Is Your Messy Place Keeping You From Having A Relationship?

A client of mine wants to date so badly, but she is so embarrassed about her very messy home, that she can't bring herself to even seek out relationships. She also realizes that she is so difficult to live with due to her extreme disorder, that she needs to work on this first before she entertains the idea of well, entertaining.

Are you putting off a relationship due to a problem with never having a clear and clean place for someone to even come in and sit down? Well, you're not alone—okay, actually, you are probably alone—and for all the wrong reasons.

Let's fix that!

The beginning of the new year is a time to begin anew. Many people make a decision to 'get organized,' and then spend the next several weeks, or months just thinking about when they might get to it. Then it gets put off for Spring cleaning or next year!

Well, why wait??? Do you know how easy it is to actually begin? You know that the longer you wait, the more daunting the task will become, so what's wrong with right now? Today! Tonight!

What ONE thing can you do toward that end result?

• Can you sort through one pile of papers?
• Can you collect and discard trash and unneeded items from one room?
• Can you go through one drawer in your cabinet or closet?

Yes, you most certainly can! You will not have organized an entire area, but you will have made a start, and from what I have heard over the past 30+ years in the professional organizing biz—that's the hardest part: Getting Started!

So, pick a place to begin. It doesn't have to be the most practical, or the one that will provide the most relief, it just has to be the one that you can dive into and make a dent right away.

Here are some suggestions:

• Your kitchen 'junk drawer'—(when was the last time you organized that crazy space?)
• The desk drawer you work from most often—(check to see if all those pens still write)
• The laundry room cabinet—(and while you’re there, wipe down the shelf too)
• The refrigerator—(oh, and anything with an expiration date of 2014 can go now)
• The freezer—(if something in there is so frostbitten you can’t identify it any longer, let it defrost in the trash)
• Your bathroom drawer—(bring cleanser and paper towels…trust me)
• One shelf of your pantry—(the sticky one would be a good place to start)
• Your sock drawer—(find all those orphan socks and see if they have siblings yet and if not, you know what I’m saying)
• Papers—(there are surely some papers announcing things that are long over by now, so those can go)
• Plastic food storage container area—(if the lids have disappeared they're probably with all those missing socks—recycle the rest of the container now)

Once you do one area, you may be inspired to do another a different time. It feels really good to organize something, or at least it should. If you select something relatively small, you will feel accomplished and successful and that can inspire you to tackle another area.

It doesn’t have to all happen at once—you do have a life, but if you do a little each day or two, it will have a real impact and you won't feel overwhelmed. Then pick somewhere else to tackle tomorrow!