Monthly Archives: October 2018

There are 7 days in a week… 30 days in a month…

Some days are professional, others active, and a few loungy.  We have a hot season and a cold season.  So why are there 365 dress shirts in your closet?  Why are there 60 golf shirts?  Do you need 25 pair of jeans?  So you have a rainbow of colored pants, do you need three in each color?  100 pair of shoes?  I can live with that – it’s average.

The funniest question I have ever been asked is: “Can you make my space bigger?”  While I am good at working organizational magic, “bigger” is only accomplished with a contractor, a sledge hammer and new walls.  More efficient I can do.  Let’s start with a purgefest! 

Remember there are only 7 days in a week… 30 days in a month… and we do live in a century of washing machines and dry cleaners! 

Children need toys.  Children like kitchen toys.  My own kids found delight in playing with my plasticware, and pots & pans.  Kids just want to be where you are, Mom.  I organized a kitchen for a busy Mom who seemed to be preparing meals and snacks for her little ones, all day long.  Not fun with a toddler wrapped around your ankle.  We gave this cutie a drawer of his own.  His sippy cups, his bibs, his bowls, and even some snacks.  We also placed safe plasticware in a reachable drawer just his size. The unsafe gadgets and kitchenware are unreachable for the little ones.

It’s ok if the inside of the drawer is toddler messy… he is occupied and right next to Mom all day long.  Happy Kids… Happy Mom! 

Goofy Gadgets… the ones you purchased at a home party; the “as seen on TV” you couldn’t live without; the ones in your drawer you never use… but maybe someday will?  Clean out that gadget drawer in your kitchen.  Keep only the items you use daily/weekly and put the rest in a box in the garage for 6 weeks.   If you have to retrieve a gadget, it gets a home in your drawer… if not?  At the end of 6 weeks, say “good-bye.”

Oftentimes I enter a home and find a very small closet space where the door actually swings INTO the closet!  Who designs this stuff?  I measured one closet space to discover the door was actually larger than the wall on which it swung to!  This means lack of space and causes a real problem for storage.  Solution?  Remove the door!

The same is true for a “reach in” closet.  These make great spaces in home offices.  Again, if your shelves are tidy, add a pop of color and make this space part of your room.  Contain all the supplies and doodads in colorful and fun bins. Your personality will shine through and you will want to spend productive time in the room.

If you have a neat and tidy clothes closet and storage is a problem, remove the door.  Store the door in garage or make a craft/utility table out of it.  You will gain an extra wall in your closet and your closet will breathe with the open space. 

Recently I was tasked with a supply and copy room in an office building.  The manager wisely emptied out the entire room of all boxes, bins, piles and her employees sorted it out in a large empty room.  When it was my turn, I had a clean slate with which to work… shelves, cabinets, drawers.  I knew all the items in front of me were to be kept and it was a snap to put it all together in an organized fashion using drawer organizers and a label maker, I had the supply room looking pristine in no time. 

This method is perfect for anyone, anywhere.  Home, office, garage… empty, sort and organize.  Always better to start with a clean slate.