The Art of Organizing Your Space

By Cyndi Seidler

Reprinted from Organized-Living Ezine, 
May 2000

The furniture in your room is situated just right, yet it's cluttered with lots of paper, items taken from other parts of the house, too many knick-knacks, and trash particles that didn't quite make it to the trashcan.  Shouldn't we be asking ourselves, "What's wrong with this picture?" 

 Maybe you already know the answer.  But then, why hasn't anything been done about it yet?  Don't try to answer that.  There's an art to approaching the task of getting organized.  First, let's discuss why you should do it and what clutter actually does.

 Clutter interferes with an individual's sense of tranquility and energy flows in the room.  Objects also have a frequency of energy, and clutter will interfere with the smooth flow of energy in that space.  This contributes to lethargy and procrastination.

 Clutter will also make a space seem small and inefficient as well as very dark.  This in turn makes people depressed.

 If you experience allergy-like symptoms in your space, chances are you're breathing a lot of dust accumulated on the clutter.  So, clutter can contribute to health problems.

 Another problem clutter presents is that it makes a person feel overwhelmed.   With so much disorder and things around them, it's difficult to get focused.

 These dilemmas give us the reason we need to get our space organized.  A room that has order to it is a "happy place" and smiles back at you.  It provides a place of tranquility and helps us focus.  And, when the room is clutter-free, it gets the energy flowing through it which, in turn, will help us feel more energetic.

 Taking pride in our home is important because, isn't our home our castle?  Shouldn't we feel proud of it and want to be in it?  I would think so.

 The object of de-cluttering a room is to provide a "home" for everything.   There should be a place for everything and everything in its place.  This is carried out by using a simple process of: sorting through items, deciding what to do with them and then placing them in an assigned, designated "home".

 Sorting through the items and deciding what to do with them is not really a difficult task.  Throwing things away can be hard for some people to do though.  If this is the case, just ask yourself how useful is it to you?  And, have a trashcan at your side.

 What most people do have difficulty with is putting things away somewhere.  But where do they put their "stuff" is the dilemma.   This is the task of finding a home for it, and it's not so hard to do when you have the right "tools".

 By the right tools is meant a product that has a certain function.  We want tools that give our items "a home". So, what exactly is a home?  It's a place where something or someone lives and, in the case of objects, applies to a place where an item resides in or on.  For objects, various organizing tools act as a homes for them. 

 A bookshelf, for example, is a home for books or other display items.  A video rack is a home for videos.  Cassette holders provides a home to cassettes.  A clothes hamper houses dirty clothes.  File cabinets are a home for file folders and file folders are a home for filed paper.  No matter what it is, you should be able to give it a home.

 There are containers, storage bins, totes, caddies, racks, cases, chests, stackers, holders and baskets of all sorts.  Just look around, browse through special catalogues or stroll down the isles of a department store or specialty shop.  Rest assured, you'll find something for anything.

 Some obvious homes within your overall space reside inside pantries, closets, drawers, closets, cabinets and cupboards.  However, even these places can get cluttered and need organizing products within them.  These will provide additional homes for all those items on the loose.  Containers within a bathroom cabinet can hold a group category of items, such as toiletries or hair and skin products.  Get the idea?

 That's the art of getting a space organized.  And, that space will be a work of art when you are done. With everything put in its place, the area will be an environment that smiles back at you when you enter it.   Your furniture will probably look good to you now, and actually allow you to use it the way it was intended. Like, sitting down in a chair or sofa that houses your body instead of a pile of paper!

 Take the organizing plunge.  You'll be glad you did!

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Copyright © 2000 Cyndi Seidler.  All Rights Reserved.