Copyright 2005 Kerry Flinders

I hear that all the time. "I don’t have the time to be
organized". My clients say this to me like I will believe
them. What I say to them is, "Then you can’t afford to not
be organized"!

As a Professional Organizer I know the amount of time it
takes to organize each and every space in your house, no
matter what condition it starts in. I realize that time is
valuable. However, when I hear people tell me that they
don’t have the time to be organized I have to stop from
laughing at them. 

Being organized "saves" you time. It "gives" you time.
Being organized helps you eliminate all the time it takes
you to search for things. When you are able to simply go to
the place an item is supposed to be, and it is there, over
and over during the course of a day, then you will actually
find a lot of time freed up in your schedule. This time can
be used more wisely, or perhaps it’s time to just spend
with family and friends. Or even time just for yourself.

Being organized also saves you a lot of stress. Think about
the last important paper you went searching for. Besides
remembering how much time it took to locate it (or perhaps
you didn’t find it at all) think about how stressed out you
were until you found it. If it took you a long time to
locate, chances are you were pretty stressed out for a
while after you found it too. I don’t even want to
elaborate on the stress you must have felt, or for how
long, if you didn’t find that important paper.

(I have lost pink slips to our cars, on two different
occasions, because my important papers were unorganized.
Two different times!)

So, having mentioned that I know that becoming organized
takes precious time, I want to stress that the time it
takes to organize your spaces is far less than the time you
spend each year searching for things. You may take 2 hours
organizing your kitchen one weekend, but if you keep it
that way with a little maintenance though out the year,
then you should never need to do that job again.

There is a "trick" I teach to my clients to convince and
show them that becoming organized really won’t seem like
it’s taking all that long.

First of all, you do NOT need to organize your entire house
and its entire contents in one day or even one weekend.
Please. It didn’t take a weekend to become disorganized and
cluttered, feel free to understand that it doesn’t have to
take a weekend to recover.

Here’s the "trick". Do things in small intervals. In fact,
when I am on job I rarely stay and organize with my client
for more than 4 hours at a time. In my own home, however, I
rarely organize for more than 30 or 40 minutes at a time.
On many occasions I spend as little as 10 to 20 minutes
tops.

How can it possibly take so little time to organize an
area? I tackle it slowly. Take the kitchen for example.
While I’m waiting for the water to boil on the stovetop I
might open a drawer, quickly empty it out, weed and purge
it, then replace the items in their correct spaces. There,
one drawer in my kitchen is completely organized. After a
week of meal preparation, with a little organizing thrown
in here and there I can organize all of my drawers.

One morning, while I was supervising my teenage son while
he cleaned out the refrigerator (my children have 1 chore a
day, on most days), I emptied 3 junk drawers, weeded and
purged, then put everything back in only 1 drawer, freeing
up 2 other drawers for my kitchen needs. I finished my junk
drawer organization way before my son finished emptying out
4 relatively empty shelves, wiping them clean, and then
replacing the items. And these were JUNK drawers. Three of
them. It only took me about 17 minutes to do them all.

Tackle your clutter one area at a time. Feel free to even
break up that one area into smaller jobs. Whenever you find
yourself with a little extra time here or there do some
organizing.

When you’re waiting for your hot rollers to set go though
your closet. Simply remove all the items you haven’t worn
for over a year. Put them in a bag for charity. Now your
closet is on its way to becoming organized. Tomorrow, while
you wait for your hot rollers to set put all the shirts
together, pants together, dresses together and such. On the
third day straighten up and purge your shoes. Within a week
you could have your entire clothes closet clean and
organized, and it really never took you more than 15
minutes each day, over a course of several days.

I organize, and even clean, my house in this manner all the
time. I personally do not like to work for an entire
weekend organizing my spaces. But when you do a little
work, a little bit at a time, then before you know it
you’re all clean and organized.

Don’t ever try to trick yourself into believing that a
little work here and there won’t make a difference. It will
and it does. You can find the time to be organized. And you
will be thankful you did.

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The author Kerry Flinders is the owner of Personal
Organizing Solutions located in Southern California. To
purchase her new book, Organizing With No Budget!, or to
request her FREE Organizing Tip-Pak or to sign up for her
FREE newsletter visit her website at
http://www.personalorganizingsolutions.com