Chaos Control

Organizers Called to Calm Before- and After-School Craziness

By Susan Flynn

Like most people out there, I suspect, I brush my teeth with extra care before a dentist appointment. I tidy up the hotel room for the housekeeping staff. So, 20 minutes before a professional organizer is scheduled to arrive for an in-house consultation, I scramble to sort through a closet basket overflowing with shoes of varying sizes, styles and smells.

Then I spy piles of papers, assorted hair clips, Scrabble game pieces, pens and sunglasses stacked high on the microwave. There is an abundance of dog hair on the welcome rug. My hair is still wet from a morning shower.

So, with time ticking away, I grab the Lysol and make a quick pass through the first floor. If you invite professional organizers into your home, it’s best not to trick them into thinking you are something that you’re not.

And besides, my real motive here is to learn how to better control the before- and after-school chaos that strikes once children are back in class. I have invited professional organizers Susan Parziale of Lynnfield and Erika Salloux of Cambridge to my home to suggest ways to bring more order to my daily routine.

Susan Parziale (www.susanparizale.com) shows up first. She’s the type of person who wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every day with a smile on her face. This everything-has-a-place business is her calling. “Since I was 3, I was the kid who had all of her Barbies organized,” she says.

Parziale will never try to turn a Type B personality into a Type A, however. Most of her clients are simply mothers who seek a little more organization in their lives. “They put something down and it disappears the next day,” she says, “and they just want to find it.”

Sounds vaguely familiar.

Erika Salloux (www.living-harmony.org) takes a more holistic approach to organization, working with clients to make room not just for stuff, but for the things in life that are important to them. She gives clients sheets to track how they spend their days in 30-minute blocks, akin to writing down every penny spent or every piece of food consumed. This exercise often helps clients see that most of us set out to accomplish more in a day than is feasible, and then we beat ourselves up for not crossing more off our to-do list.

“Our time is overstuffed,” Salloux says. “We are used to running on adrenaline. It’s stressful and you don’t have any time to breathe.”

While they take different approaches, both professional organizers agree on one thing: On school mornings, I shouldn’t feel exhausted at 8:30, and my house shouldn’t look like a mini hurricane hit upon the kids’ return some six hours later.

With persistence and commitment, a home with more harmony is within reach. Here’s a look at some of their suggestions:

The Night Before

To make things run smoothly in the morning, some work must be done at night. Susan Parziale recommends making school lunches the night before, including filling up water bottles. Put the whole lunch bag in the fridge so it’s ready to go, she says. She stocks up on plastic containers at the Dollar Store, or the bargain bins at CVS and local supermarkets, to fill with snacks.

Baths and showers should be taken in the evening, and children should lay out their clothes, right down to their shoes.

Salloux recommends setting the kitchen table for breakfast after dinner dishes are cleared. She’s also a big believer in bedtimes, and she stresses how extra sleep improves brain function and makes everyone less grouchy.

The Wake-Up