Website design By BotEap.comDoes the warm weather give you a new energy to “let go,” declutter, clean, rearrange, and reconfigure your spaces inside and out? It certainly does for me, and I see it in my clients as well. We all seem to enjoy the change of seasons with longer and brighter days seen with our eyes and senses in our hearts.

Website design By BotEap.comThought I’d list my favorite “Urge to Purge” tools for when organizing a home or home office. April is a natural month to “prune” our possessions, paper and time. These are the items I keep on hand as an organizer, wife, mother, or friend when helping people edit their belongings and information…

Website design By BotEap.comPruning of “things”

1. Garbage bags) – I like to use sturdy black garbage bags. I always ask if there is a bulk trash day in someone’s town to take advantage of, and if not, I always know the phone number of a green trash collection company when there will be a lot of waste that one person’s community can’t pick up.
2. Recycling box(es) or brown bag(s) – Knowing the city’s recycling schedule/policies is helpful and even being able to drive to the city’s recycling center after the purge to get non-guardians out of the newly reorganized spaces right away.
3. Donation bag(s) or box(es) – I like to use white kitchen bags and/or small boxes for donations. One can easily write the name of the charity on the outside of a white plastic liner or box with a black marker. Schedule a pickup or drop-off around your “spring adventure” dates.
4. Sell ​​bag(s) or box(es) or just write a list – One of the most difficult categories I find to follow when cleaning a house is when a client wants to sell something. Right now, I’d say that social media platforms like Facebook Marketplace are a great way to sell individual items that you no longer want, but feel like you could get a buck or two for them.
5. “Belongs somewhere else” box or even an area on the floor – When delving into your “urge to purge”, there will always be items that you decide to keep but that belong in another part of the house, not the space that is currently being decluttered. I advise you to put all things away once you are done organizing. Don’t stop while tidying up to put items away because you could do what I call “zig-zag arranging”…

Website design By BotEap.comPoda “Papers and Information”

1. Recycling box(es) or brown bag(s) – Like the urge to purge with our stuff above, knowing the city’s recycling schedule/policies is a help and even being able to drive to the recycling center in town after the purge to get it out of the spaces right away it is advantageous. .
2. Shredding box(es) – If there are piles of papers with identifying information that needs to be taken, I recommend shredding them. One can do this with a heavy duty shredder, take the shredding to a shredding opportunity across town, an office supply store that uses this service, or sometimes I have a shredding truck come to the house.
3. scan – By scanning your documents to digital documentation, it will help you go paperless. I like to set up my file hierarchy in advance so that once I scan something, I know exactly where to send it.
4. specific email – Using the options: delete key, unsubscribe button, block this sender or mark as Spam, are excellent ways to make information disappear.
5. Delegate – If you can delegate your information and paper tracking to someone else, like a virtual assistant or family member, I also consider that a pruning tool.