Well it’s Valentine’s month so everything has to be about couples, pairs, partners, lovers, blah, blah, blah. Ok, here’s my stab at it:
Organizing with Your Partner
In your home, do you and your partner agree on how to organize your things, what to keep and what to get rid of? Good for you! Now for the remaining 99.99% of us, it’s a problem. I’m fairly sure my partner, we’ll call him Les, is deathly afraid that I will throw all his stuff away.
Hey, Les, your paranoia is justified. I challenge you to figure out what I’ve tossed…
OK – DON’T DO THAT!!!!
Instead, begin resolving this relationship dispute with communication.
- Each of you describe what you want the space to look like; for what it should be used. Be as clear as possible. Write it down.
- Respect each other’s goals. Stop thinking about right and wrong goals. Neither of you is right or wrong.
- Find common ground. Surely there are some parts of your goals that match. From your common ground, creating an organization system that you both accept and maintain.
- If you can’t come together on a certain area of your home, create separate zones and choose a “boss” for that space. The “boss” decides how the space is organized and the other has to follow their “orders”.
Hopefully at the end of this process you are still partners and can celebrate Valentine’s Day in the more traditional ways. Or not at all.