Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to Diagnose Someone’s Organizing Style WITHOUT Taking the Quiz | Clutterbug Podcast # 167

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Do you struggle to know what your organizing style is?  In today's podcast, I walk through exactly how I diagnose my client's organizing style.  I share my step-by-step thought process when walking through a house and what to look out for in your own home.  It's fun to diagnose other people's organizing styles, and now you will know exactly how to go that!        You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're going to have fun today. We are going to talk about how to diagnose your organizing style and friends and families organizing style without taking the quiz. I'm going to share all my tips and tricks that I use to diagnose people in minutes. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. If you're new, I'm Cass from Clutterbug. I am an organizing expert, which is always, every time I say it, it feels a little weird inside because the truth is I'm not a naturally organized person. But I've been doing this. I've been helping people get organized now for 13 years, which is crazy pants, maybe even longer. I'm old. All the years kind of blend together. But what I find really cool is that because I've been doing this for so long, I can really diagnose someone's organizing style in minutes, in absolute minutes. And the reason this came about, I know if you've been listening or watching me for a while, you know the story,

but I thought I'd share it with you really quickly. When I first started getting organized for myself, I started and failed a million times in the past. But when I really truly truly, got a handle on my own home, it was because I realized that I don't organize in a traditional way. And I'm not a detailed person. I don't file in little categories. When I'm done paying a bill, I don't find the folder that it should go in. I need big, fast systems. And when I embrace that about myself and realize, I'm never going to stop and take the lid off and put the band-aids back in the little band-aid bin or take time to sort papers or take time to really sort anything. I need to be able to just toss it away.

When I embrace that about myself and really understood the difference between a detailed and a non-detailed person, I could set up systems that were more laid back, that had bigger categories. And magically, things started getting put away, which means my house stayed tidier. That was the whole thing. I wasn't putting things away because it wasn't easy because it didn't complement my natural style. So I was just leaving everything out.

And it only took a day or two or like an hour, let's be honest, for my house to get really messy again. So it was this cycle of tidying and cleaning and then everything becoming a mess again. And I was on that roller coaster for a really long time. But when I set up systems that worked for me, things stayed tidy. I thought I was a genius. I started helping, I helped my friend Jess, and I helped my stepmom, and I started helping other people. And I really thought I was onto something here. You know, there was a detailed organizers or non-detailed. And I could definitely understand that about

people just by asking questions, kind of gauging if they were really logical, if they tended to, you know, stop and think about things, or if they were more like, just kind of hot mess sandwiches. And it was great. I started helping clients and growing a business based on people who organized in a detailed way or people who had this laid back fly by the seat of their pants way of managing their stuff. And because I wasn't a naturally organized person and I was starting this little business, I was insecure. That's the truth. I was really insecure. And so I came up with a marketing strategy. not only to make myself feel better, but to make my clients feel better about hiring somebody to come in to organize their space, I said, if this doesn't stay organized for the next 30 days, I'll come back and organize it for free, guaranteed. This was my tagline. This was my sales pitch. This is what I said to all my clients.

and this is what I advertised to get clients in my community. The thing is, at this time, I was a stay-at-home mom to two little girls. I was running a little daycare out of my house, so I only had evenings and weekends to dedicate to my business. My husband was supportive in the beginning, but after people called back or emailed me back and they were like, everything's a disaster. I need you to come back and do this again for free. Not everybody did this, but a few people really did.

It didn't take long for me to realize like, wow, I don't have the time for this. I can't afford this. And my husband was getting really resentful that on evenings and weekends, he was watching the kids while I was out working for free to reorganize people's spaces. And it took a few months. we had a talk and he was like, you can't do this anymore. Like, I know you love organization. I know

you love organizing for clients, but you can't do it for free. We can't, we can't do this. We can't afford to do this. You're not spending time with me and the kids. Enough is enough. Right. And it was this sink or swim moment for me. It was this moment where I was like, I'm giving up on this dream or I'm reevaluating my business. And I didn't want to take back what I had said to people. and like, well, it changed my mind. I know I said I was going to organize it for free, but I'm not anymore. So I had to really ask myself, why?

Why is it not staying tidy for certain people? And I'll never forget I had one lawyer client. And at the time, this is right after Jo and I had this conversation, she called me, this was like the third time I was going back to her space. And it was like, it was a make it a break it moment for me. I walked into her house. I was organizing her office. I knew she was really detailed. Like, like listen, she wanted everything in million, gazillion, tiny category. She wanted binder system. She wanted folders on folders on folders. She was a lawyer, but she practiced out of her home. So this was a lot of

paperwork. Okay, this was client files. This was contracts. This was even everything she'd ever read. She found inspiring. She would print it off and want the paper copy. So mountains and mountains of paper, I had filing cabinets on filing cabinets for her file boxes. We had binder systems I had created for her. And every time I would walk back into her office, everything was pulled out, not everything, but everything she was working on at the time was pulled out of the filing cabinets, taken out of the binders, and spread on all of her surfaces. So her desk, the floor, she had this little cure, like the,

the table with all the drawers for filing cabinets underneath. That was spread with papers. And it was neat piles, but it was everywhere. And I had to ask myself, okay, why is she taking everything out of this hidden storage? And why is she not putting it back when she's done? And so I just asked her, why are you spreading like this? And for the first time I was really listening to the client and not assuming I knew. And what she said to me was, I get really stressed out if I can't see this stuff. These are the papers I'm working on. These are current clients.

These are current contracts. This is current things I'm just like even projects I'm working on. I don't want it in binders. I don't want it in filing cabinets. I want to see these papers. And that was such a light bulb moment for me. I realized instantly that she needs visual storage. She's a visual organizer.

And so we ditched the whole idea of tons of binders, which are hidden, and ditched the idea of a lot of filing cabinets for current workload, for current paper. And we did Florida ceiling magazine racks on her wall. So vertical filing systems just covered a whole wall in her office with these vertical paper system. So instead of stacking the papers on her desk, she could just stack them on the wall in this vertical storage system. And we labeled each of the little pockets for her to slide things in with the current contracts or the current clients. And we used chalkboard labels so she could easily, like, as her clients changed, she could file that one when she was done away in a hidden

space and then have a new one that she could relabel. And I would know. I would know. never want this. As a hidden organizer myself, I found this very visually stressful. Too much stimulation, too much to look at. But she was ecstatic. She was so over the moon excited about this and I never heard from her again, which is like, listen, that's a sign of success. That's when I really realized that there are visual organizers and hidden. And I had to know. I had to be able to know, their style before I started organizing so that they didn't call me back and have me organize again for free. So I started looking around people's homes. And this lawyer's home was in, like I should have known. I walked into her house. She didn't have a closet. She had an open mud room

with hooks and cubbies for her shoes. She'd actually taken down a lot of kitchen cabinets in her kitchen and had open storage. The front of her fridge was full of reminders and to-does. she was so incredibly visual it should have been like obvious in an instant but now it is because now I know so this is exactly how I diagnose somebody let's walk through the process of what I do when diagnosing someone's organizing style so that you can diagnose yourself and it's really fun to diagnose other people too so when you're walking into their home so let's just jump in, I step into somebody's front door. And the first thing I do is I try to rule out one organizing style. So I take a look around. I should preference this by saying, I always ask clients not to

clean before I come. Do not tidy. Because everybody can, like that defeats the purpose. every organizing style can quickly hide stuff and tidy up and make it look really clean. So it's important for me to diagnose you can't do this. We can't tidy before I come. And so look at your own home as it is on a daily basis or friends and family, not as it is when they've cleaned for company, but how does it look just everyday life? So I'll walk in someone's home. and the first thing I look for is do they have things on their surfaces? Do they have piles of things they need to deal with?

Do they have stacks of paperwork? Do they have kind of this dumping zone when they first come in? That's like a hodgepodge of everything. Is the front of their fridge covered in stuff? Is it really, can I see a lot of their daily living items? Or is it hidden away? And if I can see, it doesn't happen. I'm not talking about mess. I'm talking about just daily living. Do they have things like spread out on the dining room table? Are their kitchen counters kind of like full of stuff? This is normal for most organizing styles, but not for a ladybug. And so if I see this right off the bat, if I see a lot of visual clutter, I know that they're not a ladybug. I know that they're not a ladybug. I can rule out ladybug. Now, if I see a really tidy space, I can't immediately say that they are a

ladybug because any organizing style can be tidy. But I can rule out a ladybug if they have a lot of visual stuff because ladybugs really get anxious by having a lot of visual clutter and they're going to hide it even for themselves. Not just for like companies coming and quickly. I have to hide everything. everybody can do that. But for a ladybug, visual clutter stresses them out personally. So even without tidying, even without cleaning, you're not going to see a lot of stuff spread out on their surfaces. So that's step one. The first thing I do is try to rule out ladybug. Now, if it is a really tidy space, I don't know what organizing style they are. And even if they do have a lot of stuff kind of spread, I still don't know what their style is until I dig a little deeper.

So the first thing, I can rule that Ladybug if they've got stuff all over their surfaces. And now I dig a little deeper. I'm trying to identify if they're detailed or non-detailed. And I do this by going in their kitchen and opening up the drawers that they use often. Not their cutlery drawer because everybody has a cutlery drawer that like separates fork spoons, right? But I will open their drawer where they have the big.

like their spatulas and they're stirring spoons and their potato masher. If this is a hodgepodge and everything's tangled together, they're probably not detailed. But if it's set, I'm not talking about drawer dividers. They don't have to have organizing systems. But if there's some semblance of zoning going on here, if they've opened this drawer and they've stopped and they've looked and they've kind of corralled spatulas together or spoons together in some form of zoning, they're probably a detailed person. But just to confirm, I'll open the junk drawer or the utility drawer too. Are the pens kind of all together? Are the tools kind of all grouped together? Again, it doesn't have to look perfect. This isn't what we're looking for. We're looking for a moment of detail, a stop and think

before tossing it away. Are they doing this? And next I'm looking at the shoes. So I kind of look at these three areas to decide if someone's detailed or not. Their own personal shoes when they walk in the door, it doesn't matter if they're putting it in a closet or on a shelf, but are they set neatly side by side together or are they tossed off? Are they kicking them off? or are they taking time to take them off and put them detailed away? Like put them neatly, even if it's on the floor, are they lining up the shoes? Not when company's coming, but when they get home. If the answer is yes, they're probably a detailed person. So this is what we do. We're hunting. We're playing detective. We're sneakly looking in all of these hidden places to determine

whether they're taking time to even a second, whether they're taking a few seconds to think and put something back in categories, or are they not thinking at all and just dropping stuff as they go and tossing it when they're done and kicking their shoes off? Because I am a non-detailed person. I just kick my shoes in the heap. I do not take the time to put things neatly unless I've set up a system inside where like the pens go here and it's caught in a drawer divider. And so it's nuanced. I'm not going

to lie. You kind of have to dig and really look, but it becomes pretty obvious whether this person is detailed or not. Now, if they live with a family and there's a lot of different organizing styles, this can be a little bit difficult because if many people are using the space, How do you know? How do you know? But we can again go another layer by asking the person that you're organizing for, do you use a daily planner? Are you a detailed person who takes time to really break down things into smaller chunks naturally? And if the answer is yes, they're a detailed person. But we also, of course, have to take into account if we're organizing for the space, everybody's organizing so. But what I'm talking about now is just diagnosing one individual person.

So this is the type of stuff that I'm looking for. So I've ruled out whether they're a ladybug or not, right? But they could still be a ladybug if their spaces are really tidy. And so the next step is we're diagnosing whether they're a detailed or non-detailed person. So once you know if this person, is a detailed or non-detailed person, then we move to the next step, which is I'm diagnosing whether they're visual or not. And the first thing I look at is the front of the fridge. Does it have a lot of photos and mementos? I'm looking for their everyday used items like the spatula, like the toaster, like those things. Are they out on the counter or are they taking time to sort of tuck those away. I'm looking for their coat. I'm looking for their shoes.

Are they out? Are they on hooks? Is it visual? Where is their purse? Or are they taking time to put it behind closed doors? Now, this visual, non-visual is really difficult if someone has a very small space and a lack of storage. They could have no other choice than to be visual, even if they don't want to, because they literally do not have a closet or do not have a place for that to go. So use your own judgment here, but do a walkabout and look, the kitchen is a great way to really identify somebody's organizing style because a hidden organizer generally will tuck things out of sight if they have space to do it, whereas a visual organizer will almost always leave things out.

If you're not sure, head to the bathroom. I head to the bathroom. This can always tell me someone's organizing style. If their bathroom products are out on the counter or on an open shelf, if they're everyday used bathroom products are visual, they're a visual organizer. If they're leaving out their favorite face wash, if they're leaving out whatever, like their hair things that they use every day, if it's out on the counter, nine times out of 10, they're a visual organizer.

If their kitchen counter, I mean, if their bathroom counter is cleared off, nine times out of 10, they're a hidden organizer. So these are the key areas that I look to when diagnosing. Before we talk more about how to diagnose your organizing style, without the quiz, I have to thank today's sponsor, Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh is a meal delivery service that I am pretty obsessed with. I absolutely love it. I treat myself to Hello Fresh because I don't always have to go to the grocery store. I don't have to decide what's for dinner. And I don't have to come up with these recipes. These are chef-inspired, incredible recipes delivered right to my door. Everything is already set out for me with step-by-step picture. instructions. It's kind of like a cooking class and all of the ingredients all already pre-portioned. I'm just putting it together. I'm gaining so much confidence in the kitchen. I feel like I've never

been great at cooking, but HelloFresh is making it easier for me. So instead of takeout or sandwiches or spaghetti for the 15th time, I have over 40 incredible recipes to choose from with Hello Fresh. and they're seasonal and they're farm fresh right from the farm to my door. You've got to give this a try. It's actually a lot less money than you think. Take something off your plate. Treat yourself to HelloFresh. Right now, my listeners can save up to 50% off using my promo code. Go to hellofresh.com. Use the promo code Clutter pod 50 to save 50% and get free shipping on your first box. That's hellofresh.com clutter pod 50 to get 50% off and free shipping on your first box. Okay, so let's talk more about diagnosing your organizing style because this is tough. It's tough for a number of reasons. One, you can't put everybody into four categories. We know this with the Hogwarts thing.

Everybody's different. And you might be a little bit of this in one room and a little bit of this over here, or you might just not fit into a category at all. And that's fine. It doesn't matter. That's not what this is about. This is about just having more self-awareness and how you naturally manage your stuff. And so you can create a system that kind of catches your clutter the way you normally put it down. That end stop. And it's important to really know the people who live with you a little bit better too. so your spouse and your kids and have more, I don't know, understanding, more empathy. Realize that your husband is not throwing his dirty clothes on the floor because he doesn't respect

you. Maybe he's doing it because the laundry hamper is in the closet and he doesn't see it and he's visual. So he's not thinking. He's not thinking about it. He's just thinking I want these dirty clothes off and his brain has moved on to something else. So what we do is we move the laundry hamper out. we take the lid off and we put it near where he's naturally piling his dirty clothes. We adapt our home to match how we naturally touch our stuff. And it's not going to be perfect. We still have to create new habits and learn how to use new systems. But at least now we don't have to go against the grain.

We don't have to change our brain and learn new habits. We can change, we can, we can learn new habits that complex. We can design systems that sort of, yeah, they feel easier because they're working with our natural style. And oftentimes I get asked, I get, oh, this is really cute. It's like, well, I'm not sure. And what's the best thing? And I could do this and I'm a little bit of this. And I just want to know for sure. And I want to know exactly what my organizing style is so I know exactly what product to buy so I can have it all visualized exactly what it's going to look like. And I'm like, well, you're a beer, cricket.

Like, you are 100% an overthinker, an over-annual analyzer, an over-researcher. Your little brain's going a mile a minute. And you want to put everything in categories. You're trying to put yourself into little categories. You want this level of perfection before you even start because your brain is a naturally detailed, categorized, planning, perfectionist brain. We know that. That's you. So we know that you're a bee or a cricket, hands down. And then we can kind of go a little further and look around and see if your visual are hidden. Now, everybody says, everybody says, I don't want to see my clutter.

That's not what visual and hidden means. Nobody wants to see mess. A visual organizer doesn't love clutter. They don't love seeing everything, but they do want to see their important everyday things because it's out of sight, out of mind. And subconsciously, they know this. So they're leaving things out anyways. And if you're going to leave it out anyways, you might as well create a visual home that you find beautiful and aesthetically pleasing that's close to where you're naturally piling so that now you don't have mess, you have visual organization. Right? Let's let's know yourself. Let's, let's not try to fight your natural tendencies. Let's complement them with a system that works. And visual organization can be beautiful.

If you're looking behind me, go shelving, go high. We can store your things in a visual way. Use hooks. Use wall organizers. A command center can be beautiful. It can look like part of of your decor. If you've got stacks of paper all over your surfaces, I don't care what artwork you have on the wall, take it down and get some beautiful wall organizers for your paper that you find aesthetically pleasing. That looks like art, but it's also functional. Let's create a home that you are able to keep tidy naturally. That's what this is all about. We're not overthinking this. The first step is understanding yourself and why maybe you're struggling and give yourself some grace and give yourself some permission to not have things the way society is telling you your home should look,

but instead a system that works for you. Okay. So that's step one is knowing yourself. You can take the quiz if you want, but hopefully listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, you've got some ideas of what your organizing style is. So the next step is not jumping in and going and buying a bunch of organizing products, even though we want to because that's really fun. That is not the next step. The next step is decluttering. The next step is removing the excess from our home.

So we can set up a system that works for us. And we're not distracted by the things that don't matter and that we're not using that are taking up space because organization, real organization does not create more room. You're not going to gain excess space by organizing. Sometimes it actually costs you some space. So we need breathing room before we even start. We cannot have every drawer, every surface, every closet shoved and crammed. We can't have piles all over the space, all over the place before we start organizing or we're never going to get organized. It's just the way it is. We have to declutter first. but I don't want you to think of decluttering as this trudge, as this, as this work, as a big mess it's

going to make. I don't want you to declutter that way. I want you instead to look at this as a journey of self-empowerment and self-love. And I want you to grab a bag or a box and not pull everything out. Don't make a mess. Don't make piles. We do not have to sort all your towels. for you to know which towel you don't need. This is about trusting yourself. So we grab a bag for donations, a bag for trash or a box. It doesn't matter. And we're hunting for things that can go.

I want you to open a drawer. And I want you to just like this pen doesn't work. Guy, gone. Rappers gone. Oh my gosh. Why do I have this old paper gone? We're not sorting into lots of papers. We're just looking for the obvious things that can leave.

and I want you to open up every cabinet and I want you to open up every cupboard. You can peek and look. We're not pulling, we're not organizing. We're getting things out. And any time you come across something and you're like, oh, I should probably maybe, I don't know you don't need it. Trust yourself. And there's so much anxiety when it comes to this and decluttering because what it really comes

down to is you don't trust yourself. You know in your gut what you need and what you don't, but you're so afraid to make a mistake and do it wrong. And what if I don't really know and what if I regret it and what if? And what if I have to buy this again? And what if and what if when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, you know, you know. And you have to love yourself enough and be brave enough to trust yourself. And it's going to be scary and it's going to feel wrong because it really goes against human nature. We're supposed to hunt and gather. We're supposed to collect because what if there's a famine? Because this is how we live in the wild. This is how we survive is by collecting, but we don't live in the wild. We live in the suburbs. And there's a target around the corner.

And what's happened is we've hoarded ourselves into a hole. And now we're suffocating and drowning in our stuff because we're allowing our brain, our lizard brain, to lead us down the wrong path. And you got to get real with yourself. And you've got to push through that fear and anxiety and understand that this is an exercise of love. Because you are more important that that junk from Walmart, you are more important than those old sweaters, you are more important than those old blankets, then that salad spinner, then that melon baller. All of that crap is just crap.

It's just stuff. And you've spent money on it, but the money's gone. You are not any richer for having it in your house and you won't be poorer for letting it go. In fact, holding on to things that you're not using is stealing your space. It's stealing your valuable real estate. It's costing you. It's not giving. And until you are brave enough to trust yourself that you know what can go and actually put that stuff in the bag in the box,

you're not going to be able to break through to the other side and truly have the home that you deserve. This is work. It's hard work. It's emotional work. It's scary work. But it's worth that you are worth it. So if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're like, oh, I'm so overwhelmed and I don't know where to start. Listen to me. Please. Grab a bag, a garbage bag, and find 21 things that can leave right now. Open up the closest cabinet or drawer or closet that's to you. Open it up right now and find 21 things that can leave your house forever. No regret, no fear. Trust your gut. You got this. You got this. You have to stand up for yourself and not let your stuff control you anymore. You're taking back control of your home

and your mind and your self-worth and your self-confidence in this moment right now. And I don't care of what you find is trash. That's awesome. Maybe you have a mitten that you don't know where the other one is. It doesn't matter. Go. It's gone. Those lost socks.

Buy. Old bills, old statements. You don't need them. You know you don't need them. Fill a bag right now and repeat this and fill so many bags and so many. boxes until you finally wake up one day and you look around and you think, wow, my house looks pretty good and I didn't even clean it. That's your moment. That's your clutter threshold. That's the moment when life becomes easier because you were brave enough to let go of all the

stuff that's making it hard. You got this. I believe in you. And even if you don't believe in yourself, I want you to try anyways. I want you to stand up right now and find 21 things. And I'm going to see you back here next week for another podcast. And we're just going to keep going together. We got this. We're going to chip away until you have a house that feels effortless. Because listen, my friend, you deserve it.

We'll see you next time.