PROGRAM NOTES

If you’ve made progress clearing paper piles in March, then cleaning up your home office is a great next step, because it’s not just the papers in the office that are out of control—the supplies and the equipment are, too! Removing the paper from the desktop and other surfaces uncovers what’s buried beneath. Now it’s time to deal with the rest of the office.

Here’s a strategy for putting your office area in order.

1. Collect the materials you’ll need to get started: a few sorting boxes, plus a trash can—and a recycling bin if you want. Mark the sorting boxes as follows: Relocate, Trash, File, Office Supplies & Equipment.
2. Sort everything in the room into one of those bins. Clear off the desk, the floor, clear out the bookcases and any chairs. You want to uncover every surface and empty every cabinet or shelf in the office.
   1. Relocate—This is where you put things that ended up in the office but are not really office items, like dishes, newspapers, or things from the bathroom. When sorting is done, carry these things out of the office to the appropriate room.
   2. Trash—This box is for the obvious things. When sorting is done, it goes out to the trash!
   3. File—Use this box for all the paper you need to keep. Hopefully, you’ve already filed everything from the previous project, but you may find some hidden items as you go through the office. If you do, file them away in your newly organized files.
   4. Office Supplies & Equipment—For your stapler, ruler, Post-Its, and paper clips. Don’t keep multiples! The goal is to pare down the supplies to a usable amount and stop trying to make space for supplies you’ll never use up. Plenty of teachers in the world need supplies, so donate them instead!

The home office: productive workspace or no man’s land?
3. Move the furniture around now. Once you’ve cleared off the surfaces, you can rearrange the furniture again so it’s more functional. Things were probably slowly added to the room over time, and the arrangement maybe be a hodge-podge. Now’s the time to work out the room layout that best supports your work:
   1. The phone should be within reach when you sit at the desk.
   2. Make sure you can reach your active files from the chair as well. That means using one or two desk file drawers. Other files can be behind you or to the side in a filing cabinet or armoire.
   3. Reference materials can be in bookcases across the room.
   4. Excess office supplies can be in a closet or armoire, in bins on bookcases, or in cabinets.
4. Re-dress the desk with only the things that you use almost every day. The rest can go in drawers or on shelves, etc.
   1. Only a few supplies need to be on the desktop. The rest can be in the desk drawers or in bins on shelves or cabinets. Use this guide—do you need it every day? If yes, better put it on top. If it’s not used every day, then put it away.
   2. Same rule with equipment—plug in the electric pencil sharpener, adding machine, and CD player somewhere away from the desk. For as little as they get used, they don’t need a space on the desk, and that gets some of the cords out from under your feet.
   3. Feel free to put out some décor items, but don’t crowd the desktop with them. You need that space to work, and a clear space is the answer. Place decorations on other surfaces within sight instead of on the desk.

The Clutter Fairy gets lots of questions about shredding. Where can I get it done? How much does it cost? Do I know of a free shred day? It used to be that the only people who cared about shredding documents were large law firms. Now everyone wants to destroy sensitive paperwork as protection against identity theft—a new security threat that comes with living in the Information Age. A shredding industry has grown up to handle the needs of big businesses, but how are ordinary consumers and small businesses supposed to tackle a big paper pile problem?

NAPO Houston (of which The Clutter Fairy is a member) has a corporate partner in the shredding business: Southern Shred. Like other shredding companies, Southern Shred offers pickup or on‑site destruction of secure documents either on a regular schedule or as a one-time service. But Southern Shred also looks out for customers who don’t need that level of service by offering convenient satellite drop‑off sites.

These are secure drop boxes at locations all around the Greater Houston area where you can take your documents and deposit them in a locked container for a fee. The going rate was $1 per pound at all the locations we surveyed. When the drop box is full, Southern Shred sends one of its state-of-the-art mobile shredding trucks to the location to shred the contents.

The satellite locations provide a perfect solution when you’re purging the filing cabinet, emptying a lifetime of records from a parent’s home, or getting ready for a move. Instead of feeding those stacks of paper into your home shredder five or six at a time until the motor burns out, take them to a Southern Shred drop‑off location, pay a modest fee, and voilà!—your problem is solved quickly and securely. I plan to recommend this convenient, valuable service to all my home-office organizing clients.

Southern Shred operates 20 satellite locations around town. The Google map of Southern Shred drop‑off sites is complete with business names, addresses, and phone numbers. Take advantage of this great service, and make your nagging pile of sensitive documents go away today!

Gayle Goddard facilitates the monthly meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group.

At the April meetup, we’ll follow up on the project we introduced in March: “The Home Office: Productive Workspace or No Man’s Land?” Come tell the group about your progress and we’ll share hints about how to keep rolling.

The garage is also a place to park your car.

We’ll also introduce our focus for May: “The Garage Is Also a Place to Park Your Car.” We’re heading into prime garage sale season, so now is the time to move the junk out and the car in and give yourself a bonus of some vacation cash. We’ll talk about how garages become the storage space of last refuge and graveyard of deferred decisions—and what you can do to change that.

As usual, we’ll also open the floor to your questions, success stories, and tales of trouble spots. And don’t forget the drawing for a door prize or two! (You must be present to win.)

SPECIAL NOTE: Our April meeting will be on the FIFTH Thursday of April instead of our regularly scheduled fourth Thursday.

Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research
(Carriage House)
5300 Caroline
Houston, TX 77030
832-393-2600

FREE and open to the public.

RSVP by visiting the Meetup page or by sending us e‑mail.

The Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group is a community of people who want to conquer their clutter and make more room in their lives for the things they love. Come learn tools and tips from an expert, and share your success stories and “ah‑hah!” moments…[READ MORE]

This program is not sponsored or endorsed by Houston Public Library.

If you have a special physical or communications need that may impact your participation in this activity, please contact Gayle Goddard at 713‑816‑9505 at least 72 hours prior to the event to discuss accommodations. We cannot ensure the availability of appropriate accommodations without prior notification of need.

Kim Jordan, host of The Ask Kim Jordan Show, interviews Gayle Goddard about organizing products for the closet and home office. Check out the Pods from Neat Containers, a great way to store shoes, purses, and accessories in the closet. We also look at an expanding file container that’s perfect for storing your tax paperwork.

Gayle Goddard facilitates the monthly meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group.

At the March meetup we’ll follow up on the project we introduced in February: “Purging Paper Piles: Getting Yourself Ready for Tax Season.” Come tell the group about your progress and we’ll share hints about how to keep rolling.

The home office: productive workspace or no man’s land?

We’ll also introduce our focus for April: “The Home Office: Productive Workspace or No Man’s Land?” If you’ve made progress clearing paper piles, then cleaning up your home office is a great next step! We’ll talk about how to streamline your files, manage the desktop, maybe rethink your furniture placement. Or do you need to create a filing system from scratch? We’ll take a fearless look inside the home office.

[See the Program Notes for this meetup.]

As usual, we’ll also open the floor to your questions, success stories, and tales of trouble spots. And don’t forget the drawing for a door prize or two! (You must be present to win.)

Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research
(Carriage House)
5300 Caroline
Houston, TX 77030
832-393-2600

FREE and open to the public.

RSVP by visiting the Meetup page or by sending us e‑mail.

The Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group is a community of people who want to conquer their clutter and make more room in their lives for the things they love. Come learn tools and tips from an expert, and share your success stories and “ah‑hah!” moments…[READ MORE]

This program is not sponsored or endorsed by Houston Public Library.

If you have a special physical or communications need that may impact your participation in this activity, please contact Gayle Goddard at 713‑816‑9505 at least 72 hours prior to the event to discuss accommodations. We cannot ensure the availability of appropriate accommodations without prior notification of need.

How are you doing so far on the New Year’s resolutions? I get the impression that at this time of year, we’re all trying to become better, more-together versions of ourselves. We believe somehow that all we have to do is draw a line in the sand—“starting January 1”—and a better person will emerge all of a sudden. I think that one reason people don’t accomplish their resolutions is that expecting monumental, fundamental changes in yourself just because you’ve started using a new calendar is not a recipe for success.

“Get organized” is a popular New Year’s resolution. Having let their spaces dissolve into disaster areas over the holidays, people wake up with a hangover on January 1, walk around with coffee in hand, and say, “I have GOT to get this place organized!” It’s certainly a laudable goal, but it’s too broad a mandate to be useful as a resolution. The objective doesn’t contain the steps you’ll need to get there.

The best way to accomplish any job is to take it step by step. So if “get organized” is on your list for 2009, I propose that you apply a step-by-step approach. Instead of a New Year’s resolution, how about creating “new month resolutions” this year instead? Break out the steps it’ll take to get your space organized, and set each step as a monthly goal. A month’s worth of organizing is manageable, and more likely to actually get accomplished! Stick to all—or even just most—of your new month resolutions, and by the end of the year, your place will be in great shape. Your resolution to get organized will be achieved.

Want some help breaking it down? Here’s a template you can modify to your specific situation.

The Clutter Fairy’s 2009 New Month Resolutions

• January: Handle the mail. The most basic headache that afflicts all households is incoming mail. Ignoring it creates piles that multiply every day as the new mail comes. Without systems to handle mail, you’re guaranteed to find yourself buried under piles in short order. Spend January creating and refining your customized process for handling the mail and preventing piles instead of creating them. Then you’ll have no piles to deal with in 2009!
• February: Clear out the closets. The dead of winter is a perfect time to dig through your closets. You’re looking for those coats, hats and gloves anyway, so why not sort through everything now? Get rid of the clothes that don’t fit or that you haven’t worn during the year, throw out shoes that look the worse for wear, and put things back in an organized way.
• March: Tackle those paper piles. The tax-filing deadline is six weeks away, so why not spend March sorting out all the paper in your home office (and elsewhere!) so you’ll be ready to prepare your tax return. Go through any neglected stacks of mail and paper around the house, sorting and throwing out as you go. File away what you need to keep, including the items that support your tax return.
• April: Organize the home office. Since you just finished clearing all the paper piles, the majority of which were probably in your office, wrapping up your home office should be a breeze! Now’s the time to go through the existing files and throw out outdated material, rearrange the desktop and its contents, maybe try a new arrangement of the furniture. Perhaps you need to create a filing system because you don’t have one! Whatever it’ll take to make the office more functional and efficient, that’s your resolution for this month.
• May: Deal with the garage. Just in time for garage sale season! If you can’t park at least one car in the garage, you have too much stuff in there, and you’re probably just postponing giving it away. Empty out the garage and have a garage sale at the end of the month. This project has the bonus of generating some vacation cash for you.
• June: Clean up the master bedroom. Where do you spend one third of your life? In your bedroom, of course. You cleaned the closet in February, so now you can tackle the room itself. Consider the amount and size of the furniture compared to the size of the room, and get rid of things that don’t fit the space well. Create a floor plan with space to move around in and a way to contain all the objects that need to be in your inner sanctum.
• July: Sort out the bathrooms. Tried 42 different hair products during the year? Bathrooms usually have a small amount of storage that’s quickly filled up. Go through all the storage in the bathrooms, sort, purge, and reorganize what you really need to keep. Toiletries are a great donation to homeless shelters and other similar facilities.
• August: Dive into the kitchen next. You’ve tried another year’s worth of recipes, and it’s time to go through the fridge and pantry again. The only way to know what you have is to organize the cabinets and closets in the kitchen. Now you can finally try those recipes you forgot you bought ingredients for!
• September: Dump the storage unit. Now that the weather is not so steamy hot, you can get into your storage unit and clear it out! You cleaned up your garage, so maybe you don’t even need a storage unit anymore. Most of that stuff can go away—I promise—and what you want to keep might now fit in the garage. Do yourself a favor—get rid of that monthly fee.
• October: Organize the decorations. Fall is the season when all the decorating starts up. First Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas—each with its own set of decorations to put up and take down. Since you have to get them out anyway, why not sort, purge, and store them together? Then it will be easy to take down Halloween, store it, and pull out the stuff for Thanksgiving, and so on. Put the decorations in an out-of-the-way place, so when the season is over, they can hide away until next year.
• November: Prepare the guest/multipurpose room. Guests are coming any day now. This is the perfect time to get into that multipurpose room that’s part guest room and part craft room, or part office and part junk room. Clear out the year’s worth of accumulated stuff and create an inviting space for your guests, with room to hang up or put away clothes and a place to store the luggage.
• December: Stage the kids’ rooms. The kids are about to get a fresh crop of gifts, so why not make room by getting rid of some old ones? You’ll be just in time to donate items to a Toys-for-Tots campaign. Besides, the kids are out of school for three weeks, so it’s a great time to teach them about being organized, too. What they learn now about getting organized will serve them all their lives.