Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

We often keep items longer than we should for sentimental reasons, says Fugen Neziroglu, Ph.D. Her surefire solutions:

Find the best tribute: Instead of holding onto every single memento—greeting cards, playbills and ticket stubs—chose favorites, store in scrapbooks and toss the rest.

I say: A few years ago I got a phone call from a friend saying she had gone back over thank you cards people had sent to her and she was thanking me for one I had sent her. Those cards are beautiful that we receive and we wonder what to do with them. I started keeping the thank you cards I received in a notebook and I was surprised at myself for all the nice things I have done for people. I keep thick stubs and mementos like that in my journal when I write about that activity. I have always joked with my girls saying, “if you can’t read my writing, you can just look at my journal as it is chock full of little mementos”. This makes it interesting and fun.

Use the rule of three: Decorators know groups of threes look best, so showcase only your top picks from each collection and store the rest. And I say rotate them in and out to keep things interesting. I have always been told to group in uneven numbers, three, five, seven and so forth. This does make the grouping more pleasing to the eye.

Let it go: Don’t just store something because “you might need it one day.” If you haven’t used it in years, odds are you never will. I have talked about this before, now days you can find anything—except family heirlooms or things your children have made for you on the internet somewhere. I recommend taking a picture and placing it in your album, it takes up less space but you still have the memory.

The comments from Dr. Neziroglu were from Woman’s World 6/5/07, the other comments were my own. Because I am professional home and office organizer I work with many different people and it is so much fun, I learn a lot as they all have ideas and tips to share with me. Do you have a great idea on how to break the clutter habit that you would be willing to share with me? I will post it if you share it.