The real beginning of any organizing project is deciding what you want to do.
What is it that you want to achieve?
Envisioning what you want at the end of anything is crucial to getting started.
Let’s imagine you decide to tackle organizing your enclosed back porch.
Your back porch has not been used in the five years you have lived here as it was a convenient dumping ground when you moved in.
Frankly, you’re not entirely sure what is in there.
You know you have some old clothes, your dad’s sled, a toilet plunger, some bins of seasonal decorations, and – worst of all – a pile of about 15 boxes that were never opened after the move.
But your vision is to be able to sit on that enclosed porch and enjoy your coffee on a Sunday morning, so you hire some help to get it done and keep you accountable.
Where do you start?
We start by sorting and reducing.
This is hard, but also doable.
The time it will take is directly correlated to how fast you make decisions.
Start by sorting everything into one of three categories:
Things you want to keep.
Things you want to donate or sell.
Things that are trash or recycling.
Sometimes pulling out items in the third category is a good place to start.
Anything that is broken or unidentifiable should be removed.
As a professional organizer, I will not discard anything without asking your first. It may be trash, but it is your trash! However, I will always encourage you to throw broken things away.
Truly brave souls may throw out those 15 boxes without opening them. (If you haven’t needed it in five years, are you likely to?) If you don’t want to tempt yourself, give those boxes to your organizer to sort or simply take away.
As much as possible, remove the third category from the space entirely; this will clear area to further separate the second category into two piles: things for a donation drop-off, and things to sell.
Many people get hung up in the second category, or the “sell” category, imagining that someone is really going to want what they have or that what they have is valuable.
If you have room to store these items, you can of course do so.
But the value of items to be sold can easily be over-estimated.
I am a collector of books, and I spent a good deal of time during COVID quarantine attempting to sell books on eBay.
Although I sold a few, the effort ended up costing us money.
It is much better to either donate them to libraries or other donation sites that will take them and recycle those in truly poor condition.
Once you decide to donate items, remove them from the space as soon as possible. After sessions I take away as much as possible in my car so that my clients get that space back immediately. Load up your car and do the same.
Move anything you want to keep to where in your home you'll use it. Many things get stuck in boxes on porches that can be used in the home. Take it there now.
Don’t get too distracted from your project. The idea here is to keep going until you’re done.
At the end of this phase of your project, you now can see the outline of a beautiful enclosed porch.
Remember, having coffee on a Sunday morning on this porch will feel so good when the space makes you feel relaxed and happy.
Hold on to your vision – it will give you energy to keep going.
When you're ready to tackle your tough organization project, I am here to help you learn how.
Let's RETHINK organization together.
For more information, visit the RETHINK website today.
Mandy Thomas is a professional organizer fulfilling her lifelong passion for creating order out of chaos. She finds joy in helping people tackle their most overwhelming spaces and collections to create the optimal living space and enjoy their homes.
RETHINK organization is on a mission to help you develop long-term patterns of organization that you can maintain and feel good about long after our work together is done.
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