Introductions! My name is Sruthi Naidu and I’m a professional organizer. I have decided to start a blog about various overwhelming situations and my solutions to them. Before going into the ins and outs of “Mrs. X’s” disaster of a closet and how we were able to fix the problem, I thought it would be best to make the first blog entry about the biggest mess I have tackled…ME! Now, I certainly haven’t fixed all the kinks yet, but progress has been made, and that’s good no matter how small a step!
A little over 7 months ago my life went under a complete overhaul. I had been living in Italy and teaching English for the last 5 years and found myself back in the USA, 30 years old, newly single trying to start my life all over again from scratch. It was time to make a new home for myself, start a new career, make new friends, and with each breath things started to feel more and more impossible!
The Problem: How was I supposed to face each upcoming day knowing nothing had gone according to plan? If you haven’t guessed from the preface of this site….I’m a pretty organized girl. I’m pragmatic, thoughtful and take on spontaneity when I’m able to schedule it. This massive life change was not part of the itinerary! How was I supposed to mend a broken heart, and figure out a whole new life plan simultaneously?
The Solution:
Step 1: Start with the basics. I made myself leave the confines of my bedroom. You would think that would be a given and therefore couldn’t possibly be considered as a step towards betterment, but in my case it was most definitely a step, and a challenging one at that.
Step 2: Give yourself a win! For me this was taking a shower and getting myself ready every morning. In the beginning this meant throwing on a pair of Lulu Lemons and some sort of sweatshirt. But hey! It wasn’t pajamas!!
Step 3: Find a purpose/project. I needed to understand that I didn’t need to figure out the rest of my life in one day. What I needed to do was figure out the rest of my day. What did I do with my first day? I drove myself over to my best friends apartment and cleaned out her closet. Odd choice. She couldn’t figure it out at first either. I needed to fix something. I needed tangible results of something getting better. I needed to escape my thoughts, my doubts, my sadness and feel productive again. For me this came by changing out hangers and creating order in her closet.
Step 4: Recognize your strong points. While job-hunting, many of us try to find ways to build cover letters to show how well suited we are for a particular position. I decided that this time around I was going to think about what it was that I was good at and build a job around that. I was good with multitasking. I was good at bring calm to stressful situations. I had spent the better part of a year helping my mother with an extensive home remodel and had a ridiculous amount of knowledge of construction. I have been influenced by my sisters, who both work in the home décor industry. Though, I was employed as an “English Teacher” I found myself in the role of therapist more often than not. Students can easily find themselves overwhelmed, and I happened to be good at calming them down and giving them a bit of perspective. So there was my solution. I decided to make my new career about helping to bring people a little bit of peace and order into their lives. And so it began…