Over the years I’ve had a lot of clients who like to ask about where they stand in relation to my other clients:

“Do other clients have as much paper as I do?”

“Do other clients have you in their lives for as long as I have?”

“Do other clients hold onto as many newspapers as I do?”

Fellow Organizer Amanda Jefferson in Philadelphia recently wrote a blog post that I immediately wanted to share with you (and add to my arsenal of questions I ask my clients). In Would you wait in line 30 minutes for that, Amanda says:

“Explain it to me like I’m a five year old” is something I say when something complicated needs to be broken down. That is why I love that the Pete the Cat cartoon series on Amazon put out an episode all about decluttering! …

Yes. I know this from my years of experience as a professional organizer, but this quote puts it so accurately:

“One’s abode is ultimately and inevitably an exercise in autobiography.”

- Mayer Rus, Architectural Digest writer

A month ago I posted two sentences author Suketu Mehta wrote at the end of his book on Bombay “Maximum City,” anticipating his return to the US:

“Surviving in a modern country involves dealing with an immense amount of paper. He who can stay on top of the paper wins.”

There it was - further validation of my career path buried in the last couple pages of a sweeping paean to Bombay, India (Maybe you know it as Mumbai.) Even with a few summer afternoons with reading as the only agenda item, it still took me 5 weeks to read Suketu Mehta’s book Maximum City, about his rediscovery of Bombay decades after having left for the United States as a child.