The Reviews Are In!

This Mess is Making Me Stress is an Amazon best seller!

To be honest, not a lot got organized this week. It was Passover and I was enjoying the holiday. I was gearing up to turn my Passover kitchen back to its formerly leavened self yesterday, when I was stunned. I mean actually stunned like I couldn’t move. Everything just stopped when I got the news.

My book was selling. Not just selling, but flying off the shelves, or should I say, flying into devices. A free book promotion started running yesterday for the Kindle version of This Mess is Making Me Stress and in less than two days I have sold 2800 books. For free, of course, but still. Think of all the decluttering I have inspired! Depression lifted! Stress reduced!

The promotion is running until April 17 so tell your friends. Imagine how many friends you can ask to eat a plum with you while you organize, and they will know what you are talking about. If you don’t have your copy yet, you can get it here.

And please leave a rating or review. More people will see the book the more reviews you have. Amazon is funny that way. Based on the past two days, the book is already #1 in a few categories and #56 in the Free on Kindle Store top 100. But it doesn’t show up in searches as high as it would with more reviews.

Okay. Enough about that. Let’s solve a decluttering dilemma.

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Dear Neatly,

I have about 5 random totes of stuff. Every time I move, they get a lid slapped on them and put on the truck. When I get to the new house, they stay that way and I occasionally dig through them if I can’t find something. What’s the best way to get these organized? Signed, Totes Disorganized

Dear Totes Disorganized,

First, you are not alone. Everyone does this. Good for you for actually doing something about it! Here’s what I suggest:

1. Open the first tote and see what the majority of the stuff is that’s in there. Say it's cables and electronics. Take everything else out that isn't electronics and cables. Use blue tape and sharpie to mark the tub "electronics and cables."

2. Now open the second tote and pull out anything considered electronics and cables and put it into the first tote. Then take other things out of the second tote and sort into piles. Match them with similar things you took out of the first tote.

3. See which pile is the biggest and make that the contents of the now-empty second tote. Label it. (This is the point where I look around frantically for my sharpie which is usually behind my ear. Luckily, the roll of blue tape is around my wrist like a bangle.)

4. Keep going with the other tubs until you have looked at everything. While you are sorting, if you absolutely know you don't want to keep something, trash it or set it aside in a box for donating or selling.

5. Eventually you should have fewer tubs and what's in the tubs will be labeled.

6. Now if the things that have been sorted have another home in the same room you are in, put them away. If they have a home, but not in that room, use one of the totes as the “magic laundry basket” and put the stuff in there to take with you to the other rooms to put away.

7. If something doesn’t already have a home elsewhere in the house, leave it in a tote labeled “homeless” so if you are missing something, you should only have one random tote to rummage through.

8. Make sure you schedule another organizing session to create homes for the homeless so you can use the tote for other things.