Downsizing with NEAT Method
Today, we are talking about downsizing your space and making a small home work for your family. The real estate market remains very competitive for buyers, and many families are choosing to make their current home work harder for them. Even if they weren't thinking about moving, we're definitely all spending more time than we ever did at home. With that being said, we thought this was the perfect topic for people that feel like they're drowning under stuff in their current house and to help eliminate that daily clutter.
We interviewed two women in the downsizing business, Tara Kohlbacher and Missy Williams. Tara is a professional organizer who runs the Tulsa market for Neat Method, a luxury home organization company. When she's not organizing, she and her husband Isaac are busy raising two Irish twins who came to her family through adoption. She has a passion for transforming spaces from chaos to compose creating a neat life. Missy Williams recently downsized to an eight hundred square foot home with the help of Haven Realty Group. She's the co-founder and executive director of Seed Effect, a non-profit organization bringing the hope of Jesus and economic empowerment to refugees in East Africa. Prior to launching Seed Effect, Missy worked as an interior designer specializing in space planning as a working mom of two that works from home. She's found that an effective layout trumps square footage and an organized home calms the chaos.
Who else is better to get advice on downsizing and decluttering from than the experts? We will break down their version of minimalism, the benefits of downsizing, the NEAT method, and so much more! It was such a pleasure to pick their brains and learn about how we can help you make the most out of the space in your current home.
What Leads People to Minimalism
There are many different things that attract people to minimalism, for Missy, it was the desire to eliminate unnecessary things demanding her time and energy. Her goal was to alleviate decision fatigue to allow her attention and energy to be focused on the decisions that really needed it, while removing a lot of the others. The first place she started was her closet by adopting almost a Steve Jobs like approach to clothes and developed a capsule wardrobe. The feeling of relief after eliminating all of the things from her closet she never even wore, that urge to continue simplifying started to spill over into the rest of her life. Putting the house back together at the end of the day felt like too much work and she became acutely aware of all the extra stuff in her home. She looked at the obscure piles of things in her house and wanted to relieve her household of those things by purging them!
Tara had similar feelings, but her focus was more so on efficiency! Making her space work for her, creating efficiency, and simplifying everyday life. She felt overwhelmed in her last home and wanted to take a hard look at what she actually needed and how to organize that within her space. She realized that organization is not one size fits all and keeps that in mind with every single client, because the system she creates needs to make sense for their specific lifestyle so things don’t back slide into how they were before. Her career as an interior designer and obsession for efficiency really helped her transform how her space functions.
The NEAT Method
The Neat Method is really founded on the principle that more stuff is going to require more of you. There is a customizable solution for your day to day life and a curated space composed of everything you need and use will eliminate clutter. It is entirely possible to have less space and less chaos with these 5 steps:
PURGE - Take everything out of the space you’re wanting to organize. Get rid of the things that you don’t use and are taking up valuable real estate.
CATEGORIZE - Sort and put like-items together. This will help you when deciding what zones to place your categories in.
CONTAIN - Map out the best way to utilize the space then buy appropriate baskets, containers, dividers, etc to put everything. The Container Store will be your best friend!
IMPLEMENT - Putting your categorized items back into the appropriate zone and prioritize where the high value things you use the most frequently need to go to be accessible.
LABEL - This ensures everything has a place in your home, other people can navigate what goes where, and it makes it easier to maintain that space.
For example, let’s say making lunches for your kids is really stressful and the set up you have in your pantry is not working. You start by taking everything out, you're sorting and categorizing it, and then mapping out a plan for products you need to buy to organize. After that you begin implementing things back into your space and labeling at the very end. You want that space to make sense for the primary use. So maybe that’s keeping snacks in a bin that’s eye level for your kids to be able to choose for their lunches or carving out dedicated space for your everyday grab-go items in the morning.
Overall the key to this method truly working for you is to make sure everything fits well in it’s dedicated zone and that it’s functional. If those two things aren’t being fulfilled then your items won’t end up where they belong and you’ll end up with a new mess of clutter, leaving you back at square one!
Benefits of Hiring a Professional Organizer
Organizers like Tara and Missy are problem solvers at the end of the day. Having that second set of eyes in your space to offer up creative solutions as well as someone else to hold you accountable is invaluable in the downsizing process. They can really spot what isn’t working and assess the best way to utilize a space for your specific lifestyle. Think of every cabinet and shelf as a space that needs to be individually designed so you’re getting the most out of it. Their job is to work with you to create a space that is functional, easy to maintain, and visually appealing.
Developing Habits to Help Maintain Your Space
This all starts when you are first making over your pain point spaces! It’s important to make sure that everything has a home in a way that it fits and when we say “fits” we do not mean stuffed to the brim. Once everything has a dedicated space, even the little things like batteries, it becomes easier to manage a zone and clean up day to day. Many people look over the importance of labeling things, but what labeling does is it clearly defines what goes where so whether it’s your partner, children, or guests, they can find where things are or put things away. This will help involve everybody and control the chaos!
One of the last things to remember when it comes to maintaining your space is that you will have to reevaluate from time to time and continue to redo this process as your life and priorities change. There is no shame in accumulating more things or changing a set up that isn’t serving you anymore. Continue to revisit the NEAT method time and time again. These habits will give you more freedom in your space and make it continue to work for you.
Missy and Tara’s Minimalist Beginner Reading List
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker
The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life by Joshua Becker
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Bonus: The Home Organized on Netflix
Are You Ready to get NEAT?
We hope the tips and insights Tara and Missy shared gave you the confidence that you don’t have to move in order to get a space that will work for you. Hopefully, it is encouraging to hear real life stories of downsizing and the NEAT method empowers you to transform your own home. If you would like to hear more details and tidbits from our incredible guests, definitely tune into the podcast. We would love to hear about your experience with downsizing and continue the conversation in our facebook group!
Until next time,
Brianna & Keelie