Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I’ve been overcome by the urge to organize lately. Apparently, it’s contagious around here. I suspect it originated on the West Coast, though, because when I talked to my brother a few weeks ago, he and his girlfriend had already started their early (or late, depending on your point of view) spring cleaning.

After a long snowy day spent throwing things out, here is what I have learned.

1. Empty out the space completely. This lets you see two things–how much space you have, and all the stuff that was crammed into it. Sort things into three piles–keep, sell/give away, and toss. In an ideal world, the keep pile is the smallest pile.

2. Anything you absolutely love and/or use frequently goes in the keep pile.

3. If something needs a minor repair, put it in a separate space in the keep pile, and take it to the appropriate professional repair person in one lot. (For example, everything that needs to be mended or hemmed goes to the seamstress/tailor in one go.)

4. Toss anything that doesn’t fit or look good, has faded or darkened from its original color, is used up, worn out, torn, threadbare, cracked, chipped, hazardous/toxic, dried out, smelly, slimy, leaky, moldy, in need of major repair (unless it’s REALLY worth repairing, AND you’re REALLY going to have it done), missing parts, stained, hosting tiny civilizations, past its expiration date, grotty, otherwise useless, or dead. Yes, dead. One of the stories that went around the BMV when I was working on a project there was from a person who gives driver’s license tests. Apparently, she had a client who had a dead dog in the vehicle because the owner “hadn’t gotten around to burying it yet.”

5. Items may be re-purposed, repainted, repaired, refurbished, etc., but only if you intend to do it (or pay someone else to do it) in the forseeable future. If you said that about an item last time you purged, then it’s time to let it go.

6. Expensive, high-quality items may be worth saving even you aren’t currently using them, especially if you have an eye on resale shops or e-bay. However, if you’re hanging on to something just because it was expensive, ask yourself how much the space you’re keeping it in is worth.

7. If you haven’t worn/used/seen/missed it in two years, sell it, toss it, or give it away.

8. You don’t have to keep something just because somebody gave it to you. Especially if it’s ugly, useless, doesn’t fit, is a duplicate of something else, or not to your taste.

9. Remember my grandmother’s mayonnaise jar collection. If you would be embarrassed to answer the question “why are you saving this?” or you can’t come up with a good answer to “what is it good for?” then you don’t need it. Do you really want to have to explain why, even to yourself, you have a box of small pieces of string labeled “pieces of string too small to save.” (I’m not making this up. We actually did find such an item at my grandparents’ house in Illinois.)

10. Recycle whenever possible–glass, plastic, metal, paper, children, etc.

11. If it’s a major item with a lot of sentinmental value (family heirlooms, wedding dress, etc.) keep it. Use it if you can, store it out of the way (carefully packed and in a climate-controlled space as needed) if you can’t use it. But you’d be surprised by what you can actually use. People get weird about that sort of thing; I know from personal experience. When my grandmother (she of the mayonnaise jar collection) moved into her retirement community, I ended up with her (fabulous) dining room furniture. My parents kindly stored it for me until Ed and I bought a house–and I refused to buy a house that the dining-room furniture wouldn’t fit into. Finally, we got a house, moved in, and unpacked. I actually drew a little map of the china cabinet and buffets, trying to figure out the best way to use the storage and display space. I put everything away, dusted the furniture every week, and for the first three months, I was intimidated by the mere idea of sitting down and having a meal at that table. After all, that was my grandmother’s formal set, the one that we always used for seders and Thanksgiving dinners at her house. Eventually, I realized that I was being ridiculous, and now, I use the dining room table for most meals, for gaming, for sewing, and the occasional seder or Thanksgiving dinner.

12. Think twice about keeping duplicate items. Do you need two toasters–especially if only one of them works? On the other hand, if you discover, say, a stash of lightbulbs for a specific lamp or light fixture that you currently own, it’s OK to save them. Just put them all in one place and label the container.

13. Which brings me to my next point. When you put away the items in the keep pile, label your boxes or containers, especially if they’re not transparent. For example, if you’ve got a lot of shoes, label each box descriptively. Fourteen boxes labeled “shoes” won’t help. (If you’re going full-on Martha Stewart, stick a photo of the item on the front of the box.) Personally, I like transparent plastic tubs in varying sizes. It helps to keep all the containers in a space (on a shelf, in a drawer, on a rack, in a cabinet, etc.) a uniform size and shape, and that makes better use of the space, and looks neater. It’s also easier to keep like items together.

14. When you have finished, go through your keep pile a second time. If in doubt, toss it out (or sell/give away). Everything you keep has to fit back into the space allotted in an organized way.

15. Throw out junk mail, flyers, unwanted religious and political pamphlets, advertising circulars, and the like immediately upon receipt. Don’t save coupons for things you don’t use or stores where you don’t shop. Life is too short to spend sorting through a six-month accumulation of junk paper. On the flip side, file important documents immediately. Nobody likes hunting up that last W2 at 10:00 PM on April 15th. I am embarassed to admit that when I was looking for our passports the other day, I found them in my half-unpacked carry-on bag from the last trip.

16. If you don’t know where to start, the bedroom is a good choice. No matter what the rest of your place looks like, you’ll feel better if you go to sleep and wake up in a tidy place. If you have dust allergies, the bedroom is the best choice, because you’ll sleep better in a clean room.

17. Socks and underwear that are worn out must go right now, no arguments, even if you have to go out and buy more in order to avoid a crisis. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–I don’t care if the elastic is still good if it isn’t attached to the underwear. Corollary: If the underwear was really lucky, would it have ended up looking like that in the first place?

18. Divide a large or especially intimidating space into mini-projects. If you can’t spend a whole afternoon on your home office, at least take an hour or two to clean out your desk. The hard part about dividing up a space and stretching the project out over several days is keeping your completed areas from being overwhelmed by the parts yet to be done. Invest the time now, and you’ll save it later when you’re not looking for something, or buying a duplicate item because you can’t find the one you have. (My grandfather had two complete sets of drafting tools for this very reason.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2004 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Home Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.