I am by no means a professional organizer, but I find it mentally relaxing, a way to de-stress or if I a having a mental block, I will organize an area and thoughts start coming. We just finished part of our basement and the unfinished area… the area that no one can see… Well, that appeared to be a scene from the show Hoarders. I stuffed and crammed everything that was not being used in there. My first thought was, shut the doors, if I can’t see it then it doesn’t exist… right? Well, that worked for a month then that much un-organized clutter was not good for my vibe.
Second thought, where do I start? Everyone has different workflows, but this is what has always worked for me, no matter the size of the project.
1. Start Small, unpack or organize 2 boxes. We all know what happens when you open one box or two boxes… a snowball of empty boxes and a nice workflow. I started the basement wanting to utilize our first piece of furniture as a married couple, a cherry TV stand. The wood stain no longer matches the basement industrial look but I’m not ready to part with it, so I removed all the DVD and VCR Tapes (Yes, we still have VCR tapes that we haven’t watched in 10 plus year but baby steps, again not ready to part with them) stored those in any designated area. Cleaned up the TV Stand, found a perfect location in the corner & knew exactly what I wanted to store in the TV Stand. Those two boxes turned into 5 boxes, 1 TV Stand and 1 small shelving unit.
2. Piles, I make three piles: Trash, donate and keep. Trash pile speaks for itself. The trick to a donation pile, pack it up in a box, place it in your vehicle and drop it off at a thrift store ASAP. And don’t put it in your truck or back seat, place it on the front seat so you can see it, get annoyed looking at it and drop it off. Crazy random fact, the Goodwill Store in Millersburg has a shortage of items, so they have to purchase items from other Goodwill Stores to stock their shelves. The items you choose to keep, organize those items. Benjamin Franklin (kind of a smart guy) said “A place for everything, everything in its place.”
3. Maintained, work is done, easier to keep it organized than to go through that process again. Well, we all live in the real world and that doesn’t always happen or at least it doesn’t for me (#lifegoal). I do tend to try to tidy up a different area or space every morning, it helps me start the day off right.
Good Luck with your next project and just remember, start small. If you are working and start to feel overwhelmed or you are just shuffling boxes, take a break, walk the dog, grab a drink, just do something else for 30 minutes and go back to it. Finish what you started before moving on to the next project.
Have a great day and don’t forget to share your smile,
Tina Owens,
Broker, Owner
REALTOR
ABR, SRES
Owens Real Estate Firm
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