I just added four new userpics. Whee! Okay, now I'm going to actually work.

Okay, I give in. I'm now "findyourfloor" on Twitter. My goal is to send tweets related to organizing, about once per day. They may be informative, whimsical, thoughtful, and/or silly. So, follow me!

I just decided to save something as memorabilia, and had to create a hanging folder for it.

I do have a plastic bin of memorabilia in the big closet in my daughter's room, but it's so rare that I add anything to it, I never needed a quick-to-hand folder in my office before. I think my clients are having a good effect on me, in terms of teaching me the value of my own history.

Hey, past and current clients:

If you belong to Angie's List, and you liked the work we did together, I'd love it if you could write them a report. I'm under "Jennifer Hunter Professional Organizing." (For now. I've decided I really want to register "Find Your Floor" as my business name. Maybe "Find Your Floor Professional Organizing.")

If you don't belong to Angie's List, and you feel like talking about how great I am, I could also use quotes for my new organizing pamphlet. Sooner is better! Thanks!

Goodwill and Salvation Army stores around here haven't accepted or sold children's toys for a while because of concerns over lead. But recently, the Goodwill in Davis Square has abruptly stopped accepting or selling children's clothing as well, due to some new government regulation that I don't know much about, but plan to investigate, because I think it's wack.

Anyway, I just called the Salvation Army store on Broadway in Winter Hill, and they are still accepting and selling kids' clothing. I wonder if that's going to last or not. Maybe I'll go in and buy up everything good in sizes from 8 (Ilana's current size) to 14, in case I'll be forced to only shop at "real stores" in the near future.

You can donate both clothing and toys to Cradles to Crayons. They're not affected by the new governmental regulation, because they don't resell the stuff; they give it away to those who need it. They have dropoff locations in a bunch of locations by us, including Winchester and Woburn.

Also, I have just discovered that the Gateway Motel on Rt. 2 (near Alewife, by "Faces" and the bowling alley) is housing homeless families with children age 0-5, and they need stuff; they will take toys and kids' clothes, as well as other things. ( Here are details as they sent them to me, only slightly edited: )

This shows you what we can do in four sessions, or in this case, 13 hours. The picture doesn't show the fact that we also organized all the drawers, including setting up a complete filing system (and going through all the old files that were in two of the drawers).






Paperwork is a very time-consuming thing to organize, but the results are so exciting! The beam on the client's face was priceless.

In my work as an organizer, I often find myself tossing receipts into recycling that didn't need to be brought into the house in the first place. When you purchase something, and the cashier hands you a receipt, you are not obligated to take it!

Here are a few good reasons to keep receipts:
1. If you are buying something that might malfunction and will need to be returned (and it'd be worth your time to do so).
2. If you need to keep track of the value of the thing for homeowner's insurance or home inventory.
3. If you will be claiming the thing as a tax deduction (including business meals out).
4. If you're going to be reimbursed for the thing (including medications and heath-related expenses).
5. If you're keeping track of all your spending (not just if you think you should be keeping track of all your spending).

I find that I only need to save maybe 25% of the receipts I'm handed. I also don't keep receipts from ATM withdrawals, since they all show up on my bank statement anyway. Fortunately, my bank's ATM gives you the option of no receipt. At a store, just say to the cashier, "No thanks; just toss it." They may look at you funny, but they'll do it. If you forget, toss it in the first garbage can you see. If you're using plastic, and you're concerned about identity theft, take a glance at the receipt first to make sure your whole credit card number isn't on it. Then ditch it!

Receipts are small, but they are super-ugly clutter when they travel far and wide in your home, or sit in piles on your desk, and they each require as much time and effort as a full-sized piece of paper when you have to clean them out of your purse, wallet, or pockets, and then go through them and read them to see whether you need them. Don't let them into your house if you can avoid it!

I have an article up about last summer's toy swap on Sprout For Parents.

As you may or may not know, I've been ill for most of the month, but I'm almost all better now, so I'm back on the job, and I have openings for sessions as soon as next week!

When you have too much stuff, you can (with relative degrees of ease) get rid of some. But what do you do when you have too much stuff to do? A lot of my clients are faced with what seems like an impossible situation: they have more to do than they can possibly manage. The workload is such that, unless someone figures how to give up sleeping, it will never get done.

The ideal response to this situation would be to scale down the number and difficulty of these tasks, until everything that remained were easy to handle. And some stuff can be blown off without too much trouble: say, events you attend only out of obligation, hobbies you used to like but have tired of, a sale at a store when you don't really need to buy anything. You can take a pay cut to work fewer hours. You can exchange your houseplants for cactuses.

But not everything in our lives is so easily modified. Choices we made in the past lead to jobs, school curricula, homes, children, pets, romance, friends. Love, values, or simple practicality keep them in our lives, and all these choices come with responsibilities attached.

( So then what? )

Would "Organized Religion" be a good name for a professional organizing company?

Yesterday, I asked my daughter (age 8) how attached she was to a particular item: a comforter cover that would need repair if we were to keep it. She said, "Um, I'm attached with tape." When I said, "Huh?" she said, "You know, attached with tape, attached with glue...." and I realized that even if she didn't mean it that way, it could provide a very useful metaphor for us to think about how attached we are to our objects:

I'm attached to the item with.....
1. Solder - You can pry it from my cold, dead fingers
2. Glue - It's very important to me
3. Tape - I really like it and I'd rather not get rid of it
4. Post-It - Eh, whatever, give it to Goodwill
5. Rubber band - You can borrow it, but I'd like to get it back eventually

I'm sure there could be more.. any ideas?

Look at this very nice post that moominmolly made about our work together.

Sorry for a lack of other content. This week I hit my all-time record for the number of organizing sessions in a week: SEVEN! So I'm exhausted. More to come after some sleep.

Okay, I deleted the slightly offensive userpic (and the post that went with it).

I might use it in my personal LJ, though. :-)

Ah, professionalism.... A neverending quest.

I've known about the therapeutic value of yoga and meditation for years, but have never managed to make either of them a regular routine for very long. This morning I was thinking that if I just did them both every day, I would be so much more healthy.

Then I had this barely conscious negative thought about "people who do that" and another barely conscious thought that "I'm not like that." I caught these thoughts out of the ether and asked myself "What do I think about these people?" I realized that I was thinking they were holier-than-thou, head-in-the-clouds, and irresponsible about practical things. So it's no wonder I have never managed to stick to a yoga and meditation routine, when I value hard work and humility; my assumptions led me to believe that I would become a spacy snob! So, I'm going to sit on that for a bit and see about stretching myself in a different way. (puns intended)

In the meantime: It occurred to me that people who struggle with disorganization might have some assumptions about what organized people are like: maybe that organized people are rigid, petty, obsessive-compulsive, unfriendly, snobby, judgmental, and so on.

I'd love to hear people's comments on this topic. I won't take it personally if you have negative ideas about organized people, as long as you'll do me the same favor if you're a dedicated yogi/meditator!

Today I got the brilliant idea from chaiya to propose a panel for the Arisia Science Fiction Convention about organizing specifically for fannish* people, which I am calling "Coping with Cruft."

I'm looking for people who could be on the panel with me. Are any of you - or do you know anyone who is - into this sort of stuff and also fairly well organized at home? I have asked chaiya herself, who has already agreed in principle, as well as dimers, sparkymonster, and woodwardiocom.

Business is really picking up. I have three sessions this week, and four next week (which may shortly become five). It's very exciting! But I must make sure not to slack on the marketing, because there will be a lull soon enough, I'm sure.

_____________________________________________
*Gamers, science fiction and fantasy readers, watchers, and writers, SCAdians, costumers, filkers, and people who love them.

I left my stapler at a client's house, so I got to email her with the above subject line. Little things like this make my day.

It is not a red Swingline, however.

I'm going to be at Eastern MA Pagan Pride Day in North Andover, MA, this coming Sunday Sept. 21. I'll be giving a workshop on a Pagan approach to organizing from 11-12. I'll also have a booth to promote my organizing business. I'm wondering if I should offer purse or backpack organizing as a sort of taste of what I do. I was also thinking maybe I could add a small sachet of herbs or a charged stone at the end to bring prosperity, good luck, whatever, to tie it in to the whole Pagan thing. So I'm wondering what y'all think about this.

Poll #1259523 Purse/Backpack Organizing?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Should I offer purse/backpack organizing at Pagan Pride Day?

I've been collecting horror stories from clients, of other "professionals" in my field they've hired who have done crappy jobs, and I feel like venting about it today.

( Read more... )
I'm glad that professional organizing is one of those careers that's open to self-starters. I'm glad that I didn't have to invest years of schooling and tons of money to get a degree so that I could be an organizer. But the problem with the fact that anyone can be an organizer, stager, or housecleaner is that anyone can be an organizer, stager, or housecleaner. And many of them will suck. There is a fairly new title created by NAPO: Certified Professional Organizer. It requires a certain number of hours of work experience and a written exam. I appreciate this, and I may take the test someday so I can put those letters after my name. (Also so I can charge more money, woohoo!) It will help give clients some assurance when choosing an organizer.

I know there are many people who would like to hire me but can't afford my rate. I'm all for bargain shopping, and there are beginning organizers who do a fine job at $20/hr. But I want everyone to remember that you deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, and that organizers should be giving you more control over your belongings, not less.

I have this small maple pedestal desk - well, had this desk, until about an hour ago - since childhood. I wrote stories on it, drew pictures on it, typed on it with my then-beloved electric typewriter. It originally belonged to my great-grandfather. Once I outgrew it, and it proved unusable for computer use, I used it as a TV/stereo stand and as extra storage space. Its varnish was badly damaged, both from long use and from being taped shut (and then the tape being ripped off) during a move many years ago. But still I hung onto it, thoughtlessly.

But recently I decided that no, I was never going to make good on my self-promise to refinish the thing, and even if I did, I had no use for it. Ilana already has a matching desk and dresser, an adult friend's from childhood. So I realized that, if I am to remain consistent with my organizing belief system, the desk had to go.
( Read more... )

This coming Saturday, Jennifer Hunter Professional Organizing and the West Medford Community Center present....

A Toy Swap!
Saturday, June 7, 10:00 to 2:00.
West Medford Community Center, 111 Arlington St., Medford, MA

---Bring unwanted toys in good workable condition, no more than one shopping cart's worth, and bring home toys that are new to you!
---No clothing, anything larger than a tricycle, or violent toys.
---Each kid must be accompanied by an adult, and vice-versa.
---At noon, I will give a 1/2 hr. talk on decluttering and organizing with kids.
---Toys left over will be donated to Cradles to Crayons.

Questions? Email me at findyourfloor at gmail dot com.
Registration isn't necessary, but is appreciated. Call the WMCC at 781-483-3042.

If possible, please drop off toys between 4:00 and 6:00 PM tomorrow, Friday, June 6.

(Crossposted with great abandon)