3 Ways to Organize Your Space for Calm During Times of Transition

Organizing your space and time is an ongoing process, one that requires daily maintenance and occasional updates due to life changes. During times of transition, you might find your organizing system in one area (or all of them!) doesn’t work for you. Meanwhile, you might also feel more overwhelmed than usual about your stuff or schedule. In that case, maybe it’s time to organize your space for a sense of calm.

Creating calming spaces is not a new idea. Many people have heard of feng shui, the method of placing buildings based on auspicious signs. The idea has morphed into creating positive or calming vibes within rooms as well. You might not be into the idea of feng shui, but you can still create a space that feels more calming. You’ll find plenty of Pinterest boards for this and articles in home living type magazines and websites. There, you’ll read about paint colors and furniture placement or even the fabrics you select. However, that requires spending more money and acquiring more things. Now you’ve got to figure out what to do with the old. So here, let’s focus on the organizing piece of it and work within what we already own.

1. Create a place for everything.

If each item in your life has a home, you always know where to find it, preventing frantic searches. The other reason to create homes for your stuff is to bring a sense of order to a space. When you walk into a room, you will notice messiness and chaos. Some people aren’t bothered by things on the floor or clutter here and there. For others, it causes a sense of unease. When life is messy, you’ll feel just a bit better if things are put away. Also, during life’s troublesome times, you might find yourself using some items less or more. Help yourself out by putting away the objects you don’t have time to use.
With time and energy limits, you probably won’t go through and tackle an entire room at once. Start with one item per day. Pick it up and decide where it goes. Consider how often you use it. Items you use frequently should be easy to reach. Items that bring you joy should be within sight, but don’t necessarily need to be reachable. Also think about organizing by department, or by when in the day you will need the item. For example, I keep my jogging armband in the hall closet so I can grab it in the morning.

2. Fix what’s bothering you.

We can’t control much in life. Take control of your space by changing things that bother you. That might be the leaky faucet. You might feel irritated every time you open your dresser due to the way the slides catch. Or, maybe you find yourself tripping over the same chair; time to move it! When you walk into your bedroom, do you feel relaxed, at ease? If not, look around. Take a deep breath — what can you do to make the space “feel” better? What’s bothering you? When I was a child, I used to rearrange my bedroom furniture for fun. Give that a try! Maybe a new configuration will lift your spirits or works better for you.

3. Let go of attachment.

Much of our clutter has more to do with our internal baggage than with stuff. A study that linked clutter to lower levels of satisfaction pointed out that in most cases, clutter is a symptom of other problems. Consumerism is one of them. We just like having a lot of stuff. “It isn’t abundance that’s the problem as much as attachment to abundance,” as one person pointed out.

If you’re going through a tough time in life, you might not feel ready to address those inner struggles — and that’s OK. But in some cases, our attachments to objects are due to the emotions associated with them. You might still have your wedding flowers pressed into a book, for example. That’s OK, too. But if your objects bring up negative emotions, times of transition may be just the right moment to release some of your past. Some people find release by burning objects as a symbolic cleansing. You can add some ceremony such as that or just toss whatever it is in the trash. Or, you can give it new life by finding someone who will use it.

Change is part of life; be sure the way you organize changes with it! And contact us for help during your next transition.