I'm Not Perfect

As a Professional Organizer, people often ask me if my place is perfectly organized. I’m going to publicly out myself and admit that it’s not.

I look at being organized as a way to find things, not a way to hide things inside matching baskets just so they look nice on shelves. When you have 10 matching baskets without labels on them, how can anyone find anything or put something back?

I’m more practical than that and certainly can understand when clients want to just achieve a level of organizing where they can find things and not necessarily make it beautiful. A good example is files. Typed filing labels look the best but if you’re not the type of person to type labels, then why bother? If it’s more work than you’re willing to do, then you’re probably not going to do it so hand write your labels. It’s better to just do it than to avoid doing it for lack of perfection.

I have a very dear client who is afflicted with perfectionism and the poor woman cannot complete many things that she starts because she doesn’t have the time or energy to make them perfect. Just getting something done is more important (in most cases) than getting it perfect.

Organizing is an ongoing, never ending project. You don’t do it then it stays that way forever. Organizing is about having like items together so you can find things and know what you already have so you don’t buy more! It doesn’t have to be about living in a perfectly straightened up environment all the time. That’s called being neat.