Tips to Organizing One Step at a Time

It is so easy to think I have so much clutter I can't get organized until I have the right containers. I can't organize because I don't know how. I can't organize because my children or husband won't put anything away. And the list of excuses goes on and on.

Organizing can be done without any purchased containers, there are professional organizers or friends who can help, having a designated place for everything and getting the corporation of family members can be accomplished.

Here is one woman's story of how she fulfilled her life goal. The same thing can happen in your home to become organized, make a goal and take the steps necessary to become organized.

Nancy Kirk from the Kirk Collection at www.Kirkcollection shares this experience:My latest adventure is taking ballroom dancing. I've always had the fantasy of competing in the Harvest Moon Ball dance competition. This despite the fact that the last Harvest Moon competition was held in 1984.

But I don't let details like that dampen my fantasies. I always saw myself in a pale blue gown with a skirt made of at least 50 yards of silk organza, twirling elegantly around the floor in the arms of someone of just the right height - Fred to my Ginger Rogers. I never had the fantasy of winning, and frankly wouldn't be disappointed to be eliminated after the first 30 seconds. I just want the experience and there are a lot of other ballroom dance competitions in the world.

Time, too many hamburgers and heart disease have combined to modify the fantasy a bit. I kept thinking I would need to lose a whole lot of weight and then I could take dancing lessons. I took dancing for about four years in junior high and high school and loved it, and was pretty good as 14-year-olds go. But it's been over 40 years - let's be honest - over 45 years -- since the last time I was in class.

So first I thought I should start a program of diet and more exercise and in about five years I might be in shape to start dancing again. Then I realized, I could start taking dance classes now as a way to lose the weight and get more exercise - and in five years I might be ready - and - I would know how to dance!

So I did. I found a private teacher who teaches in a ballroom above a keno parlor in a small town near Omaha. We have the floor to ourselves for 40 minutes twice a week, and I am having more fun than I can describe.

Some of the footwork comes back from those lessons long ago, so I can begin to focus on style rather than where to put my feet to avoid crushing his toes. But on other dances, it turns out my early training was "street style", not the classic style, so I'm having not only to learn, but to unlearn some bad habits.

My muscles are also having to learn some new habits - like being used. There are moves in ballroom dancing that take your calve muscles to places they don't ordinarily go. And the turns! Ah, the turns. We have right and left underarm turns, fan turns, chase turns.

And then, like every subculture, dancing has some of its own special language. Last week I learned the Sugar Push and the Twinkle. Even if I could describe each of those moves adequately, they would never been quite as interesting as the names. It turns out a lot of dancing terms came up in the heyday of ballroom in the 1940's.

The first Harvest Moon competition was held in the 1930's in Central Park and 75,000 people showed up. It took the organizers two years to rethink how they were going to stage it and it re-started two years later in Madison Square Garden where crowd control was a little easier.

Today, ballroom has seen a huge resurgence with shows like "Dancing with the Stars." The traditionalists scoff at the choreography which has become more like a gymnastics meet than an old-style dance competition where many of the lifts and throws would not be allowed. But everyone seems excited that dancing is making a comeback as a popular participation and spectator sport.

Like all other subcultures, it has its own language. It has its own special equipment - dance shoes with steel shanks and special suede soles which allow the dancers to glide around the floor. Then there are "dance sneakers" with suede soles for practice.

I'm starting with dance sneakers - I figure I'm a few years away from high heels with rhinestones. But even sneakers for my basically square feet had to be measured with an arcane paper box measuring device, and they are now being made to my measurements somewhere in Argentina.

But the best part about dancing is that it is making me brave. As you get older, get arthritis, heart disease and put on too many pounds, it's really easy to focus on what you can't do any more. Dancing helps me be aware of what I can do - and it's a lot more than I thought.

What a great example to all of us who think we can't organize, and then find out we can by setting a goal, changing our attitude, breaking the project down into little steps, and taking baby steps to get organized. We may find we even have room to do some dancing of our own.

Marilyn Bohn's Bio
Marilyn is a creative organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and is working towards becoming a Certified Professional Organizer. Professionally she has been organizing homes and offices for over two years. She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.

Go to her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips and in