We can all agree we like this picture. (I think that would be a fair assessment)
But what would this place look like with dirty dishes on the counter, some lights burned out or mixed colors, plastic wraps, carton boxes on chairs, an overflown trashcan, and cleaning products on counters?
Then we can also agree the magic is gone!
I usually feature beautiful interiors and exciting buildings on my feed to get you in touch with that part of your soul that craves beauty and order. I always aim to demonstrate that great design can only shine in clean, uncluttered spaces. That type of space allows the mind to see the beauty of the design without the distraction of clutter.
Who doesn’t like a hotel room? Of course, we all like the newness of experiencing something out of the routine. But the neatness and simplicity of a hotel room have a lot to do with how we experience that space. That neatness and simplicity are no accident — it is by design.
Think about the magic that a staged model home delivers. Yet, even if you were to buy that same model home, furnished and all, as soon as the disjointed moving boxes and bags arrived on moving day, the magic would be gone instantly.
So, what happened?
No matter where you live or what you own, you can have a place that excites you to gasp. You can be in love with your own home! But it takes attention and intention. Unfortunately, these two things are pretty much neglected when it comes to the place where we live.
But why?
Many take their home for granted and stop paying attention to details, neglect to repair broken items, and use their home as storage spaces (instead of living spaces). Clutter creeps up when we stop paying attention to our environment and what we keep.
And we stop paying attention to our surroundings when we live mindlessly.
The level of clutter directly correlated to the level of disinterest shown in a home. It is easy to get to that point when we have so much stuff that we can no longer pay attention to anything. Nothing seems unique anymore. Consequently, we turn blind to mess and beauty alike. It’s a vicious cycle.
That makes me think of family relationships; after some years of marriage, some people start taking their partners for granted, stop trying, get bored, and don’t care. What if we tried to keep the magic alive?
So, is the grass greener elsewhere? Not necessarily. It is not always the case, and it largely depends on you.
So, keep your grass green; fertilize and water it, and enjoy it too.
Contact My Space Reclaimed, LLC, for inspiration. We can’t wait to show you that home you never knew you had!
This post is not about “tips and tricks” about how or where to store your things. Instead, I will bring you a simple but highly overlooked truth.
Do you need it out there?
We all need certain things handy. I hear it all the time – “Oh, this is out here because we use it all the time, and we need it handy.”
Let’s consider this for a moment.
If you have already purged everything that does not serve your life anymore, what you keep then is something you or your household members need.
But if we apply the same reasoning that “it’s out there because we use it all the time,” everything you own would be “out here.”
Can you visualize the chaos?
You’d be surprised at the unused or underutilized space at home. And usually, the reasoning behind it goes: “It needs to be out here because we use it all the time.” So the issue might not even be a lack of storage space – quite the contrary!
“By leaving these things out in the open, we think we’re saving time when we need them, and we think we’re simplifying our lives, but the result is anything but. I call this the “convenience fallacy.” And it’s a huge source of the visual clutter in our homes.”
“Sure, by leaving them out, you may save a couple of seconds when you want to grab one of them. But for the other 99.9 percent of the time, they’re sitting out, where they create a visual distraction, get in the way, add to the disorganization of our spaces, and attract more clutter.”
A place for everything and everything in its place.
To get and remain organized, you need to have a place for each and every item in your home. Also, after using it, you must return everything where it belongs. Do this immediately and consistently; soon enough, it becomes a habit.
Even when you start a project or process that you can’t finish immediately, get in the habit of putting things back at the end of the day. You see, life happens. And many times, despite our best intentions to finish the next day what we started, we don’t.
And it might not happen that week or even that month (sounds familiar?). There will be supplies, tools, equipment, and materials in odd places – anywhere but where these things should go. And stuff remains wherever for months and years while new, incomplete projects come into the picture.
A few things left out of place due to frequent use will soon justify all other things we use often left out of place. And eventually, only very few things are in their rightful place in the home. By then, the chaos around the house affects your productivity, joy, sleep, and life. What’s worse, your mind might not be getting what your body and intuition clearly perceive.
And it doesn’t matter how well organized the home gets to be at a particular moment. When everyday habits don’t support that order, the mess will return (and with a vengeance).
Continued effort is essential.
The idea behind organizing is to make life easier. Hence, in developing organizing systems, item accessibility and frequency of use must be considered.
However, that does not mean that a well-organized place with great systems does not require any effort. There must be a balance between the convenience of having an organized home, the ease of using our belongings, and the effort that maintains order in the house.
Your belongings might be easier to find once everything is organized (even labeled). Still, everything needs to return where they belong every time items are used. After all, that’s key to finding those things again quickly.
Many people struggle to understand their disorganization at home. Some buy containers or storage solutions. Others go after the latest trend in organizing and trying various things.
Unfortunately, the result is usually less than satisfactory or doesn’t last. This happens when the basics of home organizing are overlooked. And no fad, gimmick, or container will ever help. The truth is that three basic steps are necessary for the organization to stick.
Let go of all the excess in your life (clutter)
Designate a proper, permanent place for every item you own
Place everything back where it belongs after each use.
Those three steps are fundamental to maintaining an organized space.
Note that the first point is letting go of the clutter. You’ll inevitably have to face your clutter issue while designating a place for everything you own. Clutter must go away, and you’ll have to make critical decisions.
It’s the only way to open up the space needed to store what you intentionally decide to keep.
Let’s help with that initial push.
If your home has never been in top shape, you might need help with that initial organizing effort. The initial organizing of the house can be a profoundly confusing process for many people. If that is your case and you don’t know where to start, do not hesitate to seek help. We can assist you with the initial organizing but, most importantly, help you develop the systems and methods to keep your home space in great shape. Let’s chat!
All those school projects, papers, and awards are everywhere, and you can’t find it in your heart to let them go.
Organizing kids’ memories let you declutter your life and enjoy those mementos better. I will show you how.
First, gather all your children’s projects, artwork, school papers, trophies, awards, and the like. Go through every space, drawer, closet, and room in your home. Leave no space unchecked. Take all this kid-related stuff to a single place in your home to collect them together.
However, stay hyper-focused during this gathering process. Don’t get distracted by other things you might find. Your focus is crucial! Getting distracted is what trips people on this process, and then they get confused and can’t finish half the job.
Once you have this material in one place, you will have a large group of miscellaneous items. Now subdivide this big pile by the child if you have two or more children.
After having a separate pile for each of your children, sort each one by year. When you can’t recall the year when the piece was created, and the item does not show, assign some chronological order as best as you can.
You will have several groups of items per each of your children. Now follow the steps described below for each of those years, per child. You must work on one group (year or stage) for one child at a time.
1. Discard Unimportant Papers
Unimportant papers are notifications from school, lunch menus, and the like. These are things that won’t move our hearts at the end of the day. (You know what I’m talking about). So, recycle or trash all that.
2. Photograph Non-Scannable Items
Take good pictures of everything that is not flat paper, like artwork pieces, medals, trophies, etc. As you take each photo, include a post-it note with the child’s name and the item’s date. Place this post note at the bottom of each item so that you can crop it out of the picture later on. Then, when ready to work on a project with these pictures (like a photo book or scrapbook), crop the note out, if you can tag or caption the image.
If taking pictures of these items will suffice, you can let go of the physical object. When dealing with trophies, medals, and awards, if you or your child are not ready to part with the physical thing just yet, find a suitable location in the home where you can gather and display these items in a cohesive, aesthetic way. You don’t want them to look like accidents in your home.
3. The Written Work
Group items related to written work like stories, poems, analyses, and the like. The idea for these is to make binders or books later on. But, for now, organize the material to create these books later.
4. The “Warm & Fuzzy” Box
Regardless of your most ruthless efforts to eliminate clutter, there might be a few (a few), small items that you or your child can’t simply let go of, even when these have been digitized. That’s where the “Warm & Fuzzy” box comes in.
Everyone should have a “warm & fuzzy” box, by the way. This is a nice-looking box, basket, or container with a lid that includes items we keep forever. Those are the items that take us back in time and make us laugh and cry every time. Therefore, it is crucial to be selective with the things we include here. Not everything makes it to the coveted status of “warm & fuzzy” box material. Remember that!
5. Paper and Flat Media
Loose papers, awards, recognitions, messages, etc., on paper, are scannable media. As you do this, name the electronic file with the child’s name and the year when they made it. This process is equivalent to the post-it notes you applied to items photographed.
Scan everything using your printer/scanner, your iPhone, or any equipment you might have or can purchase for this purpose. This equipment is not that expensive anymore. However, it would be an excellent investment to have a reliable scanner at home.
Stories, poems, essays, and other items you put together to make binders or books (step 3), don’t need to be scanned individually. However, it is clever to digitize these, ensuring a safe record. If you do, ensure that pages of the same item remain together in sequential order.
You will manage the scanned material the same way you dealt with the pictures. So think of each scanned paper or project a digital image comparable to the photos.
6. Rinse and Repeat
Once you finish working with all the mementos of a child’s years, repeat the process with each one of your other children, working a year or a stage at a time.
In my case, we have three children, and for each one, I divided their electronic files into four main stages: infancy, elementary school, middle school, and high school. Note that pictures or souvenirs from extra-curricular activities and summers get included in one of these four stages, depending on the year.
7. Create Digital Files
Download all the photos you took of non-scannable items into an electronic file. You could name this file “Kids’ Projects” or something like that. Then create a file folder per child, and move every picture related to a particular child into their electronic folder. After this, you may subdivide each child’s electronic folder into years or stages or any way you want to do this.
Do not forget to add all images from your scanning process. Add these to the same digital folders.
From Now On
From the moment you gather all those projects, awards, and papers from around the home, consider it is a clean slate and new beginning. Pay attention to how you manage your children’s documents, projects, and awards. The key is to stay on top of things. Here’s is how you do that.
Every day, when kids come home from school or extra-curricular activities
Note important dates and deadlines and place those dates on the family calendar.
Post any school reminders for your children on a magnetic or chalkboard where they can see them every morning.
Discard those notes or papers. Those are the miscellaneous papers you tossed on step 1 above.
The Artwork
When the children bring home artwork pieces, trophies, medals, and other non-flat items
Photograph these as soon as they get home (so they look their best and you don’t forget to do this).
Save these pictures in the child’s electronic file. Name the file with the child’s name and year.
Add subsequent art projects during that year to that same file.
Create a new file with the child’s name and year every year.
You or your child might want to display such an item for a while. That’s great! Just ensure you place this item in that particular location you designated for this kind of thing. But, again, you don’t want their projects to look or feel like clutter.
In any case, taking those pictures early on gives you and your kids the freedom to let go of the item after displaying it for some time.
The Paper
Scan all paper items and flat media such as report cards, academic evaluations, school pictures, stories, essays, and poems as soon as they come home.
If you can’t process these items immediately, park these papers in a bin close to the scanner, and assign a day of the week or the month in your calendar (yes, do it now!) to periodically scan these things. Of course, discard originals as soon as you digitize them. But should you need to keep it, place it in a file with the child’s name in your filing cabinet.
It’s a lot of work, I know. But consider that all this work needs to be done just at the beginning of the project because you did not have a method to deal with all this stuff so far. So once you follow the initial process, you only need to stay on top of it.
But why do all of this in the first place? First, this solves the overwhelming number of papers and artifacts cluttering our home space. Second, this process allows you to have all that worth-keeping material organized and ready to create meaningful stories of each stage of your children’s lives.
Telling a story is the real purpose of keeping all these projects, pictures, and awards. Having all those papers and items with no order all over the house does not tell any story nor inspire anyone to create one. This material is simply meaningless when scattered around or carelessly stored in a bin somewhere.
On the other hand, memories in book form, like photo books, are easy to keep neatly on a shelf or library and are a joy to share. Our children will be able to see and enjoy their path through life and share this fantastic legacy with friends, family, and their children.
Also, imagine the storage space you will recover when you let go of physical items and original papers! However, you might think that throwing all that away is what you did not want to do. But how many times has anybody enjoyed those things since you put them away? Is there space in your home to display them all? Are they all worth exhibiting? Do you want your home to look like a kindergarten classroom?
Maybe when your child created a project, you displayed it for about a week or so. But eventually, that project, along with so many others, started cluttering your home and your life. So, this way of purposely and intentionally working with your children’s stuff will take you where you want to be.
Looking Beneath Your Need to Keep the Stuff
If you feel it is too hard to let go of those physical objects and original papers, even when they are safely digitized, what you are probably trying to keep is the feelings they evoke. It is not about the item itself. Images of these items can still satisfy those feelings without drowning you in “stuff.” Instead, having these memories accessibly organized enables everyone to enjoy and share them for many years to come.
After many years of unrealized New Year’s resolutions and failed attempts to get organized on your own, you have decided to make it happen. You have chosen to hire a Professional Organizer! Well, you will be amazed at how working with an Organizer can transform even your perspective in life.
What Kind Of Organizing Services Do You Need?
Some Organizers offer a wide range of services, while others work in a specialized niche. For example, some Organizers work with corporations rather than residential clients. Others specialize in specific areas such as home offices or closets. Finally, some Organizers specialize in working with clients with brain-based conditions, including the chronically disorganized and individuals with ADD.
Where Should You Begin Your Search?
Use NAPO’s Professional Organizer Directory to search for a professional organizer by type of service, distance from your location, or both.
Use resources such as FindMyOrganizer.com, Angie’s List, and HomeAdvisor.com
How Do You Decide Who Is Right For You?
It would help to speak to several Organizers before choosing the one to with you. If you prefer to meet in person before making a decision, note that some Organizers offer free consultations, while others charge for the consultation and credit that fee toward services if hired. Yet others charge separately for assessments and services.
As with most professions, fees vary widely based on experience, geographic location, and competition. For example, many Professional Organizers charge by the hour, while others charge by the project. Therefore, establishing a budget and deciding what feels most comfortable would be the first thing to do.
Avoid choosing an Organizer strictly by price. Instead, focus on value by finding a professional with a personality you click with and whose skill set matches your needs. That person will most likely deliver the results you expect in the shortest time.
What Questions Should You Ask When Hiring A Professional Organizer?
One of the first questions is whether the Organizer is a member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO). Membership to NAPO demonstrates that the Organizer is committed to continuing education and an industry code of ethics.
Other professional associations directly related to the organizing industry include Professional Organizers in Canada (POC), the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD), and the Australasian Association of Professional Organizers (AAPO).
An experienced Organizer will ask many questions about you, your work style, what you are looking for, and the issues you believe have thwarted your best attempts to get organized in the past. In addition, they want to get to know you, understand your objectives, and determine whether they will be a good fit for you.
Therefore, it is in your best interest to be as candid and straightforward as possible about what you want to achieve.
So here are some suggestions of questions to ask a potential Organizer:
What kinds of organizing projects do you do?
Who is your typical/usual client?
What services do you offer?
Do you have any training or hold any certifications in organizing or related areas?
Can you describe your organizing process or describe a typical working session?
How long have you been in the organizing business?
What is your fee structure?
Do you work with a written contract?
What is your cancellation policy?
I have tried to get organized before. How will this be different?
What To Expect From An Organizer
Professional organizers should be nonjudgmental, encouraging, and supportive. They should be good listeners and recommend various suggestions, alternatives, and solutions to create the system that will work best for you.
If you start working with a Professional Organizer and, along the way, decide that you are not comfortable with their style, you are rarely under obligation to continue the relationship. Be sure to let the Organizer know how you feel. More than likely, they will be happy to recommend a colleague.
A Professional Organizer strives to increase the organization of your space and its functionality, so you can do more with your time and live a happier, better life. This person is skilled at creating systems that work for you. But for this to happen, the Organizer needs to learn about your preferences, habits, and style.
The Deep Dive
The Organizer will invite you to have a deeper conversation about why you want this project done. Why is this space the way it is today? What circumstances brought the area(s) to its current state? Are those circumstances still present, or will they return? What are you doing to ensure those situations or circumstances won’t come back?
Failing to address these aspects might result in the organized areas returning to their previous state sooner than you imagine. Ideally, the root causes of the problems in the space are analyzed and corrected during the organizing process.
You might not be ready to engage in that conversation yet. It can be a difficult conversation to have. You might not want to discover or discuss the cause(s) behind the disorganization bothering you. If this is the case, expectations need adjustment. The long-term results of your project might be different from what you desire.
There’s Always An Option
However, you can always engage the Organizer’s help in maintaining the space to avoid reversing the progress made; a good option until you feel ready to tackle the root cause of the problem head-on. And when that time comes, your Organizer will be there to hold your hand.
When your project is due to a lack of time or availability on your part to maintain an organized space, or if you need an Organizer to help you move, or after a renovation project, for example, this professional can help you all the same. In this case, expect the Organizer to provide a specialized service to improve your space’s order, functionality, and aesthetics.
Organizing takes strategy, planning, thought, skills, and time. An experienced and accomplished Professional Organizer will seek a lasting transformation of the space and the client’s life.
Many say they need to become more organized, especially each January. Some will even call an Organizer. However, those unwilling to adopt new habits will always struggle with clutter. No matter how easy or difficult that initial push to get the home in top shape might be. That is just a start. Without maintenance, that initial organization is just a waste of time and money. Organizing is not a project; it is a lifestyle. So, here are 11 key habits of an organized lifestyle. These will make a big difference in your home and how you live.
1. Make The Bed Every Morning
Making your bed makes the room feel in order and makes you feel accomplishment from the time you get up. In addition, this action helps you face the date with a can-do attitude.
2. Keep A Donation Bag In Each Closet
Having a bag for things you no longer need or want allows you to make those decisions when you think about them. You will have a designated place for these items and won’t need to remember to gather them later. When the bag is full, schedule a donation run. The moment you put on a piece of clothing that you feel is no longer suitable or is ripped or screams dated, instead of hanging the clothing back (or God forbid, throw it on the bed or a chair), you will place that item in the bag.
3. Create A Home For Everything In Your House
You will decide where things should go based on their use pattern in the home. The important thing is to assign one specific place to each category of items, preferably. If using an item requires storing it in more than one space, formally set those spaces up. Also, labeling storage areas allows everyone to know where to put things back. Finally, remember that If anything can go anywhere, everything will go everywhere.
4. Put Things Back In Their Place
To maintain an organized home, everyone must put things back where they belong every time. Hence the importance of labeling spaces until everyone knows the proper place of things. “I will put this here for the moment” does not work. It never has. It never will.
The words “free,” “save,” and “discount” act like a drug on the brain. Please don’t fall for it. Before you buy, ask yourself if you need the item and have the space to store it. If not, please walk away. The less you own, the more living area you enjoy in your own home, and the less you have to take care of.
When bringing home bags or boxes, remove the contents and strip those items of outer packing as much as possible. That is making the stuff truly yours. It also makes the item(s) ready to be organized within your home. This process is a critical step we follow when organizing a space. You want to have everything as visible and ready to be used as possible. Removing all unnecessary packaging also saves lots of space and makes all items of the same kind look the same. The more homogeneous your collection, the more functional the system is and the prettier your areas look.
Entertained garbage makes up for most of the clutter in every household. If you commit to removing the packaging of what you bring home, then go the distance and trash the garbage instead of allowing all the extra packing to linger around your home until who knows when.
8. Process Mail Efficiently
Keep a recycle bin, a shredder, and a tray or sorter to process the mail. Preferably have your filing cabinet where you process the mail. Most of the mail you receive is junk. Throw it away before it can clutter your home. Also, be a knowledgeable shredder; only those documents with account numbers, social security numbers, medical information, or bank offers need to be shredded. Having a shredder right where you sort the mail allows you to take care of this immediately. Too often, I find boxes full of documents that need shredding cluttering my clients’ lives. Over concerns about safety compounds the problem. When we do not know what we should destroy, we accumulate more paper over time. Also, it is critical to have a mail sorting and filing system that works for you. This way, you process bills on time, and things needing filing won’t float around the home. Every piece of paper to keep needs a file.
9. Plan Ahead
Take a few minutes to prepare for the next day at the end of each day. Evaluate your “to do” list and set out everything you need to go through your planned errands the next day.
10. Practice Strategic Scheduling
Scheduling is logistics 101. College business programs include courses on administration and logistics, with algorithms to determine the optimal sequence of events to complete a project or the most efficient routes to get around. Of course, you don’t need to go to such an extent, but you can gain significant efficiency and add more time to each day with some planning ahead.
11. Clean Out Bags Daily
Whether it is your handbag, weekender, kids’ sports bags, or suitcases, emptying the contents of all bags allows you to assess what needs replacement, needs to be washed, trashed, or placed somewhere else. This practice is particularly beneficial in helping you plan for the following day or week. If you are a paper kind of person and love to write little reminders and notes to yourself throughout the day, emptying your bag consistently helps you remember that idea you wanted to pursue. Those reminders might be the start of more significant plans in the scope of your life.
Consistency Is Key
These 11 steps might not seem like much, but when combined and executed consistently, they will show a big difference in your life.
