It was at that moment that I knew she was really taking in the theory behind organization, or at the very least, she had listened and processed what I was trying to explain.  Yes, her closet and room will probably not stay perfectly organized forever, but maybe the next time her Mom tries to get her to straighten up her room, she will have a plan and a method already in place and it will not seem like such a chore.

So what are some tricks and tips for getting your kids involved with the organizing process? While personal motivation can vary among individuals, here are just some of the methods I have found to be successful . . .

1. Get kids involved right from the start.  My young client knew when she woke up that morning that I was coming over to help tackle her room.  We did not spring it on her at the last minute, and mentally, she was prepared.  She knew it would take the better part of her day-off from school, and although it was most likely not her preferred way to spend the day, she had known for at least a week that this project was going to occur.
2. Let them enlist the help of their friends, for both moral, AND physical, support. My young client relied on her best friend and younger brother to help her with this project.  First, I debriefed the crew on the sorting process and the ultimate mission at hand.  Once they understood their task, all three started digging into the closet and sorting things into several basic categories of “stuff.”  The categories were general enough that they all understood the process, and if there were any items they were uncertain of, I was there to guide and gently lead them.  While the help did not last for the entire day (after all, the friend and brother did not have any REAL investment in the project, other than helping someone they care about) their presence was enough to keep my client moving, motivated and engaged.
3. Periodically remind kids of the benefits of organization.  As we worked, I repeatedly reminded her of why we were organizing and why it is such an important objective.  Now of course, the reasons you proclaim have to be both age-appropriate and relevant to the child’s point of view.  If I simply told her that this is what her Mom wants and that it will keep her parents happy, as much as she loves her parents, that motivation would probably not be enough.  So instead I reminded her of how easily she will soon be able to find her toys whenever she needs them, how quickly she will soon be able to clean up her room when asked, and how nice it will be to bring her friends into a cleaner room.  Moreover, every time she rejoiced at finding a long-lost toy or book or earring, I reaffirmed the benefits by asking her, “Now where does that belong so that the next time you need or want it you can find it really fast?”
4. Get someone else to lead the project.  This may just seem like a sales pitch, and I guess to a point, it is.  However, hiring a professional organizer to work with your kids really IS an effective way to accomplish their organization projects.  If disarray and frustration have been a growing problem, chances are that tensions will increase further and sparks may fly when you try to tackle the problem yourself.  A professional organizer can be a good mediator, and sometimes, as aggravating as it can be, kids listen a lot better to the advice and suggestions of other adults, even if it is what they have been hearing over and over from their own parents.

As I said, motivation can differ greatly from individual to individual, so try these ideas and see what works best with your youngsters.  As for my special 2^nd grade client, I am planning to drop by soon to check out how successful she has managed to be at maintaining her newly organized space.  I am sure there will be some necessary tweaking and reminding, she is only 8 years old.  But, I promised to issue her a report card and I’m hoping I can give her lots of passing grades and, of course, some sort of treat for her hard work (Yes, that’s tip number 5. When all else fails, bribe them like crazy to keep things organized and functional!)

Simply yours,

~Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993

Sometimes it’s tough to let go of clutter.  Even with the best of intentions and motivation, emotional clutter can can be difficult to throw out.  But when EVERYTHING is important, NOTHING is important.

It’s okay to hold on to items with no purpose whatsoever other then the memories and warm feelings they bring to mind. But when these special items are mixed in with mountains of unnecessary and meaningless things, our treasures can actually lose their importance.  They certainly aren’t receiving the respect they deserve.

So the next time you start to de-clutter your space, don’t think of it as getting rid of things, think of it as respecting and honoring those treasures that mean the most to you.  It will be a much easier task, and a more purposeful way to think of de-cluttering.

Simply yours,

Do not let your kids take a break from the organizational processes and strategies you have so carefully put in place.  Otherwise, come September, you will be starting from scratch retraining your kids on where and how to organize their “stuff.”

To keep everyone in the organizing habit, here are a few ideas for summertime organizing:

1. If garage space is at a premium, place the kids’ winter outside toys in long-term storage elsewhere in your house. Provide kids with SAFE and EASY access to all their warm weather toys and equipment.

Remember, it is easier to get kids to “dump” their things in categorized bins, than to have them line up or hang up items.  Avoid the aggravation, go with what works and invest in a few large but inexpensive tubs.

2. Let kids store away their backpacks for the season. In their place, each family member should keep their own pool/beach/outdoor bag.  Make sure to stock each bag with a clean towel, goggles, sunscreen, glasses, and whatever else each one needs for a day in the sun. You will always be ready for an impromptu day of summer fun.

3. If you are an avid gardener, establish a “center” for all your tools and supplies.  Check the dates on your fertilizers and pesticides, discarding appropriately if they are out of date, and keep them in sealed bins safely out of reach from curious little ones.

Simply yours,

Debbie

To create this bag system, first you need to establish a tote bag for each activity or event you participate in that is out of your home. This includes a bag for each volunteer committee that you may serve on, a designated bag for library visits, even a separate bag for regular meetings that you attend.  The bag will keep everything contained and ready to go out the door whenever you leave. This system will help ensure that you have everything you need for your trip (and the chances of you forgetting your favorite book when you are hanging out by the pool with the kids is a thing of the past!).

To make your system even more foolproof, you can hang notes on the wall with a list of the contents of each bag so you have a quick checklist to make sure nothing is missing before you lock the door behind you.

No more forgetting what you need when you are on the run, and all that is left for you to do is to just relax and enjoy the season!

 Simply yours,

Debbie

I recently had the opportunity to review a new DVD by Peter Walsh, host of TLC’s Clean Sweep, Oprah’s go-to organizing guru, and author of several books, including “Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?”

Peter’s new DVD is based on his New York Times bestselling book, “It’s All Too Much,”  and features over 60 minutes of tips, techniques, and encouragement from Peter himself.

During the video, Peter takes viewers room-by-room within a home offering ideas, tips and solutions for common clutter challenges. By the time you are through with this program, you will have advice on every room of your home.

This is one of the best organizing tutorials I have seen. Forget what you know about television organizing shows. This program has a one-on-one approach. Peter is so personable and direct, you really feel like he is talking directly to you. And he is so interactive; he even makes you take a pledge right along with him.

Don’t worry about getting overwhelmed with too much information all at once. Although it is packed with tips, it is organized (hmm, imagine that?!?) into manageable sections, so you can hit the pause button whenever you like and go back when you are ready to aborb more help.

If reading isn’t your thing, or if the idea of an entire organizing book is too daunting, give this video a chance. It may just be a good medium for taking in some proven organization advice.

Want to win your own copy?

Leave me a comment below to let me know what room in the house you would like to get help for from Peter’s video. If you tweet about this contest or link it to your Facebook page, I’ll give you extra entries into the contest. I’ll pick a random commenter and announce the winner on Monday morning. And the person who spreads the word the most will win the consolation prize: a copy of Peter’s organizational book for teens, “It’s All Too Much, So Get it Together” (you can check out my review of this book by clicking here.)

It’s All Too Much with Peter Walsh DVD is available at http://peterwalshdesign.com/ and cost $19.99 plus S+H

Simply yours,

Debbie

Other related Virtually Organized posts:

1. Office Organizing with Peter Walsh

2. It’s All Too Much, So Get It Together

Did you know the average American household receives 41 pounds of junk mail per year?

Not only does this contribute to major clutter problems, but it’s bad for the environment, too:  41 pounds of paper has the same carbon footprint as burning 6 gallons of gasoline.

So what can you do to reduce your paper piles and help the environment?

When clients call me to help them with their everyday paper pile-ups, we usually jump in with creating a customized Command Center. (I’ve blogged about this system in a 3-part series. Click here to check it out.) Although this system is great for dealing with papers that require action, reducing the amount of paper you have coming into your house in the first place can make a huge difference, too.

The following tips and resources can help reduce the amount of paper you have to deal with everyday. And less paper coming in means less time figuring out what to do with these papers, fewer decisions to make, less time spent filing, and less of a drain on environmental resources. It’s a win-win-win-win!

1. Cut your catalog consumption.

Mail order catalogs are great for window shopping from the comfort of your own home, but they can be a huge source of clutter. If you are receiving too many catalogs or if you’re getting catalogs from stores you’re not interested in, it’s time to take action. One option is to contact the company directly and ask to be taken off their mailing list. Another option is to visit www.catalogchoice.org. This free website will remove your address from the mailing list of those catalogs you’d rather not receive.

2. Manage your magazines.

Do you really read your magazines cover-to-cover? If not, consider signing up for their email newsletter subscriptions instead. Not only will you save money, but you’ll save paper and reduce your clutter at the same time. If you want to save an article for future reference you can bookmark the site on your browser or on social bookmarking site, such as Delicious.

3. Go for paperless billing.

Most companies offer the option of receiving paperless bills via email, which then can be paid online. There is no charge for paperless billing; customers simply receive an email each month notifying them that their bill is available and ready to view online.

Many people hesitate making the switch to paperless billing because they are afraid that without the tangible reminder of receiving the bill in the mail, they will forget to send in their payment. If this is the case, opt to receive both for the next few months and then gradually fade out the paper version once you make the email reminder part of your bill-paying routine.

4. Cut junk mail at the source.

Does your mailbox overflow with unsolicited credit card offers? Visit www.optoutprescreen.com to cancel these prescreened credit card offers that add to mailbox clutter. Optoutprescreen.com is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to opt-in or opt-out of firm offers of credit or insurance. You can also opt-out of these offers by calling them toll-free at 1- 888-567-8688.

For a detailed list of sites and companies to contact to reduce your unwanted junk mail, my professional organizing colleague and good friend Julie Bestry, of Best Results Organizing has a terrific blog post on the topic, “Get Organized Month: Paper Control 101.”

5. Get picky with what you keep.

To help control your paper piles, you need to become very discriminating when it comes to what papers actually earn the privilege of becoming keepers. If you don’t need it for future reference or if you can get the information some other way should you need it in the future, you may want to consider tossing it. Keeping a paper “just in case” isn’t a good enough reason to hold onto it. You need to know what you are keeping it for, and where you will keep it. Only then can you start to get a handle on your paper clutter.
In preparation for Earth Day 2010, I’m making a special effort to help the environment by joining over 500 other blogs and becoming carbon neutral.

According to the German initiative “Make it Green,” a blog with 15,000 visits a month has 8 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions every year. To raise awareness of the severe environmental damage caused by carbon emissions and help neutralize the emissions of participating blogs, “Make it Green,” in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation, is planting trees in Plumas National Forest in Northern.

Thousands of wildfires have burned down many national forests over the past ten years, and 88,000 acres of Plumas were destroyed by two fires in 2007. For every participating blog “Make it green!” will plant a tree.

Getting organized and saving the environment can easily go hand-in-hand. What will you do this Earth Day to reduce your clutter, get better organized and help save the planet?

Simply yours,

Debbie

Strategies for Stuffed Animal Overload: Confessions of an Organized Mom

I have a confession to make. I really hate to admit it, being a Professional Organizer and all. But plenty of you have admitted your dirty little organizational and productivity secrets to me, so here goes . . . (click here to read the rest of the post)

Thanks to busy and chaotic schedules, we’re all short on time these days, but if you can spare just 15 minutes every day this week, I guarantee you will be amazed at the changes you can make. So get your timer ready, kick your motivation into high gear, and let’s GO, GO, GO . . .

Day 1: Beat the Clock

Grab an empty laundry basket and set your timer for 15 minutes.  Starting in the room that bothers you the most and then moving around the house, begin collecting the clutter.  Dump in items that belong in other rooms, knick-knacks that are taking up space but are not very special to you anymore, and broken items that need to be repaired or thrown out.

Day 2: Decision Time

Now it’s time to deal with the items you collected in your laundry basket on Day 1.  Go through the  things, item by item and make a decision about each one. To make sure you stay on track, don’t put an item down until you’ve made a firm decision about it and acted on that decision (waffling back and forth between items will only waste your 15 minutes.) So what options do you have with this collected clutter? Well, you can:

1. Return items that belong elsewhere to their rightful “homes” (if the items do not already have a designated home, now is the time to assign one.)
2. Box up the knick-knacks you have lost your fondness for and take them to your car now to drop off at a donation site.
3. Decide if the broken items are worth your time and energy to repair.  If not, throw them out.  If you choose to repair them, give yourself a deadline.  If you do not make the repairs by that date, out they go, too. (You do not need to feel guilty about yet another project on your already busy to-do list!)
    

Day 3.    Purge the Periodicals

Collect all your monthly, weekly, and daily magazines, newsletters and newspapers.  Keep only the most recent issue and recycle the rest.  Make a promise to yourself that each time a new installment comes in you will replace the older version with the most recent copy.  If you do not already have one, designate a home for your current issues (a basket, a corner of your coffee table, a folder labeled “to read”).  While you are at it, re-evaluate your subscriptions:  Do you really read them all?  Can you subscribe to an online version instead? (saving money, eliminating clutter, and preserving a few trees.)

Day 4: De-junk the Junk Drawer

We all have at least one junk drawer (some may have more than just one, but we’ll save that topic for another day!).  While I personally believe in the virtues of this space, let’s face it, if we call it a “junk drawer,” where’s the incentive to keep it organized?  Give this much-used space the respect it deserves and start thinking of this drawer as more of a “Utility,” “Necessity,” or “Tool” drawer. Take 15 minutes to dump the contents, sort the items into categories, and, using dividers or re-purposed containers that fit the space, assign homes to the different categories within the drawer. (For more tips and pictures to help you with this project, check out my recent post,  ”Conquering Your Junk Drawer.”)

Day 5: Conquer Computer Chaos

Digital clutter can be just as disruptive as tangible clutter.  Take 15 minutes to clear off your PC’s desktop.  Make sure your file folders are descriptive and specific.  If you like to keep multiple files on your desktop, designate certain zones for the different categories of files.  Delete multiple files, and archive older files that you need to keep, but do not use regularly.  If multiple family members use the computer, give each one a desktop folder to store their files. 

Day 6: Update the Medicine Cabinet

Out-dated medicine will be of no use when you really need it.  So empty the cabinet, check the expiration dates, and safely dispose of those past their prime.  Make a list of prescriptions that need to be re-filled, commonly used over-the-counter medications that need to be replaced, and other personal care items that you need to re-stock.

Day 7: Relax and Enjoy!

Take this day to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Evaluate if you were you able to fit in 15 minutes a day to get some real results. If you find it easy to fit in, keep up this new habit by devoting just 15 minutes a day to either maintenance or new organizing projects. If you find it hard to work these 15 minute sessions into your schedule, try making them more of a priority by actual scheduling them into your planner.

Simply yours,

Debbie

To help you jump-start any decluttering and organizing projects that you’ve been telling yourself you ”should” get done, print out the following questions, fill in your answers and begin setting your organizing goals:

1. What is your biggest organizing challenge? (Do you have issues with paper? Time management? Toys? Cluttered basement? Over-stuffed garage?)
 

2. What are you willing to do every day to get organized and conquer the above challenge? (You have to commit to something: 15 minutes of decluttering everyday? Regular appointments with yourself to create a daily to-do list? Delegating chores to your kids? Clearing one bag of  trash/recycling every evening?)

3. What time of day will you work on your organizing goals? (Are you too busy rushing out of the house in the morning? Schedule your organizing sessions in the evening. Too tired at the end of the day? Get up 15 minutes earlier to get a jump start on things. Need to watch your evening television programs? Devote commercial time to speed-decluttering.)
 

4. What date will you start working toward your goals? (My vote is for today, but if that’s not realistic, set a start date for sometime this week.)

This may seem like a simple exercise.  But if you take the time to write your answers to the above questions and then follow through with genuine effort, you will commit yourself to making a change.  You will also give yourself a real chance to actually accomplish these goals. Good luck!

Simply yours,

Debbie

Do Things in Chunks

Procrastination often comes from feeling overwhelmed. Break your clutter-busting sessions into manageable steps. Using a timer can help with this. Planning out your organizing project into steps, and working on one step at a time can keep things moving forward, too.

Get Someone Else Involved in the Project

It’s hard  to procrastinate when someone else is involved. If the clutter is just too overwhelming, ask for help. It’s not a sign of weakness but rather a positive step toward changing old habits. Having an accountability partner can make all the difference !

Reward Yourself

You’re much more likely to complete the dreaded de-cluttering task if there is a dinner out, an appointment at the spa, or even just a lazy weekend afternoon with nothing to do waiting for you when (and only when) the task is complete. Sometimes just focusing on this reward can help motivate you to get the job done.

Focus on the End Result

Before you begin, visualize and focus on the outcome you desire. When the task is finished, what will be better in life as a result? Keep this uncluttered, relaxing and peaceful space in mind as you work to help motivate you to the finish line.

Just Do It

Don’t think about it too much, just jump in and get it done!

So, what organizing project will you stop procrastinating about today?

Simply yours,

Debbie