FOLIO LINE FOLIO LINE M c C l a t c h y - Tr i b u n e

BY JENNIFER KING LINDLEY/DISNEY FAMILYFUN MAGAZINE

I used to dismiss the highly organized as just a bit ...
uptight. Then, one morning, I gazed out of the kitchen win-
dow to see my two kids fidgeting in our idling van, five min-
utes past when they should have left for school. In the
garage, my husband hunted among bags of old grass seed
and toppled bikes for the tennis racket he needed for a min-
utes-away match. “It’s around here somewhere!” he said.
That was an Aha! moment for me. I realized that, far from
being a waste of time, getting our home organized would
actually save our family time and stress.
Luckily, there are experts out there who specialize in tam-
ing just our kind of chaos. Here’s some advice from four pro-
fessional organizers on managing a home’s most common
disaster zones — clutter hot spots — from crowded kitchen
counters to messy play areas.

THE CHALLENGE: Gone are the days
when the kitchen was used mostly for
cooking. Today it can serve as communica-
tions hub, mail sorting station, homework
center and conference room. Is it any won-
der you can’t find the pepper grinder?
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Go paper-free. Debbie Lillard,
author of “Absolutely Organized: A Mom’s
Guide to a No-Stress Schedule and Clutter-
Free Home,” says much of what overloads
kitchen surfaces is paper — the kind that
seems too important to get rid of so it just
piles up in drifts. For her three elementary
school–age kids, Lillard transfers pertinent
information from school announcements,
birthday invitations and team schedules to
a master wall calendar, then recycles the
originals. She also recommends color-cod-
ing the calendar by child.
2. Establish an art box for each
child. Deposit daily artwork and school
papers in it, then at the end of the year,
sort through the pile with your child to
save, say, 25 treasures. The sorting
becomes a time to reflect together on
your child’s accomplishments and the
truly important mementos don’t get lost
under a landslide of old spelling tests.
3. Try a rolling storage cart. Paired
with one of these carts, available at most
home stores, your kitchen table can do
double duty as a craft center or home-
work station. “Store supplies in the lower
drawers and leave the top drawer empty
to sweep unfinished work into for next
time,” says Cynthia Townley Ewer,
author of “Houseworks: How to Live
Clean, Green and Organized at Home”
and editor of organizedhome.com. When
dinnertime rolls around, free up precious
floor space by wheeling the cart to a less
crowded spot.
THE CHALLENGE: Large flat sur-
faces such as the kitchen table, coffee
table or guest bed are clutter magnets.
I’m just guessing your own dining room
table right now is home to junk mail, an
abandoned craft project and a broken
tiara awaiting a (missing) glue gun.
“Clutter attracts clutter,” says Ewer. “It
multiplies like rabbits.”
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Make lost-and-found boxes and
charity bins. If items are left out too
long in common areas, put them in a lost-
and-found box, then kids will know
where to look for them. If you don’t mind
playing hardball, you can call it a “toy
jail” and require your kids to pay bail —
do an extra chore — to get their stuff
back. Outgrown clothes and toys can go
in a box by the back door. When the box
is full, take it to a local charity.
2. Establish temporary catchalls. To
collect the remains of the day, place baskets
at high-traffic points, such as the bottom of
the stairs. Make a rule that the stuff must be
claimed and put away every night, or else
you’ve just created a new dumping zone.
3. Don’t be afraid to improvise. In
my own quest to glimpse the surface of
our dumping room — I mean, dining
room — table, I have experimented by
telling my 9-year-old son to “pretend the
table is on fire, and everything you leave
there will be burned up forever!”
THE CHALLENGE: The glowing
computer screen has replaced the fireside
as the heart of the home. Kids do their
homework, play games, load music and
check all-important e-mail at this high-
traffic, high-demand spot. It easily can
become a disaster area: a tangle of cords,
disks out of cases and papers left on the
chair for the next user to squash.
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Create separate spaces. Erin
Rooney Doland, author of “Unclutter Your
Life in One Week” and editor of unclut-
terer.com, recommends setting up the
computer desktop so that each user has
her own password and account. Family
members can be given a box or drawer
nearby to quickly stash their stuff. (Make
it a rule that you have to leave the area
clean for the next user.) And keep handy a
box with a stapler, pens and other necessi-
ties so that kids can finish their homework
without having to hunt for a paper clip.
2. Make a backup box. Store your
computer’s hardware manuals and pro-
gram disks in one dedicated box in a
closet, advises Doland. If there’s a prob-
lem (a broken mouse, say), all the infor-
mation will be right there.
3. Try a disk folder. To save space
and avoid playing matchmaker with com-
puter game disks and cases, Ewer loves
disk folders, available at office supply
stores. Manuals and disks are simply slid
into the plastic sleeves, where they are
easily accessible.
THE CHALLENGE: Most kids own
many times their own body weight in
toys, with new inventory arriving on each
birthday and major (or minor) holiday.
The result: kids get overwhelmed, have a
hard time choosing what they want to
play with, or can’t find their favorites.
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Let go of unused toys. Brooks
Palmer suggests parents help their kids
weed out unwanted and outgrown toys.
“I’ll hand a child one toy at a time and ask,
‘How about this one? Do you still play
with it … or not?’” Donating the unwanted
toys to charity helps kids feel good about
the process. Just make sure the bag goes
right out the door, or else your kids might
be tempted to pull the toys out again.
2. Select smart storage. Group toys
by type in open bins on child-level book-
shelves. Pasting a picture on each bin of
what goes inside will help kids organize.
Avoid scooping all playthings into one huge
toy box or hard-to-open container.
3. Store toys where kids typically
play with them. Why are the board
games always strewn around the living
room, where inevitably the dice are
kicked under the sofa? Because the game
shelf is down in the basement, a flight
away, says Erin Rooney Doland. Better to
clear an area on a living room shelf to
make putting away games easier.
THE CHALLENGE: Though this area
of the home is the first, and last, place you
and your guests see, it’s often the most
chaotic. Kids dump their backpacks, shoes
and coats right inside the door, then make
an Olympic dash for the refrigerator. Later,
finding a homework assignment or missing
sneaker requires an archaeological dig.
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Assign each child his own easy-
to-access space. Use chic lockers
(available through home catalogs) or
plastic milk crates lined up in the hallway
to give kids a self-serve place to stash
their boots and bags. A row of sturdy
wall hooks at child level for coats.
2. Establish a family launchpad.
Ewer suggests giving everyone their own
dedicated space for can’t-leave-home-
without-it items. Have family members
deposit cell phones, keys, flash drives,
permission slips, homework, lunch
money and sunglasses here.
THE CHALLENGE: Often large or
awkwardly shaped, sports equipment
tends to get tossed onto a messy Mount
Everest in the garage or mudroom.
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS:
1. Thin the herd. Doland advises
weeding out items that aren’t being used.
“Many people have a hard time getting
rid of unused sports equipment because it
came with a high price tag,” she says.
Selling gear on eBay or to a sports resale
shop, or donating it, can ease the pain.
2. Sort by sport. During baseball sea-
son, Lillard’s son keeps a sports bag
packed with his glove, bat and other
essentials hanging at the ready on the
garage wall. Use tall freestanding cloth
laundry bins to keep equipment sorted by
sport and off the floor.
3. Maximize your space. To store big
or unwieldy equipment, use wall hooks,
baskets, hanging bags or sturdy shelving.

Follow these basic rules to make your home run
more smoothly:
■ Reduce the amount you need to organize in
the first place. Keep only those items you truly love or
use, says Brooks Palmer, author of “Clutter Busting:
Letting Go of What Is Holding You Back” and editor of
clutterbusting.com. Don’t hang onto an unwanted item
just because it cost a lot or Aunt Sue gave it to you.
■ Give everything a home. “A place for every- ■ Get the kids involved. “More important than
thing and everything in its place” may seem an old- having fancy organizing equipment is teaching your
fashioned idea, but it really works, experts stress. kids good routines,” Debbie Lillard says.
■ Don’t shoot for perfection. Cynthia Townley ■ Spend a little time every day maintaining
Ewer recommends starting small by identifying the your system. Erin Rooney Doland suggests creating a
problems that are causing the most angst (the missing half-hour MP3 mix (let kids pick their favorite high-
car keys), then trying the easiest solution (a bowl on energy selections) and make that your family’s cue to
top of the fridge!). start a daily evening cleanup.
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y B E T S Y E V E R I T T / C O U R T E S Y O F D I S N E Y FA M I LY F U N M AG A Z I N E

ORGANIZED HOMES
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE