organizing stuff

Since I'm sick so often I have a lot of time to look around..I hate clutter an we have lots of it.

We don't have a large space..a two bedroom apartment(which the boys love to share..one is neat the other messy)

Does anyone have any good organizing tips..in the past I bought plastic containers and labeled their toys..Help..going stir crazy tryping to keep my migraine from driving me nut.

I would truly appreciate any help or suggestions..thank you.

Blessings,

Wendy

I'm the wrong person to ask. That is for sure. The only thing that would help me is a bigger house. I am at the point of just tossing everything
out and starting over. If it wasn't for the recession, I think I would do that--furniture and all. I also hate clutter. I hate to toss stuff now because I would be afraid I couldn't replace it if I had to. I'm not a pack rat ()all of my stuff is good quality stuff -- no junk or stuff tanyone would get rid of). That makes it hard. I always think I will sell things on e-bay or whatever. I won't though.

Sorry for not helping. Thank you for reminding me again to start tossing.

Hi Wendy

For 7 years I lived in a reformed garage with 4 people. Very tight quarters. The first step is to get rid of stuff and visit the goodwill bin. The question to ask is; ;have I or anyone used this is the past year, and really, how important is it? It doesn't matter how small it is, because the little things add up to a big pile. Before you organize, you have to purge, and purge on a regular basis. If you have trouble getting rid of things, remember, it is just plastic, wood or paper and someone else would like it.

Plastic bins take up a lot of room because of the bulk and are limited to where you can put them. Better to get different sizes of boxes that you can write on and stash them creatively in closets or under beds or behind partitions. I got a pretty partition divider to seperate a particularily hectic area.

Get rid of clutter. SOmetimes that extra carpet makes a place look messy and not homey. Take time to stand back and take a second look. YOu can always put it back if you decide different.

That is how I deal with it.

I know what you mean. I get quite irritable sometimes seeing all the clutter, but not feeling well enough to sort it out.
Doesnt seem to bug anyone else, but I guess it's being stuck here looking at it.
On days I feel better, the last thing I want to do is housework.

So........

Been trying to be more "minimal" for some time now.
My downfall is paper...reading....cuttings, family history, health.
We also have a LOT of books.

I have been getting better.
I use the 3 pile method.

I pile for things I love and want to keep.
1 for "rubbish".
1 for the things I am unsure of. If they are still "unsure" in a time scale....I use a month...then they go to freecycle, or trash.

I got some of those vacuum bags for storing, they do cut down on the bulky items.

I am not great at this, but bit by bit I am trimming things down.
It has been worse since my parent's passed and I inherited a load of stuff.
It took time to let some of that go, but much of it has now.

If you are not a naturally minimal person (like my DIL), its hard.
Seems the more space you have, you still fill it.

pen

I love organizing stuff! I've learned a lot from watching pro shows like NEAT:
http://www.neattv.com/home.html

this is also good site for ideas:
http://www.styleathome.com/organizing/organizing-ideas/home-organizing-tips/a/697

What I can tell you from my own experience, and I understand this is something VERY HARD to do but afterward you feel like you freed yourself from excess baggage - is getting rid of sentimental stuff.
yes, we get attached to it but let's face it- it's only CLUTTER.

Gather it together, keep only one or two things that represent the most important memory and that's it.
Otherwise think about it- so called keepsakes are hardly ever displayed, they just gather dust somewhere and nobody ever think about it.

Helen from NEAT had a greatest idea for such keepsakes- take pictures of them, and make an album or a scrapbook, or frame them if those are for example old ticket stubs, postcards etc.
Then give the stuff to charity or throw them away, depending on the item.
This way you'll free the space otherwise taken by a much bigger shoebox.

Risa

The key to de-cluttering a home has been stated in several ways here .... reduce the amount of stuff you own.

Since Steve's death I have done two things to help our cluttered home become a place I can care for easily:

1. I donated great number of things to:

A. organizations I like .... various glbt non-profits, our local Pets are wonderful support organization, a free clinic I like a lot, and several other orgnizations. when I get a bag of clothes and a box of stuff .... I give it away. The receipts help me at tax time.

B. I do not have the energy to hold a garage sale and I live in the middle of nowhere. So I give stuff to friends to sell in their sales. I do not necessarily need the money from the sale of my stuff ... I need to get rid of the stuff. They have me over for dinner and we are even.

C. I have a corner of the office where I put things I no longer need. The "one year" rule is a good rule ... if no one in the family has used X in the past year it is time to donate it to someone who will love it. When the corner is full, give it away.

D. I hang my winter and then my summer clothes in my closet with the hangers backwards at first. At the end of the season, anything left on a backwards hangrer is donated away .... if I did not wear it this summer what makes me think I will wear it next summer? I get rid of it ... and have MUCH more decent closet space now.

E. For the good things, sentimental or just valuable monetarily ... such as a bit of Wedgewood or a Limoges box that Steve collected ... I keep them in a special box under the bed in my office. At birthdays and holiday giving occasions, I always look in the box BEFORE shopping. Often I can find a limoge box or a wedgewood piece or a ring or chain that makes a lovely gift for a brother, friend, niece, or nephew ... and the gift is more special because it had already been loved by Steve or me. Not "re-gifting" but giving away clutter of monetary value. Though it is always good to remember that your favorite charity can sell these types of items on Ebay and make money for their program. Several local non-profits have done so with several of Steve's treasures.

2. My most horrid clutter was paper. Now when I get the mail, I stand at the recycle bin ... anything that I do not desire to read right then is discarded for recycling. I do not need all the catalogues and magazines that Steve had ordered. I try to stop them from coming at all ... but that is amazingly difficult. Then the bills and important letters are placed on top of a black card board box in my office. when it is time to pay the bills, they are all there. I pay them online usually and then stick just the bill ... not the envelope and ads - in the black box. It is about 2.5 feet by 2 feet by 1 foot high. I have one for each year. So ALL my bills and important receipts etc from 2009 are all in one simple black box ... stored in my office. when I need something, I know where to start looking .... I am not organized enough to file everything away .... STeve was, I am not ... but the all for one year in one box system declutters my counters and makes the hunt MUCH easier.

So ... develop a place for donations; when you have load, get rid of it. If you have clutter with monetary or immense sentimental value, create a gift box and give the stuff away to loved ones. And go to Office Max or the Depot and purchase a few paper boxes to store all your papers for the year.

And use the backward hanger trick .... it works.

I am SO much happier now and can actually take care of my place by myself most months. The clutter melted away and I began to really enjoy giving stuff away ... a whole lot.

Good luck to you Wendy. this is not easy to start ... but the rewards are immense.

Richard said it perfectly. We just have too darn much "stuff". If someone came into my house and emptied it other than the furniture
I probably wouldn't miss a darn thing (otherr than photographs). In fact I would probably not even know some of it was gone. Since clothes are my downfall, I'm going to take Richard's advice and start giving more away. I do somewhat but not enough to keep up with the amount I buy.
I think you can have all the plastic bins you want, closet organizers, etc. but it is the amount of stuff we have that is the problem. I bet most stuff "organized" into plastic bins never get touched. I also like his idea of giving quality things as gifts. I too have a lot of china, crystal, pottery etc. passed down to me that never gets used. Someone else might as well enjoy it. I don't have time for garage sales. TOSS TOSS TOSS!!!

I would miss my family history stuff. My photos, books and music.
Other than that (including clothes), it could all go....

P

Family history- but people collect all sort of other mementos like ticket stubs, match boxes, candy wrappers, any wrap papers, receipts, glasses, clothing, rocks, sand, shells, dried leaves, etc to name a few
and most of all - toys toys toys that are associated with a person.

These are that take the most space and cause most of the clutter.
Photos and books are relatively easy to organize and shelve.

here's my library:

[img][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][/img]

Pardon for the mess- I was making a bit of cleaning up at the time in the other room.
btw I have two more bookshelves in the other room, too but not filled up yet.

Risa

Risa - what mess? Geez if that is the picture of a mess...I must live in a slum. Yikes! Only wish my house looked that clean....

All good advice you folks posted. My question is how do you develop the discipline to "toss"? That's my biggest problem with de-cluttering. I know what to do by apparently don't have the spine to take action.

Chris

toss any extra paper (shred or burn anything that has important stuff on it).

obviously for important stuff like financials and tax info put in folders, organize into banker boxes if you have the room.

scan other information if you have a scanner and put it onto a removable drive or CD. put in a safe spot.

Chris- if needed, have a friend or family member help you with the actual discarding part. Try the backwards hanger trick, but have someone else actually get rid of the clothes on those hangers sometime when you're not home. Try putting things you're thinking of getting rid of in a closet or basement, and just have someone you know and trust make the clutter disappear.

1. How to make yourself toss outg meaningless clutter? No way out but through, What I had to do at first is break it down ... I went thruough one drawer or I worked at triaging stuff for only one hour ... and I set the timer. It was a most unplesant chore at first. But after a few days, I LIKED a clean drawer and I LIKED a decluttered counter top. I really got into it. BUT at first I set small goals or short time limits and made myself do a little each day. It worked for me.

2. Children's toys. Carey had so many stuffed animals, it got out fo hand. I bought a huge rubber maid storage container. Carey and I went thru all her toys one afternoon when she was 9 or 10. We decided which should be donated, whcih kept in the box, and which discarded. She got into it and I had to slow down her giving away's ... she really got off on the idea of other children enjoying her toys ... poor kids in particular,

Why the box? Some animals were handp-made by family members. Some store bought critters had most pleasant associtions to Carey and/or to me., All these toys went into the box.

It was just the two of us for so many years. Too few presents under the tree to invoke those memories I had coming from a large family. But our Christmas trees now look full and are full of instant memories ... The Christmas Toys come out in December and are put one by one under the tree. It is so homey and I often caught Carey or Steve or I playing with some much loved toy during the holiday season. January 1st the toys go back into the box and into the shed.

This decision almost eliminated Carey's primary clutter PLUS we all look forward to the holidays and the advent of The Christmas Toys,

Richard - that is a fabulous idea!

I gave most of my toys to my mother (for future grandchildren to play with) but she brings them out when she has company that brings children. It gives the kids something to do while the adults talk. I did purge a lot of my toys and only kept the ones that really had meaning.

I also sort mail as it comes in. Junk goes straight into the recycling bin and the rest, I pile, look at and then discard when I'm through. It does help with the paper clutter. My worst is the plastic bags. I know I should take my cloth bags shopping with me but I never remember. So plastic it is and I have them everywhere! Suggestions on what to do with those suckers?

Wow Risa, we have similar units from IKEA. But if I took a picture it wouldnt look like that.

I am getting tough with myself. My big problem is, when I get the odd better day, I want out the door.....
The last thing I want to spend my 1 or 2 less painful days on is clearing clutter.
So I have to be really disciplined.....I figure with winter coming, it will be easier...

P

Pen, this is Ikea! This particular unit is Billy.

Only the better part of it was purchased years ago, while the top shelves w/ glass doors and tall units w/ glass doors
were added recently and are much lighter in color and also the door frames have different shape. But oh well what can we do. I can only hope they'll get at least darker with time.

As for getting rid of stuff we have - yes it's hard but doable.

The thing to realize is -we really, really DON'T need that. We really DON'T.
But some other people WILL be delighted using stuff we haven't touched in a year or so.

There is really no better way than to take it all out in one place and segregate into containers.
But do it at least TWICE. After the first purging, do it again.
Set yourself a goal to reduce the amount to a certain SIZE. Establish it in advance - say, a three boxes,
each of something.

Be unmerciful. I guarantee you, Chris, after a few months you won't even remember what you threw away

Risa - what mess?

lol- Thank you!! well, there are those white floor boards lying about by the bookshelves.
the rest of the mess was pushed away from the center precisely for the purpose of the picture taking

Risa

Pen, this is Ikea! This particular unit is Billy.

That's what we have, Billy LOL.
We have some with glass doors and some without.
We also have Expedit which is cubes. Quite good for the bedrooms for kids.

How fun we have the same. But yours look way tidier than mine.
And yes they changed the colours and the door shapes. Cant leave anything alone....
It's like Costco, when I find something I like, I need to buy a lot, because here in england, they bring stuff over, and it never returns....

Soon as I get my back sorted and a break from the extra "bug" migraines, I am going to hit the clear out in time for Christmas.
She said with confidence...

Yeah, they make something great and then they have to go and spoil it, ain't they, grrrr

We bought a few basics years ago when we couldn't afford all the pieces to fill this whole wall
and not all of the glass doors.
Meantime, I kept buying booksbooksbooks, and my collection grew.

After oh 6 years or so, we finally could spent the money on the remaining units and doors - and
of course they had to change everything so our particular color - the Birch one - doesn't match anymore,
not to mention the style allover

I have 2 Expedit horizontally hanged shelves in my bedroom, too
walnut color

Risa

We also have the birch, and dont the glass doors push the price up. Billys are cheap, but the doors....wow.
We have Expedit in white and also in black. I dont think we have walnut here, that would be cool.

What good taste we both have Risa....

lolol we sure do, don't we Pen

Years ago, all my furniture was white. Except for the sofa, which was sale item striped pale beige-y cream Bauhaus.
Then I got tired of white, and switched to darker colors,
but I couldn't handle very dark, so mostly birch is it.

Black leather couches (cheap).
Even my kitchen is in Ikea birch something, since discontinued a style (of course!).

yes the glass doors are expensive and that was the main reason it took so long to finish up the unit.
But I got tired of forever dusting, you know...

Risa

Tell me about it with the dusting.....
What a never ending chore.

You wont believe this Risa....we have black leather couches too....

Risa - Now that is nice!!! Doesn't take up space and looks good. I bet you have the books categorized also for easy finding. When you are that
good at organizing, you can keep what you have. If not, you miight as well donate or toss because you wouldn't' be able to find the book you wanted anyway if they were in piles. Good job!!

Why, thank you for kind words Estree,

but, no - I categorized them by size because this way I can create more shelving space.

Paperbacks are considerably smaller and require less space than tall hardcovers, and some of those art albums fare better laid flat, so even less space between shelves. In those wooden and cartoon container files
I store magazines and odd- shaped children books.

But yeah, you are right on spot Estree - it's my dream to have a library with books arranged alphabetically!

My only complain with these otherwise great shelving units is they have pre-established holes,
and this way you have limited options. So you can not arrange the shelves as ideally as is it for you.
But that's but a minor wrinkle that probably could be solved with putting an additional shelf in supported
on something.

One tip I've learned during years of collecting and arranging books on shelves
it's better to leave a bit more space above the books than set it so they match shelf top to bottom exactly,
otherwise it's a heck of a job trying to pull out one, especially if they are packed tight.

Risa