Session Four

On this visit, we decided to tackle two rooms in the house that could be organized in one day -- the children's room and the kitchen. They were both in fairly good shape with just basic clutter on most surfaces and the floor.

In the children's room, we rearranged the beds and backboards with shelving so they faced a different direction, put on fresh sheets and then vacuumed and dusted everything. The closet had a shelf with clutter on it and so did the floor of the closet, so we emptied everything out and organized those spaces. I explained to my client that the children's room should not have any of her items in it -- ONLY those that belong to the children. So we removed all of her stuff and placed those items where they belong or temporarily in the basement.

In the kitchen I had noticed on my previous visits that both of the sinks were always full of dishes that looked like they'd been there for quite some time. I discussed with my client non-judgmentally  that it is a good practice to be sure the dishes are done every night before going to sleep. Then you wake up in the morning to a clean kitchen, and this is a great way to start a new day. So we started with the dishes, filling the dishwasher and washing the rest by hand, drying them and putting them away. We cleared off all of the counter tops and found proper cabinet space for these wayward items. We sorted through piles of papers and removed them from the kitchen. We replaced a burned-out lightbulb over the sink. In general, everything got cleaned and sorted and organized. This process was an exercise in setting an example that can be followed from now on, in an effort to keep it from becoming cluttered again.

We put away the Christmas tree on this day, too. We also folded about 6 bags of laundry.

There is nothing I won't do to help a client learn how to keep the items in their house under control. It is a daunting task for so many of us, and my goal is to teach the little steps we can all take every day to keep clutter under control. I have heard other Professional Organizers say that they don't do any cleaning. I don't know any other way to help my clients learn how to keep things clean without setting the first example. We do it together, and then I hope they do it themselves.

I suggested to my client that on my future visits, we start out with the laundry and dishes as a matter of course, and then move on from there. This sets the tone for an organized home, and my hope is that in the future, these chores will be done before my weekly visit.

Session Three

Still in PHASE ONE, our third session's goal was to tackle the home medical office where patients visit. It was cluttered, dusty, and confusing. It resides in the downstairs family room and shared space with a big screen television and futon, where the children and adults would move chairs in front of the t.v. when they wanted to watch or play video games.

I suggested to my client that we should have some kind of separation between the family portion of the room and the professional portion. We moved the futon so that it was directly facing the the t.v., with the back of the futon facing the office area. This formed a separator between the two spaces. We placed various waist-high shelf units at the back of the futon facing into the client area. Immediately, the professional space looked like a separate office space.

Now, only focusing on the professional space, we removed EVERYTHING from every shelf, wiped it clean (everything was dusty from having not been used for so long), and only placed back the items that had purpose in that space. This involved a lot of sorting and organizing (and it always looks worse before it looks better), but through this process, we were able to discard a lot of papers and remove many items that had no business being in the office. We also organized every drawer and the top surface of the huge executive desk that runs along two walls in an L-shape. At the end of the day, we had revealed a lovely, clean professional space.

The final result was an office space that a patient could walk into and feel as if they are not in someone's family room. This was a very inspiring work session!

Session Two

On our second day working together, I asked my client how she was feeling about the work we had done, and what she'd like to work on next. She was inspired! So was I. We decided on a goal to straighten out her upstairs office, which had no floor space left. There were boxes and boxes of papers, machines, photos, cords, office supplies, and just stuff in general piled on top of each other in complete disarray all over the floor -- some of it in boxes, and some of it spilled out onto the floor. The desk tops were covered with stacks of papers and misc items. There were also boxes of papers and things in the hallway leading to the office room.

There was nowhere to start but right at the doorway. We prepared ourselves with a garbage bag for anything to be disposed of and empty records storage boxes for all of the papers and other items. I call this step in the organizing process PHASE ONE, where the goal is just to get "like items" into some kind of order so we know what we have and get control back over the floor space! Exactly what we accomplished in the basement during the last session.

We sorted all papers into boxes, EXCEPT for papers that needed action right away or that had to do with taxes -- those papers were put in separate boxes. My client has an extensive collection of books, and also equipment related to her field of expertise, so we brought up some shelving from downstairs (which had to be emptied off first and then cleaned) and put it in the upstairs office to hold her equipment. All of the books were stacked in a pile until we could get to the bookcase.

There was a closet crammed full of stuff, and we sorted through that in a general manner and brought a Phase One order to its interior. We will come back to that another day and fine tune it. Today the focus was on clearing the floor in that room. It took 6 hours, but we did it.

Diary of Organizing an Entire House

I am in the process of working with a client whose entire house needs to be decluttered and organized. It is a long, slow process because there is so much stuff, there is nowhere to put anything anymore. The house is full of belongings and papers -- some rooms cannot be entered because there is no pathway left; the clutter has found its way to the door.

There is no garbage or anything dirty in this house. It is simply a case of falling by the wayside because life is too full and there aren't enough hours in the day or enough energy/inspiration to keep after it all. The owners are successful professionals and have two young pre-teenage children.

So, the first step was to stop by the house and take a brief tour of all the rooms. This was just a half-hour tour to get an assessment of the situation. Short and sweet, there were boxes of items in all rooms. A full basement room was filled with boxes of papers, toys, office supplies, emergency supplies, etc. The upstairs office could not be entered because boxes of items filled the floor in no particular order.

SESSION ONE
When I went back for our first work session, I discussed an organizing strategy carefully and nonjudgmentally with my client. I explained that in the beginning of this organizing project, we were going to have to make some very broad strokes. No details yet. First, we just needed to get things up off the floor and into boxes and then stacked into "like" piles.

We decided to start in the basement by sorting and stacking and boxing all the papers and supplies into like piles. It took 8 hours. Although the room was still filled with items, it now had order.

The other smaller job we tackled that first day was the foyer. I explained that the first thing people see when they enter the house is the foyer, so it should be clutter free. We needed to designate a new spot to keep boxes of items that are waiting to be unpacked or sent out.

I was exhausted both physically and mentally when I went home that day. My client had worked alongside me enthusiastically the entire time, and I believe we fed off each other's energy, and that's what kept us going. Stay tuned for Session 2.

Tax Time

Right now, this month, it is important to start getting ready to prepare your taxes, so all of your filing needs to be up-to-date. Assuming that you have one or more piles of papers yet to be filed, set aside a block of time to start sorting through them, and follow this simple step to help the process go easier. For this purpose, every piece of paper does not need to be filed -- just sorted into the following piles:

Papers Needed to Prepare Your Taxes

• Tax forms (W-2s, 1099s, etc.)
  
• Medical/dental receipts (out of pocket)
  
• Real estate and school tax bills
• Child care expenses
• Charitable contribution receipts
• Interest statements
• Education payments/interest
• Retirement account papers
  

Paid Bills and Receipts to be Filed Later

• Paid bills (credit cards, electric, etc.)
• Shopping receipts
• Monthly statements
  

Papers You Want to Keep, Not Finance Related, to be Filed Later

• Articles you want to read/keep
• Children's schoolwork, report cards, etc.
• Letters or cards from family and friends
• Travel brochures
  

These are just general ideas, but you can see that once you sort your papers into main topics like this, you can pull out the tax-related papers quickly and only focus on them. Put the other piles of papers into boxes, clearly mark them, and we'll get back to sorting them later when the taxes are done.

Organizing Your Stuff is alot of Work!

Hello, I am a professional organizer. I have been helping people get organized my entire adult life, which is why I decided this past year to work towards becoming a Certified Professional Organizer. It is really satisfying and fulfilling for me to help people get organized and in this way make their lives a little better. We all search for the way we can make a positive difference in this world, and I think this is the way I can help.

This blog will be a place where I share my organizing experiences along the road to becoming certified. I have learned so much about myself and life in general through my organizing work. No matter who you are, learning the skills to organize your time, belongings and data is what really frees one's soul!

I invite you to share your experiences and comments with me and look forward to hearing from you.