The Collector

The Collector

Are you a collector? It’s okay if you are, you’re not alone. We all know someone with a baseball card collection, or stamp collection, and that “little black book?” – a collection of phone numbers, of course. But a collection of chap-stick? Yup! It was a first for me but my client has been collecting them for years. Her collection, however, was buried under mountains of clutter in her bedroom. She was determined to find them, and find them we did. In all, we uncovered 72 sticks of chap-stick in 10 hours of sorting and purging. 72! I was inclined to see if she could purge some of them, but after talking to her about it I realized that this collection really meant a lot to her – it reminded her of her childhood and brought back happy memories.

A huge part of my philosophy as an organizer is that I want my clients to enjoy their belongings. Collections in particular can easily get out of control, and there’s no reason to display EVERY piece of EVERY collection you own all at once. Display (and perhaps only keep?) your favorite pieces, and rotate different collections in and out of storage a few times a year. This will allow you (and others) to truly appreciate and enjoy the things you love. My client and I decided to take a photo of her collection instead of displaying it, to keep all 72 chap-sticks standing would be more trouble than its worth. She is keeping the chap-stick collection, but we stored it away in a plastic shoe box. Happy Collector and happy Organizer!