It sounded so great, but it just doesn't work!

So have you ever felt like you are a failure when it comes to organization?  Here's the situation:

You see your favorite magazine at the grocery store with a headline that says "Organize your (fill in the blank with your own personal organizational nightmare) today!"  You eagerly grab the magazine off the shelf, read through the article immediately, letting your ice cream melt in the cart, and decide that THIS IS IT!  This is the solution you have been looking for!  You run out to the car, drive straight to the nearest big-box store to buy everything you need to implement this perfect solution (deciding that you will clean up the puddle of now-melted ice cream later), hobble home with a smile on your face, a hundred dollars worth of bins, labels, and stacking shelves bulging out of their bags, and, with great enthusiasm, you dive into your project.  You tell everyone you know about how you have finally solved your biggest organizational problem, and then... two months later... you are ashamed to find yourself with exactly the same problem you had before (but now with less room because of those annoying shelves you bought).

You then decide that you are a failure, that you cannot get organized, and that all is hopeless.  And of course it goes without saying that you will never buy THAT magazine again!  Has this happened to you?

You are not a failure.  This happens to everyone.  In fact, I will have to admit, it happened to me two months ago.  And to make it worse, I was the one who suggested that perfect solution!  (To give credit where it is due, I have also read similar suggestions by other organizers - I am not the only one to suggest something like this.)  

Here is what happened:  I suggested a way to make decorating for Christmas easy and sane.  I suggested that you should store (and label) your Christmas decorations in bins based on where in the house the decorations will go.  For example, I usually display all of my angels on the sofa table under my picture window and my Santa Claus decorations on the bookshelf.  Under this plan, I would store my angels together in a bin labeled "Angels - Sofa Table" or "Santas - Bookshelf".  I could take a photo of the area and put it in the bin with the decorations (or tape it on the outside) so that next year I could easily reproduce the look.  I suggested that if decorations were stored in this way, it would be easy to decorate in just a few minutes each day (or all at once) without making a big mess of the house.  If you had 20 minutes available one day, you could just grab the bin labeled "Angels - Sofa Table", decorate that area, and clean up at the same time.  If you never did get all of your decorations out, at least you would have some of your house decorated for the season.  If you had 20 minutes each day, you could decorate the whole house one area at a time.

Doesn't this sound great?  It didn't work for me.  I realized that the way I like to decorate is a more creative process.  I like to put on some beautiful Christmas music, get out ALL of my decorations, put them all over every surface, and then stand there and wait to be inspired with a vision for the room as a whole.  I realized that I don't want my decorations to look exactly the same every year, even if I do have the same general layout (angels under the window, Santas on the bookshelf).  Some years I like to cover every surface, and some years I would rather take a more minimalist approach.

So this idea sounded great, but it didn't work for me.  Does that mean there is something wrong with it?  No - in fact, if it sounds good, you should try it!  The same goes for the perfect solution you found in the magazine.  But if any organizational idea doesn't work for you, don't jump to the conclusion that you have some sort of problem with organization or that you cannot change things for the better.  Maybe the ideas that sound good to you don't really fit your personality or your lifestyle.  If you need something a little more free-form, acknowledge that and embrace it.  Try several approaches, and don't give up!

If you think you need some help finding the best solutions for your personality, don't be embarrassed to call a professional organizer to come and help you find what will work for you.  He or she will enjoy figuring this out with you!

Balance your life!

Nora