Economize your Spring Cleaning

Are you in Spring cleaning mode?
Other than turning over the carpets what else could you do to clean your surroundings?
Does the word of the month, economize, give you any ideas?
Economize your energy spent on cleaning and staying organized:

Establish a cleaning routine
Create a place for everything
Open your mind to ecology and economy
Nibble away on problem areas until you are happy with the result
Order your files on your computer, trash what you don’t need anymore
Maximize any cleaning fluids by using half of what you used to use
Identify items in your home that are hurtful to the ecology
Zero in on simple improvements ecology-wise (see Sandy from Green Irene)
Experience your zen after cleaning your house

RESOLUTE(ION)

This month’s “organizing word” (and there will be a different one for every month this year) is RESOLUTE. It is a powerful basis to organization, physically and mentally:

Revisit any resolution you made as often as you can, put it on your calendar if necessary.
Every resolution has a life span. If you are going for a new habit, give it the 3 weeks, after that it may be second nature.
Seek support from family members, friends, and coworkers.
Overlook small setbacks, keep focused on your goal.
Love yourself every step of the way.
Use crutches, if necessary.
Take it in small increments, especially if you are tackling a very huge project.
Expect miracles.

Stumped for present ideas?

How about some storage solutions anybody would appreciate:

For cluttered entryways, back porches, or niches anywhere: Storage benches with flip-up seats are ideal storage places for all those things you want to keep out of sight but need to get to frequently.

No place to put your keys? Keychain holders come in endless varieties of styles and sizes. Include the offer to put them on the wall.

Pagoda trays (stacked boxes) can come in handy in any room. They have a small foot print so they won’t take up much room. For example, you can use them in bathrooms for hair jewelry and in the kitchen for tea bags, coupons, and receipts.

Adding slide-out shelves to lower kitchen cabinets tames piles of pots, bowls, and utensils. (We can install them. If you give them as a present you could add a gift certificate from Cure for Space.)

Sturdy hooks hold purses, school bags, coats, or reusable shopping bags. Make sure the hook is strong enough to accommodate a heavy book bag. Ideally, the hook should have space for your hand to make it practical for any use in your household. For school bags you can find personalized hooks. Include the offer to affix them. For elementary school children hooks for their bags should be low enough for ease of use.

Shoes are a tumble? We can make custom shoe racks that are easy to use and get shoes off the floor!

Piles of business cards? We have the solution! Business card boxes for up to 500 cards or any size you specify. A great gift for any networking individual or business partner.

On Letting Go

What enjoyable weather we have had the last few days!

It prompted me to look at a few corners in my house where I encountered some challenges on what I can let go. I have added a “Letting Go” page to my website which gives you many resources on where you can take items that you have decided to let go, but the decision to let go is a whole different story!

I find the hardest to let go are historical artifacts or mementos. Here are some questions you can ask yourself and act upon:
What shape is it in? Will it completely disintegrate within a short time? How costly would it be to preserve it?
Would a photograph of it be enough for a memory jogger?
Is there another version(s) already stashed somewhere?
Is it part of a collection or a singular item? If it is a collectible, do you enjoy it?
Is there room for it in the present?
Is it worth remembering?
Does it have any monetary value?

Often, before making decision on what to keep and not to keep, I realize that it might be of so little value to me and my present life that passing it on to your favorite charity makes me feel better than keeping it. Refer to the donating part of my Letting Go page to find just the right home.

How about all those things that need repair to be either used or displayed again? If it has not found a repair shop or your honey-do’s hands and you would not buy the same type of item now, say good-bye to it. Alternatives are:
Giving yourself a short deadline for it to be repaired. If it is very important to you the deadline will be kept.
Can it be yard art?
Can it be repurposed?
Do you know a fixer-upper who would appreciate it (and not necessarily give it back to you)?

What about those presents you are stowing because they don’t fit your decor, life style, or personality? Either re-gift (hopefully not to the same person who gave it to you), donate, or consign it to a resale shop. If, by any faint possibility, the giver should ever ask for it, tell them you appreciated it for a while and that it found a new home. The same goes for things you may have inherited. If you love it, keep it. If you use it, keep. Otherwise, you can let go of it.

Closeted clothing? You have moved from a cold climate to a hot one and have a closetful of winter clothing that take up lots of space: Consider what you would need for a visit into the cold country and how useful it will be in your current climate. Also, face it, that “one day” you have been thinking about wearing that great skirt probably never comes.

My Declutter 101 can be downloaded from our website and gives you more questions to ask yourself to help you make those difficult decisions about what to let go and what not.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT “STUFF”

a.k.a. DOWNSIZING OR SETTLING AN ESTATE

It is natural to be overwhelmed by emotion and a lifetime accumulation of things needing to be cleared out of a home. Family and friend relationships can be strained over what to keep and what to discard. This could lengthen the home-clearing process more than needed.

As downsizing one’s belongings is necessary when moving to a senior living arrangement, this clearing process could begin during someone’s lifetime when items can be gifted or passed on to the person(s) who will continue to enjoy and appreciate them.

If you are named as the executor of an estate, or need to settle a loved one’s estate, or you have been chosen to help,  you may want to consider the assistance of a professional organizer to

• Sort through documents, personal property, and furnishings

Having organized documents is the number one stress reliever when surviving a parent’s estate. Identifying new owners for personal property and heirlooms gives a peace of mind.

• Pack and/or distribute items for heirs, relatives, or friends, and auctions, resale, or donation

Freeing up energy for emotional support.

• Consolidate important papers needed for the process of settling an estate, and filing papers for safe-keeping

Streamlining the process means lower legal fees.

• Coordinate divisions of duty amongst family members.

Managing a schedule eliminates tension.

Hiring outside help will save time, your sanity, and your family relationships while sorting through an accumulation of valuables, mementos, and worthless “stuff.” We can help you focus on family unity, as well as respecting your parents’ memory.

Please consider us as your prescription for sanity when faced with the process of downsizing or settling an estate.

Brigitte Starkey, Cure for Space, Professional Organizing and Handyman Services since 2004, 512 267 1972, www.cureforspace.com

What is most important to me?

If you had to pack everything that is important to you within a minimum of time and how much you can carry, what would you take?

After reading an article in Real Simple magazine it made me think about what would be most important to me? Could I really grab the things I would not want to miss in a case of emergency?

Wouldn’t it be advantageous to make a list of things I would want to grab in case of a fire, flood, natural disaster, etc.?

Maybe a list I could go by would help? What is it I need? What can not be easily replaced? What would I not want to lose? Where would I find it in a hurry?

Going through my house room by room for what are irreplaceable necessities gave me a lots of ideas on where I can downsize or what is truly dispensable.

Here are my suggestions on what might be a good guide on what to put on a list and where you would find it:

• Prescription meds. Keep them in one spot in your house.
• Two or three sets of your favorite clothing pieces (tops, bottoms, shoes, etc.). List them explicitely so other people could find them for you.
• Favorite photos. You may need to cull or sort your photos, make a date with yourself to do it now. Put them on CD or in photo boxes.
• Priceless art and jewelry, and do not just consider monetary value.
• Pet cage(s) and pets.
• Important papers (deeds, birth certificates, etc.). Use a special folder that contains them all or keep them in your bank’s safety deposit box.
• Back-up of your computer files.

Give exact location where each item is located and see to it that they are not moved without changing your list. If you can’t be there when needed other people will have to know about your list, so let everybody in on it that could be assisting in times of emergencies.

Can’t think of a better present?

Yesterday I spent time hob-nobbing and enjoyed talking to many people about my business in organizing and handyman services. The female potential clients often mention growing honey-do lists that their honeys just don’t seem to have the time and energy for.

How much money do you plan on spending for a present (e.g., Christmas, birthday) for your honey, ladies? How about giving them a relief from their honey-do chores and call us instead? Our handyman services can eliminate your honey-do lists and make for a happier home.

A printed gift certificate is available per request, personalized in design for the recipient.

Contact us if you live in the Greater Austin area at 512 267 1972.

Mental Clutter Clearing

Is your mind abuzz with things that are troubling, bothersome, or just seemingly unsolvable? Mine sometimes is, and was so this morning. I reread my own suggestions from Declutter 301 and found it working immediately:

Clear your mental clutter by focusing on the things you are grateful for. I am grateful for friends who have assisted me with a difficult situation just recently and who went beyond a friend’s duty. I am grateful for my son who turned out to be a responsible and loving adult. I am grateful to live exactly where I want to be. I am grateful to have had wonderful clients who totally appreciated me.

Try to stop criticizing and judging. Take people as they are and appreciate their good points. I focused on the better qualities of the people around me and started to make mental notes on noticing their good sides.

Make space for some meditative practices spending time nowhere to be and nowhere to go. I plan to do this today after I let my hens out to roam and watch them taking their dust bath.

Tidy up loose end, if you have lots of them; put them on your to-do list. Just did that and the list is not all that long.

Repay what you can as soon as possible. I made a separate list for this so I can fit it into my budget.

Return borrowed things. Oh good, nothing borrowed.

Don’t let anything nag you. Do you have any unresolved issues with someone? I will make an effort to clear a particular issue today that has been nagging me.

Aaaaah!

Moving and Relocating your Belongings

This past month I have organized and help pack a client’s belongings to be shipped back to Australia where she originally came from. She had lived in the United States for most of her adult life and had to make many decisions on furniture, clothing, photos, knick-knacks, paper files, music CDs, shoes, books, memorabilia, and jewelry.

Even though she had moved a number of times while living in US, she had accumulated lots of “stuff” over the years. Unfortunately, most of the previous moves did not take place in an organized fashion. Which brings me to his column where planning takes the number one slot in your list of things to do when you are about to move.

As a professional organizer I can’t emphasize enough how much a plan helps when it comes to uncluttering and sorting. Hopefully, you have plenty of time before the movers take your boxes out of your current situation, because if you have a one-room-apartment or a 5-bedroom house the same rules apply:

1. Map out your schedule on a calendar for everyone in your household to see.

2. Be reasonable on how much time you allot for the individual sessions to pack up.

3. Go room by room, and break down the room by drawers, cabinets, etc.

4. Start with a plastic container to collect all the items you will need to the last day in your old residence and on the first day after arriving in your new one.

5. Gather plenty medium-sized boxes to pack up your belongings. If you are moving yourself, smaller boxes are not as heavy.

6. Sort while packing up, AND let go of what you haven’t used in a long time or if it does not make you feel good. (See also Declutter 101, a free download from my website cureforspace.com.) Put like items together as much as you can.

7. List the items in each box and either tape the list to the box (may be lost!), place it inside the box (you will have to open before you find what is in it), or give the box and list an individual number (best practice). Make sure to mark the box on all sides with its number. You can then direct movers to move number 1 to the kitchen, for example.

8. When you pack a moving trailer, make sure you follow the guidelines of the trailer rental to give you a save ride to your destination.

Frustrated by Clutter?

1. Assess and identify where your biggest frustrations come from.
2. List your different areas for organization needs and schedule organization times on your calendar.
3. Be realistic about your stamina or the stamina of any helping hands you recruited.
4. Make sure that everyone in your house is aware of your plans or takes part in scheduling.
5. If you tend to be the “lone ranger” organizer in your family give everyone an informational tour of any new arrangement and express your desire to keep it that way.
6. Establish an organization routine that everyone can uphold easily. Re-assess after a few weeks and make changes accordingly. Remember, it takes 21 days to change a habit.
7. Ask your children if they could use your help in organizing their rooms and their time.
   Help them make priorities as to what is important to them. Sharing what is important to oneself can save everyone from feelings of frustrations.
8. Break your larger projects down into manageable sessions.
9. Hire an organizer if you feel overwhelmed.
10. Reward yourself and your helpers after completing your milestones (a project can have several milestones).
11. You don’t need to tackle the whole kitchen or bath, for example, in one day. You can do a cabinet or drawer a day, or a week, or even a month.
12. If you keep a junk drawer, schedule it’s days to be gone through and reorganized.
13. If the filing system is one of your greatest priorities, download the Records Retention Guidelines from my website (www.cureforspace.com).
    • You may just need new folders for the new year. Keep your most used files waist high in drawers, so that they are easy to access.
    • Keep the file drawer “loose.” Avoid cramming folders, it adds to frustrations that might keep you from filing your papers.
    • Labelling clearly and arranging according to your preferences also reduces frustration when filing. Ideally, use 2 levels of categorizing if filing is not your favorite thing to do.
    • Even though you might be the keeper of the files, always keep it clear to everyone else where any particular paper resides.