Professional organizers are like therapists in a lot of ways. Our relationship to our things, to our stuff is complicated. Think about items you’re holding onto that you don’t use, need or want, and then consider the feelings (guilt, shame, overwhelm, maybe even anger) that come up when faced with the task of dealing with them, and you’ll get the picture. When big feelings are involved, getting organized takes more than just putting your things in bins or drawers.
Because they take caring for their clients as seriously as they take their label-making, professional organizers are careful with their words. They strive to be gentle but firm guides and tools for people looking for solutions. But of course they would love to say some things more directly. We asked eight professional organizers to share their tough love advice for clutter problems. Here’s what they want you to know.
1. You’re buying organizing products at the wrong time
“You can’t know what you actually need until you organize first,” said Olivia Parks, the owner and lead organizer of Professional Organizer New Orleans. “But many people buy bins, baskets and other organizing products before they’ve even started sorting or decluttering, so the products just become more clutter — and you end up with even less space than you started with.”
2. You don’t know the meaning of ‘special’
“If everything is special, then nothing is,” said professional organizer Meaghan Kessman. “You can’t honor memories by stuffing them into a closet. Choose the best and let the rest go.”
3. You’re decorating with guilt
“Decorating should be a celebration,” said Matt Paxton, author of “Keep The Memories, Lose the Stuff” and host of the show “Filthy Fortunes.” “We often keep the item because we loved the person, but many times that person is no longer with us. If you are decorating with an item because you are afraid a dead person will be mad at you, that’s just silly.”
4. You will lose the weight! (The clothes still won’t fit.)
“You will lose those twenty pounds,” Marty Stevens-Heebner, the founder and CEO of Clear Home Solutions and AgeWise Alliance, said in an email. “But the clothes you’ve saved from the last time you were that weight won’t fit right. (I can personally attest to this fact.) Give them away so someone can wear them now and treat yourself to new outfits when you lose the weight.”
5. You’re biting off more than you can chew
“One of the most common mistakes I see is when people try to tackle an entire room or a huge project all at once,” Parks said. “This is almost always overwhelming, especially for beginners or those who struggle to make decisions, and it often leads to burnout or an unfinished project. Instead, start small, with one drawer or shelf at a time, and build momentum from there.”
6. You aren’t prioritizing the current version of yourself
“When your closets, cabinets and garage are crammed with who you used to be or who you might be someday, where does who you are today live?” Stevens-Heebner said. “When you let go of anything that isn’t a tool for the life you’re living now, you’ll be living in a home rather than inside a storage space. That unused treadmill, those years-old craft supplies, the dusty golf bag are not investments in your future self. They’re expensive reminders of the person you wish you were, taking up space that the extraordinary person you actually are needs to live in.”
7. You’re not considering how — and where — you actually use your things
“Stop storing things where there’s room, and start storing them where they’re used. Convenience beats chaos every time,” Kessman said.
“A lot of clutter happens because of poor placement, not laziness,” Stevens-Heebner added. “Your charging cables belong by your bed where your phone dies at night, not stashed in a kitchen drawer somewhere. Storing things where they’re actually put to use makes them easy to find and put away.”
8. You treat the surfaces in your home like purgatory
“If everything has a temporary home, then nothing has a real one,” said Grace Moser, the editor of Chasing Foxes. “The biggest organizing mistake so many people make is treating surfaces like purgatory. Give every item a final destination and put it there the first time.”
9. You make the mistake of stacking things on the floor
“If everything lives on the ground, it becomes harder to clean, harder to find what you need and easier for clutter to multiply,” said Aaron Cash, the president and co-founder of Garage Living. “Vertical storage changes everything.” Wall-mounted systems and tall cabinets, for example, lift clutter off the floor, allowing you to reclaim square footage.
10. You have a bad case of the just-in-cases
“Too often we hear people say ‘I’ll keep that just in case.’ We want to say ‘Just in case what?’ If they have not used something recently and can’t think of a time when they would use it again, it’s time to let it go,” said Allison Flinn, the founder of Reclaim Professional Organizing.
11. You don’t have a storage problem — you have a stuff problem
“Stop buying stuff to store the stuff that you can’t stop buying,” said Meghan Cocchiaro, the founder of Organized by Meg. “People are buying way too much stuff, and then buying more stuff before getting rid of the broken, outdated or otherwise unwanted stuff first. Then they buy random bins and containers for all of this stuff to store it away so that they can fit more stuff that they keep buying.” When she works with clients, Cocchiaro said she often finds herself wanting to say, “Stop buying in bulk. Stop buying impulsively. Stop buying junk. Stop buying before purging. Stop accepting stuff from others. Your home is not a storage unit.”
12. You’re too hung up on the dollar
“We hear people say ‘But it was expensive,’” Flinn said. “We want to say, ‘The money is already gone. The items can remain, taking up space even though you will never use it, or you can pass it along to someone who will use it.’”
13. You’re avoiding decision-making
“Clutter builds up when you postpone the tiny choices. Decluttering isn’t about being ruthless; it’s about being present and knowing what’s actually serving you,” Moser said.
“Decisions, not storage bins, create organization,” Stevens-Heebner said. “Buying containers before you sort is like buying a frame before you choose the art or photo to place in it. Don’t buy containers until you’ve decided what deserves a place in your space.”
14. You’re babying your adult children
“Your fully-grown adult children need to be responsible for their own things,” Stevens-Heebner added. “If your 45-year-old son’s baseball card collection is currently in a storage bin under your bed, he needs to either take it to his home, donate it or pay rent for the space it’s taking up in your home.”
15. You’re striving for perfection when you should be aiming for good enough
“Done is better than perfect. Forget Pinterest and Instagram versions of being organized, with all their color coding and pristine labeling,” Stevens-Heebner said. “The systems that last are the ones that are good enough — ones that you can manage no matter how tired or distracted you are.”
16. And one last thing … don’t you dare put that bag down!
“When you are walking into the house with a bag from a store, do not put the bag down. Always empty it and take the items to where they are supposed to go,” Paxton said. “If you put the bag down, you’ve already lost the decluttering battle.”
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and the author of the best-selling book “My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha.”
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