Using Your Time Wisely

How does having lots of to-dos make you feel? The answer might vary depending on many different circumstances. There is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when we have lots of things pressing on our time and still manage to get it all done. It can certainly make you feel alive, your heart is racing, and you can look around and see all that you accomplished. There is a time and a place for using this energy.

Unfortunately, if this is how you primarily function, your super productive moments might be far and few between. If you do not have that external pressure to get it all done, it is easy to struggle when you have lots of to-dos on your list. And truthfully how many of us actually have a little to-do list? There is always more to do, even if it’s not critical or important to accomplish in a certain time frame.

Too often when we race around getting things done, we might end up looking around and see how much is left to be done. We might have even created more of a mess in the process. Sometimes we even wear ourselves out doing this.

For me, often what I need to do, after I slow down enough to recognize that I am spinning my wheels, is to choose one area, a small area, and focus on dealing with that space. Maybe you noticed, or maybe not, that I prefaced my previous statement with a “for me” – this is one of many ways to focus our energy. You might need to approach it differently – and begin with one focus rather than an area.

Area focus: I will focus on each thing that needs to be done in that specific area and I will remain there until I am finished or until I want to stop working for the time being.

Focus area: I will go through various spaces dealing with a specific focus, this can be everything that belongs in a specific room or other people might focus on picking up all the papers that need to be recycled.

Neither is any better than the other, it varies on your situation and what works best for you. Again, for me, when I focus on an area, I can then look at the area and clearly see what I accomplished – however minor it might have been. Then again, if you have many things around that belong in another room, you can see what you’ve gathered.

Another key to focusing your attention and working on something is that you are mindful. It’s important to be mindful of what you are doing and how you are using your time and energy. When we race around sometimes, we’re not really paying attention to what we are doing. Too often I see people so desperate to get all these things done, they wear themselves out.

I’ve talked before about there being times when you just need to stop for a while. It might be that you need to decide where you want to focus yourself or it might be that you’re overwhelmed or stumped about the things you’re dealing with. Whatever it might be, taking time off, time to think and process is a good thing. It can be hard to feel like it’s a good thing, but I cannot think of a time when it’s served the person well to barrel through. It’s too easy to make rash decisions that inadvertently cause more work and stress.

Our time is spent most effectively when we make decisions about what we want to focus on and avoid distractions from other tasks. This is another area where a timer can help keep us where we want to be – deciding to work on x for y amount of time. There’s no need to try to do it all tomorrow. Everything takes time and energy and divvying it up into manageable focused chunks will help you make the progress you want and save yourself the time and energy in the long run.

Collections, When to Stop

We all collect things. It might be something relatively unusual or completely commonplace. Women have the stereotype of collecting shoes and/or purses. I’ve talked many times about my own collecting of media – books, music, and (somewhat) movies. Men have been stereotyped as collecting tools and/or electronics. Stereotypes can often some basis in truth, though we cannot mistake that as truth or being even remotely close to typical.

Collecting things is not bad in and of itself. It seems to me that it’s an inevitable fact of living. We need clothes and shoes to survive. Often we need certain things to apply to different situations and occasions – not all shoes are appropriate in all settings – which means we all need more than one pair. We find value in certain items – my books are knowledge and other worlds to me. Also, we enjoy collecting things – there’s a desire to have more of this or that.

Therefore this is not about trying to tell you to avoid collecting things. Nevertheless, we cannot collect things indefinitely. There needs to be an end, a time and place where we stop. We need to recognize how this applies to us, as individuals, and there is no simple answer. Because of this, here’s a number of considerations for you as you contemplate your own collections, whatever they might be – and you can discover where that place is for yourself and your situation.

Sometimes it’s as simple as the collection feels finished to you. This means you need to be attuned to that feeling – paying attention to when you feel that you have enough. It could mean that you have enough to cover those various occasions or unique characteristics. Then you need to have the discipline to not collect more. — i.e. shoes of different colors and style for your expected situations – although this does not mean you will no longer desire to collect more – yet you can choose to focus on the anticipation of getting more once one of the current items need replacing.
A clear clue that it’s time to stop collecting is when you run out of space for your things. You need to decide whether there are other things that can go to make room for your collections or does some of your collection need to leave to make room for more. — I’ve talked before about donating some shoes to make room for a partial bookshelf in my closet, and when I did this, I largely stopped bringing any more books in – I was aware of the limited space.
Are you cycling your items in and out simply as a reason to collect more? You need to examine your motivation here, if you enjoy the cycling things in and out, great. On the other hand, if you are using that as an excuse to collect more, it might be time to stop and look at what else is going on for you. Cycling things can be a great way to keep your things fresh and continue appreciating them.
Have you stopped appreciating what you already have? It’s remarkably easy to become blind to our things, we are so used to seeing them, and we begin to forget they are there. If the number of items is getting in the way of your appreciating your collection, you might need to scale back your collection.
Something I’m not sure how much we think about as consumers is that virtually everything requires some maintenance. Are you able and willing to do the things to maintain your collection? Many items are meant to be used – leather shoes need to be worn and if you want to maximize their life, they also need to be cleaned and waxed. — I also think often of pearls with this – as they are meant to be worn, it helps keep their luster, yet many can be reluctant to simply wear them around the home – so we might not be maintaining our things as they need to be.

You might have noticed that some of what I’ve talked about might not be collections per se, someone could have one pearl necklace, but it is one more thing they have – is it being appreciated, protected, valued? These questions can apply to more than just the things that can be grouped together – all the things in our homes are a collection of sorts.

Earlier I mentioned that there is a time and a place to stop our collecting – this is an individual process. Jay Leno continues to collect cars, hiring people to help take care of all of them; I wonder how much he is able to actually appreciate this car collection. It also doesn’t hinder his life apparently. Most of us do not have this luxury, and I do not envy him – I appreciate my life of relative simplicity tremendously. As I’ve said before in a previous post, do you have a collection or does your collection have you?

Hate Doing Laundry? – An Alternative Solution

“I hate doing laundry,” someone told me the other day (we’ll call her Jane and respect her anonymity) “it’s the worst household chore of all.”

So I responded, “What is it about the laundry that you hate?”

One of the things Jane won’t do is mixing colors in the loads – each color needs to be washed and dried independently of the other colors. Jane has 3 closets of clothes, moving through them as the week’s progress, knowing when they get to a certain emptiness, laundry will need to be dealt with.

It turns out that Jane separates all her clothes by color immediately. She has 7 laundry baskets to collect the different colors and she avoids needing to sort the clothes when laundry time approaches. As soon as it’s time to handle the laundry, she can immediately begin the laundry process, loading a basket directly into the washer.

Jane went and bought the largest capacity washer and dryer available – despite the salesman questioning her that she didn’t need something so large for just herself. She knew what she wanted – a way to reduce the amount of laundry she would need to do. Jane definitely does not want to do laundry weekly – the least often is best for her.

Once a month she sets aside time, usually Friday evening through Saturday night to get her laundry washed, dried, and put away. She’s then free for another month from having to do any laundry.

The reality is that she doesn’t hate her laundry anymore – she found a way to handle it in such a way that actually gives her pleasure. Jane went on to say that she actually loves her laundry now!

How this applies for you:

Identify what it is you dislike or even hate doing – whether it’s laundry or dusting or whatever
Brainstorm an idea for how to do it differently enough that it becomes less burdensome – so often we cannot eliminate tasks, yet we can still find an alternative approach
Make it relatively easy for yourself – Jane has the different laundry baskets, the large capacity appliances, and does the laundry consistently in order that she keeps it easy enough to work for her – and if it’s too hard, we won’t do it anyway

As with so much when it comes to organizing, finding a way that works for you is most important. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to anyone else as long as it does make sense for you and your life. In this example, weekly (or for some daily) laundry duty is the solution for many families, but for some it’s the wrong approach. Discover the approach that works for you and your family – and consider all options.

Office Max Portable Folding Cart

3 out of 5 stars

Office Max Folding Cart

Pros:

large capacity for transporting things
wheels roll smoothly
can be condensed (when empty) to be compact
retractable handle
relatively inexpensive

Cons:

awkward to move when not rolling i.e. when you need to pick it up
large and can get heavy when filled
pieces for holding the shape don’t attach the best, along the top
wheels are noisy (no sneaking up on anyone with this in tow!)

Review:

Once a month I volunteer for the CCFA (Crohn’s Colitis Foundation of America) where I facilitate a support group. I bring brochures and handouts/articles for the attendees to take as needed. When I started, I loaded everything into a large bag. I created a binder with tabbed pockets for the handouts. My shoulder would ache after a meeting from lugging it around that day, and then the bag strap started to tear. I knew I wanted something rolling to lug the papers around in – it would just make things easier. I considered many options and decided on this portable folding cart from Office Max.

Let me be blunt, I liked the price – at $20.99 it was affordable, unlike the roller and catalog cases which most often were over $100.00. The folding cart also inspired an idea about changing how I would organize the articles I brought to each meeting, which has turned out to be quite successful. The size allows me to have 2 smaller desktop hanging file organizers inside the folding cart organizing the paperwork for the meetings (one of which is pictured here).

Desktop File Organizer - one style I bought to live inside the folding cart

The larger of the desktop hanging file organizers is pulled out completely for each meeting and then sits on the table (more fitting for it’s name than living inside the cart most of each month). The size of the cart of the file organizer makes it relatively easy to pull out and put back in. Since the size of the cart is large, I also have room for a smaller file organizer that holds the brochures and sign-in sheets, this is also easy to pull out and put away as necessary.

Here's my own folding cart

I was admittedly surprised by the noise of the wheels. You definitely will not be able to sneak up on anyone, yet the wheels seem to work on every surface you’d likely encounter. The handle retracts and extends as needed. There is a slight flimsy feel to it, though I have encountered no problems in the 6 months I have been using it.

As soon as I had filled it, I knew there would some areas that it would bother me. Our home has stairs at both entrances – which means I have to pick the whole cart up and carry it up or down those stairs. (Yes, I considered leaving it in the garage, but this isn’t feasible.) Since the cart is large, it is bulky and not convenient for carrying around, even short distances. This applies to lifting it into and out of the trunk of the car. Once I accidentally caught one corner as I was putting it down and cracked the plastic. Fortunately the cart still functions as it had before this accident.

Another aspect of needing to pick it up and carry it however briefly – is that it gets heavy when you have things inside it. This is rather intuitive – of course it’s heavy when it’s loaded with stuff. The other aspect is that there are these little pieces of plastic that you attach to 2 sides of the top to help keep the square shape. They live close to the handles you use for picking the cart up. They don’t attach the best – most every time I pick it up, I need to push these pieces back down (wondering when I will forget to do that and they will fall off, unnoticed).

Challenging to photograph - the little plastic piece(s) that attach to the frame on 2 sides

If you find yourself needing a portable folding cart, this is something to consider. Although there are several aspects I struggle with, overall it is serving me well. It continues to provide the benefits that matter most to me – portability and consistency. It’s still working as well as it was over 6 months ago when it was brand new and considering the price – I am satisfied (not thrilled, yet how often can be thrilled by products?).

* There is a similar one offered by Office Depot as well.

** As usual, I have not received anything for this review. 🙂

Efficiency can be Fun

Late last year I began thinking about 2 books from my childhood a lot. So much so I decided I needed to pick them up and reread them. I remembered them as being full of fun high jinx, which might be q given considering it’s about a family with 12 children. Yes, you read that right, 12 children (no multiple births and all but 1 lived to adulthood) – and we might cringe at our one or two kids. My memories were accurate, yet it was not these escapades of family life that specifically caught my attention this time through. Really, if it were just a fun read would I ask you to read my writing about it?

It turns out that the parents, Lillian and Frank Sr. Gilbreth, are motion study experts. Frank (although there is a Jr. I will be talking only about the Sr.) applies his theories and beliefs about efficiency to the whole family. Lillian was a psychologist as well, so their focus was on not just saving time and energy, it was about cooperation. An example of this was how surgeries were studied and simplified – doctors asking for the implements they needed and having them handed to them. I took this for granted; yet when the Gilbreth’s were working it was the early 1900’s.

They applied these same ideas to learning, creating different ways to learn – from Morse code being written on walls in the summer home which sometimes gave locations of surprises, to developing how to touch type, to listening to Spanish and French lessons while you were getting ready in the morning and at night – all to increase efficiency.

I’ve talked about efficiency before – I am continually looking at how I do things, asking myself if there is a “better” way. I do this when I wash dishes, in fully utilizing how I fill the dish rack, keeping both the loading and the unloading in mind. When I mow the lawn, I consider whether there are other approaches to it, there are 5 different areas with certain obstacles. Although I think some people can get carried away with shaving off a few seconds or minutes here or there, I am fascinated with the idea of efficiency from the standpoint of simplifying things.

You might not be interested in thinking that much about your own efficiency. I do not think you need to be. Yet, for me the idea of efficiency is wrapped up in simplifying. With much of what I talk about, I encourage you to find ways to make organizing easier. If something is too difficult, there’s a strong chance we won’t do it, even with the best of intentions. If the steps required to put this away are too many or too complicated or convoluted, that thing will not get put away. If we can find a way to make it easier, we’re more likely to fulfill our intentions. In many ways this is exactly what the Gilbreth’s focus was on – reducing the number of steps and complication of accomplishing this or that while not ignoring the human aspect of any of it. They focused on reducing the amount of motions involved not on just speeding things up, although reducing motions did decrease the amount of time needed to complete an action.

Maybe today’s world is not that different from those of decades ago – maybe it is. Regardless, as humans we all have limited time and energy to do all that we might want and need to do. If you find ways to save time and also energy from doing it in the easiest way, you have that much more time and energy for what matters most to you. When someone asked him, “But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?” Frank responded with,

“For work, if you love that best. For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure. For mumblety-peg, if that’s where your heart lies.”

* The first book deals more with efficiency, Cheaper by the Dozen (not to be confused with the movies). The second book deals more with running a home and being as economical as possible, Belles on Their Toes. Both books are authored by 2 of the children – Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.

Useful & Beautiful

Years ago, when my husband and I moved into our first house (still the house we’re in now) we didn’t know how we wanted to decorate. I’d grown up with antiques my parents had acquired while traveling overseas. My husband had decorated his apartment with modern furniture. Our house had been a rental, so all the rooms were painted white (except the odd half bath anyway) – which gave us more freedom to wait and figure it out. Then a few years ago we became fascinated with Arts & Crafts or Craftsman style – maybe most famous in the Midwest from Frank Lloyd Wright. We lived in a bungalow after all.

When Craftsman style was popular here in the United States, it was approximately 1910-1925. It encouraged originality, simplicity of form, local natural materials, and the visibility of handicraft. You might be familiar with a quote from William Morris,

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Is there actually a good reason to have anything in our homes that is not useful or beautiful? When was the last time you really looked around your home to notice what you might not appreciate anymore?

You might even say to yourself that anything that doesn’t fit in one of these criteria – useful or beautiful – could be clutter. Can you imagine the simplicity your life could have if you had only useful and beautiful things around you?

We all need the useful things. I wouldn’t give up my vacuum or washer and dryer for anything. I’m quite attached to my bed. Yet, I do wonder about my cell phone sometimes – is it really that useful? Our lives are certainly more filled with tools today than they were 100 years ago. How often do you think about whether things are actually useful to you? I think about it, as my husband and I joke “I am the dishwasher in our house.” That’s something “useful” we don’t even have. I don’t mind it; I even appreciate it. We contemplate a push mower sometimes – although we’ve not made that leap.

I appreciate that the “believe to beautiful” part too since it leaves it as subjective – it doesn’t have to be beautiful to anyone else (although it avoids the spouse issue!). I’ve been in homes filled with framed artwork from their children and grandchildren – where it wouldn’t be beautiful to me as such, yet I imagine it was absolutely beautiful to them. This also allows the variations we all can have about how sparse or filled an area can be – one can be beautiful to some and downright uncomfortable to another.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I want to spend time monthly to review a room in our home – to evaluate it – to see what is no longer useful or beautiful. We’ve done that some, there’s a box of décor items we’ve pulled out a couple of rooms. Now we just need to decide if we want to put them up somewhere else or if they need to move on to somewhere else altogether.

How much excess stuff do you have surrounding you? Is it useful? Is it beautiful? Start by asking these questions – then you can have some things you can pass along to someone else.

Overwhelmed?

A month ago I was ecstatic, my craft room was going to get a closet system installed. Oh the anticipation! For the week before the date, I kept talking about it, the joy of having a system and the organization I would set up. I was excited, at least until the system actually was installed. Then something happened. I became overwhelmed with feeling daunted by the effort and process of setting the closet system up. It confused me in many ways too.

I love organizing. I don’t do this for a living without a reason; I am passionate about organizing. In fact, if I am feeling a bit down about something, I will tackle an organizing project and immediately start feeling better. Can you begin to see how puzzling it was for me to feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you can, yet you might be asking yourself – “what does this have to do with ME?”

How often have you gotten overwhelmed at the thought of tackling a project? Although I did not take pictures of the piles of my stuff meant for the closet – the boxes filled up 3 ½ rooms here. Since it is my craft room, many of the items are smaller. It was going to be a process to go through it all and get it organized. It’s easy to feel like there is just so much to be done. Where do I start? I don’t have time to delve into this project.

Interestingly, this is exactly how I felt. This is how my clients often talk about feeling with their own stuff. I joke that this is why my profession exists – help in getting started and having some direction during the process. I know all this. I knew what I needed to do. Nevertheless I was still dreading it.

My point – we’re all human. We can each feel overwhelmed and reluctant to jump into a project. It doesn’t even need to be a big project, like my walk-in closet. Papers are a common area that causes significant dread among people. They tend to be tedious and time consuming. I have a lot of scrapbooking paper – possibly the easiest papers to organize and it still took me over 3 hours to organize the 12×12 loose sheets.

Another point – all it takes is jumping in. You don’t need to set aside a huge amount of time to get started. I didn’t organize those loose scrapbook papers first. I did find an “easy” place to start – in this case it was the completed photo and scrapbook albums. I already had at least part of a vision for the closet. Then I grabbed the next box. I won’t say that my feeling of overwhelm went away just because I got started. If only it was that simple. Sometimes it is, not always.

Sometimes it also means stepping back for a break. As I was going through things, I found items I spent money on and knew I would never use. I felt sad and frustrated. Even that feeling got overwhelming at times. When I saw this happening, I would try to finish the immediate stuff and then take a break and do something else entirely. Other times, I just moved the stuff off to the side and stopped anyway. This also provides a way to gain perspective – all this stuff was personal to me – ideas and plans I’d had at some point or another. Yet, I needed to let some of it go. Stepping back can be just as important as jumping in and getting started.

I’ll admit I have been a bit ashamed of feeling overwhelmed by my craft room closet. I mean I am an organizer, how can I of all people be overwhelmed by an organizing project? Yet, it also means I can relate to other people feeling overwhelmed. It also means that I will bite the bullet and jump in. You’re not alone if you too are feeling overwhelmed by an organizing task – just remember you are human like the rest of us and to just get started, somewhere or anywhere.

What Type Are You?

There’s something I really struggle with when writing this weekly blog. Do you have any guesses? It’s not coming up with ideas to write about. It’s not about making time to write and edit it (though I could be better here). It’s not worrying about whether it provides value to you, the reader, though I do want it to be helpful. What it is for me – how to explain one way of doing something while I know that there are variants upon variants of how to approach the exact same struggle.

In the most recent coaching class we worked with processing modalities. I learned about these in Gardner’s Frames of Mind, where he talked about the school system teaching in limited modalities and this neglected the children who learned in non-traditional ways, yet they were equally intelligent. I was fascinated. Similarly, Meyer-Briggs (in Please Understand Me) can help classify how you interact and relate through 16t types, leaving you with 4 letters to describe yourself (the first one being whether you are an introvert or an extrovert).

Although these have interested me, they can be used to limit yourself – at least if you are willing to be boxed in by the results. Really, they are designed to help you see the spectrum that makes you the unique individual that you are.

So, Jennifer, what exactly is your point here?

We need to embrace who we are and find those unique systems that work for you, the individual. It can be challenging for me, in this blog, to provide a specific solution for everyone since we’re all different. This is why when I come to your home, I do not advocate one way of doing something. I love to recommend tools and tricks in order for you to learn what might work for you.

Let me give you an example: I had one client who worked from her bed. There was no health problem to induce this approach – it was simply her preference. Other people would be quite uncomfortable working in their bed. Does it make it wrong for her to work in bed? Certainly not. It works for her and we set things up so that the things she worked on would be nearby – easy to retrieve and put away. I would never go into a client’s a recommend they work in their bed because it worked for this one person. So, what works for you?

In order to figure out systems for yourself, you do need to be aware of your tendencies and preferences. It helps to look at both what encourages and discourages you. This is something to accept in yourself, not judge or try to change. Another client really resisted doing anything unless she could hear the television. Happily, she wasn’t embarrassed about it and we developed some systems so her tasks could be accomplished near the TV. What are the reasons for your resistance? Too hard, too complicated, too time consuming, too _________. What are the reasons for your successes? Easy, simple, fast, rewarding, _________.

My cognitive strength supports me in the near constant problem solving I offer my clients, yet encompasses the clients strengths so they get systems that work for them. Although I will talk about this approach or that approach to something – there is such a plethora of choices on how to tackle any struggle. As the modalities point out, we are all unique and this means we use our strengths to make things work for us and most importantly support us in the life we want to lead.

Purging – Part of the Whole Process

If you have ever heard me speak, you’ll know that after the introduction I jump right into purging, “yes the dreaded purging”. Often this is an important aspect of getting organized. As FlyLady says, “you cannot organize clutter.” One of the reasons that I focus on the purging is also the limitation of space we all have. If you open a door to a stuffed closet and think that you won’t have to get rid of anything, you might be fooling yourself.

In fact, I have had a couple of clients lately who have opened their closets and told me that everything in them needs to stay. Beyond bringing in my closet guy, I worry that they think simply neatening things will somehow change the space limitations of their closet. Yet, as we dig into the closet and the items within, there are things that leave, whether it’s to the trash or for donating. It often is not a lot, but is enough to make space for what’s needed.

It’s also premature to focus on purging too much. It needs to be integrated into the entire process, something you’re considering each time you handle your stuff as part of the organization process. If you are handling something and there is no reason to keep it, get rid of it – whether it’s raggedy or no longer your taste or whatever. Sometimes it can be helpful to make a “pending” pile, a collection of the things that you’re considering getting rid of. One of the pre-teens I’ve worked with did this; we just kept adding things to it as it applied. When we had finished sorting everything, moved most of the keep items into place, only then did we revisit the pending pile. This gives you some space to let the need for a decision be set aside for a while and when you revisit the stuff you have more clarity about whether to keep it or let it go.

I’ve spoken before on how when you’re organizing, it’s gets messier before it gets better. This is also why purging is part of the entire process. You begin on a section you want to organize – you sort first. As you’re sorting, you can purge what is no longer relevant to you. If you are doing a thorough organization, you are inevitably going to need to sort it again – another time for purging. I am going to be organizing my craft room in a week or so and much of the like items are together, not all them are. I will gather them altogether and go through those like items in one fell swoop. I’m expecting that I might find some things that as I look at everything, there will be some things I will no longer want to keep. Not because I need to or “should” purge, but because as I am organizing I will discover that there are things I don’t want.

If we could make purging part of our life, it could simplify things. Imagine going to your closet to pick out your outfit and seeing a shirt (or whatever) that you don’t like, doesn’t fit, or is getting worn – and then and there pulling it out and putting it in a bag to be donated or into the trash. That’s purging too, as part of the whole process. This also means that you will be less likely to need to go through your entire closet because it’s getting too full.

Purging doesn’t need to be a process of trying to force yourself to get rid of things. It’s about considering whether those items still hold value for you; then whether you have room for them all. What are your values? Some people I work with cherish free space, the sparsely decorated space and roomy closets; others don’t care as much about that as long as they can find and get what they want when they want it. I will always make room for my books and music – these are what I hold dear. What are the things you want to make space for above others?

Remember, being organized is about being able to find what you want when you want it. It’s also about maximizing your own quality of life and what that means to you.

You’re Organized, Right?

“You’re probably completely organized, aren’t you?” I get this question frequently. And sometimes I cringe. My home goes through stages, much like most people’s homes. It is certainly not uber-organized at all times, and I have a tendency to have a project or two going at any given time. If you’ve worked with me, you’ll probably have heard stories of some of my own organizational struggles – I am not perfect, gasp! Yet, perfection is not necessary to achieve organization in your own home and life.

What does it require?

First, you need to recognize what areas need help. If you don’t “see the mess,” you aren’t going to be able to fix it. If an area has become a “dumping ground,” a place you easily drop various things, this is a good example of where you can start. It might be an area you avoid or a space you dread dealing with.

This was the case with our utility closet. You can see that it had gotten bad and I was reluctant to retrieve anything from there, let alone return anything to the chaos. (See how far from perfection I can be?)

Our utility closet before!

Second, you need to assess what is wrong and develop a plan for what you want it to be. This is also the step to stay with until you have an idea. You can always work on sorting and purging the area, but nothing more significant. If you race ahead, you can easily discover that you’ve made more work for yourself.

One of the problems with our utility closet was the odd shape, under our stairs, and my desire to maximize all that space. Also, the narrowness of the entrance complicated the shelving options. The shelving we’d chosen was still a little too deep for easy access to the closet. Also, it was wire, despite the wires being spaced close together, bottles had a tendency to tip, and smaller items too frequently found a way to fall through those wires. Interestingly, it took years of living in the house and getting past the duct (not visible in the pictures) as a reason to avoid putting shelving on that side of the closet. By switching the sides of the shelving, it works better with the way the door opens (also considering the floor stops the door from opening completely) and allows considerably better access to the closet.

Third, you need to plan for the necessary tools, time, and energy to tackle the task of creating organization. The tools are specific – the large pieces of furniture and containers to collect the trash, recycling, and items that belong elsewhere. I recommend waiting to buy other tools – containers for the space – until after you’ve completely sorted and organized. You need to set aside time to work on the project and coordinate with others if it involves them. You also need to have energy to deal with the space and items – this can be frustrating and draining, depending on what you are dealing with.

In our case, we needed to buy the shelving I had found and liked for this space – it has solid shelves, is narrow enough to work in the closet, and required assembly. I have not yet bought any other containers, though I am considering a couple, and just need to find the right size. We wanted to work on this together since it’s a space we both use. Also, we wanted to not have too many others projects going on at the same time. We contemplated replacing the linoleum tile and painting as part of the process, but decided that could wait and would be easy enough to do at a later point.

Fourth, simply doing it. Sometimes it’s not that simple. When you delve into an area that has been a dumping ground, especially something hidden, you’re likely to find any number of oddball things. You need to go through everything you find and make decisions about it. You might even get a little dejected at the level of chaos that you are discovering. Then there’s the frustration that can happen from the items you don’t know what to do with. We all have those types of items – you want to keep it, but where exactly does it go, logically? Or those items that don’t fit well into another category.

We worked together; he began assembling the shelving while I began pulling all the stuff out of the closet. I tried to group obviously similar items together on the floor for easier organizing later, although this became challenging with the amount of things that had been living in the closet. Then we talked about each thing and category we came across – was this something that we even wanted? Did we want it in the utility closet? A large number of items were moved to the basement (more painting supplies!); then we assessed the things that remained – how would we categorize them? How frequently do we use them – in order to decide if they needed to be more or less accessible. Then finally we began to put the items back into the closet, beginning with the highest used items.

Fifth, you need to see how it is working with time. If things are organized according to how you use them and how you function, the new system should work for you. The biggest challenge for some people is not getting dejected because it’s not working for them. I encourage you to examine it closely and figure out what pieces are working and then work on ways to tweak things so that the parts that aren’t working can be. Although I wish being organized didn’t need discipline, it does – and maybe it’s time to focus on one area to be disciplined about, to make it habit.

Our utility closet seems to be functioning well almost 2 months with the new organization, though time may tell a different story. On a different front, a challenging room to keep organized as the systems fall apart before long. I’m in the process of re-doing that, so stay tuned and it will end up in the blog too.

Our utility closet after (& you can see why we'd want to change the flooring!)

As a professional organizer, I’m sometimes embarrassed that I am not more organized. My husband reminds me, “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.” And I realize that I have the skills to make things organized when I make time and energy to do so. I believe that you can to (and if not, you know how to get a hold of me for help). 🙂