Jill Katz

One to Zen Organizing

December 30, 2020

Why does the Holiday Season bring smiles to our faces? For many it’s the lights decorating the houses or the familiar sight of our children’s holiday decorations. For others it’s the sound of holiday tunes. Some folks sigh contentedly at the smell of gingerbread cookies or latkes sizzling in a frying pan. And let’s not forget the crinkle of gift-wrap beneath our fingers. What do these have in common? They are all pleasant sensory experiences.

Sensory experiences have the power to “make or break” us in our daily lives. Clients overwhelmed by visual clutter from piles of papers or a kitchen mess is what keeps me -- a Professional Organizer -- in business. When I reduce the visual clutter and tame it into an organized system, my clients feel calm in their space. But what most people don’t consider is the power of our other senses to also create clutter or calm in our lives.

Smell

We don’t often think about it, but smell has a big impact on our mood. Have you ever entered a space with an offending odor? It’s impossible to focus on anything but that smell. The problem is that as time goes on, the smell fades to the background even as it’s still affecting our health and productivity. So be sure to regularly go through your living and working spaces to take stock of any negative scents. Once the negative scents are remediated, consider what uplifting scents you might want to add to your space. For example, I love the fresh smell of lavender! I work with a diffuser in the background that I fill with natural oils; I can choose different ones to clear my sinuses, destress me, or energize me. On the other hand, a friend of mine gets headaches from any scents and prefers a neutral-scent environment.

Sound

The sounds that enter our space can also cause us to feel chaos or focus. For those of us who need complete quiet in order to reach peak productivity, noise-cancelling headphones might be helpful. Others, particularly those with ADHD, need a steady flow of background noise or music to get work done. In her latest book, “How to Do It Now Because It’s Not Going Away,” Leslie Josel recommends that students make a “Homework Playlist” that will both “drown out distracting sounds around you” and “get your adrenaline going to get motivated.” I know that my environment feels less overwhelming when I have Carole King on in the background.

Touch

Touch is omnipresent. Our body is bombarded by so many tactile sensations that we tend to block out most of them. That doesn’t mean they are not affecting us. A 2013 article in Psychology Today cites several studies that reveal how textures and tactile experiences affect our emotions and judgements. According to interior decorator Samara Goodman of Samara Interiors, “touch is an important sense to consider when decorating, and thoughtfully layering the textures in home décor can induce calm. Using a variety of complementary textures will add balance to a room. Consider the contrast between a smooth (yet soft) sofa, plush velvet pillows, faux fur blanket, and an open-weave metal coffee table.”

Proprioception: The Sixth Sense

Proprioception, often referred to as the “sixth sense,” refers to body awareness and is closely related to position, pressure, and balance. Too much input and we are overstimulated; too little input and we lose touch with our environment and lose focus. I became aware of this “sixth sense” when one of my daughters was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and ultimately ADHD. When she was little, we would roll her up in a blanket like a burrito to give her more stimulation. We would set up a little tent in the basement where she could retreat when she was overstimulated. Now she uses hand fidgets or chews gum for more stimulation. If you feel like you are fading away or losing focus, you can stimulate your proprioceptive sense by applying pressure to your body. The same deep pressure can also recalibrate your input level, thereby creating a sense of calm with your environment.

Personal Preferences

We each have our own relationships with sensory clutter. Creative types often require more sensory stimuli -- this helps their neurons fire and gives them the “juice to produce.” Others get jittery if they have even one item out on the counter; they need less sensory input to feel calm. Most organizers have to balance the needs of different people when organizing a shared space. We need to be respectful of other people’s preferences. My husband enjoys surrounding himself with his reading material. He has piles of books, articles and newspapers next to his bed.  And I leave them there because it is his space. When I see "book creep" in other areas, however,r I mention it to him and he respectfully removes what to me is "visual clutter."

In Sensory Conclusion

When people think of decluttering, they often resort to removing only negative visual stimuli. Don’t fall into that trap. Be sure to take stock of other sensory clutter when conducting a walk-through of your space. What you decide to add or remove could be the difference between clutter and calm.

Jill Katz

For more information, contact: jill@onetozenorganizing.com

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

December 16, 2020

Can you make decluttering your home into a party? Why yes, of course.

So many of my clients will say to me, “I could do this myself, but I don’t. I’ll do it when you are here though.” For most people, decluttering and organizing are social activities. They like having someone around to talk through their thoughts as they go.

Why is this?

I think it has a lot to do with the emotional attachment that people have with their items. They need to replace that attachment with the items with an attachment (all though temporary) to a human being. I think it makes the “declutterer” strong enough at the moment to move forward.

If you have tried to get organized, but have failed, maybe it’s because you didn’t have the support you needed while doing the work. This is one way a professional organizer supports clients through their projects.

For most people, decluttering and organizing are social activities. 

Make it a little bit fun.

Making light of things, joking around, playing music and just generally chatting can make the process seem so much easier. I worked with a client who turned the music up loud and sang to her favorite tunes while working. (She had a great voice by the way.) Once she got started, she worked like gang-busters while the music was playing. It was great!

This can get out of hand.

A professional organizer will make sure that you stay focused on the task at hand, by discussing the goals for the day and making sure that the work moves along so you meet those goals.

For more information, contact:

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

Janet@basicorganization.com

Anna Novak Home Transition Pros

December 1, 2020

2 Tips for Downsizing over the Holidays

Are you an empty nester, senior, or retiree who is  thinking about downsizing?  Preparing for the holidays presents a perfect opportunity to identify the items you love the most, share your abundance with others, and clear a path to a fresh start in January. Here are 12 Downsizing tips that can help you get started on your downsizing over the holidays:

1) Reduce Holiday Decorations

Decorate indoors and outdoors with your favorite decorations, using the items you love the most with time and energy you have.  Donate the remainders early in the season, when your unneeded decorations will be happily used by others.

2) Re-Gift

Many schools, churches and charities sponsor Holiday Markets that make use of gently-used housewares, costume jewelry, coats and other donated items.  Take full advantage of these opportunities to put your unneeded items into the hands of people who can use them right away.

3) Spruce Up

Addressing loose door or cabinet knobs, burned-out lightbulbs, and other minor maintenance repairs will help get your home in shape for the holidays and beyond.  Downsizing tip: Be sure to use the supplies you have on hand before you make a trip to the hardware store.

4) Use Your Gift Wrap

Set a goal to use all of the wrapping paper, ribbon and tags you have accumulated over the years.  If you have supplies you haven’t used in many seasons, you probably just don’t like them enough to use them on a gift.

5) Freshen Up Your Food

Remove all outdated or unwanted foods from the pantry, freezer and refrigerator in preparation for holiday gatherings.  Resist the urge to “stock up” on pantry items during seasonal sales.

6) Let the Liquor Go

They say liquor never goes bad, but if you have spirits you haven’t served or enjoyed for several years, it may be time to move it out.  Can’t bring yourself to toss perfectly good liquor?  Look for cocktail recipes that use the spirits in question.  Here’s a handy website that offers a “Top 100 Classic Cocktail Recipes” with helpful search features.

7) Trim Down Tableware

Set your nicest holiday table or buffet, and identify the service pieces you chose not to use this year or no longer need.  There will probably be more than you think!   Really make the effort to set aside the ones that don’t make the cut.

8) Lighten Up On Linens and Towels

Get rid of frayed towels, unappealing blankets, and any quantities of linens beyond what you would need for a house full of guests.

9) Scale Down the Gadgets

Some of the year’s most elaborate meals are prepared around the holidays.  Take note of duplicate or unneeded items in the kitchen, and set them aside for donation.

10) Pitch the Plastic

How do these mountains of plastic food containers accumulate?  Use them to send holiday treats or care packages, and then keep only what you would typically use for 3 days of leftovers.

11) Pass Things Down

Offer relevant belongings to visiting family members or friends (but don’t take it personally if you don’t get any takers! Allow that to be your permission to donate those items instead).

12) Enjoy What Really Matters

The best part of downsizing:  the freedom to enjoy activities and spend time with loved ones with fewer responsibilities and less stuff weighing you down.

For more information, contact:

Anna Novak, Home Transition Pros

Jill Katz, One to Zen Organizing

December 1, 2020

Decisions and Adulthood

When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to become an adult. I would have dessert for breakfast and stay up until midnight and watch all the TV shows I wanted. I had it all planned out. Oh, and of course I figured I would know all the answers to all the important questions because adults know everything. Of course!

OK, so being an adult was not exactly how I thought it would be. But the most startling revelation was the sheer number of decisions I needed to make every day. What should I cook for dinner? Should I say “Yes” to this thing or that thing? Which type of cell phone should I purchase? Can we afford X? The decisions were endless. Why did they never mention this in school?

As an organizer, I see the results of decision fatigue--Clutter. Yes, let’s repeat that: Clutter is the result of unmade decisions.

Clutter is the result of unmade decisions.

Tips for Making Decisions

Here are my first four tips to help you stave off decision fatigue so you can get control of your physical and mental clutter:

1. Decision making is maintenance

We make daily decisions to keep up with our clutter. Michelle Vig, a fellow Professional Organizer, and owner of Neat Little Nest, identifies three types of clutter in her book,"The Holistic Guide to Decluttering: Organize and Transform Your Space, Time and Mind. Space clutter is physical clutter such as clothes on the floor. Time clutter is the result of stuffing too many appointments in a day. Mind clutter is an overabundance of thoughts rushing through our brain, many of them negative. These 3 types of clutter will build up if we do not make daily decisions about what we store in our space, time, and mind. Allowing all items into your home, saying “Yes” to every invitation, and holding on to every thought will lead to an onslaught of clutter. It’s up to you to make decisions that reduce this clutter before you become buried in it.

2. Making a decision is the equivalent of working a muscle

You don’t start your exercise routine by picking up 20 lb weights. You start with a warm-up, some light weights and then ease your way into the heavier ones. Use the same technique for making decisions. Start with a decision that is easy for you and work your way up to the more difficult ones. For me, an easy decision is choosing what to wear for the day or settling on a menu for dinner. A more difficult decision might be what color to paint my bedroom. Your notions of “easy” or “difficult” might differ from mine.

3. Routines

Setting routines is the ultimate strategy for preventing decision fatigue. For example, if I wake up every morning at the same time, carry out the same workout routine, and eat the same breakfast every day then I save myself from making 3 decisions every day. Think about what positive routines you can build into your day or week and practice them until they become a habit.

4. Mantras

Mantras are a great way to throw out mind clutter (negative or unhelpful thoughts) so you can apply your renewed energy toward making good decisions. I love mantras so much that I wrote a wholeblog post about them! The next time you feel anxious about attacking any sort of clutter, think of a good mantra (“I can do this,” “I am strong,” “I am safe”), sit down for a few minutes, close your eyes and say the mantra over and over while practicing slow, deep breathing. When you open your eyes, you will be ready to face your clutter with a feeling of clarity and calm. It really works!

To Be Continued...

Stay tuned for my next blog post featuring  5 more tips for making decisions and preventing clutter.

For more information contact:

Jill Katz One to Zen Organizing

Jeanne Fox Alston Your Space Made To Order

November 10, 2020

Thinking about moving in the next year or so? If so, don't wait to declutter the two areas that most homeowners ignore until the end, namely basements and garages. 

The pictures shown here are typical of what I often see. This basement storage room was in the house of someone whose job required him to move a number of times and my first impression was, "Whoa! Where to start??" In fact, just about everything in that room had been there since he moved in 10 years ago and a closer look revealed that many boxes had been moved - unopened - more than once! 

Look, I know that  basements and garages hold everything that we don't want to deal with. And it's tedious to even THINK about going through all that stuff, let alone actually getting started. But professional organizers, like me, can help keep you on point and get the job done. We'll even get rid of anything you don't want anymore! In this case, once my client and I dove it, it was clear that the vast majority of what was stored could be donated, recycled, shredded or trashed. So the room was cleared relatively quickly. The irony was that we tackled the basement only because he was preparing to move again and this time he was paying for it, instead of an employer.

Preparing to move often takes months. My advice? Don't make the process more difficult  by doing the hardest job last. 

For more information contact: 

Jeanne Fox Alston Your Space Made To Order

Email: jeanne@spacetoorder.com

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

November 10, 2020

A paperless life is a myth. But you can achieve a “less paper” life by making a few simple changes. Follow these suggestions to leave those paper piles behind and closer to a paperless life.

Do one To-Do each month, for the next 6 months.

1. Sign up for online bill paying. You can go through your bank or through each service (like utility companies) to pay each month. If you finances are secure, consider setting up automatic payments.
2. Sign up to receive your bills and statements by email.  This task will take some time, since you will have to go to each organizations website to sign up. You will receive email notices that your bills are due and your statements are available, so it’s easy to stay current.
3. Set up folders on your computer for your statements. This will eliminate having to store paper in a file cabinet.
4. Back up regularly or automatically – Now that you are keeping electronic copies you need to make sure that you are backing up your computer or using a cloud service to save your documents.
5. Scan old documents. Now that you have gone electronic with your current paperwork, move to scanning your important, older documents and move more closely to a paperless life
6. Slow incoming paper. Register to stop receiving junk mail and catalogs and get into the habit of recycling any junk that slips through the cracks by not even bringing it into your home.

A paperless life is a myth. But you can achieve a “less paper” life by making a few simple changes. 

Check out these additional posts on reducing paper:

Conquer Your Paper Piles

5 Steps to Super Simple Paper Management

Organizing Paperwork in the Kitchen

How to Live With Less Paper by JotForm

More information: 

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

Jeanne Fox Alston, Your Space Made to Order LLC

November 10, 2020

What energizes me as an organizer is being of service to my clients AND the recipients of the items they donate. One of my clients is a knitter. and she’s been setting aside yarn to donate while organizing all of her knitting supplies and books. When I asked fellow organizers for suggestions on where to donate the yarn, one pointed me to a local chapter of “Chase the Chill."

The Facebook page for one chapter reads: “Our mission is to celebrate the art and beauty of hand knitting and crocheting, building community…and sharing with others. Chase the Chill is an annual event that distributes handmade scarves in public places so that those in need—regardless of income and without any qualifiers—can help themselves."

The yarn we donated went to the Mount Vernon, VA, chapter. They usually do their “scarf storming” in December. They hang the scarves from trees and on bus stops in areas where low income and homeless people may congregate.

They have a Facebook page, as does the Chase the Chill DC chapter, should you want to donate yarn or knit or crochet scarves. There are also Facebook pages for other chapters scattered around the country, from Easton, PA to Redwood City, CA to Winnipeg, Canada.

For more information contact: Jeanne Fox Alston 

YOUR SPACE MADE TO ORDER LLC

Email: jeanne@spacetoorder.com

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

September 25, 2020

Students have been back to school for a while. How are you managing?

One of the keys to successful study habits is the ability to concentrate with all of the distractions around you.  Here are some time management principles that apply to schoolwork.

Have a purpose when studying.

Know the objective of each class and each chapter in the textbook.  This allows your student to use active listening and focused read actively.  If  they know the purpose of the class to start with, it is easier to recognize the information and get it into their notes.

Study in chunks.

Whether a student’s attention span is two hours or forty-five minutes, don’t push them further than their limit. Take a brief five or ten-minute break and resume refreshed.

Take advantage of prime time.

What ever period of the day that is your student is at peak mentally is their best study hour.  Concentration is easier and energy is higher during this time.  Schedule their more difficult tasks to coincide with their peak performance time.

Plan students study time.

By structuring students study time, it will be easier for then to concentrate on the task at hand. Without a plan, distractions come easy.

Develop the power of concentration.

Success depends on a lot of hard work and self-discipline makes it easier. Even the smartest student, with no discipline will fail.

Get your students organized.

Keeping your study space organized is important to helping students concentrate, think clearly and finish tasks quickly.

One of the keys to successful study habits is the ability to concentrate with all of the distractions around you. 

CLICK TO TWEET

For more information contact:

Janet Schiesl, Basic Organization

Tel.: 571-265-1303  Email:  info@basicorganization.com

Christopher Lancette, Orion's Attic

September 21, 2020

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the steamrollers almost certainly go through storage units. There is no more costly or easier mistake for a homeowner or estate executor to make than falling for the trap of renting a storage unit.

Storage units are like credit card debt.

We see it all the time in our work with Orion’s Attic: People with the very best of intentions choose to put heaps of stuff in storage units instead of dealing with the problem beforehand. Our advice to you? Don’t let yourself become a storage unit sucker. If you’re already stuck in a unit, or two or three, contact us today to help get you out of the ever-increasing monthly fees for storage unit rent. You can also read more about all of our services.

We have seen people rack up many thousands of dollars in storage fees before they even know what hit them. Putting stuff in storage units is like going into credit card debt: It’s incredibly easy to get in and monstrously difficult to get out. The comparison between storage units and credit cards is apt in many ways. Both offer wonderful deals to get you to try one for the first time. Many storage unit companies even offer a first month for “free.”

There is no such thing as “free.”

Storage unit companies know that you may start a rental agreement intending to get out before the first month is over but that almost all people get hooked and end up paying for storage for many months and, sadly, often years. By the time you’re done, assuming you get out before you decide to default and let the storage unit company auction off your belongings, you have spent thousands more dollars in storage than the value of the stuff you’re saving.

Let’s share some examples of the storage unit nightmares we’ve seen and show you the math. Hopefully this will inspire you to use Orion’s Attic for your storage unit buyout and/or storage unit clean-out needs:

Half-empty storage units are worse than packed units: You’re paying for twice what you need.

• We helped a Northern Virginia client who called us a few years ago hoping to make a mint on the sale of his mother’s antique furniture he had kept in storage. By the time he called us, he had spent $250 a month for four years — a total of $12,000.  The second-hand, antique shop value of all of it? About $3,000 after the expenses of us taking it to an antiques store for him. The man had been blinded by the emotional attachment he had with his mom. As we have to tell people all the time, sentimental value does not equal real-world financial value.

 

• We got a call from a Washington D.C. client who had a pair of storage units costing him about $500 a month. They were packed floor-to-ceiling with furniture, art, home decor and collectibles long out of style and that aren’t coming back any time soon. He had already paid $22,000 in storage. He told us that he was ready to let the stuff go and stop paying storage fees. When we showed up to take it all away and sell it for him, he changed his mind. We asked him why he couldn’t go through with it, how he could live with that kind of expense.  He told us that he got anxious each month as the due date approached, then chose to pay the bill and not think about it again for several more weeks. We suspect he’s still there now and that he has now made more than $40,000 in payments … money he has zero chance to recover.

 

• One of the most painful cases we experienced came with a dear, sweet woman in Maryland who over time became a friend of ours. We first met her years ago when she was grieving for her husband, a man who happened to have a storage unit full of a certain kind of collectibles for which demand and value had fallen to the floor over the past 20 years. They were hot once but not now. We made her a generous offer to buy it all or take it on consignment just to get her out of paying $300 a month. The dear, sweet woman told us that she thought the items had more value so she just couldn’t let them go for that. Naturally, our friend called us years later and we emptied the unit, the collection now worth even less than it was years ago. She ended up getting back a fraction of what she had paid in storage.

The best way to avoid becoming a storage unit sucker is to confront the problem head-on when it occurs. Deal with the financial, psychological and emotional issues and items BEFORE you even think about moving them into storage.

If you’re thinking you’re going to play the junk stock market and put furniture in storage because “the value will come back” and that you’ll make a profit in the end, the odds of that working out for you are slim to none. The value of most items is not going to go back up in our lifetimes. The only furniture people go nuts for today is Mid-Century Modern furniture. Signed limited edition prints by most artists draw maybe $5 to 10 at auction — and sit forever in retail stores. No one cares about them anymore. (We’ve got stacks of such prints in our eBay store right now and can’t sell them for even $2 each.)

The key to avoiding storage units? Make tough decisions not driven by emotion.

People are just as often driven to storage units by bad, emotion-based decisions. Estate executors put their parents’ stuff in storage after they die because they think their parents would be horrified if they knew they didn’t keep it. We can’t imagine any parent wanting their kids to ring up thousands of dollars in charges holding onto Singer sewing machines with cast iron bases, Hummel figurines, china cabinets and upholstered couches.

Many storage unit companies, by the way, charge you a lower monthly rate for the first several months and then begin jacking up the fees by as much as 33 percent by the fourth or fifth month.

If you’re currently considering renting a storage unit, don’t do it. Whether your sell or donate the items, you’re still going to come out better financially than paying for storage indefinitely.

If you’re already in a storage unit facility, get out of it today. Orion’s Attic can help. If you have the kinds of hot items that would be profitable for us to re-sell directly, we can buy-out the unit and haul it all away. If it’s filled with a combination of things including not-as-hot items, trash and charitable donations that don’t make financial sense for us to buy, we can provide a storage unit clean-out service that sells your antiques, collectibles, jewelry and more through direct cash offers, auction houses and other means, transports your charitable donations and clears the trash.

• We recently helped a husband-and-wife that was paying $400 a month in storage fees for a large unit stuffed from floor to ceiling with many objects of great sentimental value and but a few of actual financial value. The couple hired us to provide a combination of services. We pulled down and opened every box so that they could review the contents and decide what they wanted to take home. We made an offer to buy a collection of sterling silver flatware, some rare books, and a other items. We delivered two truckloads of furniture and household items to charity (we love A Wider Circle in Silver Spring, Habitat for Humanity Restore and others) and provided them with tax receipts, and we hauled a truckload of broken items and other trash to a Montgomery County transfer station. The initial labor charge for two days of hard work with a crew of four and our truck was not cheap — but — after we purchased some items — the final bill fell to about $500. They closed out the unit and saved the $400 rent payment for the next month, not to mention who knows how many more after that.

Even if you end up paying to clean out a storage unit, the rent savings pays for the work quickly.

The only thing worse than becoming a storage unit sucker in the first place is remaining one when you’ve already paid way more in storage fees than you will ever get back from liquidating the unit’s contents. STOP throwing your money away in storage unit fees. Contact Orion’s Attic today to find out more about our storage unit buyout and storage unit cleanout services.

For more information: 

Christopher Lancette, Orion's Attic

Debbie Smith, Keep Your Stuff Simple

I had something kind of cool happen to me book wise; a journalist, Jennifer Howard in DC, who was writing a book about clutter and organizing contacted me last spring to interview me for her book. Heather Cocozza had referred her to me and had also spoken with her. I happily met with her and didn't really know what to expect. (As a woman I'm always happy to chat with another woman and help them with their questions)

As an only child she was left to clean up after her mother who had been put in a facility for memory care with dementia and it took her 2 years to clean up her hoarding situation in the home. Her emotional journey through this endeavor led her to researching and writing a book.

About 2 weeks ago she sent me an email that she'd had the book published and wanted to send me a copy. She did, along with a very nice note. It's called, 'Clutter, An Untidy History'.

https://www.jenniferhoward.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Clutter-cover.jpg

I was surprised to find myself listed in the back under her acknowledgements and then a whole chapter about the business of organizing, mentioning NAPO, NAPO-WDC, me and Heather Cocozza, quoting us and giving Heather a great shout out for her business. I came into the kitchen to have my Mom read the chapter since it mentions my mom 'in her 90's' having been a Navy wife and teaching me all about being organized in our many moves. There on the front page of today's (Sept 15^th, 2020) Washington Post Style section was a huge write up about her book. Surreal.

The WP write up did say she came across as a bit bitter and resentful in her book, but I would say the person that said that has never had to clean up after a parent ~ it took this woman 2 years to get her mom's house sorted out, all the while raising 2 kids and working. Her mom had, obviously, emotional and brain based issues for a while or she would have never been a hoarder, which also tainted their relationship over their lifetime.

I've not finished the book yet, but Jennifer really did a great job on getting to the history of why there's so much clutter, where it all started in the consumerism/commercialism and need for more, more, more and how we got to realizing we needed less. Much less! Good for us and for the environment. Check out the book, it's not a huge read and NAPO-WDC/organizers got a good shout out!

The author also quoted material from Susan Kousek's September 2019 NAPO-WDC chapter presentation and mentioned the NAPO Washington, DC Chapter by name and references one of our wildly successful chapter meetings.

Congratulations to the NAPO-WDC Board to have the operations of a NAPO chapter meeting highlighted in a published book.  Jennifer mentions my invitation to the meeting, the number of attendees (80 people), the catered dinner, networking, Susan Kousek's time management presentation, and talking with various professional organizers at the end of the meeting.  You never know who will be in the audience during one of our amazing chapter meetings!

Great job NAPO-WDC!!

Debbie Smith, Keep Your Stuff Simple for more information.