Archive for the ‘
Basic Organizing Principles ’ Category
A few months ago, I was watching an episode of Curious George with my five year old. The episode was called ‘Trader George’ which made me laugh for a moment because it sounded so much like ‘Trader Joe’s’ which is a food store I love to shop in and eat from.
Hey, it was really early in the morning and I was hungry. OK–back to how this connects with organizing…
So, in the episode Curious George does some trading of items with people in order to get what he thinks he wants. The back story involves The Man With the Yellow Hat. While George is out trading his stuff to get other stuff, The Man With the Yellow Hat is at his county house going through the closet looking for items to put out at a local swap meet (where George is doing all this trading).
I’m getting to the organizing part…
Mr. Yellow, as I’ll call him for brevity sake, ends up spending much of the episode sitting in front of his closet pulling stuff out and reminiscing about it. My son is enjoying the show while I’m yelling at the TV in my head, “Don’t do that!’
You see, Mr. Yellow was breaking one of the cardinal rules of organizing.
Do not reminisce while organizing.
Why is this a bad idea?
It’s distracting. You’re supposed to be sorting and purging and getting rid of the old to make for the new and instead you’re looking at pictures or dreaming about the last time you fit into that cocktail dress and now you’ve stopped organizing to look for the matching shoes and handbag you wore with it ten years ago.
It’s a time waster. Not many people have all day to organize. Time is precious and it’s important to focus on organizing during the time you’ve alloted for it before you get tired or have to move on to the next activity of the day.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a few moments to think about the past. But those moments should not take you away from the task at hand. Pick a time later in the day or week to go through all the bridesmaids dresses you uncovered or all the never-before-seen pictures you found from your parent’s first Thanksgiving together.
Next time you’re organizing a spot in your home and you come across some cool stuff you want to dwell upon for more than thirty seconds, think about The Man With the Yellow Hat. Make time later to reminisce–or you may miss out on a lot more than just a swap meet…
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If you’ve read the ‘Meet Stacey‘ section on the Organized Artistry website, you know I grew up in a tight space. My bedroom was 5’x12’ and I had to keep most of what I owned in that room. Because of space constraints I could not spread out much. But I quickly learned that horizontal space was not the only space I had in my room–I also had VERTICAL space.
I have worked with clients in spaces as small as a studio apartment and as large as a mini-mansion. Regardless of the size of the home, I have found that people use horizontal space more often than their vertical space. It is at that point that I remind them of a very basic organizing principle:
If You Can’t Go Outward, Go Upward!
Translation: If you’ve run out of room in your room, buy some products to help you utilize the wall space you didn’t know you had.
Here are a few products that will help you to use your vertical space efficiently:
Bookcases
They’re not just for books–bookcases are perfect for anything you want to store or display. Measure your space from floor to ceiling. Then buy the tallest bookcase you can afford. For ideas, Google, “how to use a bookshelf for storage.” You won’t believe what people are getting off the floor and tabletops and putting on to bookcases… Try IKEA for inexpensive options.
Shelves
These shelves are ones you mount to the wall. Great for displaying collections, photos, and knick-knacks.
Freestanding Closets
Need extra closet space? Purchase a freestanding closet. Again, buy the tallest one you can fit in your home and make sure it has at least one shelf at the top for extra storage.
Cabinets
If you have low cabinets or don’t have enough, consider cabinets that go to the ceiling. Take advantage of high-up space for things used only once in a while like holiday dinnerware or guest towels.
File Cabinets
Need lots of paper storage? You can buy a file cabinet that is five drawers high instead of two or more that are two drawers high to save on your horizontal space.
Step stool/Stepladder
Unless you’re 7′ tall, you’re going to need a step stool or stepladder to reach your vertical storage places. I recommend having at least one of each depending upon your needs. To reach my high up storage spots, I use a Rubbermaid step stool and a 3-step ladder I got at The Container Store.
Take a look through the rooms in your home. Could you use a vertical makeover?
Today, I’m pleased to welcome guest blogger Cena Block of Sane Spaces. Besides being a Professional Organizer and Mom-Preneur Clarity Catalyst, she is also the President of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Cena’s talking about a key organizing philosophy—grouping ‘like’ with ‘like.’ Read on to learn more about what she calls, ‘one of the oldest organizing tricks in the book…’
Pattern Recognition is the one differentiating skill set that organized people have – we see and recognize patterns where there aren’t any! It’s why an organizer can walk into a chaotic situation and be successful – we immediately see “like with like” and patterns that work!
What I’ve found with clients in their homes and offices is that for you to be successful, you need to begin to recognize how you create patterns in your environment naturally, in order to create organizing solutions that stick.
One of the oldest organizing tricks in the book is to group ‘like’ things together. Organizers call this: putting “like with like” – or grouping all items that seem to go together, together. The interesting thing about this process is that each of us does this step a little differently.
As part of my community service, I offer a class to area elementary schools called NAPO In The Schools. This class is designed to teach 2nd – 5th graders basic organizing principles. There is an informational segment where the kids are introduced to “Disorganized Drake” who can’t seem to get it together. He frequently loses homework, can’t find supplies, and generally has a really rough time as a typical 4th grader! I ask the students to help Drake by applying simple organizing strategies to his books, his room, his desk and his backpack.
The class ends with an exercise where students are given a bag of school supplies and asked to group them “like with like”. It always fascinates me that some will group them by function (all things you can write with together), by color (all blues go together), by category (all pens, all crayons, all toys), or by some other construct that makes sense to them alone.
What patterns do you recognize? What makes you comfortable? Do you prefer to sort by color, by use, by function, by location? Whatever works for you, is the right answer. Determining which “one of these things is not like the other” is really up to you and the better you get at recognizing your own abilities for pattern recognition – and accept them as so, the quicker you’ll be able to move forward with organizing your items!
Copyright 2011: Cena Block
Need help at home? Download my Products:
Time To Toss It E-Book – http://sanespaces.com/products/organizing/
This is a full color guide that gives guidelines on how long to keep items and when to get rid of them. (There is a whole entire section on how long to keep paper and files.)
Dimensions Workbook – http://sanespaces.com/products/organizing/
This is a self-driven workbook that offers you the support of working with your very own Professional Organizer without the hourly fees.
Get Organized To Keep Your Family Sane Ebook/Audio Tips – http://sanespaces.com/products/organizing/
This e-book and the accompanying weekly audio tips provide nearly 6 months of weekly organizing ideas to implement for your home and family. Whether you have a slew of children, or are kid-free, these tips are modeled after “best practices” that work with real families.
Cena Block is the Owner of Sane Spaces and a Mom-Preneur Clarity Catalyst. She helps people find sanity through clearing their spaces, creating systems, understanding themselves, and getting the support they need for success. Her Slice of Sanity eZine gives subscribers ideas and inspiration to get clear and out from under whatever is stopping them. If you are ready to get sane, you can click here to sign up for a F.R.E.E. e-zine subscription to Slice of Sanity. Learn more from Cena at her Facebook page, on her blog, and on Twitter.
I started this blog a year and a half ago when my son began preschool. Since then, I’ve had another child and my busy days and exhausted evenings have left me little time for blogging. If a Professional Organizer doesn’t have a lot of time for blogging but she really wants to blog–what should she do?
Get organized!
I knew that if I wasn’t organized, weeks or months would go by without a posting. Why have a blog if you’re not going to post to it?
I reviewed some basic organizing principles and applied them to blogging. Now I’m blogging at least once a week and I always know what I’m going to talk about when I sit in front of my computer.
Here’s one of the many ways I stay organized while blogging:
Get rid of the clutter
Too many pictures, videos, or advertisements detract from what you’ve written. Keep the look of your blog simple and streamlined. You have to grab the reader’s attention within the first three seconds of their arrival at your blog. If they have to spend those three seconds looking for your latest blog post, they may not return out of frustration.
Find this tip and other helpful advice in my article: Be a Better Blogger: Organizing Tips for Beginner Bloggers
Whether you already have a blog or you’re thinking of starting one, being organized will help you achieve your blogging goals with less stress and more time for posting.
It’s almost the end of April–I hope you’ve started your Spring Cleaning for 2010. Although the weather has turned cool today, you’re going to want those sandals, sports equipment and other ‘summer fun’ items at arm’s reach very soon.
So far, I’ve given you four basic organizing principles–here’s number five–the last one you’ll need for Spring Cleaning and Anytime of the Year Cleaning.
Basic Organizing Principle #5:
Group ‘Like with Like.’
Grouping ‘like with like’ helps you to find what you need when you need it. For instance, if all of your daughter’s hair clips were to be grouped together all in one place it would be easier to find the pink Hello Kitty barrette that matches her pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. If her hair clips were dumped in a drawer with a bunch of crayons and a few beanie babies, they would be much harder to locate quickly.
Another example: All that ‘tupperware’ we talked about in Basic Organizing Principle #4–how many times have you cursed under your breath because you couldn’t find a square-shaped lid to match it’s bottom part? Grouping ‘like with like’ is the key to finding that bottom part in a matter of seconds.
To achieve optimal container storage, take all of your storage containers out of your cabinet and place them on the dining room table. Sort them by category–group all circle and oval shaped containers and then the squares and rectangles. Do the same with the lids. Then match up lids with bottoms. If you have any missing bottoms or lids, consider recycling or repurposing the other mate-less piece.
Grouping ‘like with like’ will save you:
Time – no long and tiresome searches for what you need
Money – no more spending $$$ on items you already have but just can’t find
Stress–self explanatory…
Even if you haven’t started your Spring Cleaning yet, start grouping ‘like with like.’ It will make you feel like you’ve taken a huge step towards organizing your home.
Remember the last organizing principle we discussed?
This one piggy-backs on the last one…
Basic Organizing Principle #4:
Take the Time to Put Things Away Properly
You’ve created a home for your stuff. You’ve used it and now it’s time to put it back in it’s home.
If you take a few seconds or minutes to put something away properly (as opposed to haphazardly or next to/on top of where it should be), you’ll be able to find it next time you need it. And, the next time you need it, it will be easier to retrieve.
For example, if you usually take your tupperware out of the dishwasher and jut toss it into your cabinet, you’ll have difficulty retrieving a matching top and bottom the next time you need it.
I often advise people that spending a few minutes putting items ‘back in their home’ will save them time when they need to revisit that area in the future.
Spending time NOW will save you time LATER.
Keep on doing that Spring cleaning!
March 20th was the first day of Spring. Started Spring Cleaning yet?
Whether you have already started or you haven’t made that appointment with yourself yet (Basic Organizing Principle #1), here’s another way to make Spring Cleaning a less overwhelming task:
Basic Organizing Principle #2:
Break Large Tasks into Smaller Tasks
Let’s say you need to go through your chest of drawers and let’s say you have four drawers—one with underwear, one with socks, one with T-shirts and one with pajamas. Instead of taking a few hours to go through the chest of drawers, try going through one drawer at a time on different days of the week. You’ll be less tired from the task and the job will still get done.
Remember:
Any organizing task is doable if it is broken down into smaller and less time-consuming tasks.
Last Sunday I did a presentation for a lovely group of women who were very interested in getting organized. The title of the presentation was, “Organize Your Space…Organize Your Life.” Sounds like a lot of information to cover in an hour but I talked about the basics–what one needs to know to get started.
During the months of March and April, I’ll be sharing some of those basic organizing principles with you. Spring is just around the corner, which means Spring Cleaning is on the minds of many. Whether you have a studio apartment or a six-bedroom house, it’s important to have a plan for your Spring Cleaning.
Here’s the first of those basic organizing principles–they’re easy to follow and will help you to reach your Spring Cleaning and organizing goals.
Basic Organizing Principle #1:
Make an Appointment with Yourself to Get Organized
Why should you make an appointment with yourself to get organized?
It’s very important to set aside time for organizing–just like you’d make time for the doctor or an oil change. What happens if you don’t keep the doctor’s appointment? You may get billed and be in poor health for a long time. What happens if you don’t keep the appointment for the oil change? Your car might stop working. What if you don’t keep your organizing appointment? Your home will not function efficiently much like the car without the oil change or your body without seeing the doctor…
Carve out a time when you’re most energetic and likely to have a minimum of interruptions. Mark it on your calendar and keep that appointment!
Contact Stacey to Get Started!
