For starters, I think it rarely makes sense for a small room to contain more than two purposes, but two purposes is quite doable with the right adjustments.  Perhaps most common is the home office/guest room.  Here is how I make mine work.

Start with percentages. When planning my space I considered just how much I use my home office versus how often we have overnight guests.  Since I need my office seven days a week and we only need a guest room on average of once every two months, I only dedicated 5% of the floor to purely guest room needs, namely the Ikea closet in the corner.

Dual purposes.  The couch unfolds into a bed for guests, but mostly I use the folded couch for business meetings.

Clear surfaces.  Perhaps the best thing to serve as dual purposes is a cleared surface.  There is also a second cleared table to the left of the bamboo table.  I mostly use this space for processing work, but guests can use it for opening a suitcase.  Also, the little sections on top of the office supply drawers are perfect for keys and other pocket contents.

No Excess.  You can see from my shelves in the closet that I am well stocked with office supplies and reference, but I don’t have unidentified boxes and sporting equipment that don’t belong there.  You can see this because I removed the sliding doors.  I found them to be excessive too.  On the guest room side, you can see there is no mountain of decorative pillows.  They aren’t missed

Plan for overlap.  Of course there will be occasions when the guest will be occupying my work room and I still need to get work done.  For these occasions I have made arrangements.  I simply grab my laptop and the clear box you see under the bamboo table and head to the dining table or, weather permitting, the balcony.  In this box I always keep essential office supplies and I add to it the files I am actively working on.  Obviously, this arrangement is not as ideal as working in my office but it’s not bad.

What do you do to make your multi-purpose rooms work? I’d like to hear your ideas and I’d LOVE to see some photos.

It’s only natural to want to make a fresh start in the upcoming New Year.  Now is the perfect time to clear out your stuff from 2008 and create space for the new possibilities of 2009.  This installment of Organizing Works is dedicated to getting rid of those old papers in your home or office.  Sure, it may seem like an overwhelming task, but it’s surprisingly manageable if you know what to do and what NOT to do.  Here are three tips for starters:

1. Sort fast!

To get through your initial purge of accumulated paper, forget your current filing system, limit yourself to four basic categories, set a timer, and work FAST. Your odds of getting through a backlog of paper increase exponentially if you remove the decision barriers and sort fast.  Set yourself up with a comfortable work surface and mark four boxes with the labels Running, Sitting, Sleeping, and Dead. Running Files are all the active projects on your to do list that you want OUT where they can be seen and Dead Files are pretty self explanatory.  The most significant distinction here is between Sitting Files and Sleeping Files.  Sitting files are what’s current in 2008 (and soon in 2009) and a few older records that you may still need quick access to.  The box you collect of Sitting Files then becomes a To-File box when you’re done. Sleeping Files are basically archives, files that you may never need again, but you need to hang on to JUST IN CASE.  The reason this is such an important distinction is that given the choice between “keep” and “toss” one is more inclined to keep for fear of deciding too quickly and making a mistake, but with the Sleeping File category it is OK to keep something just-in-case so long as it is stored more remotely.  It then becomes much easier to toss that box after realizing you haven’t needed any of its contents in seven years, or whatever time span you are comfortable with.  This practice allows you to free up a significant amount of more immediate file space and office space AND it allows you to make your decisions FAST. Just be sure to clearly label your boxes in case a sleeping file does need to be woken up!

2. Ask why, not where.

The answer to “where should this file go?” can be answered with another question: “WHY are you keeping it?”

There are essentially three reasons why to keep a file:

1. Information
2. Statements
3. Records.

These Sitting Files, or current and accessible files, should all fit comfortably in 2 file drawers or less in a typical household.  Before you stuff your next paper into your file cabinet, ask if it represents information you may need in the FUTURE, or a statement for your PRESENT tax year, or a record from your PAST.  If it’s none of the above you may not need it at all. It helps to ask yourself out loud. e.g. “Why am I filing this thick investment prospectus?” “Because I might want to read it when I have some free ti-Aw, who am I kidding?” Just because someone gives you something, doesn’t mean you have to keep it.  Stopping excess files at the gate will keep your files manageable.  The other practice that will help is graduating your supporting tax material from Sitting Files to Sleeping Files after you settle your taxes, so you can free up space in your file cabinet for next year’s statements.  This process of circulation not only addresses WHY you keep a file, but HOW LONG. Need some specifics on how to turn this theory into practice? Check out my May 2007 Newsletter Focus on Filing 2: User Friendly Filing.

3. EZ pass for the Dead Files.

OK, I won’t be surprised if you don’t think you need instruction on how to toss garbage, but guess what.  These days, proper disposal requires some real know-how!  An essential step in effective paper management is to make the disposal process so easy, it feels like you’re cheating.  If your little trashcan is filled to overflowing and you’re not clear about what to shred and what to recycle, where is your paper going to go? Where else but your desk and floor.  Free up that traffic on your productivity highways and give the garbage an EZ Pass.  Start with a large recycling bin for recyclable paper and get clear on what information you need to shred.  If you shred a lot or have a backlog, that little home office shredder just won’t cut it.  These days professional shredding services are more affordable than ever.  The one I highly recommend is Shred Station Express.  You can check them out at http://www.shredstation.com/ Call (203)256-8022, mention code NAPOCT02 and you save 10%.

Negative Space?

As an Organizer, I find the term “negative space” misleading.  In design, negative space is the white area that falls between the dark “positive spaces.”  Perhaps the most familiar example of negative space can be seen in the FedEx logo.  As many of you have noticed by now, there is an arrow in the white space between the “e” and the “x.”  That forward pointing arrow is negative space, but since it is such a perfectly POSITIVE symbol for FedEx it is hardly negative, in the bad sense.  The same holds true for staying organized.

I often hear clients say they don’t mind if everything is packed in tight as long as it is organized.  This line of thinking is a big part of what has gotten them into trouble in the first place.

Consider the wonderfully efficient circulatory system of a healthy human body.  There must be an open path in your blood vessels for your blood to flow and circulate oxygen and nutrients throughout your body.  When there is a build up of plaque in your veins your blood can’t flow and your situation can become critical.  The same is true with a build up of clutter on your desk and your floor.

It is not enough just to have a place for everything.  You must also make a serious effort to limit your everything.  Just as we know it’s not healthy to eat without limits, we must realize that it is not healthy to accumulate without limits.  In this way, you will not only have enough space to store everything you own, you will also be able to maintain a healthy space in between, a so called “negative space”.

Why is negative space so positive?  Take a nice deep breath in.  Aren’t you glad your airway is clear?  It’s the same with your home.  When your home can breathe freely, you can function more comfortably in it.  A clear desk means you can spread out your bills and process them more quickly.  A clear table means you’ve got a comfortable space to fold your laundry more quickly.  A clear floor means you can get from your desk to table more quickly without tripping over clutter.

The Chinese have understood the importance of the space between for centuries.  It is a key component of Feng Shui.  Feng Shui is all about channeling chi or energy.  For chi to flow freely throughout your home there must be open channels.  This can’t happen if every nook and cranny is clogged with excess stuff.  To learn more about Feng Shui, I highly recommend reading Karen Kingston’s Clearing Clutter With Feng Shui.  It’s a quick read.  Even the size of the book demonstrates that less is more!

Clients often panic when I have emptied a bookshelf.  “What am I going to put there now?” If you’ve got control over your stuff, here’s a radical idea.  Maybe you can get rid of those shelves entirely!  Free up some breathing room in your home office and maybe bring in an oxygen-giving plant.  Or get those framed photos off your critical desk space and on to these empty shelves.  I know this idea takes some getting used to.  In our super-size society, we are constantly encouraged to fill up.  To truly stay organized, however,  resist the urge to fill up and celebrate the space between.

On a train we often find it crowded and we put up with it because we have to.  In the comfort of your own home, however, you do not have to feel crowded out by your clutter.  If you do, you have to ask yourself, do you truly own you possessions or are you possessed by them?  If you need help telling your clutter who’s boss, please give me a call at 203.428.6294 or email me at matt@mattbaier.com.

Dedicated Spaces

I know I’m not the first Professional Organizer to talk about dedicated spaces and that’s for a very good reason. While there are many different ways to GET organized there is no better way to STAY organized than to recognize dedicated spaces. Simply put, dedicated spaces are about using specific homes for specific needs. Here are some tips to help you create them.

1. Single location. To reduce confusion, keep all like items stored in just ONE place. In my experience as an Organizer, I have found that there is a minimum of 70 different storage needs in any household. That’s hard enough to stay on top of, but double it or triple it and you are really working against yourself.

2. Store near use. This rule applies perhaps to the kitchen, more than anywhere else. For example, dedicate the drawers and cabinets near the stove to cooking items, like pots, spatulas, and pot holders. If your pot holders are in the dining room with your napkins, your pot roast may burn by the time you get to them.

3. Room to grow. When you dedicate a space to a collection of specific items, it is important to provide those items with a generous allowance of space. This is what is meant by room to grow. Get over the idea that extra space is WASTED space. It’s not. Extra space is what keeps you in control. For example, you know that you will continue to collect more photos, so if you already have your bookcase of photographs packed to the gills, you’re asking for trouble because new photos are bound to pile up in other places. They have nowhere else to go!

4. Freedom in Boundaries. This is a useful paradox. Nobody likes waiting in line, BUT are you more comfortable waiting at delicatessen that asks you to take a number or one that is a free-for-all? It is not only more comfortable, but easier to know where one thing ends and another begins. AFTER your “room to grow” has been filled to capacity, consider it an alarm going off. If your generous allowance is gone reconsider some of the older items in your container. Either toss the older items to make room for new ones, OR reconsider your priorities and allot more space to this area and LESS to another. This is critical in maintaining dedicated spaces, because if you have overflow in one dedicated space, it will affect the allotted space of the other dedicated spaces. When you have dedicated spaces you have control, and when you have control you are free to focus on more important things.

5. Systems you trust. In his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, David Allen states that in order to be truly productive you need to focus on one thing at a time, by getting all the stuff that’s swimming around your brain OUT and “into a system you trust.” For example, do you have a safe place to keep actionable, date-specific items? Allen and other efficiency experts recommend a “Tickler File” for this. I won’t go into the details of how a Tickler File works, but suffice to say I use one and as a result, I now never forget when to pay my quarterly taxes and I never misplace my concert tickets. They are out of my way when I don’t need them and there when I do. Another example, if you are storing your flashlight with your dedicated camping equipment space in the closet, do you trust that you will be able to lay your hands on that flashlight when the lights go out?

6. Be realistic about your needs. This kind of goes back to the point about room to grow. Before you run out and buy a pretty floral accordion file with a bow for all your greeting cards, take an honest look at how many greeting cards you are going to keep. If you know you love to collect greeting cards, gather ALL of them from around your house in ONE pile. If this pile is bigger than your accordion file then reevaluate. Either you need to purge some of the less meaningful cards OR you need a larger container (and don’t forget the room to grow). Otherwise you will have your accordion file busting at the seams, spilling cards on the floor while new cards pile up in various spots around your home. Now how pretty is that?

7. Circulation Prevents accumulation. I have talked a lot about this before, but it is very important to consider when establishing dedicated spaces. Paper is a prime example. Like it or not, you know that you are going to get mail 6 days a week for the rest of your life. Without an easy plan for circulation, accumulation is inevitable. I see paper as having a life cycle which can essentially be broken down into four stages of activity:

A. Running- ongoing projects; most active files out where you can see.

B. Sitting- Anything you want to find readily in a file cabinet.

C. Sleeping- Files you are hanging on to “just in case”; remote archives.

D. Dead- No longer useful. Recycle or Shred.

Rather than treating all paper the same, you need to dedicate spaces for EACH of these four stages. Otherwise it will just accumulate.

8. Frequency merits facility. In other words, the more often you do something the easier it should be. It doesn’t matter if you don’t rate an activity as important or not. The more often you need to do it, the more effort you should dedicate to removing all barriers to its completion. A perfect example is recycling. You may not see it as important, but it is the law and it has to be dealt with daily. Since it is unavoidable, why not make it super easy? Use clearly marked stackable bins and keep them in a convenient location in your kitchen.

9. Labels enable. Once you have established dedicated zones for all your needs, go one step further and label them. A clear plastic container is great for most items because it allows you to see what you have, but add a label to it and it really reinforces its purpose. A label leaves no room for ambiguity. Also if your container is ever emptied, a label will remind you what it had been allotted for. I’m a big fan of the Brother P-Touch for instant laminated labels.

10. Remember forgotten zones. Some needs for dedicated spaces are obvious, like a computer parts bin or a sock drawer, but unless you consider some of your less obvious needs you will have odd bits of clutter piling up throughout your home. Here are some oft-forgotten needs I typically find in client’s households:

• keepsakes
• stationery
• seasonal items
• gifts
• luggage/travel
• items to donate/sell
• contact information to be entered
• borrowed items

If these needs don’t belong SOMEWHERE they’ll wind up EVERYWHERE.

Target Your Office

Does your desk ever get piled with so many things to do that you don’t feel like you can do ANY of them?  If so, you’re not alone.  Just looking at that pile can stress you out before you even start work!  Would you be willing to try something new in order to avoid this daily stress?   If so, you might want to try what I call Target Organizing.  Here’s how it works: 

Imagine your office as a large target with four rings and a bull’s eye.  Now don’t go painting actual rings in your office!  This is just a conceptual approach.  

The Fourth Ring.  The fourth ring is the largest and has the most room.  In your office it is furthest away from your desk.  It can even be outside your office.  Use this outermost ring for storage of items you won’t need regularly.  Boxes of old tax returns are a perfect example.  Sure, you have to hang on to them just in case, but there is no reason they have to crowd your precious space next to your work area.

The Third Ring.  The third ring is for items that you might need weekly, but not daily.  A good example of this is backup office supplies.  Sure, you will want a few paperclips at your fingertips, but keep a backup box of them in a closet or on shelves.  Reference books represent another good candidate for the third ring.

The Second Ring.  The second ring is for items you need to access fairly regularly, but using them may require you to get up from your chair.  A printer, a fax machine, a mailing area, or even file cabinets are all good examples of this. 

The First Ring.  The first ring is for items you need at your fingertips, constantly.  Telephone, computer, daily reference, files, trashcan, and a MINIMAL number of office supplies.  I emphasize minimal because the first ring is the smallest ring and it can get crowded very quickly.  If you can possibly store something in the second or third ring, DO IT.

The Bulls Eye.  So, what’s left for the Bulls Eye?  Nothing!  You should think of your bull’s eye like the eye of a hurricane:  CALM.  Perhaps you’re thinking “what a waste of space.”  On the contrary, a clear work surface is the most important organizing tool in the office.  That’s right, I said “tool” because a tool has a purpose.  The purpose of a work surface should be for processing work, not storage.  Be very critical of anything that is in your Bulls Eye area:  papers to file or delegate, office supplies, photos of loved ones, coffee cups, promotional knick knacks, even a desk calendar (it works better on the wall).  It’s less stressful and easier to think clearly when you begin your workday with a clear desk. 

Finally, make a daily practice of tossing as much junk mail and unnecessary clutter as possible.  In the target analogy, this stuff should be off the target entirely!  Of course, it is necessary to spread out your work during the day.  The goal is to have appropriately located homes to send everything AT NIGHT.

That way, you can begin your next day right ON TARGET.