Several people have asked me what I learned from the
ten hours I was gifted with a professional organizer.
She was very non-judgmental, which was essential, as it's humbling to have someone see your messiest areas and give them freedom to look behind closet doors. The organizer who came to my home has a background in interior design, more of the
space usage aspect than the colors & textures part of interior design.
This is an extra-long blog post, because I'm going to try to make it one instead of splitting it into parts. Feel free to skip down to the section that interests you most -
What we actually did, Principles I learned from her, and How I feel.
What we actually did
She usually starts in the master bedroom, so that is where we spent day one. On day one, she was more of a coach & motivator. "Here's a brown paper bag for things that have another home somewhere in your house. Here's a white plastic bag for things to donate. Here's a black garbage bag for trash. Here's a box for things you need to file. We're just doing a broad sweep. We're not going through papers one by one."
On day two, we worked in the kitchen. We completely emptied several cupboards, rearranged the dry goods and baking supplies in ways that made sense. She HELPED me make sense of some of it. The children's art drawer got switched, because their drawer made more sense for my 9x13s, etc. When we finished, we looked for other projects. The junk drawer, the coat hooks, hanging the bulletin board we found in my room, etc.
Actually, between day one and day two, I "did" the laundry room, particularly the three cubbies (each one is large enough to hold a LARGE laundry basket. I commandeered one for my "take out of the house" center. A baby book to ship, a return to Children's Place, items to drop off at the consignment store, etc.
Over the course of two days, we threw away three trash cans full and donated a van load.
Principles I learned from her
A home for everything.
And no homes take orphans.
Translated, if an item doesn't belong in a particular home, don't put it there. Find or make a home for it.
It may SEEM efficient as a mom to buy 3 boxes of spaghetti at the grocery store, but if you don't have room to store them and end up putting them in random cupboards and your cupboards are too full, and you forget you have them, it was NOT efficient.
Only touch things once. That applies to the mail as much as to the items in your baking cupboard. If you have to touch the salt and baking soda in order to reach your baking powder, ...
Keep a donate bag in your closet. If you put on an outfit in the morning, and realize it doesn't fit or it's not your style anymore or whatever, immediately put it in the donate bag. When the bag is full, put it in the car and TAKE it to your favorite donation place the next time you go out.
If you receive ANY boxes from UPS, i.e., if you order diapers or books or Christmas gifts, don't tear the box down to recycle. Take your item out of the box. Then set a timer for 15 minutes, and fill that box up with things you can donate.
For kitchen cupboards without pull-out shelving, or for a top shelf in a closet, place items in a plastic shoebox from the dollar store (or a real shoebox or any container), so that you only have to pull out one item (the shoebox) in order to reach the little thing in the back.
Is it like playing Tetris to pull things out of your cupboards? You should be able to pull out anything without moving another item. We weren't quite able to get my kitchen 100% to that place, but it's a lot better than it was.
Store your backstock WITH the current stock. If you have an extra bottle of dish soap, keep it in the same place you keep your current bottle. If you have a box of Cheerios waiting and ready for when you finish your current box, store it right behind it, where you will SEE it when you need it.
"Point of use" is a big concept for her. I have a plastic tablecloth I put under the art easel when the children paint, but it was stored in the kitchen in their art drawer. She pulled out a zipper plastic bag (like sheets come in - she saves all those), put the tablecloth in it, attached sticky velcro to the bag and to the easel, and voila! the tablecloth is stored WITH the easel. Another example she gave is the solution for her steam vacuum cleaner. She stores it on the floor in her basement, right next to her steam vacuum. Another example of "point of use" is not to store my Christmas bathroom decor in the basement with Christmas decor, but, rather in the top of my closet which is connected to the bathroom. Questions to ask oneself are, "When do I use this? Where do I use this?"
"Prime real estate" is a concept I had heard years ago in terms of where to keep items on/in a desk, but hadn't translated to my kitchen to the degree she encouraged me to.
She recommends having all the same hangers in your closet (particularly the velvet ones). I'm not sure I see the value in that, but I'm open to learning. She recommends a "one in- one out" policy for clothing, and finds it helpful sometimes to play "war" (like the card game, but with clothes). I gather it means that you consider two items, keep the one you love most, and discard the one you love least. I didn't quite follow her explanation.
Once you clean an area, you'll notice other cluttered areas nearby. Case in point: our mantle. Of all the places in our home, our mantle is the most "decorated." It has just enough items to provide interest - some tall pillar candles, a clock, the children's silhouettes, etc. But it also has three flat surfaces, so when I took the wall clock off to change the time this spring, and the hanger fell out of the wall, I just leaned the clock on the mantle. When Little Miss was grabbing for a photo frame elsewhere, I just moved it up high to the mantle. When Little Guy's Art Day projects came home from school in June (two big items), I plopped them on the mantle. But NOW, I notice all those extras. If one area of a room is clean, we'll start NOTICING the others.
If you have a pile that never moves from your kitchen counter, you won't SEE the second pile you add. But if you keep piles OFF your kitchen counter, you bet you will SEE the first pile you put there.
I would benefit from having a "command center." She asked where I do my work. "At the kitchen table or in the living room." Thus, the piles on the counter right by the table. She helped me think outside the box, and see that if I found a secretary at a certain furniture thrift store (and she gave me a price point I shouldn't go above), I could set it next to the tall bookcase in the living room that has children's books in it. I could place my work items in decorative bins or baskets on the top shelf or two, so that they are right there for "point of use" when I sit down to work.
How I feel
I feel lighter, so much lighter! I know what is in my kitchen (both food and utensils) and I can see them and reach them easily. I feel like I can make a menu plan and cook. This is also true for the junk drawer, the laundry room, my closet, etc, etc.
Yesterday was my first day to drive carpool to the city that has a used bookstore that supports a ministry close to my heart and also a children's consignment store where I shop & where I consign. So, day before yesterday, I loaded the back of the van with 3 boxes of books to donate, and one garbage bag to consign, and one brown grocery bag to drop off at Goodwill.
I sent a picture to the organizer, and asked for an address where I can send a thank you note, saying, "Life feels so do-able now!"
She replied, "I'm so happy for you!!! That's why I love my job. It's life changing!"
