Urge to purge … It’s spring!

Does the warm weather give you a new felt energy to “let go”, tidy up, clean, rearrange and revise the configuration of your spaces inside and out? It certainly does it for me, and I see it in my clients too. It seems that we all enjoy the change of season with longer and brighter days that are seen as much with our eyes as with our hearts.

I thought I’d list my favorite “Urge to Purge” tools for when organizing a home or home office. April is a calendar month to “prune” our possessions, paper, and time. These are the items that I have on hand as an organizer, wife, mother or friend, when I help people edit their belongings and information …

Pruning “Things”

1. Garbage bags) – I like to use sturdy black garbage bags. I always ask if there is a bulk garbage collection day in someone’s city to take advantage of, and if not, I always know the phone number of a green garbage disposal company when there will be a lot of waste that a person’s community cannot. pick up.
2. Recycling brown box (es) or bag (s) – Knowing the city’s recycling program / policies helps and even being able to drive to the city’s recycling center after the purge to get non-caretakers out of the newly reorganized spaces.
3. Donation bag (s) or box (es) – I like to use white kitchen liners and / or small donation boxes. 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 for your “spring adventure” dates.
4. Sell ​​bag (s) or box (s) or just write a list – One of the most difficult categories that I find to follow in the planning of 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 don’t want anymore, but feel like you could get a dollar or two for them.
5. The “Belongs to Elsewhere” box or even an area on the ground – When inquiring into your “need to purge”, there will always be items that you decide you want to keep but that belong to another part of the house, not to the space that one is currently ordering. I advise you to put everything away once you have finished organizing. Don’t stop while you’re sorting out the clutter to put your items away because you could do what I call “zig-zag arranging” …

Pruning of “Documents and information”

1. Recycling brown box (es) or bag (s) – Like the need to purge with our old stuff, knowing the city’s recycling program / policies is helpful and even being able to drive to the recycling center in town after the purge to get it out of the spaces right away is a advantage. .
2. Shredding box (s) – If there are piles of papers with identifying information that need to be disposed of, I recommend shredding them. One can do this with a heavy duty shredder, bring shredding to a citywide shredding opportunity, an office supply store that uses this service, or sometimes I have a shredding truck coming home.
3. To scan – Scanning your papers to digital documentation will help you put down the paper. I like to set up my file hierarchy in advance, so once I scan something I know exactly where to send it.
4. Specific email – The use of the options: delete the key, unsubscribe, block this sender or mark as spam, are excellent ways to make the information disappear.
5. Delegate – If you can delegate your information and role tracking to someone else, like a virtual assistant or family member, I consider it a pruning tool too.