Bootcamp for your stuff.

File it, toss it, organize it, and SHELVE IT so you can think about more important things.

Philosophy

1) Anyone can be organized.

You don’t need a special degree, a certain personality type, or —- to be organized. You just need a little bit of time to come up with a good system, a ——-, and the willingness to ask for a bit of help if you need it.

2) Organizing is an ongoing process.

Organizing is never done. Situations change, seasons change, kids are born, kids go to school, kids change schools, jobs change, hobbies change. You get new stuff and get rid of old stuff (or shove old stuff in a corner to deal with later.) An organizing system that worked last year may not work this year. My goal is to help you come up with a system that can you can tweak and adjust over time.

3) You don’t need to be Martha Stewart to be organized.

I am not crafty. I don’t host fancy dinner parties or make… I can’t even sew a button. But I do make a mean filing system, and I know how to use stacking bins efficiently and effectively. Don’t confuse

4) Clean and organized is not the same thing.

Who has time to clean? Ok – I don’t advocate living in a pig sty, but being organized helps your house/office/etc look clean even if it isn’t.

5) You can keep all your stuff.

You don’t need to trash all your stuff to get organized – you just need to have a good place to put it! In my view, stuff can be put into four categories: 1) stuff you need regularly, 2) stuff you need occasionally, 3) stuff you never need but like to have, and 4) stuff you never need and won’t miss. The stuff in #4 can be tossed. Everything else just needs to find a good home. I recently found many boxes of old letters. I couldn’t bear to part with them but the box they were in was taking up precious space in my closet. So I put them all in clear sheet protectors ($3.99/50 at Office Depot) and filed them by category (family, HS friends, college friends, etc) in 3-ring binders at the bottom of an under-utilized bookshelf. Now they’re accessible but out of the way.

True, when re-organizing, you often find many things that you WANT to throw away. But I will never throw anything away without your consent. My job is not to judge what is and isn’t important to you. I just want to help you find a good place for everything.

6) Being organized frees you up to focus on more important things.

When my space is cluttered, my brain feels cluttered. I go on that way sometimes because I have to – life is stupid busy and there’s not always time to sit down and think about how I can make more efficient use of my kitchen cabinets or my kids’ closets. But when I do find a few minutes to file away that pile of papers that’s been building up, or reorganize that cabinet, I feel a huge weight has been lifted. I can think more clearly and focus on more important things – like finding a few minutes to read a novel, or catch a movie with my husband.