Amanda Sullivan - Organised Enough: The Anti-Perfectionists Guide to Getting – and Staying – Organised

A friendly, down-to-earth guide that takes the stress out of organizing. Forget perfection Amanda shows how a few good habits can bring more serenity to your life.

Francine Jay, author of The The Joy of Loy of Less:

A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify

If youre looking to clean up but not clean out, if you want to declutter but dont want to throw out eighty per cent of your stuff, if you want to be able to find matching socks in the morning but dont want a colour-coded sock drawer, youve come to the right place.

Organised Enough offers a ground-breaking, science-driven method for getting and staying organised. Amanda Sullivan, professional organiser to the stars, uses a proven approach to teach you the lifelong habits of the organised, showing you how to make cleaning up effortless and automatic. Youll find out how to:

• Sort the stuff from the sentimental
• Become a paper-filing ninja
• Cultivate consistency, not chaos
• Set up systems that can run on autopilot
• Let go of guilt and start enjoying your home
• and more

With seven concepts to help you define your goals and seven essential habits to keep chaos and clutter at bay, you will learn to reframe how you think about your space, your stuff and your life.

PART I
Getting Organized: How to Think Differently

PART II
Staying Organized in the Real World

Habit: Take Inventory

Habit: Block Out Time

Habit: Do a Last Sweep

Habit: Set Limits on Stuff

Habit: Buy Less but Better

Habit: Ten-Minute Maintenance

Habit: Cultivate Consistency

Coco was ready to change. A striking woman, Coco is an actor, playwright, and film editor. After years of being a starving artist, she was now actually making money, but she wasnt really feeling in control. Her tiny New York apartment in Hells Kitchen was becoming cave-like as her clutter grew, overflowing from bookshelves, burying surfaces, and piling up in corners. From digital equipment to folders of financial records, an ongoing film project was claiming precious floor space. Coco also still had items from her former career as a musician that she no longer used but didnt quite know what to do with. Everything demanded her attention, but she was busy. Just thinking about dealing with all the paper piles made her anxious. To top it all off, her deep commitment to the environment made it hard for her to just throw things away.

Coco wasnt alone. A little farther uptown, Jana was busy squirreling away tote bagsfull of magazines to read, gifts to give, clothes she shouldnt have bought, and hand-me-downs she didnt really need from friends who were organizing their closets. She filled the bags up and tucked them away. Now her own closets had become unusable.

Still farther north, in Riverdale, Ginny and Evan were drowning in kid stuff: knapsacks, gifts from Grandma, scooters, and art supplies. They tried to get organized, and they bought plastic bins and boxes to house it all, but no matter what they did, the clutter always seemed to grow back.

Sound familiar? In all of these cases, the solution wasnt just straightening up. Over the years, one thing Ive realized is that whether a home looks like a junk shop or whether its so pristine that I initially wonder why Ive been summoned, there is usually some layer of perfectionism or unrealistic expectations getting in the way of the real, necessary, and practical changes that can and should be made.

When I work with people, I want to dig deep and help them figure out how their piles and cluttery situations evolved. What is the point if I make it better only to have it revert after I go? I want you to be easily able to maintain order once it is restored.

The Limits of Perfection

Your book is the anti-perfectionists guide to organizing? But your business is called The Perfect Daughter! a client exclaimed when I told her I was writing this book.

Indeed. In a way, my entire life has been an exploration of the concept of perfection and control. When I was growing up, it felt like no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough for my mother. I love my mother, and I am so grateful now for all that she taught me, but she had high standards. When I would tell people that she once pulled me out of one school and put me into a more rigorous one because my grades were too high, they would laugh, but it was true!

Still, she had drilled in me attention to detail. When I first started my organizing business, it was with my mothers housekeeping standards in mind and the idea that I could help clients do all the things a perfect daughter would help you do, if she wasnt busy living in another state, running a company, or raising a family. Time has moved on, though. Now that I am a mother (my daughter likes to say that she is the perfect daughter), if my three children have taught me anything, it is that I am not perfect. Moreover, Ive realized that the quest for perfection is the root of the problem, not its solution.

In my sixteen years as a professional organizer, I have learned that people may want perfection when it comes to their homes, but they do not need perfection. In truth, getting hung up on being perfectly organized actually gets in the way. People dont need a color-coded labeling system or a kitchen so neat it looks like it came out of a design magazine. They dont need to downsize to eighty-four square feet of living space to reduce clutter. These are not sustainable practices, and when we cant attain them, we feel like failures and give up. Instead, people need to make organization invisible, so that their lives run more smoothly and so that they have a feeling of control and peace. They need to be organized enough.

I have helped hundreds of clientsfrom hoarders to celebrities to ordinary familiesbecome organized enough. The goal is always ease and functionality over photo-readiness. In this book, Ill provide you with alternative ways of thinking about your home, your stuff, and your clutter. Adjusting your perspective is often the most powerful tool for creating lasting change, but few people know how to lookand I mean really look at their homes. On one hand, disorder and disarray should not reign. The easy accessibility of cheap stuff threatens to overwhelm everyones living space. But, on the other, should a home look like a still life from Elle Decor ? Not really. It would be hard for it to function day in and day out. The pages of Pinterest and many of the shows on HGTV fill us with unrealistic expectations of what a home should be. Change is needed, but it isnt about looking like a picture in a magazine. It is about taking control of your life so you dont fritter it away managing your possessions.

The most wonderful homes are those that are both alive and serene. When you come home, you should feel a sense of peace and order, not stress and anxiety.

When I wake up in the morning, before the rest of my family gets up, I take a few minutes to sit on my seventeen-year-old couch, drink some coffee, and contemplate my bookcase. I have a lot of booksIm not a minimalist. My books are not alphabetized or arranged by color (which I find an appalling trend), but in general sections: travel, biography, classics, mysteries, Shakespeare. (The self-help I keep in the bedroom.) I like to look at the books as I let my mind wander. Its a very peaceful start to the day.