Need tips on how to get organized

amother

Plum

Tue, Feb 07 2017, 11:05 am

DH and I are retirement age, both in our mid sixties. We married off our last child a couple of years ago. But every one of our children left us everything they did not need or want to take with them when they left home. I have a difficult time throwing anything out (everything to me has sentimental value, lol). I need tips and help in how to become more organized, give away, throw out, whatever you can help me with....I don't want to become someone who hoards everything and then in my old age, the kids will have to come in and sort it all out. I'd rather do it myself in my lifetime.
One more thing....besides for the things my kids left behind, I also have tons of serving dishes I used to use when entertaining. Now I've no more energy for entertaining, so it's very rare I use these fancy serving dishes.
Help me get organized, please!

Rubber Ducky

Tue, Feb 07 2017, 11:40 am

Consider hiring a professional organizer. She won't have an emotional attachment to your stuff and will be able to help you sort through it.

One way to sort is to categorize like this:
• Keep — item must be useful to you, beautiful, and/or have sentimental value
• Give away to charity/hold a yard sale (and anything you don't sell you give to charity or throw away)
• Throw away

If your kids don't want your fancy serving dishes, put them in the yard sale pile!

Also, if your kids think your home is their personal storage container, you may want to let them know before consigning their precious stuff to the trash. Give them a firm deadline to take what they want before before you get rid of it.

zaq

Tue, Feb 07 2017, 11:48 am

1. Pack up your children's belongings and give them back to them any way you can, even if you have to pay for shipping. What they do with their junk is their problem, not yours.

2. Announce to your kids that they have until a set date-- six weeks from now, let's say-- to retrieve their belongings, after which time the stuff will be gotten rid of. (If the kids really wanted it they would have taken it by now.) Then DO IT! Hold a yard sale, call the gmachs, put a table outside the house with a sign "FREE STUFF", post on your neighborhood e- bulletin board, find a shul that does rummage sales, shlep to goodwill or some other thrift shop, bring books to the public library or a nursing home or hospital, you name it.

3.Ask your friends, neighbors, singles who have just moved in, as well as your children if they can use any serving pieces. Your kids may have fond memories of those dishes and be thrilled to get a few. Or you can be really evil and pack mishloach monos, each one on its own dish with a note indicating denomination and that you don't want it back. Bring cookies or candies to the nursing home or the police station or something. plant house plants in your fancy bowls and gravy boats and give them as gifts.

3a. If there is a flat dish or two that you really love and would be devastated to give away, hang it on the wall as a work of art--but only one or two and only if your walls aren't already cluttered.

4. You can try selling your stuff online if you're willing to go through the bother of doing that

5. Do an online search for not for profits that take people's stuff. You might need to separate into categories such as housewares, clothes, electronics and so on because some orgs take only certain things. E.g. Ask your optometrist about orgs that collect eyeglasses for the poor. (Google "New eyes for the needy".) Ask the local day school orcyeshiva if they run drives to collect clothes, shoes, linens or other things.

In the battle between you and clutter, you want to be the victor. Do it now at your leisure, because when it comes time to sell your house, the agent will force you to do it on her schedule, not yours, and you could end up paying a service to haul it al away.