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 Restoring
Order to Your Home
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CBN.com –
We all could use a little help organizing at least
some area of our life, couldn’t we?
I want to thank you for reading these
organizing columns and engaging with my advice.
The input I’m sharing with you comes from years of
experience in the field (or should I say “in the
trenches”?) as a professional organizer. I’ve been
in homes and offices across America restoring
order and if you think your place is the “worst,”
believe me, you are NOT alone! Every one of us has
room to grow. The good news is: there is always
hope and anyone can reclaim their space and their
life if they’re willing to change their thinking
and their behavior.
We Want a Quick Fix
I know that most of us are used to seeking and
finding “quick fix” tips in glossy magazines. Just
like in our dieting habits, the quick fix feels so
good and productive. It feels like we’re doing at
least something to address our problem.
Unfortunately, though, in all my experience, I’ve
never seen a quick fix radically transform a
disordered household. I know this may be
disappointing to hear, but shortcuts can’t address
our mess nor do they help us dig out of it. Since
they don’t work in the real world—as much as we’d
like them to—I won’t be sharing simpleton tricks;
instead I’m offering you some strategies and
principles that will help you create sustainable
change.
The post I responded to last week was a page
out of someone’s life…it could have come from
almost any client my organizers are working with
at this very moment. The person had a limited
space and budget, had donated some of her overage,
and had used plastic bins to containerize her
belongings. She really had tried to get organized.
Even so, she was searching for a better answer. I
shared with her some specific suggestions on
navigating closets and some low-budget solutions
and I reminded our brave subject that organizing
is a process and a lifestyle.
Our next message board visitor was asking for a
“magical cure” for paper; she suffers from the
“dash and stash” I discussed in my prior article.
(I will answer this post specifically in the
future since no one knows what to do with the
onslaught of paper and everyone seems to be
drowning in it. Dealing with paper is the number
one request I receive.) Here we are again, though,
looking for a magical cure for something that I
think deep down we know is going to take longer
than we’d like. Sure, I could give you a quickie
“cure” for paper…but resorting to arson isn’t
recommended! When we get practical, we all
recognize that we need strategies for digging out
that really work and a new set of behaviors. We
need to understand authentic organizing.
The Pruning Principle
Since both of our posts this week dealt with
overage (you know: pile-up, backlog, extra stuff)
I’d like to focus on one of my favorite organizing
principles here: The Pruning Principle™. It’s a
principle you can apply in any room of the home,
at the office, and even in your schedule.
Something about eliminating useless stuff just
feels right. When we disentangle dead branches
from a growing tree, we pull out the matter that
is no longer good. When we cut back the yellowed
reeds of a perennial flower, we know that its
energy returns to the bulb. Ridding plants of the
superfluous material makes us feel good about
restoring them to health.
That kind of trimming feels good for a reason.
Cutting out that which isn’t useful in our life is
a spiritual experience! The Bible applies the
metaphor of pruning to our spiritual life. Jesus
explains: “I am the true vine, and my Father is
the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that
bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear
fruit he prunes so that it will be even more
fruitful.” (John 15: 1-2). Here we see that the
gardener’s purpose for cutting out deadwood and
pruning back living stock is to produce more life
and fruit. We shouldn’t be surprised that
spiritual principles prove true in our experience
of the physical world as well.
The Pruning Principle is this: We will flourish
in our personal, spiritual, and physical life when
we expose ourselves and our environment to
frequent pruning. Organizing, then, is not simply
sorting, categorizing, and tossing, as many
believe. Authentic organizing includes a
purposeful and ongoing process of elimination and
refinement. It’s a perspective before it is an
activity.
So, how do we apply this principle to gain a
more organized life?
First, we cut out the deadwood from our space.
We get realistic about the amount of stuff we’re
keeping and whether we really use it and love it.
Isn’t it sad that America is one of the only
places in the world where we actually get stressed
out because we have too much stuff? Donate your
overage and take a healthy tax deduction this
year. The Salvation Army has a nice
valuation guide to help you determine the
value of your items. Share things you don’t need
or have outgrown with another family. I ask my
clients that hesitate to let go of their overage
“could someone else really be blessed by this?”
and they brighten up with the thought of passing
their goods along to someone in need.
Next, we assess the “opportunity cost” of
keeping all our stuff. Opportunity cost is the
trade-off for keeping something. What is it
costing you to save it, group it, store it, label
it, insure it, dust it, stuff it, cram it, or lose
it? In the case of a storage unit, we can spend
thousands per year to store stuff we forgot about,
don’t like, and don’t use.
Moving onto our schedule, we then can trim a
crowded calendar. We can prune our commitments and
activities as well as our belongings. When we cut
out extraneous activities, we can focus on
investing our time with the people who really
matter to us. If you can’t find time to discover
and live your God-given purpose, exercise your
gifts, and pursue your passions, it’s time to cut
back less important activities to make room for
your kingdom calling!
We must learn to say no. How can saying no help
us get more organized? A crowded life (and space)
make it hard for us to focus on our priorities
because we are doing too much and confused by the
noise of clutter. Organizing is about making room
in your life for the things that truly matter. By
resisting that bargain at the discount store, or
by opting out of that fourth committee or
volunteer group, we are in fact saying “yes” to
our core values.
Now, applying The Pruning Principle in your
life doesn’t mean that you must throw everything
away. A lot of people fear organizing because they
think it will involve parting with their favorite
things. On the contrary, I advocate being
surrounded by those special treasures and
collections that you love and I never prod anyone
to toss anything unless they’re ready to do so.
The Pruning Principle allows you to zoom out and
gain perspective. It allows you to see the
relative value of your belongings and your time in
relation to other more important things.
I hope you can take this therapeutic principle
and run with it. As you prune back your space,
belongings, and time, may you bear more fruit and
strive for what is ahead!
Adapted from: Restoring Order™ copyright ©
2006 by Vicki Norris (available now at
www.RestoringOrder.com and in July 2007as Reclaim
Your Life™. Copyright © 2007). Published by
Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by
permission.
About the Author: Vicki Norris is an expert
organizer, business owner, speaker, television
personality, and author who inspires people to
live out their priorities. Norris is a regular on
HGTV’s nationally syndicated Mission:
Organization, and is a recurrent source and
contributor to national lifestyle publications
including Quick & Simple magazine, Better Homes &
Gardens, and Real Simple magazine. Norris is also
author of Restoring Order™ to Your Home, a
room-by-room household organizing guide. |
