 I had just come home with a bag full of new yarn, excited to start knitting the sweater my daughter had asked me to make for her. All I wanted to do was cast on and start knitting. But — any knitters out there will know this — the skeins of yarn have to be wound into usable balls first. Otherwise, they’ll turn into tangled messes. I should have just paid the fee to have the store wind them for me! But, cheapskate that I am, I couldn’t do that after having spent oodles on the yarn itself. If you’re not a knitter, let me enlighten you about the tedium of the winding process. For me, it entails sitting cross-legged with a loosely-bound hank of yarn stretched across my knees, going round and round, winding the strand into a neat ball, while trying to avoid hand cramps and yarn tangles. It probably takes 15-20 minutes per skein, meaning I was looking at a few hours of winding before I could even get to the fun knitting part! Well, maybe I could just buy a winding machine. Down the rabbit hole of an online search I went. Of course, winding yarn involves not just one but two mechanisms: a yarn swift and a ball winder. The swift resembles a clothes drying rack and holds the yarn, while the winder — naturally — winds it. I was looking at upwards of $50 just to be able to start my project. Nope. My inner tightwad had to find another way. Lightbulb moment: Why not ask my online Buy Nothing group?! I had never needed to own these machines in the past, even though I’ve been a knitter for decades, so why would I commit to buying them now? It’s rare that I buy large quantities of yarn at a time — I wind as I go. So, instead of asking if someone had these items to give away, I posted on the Buy Nothing group that I was merely looking to borrow them for a couple of days. Success! I received a near-instantaneous response! One person had the swift, and another the winder. And, because Buy Nothing groups are hyper-local, they were right in my neighborhood. Within a matter of minutes, I had coordinated with the generous lenders, and picked the items up from their front porches. I spent a blissful hour setting up the machines and winding the yarn for my sweater into tidy, manageable balls. I even dug through my yarn stash for any unwound skeins and wound them too. Then, instead of having to find a spot in my craft room for large new tools, I just dropped the winder and swift back off to their respective porches. BENEFIT OF BORROWING OVER BUYING
Now I was all set to spend my cozy, winter evenings knitting to my heart’s content! Here’s how you can try borrowing instead of buying for your next project:
What will you borrow next? 
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 “Is it normal to be really nervous?” asked Rebecca* as she greeted me at the door. “I don’t know what to expect!”
Yes, it’s common to feel anxious the first time you have an Organizing Session with a Certified Professional Organizer.® Maybe you’re worried I’ll judge you because of your mess. Definitely not! Far from being judgmental, I’m impressed when someone takes the step of hiring a professional to help them get organized. Nerves also stem from being unsure of what exactly we’ll be doing. Will I be directing or doing the work with you? How exactly will we tackle your project? Let me demystify the Organizing Session by telling you exactly how it works.  After 8+ years of helping people organize their homes, you can bet I’ve seen it all. One of the things I love most about being a professional organizer is that every project is different, with varied homes and unique clients.
While each client has a specific reason for needing my help — just moved in, about to move, busy family life, inheritance, downsizing, new baby, and more — I’ve noticed some organizing errors that crop up in just about every home.  “How long will it take for me to get organized?” As a Certified Professional Organizer®, I get this question a lot.
Remember, your home didn’t get disorganized in one day, and it’s not going to get fixed in one day! How long your organizing project will take depends on 4 factors. 1. HOW QUICKLY DO YOU MAKE DECISIONS? If you need to reminisce and tell the story of each item before deciding whether or not to keep it or where to put it, the organizing process is going to go pretty slowly. If, on the other hand, you set some pre-decision guidelines, your project will pick up speed.  As we wind down 2023 and look ahead to a new year unfolding, I looked back to see which of my blogs resonated the most with readers.
Turns out, the 3 most popular blogs had a similar theme: helping you develop the mindset and give you the steps YOU need to tackle ANY organizing project. Each of these blogs will help you finish 2023 STRONG!  Barbara* and I were sitting at her kitchen table considering how to tackle several stacks, baskets, and folders full of old papers. “Do you know what my therapist said to me?” she asked. “She said, ‘What’s the worst that could happen if you just shredded the whole pile?’”
“But I just can’t do that,” she said with a wide-eyed look of horror. “I just CAN’T!” Barbara likes to be on top of things in her life, but in the past few years, she had lost a loved one, moved into a smaller place, and weathered the pandemic. Understandably, the paperwork (bills, receipts, tasks, notes, etc.) had just gotten away from her. “Well, technically, you can, right?” I gently asked Barbara. “I mean, you’re physically capable of throwing them away. It’s really that you don’t want to." "You’re a very conscientious person and that pile represents things you feel you should do, know about, or save. You want to be a person who takes care of your incoming papers, but life got stressful and the papers piled up. Now you have a backlog to deal with and you’re anxious about handling it the right way.” Barbara nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “I like to take care of things in a certain way. I like to be aware of what’s coming in and make sure I’m doing things the right way.” “So,” I asked, “If you don’t want to throw all the papers away without looking through them, what do you want to do instead?” |
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