Recent Articles
Win the War on Garage Clutter With Pro's Organizational Tips
By Melissa Erickson - Springfield State Journal-RegisterJune 2nd 2011
Where’s the bike pump? How about the plant fertilizer you bought two weeks ago? Why are these snow sleds blocking the recycling bin? Is your garage too cluttered to find what you need or hold what you want?
“The average American two-car garage has become a no-car garage because it is crammed full with so much clutter,” said Barry J. Izsak, certified professional organizer and past president of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Izsak likens the garage to a “purgatory” for all the stuff you don’t know what to do with. He should know since he is the author of Organize Your Garage in No Time.
“It is ironic that the one room of our house where the door is open for the whole world to see is the most unsightly, poorly utilized and neglected. The garage has become the family dumping ground,” Izsak said, who owns the Austin organizing company, Arranging It All.
Looking for a solution to the garage clutter war?
“There is a solution for everyone regardless of your budget, your organizing IQ, how handy you are and whether your garage has been a dumping ground for the past 30 years,” he said. Many garages are so crammed with clutter that cars lose out, Izsak said. With a little planning and elbow grease, you can do better.
• Be realistic and have focus. If you haven’t camped in five years, maybe it’s time to get rid of some equipment. Are you storing holiday decorations that are never used, or do you have more than one lawnmower? Take a good look at what you’re storing. If you’re not using it on a regular basis, it’s time to purge or donate it to charity.
• Analyze your needs. Think about how you want your garage to look when it’s finished. Create a clear vision of garage zones, whether that means by individual or category (sports/gardening/tools). Then, start working. “Remove, sort, weed, select a home, containerize if necessary and replace,” Izsak suggested.
• Consider the elements. Depending on where you live, temperatures can reach 120 degrees in the summer, Izsak said. Be cautious when storing paperwork, photographs and clothing in a garage.
• Get it off the floor. All kinds of fancy organizational tools can be bought, but if that’s not in your budget, use some well-placed $2 hooks to hang bikes or 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood in the rafters to hold winter gear or fishing poles. Getting things off the floor will maximize space and make your garage seem less cluttered while keeping your things dry, clean and away from insects and rodents, Izsak said.
• Be safe. Store paint, toxic chemicals and pesticides in a locked cabinet. Store heavier items on the lower shelves to prevent injury. Keep flammable items away from heat sources and work areas. Good ventilation is important while organizing; keep the garage door open.
• Go with what works for you. There’s no wrong way to organize, but you should stick with the system you’ve chosen for long-lasting organization.
FedEx Receives Organizing Excellence Award from National Association of Professional Organizers
May 2nd 2011
Memphis, TN - The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) honored FedEx with a 2011 Organizing Excellence Award, presented at its 23rd Annual Conference and Organizing Exposition held in San Diego, California. NAPO recognized FedEx for its long history of keeping the promise of on-time delivery through strategic and tactical organization.
“Organization was key in creating FedEx’s globally respected air and ground network,” said NAPO Past President Barry Izsak, Certified Professional Organizer®, as he presented the award. “How fitting is it that the National Association of Professional Organizers, an association comprised of organizing and productivity professionals, is able to recognize FedEx, a company that has built its success and achieved its mission by being organized and productive.”
John Fitzpatrick, managing director of the Southern California Region of FedEx Express, accepted the award on behalf of FedEx.
“At FedEx we relate to NAPO’s dedication to helping individuals and businesses bring order and efficiency to their lives,” said Fitzpatrick when accepting the award. “Our global transportation network creates order and efficiency, in our case, to the world of commerce through the careful strategic planning and execution by our team members. On behalf of all 290,000 of our team members at FedEx, thank you very much for this Organizing Excellence Award.”
On an average day, FedEx delivers 8.5 million shipments, involving the coordination of nearly 700 planes and more than 80,000 motorized vehicles serving over 220 countries and territories. The massive organizational effort required for FedEx to provide time-sensitive service directly affects the profitability and productivity of millions of individuals and businesses around the world – and it is the reason NAPO chose to recognize FedEx.
“FedEx exemplifies productivity and success that can be achieved through streamlined systems and processes,” says NAPO President Laura Leist, CPO®, CRTS. “NAPO is pleased to recognize FedEx for demonstrating one of the key messages our Association is committed to sharing with the public: well organized systems and processes leads to increased productivity which directly affects companies' bottom line.”
The FedEx commitment to using organizational best practices reaches far beyond delivering results for its customers and shareholders.. The company also delivers for communities worldwide in many ways, including through its support for global relief efforts. FedEx has provided millions of dollars’ worth of in-kind transportation services to transport lifesaving supplies to disaster-stricken areas around the world, setting aside space for more than 4,000,000 pounds of charitable shipping each year.
Featured Articles
Cash for Clutter
By Kathleen Parrish - Saturday Evening PostJuly 26th 2010
What better way to rid your home of excess stuff than turning it into cash? But before you advertise your yard or garage sale, you need a strategy that maximizes your profits and puts the biggest dent in your clutter, says Barry Izsak, Certified Professional Organizer and author of Organize Your Garage in No Time. Izsak provides organizing services in Austin and central Texas and is the past president of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).
Here is your checklist:
1. A few weeks before the sale, give everyone in your family a box to fill with items they no longer want or use. If you're not sure of what to toss, Izsak offers three ways to decide: "If you don't love it; it's not useful; and you haven't used it in several years, turn it into cash, " this well-known garage organizing expert says.
2. Schedule your sale on a Saturday near the first or 15th of the month, when most people get paid.
3. Scrub, wash or polish your stuff. Make sure toys or electronics have all the pieces attached. Hang clothes on a rack. Use plastic bags to group children's puzzles or hold hardware nuts and bolts.
4. Put price tags on everything. "People don't want to ask you how much each and every item is," says Izsak. "For smaller items, create a nickel and dime box."
5. Display your wares on a table or a board between two saw horses. Don't make people bend down to look at your stuff.
6. Have an extension cord handy to show that appliances and
electrical gadgets work.
7. Be flexible when it comes to price. "If someone picks up something you're selling, be willing to deal with them right then and drop your price," says Izsak. "They might be the only person all day who wants that item."
8. Get rid of what's left. It's already out of the house, so keep it that way. Put unsold stuff by the curb, or cart it off for donation as soon as your sale is over.
Small is Beautiful: The Key to Right Sizing is Knowing What to Keep and What to Toss
By Barbara Ballinger - San Jose Mercury NewsApril 10th 2009
Moving into less space? Take a hard line on purging belongings. Whether you're moving to smaller quarters to decrease your cost of living or because you simply have made the transition to another life stage and don't need as much space, you're in for a tough assignment: Figuring out what to do with all your stuff.
Should you keep, sell, give away or donate that 20-year-old couch that needs reupholstering? Same with the 12-piece fancy dinner service you never use anymore. And what about Grandma's favorite crystal chandelier that you inherited? The latter can be a particularly thorny problem wrapped in the name of guilt since she wanted you to enjoy it and pass it on to the next generation.
In most cases, you should purge before you move since you may not be able to fit everything into your new, smaller home. Moreover, it will cost a lot to move boxes and furnishings or store them in an off-site facility. But the best reason to get rid of stuff methodically is that doing so can be exhilarating. It's like taking a load off your shoulders. “Almost everyone is resistant at the beginning, but they come around. I've never had a client tell me, 'I didn't bring enough,'” says Barry Izsak, a certified professional organizer and certified relocation and transition specialist. Izsak is the former president of the National Association of Professional Organizers and also works as a senior move manager in Austin, Texas. He is also a member of the National Association of Senior Move Managers.
Julie Morgenstern, another professional organizer based in New York City and author of When Organizing Isn't Enough Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life (Simon & Schuster, Fireside, 2008), offers another advantage to right-sizing, which some call downsizing: “You have less to take care of so you have more freedom to pour your energy into relationships and pursue bigger dreams,” she says. “Yet doing so isn't easy,” she continues, “since our identities often are wrapped up in our stuff.”
Good purging requires effort and time. Consider the following steps and, when you're done, stay organized so that your new home doesn't get cluttered and make you start all over again:
Analyze and measure your new space. In the best scenario, you know where you're moving and have floor plans with dimensions, so you can determine what will fit where and what most go. Professional organizer Lisa Zaslow, founder of Gotham Organizers in New York City and author of Can't I Just Shred It All? 101 Quick Tips to File and Find Your Important Papers, recommends having a 25-foot tape measure, cutting out shapes to the scale of your furniture and plotting what goes where first on paper.
Define your theme. This is part of a process Morgenstern developed, which involves envisioning what your life will be like so you know how you want to live during the next stage. Inventory your home's contents room by room and tag everything that is stagnant and shouldn't move, she says. If you have walls of books but never take some off the shelf, they shouldn't move with you; they're no longer relevant to your life.
Engage in Morgenstern's four-step shed process. This involves separating your treasures from everything else in one big swoop, heaving things you can live without, embracing your new identity and driving yourself forward to experiment with your new theme, such as taking new classes or volunteering.
Be ruthless about what fits and doesn't as you shed. Izsak agrees with the heaving part of Morgenstern's plan and adds another way to judge an object's worthiness. “Is it useful, beautiful or loved? If not, sell, donate or give it away,” he says. “And if none of those strategies work, consider retaining a small portion of something, a few pieces of a dinner set or one example from a great collection.
Avoid storing stuff. Don't stash things in an attic, basement or off-site facility, these experts agree. If you do, it will likely stay there. And if it's in storage, you're probably paying hundreds of dollars to keep it there, particularly if it's a clean, safe facility. A better tactic is to start building up your identity apart from your accumulation, says Morgenstern, who moved from a four-bedroom to a one-bedroom apartment and is thrilled with her new quarters as well as her more carefree lifestyle. Another tip from her: Don't rush to fill up your new space.
If you can't make these changes yourself, get help. There's nothing wrong with hiring a professional to guide you, from purging to settling in. Other professionals like an estate liquidator help clients earn cash for possessions they want to discard.
Also, avoid the five most deadly mistakes. The following don'ts will keep you from making a smooth, non-stressful move:
1. Don't leave the purging process until you're ready to move. If you do, you'll end up taking more stuff than you need or panicking and tossing too much too fast. Work far in advance.
2. Don't be stubborn about doing it all on your own. Get good advice from the get-go about what you have that's valuable but also what's not, so you don't become emotionally attached to stuff you should get rid of.
3. Don't focus too much on giving items a good home instead of getting rid of them. That 20-year-old appliance that's been sitting unused in your basement because you think someone could use it should be tossed. Quickly.
4. Don't forget to label boxes on all four sides in case the moving company tosses them here and there and neglects putting them in the right room.
5. Don't forget to pack everything up systematically so things like towels all go together for the linen closet.
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