Time Management & Decluttering Are Keys To A Happy Life

May 01

5 Ways to Weed Clutter from Your Home

By Diane Quintana Ask the Organizer How to Organize

As someone who truly loves to be outside and playing in the dirt, I want to share with you some of the similarities between gardening and organizing. Did you know that weeding is similar to organizing? No? I want to share with you 5 ways to weed clutter from your home. This will simplify your routine which, in turn, lets you spend more time on things you love. Remove what you don’t want When you weed the garden, you remove what you don’t want from that patch of the ground. I have found that one of the best ways to…

Apr 03

7 Tips To Declutter Your Outdoor Storage Area

By Jonda Beattie How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

Spring has finally arrived, and we want to spend more of our time outdoors. Having a clean, clutter-free outdoor storage area makes our time outside even more inviting and relaxing. Many of us have a lot of “stuff” that we store to keep our yards, decks, patios, and any other outdoor areas a place of relaxation. Decluttering our outdoor storage areas makes it easier to maintain our outdoor areas and saves us time so that we can enjoy them. Outdoor storage areas can get messy and cluttered throughout the year. Because they are not in our main living area it…

Mar 20

The Best Reason to Use the Zone Plan to Organize Your Home

By Diane Quintana How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies

You are probably familiar with the expression “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Benjamin Franklin said this way back when. Of course, I don’t know what he was referring to at the time but there are so many applications. Think about a door knob. If it becomes loose, it’s a good idea to tighten the screws before the whole thing falls off. You don’t want to wait too long to attend to this task or you may have an even bigger problem to fix, right? Preventive maintenance is one of the best ways to keep little…

Mar 06

Organizing the Entertainment Center in 10 Minute Blocks

By Jonda Beattie How Long Will it Take to Organize X, Uncategorized

Each March I deep clean and reorganize my living room. Spring will soon be here and I want my living room completely decluttered, fresh, and accessorized for the season. Many of the projects in the living room can easily be done in 10-minute blocks of time. The Entertainment Center is a good example of that. I chunk my center into three different categories. One category is the section that holds our DVDs and CDs. Another category is the section that holds items used for entertaining guests. And the last category is all the items that sit on top of the…

Feb 20

Get Magical Results by Releasing and Repurposing

By Diane Quintana Ask the Organizer How to Organize

Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about moving and settling in. Just in case you haven’t been following me, here’s a brief recap. I sold my house in May 2021 and rented a furnished apartment month to month until my townhouse was finished. In late January I moved into my new forever home and am loving it. The unpacking, arranging furniture, and putting away belongings is overwhelming for everyone, even for professional organizers. However, I learned that when I released some of my preconceived notions of where things should live or how things should be used, I had magical results….

Feb 06

Make a Plan for a Romantic Evening

By Jonda Beattie How to Declutter: Use Simple Strategies, Uncategorized

Valentine’s Day is considered a day for romance. While the special day has been around for a long time, the day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today it’s an opportunity to spice up a relationship and show the love. You want to set the mood for your own romantic evening. You close your eyes and envision the pair of you cuddled up on the couch, watching a romantic movie. The lights are dim. But then you open your eyes and look around your love nest. You notice the piles of shoes kicked off by that…

Jan 28

Project Bins Promote Productivity

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize, Blog

When I am working on a project, I like to have my desk clear of everything but the current project. However, I am always working on multiple projects. I would go crazy if I didn’t have each of my projects filed away in project bins. These project bins promote productivity for me and help me maintain my sanity. Imagine that you’re working on a project. You are on a deadline and people are waiting for you to finish. There are stacks of papers scattered across your desk and on surfaces around you. Some of these papers belong to the current…

Jan 16

3 Reasons to Organize Your Digital Files

By Diane Quintana Ask the Organizer How to Organize, Uncategorized

My friend, colleague, and business partner, Jonda Beattie, just wrote an article about organizing paper files. I am following up with an article on organizing your digital files. Are you wondering why? Even though we can’t see them, digital files need to be organized, too. I am going to share with you 3 reasons to organize your digital files plus I will tell you how to go about this. Very often people think that they can just save digital files in their computer and the computer’s search engine will find the file for them – no matter what. This is…

Jan 02

Start Your New Year With a Workable Filing System

By Jonda Beattie Ask the Organizer How to Organize

While making a workable file system may not be top of your list of fun things to do, you will thank yourself over and over throughout the year for having made the effort. A workable file system will make you more productive. Having that workable file system in place will expedite clearing your desk and greatly reduce the amount of time you spend looking for documents. For the purpose of this article, I am focusing on the basic file system for papers that are needed most frequently. Analyze the current problem If you have a file system now but it…

Dec 27

Take Time to Reflect

By Diane Quintana What is Your Reason to Get Organized?

It’s the last week of 2021. In many ways, I’m ready to say ‘Good-Bye’ to 2021 and welcome 2022 with open arms. But there’s also a part of me that wants to sit and look back at what was. I think before the start of a new year it’s good to take time to reflect on what happened that was good and acknowledge what didn’t work quite so well. I am so very proud of the work that Jonda Beattie and I have done with our joint business, Release Repurpose Reorganize, LLC, this year. At the end of 2020 we…

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