You’re ready to send a birthday card and are looking for a stamp. It’s … in your wallet. No, it’s not. In the kitchen drawer? By the telephone? Or you’re looking for a file your boss needed 10 minutes ago and you can’t even see the surface of your desk, never mind locate the information.

If this sounds painfully familiar to you, Rebecca Osborne can help. Osborne is a professional organizer and the founder of A Spacious Place, and will come to your home and help you get arrange your disarray into a system that actually works for you.

Osborne says the definition of being organized is simple.

“It’s finding what you need, when you need it, in a place that makes sense to you,” she said.

And the advantages are huge. Organized people, Osborne says, waste less time and are less stressed than their cluttered counterparts.

Though the task of going through your life may seem daunting, Osborne says you can set yourself up for success by preparing. Consider what you want your space to be. What do you like about? What’s the most important thing to you? If something is working, let it be, Osborne says — there’s no need to change something just for the sake of changing it.

Osborne also suggests dividing the room by area, where each section has a particular function.

“You can sketch it out on paper if you need to,” she says. “You want to look at how your work flows into itself.”

Osborne suggests setting aside a specific time to organize — schedule the day and date, as if it is a business appointment. Go one room at a time, starting in one corner, and work your way around the room, using a system.

Go through everything in the area and divide it by function — pens and pencils together, paper clips and staplers together, and so on. At this point, Osborne says, making piles is fine; you’re more taking inventory than making any decisions.

Here’s where the decision-making comes in: Pick up every item and consider its necessity. This is also the point where, Osborne said, some of her clients are reluctant to part with items. “You have to ask yourself, ‘is the pain of getting rid of this more than the pain of it being part of the problem?’” she says.

A place for everything, as they say, and everything in its place. Find a permanent location for what you’re keeping and make sure it’s going into the activity it’s tied into. The printer ink, for example, should be somewhere near the printer, not in a kitchen drawer with the wooden spoons.

But don’t go and buy boxes and cabinets until you know what you have, Osborne advises, lest you come home with the wrong size. And remember, functionality is more important than asthetics.

This, Osborne says, may be the most important step.

“Step back and honestly assess your system, then tweak it as necessary,” she says. “Life and work projects change, and your system needs to change with it.”