Cut the Clutter and Get Organized

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Alice Lesman: Well, welcome everybody to our workshop of

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Alice Lesman: get the clutter and get organized for those of you that don't know me. I'm Alice Lessman, the director of the Housing Information and Referral Service, which is part of the office of work life. We'll introduce our speaker in a minute, but I just want to be sure, everyone has the attachment that was included with the Zoom link. This document was provided by our speaker. And just so you are aware this workshop will be recorded.

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Alice Lesman: Undoubtedly there'll be a lot of questions if you have questions during the Please presentation, please put them in the into the chat box, which will be monitored, however, if you can, it might be best to hold them until the end, as there should be time to answer all of them

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Alice Lesman: that leads us to our presenter. This is as she's the founder and CEO of Gotham organizers. Lisa has been helping people get and stay organized for over 20 years. She has a master's degree and organizational psychology, and is regular regularly called upon by the media to provide practical tips and insight to make life easier.

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Alice Lesman: Alright, Lisa, shall we get started.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Sounds good.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright! I'm going to share my screen. Make sure everybody is in the right place.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Oh, this is the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: title slide for my brother's talk for tomorrow. My brother actually is speaking at Columbia tomorrow on some kind of quantum physics topic. So I just thought that'd be fun to share that with you. But no, we are actually in the right place.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Cut the clutter and get organized. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you guys for taking time out of your day and to start my timer so I can

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: do this on time.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And so I just wanna give you a little bit of a little bit more about myself. So I've been helping people get organized for over 20 years. But I don't make my bed every day.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I've got a stack of New Yorkers like this high, maybe this high, the pile up. I have sweaters in my closet that I haven't worn it over a year. Everything in my house does not spark. Joy.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Can anybody relate to that? Give me a thumbs up in the chat? If you want hands up for the few of you that I can actually see great let me get chat here just so I can monitor the chat. But, on the other hand.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I know exactly where to find the information on all the clients I've had over the past 20 years. I can find my proof of jury duty, service, or my passport in seconds. Takes me 5 min to get dressed in the morning, and if I've got somebody coming over for have company coming. I can straighten out my place in 15 min for less. So I'm not perfectly organized, but I am organized enough for me.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and that's what I'm here to teach you, a process that you can apply. No matter how organized or disorganized you are. And hopefully, even if you are organized, you'll get some tips and tricks that you can apply as well.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: why even bother to get organized for me? A lot of it is about, how does disorganization make you feel?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I'd love to hear just a couple of words or 2 in the chat for you like, what is it? When you think about that area that's cluttered. What had you be here today? What is it about this organization? How does it make you feel

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: don't like how it looks.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: They feel somebody feels, stressed Maria, overwhelmed. That is the word that I hear most often by the people that reach out to me anxious. So think about those emotions when you're feeling those strong negative, I mean emotions, little

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: neuroscience, mini lesson for you when you're feeling those kind of emotions, the executive functioning part of your brain, the part that can think and plan, the part that you need to get organized, that port kind of shuts down the emotions overtake you, and it can make it really hard to try and get out of a disorganized state. So that's why I'm gonna as I said, teach you my process to help you get

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: organize that even when you're feeling stressed or anxious or upset. You can rely on this process. And so just a quick little story about the value of having a process. This is a few years ago I was at club Med, and they had a trapeze, and I decided I wanted to do the trapeze.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And as I got to this 30 foot ladder as I was online for it. I was starting to get quite nervous. Quite anxious, stressed. But the person who was helping run it said, All you have to do is do exactly what they tell you to do exactly when they tell you to do it. And I was like, All right. I can do that. So climb up this little ladder

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: standing on this teeny, tiny platform. And the first thing that they say to do is jump off the platform. I was like. Okay. Next thing is, bring your knees up to the bar, knees up to the bar.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And then they said, Let go, and I had that moment of like at panic. But I remembered. Follow the process.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and I let go, and the magic of it is the momentum of the trapeze makes it really kind of effortless. You don't need to use any muscles or you don't really need to think about it, and the process does all the work. So that's what I want to teach you.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So this is in your handout. This is what I call my less mess, less stress system to organize anything

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you can use this to organize stuff.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You know your clothes, your closet, your kids toys, or you can use it to organize papers, electronic information, digital photos. You can really apply. You can even apply it to your time. So these are the 5 steps commit to getting organized, clear, clutter, categorize, which is grouping similar things together. Contain, which is that? Create a place for everything.

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Alice Lesman: Lisa. I don't think we're you're we're in the right slide. We're still looking at the

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Alice Lesman: legendary and some quantum groups.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Really? Oh, on my screen. Huh? Sorry about that. On my screen.

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Alice Lesman: It sounded like you're going to slides.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Now it's switched to let me

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: close that one down

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so weird.

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Alice Lesman: Will, Oliver. There's an equation on the screen. Is that evoking.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: That would be very stressful. Okay, how about now?

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Alice Lesman: No, we're not seeing anything now.

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Alice Lesman: There we are now, because.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: There's my quick little trappiness photos.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: the magic of the process. And here's our 5 steps. Okay, everybody see the 5 steps up on their screen.

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Alice Lesman: Yes, great.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Okay, sorry about that.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Let me just bring the chat back up. So I can see that.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Okay,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: okay. So grouping similar things together contain that's creating a place for everything and continue which is, that's the key to staying organized. I know a lot of you wrote in questions or in the comments that you wanted tips about staying organized?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: without any further ado, let's start talking about. I'm gonna just spend about 10 min a little bit less on each of the yeah 5 steps, and we'll have some time at the end for questions as well.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So commit to getting organized. This, I find, is one of the things that it. It's a step that is so often overlooked or glossed over, even in organizing books that I've read. They just kind of assume

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: your level of commitment. But

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and first of all, I just want to acknowledge by being here, or those of you who are listening to the recording. You are demonstrating a commitment. You're taking time out of your schedule. You're committing to learn something. But so

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: why is commitment important in the organizing process is again because it's a process. Getting organized isn't a one shot deal. It's not like hinting your house to do it once you can forget about it for 10 years.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So your commitment is what will

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: keep your

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: attention, your momentum to the process as you go through it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and one of the things that can help. I love this quote first from Oprah and help you solidify your commitment. You can't have greatness in your life. If it's clutter with junk, you need to open up to the possibilities.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So what can be really helpful is to think about like what are. How are you going to benefit from getting organized? And in your handout, you know, you might want to jot down like what is your why, what is the deeper reason that you want to do this?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And again, another thing you can think about why this is a process and not just a one shot deal think about. If you have a commitment to get in shape, you don't just go to the gym once, or you don't work out for a while get in shape, and then assume that you'll just magically stay in shape

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so that commitment will help

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: take me through

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: can always fall back on it. Remember why, what is what's the benefit for you and for some people? It can also be helpful to think about what are the costs of being disorganized that can help solidify your commitment.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Is it costing you time or money effort and energy, trying to? You know the effort it takes to find something when it isn't in the spot where you think it is stress or peace of mind, especially if it's something related to work. And you know you can't easily find what you need, or your desk or workspaces of mess, and it impacts

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: how you feel your productivity at work. There also may be a Ca cost on relationships if you live with others, and they have a different level of

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: organization. That can be stressful. So it can be helpful again to think about like what is disorganized. Dis organization cost you to maintain your commitment when you might rather be doing something else than putting your clothes back in the closet.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and of

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: again, if if anything comes to mind, you might want to jot it down in your handout to think about for yourself, like what is going to pick your commitment?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And then, just in terms of your commitment to this workshop, what can help you maintain your focus and attention is to really think about one specific area in your life where you want to apply this. And you know, don't say, Oh, my whole house like, if you think about something specific, it can really help focus what you're learning. And as I said, you can apply this to any area.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So once you're committed.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: step 2 clearing clutter. Now, why, this is really important, that this is step 2. Often, once people are committed. Yes, I'm gonna get organized. I'm ready to go. The first thing they wanna do is go out and go shopping. Go buy containers, but don't start there, because what I say is, it doesn't pay to organize what you don't need to keep. So that's why you want to start with clearing clutter.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Again. This is only step 2 in my whole organization process. So it's super important. But it is not the only it's not the only step in getting organized.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Love this? Why, clear color? You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: beyond, you know. Not having too much stuff is the fewer things that you have.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: the more the better use you can make of your

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: space. Especially. I know there are some people who have small spaces, and if you've got a small space, you have to be a little bit more diligent about only keeping the things that are really important.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So this is an actual client, cluttered desk. And again, when people are feeling overwhelmed, they don't know where to start start here. So how we started with working on this desk was really just thinking, asking the question, what needs to be on the desk? Everything else is cluttered

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And after just a few minutes.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, this was the few papers that actually needed to be on this person's desk, and as a bonus he found this Speaker phone device that he had totally forgotten was on the desk. So I always tell people think of it like a treasure hunt.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You'll find something you didn't know you have, and you'll probably find something that you've been looking for.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I'm sure a lot of you have heard about Marie Condos organizing method. We're only keeping things that spark joy. Personally, I don't think that's enough of a criteria to help you decide what you want to keep and what you want to let go of.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: sorry so what you want to do before you even get started on the clear and clutter is, think about what are the things that you're gonna keep and set some criteria for yourself, and deciding this ahead of time, can make that decision process. Once you do get ready to clear clutter easier.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So some things, some criteria. Yes, okay. Maybe if it sparks, joy is one thing, but also, if it's something that you use, that's probably something you wanna keep if you love it, if it makes you feel good, not something you need to rush to let go of. I was working with one client and she had a lot of little chops, goods, little different items on her desk.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and she said, I know you're gonna make me get rid of them their clutter, and I asked her, Why do you have them here? And she said she worked in human resources, and she said, Well, when people come into my office they're often, you know, tense or upset, and it's it just kind of lightens the mood. We talk about the little objects that sometimes play with them. So I was like, that's not clutter. That's fine to keep it there. So this really personal for yourself,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so want to really set up criteria that are going to work for you.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Something obvious, you know, if something is related to a client, somebody that you work with, or for a project or a goal. You probably want to keep it. Sometimes there's legal or tax reasons like papers. You need to keep them. You want to educate yourself about. How long do you need to keep different things? I had one client who thought they need to keep their old Con Ed receipts forever like. No, you don't, Con. Ed will know if you didn't pay your electricity bill. It will be very clear very quickly.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: maybe a criteria might be. If something is hard to replace, that might not be the first thing I would recommend getting rid of same thing. If you've got room for it. Maybe that's okay. And all this, another thing, I think, is really important. If it feels too painful to let go of something. Right now again, we have this

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: feeling like, Oh, I need to be a minimalist. I need to only have things that spark joy. I don't agree, and you don't have to make all your clear and cluttered decisions at once. So you want to start with the things that are easier, and you can set aside things that are, you know.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You're not quite sure at this point, you know, if you've experienced some kind of a loss, particularly might not be the time to ruthlessly clear clutter.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And you also want to. Oh, yeah.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: one criteria you do not want to use is, it? Might come in handy someday, because that is a recipe for keeping almost everything and way too many of things, and also just kind of by definition, someday never comes.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So you want to think about if there's something that you're holding onto like that. But you don't really have a purpose in mind. That might be something that you can let go of

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and then, by the same token, you want to set up criteria for the things that you know you can let go of.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: if it's something that you really never use. You don't need to keep it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: It's something that's broken or doesn't work, or is expired out of date that can be really helpful. To just let those things go free up your space. And then also again, things take up mental space as well as physical space. Oh, maybe I'll get that old answering machine fixed, you know you're thinking about it. Something is broken, not worth fixing. You haven't fixed it yet. Probably want to let it go.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: If you have something else just like it, I'll talk a little bit more about that. That holding on to multiples

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and then sometimes, if it's something that you could easily replace or borrow, if it isn't something that you use often that might be something to let go of, especially if it's something big and in your way.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And this last one, I think, is really important. If it's something that you hate, and it makes you feel badly. That's not something that you need to actually use. And this is more like decorative items, memorabilia books, photos.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: really, think hard about giving yourself permission to let those things go, because the emotional energy that these things can contain can really be a downer. And when I work with clients, the thing that they say

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: the term they use most often is that they feel lighter after letting things go. So think about that.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright. So I want to say a little bit about multiples. How many is enough?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And this is very personal. But

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: once you think about, you know how many of the same type of thing you have.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And again, think about it with that thinking part of your brain, not the emotional part. Oh, I love black sweaters, you know. Try and be rational like how many is enough? And this also depends on your space. But at some point it's just too many to use.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I worked with one client. It turned out she had 14 pairs of almost identical tan pants, and when her place was disorganized she didn't know she had so many but

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, once she pulled them all together, you know that's too many.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So with multiples, you want to think about giving yourself. It can be helpful to just have a number. Think about rationally. You know how many different pairs of tan pants can I wear between laundry sessions?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: another thing. Another way to deal with multiples is to give yourself a defined amount of space to keep them in. One thing that almost everybody has as you will is a multiple person like that. Almost everybody has

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: many, many, many reusable shopping bags, especially since you know they pass those laws. But again, how many arms do you have? How many shopping bags can you carry? How many different types do you need? So by giving yourself a defined space to keep these in can make a big difference, and for that we almost always create what I call the bag of bags. Pick one bag.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: It's big enough, but not too big, not one that you're gonna carry, and put all the other bags in it. And that will. That's a way to define the space

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: back events. But yeah, the electronics. Same thing. And again, that's something that you know. Easy cord, easy to replace, you know. Want to think about how much of your space are you dedicating to these different different items?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright. So you've set your criteria. You've thought about your multiples. What is the actual process that I recommend. First of all, I do not recommend taking everything out at once from a big space, maybe for working on small drawer. But just kind of keep that in mind if you think that's if you think that's where I'm heading, I'm not. But before we even get started. You wanna get yourself ready. So one is going back to your commitment while you're doing this.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And also, I'd say, focus, commit to just one area. Okay, then work on my closet. You might even want to start smaller. I'm gonna work on the hanging clothes gonna work on my surface of my desk. Or you might want to focus on one type of thing. Okay, I'm just gonna start with clearing cords and electronics.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so that will help

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: streamline the process for you. Set your criteria for what you're gonna keep and what you're gonna let go of. And before you even get started, think about what you're going to do with the items that you don't keep.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You know. Certain things can just go in the trash. That's easy. Some things don't want to recycle. Think about shredding papers with sensitive information. Where will you do that? How will you do that? Decide ahead of time? So it doesn't bog you down if you want to donate or give away things. Then, really helpful to know of like, do a little research shop in your area? What are the hours and days that they're open. What kind of things do they accept?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Get that determined ahead of time? Or think about, you know, if you do want to try and sell things. Not going to talk a lot about that. But I will just leave you with most things are worth less than what you think

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: except for gold, gold is very easy to sell, and it's very high, right?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Another thing that you wanna do is to have some bags or boxes ready. So where where are you? Gonna put the things that you're letting go of, so they don't just pile up.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and you want to think about, you know, if you need help, or if you want some moral support, get that lined up ahead of time and then block out time. Think about when you're going to do this.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and when I'm working with a client I work 3 h at a time. That's about as much as most people can handle, and they're working with me. I don't recommend in the beginning trying to work that long on their own

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: it's not necessary. You'll get burned out. I'd say. Maybe maximum start with an hour. And this is the kind of thing even 10 min. Start with a smaller area. 10 min can make a big difference. You can get through that bag of bags box in a really short period of time.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And again, if you do that, focus on one type of thing, focus on one small area, you'll see success. You'll be motivated. And again, that will keep your commitment going.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I'm a big fan of starting small.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright. So you're already. What is the actual process? First of all, make it fun. You know, this does not have to be drudgery. I always say that my goal is to make this process easy, fast, and even fun.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so have snacks with you, play music that can make a huge difference. One of my clients, for some reason he really loves the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: the soundtrack for the movie, the last of the Mohegans that like gets him in the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: clearing. Clutter, organizing mood. Take breaks. You don't have to, you know, work like a solder, and you might wanna give yourself some kind of a reward, you know. Yes, organizing is its own reward. But my one thing of like a real tangible reward for yourself and and doing either little Mini projects or a big project. Again, keep that motivation and commitment going.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So when you're doing clear and clutter all you really are deciding is, am I gonna keep it, or am I gonna let it go? You might even wanna put off the decision about what I'm gonna do with it. If it's something I don't need or want to keep. But again, you wanna really just make it a very small decision that you need to make. You've set yourself up really well, so that this process should go quite quickly.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and what will help you focus is if you're working on papers, magazines don't read. I hear from people all the time. Oh, I spent 2 h, you know, trying toward third clutter. I didn't get anywhere, and it's like, No, you spent like 10 min clearing flutter, and you spent an hour and a half reading that interesting article that was at the bottom of your pile. So don't read and try not to drift.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, if you're looking through. If you're working on kids, artwork or photographs like going down, Memory Lane can really derail. You can get emotions involved. So just focus. And if you're not sure about something, or if you do find yourself drifting, you can use what organizers call a ripening bin. And again, this is not in your marine Condo books, I don't think but it you don't have to make all the decisions now.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: just set them aside. You can put them in a box and just set it aside and revisit it later. And I also don't believe like.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know. Put it away for 30 days. If you haven't looked at it, just throw it away. I don't believe that I do think like re-look at it again. Because you don't want to make a mistake, you know. Certain things are irreplaceable. So don't rush to make the decisions, to let things go. If you're really not sure.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Any questions. We're doing well on time, any questions about clear and clutter before I move on to the next step.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: or think about. I'd love to hear from some people like, do you have a specific area or a specific type of thing that you now know that you want to work on? You've got some tips and techniques that feels a little more doable, less overwhelming.

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Kedeesha Simpson: Mail. I have mail that I need to organize.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Yeah. So starting by clearing clutter is a great way of dealing with mail cause the mail can be scary. There's bills in there, taxes stuff you have to deal with. But so if you first clear out the clutter, the stuff you don't need to keep

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: magazines catalogs you don't need to read. That's a great way of getting started.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: The children's clothing. They go grow so fast. Absolutely. So that's you know, when we get to step 5 maintenance. You wanna on some kind of regular basis. Check the kids clothes and see if they still fit. Seasonal is a great way to do that revisit this seasonally.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Again. Right? That really comment, I see Amy says, doesn't want to throw things away that somebody else might be able to use. So that's where you want to. Research, like, you know, is there a thrift shop nearby where you can donate things? I am a huge fan if you're on Facebook. There are local groups called Buy nothing, and you can give away almost anything. And what's great is, people will come to your place and pick it up as opposed having to bring something big and head into the thrift shop. And they're very hyper local. So it's a way to meet your neighbors.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and it is amazing like what things people might want that you have. But what I also say is like don't get.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I mean, if this is part of your values to give things away absolutely. Go for it, but it it can take time and effort to give things away to the perfect home, and what I say when people are like oh, I want to save the environment which I absolutely agree. But, on the other hand, really keep in mind that your environment is important, too.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So you want to think about those trade offs. And again, depending where you live, like giving away things that you know. Maybe it's like, you know, half used pencils. You can't give them to a thrift shop, but maybe it's something you can collect them putting in one of those nice shopping bags that you've been saving. Put them on the street or in your building launder room with a nice sign that says free, and somebody will take it

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: up

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: question about things that you might want to pass down to somebody else. First of all, make sure that the people. You wanna pass them on to want it. Not always the case with the younger generations, and if you have room for it, you know, find an out of the way spot. We'll talk about that in Step 4 to put it but again want to think about like, do you have room for it. Is it worth it?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: pretty good another by nothing. Fan.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: alright. So right you are. Now all clear and clutter mini experts. You've paired down. You're down to the stuff that you really need to keep and want to keep

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: what's next. So step 3 is categorizing them, grouping similar things together. And often when people think about like organizing, this is what they think about. This is where you're creating systems, of different types of items. Or again, you can apply this to different types of information, different types of activities.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: That's where Step 3 comes along.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And it sounds, you know, might sound complicated. But it's really the the simplicity of just putting like things together. If anybody's old enough to remember the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street song. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong. That's really what you're doing when you're categorizing, putting similar things together

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and so easy. Even a child can do it. This is my niece after Halloween.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: organizing her Halloween candy. And so again, you think about like, what is the benefit of categorizing things.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You want to be able to, you know, when you're in a move for Reese's. You want to be able to quickly grab the Reese's not to have to jump, you know. Dig through the Twizlers and the Sour Patch kids. You want to be able to find what you need.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So that is one of the main things that categorizing will do for you. And again, this is something that you probably do naturally in certain areas. So you want to think about those areas and just apply them to other areas where things are kind of jumbled and a mess and not organized. So most people. Your coloring, your silver or drawer probably doesn't look like this.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: That is something that we pretty naturally categorize. And there's organization products that help us. Do that, you know, we'll talk about the products that can help you stay organized in Step 4.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So again, you want to think about, how can you apply these same things to other areas.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: what I

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: figures the magic of categorization is when you have an area that looks like this. This is a real client's desk drawer.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Just everything, everywhere, all at once and again you feel that overwhelmed. All you have to do is very methodically put similar things together. And in this order really wasn't actually too much that we got rid of. And after just putting similar things together, this is what it looked like, you know. We kind of put personal items over here on the side, the tissues, the tic tacs,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: glue stick we put over here organized similar types of paper. Sticky notes went here fastening devices, rubber bands, here, pens and pencils in the pencil drawer. So again, it can be very simple, even if it feels overwhelming. Just really think about that putting like with like.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So these are, where where doing this can help you again making sense of stuff that's jumbled. And

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you can apply this to particular types of items like things in a drawer. You can apply categorization in areas that are jumbled and cluttered. You know, if you're organizing a closet, this is mostly what you're going to be doing, categorizing different types of clothing.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Again, you can apply it to papers. This is the key to setting up a filing system is creating categories for papers. You can apply it to digital information email,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: electronic documents. And you can apply it to your schedule. There's something called time blocking. If you've heard of that that is just putting similar types of tasks together in your schedule. Okay, from 10 to 12. I'm just gonna focus on writing tasks, and again, having things together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: similar types of things together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: your brain will process them. Similarly, if you're categorizing information sorry tasks in your schedule.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And then there's different ways. And this is where you can get really creative to create systems that are gonna work for you different ways to categorize and just, you know, very simple. Who, what, where, when, why, how can be helpful like? Who who does the item belong to, or who's the information for? For a colleague or different departments? Maybe that you support that can help you determine how to create folders for electronic information or email.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Again, who by family member, big cluttered family shared coat closet

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: dude

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: items for different people separate.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: What are you going to categorize, or that that's a way to categorize things by type of item. So in your closet.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, you might want to put all your tops together, and then even maybe further, categorize it. Short sleeve, long sleeve, all the bottoms, pads together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: By type of thing. That's also a really quick way to clear out an area to organize an area. Is by type of item, like, if you've got a really cluttered desk or

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: closet cluttered horizontal surface just quickly put similar types of items together. Things will immediately start to feel more organized. As I said, if you're thinking about your schedule, putting different types of tasks together. Another thing you can think about is, where is something used or done

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: can make a big difference in terms of what you should put together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know. For myself, I had a in my kitchen. I had a scale little kitchen scale which I didn't use very often. So get to this in Step 4. But I took, put it in the cabinet above my refrigerator.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and then, when I switched how I was making coffee. I was measuring fit out 15 grams of coffee. I was using the scale often, but I still kept it, you know, with things I didn't use often. So then, when I realized, oh, I can put it

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: where I use it, put it near the coffee maker. So that can make a really big difference by storing things by where they're used, or for an activity where things are done.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: keep those things together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You can think about why you're using a certain item categorized by purpose.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: In your kitchen, you know, utensil drawer, all cutting things together, measuring things like, why, it's used if you're dealing with paper by topic, that kind of answering that question, why or what's the activity that the item or information is used for, or what's the project it's used for?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Another thing that you might want to think about is when it's used, categorize things by frequency of use. And this can really help you use your space effectively. If you

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: put together things that you don't use often.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and then we'll talk about where to put them. But putting those together in a less accessible space can really help you use your space well. And again, things that use all the time you want them to be really accessible. So keep those things together.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: or also by sense of urgency. This can be useful for sorting mail or papers or emails. If you sort things by things that are urgent need to be done soon, that can help you use your space and your time and your brain power effectively, because you're focusing on the most important thing. First.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: also, sometimes you might want to categorize things just simply by size. This can be really helpful for kids and toys. Often, parents wanna think they need to categorize things like, really, you know,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: finally. But if we're talking about young kids

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: often just like, put all the small toys in this bin. Put all the bigger toys in that bin. That can be a very easy way to categorize thing, and it can also be very useful, and it can help you use your space effectively, even if you're not a child

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: again, just some quick before and after that same desk the papers that he did need categorize them by topic. We use color coding to separate different topics, and also the placement of where we put the plastic tabs on the hanging folders. So categorizing is absolutely the key thing to creating a filing system.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright, anybody have any thoughts about areas or types of things they know. Let's go back here. That they know that they want to contain, that they want to categorize. Now that they've got, now that you've got some

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: guidelines for categorizing

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: area where things are jumbled that you think categorizing could help

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: awkward.

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Leslie Davidson: I do

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Leslie Davidson: So I do this sort of periodically.

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Leslie Davidson: and then I lose track, and it gets jumbled again, and I create it again, and then I often end up with different sets of the same categories. And so for me, it's not a new problem, but it is a big one.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So you'll think well, when we get to step 5 hopefully, that will help you that just like maintaining and keeping, and also sometimes your categories may need a little tweaking, or if you're

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, things are changing quickly. Priorities are shifting that that may shift. So you have to think about in that step. 5 continuing, maybe you need to do that a little bit more often, or maybe less often.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: okay, somebody's gonna apply this to their 2 foot pile. Fabulous.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Yeah. Categorizing

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: sorting papers. Absolutely categorizing different types of paper. Just a quick tip on paper. these are 3 big, broad categories that can really help you. If you're organizing paper, think about

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: papers that you need to act on papers that you need to hold on to for reference, and then people papers that that you really will refer to, and then papers that you need to archive like. Maybe your old tax files. You just need to hold on to them. You probably won't need to get to them, so that can be a very broad category categories to get started with paper, and then you can fine tune from there.

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Kedeesha Simpson: Can you repeat that, Lisa? Sorry! Can you repeat that.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: 3 categories of paper, active things. You need to do something with

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: reference things you need to hold on to that. You need to refer back to and archive. That's things that you need to hold on to. But it's very unlikely that you're going to refer to them, and I'll talk in Step 4. You get some tips on once you've categorized them where you'll put those 3 different things in different places.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Oh, great! Somebody wrote that down perfect.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Okay, step 4 contain. Create a place for everything.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: This is when you finally get to go shopping.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Not clear. Who said this? Quote Ben Franklin, Sarah smiles, and Isabella Beeton, whoever they are, but a place for everything and everything. And it's please

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: one of the few organizing rules that I do really recommend following.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: This is why

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: which gets lost your keys or your toothbrush.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: This is not a rhetorical question. It is

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so. Why is it that nobody, hardly anybody loses their toothbrush, and so many people lose their keys

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: in almost every house in the room where the toothbrush is used, near the spot where you use it at the sink

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: is a home for the toothbrush that is usually cemented into the wall that only the toothbrush can fit into.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So what I'm gonna teach you is some principles and tips that will help you create homes for everything and anything that are as easy to use as your tooth threshold.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Super super valuable tip.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So first, you want to think about what needs a home. So it's those things that got lost

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: things that need to be accessible. You've got piles. Things are lying around. They probably need a home and things that have been categorized, or items or information that in your step. 4 created categories. Brought all your utility items, the batteries, the flashlights brought them all together in the jumbled closet. Now where do they go?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so that's one thing about 2 things. One is what needs a home, and then 2 is, where should it go? So for where should it go. I want to introduce you to this organizing concept called prime real estate.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and that refers to just like realtors, your spaces.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: different levels of value. And the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: real estate in your home, or any space that's the most prime is the places that are easiest to access, easiest to get to easiest to see. So in this lovely, gigantic non. New York City Home Office.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: what space would you say is prime.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Anybody want to take a stab at a.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, it's it's school. You're not gonna be graded on this, though this pop quiz. What place would you say is the prime if you're working? What's easiest to access, easiest to get to the desktop? Absolutely. So when you're sitting at the desk at your desk, you wanna have only the things that are most crucial at your desk, that's all that you want, or things that like make you smile.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: But that's what you want on your desktop, and you really just want to think about like, then what's the next? Closest prime? Probably, you know drawers. If you've got them right next to your desk often. If you guys are still working in the office, many workspaces have a large drawer right next to the desk.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so often I see people put like. That's where they put their, you know, food, oatmeal, their shoes. That is made for your most important reference files, the things that you want to be able to be able to grab most easily. And then you can just kind of walk around, figure out like what's next prime. Maybe this open, horizontal surface. Maybe these cabinets, this shelf way up here really not prime. So again, you want to think about, put the things that you most use most often in those prime spaces.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and another just a quick

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: way to think about what is the most prime spaces. Usually it's spaces that are between the height of your shoulders and the height of your hips that are just really easy to reach. You don't have to bend down.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and it can make a huge difference just moving things that use often into your prime spaces. I was working with one client, and she had a nice home office.

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Leslie Davidson: I was trying to tell them.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Darn!

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Leslie Davidson: I'm sorry my fault.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Okay, so I was working with a client, and she had a nice filing system. We looked at the filing system. It was orderly. You could read the labels, and yet she was piling things on top of her filing cabinet. It was like, Okay, what is going on here and what we determine was the stuff that was piling up, that she wasn't, put it, putting away that information which

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: she had to file frequently. The way she had set up her filing system. That stuff went in the bottom drawer, and it literally was a pain to like, bend down, pull out this big drawer and file, so she wasn't doing it. So just by switching things into the top file drawer that was really easy to open, it just made it almost as easy to file as to file. So think about. If there's something that you're not putting away, it may just need a better home. That's easier to access.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: A couple of other things that principles you wanna keep in mind when you're thinking about where to put things is. One is just out of sight, out of mind. And that is just you know how our brains or memories work. So you wanna think long and hard before you put something really important away. That's why I almost never recommend putting those active papers in a drawer. If you need to do something with them.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: A desktop file is great for that. Just have them out and visible. On the other hand, you can use this principle to your to your benefit. If you've got stuff that isn't attractive that you don't use often put it away just in a closed box in a cabinet that's closed as opposed to an open shelf. Can make a big difference.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Another principle you want to keep in mind when you're thinking about where to put things is store things near where they where they're used like when I gave that example of the my coffee scale, it can make it just so much easier to do activities. You've categorized the thing, you know, for that activity altogether. Now put them near where where they're going to be used.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, if you've got a home gym, and you're not, you know. You're not working out, just, you know. Bring all the workout stuff together, keep it right

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: near the exercise machine be more likely to do it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Okay.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So another thing you want to think about is like, what will you put

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: items in certain things? It's better off. If they're in a container.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Small things, you don't want them floating around like that silverware organizer.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So when you're shopping for containers, you wanna keep a couple of things in mind to consider. First of all, size. This is so crucial and so often people don't pay attention to this

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: literally a quarter of an inch can make a difference between a container fitting and not fitting on a shelf. And if you're ordering, especially if you're ordering products like online on Amazon. Read those measurements carefully so often. I'll read the comments on an item. Oh, it's smaller than I thought it was. Gonna be like, I told you was 8 inches. Get a more

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so really think about what is the right size for what you're containing. And like Goldilocks, you don't want it to be too big. You want it. Don't want it to be too small. You want it to be just the right size.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: What shape is? Should your container be? Depends on you know what? What you're storing, where you're storing it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Typically a rectangle or square is gonna hold more than a circular oval shape. So keep that in mind. If you need to maximize your space.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You know, do you want something that's clear that you can see through. See the items? Do you want it to color different? You can use different colors to delineate different types of things. What material do you want it to be made out of again. This is, it's your stuff. If you're shopping for something new, you want it to be pleasing, something that you like, wait, if it's something for kids, you don't want it to be too heavy. Make it easy to pick up

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: again. Style is your personal style. You can show it off in your containers and think about how much it costs like you if you don't want to, or don't have a lot of money to spend, you know. Just a shopping bag can work

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: doesn't have to be a fan. Many things don't need a fancy container.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So magic of just putting things into containers. This is a real client, the supply shelf in an office, and alright, there's a little clutter there. I don't know why that plastic bag was on the shelf, but for the most part these were all

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: supplies that they needed and used, but nothing was contained. So without a container hard to see what's what. It was always like everything in danger of avalanching. Once you open that cabinet and just getting containers, things look neat, orderly, easy to see easy to get to. So that is the beauty of

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: containers. And when I say containers

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: it, really, there's many, many different types of things that you can use depending on what it is that you're containing. So just a couple of

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: broad, different examples for you. Papers folders great way to keep papers organize and hanging folders in a file cabinet

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: for those active papers. Urgent reminders, a bulletin board, old school bulletin board can still be super useful

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: an inbox if you're only using it just to, for in or the mail before you've processed it again, the small space contains it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Good hangers for your clothes. I know some people had questions about

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Small space organizing go up like Manhattan, build up skinny book shelves, hooks, great ways to store things without taking up a lot of footprint, and then, just you know, your typical container bins to keep small things together, floppy items on a shelf from falling.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and then you can get really, really granular. You can guess that this is my gum in my verse

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: tin and china tin

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: container from the container store.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so those are the

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: steps. 2 and 4 are kind of the active organizing steps, and this gives you a sense of how to apply them. Real life. This is a clients small bookshelf in her home office which she had you can't tell in this picture, but this was the floor of kind of a split level apartment. So things had like spilled over onto the floor. So all we did here, just like you guys have learned

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: identified things that were clutter grouped similar things together, came up with some good containers.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and this was what the after was looked like.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and it really didn't take very long just so you can see those pictures side by side.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And again.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: think about your own space. Know that something like this is possible for you. It doesn't take

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: a lot of fancy containers doesn't take a huge investment again if you're starting small in a pretty small area.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so again, just like, really think about your own space that you why, you're here today. I'd love to hear if anybody has like an Aha moments aha! Moment or something that they know they're going to apply

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: to make their space less cluttered and more organized

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: refrigerators take up space. Yes, and actually, that's a really good point about containers is.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, containers actually do take up more space. I mean, it's one more thing. But what you can gain is accessibility. Visibility. So you want to think about like, is it worth it to contain something? And often it isn't. I think you see things on Instagram for some reason this has become really popular. You'll see a shelf in a pantry pantry like

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: we're. I'm in New York, anyway. There's no pantries. Anyway, it will be a high shelf

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: with a big, heavy metal, while wire container filled with heavy bottles of water. That to me is insane. There's no way you're gonna lift that up, pull the thing down, and to get a bottle of water it some so certain things it's better to not contain them

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: alright. So know what you're doing. You've got your process set. You're organized.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: but you have to continue. You can't just get organized once.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: you know, it's like laundry you have to keep at it.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So this is why I like to show these 5 steps as a circle. It's a continuous process. Although I will say, once you've gotten down to a clear slate and gotten to an organized systems. The continuing is much less time consuming much less effort than going through the process from the beginning.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: But as life happens, you're going to have to go through these 5 steps or the 4 other steps, I should say on some kind of regular basis, and what that is going to involve is some new habits, perhaps, to keep things organized.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I love this quote Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and has anybody heard anything about how long it takes to develop a new habit.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Anybody read any of those statistics.

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Alice Lesman: 3 weeks.

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Kedeesha Simpson: You know, days?

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Kedeesha Simpson: Yeah.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I've heard 21 days, 3 weeks, 30 days. I've heard as many as 90 days. So if you know in the beginning you find that things are still piling up. People always use the passive tense there. But if you're not putting things back in the home in their homes, or you know you're not going through this. You're not

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: adopting new habits super quickly. Don't be hard on yourself, and you also want to think about tiny start with small, easy habits. Hang up your coat at the end of the day when you come into the house

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: hub.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So just some common organizing maintenance activities going through those

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: other steps.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: purging information and files. That's just constant things become quickly out of date. And you need to go through that that's step 2 clear clutter tossing, expire expired. Item. Same thing clear, clear, and clutter, or kids clothes that they've got grown out of that, then become clutter.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: putting things back into their homes. That's step 3,

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: putting away clothes, filing papers, filing emails. Just often we have to do this

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and if you've got new items, new information, new products. You're gonna have to set up homes for them, set up new homes. And then sometimes you have to recommit to being organized like if things got busy. And you know you just kind of let things go things piled up you might have to recommit and remind yourself.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: to. Sorry is just reading the chat. Remind yourself, you know why this is important to you. Just quick question. I see over there on the answer that how do you deal with the things that you want to read that piled up one, I would say. Put them all together, step 3 contain them. Step 2, make sure you really want to read them and then create a home for them. I would say, block out time and decide. When are you going to read them? You also want to think about where you're going to read them. Maybe you bring things with you. If you've got a commute, or you can read on the subway.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I have a commission to make, you know this is I am not immune. This is what my desk typically looks like at the end of the day. But I do have a commitment to a clean desk or organized desk, because I know it makes a difference. I can focus better. So I just decided to see, like, okay, how long does it? I?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: How long does it literally take me to straighten up my desk.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So I did. My, you know, tidying

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: and I use your timer to see. So anybody want to guess how long this took.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Alright, I will tell you. I won't keep you in suspense 10 min. That's a pretty good guess. 20 min.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: 2 min and 48 s

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: again. Everything had a home.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I knew exactly where to put things. It was easy to know what was caught or what wasn't So

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: this, I think, is one of the best products to help in the chat. One of the best products to help you stay organized. I am using mine right now, my little timer. And yes, your your phone has a timer which is great. But for me there's something about having a separate timer. You're focused. You're not gonna be working. You know, you're not gonna be checking your phone, but just delineate an amount of time that you're gonna spend to

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: continue, maintain something, set a timer, and just go. And again, it probably will take less time than you think.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: But I do want to acknowledge that you know. I say, these steps are simple, but they might not be easy. And there's a few reasons why, and that it's really okay. It might not be a real priority for you right now. There just might be other things that are taking more of your time and energy. If you've got an emotional attachment to objects and information. I saw somebody mentioned that in the chat. It's gonna be harder for you to clear, clutter. If you've got make. If you have difficulty making decisions prioritizing or categorizing.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: they call some executive functioning skills. If your brain doesn't work that way, it's just gonna be more difficult for you to do steps. Maybe the clarin clutter making decisions definitely steps 3 and 4 might be more difficult for you. If you've got Adhd. If you have. Somebody have a hard time focusing on a what seems like a boring task. It may be more difficult

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: if you've got challenges with spatial relations, it might be harder for you to come up with good containers and homes for items.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You don't know about what organizing products are out there. It. Just

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: things may seem more difficult. And not just if there's somebody that works better with a partner.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so that's why in your handout, you know, I really think about like, you know, is there areas that you need help where that you know yourself, knowing now the steps that you're going to need to take where it's going to be more difficult for you.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And I love this quote. I know it's a paraphrase. But you don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step, you know, if it if you've got a big project, big areas of disorganization, a lot of clutter to clear out.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: start small and that will still get you there.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So again, think about, you know, on your handout

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: anybody want to share, solidify your commitment by speaking out loud. What's one action they're going to take as a result of being here.

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Kedeesha Simpson: It's my mail. I'll get one of those organizers that you showed for mail that I can just put my mail in as soon as I come in, and then I can go through it later on. I don't have that right now, but I can know help.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Yep.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: break.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Thank you for saying that everybody else think for yourself like, really, you know, you spent the time here. Think about like W. What is one clear cut action? At least one. And I only put 3, you know. Don't don't overload yourself. And then really think about, when are you gonna begin and block it in your calendar, you know? When are you gonna buy that mail bin? When are you gonna tackle that big stack of papers.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: if you have questions, you want to stay in touch. These are some ways that you can reach me. I've got super easy tips on my website. Those are free. You can sign up for those. And I want to leave you with this. Quote. I don't know who this guy is, but I love his quote, chaos and order or not, enemies only opposites, chaos and order combined equal balance, and that is what I wish for you, and I know you can do it

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: so.

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Alice Lesman: Well, thank you, Lisa. That was fabulous. Got a couple of thing Co. Questions in the chat. One is like people asked if they could get the slide deck. I don't know if it was.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: No, I'm sorry.

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Alice Lesman: Sure that. No, we didn't.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You can. You can re-watch. You can re-watch the video, but.

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Alice Lesman: Right right, which is fair. The. The. This is being recorded, and it will be up on our website, which is work. Live dot Columbia! Edu!

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Alice Lesman: I I I'm in, probably in a couple of weeks. It's there's a on our main web page in the upper right hand corner. It says, video library, just click on that, and you'll find it based on on this title. So there are still some other questions. I mean, Benny.

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Alice Lesman: had has a bunch of comments that I think, Benny, you say that you can't do this by yourself.

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Alice Lesman: A list of you know, get a friend. I don't know if Lisa has been born.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Non a non George Vettel, friend.

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Alice Lesman: Right, can't do it by yourself, and find somebody who can who is willing to put in some time with you to do it. But there are some other questions I don't know if you wanna

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Any anything in particular that you see, Alice, I know they're coming fast and furious.

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Alice Lesman: Small spaces, besides going up with a small footprint. What else helps for a small space.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Yeah, there's a lot of organizing products that can really help you maximize space. So when I'm working with a client, I always look for what I should call empty space, often, like between shelves in a closet, you know, you can put in what they call helper shelves to make more use out of that space. Hooks are great for using an underutilized space over the door. Racks are fantastic inside a closet door, and you don't.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: People often know about them for shoes, but you can use them for other things like in the front hall closet. They're great for things that use outside sunglasses, sunscreen bug, spray hats and gloves. So using vertical space is is really the key in a small space. And also, you know, if you have less space. You do have want to be a little bit more ruthless about, you know, if you've got multiples, do you really love and use everything, you know? Is there some amount of clutter you can can get rid of?

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And then sometimes there's double duty furniture that can really help like your coffee table, you know. Make sure it's got drawers or compartments underneath it, under bed boxes even, you can put, you know, containers under a couch. Just think about like, where is space? Just not being put to work, and how you can use it to store things.

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Alice Lesman: Here, I say, Ikea has a ton of relatively inexpensive ways of like the the kind of bed that lifts up, that you have all the storage underneath, or roll in and roll out, and

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Google. Google is great, you know, like, for your particular area, you know, like how to organize a small home office, how to organize a small closet, you know. There's

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: all sorts of tips and tricks out there. And if anybody has any specific questions really feel free to email me, I'm I'm happy to like, steer you in the right direction and or or go into a store like the container store, where there are people who can help you.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: can make a big difference.

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Alice Lesman: Yeah.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Even just to give you ideas.

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Alice Lesman: But something.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Down at Melissa.

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Alice Lesman: So they have sales every now and then, because otherwise it could be.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I was. Gonna say, even if you don't buy the products there, but just see like what's out there. Walk through their kitchen, you know, aisles you'll be amazed at you know what you might be able to use. And again, you've got this information. Now I think you'll be a smarter shopper.

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Alice Lesman: One last question, and then I think, you know, we've we've a little past one. Any tips for digital clutter.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: Well, what I would say, because the search functions are so powerful. Right now, I'd say the biggest tip for digital clutter is naming your files in a way that makes it easy to search them. And same with like emails, change the subject lines.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: And I even with search. I do find it helpful to step 3, categorize, create folders, so that similar types of information is together, especially if you've got, you know, tens of thousands of files. It makes it easier to go through. And then also think about, you know, just like for me.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: I often don't even go to like if I'm looking for a word document. I'll just sort by most recent. So again, that frequency, rather than trying to remember the name like, Oh, I know I created that document yesterday, like with this Powerpoint, let's keep on looking for the most recent one.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: So couple of quick thoughts.

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Alice Lesman: That's a great tip. Well, thank you so much. Really. Thank you, everybody for coming. And thank you, Lisa, for all of your your great knowledge and sharing it with us. And I really appreciate it. And again, you can take a look at at the video again. In a couple of weeks on our website and my, my colleague Kristen, share the link on the chat.

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Alice Lesman: So thank you again, everybody.

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Lisa Zaslow / Gotham Organizers: You all for being here. Hope it was useful.