Friends,

Recently a professional organizer visited my house and office.

We went room to room.

In each space, I told her what worked for me and what didn’t.

She listened carefully for thirty minutes.

Then, in nine words, she told me everything I was doing wrong:

“Right now,” she said, “you have lots of things without homes.”

***

Homes, in organizing parlance, aren’t places people live.

They’re places things live.

Bookshelves, shoe racks, and filing cabinets, for example.

Folders, cupboards, and containers.

Bins, boxes, caddies, and drawers.

In an organized environment, there’s a home for everything.

When you want something, you go to its home to get it.

When you’re done with that thing, its home is where you put it back.

***

The alternative, as the professional was telling me, was my house.

Ninety percent of things—our cups and flour, car keys and bike pump, reference books and bath towels—had set homes.

Ten percent didn’t, though.

Our sunglasses, table salt, iPad, and big plastic refill bottle of liquid soap.

Boots, hairbrushes, magazines, and mail.

New books.

Countless clothes worn once—and we wanted to wear again before washing.

All this stuff was just “out”—somewhere.

Simultaneously taking up space and hard to find.

***

Since that visit, I’ve been listing things in my house without homes.

I’ve filled three legal pad pages.

I’m sure I’ll fill several more.

The goal is less stuff, more space, order, and ease.

When I’m finished, everything on the list will get a home—or get tossed.

Then I’ll review existing homes, improve those, and cull again.

And the same principle—finding homes for what matters—is resonating well beyond liquid soap.

My thoughts, feelings, relationships, and activities are all “stuff,” too.

What’s running now through my head and heart?

Who do I see and what do I do, day by day?

Is there space on my calendar for regular contemplation, connection, and action?

If not, who or what’s interrupting or distracting me, leading me into reactivity, or otherwise tripping me up?

In short: how homey am I, inside and out?

Have I chosen my life—and does everything I want in it have a place to live?

***

I’ll keep exploring these questions.

And sharing what comes up from my inner and outer organizing.

In the meantime, if you care to share, too, let me know a few of your missing homes.

I’ll reply with a relevant resource, including my personal top takeaways from four different organizing books.

Whether you write me or not, know that we don’t have to feel buried by things we don’t want, or distant from things we do.

Enjoy this body, this mind, this space, and this time.

Coming clean—

Jeremy