5. Evaluate Your Home and Establish Your Objectives

AS YOU PREPARE TO PHYSICALLY REORGANIZE your house and your belongings, I want you to take a tour of your home. This is a surface-level tour and should only take about an hour, so don’t go into all the nooks and crannies yet. You’re going to survey each room. It’s not the time to evaluate the contents of every drawer or cupboard in the room. You need to know where you are heading, and identify the best spots to stop along the way, before you can set out on your journey. This is the first step I always take with a client, provided he or she is comfortable showing me the entire house.

Bring the following items with you on your tour:

Your answers to the Create a Vision for Your Organizing Efforts exercise in chapter two (page 35). They can be written down, remembered in your head, or on an audio recording.

The Room Tour Questions in the appendix (page 206).

The Home is Not Home Without Chart in the appendix (page 208).

A notebook or handheld audio recorder to complete the chart and capture any thoughts, decisions, or ideas that come to you as you tour.

SURVEY THE ROOM AS A WHOLE

The goal of this tour is to quickly evaluate your home and decide what organizing projects need to be done. You can do the tour all at once or tour one room a day if your time is limited. This is the first E and the O in the REORGANIZE acronym from chapter two (evaluate and objectives). Start your evaluation by asking yourself the same basic set of questions in each room or space. These room tour questions can also be found on page 208 in the appendix.

1. What do you see?

2. What do people comment on when they arrive?

3. What kind of energy do you feel in this spot?

4. What’s in place?

5. What is out of place?

6. What activities go on here right now?

7. What activities no longer occur here even though the stuff associated with those activities is still located here?

8. What activities would you like to have happen here but don’t today because of clutter or space or other considerations?

9. What frustrates you about this area?

10. Do you enjoy the color scheme?

11. What systems are important to have here, and are they working for you today? (Sometimes it is helpful to answer this with a 1–10 scale, 10 being perfect. Usually, some parts of the system are working; it’s not the whole system that’s failed you.)

12. How would you like this space to be?

Each room has had a purpose in the past, but each room can have a new purpose now, based on what’s important to you in this chapter of your life. This reorganization is about having your home reflect who you are now and who you are becoming. We need to make physical space for current and new interests. Give yourself the freedom to let go of your old interests and embrace your new ones.

EVALUATE THE CONTENTS OF EACH ROOM

After you answer the room tour questions and have made some decisions about the future functions of the area, you can begin to evaluate the contents of the room using the Home is Not Home Without Chart. Identify the objects in the room that positively align with your answers to the room tour questions and list them on your Home Is Not Home Without Chart.

The chart and the questions that accompany it are designed to help you think differently about your belongings and your space. You are changing. You’ll want your space and organizing systems to reflect this change and be in sync with who you are becoming. Use the questions to help you decide which items from the past are still part of who you are today and which items are not anymore. In another chapter of your life, you may have had a passion for quilting or for history books. They were wonderful for that chapter, but if they are not current interests, can you let them go?

On the chart, list the items that are still important to you and that you know you want to keep in your life. You can think of these as your favorite things.

Some people will want to complete the Home is Not Home Without Chart as they walk through their home with it. Others prefer to walk around their houses and then sit down with the chart later. Either approach works; it just depends on your thinking and processing style. Or you might take two tours, filling out the chart on your second time through the house. Stand in each room and acknowledge what makes the room feel like home to you. This will be your first cut at identifying the items that need to stay in your home as you’re reorganizing for your next chapter.

Identify Your Least Favorite Items

Quite recently, a woman in one of my downsizing classes told me it would be easier for her to select her nonfavorites, those items she was certain she could remove from her house, instead of immediately picking her very favorite items. I’d never considered that approach before, but it certainly has its merits, and as I said, what matters most is that the system works for you. So try completing the Home is Not Home Without Chart, and if you’re really stuck and cannot choose items that make home feel like home, then identify the things you know you don’t want and see how you feel about the remaining items. We all think differently, so there’s no one-size-fits-all way to do this. One of the benefits to working with a Certified Professional Organizer® or Certified Organizer Coach® is that we’ll collaborate with you to match your thinking and processing styles with the many possibilities available to organize your life.

Home is Not Home Without …

Hallway or Entryway		The table we put our things on when we come in the house. The bowl on top that was Grandma’s.
Bedroom 2		The matching nightstands I bought for our daughter so many years ago. A few of the family photos she framed.
Bedroom 3		Antique beds. The tole-painted washstand.
Bedroom 4 or Office		Files from my career. Selected books. My desk chair and my desk. Fabrics for quilt projects. Fabrics bought on our travels.
Master Bedroom		My favorite quilt I made while the kids were growing up.
Kitchen		Favorite pots, pans, and recipes I use most often. Family recipes. The statue from our trip to Europe.
Laundry Area		Organizing bins I use for all the laundry stuff.
Dining Room		Silverware. Some of the china plates passed down. Favorite wine glasses collected from our travels.
Home Office		The desk I love from my favorite store that works well with my style and habits. The pictures on the wall for inspiration. My favorite, most comfortable desk chair, old as it is.
Bathroom		The framed picture of all of us on a beach vacation. The baskets I found during that neat trip we took to a Shaker village.
Living Room		Paintings. The loveseat that’s so much more comfortable than the couch! The needlepoint coasters from my great-aunt.
Den		Certain books I love to reread. My favorite reading chair.
Attic		Selected books and artwork of the kids. Mom’s jewelry box.
Basement		Exercise equipment. Selected tools.
Garage/Shed		Tools from Dad. My gardening things.

TOURING ROOM BY ROOM

After you gather up all the items you need for the tour, you can start working your way through the house. In addition to a general room tour of questions, some rooms will have unique questions you’ll ask yourself. I’ve included these questions, listed room by room.

Entryway

This is not the formal entrance, but wherever you enter the house each day. It is often the same place where close friends are welcomed into your home. First go out the entry door and then come back into your home. What does your entryway say to you when you walk in the house? What kind of first impression does this entryway give? Answer the room tour questions based on how you feel when you immediately enter the house. This is a frequent starting point because the first look sets your mood as you walk into your home.

Spare Bedrooms

Do you have bedrooms set up for your grown children to return home? When was the last time one of them stayed over? Is there a possibility of having them share the room with one of your newest hobbies or your home office? Organize your rooms for their most frequent uses.

Don’t Toss it All

Your initial home tour is not a time to say to yourself that you “just want to move on and start fresh.” Please do not make this an intellectual exercise by ignoring feelings and tossing out too many things simply because you’re in reorganizing mode.

The house did not become cluttered or stop serving your needs overnight, and it’s not going to take one reorganizing session to bring things back to the way they used to be. Remember what I said about reorganizing: It’s cathartic and therapeutic. So it’s not just about moving things around and giving things away; it’s about giving you the time you likely need to deal with the internal work.

It’s a pretty exciting journey if you’re really on board. So enjoy it and don’t rush it. It’s the journey, not the destination; the destination may change as you make the journey if you let it.

If you need to go through your life partner’s things because he or she has died, you particularly need to take your time. This is a time to grieve if you need to. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with others who may wish to help but don’t know the best way to help. They are well meaning.

Sometimes you’ll need to revisit a room or a collection at a later date. Getting rid of someone’s belongings does not get rid of your anger or sadness; only processing your feelings will do that. So please tread carefully here. The Home is Not Home Without Chart can assist you in those very clear decisions, to keep or not to keep. The gray decisions, the “I’m-not-
totally-sure” types of decisions, come later with more time and further assistance from this book. If your emotions about specific items are too strong for you to think clearly, leave the items where they are or carefully pack them away and put them in storage until you can address them properly.

I once worked with a woman who made beautiful jewelry. Her craft space had been in the basement from the time her children were born. It was a nice getaway space when needed. But now, the space was always a little cold, a little damp, and the lighting was not strong enough for detailed craft work.

Her life transition was as a new empty nester. She was in the reinvention phase of her life, working on creating her next chapter. When we worked together, I listened and took in her comments about the basement as her jewelry space. It had served her well for many years. She wanted a studio with better natural light, improved storage for the beads and her tools, and a design space separate from her working space. She’d done her crafting in the basement for so long that it was difficult for her to think about her upstairs space in a different way. I gradually introduced the idea of using her grown child’s bedroom as her studio, while keeping a bed in there for overnight guests.

So for grown children’s bedrooms, think about how often the room is used as a bedroom. How often does it stay empty and unused? The house is 100 percent yours now, so do whatever you’d like. You’ll find new ways to accommodate family visits, the grandchild who stays over, or the guest from afar. Think about activities that take place somewhere else in the house. Could you make space in a bedroom for that activity? Some options include a home office, household office and bill-paying center, off-season storage, or a student setup for yourself if you’re going back to school.

There’s another reason to set a new purpose for each of your unused or now vacant rooms (and this applies to closets, too): A room without a purpose can become a catchall space. It’s the “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-this-thing-so-I’ll-put-it-in-here-for-now” room. This room’s name always gets a laugh, and I’m guessing it’s a laugh of recognition.

On the flip side, have you been using your spare bedroom as a craft room or home office, but now you are welcoming a new, permanent resident into your home—be it a new baby, an aging parent, a grown child, or other adult relative who needs to stay with you for a while? If this is the case, you’ll need to relinquish this area to give them privacy. You’ll need to find another room to house these activities.

Master Bedroom

The master bedroom can be especially difficult if you’re widowed or divorced. This is the most intimate of spaces and would have been the main space the two of you shared, but now you are alone. Regardless of the reasons you are alone, whether they were forced on you or you chose to be on your own, this is an emotionally difficult room.

Questions unique to the master bedroom are:

• How much of your past is represented in the colors, the fabrics, and the furniture?

• If I walked into your space, how many mementos and memories would I see out in the open, atop the armoire and bureaus, on the bookshelves, or on the walls?

• Are you still comfortable with these memories, or have some outlived their meaning to you? Which are your favorites you’ll always want around you? Which are questionable? Which no longer mean what they once did—or make you realize you’re ready to move on?

• How long has it been since your partner was here? Have you taken out only a few of his or her belongings or several? Or are you just beginning?

• What have you always wanted in your bedroom, but compromised so you don’t have it? One of my clients preferred to keep laundry baskets in her bedroom, but had compromised with her partner to keep them in the hallway. Another client had always wanted a nightstand to hold the books she read in bed, but her husband had never wanted them because they attracted clutter.

I’ve often heard from clients that their well-meaning mother, father, siblings, or friend told them to just get rid of it all because it will make you feel better. That’s not necessarily true. There is a much easier way to process your grief and still move on: Go through memories in stages. Ignore what “they” tell you and listen to your heart and what makes you comfortable. Do what’s right for you to be sure you’re making no-regrets decisions.

Main closet and bureaus. While in your master bedroom, look through closets, the bureau, and any other area that will need an intensive organizing effort. As you look through your things, ask:

• How do you feel about your wardrobe? What percentage of your total clothing collection do you wear on a regular basis?

• Does all of your clothing fit? If you plan to lose weight to get back into a smaller size, will the smaller clothing still be in fashion when you reach that goal, or would it be better to reward yourself with a new wardrobe?

• What does your ideal closet look like?

• How can you create more room in your closet?

If you are dealing with the loss of your partner, look through their closets and anywhere they kept clothing. Ask yourself:

1. How ready am I to move things out of this room? Can I move things out in stages? One woman was ready to give away her husband’s clothes to favorite friends and family members about six months after he died. Her husband had been a sharp dresser. It delighted her when she’d occasionally see a friend or family member wearing one of his tweed blazers, heavy winter shirts, or a suit. She didn’t need the clothing to remind her of this aspect of her husband, so this stage came quickly for her.

After that, things slowed down. She waited about another two years before she went through other possessions: memorabilia from his youth, baseball memories he’d kept over the years, books, and more.

2. What was the essence of this person (passions, hobbies, philosophies of life, favorite paintings or prints or books)? Who was this person? If you can answer this question, you can select a group of favorite items from their belongings to hold on to. This is an excellent case of keeping a few key items so that less becomes more. Fewer objects still give you the memories, but give you more mental and physical space for your next chapter.

Kitchen

Home is not home without … In a kitchen, this can take on different meanings, depending on your situation and how you once spent your time here. One man, divorced and with joint custody of his children, had always wanted to be the cook in the family. He loved experimenting and sharing his cooking at dinner parties. But during his marriage, he had few opportunities to cook.

After the divorce, and after he’d figured out a bit about being a single parent, he took a tour of his kitchen. He wanted the kitchen to become a central gathering spot for the family instead of seeing his children disappear into their rooms after school. His favorite items all had to do with being a chef, entertaining family and friends more often, and making the kitchen and family room space friendlier for his kids to play in, with or without him around.

Because so many activities happen in the kitchen, it can also become a dumping ground for paperwork, items coming into the home, and items that need to leave your home. As you tour the room ask:

• What activities occur here that could be moved to a different room? This could include sorting the mail, paying bills, and organizing items to take out of the home (library books, merchandise to return, items that need to be repaired, etc.).

Laundry Area

The main life transition questions for the laundry area or room center around whether the number of household members has changed. If you’ve added a parent, child, grandchild, or are a host family, does your current space function well? Is your folding space large enough, and do you have enough shelving to handle your laundry products? Does everyone in the house understand the expectations for this area? What can you do to make it easier for people to sort dirty laundry and then put away clean clothes?

Sometimes people store their household cleaning products in the laundry room or use shelves for household storage. Do you have enough room for these items? Are dangerous items properly stored so children and pets can’t get to them?

Dining Room

Dining rooms vary widely from home to home. In homes with small kitchens, the dining room is the main (or only) place to eat at a table, so it is used frequently. If this is the case in your home, treat this room as an extension of the kitchen. A key question is:

• How can I keep the table free from clutter so it is always available for dining?

In homes with eat-in kitchens, the dining room may be more formal and used only on special occasions. If this is the case in your home, answer these questions to help you identify your favorite belongings:

• How often do you want to entertain? Is someone else hosting family holiday dinners now?

• When you entertain, are you entertaining in this room because you enjoy it or because you want to use the space?

• What’s the typical size of the groups you entertain?

Many people repurpose their dining rooms. This area can be used as a home office, a study, a craft room, or homework space for yourself or your grandchildren. As we grow older, people tend to entertain in smaller groups, entertain less formally, or dine out instead of hosting a dinner party. If your dining room is largely unused, think of ways you can transform it into a space that you will use at least once a week. Look at your goals and dreams for this next chapter of your life and decide how this space can help you achieve them. One woman uses her dining room as a library and household office.

As an aside, if you repurpose your dining room (which is a wonderful idea if it helps you use the space), change it back to its traditional purpose before you put your house up for sale because proper staging helps houses sell faster. But don’t let this future consideration keep you from enjoying your space today.

Formal dining rooms also often contain items such as your most delicate or expensive belongings and items inherited from one or more relatives—china, furniture, collectibles. Sometimes, inherited items become favorites, but other times they were gifts that you graciously accepted but never really wanted. Perhaps you had the feeling that the relative was just trying to declutter her stuff by giving it to you. Now is the time to think about what’s really a favorite and use those favorites or put them on display.

There are three key ways to enjoy an object: use it, display it, or give it away knowing it will have a new, loving home. If we can’t enjoy an object, why do we let it take up physical and mental space?

If you suspect an item is valuable, have it appraised before you decide to keep it, donate it, or sell it so you can make the best decision. If you decide to keep something because it is valuable, be sure you are able to care for it or store it in a way that protects its value, and have the item insured.

Home Office

Which activities do you want to work on in your home office space?

Or, ask the question the opposite way: Where would you like to do your work and take care of your household management responsibilities? Here are some questions to ask as you evaluate your home office:

• How do I prefer to work? Do you like to spread out and therefore need a lot of room? Do you like to have separate areas for different responsibilities? You can create separate spaces within the same room. One client who ran a small business decided she needed to separate the bill-paying activities from her more creative and management-centered business activities. She set up a separate desk to use when she handles bills and some other administrative activities. For her, as with many people, physically separating the space helps to set her mind in the appropriate mode, whether it’s creative, management, or bill paying.

• Can I work without distractions? Can you work without interruption in this area? Is it quiet enough for you to concentrate in? Or, if you are social, is it in an area where you won’t feel isolated?

• How does the décor affect the energy in the room? Colors affect our inspiration, motivation, and mood, as does lighting. You may want to make repainting the room and changing the lighting a long-term goal for this area.

• How can I get other household members to respect this area? Make your office space separate from the rest of the house, or you’ll spend time cleaning up, readjusting, and finding things every time someone else uses the space. That’s not really motivating to get to the work you really want to do and are passionate about, is it? A new office space deserves a discussion with family about office hours, computer time, interruptions, personal calls, and so forth.

Paperwork Around the House

While we’re talking about the home office, let’s assess your paperwork situation, whether currently all in one room or scattered around the house. What is it about papers that makes them so dreaded? They are often the most difficult things to organize. I have two theories as to why this is the case. Can you relate to either or both?

First, many papers represent something going on in your life—an
invitation to an event you might attend, a certificate you’ve earned, a thank-you card for something generous you did, and so forth. They are a mosaic of your life and give you some part of the picture of your life. So let’s figure out how to deal with them and give them the respect they need as part of your life.

Second, we think of and talk about papers as if they’re all alike, even though they are vastly different and require different responses. Bills need to be paid and then filed for future reference if they’re tax related. Some paperwork requires decisions—advertisements, invitations, and so on. Letting them sit around is a way of delaying a decision—will you buy the product, will you attend the event? Some are sentimental, like cards. Different types of paperwork require different methods of organizing.

Answer these six questions about your papers, and you’ll begin to craft your method to organize them.

1. What kinds of papers do you save?

2. For each group of papers you’re saving, what do you plan to do with the group? Why do you save them?

3. How often will you need to use what you’ve saved for each group?

4. Are you a paper person, or are you moving more toward saving info on your computer? It helps to move one way or the other so you don’t have to check both paper and electronic files.

5. Where will you gather and use the information?

6. How often will you need to access the file? This will determine where you put the file.

Find more about this in chapter ten.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms would seem to be easy to reorganize, but this space can be challenging as we age. As you evaluate your bathrooms, consider the following:

• How many people currently live in your home? The number of people living in your home changes over time. If you are in the so-called empty-nest phase, with fewer people, there’s less of a need for so many bath products, sheets, and towels. So knowing the number of people can help you set a boundary for yourself, for example, to have just two sets of sheets for each bed, or three sets of bath towels (more if you have houseguests often).

• What, if any, are the current physical or medical challenges faced by those who use the bathroom? For young children, it’s potty training, not being able to reach the sink, and the need to child-proof the room. For the elderly, it’s mobility issues and risk of falls. If someone in your home has mobility issues, identify how high and low they can comfortably reach, and organize so all of their items are within this range. You may need to purge items so everything will fit in this space. If you’ve developed a new medical or health challenge, ask yourself how much space you’ll need for medicines and other paraphernalia. Because of the high humidity and temperature changes, the bathroom isn’t always the best place to keep medication. More helpful would be storing these items nearer to where they are used, particularly if there are mobility issues. Medicines might be appropriate in the kitchen, if taken at mealtimes, for example.

• How long do you expect to stay in this home? Consider incremental improvements to your bathroom before you consider any major renovation. For example, if you are taking care of someone older or someone who is in and out of the hospital fairly frequently, what are his or her daily needs? Can you reorganize so the individual needs only to live on one floor?

An elderly couple lived on their own in the family home, where they felt many years of history and great sentimental attachment. They felt strongly about staying in their home, and their belief was “family takes care of family.” When the wife’s health issues worsened and her mobility lessened, her husband and children started thinking about a renovation to allow her to live only on the first floor. The house was fairly old, so the layout was not very flexible. This change would require quite a major renovation, which would cause too much stress and disruption. The family decided to reorganize instead of renovate and asked me to help.

Once we broke down the wife’s daily routine and realized how little she really needed, we were able to create new organizing systems that supported her on the first floor by adding railings in several rooms to assist her mobility, moving linens downstairs, and decluttering space under the first-floor bathroom sink for them. We also brought down some of her clothing, and her husband got into a routine of helping his wife get dressed daily, so he brought down her choice of clothes. She could not get into the tub, so she figured out a washing routine using the downstairs bath. All of this was a reorganization to support what mattered most to the family, caring for loved ones at home.

Living Spaces: Living Room or Den

This is an area of the house where we spend a lot of our time, no matter what our family structure is. This is a space you’ll want to spend time on to not only reorganize, but also to redecorate. Imagine a new furniture style or new colors as your life changes. Parents of a new baby and young children need durable, stain-resistant furniture and carpet. Empty nesters may want to add more elegance or change their color scheme now that their home will experience less wear and tear.

Karen bought her beautiful 150-year-old house with her husband, and they’d spent many hours making it their own. They ended up divorcing before this space was finished and decorated. Karen called because she was ready to move on, by herself, and she needed to make the house her own. She realized on our tour that her only favorite items in the living room were the natural light, the wooden floors, selected knitting books, and all of her yarn. The rest of the objects had more meaning to her ex-husband, and she’d never had any real attachment to them.

Basement and Attic

If items have been relegated to the “black hole” of the house (which is what so many people consider the basement), then how is it you’re enjoying them? We often store things in these spaces because we want to save them for use someday. With all that you’ve gone through, is “someday” today? Consider the financial and sentimental value of things you’ve put in these two spaces. We also use these spaces to store things for which we can’t make decisions. Make it your goal to make as many decisions about these items as possible. You really have two choices, keep the item and put it to use or on display or get rid of the item.

Holiday and seasonal decorations do belong in this space, but even with these, think about which are your favorites. Identify any objects you keep because of guilt or obligation. What is the worst that will happen if you get rid of them? Also consider how much decorating you plan to do in the future. If you will be celebrating the holidays elsewhere, you may find you need or want to do very little decorating. Give yourself permission to let go of things you no longer need or use.

The attic and basement both tend to be storage for your childhood memorabilia and your children’s childhood memorabilia. Jot down on your chart how many boxes of childhood items you think you have. Don’t go through them yet. Just estimate how much you have so you know what to expect.

Speaking from personal experience, grown children do forget what Mom and Dad are saving or storing for them. They know they can always go home for their stuff, but to go through it and make decisions is too hard or too time-consuming. Children believe their parents have extra space now that all the kids are gone, so they just leave their stuff there until their parents say something.

Parents often save much more than their children end up wanting. Generations are different in regard to the things they acquire and how they acquire them, their tolerance for used versus new, how much they can afford on their own, and the state of the items (think prints of photographs versus digital photos). Much changes, so it’s better to ask what the children want to keep rather than assume, and it gives you permission to let go if they say no.

Garage and Shed

As you look through the garage and shed ask these specific questions:

• Do you need room to work on your car?

• Do you still participate in all the sports that you have equipment for?

• How much outdoor work will you do on your own?

If your life situation has changed, the answers to all three questions probably recently changed, too. Or maybe you’ll decide you want to try doing some things for yourself now if you suddenly have more time in your schedule. Go for it. Give yourself a season or two and see how it makes you feel. You may love the idea of taking care of your own home and having control over the maintenance schedule. I gave this a try in my own life and ended up loving it!

WHERE TO START

Now that you’ve toured your home and answered specific questions about each room, you may have already discovered where you want to start reorganizing.

For other people, the tour will have helped you identify your favorite items, but your question still remains: Which space do I start with? Allow me to give you some suggestions and, of course, questions to ask yourself to help you figure this out.

Start Easy

You can choose whichever room or collection or space seems the easiest. This will give you a quick success that you can brag about (even if it’s only to yourself).

This is very motivating and makes you feel good. It shows you that you can do this. And that’s a great feeling to have as you start on a second project.

Don’t Start With the Most Difficult Areas

You might think you’ll start with a difficult project thinking, if I can do this, I can do anything. But starting here can be a recipe for discouragement and feelings of failure. This is a time to build on smaller successes. You may also still be dealing with the emotions or logistics of the life transition you are experiencing. Organizing is about making decisions on everything, and that can be draining. You may lose motivation because it may be too hard to do on your own. It may be too complicated; there may be too many different types of belongings, making it too hard to find new homes for everything.

Please start simply. The momentum you carry from earlier successes will give you encouragement to work through the difficult tasks. Plus if you save the most difficult until the end, you can take all the time you need, knowing that the rest of your house is already reorganized.

Listen to Your Inner Voice

What do you think about your home? What do you know you love? What do you know about what you want going forward? What do you wish for? Sometimes this will tell you which space bothers you the most or which space is the one in which to create something new. Worried where you’ll put things you take out of one room? Maybe you need to start by clearing out wherever their new homes will be (their receiving area).

Theresa wanted to start in her bedroom, which was located on the second floor of her home. She was a new mother and had recently moved into a new home. These transitions had caused her bedroom to become the place where all the clutter from the downstairs was deposited during rushed cleanups. Master bedrooms commonly become dumping grounds because they are large rooms that are off-limits to guests. We genuinely intend to clear the space after the guests are gone, but we are busy, and when the room doesn’t get cleared out once or twice, the piles seem insurmountable.

Theresa wanted to reclaim the bedroom as an adult space instead of a storage area. She also knew a fair amount of the clothing cluttering her closet would be maternity clothes, and she and her husband didn’t plan to have more children. So this would be an easy place to start, and even easier after we decided on a family-oriented organization she could donate items to.

She wanted to go upstairs at night and be calmer. She believed the chaos in her bedroom affected her sleeping and her health. Starting in her room would bring her the most satisfaction and immediately improve her attitude about her home, so this is where she decided to start.

Listen to What Your Family Says

Do you hear, “I’m so frustrated.” “I can’t work in here!” “I can never find … “ “We bought another one?!” and so forth from your family? You can start with the areas that cause your family members frustration. A quick caution if this sounds attractive: You’re reorganizing your house for you first. Work on where you want to start. You’re the one who needs to keep at it, so choose somewhere that means something to you. How much more motivating is it to work on turning an extra room into your craft space versus working on the kitchen cabinets because your daughter says you should have more organized cabinets?

Take a Seasonal Approach

If you really can’t decide where to start, slot in rooms that have climate issues first—attic, basement, garage, and shed—so you’re not working on the attic in 90-degree weather for example. Then think about your manufactured deadlines. Which ones help you decide on a month for other rooms? Do you need to clear guest rooms for summer visitors? Are you hosting a holiday event and need to clear the dining room and kitchen?

SELECT THE SIZE OR SCALE OF YOUR PROJECT

Before you jump in, remember you can organize in stages and break things down into smaller steps. This is the M in the SIMPLIFY acronym from chapter two—make small steps. There are essentially three options for the scale of your project: a room, a collection, or a receiving area.

A collection isn’t limited to collectibles or objects that are designated as a collection. In this context, it means an entire category of like items. Your entire wardrobe constitutes a collection, as does your paperwork, your dishware, your craft items, your books, your movies, the food in your pantry or freezer, and so on. These objects may currently all be in one room, but I more often find that the collection has spread throughout the house, which causes stress for the collection’s owner and other household members.

A receiving area is the place where things you don’t need in your everyday spaces will be stored for occasional use or future use. It could be a dresser, a set of shelves, a pantry, or a closet. Some people use a barn, off-site storage, or even on-site storage. My client Serena felt more comfortable clearing and organizing the receiving area first because she felt it would be easier going through the everyday spaces in the house knowing she’d already made room to receive items from them.

We’ve covered a lot in this chapter. After you finish your house tour and complete your Home is Not Home Without Chart, you should know exactly where you are going to start and have scheduled time to start reorganizing. In the next chapter we head to the actual space you want to work on. We’ll go through the next few steps of the REORGANIZE process together.