You don't need to deal with everything at once.

The hardest part of getting a home organized is often figuring out where to begin. BOXIE gives you a simple framework for working through what you've accumulated without turning the whole house upside down.

Start with one manageable project.

A drawer of papers. A box of photographs. One closet. The garage. A storage unit. Your parents' house. The size changes. The basic process doesn't.

1. Assess

What are you actually trying to accomplish? Don't start moving things around until you know what problem you're solving.

2. Organize

Bring related things together so you can understand what you actually have. Sometimes that means individual items. Sometimes it makes more sense to work by category.

3. Decide

Most things eventually need one of eight outcomes:

Keep · Family · Sell · Donate · Digitize · Shred · Recycle · Dispose

4. Route

A decision isn't very useful if the donation bags sit in the garage for another six months. Determine what actually needs to happen next.

5. Finish

Get the donations out. Send the photographs for scanning. Shred the documents. List or consign what you're selling. Give family possessions to the people who want them. Put the things you're keeping where they belong.

Don't just organize the problem. Resolve it.

6. Preserve

Record the things you'll want to find again. Important household information, inventories, documents, photographs and family history can become part of your BOXIE Home.