Why Today's Women Need a Professional Organizer

We were told growing up that women could have it all. We could have the family and career, do all the things that men have traditionally been free to do, and live a happy and full life. Well, as it turns out, the way to have it all has frequently meant that women must do it all. Child duty is more than a full-time gig before you add a job and a boss and limited days off that often include time taken for sick children and doctors appointments. Kids require so much more than food and shelter and clothing. They need attention and love and patience… from parents who are worn out and run ragged. It can take superhuman strength after a busy day to work through math homework with a struggling child, endure a temper tantrum from a toddler, or argue with a child over eating dinner they don’t like when what you could really use is some quiet down time. But we love our kids and they are our top priority so we dig deep and give them our best. Women work hard at their jobs, show up when they don’t feel well, and often strive to prove to themselves and others that working moms can be just as productive as their male counterparts. Plus there’s the part where families require the paycheck that mom brings home. Then we throw in a home that needs cleaning, laundry that never ends, people who require meals and nutrition, kids activities that require chauffeuring (and spectating!), groceries that don’t buy themselves, constant bills, school events and emails, websites and apps for every aspect of life, enough passwords to fill a book, and birthdays and holidays and all that come with them…. God forbid you want to exercise, coach your child’s team, or join the PTA. And heaven help you if your child has any extra challenges. How can anyone expect to cover so much ground and still find time for sleeping? I have often asked myself this in difficult periods of my life as a mom and answering that question has become my life's business. 

As a child I danced and played sports, but never was my schedule the kind of packed and overwhelming mission that is what we see today. While there is most definitely room for a debate over the intensity of children’s sports today, including the fact that increasing commitment and prices creates a greater inequality in opportunities for children between upper and lower class families, I will instead focus today on ways in which organization can improve the current rat race many of us find ourselves living in. 

Let’s start off at the beginning of your day. Being organized can take a morning from one that involves hurried or missed breakfasts, nagging and yelling, forgetting of homework or gear, and high levels of cortisol rushing through our bodies to one that is calm, enjoyable, prepared, and complete with a hug and kiss out the door. Being organized REDUCES STRESS. Knowing where things are, knowing what is on the agenda for the day, knowing what is expected of us, eating a peaceful breakfast, and giving ourselves enough time to do all that needs to get done are ways that we can start our day off on the right foot. Coming home and knowing where our belongings get put away, kids understanding a routine for activities and homework, dinner being prepped or at least planned, a place for kids to tackle homework, and most importantly specific files for all of the papers of the day from graded tests to mail to permission slips to party invitations. Life is not going to slow down for you to fish through piles on the counter and you certainly shouldn’t have to find time to buy more of something you need simply because you have no idea where you put it. Create stations, put a system in place, and follow through. You will never look at the time put into this as being wasted when your mornings and evenings transform and your stress level comes down.

Secondly, being organized SAVES US MONEY! How many times have you had to buy something when you know you already have one simply because you cannot figure out where in your home it could be? How many trips have you made to the grocery store this week and how much food in your fridge has been wasted? Money out the door. How many nights did you have to resort to take-out because there was either nothing planned or nothing prepped to feed all those mouths? Expensive. Do you have trouble getting rid of things that you don’t use or need so you find yourself buying more bins or organizational products at the store? Running up the credit card. Do you seem to get whacked with late fees for not paying bills on time? Such a frustrating and unnecessary expense. On the other hand, being organized frees up time and brain function that allows us to work more efficiently thus potentially making more money. I bet you didn’t realize how much disorganization costs you!

Next I want to emphasize how much organization SAVES YOU ENERGY. Every single one of us, no matter our powers of organization, has days or weeks when we are running the race from behind. We got sick or overwhelmed or overbooked or our kids were sick and things didn’t get done and life had the audacity to just keep charging on. So there are piles to go through, laundry to catch up on, and life to jump back into. But if you feel like you are always behind, always in a rush, never prepared, always searching for things, missing deadlines, forgetting events, feeling depressed, missing out, and just feel completely exhausted from existing in this state, then this paragraph is for you. Running a race from behind each day takes an enormous amount of energy from us before we even begin to talk about the energy that we drain from ourselves through the negative self-talk that ensues. We decide that we must just be this kind of person that can’t get organized and doesn’t have it all together. We label ourselves a “hot mess”. The damage we do to ourselves emotionally as we compare ourselves to other people is a big part of today’s mental distress. And so after thoroughly haranguing yourself, you decide to get organized. But the state of things seems daunting because there are so many closets to go through, piles to sort, and spaces to think through. Your energy feels low before you even begin and it is both physical and emotional in nature. Once on the other side of this battle, in a life where all of your belongings have a home in your house and there is a procedure for the busy pieces of life moving steadily through it, your energy will belong to you instead of your messes. Instead of searching for something for an hour, you locate it in a minute. Instead of spending a Sunday morning going through papers all over your kitchen you deal with the day’s papers in five minutes. Instead of taking a week off once a year to “tackle” the closets or garage, you simply maintain what is already orderly and remember to get rid of something each time you acquire something new. Energy. It might be our most valuable resource as moms today.

Hand in hand with energy, organization saves us TIME. Let’s face it. There simply isn’t enough time in the day for all of the things we need to do, let alone want to do. Becoming a master time manager is really the only way to be successful in all parts of our lives. This is organization at its finest. While we are saving energy when we don’t have to search our house for an item, we are also saving ourselves precious minutes in our day that can be used for so many other and more beneficial activities. Not having to dedicate large amounts of time on the weekend to cleaning the neglected garage or bedroom closets packed to the max means time to spend with your kids making memories that the garage can’t offer. Multiple sources estimate that the average American spends 55 minutes per day looking for things they know they own, but cannot find. That’s roughly 12 days a year that you could have worked out, relaxed, made a memory, wrote an article, or countless other things. That’s also at least one year of our lives lost to clutter. So chronic disorganization is a massive time sucker of major proportions.

Another benefit of being organized is that it makes you more SOCIAL! Think about it. When your home is a disaster you don’t want to invite people over because you fear someone might judge you. You might want to throw a fun party, but the thought of doing so means you will have to clean up by a certain date which then gives you anxiety so you opt not to. Worrying about how clean or organized our home is is the 5th most common stress trigger for Americans according to the Huffington Post. And this worry carries with us when we leave our home as well. It affects our confidence level and this in turn affects how we socialize with others. Maybe you want to go out with with a friend for drinks, but you’re too bogged down with things like locating your son’s hand-me-downs that you just KNOW you have somewhere, buying a present for that party you forgot is tomorrow, or catching up on a week’s worth of laundry that you couldn’t make time for last week. Being organized frees you up for time to be social and enjoy yourself. Have you ever missed a social event because you completely forgot about it or missed an opportunity because you failed to note the deadline? Who knew that the effects of clutter in our house could follow us around all day?

The most important and all encompassing way that organization improves our lives is through our HEALTH. It has been proven, but certainly doesn’t need much convincing, that organized people take better care of themselves. After all, they have more time and energy to do so! They sleep better, eat better, and feel more positively about themselves. Clutter increases depression which tends to increase consumption of junk food and people who live in cluttered homes are 77% more likely to be overweight, according to Wayt Nutrition. People who sleep in cluttered rooms tend to have more sleep problems. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 80% of our medical expenses are related to stress which clutter greatly contributes to. People in cluttered spaces have more difficulty concentrating which affects our school and work lives and our overall productivity. It only follows that living in an organized space leads to improved health, weight loss, quality sleep, higher levels of concentration, efficiency in our school and professional lives, and a healthy self-image.

The last benefit, one near and dear to my heart, is the one that an organized home can bestow to our children. Children enjoy routines right from the beginning because knowing what to expect is a most secure feeling for a little person. Living with organization can assist them with problem solving skills, focus, priority setting, following directions, gathering information, and even with their math skills. Being strong in any of these areas undoubtedly leads to self-confidence in one’s abilities and coping skills when faced with overwhelming situations academically, socially, and personally. I have personally watched each of my four very different children embrace the systems of organization in our home (at their own speeds) and then create others for themselves whether in their rooms, their studies, or in their imaginary play. It’s not simply about keeping our things in order, but keeping our thoughts in order. A little organized mind leads to a bigger one. Being an organized role model exemplifies to children how a person can be in control of themselves and their lives. Even as adults this is a feeling and state of being that we all tremendously crave. And shouldn’t our kids see the women in their lives as confident, capable, healthy people who exhibit command over themselves and their environment?

So as I sit here ranting about the benefits of organization, I bring it back to the question I asked at the beginning, which is “how can anyone expect to cover so much ground”? The answer is two-fold. We need to get organized and we need to learn to delegate more. I have shown how getting organized can offer us a life of good health, reduced stress, more time, more energy, a healthy self-image, an enhanced social life, and added skills for our children. But what about all that chaos going on in our lives and all of the balls in the air? Delegation. Many of today’s women have learned to hire help for those gaps that need filling such as childcare, cleaning services, grocery deliveries, and now professional organizers. A major challenge for today’s women who were raised in a society that told us we could have it all is to acknowledge that we are not responsible for doing it all. Spouses should be sharing responsibilities, but not all situations are the same. Add to this the single mom one-woman-show that is the reality in many households. Delegating to a professional will never mean that we are doing less or not “having it all”, but instead it means that we have done the work of figuring out where our time is best served and making the most of our lives. Hiring a professional organizer to help you organize your spaces and your family’s routines might be the biggest power play of all. My job is not simply to help you sort and make things pretty, it is about finding ways to streamline chaos and create solutions that will be maintained long after I leave. 

I have had periods of my life where I too labeled myself “a hot mess”. It is through my own personal experiences and lessons learned that I offer my services to you. What I could have used at those times was both an organizer and a “healer”. We must let go of the pressure to do and be it all. Give yourself a pat on the back, hold your head high, and never tell yourself that you are anything less than incredible. After all, to be a woman today is to feel the weight of the gender responsibilities of the past while simultaneously bringing to life the ideals of the future. The name The Hot Mess Healer gives everyone a chuckle, but to me it is about a journey that every one of us must make. Book a consult today. I'm here for you, lady.

#plymouthma #plymouthfamilies # massachusettsmoms #capecodlife @capecodliving #americashometown #capecod #southshorema #americashometownmagazine #feministmom #mompreneur #workingmomma #workingmomproblems #workingmomlifebalance