Those of us that live in small spaces usually dream of the day that we will have larger places where we can spread out and have lots of storage space but believe me; it can also be somewhat of a curse. 

Those of us in the organizing industry have a term for people who “Can’t get organized and quite frankly really don’t care”. We call them Chronically Disorganized or CD for short. I love my CD clients because they’re usually fun people, who have infinitely curious minds, are interested in everything, and I do mean everything and there’s probably a little ADHD mixed in there somewhere. They usually have the habit and ability to stimulate the economy beyond what most of us can or do and they can never remember what they already have because it’s so disorganized. Therefore they buy more of what they already have. Lots more. 

Quite often these fun, funky folks live in a large house or condo so there is almost infinite storage and when you have that, it’s quite difficult to know where everything is without a map! Sometimes I make a map but then they don’t know where the map is so it’s rather pointless until the next Professional Organizer comes along and sees there is a need for a map. I have found those maps from previous organizers and have found that the CD client didn’t know where the map was kept. 

I was looking for something in a client’s large, lovely, bathroom suite today and could only marvel at the amount of drawers and cabinets that others would covet until I realized that there is no way on earth that she would ever be able to find anything in there unless everything was labeled and that would look really tacky in her lovely, Mediterranean style bathroom suite. Picture having about 14 drawers and 7 double cabinets in your bathroom. How would you even know where the cotton balls are? As a Professional Organizer, I could probably memorize it but as a CD person, it would be challenging. 

I invite you to give me some advice to help these poor people who are Chronically Disorganized figure out a system to find things in their bathroom. We’ll just start there and see if it’s a system that can carry over to the kitchen, photo albums, clothes, and garage just to name a few problem areas. Now it’s your turn to help me!

 Jan Davis

www.ClutterBye.com

Do you feel like everything is frozen in limbo right now? You can’t afford to hire a Professional Organizer because you don’t know if you’ll still have a job next week or your investments have tanked and you’re afraid to spend money? 

Right now being in control of your home and environment is one of the few places that you still have some say over. If your sanctuary is out of sync, then you’re out of sync, and that can affect your day to day life. You can’t control what your employer does, what your partner’s employer does, or what the stock market does but you can control your clutter and the way you feel when you’re at home, trying to recover from the day. 

If you’re still employed, you’re probably doing the job of three to four people so when you come home, you need to relax and unwind. If your house consistently looks like the Tasmanian Devil whirled through it, how can you face it? Let me come over for just a few hours and help you find permanent places for all that stuff. For the cost of a day at the spa, you can recover your well being.

Jan Davis

www.ClutterBye.com

Most people hate taking out the trash because you have to carry a stinky bag out to the back of the house and dump it into an even stinkier can or dumpster. It takes maybe 3 – 5 minutes of your time but it’s not a pleasant activity, right?

 Now that we’re reliant on email and get tons of them a day (whether we like it not), we need to recognize and accept that a lot of it is the same as what goes in our trash containers. It comes in, we delete it, we deal with it, or we just let it sit in our inbox because we can’t decide what to do with it.

 A computer is an amazing source to store information but it can only hold so much. Pictures, letters, important documents, music, EMAILS, they’re all there, but one thing that’s expendable is old emails and trash emails. The deletes and the sent ones. I recommend that you only keep about 3 months worth of emails. That’s what I do and I have never regretted getting rid of one single one of them. If you’ve been watching “Hoarders” on A&E, you’ve seen what a house can look like when you never throw anything away. That’s what your computer looks like if you never throw out the old emails and you don’t even have to make that trip to the stinky container to do it!

 First you start with the “Sent Items”. Open it, sort them (at the top) by date, and delete them back to a point you are comfortable with. Now they’ve been moved into your “Deleted Items” file so open that and sort it by date and delete those, also. Take a look at your inbox down at the bottom left hand to see how many are in there. If there are more than 100, how can you possibly be dealing with them? That’s like having 100 voice mails sitting on your machine or cell phone.

Do you know how to make folders to categorize them? It’s easy! Just go to the left side of your email screen and RIGHT click on Inbox. Move down to New Folder and make a name such as Parties, Church, Work, Children’s Activities, or whatever. Then all you do is click on something in your email, hold the mouse down, move it to that folder, and let go. It’s easier than walking the trash out to the alley! And it didn’t even stink!

 When you’re feeling comfortable with that process, you can even break down those folders into sub-categories such as Church – roster, committee work, friends, etc. all by right clicking on the mouse on Church, New Folder, then name them. You just go back into the Church folder and click on the ones you want to move into a sub-folder and voila! There they are. They’re sitting in there so when you clean out your emails, those are in the safe zone.

 Don’t let your email Inbox become your Hoarding space. Emails are informational so don’t let them take over your Inbox. Categorize (file) them and you won’t feel so overwhelmed with trash!

 Jan Davis

www.ClutterBye.com

Clutter’s main job is to sit and be still. Sometimes it sits for weeks, months, or years so dust is attracted to it. Dust and clutter go hand in hand. While the clutter sits and attracts dust, the dust gets stirred up a bit by small breezes blowing by such as you. Then those dust particles get all stirred up and search for a new place to land which is also you. Your nose, throat and mouth are moist so they attract the dust. You may not be a smoker but dust accumulates in your lungs like it was smoke.

The majority of my clients suffer from asthma and would you like to guess why? They don’t smoke and never had asthma as a child but for some reason, they have it now.

Clearing clutter will rid a house of dust because it’s much easier to spray the Pledge on a cloth and dust a clear surface than to deal with the sitting piles. Paper doesn’t take as well to Pledge so it gets ignored while the dust builds up. And up and up. I’ve dusted off papers with an inch of dust on them! Apparently they weren’t all that important if they’ve sat around in one spot for that long!

Clearing clutter is the first step toward getting organized and protecting your health!

Jan Davis
www.ClutterBye.com

Those are some very powerful words. When you get milk out of the refrigerator, you put it back, right? Yes, because that’s where it belongs. When you put clean dishes away, you don’t just stack them on the countertops, or do you? So, when you get something out of your closet or a drawer, it follows that you can return it there when you are finished with it. If you just put it down, eventually you’ll have to put it away so why torture yourself with a big pile later and take the 10 seconds now to put it away.

Next time you find yourself vacillating between putting it down or putting it away, time yourself as to how long it really takes to put it away and you will be surprised. Would you rather take a few seconds now or face piles and piles later on when you have to spend a valuable Saturday afternoon cleaning up after yourself? I know this makes you procrastinators cringe, but if you can change your habits in small ways, it can improve your daily life in big ways! Think of it as 10 seconds now or two hours later. It’s your choice!

Jan Davis
ClutterBye
www.ClutterBye.com