Are you an organized person? Do you have a place for everything? When something is out of place, does it bother you until it is back where it belongs? Don’t you hate it when someone messes up your space? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, can you imagine living with the opposite of these traits? Many families begin when opposites attract. However, spouses aren’t easily trained to your way of thinking. When you add a few children to the mix, you will find that children are naturally inclined to follow the lead of your disorganized spouse. The last time anybody checked, children don’t naturally clean their rooms. Now you, as the organized spouse, are living with chaos. What can you do? Family counselors recommend that you don’t insist that your spouse is wrong and you are right, since that only leads to discord. They do suggest compromise and picking battles you can win. Try these ideas for starters. Your own room If your home has the space, you could establish a room that belongs to you and you alone. This room may become your office, where you can keep family finances and other paperwork organized and filed. It would be good place to keep your computer as well. Keep your books on your own shelves surrounded by the objet d’art that makes you happy. However, having your own private room is a pipe dream if the rest of your household is chronically disorganized. Your room would be just one more room to throw stuff in when company comes. If you try to lock your door, it may not go well either. You can see that, right? It becomes you against them. A better idea When you feel that you need a space in your personal life that is yours alone or you will lose your mind—and cordoning off part of the house isn’t working, a South Bay self storage unit at US Storage Centers may be the answer. What do you want to keep organized, safe from the whirlwind of free spirits that share your home? As an organized person, you will add items to your self-storage unit regularly. Some of the items you might want to start with would be: Sentimental items - Keep sentimental items from your life safe and away from anyone who might want to paw through your memories. At home, your kids will think it is cool stuff, while your spouse might roll his or her eyes and call it junk. If they only knew. Your collections – Disorganized people don’t understand the dynamics of collecting. They don’t relate to the patience or even the reasons to collect let alone appreciate the value of a complete set. What could be worse than finding several hard-to-find silver quarters removed from your portfolio to pay tip the pizza guy? Your hard copies – If you are really organized, you might have all of your important documents scanned and saved into the cloud. However, your hard copies, especially for past years are still vulnerable at home. Put them in a file box and store them off-site with us. Your tools – Nothing is more frustrating than a socket set with a couple sockets missing or your 500-bit Dremel set with the bits out of place. Keep them here until you need them. We don’t have any other suggestions on how to make peace with your disorganized spouse. We suspect they might be trying to teach you to color outside the lines. By having at least one space that is organized and neat, you will be able to work it out.