Go Organize: Conquer Clutter in 3 Simple Steps (24 page)

Remember things will look worse before they look better. That is just how it is and it is okay. Things will look and feel better once you are finished.

WRAP UP

This may be one of the hardest things you have ever done in your life — organizing other people's things that you felt responsible for and organizing your personal memorabilia. You did a great job! It was sure worth it, wasn't it?

The way to keep your own memorabilia organized is:

 


• Do not purchase souvenirs that gather dust. Buy a T-shirt or something that you can use instead or let your photos be your souvenirs. Buy a unique cleaning product in a foreign country and every time you use it, you'll think of the time you were shopping there. Or buy a Christmas ornament, and each year you'll remember your visit.
  

 


• Only print photos that you will put in a photo book — no more loose photos. Another option is to display digital photos on a digital picture frame that scrolls to a different picture every few seconds. Put digital photos on a disk or save them on your computer in a folder labeled by date or event. Or send them to a Web site that lets you turn your photos into a hardbound book.
  

 


• Keep collections together and only keep the ones that are meaningful to you and that you have space for.
  

 


• Instead of buying more knickknacks that you will need to dust, plan to use the money some other way.
  

Remember, it is all just stuff. If an object lights you up and is organized, it can enrich your home and your life, and bring back great memories.

Do you have a room where you store off-season decorations, extra paper products, camping gear, and other household items that you need to keep but use infrequently? It could be your attic, basement, or a spare bedroom. Do you have a place you call your storage room, but in reality it has become a junk room — a dumping ground for anything you don't know where to put? Does your family open the door and toss things into this room, and now you can't even get in it? Do you go out and buy an item even though you know you have the same item in the storage room but can't find it? If you experience any of these problems, let me show you how you can transform this room back into a functional storage room.

Paula was thrilled when she bought her house because it had a large storage room. She was sure it was big enough to store everything she needed to store, from holiday decorations to things she bought in bulk.

She labeled all the plastic bins in the room. In her most recent move, she labeled each plastic bin with a number. In a notebook, she wrote the contents of each bin to its corresponding number. (She filed this under Household in her office files.) This worked for her because she knew where to find everything she was storing until it had a permanent home.

She had organized things on shelves and had always been able to find what she needed. One day Paula was surprised when she couldn't get into the storage room. She and her family had started opening the door and tossing things in. The items on the shelves were mixed up, camping gear and unrolled sleeping bags had been thrown back in a corner, and other items weren't put back in their containers or returned to their designated places.

This room had become a dumping place for her family members when they didn't know where else to put something.

At one time, it had been a room where everything could be found easily. Paula was determined to make it meet her needs again.

SEARCHLIGHT

With your Searchlight, look in your storage room for the things that work for you and for the problem areas that aren't working for you. Write each of these things down in your notebook. Take a picture while you are assessing this room. When you are finished, you can visually see the progress you made.

 


1. What do you like about the room?
   

 


2. What doesn't work for you in this room? Some questions you could ask yourself to identify your needs are:
   

    
   

   1. What is the purpose of this room?
      

    
   

   2. Are there shelves to hold what is stored here? Can they be adjusted to better suit your needs? Do you need additional shelves?
      

    
   

   3. Are there things here that need to be in other places in the home, or donated or thrown away?
      

    
   

   4. Are the things you use most often easily accessible?
      

    
   

   5. Are things clearly labeled?
      

    
   

   6. Does everything have a designated place?
      

    
   

   7. Do items need to be repacked to make them fit on the shelves better and take up less space?
      

    
   

   8. Would adding cupboards to this room help you make the best use of the space?
      

    
   
 


3. You have taken a good look at this room; now rate your wattage (see page 15). Where are you on this scale? Is that where you want to stay, or do you want to feel like a 10?
   

Now that you have answered these questions and written your answers in your notebook, you can use the Spotlight to set goals.

SPOTLIGHT

It may have been overwhelming and even a little disturbing as you assessed your storage room, especially if you couldn't even get in it because of all the stuff that had been tossed willy-nilly in the room. You did well identifying the problem areas and coming up with ideas of what you want this room to look like and how you want it to function for you.

Now write down your goals. After you have finished organizing this room, go back and check off each goal and see how it makes you feel. Here are some examples of goals you could set for this room:

 


1. Install additional shelving.
   

 


2. Make better use of the shelves in the room by adjusting them, placing items in containers, and using the right-sized containers for what is being stored.
   

 


3. Install hooks on the wall to hang items to free up space on shelves and the floor. (You can hang things like sporting equipment, camping gear, and seasonal items.)
   

 


4. Place items used most often in the most convenient places. Store seasonal items so they are out of the way, yet accessible when you need them.
   

 


5. Label all containers.
   

 


6. Use containers for small items, like collections, seasonal items, candles, vases, extra cords, or electronic parts.
   

Tip:
Label every container, box, or bin if it is not obvious what is in it. You think you will remember what is in them, but chances are you won't. It makes it faster to find things when they are labeled.

GREEN LIGHT

You have identified the problems and have set your goals by writing them in your notebook. Let's get in the Green Light and take action.

This room will take some time to organize, so schedule a time that is convenient for you when there aren't other distractions (such as children needing your attention or others wanting your time).

Wear comfortable clothes and set your timer for at least one hour. When your timer goes off, take a break for a few minutes if you need to. Set your timer for five minutes to remind yourself to come back to the room. If you are in a good working rhythm and you have time, set your timer for another thirty minutes to one hour. If it takes more than a few hours to organize, that is OK. The key to getting it all done is to keep working until you are satisfied.

Gather your tool kit (see page 22) and four containers (see page 35). Have a drink and a snack with you. You are ready to turn up the wattage in this room and reclaim it for a storage room.

As always, work from the inside out. Here's the order I recommend you work in:

 


1. cupboards
   

 


2. shelves
   

 


3. storage containers
   

Whether you have a cupboard or shelves, take everything off, one shelf at a time, and wipe off the shelf. As you remove each item, immediately evaluate the item. Ask yourself if you use the item, like the item, and want to keep the item. Then ask if it belongs in the room. If it does, set it aside with other items like it (place all holiday decorations in a pile, all sports equipment in another, etc.). Otherwise, place the item in one of the four containers — trash, donate, recycle, or BE basket. Have a specific reason for everything you keep. If you keep something “just because” or “just in case,” ask if it's really worth sacrificing storage space to keep it.

Once you've cleared all the cupboards and shelves, tackle the storage containers already in the room. You may not remember what's in them. Sort each item in each container and add it to the appropriate piles, keeping like-items together. This makes it easier to put things back and then find them in the future.

Once you've cleared all the cupboards and shelves and sorted everything, decide where you will place things. As you decide where to store things, divide the shelves and the space into premium, secondary, semi-storage, and hard-core storage.

Premium space is the space reserved for things you use most often. It is the space within easy reach — from your knees to one reach above eye level.

Secondary space is the space just beyond premium space — the higher and lower shelves. You can reach the items, but may need to bend down or get a step stool.

Semi-storage items are things that are only used once a year, like holiday decorations. These can be placed in the back of the room or on the highest or lowest shelves. It is not as convenient to reach, but you only need to reach them once a year. If you need to adjust shelves to facilitate things fitting better in all the spaces do so.