Making the best of something can be noble. But what if you could make something better? What if you could walk into your home and feel relief? Watch this video for strategies to fix the problem areas in your home.
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/tcdfixit.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and I was just here in my bathroom, admiring my work. This was given to me by somebody special, it had broken into two pieces, and I had kind of pushed the two pieces together on the shelf and I kept walking by it knowing it was broken, so finally, I got out some wood glue, and I put it together. good as new. And now when I walk through the bathroom, I’m not thinking about it anymore. Only appreciating it.
So it reminded me of what I see a lot in the approach to organizing projects. A lot of people look at it with a “Let’s clean it up” kind of mentality instead of a “Let’s fix this once and for all” mentality. So, you have to put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and look at the root of the problem, look at where the log jams are, where the source of the issues are coming from, and then you can make it go away for good, and you can create a system that works long-term. In other words, don’t just make the best of it, make it better. So here are a few ways that you can do that.
First, you can adjust something. So often we’ll see kitchen cabinets that are adjustable with their shelving, and the person has never adjusted it the entire time they’ve ever lived in the house. So when you do that very simple action you can dramatically change the function of your storage. Also you can move something. I frequently move furniture around when I’m doing organizing projects. One of the most common things I do is move a dresser into a large closet, so that all the clothing is centralized into one dressing area instead of going back and forth from the bedroom to the closet for the various pajamas, or socks, or underwear, or whatever it is. So moving furniture is a great idea.
Also removing furniture. So removing something, even donating it to Goodwill if it’s not working, allows there to be an empty space to where you are more motivated now to fill that space with something that works. Also, you can remove a door or a wall, famously, the sliding closet doors that people don’t like. I made a video about that just recently. You can just take them out.
So another thing you can do is install something. Classically, people don’t have the infrastructure in place for storage, whether it’s in a garage or a large closet. They don’t have enough shelving, they don’t have enough cabinetry. So install that, do it, and even if it’s just a simple hook, sometimes that’s the system that creates the solution for your problems.
And if you can’t install it or don’t know how, you can certainly outsource something. We have this example here where there was a cabinet in this closet that was a very odd little skinny compartment and it couldn’t really fit shoes very well, and the shelves were kind of awkward. So we brought in a carpenter and said, “Hey, fix this so that we can now just make it an ironing center,” and an ironing board would fit in there and that worked out great. So bringing in someone when you’re out of your league so that you can solve the problem is a good investment of your time and money.
And if you want to outsource your organizing expertise, because you need a new perspective and a fresh set of eyes, we can do that affordably for you in our on-line program. I designed it to be affordable for anyone from anywhere. We’ve helped thousands of people in 18 countries over the years since 2006. So we’d love to see you there. You can find us at https://www.clutterdiet.com, and we will see you next time.
May you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
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