How to Organize Your Empty Nest

Unless they've been there, people don't realize how painful it is when your first (or last or only) child leaves home. This child has been the center of your home and your life for the past 18 years. Remember making the transition to having kids? Dramatic but doable. The transition back will be equally jarring but ultimately as satisfying. Your life is about to get a lot simpler. It's time your systems and setup did, too.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Have a conversation with your fledgling about his or her room. Understand that the room is beginning a transition from belonging exclusively to him to belonging to the whole family, just as that child of yours has grown from belonging exclusively to you to being more and more of his own person.
2. Talk about your plans for the room--moving your computer to his desk, storing craft supplies, using it for guests and so on. See what stuff he is comfortable saying good-bye to.
3. Box up the items you've agreed upon, take down the Eminem posters and put on a fresh coat of neutral paint. Now's not the time to turn your hockey stud's room into the frilly Laura Ashley refuge you've always dreamed of. Keep a fair amount of his belongings out--hockey sticks in the corner, sci-fi books filling the shelves--so he feels at home when he comes back.
4. Reward yourself for a kid well done. Get that new leather sofa, now that size 13 feet won't be grinding grit into it every night. Pack up all the mismatched glasses, 20-ounce drink cups and chipped plates and send them on their way (see 95 Plan a Yard or Garage Sale and 12 Get Rid of What You Don't Want). Indulge in a new set of dishes.
5. Make a list of all the projects and things you always wanted to do--someday. That day is upon you. See 3 Write an Effective To-Do List and 16 Set Goals.

Tips & Warnings

• Resist the urge to create a museum of your kids' stuff. You need to think of their needs as visitors to your home, not residents.
• Some colleges offer seminars for empty-nest parents. Check it out even if you or your spouse insist you are absolutely fine, thank you very much.
• Reinvent your household systems now that one less person is involved. See 1 Get Organized.