How many times have you moved in your adult life? Five times? Ten times? More?

Since moving into my first apartment at age 20,  I’ve moved eight times including three times across the country, and each of those three with a cat. I’ve also helped many clients move; across town, across country and even across the ocean.
Each time I moved, I learned the hard way about how to better plan for the next move.  I whittled this knowledge down to a list of 12 things you should know before you move and hopefully these tips will save you from learning the hard way too.

1. Create a move timetable or check list:  Brainstorm a list of everything you need to do. Work backwards from your move date to the present breaking down tasks from week to week. If you are moving with others ask them what you may have forgotten in your moving schedule and add it to the list.
2. Pay to move what you want; not what you don’t: Sort and purge what you no longer want. Remember most long distance moving companies charge by the pound. Do you really want to pay to move your college text books… again?!
3. Get a minimum of two in-home estimates: Not all movers are created equal. Although fees for long distance moves are based on weight, other fees for things like supplies, packing, extra stops and insurance vary from company to company. Look carefully at the estimate and always request a “not to exceed price.”  For local moves, ask the company to do an onsite estimate based on whether you are packing yourself or paying them to pack. Don’t just go with the quoted hourly rate.
4. Have professionals pack high value, fragile items: If you pack them yourself – you take the risk. If your movers pack it – they do.  To save money, have them pack just your most fragile items such as heirloom China, vases, antiques and chandeliers.
5. Insure your items at the highest rate you can afford: Long distance moving companies are required to charge a minimum insurance rate of .60 per pound. This means your heavy files are valued at the same rate as your fine crystal. Don’t take a chance! Insure for the full replacement value of your most valuable items (or check with your homeowner’s insurance provider to see what they cover).
6. Move in the morning: Summertime is peak moving season. For this reason most moving companies book two, three and even four moves in a day. Don’t be sitting waiting for the movers at midnight. Request a first appointment or if possible delay your move until after the Summer ends.
7. Invest in gently used boxes: Scrounging around for moving boxes at the supermarket is fine if you are moving a few items but inconvenient and time-consuming if you are moving an entire home. Search the web for used moving boxes and save a bundle on your supplies.
8. Ask your real estate agent’s advice: If you are working with a real estate agent who is helping you sell your home or buy a new one, ask them for tips about moving. They are very often a wealth of knowledge and resources.
9. Make a plan for your pets: Are you driving? Flying? Transporting your pets to another country?  Consult with your vet first. Call the airline to inquire about restrictions for carrying pets on-board and find out about quarantine requirements for your pets traveling overseas.
10. Get a floor plan of your new home if possible: Think ahead about where you want to place your furniture. Take pictures of the furniture in your old house so you can plan for where you want it in your new house. This will help save you time and money when you move into your new home. It may also keep you from over-stuffing your garage with all those pieces of furniture that won’t fit.
11. Do a walk-through before you leave your old home: This is one of those tips I learned the hard way. Before moving, I forgot to remove a box of favorite books from my old home and was never able to get them back. Walk through your empty house and check all your storage areas before you leave to make sure you don’t leave anything you want behind.
12. Take a little time every day to prepare, sort and pack: Moving is on the list of life’s top 10 stresses. Don’t add to your stress by leaving the planning, sorting and packing to the last minute. As a general rule and depending upon how much stuff you have, for each room in your home – excluding bathrooms – allow a week’s preparation time. Add another week for each year you’ve lived there over 10 years if you live in a house (half that if you live in an apartment). For example if your home has 8 rooms and you’ve lived there for 12 years, allow for 10 weeks or about two months to get ready for your move, more time if you have a lot of stuff.
13. Get help from a professional move manager if it all feels too overwhelming, need help planning or unpacking or if you simply don’t have the time or the availability to do it yourself.

Till next time!

My friend and Yogini extraordinaire, Deborah Saliby, called me on Sunday asking for my advice.

Deborah Saliby, Yoga for Health

Deborah has been teaching Yoga for more than thirty years.  There are a lot of Yoga teachers out there but relatively few hold the special certification that she does in Iyengar training. The certification signifies that she has undergone extensive training as an instructor in a particular method of Hatha Yoga called Iyengar, named for B.K.S. Iyengar, one of the foremost Yoga teachers in the world.

Whenever I have a question about Yoga, I call Deborah.  The moment I feel like my body, mind and spirit are crying out for a little restoration, Deborah is the first person I think of.  On Sunday, however, after her class, Deborah’s mind and spirit were crying out for a different kind of restoration, in her home.  I am grateful she called me.

“I want to organize three closets in my house,” she told me,
“but I’m not sure where to start.” She asked if I would mind sharing some of my professional organizing tips.  “Of course,” I told her. I enjoy it when anyone calls me with a specific organizing question. To me if you are willing to ask the question, you are definitely in the mindset to get organized.

As a professional organizer,  the most common questions I get involve the how and where of organizing, as in “how do I do this?” or “where do I start?”  Typically this follows an extended period of gradual awareness which eventually transforms into “I really wish my (fill in the blank) was more organized. But it’s not until the defining moment when the thought, “today is the day I’m going to do something about it,” that change can occur.

For my friend Deborah that moment came after she got home from teaching one of the many Yoga classes she leads in Berkeley, California.

“So where do you want to start?” I asked. “I don’t know, she said. So I probed a little more. “Which of your closets bugs you the most, that is, which has the most impact on your daily life? “My bedroom closet where I keep all my clothes,” she said, with a little giggle, “you know how much I love to shop?”

“Okay,” I said. “So why do you want to do this at all?” She explained to me that she wanted to hold a sidewalk sale. “Yes,” I said, “that’s good, but why do you want to get organized?” I asked again. “Because I can’t stand looking at the mess in my closet anymore. I know I have a lot of nice things in there that I don’t want anymore and half the time I can’t find what I’m looking for. I’m wasting time and I want to be able to wear what I love.”

Deborah understood what was bothering her about her closet but even more she knew what organizing it would mean to her (not to anyone else) and she was motivated. Plus she had the added incentive of making a little extra money. I told her, “Yeah, you could sell all the clothes you don’t want anymore and with the money you make go out and buy new ones.”  We both laughed.

I offered Deborah a step-by-step plan to get all three of her closets organized.  I shared some strategies for how to overcome some predictable obstacles such as what to do with items that had more “emotional value” than “wear-value.”  I took her through exactly what I would do with her if I were physically doing the work with her and then I asked her if she had any questions. “Nope, I’ve got it.”

Before we hung up I told her to feel free to call me when she was done with the first closet.  Even though Deborah was doing this for herself, I wanted her to know that I was interested in hearing about her progress.

The next day, Deborah did call. She sounded really happy.  She told me how she had followed my plan including emptying the entire closet first, sorting items by category, parting with what she no longer used, wore, or loved and got rid of things that brought in bad “mojo.”  She reorganized the items she kept by type and color and put aside those things she plans to include in her sidewalk sale.  In total it took her two hours. I was impressed.

“How do you feel now?” I asked her, “Great! Just walking past my closet makes me happy.”

I offered Deborah some final tips about items she was still undecided about and suggested some ways to contain items on the shelves using what she already had around her house, before saying goodbye.

After we hung up I went in to my living room and took a big breath and stretched.  Thank you for that, Deborah.

Have a question about organizing? Getting ready to move or start a home renovation project and need to get things packed, donated and organized? Call or email me. I promise you’ll come away with something you can use.

As I told Deborah, I love to be a catalyst for change.

At 8:00 this morning, I had my own private celebration. It took place in my head.

An hour earlier I was driving and thinking about how terrifying it must be for some of my clients to do the one thing that scares them the most; To finally confront what’s kept them from moving forward in their lives because they feel overwhelmed and stuck and it’s showing up as piles of papers, boxes and who knows what else, on their desks, on the floor, in their drawers, everywhere.

I was thinking about what it means to do the one thing that scares you the most and to have the courage to do it anyway because you know you have to. Because you know not doing so will have far greater consequences.

For people who are chronically disorganized, the consequence of not facing their fears can be enormous.  For some it’s a loss of control over their lives. For others, it’s isolation. I know people who have lost their children, their spouses and their very security because of their inability to face their fears head on.  I also know people who have shown great courage and have discovered the meaning of making room in their lives.

My fears are about public speaking. And yet, as a small business person I know the value it brings to others in the form of information and sometimes even inspiration. But I do it quite frankly because I have to. Working with people in their homes and in their offices or helping them move is tactical but it’s also very personal. I know that if people see me and feel I am someone they can trust, and recognize I  have the expertise to help them, then they often will remember me when it comes time to organize their offices, or their bedrooms or help them plan and oversee their move to a new home.

This is what I was thinking at seven o’clock this morning, on my way to speak to a group of fifty small business owners and entrepreneurs about how to face their fears, specifically about how to confront their own Paper Monsters.  I did this presentation a few weeks earlier and it had not lived up to my expectations  – perfectionism, my monster, rearing it’s ugly head, yet again –  and now I was getting ready to face him again.  Was I scared? Petrified, which is why at that moment I started thinking about my clients.

“If  they can have the courage to hire me, then I can damn well find the courage to face my fears as well, ” I thought.  And so I did. And it went fine. It wasn’t perfect but it was good enough. And that’s good enough. But to be honest, I’m glad it’s over. At least for today I can celebrate.

Tomorrow, I do it again.

Laurie (not her real name), hired me recently to help her organize her overstuffed, clothes closet. It took two days. One day to sort and then edit what she no longer wanted and one day to contain, label and return what was left to her closet, organized, folded, hung right side in, and accessible.

Laurie is an active, super-mom of two school-aged kids, with a full time sales job. She told me she wanted to feel less stressed in the morning which often meant time spent looking for a matched pair of shoes or a clean outfit so she could get herself dressed in time to feed her kids and get them to  school before heading to work herself. She confessed her husband was neater than she was and her disorganization was creating friction between them.

This is the type of organizing job that most people think of when I tell them I do residential organizing.  In fact, organizing a closet is one of those “dream” assignments that most professional organizers knows comes once in a blue moon.

In general, the people who hire organizing professionals to work in their homes are those who have much bigger challenges.

This is why I silently cringe when I come across people who refer to themselves  as a “professional organizer” but have no significant experience working with clients, let alone credentials or training.

In May of next year,  the official manual of mental health diagnosis and criteria, otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (5th edition) or more commonly known in the mental health world as the DSM-V, will be published by the American Psychiatric Association.

The DSM-V contains a listing of diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder recognized by the U.S. healthcare system.  Among those conditions expected to be included is “Compulsive Hoarding Disorder” which up till now has been listed as a sub-set of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a serious anxiety disorder involving intrusive thoughts and ritualized behaviors aimed at reducing an individual’s anxiety.

Including Compulsive Hoarding as it’s own condition came out of research that found that people who suffer from this condition, which basically involves the excessive acquisition of items that  frequently are perceived by others as having little or no value but lack the ability to discard them, have not responded to treatments used for OCD. In addition, other studies have found that people who compulsively hoard don’t always show other symptoms of OCD.

Even if someone is not disorganized at the level of a “Hoarder” but may be what is termed “Chronically Disorganized,” this doesn’t mean their disorganization can be easily understood or fixed by just having the right containers.     There are many factors —  situational, emotional or physical– that impact a person’s ability to manage their lives in a reasonably organized way.  Disorganization is a symptom but it is also a behavior disorder that can impact a person’s well being, health and safety in very real ways.

For example, I recently worked with a middle-aged woman who was suffering from depression brought on by the death of her father with whom she was very close. Her depression lead her to neglect her home for so long that when I met her she couldn’t access her sink to get fresh water.  Her floor was covered with so much clutter that she would have difficulty leaving her home in an emergency.  Her bed was piled so high with clothing she slept on her couch.

The Institute for Challenging Disorganization, known in the industry as ICD,  is a subscriber organization that provides education and resources to those challenged by disorganization as well professionals working with this population. People with Chronic Disorganization, according to ICD, have a history of disorganization in which “self-help efforts to change have failed, undermining their current quality of life and the expectation of future disorganization.”

People with Chronic Disorganization are often great at keeping their conditions a secret. Such was the case with a client I had who was the picture of professionalism – a 45 year-old sales manager who was the top sales producer at her office but had not invited anyone to her condo in five years because she told me she was “too exhausted to clean up” and hadn’t unpacked since she moved in.

At a time when we have twice as much information coming at us, both digitally and in print, even the most competent person can find themselves challenged to stay on top of it all. Such was the case of an entrepreneur I worked with who could do anything involving technology but when it came to organizing his bills,  documents and other paper, he felt like a “lost cause.”

Even people whose lives are relatively stable can be challenged by the enormity of organizing challenges such as the retired widow who hired me to help her fit the contents of her 2,400 square-foot family home she just sold into a 1,600 square-foot city apartment she had rented.

Unfortunately, anyone can call themselves a  “professional organizer.” Doing so does not require any type of specialized training, certification or license.

The National Association of Professional Organizers otherwise known as NAPO is the leading professional association for the industry.  While their role is not to regulate,  they do require that members adhere to an ethical code, and are in the process of developing a basic curriculum that will be required of all members in the coming years.

Professional organizing is a relatively new industry, and NAPO, formed in 1985 and which now includes more than 4,200 members in 12 countries, including the U.S., was formed when people were discovering there was a growing need for help on ways to be more organized and productive at a time when consumerism was at its highest and the information age was just starting to explode.

Fortunately, there is a certification track available through an organization called the Board of Certified Professional Organizers® or BCPO®  The BCPO® requires certain experiential standards be met and applicants must pass an exam before they can receive their BCPO® certification. (I am getting ready to sit for my exam in February.)

Although NAPO and the BCPO® are working hard to establish standards for the profession, most consumers are not aware of these standards, nor does the general public necessarily understand the differences between someone who calls themselves a “professional organizer” and one who actually has the credentials, training, experience and education to perform the work at the highest level.

Consumers, whether they be businesses or individuals must rely on the recommendations of others, and their ability to size up the skills and qualifications of the organizer. This means they often have to make an important decision about the kind of help they need from their gut feelings.  This wouldn’t be a big problem if what you are looking for is someone to organize your clothes closet but what if, like many people, your disorganization is impacting your well being,  health or safety in bigger ways?

As a consumer, I would implore you to consider an organizing specialist the same way you would consider any other professional such as an attorney, dentist, doctor or accountant. Would you feel comfortable hiring a dentist who advertised on a free bulletin board?  Would you work with an accountant who you discovered on a flyer tacked to a phone pole? Would you send your parents to seek medical care from someone who had four other jobs?

All I’m saying is, you get what you pay for. In other words, Buyer beware.

I came across these 10 Simple Steps to Staying Organized in Getting Organized Magazine.

Try to commit one or two to memory and start implementing them in your own life.

You can receive a digital version of Getting Organized Magazine, including these great tips by going to this link or copy and paste this URL into your browser:

http://www.gettingorganizedmagazine.com/2012/07/13/2012-summer/

1. If you get it out, put it back.

2.  If you open it, shut it.  

3.  If you try it on, hang it up.

4.  If you get it dirty, wash it. 

5.  If you don’t use it, get rid of it.

6.  If it doesn’t fit, donate it.  (my add in….or consign it or sell on ebay if it is a great piece)

7.  If it’s expired, dump it. 

8.  If it’s junk, throw it out.

9.  If it’s a bill, pay it.

10.  If you schedule it, write it down.

While I have lived in California for 25 years  I grew up in New York City and still consider myself a “New Yaw-ker.”

Like a lot of people, when I see the images of destruction in the wake of Hurricane Sandy that hit the coastal communities of New York and New Jersey and hear the cries from people who have lost everything, absolutely everything, I still can’t believe it.

As a child, my family lived in an apartment that faced the Hudson River separating Manhattan from New Jersey.  In the 60s and 70s we went through two blackouts and at least three blizzards but this storm was altogether something different.

Yet what strikes me most is the gratitude people express for just having survived, for having their loved ones near by, for having the fortitude to know they will start over.

As an organizing professional I am deeply aware of the nature of people’s attachments to their possessions. I see almost daily how people instill their possessions with meaning.  Yet when they no longer possess it or they leave it behind either by choice or by circumstance, I am always struck by the notion that those things, in and of themselves, have no meaning. They become merely objects that in most cases, have no value other than what they can fetch on an open market. Their meaning along with the memories they evoke are tied to the people who possessed them.

The other day I was emptying a storage closet that belonged to someone I never knew and who had long since abandoned it.  It seemed strange and sad that no one had taken responsibility for the items I found: photographs of family events and babies long since grown;  awards and commemorative plaques honoring the life and work of this person; books and files and several religious figurines.

I took most of the items to Goodwill. What couldn’t be donated was recycled.  Doing so made me think of the thousands upon thousands of items that end up unclaimed every year in rented storage spaces, abandoned homes, even people’s current homes and forgotten storage areas. They become the remnants of their lives.  Items that meant so much one day, and nothing the next.

If tragedy teaches us anything, it teaches us who we really are. When I organize someone’s home or office or help them get organized to move,  I often stress that in the scheme of things they come first, not their stuff.  I am not saying this to judge them or to minimize the value they place in their possessions, rather, I am encouraging them to be as conscious and thoughtful as possible about what they own.

Not everything has to have “meaning” but ideally if it takes up space it should have usefulness or add value to our lives in some way. It should give us joy or be pleasing or practical or purposeful. Just like our homes, that offer us a place of refuge or peace, the items we surround ourselves with offer us something real and tangible.  At the very least they should be a positive reflection of ourselves and something familiar to come home to.

To me that is the true lesson of Hurricane Sandy. That, in a matter of hours, all that was familiar to so many was lost.  They didn’t expect it. They couldn’t plan for it and yet they remain hopeful that their lives as they once knew them to be will one day return.  The rain and the winds and the water may have washed away their homes but it didn’t wash away their spirit.

Would you like to help people impacted by Hurricane Sandy?  Donate now

What would it mean to you to have April 15th come and go next year as just an ordinary day? No stress, no tears, no panic. This month I have invited a special guest to share her best year-end tax tips.

Jodie Israel, MBA of JMI Accounting is both an experienced accounting professional and financial adviser to Fortune 1000 businesses and emerging businesses. I consider myself extremely lucky that I am one of Jodie’s clients.    Taking a little time now to plan and get organized will save you hours of  hair-pulling, stress later. Read on to discover Jodie’s year end tax tips.

It’s almost the end of the year and time again to get your accounting records in order for your CPA and your tax return.  Even if you’ve stayed on top of everything during the year, there still are some tasks to do to ensure you have things ready to close your books.  Every business is different so the tasks below should be used as guidelines.  Please consult a professional should you have questions or need more direction.

Tasks to Prepare for Year End Close

Get Organized:  Find all receipts for any deductions you want to claim.  Look everywhere – desk, car, wallet, briefcase, etc.  Remember that having no receipt equals taking no deduction.  Be sure to review personal bank and credit card statements to identify any business-related expenses.  Also review business bank and credit card statements to identify any personal expenses.  Pass this information along to your tax preparer.

Cash Receipts:  Make sure all business expense cash receipts are entered into your accounting software.

Reconcile Bank and Credit Card Accounts:  Be sure each month’s statement is reconciled to confirm all transactions have been posted to your accounting software.  This ensures your general ledger bank balance (the bank balance in your accounting software) matches your bank statement.  Fix any mistakes you find.

Petty Cash:  Reconcile your actual petty cash balance to the balance in your accounting software and adjust as necessary.

Invoices:  Make sure you have invoiced your customers for all goods and services provided during the year.  Anything that slips through the cracks is lost revenue.

Accounts Receivable:  Review the outstanding balance and make sure all payments are received within the invoice terms.  Compare the Accounts Receivable balance appearing on the Balance Sheet to the actual outstanding A/R.  If there is a balance outstanding on the Accounts Receivable report but the customer has paid, the payment was probably recorded incorrectly in your accounting software and needs to be corrected.

Accounts Payable:  Review the outstanding balance with your tax preparer to identify any bills that can be “pre-paid” and expensed in the current year.

Notes Payable:  Verify that the notes payable (loans) amounts on your Balance Sheet match the Note statements.  Confirm all notes are posted as liabilities and make adjustments as necessary for any notes paid in full or forgiven during the year.

Fixed Assets:  These are the larger purchases you made during the year, i.e., equipment, automobiles furniture, computers, etc.  Take an inventory of what you have and record the sale or disposal of any fixed assets you no longer own.  Confirm with your tax preparer any depreciation that needs to be posted.

Expense Categories:  Review all expense lines on your Profit and Loss Statement for illogical amounts.  For example, confirm that all office supplies are listed in the Office Supplies expense line and not incorrectly posted to the Auto Expense line.  Your tax preparer will categorize your tax deductible expenses and will need to know that the amounts for each type of expense are correct.  Confirm with your tax preparer if you can deduct all or a portion of the cost of your cell phone, internet, etc.  Also, if you are using a budget, you will want to compare your budgeted expenses to actual expenses.

Inventory:  Verify that your inventory balance is correctly reported on your Balance Sheet.  The easiest way to do this is to take a physical count and compare it to your reported value.  Confirm that the inventory is valued correctly and revalue as needed.  Your tax preparer will need the following:  January 1 inventory balance, the cost of inventory purchased throughout the year, the amount of inventory that was sold during the year, December 31 inventory balance.

Retirement:  Confirm with your tax preparer the amount of 401(k), SEP IRA or Simple IRA contributions you can take.

Payroll:  If you have employees, confirm that all payroll reports either from a third party or for payroll generated in-house are correctly posted to the payroll and tax expense lines.  Confirm all tax has been paid.  Ask employees to review their most recent pay stub to confirm the accuracy of the name, address, etc.  Generate, print and mail W2, W3, and all state and federal tax forms.

Outside Contractors:  If you have used outside contractors, confirm their 1099 status, name, address and tax ID number.  Collect W9 forms.  Generate, print and mail 1099 and 1096 forms.

Year-End Accrual:  Post any year-end accruals.

Depreciation:  Post annual depreciation expense.

Financial Statements:  Print all financial statements.

Back Up Accounting System:  Be sure to make a backup of your accounting software and store it offsite.

Tasks to Prepare for Next Year

Cash Flow Forecast:  Prepare a cash flow forecast for next year.  This will help you identify recurring and non-recurring income and expense.

Prepare a Budget:  Prepare a budget for next year.  Budgets can be a very helpful tool to make sure your business is on track.

Meet with Tax Preparer:  Meet with your tax preparer to identify any bookkeeping procedure modifications.

About JMI Accounting
Jodie Israel has experience in both the accounting and financial arenas, working with businesses of all sizes, from Fortune 1000 corporations to emerging companies.  She has an MBA degree and, as a QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor, she has experience with all levels of accounting and bookkeeping.

“It’s time to fix up the basement. My goal: Turn it into a more usable home-gym and place to focus on my physical, mental and spiritual fitness.”

It’s been about a month since I posted that statement and happy to report that I have been using the basement for a home gym.  Before I could, however, I made it my goal to empty out most of the cabinets which were filled with old toys, games and crafts belonging to my now 17-year old step-daughter who gave me the okay.

Many of the toys got donated to a local Alameda County organization called Bananas which helps low income mothers to find childcare and early childhood education.  A few were consigned to a store called, Toy Go Round  – a decision I might re-think because it required two trips to the consignment store (plus another for each time I want to check on the sales of my items).  It also took a good deal of effort, time and paper towel to clean the old toys so they would be sale-able.

Alex, the cat, inspects the toys being ready for sale and donation

I have to confess though it did give me the opportunity to indulge the 9 year-old in me that wanted to hear the sounds of the Barbie train whistle again and open and close all the cabinets in the Barbie Town House.  That train, now featured in the window of the consignment store, is going to make some other little girl’s day.

Next time I’ll let you know about how I set up the gym and what’s left to do.

Recently, I was asked to speak to a group of small business owners about organizing and how I became a professional organizer.   Curious? Watch this short video and get a taste of how I work with different organizing ‘personalities.’  Have a comment or question?  Include it below.

Is your stuff – paper, possessions, or supplies – out in the open where you can see it?
Do you forget, ignore or lose what you can’t see?
For you, is out of sight is out of mind?’

On the other hand do you prefer to have everything you own tucked away  – in a drawer, cabinet, or closet?
Do you feel unsettled, anxious or out-of-control when things are not stored, stowed or put away?
Do people always remark at how tidy your home looks?

If the first example sounds more like you, consider yourself a Piler.  On the other hand, if the second example resonates more strongly with you, you are probably a Hider.

The terms Hider and Piler represent two types on an organizing continuum. Generally people fall somewhere along the continuum preferring one kind of organizing habit over another. These are not absolutes. Understanding your – and others – preferred type can help you learn ways to be and stay organized as well as to help you better understand the habits of others. For couples, its common for one partner to be a Hider and the other a Piler. Understanding your partner’s style and how they think about organizing will help keep the peace at home.

The most important thing to know is that both Hiders and Pilers can be equally organized or disorganized.

Take a look at the pictures below:

The column on the left represents two versions of a Piler organizing style: An organized Piler, as represented by the store that sells beads and other jewelry making s

upplies and a disorganized Piler  as illustrated by the photo of the cluttered office.

The column on the right represents two versions of a Hider organizing stye – an organized Hider as  represented by the physician’s examination room and a disorganized Hider as exemplified by the cluttered drawer.

Organizing styles can be dictated by function – such as the need for safe and sanitary conditions as in a doctor’s office or the need for customers to find what they are looking for quickly and easily as in the bead store example. For most people, however, organizing styles emerge from our individual personalities, learned habits or in some cases, physical or emotional conditions.

It’s helpful to think of Hider and Piler as preferences, rather than extremes, with most people falling somewhere between them but leaning towards one or another at varying degrees.

While I have not conducted a scientific study about organizing preferences, in my experience as a professional organizer, I have found that Hiders and Pilers also share some other characteristics.

For example, Pilers, because they like items out where they can seem them, may not benefit as much from conventional organizing methods.  An example of this is a standard two-drawer file cabinet.  A better solution for a Piler is an open file drawer on wheels that allows them to see and file their papers and then stow them away as needed.

Many of my clients who I would consider Pilers are artists, creative types or visual learners. They are stimulated by various forms of color, design, objects, and words. A Piler who does not feel comfortable expressing himself in a particular environment may find substitutes for filling the space in other ways.

An example of this are artists who earn income in an office setting. To compensate for the design of a standard office cubicle – with things like closed, overhead bins – artists and other Pilers often fill their surfaces with paper, piles or other bulky supplies. When I notice a client doing this, once we’ve worked together on organizing the paper,  I often recommend they find objects, artwork or photographs to fill the space (in lieu of the paper) that inspire them.

Conversely, a Hider may feel torn between her need for order and the desire to consume, purchase or own items of perceived value.  From the outside, everything looks fine, even beautiful. Until you open a drawer, cabinet or closet.  Then suddenly everything spills out in a jumble.   This is what I call the “Jack-in-the-box” phenomenon.

Typically hiders call me when their clutter starts creeping out from the drawers, cabinets and closets because they’ve run out of room.  I often recommend to Hiders that they examine their beliefs about what they value so that they can begin to edit down what they have.  I also remind them that storage areas are valuable ‘real estate.’ If they want to cut down on the clutter-creep they are either going to have to maximize the real estate, through editing, or else be at risk of spending more to house thier stuff. The worst case scenario is when people buy bigger homes or invest in expensive storage units to accommodate items they don’t use, want or need.

A hider can also lean towards the other extreme, purging themselves of all but the minimum necessities, sometimes prematurely, maintaining a tidy space albeit a bit sterile or overly staged.

In the fall I will be conducting an online seminar about Hiders and Pilers. If you are interested or want more information, email me at Lis@letsmakeroom.com.