goals
In this home office, this client wanted to:
-reclaim her desk as a work space
-sort through all her papers
-update her filing system
-use the space as a home office and also guest room
process
My time was approximately 17 hours.
For clients who are extremely busy, I can work independently to clear out, sort, and stage the contents of a room in advance of their time with me.
This way, the clients’ job is simply to make decisions about the fate of their belongings, and I implement the changes.
work days
1. Before working directly with the client, I:
-Sorted contents of the room into categories.
-Boxed items by category for the client to review. I recommend Sterilite clear storage boxes with snap lids.
-Sorted stacked and loose papers first into general categories, including ‘to toss’ and ‘to recycle’ bags for the client to review. (I do not dispose of anything, at all, without the client’s approval first.)
-Wiped down dusty surfaces, mopped the wood floor, cleaned the baseboards, put fresh linens on the bed, plugged in and tested the desk lamp and shredder.
-Stocked the top desk drawer with envelopes, stamps, pens, etc. (As it’s frustrating trying to write with dried-out pens, I test out all the pens first.)
-Wrote a shopping list of items needed for the office, including a waterproof, fire-resistant lock box for critical documents.
-Left out on the desktop the coins, cash, and unused gift certificates that I found while sorting. (In the majority of the homes I work in, I find cash money for clients! Treasure!)
2. During the second organizing session, this time working with the client, I:
-Handed her boxes of categorized items, she made decisions on them, and I moved the items into donate / recycle / toss / shred piles, and relocated items into other rooms.
-Shredded papers, carried bags out to recycling and trash, took a carload of donations to ReWA.
3. Working independently again, I:
-Consolidated newly-sorted papers with the client’s old files, so that I could review all the remaining papers at once.
-Sorted through each file to separate papers that were critical and needed to be easy to access (passports, social security cards, car registration), as well as papers that no longer seemed relevant (receipts for items she no longer owned, supporting documents for tax returns from a decade ago).
-Identified papers associated with an action vs. papers that were only for reference. Action papers went into action files, such as ‘do today’ ‘do this week’ ‘to pay’ ‘2017 taxes’. Action files go at the front of a filing system to be used daily.
-Drafted a new filing system order, with file titles using the client’s verbiage. (People prefer different file titles, such as ‘car insurance’ vs. ‘auto insurance,’ or ‘fitness’ vs. ‘exercise.’ I go with whatever makes the most intuitive sense to the client.)
4. During a third organizing session, this time working with the client, I:
-Had the client sit comfortably at her clean desk, with a cool fan going, and a glass of water by her side. It’s important to me that clients feel as relaxed and easy as they can while they do the hard work of making decisions for a few hours straight.
-Had the client edit my proposed layout of her new filing system so that the labeling and organization made intuitive sense to her.
-Handed her the prepped files, one at a time, for her to decide on. While she was deciding, I prepared fresh new manila files, printed labels for new hanging file folders, shredded sensitive documents, and finished organizing the new system.
-Sat with the client as she practiced using the new system.