It seems like our lives are so full that at the end of the day we are not even sure what we have accomplished. Some of our lives are structured with a lot of routines at our job. But at home we just want to relax. We tend to just go with the flow. What we don’t realize is that the more habits and routines we build into our at home daily lives the more we will accomplish and the more likely we will have free time in which to relax. What is the difference between a habit and a…
,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…
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…
Do you want to create a new habit? It can be truly challenging to first decide what habit you want to create and then to make the habit stick. The author, James Clear, advises readers of his book, Atomic Habits to use the technique of habit stacking when creating a new habit. Do you know about habit stacking? It is when you link two habits together. This sounds simple, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. How to create a new habit There are several steps to take when undertaking this task. Step #1: Identify the habit you want to…
As we are approaching July 4th, I have been thinking of our freedoms. I think of the freedoms given to us in America as the freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition. Together these freedoms make us in the USA one of the freest countries in the world. There is another freedom we have. It is personal freedom. I also think that we don’t allow ourselves to become free and be the best that we can be. Let’s look at our personal freedoms. Personal freedom allows us to live our lives on our own terms and…
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…
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…
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…
I know I am dating myself when I say that I grew up with the idiom, “A stitch in time saves nine.” Those who have never darned a sock or sewed up a rip may not realize that this saying points out that if you take care of a problem when it is small, it will save a lot more work later. This saying also applies to things which happen in your home. Having an organizational home maintenance plan to follow helps you in a variety of ways. When you stay on top of tasks in your home that keep…
It’s not unusual for a client on an intake session to say something like, “I have been trying to do this by myself for a long time, but I am ADHD.” Or we might hear, “My daughter-in-law says I am a hoarder. I am afraid she might be right.” Then there is the “I am a stay-at-home mom without an outside job, and I still can’t get my work done.” Clients label themselves in this way to give us a better understanding of who they are. But it doesn’t help us as professional organizers at all. Labeling yourself or assigning…
