Many of our clients contact us because of physical limitations that prevent them from being able to declutter on their own and this particular client had really been struggling more than ever since the COVID19 pandemic began in March 2020. She wanted help with her entire apartment but was on a very tight budget so we offered as we often do our services at a discount because, well, we can. We simply want to help as many people as possible despite their financial means and are very proud to be able to do so.

Suffice it to say, 2020 and into 2021 has been a very difficult time for her and we brought as much compassion as we could to the task but, as always, a small amount of ruthlessness too or there would be no transformation.

 

In addition to her physical limitations, she is homeschooling her son who has a learning disability which, in and of itself, creates a lot of challenges for maintaining order.

But because she considers herself a "maximalist"..."a loud style composed of mixed patterns, excessive, but curated collections, and saturated colors," getting her to let go contradicts the lifestyle she has chosen to embrace. 

​

So we chipped away at a few areas for about 3 hours including two closets that were definitely underutilized and left her with what we think are much better-organized spaces.

 

BTW...Closet 2 has both pantry items and a lot of her son's homeschooling materials but were not separated enough...in our "minimalist mindset" opinion of course...to make it easy for the client to really see everything. But we solved that problem and it definitely makes a lot more sense in terms of accessing things.

​

Biggest tips/takeaways?

​

• Don't get stuck thinking everything in a space needs to stay where  it's always been. Sometimes the only way to visualize how a space really looks is to take everything out and start from scratch. If so, try to imagine the "what ifs" as in"what if I move this set of shelves to a different wall?" A good professional organizer "sees things" differently so we don't always need to take everything out. In this case we immediately saw the potential for turning the shelves in Closet 1 to fit against the wall with the rod. The client was not using it to hang anything so we just took everything off the shelves, moved the unit out of the closet and removed half of the shelves from the unit since they were too close together and made it less efficient for storing and stacking. That minor change made a huge difference!
   

• Even if you are not willing to let go of a lot of the things that you may find bring you comfort and joy, you still need to implement some degree of order. Otherwise, you will end up spending far too much time, money, and energy looking for anything and everything.
   

• Try to collect "like items" and keep them in the same location. Having batteries in every room may seem like it would be beneficial, especially in the middle of the night when your power goes out and the flashlight in your nightstand doesn't work, but it's a good practice to check things like that every once in a while to avoid that problem.