[wills11]

I need help and advice getting organized and packing!


I'm 28 and recently moved in with my parents after I quit my job to help care for my ailing grandmother. This was obviously a temporary thing. But over the past several months, I've become UTTERLY DISORGANIZED. Y'all know what I'm talking about… where the amount of time you spend thinking of how to get organized is so exhausting that you can't follow through on it physically afterward. (My parents also moved into a new house, so my total environment is pretty much disorganization, ugh!)

I know I will be moving out soon - I just don't know when. (I'm telling myself January, after all the holidays. I need to see some sort of end to all of this, even if that's a lie I'm telling myself.) I'm trying to get things in gear though. I want to get it down to a MINIMALIST level. That's my goal!

So far I've been able to go through and get rid of a lot of papers and documents and file what I need going forth. So that's at least something. I'm also really feeling the financial sting of my situation, so I've begun selling a lot of my things on eBay.

The emotional ups and downs of the past months, along with my anxiety to turn things back around. My comorbid OCD and ADHD really throw in a wrench. It's just a battle because I usually don't know where to begin. EVERYTHING seems like the most important place to start. I need an obvious 3rd party, unbiased opinion and advice.

-- In my mind I know there's stuff I need to leave here at my parents' for when/if I come back to visit (i.e. a variety of clothes; maybe some books?). So somehow I need to sort that out of the pile of crap everything has amassed to. Having changed climates kind of makes that more difficult since there's obviously more stuff now and makes sorting and making the decisions of what stays and goes harder.
-- Minimalistically speaking, I need to get rid of all but THE most important books that need to come with me. Along with any novel I know won't actually get read in the next few months (as much as that hurts me since I'm an avid reader).
-- I also need to sort through my things that got moved from my parents' old house to here that's in boxes. Like childhood mementos they want to save. Figure out a way to store that here, while getting it out of the way of the current stuff.
-- I've thought about other ways to do it. Ex: packing up a box of towels that will go with me when I move, but that I don't need right here right now and get that out of the way. Maybe that's getting ahead of myself?

So on and so forth. You get the idea I hope.

My problem is obviously getting a solid game plan. It's a tricky one because the situation is obviously exacerbated by everyone's clutter taking up room from the move, into a house smaller than the original. Trying not to get my two worlds' things mixed up. Furthermore, trying to find a place to put things. It's a weird mix of unpacking and packing at the same time.

[Crazy Hitch]

When I moved in May ... I asked myself - what have I not used in a year? Because if I haven't used it - I don't need it.

3 car boot load of things went to the rubbish dump / charity organisations.

I focused on one area at a time. Working on the linen cupboard. When that was done I'd work on things in the lounge and so on and so forth.

Things you might need later on for just incase store in boxes where they won't get in the way. Like the rafters of a garage roof. If there is a garage roof. And you can store them in rafters. Out of sight. Out of mind.

Don't get rid of the books irrespective of how frequently you use them. You'll regret it because they sound sentimental. Do you have your own room at your folks place? Buy a cheap book shelf.

[hamster-bamster]

1) why are you filing papers instead of digitizing them? Filed papers are still papers. Papers are still a clutter risk. Digitize what you can. Or is it because you do not have a scanner? I do not have a scanner and going to Kinkos/FedEx costs money, so I have had to halt my digitizing efforts due to that. If you have a scanner, go the digitizing way. If you are a little paranoid, do it redundantly - make a scan of an important paper and keep one copy in two different reputable cloud storage providers (say, Dropbox and Google drive, as examples). A third copy can be kept locally on your computer, unless you share your computer with others (then, personal information should not be kept locally but should only be kept in the cloud with password protection).

You digitize once! Filing papers is simply a stopgap measure - the solution is temporary. It makes sense to invest your time in digitizing and cloud storage, because somebody else will take care of mitigating the risk of fire, flood, etc. . Trust me on that.

Obviously, you are right that you need a game plan.

Here are some suggestions. I think, and again you are right on this, that you need to think through what you are embarking on in advance, and then methodically implement your plan. Avoid knee-jerk reactions as much as possible. Since childhood mementos are involved, be prepared to be flooded with emotion OK?

So:

if you plan to digitize, you need to devise a system based on YOUR preferred ways of organizing info. In the most general terms, people tend to belong to one of two camps: folderers and searchers (the nicknames are mine). With the fairly recent advent of tags, there is an option of combining them.

Folders are neat, follow a tree structure, and folders in cloud allow you to have a parallel copy on your local drive. E.g. on a PC you would have a folder "TAXES" and put a digital copy of each of your returns or transcripts there. The same title - TAXES - can be used to name a folder in cloud.

Folders are one-dimensional, though. If you have a document that logically relates to two different folders, you would either need to save one copy each in two folders, or make a choice between the two.

If you are a searcher, you do not need the tree structure of folders and subfolders. You can just have a flat structure - a bunch of files which you can retrieve by keyword searching. Say, searching for "tax" would retrieve all the tax return copies that you could corral in a "taxes" folder, and that raises the question - why bother with folders? Well, the problem is that searching for "tax" would ALSO retrieve irrelevant stuff, such as documents that contain the word "tax" as a minor word that is only tangentially related to the content. So you would retrieve all your tax returns, but also a bunch of irrelevant stuff, and would need to sift through a lot of extraneous files.

So folderers frontload the effort - they plan out the tree structure of folders and neatly organize stuff in advance. when they need to find sth, they just follow the tree structure until they arrive.

Searchers do not frontload the effort - they dump everything in one big pile and then when they run searchers, they spend more time sifting through irrelevant stuff, but then again, they spent very little time in the beginning.

So it is not clear which approach is the better one.

Enter tags now.

Tags, unlike folders, are not one-dimensional. You can attach two tags to a tax return copy - "taxes", "returns". You can attach a year tag: "2011". Then later you can search using tags and you would not need to sift through irrelevant docs.

My hunches are that since you have a deadline that is approaching soon, the foldering approach is wrong for you NOW, but making a big dump of potentially important stuff and categorize/tag/label/organize it later. Does it sound about right?

[hamster-bamster]

I agree with Hooligan - spare yourself the emotional torment of parting with your books. As for cheap bookshelves, I used to have cheap Ikea bookshelves made of wood, but they did not last long. I know have metal bookshelves. And they were not even expensive, either, but the point it - they are metal and they are not going to go the route of wooden IKEA bookshelves.

Since you are packing and unpacking at the same time, you need color-coded sharpies and/or color-coded labels for the boxes. Or, go to UHaul and buy a set of tapes. Their tapes are color-coded AND show the name of the room on them; if you disregard the name of the room and just use colors, there will be enough colors for your purposes.

[wills11]

Originally Posted by Hooligan

When I moved in May ... I asked myself - what have I not used in a year? Because if I haven't used it - I don't need it.

I'm fortunate in the fact I already did this. I was able to get rid of a lot of things before I moved in. -- I am going through what remains, once again, while I'm here to further downsize. More importantly, to find things I can sell and get money for haha

Originally Posted by Hooligan

Things you might need later on for just incase store in boxes where they won't get in the way. Like the rafters of a garage roof.

This is a great idea in theory, minus the fact all those places are mostly taken by my parents and brothers. Their stuff remains there because they haven't gotten to it to put away on their own yet. Plus, my parents need that space since they're actually living here and I'm just sort of…. here.

Originally Posted by Hooligan

Don't get rid of the books irrespective of how frequently you use them. You'll regret it because they sound sentimental. Do you have your own room at your folks place? Buy a cheap book shelf.

There's fortunately a book shelf sort of thing that's built into the wall in the room that I guess is mine. I put some stuff in them just so I could get it out of the way. The problem remains in the fact I'm putting away stuff in there that I'm going to have to take out again and repack in a few weeks. So I've tried putting stuff in them that I will want to keep here, or feel they would want to keep here. Like the Harry Potter series LOL!

[wills11]

hamster-bamster:
Your advice is great. Except I've already gone through things haha! I will keep it in mind for the future though. -- I'm absolutely a folder! At least I try and want to be haha! When things get out of control, like lately, I become a searcher because I just pile it all together in an "organized chaos."

Fortunately, at "only" 28, I don't have a lot of things filed. Everything so far fits into a personal file storage container the size of a shoebox. All I have are some medical files, warranty papers, literally only 2 tax papers, and a few work related things such as continuing education certificates, liability coverage, etc. As the years progress, I will absolutely digitize.

As for why I haven't so far… my laptop continually runs at an almost maxed out memory so almost nothing new gets added. And yes, I installed additionally memory space a while back. Yes, I also have an external hard drive to use. It's been on my to-do list for ages: delete useless and outdated documents, music, and pictures. It's an excuse to say the chaos of my life the past year has prevented that. In an effort, however, whenever I get some time I will go through a few files or iPhoto and delete things. It's a slow process but it's happening at least. -- On the folder note, I took a lot of time earlier in the year to organize those. Financial statements, personal, and professional. Proud of that one.

[wills11]

Originally Posted by hamster-bamster

I agree with Hooligan - spare yourself the emotional torment of parting with your books.

I'm probably a book hoarder haha! I was/am addicted to buying books that I'd never get around to reading. I've curbed that habit for the most part - being financial restrained definitely helped that.

Just like clothes, if I'd had a book around for a long time and hadn't read it yet or I just kept pushing it down the list, I got rid of it. I figure if I wanted to read it THAT badly I would've arranged for it to happen. Plus, with the state of my life the past year or so I haven't had much time to read. If it's that important to me, I'll buy it in the future.

Obviously, some books that I hadn't read I kept. I know once things settle down that I will pull that group out first.

By saying "got rid of," I generally mean sell. Half.com. At least I was/am getting some sort of benefit of it and not just throwing them away to lighten the load.

[wills11]

I guess I could've done a little better in explaining my situation:
-- I moved in with my parents in March. I got a job in the area, but my presence around the house still helped the family situation.
-- When things really turned for the worse, I quit my job in July so I could be around to help "full-time."
-- My dad's job then relocated him 600 miles away. He moved out first. The rest followed suit as they could. Since it was sudden, the house hadn't been listed or sold yet.
-- I was hoping to have relocated myself, when all was said and done, since things were kind of straightening out again. But that didn't happen. I wasn't actually landing any jobs despite all my interviews. Then my grandma's sister, who lived with her, passed away. That really sent things on a downward spiral.
-- My grandma ended up moving in with the family in the new home since she was now alone and there was no family around back at the old place and it felt wrong putting her in a nursing home there with no one around.
-- I figured since I couldn't get a job yet and everything was falling apart for everyone, I was at least in a position where I could help everyone get settled in. I made my move from the old place at the end of September.
-- For the next month I basically lived out of my boxes and suitcases in "the other room" while helping everyone get settled. The situation with my grandma has since resolved.

So here I am. I got rid of a lot of things when I moved from the old house to here. I've essentially moved twice in the past year. Being 28, it's not like I've accumulated a great amount of things - being single and no kids. I drive a Focus. When I finally leave, my wish is to be able to throw everything I own in that car and just be done with it all. Truth be told, I like living minimally.

My anxiety is really the fact that everything is just kind of strewn all about. There's stuff I need to unpack to keep here with them (as I mentioned), stuff that will come with me no matter what, etc. and not really a lot of room to spread things out and go through it. I'm fortunate in that when I left the old place, I did box some stuff up and marked "do not open" because I knew it didn't need to be unpacked here and that it would end up going with me to my place when I move (i.e. DVDs, printer, picture frames).

I hate that there's only like half a foot of clearance under my bed and I can't put anything under it. That would make things easier.

[Victoria'smom]

We just moved We used the 3 plastic draw sets they have at walmart. The draws had sticky notes on them. One for bathroom, one for office (papers and crap), one for bedroom, one kitchen, We had 3 for toys for our son, and an art box. Once they were filled they were duck taped closed everything else went in the garbage. as for clothing we made our favorite 5 outfits and donated the rest.The plastic draws really helped minimize stuff. The after the draws were empty. They're used for dirty laundry, cloths drawers, bathroom organizer and toys. We took a 3 shelf bookshelf for our wanted books and large rubber bands around it to hold the books. We took all our unimportant books to a buy back store so that we could pick a few new ones, we did that with our magic cards too. an extra totes for other stuff ie. décor . All of our stuff ended up fitting in 2 cargo vans but we brought with us two full beds, and a washer/dryer. You should try to get a futon to give you more space.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by wills11

hamster-bamster:
Your advice is great. Except I've already gone through things haha! I will keep it in mind for the future though. -- I'm absolutely a folder! At least I try and want to be haha! When things get out of control, like lately, I become a searcher because I just pile it all together in an "organized chaos."

Fortunately, at "only" 28, I don't have a lot of things filed. Everything so far fits into a personal file storage container the size of a shoebox. All I have are some medical files, warranty papers, literally only 2 tax papers, and a few work related things such as continuing education certificates, liability coverage, etc. As the years progress, I will absolutely digitize.

As for why I haven't so far… my laptop continually runs at an almost maxed out memory so almost nothing new gets added. And yes, I installed additionally memory space a while back. Yes, I also have an external hard drive to use. It's been on my to-do list for ages: delete useless and outdated documents, music, and pictures. It's an excuse to say the chaos of my life the past year has prevented that. In an effort, however, whenever I get some time I will go through a few files or iPhoto and delete things. It's a slow process but it's happening at least. -- On the folder note, I took a lot of time earlier in the year to organize those. Financial statements, personal, and professional. Proud of that one.

I think you are already doing so well. I might suggest that instead of tasking yourself with choosing what to delete locally, you just port stuff to dropbox and delete it locally. As you said, you are only 28. I doubt that you have more stuff that could be dubbed "old and potentially useless junk but I am not 100% sure" than a free account on dropbox could contain.