So Fresh and So Clean

Organizing – What’s great about it:

Organizing helps reduce stress, makes you feel better, gives you a fresh feeling, creates lasting results, and it’s a way to bond with your partner. Make it a priority — it’ll be worth it.

How the big O impacts our relationship:

• It brings us together and we are working towards a common goal. Organizing is a great activity for couples. You have a meeting of the minds and you work together to meet a goal. We believe this creates a strong bond between us! And it gets us communicating.
• We find common ground on what to do with items (donate, sell, or keep) and how what we keep, can be stored efficiently for both of us. 
• It gives us a chance to reminisce about the past while looking forward and making room for the future.
• It’s nice to change things up. Keeps things fun and fresh at a minimal costs. 
• Gets us away from screens and more engaged with each other and our home.

When it all started:

Back in May of 2013 when we first moved in together was our first introduction to organizing as a couple. This was a bit of a challenge. We had to pick a common theme and style of organizing and decor that fit both of our personalities. We’ve been cultivating that combined style since then and have come a long way.

Fast forward to March 2016 when we moved out of our first apartment. This was almost even more of a challenge than when we first moved in together! At this time, we had to do some major purging and needed to decide what physical things we wanted to bring with us in our next step in life. We were getting ready for married life and were thinking we might move to a new state, but not sure where. Life circumstances always have an effect on your organization habits because it will impact priorities and attachments.

How we’ve developed:

Let’s set the scene: Denver, January 2019, One bedroom apt (previously moved from a 2 bedroom), busy couple.

We had tons of storage space, but things still seemed cluttered. So we decided to Marie Kondo – essentially the idea of keeping items that bring you joy, and getting rid of the items…that do not. This was key to our organizational journey in the beginning of 2019. This was the start of our year of donating, purging, and really making organization a priority project.

Another big focus of that year was to take some time to reflect on what pain points we were having with our apartment, being intentional about where things should go, and being honest about what we’ve outgrown. There was no reason to keep living how we were just because it was the way it had been. We had the power to make the change.

We didn’t try to do this all at once, just casually when we had a day together in our apartment (aka a free weekend). They don’t come too often but when they do, we’ve taken advantage of them. We pick a space or cabinet or area of the apartment we’ve been wanting to focus on, and then just do it! We pull everything out to categorize and determine what we still want and use. Then we can put things back in the spot — or move them to a more efficient place — that fits our changing needs. 

It also helped that Kara read a very motivating book about organizing. She highly recommends. It was a library rental. Real Life Organizing: Clean and Clutter Free in 15 Minutes a Day by Cassandra Aarssen

Some Final Thoughts:

Kara finds organizing to be pretty therapeutic. It’s also addicting. You can see and feel the difference and progress. With a minimal amount of time and effort you will get maximized results. I also feel like it’s a nice affordable exciting project to do with Tim.

Tim enjoys organizing because it reduces clutter around our home. He also likes to clean because it helps him unwind. A cleaner home gives a cleaner mind. I feel like I can relax more after a good cleaning session. We consider cleaning a part of organizing, but not the whole shebang.