Learning to avoid clutter in the new year
By Benning W. De La Mater, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Where are those receipts? You know they were on the kitchen counter yesterday — right next to your child’s homework, which was on top of the tax forms, which were buried below the grocery list and close to your birth certificate.

Does this madness sound familiar? You’re not alone. Andrea Feldman of Get Organized! a professional consulting firm, says there are more disorganized people than organized people in the world. “You don’t really know what’s living in those piles, do you?” Feldman asks a crowd inside the Lenox Library that gathered recently to hear her speak on the benefits of organization. There is a look of despair on the faces of those in the audience. They need help.

January is National Get Organized Month — as declared by the National Association of Professional Organizers. And, with cabin fever sure to be setting in, Feldman says it is the perfect time of year to attack the clutter in your home or office. “Clutter is a toleration. There is a comfort level with clutter,” she said. But it is not making life easier. In fact, The Wall Street Journal has reported that the average executive wastes six weeks of work each year retrieving misplaced information from cluttered piles.

Feldman believes that there is a direct correlation between a person’s stress level and the volume of his or her cluttered areas. She calls it CHAOS, or “Can’t-Have-Anyone-Over Syndrome.” She asks audience members how long it takes them to find something in their home or office. “I’ll let you know when I find it,” Bill Polk yells out.

Fill in the blank to this statement, Feldman says: “I have to move a pile of stuff just so I can …” “Sleep,” a woman calls out. Feldman says it takes determination and time to attack the “stuff.”

Here are her tips:

* Start small and identify one troubled area to attack.
* Don’t make the goal too broad, such as “I have to prepare for tax season.” Instead, say, “I have to gather all my  receipts in one folder.”
* Have equipment ready ahead of time, things such as garbage bags, folders, labels and boxes.
* Schedule a time to do it on your calendar and stick with it.
* Get support; it’s easier to organize with a buddy.
* Touch everything, and decide if the piece of paper or nostalgic memento will be of use to you.
* Give the stuff that still works but that you no longer use to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Also, promise not to go in and buy anything else.
* Reward yourself — preferably without purchasing anything that would turn into more clutter.

Feldman said one of the biggest hurdles is overcoming the all-or-nothing mentality. “Eliminate it,” she says. “Many people feel (that) if they have a huge garage to clean out, they can’t do it because it’s too much. Instead, do a little bit at a time.”

If things seem to be out of hand, hire a professional organizer. She has helped everyone from executives to stay-at-home moms dig out from the life-suffocating piles of clutter. One woman in South County had an entire room in her home devoted to unopened boxes from when she moved here — five years ago.

Another time, when Feldman was helping a writer in New York City, she had to weave a path through paper piles in the woman’s living room just to get to the door. “There was nothing to do except to go through all of it. I was there for months,” she said.

Feldman wants people, in their first attempt at organizing, to throw out 27 things. Why 27? “That number appealed to me.”

If things are really bad, there’s always Clutterers Anonymous; the closest group meets in Amherst. Feldman doesn’t want people to throw out their memories. In fact, she wants to preserve them. She recommends creating a “warm-and-fuzzy folder” for the sentimental stuff and having one box for photos, all of which are labeled, of course.

Dominick Villane, 45, of Lanesborough, a property manager, brought his daughter, Zoe, 12, to one of Feldman’s lectures this past week. He admits he has a slight “organization problem,” but wants to set an example for Zoe, who said she has “clutter issues with school papers and … guitar (gear).” “I wanted to learn anything that would help me get organized to reduce the clutter,” Dominick Villane said. “It’s important to me if I’m going to ask (Zoe) to be organized, that I first start with myself.”

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