Organizing what we love
We’ve all heard the advice - only keep the things we love or that bring us joy. It’s great advice, but in practice organizing the sentimental things we own can be very overwhelming! Of all the items in our home, it’s the sentimental possessions that people most often struggle with. Not only do these objects stir strong emotions and memories, but this category can contain a wide variety of objects and be anywhere in the home. For example, the items that we have saved can be the concert ticket stubs mixed in with office paper, the college t shirts in our dresser, that old baseball glove in the garage, wedding decorations in the top of a closet, and the boxes of photos we inherited from a loved one that are (still) sitting in our garage. Whew!
There ARE ways to make it MUCH easier to edit and organize the items that fall into the sentimental category. Valentine's Day inspired me to write this blog post on organizing these things that represent love. Here are some of my techniques I use with clients to manage overwhelm and move forward to organize the possessions that are most meaningful.
Work with a boundary
If you are low on space or planning a move, create a boundary by using existing furniture or a storage bin. Using this technique means we select the most important things first and stop when the boundary is full. For example, allow yourself to only keep the sentimental books that fit within one shelf. The special occasion cards are edited to fit within one box . Baby clothes must fit within one bin. This last tip worked for me when I downsized and moved. I went through each child’s baby items and picked the most loved item, then the next most loved item, and so on until each child’s bin was full. It was comforting to know I saved the most important things and that knowledge gave me the resolve to donate the remaining items.
Make it a game
Sometimes a little fun can take the pressure off decision making. I use my YES NO PASS game when I know a client is processing heavy emotions. The rules of the YES NO PASS game are simple. There are no perfect decisions but there are easy decisions. The object of the game is to make the easy decisions so we can act on them. To play, I hold up an item and if the client has an instant YES or NO, I’m going to put that object in it’s appropriate pile. If I hold up an object and I see my client struggling to make a decision, I say PASS and it goes into the pile of maybes. This game sets us up to take action rather than getting stuck. YES items can now be organized and NO items can be donated or disposed of. Once those actions are handled, we can come back to that now smaller and more manageable pile of MAYBE.
Embrace digital storage
The space saving advantages of digital storage are clear but more importantly, digital organization done correctly allows us to safely preserve items and share them with the people we love. Any smartphone is a valuable tool in organizing, storing, and sharing photos and images of sentimental items. There are even apps that allow us to capture our memories associated with the images. Consider photographing physical items such as kid’s artwork or sports trophies so these items can be preserved and enjoyed instead of stored away in a box somewhere in the basement.
Deal with other people's stuff
I see this issue more with my client’s who are parents, especially moms. Their house is full of other people's stuff, they don’t feel comfortable making decisions for those people, and they are stuck in a holding pattern. Use technology to gain buy-in and make faster decisions on the items that belong to other family members, like adult children. Text a photo of the item and ask “Do you want this?”. Or consider grouping similar items into one photo and ask “Which of these items do you wish to keep?”. We are most likely to get specific answers by keeping questions specific and limiting the questions to only a few a day. Pack all the YES items together and let go of the NO’s with a clear conscience.
Try to avoid asking “Are you sure?”. I’m a mom and I know how hard it is to not ask that question but as a professional organizer I know how important it is to respect the answer that we asked for.
Organize favorites first for motivation
My own family experienced this when my in-laws downsized and moved across the country. I connected my mother-in-law with a photo organizer to assist in digitizing her bins of photos before the move. Working with the photo organizer, she created a series of digital albums and shared those albums with her kids via a digital frame and app at Christmas. What a beautiful gift! Our immediate family uploaded our digital albums to that frame and I just love walking into my kitchen and seeing these photos! It’s been such a joy and motivated our family to organize our remaining photos over the holidays. It’s profoundly impactful when we surround ourselves with what brings us joy!
Most of us would say the items like our photos and mementoes are our most important possessions. Almost everything else in our homes can be replaced but these items are unique to us and are truly special. Sadly, these items are often damaged or lost because the thought of editing and organizing is so overwhelming that those tasks are avoided. This is a hard category to organize but these tips may be just the motivation that was needed. If you find it hard to work with these items, that’s okay. Don’t hesitate to contact me to learn how to get unstuck.