Organizers and Stuff

I am often asked if I am going to make a client "get rid of things". My response to that question is this: It is not my job to make you get rid of anything; it is my job to assist you in making decisions that are consistent with your goals.

The reality is we have a limited amount of space, not just physical space, but emotional and mental space as well. You can keep anything you want as long as you are willing to pay the price for keeping it. We often have emotional attachments to objects that usually have nothing to do with the objects themselves, but what they represent. As part of the process of organizing, it is not unusual to revisit these connections and determine what is currently relevant, and what has been moved past. In working with clients, we will frequently come up with ways of preserving and honoring the meaning of the things without necessarily keeping the things themselves.

For example, I kept many of my favorite children's books so that I could pass them on to my niece and nephew. It took me a while to recognize, and recover from the disappointment that, they were never going to relate to them the same way I did, and that they would never resonate with them the same way. The world had become a different place since my childhood and what had/has meaning for me, may or may not for them.

That was a hard pill to swallow, but it did provide me with more useful options for what to do with these things. Some of them did end up going to my niece and nephew (a few), but most were sent to places where they could be appreciated as I had appreciated them. Some I even kept just to remind myself of who I was way back then.

What do you think?