Hey Guys: 5 Reasons Organizing Is For You, Too!

It’s probably not going to surprise you to learn that the majority of my clients are women. After all, during much of recent history, women were generally seen as the homemakers.

But even though I am a woman and I work with women, I strongly believe that organizing is for men, too. And there are so many reasons for this that have absolutely nothing to do with a feminist agenda (although let’s be real, I definitely have one of those). Here are my 5 top reasons organizing is for everyone, including men!

1) Organizing is simple.

Organizing is logical and straightforward. You curate your belongings, sort them by category and use, and store them in a way that makes it easy to locate and use them. There’s nothing about organizing that any human being can’t manage.

2) Organizing is a skill, not a personality trait.

No one is born organized, we all have to learn how to organize over time. It’s a matter of understanding logical and straightforward organizing techniques, and incorporating those habits into your everyday life. So, if EVERYONE has to learn, then ANYONE can!

3) Organizing isn’t a female-specific skill. In fact…

On average, men have better spatial awareness than women do. And organizing is ultimately about using space wisely. So, there’s no reason to assume that women are better at organizing, and in fact, some reason to believe men may have more natural aptitude on average. On average. In my house, I’m the person who can read a map, follow directions, and put together furniture!

4) Participation in organizing gives you control over your own stuff and space.

When home organizing is done right, everyone in the household gets to control their own stuff. With responsibility clearly delineated in this way, you feel like your space is your own - not your partner’s house that you live in.

5) Participation in organizing cuts down on nagging.

When you participate in getting organized, you assert that you also have decision making power in your home. This removes your partner from the role of Organizer in Chief, and lessens the tendency she might have to nag you.

But were you wondering about my feminist agenda for getting men to participate in home organizing? Well, I’d be more than happy to share!

The pandemic is exposing cracks in contemporary straight relationships when it comes to home based tasks, especially for dual career couples. Why? Suddenly two people with the same workload can see for themselves, all day, how many hours each person is working and how many hours each person is contributing to the household. And any service providers a couple may have hired to pick up some of the slack, like housekeepers and nannies, can no longer come into the home.

We’re finding that women are overwhelmingly the ones picking up the slack in terms of cleaning, childcare, cooking, and all the other stuff we have to do at home to get our families through the day. And that’s even when the female partner has a similarly demanding, or even more demanding, work from home jobs.

So, guys, you can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution!

If you’re looking for specific organizing techniques for managing current household organizing and space sharing challenges, check out the free replay of my webinar, How To Work And School From Home… Without Losing Your Mind!

And of course, please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions!

LMW