the organizer is in

regular readers of this blog may have wondered where i went . . . well, this past weekend i went to a picnic to celebrate a friend's birthday. within only a few minutes the conversation turned toward asking me a million organizational questions. newlyweds . . . he's a minimalist, she's a maximalist . . . so many questions about paper and craft supplies and gifts long ago received. what if i need it some day for a return to the career i left? what if i need it some day for a super cool craft project? how can i give away a gift that someone gave me? how can i give away a sweater i paid good money for? what do i do about 10 year old financial records that need to be shredded?

sound familiar? the good news about this gal is that she's aware of her challenges. the good news about her new husband is that he's aware of the challenges and he loves her anyway. sweet, huh?

i answered the questions for them on the spot over some yummy cabbage salad. i'll share them over the next several entries with you.

where in the world are the sprucegirls?

small businesses start out small. sometimes they don't stay that way. that's the good news. the bad news is that sometimes systems which are perfectly reasonable for keeping track of things when they're small don't translate so well as the business scales up.

such was the case this week at a one-gal-show in san francisco. this small company has been doing great with one large client and several smaller accounts. all of that changed recently when the owner landed two large, ongoing clients to add to her list. others followed and it looks like 2008 will bring more of the same.

we spent lots of time talking with the client to learn about what her work is like, what her process is for each client and how things have worked thus far with her organizational systems. she loved that we pushed her to really think about her work, right down to the nitty gritty and consider if what she was doing really helped her bottom line. "that's a great question," she kept saying.

in the end, we were able to put together a system that works well for her now and will accommodate all the growth that lies ahead. she's poised now for business to quadruple before she'll need to have us back . . . and, thanks to the spruce simplicity, she'll be able to manage it all without hiring an assistant!

where in the world are the sprucegirls?

today the sprucegirls are busy working with a client to prepare for her upcoming remodel. the client, who has lived in her house for over 30 years, has wisely brought us in to help clear her storage room for demolition. we're busy dividing things into four categories: things she needs access to during the remodel, things to store during the remodel, things to store after the remodel and (our favorite), things to pass on to someone else.

remodels and additions are the perfect time for a good sprucing. most people need to move quite a bit of stuff around so, if you're touching it anyway . . . you might as well consider what's worth keeping. after all, you're about to have a fabulous, new space. the last thing you need is to junk it up with the same old stuff that junked up your old space.

where in the world are the sprucegirls?

last week we completed a home office. here's a look at a little piece of the project . . .

the challenge here was that there was virtually no hidden storage. that meant no place to hide office supplies or software or electronica. (the good news for us was that this client did not have a huge paper problem. she actually had a pretty reasonable amount but needed help with systems to keep track of it.)

enter the boxes . . . our solution here was to use all manner of boxes and holders. the magazine files hold paper and, you guessed it, magazines. the document boxes hold more paper, memorabilia and photos. the larger boxes stacked like a pyramid hold office and craft supplies. the client's files are now stashed away in file boxes. the key to all of this is that while the boxes come in all shapes and sizes, the color and feel are unified. this ensured that we weren't substituting one source of clutter for another.

the "after" picture also shows a complete lack of clutter on the shelves. the "before" situation meant that to get a book out, you probably had to move a photo or tchotchke. it's usually fine to do that because the book is desirable and worth taking the extra step for. putting it away, on the other hand, is a whole other story. nobody wants to move the photo or piece of tchotch to put the book away so . . . it doesn't happen. we lightened the load here in terms of these small items and found other places (like a window sill) to put the client's favorites.

where in the world are the spruce girls?

if you listen closely you might just hear a flurry of backpacks being zipped, pencil cases packed, and apples shined--ah, it's back to school!

last month, the spruce girls were on campus for a little summer school of our own. the assignment: a school office that was far from making the grade.



after many afternoons of playground paper tackling, this office is an A+++.



want to see how it turned out? stay tuned for the full story, coming soon in case studies: the case of the avalanche of paper.
find all our case studies on our website, sprucegirls.com