The Clutter Connection | Cassandra Aarssen | TEDxWindsor

messy chaotic lazy these are the three words that defined me for as long as I can remember given to me by parents teachers society itself they affected every aspect of my life from my finances to the way my home looked and my perception of myself I've struggled with organization since I was little I was that kid whose homework would be a dirty crumpled little ball in the bottom of my backpack or lost completely when I cleaned my room it was like kicking and shoving and hiding everything under the bed from the moldy food in my locker to the harsh criticisms from adults in my life one thing was really clear I was a disaster by the time I hit my adult years I just resigned to the fact that I sucked at maintaining order lots of little details lots of categories this isn't my thing I'm a big-picture thinker so all of those little details would fall by the wayside this is how my brain works big messy chaotic ideas and that translated into a big chaotic mess everywhere my stuff was everywhere my apartment in my 20s was like a TLC special kind of bad and no matter how many times I cleaned it it would be a mess again a few days later something so simple that seemed so easy for everyone else was so hard for me it was broken inside of me despite my crazy messiness I met a wonderful guy we got married we had adorable tiny babies but this is where my chronic disorganization got really real because little tiny humans come with an obnoxious amount of stuff and my whole house look like Toys R Us had just vomited onto the floor if it was raining out side good luck finding an umbrella under a mountain of shoes in the closet if I had to pay a bill I had to look in every kitchen drawer to find where I had shoved my papers I was always late I could never find anything and I felt like a failure as a mom and a wife I bought every organizing book you guys.i I read every magazine I bought every organizing product I possibly could I spent a bazillion dollars on filing cabinets and pretty matching containers and I'll never forget the first time I organized my bathroom closet with these pretty little pink containers with matching pink labels and I sorted everything like pain relievers and antacids and allergy medications and it was Pinterest level beautiful for about a week because every time I use something when it went when I went to put it back my brain would look at all those little pretty stacked containers and be like nope not today and I would shove it and throw it and you know kick it into the closet why why did I not take the time to stop and put things away properly why didn't I take that one second to open the lid and put it away I don't know and my assumption about myself is the same assumption that you're all making about me right now super lazy person so after 30 years of living like a complete and utter super slob one trip to the dollar store it changed my life forever I was walking down the aisles and I had an epiphany I saw all of these big dish pans it was big plastic dollar dish pans and I thought I could organize using these so I came home and I reorganized that bathroom closet that was the bane of my existence and I dumped everything out into this big dollar store dish pan and I labeled it medicine I had one for extra bathroom products I had one for first-aid everything inside was a little jumbled instead of lots of micro categories I opted for a big macro category instead and no lids because who has time for lids right and this is where the magic came in the next time I needed an aspirin because I have three kids and headaches are thing I knew to look in the medicine bin but when it came time to put it away I could just chuck it and it would go right back into that medicine bin no stopping no thinking no details from my brain to deal with slightly chaotic macro categories to complement how my brain works and so I replicated this macro system throughout my entire home I reorganized everything into dollar store dish pans but here's the thing everything was staying tidy and organized for good so this is the part where I thought I was a super genius I thought that I was an organizing genius because my husband is a traditional organizer he has no problem putting things away he likes details he prefers lots of categories but that does not work for my brain so I thought that there were two organizing styles the traditional detailed micro organizer and the fast simple macro organizer and with my new insight I started helping friends and family and eventually clients transform their lives with this less organized macro approach I had chronically messy clients who were forever changed organizing using this less organized approach and everything was amazeballs for a while I had a client a lawyer brilliant she owned her own practice she had little kids she was so busy and she hired me to organize her home this and when I walked in I feel better about myself because there was paper clutter everywhere she the floor that you couldn't see her desk I don't know how she worked there was piles of paper everywhere and she had filing cabinets but they were empty so my assumption is she's just like me she's a macro organizer and the reason she wasn't putting her papers away is because she needed a fast easy quick approach and filing cabinets don't work for us so I sorted her papers into big categories one of her past clients one for you know future clients current clients bills that need to be paid bills that have been paid in big labeled baskets she was horrified she was so horrified she said how am I gonna find anything this isn't really organized but I assured her that this less organized macro approach would take her a few extra seconds to find the paper she needed but she was gonna save that time every time she put it away and obviously putting it away was her issue it was so confident that I told her if it didn't work that I would come back and reorganize it for free and a week later she called and it wasn't working I went back to her home and she had pulled everything out of those baskets and made millions of tiny piles all over the place again and she said to me I need details I need order I need lots of categories I need to know where everything is so she is a micro organizer so I set her up a traditional organizing system in her filing cabinets I spent days and days sorting and putting things into alphabetical order and color coding her files and labeling my face off it was a nightmare can we just say it was a nightmare for me but I knew it would work for her and her perfectionist a type detailed micro brain and I told her again if this does not work for you call me and I'll come back and organize it for free why do I say these things I don't know and she called and when I came back I was devastated she had pulled everything out of the file cabinets and just spread it all over the place again made piles on the floor and on the desk but she was devastated too she said to me I don't know what's wrong with me I just can't bring myself to put this back in the filing cabinet spreading and piling it's just what comes naturally to me my initial reaction about this hard-working brilliant woman was that she was lazy and that's the same assumption I made about my own inability to conform to this traditional organizing system and that's when it hit me she wasn't lazy or messy she organized differently she was a visual organizer for her it was out of sight out of mind so she didn't want to put her things in a filing cabinet because subconsciously she was afraid that she would forget that she had them so without even thinking she was piling and spreading her papers everywhere so she always knew where they were so we set her up a visual system that's a girl happy about organizing right there a visual system and we hung papers orders all over her walls and we had bulletin boards and places where she could still color code and put all of her files in alphabetical order her entire wall was filled with file folders and it was visual overload for my brain but she was ecstatic and she called me a week later and this time it wasn't to reorganize her office again it was to organize the rest of her home she hired me and we started in her kitchen and we took down all of her upper cabinets and installed open floating shelves so she could see her stuff and still have it really micro organized she put her spices in alphabetical order who does that micro organizers do that that's who does that but she was so happy no longer struggling with mess and clutter because she had found and discovered her organizing style and she was forever changed and so is I for me and so many others the inability to use traditional organizing methods that's a system failure not a personal one I've discovered that there are in fact four distinct very different organizing styles B's like my lawyer client there are visual organizers they have to see their stuff but they love detailed micro organization lots of categories so pegboards lots of hooks file folders and organizers on the walls work for them then there's a ladybug like me we like hidden storage all of our things out of sight but we need fast easy simple macro systems so we can toss and throw our stuff away but have it go into little compartments so it stays organized so open baskets lots of drawer dividers next we have a butterfly who's a visual organizer they again it's out of sight out of mind so they have to see their stuff or they're gonna forget about it but they need macro solutions too so fast easy simple solutions like big clear containers lots of labels lots of hooks and shelving for days I want you to take a look at your own home in your own clutter and I want you to ask yourself are you struggling because you're trying to use a system that is not designed for your brain is your challenge that you and your family members organize in completely different ways are you labeling your child as messy because they fail to adhere to traditional organizing systems I now have the privilege of helping hundreds of thousands of people all over the world get organized for good just by knowing themselves better I took my biggest weakness and turned it into my greatest strength me I'm running an organizing business it's insane right it's crazy if you struggle with clutter I want you to remember you are not messy you just organized differently [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 305,467

Rating: 4.9277654 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Design, Behavior, Behavorial economics, Business, Environment, Productivity

Id: YkGEeWt5H94

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019