The other day someone suggested the people who used our services were very organised but had temporarily gone off track and actually hated living in chaos. After a quick mental run through our client list I had to agree this was an accurate observation.
Many of them are highly successful and had at one time lived a life of order and organisation. They paid their bills on time, were never late with tax and vat returns, always sent birthday cards, had a perfect work-life balance and Christmas was a triumph of cards posted and presents wrapped well before the 24th.
But life is never predictable and it only took a couple of ‘events’ to turn their ‘nirvana’ into total chaos. These events can be joyous: starting a family, getting married, promoted to the dream job or moving into the dream home. Or they can be challenging: losing your partner in whatever circumstance, or looking after a sick relative, suffering from an illness or having to move your family constantly for work commitments. It only takes one or just a combination to turn the harmony into chaos.
Suddenly the priority of having a perfect filing system slips several rungs down the priority ladder and within a short time you find yourself rummaging around in storage boxes trying to find that vital piece of paper that ‘bureaucracy’ is demanding. And this is as it should be. We would all like to think that our number one priority in life should be our family rather than the pile of paperwork that rules our lives.
It is ironic that in this age of what should have been a paperless society we are required to handle more and more paper. And to take advantage of the many opportunities we have to use the internet or apps on our smart phones we have to have our systems and processes that previously ran our organised life back in operation otherwise we run the risk of confusing the picture even more. Taking the example of Bill Gates approach – “If you look at this office, there isn’t much paper in it” – there is a definite lesson for us all that the paper mountain must be tamed.
But we struggle on, shuffling paper, building up a wide selection of piles of stuff, trying to keep up appearances. We know we need help but we procrastinate in asking for it because we don’t know where to turn. It is embarrassing to ask your family, your children or your friends for help and in some cases you don’t want to make them party to some of the most intimate parts of your life.
Using someone like a Professional Organiser can alleviate many of these issues and have remarkable results with surprising benefits: such as removing clutter can eliminate 40% of housework in the average home or reducing your paperwork by 75%. It is just like any other household service such as hiring a cleaner, a nanny, a gardener or someone to handle your legal or financial affairs.
It is food for thought when statistics show that the average American spends one year of their life looking for lost or misplaced items at home and in the office. (source NAPO) and I am sure it would be similar in for us in the UK too.
So if don’t want to lose that year, if you want to release that organised soul within you or if you want an office like Bill Gates then maybe it’s time to call in the professionals and make 2012 a ‘Diamond’ year for you too. Email: info@strictlyorganised.co.uk
