Some of us just need outside help when decluttering a house. Pre-planning how to organize our home is simply beyond our time, skill and talent levels. We need people!
Here are three places to find people to help whenever you feel stymied. True, it helps to read a good book, but sometimes you need people to implement it all.
Since motivation is critical, we’ve added four tips for jump-starting and maintaining your enthusiasm whenever you feel bogged down or overwhelmed.
Jump-Starting Motivation
Probably the trickiest part of decluttering a house is obtaining and maintaining enthusiasm to tackle clutter. Here are 3 of the more creative tips people have found that force you into action.
Plan a party- Nothing puts you into cleaning mode like the thought of friends or family who are about to visit your home. Evaluate just how long you think it will take to get everything in order, and then plan a barbecue or nice dinner party.
Draw enthusiasm from Spring and Fall- The changing of the seasons brings more ideal temperatures and the urge to open all the windows. Changing seasons outside can stimulate you to change your surroundings inside, too.
Plan a Yard Sale- Do you need a little extra money as well as a bit of help decluttering a house? When the yard sale is over, donate the leftovers! Yes, yard sales work, but a possible problem is that you need to group and store the stuff until the time arrives.
Maintaining Motivation. The Right Program
True, those three tips above will jump-start your motivation, but you actually need the right program to maintain your motivation.
We can’t discuss programs here at length, but in general, the best should be a system that delivers quick and visible success at each step of its procedure. Enthusiasm feeds off immediate and visual rewards.
But what if you don’t have the right system and actually need outside advice? What if you don’t even know where to start, for instance? Then, you need people who can provide strategy and the hands to help do the work.
1. Use A Pro for Only One Day
If your budget is tight, you can still use a sympathetic professional organizer for only one day to tailor a solution for just one room or site. Then for free, you can take the techniques and answers you’ve learned there and apply them to your other spaces. In this way, you’ll find that less money brings you more.
The top 6 problems the pros can help you solve are: “too much clutter, general disorganization, difficulty determining what to keep and/or discard, difficulty finding things, and selling a home or moving.”
[Source: NAPO: National Association of Professional Organizers, 2009 Member Survey, 06/30/2009].
You can find and contact a professional through word of mouth, newspaper, the yellow pages, or on the web. NAPO is a nationally respected source. Make a list, get references and check out what the pros charge first. Ask whether or not they are more geared toward organizing homes or businesses.
2. Ask a Candid Friend for Help
Talk to your best friend about making the decisions needed to declutter your home. Having a disinterested third party can help you put those old 8-track cassettes you have kept for decades into perspective. Even if your friend isn’t very organized, he or she won’t be so emotionally tied to the item.
3. Team Declutter
Gail and David Newton, who run the firm, Your House in Order in Greeley, Colorado, offer this tip. Locate a couple of friends with a similar need for getting their homes in order themselves.
As long as your goals are the same, you and your friends can swap weekends to declutter and organize the others’ houses. It’s faster and easier. The final say, of course, belongs to the one who owns the place.
Final Thoughts:
If you need a little outside help for a big project, such as decluttering a house, there’s a variety of places to find it. A pro, a friend, or a team of friends with mutual needs will provide advice, support and the hands to get it done. It could change your life, and you’ll feel good about your home.
Steve B. Brown, PhD, is a retired research professor. Steve started his website to be a free resource for others who wanted to feature speed and simplicity when decluttering and organizing their homes.