What's with all the pressure to be organized??

If you keep up with blogs, or honestly, any form of social media, you've probably observed this obsession with being organized that has surfaced over the past few years.

Let's talk about this trend.

If I'm being honest, all of the lovely pictures that grace the pages of magazines, Instagram streams, and blog posts make me swoon. They also make me less content with that I currently have and how my home currently looks. I often feel frustrated when I see the perfectly color coordinated kids rooms, the toys that are set exactly 3 inches apart from each other lining a shelf, the immaculately folded linens in a closet--these things are not realistic for me. I totally understand wanting a well designed and well organized home and the desire for things to look nice. What I do want to acknowledge is that I am a professional organizer, and my home will never look like those pictures unless I've specifically staged it for pictures (which would last all of about 30 minutes).

What I've been thinking about and trying to embrace lately is that being organized means different things to different people. The value of being organized is different for every person. I know for myself that if my house feels out of order, I feel distracted and overwhelmed--but my definition of "out of order" is not the same as everyone else’s definition. For example, I like for things to generally have a designated place, I like having clean surfaces, I don't like to store much on my counters, and I like things to be contained. Some people love to have lots of things on every shelf, and that's totally fine. For many, that doesn't feel disorganized or overwhelming at all. The truth is, we hope you never feel pressured by media, fashion, trends, friends, or family to become a version of "organized" that doesn’t work for you.

You may have noticed that many of our “before and afters” do not feature “after” pictures that look perfect- this is purposeful. Many of our clients are looking for practical help, things that can easily be maintained. Sometimes we complete a job where our client really values uniformity and a more picturesque final product, and we are happy to provide that result, but we never want to leave a client with something that doesn't feel realistic to their every day life. We realized that organization looks different for each person and we want to customize our work in a way that leaves each client feeling good about moving forward and maintaining their newly achieved order.

We love to help people who feel overwhelmed by their belongings, who want to let go, have the desire to purge, rearrange, re-invision their space etc. We've found that a very real sense of relief often comes when you purge and get more organized. Our greatest desire is that you feel content and able to enjoy your space without feeling burdened by it!