Get Organized During Professional Organizer’s Month

January is the perfect month to get organized. The new year has just begun. People who have a hard time keeping track of bills, receipts and other financial paperwork have an opportunity for a fresh start – a chance to make new files and resolve to file papers as they come in, before they turn into a teaming pile of missed deadlines, overdue bills and lost class registration forms. Almost everyone is determined to be more organized in the new year than they were in the old. That must be why January is Professional Organizers’ Month.

Colorado is home to several professional organizing firms, including Major Mom, All in Good Order, A Place for Everything, and the Alchemy of Order. Boulder County alone is home to eight professional organizers. What is the best way to declutter a home and organize the stuff that remains? Many professional organizers advise their clients to think in terms of A, B, and C spaces. The A space should be easy to access. A spaces might include the top of your desk, your kitchen counter, the front of your closet. These spaces should only contain the things you use every day – like your coffee maker (if you drink coffee). B spaces, such as desk drawers and files, kitchen cupboards, and your closet shelves, should include the things that you need to use regularly, but not every day. For example, guest linens might be stored on a top shelf of a closet, while refills of office supplies might take up space in a desk drawer.

The C space can contain items that you are not likely to need within the next year. Since you will not need those items right away, C spaces can be harder to access – basement or attic crawl spaces, or self-storage units.

For most people, though, the hardest part of organizing is deciding what to do with the items that do not fall into the A, B, or C categories. Those are the items that should be recycled, given away, or thrown out. It is hard to get rid of stuff. But, according to Boulder organizer Liz Canavan (from Alchemy of Order), dealing with unnecessary clutter every day uses up time and drains a person’s energy. “Any time there’s clutter,” she says, “there’s not a flow, and when there’s not a flow, people get stuck, whether stuck professionally or personally….Clearing out the clutter breaks that up.”