Stressless Saturday

Many times we get stressed out because we have some big, overwhelming projects on our to do list. I am in the process of downsizing and getting ready to move, which means cleaning out the 20' wide, 5' deep, shelves floor to ceiling closet in my basement. I opened it up last week, and thought...where do I start? We have lived in this house for 21 years. Our children have gone through college, married, and moved out, and yet we still have boxes of toys and other mementos from their childhood. I was overwhelmed just opening the door! So how do you tackle overwhelming projects? Here's a list of steps to help you:

1. Figure out exactly what needs to be done... set some goals. My goal for the basement closet was to get rid of things that haven't been used in years and to organize and store properly the things I was planning on moving to the next house.

2. List everything that is connected to the project. I listed things like label a box for each of the kids to go through. Designate some boxes for trash. Mark a box for donate/yard sale. Buy some bins for all the Christmas decorations, have some extra boxes on hand for anything that I was unsure of.

3. Make a list of supplies that you need to purchase. I bought some plastic bins and some banker boxes that could be used for storage or sorting and could be broken down if they weren't used but I wanted to save them for later.

4. Figure out how much time you have to get the project done and break up the project into manageable pieces. I have about six months before our new house is built and ready to move into. I wrote out a schedule for getting the closet done.

Here is how I divided the project:

• Purchase supplies
• Mark a box for each of my kids
• Mark 2 boxes for trash
• Mark 4 boxes for donate/yard sale
• Go through Christmas decorations and take out anything we don't use as I transfer them from cardboard boxes to plastic bins

After I got going on the project I realized that I needed a few more divisions. I had boxes of photographs that had not been labeled or dated so I put them all in one box. I also needed some boxes for toys that we were going to keep for the grandchildren.

5. Once you know what needs to be done and how much time you have you can schedule tasks on your calendar and even send yourself reminders to get things done. I use http://www.hassleme.co.uk/ to send myself reminders for things that I might tend to put off.

For other projects you might even want to make your list and then circle the things that absolutely have to be done in red and then schedule only those things. Any additional things you get done will make you feel even better about yourself and the project!