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Gayle Goddard will address the Seabrook United Methodist Church Women’s Group. The topic of her presentation will be “The Five Most Common Organizing Mistakes.”

Seabrook United Methodist Church
David and Mable White Senior Citizens Center
1102 Meyer Road
Seabrook, Texas 77586

She often recommends me to people who need help getting organized, and she shared with me how she describes the process. “I tell people that you’re very respectful of their stuff. You always ask if you may throw things away, or whether they’re okay with where you want to move something.”

What Jan said made me think about how people seem to be afraid that I’m going to show up and throw all their stuff away. They act as if giving me permission to work on their projects signs over an irrevocable, non-negotiable right to pitch anything I want, no matter what they might wish.

I guess that idea comes from watching too much Style network. When you sign up for a “reality” television show like Clean House or Clean Sweep, you get a lot, but you also give up a lot. The producers bring loads of free furniture and free decorating, but you don’t have much input, and you can be sure they’re coming for your collections to put in the yard sale. But the process that makes for a successful and entertaining show is not much like the organizing process in real life.

I tell my clients all the time: I don’t care what you keep, it really doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to point out what you already know—you own more than can fit in your space. I’ll help you make tough decisions about what to keep and what to divest, but I’ll do it based on what’s important to you, not what’s important to me. First I have to figure out your goals for the space, and then we can begin the work of deciding what you’ll keep and what you no longer want or need.

In other words, you invite me in, and I behave like a house guest. Throughout the process, everything I do is with your permission. I may push you or challenge you, but I’m doing it to find out what you value. I encourage you to justify keeping something by making your case to me first. I’ll call you on your lame excuses for keeping things that are no longer useful. But don’t misunderstand my goal. It’s not to steal away as much of your stuff as I can, it’s to make sure you’re keeping only what you really want. It’s helping you fit in your house again.

So when I show up, you’re not on HGTV. I won’t redecorate your whole house over the weekend. I’ll help you get clear about what you want in your life, and we’ll use that as a guide for choosing the stuff that deserves to share your space. With your permission. 

PROGRAM NOTES

Your bathroom is a very private place. Besides using it for the obvious reasons, you start every day there, getting showered, shaved, and coifed for the day. Later, you go back to get ready for bed. You spend a lot of time there, but most visitors to your home don’t. They use the other bathroom—the public one, or the one the kids use. That means your bathroom is your very own place to treat as you wish.

Here’s the problem: if a space in your house isn’t seen by the public, then it tends to get neglected. I’m always surprised that we’re motivated to clean a room when others will see it, but we have no energy for the spaces we use the most often. And we’re the ones who have to live with the mess every day, not our guests!

Bathrooms collect a certain kind of junk. More than any other room in the house, there’s a class of products that belong uniquely to this space. Body washes and hair gels, medications and first‑aid products—they collect under the sink and in the cabinets, and before you know it you’re drowning in bottles and jars. We buy way more products than we need because they smell good, and what’s one more bottle under the sink? But we can only use those products so fast, and if you’re buying faster than you’re using, you end up with exploding cabinets in the bathroom.

Bath products lure you to buy with the promise of peace and tranquility in a relaxing bath. But all those bottles and jars falling out of the cabinet certainly don’t deliver that experience. Instead, let’s thin out the contents and clean up the bathroom. Then you can really have a peaceful sanctuary each day.

Here are some ideas for reclaiming your bathroom:

Organize the bathroom as quickly as you can say, “Calgon, take me away!”

1. Acknowledge your product habit! Bath products are a cheap and easy indulgence. But it would take years to use the products you have right now! So stop buying bath products just because they’re a good deal. See how long it takes you to use up what you have. I bought eight Bath & Body Works products on sale 2½ years ago. I’m down to three now. That’s a bottle every six months. How many years’ worth of products are in your cabinet right now?
2. Time to thin the herd. You’ve tried tons of products that you didn’t like, but they’re still in the cabinet. Time to pass those on to someone else or throw them out. If the product is very old, it may no longer be safe to use.
3. All medicine cabinets need help. First, you’ve kept those meds way too long. Anything expired needs to go. Second, those little shelves can barely hold anything. Trying to stand everything up on those shelves guarantees it will all fall on your head. Find some narrow open containers to sit on the shelf to hold all the little doodads and tiny bottles that belong there.
4. Linen cabinets hold more than linens. Use the same container strategies in the linen cabinet that you use elsewhere in the house. Stacking boxes and slide-out drawers and trays will help control the contents you decide to keep. This is a great place for a lazy susan product, too. A two-tier lazy susan holds a lot of aspirin and cold medicine bottles.

Use a kitchen timer to limit the scope of an intimidating organizing task.

Break down your organizing project into finite, measurable chunks. Let’s say you have a room that’s spilling over with junk. Instead of setting a goal of clearing out the whole space, break off a manageable piece. For example, take a garbage bag and wander through your space picking up 10 things that you’re willing to throw away. Put the bag in the garbage can. Pat yourself on the back for making a start!

Or grab an empty cardboard box, and gather 10 items that you’re ready to donate to a thrift store or put in a garage sale. If you’re making a donation, take the box straight to the car so you can drop it off the next time you run errands. If you’re planning a garage sale, place the box in the space you’ve set aside for storing items until the day of the sale arrives. You’ve made progress! And maybe you can fill another box tomorrow, or the day after that.

Here’s another trick for those of you who find organizing work intimidating: use a kitchen timer to limit the scope of your organizing task. This tip comes from a friend whose motto is, “I can stand to do anything for 25 minutes!” Set the timer—preferably one that makes an audible tick to remind you that you’re working against a deadline—and then get to work on the task. You can gather the mail into one place for sorting, pick up all the toys off the floor of the kids’ room, or work on whatever job is demanding your attention. You’ll be surprised how quickly the time goes by. When you hear the chime that sets you free, stop and be proud of what you’ve accomplished!

If 25 minutes is more than you can handle, pick a threshold that works for you. Try 10 minutes, or five, or two. If you get through that time okay today, try adding a few more minutes tomorrow. You’ll be astonished by how much you can get done in those few minutes each day. You’ll be even more surprised to find yourself cultivating an organizing habit along the way. And your reward for sticking to it? Your space will be a lot less cluttered than it was when you started out. 

PROGRAM NOTES

Our bedroom is our sanctuary. It’s where we go to sleep and get restorative rest. It’s where we go for naps—when we can spare the time for one! It’s where we share intimate moments with our partners.

Clutter can put a damper on everything that takes place in your house, especially in your inner sanctum. It creates a bunch of negative noise in your mind, and all that racket prevents restful sleep.

I once worked for a tall young man who piled all his clothes—clean and dirty—on the bed. When he was ready for bed, he slept crosswise on the bed with his legs hanging off the end and his feet on the floor. And he wondered why he was getting such terrible sleep! I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t move stuff even to sleep! But it was a perfect example of what people are willing to accept when they are overwhelmed.

What to do in the bedroom to create your perfect sanctuary? Here are some ideas:

1. Clear the floor so there’s a clean path to the bed. And not just by piling the stuff from the floor on the bed or other furniture!
2. More than any other room in the house, this is the room where you must minimize distractions.
   1. Keep only the furniture that you really need in there—don’t add spare items to this room. The less there is, the less junky it will feel, and the less furniture there is to pile up with stuff.
   2. If you can manage it, leave the TV outside the bedroom. It may help you fall asleep, but it’s also going to wake you up again later.
   3. Spend the three minutes it’ll take to hang up or put away the clothes you wore today. We all want to come home and quickly change to at-home attire, and the nice day clothes tend to end up in a pile somewhere. If you spend a moment hanging up just those clothes, at least there will be less to trip over on the floor.

Your bedroom should be a sanctuary.
3. Don’t use your bedroom as a storage or junk room. Your sanctuary is not the place for hiding stuff from public view.
   1. If you’ve run out of space elsewhere, it’s time to start sorting and purging those spaces. It’s not time to expand storage into the bedroom.
   2. Don’t let yourself hide stuff in the bedroom “just for the party.” It’ll never come out again!
4. Spend a weekend cleaning up the master bedroom closet. Most of the clutter I find in a bedroom is the direct result of the closet being unusable. The minute it gets hard putting things away, that process stops, and the piles on the floor start to grow. Sure enough, soon after the closet get out of control, you can’t get near it to use it at all.
   1. That means sorting and purging the clothes! If you have more clothes than will fit in the closet, you will never have a functional closet. You need to be able to hang up your clothes with some wiggle room to spare, or the closet doesn’t work.
   2. If you have the cash to spend, this is a good home upgrade that directly improves your life. From custom-built closets to Elfa shelves from the Container Store, it’s money well spent if you can improve the functioning of the closet every day.

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.

Bonnie Peterson, host of blogtalkradio’s Wise Women Do radio show, interviews Gayle Goddard about tools to get organized for tax filing and beyond. (Please allow a few moments for the audio player to load.)

This introductory classroom session will give you the tips and tricks you need to move past being overwhelmed and start clearing out your “stuff.” You will learn the secrets of sorting mail, clearing and organizing your desk, cleaning out your closets, and divesting yourself of unused, unneeded items. You’ll leave the workshop with loads of organizing ideas to transform any space into a productive, pleasant, clutter-free zone.

NiaMoves Studio 1
508 Pecore St.
Houston, Texas 77009
713-864-4260
Price: $45 early registration (by January 31).
$55 late registration or at the door.

Register online now.

We encourage you to register in advance so we can plan materials and refreshments for you. For more information, send e-mail to The Clutter Fairy or call 713‑816‑9505.

The University of Houston Small Business Development Center, in association with the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) Houston chapter, presents “Fusion Friday: Get Organized for 2010.”

UH Small Business Development Center
2302 Fannin, Suite 200
Houston, Texas 77002

FREE! Register online now.

Mingle with some of Houston’s brightest entrepreneurs, attend special mini workshops led by NAPO Houston organizers, enjoy breakfast, meet your SBDC friends, and have the opportunity to win fabulous door prizes! You will also receive a special gift from the UH SBDC!

This event is free, but registration is required.

Breakfast and networking: 7:30-9:30 a.m.
Mini workshops: 9:45-11:00 a.m.

• Using Your Mobile Device to Get Organized
• 18 Tips for Getting Organized in 2010

Seating for the two workshops is on a first-come, first-served basis. Your registration for the Fusion Friday event does not guarantee your seat in the workshops.

Please note: Satisfactory meeting room temperatures are difficult to maintain. We recommend that you bring a sweater or jacket to ensure your comfort.

I’ve been working with an older woman, the mother of a friend. She’s in her seventies and has Parkinson’s disease. The illness went undiagnosed for a while, and the condition has been hard on mother and daughter alike. I’d say that this doesn’t have much to do with me, except that I’ve been sorting through the mother’s things so the daughter can better manage her mom’s care. And I can’t help but notice and be touched by the special circumstances this situation creates.

As we go through the mother’s things, I’ve been struck by the indignity of the process for her. I try to let her decide what to keep and what to give away, but the truth is that she’s lost most of the ability to make those decisions. That makes the work I do an exercise in balancing respect for the mother and the needs of the daughter in organizing what remains of her mother’s life.

Normally, when I work with clients, I help them make decisions about their personal belongings. I encourage them to keep what’s important to them in their present lives and to let go of what no longer serves them. The work we do together is an active partnership. But my friend’s mom isn’t able to work with me in making those decisions. She can’t actively participate in this aspect of her life, and I can tell that she feels as if she’s giving up more than she’d like.

As an act of defiance against her circumstances, she hides things from me. Before my last visit, she told someone, “Gayle’s coming, I’ve got to start hiding things.” It’s her last stand against losing control of her life, and that makes me sad. It makes me wish I could have helped her earlier, when she could still make decisions about what to keep and what to surrender.

So here’s the lesson for all of us: Make your own choices about your stuff while you can still consciously choose. Don’t wait until those choices are taken away by declining health. Ask for help now, so you can make decisions with your dignity intact. That’s what it’s all about, really. Respect yourself enough to make your own choices. I want to help you with that.

Mike Iscovitz, co-host of Morning News Extra, interviews Gayle Goddard about common organizing mistakes.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009
11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Gayle Goddard will be the featured speaker for the December lunch meeting of the Henrietta Szold group of the Houston Chapter of Hadassah. Gayle will offer a lighthearted look at the five most common mistakes people make when they undertake the process of getting organized.

Gayle Goddard will be the featured speaker for the Lunch & Learn Series at The Path of Tea. Gayle offers a lighthearted look at the five most common mistakes people make when they undertake the process of getting organized.

The Path of Tea
2340 W. Alabama St.
Houston, TX 77098
Phone: 713-252-4473

Carry in a take-out lunch from any of the wonderful restaurants nearby, or bring your own brown bag meal. Relax with a refreshing pot of tea from The Path of Tea’s unrivaled selection of organic teas, and take away practical ideas for getting your “stuff” in order. Gayle offers ideas, inspiration, support, and a healthy serving of laughter.

This event is FREE and open to the public. No RSVP is required.

Does the thought of organizing your e-mail give you the willies? Is your inbox up to 800 items yet? You need some strategies to “file” your paperless data, just as you used to file your paper. You have to be able to find electronic data when you need it. We will talk through some great ideas to help you organize your data so you can retrieve vital data when you want it.

Spectrum Center
4100 Westheimer, Suite 233
Houston, Texas 77027
713-840-8957