Organizing your entryway

Does this scenario ever play out in your home? You walk in the door after a hard day at work, a long school day or a fun night on the town. You toss your keys, throw your coat and kick off your shoes. The entrance of your home can quickly pile up with all sorts of items. That is the first part of your home that a person sees when they come through your door.

Whether you live in a house or apartment, the entryway seems to be a dumping ground for shoes, gloves, scarves, keys, mail, baseball mitts, umbrellas, dog leashes and anything else you might have when you walk in the door. Keeping that area organized can be a challenge, especially if you have a lot of people living in your home. However, this is a challenge you can meet and conquer.

By setting aside an hour or two for this task, it can be completed. Go through the entryway closet. There are probably coats, jackets and sweaters that are not needed this time of year. If you have somewhere else to put things for the summer, you can move them and make more space for items needed during the warmer months. Sports equipment, especially if there are kids in the home, can make for a treacherous entryway. Finding a nice place in the closet can help reduce the clutter.

There are things you can buy to help organize your foyer or entryway. A set of hooks for your keys can save time and frustration. Once you get in the habit of automatically hanging your keys on the hook immediately upon entering your home, you will always know where the keys are without the need for a keychain GPS unit.

A basket for incoming and/or outgoing mail is another idea. Only mail that needs immediate attention should stay here. This can end up as a trouble spot if it is not regularly attended.

Some entryways have enough room for a piece of furniture to help organize the sports equipment. A bench with storage inside or cabinet will ensure all of the scarves and accessories have a nice place to stay. Even an umbrella stand or hat rack that can hold hats, scarves and light jackets can make a big difference in minimizing clutter. If there is no room for a piece of furniture, a small chest of drawers can be put on one side of the closet as most jackets, hoodies and sweaters only use half of the vertical space. The long winter coats and full-length raincoats can go on the other side.

An eye-level mirror will give you the opportunity to check your face before you leave the house. If it is a large mirror, it can help make the area look larger. Instead of seeing the entrance as a combat zone, you can turn it into an organized place that gives a great first impression.

Crowded Closets are not Fun

Sometimes my closets remind me of the "Shoemaker's children" because my poor closets are often neglected. Thankfully, I was able to spend about an hour on my bedroom closet this past weekend. 

Here are my "takeaway" tips for you:

• Pretend you are working on someone else's closet. It's so easy to get overwhelmedwhen dealing with your own stuff.  Take everything off of your shelves first - when the space is empty,you can be more objective about what should go where. Out of season clothing can be placed in the hard to reach spots.  
• Sort like things together. Put your winter stuff together (and hopefully place in a far away place) and sort the current season's clothing in categories (sleeveless, short sleeve, dressy tops, jackets, sweaters, shorts, slacks). 
• Have a bag nearby for items to donate and put them in as you go through everything.
• Put your current season's clothes in your bedroom closet and move the out of season hanging clothes to another location.
• Get rid of all but one spare pairs of sneakers - one spare pair is enough.
• Use the easy-to-reach places for the items you use the most. My bottom shelf has my dog walking clothes and other things I use daily.

Beware of these common roadblocks:

Overwhelm   Where do I begin?

Solution  Begin with a 5 minute decluttering session – grab a bag and put some giveaways in there. Don't over  deliberate about whether to  consign or donate - just decide  what needs to go.

  

Fear What if I don't have time to finish and make an even bigger mess?

Solution Start slow – do one section at a  time and start with the easiest  stuff first – belts? scarves?  clothes that don't fit?

Indecision What if I end up needing this?

Solution If you are really afraid to get rid  of something, place it in a  "marinade" box. Go to your  calendar and pick a date (a few  months out). If you haven't  gone to your marinade box by  that date, then you can  give yourself permission to let  it go.

    

Stamina I can't physically do it.

Solution Ask for help - if you have a non-judgmental person in your life, see if you can barter with them..  you can do a more sedentary favor for them and they can help you climb, lift and carry clothes.

   

And a few parting words for your enjoyment...

• Let go of perfectionism - if your piles don't look perfect, it doesn't matter. Your goal is to DOWNSIZE.  
• Easy does it – but do it. Spend 5 minutes... but do it a few times a week and you WILL see a difference.
• Schedule regular donation pick ups or drop offs - this will give you a needed excuse to gather unwanted items.

Set a goal of when you want to have this completed. If you do not meet your goal and feel discouraged and overwhelmed, then please contact me. I would love to help you. 

Warm woolen mittens.....

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!

I just came in from walking the dog and realized that it’s already time to pull out the winter wear and get everything organized. There’s nothing more guilt-producing than your child asking for gloves because they’re freezing during recess! Just follow these simple guidelines and YOUR child will be the envy of the playground (or possibly share one of their gloves with a friend).

1.  Gather/find all the scarves, hats, gloves, mittens and boots in the house.
Invite (or order) each family member to try on their boots hats and gloves to make sure they still fit.
2.  Toss all the unwanted items in a donation bag (and either place in your car for a drop off or contact a charity to pick them up or check out a consignment store). Just heard about a great on line store Dashing Bee.
3.  If your children are ‘particular’ and not into sharing their items, then take a giant zip lock bag or lidded box or even a plastic case that your new blanket came in, and label it and put that child’s mittens, gloves, hats and scarves in there. Another option is to have 1 bag for scarves, 1 bag for gloves, 1 bag for hats and 1 bag for gloves and mittens. Main thing is that when they are sorted by sex or size or type, it’s a lot faster and easier to get them.
4.  Store boots in a large clear box or large clear zipper bag, but be brutal in limiting how many pairs per person. The more options you have, the more stress you get. Less is more in all matters relating to winter wear, toys, clothes (catch my drift here?).
5.  Find a place to store the winter stuff - a place that’s near the morning departure location (mud room, laundry room, hall closet) and if you don’t have a place, think about finding a piece of furniture that may house the items.
6.  Enjoy the peace and serenity that will come on the next chilly morning when you can direct your children to their bag or box of stuff while you sip happily on your hot tea.

Getting a step ahead of your SHOES!

Shoes are really hard for some people to organize, especially if they own a lot of them. But, if your shoes are not organized, you can waste a lot of time trying to find the right pair for the occasion. Tripping over piles of shoes by the front door or having a mountain of footwear in the closet can be a danger and an eyesore. Part of getting your home organized has to include shoes.

The most difficult part is probably the beginning. Get all of the shoes in one place. You might be shocked at just how many shoes you have accumulated over the years. Collect shoes from everywhere around the house: by the door, in the gym bag, under the bed or other furniture. Don’t forget the car, some people keep a change of shoes there.

Discard any shoes without mates (you would be surprised at how often this happens). (And yes, I’m guessing you hesitate to do this because the second you throw the shoe away, you will find its partner. If this is your great fear, then at least put all the singleton shoes in a giant bag or box and mark down on your calendar to get rid of them if you haven’t found the partner in a designated time... months... not years!). Any shoes that are worn out, in a state of disrepair or damaged from being stored improperly have got to go. If you have multiple pairs that are alike or similar, pick your favorite and donate the others if they are usable. Get rid of shoes that hurt your feet, don’t fit right or pairs you never wear. Nice ones can be donated or taken to a consignment shop if it’s the right time of year for such shoes.

You should end up with your favorite shoes, those you love to wear and/or need to wear, like work shoes. Now you are ready to organize them. Most people like to put the shoes they wear most often in the most convenient place. You can organize shoes by season, style (boots together, athletic shoes together, etc.) or color.

Decide on the type of storage for your footwear. The more shoes you keep, the more important the storage is. Unless you have an entire closet devoted to shoes, you should invest in some kind of storage equipment. There are under the bed shoe racks, although it is better when you can see them and choose the right pair for your outfit while you get dressed. There is the rack that fits on the back of the door, shoe shelving or boxes. Beware of any shoe racks that wobble – wobbling racks mean that your shoes will continually fall off and annoy you.  If you use boxes that are not clear, take a photo and attach it to the shoebox so you know what is inside. If there are only a few pairs, you can line them across the bottom of your clothing closet. If you can spare the closet space, hanging shoe organizers are also great, but most people can’t afford to dedicate that much space to shoes. My favorite type of shoe storage are the cubbies that sit on the bottom of your closet so you can slide each pair of shoes in, still see them and protect them from dust.

Being able to find the shoes you need at the time you need them is the most important thing. Once you have a storage plan in place, work to maintain it. If shoes start piling up by the front door again, then you can repeat this process periodically.

Four Steps to an organized CD/DVD collection

1.The first step is always the most difficult. As is often the case, gathering up CDs and DVDs from the car, under the bed and lying around the house, is how you get started. Keeping them in a central location is a key in getting your collection under control.

2. Next, you need to make sure the correct CDs are in the case. If you are missing a case or two, you can buy plain cases. Mark the case clearly, maybe type the title on the computer and print it out so it can be easily read. Then tape it, or use labels to attach it to the jewel case.

3. After the cases are checked and everything matches, the tough decisions must be made. Do you really need all of those CDs? Once you have seen a movie 27 times, is it necessary to keep the DVD? You can donate, sell or give away what you don’t need any more.

4. Once that is done, you are ready to organize. There are three major ways this can be done – with albums, racks or digitally. If a lot of the jewel cases are missing or broken, using albums might be your best bet. There are loose leaf binders with pages of plastic pockets in them. The best ones are sturdy and zip shut to protect the contents inside. This method does not take up a lot of space and can be stored in a bookshelf. If shelf space is limited and you have access to hanging file drawers, hanging CD/DVD sleeves work well in file cabinets.

To keep the collection user friendly, you might opt for using racks to organize your collection. If you pick this ergonomic method, the collection can alphabetized by artist for CDs and by title for DVDs. Some people would rather sort them by genre. You can put jazz CDs, rock CDs and movie soundtrack CDs in groups. With DVDs, sort them by comedy, horror, drama, etc. If you have a huge collection you may need more than one rack. If that is the case, you can use one rack for each genre. Hopefully, you have pared down the collection so it will fit in one rack.

The last way to organize the collection is to do it digitally. Copy everything onto your computer and make sure you back it up regularly so you don’t lose anything. If you have a very large collection, this will take a lot of time and might be more than the space on your computer. You could look into getting cloud storage to backup your files. If you have a small collection, it will be easier. Many people buy downloads and do not even have actual physical CDs or DVDs any more.

Now your collection should be just the way you like it. Be sure to put everything back in its case or binder after you use it or you will have a disorganized mess again soon.