Posted at 12:00 p.m.
The contemporary history of organizing begins in the late 1970s. The first women organizers were well-off women with free time who started helping their friends organize their (ever increasing number of) things in their houses (ever larger). In the mid-1980s, in Los Angeles, these women formed an association, making organizing a profession.
Peter Walsh arrived in the portrait in the early 2000s, “by accident”. Friends were producing for the TLC network a new television show called Clean Sweep. The concept: an organizer, a designer and a carpenter show up at a participant’s to organize one or two rooms in the house, often in a total mess.
The Australian-American had nothing to do with the organization. He had just liquidated a corporation that helped companies make structural and cultural changes. “Friends said to me, ‘You have an accent, and Americans like accents because it gives you 10 more IQ points,'” says Peter Walsh in a videoconference interview with The Press.
Peter Walsh got the job. And the one who studied child psychology decided to do things differently. What interested him was not the mechanics of the organization, but rather the psychological side.
In the very first episode, there was a woman and her husband who had two teenagers. In the master bedroom, the woman kept every baby garment her children had worn. And we had to build a wall of shelves and drawers in the garage to store all that… I thought that was ridiculous.
peter walsh
As the carpenter began his work, Peter Walsh asked the woman a question. “Do you think your best memories with your children are in front of you or behind you? In tears, she confided to him that she had never felt more useful than when her children were small. After she nailed it, she was able to donate the clothes to a neighbor and a children’s hospital (and put on a good show for viewers!).
“Most people focus on the question: what do you want FOR your house? A sofa, a new color on the walls, a new floor, says Peter Walsh. Me, I think we should rather ask ourselves this: what do you expect FROM your house? If we dream of an intimate, relaxing, sexy bedroom, baby clothes, children’s toys or a desk have no place there, period.
And yes, he agrees, it involves a reduction in hardware.
“We live in spaces that we don’t honor and don’t respect. We fill our wardrobes, our libraries. We overload the physical capacity of our parts,” laments Peter Walsh, who has written several books on the organization (including It’s All Too Much, Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight and let it go) and also hosted a show on hoarding in the early 2010s on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
According to him, the organization must contribute to the decline. “If we help people organize art materials that they’ll never use nicely in plastic boxes, we’re part of the problem,” he pleads.
Put it away… now
Peter Walsh has two tips to offer for those who want to stay organized. “The first is to stop saying the words ‘later’. I’ll put it away later. I’ll fill the dishwasher later, he illustrates. And the second thing is, “don’t lay it down; put it away”. »
Where can this internal control be drawn from? Often, things get messy again as the days pass, argues the author of these lines, sharing her own organizational struggles.
You stop being lazy. If you don’t create the home you want, who will?
peter walsh
Is it possible that it is not important for someone to live in an organized house? Peter Walsh informs the author of these lines of the presence of a cork board overloaded with papers and invoices, which he can glimpse on the screen. “If you’re happy with that, I won’t judge you. I never judge anyone. It’s not for me to tell you how to live. »
“You know,” he continues, “when I told you to stop being lazy, or put things away instead of putting them down, I’m not against you: I’m on your side. I plead your case. And if you want to change, you have to fight for that change. Why wouldn’t your life be worth the effort? Aren’t you important enough? »
“With the children, it is argued to him as a last escape, it is not always easy… No? “We find the time for what we find important,” concludes Peter Walsh, with a smirk, looking like a guy who has seen others.
(Box) A matter of motivation
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Kim Lavoie, psychologist
Some people are tidying freaks, others live in messy places. According to psychologist Kim Lavoie, who studies behavioral changes in health, it all depends on the importance we place on living in an organized environment. Someone who feels uncomfortable with clutter will have the motivation to tidy up. Others won’t. “There are no right or wrong postures,” she says.
Sometimes, however, a disorganized person hits a wall and decides to change. In which case it is not enough to tidy up, believes Kim Lavoie: it is necessary to develop an organization system to facilitate the maintenance of order in the long term. “And when you’re on the verge of dropping something on the floor, start wondering how you’re talking to yourself. Your little inner voice will say: “it doesn’t matter”, or “I don’t have time”. To build motivation, she says, one can identify how one’s life would be better by changing.
The other solution, continues Kim Lavoie, is to change the way of evaluating oneself. “If it doesn’t bother you that much and it doesn’t bother your spouse either, can you let go and accept it?” »