Organized Chaos?!

The other evening I attended a professional organizers meeting for NAPO, National Association of Productivity and Organizing.  My local chapter has over 50 members of professional organizers.  There were organizers that specialized in working with people with ADHD, seniors, people in transition, downsizing, etc.  These professionals work with you and your space and come up with solutions/systems and products that make finding your things easy.  This sounds lovely! Who wouldn’t want an organizer to come and make stuff more easy to find in their home? There is one statistic in this CBS show which says we loose a year of our lives just trying to find something!

The interesting point I found in talking with these professional organizers is that the majority of their time is not in the actual organizing, it is in clearing out unwanted items.  Like Marla Cilley, aka the FlyLady says, “You can’t organize clutter!” So I wonder, are these professional organizers using fancy words and really decluttering experts?

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The professionals have many contacts for shelving, filing and storage solutions in addition to garbage removal, eBay & Craig’s listing agents & cleaners.  But how many  shelves and containers do you need with less clutter?  I like Marie Kondo’s suggestion to use shoe boxes to divide drawers.  Most of us usually have shoe boxes lying around the house.  They are sturdy and they fit well in drawers.  Granted, we may need more than shoe boxes for larger items in our garage or basement, but if we get rid of things that don’t spark joy, we have less to organize, right?  So would you rather clear clutter or organize?  Is it just semantics?  Perhaps NAPO needs to be renamed Clutter Clearing Experts.  However, that doesn’t sound so sexy.  Either way, I am back to clearing out my stuff!  As one professional said, set yourself free.  It is only stuff!

Does This Spark Joy?

I just finished listening to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.   Kondo recommends clearing your clutter all at once.  Rather than the 15 or 30 minutes a day approach, she recommends going through everything in one period.  It may take six months or so to go through everything in your home, but she recommends doing it all at once.  Then only periodic maintenance is needed. She recommends this approach so that you will feel the impact sooner and it could be life changing, as her title suggests.  Really? Life changing?

I feel like I am jumping around a bit with locations of clearing my clutter in my house, but I got excited after listening to this book. I want to make a positive change in my life! So, I left the wood unsorted in the garage and jumped in on my clothing.  Kondo has an order to start your tidying: clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous and memorabilia /photos. I think I have a large miscellaneous section, ie) kitchen equipment, household tools, hobbies, wood, etc. so I may have subcategories.  She recommends rather than sort by area, sort by type.  For example with clothing, don’t just do one drawer at a time.  Instead do all t-shirts at one time.  I have clothes in my bedroom and out of season and garden/paint clothing in the basement.  So I gathered up all my clothing together in the bedroom.  Then I went through each item by category.  For example I started with shirts and held each shirt in my hand, as Kondo recommends, not just looking to at them on the hanger in the closet.  Then holding it in my hands I asked myself, “Does this spark joy?”  Sometimes I would try it on and looking in the mirror ask the same question.  I gave myself some wiggle room when it came to my garden/paint clothes.  Those didn’t have to spark joy, but at the same time, I only needed one outfit for each!

All clothing including shoes, jewelry, hats, belts, scarves & socks took me four days to tidy.  Before this, I thought I had a fairly small closet/clothes selection compared to family and friends.  Somehow I managed to give away seven large bags of clothing.  I couldn’t believe it!  But now I only have clothes in my closet that spark joy, fit well and look good.  I think this will help me when shopping for clothes in the future.  I will think twice before purchasing an item and ask, “Does this spark Joy?”  I used to buy clothing because it was a good price.  Now I have a new question to ask no matter what the price!

Decluttering my husband’s closet

I have always read and heard that one needs to be careful about decluttering other people’s stuff.  This is true, specially with your family in your home.  I learned the hard way years ago when I got rid of some kitchen pans.  My husband does the majority of the cooking and baking in the house and thus uses more of the pans and cooking supplies than me.  I was clearing out pans that I thought were duplicates and off they went to the Goodwill.  Oops! Later I found out there are different pans for different recipes and my husband was mad!  So, now I consult with him first on the kitchen supplies and always put aside something for him to look at before giving it away.

Recently, I noticed that my husband’s closet was getting stuffed and he wasn’t wearing the majority of the clothes.  Most of us wear only about 20% of clothes we own.  This study says men wear 13% of what is in their closet.  Learning from my pan mistake, I tried a new approach.  When he was in a good mood, after dinner and relaxing in his chair one night recently, I asked him if it would be okay if I brought down some of his dress shirts.  He was reluctant and his attitude was, what is the big deal? So what if  I have extra shirts in my closet; it is not bothering me.  I just went upstairs and took a couple of inches worth of dress shirts from his closet and brought them down to him.  We went through each shirt one by one to see if they were stained, looked nice or didn’t fit anymore.  He didn’t even try any of them on because he knew which ones fit and those that didn’t.  He basically just said yes or no to each one.  One of the shirts he really liked and said he didn’t know it was in his closet because he couldn’t find it!  I reserved the temptation to say THAT is a reason to declutter!

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This will make it easier for him to get dressed in the morning with only clothes that fit and that he likes.  There were some nice shirts that didn’t fit that we were able to donate and know that someone else will be able to enjoy them.  The whole process only took about 10 minutes.  I put the good shirts back upstairs in his closet and the others in the donation bin.  Maybe he will be open to do another handful of shirts another day!  Baby steps to progress!

The garage

The first area I will declutter is the garage.  The reason why I chose this area is that according to the feng shui bagua it is in my wealth/prosperity area of my garden.  The wealth/prosperity area of my home is my teenage daughter’s room and since I can’t declutter her room, I decided on the garage.  I have just started learning about feng shui and thought if there is any area that I would like to improve in my life, why not start with wealth and prosperity.  I will let you know if I start rolling in the dough!

We have a detached garage in our yard that we don’t use for our car.  It is mostly a storage shed with bikes, wood, garden supplies, lawn mowers and tools.  Since it is separate from the house I mostly try to ignore it.  A couple of years ago my daughter even mentioned that it needs some cleaning out.  Well, it is a bit overwhelming and a larger project.  But I jumped in and starting attacking.  I have been working on it for three days now.

The first day all I did was the garden area.  This is my domain so I was free to give away or throw away most anything.  I let go of extra clay pots that were cracked and a hose extension that was never used and came with the house many moons ago. This was fairly easy.  I think the hardest part for me was actually getting in there and setting my mind to it.  I always felt like the garage wasn’t THAT bad. Compared to what though?

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The next day I went after the bikes, bike accessories and the tool area of the garage. This was a little more challenging since I can’t release any tools without first getting my husband’s approval.  We both use tools and thus I feel he needs to be in agreement with me.  I found two rusty tools and a broken axe which I presented him to give away.  My husband wanted to keep the broken axe saying we could find someone to fix it.  I left it thinking, that will never happen, but didn’t want to argue.  I may bring up the broken axe in 3-6 months to my husband to see if he still wants to keep it, if it isn’t fixed yet.  I also realized that we had five different shovels.  I never had counted our shovels before– so one of those went to someone else.  I think with close relationships one has to be cautious on what to give away and what not to give away of those shared & multi users items.

The next day in the garage I was in the wood, pipes, flashing, area.  This is a tough area because they are shared items and my husband uses some occasionally, but not often.  I did find a pipe with a crack to get rid of and some old flashing so the hubby was good to release those.  I also was able to donate a portable BBQ carrier that was never used.  However, the 2×4 and 2×6 pieces, plywood, garden stakes I am undecided.  It was too much for me to decide that day.  It was more challenging to get them all down since they are up above close to the ceiling of the garage. We also have a lot of firewood in there on the ground.  I love a fire in the winter, so I just straighten the firewood piles a bit and that was it.  I swept the garage each day area by area and it is looking much better.  I think this is a process for me and takes time.  I am not completely done but happy with the start.  I will go back and pull out all the wood another day.  For now, when I open the garage and see the swept floor it brings a smile to my face!  Oh, I wonder why didn’t I do this earlier.

 

My Decluttering Journey

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About 10 years ago I found flylady. At that point I had two young kids and was staying at home with them and the house was disorganized.  She helped me get my routines in order and get a structure to my day. I followed her fairly regularly over the years and had my stuff mostly in order.  Then I started to work in an office outside the home and the routine changed up.  I still kept up with most of my routines and I still did the one in, one out rule.  That is when something new comes into the house, something similar has to leave.  For example, I buy a new pair of shoes, then an old pair has to leave.  But at the same time, I did have clutter; I just was blind to it. It is like what they say when you buy a new house; make the changes within the first couple of years of moving in, or you don’t see the chipped paint, the cracked window, and the rusted iron railings after living it in for a while.  You get the point.  I had clutter, but just wasn’t seeing it anymore.  I was not clutter clearing daily for 15 minutes like she recommends.

Recently I found myself rereading Karen Kingston’s book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui.  It lead me to want to get at a decluttering routine again.  To get down and dirty with getting all the clutter out.  I want a simple and easy to clean home.  I want room in the garage for the car if I ever want to put it in there.  I want to LOVE every item in my home so that it makes me feel happy when I come home.  So this blog is to keep me on track.  I am committing to decluttering 30 minutes every day until the end of the year (except when I am on vacation).  Here’s to starting a new journey and to a clutter free home!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton