A Professional Organizer’s Sustainability Philosophy
The number one concern my clients have about decluttering and organizing is sustainability. While that might not be the case for every professional organizer’s target market, it is for mine. My clients are busy professionals, which means they’re well informed people who prioritize health and wellness in order to maximize their effectiveness at work and at home. Sustainability concerns are always top of mind.
And I’m with them! I don’t want to be contributing to carbon buildup, water waste, or environmental destruction. Plus, I absolutely hate waste. Ask my husband how militant I am about making sure all leftovers are used up!
However. I believe that there comes a point where the right thing, taken to an extreme, becomes the wrong thing. And sustainability concerns are no exception.
This is how it plays out:
The individual is concerned about sustainability. In particular, they don’t want anything from their home to go in a landfill. But not everything they want to declutter can be sold, donated, or recycled. So they decide that since they cannot declutter with sustainable perfection, they will not do it at all.
But what’s the outcome? This person doesn’t declutter, which means their home continues to fill with stuff. And all the issues they were already struggling with, from stress and overwhelm to decreased productivity, continue to get worse.
That’s why my sustainability philosophy as a professional organizer is this: do your best, with the resources you have.
This will look different for different people. Of course, there’s no excuse for throwing paper in the trash can when the recycling bin is right there, or for putting something in the garbage that is in great condition and would be a cherished find for someone at a thrift store. (And believe it or not, I have had to stop people who describe themselves as sustainability conscious from doing those things!) But if you are genuinely making a good faith effort to decrease your waste footprint, I applaud you and give you permission not to be perfect.
And please do not neglect your most precious nonrenewable resource: TIME! Time that you spend finding the perfect home for each item you no longer want is time that you can’t spend doing literally anything else in your life: parenting, reading, exercising, sleeping, you name it. And I would argue that those activities are way more important for your well being and that of your family than taking care of the last 10% of the items you decide to discard.
Just as everything else in life, balancing clutter and sustainability is a trade off. And if you want to be absolutely certain that nothing from your home goes in landfill, you can do that… but it will take a SERIOUS investment of your time, money, and energy. You will need to re-work the way you live from the ground up, from how you clean yourself and your home to how you feed your family. If you decide to do this, the good news is that there are experts who can help, and I know one of the best: Lauren West of Zero Waste Organizer. She is incredibly well informed on sustainability and can help you really, truly, keep everything out of the landfill.
I think we can all agree that sustainability is important. I’m just arguing that the pursuit of perfection will rob you of the opportunity to create an organized space you love.
LMW
