How I Became a Home Organizer
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My foray into home organizing began long before Marie Kondo arrived on the scene and made decluttering an American past-time.
My earliest memory of home organizing stems from when I was four years old and returning home from vacation. I vividly remember flying back and thinking only of how excited I was to look at…wait for it..my sock and tights drawer! Riveting stuff, I know!
Most kids might be excited to sleep in their own bed again, or greet their long-lost pet, but not me! I was mostly excited to check out the cool new ways I could organize my Looney Tunes tights and Arielle the Mermaid Socks.
Growing up, I relished tidying my room and doing my chores, when most of my peers groaned at the thought of making their beds and putting their books and toys away. I enjoyed even more the satisfying whoosh my smelly marker made from checking an item off my to-do list.
It’s accurate to say that organizing has been a true source of satisfaction for me, but also a pure necessity. From a young age, if there was ever any form of clutter in my midst, I wouldn’t be be able to do my homework. The same holds true today. In order to write or work without distraction, my desk must be free of clutter. That means only my laptop, water, and a notebook and pen can stick around.
One might say that I’m hypersensitive to my environment, and you wouldn’t be wrong. If anything, I have certainly dialed down my sensitivity over the years. There were times in my teenage years when I would have a full-blown meltdown (blame it on those hormones) if my nanny so much as moved my Lancome juicy tubes one inch.
My need for order and tidiness has remained fixed throughout the years, and it was only in college that I realized what came completely naturally to me had other people genuinely flummoxed.
For instance, in college, my best friend had more clothes strewn on her bed than hanging in her closet, and took to sleeping on her futon in the common room to avoid dealing with her tangle of clothes. I voluntarily offered to organize her room (an offer which she found odd), and excitedly began hanging up her clothes and organizing them according to color and clothing type.
“You’re really good at this!” she exclaimed. “I know!” I said. And then I put the whole closet organizing thing to rest, all the while wondering deep down what I would ever do with this unique talent and passion of mine.
After a decade clacking away on my keyboard, writing about beauty products, restaurants, beauty treatments, and everything in between, I was itching for something more hands-on and fulfilling. Around the same time, I offered to help organize my cousin’s closet before a pending move. She was flabbergasted by the speed and excitement at which I tore through her closet, and with that, a seed was planted again.
Soon after, I quit my hopelessly mind-numbing job in beauty strategy and copywriting to found my business, Neatly. I haven’t looked back since. I love transforming peoples’ homes with a little bit of decluttering and rearranging. Sometimes we’ll go take a field trip to the Container Store and sometimes we won’t. Sometimes I’ll lean on the principles of Feng Shui to guide a home organizing process and other times less so. I love that with home organizing, there are infinite tools at my disposal and each project is unique.
While I don’t expect anyone to be as hyper-organized as I am, my hypersensitivity is a useful filter for quickly addressing problems in other peoples’ spaces. I delight in Salvation Army drop-offs the way someone might enjoy a shopping spree at Bergdorf’s. I find spinning a Lazy Susan in kitchen cabinet thoroughly thrilling. I take comfort in neatly lining up shoes along a shoe rack and color-coordinating clothing in a closet.
I believe that a neat home makes a neat mind, and that when you don’t have to think about where your keys have disappeared to this time, you can focus on other, more exciting thoughts. Like..what’s for dinner? Or..I think I’ll run a bath! When your home is decluttered and tidy, it works for you and not the other way around. I think this is the ultimate form of luxury, and I love creating spaces that run themselves.
If that makes me a neat freak, then I’ll take it!