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" Julie Morgenstern is an organization and time-management expert, business productivity consultant, and New York Times best-selling author of five books, including Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life. REDBOOK&amp;#039;S managing editor, Kim Cheney, 39, seems the picture of organization as she efficiently handles endless piles of paper at the office. Her home is another story. There, in the Brooklyn, NY, house she shares with her husband, Stephen, 39, and their 7-year-old daughter, Julia, certain clutter hot spots, especially the basement and the entryway, have gotten out of hand. Plus, after the umpteenth search for a due-today permission slip for Julia, Kim realized that she needed a system to handle her daily paper influx.  When I met Kim, one of the first things that struck me about her was her sense of order. Yes, it might take 20 minutes to unearth that permission slip, but she knows it&amp;#039;s somewhere in her box of important papers. So, for this organizational makeover, I wasn&amp;#039;t teaching new skills; instead, I worked with Kim to adjust her systems. She and Stephen have lived in their home for four years, but they&amp;#039;re still learning to navigate the space after a history of cramped apartment living. What&amp;#039;s more, now that Julia&amp;#039;s in elementary school, she has more papers and supplies than she had back in nursery school. Together, Kim and I concentrated on what works and what doesn&amp;#039;t in each area, then designed systems that will stay in place for years to come.  Battling the basement. Kim uses a shelving unit and an adjoining table as a catchall for belongings that don&amp;#039;t have a home elsewhere, creating a teetering pile of artwork from nursery school, rarely used toys, and remnants of craft projects. Because of her innate sense of order, Kim made it clear that the pile drove her crazy. Amping up her annoyance was the fact that Stephen and Julia had gotten into the habit of tossing their own odds and ends on top of the pile, which made Kim feel like she didn&amp;#039;t know what things she&amp;#039;d unearth \u2014 or where she&amp;#039;d put them \u2014 even if she could carve out an afternoon to sort through the mess.  Kim&amp;#039;s overstuffed basement needed what I call a SHED. This acronym represents a four-part process: Separate your treasures, Heave the trash, Embrace your identity from within, then Drive yourself forward. Kim refers to the basement as &amp;quot;a disaster,&amp;quot; but once we evaluated the pile, a sense of order was revealed as objects fell into a few clear categories: arts-and-crafts supplies, school memorabilia, and wrapping paper. Based on that, I suggested that Kim set up a container system that would reclaim the shelves for craft and school-paper storage, then use the freed-up table as a wrapping zone. That was just what she needed to hear. I could sense that part of the reason Kim had procrastinated for so long was because she was unsure of how she&amp;#039;d organize the useful items that would remain once the clutter was cleared out.  Although Kim has accumulated a lot of stuff, I saw she wouldn&amp;#039;t have too much trouble separating the trash from the treasure. To make it easier, we wrote down the criteria we would use to identify the gems. Kim knew she wanted to save Julia&amp;#039;s art supplies and special projects from her earlier school years, and that she was more than ready to donate the old toys and toss the dried-up craft kits. Together, we determined that separating and heaving would probably take a manageable four hours.  Once the miscellaneous clutter is gone, Kim can embrace her identity as an organized mom. But Kim also needs to make it clear \u2014 both to her family and to herself \u2014 that this new space isn&amp;#039;t a catchall anymore. She can accomplish that by storage and labeling. I suggested she store art supplies in clear plastic containers and use archival boxes (one for each year) to store Julia&amp;#039;s schoolwork. These can live on the shelf space, while the table is left clear as a wrapping zone, letting Kim drive forward with her life \u2014 minus the mess. Tackling the paper problem. Like most moms of elementary schoolers, Kim has to cope with a daily bombardment of art projects, permission slips, and newsletters. Right now, she places everything in a large box on top of a china cabinet in the dining room. Papers quickly pile up, and even though she always knows that the school newsletter is in there somewhere, finding it turns into a tedious task of paper-sifting.  To get a sense of how Kim&amp;#039;s mind works, I had her sort through the box while I watched; I wanted to see what types of papers were coming in. She would apologetically tell me she wasn&amp;#039;t sure why she&amp;#039;d saved a certain doodle, but what Kim needed to realize is that, in the moment, it&amp;#039;s sometimes impossible to know what to save and what to toss \u2014 you need to wait until the time is right to sort everything out. Instead of focusing on what papers should be thrown away, I wanted Kim to redirect her attention to organizing all the papers in an easily accessible system that will make sense to her.  To do that, Kim first has to separate Julia&amp;#039;s completed schoolwork and projects from the daily deluge. Then, to deal with that deluge, I want Kim to get a portable file box and subdivide it with folders marked for each area in Julia&amp;#039;s life \u2014 school, soccer, and after school \u2014 so she can file each paper as it comes in. Every month she can go through each file and toss whatever&amp;#039;s outdated.  As for schoolwork and after-school projects, Kim needs the context of the entire year before she can decide what&amp;#039;s important to her to save. I want her to get a deep, open box in which Julia can place all her art projects and schoolwork \u2014 with the idea that it&amp;#039;s fine if those papers pile up for a while. At the end of the school year, Kim and Julia can go through the box together, picking out their favorite pieces. It&amp;#039;ll be a fun tradition to review everything as they choose the &amp;quot;keepers&amp;quot; to store in the basement Clearing the entryway.  Lastly, we tackled the clutter trouble spot Kim faces first every day: the porch entryway to her home. The space contains a bench that serves as a catchall for coats, shoes, and mail, and the small closet is bursting with outerwear. The problem escalates on the weekends, when soccer cleats, bags packed with items for Julia&amp;#039;s dance classes, and other accessories from her activities are added to the mix.  The way I see it, the space is 80 percent workable with some simple tweaks needed to restore order. When Julia was younger, she didn&amp;#039;t leave her shoes in the entryway. Now that she&amp;#039;s older, the added four or five pairs tip the balance for Kim, taking the area from manageable to messy. Two large boxes for shoes \u2014 one for Julia, one for Kim (Stephen stores his shoes in the bedroom) \u2014 will open up the area, and a smaller basket or box placed on the bench can store the magazines and catalogs Kim wants to look at when she has a spare moment. The closet just needs seasonal maintenance. A couple of times a year, Kim can perform a simple SHED \u2014 giving away clothes that don&amp;#039;t fit or haven&amp;#039;t been worn so that what&amp;#039;s left is accessible when she needs it. KIM&amp;#039;S REACTION: &amp;quot;It was helpful for me to have Julie break down my problem areas \u2014 especially since she showed me easy fixes to ensure that things won&amp;#039;t pile up again. It was also a relief to figure out how much time each project would take; I tackled the porch in just a few hours, and I&amp;#039;m planning to work on the basement on my first available Saturday. Above all, Julie gave me a sense of how the organizing process works, so I&amp;#039;ll be able to fit in quick cleanups before things get out of hand.&amp;quot; Order in the house! 3 secrets.These clever tips from organizing pro Julie Morgenstern will get you motivated to tackle your own mess.  1. Focus on a goal. It&amp;#039;s hard to get organized if you&amp;#039;re fixated on the mess. To help motivate you, shift your perspective to what you want to gain from the cleanup (&amp;quot;I want to organize my kitchen so it&amp;#039;s easy to make healthy meals for my family&amp;quot;). 2. Create a realistic time frame. Without one, you might overestimate the commitment involved (&amp;quot;This will take me the whole weekend!&amp;quot;) and never get started. I&amp;#039;ve found that, on average, it takes about 12 hours to organize and de-clutter a room and about three hours to do the same for a closet.  3. Buy containers after you organize. Be sure to complete your SHED process before you buy containers. Usually, I&amp;#039;ll sketch out how I want the space to look so I&amp;#039;m sure of what I need. The last thing you want is to find yourself with an excess of boxes and bags you&amp;#039;ll never use \u2014 more clutter!  Want Julie to help you organize your home, office, time, or priorities? E-mail redbook@hearst.com (put &amp;quot;Organizing&amp;quot; in the subject line) to be considered for an organizational makeover. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/home/advice/a4751/cant-stand-clutter/>