Home Organization

Home organization. Wouldn't we all like to have a perfectly organized home? Of course we would.

A lot of the preparation work for staging a home involves getting organized. But you don't need to be putting your home on the market to be motivated to get organized. Some people are paralyzed just by the amount of paper they have to deal with everyday and are just looking for a way to find what they need, when they need it.

If this sounds like you, then follow along as we get all the piles of papers around your house out of the way and into a home organization paper management system.

1. Allow enough time to get organized.

Changing your habits will require time and patience. You will not get organized overnight. However, you will take small forward steps every day. The correct way to think about this process is that it is a marathon, not a sprint.

2. Resolve to make decisions.

When you put a piece of paper, or some mail, or a stack of catalogs in a pile, you postpone a decision about that item. As you postpone more and more decisions, the piles get higher. When you come across a piece of paper/file/catalog, ask yourself these questions:

Do I need to keep this? Where should I keep it? For how long should I keep it? How can I find it when I need it again?

If you answer each of these questions in turn, you will be making the decisions that you need to make in order to get organized.

3. Designate a "organization headquarters".

You will need to find a place, it could be a desk, a home office, a corner of the basement...anywhere in your home that you will use exclusively for your new organized life. Choose a spot wisely, a comfortable and convenient place that you will enjoy working in. This is an important step because all those piles all over the house will soon consolidate into one special spot. Just keep in mind that the space needs to be functional for your home organization tasks.

4. Establish a place for every piece of paper you need to keep.

Now that your have your organization headquarters, you will want to choose specific places within your HQ for the following types of papers:

• A "Need to Sort" box. Create a temporary spot for papers that you haven't sorted yet. There are three things you can do with papers in this box: you can file them, you can act on them, or you can toss them.
• A wastebasket. Ask yourself if you really need that piece of paper, or catalog, or flyer, or piece of mail. If not, you know where it should go!
• Your calendar. You will never forget to do something if you write it down on your calendar -- and think about how many "to do" notes you won't need if you have written it down.
• A "Need to Do" file. You can organize this file by type of task, but generally, these are the things that require your immediate attention.
• A "To Do" List. Remember to bring treats for kindergarten? No problem. You've written it down on your to do list and thrown away the small scrap of paper with your reminder. All reminders such as this go on your "to do" list.
• Personal phone, email book. Whether in written form, or digitally on a PDA, put all your phone numbers and email addresses in one place. You'll know exactly where to find them.
• Long term files. Anything you will use again (birth certificates, insurance policies, wills, household inventories) should be kept in a long term file. We recommend an online safe deposit service such as My-personal-files to keep important papers that you cannot afford to lose or be without.

  Home organizaton needn't be difficult. It is mostly about having "a place for everything, and everything in it's place". If you follow these simple suggestions, you will never waste time looking for something in some pile or another ever again.

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  Home Organization When Staging a Home from Home Organization.