The Clutter Connection. Cassandra Aarssen
As a Butterfly, you are a very visual person who likes to see all your belongings for fear of them disappearing from your mind the moment they disappear from sight. There is a real anxiety that comes with putting your belongings “away,” whether you realize it or not. Subconsciously, there is a part of you that believes that, if you hang your favorite shirt in the closet, you may forget you even own it. Most Butterflies have clothing on top of their dressers or on the floor, but their closets and drawers are practically empty (except for those items they rarely wear).
I suspect this fear and anxiety stems from years of truly having misplaced or forgotten about your things. My kids were all Butterflies when they were little, as are most small children. If I put a toy in a closet or on a high shelf, they would completely forget about it. It was like Christmas morning any time I pulled out something they hadn’t seen in a few days. The toys they could see were the most special things in the world to them, but as soon as those same toys were out of sight, they were erased from their minds entirely.
As a visual organizer, you connect with your items when they are clearly visible to you, and when they are out of sight, they really are out of mind.
I am about to blow your mind. Traditional organizing systems, being all about hiding away your belongings, are in nearly perfect opposition to how your mind naturally operates. No wonder they have never worked for you. Let the transformation begin! You now KNOW this magic thing about yourself and how your mind works. You have the answer to why you have always struggled to put your things away, and NOW you can design a visual system that works with your brain type to create a new habit of being tidy.
This in no way means that everything has to be visual. You are not a little kid anymore; you’re not going to forget about everything you own if you can’t see it. What really matters is the important, daily-use things. This includes keys, bills to be paid, your phone, calendars, reminders, vitamins, everyday medications, and anything else that you use frequently and that you deem important. This stuff needs to be kept visual. The anxiety about amnesia caused by absence translates to you leaving everything out in the open. Don’t worry, the peanut butter can still go in the cupboard, but you are going to have to remind yourself to put it there after so many years of leaving it out.
Photo Courtesy of Sharon Carter, www.havenhomesc.com
The other side of the organizing conflict that Butterflies find themselves in is that most organizing solutions involve a micro-organized approach, which just doesn’t work for you. The truth is, when you are done using something, your amazing brain is already onto the next thing, and it isn’t going to stop to think about how to put that item away. If something is hard or complicated to put away, you won’t do it. It’s not that you can’t do it. It just isn’t going to be a priority, and therefore it isn’t something that even enters your mind. You basically have organizational ADHD, but this isn’t a bad thing. Your brain is usually going a hundred miles an hour, and as soon as you have the right systems in place, you can finally take off the emergency brake and leave your clutter problems in the dust.
Photo Courtesy of Christina Dennis, www.TheDIYMommy.com
A Butterfly needs easy, fast, and macro-organized solutions that are clearly visible to succeed. Let’s take a look at a typical bathroom closet. The traditional image of organization would be stacked, separate containers for all the different categories and products. One container for pain relievers, one for allergy medication, and another for cold and flu…
Be honest with me for a second. If you have a headache and you dig out an aspirin, are you really going to take the time to take the lid off, put it back on, and restack the bins to put it away? Nope. You are going to leave it on the counter exactly where you used it.
Now, imagine for a minute that you could just toss the bottle back into one large, open container that holds all your different medications. Better yet, make this container clear so you can see exactly what’s inside. Would you put it away now? It seems like an unorganized approach to organization, but trust me, this macro system is exactly what will work for you. Sure, you’ll have to spend a few extra seconds digging through the bin for the aspirin the next time you need one, but you will also always know exactly where the aspirin is. Right now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Where was I the last time I took an aspirin?” Taking a few extra seconds to find something isn’t where you struggle, it’s the putting it away part that needs to be easy. Taking a few extra minutes to create a LARGE label for this macro-organized medication bin is going to ensure that your brain registers exactly what is inside, which will alleviate the anxiety about forgetting or “losing” your things.
Bob the Butterfly
My first-ever male client was a full-blown Butterfly. For the purpose of this story, I’m going to call him Bob. The first time I walked into Bob’s home, it was instantly clear to me that his organizing style was Butterfly. Every surface was covered with random things. His table, kitchen counter, and even the floor had items, spread out and loosely piled, covering almost every square inch. There was a hall closet immediately to the left of the front door, but when I opened it, a single coat was on a hanger and the floor held only a few pairs of shoes. I noted that the stair banister (which was a full ten feet from the front door) had at least three coats hung on it, and Bob had a huge pile of shoes beside the front door. When I asked him about the coat and shoes in the closet, his cheeks flushed and he admitted to never wearing anything from that closet. He had no idea why he didn’t use the closet; it just seemed easier for him to hang his coats on the banister or over the back of a chair instead.
Now, some of you may assume that Bob is just lazy. Why would he not just hang his coats in the closet? The truth is, he had to walk farther away from the door to hang his coat on the banister. It would have been faster and required less effort to just toss it in the closet. This wasn’t about laziness; this was about Bob needing visual systems.
Bob’s kitchen counter was covered in paper. Bills, newspapers, reminders…the pile had spread to over three feet wide. When I asked him why his paper pile had gotten so out of control, he admitted he hadn’t noticed how large it had grown. Bob was so used to the pile, it had become invisible to him. He sheepishly explained that he wanted his papers to go in his office upstairs, but he never found the motivation to take them up there. The pile was too big, too overwhelming, and he simply couldn’t be bothered to organize it. I see this exact same issue in almost every Butterfly home I visit. They either don’t have a dedicated home for their daily-use items, or the items’ “ideal home” isn’t visual or easy enough to use.
Bob’s office was too far from the front door to be a viable spot for him to drop his mail when he came home. In the absence of a dedicated “spot” for it, he piled it on the kitchen counter. Bob had tried, and failed, to organize his paperwork in the past. He had bought a filing cabinet and even purchased different-colored file folders. Setting up a paper system isn’t where Bob failed; it was taking the time to use it every day that he struggled with. After years of failing, he had simply given up trying. Why should he continue to bother?
When organizing for a Butterfly, I design the space around eliminating all the excuses. Office too far away? Create a hanging filing system by the front door for mail and school papers. Is the closet not a visual enough option? Take the doors off and install hooks for coats and backpacks instead.
A Butterfly’s home needs to be designed to transform the one-minute rule into the five-second rule. The one-minute rule is, If something takes less than ONE MINUTE to do, you must do it immediately. For most Butterflies, if you can design a home where it takes less than FIVE SECONDS to put something away, they will have no excuses not to do it.
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