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Smart Moves:
Bust the clutter & more in 2007
By Ellen James Martin
Wednesday, January 3,
2007 12:41 PM PST
Getting rid of all that junk can be a
nightmare.
Right before the engineer was to transfer the house he'd sold
to a family of newly arrived immigrants, he resorted to a
desperate solution to a pressing problem: ridding the property
of the vast jumble of collectibles he'd been amassing for
years.
With the move-out date fast approaching, he laboriously carted
the stuff to his back yard, put a match to it and watched the
ensuing blaze devour it. Among his possessions were valuable
items more than 50 years old, such as Coca-Cola memorabilia.
The engineer had finally solved his problem, but his refusal
to tackle it sooner and in a more conventional way cost him
dearly.
“This whole situation was needlessly expensive for the
seller,” says Martha Webb, an author specializing in the art
of preparing homes for market. By delaying decluttering, he
forfeited a substantial sum he could have made selling his
collections. Worse, he had to accept a price for the house
that was well below its inherent value. A property that could
have been very attractive instead was an eyesore to the home
shoppers who traipsed through.
“Nobody wants to buy your chaos when they buy a house,” says
Webb, co-author of “Dress Your House for Success.” A fourth
edition of the DVD by the same name is due for release in
early 2007.
A house crowded with possessions looks
smaller than its true dimensions, according to Webb. “I don't
care if you've got a house with 8,000 square feet. It's still
going to feel small,” she says. Here are several ideas for
home sellers on meeting the clutter-busting challenge in a
timely way:
• Consider staging a party in support of your clutter-busting
project. Stephanie Calahan, who heads a 5-year-old
professional organizing company (www.calahansolutions.com),
says decluttering can be more tolerable if the agony of it is
infused with occasional amusement.
Calahan tells of one client, an insurance company manager,
whose many boxes of unsorted personal papers included
countless old paid bills, medical statements and nearly every
greeting card she'd ever received. After several weeks of
tedious sorting, she announced a celebratory party to reward
herself.
“Eight of my client's friends came over for what we call a
‘shredding party'. She asked each friend to bring along a
paper shredder. She served wine and brunch, and then everyone
helped shred her excess papers. It was so much fun that later
all her friends had their own shredding parties,” Calahan
recalls.
• Accelerate your campaign with creative ideas. Professional
organizers routinely advise declutterers to take a break every
few hours. Calahan recommends preparing a comprehensive
written plan that spells out a step-by-step approach. Or you
could start with a single part of one room, using a flashlight
to define how large an area you'll tackle at a given time. “In
the midst of a big decluttering project, the flashlight allows
you to focus mentally on a single area,” she says.
Once your units of work have been
defined, Calahan suggests you allocate a fixed amount of time
to declutter each area and then, with the help of a stopwatch,
see if you can “beat the clock.”
• Integrate music into your work. The use of music during an
organizational project can help enliven your spirit and
increase the intensity of your work. Compare this with the
impact music has during, say, an aerobic dance class. Though
popular music is most often played in a fitness center or gym,
classical music may be the most appropriate for decluttering,
Calahan says.
• Think about doing a
clutter-busting blitz if time is short. If the home you're
planning to sell has bursting closets and disorder throughout,
there's no way a single person or couple can deal properly
with the problem without devoting many days or even several
weeks to the task, says Vicki Norris, a professional organizer
who lectures nationally on the subject (www.restoringorder.com).
One solution is to add extra hands to the task and then to
conduct an all-out blitz. Many organizing firms can mobilize a
team on short notice; you can find one in your area through
the National Association of Professional Organizers (www.napo.net).
Alternatively, you may be able to recruit a team of friends or
relatives to help create order from chaos in your property.
Whether you hire organizers or seek out volunteers, Norris
says you should bring in no more than four to five people and
designate a leader.
Obviously, if you're energetic and have lots of time, you can
handle the whole project yourself.
“The only difference with a blitz is that you blast through
the house faster. This is basically
decluttering on steroids,”
she says. |
