I am a font of useless pop culture knowledge. My brain should fill itself with important things that would add some sort of value to the world, but instead, all of my grey matter is filled up with things that are great at trivia night but serve no other real purpose. Until now.
When working with a client, something will happen as we're working, and the client's needs become clear to me via the title of a song. While it seems a little silly, I realized that these random spurts of musical inspiration actually help me work through a client's issues.
In the Bitchin’ Closets series, each client will have a diagnosis of sorts, which I’m calling closet hang-ups. (Shout out to Katie for coming up with the name!) Closet hang-ups are the client’s main issues that we’re going to work on fixing. Hang-ups are different than goals: goals are what you want to get out of the process; hang-ups are what's been standing in the way of making goals possible.
Like the U.S. Constitution, the list of hang-ups is a living document (Come at me, originalists.), and when a new hang-up is discovered, it will go on the list. For now, here are the basics:
Let It Go – This is probably the most common issue, and the easiest pop culture reference to make. For whatever reason, it’s hard to get rid of stuff. We all have attachments to certain things in our life, and sometimes we have to figure out why. Let It Go doesn’t involve getting rid of everything, but it instead figuring out whether things are worth keeping.
Blank Space – This one confounds me a little, because I love having lots of empty, uncluttered space. However, some people feel the need to have every nook and cranny filled with things. I’m not saying they’re hoarders, but I’m saying that if left untreated, in a few decades they might end up buried under old copies of The New Yorker and a few flattened cats.
On Display – Because I’m convinced that reality TV has induced this particular affliction, I thought it only proper to use an anthem by a Bravolebrity. This hang-up makes people want to emulate closets like Kardashians or Real Housewives of Wherever. The closets on these shows are aspirational, for sure, but not realistic or practical for most of us.
I Want It That Way – Type A people such as myself tend to suffer from this one. This hang-up pertains to people who are frustrated with the way their closet is laid out or constructed, and spend a lot of time analyzing how they could have laid out the space differently or better. At some point, you have to get out of your own way, accept that the space is what it is, and work with what you’ve got.
My Way – Similar to, but more extreme than I Want It That Way, My Way is a hybrid of both wanting your space to be different, but also wanting everything in the space the way you think it should be even though it doesn’t work. This one is a little less “Get out of your own way” and a little more “Get over it and stop being a brat.” (I think Frank Sinatra would approve.)
Not Ready to Make Nice - Some people want to have organized, put together closets, but they aren't in a place to do the work. I've found that it has a lot to do with feeling overwhelmed about changing the way one is used to doing things, even if the way things are being done makes the person annoyed or unhappy.
You May Be Right - Sometimes people need to be convinced that there are better ways to do things. I'm not saying that my way is always the right way, but often, when people are open to trying different storage or organizational methods, they come around to doing it a way that works better for them in the long run.