“Quality over quantity” has become a platitude in a world where everyone is familiar with the benefits of minimalism. We utter the term often, but in the same day we fall down walking the walk when faced with a killer sale at our favorite store, or a perceived need for five Old Navy shirts when one will do.

I sometimes have to get very creative in the approach I take to motivate someone to clear off their desk. If you’ve brought piles into 2020 and need an extra push to finally zap them, this might be the incentive you need to clear them off (or to at least remove them just to put them back):

2019 marks my eighteenth year as a professional organizer and the eighth year in a row that I’ve reflected on what I learned as a professional organizer in the past year. I am sure to never repeat a lesson from a previous year.

Serena Williams once said “Pressure is a privilege.” It revealed the perspective of difficulty as sometimes being a privilege. If this is true, then the abundance of things, even things we don’t want, could also be privilege.

Is clutter privilege?

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: