57: Potential Pitfalls of Sorting Your Stuff Before Decluttering
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Welcome to episode 57 of Permission to be Messy. I'm your host, JoAnn Krall and today I'm talking about sorting. Should you start the organizing process with sorting? There are many organizers out there where that is their first step. They say always start by sorting. This goes all the way back to Julie Morgenstern's space acronym, where she says to sort, to purge, to assign, to containerize, and to equalize. Now she describes the sort process as pull everything out, group like items. So then you can just see how much you have. and what to purge, this is very similar to how Marie Kondo describes her method. But I will say Marie Kondo will tell you to gather up all the stuff from around your house. Either way, this can be a challenge for people. So I recently watched a video just to make sure I was quoting Julie correctly because I hadn't seen her stuff in a while.
And it was just an overview, so I'm sure she goes into more detail, but she said, pull everything out and see what you have and then you have a better picture of what you're going to get rid of. The problem is if you pull out from where, pull up from a closet, pull everything out again, like Marie Kondo says, pull all your clothes from all over the house, Gather it all up. And I'm not disparaging anybody's process because her process works for some people. As does Marie Kondo's.
But what I'm talking about today is the pitfalls of starting with sorting. Right off the top of my head. A lot of times when we see it all in front of us. It can create a feeling of shame. We think, oh, I have seven hammers. I feel really guilty that I've been so disorganized and I've wasted all this money.I have all these clothes I've never worn. And the list can go on and on.
But this can also be a daunting thing for people because sometimes people will think, all right, I've gathered everything up, but then you get it all in one place and you start working on it and then you find more.
If you're really overwhelmed, you have way too much physical stuff. You have way too much paper. You have way too many digital files. I think it's important that we don't spend time sorting. Now that said, when I talk about decluttering. In a sense you are sorting. You're making quick decisions in the beginning, you are either keeping it, or you're tossing it. That is sorting, We're keeping things and we're tossing things. Now I like people to try and make those decisions quickly, at least with physical stuff.
Not thinking about where the stuff that you're letting go of is going to go yet. You're just making those quick decisions. You know, it's going to go out, whether it's going to go in the trash. Whether you're going to donate it, whether you're going to, sell it, whatever that is.
Now we're talking physical stuff. So you are sorting in a sense by saying, I'm keeping these, I'm getting rid of these, but that is the highest possible level sort. Then I have people move down into, okay, now we have this stuff we're getting rid of. And I do this in stages. I don't want you to do your whole house and then, find out you've got a whole pile of stuff that you need to get rid of and figure out. So, let me give this as an example. You're working on just the drawers in your dresser. You're not going into your closet. You're just looking at the stuff that you have folded. Go through that. Purge as much as you possibly can. Put all the stuff that you're keeping back in. Don't even think about systems right now. Put that stuff back in. And then look at the stuff that you've decided to let go of. So this would be a next sort.
Now it's like. What am I donating? What needs to be recycled? Some fabrics are not donateable, but they can be recycled. And what am I going to sell? To me, it's often easier to just donate as much as you possibly can but I understand that some people need to recoup those costs and that's totally valid. As long as you do it.
So if you do this step-by-step with each area you're going to make progress and I know you're thinking well, I need to know what I have before I can let go of stuff. That is completely valid. So when you're making decisions in a certain area. For example, If you were going through and you said. Okay. I have these t-shirts here, but I know I have t-shirts somewhere else and I don't know which ones I want to let go of. Keep the t-shirts get rid of any that, you're not going to wear, but don't worry about the quantity. If you have some that are in good condition and you think you might keep them and there are others elsewhere. Just wait. Just keep what you're going to keep know what you're going to let go of, and then when you find those other t-shirts, if they're in, say an attic or a basement, or, just in another closet. Then you can combine them and do this process again, but it's really important to be constantly letting go and not letting everything trip you up.
So let me just go into some of the potential pitfalls to sorting first now. And I'm not saying that sorting first is wrong because it is okay for some people. What I've seen over my many years of an organizing for a long time. I've seen that people that have the ability to sort their stuff first, they don't have a huge level of clutter. They also don't have ADHD.
They have a lot of space, to be able to sort, so you have to take all this stuff into consideration. If you've read somebody's method and it says to sort first and you've tried it and you just never make any headway, then it could be because some of these reasons.
Okay. Some of the things that can happen when you're sorting first. It can slow you down. What happens is a lot of times when we're sorting things and this can happen even during the purging phase when you're thinking about where things are going to go, or if you're sorting and you're again, thinking about those things, you have more of the item that you're sorting. You have more somewhere else. Maybe in multiple places of your home. You start thinking about that stuff and you lose momentum. And this is where perfectionism can come in because you might feel pressured. to find the perfect place for every item. So again, slowing you down with that perfectionism. I'm getting stuck in decision-making.
Because if you're sorting things first and then you go into the purge phase. You might start to rethink things. I like people to make quick decisions. Believe it or not, there are things that you can make quick decisions about, but a lot of times everything's intertwined. The difficult things are in with the easy things. And then there's also the, maybe things it's all over the place. So making the quick decisions of getting rid of things is really key.
Sorting first, can also create more visual clutter. I've seen this overwhelm people,
Another thing it can cause you to procrastinate because sometimes sorting things into different categories will give you a sense of accomplishment, but you've actually never really made any significant, decisions on letting stuff go. You can't organize clutter, but sometimes we feel like when we've sorted all out, it feels organized.
And that can really hinder you, making the decisions to let go of things.
But, again, if you come across items while you're purging. And you're in, and it would be an item that you need to know if you have more or how many you have than just keep those items at that time. Just keep letting go of as much as you possibly can.
When we sort first we're definitely spending more time and effort because when we're sorting, then we're touching everything and then we have to go back and we have to make the decisions. I have found that for many people, doing that high level sort of keeping in letting go and keeping, letting go then when we go to do our actual sort. We're actually now making those decisions again, but we're doing it with less stuff.
So letting go as much as you possibly can and then doing another sort. And usually I like to make these high level as well, depending on what we're working on, whether we're working on physical stuff, paper or digital. But. You'll actually be handling stuff less when you've let go of more.
I've seen people try to sort too and it causes an emotional toll on them. Just sorting through their stuff. It can be really overwhelming. So, you know, starting in a corner of a room and letting go of stuff. And putting the stuff that's hard to look at, or, putting that stuff aside, just giving yourself small chunks. Because if you pull everything out of your bedroom closet, And you start going through stuff. And emotions start coming up and you decide you can't do it anymore. you're left with a big mess. So instead of going in and saying, I'm going to, work on the top of my closet today and I'm going to get rid of as much as I possibly can up there. I'm going to look at my hanging clothes and I'm going to pull out things I know that I'm not going to wear. And then I'm going to turn the hangers around there, the rest of the stuff. So I can determine what I'm actually wearing over time. Then I'm going to hit the floor the next day and try to eliminate stuff. You haven't even pulled everything out. You never want to leave yourself a big mess.
Sorting, isn't always a viable option with people that don't have a lot of space. Sure. If you have a guest bedroom and you can throw it all in on one bed and chip away at it, that's great. and I also want to remind people too, that. If you're doing the sorting method, if you have a professional organizer with you it makes it go easier, but if you're doing it on your own, this is really when we want to think about what's going to work for us.
So just know yourself, think about it. if you've tried to sort first and then purge. And it really hasn't worked. There's nothing wrong with you. It's just the way your brain is processing things or the space that you have in your home or your office. The amount of stuff that you have is going to be really critical about this.
There's so many ways that people approach decluttering and getting organized. And like I said, No one way is right and no one way is wrong. It's all. What's right. Or wrong for you. Some people need to create that vision before they get started. And some people need to just get started.
If you're not sure start decluttering, start letting go of stuff. And as you let go of staff, maybe the vision will come clear, or maybe you need that vision to get you started.
But in either case purging should be very high up on that list. And I always like to say, when you're purging. Don't think about where things are going to go. Don't think about what's going to happen to stuff. Make those quick decisions on things that you know, that you can let go of. Do that until you can't do it anymore until you're down to the stuff that now. Now you've got a bunch of maybes, then you can process those.
And once you've gotten rid of all the maybes and you've determined all the stuff that you're going to keep, thats when you can go and you can start creating the systems. And when you create those systems, don't invest a lot of money in the beautiful containers, unless, you already have a system that's going to work for you. Try to implement something with, temporary stuff to make sure that things are gonna flow measure, measure, measure. That's often the biggest source of clutter in a lot of my client's homes was organizing products. Organizing books, organizing products and,I laugh, I did the same thing before I became an organizer.
I was trying to figure it all out and, organizing products are fun to buy. I used to buy them all the time until I realized that certain things weren't going to work for me anymore. But I can help you repurpose things. If you do have a lot of organizing products and you want to think about, using them in other ways.
So as of this recording, I am currently going through my 29 day program that I have helping people, get started with their clutter and I'm going to be revamping that program and re-releasing it. So look forward to that.
If you're interested in getting the program now at $47, I'll put the link in the show notes. And, you'll get it in the form that it's in now and then when it's redone, it'll all be revamped for you but essentially we go through the, living areas of your home for 29 days.
It's actually about cleaning and decluttering. because I think that it's important to be doing both. I call it progress and maintenance. And, yeah. So that'll be in the show notes. And of course, as always, if you want to book a free call with me my contact information, and the link to schedule will be in the show notes.
And as always, I'm wishing you much progress, peace, purpose, and the permission to be messy. Thanks for listening.
