowner who wrote to Bob Vila: “We just put an addition on our home, which I’m hoping will help with the clutter that’s built up over the years.” That’s one way to kick the clutter can down the road, but eventually zoning ordinances will prevent further additions.
Pull up a chair and put three receptacles in front of your favorite pile of clutter. Label the receptacles keep, donate, and ponder. The clothes or possessions that you love go in the keep pile. The items who have worn out their welcome go in the donate pile. The ones you’re undecided about go in the ponder pile. One-by-one go through your possessions and perform this triage. If nothing is going in the donate pile then you need to re-read the Zen of detachment article and start again.
You have some choices as you go through this process. Some people like to run through everything and start re-stacking once they’re sure they’ve eliminated enough stuff for the rest to fit. Other people want to keep going and eliminate items that don’t fit, are out of fashion, or just don’t do it for them any longer.
If you get through this sorting process successfully and your possessions still don’t fit or only fit after some strenuous cramming then you need to resort to Marta’s patented binary sort. Let’s take a clothing closet as an example. Hang the keepers back in the closet until you run out of space. Then take one of the “ponder” pile items and hold it up against each item in the closet. As you hold each item up, do the binary sort. Mano-a-Mano which item wins the “love me more” fight. The winner stays in the closet, the loser goes up against the next item. It is a slow process, but it is the price of too many imponderables–just like life.
Continue this binary sort until all the losers are excised and all the winners stand proud. For this to work you have to be convinced that your closet is full and nothing is going to be vacuum-packed and shoved under the bed or boxed up and relegated to the basement. If you can afford an addition, and the homeowners association allows it, then peace out.
DE-CLUTTER AND BEAUTIFY
The sorting process is the de-cluttering engine. Assess the amount of space, commit to filling the space without over-filling the space, sort and de-clutter. Do this for as many days or weeks or months as it takes. As you put your possessions back into their rightful space you have the opportunity to introduce beauty into the equation.
It may be enough to achieve a de-cluttered home. That is a significant accomplishment by itself. Pick a room or two and elevate them to the aesthetic level your vision demands. Many people choose the dining room or the kitchen for a little extra polish.
There are a myriad of containers that can bring an Instagram-ready kitchen into your life. A dining room can be virtually empty of everything but then adorned with a few accents that make the entire room beautiful. Maybe you have some of your favorite china on display or a few paintings that you love.
Whether you do-it-yourself or hire a professional organizer to help, the process is essentially the same and the end result will be so rewarding. Fall in love again with your organized home.