Organization & Life
My journey from obsessive cleaning to holistic organizing
Photo of a room organized by The Modern Minimalist
In the Spring of 2021, I was preparing myself for a big career change. I was quietly quitting before it was a meme. I felt depleted, bored, and undervalued. Despite my workplace malaise, there was so much about teaching that I loved: working with young people, talking about books, and teaching people practical skills that had the power to impact their lives for the better (you know, like, reading).
If I wasn’t a teacher, then what was I? I couldn’t be a professional reader of books, though I have tried. I thought about graduate school but didn’t get into the one that would really show everyone how smart I was. I was writing a novel, but I didn’t expect that to pay the bills. I wanted something that felt like it came naturally to me and gave me a chance to use my hands.
One thing I have always been good at is organizing. I remember a backyard party at my dad’s house. Instead of socializing, I swept the concrete and ineffectively pulled weeds. My aunts sang the Cinderella song at me and I felt both seen and invisible.
I remember going over to my friend Maria’s house.
“Are you cleaning again?”
“No! I’m just, lining up the dolls. In order. And by color.”
“That’s cleaning,” she said and walked away. I continued.
In college, I cleaned up beer bottles and screwed the caps back onto the tequila as soon as everyone left. Buzzed in the bad light of a house party, I bounced around, picking up plates and throwing away the orange someone had made into a bong. My roommates joked that in the morning, the only remnants of the night before were their memories, and those were spotty.
This preoccupation with creating order was obviously borne of some deep need to feel safe, good, and in control. Because so much of my early life was marked by transitions and disorder, I sought comfort in what I could arrange.
Since then, I’ve found a balance. I no longer clean at parties (unless I’m hosting) and I know how to prioritize quality time over compulsive tidying. Still, I am really good at making sense of a pile of “junk” and bringing order to a seemingly disheveled house. I don’t understand Rubik’s cubes, crossword puzzles, or (let’s face it) math, but I do understand how a house is put together. There are simple mantras I have adapted from people like Marie Kondo:
Everything has its own place.
Hide nothing.
You already have everything you need to organize your space.
Your feelings and your environment are in a symbiotic relationship.
A social media deep dive into professional organizers in Portland, Oregon led me to The Modern Minimalist and Devin VonderHaar, the person who brought it into the world. Tmm’s mission is to “empower women to create an intentional life through holistic home organization + styling.” I was so drawn to this idea of organization as a way to clear your mind and find wholeness, rather than an aesthetic fad.
For me, a functional home that reflects self-worth is about so much more than Instagram-worthy moments. By caring for our homes, we care for ourselves. I don’t mean that we have to have a certain style or buy overpriced drawer inserts. I mean that tending to our space allows it to become a place of refuge from the already chaotic and cluttered world. We need more places of real refuge.
Piqued, I listened to a few of Devin’s podcasts and I read her feature in some blogs. Drunk on desperation, I decided to slip into her DMs. Was she looking for help? I felt aligned with her vision and wanted to be a part of what she was doing. I had a background in writing, teaching, and cleaning. She got back to me (how cool is that?).
Though I was still teaching full-time, I began working with Devin by creating internal workbooks for TMM. I got to know Devin’s work closely. Once summer 2022 rolled around, I was ready to get my hands dirty.
With Devin and the team at TMM, I’ve had the joy of decluttering garages filled floor to ceiling with stuff, kitchen pantries in need of a total overhaul, quirky art studios, and garages that were pretty dialed in already but just needed to be “zhuzhd” à la Jonathan Van Ness.
In each case, the path forward was simple, but time intensive. Below is my butchered version, but The Modern Minimalist Instagram has way more visual aids.
Remove everything
Sort everything
Minimize everything
Reintroduce everything to keep s into the new system
Label everything
Somehow, naming the steps and having a team dedicated to the task makes the job of organizing fun and meaningful all at the same time. Obviously, our world is rife with struggle. I am under no illusions that organizing a home can change anything. But I do hope that creating peace where we have the power to do so is at least a way to start.
The circumstances of my early life pushed me to realize the importance of place and safety. I coped by organizing what I could. Through organizing with The Modern Minimalist, I have found a way to equip people with the tools that I’ve learned. This process feels like the best part of teaching: the passing down of a practical skill that has the power to change a life for good.