Organizing your cluttered space can be lonely and downright depressing! Who wants to spend a couple hours looking at the clothes you could fit into two years ago, the mementos you saved from your now-grown children’s early years, or the projects from work that you poured your life into and have now been replaced by newer, better?
The solution: make a party of it! Invite a bunch of friends, promise to feed them, and divide the organizing among the lot of you.If you only have one friend kind enough to help, make it a reciprocal agreement. He/she comes to your place first (of course) and you go to to help at the friend’s place the next week. To quote English playwright and poet, John Heywood, “Many hands make light work.”
Take these steps to ensure your organizing party is both fun and productive:
- Choose a date that works for you and your friend(s).
- Dream and plan your ideal layout for the space.You can always make a course correction later.
- Purchase any large storage pieces you know you will need: bookshelves, end tables, storage ottomans. Wait to purchase smaller organizing systems until you know what they will contain and the dimensions of the drawer/shelf to hold them.
- Gather supplies: black trash bags, cardboard boxes or plastic bins for sorting, felt tip pens, sticky notes or 3×5 cards, masking tape.
- Use an proven organizing method like Julie Morgenstern’s S.P.A.C.E. Explain how it works to your guest(s)
- Feed the workers before you start, and take water breaks.
- De-clutter and organize for a set time, say 1-2 hours, stop and straighten up.
- Celebrate the great progress you made and make another date to complete the task!
In addition to the extra hands and brainpower, this method works well because once committed, you can’t back out. We may break appointments with ourselves on a daily basis, but hesitate to let our friends down.
Just think… if you and a friend did this trade once a month for a year, you could organize your whole house or apartment! An added side benefit is the relationship building time together. How fun!
Use an organizing method like S.P.A.C.E.
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