Peace of Mind Organizing

In my clients' shoes

8 February 2019

I had one of those great experiences yesterday that reminds me how my clients often feel when we work together. I had met a woman who was interested in pursuing a career as a professional organizer but had no experience beyond working in her own home and helping her family members get organized.

Since she was someone I might hire and train, we decided to do an organizing session at my house to see how she liked it and what her organizing style was like. (Turns out she’s a natural!)

I selected a small closet to empty and declutter with her. It’s sort of a catch-all closet in an extra room and it hadn’t been cleaned out in ages. We emptied it, she sorted items, I went through them and I let go of a whole lot of stuff.

I discovered items that I don’t remember having owned, some of which were no-brainers to toss while others were exciting surprises. Perhaps most exciting (if a little overwhelming) was quite a large collection of photos from my life, primarily. I didn’t take the time during the session to look carefully, but I did spy some photos of my husband and me looking impossibly young. There were also some wonderful old family photos in an enveloped marked, in my handwriting, “Vintage Photos.” There were some lovely 100-year-old photos in there, most of which were familiar to me. But the condition of these photos is better than what I already had.

My plan is to organize this photo collection and scan the ones I care about. Serendipitously, just the day before the organizing session, I’d been offered the use of an Epson FastFoto photo scanner for two months. I’ll use this high-speed scanner to scan the photos that are appropriate for it. So watch for a blog post about that experience.

Another interesting (to me) category in that closet was hand-knit items. I had a sweater organizer hanging from the rod, and I used to store a bunch of shawls, scarves, bags, sweaters and vests that I knit by hand over the years. Some, alas, had been moth eaten. It was easy to toss those. Others were in good shape but I’d never use again. I donated those. It took a few passes, but I reduced the hand knits collection to two shawls and one bag (picture above). The bag was the first thing I ever knit (as an adult, anyway). I’ll never use it—it’s a wildly impractical long-handled, bright-purple, garter-stitch bag made of cotton—but I don’t want to let it go. And that’s okay.

I was thrilled that my husband defied my expectations and let go of some things I expected him to hang onto—stuff that he’d had for decades. When we were all finished, everything fit quite nicely back in the closet, though a few things were moved to more logical spaces. We now know exactly what’s in that closet and we can find it easily.

The peace of mind this has given me is amazing. I open that closet daily because that’s where we store Bix’s supply of cow ears. The clutter in there was mocking me. I didn’t know what was lurking in there and I had trouble finding anything when I did need to try to find something.

It’s so nice to feel the thrill once again of letting go items that aren’t serving me. And to sensibly store the items that are. I love it when I get to stand squarely in my clients’ shoes!

Tagged with: closets, decluttering, professional organizer, working with a professional organizer

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