A Place for Everything
Monday, December 22, 2008 at 11:32PM Are you like millions of Americans looking for a New Year’s Resolution that you can actually stick to? Can you not bear to write “dieting” on another year’s list? This year, why not pick something that will benefit your whole family and make your year more bearable: Organize your house, one room at a time.
I can tell you with much experience that people don’t realize the intense and tangible benefits of organizing until they actually do it. No one realizes how radically clutter wastes time, induces stress, enhances complacency, and negatively affects your mood.
Think of the feeling you have when you’ve just finished washing, drying, folding, and ironing five loads of laundry. And while you may be exhausted, you also are proud, satisfied, and energized. Well, take that feeling and multiply it by about 327%. That’s the feeling you’ll get when you start organizing your house.
Start in ONE ROOM, like your kitchen. DO NOT make unrealistic expectations that you’ll organize your whole house in one weekend.
Saturday: Start with your cupboards. DO NOT take everything out and put it on your countertops. This way, if you unwillingly get pulled away, you won’t have a bigger mess on your hands than you started with.
Instead, keeping everything IN the cabinets they are in now, grab a trash bag and toss out the items you haven’t touched in six months (stained cups, broken plates, travel coffee mugs without lids, skanky pans, unused cutlery, etc). But don’t keep it because you may want to make that frittata you read about once three years ago.
Do this ONE CUPBOARD at a time. Once you’re done with one cupboard, keep the doors open and move to the next one until you’ve done them all.
Do the same with your pantry and fridge. Get rid of expired food, foods your family doesn’t like, pie fillings you’ll never use, etc. If they’re canned goods, you can donate those to your local food shelter.
Next, remove anything from the kitchen that doesn’t belong there. Your kitchen should now have ONLY what you’re keeping. Take a bath.
Sunday: Now is the time to pull things out and put like items together. Glasses, mugs, wine glasses should all be in the same cupboard, but separated into sections. Do the same with the rest of your kitchen – LIKE ITEMS TOGETHER. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you and your family.
If you have the time and the energy, I strongly recommend changing your shelf paper to something fun and new. Maybe buy yourself a new salt and pepper shaker. Anything that will make you feel revitalized in your kitchen and make a dramatic enough change that will encourage your and your family to keep it looking this way.
Now you’re done! The same can be applied to your closets, office, and bedrooms. Day one: purge. Day two: organize what’s left.
Now, I also have to preach for a moment (‘tis the season): It’s not often discussed that being disorganized as a parent teaches your children not only how to also be disorganized, but also speaks poorly on how you value yourself and your belongings.
I tell my clients this often and will stress it to you now: How you treat your own master bedroom is one of the most vital factors in a child’s organizational upbringing. It not only shows them how you value yourself and your belongings, but how you and your spouse value your relationship and each other.
I’d say that 90% of my clients were never taught organizing a child, which is why they are now hiring me to help them make sense of their lives. Teach your children – by EXAMPLE!
Organizing is a learned behavior. It’s not a personality trait or a physical trait that people are predisposed to at birth. Your children learn it 100% from you. Take this year to teach them something that will benefit them their whole life.
Monique Helstrom is a Master Organizer and owner of A Place for Everything in Los Angeles. Her goal is to help you help yourself. She helps people remove clutter, live better, and smile more. www.aplace4everything.com
