Got the clutterbug bug


So my mind has been spinning for about 3 or 4 days. I took an online quiz (I love that kind of thing) about what kind of 'organising style' I have. Now, anyone who knows me (Denise, Sue, Denis, Dad), will know that I have particular ways of organising myself, or not organising myself as the case may be, which might look odd to the onlooker. I've always found organisation a bit of a foreign land. I've realised, over the years, that other people don't. Other people inhabit this land called Organisation quite easily and comfortably and know its contours. Especially in the world of work. 

But I think I've found the keys to this land, or even the kingdom. 

It seems... that I am a butterfly type of 'clutterbug'. What? You may ask. Well, I was a little confused too. In fact, I took the quiz about four times to get clarification, as some of the questions were a little tricky. If you like this kind of thing and you enjoy a bit of self-analysis, you can take it at  www. clutterbug.me. It might help. Though you probably don't need it anything like I did. 

So, a butterfly clutterbug is apparently someone who is likely to hang their coat and scarf over a sofa, or a chair, or, at a push, on a hook that they see nearby. A clutterbug butterfly is someone who often likes colour and 'visual abundance'. I always thought I was an aspiring minimalist, struggling to just finally get my flat/house in order. I thought those magazine looks were for me. BUT I am a butterfly, it seems. I want something else. And so I've finally found the way I like to organise things around me and it's opened up a whole world. So... to condense this first and then expand and explain...

A butterfly is someone for whom the saying 'out of sight, out of mind' has never been truer. A butterfly is someone who will almost always forget something that they have to do or take with them UNLESS they see it. And this can be quite hit and miss, I can tell you. But a butterfly is also someone who will probably write lists, close the book of lists and then come to it later... to see... they have forgotten one of the massively urgent jobs on the list. Like for me, today. It was the online shop. And so our fridge is bare - and that's an understatement. Yesterday it was continuing to do Gracie's application for nursery (I just mispelt that 'nurdery'; I quite like that. It fits with Gracie's nerdish tendencies). 

A 'butterfly clutterbug', like me, needs things in clear boxes or jars with no lids, or with clearly labelled labels if things are in non-transparent boxes. A butterfly is not going to take the time to take lids off things and put them back on. Stackable boxes are a last resort for a butterfly. Butterflies also need lots of hooks and things hanging, systems that are so easy to use that it's almost like dropping the item down on the floor it's so simple. Butterflies need things like 'command centre' visual ways of organising things, rather than closed drawers with intricate or clever filing systems. Butterflies flit and can't spend too much time on detail - they find it hard to cope with subcategories or anything like that.

My head has hardly stopped spinning since I did this quiz and it feels like so many of my questions have been answered. Why have I always been so forgetful? Why do I hate visual 'noise' so much and can't think straight in it? (butterflies are very easily visually distracted, apparently). Why am I always tidying up, only to do it again? Why do I have to spend about a third more time than the average person just to be sub-optimally organised? It's been my pesky butterfly nature all along. Butterflies don't like their wings to be clipped.

So I've been on an organising frenzy (stop laughing, Dad). My pantry has been beautifully rearranged and now the products look at me from a mix of clear and non-clear containers with 'chalk' labels, telling me what they are.  They look happier than they did before. I can feel it. I have also added a 'sweet' jar (thank you, Lisa) to make it look extra pretty and to bribe Gracie.

Taking advantage of this new enthusiasm, Gracie's toys are also arranged in a new way in the cupboard and they look lovely. I've even ventured into the 'back room' and started tackling some of the ridiculousness there. Some everyday tools are now where I can actually see them and reach them without crawling into the pantry and lifting boxes off boxes, with Isaac behind me and pulling on my t-shirt and eating bits of dried cat food from the pantry floor (don't even ask why the tools are in there). 

It's given me a new lease of life. I'm walking along to the shops and all I can think about is how to organise a particular part of a particular space I've started working on. My life feels transformed. 

I've got the organising 'itch'. Is this just what normal people do? I wonder if everything I'm doing now feels revolutionary but is actually just what people do when they first move into their house.

But I cannot wait to order some luggage tags (maybe multicoloured ones.... Paperchase spectroscope ...oooh....), to complete my labelling of boxes and jars, a chalk pen if such a thing exists so I can label my chalk labels, a 'lazy susan' to rearrange my vertical goods. And I'm even tempted to buy a label-maker. 

With all this gusto, maybe I could become a professional organiser. Okay Dad, you can really stop now.

Gracie's phrases for this week:
'Mummy, I don't want to be a mummy. I just want to be older.'

'Mummy, you get what you're given.' (handing me a plastic wallet for me to use and shake at her party)

'Mother says I can have five more minutes, okay?'

(at 6.25am) 'Mummy, I haven't watched any television yet today.'


Comments

  1. Not laughing. Looking forward to staying in this transformed space in December . . . . Hope my room is labelled . . . .

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