Organize, Cleanse, Minimize

Martha's color coordinated/idealistic notions of a closet.

Thanks to Marti's gentle prodding and being that many of you have plenty of time indoors--with the snowy/frigid weather--I thought it would be an ideal time to post about how to purge your home of the unnecessary and get things in order.

1. Decide what area/closet/room of your home gives you the itchiest hives (ie: locate the most horrendous mess).
2. Find an activity/babysitter/something to keep your little ones (if you have children) occupied.
3. You might laugh at this one but...make sure you have a yummy drink near by and/or snack. Let's face it: no project is fun when you have a hungry tummy.
4.Turn on some soothing yet happy music.
5. Empty out the contents of chosen closet or whatever area you are working on.
6. This is the hard part: decide what to keep and what to get rid of (either garbage or donation).

Subset of #6: How I decide if I need/don't need something:

• Clothing: If you haven't worn it in the past year...get it gone (unless it's maternity). I almost never miss the clothes I give away. I even give things away that I think are half way cute b/c they may not fit me right or they have some hole I've promised myself I would patch up (but never do). Be honest with yourself and if you are on the fence then give it away/throw it away.
• Papers/receipts/etc: We keep three years of our personal receipts/bills/and other information. So, anything before 2007 needs to be thrown away. For business I think you are supposed to keep it for 5-7yrs (tax purposes). Not sure on this one...don't quote me.
• Keepsakes: this is a tricky one. I personally have one medium/small box and one smaller sized plastic bin filled with baby, elementary, middle, high school, and college stuff. If you have four or five boxes worth of this kind of thing: GO THROUGH IT. Chances are you will laugh at 50% of what you've kept and throw it away. You don't need all the notes your best friend Tara wrote you in third grade!
• Children's items (clothing, toys, books): same as the above section on clothing. I have probably six outfits that I consistently put my kids in and the rest just sits in their closets. What a silly waste! As far as books go I get rid of any that are excessively damaged or sometimes I have doubles or even triples of things (from gifts, etc).

Okay, back to the original list (are you still with me?!):

7. Deep clean the area now that everything has been removed.
8. Determine what types of organizational items need to be purchased. I have one of these in almost every closet in our home. You may need to purchase a few file boxes or extra hangers. Whatever is necessary to make the space functional while still making wise use of the space.
Be creative with this (if you want to save money) and use a roll of contact paper to cover discarded boxes in the garage. Use what you have if you can.
9. Put items in the appropriate location. If I'm working on my craft/storage closet and I have a pair of Max's shoes in there then I obviously need to put them in Max's clothing closet. If I have oodles of craft paint in different places: Grab a small box or large zip lock and put them all together.
10. Place organizational items in their proper place and fill them with the pre-sorted/organized things.

PHEW! I'm exhausted just writing about it--Hope this helps :)
(Mart: This vaguely reminds me of Natalie and the tuna-can incident..."I could never do that?!" haha)