Who Can Organize Me!? Should I hire a professional organizer?
There are a few things to take into consideration when trying to get organized, let's take a look at a couple of them in this article.
Rule 1: Sort and Prioritize
Before deciding items that you should dispose of properly you should sort threw the clutter or as I may have a slight hoarding of paperwork. The best way to sort through these items is to start with one type of tape, let's say it's a nice blue color. Color me up! Start taping the items that you want to keep with blue tape, remembering that you will run out of the tape if you tape too much and your only allowing one roll of blue tape.
Once you've taped up some of the items with a blue color, your ready for the masking tape. Use the masking tape to tape items that you want to throw away, this is the harder part but you'll soon realize certain items that you don't need as much as you initially thought. Now items that you've taped with the masking tape may be hard to throw away even though you really haven't used them or even knew you had them for the past decade. Here is where you hire a professional to come in and throw all these items away for you. Let them take the stress out of your life and deal with it, the problem I have is that I feel things are of value and always want to look them up on eBay or Amazon to see what they are worth. Here is where a company such as Address Our Mess would come into the picture because they have professionals who can pick potential items of worth out of the pile and put them to the side for you.
Now is the tough part of organizing the items, once you've thrown the initial items away you need to go even further with some help and throw out those tax forms you've been saving for 20 years because even the government considers them useless because they only check back as far as 7 years. You can't possibly go through every piece of paper, but you need to make progress so go through them quickly and give yourself a time limit on each box or area.
Do I really need this desk in my basement? The lamp that has more dusk than I have cleaning spray to clean it! Let's be honest, it's useful and worth something but to us it's worthless because we don't use it. These items should be donated to someone who really needs them in life. I've once donated a lamp to a poor family who needed it so bad and the smile on the girl's face was amazing. Find a company that will donate your useful items to a charity or a local shelter who can use them and take them with a smile. Why let it waste away in your home unused? The famous line "someone else might need it" doesn't work if it's sitting in your home for more than a week, donate it.
Reading Part 2 : Organizing My Life, One Step at a Time.