Category: Organizing

My favourite clutter clearing book ‘Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui’ written by Karen Kingston, has inspired the following:

What is your clutter costing you?!

Try this. Go into each room and estimate the percentage of space that is taken up by your clutter; things you rarely of never use. Be truthful with yourself; include everything you don’t unquestionably love. Count the things you haven’t used for at least a year. Remember to include space on book shelves where unread or once read books are, the back of closets, under the bed, the shed, the garage, everything!

Make a list:

1 – bedroom 1    25%

2 – bedroom 2    40%

3 – bedroom 3    50%

4 – hallway          15%

5 – dining room  30%

6 – kitchen           25%

7 – bathroom       20%

8 – basement       55%

9 – office               25%

10- shed               85%

Total the list      370%

Calculate:

370% divided by 10 (the number of areas) = average 37% clutter per room!!

In this example storing your stuff is costing 37% of your rent or mortgage!

A small off-site storage unit can cost $125 a month or more; $1500 (plus taxes) a year is a great vacation fund or a nice chunk off of your mortgage.

Get back to basics, reclaim your space, and keep only what you need.

I understand the difficulty of letting go; however, storing your unused stuff is creating more emotional and financial stress than you may realize. Trust me, once the stuff is gone, you won’t even miss it and the freedom of space will lighten your whole life.

I love hearing about your success stories. Leave your comments below or click on the Contact Page and tell me about your triumphs over clutter.

Enjoy your clutter free life!

There are many great filing systems on the market. The thing I have learned when creating a home filing systems for clients, is that it must make sense to them. A particular system might offer more benefits than another, but ultimately the one used must be manageable long after the organizer has gone. Some things that I find helpful are:

– Use hanging files.

– Only use file folders if there is a sub-category in a hanging file, this will cut down on the bulk considerably.

– Name your file with confidence knowing you will be able to find it again in a year.

– Use names on files by type rather than company. Such as phone rather than Shaw or Telus.

– Keep names of files generic. Use ‘Even Tax Year’ and ‘Odd Tax Year’ rather than  the year itself. Archive older files.

– Prefix like categories: Rather than have the gas bill under ‘G’ and the phone bill under ‘P’, group them  together by naming them ‘Utility-Gas’ and ‘Utility-phone’. Group family health records together by naming them ‘Health-then the family members name’

– Keep an active desk top file with no more than 6-10 categories. This is the place you will visit daily and/or weekly. Files might include categories such as: bills to pay, needs attention, to do, asap. Keep one file for each child for school and activity related things.

Like a home there should be flow in your filing system. Every six months or at least once a year, go through each file and purge the no longer needed papers. Create space for more current documents and avoid creating a system too jammed with paper to use.