7. Reorganizing What’s Left

CONGRATULATIONS ON MAKING IT THIS FAR! You’ve finished the hard part—deciding what to let go of. Now it’s on to the fun part—reorganizing what’s left so you get the most out of your belongings and your home. In this chapter, we’ll finish the REORGANIZE process and explore the A, N, I, Z, and E steps. These principles will help you create organizing systems that work for you so you feel great about every part of your home. We’ll also explore the I and F in SIMPLIFY. I’ll give you practical examples of these concepts to guide you and inspire you in your own home.

ENVISION YOUR NEW SPACE

In chapter five you toured your home and asked yourself specific questions in each room. Now that you’ve removed unwanted items from your home, it’s time to tour the new, clutter-free rooms and revisit the room tour questions (see page 206) and your answers to them.

Your answers to each question will help you move forward and reorganize the space. They will also set you up for success by helping you identify systems that work and systems that don’t work for you in this space. Let’s look at a few of the questions in a little more detail to help you envision your new space.

What Activities Would You Like to Have Happen Here?

You removed the clutter that was preventing you from using this room as you wanted. Now you can focus on transforming the room into the space you want it to be. Will you return the room to the same purpose it had before you began your reorganizing project, or would you like to reinvent the space? Are there activities you do somewhere else in the house that you’d like to give more space to or a more convenient space? Could any of those activities occur here, in this room? Do you have new responsibilities or activities that you need to accommodate? Maybe your mother has moved in with you and needs space somewhere to store her daily medications. Or perhaps you’ve gone back to school and you need to make a space for studying and writing. Write these down and decide how you need to arrange the room to best facilitate these activities. You’ll find specific ideas for repurposing rooms later in the chapter.

Does Anything Need to be Added to This Space to Fulfill its Function?

By identifying the activities that will occur in the room, you are identifying the function of the room. Survey the current contents of the room. Does everything in it serve the function of the room? Do you need to add items to the room to better serve its function?

Do you need to improve lighting, move furniture, or combine similar items from another room. Now is your chance to consolidate. For example, if clearing a closet opened up extra space, you may be able to store your off-season clothing in the closet instead of storing it somewhere else.

ANALYZE THE REMAINING ITEMS

Now that you’ve re-envisioned the room, you can analyze the remaining items (those staying in the room) and decide how to organize them.

Like With Like

One of the most basic principles of organizing is to keep “like” or similar things together.

Visualize how a store is laid out, or notice it the next time you’re there. At each store, the goods are organized in similar groups, and the groups are located in specific aisles or sections of the store, which makes it easy to find what you are looking for. When you shop at these stores, it’s easy enough to find the items you purchase often, isn’t it?

When you combine like items, you are creating the sections or aisles in your room or area. Analyze each item you have in the room and put similar items together in different piles. Don’t worry about where you will put them yet; simply create your groupings.

Like with like can also mean grouping items you often use together. An example in the garage would be if you hang the weed trimmer on a nail, and on the same nail, you hang the instruction manual enclosed in a plastic bag or sheet protector. One is a tool and one is paper instructions, but they are always used together. Or in the bathroom you may group together all of the grooming products you use on a daily basis, even though it may include a wide variety of items. Extra or less frequently used items would go in different groups.

Quantify the Size of Your Groups

After you create your groups of like items, measure and count each group. Record these measurements in a notepad, as they will help you negotiate the space and find homes for everything. Be sure to account for any missing items—that is, items that are in the laundry or in the dishwasher, books in another room, or other like items spread across the house. If, for example, you know you will be keeping all of your board games in this area, but you know you have games spread around the house, take the time to round up all the games and add them to your pile so you can find the right-sized home for them.

Consolidate … or Not?

Some people want to keep all like things together in one central location, while others like to keep things where they are used. Towels and linens are good examples of what to consolidate, or not. You could have a central linen closet where all of the towels and linens in the house are located, or you could spread the towels out and keep sets in each bathroom and keep sheets in bedroom closets. Everyone is different, and there’s no right or wrong choice. Most important is to choose a grouping that you can remember and easily maintain.

Plan for growth. As you quantify each group, decide if the number of items in the group will grow in the future. I know, we’re in the middle of decluttering, and now I’m suggesting you add to your collection. Why do I do this? Because sometimes you get rid of old collections, hobbies, or clothing with the idea of replacing them with new collections, hobbies, or clothing. You may not take up the entire space that has just been vacated by its former tenants, but part of transition organizing is welcoming the new while removing the old. So plan for new needs. Write down your plans so you know how much extra space you need to leave for this group so you can properly display or store the items. You can also use a placeholder. For example, you’re making your room into a place to make jewelry. Currently, some beads are in another room. On a sheet of paper, in big letters, write “beads from the dining room” (if that’s where they are now). Put the placeholder paper in the room you’re reorganizing, in the spot you plan to house the beads (or any other object).

NEGOTIATE THE SPACE VERSUS YOUR BELONGINGS

After you analyze the remaining items, find homes for them in the room. This is the N in REORGANIZE—negotiate the space versus your belongings. Look at and measure each group of items. Now look around the room. This is the space you have to work with. Will each group fit into the space you want it to fit? Draw a diagram if you’d like, or start moving things around. If the group doesn’t fit, try another spot. Belongings often end up on a miscellaneous shelf because we don’t leave enough space for them. We put the items where they fit, for now, thinking we’ll get back to them. Over time, if you don’t organize as you add or take away items on that shelf, you get a jumbled collection of items that don’t belong together. Your likes are no longer together, and you’ll have multiple places to hunt for items. That’s why it’s important quantify and measure your belongings before you assign items to a new home within the room.

Look around the room and identify a specific home for each group of like items. Put frequently used items in your everyday space within the room.

Identify Your Everyday Space

Everyday space is often a new concept for people I work with. The idea is to keep your everyday living spaces—those that you spend the most time in—comfortable, easy to maintain, and filled with the belongings you use on a daily, or near daily, basis. The space is filled with belongings that are appealing to you—visually, energetically, and intuitively. Think about how often you use the things you own. You can live more simply, reorganize less often, and maintain more easily if you have less stuff around you day to day.

Identify the items you use daily. These items should be placed where they are easy to access and easy to put away. Tabletops and flat surfaces, shelves and drawers within arm’s reach, and floor space are all prime real estate—the easiest-to-access areas of your room. Keep everyday items on shelves or drawers that don’t require bending or reaching. You may need to recategorize some items to put them in these prime spots.

Examples of items to keep in everyday space include:

• Books you’re currently reading or plan to read

• Utensils you use most often

• Files you use most often

In your clothes closet, the spaces that are easy to see and access when you first open the door are your everyday space. Keep clothing you don’t wear as often in less accessible spaces such as high rods or the top shelves.

Consider Your Shelving and Container Needs

As you identify new homes for everything in your room, you may find you need to bring in additional shelving or containers. You can buy new shelves and containers, or you can “shop” around your home and use items you already have. Take three-dimensional measurements (height, depth, and width) of the space the container or shelf has to fit into before going shopping. We’ve all done this, right? The container won’t fit the stuff, or it won’t fit into the space. We eyeball the space, but few of us are accurate this way. So we don’t make the best use of the space. And if we’re wrong, we’ve just wasted time we really didn’t have!

A Few Notes on Buying Products

Beyond measuring your groups and finding containers to fit each group, here are some recommendations for purchasing shelving and containers.

• It is tempting to shop for products at the beginning of your project. Please don’t. You’ll waste time and money. For most reorganizing projects, you’ll want to know what each container needs to do for you, what it needs to hold. Some people buy the largest-sized bins, not knowing what they need to store. The problem with large bins is that you end up with piles inside the bins. The bins are too large, so items swim in them and it’s still hard to find what you want.

• Try using clear containers when it’s feasible and attractive. Clear means you (and those around you) can see what’s in the bins, and, therefore, which similar items belong there—and which do not! Clear bins can eliminate the need for labels, although I maintain labelling makes it easier to find and retrieve items.

• Open or covered: Everyone has a preference here, and often it’s a preference based on the room or what’s being stored. Visual clutter can be distracting and scramble your thoughts. It can also be an energy drain. Lids keep clutter out of sight. The advantage to open bins is that it’s easier to put things away. You eliminate the step of taking off the lid. It sounds simple, but in some homes, this makes a big difference.

• When you shop in your house or at stores for organizing containers, be creative in how you use containers. Just because you need a box in your office to hold small paper receipts does not mean you have to buy a product from the “office” section at your favorite organization store. Think about what the container needs to do for you, how it needs to function, and its characteristics. Then look at organizing products for other rooms, or look at items you have at home that seem to be decorative only, but could find a new purpose in life. You’ll be more excited about using a container or organizing product if you enjoy it. Use or buy products you find both functional and appealing.

• Spend more on organizing products that you will use most often—those that will contain items you use most often. Spend less on organization that will be hidden away. Again, the idea is that you will be more likely to use organizing containers you enjoy. If you have two products that will serve the same purpose, buy the one you like best, even if it’s more money, if you will use it every day or every week. You’ll get your money’s worth by using it more and maintaining your clutter-free environment.

Have a specific idea of what you want before you bring a shelf or container into your home. Identify what exactly you will be storing in it or on it. If you are putting bins on shelves, measure the space between the shelves (the height, top to bottom) and measure the bins with the lids on. Sometimes the manufacturer’s labels are for the bin itself, but if your shelf space is tight, you might buy the wrong size because the lid actually extends beyond the edges of the bin. When you look at shelving, calculate how many bins can fit onto each shelf so you know if all the bins you need will fit. Measure the height of the shelves, both for the entire set and also from shelf to shelf. Also measure the width of the shelves, so you know how many bins can fit across. Your best bet is always to buy adjustable shelving. Plan for growth and items you’ve lent out or forgotten about.

IMPLEMENT

You’ve got your groups of like items together. You’ve identified your storage needs and made necessary additions (whether store-bought or moved from another room in the house). Now you can implement your new systems in each area, one section at a time. This is the I in REORGANIZE. It’s also the I in SIMPLIFY. Simply carry out your plan. Arrange the items around the room in a way that is logical to you and best serves the functions of the room. Keep your everyday space in mind and place frequently used items with maximum convenience in mind.

You may want or need to move furniture around before you place your items back in the room. See which layout makes you feel productive or inspired or comfortable. You can buy furniture-mover disks at office supply stores to help you move large or heavy items. The disks have a smooth side that goes on the floor and a foam side that sticks to the bottom of the furniture. For wood floors, put a sock over each disk. It requires a little effort to get your furniture onto the slides, but after that, you can move a big piece of furniture with just a finger or two.

Working With a
Professional Organizer

If you decide to work with a professional organizer, interview organizers with each of the certifications I’ve listed here: Certified Professional Organizer ® (CPO), Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization® (CPO-CD), and Certified Organizer Coach®. It’s crucial that you feel there is a fit with the organizer and his or her specialties; the organizer’s experience is key to successful reorganization. You want someone with experience so you can tailor your organizing systems to your situation and issues. The CPO® is the basic certification for organizers. The specialty in CD is for people who have a chronic issue with disorganization.* And the Certified Organizer Coach® may or may not work alongside you in the home; some work with you by phone in combination with side-by-side assistance, and others work mainly by phone.

*The Institute for Challenging Disorganization has many fact sheets available to the public. If you have an ongoing issue with disorganization, you may be chronically disorganized and need the specialized support of the organizer with this specialty, the CPO-CD®. Chronic disorganization is defined this way by the ICD on its website: Chronic disorganization is having a past history of disorganization in which self-help efforts to change have failed, an undermining of current quality of life due to disorganization, and the expectation of future disorganization.

One Area at a Time

Most people find it less overwhelming to organize by area instead of looking at the room as a whole. And by dividing up your space, mentally or on a diagram, you can work on reorganizing in small bits of time so the project fits into your schedule. You’ll get one section completely done at a time, which will motivate you to get back into the space to work on the next section.

If one section still seems overwhelming, here are a few ideas to get you started. They may or may not be the way you continue to work on your organizing. Remember, the hardest part—identifying items that are leaving your home—is over. Now you are simply re-creating the space with all of the items you love and use. Putting the room back together will be a very positive experience.

• Use your timer so you work for only a short time, such as fifteen or thirty minutes.

• Break down sections into smaller parts and work on only one part at a time. A smaller part could be a drawer, a shelf, a stack, or a pile.

• Bring your audio book or your music. Organize for two songs or for a chapter.

• Work side-by-side with a friend or Certified Professional Organizer (CPO)® or a CPO-CD®. (The CD means they are certified in working with people who are chronically disorganized.) They can assist you in getting started, staying motivated, finishing up, and even maintaining. Use the talents of outside professionals for the most difficult parts so you don’t get stuck and give up.

• Work with a Certified Organizer Coach® by phone. Hiring a coach, my clients tell me, is like hiring a personal trainer.

• Decide what your reward will be before you get started.

Here are a couple of additional points to consider as you implement your organizing systems.

Use organizing containers even on shelves. Containers keep like items together, which makes it easier to find what you need. My general guideline is once you have two of a similar type of item, find a bin, basket, or other container for them. Loose items on shelves are like papers. Over time, they seem to melt and merge together. You can also make more efficient use of the height of each shelf by using taller or stackable containers.

Label your containers. This helps you remember where each item belongs and lets you find items quickly without looking in each container. The labels don’t need to be boring. There are many ways to make fun labels—be as creative as you want! Make your own, search online for label templates, or buy a label maker. Once you start, you’ll find yourself labeling all around your house. Labels will also help other members of your household understand your new system. Labels allow you to easily delegate. You can say, “Go put this away in the bin labelled ‘games’ in your room.” One client labelled her pantry so when friends helped cook, they could easily find what they needed on their own. I like to say that labels are the brain’s final way to remind you that you are about to put something where it does not belong!

Remember the Three Ps: As you organize your room and your belongings, identify the people, process, and products you need to have a functioning system. Set up your system so that each P is accounted for. Imagine people using the organizing system you’ve created, or ask them about it. Is the system easy to use? Simple but effective? Easy to remember? Does it take advantage of habits they already have? Too much change all at once is difficult, so remember to keep it simple, effective, and easy to maintain. See chapter three for a review of this concept.

ZEBRA! BE ONE

You may be panicked that this book doesn’t tell you where to specifically place every one of your belongings. Organizing isn’t about following someone else’s plans or directions. It’s about finding what works for you. Just as each zebra has a unique set of stripes, each human has a different way of thinking and organizing. Your organizing solution is unique to how you live and work. That’s why zebra is the Z in REORGANIZE. Your system has to be specifically tailored to you for it to work. Try out your new space. See how it works for a few weeks. Try out a few changes at a time, get them solidified as habits, and then try out other changes. This gradual approach gives you a better chance at adoption.

Most important, don’t compare your organizing systems to others, and don’t hold yourself to an unrealistic standard. Your home doesn’t need to be magazine-worthy to be organized. Embrace your uniqueness.

If you’re still looking for more ideas, see the Room-by-Room section in this chapter.

EVALUATE, EVALUATE, AND FINE-TUNE YOUR IDEAS

Organizing is an ongoing process. Organizing systems require constant use and maintenance to be effective. Hopefully you’ve created systems that are easy and natural for you to use so they simply become habits and you give them very little thought. However, you’ll stay on track with your organizing if you continually evaluate your systems. After you’ve given yourself enough time to solidify the system and create new habits (about a month), ask yourself, “Am I satisfied with how this works?” If you find something isn’t working, ask yourself what has changed. You may discover you are experiencing another life transition and need to adapt to new circumstances. Review the Three Ps in the system to identify what specifically isn’t working and find a solution. This is how you fine-tune your organizing systems—the F in SIMPLIFY.

If you go through another major life event, evaluate how your current systems must change. What works for you in one stage will change as you move on to another stage.

TEACHING OTHERS YOUR SYSTEM

You have two more tasks after you finish reorganizing a room. First, let everyone you live with know where things go. You’ve just made some changes, and if you want to keep things organized, everyone needs to be educated to support the system going forward.

Labels will help the people you live with follow the new system. Praise them when they follow the system, and offer immediate, gentle correction when they don’t. Everyone forgets, especially when something is new. If the system still isn’t working, redesign it with their input so they can use it effectively. Habits can take twenty-one times in use—so at least three weeks—to get ingrained, longer if you have a brain-based challenge (ADHD, traumatic brain injury, etc.). So give it enough time to become routine.

The second task is maintenance. Some people pick up as they go, putting things away as soon as they’re finished using them. Other people are more comfortable with doing a big sweep, either at the end of the day or, sometimes, at the end of the week. This is a personal decision: How much clutter can you live with before you have to clear it? How does clutter get in your way, especially as you create your next chapter? And how much clutter will make you give up on your system? It’s much easier to pick up a day’s worth of items than a week’s worth. If you can’t do daily, aim for every other day so piles are manageable and quickly put away. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Do keep track of what gets in your way, what takes you off track, and how you get back on course.

ROOM-BY-ROOM REORGANIZING IDEAS

Your answers to the room tour questions, the Home is Not Home Without Chart, and the strategies in this chapter will help you organize your rooms just the way you want them. For additional inspiration, this section offers room-specific ideas for putting it all back together.

Entryway to Your Home

I worked with a client who had separated from her husband and moved into a new home. She called because the space in her new home was so different from her old home that she needed assistance figuring out how to adapt her systems to her new home.

Her new entryway was much smaller than her old one, but she still wanted to fit all of the activities that had gone on in her old entryway into her new entryway without changing anything. Because there was no closet in the entryway of the new home, we had to find new homes for everything she stored in her previous closet, which included coats for all seasons and sports equipment. We started by separating the coats by season and then purchasing a coatrack to hold current-season coats in the entryway. My client selected a rack that matched the décor of her new home as a reward for her organizing efforts. We found storage spaces for off-season coats and sports equipment in other areas of the house.

My client had an effective routine in place for reviewing the day with her children. In the old house this routine had taken place in the entryway, but the new entry was too small. Because the system was so established, it really required only minor adjustments. The only thing that changed was instead of stopping in this smaller entryway, her children would keep walking ten more steps to the kitchen table and go through the routine there. We tried several ideas before landing on her best solution for dealing with paperwork and mail (which was something she used to do in her entryway). We tried looking for a specific-sized table for the front hall for papers, but we couldn’t find one. And then it would have been too far away from the kids and the discussions at the table. We thought about moving all of this to the living room, but the kids had snacks when they came home, so the kitchen was the most logical spot. We tried a file holder she loved and had used at her old house, but it was too big for her new kitchen. And she also realized she didn’t want an open organizer in her everyday living space. She thought about using a cupboard to keep papers behind doors, but the space wouldn’t allow it. Her latest solution is that current papers are kept in folders in a drawer in the kitchen. As the folders or drawer get crowded, she cycles out papers by filing them in a more permanent place. She takes them up with her at the end of the day or end of the week to be filed away in the home office, which has the household files, too. Sometimes you have to live with your first idea, try it out, and figure out what works or doesn’t work about it. Sometimes it can be hard to let go of what used to work, especially if you felt like it was the ideal solution. But life events, time, and space change things.

Reorganizing Now-Spare Bedrooms

Hopefully you’ve respectfully removed your grown children’s belongings from their old bedrooms, giving them an opportunity go through what they’d left at home and to keep items or get rid of them. This space is now yours to reinvent. It can still contain a bed for overnight guests, if you wish, but make this room part of your everyday space. Here are some examples to get you thinking creatively about how you could use this new space.

A new home office and study space. One of my clients was a widow who was returning to school in her sixties. She decided to use one of her spare bedrooms as a study space and office to manage household duties previously handled by her husband.

She identified all the things she would need for her study space: a desk with space to write at and for a computer, a shelf near the desk for textbooks, and a space to spread out in when she had projects.

We ended up arranging a desk, shelf, and table in an L shape so she could access the desk, table, and shelf without leaving her chair.

She also identified everything she would need to manage her household: a calendar to schedule maintenance calls and keep track of bill due dates and a filing system for bills to pay, paid bills, and tax records. We incorporated these items into the room. It’s much easier and faster to reorganize if you begin with your list of needs.

A room for someone new. Perhaps you are on the other end of the spectrum, and you are welcoming a baby or a foster child into your home. If you were previously using the spare bedroom as an office, craft, or activity room, you’ll need to find a new location for these activities and set up the room to meet the needs of your new household member. Or perhaps your aging parent is moving in with you so you can better care for their physical needs. You’ll need to make room for your parent’s belongings and relinquish this space entirely to them so they can enjoy some privacy and independence.

One of my clients hosted a soccer player each summer, which meant some reorganizing and winnowing out. It was such a wonderful and generous use of her extra space. And the arrival of the soccer player was a good example of a manufactured deadline for reorganizing!

Master Bedroom

As you reorganize your bedroom, remember the concept of everyday space. This entire room is everyday space, so only keep things that you use regularly and enjoy in this space. If you do store items here, designate the top shelves of your closet and the floor under your bed as storage space, and keep the rest for everyday use. When you reorganize your closet, give the prime space to the clothes you wear most often. If you need more room in the closet, divide your clothes by season and find other storage options for off-season clothing. Make sure you have an effective system for doing laundry that includes time to properly put away clothing and iron, if needed. Another key to successfully reorganizing the master bedroom is making sure you’ve gotten rid of enough items.

Closets seem to be the most difficult area, for women in particular. Here are some solutions to common problems people have with getting rid of items in their closets.

You’re keeping it because you “spent good money” for it. If you’re not wearing it often, then are you really getting your money’s worth? I’m not talking about evening or holiday wear, but regular daily items. Do you have a friend who could get your money’s worth out of the item? It would be great to see it on her, so you’d get value from giving away something precious and seeing it in use. Or go the opposite way—if it fits and you want to wear it more often, what could you buy to go with it so you’d increase the chances you’d wear the item? Do you feel it’s worth the money to make another clothing investment?

It’s hard to give up on the last chapter and move on. To that I say: Who are you today? What lifestyle do you live? Compare your lifestyle to how you want it to look. What’s the gap, and why is there a gap? Have you moved on to a new chapter of your life and are just realizing the difference in clothing you need? Maybe you don’t want to entirely give up on the last chapter of your life yet? You don’t need to. Organizing and simplifying is not about getting rid of everything. It’s about reducing, not eliminating. So keep some of your favorites from your last chapter. As you go through them, you’ll figure out which are the favorites you want to bring forward into your new chapter. One client had spent her young married years living in another country that had a much different style of dress. Several of her children were born in that country, and she forged lifelong friendships there. She had kept all her clothing from that era as mementos. We were able to reduce her collection, but we did not get rid of it.

Set boundaries. Decide on a fixed number for each type of clothing item. Having your own number is like giving yourself permission to let go. Write this number down and post it in your closet. If you find yourself with more than this number, you have too many and you need to cull. Use a one-in, one-out method. One woman chose twelve for the number of shoes she could have for each season. Another decided her growing children needed just three pairs of jeans, not the ten they each had. It was worth it to her, and the kids were of an age that it really didn’t matter. They outgrew the clothes before they wore out. Another client used drawer space as a physical boundary. She’d allow one drawer for work-around-the-house clothing, two for lingerie, one for T-shirts, and so forth.

Keep a “donate” bag on your closet floor. When you try on something in the future and don’t like it as much anymore, drop it into the bag. It’s an easy way to keep up with culling out our old favorites. Normally, we put them right back on the closet rod, and then we revisit our decision many times! This is also a great way to make room for new clothes if you use the one-in, one-out method.

Designate a “probation” area for clothes you’re not sure about. This can be a different part of your closet, or hang these clothes on a different type of hanger. Give yourself a deadline, and if you don’t wear these clothes before the deadline, let them go.

Kitchen

Kitchens are difficult because they are the hub of the home. Kitchens are easily filled with clutter, and space is at a premium in this room. All of it is everyday space. Whenever possible, move nonessential kitchen items to your dining room, pantry, closet, or storage area. Bulk purchases, holiday items, supplies, and summertime utensils are examples of nonessential items.

So many activities take place in this room that it is essential that you clearly identify the functions of the room. Here are the typical functions of the kitchen and considerations for each function.

To eat in: How many people eat at home, and how often do you eat in restaurants? Do you still need enough everyday dishware to serve a large family, or can you keep just a few sets for everyday use? If you are an empty nester, you can keep a smaller amount of everyday dishes, glasses, and cooking items, while still keeping enough of your “nice dishes” for when your children visit. If you travel frequently or rarely eat at home, you don’t need to hold on to as many dishes or cooking implements. What you don’t need for everyday use can be stored elsewhere and out of your way.

Hospitality: Do you host holiday dinners, and do you plan to continue this? Or is now a good time to pass along the legacy and the dishware? When my mother and father were downsizing, I offered to take over Thanksgiving dinner, and they agreed. So when they arrived for dinner, they brought the favorite family platters we’d used at their house and the Pilgrims history book we all read as children (back at least one generation), as well as Mom’s favorite centerpiece. From my perspective, it felt almost like a ceremony, to take on the holiday but with all the fixings!

If you no longer plan to use your china and good silverware, could you find someone special in your family to gift it to? You can also sell to Replacements, Ltd., or companies like it, but be sure to have it appraised locally before you sell it if you have an older set. Sometimes the history of the piece makes it valuable, even if the pattern or maker’s marks don’t.

A place to sort mail and paperwork. My experience says many people sort their mail and handle household papers in the kitchen. Does this system work for you, or do your papers need a permanent home? The ideal solution is to have a household desk dedicated to the running of the household. Keep everything in one place. Another option is to process the mail in the kitchen and then move papers to wherever you’ll need them: bills to the bill-paying box at your computer, homework to the kids’ desks, medical papers to the household files, etc. Do you have a regular weekly time to clear the paper and deal with it? For my clients, I always try to find part of a shelf, kitchen cabinet, desk space, or section of countertop on which to sort the mail. Keep a container specifically for these papers in this area and clear it out regularly. You can clear it once a week or whenever the container gets full—whatever method works for you.

Kitchens have so many drawers and cabinets that it can be overwhelming to reorganize them. Here are some tips for how to handle each section.

Countertops. Countertops are clutter magnets! They are also prime everyday space. The key to keeping them clear is to have a defined purpose for your countertop. If an item doesn’t serve that purpose, it doesn’t belong on the countertop. The obvious purpose would be food preparation. If this is the case, you’ll want a clear space with cooking tools nearby, perhaps contained in a jar or basket on the counter. You also may sort mail here. Have a container for the mail, whether it is a folder, a bin, or an accordion file. If you keep food on your counter, keep it in containers—a bread box, a basket or jar for snacks, a bowl for fruit. These containers keep like items together, make the most of the space, and limit how much you keep out.

Don’t place something on the countertop because you don’t know where else to put it. Clear space for it elsewhere, in a drawer, on a shelf, or in a cupboard. Take a few minutes at the end of the day to deal with loose items.

Cabinets. Cabinets are also clutter magnets because the doors let us easily hide our messes. As you rearrange the items in your cabinets, remember to keep like things together. Each cabinet should have a theme, and each shelf within the cabinet should contain no more than two or three groups of like items. If you have multiple groups on the same shelf, use containers or dividers to keep groups separated and organized.

Also remember everyday space. Place things where they are convenient to use—dishware near the dishwasher so it is easy to put away clean dishes and pots and pans near the stove where you use them. Keep seasonal items and rarely used items on high and low shelves. Keep regularly used items in easy-to-reach areas. This can save you fifteen minutes daily, just in the kitchen. If your mobility is limited, cull your items until you are able to keep everything you need within your range of motion. This may mean you keep only part of your dishware on a low shelf and put the rest on a higher shelf that can be accessed when guests visit.

Dining Room

How often do you use your dining room as a dining space, not a craft space, homework center, or drop zone for things that don’t yet have a home in your house? Why not reorganize it into a room you can use every day instead of using it as a drop zone or saving the space for the few times a year you use it. Remember our phrase “someday is today.” You can completely reinvent this space. Here are some practical ideas for how to use this space.

• A spacious study area. Whether you have children in school or are going back to school yourself, this is a practical function. It also keep papers out of your kitchen.

• A craft area. One client had many hobbies, including spinning yarn. She didn’t have an extra bedroom for these hobbies, so we reorganized and reoutfitted the dining room as her hobby space.

• A music room. I helped a couple make this transformation. During most of their earlier married life, the musical instruments had been kept anywhere they could find space. The restructuring allowed them to keep all of their instruments and music in one place so they could enjoy them any time.

• A home-based work office. If you are starting your own business, you’ll need a work space, and you may find, as one of my clients did, that the dining room is the only area available. If you use this area as an office, make sure all of your paperwork and office materials can be easily rolled away or hidden before company arrives.

Home Office

As you invent your new chapter, you may need a new or updated home office space. This is a permanent work space, different from your kitchen paperwork area or dining room study.

Here are some areas to consider setting up in your home office.

• Everyday workspace: desk, computer, technology, frequently used supplies in an easy-to-reach place, and the active files, separated by household and business.

• The creative space: open space and an open surface area where you can focus on just one project at a time.

• Near-term storage: for current and archived files, desk and PC supplies, music and software, books, or hobby supplies. Keep this close to your work space.

• Reference/archival storage: papers you know you need to keep, but you may not have to refer to them more than once a year.

Filing systems. The home office is home to your filing cabinet, too. These filing principles can be applied to both your own business and your personal files. If you run your own business, be sure to keep those files separate from your personal files so they are easy to access. If you’re not used to filing, don’t worry about a fancy filing system. The easiest way to remember where you’ve put a piece of paper is to figure out your instinctive reaction when asked, “Where or why would you look for this again?”

A client asked me the right place to file her insurance and auto repair papers. These are useful for business tax forms, but they are also personal expenses, and she thinks of them as “personal” papers. Do they get filed into an “all insurance” folder with car, home, and business insurance papers? Or with other home or car papers? Or with business expenses? The question I asked her was, “Where would you look for this paper the next time you need it?” Ask yourself that question for each paper and go with your gut. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Decide on your file categories. Use pencil to mark the folders, and just start to conquer those piles. If you want to have some fun, go out and buy a small label maker. Use file names that make sense to you. You also can use different colored or even patterned (think paisley, stripes, flowers, or polka dots) folders, which can cut down on the time you spend looking for a file because you can identify it by color in addition to the label.

Keep only files you use on a daily basis on or near your desktop. To hold these active files, you can use a wall file, clipboards that hang on hooks on the wall, a cascading desk stand, or simply pile them on the desktop. If you have a lot to reference, you can place them in a bin on the floor next to your desk, as one of my clients did. When she prepared taxes for a client, she had their bin by her side with the past year’s tax files. Another client working out of her home likes to work in two different rooms of the house. So she uses an accordion file to hold multiple files. The accordion file is easy to move around and keeps files together so they aren’t spread around the house. Sometimes she needs an environment change to get motivated, so this is a great solution for her.

Bathrooms

Most homes have more than one bathroom. Why do you use one bathroom instead of the other? What needs to be in each space? It is perfectly fine to have duplicates of certain items, but you don’t need to have a separate set of all your toiletries for each bathroom. Set limits for how many of each product you can have open at a time. Also try establishing a rule that you must finish a product or dispose of it (if you don’t like it) before you open a new container of the same type of product.

You also may use a bathroom for something other than grooming. Perhaps the downstairs bathroom also serves as the main area to change into swimsuits if you live on a lake or have a pool. Or you use the space to dry out winter wear. Or it could provide faster access for a medical need. Be sure to identify all of the functions for each bathroom and incorporate everything you need to support these functions.

If you’ve developed a medical or health challenge, how much space will you need for medicines and other paraphernalia? And where will these be used? Sometimes the bathroom is not the most useful place. It’s more helpful to store these items where they are used, particularly if there are mobility issues. Medicines might be appropriate in the kitchen, if taken at mealtimes, for example. Some medications cannot be stored in the bathroom because of the humidity.

Break up the linen closet into zones: linens, toilet paper and other supplies, medical items, shower products, hair products, shaving products, less-often used products. A shelf or group of shelves can be a zone. You can also divide a single shelf into zones. Storage containers will help keep the zones intact. Be realistic about the amount of towels and linens you need for the number of people now living in your home.

Living Spaces: Living Room and Den

If you are welcoming a new energy into your home, whether it’s a baby, a grandchild who visits often, or a puppy, be sure to childproof these areas as you reorganize. Put fragile items and potential choking hazards up high. You may want to make the room less formal as well, and introduce stain-resistant fabrics and flooring. Rearrange furniture to accommodate toys.

You also may want to arrange the room so you can store and use medical equipment and other paraphernalia here. Keeping the equipment in the center of the household keeps you from being isolated from other family members while you use it. The room also is comfortable and offers distractions if you need it. Home dialysis is a good example of something you may want to set up in a living area.

Here are some ideas and advice to use as you reorganize your living or den space.

Make the most of armoires, desks, and hutches. Evaluate what you have and arrange these pieces so you can make full use of their storage space. If you have too many pieces, consider getting rid of one or two. These can be clutter magnets. People often forget to organize inside these large
furniture items. Keeping containers inside them forces you to find homes for everything you place inside. It also helps you make the most of space by letting you stack boxes on shelves. When buying containers, remember to measure first, order second.

Music and movies. Do you honestly listen to all the styles of music you own, or are some from another chapter of your life? Do you listen to CDs, or have you moved your music onto a new technology such as MP3s? If so, could you give away the CDs? You can do the same with movies you no longer watch. There are many donation options for music and movies you no longer love, from libraries to nursing homes to soldiers. We are a multigenerational community, so there will always be people who would enjoy your music, even on what you would consider older technology.

Photos. The key with photos is first deciding on your favorites and then actually doing something with them, whether it’s framing, scanning, or putting them in an album. How would you best enjoy them? Then you might realize you may not want to do as much with the others. It might be enough to put these other photos in a box.

Garage, Shed, Basement, and Attic

To successfully reorganize your storage areas, you must be sure you are keeping only the items you love and use. When you let go of everything else, you’ll make a lot more room in your storage area, which will make it easier to access and find the items you keep in storage. If you have both a garage and a shed or both an attic and a basement, identify which items are best stored in each area. Consider temperature ranges, humidity, potential water damage, and where things are used as you make your decisions. In your mind, what is the difference between your attic and basement? Decide first on the primary types of items that will be stored in each space.

These storage areas are wide-open spaces, and there are a few ways to organize them:

• Divide up the space, either in your head or by taping off sections, to keep yourself within some boundaries. Use structures such as a closet, niche, or corner as a boundary. This is useful when it feels like you’ll never get started because the space is so large. It’s like using binoculars or a camera or blinders on an animal. Focus only on the area marked off in front of you; don’t look at anything else.

• Make distinct sections (like departments in a store) for types of goods: car maintenance, workbench, gardening, and so on.

• Arrange boxes and bins in an orderly way. Place them on shelves or pallets to keep them off the floor for further protection and easier access. In the basement, use plastic bins, just in case of moisture.

• Move furniture to the perimeter of the room. Who you are storing the furniture for? Do they still want it? Have antiques appraised to help you decide whether to keep or sell them. If you kept the furniture thinking you would repair or refinish it someday, someday is now. Consider when or if this will really happen. Or give yourself a short-term deadline. If you’re not sure what you’ll do with the piece, think about giving it away or selling it. Or find out the cost to have someone else stain it or repair it for you so you can use the piece now.

• If you are still storing items for family, give them a deadline to take them away or you’ll have them taken away. They have very likely forgotten what you have!

This wraps up our sections on reorganizing your home to support your life transitions. Next we move on to reorganizing your time.