Have you had a life long struggle with being organized?  Need support from a community of people who are equally overwhelmed?  Don’t know where to start? Looking for accountability and resources to help you live the life that truly want in life? Need an affordable organizing solution?  It’s time to get started and declutter your life!

Join Ellen Delap CPO® in February 2012 for Professional-Organizer.com’s  Clutter Support Group. This membership based group is the starting point for your journey in transforming your life, helping you define, establish and maintain an uncluttered lifestyle. 

Professional-Organizer.com’s Clutter Support Group is a four week, 1 ½ hour program where members support each other every week.  Members will work on individual projects, read along in the book The Other Side Of Organized, and discuss organizing solutions.  Fee is $100 for the sessions, book and related materials.  Register by January 25.  There is a limited membership.  For information and to register, call 281.360.3928 or visit www.professional-organizer.com.

I love sharing success stories!  It takes courage, tenacity and a team to make a big change from a home filled to the brim to a home ready to sell.  I am fortunate to share Audrey’s story!

Audrey and I started working together in 2007.  We met in her home to get started organizing.  It was a meeting that stayed on my mind, a professional and proper woman who had a home filled to the brim.  Audrey was recently diagnosed with ADD, had become a member of our local ADD chapter and knew of her challenges all too well.  She was just at a beginning stage of recognizing what was ahead of her.   Audrey was still in denial about the challenges she faced. 

About two years went by, and Audrey contact me again to help her. At this time, she had recently purchased a new home and wanted to sell her hoarded home.  It was troubling to her, but in a compelling way.  It was difficult to part with items in her old home, even though the new home was fully furnished.   She shared that at her new home, she had wished to build a shed that was hold all her belongings.   It would have walls and walls of shelving, just to keep her stuff.  However, with the economy and her husband’s poor health, their new home would not include this shed.  It was beginning to dawn on her that her belongings would not fit in her new home.  She was beginning to part with her stuff, but it was still very difficult.

A year later, in 2010, Audrey was in touch again. This time Audrey knew it was time to make a serious change.  She must sell the old home and dispose of the contents. Together we applied to a number of television shows to get her help.  She was willing to tell her story in exchange for the assistance provided. We were declined by all the shows.  It was in being declined that Audrey realized she must build her own team. She invited church members over to help her declutter and move items.  She hired a mover who also took off items and donated or sold them. Audrey paid college students to help her.  She was making great progress.

This week Audrey invited me to see her success! I am thrilled for this transformation for her.  What did she share that made this success happen?

• Her husband and daughter Lisa supported her in this  work of decluttering. They would go with her to the home and be there as a sounding board.
• She had the support of her therapist in working through grief issues that had been reasons behind holding on to some of the items.
• Her realtor said to her, “What could be of such great value in this home that you are paying monthly for the utilities and more?”  Audrey realized that the $200 she pays monthly for electricity is an unnecessary expense.
• Me! Audrey would check in for accountability regularly, just to share with me her progress.
• Audrey realized that this home and its stuff was a barrier in her relationships and had held her back long enough. 

• What did Audrey uncover that was most valuable to her?  Jewelry and a bible belonging to her brother.  What was the hardest thing to let go of? Her grandson’s papers from elementary school and anything belonging to her mother.  What did she do with the items? Mainly donate, but also throw away a lot of it.

I am attaching a gallery of shots from Audrey’s home.  Each before picture is taken from the hallway.  In the first picture, you can’t get in the room, it is just a view of plastic bags.   Each room has enormous items to tackle.

 Audrey is courageously sharing this success and her story.  Thank you Audrey for partnering with me to make a difference!

Most of us have too much stuff.

It’s tough to resist the latest gadget in a consumer-oriented society. Sentimental attachments are difficult to break. And often, we’re simply too overwhelmed to declutter. Life transitions and work overload get in the way.  The situation has fueled a growing demand for professional organizers to help sort through the forests of paper, boxes of junk stuffed in the garage and the dark cave of half-used cleaning products lurking beneath the kitchen sink.  Fall’s an opportunity to get the house in order so you can show off seasonal decorations, have spices in easy reach for holiday baking and welcome company to a guest room without outdated computers shoved into the corner.  “Start with the end in mind,” says Ellen Delap, owner of www.Professional-Organizer.com.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/7185854.html

This fall I am excited to host 2 clutter support groups to help people define, establish and maintain an uncluttered life

 The Clutter Support Group supports members in

• Clarifying their organizing and lifestyle goals
• Transition their space and paper from disorganized to more organized
• Discussing systems that will facilitate organization for them
• Discussing routines that will facilitate organization for them

 Strategy

• Group setting facilitated by certified professional organizer
• Set your organizing goals and learn your organizing strengths
• Put your strengths into practice by working on one space in your home during the 6 week time frame
• Read along with Peter Walsh’s book Its All Too Much and discuss organizing challenges you face. 

Meeting structure

• Beginning Tuesday evening September 21 or Wednesday morning September 22
• Six weeks, Sessions of 1 ½ hours, at Kingwood Pine Hospital private room
• Fee based membership of $120 for all sessions.  Pre-registration required.
• Limited enrollment

Many thanks to industy leader Lorie Marrerro as a cheerleader, educator and spokesperson for Goodwill.  Not only does Lorie challenge us to join her in a new movement of Conscious Donation, Lorie also shares with us information on what to donate.  My clients often ask me how to determine what to “bless others with”.  I encourage reuse of most items, except in the case of damaged or broken items. But even the smallest of items can be used by others.  

Lorie wants to “create a culture of Conscious Donation, and have people consider where they are making their donations of belongings as carefully as they would consider where they are making a financial donation.”  Going beyond an aweness, we want to be mindful of how our donations can make a huge difference locally.   For Goodwill, your donations create jobs.   Goodwill’s Job Connection Centers serve individuals who are unemployed or underemployed and are ready, willing and able to be productive citizens in meaningful, self-fulfilling jobs.

 In this post by Lorie, she shares what Goodwill takes.  These also apply to other donation resources. 

http://www.clutterdietblog.com/2010/07/donating-dos-and-donts.html

Another part of the Goodwill donation site is the donation calculator.  See what your donations do for people!

http://donate.goodwill.org/

So won’t you join us in conscious donation?  I am committed to it!

We think we need days to declutter and we only have a few hours. Make the most of your decluttering time with planning, focus and decision making.  Arranging your schedule with decluttering as a priority creates success. With your kids secure and cared for, don’t answer the phone, check email or get distracted with details. Your goal in this 2 hours is to find and eliminate items!  Schedule Salvation Army or other trucks to pick up from your door the next day.  If you are planning a garage sale or online sale, set a date on your calendar.  You now have a deadline and accountability!  Start with the most frustrating space first.  Get boxes for donation items, sale items, distribution items (things that go in another room) and garbage items.  Set a timer and get going!

Here is the most important aspect – good decision making.  Be ruthless with items you no longer use.  If it has become a burden to care for it, purge it.   If it is broken, you can can list it on www.freecyle.org.  Especially in your closet, keep only what makes you look and feel fabulous!  Be clear on your vision of what the space will look like when you are done.

What does success look and feel like to you? Do you feel lighter? Is there less to care for? Do you see clarity in your space? Share with me your decluttering strategy and your success!

Summer is almost here!  This is the best time to partner with your kids in decluttering your home! 

All children have favorite toys and clothes they have outgrown. The comfort of these items creates security for them. However, your children can share their blessings by decluttering before a birthday or holiday. Encourage your children to donate to local philanthropies that are important to your family, such as a women’s shelter or relief fund. Sell the items online or at consignment and have them also learn about money.  Go through your children’s clothes at summer and winter intervals to be sure only what fits is in the drawers or closet. If you store clothes for the next sibling, keep these in uniform, labeled containers with the size, season and gender on the outside of the container. If your children are not ready to part with certain toys, the toys can “go on vacation” on an upper shelf or other storage area to be brought out later.  Expect to work together for 30 minutes, and then finish up. By working together, your kids will learn the organizing process, learn to simplify and learn that less is more!