My Own Clutter: Before + After
As I like to reinforce in my Minimalism video series, I too am on the spectrum of “struggles with clutter.” Everyone has a clutter tolerance threshold. As a professional organizer, my threshold is low, but the struggle is real. Low as it is, it gets crossed, and I snap! Here is a picture of how I WISH SO BADLY my dining room looked on a typical day. I took this “after” picture after shoving all of the clutter into the living room to be dealt with one piece at a time (which shockingly only took about 30 minutes).
Pulling back the curtain on how this professional organizer really lives….here is my dining room on a typical day!
As you can see, my surfaces are not immune. It’s a light problem, but a chronic one. Many of these things have been sitting here loitering for weeks, waiting for Nic or I to decide on permanent homes. Like with all clutter, everything was here for a reason.
Here’s how we dealt with a few of the nagging items:
Flashlight - Had been here since a storm 1 week prior. We put it away in a tool box that is hard to reach - easy little chore to avoid. Watering can - Had been here for months. Finally made room for it in my foyer closet. Swiffer vacuum - Had been here for months. If unplugged, the charge dies fast. Now, I’m willing to let the charge die in order to put it away in my foyer closet. Not a perfect solution. Broken black speakers - Had been here for over a week. They need to be repaired. I hid them under my living room console. Not a perfect solution. Nic’s guitar - It’s here again. Trust me: we have no other place for it. Side table that lights up - Had been here for a week after I took it out of the guest room. I brought it to my parents’ basement. This is absolutely cheating, but I NEVER do this. I surrender.
Hopefully this illustrates that I don’t have answers to every question and don’t have perfect little places for everything I own. In a fit of frustration the only answer was to move it all into the neighboring living room. Just breaking the inertia was the push I needed to deal with these things one at a time that very evening. Staring at them week after week as their roots burrowed deeper wasn’t helping.
Right now, two weeks later, I have about half of the clutter. A few items have crept back in. As much as I want to live inside of the pages of a magazine, it’s hard, but I’m not ready to say it’s unrealistic!
How does your dining room table look right now? Are you surprised that a professional organizer gets cluttered too, or does it not look that bad? Are my reasons for having things out similar to yours? Have you ever just swept up all of the crap for instant gratification? If so, was it a cosmetic band-aid fix, or did you actually deal with the items? What items are you sick and tired of looking at?! Please share in the comments!
