Parent Stress

Oak Park, IL September 11, 2004 — Professional organizer Cheryl Vargas of OrganizeChicago.com says, “there are treasures under your piles of clutter; things of value hiding in stacks of paper and possessions that you’ve long since forgotten”.

Vargas works with clients who are not necessarily messy, they just lack a system for retrieving important and in some cases valuable documents. She gives a first hand account of the “last straw” that made her organize and value important papers.

When her three sons were sent savings bonds for birthdays and holidays, she’d tuck them away in a drawer, a junk drawer, she laughingly admits, because she knew she wouldn’t access them for years. When the time rolled around for college tuition and books she only found a fraction of her sons’ college nest egg. THAT was her breaking point.

Vargas says, “From that point on and to this day I can retrieve any family birth certificate, medical record, insurance
policy, tax return or product warranty. When I learned to assign value and a ‘home’ to something that clearly
has value, the purpose of being organized at home made more sense to me.”

Dan Lewis of Oak Park, IL knows what it means to find “smiles in piles”. During his first visit with a professional organizer he found enough uncashed checks to pay for his first organizing session.

Vargas offers a quick fix for those of you who misplace gift certificates, passports and plane tickets; that is, short of really taking the time to get organized.

Make a visit to your favorite office supply or drug store. Buy one of those colorful, vinyl, zippered, school supply/pencil pouches. A good size is 6″x 9″. I suggest a small size so that you don’t make this a catch-all for everything else.

Keep this pouch in a drawer you use often and ALWAYS put it in the same place, so that you see it every day and its ingrained in your brain.

Now when you get your airline ticket instead of sticking it in a random drawer at home or work…there’s a place for it. Instead of stashing the gift certificates from Aunt Polly in your photo album or phone book use the pouch.

Organizing your possessions acknowledges their value. If you really want to get organized, start small. Try organizing something where you can see immediate results. Concentrate on organizing one drawer, one cabinet at a time. Don’t try to organize everything in one weekend blitz.

For tips on how to start small visit the OrganizeChicago.com website for free “How-to-Projects”. Cheryl Vargas is a home and home office organizer and owner of OrganizeChicago.com based in Oak Park, IL.