Are Your Books Excess Clutter or Beautiful Possessions?

Aaah, books, let me count the ways I love books.  I love to read books, I love to touch books, I love to look at books and I really love to organize books.  There is nothing more satisfying than spending a few hours pulling all the books of a bookshelf with a client, sorting them, giving away the ones no longer useful or beautiful, and then putting them all back.

Different people have different opinions as to whether excess books should be considered clutter or not.  If you ask a librarian he or she will say that books are not clutter, no matter how many you have.  However, if you ask someone who doesn’t read books they’ll look at you like you have ten heads and tell you how you can get any information you want by searching on the internet, so why on earth would you want to keep books?

Seems to me that somewhere in between these two opposing attitudes is a fabulous compromise.  I believe that books are both useful and decorative.  Perhaps books become clutter when you don’t have nice bookshelves to put them and when you have so many that you can’t find and enjoy them?

As I sit writing this article, I am looking at the bookcase in my living room and how I have organized and displayed my books.  They are grouped by categories such as: decorating and design, fiction, self help, sports, hobbies & interests.  Wait . . . can that be a collection of Columbia encyclopaedias I see on the bottom shelf?  Aren’t those forbidden?  They are certainly not useful anymore – I think my other half had those when he was in school and there they still are, taking up space.  I guess I’d better explain myself, right now.

You see, to the organized eye encyclopaedias are a beautiful thing.   They are all the same color, the writing on the spines is all the same and they are numbered sequentially – what more can you ask for?  They unequivocally have all the characteristics of any good organizing system so I’m keeping them no matter what anyone says about how out-of-date they are.

I am reminded of a bookshelf organizing job I did with a client a while back.  We started by grouping the books into categories such as history, art, fiction, poetry & writing, autobiographies, and so on.  Then we organized them on the shelves by the color and style of writing on the spines. We separated them into beautifully displayed groupings by strategically placing bookends, vases and photos in various places in order to keep them separated into their various categories.  We laid some of the larger art books horizontally on their sides and used that stack to hold up other books placed vertically.  With another client we grouped her books into categories and assigned them various bookshelves throughout the house and then sorted them alphabetically by author. Whew, that took some time I’ll tell you.  We also found that she had several copies of the same book – just goes to show what happens when they’re scattered all over the house with no particular organizing system – you buy duplicates and triplicates because you can’t find the copy(ies) you have.

There are obviously many ways of sorting and organizing books.  Do what works for you and what looks pleasing to your eye. Watch yourself, whatever you do, don’t start reading or your library organizing project will never be complete!

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Can You Live a Good Enough Life?

I am fascinated by how the concept of ‘good enough’ relates to being organized and our many attempts to be what we perceive as ‘well organized’.  What does being organized mean to you?  Most likely not the same as it does to your spouse, your best friend or your children.

What if, instead of constantly striving to be more organized, better organized or even, heaven forbid, perfectly organized we strove for ‘good enough’.  According to Sarah Hampson the author of an article entitled, The Secret to happiness? Live a ‘good enough’ life,  “. . . when you don’t expect much, when you manage the ideas of what you think your life should be, you can be pleasantly surprised – and grateful – for the good fortune that comes your way.”

Somehow this sounds like lowering expectations, reducing the standards of what is acceptable and seems to me like settling for mediocrity.  Not acceptable to someone like me who is a recovering perfectionist and still battling with doing my ‘best’ instead of striving for ‘perfect’.  So, the concept of good enough doesn’t sit well with me but I know for many of you it might be just what you need.

If your kitchen drawers are organized so that you can find what you need but you don’t have those fancy dividers that you saw in a friends kitchen that might just be good enough?  If your clothes are all hanging up but not on matching hangers is that good enough?  If your papers are all off the floor and in tidy piles on your desk where you can put your fingers on what you need that might just be good enough.  If your email inbox is down to 50 messages, instead of 500, maybe that is good enough?

I like the idea of good enough as opposed to perfectly organized as it does allow us to lower our expectations of what organized means and move towards a level of organization that is achievable.  I think this concept is especially important for those who don’t like to spend their time organizing or find it difficult to know when to stop organizing. 

What we see in magazines and on television is often not realistic and perhaps that is where some of our expectations of perfectly organized come from?  Have you ever noticed the desk in the corner of the living room on a makeover show with a computer on it but not a single cord in sight nor a stitch of paper – no matter how organized we are our space will never look like that so perhaps lowering our expectations is exactly what the doctor ordered!

Everything in life seems to come back to deciding what matters most.  As long as your home and office are organized ‘enough’ so that you can function effectively and enjoy your space, forget about what others may think and go with what works for you.  I think the summer is the perfect time to try some ‘good enough’ thinking – at least for you my dear readers even if not for me!

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Time to Look for Something but No Time to Put It Away?

Here are some wise words from my good friend Georgina Forrest from Smartworks Organizing in Calgary, Alberta from one of her recent newsletters. 

Doing Small Things Can Make A Big Difference.  Have you ever taken something out to use it …

• a file from the file cabinet
• the hole punch out of the supply cupboard
• a book off of a shelf
• something – anything – out of a drawer

. . . used it but didn’t put it back? You know, because you just didn’t have time to put it away.

Then you needed to find something – perhaps a file or a hole punch or a book or something – only to SPEND time digging through the piles of stuff that had accumulated because you didn’t have time to put it away in the first place.

It’s a funny paradox of life:

Why is it we always have time to look for something yet we don’t always have time to put it away?

Don’t just put stuff down when you’re done with it, put it away. It really only takes a few additional seconds to do this, but can save you oodles of time wasted looking for it again in the future.

Every little thing you can do to keep order, results in huge benefits for you down the not-too-distant road.

So put that file or hole punch or book or whatever away – right now.

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Yikes – Back to School Already?

Hard to believe that I’m starting to be asked to write about back to school tips already but I guess all you parents out there will begin to make plans for this very thing in a few weeks – yikes!  I can so remember the excitement and dread in mid August. 

The dread that summer would soon be over and the excitement of going back to school.  One of my favourite parts, like you didn’t know already, was going shopping for all the supplies.  Yes, I admit it, I was so into all the notebooks matching, having brand new pencils all sharpened and ready to go, and organizing my pencil case.  Like many of my fellow organizers, I still have an addiction to shopping at office supply stores!

Now is the time to get yourself and your house organized for the coming months and the onslaught of school papers, homework projects and sports schedules. Here are a few areas in your home that you may want to take a look at:

The Entrance/Mudroom – it is a great idea to use lockers, one for each child, and to have a designated hook or basket for each item including a hook for backpacks and jackets plus a shelf for shoes and a basket for hats, mittens, etc.

Set up a Family Message Center near the main entrance – hang a couple of baskets on the wall for “Bills” and “Mail”. Hang two corkboards – one for a large family calendar and one for to-do lists, school reminders, and phone messages. Put out one homework in-basket for each child on the counter under the corkboards with a label that says “Sam’s Homework”, “Jane’s Homework”. This is also a great place to hang the keys.

Homework – for younger children the homework area is usually in the kitchen/family room so you can keep an eye on them. It is important to designate a homework “zone” and to set up storage for all the tools they will need – plastic drawer organizers on wheels under the counter are great – make sure to label the drawers with pictures or words.  For older children they will usually have a homework “zone” in their bedroom. Again proper storage and all the tools at hand are crucial – baskets and bins work well as long as they are labeled.

Clothes and Toys – give away the clothes that don’t fit and the toys they no longer play with – purge, purge, purge.  Design and install a child-friendly closet system that can be adjusted as your child grows. If you have a big enough closet space it can sometimes hold clothes, toys and books. You can often eliminate dressers by installing drawers in the closet perhaps giving you room for a desk in the bedroom.

General Tips:

• Create a schedule to do the same thing at the same time every week, i.e. laundry, grocery shopping, etc.

• Plan Ahead  –  i.e. establish morning routines for the children, prepack lunches, plan meals for the week

• Set up a hanging organizer in the closet with Mon.-Fri. and a spot for shoes and lay out the clothes for the week for your child

Be sure to involve your child in the organizing process.  Try to put yourself in your child’s shoes and ask them how they would like to organize their things.  Be careful not to arrange your child’s things the way you want to or think it should be done.  You’ll be surprised at the ideas school age children will come up with for keeping themselves and their belongings organized.

For more great information on your children for school pick up a copy of Donna Goldberg’s book “The Organized Student”.

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The Need for Control

Three weeks ago we began a small renovation project in our house on our downstairs laundry and bathroom.  What does that have to do with control you might ask?

Well, I have had a very interesting revelation in the last week or so.  Let me start at the beginning.  As you can imagine, my house is pretty darn neat and tidy pretty much all the time.  It has always been that way and I feel that because I am a Professional Organizer now I am obligated to practice what I preach so it’s just something I work on every day.

As you can imagine, with a renovation going on, chaos has ensued.  The only rooms that are untouched by clutter and things being where they don’t belong are the master bedroom and bath, the kitchen. and my office.  That means that the sitting room, living room, and the entire downstairs are a disaster.  Dirt gets tracked through the entire house every day and we attempt to clean it up.  The downstairs bathroom is completely torn apart down to the stud walls and concrete floor and there is a huge pile of garbage building up outside the house.

So, here’s my discovery.  I am a bit of a control freak – no surprise to many of you I’m sure!  However, because I have no control over my house and won’t for another 2 or 3 weeks I am having trouble concentrating on work and relaxing when I’m not working.  Now I know how many of my clients must feel every single day. Somehow having an organized home and office allows many of us to feel that we have some control over our lives.  And the reverse is also true. When we feel our lives are out of control it tends to manifest itself in the external chaos in our homes and offices.

Therefore, my conclusion is that I feel in control of my entire life because I am able to keep my home and office tidy, have a place for everything, feel more focused and relax when I need to.  If your life is out of control on all fronts, perhaps getting even one room in your home organized or tackling your office, will help you regain control of your life and have a positive impact in many other ways.

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Procrastination and Clutter

I’ll let the reporter from Metro take this one.  Here’s a link to today’s article ‘Procrastination has its place in cleaning post-Christmas clutter’

Rosalie Maggio, author of The Art of Organizing Anything, says, “So don’t deal with it. Take Santa and the lights down, stuff things under the bed and make your house livable. Then forget about it until February.”

This approach could lead to overwhelm I would think. Imagine if you just kept procrastinating and shoving things where you couldn’t see them?  What would happen?  Would it work for you?  Or would you get to the point where every nook and cranny is full and then the clutter is so voluminous that you have no idea where to start? Or maybe you simply wouldn’t be able to find anything anymore – yikes!

Then again, on the positive side perhaps it will lead to more business for Professional Organizers?

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Managing My Life – Whew!

Whew,  the holiday season sure is a lot of work!  I’m so happy to be back to ‘normal’, whatever that means? All that planning, scheduling and list making; wrapping and unwrapping; cooking and cleaning up; and so on and so on.

Believe it or not, I too have my weaknesses when it comes to organization.  My business life is well organized, planning takes place on a weekly basis, I keep track of all the commitments I make to my clients and try to follow up in a timely manner, my desk is always clear of clutter, my e-mail box is down to on a few messages and empty every Friday.

However, when it comes to my personal life, I’m so exhausted from keeping my business organized and teaching other people how to do the same that it seems like sometimes the personal side falls apart.  

That’s got me thinking about how much delegating it takes to keep a house running smoothly. Thankfully there are two adults in my house to divide up the work. Although no children reside here, the three cats are quite good at making a mess requiring us to clean it up.

Anyway, we have tried to take what each of us likes to do and break up the responsibilities.  We both detest grocery shopping, so we do it together. He hates cleaning the bathroom so I do that, I hate vacuuming so he does that, and so on. 

Not only is dividing up the chores a crucial part of the systems in our house but having a routine is just as important.  Garbage on Tuesday night, groceries every Wednesday, dinner out every Friday night, cleaning on Saturday, ironing on Sunday and so on.

Mamma mia, just thinking about it is stressing me out – I so need another yoga class!

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Waiting for a New Year

Every year between Christmas and the New Year I get the urge to go through everything in my home and my office and get rid of anything that I no longer use or that is no longer meaningful to me. 

During that process I begin to look ahead and decide what I want to focus on for the next year.  I don’t know about you but the purging is the easy part, figuring out how I want to spend my time and what I want to pursue is the hard part.

Last year it appears that I was a bit overly ambitous.  As I look at the neatly typed, multi-colored paper I created last January there appear to be 5 focus activities and 7 focus areas that are all supposed to relate back to my annual theme.

Whatever I do decide to focus on in 2010, I guarantee the lists will be much shorter.  I’m thinking 3 focus activities and 3 to 5 related focus areas and a shorter annual theme.

Getting my life for the next year down to those few things isn’t easy for me.  So many ideas, so little time.

I have booked a trip to Toronto to spend a couple of days with a few other Professional Organizers for our first annual retreat.  After a 1/2 day at the spa, we hope to actually spend the next day helping each other figure out what to focus on in 2010. Can’t wait!

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Clutter Free Gift Giving

The holiday season can indeed be one of the most clutter-generating times of the year. We give and receive gifts, buy decorations, load up on extra food ‘just in case’ and so much more.  Here are a few gift ideas to reduce clutter and save you time and money.

• Consider making your own gifts – perhaps coupons offering your time for things like baby-sitting services, car washing, lawn mowing and house cleaning. 
• Donate to a charity – Revenue Canada has a list of all registered charities in Canada (www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/chrts/menu-eng.html).  Why not donate to a local charity in someone’s name instead of buying a gift for the hostess of the holiday party?
• Pass along a family heirloom like dishes or jewelry – they are meant to be used and enjoyed. If you’re not using them, give them to another family member who will enjoy them. Include a story about the gift and why it has a special significance in the family.

Gift cards are an awesome choice. Here are some of my favourite things:

• A shopping mall gift certificate (good for any store in the mall)
• A giftcard to download music
• A gift certificate for the latest technology
• Offer to pay for a child’s piano, swimming or horseback riding lessons
• Tickets to a sporting event
• My personal absolute favourite – a trip to the spa! (Hint, hint . . . )

Happy holidays to all!

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A Few Thoughts on the Holiday Season

When I work with business clients in a  training or consulting capacity, we often get into a discussion about how difficult it is to prioritize at work. It seems to me that the holiday season is no different – what a challenge it is to decide on your priorities over the next few weeks.

This year I thought about how we might all have a happy and healthy holiday season.   As usual I preach simplification to you all.  I know, I know, you’re tired of hearing about it but trust me people, it will surely make your life easier over the coming weeks and right into the New Year.

Like any project where you must decide what your priorities are, the holiday season is pretty much the same process.  In my mind, there are five major pieces of this project: Scheduling events, shopping for gifts, cooking and baking, decorating and sending holiday cards.  Seems pretty manageable, don’t you think?  Then again, maybe not!

Let’s decide on our goal for this holiday season, shall we.  Perhaps it is indeed to simplify by spending less time searching for the perfect gift, less time rushing about, less time stressing out, and more time enjoying the company of family and friends. 

• Think about how you might achieve that goal? 
• What can you do differently than you did last year? 
• What is most important to you over the holidays? 

It’s different for everyone.  Some people love to spend their time going from one party to another and being around as many people as possible.  Others are the exact opposite and want to spend lots of quality time with a few people relaxing, reflecting and rejuvenating. 

 

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