Organizing Gadgets and Furniture Versus Letting Go

S o what is organizing all about? Most people think that if they could just get enough clever containers, baskets, racks, sliding drawers, and fancy closet shelving, they could finally get organized.

But really, it’s not about finding the right gadgets to house an ever-expanding quantity of belongings. It’s really about letting go of the things you don’t use, need, or treasure.

Of course, if you treasure something because it’s still good, you paid good money for it, but never have and never will use it, that’s a different matter. We all have items that we’ve formed attachments to but we should part with.

Let me recommend a method to deal with this type of item.

A Process

1. Look at or imagine this belonging.
2. Become aware of how you feel towards it.
3. Feel your attachment to it.
4. What are all the reasons you want to keep it?
5. Now, are there some reasons you might want to give it away?
6. Are you emotionally able to let something like this go—have you ever let go of anything that you were this attached to? (Yes or No)
7. Would you let it go? (Yes or No)
8. When (Now, Later, Never)?

Allow yourself to feel what you feel and think what you think, no judgments.

By this time in the process, you may have realized why you are keeping it. Once some of the emotional charge is gone, it is easier to make a clear decision. You may need to do this a few times. Don’t worry, if it’s something you should really keep, you will.

Photo Sharing with LINEA

Photo sharing is a wonderful thing. My wife has been going gaga over emailed photos of her little nieces, for years. You probably go on Facebook, twitter, MySpace or one of the other photo sharing sites, to see and share photos. Only problem is, these sites are a bit more public than we’d like. After all, who wants to share photos of the grand kids with the likes of Slobodan Milosevic or Attila the Hun?

Let me introduce you to something I’ve learned through APPO (Association of Personal Photo Organizers) called Linea. Linea was developed to privately share photos with loved ones.

It’s free and you can upload photos in what they call lines, for instance, you can create a line of photos called “Holidays with the Family” and upload all the holiday pictures you took. Then you can invite members of the family to the line. They will see all of your holiday photos, be able to comment on them (on iPad or iPhone) download and print them and even add their own pictures. Only you and the people you invite will be able to see them.

You can create as many lines as you want. . . pet lines, birthday lines, nature lines, anything, and only the people you invite will be able to join in.

The lines are beautiful mosaics of your pictures. You can scroll through them or you can tap on a picture and it will fill the whole screen, allowing you to title, caption, and comment.

    So you’re wondering, What does this have to do with organizing?

Well, you can select the best pictures on your computer and then

put them in lines by theme, “Le Voilà”, you’re photo organizing!

Download Linea for free at the App Store or online at www.getlinea.com. At present it works on iPad, iPod, and iPhone but will also work on the PC and Mac (though on the PC you will use an additional free app).

For a handy guide, go to Linea Overview or call me if you want help 203.685.2839.

Go to Larry Russick Organizing website.

Clutter Free Gift Buying

Something I’d like you to consider for this holiday season is: will the presents you buy for your loved ones be something they need, will use, and will delight in, or will they be just another item to add to the stack of their belongings? Now realize, I’m saying this to myself as well. After all, it’s hard enough buying people things on time let alone straining your brain and conscience with concerns about adding to someone’s clutter.

I know that the obligation can weigh heavy and it can be a real relief to get it over with so you’re not shopping at the last minute with people like me who are frantically trying to get the gifts for the people they’ve forgotten.

Here’s a few gift ideas that might help:

1. Give Something Delicious

Bake and fancy wrap cookies, cakes, and pastry. Send food from catalogs: Steaks, candy, exotic edible centerpieces, wines, jams, lobster. Make up baskets of gourmet treats; sign them up for coffee, fruit or sausage of the month club.

2. Give an Experience

Movie tickets, Theater tickets, Gift certificates for favorite restaurants, Day Spas, pedicures, therapeutic massages, Reiki, skydiving, and belly dancing and for the kids, Gift certificates for Laser Tag, indoor racing, indoor climbing, and Judo classes.

3. Happy Hobby Days

Gift certificates for hobby related classes, e.g., an outing with a pro golfer, fly fisherman, racecar driver, chef, gardener, beer maker or skier. Also, if you think there is a specialized tool they’d love to have for their model railroad or pottery-making, get them a certificate from the specialty store rather than trying to purchase it yourself, hobbyists usually know exactly what they need.

4. Give to Them for Others

Donate a tangible item on behalf of the gift recipient. WorldVision.org makes it possible to contribute a farm animal or clean water (contributing towards a well). Heifer.org also makes it possible to give a farm animal and also starter kits for food production. Oxfam also has animals plus school lunches, books and art supplies. This is a way to help the neediest at the same time buying for someone who already has two of everything.

5. A Monetary Option

It’s tough to buy music or clothes for a tween or teen that won’t be returned. Get them an iTunes card or other electronic media. A gas card or credit towards car repair would benefit young drivers. Many people are having trouble making ends meet, a grocery shopping spree where a family could splurge on items they usually can’t afford to buy, or even a money order towards a rent or mortgage payment could make a big difference to someone struggling.

6. Give Green

Those reusable cloth shopping bags save a lot of paper and actually save time. A compost bin for the gardener. Carbon offsets can be purchased online to help balance a family’s contribution to global warming. Where appropriate, you could offer to replace a certain number of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in someone’s house.

7. Chore Relief

How often do we find time to do some deep cleaning or even want to, for that matter? Give a cleaning service or some Professional Organizing. Offer, to someone close, to help with a project that needs doing but has been put off (especially for the elderly) like recycling all those bottles, newspapers and magazines in the basement, or painting the garage door, cleaning out the refrigerator, or vacuuming the upholstered furniture.

8. Time and Memory

Babysit the twins. Do Grandma’s grocery shopping. Offer a series of frozen casseroles to the young couple with the new baby. Walk Aunt Ida’s dog for a week. Sort out your mother’s photos and create the album she’s been talking about making for the last ten years.

9. A Little Something before the End

Have you heard your loved one say, “Someday I’m going to ride in a hot air balloon.”? You could make that dream a reality. Bucket wish lists have included skydiving, sailing, Caribbean cruises, a trip to outer space or to see the Titanic (only the very wealthy need apply here). Amtrak across America, the Circus, become a clown for a week, deep sea fishing, climb Devil’s Tower, Meet Donald Trump (God knows why) and make a Rock Video or float in an isolation tank.

10. But, What do they really want?

No matter what you give them, if it is really enjoyed and used, the gift will not add to clutter. After all, clutter is the stuff that is not used.

Now I have to get out there and buy those snow shoes I know my wife secretly wants.

Happy Holidays,

Larry

Grocery Shopping the Easy Way

The last time I gave my talk, Organizing Your Home from Top to Bottom, at the Case Memorial Library in Orange, CT, there was an enormous amount of interest in my shopping list. This list makes shopping a lot easier because it has all the things on it that I usually buy at the store. All I do is circle the items I need at home, then, when I get to the store, I just go down the aisles in which I’ve circled something. This list saves me a lot of time and consternation. Of course, my wife can still shop twice as fast as I without any list, but that goes without saying.

Click this link to access the shopping list. It’s an idea I gleaned from Mothering Magazine when my 31-year-old was a baby. However, it will not do you much good if you don’t shop at the same store location and buy the same items that I do. So, here’s how to make one for yourself:

The easy way: copy mine and just change the aisle numbers and the items by double clicking on each and typing in what you want.*

or

 Start from scratch: make a table in Word by clicking on insert, table, insert table, 13 columns, 1 row, fixed column width. Then use 10 point type for your items.

Note how I’ve entered the aisles in the store. Your store will have more than 13 aisles so enter at the top (as I have) the aisles you frequent most often and which contain the most things you buy.

The columns will lengthen as you add items, if you put too many words it will automatically create a second page. Keep your list to one page.

Good Luck and have fun!

*Of course you’ll have to go  and get a map and index of the store from Customer Service or go down each aisle taking notes of what you buy and where those items are located.