When it comes to needing help from a professional organizer, it’s often the most tidy and presentable homes that need it the most. Yes, you read that right! The fact is, it’s relatively easy to make your home “appear” orderly, especially in the common areas. It’s quite another to be able to open all your secret storage spots and still give the same impression. Do you have a stockpile of treasures hidden out of view…or maybe even off-site?
Typical Clutter Overflow Destinations
Clutter isn’t always obvious or obtrusive. Rather, it tends to accumulate in those quiet, undisturbed places that are out of sight and, therefore, mostly out of mind. People stash things in closets, drawers, attics, and garages where they mostly go unnoticed. In the next few blog posts, we will be exploring some even more concealed locations that even YOU don’t think about…until you do.
Places where what goes in, may never come out:
Backpack or Purse
Vehicle Interior
Storage Unit
Do You Have a Permanent Parking Place?
There are a thousand ways items enter our homes. Over time, the people in a household may bring in food, paperwork, clothes, décor, gifts, and doodads of all sorts. The problem is, we only have so much space. So, we either need to routinely edit those items, or we end up moving them “temporarily.” But once an item is hidden away, you may have created more of a permanent parking place for it than a temporary solution.
The Problem With Hidden Clutter
There’s a certain amount of irony when it comes to our secret stores of clutter. We may be trading the stress of “visible clutter right now” for the mental load of “stuff you have to deal with eventually.” And instead of having one thing to deal with later, you will likely have quite the collection to sort through when you finally decide to tackle it.
What we put off doing today definitely takes its toll tomorrow. Can you relate to any of the following scenarios?
Lost Item: You’ve looked for days and cannot find your old photo albums. You know you stashed them somewhere years ago, but where?
Embarrassment: Someone needed a ride home from work and you had to move 17 items just so they could sit in the passenger seat of your car.
Cost: You’ve been paying for a storage unit since your move, and that was a LONG time ago. Your bank account could use a break.
Inaccessibility: You finally know what you want to do with that painting of your grandmother’s, but you can’t get to it without moving a mountain of clutter.
Time: You were already running late, and it took 15 extra minutes to dump out the mishmash of contents of your everyday purse then reload the important items into your more formal purse…leaving a mess behind.
Overdue Notice: You always pay your bills on time, but this time the electric bill must have gotten swallowed up in the pile of mail and papers you stuffed in a drawer when a friend came over. Now your power is off!
Clear It and Maintain It
Okay, here’s the hard truth. Clutter is going to keep coming. The key is, we must stay on top of it by establishing a maintenance routine, and not letting a temporary storage spot become a permanent jumble of misfit belongings. We’ll provide some specific guidance in upcoming posts.
The Calm After the Storm
We understand that organizing takes time, energy, tons of decisions, and the motivation to get it done. When we get overwhelmed, procrastination calls loudly, and we often surrender to its comforting influence. But hidden clutter is like any other hidden truth. It eats at you. It’s background noise that takes a lot of mental energy to block out. But when you finally face it, you’ll be able to replace any clutter-related stress with a profound sense of calm.
Need a Hand?
Contact Us if you’d like help getting those hidden spaces in order. We’ll even teach you how to keep them that way!
Read More Posts in This Series...
This post is part of a series called "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" about spaces outside the home or office that may need organizing attention. Follow the links below to read more!
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