Thursday, March 18, 2010

Organizing 101

Professional organizing lesson numero uno - sort and purge before you buy product. It will save you lots of time, energy and money in the long run.

I had two clients last month (we'll call them "M" and "D") who needed some help getting their closet organized. My involvement started when D had purchased $70 worth of organizing product at Target that he wanted me to install. After sizing up the space, I suggested that I help sort and purge the items in the closet before setting up the new products. They agreed and I went forth into several hours of organizing bliss (yes, I am weird). I grouped things into categories that made sense - clothing, travel, memorabilia, etc. After the initial sort I had them review the items in each category. As it turns out, they no longer needed a lot of the stuff! It had been buried in the closet for years and long forgotten. I designated a large trash bag for donations and a separate one for items to sell.

It came as no surprise that the $70 worth of organizing product got returned to the store. My services cost about $100. The math is easy - it only cost $30 more to get a professionally organized space. A very worthwhile investment in my opinion. Chances are, the money they make from the items they sell will pay for those extra $30 and then some. Hooray!

Kristen Ziegler

2 comments:

Unknown said...

SO true Kristen...I'm a big fan of purging and I completely agree that you should purge before you shop.

Prof. Title said...

i'm a huge fan of less. the less to get around, sort through, take up, move around...the better. way to destroy lesson numero uno. & glad it's bliss.