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Tag >> organizing tips
7 - Two Minute Organizing Tips for Your Home and Office Do you feel as if you'll never get caught up with paperwork? Have too much stuff laying around that is driving you nuts? Clutter, clutter, everywhere? I love, love this philosophy...If it can be done in two minutes of less, do it now! Working with this mindset will allow you to keep clutter under control and eliminate pile management. So, here are 7 tips that will help keep you organized. Each of them take no more than 2 minutes of your time.
Posted by: Gail Gray in time management, organizing tips, organizing life, organizing homes, managing time, life priorities, life organization, how to organize, home organizing, home organization, disorganized, disorganization, de-clutter, Clutter Control, clearing the clutter on
Jul 24, 2009
How would you like to clear your mind from all the little distractions that get in your way? These everyday distractions can wreak havoc on your productivity. Wouldn't you love to have a machine that automatically made your life easier? Well, I have a little secret for you. You already own it! It is that thing in your head that weighs about 3 pounds. Your brain!
Wikipedia defines automatic as "Capable of operating without external control or intervention. Done out of habit or without conscious thought." There are certain things we can't avoid in life. We must wake, sleep, eat, bathe and dress everyday (now don't try and tell me you don't do at least three of these every day). There are also things that must take place on a weekly or monthly basis, like laundry, cleaning your home, personal grooming,
Creating a routine for your regular to do's will not only make your life easier, but will free space in that crazy brain of yours to actually think of more important things. I have so many clients feel they are ADD, regardless of whether they were every diagnosed or not. It is the crazy way we run through the day, feeling like we are spinning our wheels and not getting anything done. We are so distracted by what we have to do that we simply don't focus easily.
Create regular routines for your Home
- Laundry
- Changing sheets
- Dust
- Vacuum
- Bathrooms (yes the dreaded bathrooms)
- Empty Trash Cans
For your Errands
- Grocery Shopping
- Dry cleaning
- Bank
- Gas
- Library
- Discount Stores
For your Personal Grooming (whether you are a do it your selfer or you visit a spa/salon)
Posted by: Barbara Tischler in residential organizing, organizing tips, organizing homes, how to organize, home organizing, home organization, disorganized, disorganization, decluttering, declutter, de-cluttering, de-clutter, clutter on
Apr 21, 2009
It’s spring-cleaning time.
Choose an area to de-clutter, and gather a large garbage and/or recycle container, a box or boxes for donations/garage sale/consignment, and a box for items that go elsewhere -- i.e., don’t belong in the area you are de-cluttering. Sort items into these containers, and then deliver the “goes elsewhere” items to their proper places.
The above organizing tip is taken from my booklet, "36 Home Organizing Ideas for Your Family Around the Year". This 16-page booklet provides month-by-month, timely tips to help you and your family organize your home. My booklet also makes a great gift to friends, family, colleagues, clients, and potential clients. You can even choose to add your company logo and/or information to the booklet. To order one or more copies of my booklet, please go to http://www.thecluttercoach.com/booklet.html.
Whether you celebrate Easter or not, the feeling of new beginnings is in the air. Spring is my absolute favorite time of the year. Everything seems clean and fresh. (Yes, you can tell my mood by how clean and picked up my home is! Mess = Stress) New plants and flowers, blue skies, warm and comfortable temperatures and fresh green grass make a beautiful picture. This is the best time of year to create your own new beginnings. What do you want to change? What do you want to start pursuing? Where do you need or want A Fresh Start? My company name came from the need we all have for the changes in our lives to move in a positive direction. A Fresh Start is something we all desire when things aren't working quite right.
After you finish your taxes, use this time to get back to daily paper management.
When you get the mail, sort it the same day into different categories, such as trash, mail for yourself, mail for your spouse, and mail for each of your children. Trash should immediately go into the garbage or recycle bin. Bills should go to whoever pays them. Each category should go into a mail slot (a paper tray, cubby hole, file, etc.), and each person in the family should be made responsible for clearing out his/her slot on a daily basis.
How many of us get paralyzed with the thought of tackling a project, because we do not have the perfect scheme, perfect supplies, perfect know-how. My philosophy is: Excellence, not Perfection.
Perfection is usually quite unattainable, but excellence, doing the best you can with the tools you have, is doable for everyone to their own degree.
When you are trying to organize your home and family, there is not necessarily a correct way of doing this. You have to figure out what works for your family, and you might even have to stumble through a few tries before you find the “perfect” solution.
Here are a few thoughts about finding what works for you:
Last weekend I participated in a Home Show. See my previous blog on the topic for the details. In a nutshell, I was feeling a bit frantic right before the show, and shared some of my own feelings about dealing with disorganization. I promised a follow up, so...
I would deem the show a success for my organizing business. It was great exposure for me, and I met a lot of people who are eager to get organized. I also learned a few things about home shows - things that can easily be applied to every day life, not just booths at conventions. So I'll keep my summary more generalized.
Be flexible. Life is good at throwing curve balls. Often, there isn't much you can do about that. You'll avoid a lot of stress and frustration if you learn to go with the flow. If your plans go awry, and you feel like it's the end of the world, ask yourself, "Will any of this matter tomorrow, next week, or next year"?
Part of being organized is running an efficient household budget. Where are you spending your money? Could you be spending less? Here are a few easy ways to cut back on spending in your home. You don't even have to give up what you love. You just have to be more creative and do a little bit of planning.
Lose your landline. Maybe this one isn't so creative, as more and more people are going this route. If you have a cell phone and carry it with you all the time, why pay for a landline that isn't portable? If you feel you need to keep your landline and you have a DSL internet connection, consider switching to an IP phone service like Vonage. It's cheaper, comes with more features, and the sound quality is the same as or superior to a typical landline.
Clutter brings with it a good deal of guilt. But guilt, like clutter, needs to be purged from your life! Below are some thoughts that hold us back from doing our best organizing, and some tips for dealing with them.
An organized room has to be pretty: Not so! Who decides what pretty is, anyway? A few days worth of mail on the kitchen table, or a pile of shoes by the front door is ok, if you can find what you need when you need it. But if you're taking more than a minute to find something, or you're tripping over the pile of shoes, a better solution might be in order.
Once it's organized, I'm done: Organizing is a process as well as a project. We get behind sometimes, and that's ok. But once it's all picked up, it has to be maintained. Putting organizing systems in place that work for you, and keeping up with them is essential to staying organized.
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