What Is Your Organizing Personality?
Getting to know your habits and discover surefire strategies to eliminate clutter once and for all.
Clutter is very personal, but it’s not unique. Your clutter- creating habits likely fall into four distinct organizing personalities — Tidy, Visual, Social or Multi-Tasking. Most people have a primary type, but you can be a combination of several types. No type is messier than another, they’re just different. The key is to recognize your type and those that you live with, acknowledge your differences and for everyone to meet in the middle. The goal should be a home that is peaceful and where you can find what you need when you need it with minimal effort.
The Four Organizing Personalities
Tidy Trish
Relationship To Clutter
Your clutter is often situational. A specific unexpected event, such as a promotion, or a personal trauma, results in too much on your plate.
Characteristics
- Need to have a place for everything.
- Supermom- Or at least other parents think so.
- Often have an immaculate home, along with a few dirty secrets.
- Thrive On structure, order, details, and efficiency.
- Manage multiple projects and deadlines as well.
Roadblock
Perfectionism. Aim for a home that is good, comfortable, and efficient. Getting everything in its place is achievable but allow yourself a little dust.
Ideal Organization Plan
Listen to others’ ideas and draft your own best plan. Include bullets, or check boxes so you can mark off achieved goals.
Fast First Projects
- Go Through Files; make them effective and sufficient by sorting and labeling
- Sort all pantry goods, placing oldest items in the front. Establish a weekly plan for shopping and meal prep
- Rotate seasonal clothing in one person’s closet, assessing whether it be donated, repaired, or replaced.
How To Stay Motivated
- Write Down Specific Goals. To help them succeed, tidy people have to know exactly what they want to do with a space.
- Break Big Projects Into Bits. Identify what you want to do with a closet, then each shelf, and finally every bin.
- Assign target due dates. You can always revise them, but you must have a goal to work towards.
Optimal Organizing Tools
- Daily Planner and Official To Do List (This is my organizing personality, and my favorite planner is Daily Grind planner by Angie Bellemare.)
- Family Calendar
- Drawer and Shelf Dividers
Shopping Tip
Tidy people can go overboard when acquiring new tools. Before you shop, stop and evaluate your needs and available supplies. You probably have items on hand you can reuse.
Social Sally
Relationship To Clutter
You see clutter as your best friend. Your many personal items have special stories and meanings that make you safe and comfortable.
Characteristics
- Passionate about heirlooms, collections, and mementos.
- Happiest when surrounded by personal items.
- Sentimental and Personable.
- Feels emotionally connected to items.
- Even if you will never use it, you truly believe you will use it someday.
Roadblock
Indecision. Gently force yourself to make choices by classifying items as friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Give prime storage to friends and let go of strangers.
Ideal Organizing Plan
Work with someone you trust to guide you through your decisions until you gain confidence. Avoid debating the merit of items.
Fast First Projects
- Organize photos or other memorbilla in an album or scrapbook. Rather than chronologically, display by theme, such as vacations, holidays, events, pets.
- Take digital photos of yourself with your mementos. Then give away and donate the items.
- Pass three items onto family members or friends.
How To Stay Motivated
- Remind yourself frequently that memories are not physical objects but in your heart and mind.
- Have Someone you trust ask the hard questions. “Have you ever worn this?” ” When was the Last Time You Used This?”
- Start With Small Tasks. Declutter a less important closet or dresser rather than your messiest place.
Optimal Organizing Tools
- Repurpose vintage items and family heirlooms.
- Photo-safe, acid free frames, albums, boxes, and folders.
- Decorative storage, such as painted or fabric-covered boxes.
- Digital Camera
Shopping Tip
Respect the items you choose to keep by purchasing appropriate-size organizers and containers that are made of durable materials.
Multitasking Millie
Relationship To Clutter
You view clutter as the enemy, but you’re moving fast and don’t have time or energy to deal with it. Besides you have a lot of other things you would rather do.
Characteristics
- Hardworking and busy all day, but you can recall what you have accomplished.
- Tend to procrastinate and lose track of time.
- Would you rather be doing something you enjoy.
- Overwhelmed by stuff or commitiments.
- Pay a lot of late and overdraft fees.
Roadblock
Getting focused. Start small, just 5 minutes today. Perhaps once you see what you can accomplish, commit to 10 minutes a day.
Ideal Organizing Plan
Keep the plan quick and easy, noting specific start and end times for each task.
Fast First Projects
- Identify your most stressed inducing space (Or just part of the space) and work there first.
- Pick something you’re interested in. Like to cook? Try organizing the utensil drawer tonight.
- Streamline to a single personal schedule, and single-family schedule. Either paper or electronic is fine, but you must make choices.
How To Stay Motivated
- Choose An, accountability partner to verify that you completed your tasks.
- Set Up specific rewards, including little things for tasks and bigger ones for completed projects.
- Make organizing as fun as possible. Play music or work with a friend.
Optimal Organizing Tools
- Smartphone with just a few targeted apps
- Timer
- One Personal Calendar and One Public-Family Calendar
- Hooks
- Lazy Susans, Pull Out Drawers
Shopping Tip
Always opt for the simplest and easiest version of any tool you’re interested in. A single, well-placed hook for keys is better than an elaborate memo board.
Visual Vivian
Relationship To Clutter
You’re generally detached from the abundant items around you. You don’t consider your items to be clutter; they are just facts of life.
Characteristics
- Imaginative and creative
- Keep everything in sight because “out of site out of mind.”
- Work on many projects simultaneously but might struggle to complete them.
- Like surroundings that are beautiful, stimulating, and comfortable.
- Struggle to maintain complex systems and plans.
Roadblock
Change. It’s OK to be uncomfortable decluttering at first. Rather than working on acceptance, just keep moving, guided by your clear vision of the future.
Ideal Organizing Plan
Skip written plans. Find finishes and images that speak to you and replicate them in your own life.
Fast First Projects
- Clear kitchen countertops and other flat surfaces in public space.
- Reorganize one frequently used shelf, bath vanity, or nightstand. Pick something you can start and complete in just one session.
- Identify the first thing you see when you wake up or enter your home. Declutter this area and use it as a daily reminder of success.
How To Stay Motivated
- Since Seeing Is Believing, look at before-and-after pictures of other projects. Snap your own progress pics to build confidence.
- Create real world or electronic vision boards with images and notes that will keep you inspired!
- Share pictures of your success online with other visual people who will share your enthusiasm.
Optimal Organizing Tools
- Clear Plastic or Glass Containers
- Bulletin Boards
- Open Shelves and Lidless Bins
- Color Coded Labels
Shopping Tip
Flex your creative muscles before shopping by giving new organizing responsibilities to items you already have on hand. Make sure you can clearly see what you store in each container.
