It’s Not About the Stuff

At the end of April, I returned home after attending the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizer’s) conference. Since that time, I’ve been thinking about what I wanted this month’s featured article to be about. There is always so much to share after attending our conference. Each year at our conference, we have an Organizing Expo where vendors showcase their organizing product for home and offices. It’s one of my favorite parts of conference.  I saw many useful products that I will be sharing with you in future newsletters. 

A couple of weeks before leaving for conference, Evening Magazine contacted us and wanted to know if we’d be interested in working with them on a Kitchen and an Office Organizing segment. We had already been working with Custom Garage Interiors on a Garage Segment for the show—and the producers were so inspired by this segment they decided to dedicate an entire show to Organizing on May 23rd. With so much content for the show, the segments will now air on May 22 and May 23rd.

While our team of Organizing Specialists have been working on these projects—a common theme was beginning to occur and it really didn’t matter if it was the garage, the kitchen or the home office.

Around the same time, we saw the devastation of the tornados in Greensburg, Kansas. I listened to those that had survived, but lost everything. Several of those interviewed made comments about the “stuff” they had lost—yet they were thankful to be alive and have each other. I remember one lady saying “Stuff is Stuff. It doesn’t matter if you have stuff if you are dead.” Wow, I thought —it was true and if you’ve read “Laura’s Story” at the beginning of Eliminate Chaos...The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home & Life you will know that I talk about “you can’t take it with you when you go.”

And so the topic of this article... “It’s Not About the Stuff”

Here are a few short stories that you may be able to relate to—which are all based on the three projects we just completed for the upcoming TV special.

The Garage: Often times the garage is the largest room of the home that becomes a catch-all for anything and everything that doesn’t have a place. Sometimes the things stored have very little monetary value—but they are kept because “I might need that someday.” Other times, stuff is kept because there are memories associated with the stuff, yet if it’s in a box, tucked away in the garage—do you have the opportunity to experience those memories as often as you’d like?

Let’s face it, the reality is that not everyone will park their car(s) in the garage because they have made the decision to use the garage for a different purpose, for example—an office, workshop, gym, etc... If your garage really does not serve a purpose—other than to keep a bunch of stuff dry—then it may be time to reassess and take action.

This is the best time of year to tackle your garage, while the weather is nice. You’ll be thankful you did this now rather than when the cold weather sets in. It’s a wonderful gift to give your family—or for your dad, husband, partner, or significant other. You will love the feeling of accomplishment.

The Office: Offices today serve a variety of purposes. I’m sure you can think of several yourself. Most of our home-office clients have offices that serve two-three purposes. The more purposes the office has, the more systems needed for keeping the office, paper, and information organized. 

I’d like to share with you two stories about Melinda’s office that I think many can relate to.

Story 1: Melinda subscribes to many magazines and loves to tear pages out of the magazines for future reference. The problem Melinda faced is that there were so many pages torn out of magazines—that she didn’t remember exactly what she had torn out (some dated back to 1999) and as they began to pile up, they would go from piles to a plastic box, to multiple boxes—making it very difficult to find what she needed when she needed it.

But what to do with all of those great ideas?