Eliminate Chaos 2 : The Office

Laura's first step is to make time for getting organized, and making it an appointment on your calendar. It has to be an appointment that you won't skip - like a doctor's appointment.

My goal is to have this project completed by the end of April, and I will set aside time during all of the weekends during the month to complete the project. Hopefully I won't need all of that time - but it's best to over-estimate the time you need, because chances are you are going to underestimate the time it takes.

This step refers to gathering the equipment and tools you'll need for the process - garbage bags for the things you are discarding, boxes for the items you are donating to charity or selling, storage boxes for sorting items that you'll be keeping into like categories, perhaps a shredder if you're dealing with paper.

One good thing about being a containerizer is I have a LOT of storage boxes, baskets, and well as cardboard boxes available to use during the sorting process.

When you're dealing with a clutter filled room, having room to work is probably going to be a challenge. Laura suggests finding a space in the room or nearby in a different room to set up your supplies and do the sorting, purging, and begin the organization process.

For my project of organizing my office, I will be using the family room that takes up the other one-third of the basement for my staging area. I'll have plenty of room to set up boxes and plastic boxes to sort things into.

However before I can get started, I need to sort through all of the items I pulled out of my sewing room and find their proper homes - the boxes of things to be moved all moved down here into my new staging area and I haven't had a chance to get them taken care of yet.