'Ask The Organizer'
Organized to Sell Home Sweet Home
By Regina Leeds 'The Zen Organizer' & Author of the 'One Year to An Organized Life' series
Summer is a great time of year for a move because you don’t have to worry about the weather tossing a monkey wrench into your plans unless of course you live in Hurricane Alley. In One Year to an Organized Life I devote an entire month to the process. I take you through the complicated series of steps you need to follow to have a successful and relatively stress free move. The more organized you are, the easier your move will be. This month I’d like to consider some things you can do if you are selling your home. You want it to move quickly and as close to the asking price as possible. You want to leave your driveway for the last time without regrets just happy memories.
Personal Style
Do you love a sport or hobby so intensely that artifacts are scattered throughout your home? Consider keeping your interests private. You don’t want to lose a sale to a vegan who doesn’t appreciate the moose heads you have mounted all over your home. You get the idea. When people enter your home, you want them to see it as a blank canvas on which they can write the story of their family and imprint their unique style. I had a client who was involved in Eastern Spiritual philosophy. While I appreciated her artwork, I assured her that potential buyers from outside this circle might not be able to see the house because the artifacts offended them. Alas she didn’t listen to the real estate agent or me and her home never sold. Which begs the question: are you sure you want to sell? There’s a house in my neighborhood that’s frequently on the market. It has never sold. But for over 20 years the For Sale sign periodically pops up on the lawn. I assume the owner is lonely and this is the only way he can get folks to stop by.
Clutter Doesn’t Sell!
‘Stuff’ has a ‘visual noise’ about it (to coin a phrase) that makes it difficult to think clearly. How can anyone decide if their stuff will look good in your space if that space is chock full of furniture and decorative items? This is a wonderful opportunity for you to weed through your belongings. After all you want your next home to literally represent a fresh start. Don’t know where to begin? Pick a room and start at one end and work your way through to the other. Stay focused on small areas and allow your success to move out into the room. All those newspapers and magazines you’ve been meaning to read can go to the recycler. Whittle down your memorabilia so that you aren’t lugging too much of the past into your future. If you already have the new space, draw diagrams and place your furniture. Donate or sell the pieces you can’t take with you. It’s time to be ruthless. You might even fund your move if you sell enough pieces!
From the Outside In …
If your home is clutter free and presents the ideal neutral image but the outside is a tangled mess of half dead plants, a broken fence and paint peeling off the sides, don’t expect the real estate caravan to make a pit stop. Your home will be the ultimate drive by! Ask your real estate agent which projects like a fence or landscaping will help you get your asking price. Play your cards right and your profit will reimburse all your improvement expenses.
Feng Shui & Moving
The ancient Chinese ‘art of placement’ known as Feng Shui teaches that if you wish to move to a better place, neighborhood or situation, show respect and give attention to your current residence. You are demonstrating the care you will provide the new residence you’re seeking. You are also showing respect for the person who will take over your current home. Perhaps this idea will inspire you should you be feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of a move.
The Vacation or Second Home
Not every move means you are taking all of your possessions with you. You might be lucky enough to have a second or weekend house or perhaps one you visit each summer. Nothing is more confusing then wondering where you left a treasured item. Be sure your second home has towels and linens. Stock the kitchen with plates, glasses and some basic cooking utensils. Each weekend or summer when you arrive, you’ll know you can settle right in! Make use of Excel and keep a list of special items you have in this home. Next winter you’ll be grateful to discover that you didn’t lose that copy of “Wuthering Heights,” you simply left it in the lake house.
In Conclusion
Moving is always a huge undertaking. All the obvious elements come into play: turning off utilities at the current address and finding new providers. Culling through years of collected memorabilia, clothing, pots, pans and photos. Looking at furniture in a new light to see what will work and what won’t. It’s exhausting which is why I devoted an entire month to the process. As with any big undertaking, with a plan you are going to be able to stay on schedule and achieve success easily. See this time as a positive transition to the next phase of your life. Fill the process with joy rather than sorrow and regret. You know what they say: it isn’t what happens to you in life, it’s how you deal with it. With One Year to an Organized Life I know you can successfully navigate any move.
Spring Cleaning Gives Way to Summer Organizing
by Winnie Hsiu
July 9, 2010
Whatever happened to spring cleaning? Many families never had time to do spring cleaning, and home organization and housekeeping have been suffering ever since. During the summer months when children are out of school, the sense of structure imposed by the school day can sometimes cause a family’s routines, including house cleaning and decluttering routines, to devolve into clutter and chaos. In newspapers all over America, professional organizers are offering their advice on everything from spring cleaning tips, getting rid of clutter, closet organization and closet organizers, organizing everything from children’s schedules to basements, and how to decide what to keep, what to throw out or recycle, who might be able to reuse certain items, and what should be safely stowed in a secure self storage unit or other secure location. Most of all, they are offering tips on time management -- how to make time to declutter, clean, and organize.
Stacie Bowers thought she had a system for dealing with clutter. “I always had what I called a ‘stuff-it room’ so when company was coming, we could move out stuff and put it in that room, and that room got overwhelming,” she told The Columbus Dispatch. Most people begin with the “stuff-it” system of organizing, but eventually they have to move to the “getting rid of stuff” stage, which involves sending items out of the “stuff-it” location to a new home. Stuff can go to a friend who will reuse it (baby clothes can be given to a pregnant neighbor, for example), to a consignment store, to a recycling center, to a self storage unit, or even to the garbage dumpster.
According to Lauren Nemroff, a senior editor for Amazon.com, people have become much more interested in organization and decluttering since the recession began. “Most people are looking to do more with less,” she wrote in an email to Washington Post writer Jura Koncius. For many people, that means organizing the stuff they have so they know what they have, what they can reuse, and what they can put on Craig’s List or eBay to earn a little extra income.
“I’ve worked with clients who’ve had to re-buy things like video cameras and cell phones because they know they have it but they don’t know where it is,” commented Ohio organizer Kelly Yost in The Columbus Dispatch.
Others have just gone through a divorce or separation in which the departing spouse left behind a mountain of possessions that must be sorted through and dealt with. That is what happened to lawyer Sami Atkinson, who was left with a house full of stuff to sort when her husband moved out. “He got to take the things he wanted and everything else got left behind,” she noted in The Vancouver Sun. Then her mother, downsizing her own home, left her excess possessions in Atkinson’s basement. “That was the final straw!” Atkinson said. “It’s mentally burdensome. You just feel weighed down by all the stuff.” Self storage may be a good option in cases where a separating spouse is left with possessions that he or she may or may not be held legally responsible for in the the final divorce decree.
Some people want to get organized because they have spent so much time working and dealing with tasks that must be done quickly (like cooking dinner for a family or meeting work deadlines), that they find they have let clutter pile up around them. Canadian Chronic Disorganization Specialist Kim Eagles commented in The Brunswick News that “When the stuff in your house starts to affect your life and your health, that is a big sign it is time to ask for help....If you cannot find your kitchen, have not seen your floors in years, or cannot safely move throughout your house, then maybe it is time to get some help.”
All in all, the organizers agreed that a person who is feeling overwhelmed by clutter should keep the following tips in mind:
Home Organization Pros Share Secrets to Getting Your Home Clutter Free
June 1, 2010
Professional organizers walk a tightrope between therapy and physical order. Most clients are garden-variety clutterbugs in search of help storing old magazines, arranging unmarked photographs and eliminating the unused things that line every surface of their home or workplace.
But a few cases illustrate the deeper psychological elements of clutter: One client keeps a box full of cashmere sweaters from high school even though they are riddled with moth holes and far too small to wear; another stores the ashes of his deceased wife in a closet; a third needs a therapist simply to sort through his boxes of stuff.
Getting organized may have more to do with psychology than piles of possessions, according to professional organizers and the people who hire them. From low self-esteem and an inability to make decisions, psychology shapes a person's relationship to his or her space and stuff. So the key to more organized lives may lie within the gray matter of the mind.
Leeds has logged 20 years as a professional organizer. "Your home should be your sanctuary, your buffer against the world," says this author who also calls herself a Zen organizer. "It is torture if you're living in chaos."
On a daily basis, organizers like Leeds suggest clients make simple, positive habit changes — such as washing and stowing dishes immediately after use, and making beds each morning to establish a foundation for an organized, healthy, effective life.
Yet guilt, grief and attachment are common motivations for retaining old things well past their expiration date. Many professional organizers and psychologists, who often refer clients to each other, believe that clutter can be indicative of underlying psychological issues.
"It can be an obsessive disorder in which the person is immobilized in terms of action," says Elizabeth Robinson, a psychologist in Denver. "I think there is a great fear of making a decision that could be wrong, of feeling something like regret or loss or guilt about getting rid" of things.
There are about 75 Colorado members of the National Association of Professional Organizers. These people specialize in corporate, residential and time management organization, and charge $50 to $200 per hour.
Teri Lynn Mabbitt is president of the state chapter. She says disorganization is a symptom of something else. "The art is in digging deep to understand the cause," says Mabbitt, who owns Chaos 2 Calm in Denver.
The first step for many organizers is to ask clients a series of questions about their homes and the items in them.
Krista Socash is a spiritual counselor and clairvoyant in Arvada who teaches energy healing classes and offers organizational help to clients whose clutter has reached a fever pitch. These are generally people who cannot walk through their rooms without tipping piles and become panicked by the thought of sorting through it all.
"These people are in a lot of pain," she says. "Much like people who use drugs as an (escape), some people cannot get rid of their stuff."
To help clients process ties to clutter, Socash asks people how each item in the room enhances their lives: Do you like this item? Does it weigh you down? Do you feel stuck to it?
Things that clients do not want to part with are put into a bin for a week.
"At the end of the week if they remember what is in the bin," she says, "they can keep it."
Helen Kearney hired Mabbitt to organize a few rooms in her home. The Boulder sales professional had trouble with change but says there was a "feeling of total relief"once she saw the benefit to grouping like items together.
"Talk about a transformation," she says. "It was so simple, but I couldn't see how to do it all. . . . Teri really helped me with the dark corners where I would always shove stuff."
Kearney also spent the past two years working with a therapist trained in feng shui who helped streamline her household habits. She realizes now that growing up in a messy, overcrowded house taught her certain habits, like leaving food on the counters overnight, half-empty coffee cups in the bathroom, and drawers and cabinets askew.
"I was never taught to hang my coat on a hook," she says. "Having a spot (now) to always put my wallet and phone is a miracle."
Four kinds of clutter
Teri Lynn Mabbitt, a professional organizer in Denver, believes there are four categories of clutter.
Technical: Clutter that causes space restrictions and an overall lack of storage space.
Life changes: Clutter caused by a new baby, a death in the family, a move or anything that has thrown a life out of balance.
Behavioral/psychological: Clutter caused by depression, attention deficit disorder, low self-esteem or lack of personal boundaries.
Time/life management: Clutter caused by the need for better planning.
Of these, the behavioral/psychological-driven clutter is the hardest to solve.
Regina Leeds, author of "One Year to an Organized Life," says there are three basic steps to organization: Eliminate, categorize and then organize. Among her tips:
Start with closets. If you are holding onto a piece of clothing that belonged to someone who has died, consider keeping a swatch of fabric in a shadow box instead.
Clutter control
Here are some ideas from the domestic gurus at Better Homes and Gardens magazine for gaining control of common home clutter zones.
Let storage components climb the walls of your home office, and rearrange your work space so regularly used supplies are accessible and others are out of the way.
Use the "handle it once" rule to keep papers from piling up. Immediately toss, file, pass on or mail off paperwork rather than revisiting it later. Labeled hanging files provide a quick, tidy place to stash paperwork.
Correspond via phone or e-mail to prevent a paperwork backlog.
Stash office supplies out of sight. Choose small-scale tape dispensers, staplers, pencil sharpeners and the like; full-size ones hog more space.
Store clips and rubber bands by the batch. Spice jars, secured with commercial grade hook-and-loop tape under cabinets, will do nicely.
Put an end to a jumble of jewelry in the bathroom, bedroom or closet with a ceramic egg tray found in the kitchen supply aisle. Tuck earrings and necklaces away in little cups so they will never get lost or separated again.
Reserve a drawer in the family room for board games. A divided bin is a winning solution for corralling all those tiny game pieces.
Replace door panels with pegboard in the laundry room for storage on both sides of the door.
Build plywood cubbies in the garage to span an entire wall. Be sure to attach them to studs.
Add adjustable shelves in the garage to accommodate camping gear and other bulky stuff. Smaller knickknacks and holiday ornaments are for stackable containers.
Ask yourself these questions when deciding what to keep and what to throw out: Has it expired? Is it used? Is it a duplicate? Is it a good fit?
Book roundup: Self-help titles
By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY
....
•One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good by Regina Leeds (Da Capo, 309 pp., $16.95). Leeds is known as the "Zen Organizer." This 12-month guide offers the chronically messy a genuine sense of serenity. Leeds' approach: First, you envision the life you want for yourself and your family in terms of space and spirit. Then you take concrete steps to implement that dream. The book is a mixture of gentle tips, mental exercises and practical advice to assist the reader. The book isn't about rigid dictums, cast-iron to-do lists or expensive products. An L.A. resident, Leeds' tone is unusual: very creative and appealingly New Age.
Library Sciences Site
Books That Have Changed Lives
Paula Laurita, BellaOnline's Library Sciences Editor
Regina Leeds, the New York Times bestselling author of One Year to an Organized Life reminisces that, "As an only child growing up in Brooklyn, New York I was over-protected and sheltered by my parents. I found my solace in books. My favorite author was Charles Dickens. When I was 18 I went to London for the first time and had the honor of visiting his home. To stand at the desk where Miss Havisham was created was truly overwhelming. No fiction book has ever touched me like Great Expectations! Reading takes you on adventures and opens the world to you...even one your over protective parents are afraid to let you experience 'for real!'"
Boone Bridge Books
One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week by Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good
Reviews
Library Journal (01/15/2008)
From professional organizer and author Leeds ("The Zen of Organizing") comes the perfect book for anyone wanting to find important papers instantly or have a navigable closet. The author divides getting organized into 12 monthly sections with four weekly tasks. The first week of every month is devoted to journaling and understanding the psychology of disorganization. The remaining three weeks of every month are for tasks like creating a bedroom sanctuary, packing wisely for trips, and creating a festive holiday atmosphere. Full of useful information for everyone, from the person who needs simply to clean a messy desk to the person requiring a whole new approach to life; highly recommended for all libraries. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
Simply Stated. A blog from RealSimple.com
Inspiration
5 Organization Books I Love
Posted on May 29, 2008 7:28:00 AM | By ErinDoland
....
2. Regina Leeds' One Year to an Organized Life. This is the most realistic home organization book on the market. Leeds doesn't tiptoe around the issue that organizing your home is a process and that it will take time to reach your goals. I wish the book had a less daunting title, but that's my only serious complaint about the work. If you're looking for a long-term solution to your organizing problem, you'll want to read this book.
New Year's Resolutions Start at Home
By Jodi Helmer
Jan 13th 2010
In the spirit of the New Year, resolve to spend time on projects that help your personal space reflect your personal style.
"Too many people ignore their homes when it comes to making New Year's resolutions," says Regina Leeds, author of One Year to an Organized Life. "Your home is a place that should reflect who you are, so it's the logical place to begin when you're setting goals for the New Year."
We came up with a few resolutions to get you started:
Resolution: Frame the artwork and family photos that have been gathering dust in the back of the closet.
You could: Take all of your prints and pictures to a custom frame shop where you can sift through thousands of frames and countless types of photo mats. Sure, the results will be spectacular, but you'll likely spend an amount equivalent to your monthly mortgage to have it done by the pros.
You should: Spend an afternoon wandering through a craft store (with your prints) assessing your options for DIY framing. The shelves are stocked with frames in all sizes and precut mats in a rainbow of colors -- all at a fraction of the price of custom framing. Achieving a custom look is just a matter of mixing and matching the frames and mats. "You can also buy a precut mat and cover it with a patterned fabric," suggests Caroline Tiger, who blogs about design at design-phan. "You can get the fabric, cheap, in a fabric store or on etsy.com, where people sell vintage fabrics. And just glue it on...no sewing required."
Resolution: Seal the drafts coming through the windows to help cut your energy bills.
You could: Replace all of the windows in your home. The project, which requires a team of professional installers, is expensive. In fact, it can cost up to $1,000 to replace a single window. And according to Remodeling magazine, the ROI of new windows is limited: Homeowners will recoup just 77% of their original investment during resale.
You should: Pick up insulating film with a low-E coating at a home improvement store. The film has an invisible layer of metallic oxide that traps heat indoors and helps reduce heat loss through older windows by up to 40%. Unlike the bulky plastic film your parents used to cover the windows during the winter of 1978, this film fits seamlessly over your windows. Home improvement stores sell low-E film for $3 to $12 per square foot. You'll save enough on your heating bills to splurge on a pedicure!
Resolution: Make your home more secure.
Blogs