“But this is worth money…”

As a professional organizer, one of the most common objections to ditching clutter is its monetary worth. And I completely understand that!! I mean… I don’t even throw pennies away as we organize. Why on earth would I ask you to throw money away? But being unsure of its worth and how to extract that worth creates deferred decisions. Deferred decisions are the number one cause of clutter! There is good news! I can help you!

The first step to this debacle is to find out IF something has worth. Just because an item is old and/or beloved does not make it valuable in any way. The appraisal value of an antique or collectible is also incredibly different than the worth of it. The current worth of your item is how much someone would be willing to pay for it TODAY. Yesterday’s value is null and void.

The easiest source to find the current value of your item is eBay. There is an easy to use search bar at the top of website. Perfect!! Now all you have to do is figure out what you are searching for. Obviously, if you know the brand name and a little description, you are pretty much golden. If not, you may have to do a little trial and error. After your search, you will find a list of ALL listings matching your item. The problem is that this includes all the “perceived values” sellers have listed their items for. Remember Beanie Babies? At “press time” for this blog I can type in the Princess Diana Beanie Baby and find a listing for $349,000.00!!! Can you imagine a plush doll for that much??? No… neither can eBay buyers. For true market value, you need to filter the list to only items recently sold. A quick scan down the left hand side menu reveals a check box for sold items. As for the Princess Diana bear? It now shows no one has received even close to $349,000.00. In fact… the approximate value of this particular Beanie Baby is currently $10.00. It was hardly even worth listing!

So now you have armed yourself with an estimated worth of your item and have assessed you DO actually have an item or items with a decent current market value. Congratulations! The next step is to decide what to do with this item. Do you save it hoping it increases in value? (They don’t all!) Or do you sell it (and finally get it out of your house and off your to-do list?) If you decide to sell, do you sell it locally on Craigslist? Do you list it nationally on eBay? Or do you find a local dealer to take it off your hands?

If you choose listing the item yourself, you need to decide how much time and effort you are willing to invest in your sale. You will have to take into account the amount of time to take pictures and list the item. You may have to consider the time to field emails and questions. You may have to be available to set up pick-up/drop off times. (Local police departments suggest you do exchanges at their precinct for safety.) Depending on the location of the buyer, you may have to pack and ship your item including insurance. You even have to consider all could be lost time, as the item may not sell. But, if you are ready, each of the websites has reasonable instructions to list an item.

If managing your own sale sounds like too much time and energy, but you still want to sell, it may be time to contact a reputable dealer or consignment shop in your area. The difference between a dealer and a consignment shop is who owns the item. In a consignment shop, you own the item and sign a contract to leave the item for sale with the shop owner. Normally, this contract means you are in charge of picking up the item if it does not sell during a specified amount of time. In return for selling on your behalf, the owner will get a cut of the proceeds of the sale. On the other hand, a dealer will buy the item from you immediately, and you will never think about it again. BUT, this dealer has to run the store front and takes the risk the item will not sell. This is the cost of doing business for the dealer. It also means the dealer is not going to be able to meet you at the market value you researched earlier. He/she needs to be able to buy the item, factor in the cost of holding it, AND make a reasonable profit. You are now armed with the current market value of the item and a good starting negotiation price for your sale.

At this point, you know HOW to sell your item and about HOW MUCH you can expect for it. Does all this sound like too much? Is your head spinning? You have two more choices. The first is to donate it to a local charity and get a receipt. Under current IRS guidelines, you can write the current market value of the item off on your taxes! What is your second choice? Hire a reputable organizer to take care of all the legwork for you!!! That’s right!! How do you think I know to write this blog? I do this for ALL of my clients with items of value! Look for a reputable organizer in your area through NAPO.net (National Association of Professional Organizers) and get organized while making a little money! It sounds like a win/win to me. And as always, please contact me with any questions. I am here to help; decluttering the world one household at a time!

Using Reminders on iPhone

One of the many consequences and causes of clutter and disorganization is memory issues. When your living space is cluttered, it takes up real estate in your brain and effects your focus, and in turn your memory. (Seriously! I know you probably already believe me, but Google it!) I spend most of my client time trying to get people’s spaces organized. But after years of “bad habits,” (which I have too!) I help my clients  create new habits to support their new spaces. It is important to curb spending extra money and time forgetting to pay bills, forgetting to pick up items you need at the store, and a bevy of other problems we can’t solve with a simple calendar or list. Calendars and lists are always handy. But I find many people create lists with good intention, and the lists get lost too!!

The good news: almost everyone has a smartphone these days! While there is science on the mental clutter the phone and an overabundance of technology creates, there really are tools in them to help organize our lives. One of my favorite tools is built into the iPhone and called Reminders. This handy tool can set up alerts in your phone that are time and date or location based. And since we are all tuned into our phones, it is much harder to miss. If you would like to follow the apple instructions, they are on the apple website. But what kind of organizer would I be if I didn’t show you in my own words???

The first step in the process is to FIND Reminders. (Sometimes easier said than done!) Look for the icon with the list and the colored circles!

Once the app is open, the list will be empty. You will click the top line of the list and an empty circle will appear. From here… simply type in whatever you would like to remind yourself to do. After you have typed your reminder, an “i” will show up on the right side of the task. Here are the next few screens:

After clicking, the “i,” a whole new list of choices will show up! YAY! This “i” will allow you to choose a time, date, or location to be reminded! I use this option to set up monthly reminders to pay my bills and as needed reminders to pick things up, drop them off, make phone calls, etc.

If you choose a location, an alert will pop up when you arrive or leave, based on what you choose!! To complete this step, choose one option and set the location using the phone’s built in GPS. (It even knows who is in your address book.) Next, choose “Details” to go back to the previous screen and choose “Done” in the upper right corner.

Now an alert will go off as you near a location or leave one! For example, today, I didn’t want to forget to pick up my watch from the jeweler. So, I set a reminder to pick it up, and I set it to go off as soon as I left my appointment location! Guess who is wearing her watch right now!

I hope this little hint from an organizer helps! And if you are an Android user, you can still use something similar called Tasks! Here is to not letting our cluttered minds and lives get the best of us!!!

The Island of Misfit Knick-Knacks

My favorite Christmas claymation growing up was Rudolph: a story of a scrappy young misfit who became a hero. But my favorite part of the special was always when the misfit toys got picked up by Santa. The poor toys were banished to the island because “No one wants a Charlie in the Box” and they are crying on Christmas Eve thinking Santa forgot them again. But then, just when all hope is lost, Rudolph and Santa appear to bring them to homes they will be loved in. I cry EVERY TIME. (In fact, I am a little teary eyed right now! I’m not kidding!)

Anyway, why on earth would an organizer bother telling you this story? This is how I feel about your misfit knick-knacks. These are the items you have squirreled away in your basement or attic because someone gave them to you and they don’t have a place in your home. This is the vase from grandma’s house, the old lamps you replaced years ago, and the presents well meaning friends gave you. They are all but forgotten items until you happen by them by chance. And even then, at the thought of getting rid of them, you feel guilty, like you have to keep them because someone took the time or someone you loved loved the item. But, much like the misfit toys, these poor misfit items are languishing away, not fulfilling their “dreams” because you feel like you need to keep them. What you are really doing is keeping them out of the hands of someone who will truly love them.

So, I am tasking you today to visit your misfit knick-knack island, be it attic, basement, shed, or spare room, and ask yourself “Do I love this item enough to put it on display in my home or start using it immediately.” If the answer is no, stop storing this poor, unloved item, and let it find a home that will love it. Sell it or donate it immediately! In return, you will get a big thank you from me, who cries (just a little bit) at the thought of your items missing their destiny. I think you will feel better too!

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul in Organizing

Picture this: the one room in your house that has become your catch all. Are you picturing it? Can you see all the items piled up in there? Are you thinking about putting them away and getting stressed out? Are you wondering where to even begin?

This is exactly what has gone through someone’s mind just before I get a phone call or email from a potential client. They know they want to organize. They have bought bins and books and tried to start more times than they can count. In fact, I have NEVER worked in a home without at least one organizing book purchased prior to my arrival. The problem is they don’t know what to do and where to start because every time they do, they get sidetracked or it is taking WAY TOO LONG to find places for what they are trying to put away. In fact, the sheer nature of the catch-all room is because they have run out of places to put their belongings.

Does this “mythical” person sound like you? Do you go to put one thing away (usually in another room) and find it has no place? You try and find a place, and then inevitably bring that item back to the first room or bring a new item back after the first item took its place? It is a vicious cycle, right?

I can help you. It is time for me to give you permission to do something you never dreamed was ok. It is time to remove all the items from the catch-all room that do not belong there and go dump them, with no home, in the room they do belong in. Can these items stay homeless forever? No, of course not. That would defeat the purpose of organizing. That would ACTUALLY be “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” But you also can’t start organizing if you are paralyzed by the “no room for anything” cycle. So, go ahead and start making piles that will leave the catch-all room: a pile for the bathroom, a pile for the kitchen, a pile for the basement, a pile for the bedroom. Don’t forget a pile for the garbage and a pile for donation is also needed. Don’t move any piles from the room until you have sorted everything. (Trust me on this! Leaving the room to “put things away” will only serve to side-track you.) Once you have made piles of everything to leave the room, take those piles to the other room and dump them. Seriously! It is ok!!! … Do it. NOW you can organize what is left in your catch-all room. You will suddenly find organizing this room quite easy!

Did you read all this is sheer terror??? I know you did! My clients feel the same way when we start. Here is the problem though: it is too easy to get sidetracked putting each item “away” in the next room. Every single person admits doing it. In fact, now that I said it, you remember doing it too. Don’t worry. You will put away the newly homeless items in the other rooms. But you need to tackle one room at a time and find a proper place for everything. These items living in completely the wrong room have not helped you in either room or in your life in general. You can’t find anything that way! Here is the best part of this “pile dump” plan. The motivation and sense of achievement you will get from having ONE ROOM cleaned out will get you moving and ready to do the next room. Remember, organizing is contagious! Once you do one room, it is easier to take on the next one. (And, chances are, since the catch-all room is always the hardest, all the rest will be even easier!)

So, there you go: permission from a professional organizer to take piles from one room and dump them in another. It may be the opposite of what you thought you needed to do, but that’s why I am the professional. 😉

Happy organizing!!!

Save Storage Space By Decorating!

While working at a client’s home this weekend, he asked me what the “Holy Grail” of organizing is. I told him that everything needs a place to live. Clutter and disorganization start only when we have run out of places to put our belongings. Does this mean we have too much stuff? Usually. Does this mean we don’t have enough storage? Usually. (I hardly ever find someone with clutter AND empty drawers, though it has happened!) But what happens when you have pared yourself down as far as you feel comfortable going and you STILL don’t have enough storage? Simple… start decorating!!! WHAT??? How does decorating help with storage??? I know. It sounds insane! But bear with me!

In my home, since I live in a small two bedroom built in 1910 (read: no storage) I have needed to be more creative with how I put away my belongings. I have barely any closet space, the smallest bathroom vanity, and the kitchen is hardly a galley! So what is a girl to do with no cupboard space for pots and pans? I hang them up! While I was at it, I hung the utensils too! Now they are all easy to put away after they have been cleaned, they are not wasting precious storage space I can use for food, and they make for a great wall decoration, if I might say so myself!

I have also used the same idea for my glassware, my stoneware, my trivets, and my serving dishes!

These are all examples from my own home. Take some time to search the web or Pinterest, and you will find nearly limitless kitchen ideas including open shelving, S-hooks for mugs, and tons of ways to handle utensils! The kitchen is one of the easiest places to decorate with your everyday items and free up space!

But what if your problem is in ANOTHER room? What about the bathroom? My advice is to try thinking about your bathroom as your personal spa. If you went to a spa and had to search the halls or cabinets for your towels, toilet paper, and even your hair products and tools, you would be pretty frustrated, right? These are always visible, easy to be found and available. Yet somehow, the spa still manages to feel clean and serene, right? It is all about having these items displayed as decorative elements in the room! The towels are neatly folded and stored on open shelves or in baskets. The robe is always clean and hanging. The hair tools are on hooks or in baskets. Even the toilet paper is normally in something beautiful like a basket or a glass holder, right? Save the small amount of space you have (usually just under the sink and maybe a medicine cabinet) for the items you wouldn’t want displayed. The only caveat: if it is out, make sure it looks like it belongs there. That vanity can get cluttered quickly if you are not careful!!

Now let’s talk about your entry way. This area may be a no-brainer, but humor me. If you want to leave your shoes here, do it! But get a basket so they appear to belong here. Next to the front door is a great place for keys; but only if they are on a hook or in a bowl! How about scarves and hats? This one is a bit more tricky. Add a shelf and place a pretty basket or decorative box to hold these items. But all these ideas keep you organized and free up that small closet space (if you are lucky enough to even have one!)

So, up until now, you may have thought “Duh, Tamara” a couple of times. I mean…you are reading my blog because you are interested in organizing already. And some of these hints are not really rocket science. (Now that I think about it, maybe none of them are? I’ll have to call NASA and check on that!) BUT, while it may not require an engineering degree, have you ever thought of your accessories as decorative? You can use your scarves, your jewelry, your pins, your belts, your purses, and even your make-up displayed openly and save precious closet space. Here are a couple of examples:

 

What is the verdict? Have I won you? Do you agree decorating may be an answer to some of your storage issues? Are you already thinking about your own belongings? What can you can get out of drawers, closets, and cupboards and display to save space and storage? I hope I have inspired you in some way! All the pictures you see above are my creations. But if you need some more convincing or solutions, please check out my Pinterest and browse for more GREAT and creative storage ideas! And if you have more ideas I haven’t seen, I would LOVE to hear about them. Please contact me below, via my website, or my Facebook page. And as always, please reach out to me with any questions as well! I look forward to hearing from you!!! Happy organizing (and decorating!!!)

Home Body

Be a Home Body! Be someone who has both control and pride when it comes to their home and their body.

I’m Kristi Pelzel and today I’m a guest blogger here on Tamara’s site. She and I found common ground in our belief that weight loss and home disorganization can be connected.

If you are thinking about or struggling with losing weight and you’re also disorganized, try to identify the connection between the two in your life. It’s not going to be the same for everyone, but there is common ground when it comes to planning and time management. Planning to tackle both of these issues consistently is going to take a thought out approach to setting up your environment and allocating for resources.

Start with something as simple as clearing out your pantry. While sorting the good food and tossing the expired, make sure you’re also moving your body with purpose: stretching, bending, reaching. Try putting the garbage can several steps away, maybe even at the top of the stairs (!)…it’s not the most efficient way to organize your pantry, but remember—you’re getting a workout AND decluttering. Remember, if you can find the time to take a walk separate from organizing your home, and vice versa, you then have the time to create an organization workout combination. You just need ideas, some imagination, and motivation to get going!

My Amazon.com eBook: “Organize Your Ass Off!” about combining losing weight and getting organized is available through my blog and will also be available in paperback next week.

The whole goal was to create a fun twist on an issue that I felt many of my former clients struggled with and come up with a way to get them feeling better about more than just organization. I felt if they could laugh, have fun, and not see working out as a chore separate from home projects, they could break through. I am telling you, as wacky as some of my ideas may seem, that they do work! ☺

http://www.organizeyourassoff.blogspot.com

“Clutter Eats Equity”

Today I was sitting with a client and her real estate agent. We have been clearing the clutter and reorganizing to get ready for the house to go up for sale in the upcoming months. Very soon though, there will be more to do than just organize: it will be time to stage! And while we talked about each of the rooms and how best to showcase their size and attributes, the agent mentioned a phrase she had heard many times over: “Clutter Eats Equity!”

Clutter eats equity. This is so true. Think about it. When a buyer walks into your home, they only notice how much space there is or isn’t. If they open your closets and see clothes crammed in, they will think “How will I get all my clothes in there?” If they see additional storage items on top of counters and pushed into corners they will think “There is no storage in this house.” When they see furniture on every inch of wall, they may think “How will my furniture fit?” When they see open spaces and organized rooms, they don’t think anything but “Wow, this has great space and storage!”

Organizing to live and staging to sell are quite different. Organizing to live is about purging and finding a home for everything left. Organizing to live is about creating systems. Sometimes organizing is about creative storage solutions and to bring calm and beauty to your home or office. Staging to sell is about creating an almost formal calm and as much open space as possible. Staging is about selling someone the dream of how they want to live. Have you ever seen a stock photo of a “perfect closet?” You wanted that closet, right? However, did you ever really think about what was in that closet? How many clothes and shoes were actually IN that closet? Yep… staging, much like the closet, is selling an idea, not the contents. That is marketing.

So, let’s talk about staging “rules.”

• The Three Foot Rule – Did you know that a human needs 3 feet in any direction to truly feel comfortable walking in a space. Most of us do not live this way, but when staging, remove any items from all areas that break this rule. Yes, use a tape measure if necessary.  If this means removing furniture and storing it until the new home, do it. This is purely human psychology. No one is coming into your home with a tape measure but they will feel it without thinking about it. Don’t let basic human nature lose you money or a sale.
• Lights, Lights, Lights – Open all the blinds. Remove all heavy draperies. Make sure there are enough lamps. Use a higher wattage than you would normally use in the room. This is another psychological thing. Light opens up a room and makes it feel bigger. Remember, you are selling the amount of space you have. You need to light up that room like it is a stage!
• Depersonalize and Declutter – I love the pictures of your families and vacations. I really do! In fact, when I am organizing and decorating, I LOVE a great focal with properly arranged pictures in matching frames. Seriously! You know who doesn’t care about your pictures? A home buyer who is trying to picture THEIR family on the walls. Plus, pictures and personal objects are visual clutter. Do you know why you feel so calm at a spa or hotel? There are hardly any pictures or personal objects. Yes, they make your house feel like home… your home. The buyer needs to feel like it is their home though. So, you don’t have to put it all away. But the personal objects need to be kept to a minimum to look like a designer room, not your room. Get a head start on packing for your move, and pack most of these items now. The same idea goes for anything you haven’t used recently. (Maybe it shouldn’t be moved to your next house if it has been THAT long!) Finally, you need to clear off the counters and most surfaces. Remove items from desktops and take about half the items off your shelves. Are you selling these pieces of furniture? No, of course not. But it adds to the visual calm and the feeling you want a home buyer to get when they come into your home. It is still all about psychology!
• Function- Don’t confuse home buyers. You may (and probably do) use rooms for multiple functions. In the world of home selling, each room needs to have a single function. Is it a living room or a play room? Is it s spare bedroom or a home office? After you decide what you are staging the room as, remove everything from the room that doesn’t fit this function. You don’t live like this, but you do sell like this!
• Clean out the Closets! – OK… so how much are you REALLY using in your closets. The average house sells in under 3 months. Do you need ALL those sheets? How about 12 seasons worth of clothes? How many towels does your family ACTUALLY need for just a few months? Is there expired food in the cupboards and pantry taking up space? Are you using that good china in the next few months? How about all those glasses? You will save yourself time packing later and AND make yourself some money by showcasing how much space is in your closets and cupboards. I know… not a lot… no one has enough! But for right now, you have to pretend. Get yourself to the bare minimum!

So, there are the basics to staging. There are hundreds of tricks and nuances but this list should give you a much better chance at selling your home. I am aware the list I just gave you will make it harder to live in your home. It is only temporary. Look at it this way. The better the house looks, the sooner you sell it, the sooner you get to unpack and live any way you want in your new home! You wouldn’t go to a job interview without showering, putting on your best outfit, and putting your best foot forward, right? Your home is being interviewed. Help it get the job! And if it is too much work to take on for yourself…. hire a professional organizer or staging professional to get there! I may know a few! (wink, wink!!)

Start BIG!

One of the things I hear the most frequently with new clients is they do not know where to start. Prior to calling me, they will pick up a few items and put them away somewhere, then look around what to pick up next. They will sort through a box of papers or small items and have no idea where to put the items that are staying besides remaining in that box. They may even move through the room with bag for trash or donations and pick up items from all over the room. Each of these things ARE valuable tasks. And yes, sometimes, the advice of starting small to get some confidence or the ball rolling isn’t the worse advice. In fact, it is pretty decent advice. But I am going to throw caution to the wind and say “GO BIG!”

Before we go any further, let’s think about this from a psychological stand point. When are you more motivated to keep going: when you worked very hard for a long time and see small results or when you have put in some effort and see an appreciable difference? No need to answer that. The answer is obvious. And it isn’t laziness. It is human nature.

Now let’s come back to “go big.” My suggestion to get you moving on your project is to choose an area you will see the most appreciable difference by starting there. For example, I have a current client with a home office she has been hoping to design for some time. But there were piles of years of paperwork to go through. My suggestion was to get the paperwork in boxes and out of the room for now, and to go through it all later. The ideas was to get the room cleared and cleaned and start painting and putting in new floors and furniture now and bring the papers back in to organize box by box. By doing so, as opposed to the painstaking efforts for almost invisible results, we started getting her a room she wanted to work in and wants to get organized before we even start with the tasks she was dreading most. Instead of fearing the room, we start with loving it. And by loving it, we WANT to keep up the momentum.

Not every project has a clear cut of an option to start big. But take a long look around the space you are beginning. What starting point has the biggest bang for the buck? I am not saying all the mundane small tasks don’t need to get done. They DO! But what can be delayed so you feel like you can make a dent?? That is where you start. Once you see the progress, you will have more motivation to continue. Now go find that room you have been dreading. What will you work on today?

DON’T BUY BINS!!

Spring cleaning is under way and you are looking at your mess thinking “I need to get organized!” But here is my number one spring cleaning tip: DON’T BUY BINS!!
What??? Is this girl serious? Don’t buy bins? I know, I know. After everything I said about loving bins! Let me write a revision for my statement. Don’t buy bins YET!

Almost every client I have worked with wanted to be organized and tried first to buy bins and load everything in. They wanted to have their “stuff” out of sight so badly that they started with buying bins immediately.But here’s the thing: Lack of storage bins are not your “problem.” Usually, the problem is too much extra “stuff;” Stuff you don’t use anymore, stuff that doesn’t fit you anymore, stuff that is a duplication of other stuff, stuff that is broken, stuff you collected through gifts, or stuff you were going to use later.

So, how do you decide what to get rid of? I could sit here and make up my own list, but to me, there is a perfect list already written that I love: 10 Questions to Help You Declutter.

Now, print this list and get rid of your stuff FIRST! THEN you can feel free to go out and buy bins for what is left. I truly do LOVE BINS!

Happy Cleaning!!!

Spring Time Garage Organization

Hello! I’m so excited to present a guest blogger!!! Below are some helpful hints for organizing your garage as we enter spring! The blog is presented by Kirsten Jackson with Monkey Bars, a garage organizing system I have checked out and personally recommend! Enjoy!!!!

After a long winter of accumulating salt, grime and junk your garage is probably in desperate need of some spring cleaning and organizing. If you park your car in your garage or enter your home through your garage, all the grime and salt on the roads has most likely been dragged into your garage. Also, let’s be honest, the garage gets the most disorganized in the winter because who wants to take the time to put everything (i.e. holiday decorations) back where it’s supposed to go when your garage is freezing cold. So now that spring is beginning to show its face a little bit, it’s time to think about getting your garage organized and ready for summer.

Keep, Donate Toss
The first step in organizing any space is the keep, donate or toss routine which you can learn about here. One way not to get overwhelmed is to divide your garage into sections and tackle one section at a time. If one section a day is all that you can get done, then do that.

Contain and Label
After you’ve figured out what you’re keeping make sure that everything has its own place. Whether it’s a bin for sports balls or big rubber maid tubs for your Christmas lights make sure things that need a container have a container and then clearly label each one. Be specific when labeling and you’ll thank yourself later. Don’t just label a bin Halloween, put Halloween costumes and makeup or decorations so you won’t have to dig through every bin to find what you’re looking for.

The Right System
Getting a storage system that works for you and that you know you’ll use all the time is key. It doesn’t matter if it’s cabinets or shelving just make sure that it’s something that you will use constantly otherwise you will just be wasting your money. The best systems get all of your belongings up off the floor. This keeps your garage cleaner and your possessions in better condition.

Swap Your Stuff
Since you are getting organized for the warmer months, swap out the items that are more easily accessible. Clean the dust and cob webs off your garden tools and make sure your lawn mower or other yard appliances are in working condition. If you have kids tuck the sleds away and make sure their summer toys are front and center.

Last but not least you can sweep out all the dirt that’s been accumulating then step back and admire your hard work! Having a garage that’s well organized is a must in the summer months when you will be spending more time outdoors. You will be able to relax a little bit more when you aren’t wasting your time wading through boxes and junk.