Confessions of a Professional Organizer

I think a lot of people are curious about how a professional organizer lives. I believe they think professional organizers must have a perfect house at all times. Well, I must confess, I do love it when everything is in its place in my home. It gives me a great sense of peace, calm and comfort. I must also confess that I live in a real home with a real family and it’s not perfect. I don’t have custom closets, I don’t have a housekeeper and, oh yes, sometimes I even leave dishes in the sink, clothes on the bathroom floor and make-up on the counter when I’m in a hurry.

How I organize my home is not based on keeping it perfect 24/7 because that’s not realistic. How I organize my home is based on having a place for everything and by keeping belongings from taking over. If you ask me where a specific piece of paper is, I will have my fingers on it in an instant. If you ask me to find my keepsake cards from my children, I will have them for you in an instant because I know where everything goes.

So let’s start with having a place for everything. It’s all about giving items a home to contain them and to make it easy to know where to retrieve items as well as where to put them back. I add a label wherever I can. There are so many cute options for labeling now, with chalkboard labels currently being one of the popular options. When you give belongings a ‘home’ it’s easy to find what you need when you need it and it’s easy to clean up after getting something out. If you open my pantry you will find matching bins & baskets with metal clip on labels so we can find what we need quickly. If you look under my bathroom sinks, you will find matching plastic containers with cute chalkboard labels.

As far as belongings go, I don’t necessarily follow the ‘one in, one out’ rule, but I am very careful to keep a balance in our home by letting go of items that we’re done with so we have room to add something new. When you don’t have overabundance, it’s easier to keep up with decluttering and cleaning.

How I organize my home keeps my household running smoothly and I never have to stress about finding anything I need! 

Monika Kristofferson is the founder of Efficient Organization in the greater Seattle area.