Organizing Ashburn Yards

Organizing your yard is just as important as organizing the inside of your home, especially if it is on the market.  The front yard is the first thing potential buyers will see and they will be making a snap judgement based on what they see.  If it is a well maintained and manicured yard people will think that the home has been properly cared for.  The inverse of this is also true.   If you have weeds growing all over or empty flower pots and toys sitting around, people will assume you don’t take care of things.  This will translate into their overall impression of the home and create concerns that the inside is probably not properly taken care of either.

Make the best first impression you can by clearing everything that is unnecessary in the front and back yards, and keeping the grass mowed and weeds at bay.  Step back and look critically at the front and back of your house. 

Does the siding or brick need a power washing? 

Do the shutters and trim need a little paint? 

Are there large bushes blocking windows?

Are the house numbers and lamp posts rusty or hard to see?

Does the garage door work properly and look it’s best?

Do you have unsightly plastic edging popping out from around your plant beds?

Do the plant beds look over grown and jungle like?

Is the porch clear of clutter? 

If you can address all of the above issues, when people approach your home they will be thinking that you must really take care of your home and will be less likely to worry about potential problems that could be lurking.

3 P’s To Organization- Step 3

The first 2 steps to organization discussed so far have been Purge and Pair.  We must first purge unnecessary items from the space, then pair like items, or items with a similar purpose, together.   The 3rd and final step is to Place items back in the space.

This is the step where you have to think about the purpose of the things being returned and how they will be used in the space.  What you don’t want to do is haphazardly put everything back in the room.   Think of the room as having zones.  If this is the family room, you may have a game table so all of the games should be located near the table.  If you have a comfy reading chair in the room, there should be a place to store the paper, magazines or books.  If this space is also used for T.V. watching and gaming, then all of the movies and gaming equipment should be grouped together in an orderly fashion near where it will be used.  If everything is easy to find and has a designated home then it increases the chance that things wil be used more often and then returned to their proper home.  This method of zones will work in every other space in your home too.

So over all, the 3P’s to organization are pretty simple but require time and patience to tackle each step.  Remember to create small goals and reward yourself once each is accomplished.  Nobody wants to tackle a big job without some sort of payoff at the end.  Make it the process fun by enlisting a spouse or friend and play some upbeat music and go to it.  If you have to tackle the process alone ask a friend to check in with you periodically to keep tabs on your progress and give you that accountability to keep on going.  If you are the competitive type, you might even try setting time frames to accoplish the small goals and try to beat the time.  Do anything that will make it more motivating for you so that you reach that final goal of a well organized space.

For more information on organizing visit my other blog topics or check out my website at www.enuffwiththestuff.com.

The 3 P’s To Organization- Step 2

If you read about the first step of my 3 P’s To Organization in my last blog then you already know that the first “P” stands for Purge.  The second “P” stands for Pair.  This is very simple to understand, it simply means to pair like items, or items of like purpose, together. 

This may seem really obvious if you are reading this and you may be thinking, “Who doesn’t know that?”  Well, think about your garage, kitchen, office desk, gift wrapping supplies, basement workshop.  Do all of the areas in your home have everything together so when the time comes to use the space you aren’t making trips all over the house to collect the needed supplies? 

Does this scenario sound familiar?   Do you drop your mail on the kitchen counter, open the mail somewhere else and then leave it there.  Then when it comes time to pay the bill, if you can find it, you go to another room to get a pen, then have to find the stamps buried in the junk drawer and you know those return labels are somewhere on the desk but since you can’t find them you will just write out your address yourself.  If this sounds like a lot of wasted time, it is!  To illustrate how pairing items with a similar purpose helps save time when you are doing bills, having the file for incoming mail, checkbook, stamps, return labels, envelopes and pens all in the same location makes it a snap to get this chore done in a much more efficient manner. 

Try looking at other areas of your home to determine how you can make them more efficient by pairing like items, or items of similar purpose, together.  You will save yourself more time and aggravation if you take these preventive measures now.  Remember though, that any organizing system is only useful if you maintain it.  That means putting everything that you use back in its place.  Don’t simply put something down when it may only take 2 extra seconds of effort to put it away in its proper home.

The 3 P’s To Organization – Step 1

Organizing can be broken into many steps or just a few.  I have created an easy way to remember the basic method of organizing called The 3 P’s to Organization.  Every organizer seems to come up with their own mnemonic device to help their clients remember the process for organizing so that we can transfer our skills.  I tried to keep mine short and sweet for ease of recall.

The first part of organizing that I will discuss on today’s blog is “Purge.”  This can mean a lot of different things to different people and rightly so.  Everyone has different levels of need for purging and different connections to their belongings. 

Purging can be tackled on a small or large scale depending on your need and stamina for the process.  If you have a space that causes you to want to turn tail and run out screaming because the idea of how to begin is just too daunting, don’t despair.  Remember the expression,”How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”  The same goes for purging. 

To begin, you need to set up categories for the items in the room.  I like the broad labels like keep, trash, donate, belongs elsewhere.  Label a box with each category and then stop and visualize how you want this room to be used when all is said and done.  That is your goal and in order to reach this goal you will have to make some tough decisions about which box to place your belongings.  Keep asking yourself while you are purging and get stuck on what to do with something, “Is this something for the space that is useful, something that I love, or something that I think is beautiful?”  If the answer is yes, put it in the keep pile, otherwise pass it on to someone else if it still usable.  Remember to keep the visual of what you want for the space as your motivation.

Also, if the space is used by others it is usually a good idea to have them involved in this stage of the process so that the favorite, lucky bobble-head doesn’t go missing and start a feud.  If all parties involved have the same vision for the room, those special keepsakes may not be so hard to part with.  Another good strategy to keep you motivated through the process is to set small goals and rewards for each step.  “Once I get the couch and end table cleared of clutter, I am going to actually enjoy sitting in one of them and put my feet up for 5 minutes.”  Don’t stop for too long or you may lose momentum. 

Once you have finished for the day you want to be sure that the trash gets out of the house and that donations get placed in the car immediately and dropped off as soon as possible.  You don’t want there to be temptations or second guessing going on with all of those items sitting around the house in front of you. 

Now, keep your goal in mind and your rewards coming and soon you will have the big pay off in the form of a new, more functional space to add joy rather than stress to your life!

Organizing Donation Resources

Organizing in Ashburn is easy because we have so many resources for eliminating all of those precious things that we just had to buy but rarely, if ever, used and are now collecting dust and adding clutter to our sanctuaries.

Some of the resources that are convenient because they pick up your no longer loved but still useful items are organizations like: Am Vets, 1-800-526-8387; National Children’s Center, 1-800-296-1122; and The Lupus Foundation of America, 1-888-448787.  The added benefit of these organizations is that you don’t have to drive anywhere or even be home when they pick-up.  Just leave the items outside labeled for the driver and they will leave a tax receipt.  Easy!

Another wonderful, and local, organization in Leesburg is Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice.  They collect cell phones for battered women.  The organization has them refurbished and distributes them to women in shelters to use for emergencies.  So next time you upgrade that cell phone, consider donating the old one to this great cause and of course you will get a tax receipt here too!

Another easy way to rid yourself of perfectly usable items when you may just have a few is, www.freecycle.com.  You can get rid of just about anything here and meet the person somewhere for the exchange or simply leave it on your porch for pick up.  This is the perfect site for when you are using the rule: one in, one out rule for new purchases.

The obvious other solutions for eliminating unwanted goods, and making a little money too, would be to have a yard sale or post on Craig’s List and/or eBay.  Yard sales can be fairly fruitful especially when it is done when your community is hosting one and doing the advertising for you.  Craig’s List and eBay are a bit more work but if you have a couple of fairly good quality items then you may do well here.

Now get to all of that dust collecting stuff in your basement and garage and donate, donate, donate, or sell,sell, sell!