Time Management & Decluttering Are Keys To A Happy Life

Jun 11

3 Tips for Organizing Your Gift Giving

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize

Gift giving is something we all do. Sometimes it’s spontaneous but more often we know ahead of time that we plan on giving a gift. There are always the expected birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, as well as weddings and graduations. And, of course, the hostess gifts. 3 tips to help you stay organized and on top of your game when it comes to gift giving. 1. Keep a list of people you give gifts to on a yearly basis and a budget amount you would like to follow. I keep a running list of people in my journal that I give…

May 21

Decluttering Your Child’s Schoolwork: What to Keep and Why

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize

As a parent, you may be all too familiar with the endless piles of school paperwork that accumulate over the course of a school year. From graded assignments to artwork and school messages, it can be overwhelming to sort through it all. However, decluttering your child’s schoolwork at the end of the school year is essential so that you don’t end up with stacks of schoolwork when your child heads off to college and beyond. Let’s look at how you will decide what to keep and what to toss. What to keep at the end of the school year As…

May 07

7 Ways To Ensure Your Gifts Are A Blessing, Not Clutter

By Jonda Beattie It's All About You: A Personalized Approach to Achieving Your Organizing Goals, Uncategorized

,Are your gifts a blessing? We like to think that our gifts are a blessing and not clutter. We picture smiling faces as the recipient opens our package. But what if that person does not need or want the item? What if the gift becomes just more clutter in their home? Then the gift becomes a burden. I recently worked with a mother who was decluttering her daughter’s bedroom. As we dug through the clutter, we came across multiple packages of bath bombs including one that was a red nose on a Rudolph card. There was also a plethora of…

Apr 29

April Is Stress Awareness Month

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

Did you know that April is the National Stress Awareness Month? It’s common to hear someone say that they are “stressed out” but what is stress and how are we aware of it? According to Psychology Today, we are aware of stress when we feel a disconnect between the situation in which we find ourselves and our resources to deal with it. Sometimes the stressful situation is very real, like when we are attacked by a dog. At other times the situation is imagined like thinking about heavy traffic each morning. Real or imagined, our bodies act the same way….

Apr 15

Discard and Recycle Responsibly

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize

Do you think about how you will discard and recycle something before you bring it into your home? A while back I read that everything we buy eventually will end up in the dump. This was an eye opener to me. I thought that if I was responsibly discarding or recycling items it didn’t matter what I bought. We buy things on a whim, and we think that if we don’t want it later, we can donate it or recycle it. And, yes, we can. But eventually it will end up in the dump. My takeaway from this is to…

Mar 26

Have An Extreme Decluttering Project? Here Are Some Tips

By Jonda Beattie How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

A friend or family member may ask you to help with an extreme decluttering project for someone they love who is overwhelmed and is living with clutter. You care about the person and would love to help. Offering to Help with an Extreme Decluttering Project Offering to help is a wonderful thing to do. It is also very difficult. It will probably take a lot longer to complete this extreme decluttering project than you expect. Prepare yourself to meet with resistance from the person you are helping. First and most importantly make certain that the person with the decluttering project…

Mar 12

Spring Cleaning – Yeah or Nay?

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

Spring is rapidly approaching, and we want our homes to reflect the freshness and beauty of the season. Spring cleaning is a traditional way of making this happen. Concept of Spring Cleaning Spring cleaning is not a new concept. According to Wikipedia spring cleaning dates back to more than 3000 years B.C. Examples are the ancient Iranian Festival of Nowruz that is still practiced and the ancient Jewish custom of cleaning the house in preparation for the springtime feast of Passover. In the northern hemisphere, springtime weather is warm enough to open the house and still cool enough to keep…

Feb 19

Organize The Bookcase In 10 Minute Blocks

By Jonda Beattie How Long Will it Take to Organize X

I had finished organizing and decluttering my desk and felt really good about it. Then I swiveled around in my chair and looked at my bookcase. Ugh! It really looked cluttered and disorganized. It was definitely time to organize the bookcase. How did the bookcase get that way? Like so much clutter that comes into our lives, it was filled with items that I had not made hard decisions on. There were books I had received that were not read and some of them had sat there for over a year. I had reference books that I no longer used….

Feb 05

How Do We Spend Our Time?

By Jonda Beattie It's All About You: A Personalized Approach to Achieving Your Organizing Goals, Uncategorized

February is Time Management Month. Can we really manage time? Intellectually everyone knows that we can’t control or manage time. This is what we can do. We can manage how we spend our time. We all know that time just keeps moving along. Twenty-four hours each day and we can’t change that. So, when we say time management what we are talking about is good choice management. You can’t save time – just spend your time wisely. Before I give you tips to get better control of your time the first thing to do is track how you spend your…

Jan 22

Setting Realistic Benchmarks For Change

By Jonda Beattie How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

We’re about a month into the new year and most of us set the intention to make some changes. We set some lofty goals for ourselves. Maybe we see ourselves as 20 pounds lighter or our home cleared of all the holiday clutter and finally the place that we can return to and relax. These are not realistic benchmarks for change. Instead of setting lofty goals that are overwhelming, start with small, modest, and realistic benchmarks for change that you can accomplish and build upon in years to come. Mark Twain stated, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started….

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