Time Management & Decluttering Are Keys To A Happy Life

Mar 16

Organizing in 10 Minute Blocks: Coat Closet

By Jonda Beattie How Long Will it Take to Organize X, How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

Coat closets, if you are lucky enough to have one, can become a dumping ground for items without an immediate home. You can shut the door and put it all out of sight – at least until you open it to hang a guest’s coat. Since the closet is used for guests’ coats as well as your own stuff, it should be tidy, functional, and well organized. My Coat Closet My coat closet holds coats, jackets, sweaters, a couple of tablecloths, and a bag of bags on the rod. The shelf holds hats, gloves, lint cleaner, a flashlight, and a…

Mar 09

3 Reasons to Turn Away from Your Screens

By Diane Quintana Blog, It's All About You: A Personalized Approach to Achieving Your Organizing Goals

Screens call for our attention all day long. There is your phone screen, computer screen and the television all offering information and entertainment. We are so attached to our screens it can be hard to turn away from them. Our bodies tell us when we have spent too much time hunched over a screen. Our backs, wrists, shoulders all call out for us to take a break. I know it can be hard to turn away from your screen but here are some reasons to make it worth your while. Sleep better This article from the Sleep Foundation recommends removing…

Mar 02

Honoring National Read Across America Day

By Diane Quintana How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

March 2 is National Read Across America Day. If it were up to me everyday would be a reading day. I love to read and often have several books going at a time. My frustration is in finding the time to read. This should be an easy fix for me. I’m an expert on time management so why is this a problem? Most days I have scheduled more things to do than time to do them. This means that I must have a triage plan and spend my time working on the tasks I feel are the most important. To…

Feb 23

Change your attitude; attitude is everything sign

Change Your Attitude to Get More Things Done

By Diane Quintana It's All About You: A Personalized Approach to Achieving Your Organizing Goals

Have you ever heard the expression, “Attitude is Everything”? This is part of the title to a book by Jeff Keller entitled: Attitude is Everything: Change Your Attitude…Change Your Life. The first part of the title: Attitude is Everything is posted on the walls in several places at the gym where I go to workout. The owner of the gym firmly believes, as I also do, that your attitude as you approach something difficult determines whether or not you will succeed. If you change your attitude to a positive outlook you will accomplish more than you anticipated. The gym owner…

Feb 16

Organizing in 10 Minute Blocks: Chest of Drawers

By Jonda Beattie How Long Will it Take to Organize X

You can accomplish more than you think in just ten minutes. In fact, Diane Quintana and I recommend using ten-minute blocks of time to take care of many routine household tasks. Today my 10-minute task is the top of my chest of drawers. The chest of drawers in the picture is in my spare bedroom. The door to this room is always open so as I walk down the hall, I see this chest of drawers every day. The “stuff” that has gathered here has appeared within the last month. There’s no question where it came from and now it…

Feb 10

Declutter Your Love Nest for Valentine’s Day

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize

Valentine’s Day is this coming Sunday. You would love to experience a romantic evening, but you look around your love nest and notice the piles of shoes by the front door. Then there are the piles of papers and magazines cascading off the coffee table and the CDs and DVDs scattered on the floor. The living room needs to have some serious work done to look romantic. You don’t have a lot of time to make this work. Maybe just scoop it all up into a box that you stash in the spare bedroom and deal with it later. But…

Feb 02

Simple Strategies Need Simple Rules

By Diane Quintana How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

My mother used to like to say, ‘keep it simple, stupid – KISS’. She was right. The simpler the strategy the easier it is to follow. This is why the primary rule I follow in organizing with my clients is to ask the questions: do you love it? Are you using it? Is it beautiful – to you? When a client answers ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions then the object in question is something to keep. Sometimes people over-complicate the strategies they use to get organized by creating impossible rules to accompany the strategies. This can cause…

Jan 26

Organizing experts, Diane and Jonda ready for work

The Unvarnished Truth About What Organizing Experts Do

By Diane Quintana It's All About You: A Personalized Approach to Achieving Your Organizing Goals

Jonda Beattie and I are organizing experts. We approach organizing differently than some of our organizing colleagues. We are not the ones to call if you want your home to look like a magazine photo shoot. In all honesty, no ones’ home looks like a magazine photo shoot for more than an hour or so because people live in their homes. Naturally, pillows will fall on the floor, a cushion will be de-fluffed, and things will be left on kitchen counters. Life happens. We are the organizers to call when you are overwhelmed by life events, too much clutter, and…

Jan 19

Organizing in 10 Minute Blocks: Desk

By Jonda Beattie How Long Will it Take to Organize X

Keeping my office desk clear is a constant challenge. Ideally it should be cleared every evening when I shut down. Sometimes, I feel so used up that I just walk away from it. I do make a real effort to clear it on Friday before I leave the office but even then, once in a great while I am just too exhausted. Where does the clutter come from? It is important for me to understand how I let this happen. When I look at the desk, I see a lot of items that were taken out of my rolling work…

Jan 12

Want Balance in Your Life? Get Organized!

By Diane Quintana What is Your Reason to Get Organized?

When I think about balance the first thing that comes to mind is a seesaw. When two people are on the seesaw, the lighter one goes up in the air faster and the heavier one stays down on the ground longer. They are never completely level, unless they work to get there. If we are talking about creating balance in your life, we are never talking about just two things. Demands on your time There are always lots of different things demanding your attention. Even if you are a single person, you have your home, your work life, your extended…

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