What Life Taught Me About Organizing | Ep 9

The most important things Elyse has learned about organizing didn’t come from organizing. They came from real life.

In this episode of Tame the Chaos, Elyse Metzger shares four life lessons that completely changed the way she thinks about her space — and they have nothing to do with bins, labels, or the perfect system. Here’s the thing: we treat organizing like it’s a separate skill that we either have or don’t. We look for the right hack, the right system, the right Saturday. And when it doesn’t stick, we blame ourselves.

What if the real shift isn’t about learning how to organize, but about learning how to live, and letting your home follow?

After years of organizing for other families (while navigating marriage, motherhood, and building a business of her own), Elyse has seen that the mindset shifts that change a home are the same ones that change a life.

→ Pick your battles: You can’t have a 100% home all the time — trying to will cost you the things that actually matter

→ Just start: Stop overthinking, overplanning, waiting for the perfect time

→ Show up: Consistency over motivation, because the small boring habits are what actually hold a system together

→ Give yourself grace: Your home isn’t going to look like Pinterest, and that’s not failure, that’s life

If you’ve ever looked around your house and thought “I should be better at this by now” — this episode is for you.

🎙️ Tame the Chaos is a podcast about the mindset side of organizing and what it really looks like to create a home (and a life) that works, hosted by San Diego professional organizer Elyse Metzger. New episodes every other week.

Connect with Elyse:

Instagram: @the.organized.way

Facebook: The Organized Way

YouTube: @theorganizedway

Website: discovertheorganizedway.com

In the San Diego area? I work with clients for home organizing and move management. Book a free consult.

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Transcript

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The most important things that I learned about organizing didn't come from organizing. It came from real life experience. It changed the way that I thought my house should be. After I had these experiences, I realized that the way I thought about the home and how it should be had to change in order for me to feel like I had it together. From me getting married to having a baby and now in my 40s, a lot has changed. Everything that I thought I knew about maintaining a household and organizing a house had to change. If you've been thinking I should be better at this by now, then this episode is for you. I'm Elise Metzger and welcome to Tame the Chaos. We think of organizing as a separate skill. Like if we're an organized person, then we're going to be organized. Or if we think of ourselves as not organized, scattered, all over the place, a lot going on, chaotic, then we think that we're not an organized person and we can't do it. We may look for the perfect hack or the perfect system. Maybe go on Instagram and scroll through those videos, and we look for systems that may not fit our life. We look for tips, hacks, organizing systems, and we apply them in our own spaces. A few days, weeks, months go by and they stop working. And we think, oh, we're the problem. It must be me. I can't stay organized. When in reality, those systems weren't necessarily made for your life and they're not going to work. So we blame ourselves. For some people, it's overwhelming to get organized or to maintain an organized space. And for some, you may think that you're just not an organized person and you never can be organized. Your house can't ever be organized. Or maybe you'll think someday when the kids move out, I can have this perfectly organized kitchen or organized entryway. For some, organizing may be really overwhelming. And for others, you may just think that you're not an organized person, so you'll never be organized. I, as a professional organizer, think that one of the biggest hurdles we have about organization is the way we view organization and the way we view ourselves. So today I'm going to share four things that life has taught me about organizing. Real experiences that have changed the way I look at organizing. Lesson number one: pick your battles. There was once a time when I was a single lady living by myself or with a roommate. All I had to worry about was my own space. I didn't have to worry about managing an entire household or taking care of kids or doing all the shopping. It was only me I had to worry about. Fast forward from my 20s to my 30s, I am married. I have had my son. My space was no longer only my space. It was more than I had to worry about than when I was a single lady in my 20s. So this definitely changed the household and my organizing dynamic. With my husband, he tends to put things away where any open space is available. If it's an open space, then in his eyes, it goes there. Whatever the item is, if there's an empty space, it goes there. No rhyme or reason, no functionality behind it, which is fine. Our brains all work differently, but I definitely had to get used to it. And especially when I had my son, in my mind, I thought that the house should be perfect at all times. Side note, I am a perfectionist, recovering perfectionist, I would say. The clothes should all be put away, hung, everything should be in its place. When we're not playing with the toys, the toys should be in the toy bin. I just have this like perfect ideal household in my mind, especially being an organizer. But I soon realized that I was using all of my free time, a lot of my mental energy, trying to keep everything perfect all at once. And it was not only exhausting, but it also took away time from spending time with my growing baby, enjoying life with my husband, and taking away my free time that was actually me time. I needed more me time than my house needed, like tending to. Pick your battles in your home. You cannot have a hundred percent home. Whether or not you have kids, you most likely will not have your home in 100% organizing condition all of the time. I had to let go of the idea that my house was going to be 100% organized all of the time. And instead, I focused on what was bothering me most. If my pantry was out of sorts, I would focus on fixing that and then be done and not worry about anything else. By doing that, I had more me time, more time to spend with my friends and my family and my growing child. Still to this day, I look at my house and it is not perfect. What I do is I choose something that bothers me and I focus on fixing that. Once I conquer that, I move on to my next focus. I only focus on one thing at a time and just let go of the rest. It is not worth using a lot of your time and mental energy focusing on making spaces perfect because they just don't stay that way. You don't have to care about every space equally. If the linen closet doesn't bother you, then leave it alone. Focus on what actually matters in your daily life. Lesson number two, just start. Don't wait for perfect. This lesson is all about just starting. Have you ever wanted to start something, but you just never started? It happens to a lot of us. And I bet you if you asked a friend or anybody, right now, we all have something that we want to start. We may want to start going to the gym. We all have something that we want to start doing. But overthinking, over planning, or just thinking that the conditions are not right right now may stop us from starting that new thing. Well, when I talk to my friends, I hear them say, I want to start to play tennis, I want to start going to the gym. I want to start baking sourdough bread. For whatever the reason is, we just can't get started. I remember when I started my organizing business. I had just left my marketing job. COVID had just happened, so everything had shut down. And I didn't really have like a set plan. It was really scary getting started. And to be honest, with COVID, I it was really hard to get started. And so there was like about an eight-month period where I was like in limbo, and it was really hard getting started. I remember having a conversation, actually many conversations, with a friend of mine telling her, I really need to get my website started. And I could see on her face, like, okay, like I have said this many times. I could see her in her face, her reaction, like, okay, girl, you've been telling me this like many, many times, and you still have not done it. And in my mind, I thought that I had to have like the perfect plan. I had to have all of the text done in order to start my website. And it was like a really big hurdle for me. It took me longer than it should have just to do a simple website for my business. So that's just one example from my perspective. So the takeaway from this lesson is to stop planning, stop overthinking, stop waiting, just start. Don't wait for that Saturday that you have four hours to clean out your pantry and organize it to perfection because newsflash, that probably won't happen unless you really make time for it. You're allowed to start messy. Start where you are and not where you think you should be. You can pick a drawer and take five minutes to go through it. You don't even have to organize it. You can just go through it and pick out what needs to be thrown away. That's that. That's starting. Lesson number three is consistency. Keep showing up. So, you know the advice from atomic habits, the one that says it takes three weeks to build one habit. Well, it's totally true. The habits that we want to build come from the consistency and discipline we have for doing those small, boring tasks that we don't want to do all of the time. Consistency over motivation. When we get started, we're motivated, we're excited, it's fun to start something new. And then a week goes by and you really don't want to do it anymore. You don't have time for it. You have lost that motivation. You still want to maintain that habit. You still want to build that habit, but you just don't have that motivation. This is where consistency and discipline come in. Another really big example is working out. So last year I started doing Legris. I'm in my 40s and I'm really focused on building my muscle. And Legris and Pilates is pretty much the only like weight resistance exercise that I actually enjoy doing and want to do. So I have chosen this to be my workout. My doctor says that I need to do it at least three times a week for it to actually make a difference. So this year is when I'm really trying to be consistent with it. And when I start it, I'm like, ooh, this is really actually fun. It's really time efficient, which I love because it's challenging, but in a good way. I feel great after I work out. I sleep better. After I started doing it for a couple weeks, there is times when I just want to rest. I don't feel like getting in my workout clothes. I just washed my hair. I don't want to get it sweaty. So many reasons pop up. And I'm sure that a lot of you can relate to this. Just you just don't feel like doing it. But you need to do it. As adults, we have a lot of responsibility and we don't feel like taking care of all of our responsibilities, but we have to. This lesson about showing up and being consistent is about continuing what we started and keeping that discipline. Doing those little boring things that we don't always want to do add up to our bigger goals, and it creates long-lasting habits. This is the life version of being consistent and actually showing up. In relation to organizing, the secret isn't a big declutter all at once. Doing that 10-minute reset, putting things back, these are the little consistent habits that hold systems together. It's okay if something slips, that's life, it happens. Just jump right back in and keep going. Those small, consistent habits will lead to big change. Last lesson, lesson number four, give yourself grace. Manage those expectations. I see this a lot when I walk into homes, into a client's home, even my friends' homes. I will hear, oh my gosh, this is like so messy. I'm so embarrassed, or I know I should be keeping this up. In reality, I see what they're talking about, and I think to myself, wow, they're doing a great job for as busy of a life that they have. They're keeping up the space pretty well. I see this in every project that I work on. A system will be set up and things have shifted. It may not be working anymore, and that's okay. When you look at the big picture, our lives are just crazy busy. We're all busy. We have work, we have to manage the household, we have kids to take care of, we have parents to take care of. We have other responsibilities, we make time for our social lives and our mental health, exercise, all of these things we have really busy. Going back to when I hear, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. This is so messy. It's really not considering the bigger picture. I even see this in my home. I will tell you right now, my home is not organized. We are renting right now, and in my mind, I do not want to spend all of this time setting up immaculate systems because we're going to be leaving soon. I think, hey, I'm doing really great. Like, we don't have an overabundance of things. We take time. Well, I take time to declutter when things start to get a little cluttered. That is my best. That is what I can do right now. I give myself grace. One thing that I always think about if I am too hard on myself in my home, thinking that it should be a certain way, I think, what if my friend told me this? What would I say to her? As a friend, a compassionate friend, what would I say to her? And it really helps change my mindset. If I get too hard on myself in life, you're probably doing a lot and managing a lot. You're going to drop the ball sometimes, and that's just life. That's being human. Give yourself the same compassion you would to a friend. Unrealistic expectations are the quickest way to a burnout. You are not going to have a Pinterest-looking house. You have kids, you have pets, you have life. If you're expecting magazine picture perfect, you are setting yourself up for failure. You will have setbacks. The drawer you organized last month may have some out-of-play or become a little messy after a while, but that's normal. That's life. I see it in every project I work on. That doesn't mean that you failed. It means that you're living life and that's normal. These are not organizing hacks. It's real life experience that taught me more about organizing, both mine and my client spaces. Once you start seeing it this way, organizing feels like less of a chore, less of something that you can't do, or another thing you're failing at. Organizing will start to feel like something that works with your life and not against it. Think about if any of these resonate. Did it strike a chord? If it did, then you probably needed to hear it. Hit follow so you don't miss the next episode. And if this one resonated, then share with a friend who you think needs to hear it. I'll see you next time.