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Here’s a comment from one of our happy subscribers:

“I wanted to share that I used your video tips on organizing Chloe’s room. She got a vanity yesterday, so it’s a full room now, and we redid her closet where all of her shirts hang now, even t-shirts, as she has no dresser. I enjoyed purging, and can’t wait to start the bathroom undersinks! Thanks for all you do!” -Maggie S.

To Your Success,

Monika

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Ask any professional organizer, home organization and storage bins or “homes” go hand in hand.  We declutter and then we store the remaining items in some type of organizing basket, bin, holder, box, whatever we can make a container out of.   Having a ‘home’  with a label for our stuff helps us by:

·         Keeping a cap on how much we can store

·         Allowing us to find what we need when we need it

·         Reminding us where to put belongings back after using them

But sometimes people are afraid they won’t remember what they have if they can’t see their stuff.  Now I do believe we really can’t see our stuff when it is out in the open but in big piles either.  The idea is to go through your belongings, decide what you do and don’t need and then store the remaining items in a way that works for you.  If you feel you need to see your belongings:

Ø  Use clear containers so you can see inside to the contents from the outside

Ø  Use labels on the outside of storage bins

Ø  Remove cupboard doors

Ø  Use baggies for storing small items

Ø  Use pictures on the outside of bins

Ø  Use color coding that you identify with

Ø  Store belongings on hooks

Ø  Store belongings on open shelves

When it comes to home organization, you need to use the products and tools that work for you and for the way your mind works.  The only “right” way is the way that works for you!

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Home organization and how we go about it is different for every individual.  It really bothers me when I work with a new client and they have had a family member who has made them feel bad about needing help with organization.  Probably well-meaning, but nevertheless, a family member who believes that my client should have been able to “do it on their own. “

Our brains are not the same.  We are all individuals and we are all born wired in our own way.  What may come easily to my neighbor may be difficult for me to do and vice versa.  It doesn’t make either one of us wrong or dumb, we’re just different.  I really believe we all have our strengths and abilities that just seem to come naturally and easily to us. 

I always say I am not creative.  But then I realize, yes, I am creative when it comes to many aspects of my business.  I think what I really mean to say is I’m really not crafty.  I walk into a craft store and I don’t really see the possibilities in what can be created there.  One time I was helping my daughter clean her room and I went to scoop up some fabric scraps saying it was garbage.  My daughter said, “No, I can make a pillow out of that.”  Who knew that could have been a Barbie pillow?  That was a light bulb moment for how different minds see things differently.  She saw the potential in what I thought was garbage.

So don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad if home organization isn’t your strong point.  We can’t all be good at everything and that’s why we hire people like doctors, lawyers, accountants and tax preparation specialists to help us.  No one makes us feel bad when we hire them do they?

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Home organization can give us the benefit of calmer surroundings and less stress, and it can also help us with our bottom line.  And who doesn’t want a better bottom line?  When we have too much stuff that turns into clutter is can cost us in a variety of ways:

• Emotionally it can be stressful and draining to be surrounded by clutter
• Financially we may be purchasing duplicate items which cost us money plus add to the clutter problem
• Relationship stress-clutter can cause friction between family members under the same roof

I’ve been reading a book called, “Making Peace with the Things in Your Life” by Cindy Glovinsky.  She had a very interesting example of the price of our clutter and I am going to quote word for word:

“Translate the space your Things take up into monetary terms:  divide your montly mortgage payment or rent by the number of square feet in your dwelling to calculate the cost per square foot; estimate the square footage occupied by a particular type of Thing-newspapers, for example-then multiply the cost per square foot by the square footage occupied to calculate the cost of housing the Things.  If your mortgage payment is $1000 per month for a dwelling of 1500 square feet, the cost per square foot is $.67.  If your newspapers take up nine square feet, you’re paying about $6 per month to house them.  If they take up a whole 10 x 14 foot basement, you’re paying $93 per month for them.”

OK-WOW; now that’s a good way to look at it and an eye opener!  So, is it worth it to keep holding on to so much stuff or is it time to free up some space and money with a good decluttering session?  Go for it!

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“Money, money, money, MONEY!”

Declutter my budget, what budget?  Where do you fall in the spectrum of  knowing how much money you have coming in vs. how much money you have going out?  Often times when people are disorganized they have a few different things going on:

• They are spending a lot of money on ’stuff’ that ends up causing clutter
• They don’t realize just how much money they are spending
• They may actually lose/misplace money such as checks & gift cards

It may be hard to set up a budget for yourself because it forces you to face reality.  And it might not be a reality you want to face because when you have to put limits on yourself  that’s not so fun.  But it’s part of being real and it’s part of being a grown-up, sometimes we have to tell ourselves ‘no’ for the greater good.  Sometimes we have to tell our family members ‘no’ for the greater good.

I encourage you to set up a budget with any program, piece of paper, ledger or system that is easy for you to keep up with.  Be honest about how much money you are bringing in every month.  It will take a while of keeping track of expenses to really realize how much is going out every month.  Write down everything!  Make categories, big or small.  Here are a few examples:

• Hair cuts
• Auto gas
• Auto insurance
• Gifts
• Entertainment
• Allowance for kids
• Groceries
• Meals eaten out
• Charity
• Cell phone
• Doctor co-pays/bills
• Credit card payments

There are many options that you may for your own categories.  The bottom line is, the incoming income needs to exceed or at least equal the outgoing expenses.  If that’s not the case, you’ve got some work to do to declutter your budget and see where you can eliminate or reduce your current expenses.  Some ideas:

• Reduce cable package
• Reduce meals eaten out
• Call around for new insurance quotes:  auto and home
• Reduce cell phone plan if you aren’t using your monthly minutes
• Cancel subscriptions you don’t use

Feel more in control of your finances and your life by decluttering your budget and being honest about where you are now.  All you can do is go up from here!

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The liner that you place under a dish rack is a quick, easy and inexpensive fix for keeping things clean under your kitchen sink.  I place my garbage can and another small basket filled with scrubbing supplies on mine.  It is so easy to pull out, scrub down, dry and place back under the sink.  It beats having little spills hit and stick to the wood, which requires a lot more scrubbing.  My plastic liner has lasted for many years. 

Stay on top of home organization and take a cleaning shortcut with a dish rack liner!

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G-Sale!       Yard Sale!  ——->       Moving Sale!       Garage Sale!        Rummage Sale!       Estate Sale!

So many sales, so much stuff, so many temptations and  it’s only .75 cents!  How’s a person to keep a delicate balance between home organization and sizzling summertime sales?!   Let’s face it, it’s fun to find a great deal!  There can be real satisfaction in showing off, “Look at what I got and guess how much it cost me?!”  This summer my mom was visiting and we did stop at a garage sale and I did buy something-2 big planting pots for $5 total.  It just so happens that I had needed pots to try my hand at growing tomato plants with my daughter.  Even better, they’re plastic and not terra cotta pots which I have had crumble outside in our NW weather. 

So, how do you keep from bringing home too many goodies when the weather is good and the prices are better?

• You could actually just pass on by those brightly colored signs.  Put on your blinders and keep on a drivin’.  If you don’t know what you are missing-then you don’t know what you are missing.
• Keep a list with you at all times of the items that you know you really do need, want and have a place for.  Consider the garage sales as a treasure hunt to find the things on your list at a good price.  My new pots fit right into this tip.  This will help you pass by items that may be tempting when you know they aren’t on your list.
• Have a summer garage sale budget.  Keep the money in an envelope and when the money is gone, your garage sale days are over.

Always keep items moving out of your home as you bring items into your home to keep that balance between being organized and being overwhelmed and enjoy your good deals!

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Achieving home organization in small spaces can be a little bit tricky, but it is definitely do-able and it doesn’t have to cost very much to get the job done!  Under bathroom sinks can tend to be tight, have awkward pipes in the way and sometimes they can be pretty tall areas with wasted space.    As you can see in the “before” photo, there is a jumble of common beauty products that need a home that makes them more accessible.  You can see rollers, shampoos, lotions, the things we all have tucked away in the bathroom.

   As you can see in the “after” photo, the items are now easily accessible by adding a turntable to the right.  All you have to do is spin and grab what you need.  This prevents you from having things tip causing a domino affect, making everything fall over.  On the left hand side a cabinet shelf was added.  You simply place the shelf where you want it, there is no installation required.  This allows you to store items both on the shelf as well as under the shelf, making it easier to separate items so you can reach in and grab what you need easily.  In this case, it wasn’t about needing to get rid of excess bathroom items, it was really just about separating items and stretching the storage space so they weren’t in a jumble.  Once you have a jumble, it’s so easy to just keep shoving  more stuff on top of it.  The total for these products would be somewhere in the range of $20-not bad!

Stay organized and stretch bathroom space for under $20 and get ready faster every morning!

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The home organization process should come with a disclaimer:  “Beware, chaos before the calm.  Please do not be frightened by the process as closets, rooms or drawers are torn apart.  It’s all part of the process.”  When I help a client get organized, I have the ideas and a vision for the work that we will be doing, what it will take to get there and what the outcome will be.  I have to remember to give people the above disclaimer as we get started.  Sometimes I don’t remember until I start pulling stuff out and realize what it must look like to the client now that their belongings are being pulled out, all of a sudden there’s a lot of stuff !  But it’s all a part of the process. 

When you are disorganized, you have probably shoved a lot of belongings onto shelves, into boxes and maybe onto closet floors.  In order to get to the bottom of it all, it has to be pulled out.  You have to see what you really have. Now, you want to make the amount of items that you pull out manageable and not overwhelm yourself and your time constraints, but you have to pull it out.  Here are some organizing tips to help you along the way:

• Just choose one section or area to get started.  If you get it done and want to continue, move onto the next area.
• Pull things out and place items of the same type or “like” items together.  Place decor with decor, place shoes with shoes, place wrapping paper with wrapping paper, etc.  When you see how much you have of each item, it will make decisions about what to let go a lot easier.
• Once you part with the excess, then place what you are going to keep into labeled bins or baskets and put them back for storage.

Decluttering and organizing can look a little crazy at the start, but in the end it’s worth it when your space is calm and neat again.  It’s all part of the process.

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How do you maintain home organization balanced with recreation during the summer months when kids are home from school?  The last day of school is a GREAT day for kids, but it can be a stressful day for moms as we wonder how we will make it all work.  And I’ve heard there are two kinds of moms-the summer moms who are joyful that school is out and they have open days ahead of them.  And then there are the school moms who counts down the days until the first day of school is back in session.   Or maybe there’s a middle mom too.  But all types of moms still have things to get done while kids are home from school. 

Here are a few easy organizing tips to help you get through the summer:

• Keep a list in a folder of upcoming summer events & ideas in your area to choose from:  Library events, library summer reading programs, concerts in the park, easy hikes, petting zoo, swim schedules, etc. 
• Be prepared for fun at home for the kids while you get a few things done inside.  Create an outdoor toy bucket or bin filled with water balloons,  bubbles, sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, paint brushes for buckets of water (for some reason painting on stuff just with water is fun for kids).
• Keep sunscreen ready by the door the kids go out each day.
• Each day assign someone a chore, you shouldn’t have to do it all yourself. 
• Have a list of sitters and phone numbers at the ready, you can even have a younger sitter act as a mother’s helper to entertain the kids while you are at home.
• Take some time every day with your kids so they are getting the attention they need-a little bit goes a long way.  Heading to the beach and getting away from it all can be rejuvenating for you and help you be more productive later as well.
• Older kids may be willing to earn some money doing some work for you while they are home as well-let them.

Whether the months of summer are too long or whether they are too short for you, you can be prepared and organized for some fun as well as for getting things done.

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Office organization is not only important in my own office to find what I need, but it is a big part of my business as well.  People are totally overwhelmed with paper all the time and need help with a better system.  So, I had a custom system of labeled folders in my own personal household file drawer that worked just fine for me.  But I wanted to experiment with other systems.  So one day I bought a pre-labeled, color coded system and changed the file system that was already working well for me.  

Did I like it?  No.  Did it work for me?  No.  Could I find what I needed quickly?  No.  Well, why not?  It was neat, it was labeled and I’m sure the system would probably work great for some people.  Especially if they were coming from a place of no system.  The reason it didn’t work for me was because the labels were not worded according to how I think.  I think “Taxes” this system was “Income Taxes.”  I think “Autos” this system was “Vehicle Maintenance.”  That may sound like a small detail, but it was enough to leave me looking longer for a file than I should.  It was also broken up into color coded sections vs. straight alphabetical order which bothered me too.

The other thing that wasn’t as visually appealing, since it was my own file drawer and not a client’s, I had used more than one color of hanging folders that I had on hand.  Things didn’t look quite as cohesive as they should have.

After giving the other system about a year or so trial, last night I worked until 12:30 am putting my old system back in place.  This time with all matching hanginging folders.   Phew.   Sometimes you just don’t know how something will work for you and organizing is not a one size fits all.  Don’t be afraid to make changes that work for you. 

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