For most of the year, Catherine Parry (name has been changed to protect privacy) travels the world as a professional speaker, living out of hotel rooms and her expertly packed suitcase. Yet, despite her ability to arrange a keynote speech, the 36 year old had trouble when it came to organizing her home.
“I’m a Gemini and I literally live in front of people, [but] I’m a total chaotic mind,” she says. “Because I travel all the time, my stuff at home was always in boxes. And like every other person on earth, I feel horrible when it’s all over the place and I can’t find anything.”
After purchasing her first home, Parry decided to get serious about cleaning up her space. She called Brenda Borenstein, whose Toronto-based company, Organized Zone, provides extensive organizational services and promises to “transform cluttered life and space into functional order.”
“When Brenda came in with her team, they threw out so much stuff. She did exactly what was needed. And not only did she organize my stuff, she moved my furniture around and her people styled my home into this thing that was livable,” she says.
Clearing out clutter may seem like a minor task in our busy lives, but experts say a messy space can negatively impact our health. “Clutter is an environmental toxin, putting stress on the mind and body," Doreen Sweeting, M.D., tells Natural Health Magazine. “It drags down your nervous system, drains your energy and takes a toll on immunity.”
More immediate, perhaps, is the effect clutter can have on our ability to complete tasks and get work done. A National Institute of Health report concluded that when too many visual objects compete for our attention, the clutter impedes our brain’s responsiveness.
When you run three businesses, like Parry does, that can be a problem. “I do a lot of writing for publications, so I used to keep every piece of paper in case someone ever wanted to verify my work. But of course they didn’t, and it just resulted in an unmanageable mess on my desk.”
Creating a functional space requires more than a simple paper shuffle — it takes a dedicated effort toward changing behavioural patterns. With the exception of those who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorders such as hoarding, most people can learn to work through chronic disorganization and maintain a tidy, uncluttered area.
The trick, according to Borenstein, is to start small.
“It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can even organize your purse. It gives you a pat on the back that you’ve done something productive, and you can go to the next thing. You’re capable, you’re seeing change in movement, and you’re no longer stuck,” she says.
Beyond the health benefits, a deep clean can lead to unexpected financial gain. In fact, you may be sitting on a gold mine right now. “I had one client who was in a financial setback, and we were preparing her house so she could move,” Borenstein says. “As we’re de-cluttering the bedroom, she completely forgot that she had put away $5600 in a sock. A lot of my clients find money they’ve forgotten about years later.”
Other items the organizer has come across include collectible coins, passports, false teeth and, on one traumatic occasion, a live mouse. But she’d rather not talk about that. “I still jump after all these years if I have to put my hand in a dark space,” she laughs.
That’s still not the most lucrative outcome, says Borenstein. “The biggest valuable they find is peace and stability and sanity once they’re organized.”
Parry would agree. Once her house full of boxes was transformed into a clean, open home, it gave her the confidence to try something she’d always wanted to do: host a dinner party.
While that may sound like no big deal, that particular gathering made a great impact on her life. Parry, who’s getting married this year, had always dreamed of both her parents walking her down the aisle. The problem was, her parents divorced when she was a child, and hadn’t spoken to each other since.
“Only because I hosted this Thanksgiving dinner, which I never host, my mother and father for the first time in 30 years stood in the same room, shook hands, and forgave each other, because Brenda created a dining room in my house.
“Organizing a home is not just putting stuff away. [It] creates space for life.”
After purchasing her first home, Parry decided to get serious about cleaning up her space. She called Brenda Borenstein, whose Toronto-based company, Organized Zone, provides extensive organizational services and promises to “transform cluttered life and space into functional order.”
“When Brenda came in with her team, they threw out so much stuff. She did exactly what was needed. And not only did she organize my stuff, she moved my furniture around and her people styled my home into this thing that was livable,” she says.
Clearing out clutter may seem like a minor task in our busy lives, but experts say a messy space can negatively impact our health. “Clutter is an environmental toxin, putting stress on the mind and body," Doreen Sweeting, M.D., tells Natural Health Magazine. “It drags down your nervous system, drains your energy and takes a toll on immunity.”
More immediate, perhaps, is the effect clutter can have on our ability to complete tasks and get work done. A National Institute of Health report concluded that when too many visual objects compete for our attention, the clutter impedes our brain’s responsiveness.
When you run three businesses, like Parry does, that can be a problem. “I do a lot of writing for publications, so I used to keep every piece of paper in case someone ever wanted to verify my work. But of course they didn’t, and it just resulted in an unmanageable mess on my desk.”
Creating a functional space requires more than a simple paper shuffle — it takes a dedicated effort toward changing behavioural patterns. With the exception of those who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorders such as hoarding, most people can learn to work through chronic disorganization and maintain a tidy, uncluttered area.
The trick, according to Borenstein, is to start small.
“It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can even organize your purse. It gives you a pat on the back that you’ve done something productive, and you can go to the next thing. You’re capable, you’re seeing change in movement, and you’re no longer stuck,” she says.
Beyond the health benefits, a deep clean can lead to unexpected financial gain. In fact, you may be sitting on a gold mine right now. “I had one client who was in a financial setback, and we were preparing her house so she could move,” Borenstein says. “As we’re de-cluttering the bedroom, she completely forgot that she had put away $5600 in a sock. A lot of my clients find money they’ve forgotten about years later.”
Other items the organizer has come across include collectible coins, passports, false teeth and, on one traumatic occasion, a live mouse. But she’d rather not talk about that. “I still jump after all these years if I have to put my hand in a dark space,” she laughs.
That’s still not the most lucrative outcome, says Borenstein. “The biggest valuable they find is peace and stability and sanity once they’re organized.”
Parry would agree. Once her house full of boxes was transformed into a clean, open home, it gave her the confidence to try something she’d always wanted to do: host a dinner party.
While that may sound like no big deal, that particular gathering made a great impact on her life. Parry, who’s getting married this year, had always dreamed of both her parents walking her down the aisle. The problem was, her parents divorced when she was a child, and hadn’t spoken to each other since.
“Only because I hosted this Thanksgiving dinner, which I never host, my mother and father for the first time in 30 years stood in the same room, shook hands, and forgave each other, because Brenda created a dining room in my house.
“Organizing a home is not just putting stuff away. [It] creates space for life.”
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