Confronting clutter

Tackling piles of papers and other stuff is best done one room at a time

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tax season is on the horizon. Next thing you know, you wake up one morning surrounded by mounds of the white stuff.

Late-winter snowfall?

Try reams of unsorted paperwork.

And though the blizzardlike state of your home office/ kitchen counter/living room end tables may make you want to reach for the snow shovel, you’d probably be better served by some determination, a good filing system and a reliable shredder.

How much of a problem is this?

“Eighty percent of the paper we keep we never look at again,” said Jennifer FordBerry, an organization expert who lives in New York state and has written the Organize Now!

books.

Manufacturers have no shortage of products available to help you get a handle on your pack-rat tendencies, from designer stacking shelves and specialized file folders to elaborate electronic systems that vacuum up your paper odds and ends and spit them back in electronic form or directly into the cloud.

(See accompanying story.)

Because, organizing experts agree, before you try to tackle any sort of household organization project, Step 1 is securing the right mindset. A good, healthy and properly grounded outlook is the No. 1 tool in your cleanliness tool kit.

“Probably the best mindset is not to think of it as a whole house project, but a room-by room project, which is really what it needs to be anyway,” said Kasey Vejar of Simply Organized, a service in Johnson

County, Kan. “You tackle one room at a time and more likely one closet, cabinet or drawer at a time within that room. If you try to organize your entire house at once you’ll end up ‘picking’ at different areas, probably expending a lot of time and effort, without much visual impact.

“It’s going to take a long time, generally, for the whole process. But the payoff is well worth it.”

Mary Ellen Vincent of OrganizeMe, a professional organizing service in Kansas City, Mo., agreed that calm, cool determination is key.

“Paperwork is one of those things that’s neither sexy nor fun,” she said. “Pick a time of day - maybe earlier in the day when you’re more focused and have more energy - when you can pay real attention to it.

“Don’t overdo it, a couple of hours at most. Just whittle away at it, and see where that goes.”

When approaching an organization project, it’s also important to, well, organize.

“Write down your plan and then schedule time in your planner,” Berry said.

“Break up the project in bite-size pieces that take 30to 60 minutes.”

When approaching the pile, ask yourself a couple of simple questions, Vincent said, such as “Why am I keeping this?” And, “What am I going to do with this?”

No good answers? Toss.

Shred. Annihilate. Expunge.

As with any problem, if you’re looking for a real solution, best to start at the source.

In this case, the mail.

“In all honesty, almost all if not all mail can be sorted within 60 to 90 seconds each day,” Vejar said. That doesn’t mean the bill that came in the mail gets paid then. It just means that the bill is now in the bills to-pay spot.

Vincent recommended reducing the number of magazines you subscribe to, getting off of catalog mailing lists and getting on no-junk mail lists.

“The closer you can get to no mail, the happier you’ll be,” she said.

When it comes to managing the mail, a container or in-box is a nice way to keep yourself on track.

“When it’s full, that means it’s time to go through everything that’s in there,” Vincent said.

That kind of pattern is important to keep from falling back into the clutter trap.

“My response to how often to address it ... is as soon as you realize you’ve fallen behind,” Vejar said. Falling behind is “how bills don’t get paid or get paid late, appointments get missed and opportunities pass us by. If there’s one spot that’s the most important to get organized in the whole house, it’s the papers.”

Losing something is also a sign it’s time to get back on the wagon, Vincent said.

“You’re losing efficiency if you’re losing things. If you make managing your papers a weekly task, that should be enough.”

Naturally, don’t go over the top with your purge. A few documents, experts agree, need to be kept: anything official - wills, birth certificates, Social Security cards. Anything that ties into current real property - home deeds, car titles or loan information, leases.

Some sentimental things should also be kept.

Emphasis on some.

You don’t have to keep every item from your past. You don’t have to keep every masterpiece your child has drawn.

“Everyone’s entitled to a great big box of papers from their own childhood,” Vincent said.

And when it comes to your kiddo’s artwork, be the parent. Set a good example.

“Children are natural little hoarders,” she said. “They don’t realize they’ll get more stuff. Compare things for them. Say, ‘Here are five pictures you drew. Which one is the best? We’ll keep that one.’”

Process taking too long? Don’t get discouraged.

“Also realize that organizing shows on TV are very deceiving,” Vejar said. “They have a huge team working for them behind the scenes.”

HomeStyle, Pages 35 on 03/09/2013

Upcoming Events