Spring Cleaning: Clear the Clutter and Get Organized

Quick--name the most unorganized area of your home. Can you limit it to only one area or can you name several?

With spring officially here, I always get the itch to clean and straighten up my home. This year, I had some help in getting things fresh for warmer weather from Kristi Pelzel, a Kansas City mom and owner of The Organization People. Together with Donna, another member of The Organization People team, we were able to transform my closet in just about four hours! You can also experience the a newly organized space! Enter to win a $500 Package from The Organization People in our Messy Room Contest.

Confession time…I like to be in control. In some situations, this serves me well, and in others, it can be a hindrance. I was a bit apprehensive at first at having someone come into my personal space and tell me what to do. Kristi’s services begin with a consultation at your home, and after a short while, she put me at ease and I knew I could do this. In anticipation of her visit, I had been thinking about the area of my home I considered most unorganized. Because I have never really made an effort to organize my closet (and the size 4 clothes hanging there testified to my long neglect of it), I thought it would be the logical target for organization.

During the consultation, Kristi, Donna and I spent a good amount of time in the closet. Kristi had a lot of great ideas on things we could do to make the closet more appealing and much better organized. One thing I appreciated was the fact that Kristi really likes to use things you already have to organize so that you aren’t spending a lot of money on supplies. She noticed I had a lot of bins around my house and suggested I combine some of the bins together so I could use some in my closet.

Following the consultation, Kristi emailed me a detailed plan of organization, including several options on supplies needed, cost and where I could purchase the items. Supplies purchased, I was armed and ready to tackle the closet! The first thing we did was take out every single item from the closet. Wow! I had a LOT of stuff in there! While Kristi and Donna removed items, I went through the mountain and sorted items into three stacks: keep, donate or pitch. It was extremely helpful having Kristi and Donna with me. Had I attempted this on my own, I would have hit several snags and would have never finished in just one day. When I came to a stack of old birthday cards, they encouraged me to get through them quickly. On my own, I could have easily spent an hour looking at just the cards. After they had emptied and cleaned the closet, they began to take my sorted piles and place them back in the closet, in a much more attractive and user-friendly manner. I purposefully stayed out of the closet while they placed everything back in so I could see everything in its place. I’m glad I did. When I finally went into the closet, I was amazed. It looked fabulous, and everything was so nicely organized! All of my flip flops were together, and my scarves were all in one place. All of Ty’s concert t-shirts finally had a home—pure bliss! It looks so nice, I may just move in.

For more information on The Organization People, visit www.TheOrganizationPeople.com or www.KCOrganizationPeople.com or call 913.547.2979.

Below, Kristi shares her top five tips to help you get a start organizing your home.

Top 5 Universal Organization Tips

• Organizing can be stressful when you are faced with multiple areas that need it and you look at your project as a big mountain. Instead, break the projects down into smaller parts. Prioritize the areas by importance. Write things down or talk them out with someone. Try asking yourself questions like “Which area is the most stressful to me?”, “What area would most increase my motivation and energy level if I organized it first?” This will help break down your project into manageable pieces so that you can identify a starting point and ending point.
• The first thing that most people want to do when they are organizing an area is to start by assigning places for things. That’s actually the last thing you want to do in the organization process. When starting the project, first identify the function(s) of the room. Look around and create a list. The same method can be used for organizing paper. For example, when you organize your kitchen, your list might include cooking, eating and opening mail. Examples of a paper organization might include home finances: monthly bills, appliance manuals and mortgage statements. What you are doing is defining exactly what belongs in an area or place to make it simple and functional. 
• The next step ties into the previous. Now it’s time to remove all of the items from the area you are organizing that do not belong. If you have written in your list that the function of your kitchen was for cooking, eating and opening mail, a vacuum and toys in the room would need to go. They do not support the function of that room. Go around the room and start removing things from the room that can be trashed, donated, recycled, given away to someone you know or stored in another area of the house. 
• At some point you should be looking at a room that contains only those items that are going to support the function of that room. This is going to create a more simplistic space that has well defined functions. It should be easier to clean and easier to maintain. But don’t start putting things away yet! Take this opportunity to give the area a good cleaning before you put things away. 
• Now you are ready to take the things that do belong and start creating stations. To accomplish this, keep like things together. Bread products should be with bread products. Find a basket for the mail and always place it there. If you’d like to get creative, take a fancy mixing bowl and use it as a kitchen inbox. All of the coffee products can be near the coffee pot. By keeping like with like, you are setting yourself up for easy future clean ups and less chance that things get tossed where they don’t belong.