Say Goodbye to Clutter (part II)

Last week I shared with you the first part of “Say Goodbye to Clutter” and as promised, here is the second part with the next 5 steps:

1. Never Leave Home Empty Handed

Once you have determined what your categories are, it is essential to follow through on the exit strategy. If there is a clothing donation drop on your way to work, take a bag with you as you leave in the morning. When does the recycling truck come to your area? Make sure those bags of mixed paper and shredding are out there every week. Call the charities and find out when they will be in your neighborhood, and plan your de-cluttering around their schedule. Don’t leave bags and boxes parked in your hallway or garage for indefinite periods.

2. Resist the Urge to Rent External Storage

Storage facilities have a specific purpose in the downsizing process. You might want to use it temporarily to house excess furniture or artwork while you are staging and showing the home for sale. Storage lockers fall on the heading of postponement tactics. The danger is mostly to your pocketbook. Storage is an ongoing expense. It is better to deal with items of questionable value before making the move.

3. Call Your Kids

How much of what is crowding your house is actually yours, and how much are storing for other people? If your children have moved out, have them decide if they want to take all the things they left behind or have them make other arrangements for them. You can’t let other people hold you back from achieving your objectives.

4. Ask for Help

If you feel you are not up to the task, why not ask a trusted friend, family member or a professional to assist. Choose someone who is objective and decisive and not involved emotionally with your possessions. Downsizing is a great way to bond with family members as an opportunity to honor the past and share the stories.

5. Make it easy. Get it done

Whether you choose to sell, donate or toss, choose a method that causes the least wear and tear on you. This can be an exhaustive activity, performed best in stages and small chunks over a period of time. Use the Internet extensively to find resources for distribution of unusual objects or substances. Garage sales can be effective, but they require a great deal of planning, pricing and a fall-back plan for those items that don’t sell. Connect with charities that will pick up your clothing and household goods. Ditto for consignment. Give your friends and family deadlines for taking the stuff you have saved for them. Reward yourself with a new purchase that you have been postponing because you did no have enough room.

Once you have run the gauntlet, the rewards of de-cluttering are manifold. It saves your money, as there is less to move. It saves you time. Everything you own requires time and attention. Less stuff translates to more time for you. It also reduces the stress associated with a major change. And, finally, when you are ready to downsize to a retirement community, townhouse or condo, settling in will easier.

If you have any question, simply comment below or even better, contact us at Good Riddance! We’d love to hear from you.

Susan Borax
E: goodriddance@shaw.ca
P: 604 421 5952

Susan Borax and Heather Knittel
Co-author of Good Riddance: Showing Clutter the Door.
Good Riddance Professional Organizing Solutions
Practically Daughters Senior Move Managers

www.goodriddance.ca

Say Goodbye to Clutter (part I)

It Can Be Done

Before many members of the boomer generation can get on to the business of finding and planning the home of their dreams for their next stage in life, they need to develop a strategy that will allow them to go to the next- stage housing , clutter free. There are more avenues for disposing and distributing unwanted belongings than ever before, but it critical to understand your objectives. Is getting money your primary motivation? Do you just want your things to go to a good home and become useful again? Do you want your excess possessions to support the work of non-profits? Are you concerned about the environmental impact of discarding so much stuff? How can you keep the cost under control?

We have helped countless families through the process and have learned a great deal concerning what works and what doesn’t. It is hard to do when you don’t have a plan. If you have already found a new place, you will need to evaluate all of your current belongings for their suitability and practicality. Measuring rooms and furniture is mandatory. If you haven’t decided where you are going, you still need to examine what activities need to continue in a new environment, and which belong to a past life. Then figure out which possessions are associated with those interests, work and pastimes and downsize accordingly. The following are the critical factors to keep in mind when undertaking a project of this magnitude:

1. Don’t Underestimate

The TV shows that demonstrate how to de-clutter have motivated thousands confront their demons around stuff. However, sometimes they give the impression that results are instantaneous. As the Australian study “Stuff Happens” Unused things cluttering up our homes confirms, people who have lived in places for a long time, generally have more work to do. We recommend beginning 6 months to a year in advance of a proposed move to sorting and purging. You don’t want to get into a time crunch that forces you into making bad decisions, or worse, taking things with you that won’t fit with the new décor or lifestyle.

2. Start with Areas of the House You Are Not Using

Some of the most cluttered areas in homes are rooms that are being used for storage, like spare rooms, basements and garages. If you find the idea of getting rid of things to be daunting, these areas generally contain articles that are rarely if ever utilized.-discarded clothing, extra sets of dishes, holiday decorations, old blankets, schoolwork, furniture that has replaced in the front rooms, etc. all seem to wind up in these rooms. It is a good place to begin, as decisions will be easier to make.

3. Stick with One Room at a Time

Whatever you do, don’t fall victim to zigzagging. That’s when you start in one area, go into another room to get something, become distracted by a project that requires attention, and open a second front of de-cluttering. This is a success- prevention strategy of the first order. You will feel like nothing gets accomplished and you will create at atmosphere that will dissolve into chaos

4. Sort by Category

No matter where you start, arm yourself with boxes and appropriate containers fro sorting. Decide on what you want to take to the new place that can be packed up and labeled until you move and designate an area for storing it- either inside or out of the home. Key categories include Donate, Toss, Sell, Move to Another Room and I Don’t Know. There can be sub-categories for sale to consignment, on-line or garage sale.

5. What About Emotional Attachment?

Many people maintain a strong emotional connection to specific items. Sometimes we feel that we are the custodians of our family’s legacy, embodied in the heirlooms we inherit. People feel guilty if they choose to part with these. It is often easier if you can photograph something, incorporate it in an art project or find somewhere to donate this type of things where it will be appreciated by the recipients. If you have a large collection, it is permissible to save a representative portion and allow yourself to donate what you don’t have room for.

As easy as they may seem, these first 5 steps will require time and effort to accomplish.  Thus, I will stop here for this week and let you get started.  The next 5 steps will be posted next week so don’t miss out!

If you have any question, simply comment below or even better, contact us at Good Riddance! We’d love to hear from you.

Susan Borax
E: goodriddance@shaw.ca
P: 604 421 5952

Susan Borax and Heather Knittel

Co-author of Good Riddance: Showing Clutter the Door.
Good Riddance Professional Organizing Solutions
Practically Daughters Senior Move Managers

www.goodriddance.ca

The Black Holes of Inner Space

Where to find the missing items in your home that refuse to expose their whereabouts

Have you been playing hide and seek with your stuff for your entire life? Not being able to find things when you need them is akin to serving a life sentence. Misplacing things automatically propels you into meaningless and directionless activity in search of the lost objects. You run from room to room, retracing your steps, peering under furniture, up-ending cushions, or tossing the contents of drawers, all to no avail. Eventually, you give up, resigned to the missing possession’s departure from your life, forever wondering where it is hidden.

As professional organizers, specializing in downsizing and supportive relocation for older adults, we work with overwrought clients, who unable to end the cycle, continue to form search parties without results. In the course of de-cluttering we often recover documents, cash, mementos and treasures that have remained unseen for decades.

In our role as “household archaeologists” we encounter categories of items that regularly go astray. Our book, Good Riddance: Showing Clutter the Dooridentified the 100 belongings that are most responsible for cluttering homes. Similarly, there are objects that are more liable to disappear than others. If you are at the point where you would rather face a firing squad than track down another errant pair of reading glasses, then this guide may prove worthwhile.

The Black Holes of Inner Space

Black holes are places into which objects disappear and are not expected to be seen again. According to their definition, black holes possess a gravitational field so strong not even light can escape from their vicinity. We conjecture there are vulnerable “black hole” regions in your home. These domestic black holes lie in wait for a second’s inattention to swallow one of your necessities or personal treasures. In essence they function as Venus Fly Traps for your stuff. . Knowing what the black holes are and their respective location will add an element of precision to your searching. You will know where to look, and what to avoid

1. Pockets

Searching in pockets is always a productive use of time, especially if you are taking a garment to the drycleaners or giving it away Pockets are repositories for rubbish like gum wrappers, scratch and win cards that you did not win, and unspeakable things like used tissues. They are also the perfect hiding places for missing keys, money, cell phones, phone numbers, credit cards and snack-sized sources of nourishment. The problem is, you have lots of pockets. It may be a bit time-consuming, nevertheless you will locate a few golf tees, a single glove, or even the key to your storage locker.

2. Purses

Think about the contents of your handbag: wallet, keys, smokes, gum, tissues, cosmetics, checks, the mail, appointment cards, phone, sunglasses, book, pens, pad, water, analgesics. You know. The basics. When you are transferring this cargo from one handbag to another, there is bound to be residue. All of this mobility exerts a dispersed black-hole effect. Your spare change, unfilled prescriptions, birthday cards that never got mailed and the fob for your underground parking –all await you imprisoned in fifteen different purses.

3. Hangers

This one elicits an “aha” moment every time it occurs. You are looking hither and thither for a favourite camisole. After multiple checks through every closet, every dresser drawer, laundry hamper, bag for donation, the washing machine and the dryer, you are ready to give up and surrender. You figure, you will never wear it again. Then you have an epiphany. What would happen if you looked to see if you had hung more than one item on the same hanger? Within seconds, the cherished garment is revealed, exactly where you put it, before you covered it up with your bathrobe.

4. Luggage

Some people unpack the minute they return from a trip. Others take their time. Several months after your homecoming you find yourself madly rummaging around looking for the mate to your tennis shoe. The usual haunts turn up nothing. You start browsing for a replacement pair. You wrack your brain for some clue. Then it hits you. You haul out the suitcase, listening for sounds of life in its capacious hollow space. Unzip it. There, in one of those contoured compartments lies your abandoned shoe.

5. Back of the Cupboard

Kitchens are usually characterized by a behind-closed-doors approach to storage. For those who endure perpetual losing streaks, closed doors represent another barrier to easy retrieval. Cupboards that can only be accessed by lying face down on the floor and require a long handled implement to probe their inner reaches constitute black holes. Waffle irons, the extra blades for the food processor, glass milk bottles, party goods and gigantic serving platters are the types of things that get trapped in these cabinets. Anyway, they are worth looking into, but only if your knees can handle it.

6. Under the Bed

Many people store things under their beds, especially if they are apartment dwellers. But, because they are out of sight, items placed under the bed, either by design or happenstance, are rarely remembered. The space under the bed is haven for slippers, undergarments, pet toys, half-finished novels, single earrings, doll clothes and pillow cases, sharing space with the storage containers.

7. Couches and Chairs

A number of items tend to fall between the cracks, completely un-noticed. Along with the remote controls slip pens, coins, eyeglass cleaning implements, matches, tins of mints, pocket combs and books of stamps, a mere five inches of padded springs separating them from their owner. You can check these black holes in your upholstered furniture as a matter of course, or simply wait for a spring cleaning marathon, when they will be discovered during a bout of power vacuuming.

8. The Wrong File

There is probably nothing more soul-destroying than trying to locate missing documents. Some documents need to be kept our entire lifetimes and others of little or no consequence, like old homework. Most people construct filing systems to help them manage paper. Filing cabinets carry black hole status for a couple of reasons. First is simply, out of sight out of mind. Another file-related issue is cramming. Our clients tend to stuff so much into a file drawer it becomes unusable. Plus there is human error factor. Filing documents in a neighbouring folder is a fairly common occurrence.

 

Susan Borax
Good Riddance Professional Organizing Solutions/Practically Daughters Senior move Managers

It Ain’t Me Babe

How to Overcome Resistance, Save your Relationship and Keep Clutter Under Control

When people make a commitment to share a residence, their respective positions on clutter often go uninvestigated. Yet, one of the greatest sources of marital, family and roommate discord can be attributed to conflict around neatness, order and what to do about junk. In cases where romantic entanglements lead to co-habitation, lovers, temporarily blinded by passion and novelty, can excuse or overlook qualities in the other person with which they may not be entirely comfortable. Or, when friends decide to share a place, they may focus on financial arrangements, space considerations or location. Nevertheless, nowhere does incompatibility rear its ugly head more ferociously than around issues of storage and disposal of excess belongings? With newly constructed apartments getting smaller, the situation threatens to become even more challenging. Even the most smitten of newlyweds or the oldest of friends can be transformed into bitter adversaries when prized possessions become objects of contention.

Love may conquer all, but clutter may spell its undoing. As professional organizers, we run into situations that practically render us marriage counselors as well as de-clutterers. Many a call has come from true-to-life desperate housewife driven to the brink of exhaustion from battling a husband who is unable to part with his boyhood collections of action figures, record albums and 4 decades worth of magazines. Mothers, at the end of their ropes, contact us in hope of finding prescriptions for dealing with their teenagers’ bedrooms. The room’s resident son or daughter is generally oblivious to the room’s condition or the mother’s despair. Then there is the individual who unilaterally decides to work from home, adding the accoutrements of a home-based business to an already impossibly crowded space, pushing everyone else’s limits of tolerance. What about the distraught husband who has been unsuccessful in his attempts to prevent his wife from taking everything from a 3500 square foot home with a basement and try to squeeze into a downsized 2 bedroom condo? The circumstances may be different, but the problem is the same. How can you live with another person who is so tied to his or her possessions that it threatens the fabric of the relationship?

So, what can you do when the people you with whom you choose to share your living space refuse to share your viewpoints and practices in the domestic arena? Short of threats, ultimatums or moving out, there are solutions to preserve your sanity.

One Step at a Time

Arlene is a woman in her mid-forties living with a husband and 4 children ages 18 to 23. They are a happy, successful, on the go family with five cars, an RV, a home gymnasium and enough sporting equipment to outfit several teams. Like a number of their compatriots in the “sandwich generation” they recently inherited 2 bedroom condo’s worth of furniture and household goods. And like many busy and active people, maintaining order was not a primary focus. Thus, the house resembled a warehouse more than it did a home. Hallways were impassable. Rooms were indistinguishable from each other as to purpose and function. In a word, with the exception of the upstairs living room and kitchen, it was a mess. Then, a sleeping giant awoke.

Arlene decided it was time. Her goal was to remove excess furniture and boxes to make an office, upgrade her décor by replacing worn furniture with some of the pieces they had inherited and optimize the existing storage areas which included a basement store room, a closet under the stairs and a garage. Once accomplished, her intent was to shift her focus to the other family members, leading by example.

Armed with boxes, rubber gloves, giant garbage bags, she set out to strike a fatal blow to what amounted to 15 years of neglect. Each room was approached systematically. All items were sorted and categorized. Charities were contacted for pick-up and items worth selling were sent to consignment. Garbage was sub-divided between re-cycling and trash. Her remaining possessions were classified into archived and active status and were assigned homes based on those criteria. Suddenly, she could see her floor and her office emerged.

By remaining incredibly focused, Arlene achieved amazing results in a short period of time. Her kids’ bedrooms were another story. No one embraces change. She needed to overcome resistance, inertia and convince them that their old methods of making do, no longer worked for her brood. Fortunately, the family dynamic was based on mutual respect and open communication. Nevertheless, she was dealing with adult children and needed to be sensitive to crossing boundaries. But it was Arlene’s sheer will and determination that brought them into line.

Each sibling was assigned his or her own storage areas for sports equipment, shoes and memorabilia that did not fit comfortably in their small bedrooms. Dressers were introduced to replace open shelving for clothing. Each family member was instructed to cull though boxes lying around in other rooms that contained their respective possessions. Using the identical methods employed by their mother, they evaluated the contents, piece by piece, and determined destinations for them- keep, store, or purge. The intent was to convert the bedrooms into unique spaces that reflected their personalities but would be easy to maintain.

Compliance with Arlene’s wishes was somewhat uneven. The girls were more cooperative than their brothers, and therefore served as valuable allies in the cause. Each daughter took on a brother as a special project. Each of the children was supplied with a large, clear plastic container. This was for storing special mementos and photos that did not need to be displayed, but were being saved for posterity. Other items and furniture were moved into the storage areas that could be drawn upon when they were starting up their own households. As a reward, closets were outfitted with extra hanging space and shelving in their rooms, allowing them to improve the storage of their clothing, books and media.

Arlene’s husband was the final frontier in her crusade to make room to live well in their household. His tolerance for clutter and chaos was considerably higher than Arlene’s especially since her epiphany and clean-up activities. To really make this work, she needed to bring everyone literally on board. Particularly bothersome was his penchant for saving all kinds of nostalgic knickknacks and travel souvenirs, all of which required regular dusting and cleaning on her part. Another problem was that she and her mate shared a closet and a bureau in the master bedroom. There was a good deal of finger pointing around whose responsibility it was to maintain the tidiness of this woefully inadequate clothes cupboard.

We advised Arlene to start small and pick her battles. If she constantly nagged him to clean up or divest himself of collectables, he generally turned a deaf ear on her pleadings. Her husband had strong attachments to many of the items, so tossing them out and hoping he would not notice would not be a good strategy for preserving the relationship.

Arlene decided that the real issue that divided them was an absence of a definition of personal space. As one of the older children was planning to move out in a few weeks, she was able to get him to compromise by moving his clothing into the newly liberated spare bedroom. She now had adequate space to store her belongings, as did he. She decided the knick-knacks could be addressed at a future time, when it would seem less contentious. It provided the model for a clear-cut definition of personal space, responsibilities for maintenance and a degree of privacy.

Making a shift of this magnitude requires eternal vigilance. New stuff is bound to come in all of the time. Families need to have a strategy for incorporating new interests and hobbies and their corresponding possessions into the home, so periodic reviews need to become part of the routine.

by Susan Borax
Co-author of Good Riddance: Showing Clutter the Door.
Good Riddance Professional Organizing Solutions
Practically Daughters Senior Move Managers
www.goodriddance.ca