Professional organizer Kira Coopersmith teaches people how to curate their homes for their current self, a task she says is much harder than it seems.
“Your lifetime is a string. Think about who you are right now,” Coopersmith told a group she taught at the Bernardston Senior Center in January.
Coopersmith coaches individual clients on decluttering and downsizing, and offers presentations advising people how to organize their homes. She explained that people often have attachments not to objects themselves, but to ideas of who they once were.
Work to organize your house starts by understanding who you are today.
“It is 100% innerwork,” Coopersmith said.
The first step to decluttering or downsizing begins with making a list to detail who you are as a person. That list should then be used to construct the story of your day-to-day life. This story is used to make a home exactly the way a person would need it.
Coopersmith said it’s necessary to do the internal work of accepting oneself before the physical act of organizing can begin.
Much of the attachment to holding onto objects, Coopersmith explained, is the “should” factor. “Shed the should,” she advised.
An example of this is a woman’s closet. Many women’s closets are filled with clothes that they do not wear. These articles of clothing are often kept because people think “I should keep that because I spent a lot of money on it,” “I should keep that because it once belonged to my mother,” or “I should lose 10 pounds, then I can wear that.”
Coopersmith said, “You have to dress to the body you are in today. That goes way beyond the closet. You have to curate your home to live in today.”
This can be done in three steps: sort, containerize and maintenance.
The first step involves taking all of your belongings and making piles to keep or throw away.
Coopersmith described all objects as having “energy.” Things that are not being used have negative energy, and used things have positive energy. Keeping things tucked away in an attic or basement keeps negative energy in a home that can deteriorate the mental health of a person. By ridding a home of unused items, it creates a positive environment that will leave people happier.
The next step, “containerize,” refers to making sure everything has a place. She said people should identify the containers they need according to their specific circumstance. For instance, sometimes things can all fit into a closet, but in other homes people may need to purchase a chest to keep their possessions.
One trick to this process is not purchasing anything unless you already have a place to put it. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” she said.
Finally, the last step involves creating systems where people can maintain less clutter in their homes.
Examples of systems include keeping a recycling bin near where a person gets mail, so any unwanted mail can go directly where it needs to be without creating clutter.
Systems can involve buying new items to make keeping a clean home more easy to accomplish. Coopersmith said one should always make their bed in the morning. If this is difficult to do with your current bedding, you can purchase a duvet cover to make the task easier.
Putting systems in place to deal with stuff and reassessing them to make sure they work is a great way to keep the home clean and manageable, Coopersmith said.
She said this can be even more difficult for families who have young children. She said families are left buying new gear frequently to accommodate their children’s many activities. This leaves families with houses full of belongings that quickly become unused.
“Modern life is so busy and unstructured and fast. There is no time to deal with all the stuff,” Coopersmith said, stressing that these systems can be even more helpful for young families.
“Every single object in your home has energy. It deserves to live in your home and be used for its purpose,” Coopersmith said. “It is better for you, it is better for the object.”
Coopersmith runs the business Sensible Sort from her home in Greenfield. She has a varying background in theater, hospitality and insurance, and became a professional organizer in 2016. For more information about her services, visit sensiblesort.com.
Reach Bella Levavi at blevavi@recorder.com.