Week 1 here – are you still throwing out trash and junk mail at the door and adding items to your donate box?

Week 2 here – don’t let those closets become hiding spots and catch-alls!

Welcome to Week 3 of Organizing Weekly!

This week we’re going to tackle food storage.

It’s a scary prospect for many, but you can do it! Just 10 minutes a day for the next 6 days, and 30 minutes on the 7th day will give you dramatic results. Remember these are tips to help those with very limited time so it’s a bit different than the tips you’d get with a full day or more to get organized. Depending on the amount of food you have and the level of disorganization, you might need to do this for 2 weeks, just double the amount of days for each step, but try to stay at 10 minutes each day/30 minutes on the 7th, so you don’t get overwhelmed and stressed.

:: Day 1 – Day 2

Have an empty garbage can ready and go through your food cupboards and shelves. Spend 10 minutes each day looking at “good until” dates, throwing everything that’s expired, as well as items that show evidence of bugs or mice, and anything you know won’t get used/ate.

:: Day 4

Onto the refrigerator, and freezer, throwing everything past it’s prime, badly freezer burnt, unidentifiable, never going to get used, etc.

:: Day 5

Canned food organizing. Group all canned food by type (soups, fruits, vegetables, etc), in neat rows, back to front. Start on Day 6 if you have a few minutes to spare, but don’t go over 10 minutes.

:: Day 6

Other non perishable food organizing. Doesn’t need to be fancy, just grouped together so you know whatever item you might need is in an area {this} big, instead of “somewhere in the kitchen. maybe.” Baking supplies, breakfast foods, snacks, etc.

:: Day 7

This is your 30 minute time – clean out the fridge completely, and wipe everything down well (I go so far as to take all the shelves to the tub and scrub them down good, and wash the walls of the fridge while the racks are drying), and put the food back in, neatly. If you find your tend to forget you bought a food, make a new spot in the top front for these kinds of foods so they don’t migrate to the back until they end up looking like a high school science experiment.

When you bring new food into the house, do a quick scan to see if there’s anything you need to toss before putting the new in, and put the new away in their proper area. Look at investing in some organizing products like the following, to help get even more organized

Week 1 here: http://www.organizeoregon.com/2011/08/04/organizing-weekly-week-1/

Welcome to week 2 of Organizing Weekly! In addition to continuing the work you started last week, this week we’re going to tackle one closet, preferably the least organized one in your home. Since closets are typically too small for multiple people to work on one together, have each person work on a separate closet at the same time. Below are some items that may be of some help getting your closets organized. Closets often have a load of seemingly unusable space, that with some creative storage solutions, you can optimize every little bit!

:: Day 1

Pick the closet you most want organized. Tell yourself you don’t need everything you are going to come across in this closet and it is ok to part with a good portion of it! Spend 10 minutes and sort through coats/clothes and putting unwanted items in the donation box from last week.

:: Day 2-6

Each day, spend only 10 minutes working on removing unwanted items (donate box, or throw away) and moving wanted items to where they belong (kitchen, bathrooms, borrowed clothes back in their owner’s closet, etc). Set a timer and don’t go over 10 minutes.

:: Day 7

Spend 30 minutes finishing up the work you started on previous days. If the closet hasn’t been finished at the end of Day 7, keep working on it for 10 minutes each day until it’s done. Take your donation box to your preferred donation center.

Make a promise to yourself that the closet is to stay organized and not become a catch-all for random stuff ever again. Another week well done!

This week we will start on developing good habits. There may be better ways of doing some things, but we’re going for easy, but effective.

:: Day 1

Put a good size sturdy box next to the door you and your family go in/out the most. Next to it, put a garbage can.

The task: Tell your family (and yourself) – no garbage in the house. Junk mail, fast food bags, anything you aren’t keeping, go into the garbage can before you set another foot into the house.

:: Day 2-6

Each day, spend 5 minutes (no more than 10) finding 3 or 4 items to donate and place these in the box. Each family member can contribute.

:: Day 7

Spend 10 minutes going through and finding more garbage to fill up the garbage can, and another 10 minutes finding more items to donate. Take the garbage out, put a new bag in. Put the donation box in the car and if possible, take it immediately to Goodwill or other donation center. Immediately replace the box.

Pat yourself on the back and get ready for next week.

Continue this process each and every week. Once your house is under control and good habits established, you can move the donation box to the garage and you’ll be able to remember to go straight to the kitchen to dispose of junk mail and trash.

Kids can help by adding things to the donation box (no big declutter – just an item or 2 a day).

This weekly organizational series is for you. Each day’s task shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, except for one 30 minute session each week.

I hope this helps you start to reclaim you life and home. It’s a slower process than an all out attack on the clutter, but you will see results, and will be motivated to continue.

Remember, even young kids can help with organizing, and in each week’s post, I’ll make a note how they can help.

You can view each week’s post here: http://www.organizeoregon.com/category/organizing-weekly/

Please subscribe to the blog feed to get notified of new posts, and follow me on Twitter to see all the tips and ideas!

I know, it’s a dreadful thought. But think of it this way: you will spend less time and money organizing your files today than you’ll spend in the next week/month/year looking everywhere for them, or waiting for new ones to arrive.

Supplies needed:

• Hanging File folders
• File box (for hanging file folders)
• Pencil

Mark your file folders in an easy to understand order, try this as a starting point:

• [Name] – for [Name]‘s personal records (one for each person in the family/home, including children): will, health and life insurance, birth certificate, social security card, immunization record, report cards, etc
• [Marriage/Divorce/Custody/Child Support] – all court documents here, though you can opt to put the marriage license in one of the [Name] folders.
• [Insurance] – renters, home, as well a list of your belongings, in case of fire/theft/flood/etc
• [Taxes] – all tax information here (US readers read this IRS information page on how long to keep records)
• [Pay Stubs] – 1 for each wage earner in the house, keep for 1 year, basically until you get your W2 or other year end tax record
• [Bank] – for one each account, organize statements and other records by date
• [Credit Cards] – one for each card, keep statements, rebate information, etc
• [Vehicles] – 1 for each vehicle – auto insurance, title, warranty information, receipts for auto purchases and mechanical work, recall information, vehicle loan information, etc
• [Receipts] – for bigger ticket item like a stove, fridge, tv, etc. Keep until you no longer own the item, in case of theft/fire/flood/etc
• [Misc] – for those bits of paperwork that really just don’t fit anywhere else (don’t get frustrated and just stick everything here though – I’ve seen it happen)
• You may have other needs – For example: I have a folder for one of my children who has special needs. This folder contains therapy information, assessments, etc. While it could go in the [Name] folder, it is a huge stack of papers so it gets it’s own folder.  Expand as you need, based on your life, but don’t over complicate it. Keep it easy to use, easy to find.

To save time opening/closing the folders, just make stacks for each section. Sit somewhere with a lot of room and your unorganized stack of papers, and a garbage can nearby. Lay out each folder, and sort through your documents onto the folders. Once every piece is sorted, slip the papers into each folder and tuck them into your file box. Toss papers you are positive you won’t need, sort them if you aren’t sure. Break every 15 minutes, get a coffee, stretch, put on some new music, but don’t let yourself get distracted. After a 3-5 minute break, start again.

Once you’re completely organized, now is the time to think ahead.

What if you have a fire? Or someone steals your file box (I’ve heard of crazier things being stolen)? It is not a bad idea to put your file folder into a fireproof/waterproof safe, or put originals in a safe deposit box and keep copies of documents like wills, birth certificates, etc, in the file folder, sort of as a place holder. On the copy, you might write “original at X location” to jog your memory if you (or someone else) needs the original.

It’s up to you to weigh the pros and cons of each choice, but I do highly recommend you pick one to safeguard these important documents because you do not want to be trying to prove your identity after a fire/flood where all your IDs, your birth certificates, etc, have burned up or been washed/blown away.

For convenience sake, you might choose to use a fireproof/waterproof safe in your home. Don’t think your papers are safe in a regular safe, they will be ruined in a large fire or flood. A safe like this one can withstand heat for an hour, giving firefighters time to put out the fire and get to your box; and is water resistant, giving you time to pull it out of the water.

I hope this post has been helpful to you in being able to find that missing piece of paper – or at least ensuring it’s replacement doesn’t get lost as well!

Your first step is decluttering, which ideally should be started months in advance. This gives you time to go through everything and have a yard sale if you like, without rushing and stress.

Supplies needed:

• Boxes
• Newspaper
• Yard Sale Kit (at least pricing stickers and signs)
• Packing tape
• Markers

Get a box for each room of your house. Each time you’re in that room, look around. See something you don’t want to pack, move, and eventually unpack? Put it in the box. If the room is very cluttered, you may need to take a day or more (and extra boxes) and concentrate on just that room.

Look in cupboards and every nook in your home. Imagine yourself packing each item, moving it, and unpacking it. Is this object in your hand worth it? If not, in the box it goes. Create a separate box for breakable items, and wrap dishes, etc in newspaper so they don’t chip or break while they await their next home.

When you’ve gotten rid of everything you can, it’s yard sale time. Now is not the time to try to get rich or completely finance your move. Remove your emotions from the item and price it low enough it will actually sell.

After your yard sale, take stock of what you have and what you need now, and what you can do without until you’ve moved.

Items you can usually do without until after your move (depending on how long it is til you move, of course):

• Seasonal clothes and bedding (considering packing in Space Bags to save space, just don’t make your boxes too heavy)
• Hanging art/pictures
• Holiday decorations & supplies
• Extra bedding, towels, curtains
• Books, photo albums, movies, video games (leave out often used)
• Anything else you won’t need for about 2 weeks after you’ve moved in

Pack these items, tucking the boxes away to be added to (and taped up and labeled when full). If you do this over months before your move, it’s so much less stressful than trying to get everything sorted and packed a few weeks before. As you are packing, if you find more items you don’t want, put them in a box by the front door and take those items to a donation drop off.

Coming soon: Organizing for a move: Part 2 (Moving Day)

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Watch for a future post with tips on keeping all those school papers organized!

Children learn from their parents. If the parents are at least trying to be organized, the children will learn from it. Even if their room is a pigsty growing up, they will appreciate the lessons they learned for keeping a home, when they are grown.

The main lesson for teaching children organizational skills is to involve them and guide them, but be careful not to just issue orders and expect a perfect follow through.

An example: your canned food cupboard is a disorganized mess. Let them organize it with just 2 “rules”: throw out cans past their good-until dates, and to group foods by type (fruit, beans, etc), you might even look at getting a canned food organizer like this one (also shown to the left). Tell them they can pick how the food goes back in. Even if you end up needing to move a few things around later, your child will have gotten sorting skills practice, and done so on their own terms.

Another example: your young child has enough toys to play with for the next decade and can’t keep their room clean no matter how much you remind them. It’s time to get rid of toys and make a system for keeping the rest easy to keep put away. Let your child know what the plan is and then let them decide what toys to get rid of. Get 2 boxes: one for donating/throwing away, and one for “not sure I can part with this.” Knowing they have a choice is key in this.

When the toys have been sorted, immediately remove the donate/throw away box from the house, and let your child know the “not sure” box is going to hang out in the closet for a few months. The remaining toys can be sorted by type into bins (again, let your child decide what goes where!) and labeled so your child knows what goes in them in the future. In a few months, go through the “not sure” box…chances are there will be more to donate/throw away, and a few that can be added back into their bins. The ability to toss what they don’t need is a vital skill to prevent hoarding, but they absolutely must have a say in it or it will backfire and they’ll want to keep the stuff even worse.

So the little tips that go along with this:

• Patience is an absolute must.
• Be upbeat and cheery if it kills you.
• You can’t take over if you want your child to learn anything.
• Set a timer and work for 15 minutes at a time, then get outside and play some ball or make cookies, something far removed from cleaning and organizing.
• Remember when children have a say, they gain confidence and skills that they might otherwise not learn until they are grown.
• Even if their results aren’t as perfect as you wanted them, praise their efforts. If they look to you for guidance (“where should I put this?”) offer suggestions to help them pick for themselves (“you could put it here, or here, or over there – which place do you think it would look best in?”).

I hope this post helps you and your children gain some peace and organization in your home! Good luck!

Unless you have a room dedicated to being a library, most regular folks don’t have room for all the books they’ll read in a lifetime (never mind most Americans aren’t reading as much as they ought to!), but people with mild to severe hoarding almost always hang on to every book they’ve ever brought home. But only a handful ever get read more than once. I walk my clients through the process of parting with all these books and learning how to adjust their behaviors so it doesn’t happen again.

The Kindle has been a big help to both my clients and myself. E-Readers have come a long way since their first inception and offer not only a fantastic reading experience, but a huge assortment of books to load your Kindle, not your home, with. They have come down dramatically in price that they are within reach of most families, and make a great birthday or holiday present.

You undoubtedly have books you will never part with. But all those paperbacks you read once and haven’t picked up since… your local shelter would be thrilled to get them! So go through your books. Make a list of the books you want to “keep” and see if they’re available on the Kindle. During this process, you might just find that you aren’t as interested in many of those books as you thought and you’ll be able to part with them without buying their digital counterpart. Below are some books to get your started, they all come in Kindle versions, and the last 3 also have bound book versions, just in case you aren’t ready to make the Kindle plunge yet.