organizing stuff Archives • Page 4 of 7 • Helpful Organizer

What To Do With Children’s Art Work

September 1, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog Posts/by Janine Cavanaugh, CPO®

One thing many parents have a difficult time getting rid of is the things their children have made. Some items are cherished treasures, like a drawing that showcases their personality, their first hand-made Mother’s Day card, or a precious clay bowl. Other items are less meaningful, but are equally important to the giver. That causes problems, right? These things have a high sentimental value. I understand that, but we can’t keep everything. You know we can’t. So, what goes and what gets kept?

Setting limits is a great way to minimize what is kept. A good limit is to have one ‘keep bin’ per child. This one bin will hold all the art treasures that are being kept from that one child. Label this bin and use it to store the creations each child makes. Set some guidelines on what is kept. For example keep only those items that significantly highlight your child’s personality and talents. Go through the bin yearly to reevaluate and weed out items.

Another way to minimize what is kept is to re-purpose and reuse. Below are some creative ways to do this.

Scan or photograph art work and use several images to create family calendars. Let the originals go after the calendar is created.
Have a gallery wall were you display art work for one month then let it go.
Use scanned images of the art work as a screen saver on your desktop computer. Share who made the piece, when they made it, and what they have to say about their creation.
Separate art work by season and save a few special pieces to put up with other seasonal decorations.
Take photos of the art work with the artist and scrapbook the images with details.
Add the art work to a digital frame or tablet and showcase at their birthday parties and holiday gatherings.
Frame a few of the artist’s favorite pieces in a shadow box for one year. Then add another piece right over the previous year until the shadow box is full. Then store in a keep bin (listed above) or let it go.

It may be difficult to make decisions on what creations to keep, but your child will thank you for only holding onto one ‘keep bin’.

Stuff Be Gone

July 27, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog Posts/by Janine Cavanaugh, CPO®

A game helped my husband and me get rid of 930 things. We played the 30-Day Minimalism Game in June 2016. Deciding what stuff to get rid of was the first step. Figuring out where to get rid of the stuff was the second step. Physically removing the stuff from our house was the third step. Want to know where it went?

We were givers. Our goal was to give the stuff away, not throw it in the trash. Five things out of 930 went in the trash. The rest of the stuff was reusable. So we gave it away.

We gave to family and friends. We didn’t just unload our stuff on them. We made a point of asking if they wanted the stuff, before we gave it to them. My sister was happy to accept a small framed photo of her and her son, that had been sitting on my shelf for years. My friend enjoyed looking at the clothes and jewelry I was getting rid of. She took a few shirts and a pair of earrings. My sister, who has 3 small children, gladly accepted an unopened pack of washable markers.

We gave to local causes. Our local library was collecting for their annual books sale. We donated several books and DVDs. We also gave several books to the school where my husband teaches. We dropped off several pairs of eyeglasses to the local Lion’s Club. We gave unopened toiletries to the New Hope shelter.

We donated to resale stores. We dropped off a car load of items to Hometown Savers. We made a trip to the Habitat for Humanities ReStore to donate an old door and a few old tools. We gave craft items, that I wasn’t going to use, to The Craft Room. We gave a bunch of clothes and household items to Savers.

We recycled. We recycled some old phone books and a bunch of paper. We recycled broken and outdated electronics to Indie Cycle.

We consigned. We used Chic2Chic for our clothing consignment. We used The Thrifty Witch for our household consignment.

We offered items for free. We put old hand weights, a hose, and an unused shelf out by the side of the road with a free sign. They were picked up within hours.

We got rid of 930 things. You can too! We know it takes time and effort. Use these resources and options. They will help.

How To Get Unstuck When Organizing

May 15, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog Posts/by Janine Cavanaugh, CPO®

Organizing is action. So the best way to get unstuck is to take action.

When I was working with a client who was downsizing, she got stuck when we addressed her books. I found her standing in front of her two bookcases, with a puzzled expression. When I asked her what she was thinking, she said she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to start or what steps to take to reduce the number of books she had. This feeling of not knowing what to do, stopped her from taking ANY action. So, I guided her towards action. I picked up a book and asked her what she wanted to do with it. She could keep it, donate it, recycle it, or, if the book belonged to her husband, she could ask him what he wanted to do with it. We created 4 stacks and sorted all the books from her two bookcases. By providing her with 4 categories and the direction to sort the books into one of those 4 groups, she was able to take action and become unstuck.

A similar situation arose when I was working with a client who was avoiding a room in her home that had become a catch all for stuff that her family didn’t have time to deal with or put away. She dreaded going into this room, and got depressed looking at it. Needless to say, I was surprised and proud of her, when she declared that she was ready to tackle this room. Let me clarify. She was ready to tackle this room with my guidance and help. So, once again, I guided my client towards action. I picked up a basket of things and asked her to tell me who they belonged to. That is all I wanted her to do. We had 5 piles by the time we emptied the first basket, items that belonged to her, items that belonged to her son, items that belonged to her daughter, items that belonged to the house (ie. house hold items), and items that didn’t belong to anyone (ie. give away items). As we made our way through more baskets, she marveled at how easy it was to get unstuck and take action once she realized what action to take.

I understand it is not always easy to get unstuck and figure out how to start an organizing project. So remember a good place to start is to take action, and do that by sorting items into categories.

How To Organize

April 15, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog Posts/by Janine Cavanaugh, CPO®

My 9 year old niece slept over a few weeks ago, and several times throughout the weekend, she asked the definition to words my husband and I used which she didn’t know the meaning. It made me think of the definition of the word ORGANIZE. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word organize as “to arrange or order things so that they can be found or used easily and quickly : to put things into a particular arrangement or order”. I have found in working as a Certified Professional Organizer® that each individual I work with, has a clear idea of the definition of the word organize, but they struggle with how to achieve it. I think much of the struggle lies in the misconceptions of what it takes to become organized.

The first misconception is that we are either born an organized person or we are not. This is incorrect. There is no organizing gene. Organizing is a skill that everyone can learn and improve upon. How do we go about learning and improving other skills, like playing a musical instrument, typing, golf, knitting? We may sign up for classes. We may work with an instructor one-on-one. We would most certainly practice. This is what is required with the skill of organizing. What if we spent 20 minutes a day practicing organizing? Would we improve our organizing skill? I challenge you to do it, and let me know what happens.

The second misconception is that we can become organized by buying the “right” containers. Organizing is not product. It is action. Although organizing products and tools can facilitate the organizing process, the act of doing makes it work. The three most important actions that are required in organizing are:

deciding whether to keep something,
deciding where to put it,
putting it in the same spot again, and again, and again.

These three action steps are what we do to practice organizing. Again, I challenge you to do it, and let me know what happens.

The third misconception is that we can organize just once and be done with it. Unfortunately, organizing is like dishes and laundry. It doesn’t go away, and it needs to be maintained or the disorder grows. It is important to reclaim order before clutter piles up and things get out of control. I recommend spending at least 15 minutes a day reclaiming order. Again, I challenge you to do it, and let me know what happens.

If you struggle with how to organize, take a closer look at these misconceptions. Do you practice organizing? Do you take action through decision making and putting things in the same spot? Do you give yourself time to reclaim order? What would change if you took steps to disprove these misconceptions? Do, and find out!

10 Points on Which I Agree With Marie Kondo

March 15, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog Posts/by Janine Cavanaugh, CPO®

The popular book by Marie Kondo, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tiding Up” has been a topic of many discussions between my Professional Organizer colleagues and myself. I found that I agree with many of Marie Kondo’s points, as long as you substitute the word organizing in place of the word tidying. Here is a list of 10 points on which I agree:

In most societies tidying (i.e. organizing) is the job that keeps the home livable, but is not taught because of the misconception that the ability to tidy (i.e. organizing) is acquired through experience and doesn’t require training. I agree with this point, because organizing is a skill that needs to be taught, learned, and, most of all, practiced.
Effective tidying (i.e. organizing) is discarding and deciding where to store things. I agree with this point, because organizing is action. It’s discarding, in a timely manner, what is no longer wanted, needed, or used. It’s also deciding where to put things, and returning those things to the same spot every time they are used.
Tidying (i.e. organizing) is a dialogue with one’s self. I agree with this point, because when we perform the actions of organizing, discarding and deciding, we have internal dialogues with ourselves.
Focus more on what you want to keep in your life and space than on what you want to get rid of. I agree with this point, because it’s easier to make decisions when we focus on what’s important to us and worth keeping in our lives and spaces.
It’s easy to part with things where there is an obvious reason for doing so, but it’s much more difficult when there is no compelling reason. I agree with this point, because we often hold onto things out of indecision or obligation.
Sometimes never comes. I agree with this point, because when we use the word “sometimes” it is most likely an excuse. The phrases, “I might need that sometime.” or “I might use that sometime.”, are excuses to keep an item, instead of accepting that we don’t need it, and that it is time to let it go.
If you have lived in Japan or USA all your life, you have almost certainly been surrounded by more than you need. I agree with this point, because it’s estimated that the amount of unopened merchandise in an average American home is $7,00.00.
Clutter is cause by a failure to return things to where they belong. Therefore storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away, not the effort to get them out. I agree with this point, because more people have trouble putting things away than they do in getting them out.
Discarding hones one’s decision-making skills. I agree with this point, because practice improves the skill of organizing.
Tidying (i.e. organizing) ought to be the act of restoring balance among people, their possessions, and the house they live in. I agree with this point, because it has been proven that organized people are less stressed.

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