How Can I Get My Family Member To Be Organized?

One of the most common questions I get is, “How can I get my [family member] to be organized?”  

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is frequently unsatisfactory to the questioner.  The answer is that there is no direct way to cause another person to change.  This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has a spouse or kids.  However, it’s human nature to want to try to get others to change anyway.

There’s good news, though.  There is a way to bring about change: it starts with you.  

It’s an interesting phenomenon that I see play out again and again.  We begin working with a client to organize and declutter only their belongings.  As if by magic, people they live with start to keep things neater or start to go through and declutter their own belongings.

When people see others doing well, making progress, and generally improving, they naturally tend to gravitate in the same direction.  What’s particularly interesting is that this seems to happen without any conscious effort.  It’s almost as if growth is contagious (in a good way!).

If you want your family member to change into a neater and more organized person, lead by example and they may naturally follow along.