So, I don't know about you but the [December Purge to Remember] just got me warmed up for January!!!  
If you missed it, here are the links so you can go back and look at all my cast offs ;-)

• Week 1 http://www.lifeorganizedllc.com/1/post/2013/12/december-purge-to-remember-week-1-jump-into-organizing-2014.html 
• Week 2 http://www.lifeorganizedllc.com/1/post/2013/12/december-purge-to-remember-week-2-jump-into-organizing-2014.html 
• Week 3 http://www.lifeorganizedllc.com/1/post/2013/12/december-purge-to-remember-week-4-jump-into-organizing-2014.html 
• Week 4 http://www.lifeorganizedllc.com/1/post/2013/12/december-purge-to-remember-week-4-jump-into-organizing-20141.html 

I should clarify the premise of the project.  
It is simple: Purge on item per day for the entire month!


And, now we are moving forward, or should I say back…  It felt like I went back in time with part of this purge.  My husband and I went through all of our CD collection.  It had been sitting in totes in the basement since we moved into our house (almost six years ago!?!)  Why?  Because they were out of sight and out of mind.  We purged about half of the collection and put the rest back in to a tote.  Finding a solution to store them where they are accessible is on the list, but not a priority.  We joked that in a couple years we will not have a way to play them and will get rid of the rest.  Times change quick!

What else is homeless?  Desk lamp, chairs, exercise ball, more toys, a clock, and two cell phone holders.  Wowzers!  It is really exciting!  I have had to purge a couple of times for cross country moves, and I remember how good it felt.  It has been awhile though and I have to say that it is a good refresher to do it again.  I tell my clients about this feeling and it is hard to describe, so I am glad that I can have a refresher.

I have to say that I am really surprised at what we have to get rid of.  Our house is not cluttered, closets have stuff in them, but are not full, and yet look at it!  It is amazing!  Anyone jumping on the January Organizing purge with me?!?  Remember, purging is the first step in the process and then the fun part of organizing everything that is left!  I am salivating just thinking about all the fun projects you are all coming up with.  

Remember that I have two dates scheduled to have virtual [Ask the Organizer] session this month!  Follow the link if you are interested in more information!
http://www.lifeorganizedllc.com/1/post/2014/01/go-month-ask-the-organizer-via-google-hangouts.html

Happy New Year!

As a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), I am committed to spreading awareness about organizing.  That means I am happy to answer questions about what I do, as well as share tips to help others.

Last year I coordinated a shred event and a class about clutter.  They were both a lot of fun!  This year, I wanted to try something different…

Ask the Organizer via Google+ Hangouts!  

I know that January can be a crummy month for making plans, and then anticipating the cancellation of said plans based on snow and ice events.  Rather than plan events for you to come to me, I thought it would be great if you could all stay in the comfort of your own homes and join me on Google+ Hangouts!  It will be a video chat so we can all see each other and interact.  (If you do not have a camera or microphone on your computer, you can still join, but your experience will be limited.)

How would it work?

1. You will need a Google account.  It is free, and I highly suggest it anyways.  (I am obsessed with the calendar, but that is another event all together!!!)  Once you have an account, you can open Google+ and I will invite you to the session.  
2. Space is limited to 9 guests per session.  January 16th at 7:00pm CST, or January 30th at 7:00pm CST.  We will plan on an hour and I will get through as many of the questions as I can.  
3. Please email me at claire@lifeorganizedllc.com  In the subject line of the email, please state ASK THE ORGANIZER: (include which session).  
4. In the body of the email, please include two questions that you would like to ask, as well as any photos that you would like to use as visual aids for the questions.  If you want to remain anonymous on the call and not associated with the photos, I am happy to use an alias for photos.  The questions are REQUIRED!  I want this to be an interactive event and each participant to leave with personalized advice.  I am happy to talk myself to death about organizing, but it is more interesting to talk about what you want!
5. Make sure to include the gmail account that I can reach you at on Google+!

Let's look at a very simple project: organizing scarves. Many of us own them, some of us a few, and others...a few more... So how do you store them? Some people like to fold them in a drawer. For me, this has never worked. First of all, they never remain folded for any meaningful period of time, and second of all, I forget to wear them...out of sight, out of mind! So the obvious place for me to store them is hanging. The problem: the “solution” that I bought was suppose to solve all my scarf woes. A nifty hanger with holes to pull all my scarves through. Perfect for hanging in the closet. Perfect right? Not so much actually. Once the scarves were on the “solution” hanger, it was difficult to add more to the lower holes without getting everything all tangled.  What ended up happening in the end was a pile of scarves tossed over my bedroom chair...

The solution: a multi-tier over the door towel bar. Cost: minimal. Usability: super! I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of over the door hangers (for myself). I prefer things to be put away, that said, I was looking for function over form for this, and I think it is the perfect solution. Even professional organizers have to take their own advise and remind themselves to find systems that work for us...

When is the last time you honestly cleaned out your closet? I am not talking about sweeping or vacuuming, I am talking about purging. Honest to goodness, asking yourself the tough questions, getting rid of shirts from high-school...purging.

Last week? Last year? When you moved five or ten years ago? Never?

Be honest with yourself, it is probably time, right? All too often I hear that people are afraid to start because it is such a big job, and it can be. I will try to help you break it down into a few smaller steps if you do not have the time to dedicate several hours at a time. So, here goes..

1. Put yourself on a shopping diet...do not buy anything new until you have a better idea of your current inventory. Chances are, you will discover a few items that need to be replaced as you work through your closet. Maybe that is your reward at the end?
   
   
2. Do some quick sorting. Take a pass through your closet and pull out anything that you know you want to get rid of. Too small, too big, soiled, torn, out dated, not your style? Let it go. It will make your job a lot easier in the following steps!
   
   
3. Next, identify categories in your closet. They might include...
   
   Long sleeve tops
   Short sleeve tops
   Sweaters
   Slacks
   Dresses
   Skirts
   Handbags
   Scarves
   Belts
   Shoes
   
   
4. Choose a category and tackle it! For example, take all of your sweaters out of your closet, dresser, cedar chest, etc and put them all in one place. Sort like sweaters together by style and color. Now if you are looking at your collection and find an abundance of grey cable knit sweaters for example, decide which ones you like the best, look nice on you, get worn often and let the rest that you do not love and wear go. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself the last time you wore it and if it has been a while, why? Remember we want to purge, not just organize your stuff and put it back. Maybe that is all the organizing you can do for one day, and that is fine. Find a way to put the sweaters away neatly.
   
   
5. Each opportunity you schedule time to work in the closet, choose a different category. Before you know it, you will have made it through them all.
   
   
6. Do not go out and buy baskets, totes, hangers, etc until you have sorted through everything and know what you actually need...not what you think you need!
   
   
7. Once you have gone through your entire list of categories, you can look at your wardrobe and the way you store it in a new way. One example in the closet below is the use of the hanging canvas shelves, it previously stored handbags. This was not the best place for the handbags though, considering the prime location and the frequency of accessing the bags. It made more sense to repurpose those shelves for seasonal storage. Right now, they house sweaters. When sweater season is over, they can store summer tanks and tops that do not hang well. This left the handbags homeless, so we moved them up to a less convenient shelf but still very accessible.
   
   
8. What to do with the items you are not keeping? That may be a different answer for everyone. Some people will simply donate the items to their favorite nonprofit. Others might like to try and recuperate some of their cash and have a garage sale or find a consignment store. What ever you decide, remember that your time is valuable and so is your storage space.
   
   

Remember with all your organizing projects, set goals and time limits for yourself. Maybe you want to reduce your closet by 30% and work on it one hour per week until it is completed. If you need to give yourself a reward, hey, who am I to judge! I don't want organizing to be painful for you, quite the contrary, I enjoy it and hope that some day you will too ;-) In the mean time, give me a call if you get stuck...literally or figuratively.

This closet took about three hours and was reduced by close to half!!!  Nice work ;-)
We added a few inexpensive tap lights to the inside of the closet and an over the door hanger to organize scarves. 

Did you know that the City of Madison updates a Recyclopedia every year to tell residents what to do with their trash?  It is a very inclusive list of how to dispose of everything from plastic #3 to paint.  And what about those pizza boxes?

I took a quick read through it (about 23 pages in all), and picked out a handful of items that I thought could be useful to my readers...so here goes!

About that plastic #3... You can include all plastics labeled 1-7 in your recycle bins.  I was surprised to learn this actually includes some of the weaker and thinner plastics such as some deli containers and plastic cups.  Just take a look at the bottom and read the number within the triangle to see.

Paint?  Sure, latex paint cans can be put in the trash as long as the paint inside is completely dried.

Small metal appliances can be placed in your recycle bins!

And finally, those pizza boxes!  These too can be recycled!  Well mostly!  Break the boxes down and recycle the lid and sides that do not have food contamination and throw the bottom or other contaminated surfaces is the trash. 

If everyone made just these few simple updates to their recycling routine, just think of what a difference it would make!  I can not summarize the complete document, but I suggest that you head over and take a quick read through.  Since I personally read through it for the first time over a year ago, our recycle bin is regularly overflowing by recycle day (which in our neighborhood is every other week.)  

http://www.cityofmadison.com/streets/documents/recyclopedia.pdf

Why do we organize?  Most often, it comes down to time!  The faster we can find what we are looking for, the faster we can finish what we started and move on!  Often, when I am working with clients, they are easily overwhelmed at the idea of tackling big projects.  As a professional organizer, I do not suggest starting your organizing journey with a two car garage that has not been parked in for over five years.  Rather, I suggest tackling a few smaller projects.  These will take less time, money, and perhaps give you the confidence to make a plan to organize some of the bigger jobs that are filling you with anxiety.

So, where should we start?  I have said before that bathrooms are a great place to start.  You use them every day so you will have immediate gratification, and they are small enough to tackle in a reasonable period of time.  This vanity project took less than 30 minutes...including cleaning! 

There were too many items out on the counters.  A simple solution was to better organize the drawers so items could be put away.  There was very little purging.  Most of the time was sorting and deciding what containers fit each category of items the best.  These blue containers were found at TJ Maxx for $5.99 for an 8 pack of assorted sizes.  Organizing does not have to be expensive.  There are ways to get creative and make your own dividers out of modified shoe boxes or repurposing some plastic storage containers from the kitchen!  We love to recycle!

Remember, January is GO MONTH...so pick a small project, and GET ORGANIZED!

I know that I have mentioned this filing system before in passing, but I thought this was a great time of year to bring it up again.

What is a Tickler File?
It is a filing system used to file all of your upcoming tasks. This can include everything from watering the plants, paying the mortgage, and sending out birthday cards. There are tabs for each month in the year and each day of the month.

How does it work?
Simple really. You place each task, bill, or card into the day you want to complete it. It is probably easiest to understand if I just use an example:

So, let's say you buy a birthday card for a friend. Her Birthday is April 10th. You can place the birthday card in the April folder and forget about it! (For now!) On the first day of April, you will take the contents of the April file and file it in the 1-31 daily slots according to what day you want to complete the task. Now, back to that birthday card! If the birthday is the 10th and you want it to arrive on or before the day, I would suggest getting it in the mail at least four days in advance, or the 6th. So you would put the card in the 6th folder.

If a task is reoccurring I suggest using note cards and reusing them. For example watering the plants. If you water the plants every four days simply move the card from today and count ahead four days. When you get to that day, the note card will be there to remind you to add it to your daily list.

Each day, you can go to your tickler file and pull out the items in todays date to address. I suggest having a small notebook near by. Make yourself a task list for the day that includes everything in the file as well as leftover items from the day before. Rather than numbering them 1-10, number them by importance. #1 Urgent. #2 Preferred. #3 Wishful thinking. Then get going!

A sample day might be:
Thursday Saturday April 6, 2013
#1 Mail Melissa's Birthday Card
#1 Put out the garbage
#3 Store (Milk and Paper towels)
#2 Pay Phone bill online
#3 Organize Desk
#1 Return Books to Library
#2 Call agent about travel arrangements 608.555.5555
#1 Call Claire @ Life: Organized LLC to schedule my in home Assessment! 608.622.7678
#1 Dentist appointment 2:30

I underlined tasks that require travel outside the house to complete. I suggest mentally mapping your route to save time and fuel driving, and only making one trip if time permits. This seems like a simple step, but I am surprised at how often I hear people not doing this.

Finally, at the end of the day, if there are any tasks not completed, put them in tomorrow's file. And repeat. The process may sound cumbersome and at first you might forget to check the file daily, but over time it will become habit.

Suggestions for success:

• Keep your Tickler file in a convenient place (preferably where you open mail)
  
• Leave the top open so it is easy to access
  
• Have a recycle basket/shredder close by
  
• Keep basic supplies near (Paper, pen, checkbook, stamps)
  
• If anyone else will be using it, go over the process so every one understands

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I will be holding a drawing at the following event for the filing system pictured above.  I am also happy to answer questions about the Tickler File and other organizing projects you might have.
The drawing will be held after my presentation.

January 15, 2013 6:00pm
Join organizer Claire Matejka for a discussion:
What is clutter?
Where does clutter come from?
How can we make clutter go away?

Watertown Public Library
100 South Water Street
Watertown, WI 53094
Please call to RSVP 920-262-4090 ext. 25 Everyone is welcome! 

In honor NAPO's GO month... Life: Organized would like to offer a special to new clients.  We know that hiring an organizer might seem like a scary and pricy endeavor, but it does not have to be.  We can have an assessment over the phone (always free), and then decide if you are ready to move forward working with us.  If not, no hard feelings, but if so...then let's get started!  

So what's the deal?!?
During the month of January, we would like to offer a free in-home assessment and a three hour session for the price of two hours.  The session must be scheduled before February 15, 2013.