Potomac Community Village Members Learned How to be More Organized at Recent Meeting

When you drown in clutter, and you can’t find what you are looking for, professional life organizing coach Helen Montfort can help you organize your stuff so that you have time to enjoy life to the fullest. Helen, also owner of Making Space for Life, shared her strategy on tackling a task that can be overwhelming with the more than 60 people who came to the monthly Potomac Community Village meeting on Jan. 15.

She suggested going closet-by-closet and room-by-room for no more than two to three hours at a time because the job can be mentally draining.

She offered these organizing principles:

1. Like with Like: Categorize items that should be stored together, put bills with bills, magazines with magazines, trash bags with the trash can.

2. A Home for Everything: Every item should have a home, and everyone in the household has to know where that is.

3. Yes, No, Maybe: When it comes to deciding what to keep and what to toss, use those three categories.

4. Move it forward: Helen advises not to fret if you can’t decide what to keep. If in doubt, there will be time to make a decision later.

5. Don’t leave the room: During your organizing session focus on the task. Do not leave the room to do something else, and when sorting clothes, do not start trying them on or look in the mirror and do not flip through magazines while sorting them.

Her advice on how to sort a clothes closet:

Place a sheet on the bed and take arms full of clothes from one closet. Decide which is Keep, which is Toss, and which Maybe, and create piles. Return clothes you want to keep to the closet, and if you have multiple closets group them by occasion / use. All clothes in the Toss pile can be donated to area charities.

Go through the Maybes again -- you often will find another discardable item; if still in doubt, hang the item with the hanger hook facing forward. If you have not worn the item on that hanger after six months, give it away during your next organizing session.

Everyone is invited to come to the next Potomac Community Village events:

• a Happy Hour on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 5 - 6:30 p.m. at Gregorio’s, on Tuckerman Lane (Cabin John Shopping Center, to the right-hand side of Giant), Reservations not needed, you can just drop in.
• Coffee Klatch on Thursday, Feb. 5, 10 a.m. at the Corner Bakery, Westlake Terrace near Montgomery Mall. Reservations not needed, just come to meet some Potomac neighbors.
• monthly meeting, on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7:15 p.m. The topic is “Hold on to Your Heart! Here’s How,” with Dr. Allen Nimetz, cardiologist and Medical Director of Sibley Hospital’s Cardiac Catherterization Laboratory. The meeting is at St. James Episcopal Church, 11815 Seven Locks Road, Potomac. All are welcome and admission is free.

Potomac Community Village is a non-profit volunteer group that enhances quality of life for older Potomac residents by creating social connections and providing services such as transportation, computer assistance and simple home repairs. By providing these connections, we enable people to remain vibrant members of our community and stay in their homes as they age. Potomac Community Village is part of a nationwide movement of more than 300 Villages. For more information, please see www.PotomacCommunityVillage.org, and our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/PotomacCommunityVillage, or contact us at 240-221-1370 or info@PotomacCommuniytVillage.org.

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