Four Common Types of Chicago Home Organizing Clients
You may be wondering why someone would hire a professional home organizer. If so, you probably aren’t experiencing acute distress as a direct result of your possessions. Believe it or not, there are relatively common circumstances that can lead people to reach out for support to help manage their things.
The home organizing industry is largely a response to the fact that most people have too much stuff, by their own assessment. American households contain an average of 300,000 individual items, all of which need to be stored, managed, and cared for by the people who live there.
“Stuff management” falls disproportionately to those who hold the most responsibility for caring for the home, which is usually women. Given that 300,000 is an enormous number, it’s not surprising many people feel like it’s a losing proposition to manage that much stuff. So, it is perhaps unsurprising that clutter is directly linked to depression and anxiety in women.
In every case, the person who reaches out to me for organizing assistance is overwhelmed at the prospect of solving their problem alone. Often, they have tried and failed several times to address the issue and are ready to try something new.
This article provides an overview of the four most common types of Chicago-area clients I assist to calm the chaos in their homes and regain a real sense of control over their possessions. Some people fall into one or more categories, but they all benefit from outside assistance with decluttering and home organizing.
People in Transition
Many people put off dealing with their excess stuff for years. Then, suddenly they need to move, downsize significantly, or create space for a new household member. The thought of dealing with hundreds if not thousands of deferred decisions can be extremely overwhelming. Add to that, life transitions are often timeline-driven, meaning you may need to accomplish a lot in a relatively short period of time.
Life transitions, even when positive, are stressful. So, this is a particularly inopportune time to have a clutter problem come back to haunt you. Many people hire home organizers to assist them with paring down during such times. Organizers help you to establish priorities, pre-sort items for you, make recommendations, encourage you through decision fatigue, and help you dispense with cast-off items such as donations and recycling.
People with “Secret” Messes
Many homes look reasonably tidy or even immaculate at first glance, but are filled with chaotic drawers, cabinets, closets, and storage spaces. My clients often think they are the only ones with such a “secret,” but this is extremely common. My own home was the same for years.
The problem is so pervasive that, by one estimate, 36 percent of Americans are unable to park in their garage due to an accumulation of clutter. And we increasingly turn to off-site storage units to the tune of $1,000 or more a year, which contain items most of us never use again.
Chaotic, overfull storage is often accompanied by a lack of systems and foundational organizing principles such as storing “like with like” and having designated homes for all items. My Chicago area clients find it extremely frustrating when they cannot put things away, unwittingly buy duplicates, cannot find what they need, let foodstuff go bad, and cede precious square footage to storing clutter.
I help people solve this problem one space at a time by systematically removing and categorizing items, facilitating “stay-go” decisions, and reorganizing spaces with supportive new systems in place. It’s paramount that everything has a place to go when not in use, and similar items live near each other.
People with Neurobiological Differences
My last article was on ADHD and how conventional organizing advice often runs contrary to how ADHD brains work. The same is true of autistic persons and people with other conditions that affect executive functioning. As our personal and societal understanding of these conditions grows, more people are having late-in-life realizations that, with support and new knowledge, they too can achieve their desired level of order at home.
As a professional home organizer, I am dedicated to learning as much as possible about how to support my clients with neurobiological differences. There are some common strategies such as making things more obvious with clear containers and labels. But more generally, my practice is focused on listening to my clients and customizing systems to fit their specific ways of doing things.
Victims of Consumer Culture
There are a lot of reasons why we over-consume and over-accumulate. It can stem from an ADHD or trauma response, pressure from peers and social media, or self-administered “rewards” for putting up with a dissatisfying existence, to name a few. I can raise my hand for all three! But most overpoweringly, we all live in a consumer-driven society in which we are manipulated by advertising strategies so sophisticated we often don’t even realize it’s happening.
If you have shopped yourself into a corner, you may have no idea how to dig out. And, if you’ve come to a place of self-awareness about the problem, your sense of overwhelm may be accompanied by regret and shame, which only exacerbates avoidance and inaction.
When you are ready to make a change, a home organizer can help you begin the process of facing your past purchases and making thoughtful decisions about their future. Many people ultimately find satisfaction in donating new or lightly used items to people who can really use them, or even reselling bundles of like items to regain a small portion of funds and increase the chances their items find a good home.
In such cases, I’m often working with people on mind-set shifts such as recognizing that they can never recoup the money they spent, but they can reclaim their spaces and maybe even help someone else in the process. Most importantly, I help my clients to know that they are not alone, they are not “bad,” and they have the power to do things differently in the future.
What the Future Holds
I remember back to a decade or two ago when it was taboo to divulge being in therapy with a mental health professional. But this has changed in the intervening years. Now, mental health is a common topic which many people share about casually and openly. It’s understood that life is sometimes challenging and that a neutral and qualified third party can be an important part of working through it. It short, we’ve normalized the need for a service instead of shrouding it in secrecy and shame.
This reminds me of how people feel about home organizing. In many cases, people are deeply ashamed to “need” help with clutter and organizing and see it as a form of failure. People are so bewildered and confounded by their stuff that they cannot seem to see the forest for the trees. But what I see is that it’s not realistic for anyone to manage everything we are expected to manage in modern society, and especially not 300,000 items in our homes! We are constantly being sold a bill of goods about how this or that thing will improve our lives, and we fall for it repeatedly. In short, we are a product of our environment.
I hope that in ten years’ time, we will have normalized home organizers as a completely necessary service for almost everyone. Even I wish I had someone who could come do for me what I do for others as a home organizer. And, if you or someone you know would benefit from from support with decluttering and home organizing, please consider a home organizer!