Professional organizer Marlene Ashdown of Organize This Inc. (right) coaches Staci Sturrock as she considers which of her greeting cards to keep — and, more important, which to throw away Personal organizer helped get rid of years' worth of clutter By Staci Sturrock Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 16, 2005 Clutter and I go way back. Clutter was practically the problem child of our family — if only Mom and Dad had shipped him off to the orphanage. Better yet, the landfill. Warped by his constant presence, my sister and I grew up believing that "cleaning up" for holiday parties meant stuffing mountain ranges of accumulated paperwork into trash bags and hiding them in the garage until the guests went home. And as adults, we've often tittered over the "strange" habits of the neatniks we've dated.   Bruce R. Bennett/The Post Professional organizer Marlene Ashdown of Organize This Inc. (right) coaches Staci Sturrock as she considers which of her greeting cards to keep — and, more important, which to throw away   Me: "Can you believe it? He hangs his shirts according to color! Hoot!" Her: "My guy alphabetizes his CDs and DVDs! Huh?" Me: "Get this — my new fellow vacuums his entire house every Saturday morning. Hee!" It was only recently that we had an epiphany: The guys weren't extraordinarily, freakishly, compulsively neat. They were averagely neat. Which meant we were extraordinarily, freakishly, compulsively messy. We'd been able to avoid that ugly truth for years, probably because we were too busy looking for the lost tax refunds and missing paychecks, only to find the cereal bowls forgotten on a bookshelf, so long abandoned that cornflake had welded itself to spoon. But after decades of battling my own demons of disorganization, I brought in someone who could do what I clearly could not: organize my life. OK, but not my gift bags! For $40 an hour, Marlene Ashdown of Organize This Inc. of South Palm Beach will help you sift, sort and properly store your copius belongings. The morning she arrived at my house, I thought we'd chat over coffee. Analyze the roots of my clutter issues. Craft a plan to whip my house into submission. Then make an appointment to actually do the heavy lifting, "someday" in the near future. To my horror, the future was now. "People will eat, shop, do anything else they can to avoid this," said my non-chatty drill sergeant, who immediately took me by the wrist and led me to Disaster Area No. 1: my so-called "cats' room." With giant garbage bags in hand — and the blush of shame on my cheeks — Marlene and I entered this bedless bedroom, which contained a litterbox, food and water bowls, two heavy boxes of record albums, assorted barely used cleaning tools and other items I had been too lazy to put away when I moved in — almost three years ago. We worked in a clockwise direction, touching each item only once and not getting bogged down in tortured decision-making. First up: my treasured collection of gift bags, ribbons, bows, unusual greeting cards and irresistibly pretty wrapping paper. Uncharmed, Marlene pointed accusingly at the pile. "How often do you use these?" Use? Um, well . . . Define use. It's true I almost never wrap presents, instead relying on gift cards or shipping directly from a Web site. But who says I might not need gift-giving supplies any day now, and if I were going to wrap something, these bags would be perfect! How could I possibly get rid of them? Turns out, I didn't have to. Mercifully, Marlene merely encouraged me to consolidate. "You don't have to keep every bag and ribbon," she said. "Keep the ones you really like or would like to give away to someone else. Five to 10 is plenty." I interpreted "five to 10" bags as 15 (ha!), but they take up much less space, because they're all neatly folded and stuck inside the largest bag I got to keep. Marlene also showed me how I could save the most beautiful bags, made of transparent silk, to hold necklaces and bracelets. How did she know my jewelry box was a tangle of trinkets, too? A mere three hours and three trash bags later, we had moved the two cats' supplies to a more suitable spot; we'd hauled a crumbling, free-standing pantry to the curb ("It's not who you are now," Marlene reassured as I suffered mild separation anxiety); we shelved books and boxed Christmas decorations. The record albums weren't as easy. We ended up just tucking them out of sight because, emotionally, I was in no condition to see Duran Duran relegated to the rubbish pile. "You have to go through those and decide what you want to keep and what you can give away," Marlene instructed. "What is it that you're holding on to with the records?" Good question. I certainly can't listen to them — my turntable spun its last hit in 1999. Still, I love the Stray Cats! Another pothole on the path to orderliness: old videotapes of vacations, holiday gatherings and episodes of thirtysomething. I couldn't bring myself to discard anything that I may want to look at "someday." "Well, you've got another project on your hands," Marlene said. "You need to go through those tapes." I did, junking every last one of the non-personal videos. Marlene has returned twice. One visit, we designed an easy-to-use filing system for my financial records. I love it! No more misplaced bills! No more panic when I need my passport! On the other, we cooked up a plan for my kitchen, and I've never enjoyed more counter space. Next on the agenda: creating the bedroom of my dreams, one in which I'll always be able to see the floor. It will happen. "Someday" very soon. Marlene Ashdown can be reached at 315-4232, or visit OrganizeThisInc.com.   Organizing your Cubicle By Staci Sturrock Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 31, 2005 When your podmates have named an ever-growing stack of papers after you ("Mount Sturrock" — very funny, guys), you know you've passed the limits of an acceptably messy desk. And that's just the spot I found myself in — a spot made smaller and smaller by the encroaching paperwork that surrounded me. After months of excuses, the claustrophobia finally became unbearable, even to me — someone who grew up in a home carpeted with clutter. Once again, I contacted my friendly neighborhood drill sergeant, er, professional organizer, Marlene Ashdown of South Palm Beach's Organize This Inc. A few months earlier, Marlene had helped me rediscover my spare bedroom under years of accumulated junk. She'd also rearranged my kitchen cabinets and set up a workable filing system for my personal records. She had seen me at my worst, I figured. But then she saw my cubicle, and for the first time, I spotted a glimmer of alarm in Marlene's eyes. It really was as bad, if not worse, than I had described over the phone. But she's a let's-get-down-to-business type, so out came the trash bags as she delivered her first directive: For the love of God, clean up this floor! Here's what else she suggested: 1. Throw it (or give it) away: The floor was carpeted with magazine articles and piles of fashion and beauty freebies. The swag eventually finds its way into our company's semi-annual charity auction, but it was backlogged in my cubicle because I thought it more efficient to fill several bins before carting them over to the auction chairwoman's office, a whopping 30 feet away. Wrong! Marlene said. Don't let stuff stack up. Once I'm certain the freebie bottles of shampoo and boxes of cosmetics won't be photographed for a story, I am to immediately march them out of my cubicle. "Let it go," Marlene advised. I felt a little bad for arriving at the office of the auction chairwoman with a delivery of four heaping boxes of graft —but not bad enough to turn around. 2. Manage the paper flow: Cubicle Issue No. 2 involved the juggling of simultaneous projects, a situation faced by most office workers. "You're working on many articles at one time, but you don't know which one will be the next to be published, so the most important materials are constantly switching around," Marlene correctly surmised. She recommended I keep only the most pertinent papers on my desk or — better yet — in a file cabinet below. When a project is complete, I move my piles of research to another file drawer outside of my cubicle (I had plenty of dedicated storage space, as it turned out — I just didn't know how to make the best use of it!). "Once a year, the outside cabinet can be purged," Marlene said. 3. Maximize space: Marlene also helped me set up a small drawer for personal belongings: my stash of afternoon snacks, toothbrush and toothpaste, a small umbrella, stamps and address labels... Letting these things eat up space is a common problem for office workers, Marlene said. Either they have no drawer," she said, "or they have a giant drawer half-empty with their personal stuff in it." 4. Put things in their place: More than four thoroughly exhausting hours later, I was loading up my car with: a mirror destined for my living room (a friend had found it in a local thrift shop and lugged it up to my cubicle — two years earlier); multiple boxes of personal belongings that had languished in the dark corners of my cube; and bags containing my Rolodex and hundreds of unfiled business cards (nothing like taking work home, but I knew, rather obviously, that I'd never take the time to organize them at my desk). If it weren't for Marlene's persistence, I would have surrendered much earlier. Of all my organization projects, this one was toughest — and made me nauseous from the stress. "I find that generally people can't handle much more than three hours without that feeling," Marlene said. "It's getting rid of guilt and relieving your body of all that 'stuff' we attach to our job." How true. These days, it's been absolutely sublime to walk into my cubicle without fear of knocking over a teetering pile of possessions or slipping on glossy magazines underfoot. To be able to locate a phone number while the boss looks on. Or, best, of all, to know that I not only scaled Mount Sturrock, I leveled it with my bare hands and a dozen trash bags. Marlene Simmons of Organize This Inc. can be reached at (561) 315-4232. The Great Closet Cleanup By Staci Sturrock, Palm Beach Post Fashion Editor Friday, June 28, 2002 How one woman confronted clutter, took a deep breath and found the courage to let go The red silk jacket was shy a button and looked -- how do we say this kindly? -- well-loved. Yet here was a testament to its lingering power. Joanne Wilson, owner of said jacket, had swiftly cruised through her closets on a de-cluttering mission until the red jacket threw up its arms. A roadblock. Professional organizer Marlene Ashdown tried to reason with Joanne, to talk her around the crimson coverup. Marlene: "You haven't worn it in a while. It's missing a button. Do you have a replacement button?" Joanne: "No, but I could replace all the buttons with plain black." Marlene: "Are you really going to do that?" Joanne: "I have good buttons." Marlene: "Are you really going to do that?" Joanne: "No, but that's not the point. Let's do something easier... " By the time they reached the jacket, the women had already spent two hours picking through Joanne's crammed-to-the-ceiling closets, item by item. Joanne is a shopper. A collector. A bit of a pack rat. An admirer of beautiful dresses, hats and robes -- especially if they're on sale. "There was a time when I thought I had to have shoes and pocketbooks in every color," she says. "I've got shoes in there that I bought 15 to 20 years ago," along with a straw purse stuffed with never-opened hosiery in the full spectrum of colors, several items virtually identical to one another, ensembles that no longer suited her style and, in the back, a shopping bag full of nothing but shopping bags. The Wilsons have four closets in the master bath of their West Palm Beach home. Joanne's stuff fills three. Husband Larry's shirts and slacks hang airily in one. "My husband is a minimalist," she explains. "So this," she nods toward her closets, "is hard for him." Joanne, director of development at Palm Beach Community College, was trying to be organized. She'd arranged her closets by similar pieces, by color, handbags on this side, shoes over there, but the sheer mass of her wardrobe was overwhelming, both to her and to the wire rods that buckled, more than once, under all that weight. When she contacted Accent's Gal Friday for advice, we called Marlene, president of Organize This Inc. "I make the person spend the time to go through it all," she says. "They just procrastinate until it's bigger than they want to tackle, so they procrastinate more." Marlene, who lives in Palm Beach, advocates a methodical approach to closet-cleaning. Work left to right. Hold up each object as you go. "Open it up. touch it, feel it, look at it." Then cast your vote: Is it a Yes, I Wear It All the Time? A No, I Haven't Worn It in Years, If Ever? Or a Maybe I'll Wear It But It Needs Fixing? (Obviously, the number of Maybes has to be kept to a minimum for this system to work.) "I'm going to have to say 'no' to shoes?" Joanne asked. Yes. With Maureen on the case, it's time for tough love. Sifting through the shoes First up, footwear. Into the "No" pile go loafers that haven't seen sunshine since the Wilsons moved to Florida 10 years ago. Into the "Yes" pile, lace-up heels that aren't comfortable "but they're too beautiful to get rid of," says Joanne, 54. Yes, no, maybe. When all have passed through the "does it still have style?" turnstile, the shoes headed for the consignment shop outnumber the shoes returning to Joanne's holdings. Progress! On to the clothes. Among the notable items is a white crushed velvet... something. "I bought it because it was cool," Joanne says as she gazes at it (and its dangling price tag). "I'm not sure what it is." Marlene suggests framing or otherwise displaying pieces that are truly stunning though unwearable. Like putting a painted tunic under glass and turning it into a wall hanging. Or arranging a grouping of beautiful beaded bags on a tabletop. But Joanne doesn't mind keeping them behind closed doors. "My husband doesn't understand that I get pleasure from just looking through my closet," she says. It is a pleasant area, Marlene says, compared with many she's seen, where almost every inch of carpeting was hidden by clutter. "This doesn't look bad because she's got a lot of closets. Most people have fewer closets than this.... It just means minimizing." Florida's weather helps Joanne in that regard. With the mercury hovering around 90 degrees outside, it's easy to wave bon voyage to black velvet pants and crushed velvet tunics. She hands them off to her visiting daughter-in-law, Kim, who neatly folds and deposits them into a Bloomingdale's Big Brown Bag. Joining the "No" brigade: a dress someone made for Joanne but she never wore, an Old Navy black leather skirt that no longer fits, a bundle of sewing patterns, a stack of hats... At this point, purging is almost fun. But, "that smile starts to fade after a while," Marlene says. That's why she sometimes schedules closet cleanings for evening, when the client can sip a glass of wine, have a friend over to help, make it almost a party. Marlene also suggests stepping back after each section of closet is reordered and admiring the progress. Have a glass of water. Applaud yourself. Take a five-minute break. Then start again. Joanne comes across a jacket and pair of pants that she's worn once in two years. "It's really not who I am," she says. "I was shopping. I was in San Francisco. I had to buy something!" Joanne on a black jacket: "This is one of those mistakes." Joanne on a fuchsia top and pants: "One of those, 'Oh, yeah, I might wear that color.' No!" Joanne on the seven nighties threaded onto one hanger: "How many nightgowns does one person need?... I mean, get real." She hangs onto two. Tossing 'true collectibles' "The handbags are going to be really tough for me to get rid of," Joanne says. "I'll tell you that right now, because these are true collectibles." The two women plop down in the middle of the bathroom to paw through a pile of purses. As Joanne picks up each bag, Marlene wants her to ask herself whether she's used it in the past year. That question is easily answered when they discover a check registry from 1999 tucked in one. An oversized tropical-print bag also gets sacked. "This is my summertime I'm-going-schlepping bag, and my husband would be so happy if I got rid of it." But winning reprieves are a Pucci purse and a beaded bag. "This is the piθce de rιsistance," Joanne says of the latter. "It's not going anywhere." "Are they being displayed as art?" asks Marlene. "No, but I go through the closet and look at them, and it gives me pleasure," says Joanne. Spoken like a true connoisseur... A vow to do better Which brings us back to that once-pleasurable red jacket. "Do you want to take this to get repaired?" Marlene asks as the appointment winds down. "Of course I'm not going to do that," Joanne says. "Let's get rid of it." Next to the thrift store-bound bags are a sack of shirts that have a date at the dry cleaners, shoes headed for the shoemaker for stretching and several pairs of pants awaiting altering. Marlene gently coaxes a verbal commitment out of Joanne on when those errands will be done. "Put that in your schedule just like anything else," she says. As they survey the discarded goods, Marlene praises Joanne. "You're going to make a lot of people happy, and that's a good feeling." The afternoon has left Joanne exhausted but pleased that her closets received professional help. "You can make excuses to yourself, but it's really hard to do that to someone you don't know. And I know that there are 10 to 20 things in there that I could still get rid of." She is hopeful that a pact with husband Larry will prevent future closet build-ups. "We agreed that from now on, if I want to buy something, for each item I buy, I have to get rid of one item. I think that will work." staci_sturrock@pbpost.com How to toss without feeling the loss By Staci Sturrock, Palm Beach Post Fashion Editor Friday, June 28, 2002 Caught the cleaning fever? Here, a few more tips on making your closets (relatively) clutter-free: • First of all, a definition is in order. Not all mess qualifies as clutter. In a recent issue of Real Simple, life coach Barbara Sher describes clutter as "anything you believe awaits some action on your part, but not right away.... It calls to you in a steady little hum, producing faint noises that sound suspiciously like 'should.' " Clutter is stressful, she says, because "all the things that cry out to be worked on, used up, thrown out or put away destroy moments when we could be renewing our nerve endings." • The skinny on 'skinny.' Rid your home of any items you refer to as your "skinny" whatever. "One of the rewards of losing weight is buying new clothes," says Marlene Ashdown of Palm Beach, president of Organize This Inc. • If you can't see it, you won't wear it. Make sure day-to-day items are at the front of your closet, where you'll see them first thing. • Displaying beautiful hats, handbags and shoes is the latest home-decor gimmick. Make space in your closet by clearing out those items you don't regularly use but can't stand to part with, and then hanging them from the walls or placing them on the mantel. Some items can even be framed in a shadowbox. • Five reasons to keep an item of clothing, from Lucky magazine: You feel great every time you wear it; it has sentimental value; it serves a useful purpose (if only when a hurricane sweeps through town); it's a vintage designer piece; or it has the potential for a second life (would a trip to the tailor resurrect it?). • Are you overly nostalgic? This is where an outsider can help separate wheat from chaff. "Some things have an emotional value," Ashdown says, "and I'm the one to say, 'It's OK to let go and pass it on to someone who might wear it, or on to the children or grandchildren, instead of keeping it." • What items in your closet are least valuable? According to Lucky, faded or threadbare swimsuits, ultra-pilled sweaters and wornout canvas totes deserve a date with the Dumpster. What classics are worth clutching? A high-quality black cashmere sweater, a vintage leopard-print coat, a white button-down shirt, a ladylike pencil skirt, a belted khaki trench and black heels that are both comfortable and chic. • Never try to tackle everything at once. A less painful alternative, courtesy of Real Simple: Wherever you are, find 10 things to toss. While waiting for the pasta to boil and the vegetables to steam, open that oft-neglected junk drawer and choose 10 disposable items to donate to the kitchen trash can. Watching a ballgame on TV? Time to tackle that stack of papers on the coffee table. Stuck in a doctor's waiting room? Purge that purse. By cleaning in bite-size pieces, you'll clean your cluttered plate before you know it. staci_sturrock@pbpost.com