apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Helen -- ideally you should keep bills for a year, just in case anything does come up. Anything tax-related should stick around for seven, just in case you get audited. [knock on wood] Everything else goes in the recycling and outta your life...

I'm in desperate need to figure out the closet organization thingie. I have a tiny closet in my small 1br apt and no other storage space. Need help like nothing else... :( I have a few items that could benefit being shoved inot a closet. And overall, I want to declutter. Find a better way to organize filing things away, receipts, and odds and ends of things you can't normally throw out, but don't want in plain sight. All in all, I want more time and energy to devote to organize and decorate, but due to a demanding work schedule and getting over being hospitalized, I'm running into obstacles with time, energy, and space.

For all those receipts and paper work that need to be kept, try an accordian style folder. Label the tabs by type of paperwork (receipts, paystubs, taxinfo, etc).

Or get a small, one-drawer filing table to catch all the mail as it comes in. Then label your hanging folders by type of mail (house payment, insurance, work receipts, personal receipts, etc). This keeps all the mail in one area and encourages quick filing of the paperwork. It also allows for quick finding of any paperwork you might need later.

An alternate filing idea for bills is to file them by month...finding that specific bill is easier because there is only one of each per month. They can quickly be gathered to store in the attic for tax purposes (I think this type of info needs to be kept for 5-7 years). If you ever need to find a previous year statement, they will be in order by month.

Well, the two drawers are tidy. Sock organizers in place. But I couldn't figure out what to do with some stuff. It was preventing me from finishing. So I dumped it all into a plastic bag. In one week if I haven't figured out where these items go, they're going in the trash.

Well..finally did the task AT said to do months ago...figured out what all the keys were for (or should I say weren't for). I threw out 18 keys. One small step but it feels GREAT!!!

radish--
Don't let it all overwhelm you! But decluttering and sorting are indeed the first (albeit, least sexy) steps.

Once you have a handle on what's left after you sort and categorize, then it's easier to create/determine storage needs. But I'd say maximizing the efficiency of your one closet is top priority, so consider closet organization from Elfa, or closet services like California Closets, Astech, etc. SO worth the investment.

From there, I think dual-purpose storage furniture, consoles and cabinets, and decorative boxes that let you "store in plain sight" will get you to your desired end result.

The other seemingly-simple but HUGE thing (which I learned from Maxwell) is the importance of a landing strip.

And, as other have mentioned here, create a regular but dedicated amount of time to tackle it, set a timer, and dig in. Like a diet where you want to lose pounds now (then maintain your weight loss), perhaps that initial time investment needs to be an hour a day, more on weekends. But you can pretty quickly shift that to 15-20 minutes a day with continued great effect.

And, if you really want to make it a goal, be prepared to give up some activity temporarily to make the time to get there. When I was in serious declutter mode, my gym time took a hit, but it was an investment of time I'd gladly make again.

And finally, if you need a serious kick-start, hire Maxwell for a consultation.

Good luck! TRUST me... it CAN be done!!!

OK. This is getting weird: I decided I needed a "landing strip" before Patrick's comment. I moved a chest which was constatntly getting cluttered thereby making the interior, where sweaters, mufflers, etc. are stored, inaccessible. I moved the console table where the mail basket resides, and is ignored for weeks into that location. Completely cleared out the basket. Placed two orchids and some paperweights there. Looks great but where to put keys? I don't want to use the hooks that were above the bench for that purpose because I don't want them to fall and chip the planters or lamp that are there. Helpl.

ebrown, where do you put your stuff down when you come into your apartment - your coat, hat, keys, and if you keep it with that stuff, your wallet/purse, etc? Maybe the mail, too, as Kathy suggested, if you always have it when you come in? I would set up a station as close to there (or as close to the door) as possible - a drawer, a decorative box, anything. If you really want to put them on your console table with decorative stuff, then do it - but I kind of believe in creating small spaces that are single-purpose. Mixing stuff, or giving yourself an opportunity to leave a trail of objects on your way in the door, spells trouble.

...I'm having a really hard time with the "dregs" of decluttering - the box of random stuff you know you want/need to keep, but that just doesn't seem to have a logical/categorical home. It's junk drawer stuff - although, to my chagrin, this would make a VERY big and disorganized junk drawer. What on earth do you *do* with all that stuff? Any suggestions? Thanks...

ebrown--

How about a pretty but small dish (plate or bowl or wide-rimmed, squat vase or any other platter with an interesting shape, color or texture) or a box (wooden with lid or shaker-like or lacquered or clear glass) or even a candy jar (that goes with your decor) for your keys? If you have orchids and are going for an oriental look, you can get inexpensive dishes with this theme to complement your orchid planter. In fact, you can plug a pretty planter's hole with tape and use that to contain keys too.

Hope this helped!

ebrown - could you use better hooks for your keys? I put up a couple of coathooks for mine, the kind where the hook points up, and they've never fallen down.

Kris - I know what you mean. I've got a banker's box in the bedroom, which is where stuff without homes usually winds up while I'm decluttering! The box fills up and then I eventually go through it. By then, a handful of things have a logical home (if my decluttering has been ongoing), but I wind up throwing out about half the things, keeping the rest - still in the box! - and leaving it to fill up again before I poke through it all again. I'm trying, trying, trying, but there always seems to be a random collection of orphaned objects! It is getting better, though. It used to be three or four boxes!

Oh yeah...

radish - I used to be a SERIOUS clutter-a-holic. I would be ashamed to tell you how bad it was. And I have an incredibly busy life, working in a not-for-profit...and I've also spent the last four years organizing a coalition of not-for-profits, too...so all together, it's like having two crazy-busy full-time jobs. But I've got almost all of it together now, and if you saw my place before and after, you'd think a different tenant moved in.

You can buy all kinds of storage options, but the real truth is, you can't organize clutter. It's taken me two years to get from a seriously cluttered mess to a pretty neat, clean, and organized apartment. None of the so-called organizing solutions worked or even made sense until I got serious about throwing stuff away. Eventually, I could see how things were going to work if they were going to work for ME...and my solutions probably have very little to do with what's in the organizing "manuals." It's all about me! Yay!

But like Patrick says, the commitment doesn't have to be full time. FlyLady (flylady.net) advocates the "You can do anything for 15 minutes!" system, and you would be surprised how much you can get done in just 15 minutes a day.

okay. I now have a small blue porcelain tray for my keys. I also bought a small celadon colored planter which I will put somewhere else; it will hold keys that I don't use often, i.e the key to the basement. Thanks for the suggestions. You da bomb!

Well, I finally got around to cleaning up my bedroom (remember me from the LONG post?) I have a box full of papers that I now need to go through and throw out. Now I can see my very nice clean floor! I used to save old household bills for years, until a gf told me that she pays the bills, then once she knows the check is cleared, she throws the bill away. You don't know how liberating it was to throw away years of utility and phone bills!

i made a big dent in my boyfriend's ubiquitous paper stacks by persuading him he didn't need to keep those paper bills. i keep everything tax-related for seven years, as mary suggests, but not old statements and bills. i think this is something our parents taught us--that we should keep the utility bill in a file in case "something comes up"--but really, once the check has cleared and you know the bill is successfully paid, has anyone ever had something "come up" that required that paper bill to solve?

besides, there's so much redundant information online now--statements and bills from banks, phone companies, credit card lenders, etc. are usually available online as well as on paper, and can be printed out in minutes if you ever find yourself needing that november '04 checking account statement. and yeah, the online system is fallible, but not really more so than the paper system. that stuff's backed up within an inch of its life. in fact, i don't get paper bills from anyone but ConEd anymore. i get them via email--where they're *much* less cluttery to store.

You know, the only time I've "needed" old info [I needed to list every place I'd lived since coming to the city for my coop board, and I was looking for my address from my freshman year of college, when I just threw everything out, good and bad] and didn't have the bank statement, my bank didn't have the old information either. Fortunately, it didn't matter in my case -- I gave them a vague address. That's the only time I've had to look up anything more than a year old. I figure if the bank doesn't keep it on hand, it's pretty unlikely that they'll ask you about it. Unless you've had trouble with your bank or bills in the past, toss them!

Wow, Patrick (the other one) and Dorianna, thank you so much for the ideas. They're all excellent. I really need to just hunker down and get into decluttering more. Truth is I'm not even that clutter-prone... It's just that the apartment has one TINY closet (the irony of typing 'tiny' in all capitals). I'm going to invest in some under the bed storage and move some stuff down there. We'll see how that works. I also plan on building another shelf inside my closet (god, it's small) so I can stack some stuff there as well.