Living the Good Life

Two Minute Task Round Up #2

2012-02-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

If a task will take you two minutes or less, do it now. Here are a few things you can do in two minutes or less!

• Test 10 pens from your junk drawer. Toss the ones that don’t work anymore.

• Make a phone call for that long overdue appointment

• Delete 15 unneeded emails.

• Review your to-do list and remove 1 unnecessary task.

• Check the expirations dates on 10 spice bottles. If they have expired, toss them.

• Hang up or fold 6 shirts.

• Call in your prescription refill.

Because February is the shortest month of the year, we are talking about small things, small projects and small spaces in your home.

__________________________________________

Andi Willis is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Two Minute Task Round Up #1

2012-02-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

If a task will take you two minutes or less, do it now. Here are a few things you can do in two minutes or less!

• Make your bed. It will keep your sheets cleaner and your room neater.

• Pay a bill.

• Empty the dishwasher.

• Clean out 2 file folders. Shred or toss what you don't need to keep.

• Shred papers from your shredding pile.

• Sort your mail.

• Grab your laundry basket and gather everything that doesn’t belong in the living room. Return it to its proper room.

Because February is the shortest month of the year, we are talking about small things, small projects and small spaces in your home.

__________________________________________

Andi Willis is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Speaking of Small Things: Stuffed Animals

2012-02-09T10:30:00.002-05:00

If you have children (or grandchildren), let’s face it, you probably have too many stuffed animals around the house. I have a theory that they are like rabbits and multiply fruitfully while you are watching. Not only is it hard to part with those cute little guys, often it is hard to find them a good home.

This morning I just heard about a new opportunity here in Georgia. The Division of Child Support Services is hosting its annual “Bearable Hugs for Georgia’s Children campaign.” They are collecting teddy bears and other stuffed animals to give to children who have been through a stressful situation.

If you can help, please contact your local DCSS office. In Macon you can call 478-752-1536. If you live in another state, you can contact your local social service agency, police department or battered woman’s shelter, as they are often looking for these cuddly donations.

Because February is the shortest month of the year, we are talking about small things, small projects and small spaces in your home.

__________________________________________

Andi Willis is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

The Spice of Life

2012-01-06T08:56:00.003-05:00

Next to the junk drawer I think the scariest place in the kitchen may just be the spice cabinet. Those red capped bottles and cute antique looking tins seem to breed and multiply when we aren’t looking and become a jumbled mess in which you can’t find the thyme when it’s time. (sorry, I know that was bad!)

So over Christmas break when our schedule calmed down enough, I decided my spice cabinet needed some attention. I already had stepped shelves to hold my spice bottles but it was still difficult to find what I needed when I needed it.

Step one was to pull all the spices out and discard any spices that were expired. This proved to be an interesting archeological exercise. Most of the bottles that I threw out were 1-2 years out of date, but the winner is…..

This bottle of dill weed expired in 1996!!! My husband and I were married in 1993 so I am guessing we bought it shortly after our nuptials for some obscure recipe. Not only was it just a little out of date (oops!) but the lid was also completely cracked. My only defense is that the last 3 times we’ve moved, the movers packed my spices and I obviously didn’t purge before that.

Now expired spices probably won’t hurt you but their flavor changes and diminishes over time. McCormick has a Fresh Tester form on their website which can help you determine the expirations dates on their products (http://www.mccormick.com/Spices101/HowOldSpices.aspx).

So out went the expired items and spices that had been purchased for a specific recipe and never used again and some bottles were combined. I also purged the two shelves above which hold more baking supplies.

This is what I got rid of. Wow!

Then I decided to label each spice jar with a printed label. The reason I did this was that even though I used the stepped shelf I still couldn’t see the labels. So using my trusty Brother P-Touch label maker I created labels and placed them on the side of the lids of each large jar. I didn’t do the small jars because they sit in the front and are easy to see.

Everything went back in the cupboard and I am so pleased with the results. The entire project took about 1 ½ hours and I didn’t spend any money except for replacing a few bottles of spices that we use on a fairly regular basis. I am so pleased with the light and airy feel of the cabinet. This was a small project with a huge impact.

AFTER - I am very happy with the final product.

______________________________________
Andi Willis is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Organize Your Mind for the New Year

2012-01-04T11:01:00.004-05:00

Many people say that getting organized is their New Year’s resolution and find that highly admirable, but on a whole, it is very generic and kind of scary. Every one of us has areas in our homes and our lives that need to be decluttered and simplified. Even I have hot spots in my home and life that I need to address and I am a professional organizer (and a human)! I recently redid my spice cabinet which was scary and exciting (yes, exciting, remember what I do for living!) and I’ll tell you more about that soon. I still need to address my closet and I would like to get better at menu planning because honestly I hate cooking dinner. If I could have a live in maid/cook, I would be in heaven. But I digress…

My point is getting organized can be a scary thing when taken as one big chunk. As with any goal or resolution breaking it down into manageable chunks will make it less overwhelming. To start my new year off, I haven’t made any specific resolutions but I would like to get my mind a little more organized. Like many people I am overcommitted and pulled in many directions.

So today, my first real day in the office in 2012, I am doing a brain dump. What is that you might say? If you are a Harry Potter fan, think of Dumbledore’s pensieve that held his memories that had been overcrowding his brain. My brain dump involves my ever present notebook, a pen and some good music. I’ve been writing a list of everything I need to do (short term and long term) and goals for the year (personal and professional). It ranges from making that eye doctor appointment I keep forgetting about to finalizing my annual budget to exercising more. Some will take minutes and others are more ambiguous and long lasting. The point is that I am getting these things out of my head and onto paper. Now I can more rationally review what I need to do and prioritize. If I don’t make that eye appointment until next month, the earth won’t stop revolving around the sun but if I don’t get my NAPO-GA board report in today, I will be on somebody’s bad list. It’s a great tool and stepping stone to creating change in my own life.

My January 4, 2012 Brain Dump
One of many pages!

So if you are overwhelmed in your life or if your project seems overwhelming to you, take 15-30 minutes (or do it over the course of your day) to dump all those to-dos, should-dos, would-like- to-dos onto a piece of paper and free you mind. It will thank you!

_______________________________

Andi Willis is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Nesting for the New Year

2011-12-27T12:09:00.001-05:00

I have been having the nesting urge for the past two weeks. I have lots of small projects around the house that I’ve just been itching to complete. Unfortunately I was really sick the week before Christmas and then came Christmas and all the traveling that is involved with that. So now I am back home and ready to roll during this quiet week between Christmas and New Years.

This is a great time to these small projects and to clean the slate as it were. I love having a fresh start at New Years before we dive head long back into our crazy busy schedule. So this week my goal is to reorganize my dresser and closet (I got a new dresser for Christmas so that helps a lot!), update my spice cabinet and clean out the attic before the Christmas decorations go back in. It’s a lot and I may not get it all done but it will be a start. And that’s all it takes.

Do you have any projects that you would like to finish before 2011 ends?

_____________________________________________

Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit www.goodlifeorganizing.biz or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Clutter Free Christmas Gifts

2011-12-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

I just heard on The Today Show that the recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday were ones for the record books. As our country is still in the midst of an ecoof going unused after the “big” day. It just becomes more “stuff” on the “stuff” pile, more clutternomic recovery/crisis/downturn (take your pick, it changes daily), people continue to buy things at a record number. These things have a high probability in our already cluttered life. And trust me, Dad does not need any more ties! So what’s gift giver to do?

Consider clutter-free giving. This could be the gift of an experience or a gift card for a product or service your friend or family member actually uses. Here are some suggestions of clutter-free gifts you bestow this holiday season as you give the gift of no stuff!

Give the gift of great experiences: a meal out at a favorite restaurant, theme park passes, tickets to a museum, concert or play, a trip to the zoo or aquarium, a special one-on-one outing with child, or make an experience coupon book featuring favorites like an ice cream outing.

Give a gift that can be consumed: gift cards – gas, groceries, favorite store; Of the month clubs – wine, cheese, fruit (Google “Of the month club” to see the amazing variety available); food, such fruit baskets or homemade goodies; coupon for one dinner a month; art supplies; baking supplies, batteries, toiletries (soap, hair care, shower gel, lotion); stamps and stationary; candy; favorite coffee/tea.

Give the gift of education: Give a gift certificate for classes (dance, art, cooking, exercise, cake decorating) or pay for a sports camp. Or think big and make a deposit (or start) in a child’s 529 college savings plan.

Give the gift of membership to the gym, YMCA, community pool, favorite museum, the local zoo/aquarium, amusement/water parks, shooting range, golf course/driving range or local arts group.

Give the gift of technology: credit for online music service – iTunes, Rhapsody; subscriptions to Netflix, online backup program like Mozy or Carbonite; Ebook reader – Kindle, Nook; Gift card for Amazon or Barnes & Noble; Printer paper/ink, Gift card for getting digital photo/books printed (Snapfish, Shutterfly).

Give the gift of service: Car wash coupons; Oil change coupons; Car detailing service; Massages; Beauty treatments such as mani/pedi, hair cut and color; Housekeeping services; Outdoor chores such as snow shoveling/plowing, grass mowing, painting, gutter; Babysitting, gift certificate for a work session with a professional organizer (hint, hint - Andi Willis, http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ , glo@comsouth.net, 478-550-1969).

Give meaningful gifts: Framed photo of you and recipient; Specially written poem or story; Frame a childhood memory – school paper, painting; Digitize old photos, videos, slides; Make CD of photos from this year; Write them a card telling them what you love about them.

So how will you give clutter free this year?
______________________________
Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Meet You at Mistletoe Market!

2011-11-15T14:01:00.001-05:00

I feel a little bit like an elf this week as I am scurrying around finishing preparations for my booth at this weekend’s Mistletoe Market. I was honored to have a table at this event last year and it was so much fun! I loved seeing all the great products everyone was selling (I was located next to the CUTEST tutus!), visiting with friends and making new ones!

Me at my Good Life Organizing table at the 2010 Mistletoe Market

For those of you who don’t live in Middle Georgia, Mistletoe Market is a Christmas marketplace sponsored by the Balvaunuca Club. The club donates their proceeds from the sale to worthy community organizations. In 2010 they gave away $30,000! This year's event is being held in the McGill Marketplace at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry on November 18-20.

In addition to being a great cause, the Mistletoe Market is a fabulous place to get one-of-a-kind gifts for people on your list. I am very excited that this year in addition to sharing information on Good Life Organizing and my organizing services, I will also have for sale some wonderful organizing products from Extraordinary Organizing - unique and useful gifts like the Pouchee, a great little organizer for all the little bits and pieces floating around your purse, and the Clipa, a sturdy purse hanger to keep your purse off the bathroom floor! You can preview all of the items I will have for sale (in person and by orders) by clicking here .

The Pouchee

The Clipa

Another great gift item for someone who has everything or someone who just can’t get a handle on the crazy paper and information in their lives is the One Thing Book. See page 1 of the Extraordinary Organizing catalog. It is designed to help you find anything important you might need on a daily basis or in an emergency – passwords, vital records, financial and medical information, insurance and much more. This would also make a great gift for a young couple or family just starting out.

If you are interested in any of these items and can’t make it to the Mistletoe Market, please drop me an email at glo@comsouth.net or give me a call at 478-550-1969. I’d be happy to help you make your Christmas shopping simplified and organized!

_________________________________________________

Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit www.goodlifeorganizing.biz or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Holiday Traditions: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2011-11-01T14:15:00.001-04:00

Holiday traditions are fantastic but we all have some we love and others not so much. The thing about life is that as we go along, our life circumstances change and our family changes. Sometimes we don't adapt to those changes and it becomes difficult to keep up the traditions you’ve always had.

One of my all-time favorite Christmas card pictures of me and my parents!

For example my wonderful father passed away about two years ago and since then holidays are different for obvious reasons. Additionally my mom now spends the winter time in Florida where she works part-time at Disney World and plays tons of tennis and pickle ball. It is great fun for our family to visit but makes our holiday events different than before. When I was little, tons of family all gathered together for a huge holiday meal for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Thanksgiving was always a big production followed by an expedition to the mall for Black Friday. (Those were the days when you didn’t have to go shopping at midnight!)

Christmas Eve, 1981 (as my mom so nicely captioned the picture) at my grandparents' home

Now we are trying to find our new normal and in doing so we are making some great new traditions. For the last two years we've gone to my mom’s house in Florida for Thanksgiving and some good friends come with their daughter and we share the holiday together. Over the past two years we have gone into Disney World for part of the day and then come back home for our ‘feast’. Two years ago we made a really simple turkey in the crockpot (bone-in turkey breast with packet of onion soup mix – yummo!) and my dear friend Melanie made me my first risotto. Delish! Last year Melanie came with a really yummy Walnut Pesto Turkey (check out Rachel Ray for the recipe- http://dld.bz/awY6Z ) - again a break from the traditional turkey and stuffing but it works for us.

The new normal - casual fun with friends

So this year when you're planning your holidays, ask yourself, “Why are we doing things the way we are? Is it something that we truly love and our family embraces or is it just something that we have always done?” If your traditions have become more of a burden than a joy, consider adapting your holiday events to your family's new normal. While I deeply miss my father’s presence at every family get-together, I know he is there in spirit and he is happy that we are enjoying ourselves no matter what.

***************************

Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

What's Your Legacy?

2011-10-07T19:16:00.004-04:00

Do you think your legacy to your children/grandchildren will be your possessions? Probably not. What will mean the most to them are the memories. In going through some old photos of my grandmother's, my mom and aunt found a handwritten timeline of her life - every move, every birth, every major milestone. What a treasure to find! Along with the many photos of our family throughout years are her legacy to our entire family.

(This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandmother when she was in college - what a looker!)

***********
Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

How 20 Pounds Changed My Life - Instantly!

2011-09-26T12:30:00.001-04:00

This weekend was a typically busy one. House cleaning, events, kids’ birthday parties, a new dog… Wait, a new dog! That’s not typical, nor was it very planned. That is so not my style!

With some time to kill while the kids were at a birthday party, my husband suggested we stroll through PetSmart. After appropriately bantering about the birds and rodents, we ended up at the adoption area. We loved on the kittens and then made our way to the dogs where the biggest pair of brown eyes looked up at me and said “Mommy, take me home!”

The newest member of our family, Joie, with the kids

Now I am usually a sap when it comes to kittens and puppies but I generally can walk away. But this time was different. To make a long story short, we came home with Joie, a 4 month old black lab mix with the sweetest disposition and, of course, the sweetest pair of eyes around!

But now reality is setting it. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a puppy and I forgot how much work they are. The trips outside to sniff every scent in the yard before doing her business, the food preparation, the long scratches behind the ears - all things that now need to be placed into my family’s already packed schedule.

So how can we make this 20 pound ball of fluff a part of our family with the minimum disruption? Firstly, I have to stop trying to do “one more thing” before I take her out. That ends up costing me more time because I have to clean the rug from her little “oops.” Secondly, every member of our household has to take responsibility for her and share the chores (Mom cannot nor will not do it all!). Thirdly, I need to budget longer time for getting ready and out the door in the morning.

A new family member whether it be human or canine or feline requires attention, time and energy. A few adjustments to your schedule go a long way to making the transition easier. Check back with me in a week and I’ll let you know how it’s going!

How Will You Stay In Touch?

2011-09-13T12:16:00.001-04:00

September is National Preparedness Month. For more information, visit ready.gov .

In our ultra-in-touch world of texts, Facebook messages and emails (among other things), it seems unfathomable that there might come a time when we cannot contact our loved ones. After Hurricane Katrina when friends and families were split up and evacuated to separate locations, reuniting was a major issue. Recent natural disasters including an earthquake and a hurricane severely limited my communications with loved ones in Virginia. Cell phone systems were overwhelmed, with no power cell phones and laptops went uncharged and phone dependent on electricity didn’t work. Luckily I was able to communicate with my loved ones and make sure they were okay but what if I couldn’t contact them.

Emergency preparedness experts suggest having a family communication plan. Ready.gov suggests the following steps to making your own family communication plan. For more detailed information and a downloadable family emergency plan, visit http://www.ready.gov/america/makeaplan/

1. Pick an out of town relative to be a point of contact in case your immediate family gets separated.

2. Be sure every member of your family has this relative’s phone number and other vital information and has a way to contact them (cell phone, prepaid calling card, text messaging).

3. Be sure every family member knows how to text. Texting uses less cell phone service resources than calling which might be vital if cell service is limited.

4. Subscribe to alert services. My town recently implemented an emergency weather system that can call or email me when bad weather is on the way. Check out what your community has to offer. Some online weather site will email you when certain weather watches or warnings are implemented in your areas.

I would add a 5th point to this plan. If you still have a land-line in your home, make sure you have a corded phone that can operate without electricity. This way if your power is out and your cell phone isn’t working, you might have another way to contact the outside world.

--------

You might be asking what this has to do with organizing. Well, you have to get your papers, yourself and your family organized to more easily make it through an emergency! As Jone Scott, Oklahoma Service Unit Representative, Salvation Army said in Judith Kolberg’s Organizing for Disaster, “It is not just about having a disaster kit. All the duct tape and plastic sheeting in the world may not protect you. You have to get organized!.”

********************************************

Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

A Few Of My Favorite Things - Part II

2011-09-02T14:28:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I began telling you about a few of my favorite organizing products. Here's a few more for you!

Kitchen

One of the scariest places in the home might just be the kitchen utensil drawer. Spatulas and measuring spoons get tangled up with vegetable peelers and kitchen shears. A great product called DrawerDecor solves this problem with an adjustable system that adapts to your space and your utensils. See my recent utensil drawer renovation here

.

Another frightening place is the freezer, especially if you have a narrow side by side freezer like I do. I suggest buying inexpensive stacking bins from your local supercenter or dollar store to help tame the freezer fright!

Home Office

Whether you are overrun by mail, childrens’ school papers or both, setting up a command center in your kitchen or home office will help you get control over that all that paper. The first step is to have a calendar to record all of your family events and obligations. Next have an inbox where mail or papers can live until you have time to process them. Then schedule a time to deal with the papers! Having a trash can and a shredder nearby can help with a quick sort to reduce the amount of papers you need to deal with. Finally having an action file will help you sort the remaining papers into categories such as To Do (RSVP for Suzy’s birthday party , call about insurance claim), To Pay (bills, field trips), Events to Attend (invites can go here instead of on your fridge), Pending (holding place for rebates and insurance forms while in processing limbo ) and whatever else fits your lifestyle. Now just be sure to schedule time to do the ‘To Dos’ and ‘To Pays’ in your weekly schedule.

Cord chaos can overwhelm a home office. iPod charging cords, cell phone chargers, extra headphones get tangled in a drawer or lost. Having one central location – a box or a dedicated drawer - to store these items will be helpful. Also labeling each cord and placing it in an individual ziptop bag will help to. See my video of how to do this here.

Bathroom

Space in bathrooms and other small spaces is always at a premium. Using over-the-door storage utilizes this highly underused real estate. You can use containers that go over your cabinet doors to store hair dryers and flat irons. Larger organizers like these super cute ones from Simply Stashed are great for storing hair supplies and extra supplies. They would also work well in a child’s bedroom to hold socks, underwear, hair bows. When you go to the Simply Stashed website to order yours, be sure to enter the coupon code GOODLIFE for a special discount!

The Rest of Your Life

Make going to the grocery store a little bit easier and a little bit greener by using the Tote Buddy. Dubbed ‘The World’s First Reusable Bag Organizer™’, the Tote Buddy makes it super easy to hold, store and shop with your reusable shopping bags. I LOVE mine and take it with me every time I go grocery shopping.

One last product I’d like to tell you about is the Grid-It (Page 15 of EO catalog). This amazing little hold-it-all gadget has a unique weave of rubberized elastic bands designed to hold all those bits and pieces that might get lost in your purse, backpack or car. I am getting one for my husband to carry back and forth to work. Truly genius!!

I hope you’ve enjoy a look at a few of my favorite organizing things. What are YOUR favorite things to organize with?

********************************
Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/ or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things - Part I

2011-09-01T14:00:00.002-04:00

Last week I was invited by my polite and posh friend Kate T. Lewis (http://www.katetlewis.com/) to do a lunch and learn for her office of speech, physical and occupational therapists. When we discussed what the ladies would like to hear about, we decided that a show and tell of organizing products would be so much fun. And it was!

So I loaded up my laundry basket (a favorite tool for hauling lots of smaller objects) and took a few of my favorite organizing things to their office. Here are some of the highlights of the things we talked about.

Closet

One of the quickest makeovers you can give your closet is to use all the same kind of hangers. Being consistent in hanger style and color adds a calming appeal to a closet that might be otherwise chaotic. An added bonus would be to purge unwanted, outdated, ill-fitting or stained clothing as you change hangers. I like the Real Simple Slimline Hangers from Bed, Bath and Beyond. They come in a variety of colors and styles to fit your individual preferences.

Another item I love to use in closet are 3M Command Hooks. These versatile hooks are great for hanging robes, hats and purses on available wall space or on the back of a door.

Purse

A daily source of stress to almost every woman is finding her keys in the bottom of her purse. Luckily there are a variety of great and really cute products to help keep your purse in order.

A purse organizer is the first order of business. The Pouchee comes in a variety of styles and colors has tons of pockets for the pens, phones, lipstick and gum that usually float around your bag. This product is available through Extraordinary Organizing (page 3 of the EO catalog) .I’m proud to say that I am now a consultant for EO and can help you get your Pouchee!

Two other great products that Extraordinary Organizing carries help with the purse problem. One is the Finder’s Key Purse (page 4 of EO catalog) which is a little hook that attaches to your key ring and hangs on the edge of your purse or bag. How great not to have to dig for your keys!!

The other is a purse hanger known as the Clipa (pg. 5 of EO catalog). This instant purse hanger is very attractive and attaches right to your purse strap for ready access when you want to hang your handbag on the edge of the table or a bathroom sink - keeps your beautiful bag off the dirty floor!

Finally I recommend carrying an envelope in your purse. This envelope is great for carrying gift cards and corralling receipts while you are out and about. I use a polyvinyl envelope that I picked up from an office supply store. It’s durable and won’t dissolve into a pile of scraps in the bottom of my purse like a paper envelope would.

Whew, and that's not all. Stay tuned for Part II!

***********************************
Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit www.goodlifeorganizing.biz or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook (www.fb.com/goodlifeorganizing).

Are You Ready?

2011-08-29T10:00:00.003-04:00

This weekend has been a worrisome one for me. Hurricane Irene, while not dropping a single drop of rain or bringing a gust of wind to Middle Georgia, has threatened the homes and lives of most of my immediate family. My mother had to evacuate her waterfront home and while her abode is okay, the home of some dear family friends just 3 blocks away was hit by a hurricane-spawned tornado and has suffered major, possibly irreparable damage.

As many people up and down the East Coast have had to contend with TWO natural disasters this week, first a rare earthquake and now a hurricane, it brings to the forefront of all our minds the importance of emergency preparedness. When people think of preparing for a natural disaster, thoughts turn to milk and bread from the store, water in the tub and porch furniture secured. Yes, these are important steps but consider what else needs to be taken into account. What about your important documents (deeds, birth certificates), account numbers (insurance, banking) and precious heirlooms (pictures, baby shoes)?

September is National Emergency Preparedness Month. Over the next month I plan to read Judith Kolberg’s Organize for Disaster: Prepare Your Family and Your Home for Any Natural or Unnatural Disaster. I will be sharing ideas and resources for you to get your family and home more prepared in the face of a disaster. Too late, I know, for preparing for Hurricane Irene but we can all be a little more prepared for the next big (or small) one.

How do you get ready for an impending disaster (ice storm, hurricane)? How do you react when a sudden disaster (earthquake, tornado) hit? Please share your ideas and experiences.

Wondering About the Wedding Dress

2011-08-16T09:50:00.002-04:00

This weekend I did something that would make many ladies cringe – I disassembled my wedding dress. "What?!?!," I hear you saying? For several years I have contemplated what to do with my wedding dress which I wore over 18 years ago.

On our wedding day 18 years ago - We look like babies!

On one hand I love it and what if my daughter wants to use it someday. On the other hand it was never properly cleaned and preserved (it has unremovable wine stains), it takes up an enormous amount of room in the closet and by the time my daughter is old enough to possibly wear it, the dress will be horribly out of style. Then one day I stumbled upon a blog post by Andrea at Simple Organized Living where she chronicled the deconstruction of her wedding dress. I had an A-HA moment. That’s what I should do.

Like most big decisions in my life (yes, I consider taking scissors to my wedding dress a major decision!), I let the idea percolate in my brain for a while. I talked to my husband and daughter about it. Both were supportive and my 11 year old daughter has been pestering me to do it ever since. And like other big projects I proceeded in small enough steps to make myself feel comfortable. Last weekend I got the dress out of the closet and looked at it closely to see what I would need to complete the task.

Before the deconstruction

Then this weekend I took seam ripper to seams and scissors to fabric and de-created my wedding dress. So I went from a large hanging garment bag to a small manageable pile of fabric, lace and beads. The only thing left to do is to find a good archival storage container in which to keep the fabric. My hope for the future is that my daughter can use part of the fabric in her wedding ensemble or perhaps it can be incorporated into a baptism gown for a future grandchild (way, way in the future!!).

The bodice and skirt have been separated

My daughter Lauren with the bodice. She hovered nearby during the entire process.

This is what is left. I disposed of the cheap under fabric and netting but kept the outer fabric,
bows and my veil that my mother made.

In all, I feel much better about this process than I originally thought I would. Like many things, the fear of the act was much worse that the act itself.

What have YOU done with your wedding dress?

Dealing With The Hoard

2011-08-08T11:27:00.001-04:00

When I first began investigating becoming a Professional Organizer, one of the areas that really interested me was chronic disorganization and hoarding. As I have learned over the past year and a half, you have to have a lot of specialized training and experience to properly work with the chronically disorganized and hoarders. So I’ve set forth to educate myself by taking classes through the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, reading books such as Judith Kolberg’s excellent Conquering Chronic Disorganization and talking with other organizers who work with the chronically disorganized.

One of the most interesting sources of in-the-trenches kind of information comes from blogs of children of hoarders who are now faced with the cleaning out of their parents’ overflowing possessions. For the most part, these are people who are going through the back-breaking, heart-wrenching work by themselves while chronicling it for the rest of us. I thought I’d share a few of my favorite finds with you. If you know of any other great blogs, please share them.

Tetanus Burger
My Mother-In-Law Is Still Sitting Between Us

The Stuff Project
The Hoarder’s Daughter
Hoarder’s Son
While reading these posts can, at times, feel somewhat voyeuristic, they provide great insight into the family dynamics that are created by “the stuff.” If someone says, “my stuff isn’t hurting anyone else,” these blogs will make you beg to differ.

--------------------------------------------------

Andi Willis is the owner and Chief Organizing Officer for Good Life Organizing. She is passionate about helping people find creative solutions to organizing their homes and simplifying their lives. From bedrooms to playrooms, home offices to kitchens, no project is too large or too small to tackle. Working with clients from busy moms to busy executives, Andi can help you get past the clutter and get on with your life!

For more information, please visit http://www.goodlifeorganizing.biz/or contact Andi at glo@comsouth.net or (478) 550-1969. For daily tips, techniques and information to simplify your life, please “Like” Good Life Organizing on Facebook.

Phone Book Mayhem

2011-07-18T13:06:00.000-04:00

I recently had a client who had a bit of a phone book/yellow pages problem. In clearing out one hall closet we came across AT LEAST 15 yellow pages and phone books, some at least 4 years old. Yikes!

I sometimes think people feel that they have to hold on to all yellow pages and phone books just because they are delivered to their homes. But honestly, tell me how often you look up a business in the yellow pages? While I don’t know the exact statistics, I can bet it’s very infrequently. With most of that information available digitally on the internet or our smart phones, I believe paper phone books will soon become a thing of the past.

How can YOU avoid being a phone book junkie? You can opt-out of receiving your local yellow pages and phone books by visiting the National Yellow Pages Service Association’s opt-out site www.yellowpagesoptout.com .

When you visit the site it will ask for your zip code and then reveal the phone books that are typically delivered to your area. In order to opt-out of getting these publications you have to register which includes entering your name, address, phone number and a valid email. The website will then send you a registration email with your temporary password. Using that password and your registered email address you can then log back on and select the publications you don’t want to receive. If for some reason you actually want more copies of a phone book, you can request that here as well. The disclaimer states that changes can take 6-12 weeks and with several books do for distribution in October now would be the perfect time to make some changes.

So downsize those phone books. It will be one (or 2 or 3) less thing you have to find a home for! And be sure to recycle the old ones!

Back To School Shopping

2011-07-14T08:37:00.000-04:00

I just went back-to-school shopping with my 8 year old son. It was fun to spend the day just the two of us, eating at his favorite sandwich shop, buying school supplies and clothes and catching a movie, too. But before we could go shopping we had to do a very important task – we had to go through his dresser and closet and look at ALL of his clothes.

This was an extremely important step in the process. Why? Because:

1) My son is a horrible folder of clothes. Actually it is more that he just shoves the nicely folded clothes in the drawers to the point that you can’t recognize anything. So this process helped us neaten up his drawers – at least for now!

2) We got rid of over 25 pieces of clothing that were worn out or too small for my ever-growing bean pole! They went straight into the donation bag and are ready to leave the house. Not only are we blessing others with these clothes, but we are making room for new ones.

3) I now know exactly what clothes my son has so I can tell if there are any excesses or gaps in his vast wardrobe of t-shirts and basketball shorts. I can firmly tell you that he does NOT need any more red jackets! Good heavens, the child has at least 5 in different weights and styles. No more!!

4) Most importantly, we did it together. He had a say in what stayed and what went. At 8 he is becoming more observant about what he wears and how it fits him. Teaching him the process of deleting before adding is a great life lesson.

All in all it was a wonderful experience and a great day. The highlight was when we were driving in the car and he was telling me that I should do a commercial for my business. At the end of his 10 minute description of “my” commercial, he declared “I might be a professional organizer when I grow up. I’m really good at it!” Ah, it melts a mother’s heart! Now if only he could just develop the perfect Lego organizer...

Tackling the Kitchen Utensils

2011-07-12T09:30:00.001-04:00

Ah, the kitchen drawer... so full of useful items, so often a complete mess! My kitchen utensil drawers were mildly organized at one time, probably 3 years ago when we first moved into our current home. Recently every time I went looking for the pizza cutter or the vegetable peeler, I thought "I've really got to do something about this!"

BEFORE - Smaller Utensil Drawer

BEFORE - Large Utensil Drawer
YIKES!! I didn't realize how bad it was until I took this picture!

Then The Daily Grommet, an online marketplace of fresh new products, posted a video (see it here) about a great drawer organizer called DrawerDecor. The DrawerDecor website describes the product as "the world's first infinetly customizable drawer organizing system." After watching the video and checking out the website I decided that I HAD to try it for myself (and my kitchen drawers).

Drawer Decor in the box

I ordered the Starter Kit that comes with a 14" x 20" silicone basemat, 5 large divitz, 5 small divitz and 5 T Divitz. The kits come in great fun colors too - red (which I ordered), sky blue, iris, tangerine and lime.

The DrawerDecor Starter Kit in Red

Love the caption on the label - "Smiling? Getting boxes in the mail makes us happy too. ;-)"

After doing the happy dance upon opening my DrawerDecor box, I got to work. I removed all the utensils from the 2 drawers I was going to tackle. I cleaned the drawers and started paring down my utensils. I mean the Mickey Mouse Pancake form is very cute, but even my husband who is a master pancake maker couldn't make it work well. I ended up getting rid of quite a lot of items that were broken, unusable or duplicates.

Next I trimmed the basemat to fit in the smaller of my two drawers. It is a slightly sticky silicone sheet that was very easy to cut to the correct size. Now the fun part began! I laid my most frequently used utensils on the basemat until I had a pleasing configuration. Then I added the divitz which hold the items in place (as does the stickiness of the basemat).

AFTER - Smaller Drawer - Utensil Heaven!!!!

The finishing touch was to label where each item goes. This will help hubby and the kids (and Mom when she visits) to return things to their homes.

Labels make everything better!

Here's the bigger drawer. I didn't use the DrawerDecor in there yet! But I recycled some drawer organizers from the smaller drawer to help in the process.

AFTER - Large Utensil Drawer - a definite improvement!

So needless to say I love the DrawerDecor kit. I think it will make a huge difference in the functionality of my kitchen. Even an organizer can use a little help sometimes!

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I was NOT compensated in any way for this testimonial/product review.)

Get Creative With Your Clutter

2011-07-06T15:12:00.000-04:00

Recently I had a clutter delimna that had been bothering me for a while. Like most problems, I find if I let it simmer in the back of my brain for a while, I will eventually come up with a solution.

Problem: Makeup and other supplies running rampant in my travel train case.

I use an old fashioned, hard-sided train case when I travel to carry my makeup and various other sundries. I love the sturdiness of the train case but with the exception of a small, shallow tray and a small zippered pouch, the rest of the case is just a big open rectangle. No matter how I arranged my things in the case, by the time I got to my destination everything was a big jumbled mess! What's a girl to do?

Solution: Use adjustable drawer organizer to containerize

I had leftover drawer dividers (From Lillian Vernon) from organizing my sock drawer. Because they are trimmable (you just break off the pieces to the desired length), you can customize them to the area you are trying to organize. I chose a single center piece with 3 cross pieces so I ended up with 8 compartments.

Now everything has a home.

When we went away for the recent long weekend, I was so excited when we arrived at our hotel and everything was still in its home. Yay! I even did a little happy dance. Little things like this make me happy!

How can you get creative with your clutter?

Being There For Each Other - Or What I Learned from Last Night's Hoarders

2011-06-21T09:16:00.000-04:00

Last night was the season premiere of Hoarders on A&E. I was so excited to watch because several of the “helper” organizers were organizer friends of mine from NAPO Georgia. If you watched the episode, they worked on the doll lady’s home and were the ones in the pink shirts. Under the guidance of master organizer Geralin Thomas they did a wonderful job helping Phyllis with her overrunning collection of dolls and toys. If you missed the episode, you can watch it here.

The story that struck the greatest chord with me was Janet, the older woman who was living in squalor that extreme cleaner Cory Chalmers described as worse than some homeless people. What really bothered me was the fact that this woman had 9 children and yet she lived like this. If you watched the show you know there is some serious family dysfunction there and I am sure there is a pretty major back story that we aren’t privy too.

What this situation called to mind is having a support system. Do you have a support system? - Family or friends that would come looking for you if you didn’t show up for an event, people who could lend a hand in a tight situation. The situation doesn’t need to be as extreme as Janet’s but even having someone who supports you while you meet your goals.

And of course, having someone who is a support person for the elderly is exceptionally important. Janet was living without heat and running water. In the South today the temperature is supposed to reach over 100 degrees! How many of our elderly don’t have air conditioning?

So the moral of this blog is let’s all watch out for each other in situations big and small. We can only be better for it.

Donate Your Shoes, Please

2011-06-15T14:46:00.000-04:00

I am very happy to announce that along with my colleagues at NAPO Georgia I am participating in the NAPO Challenge with Soles4Souls, a nonprofit organization that accepts donated shoes in any condition and then uses them to help people all over the world.

Why are shoes important? Having footwear is a first step in helping people in impoverished areas to live healthy, productive lives. Footwear can help eliminate the spreading of diseases through the foot as well as help children obtain an education, as many schools have footwear requirements to attend. For more info on the specifics of how Soles4Souls works, see their FAQs.

So over the next 6 months I will be collecting new and used shoes as part of this drive. I’ll have more information soon, but for right now, if you have shoes in your house that you don’t use, can’t use or don’t like, will you please set them aside for me? The feet of the world will thank you!

Why Get Organized? It’s All in the Numbers.

2011-06-14T09:14:00.001-04:00

Sure, it would be nice to organized, right? But who has the time or energy to actually accomplish it. Consider these statistics and then decide.

• We only use 20% of our belongings 80% of the time! This includes clothes, household items and paper we’ve filed. That means most of the stuff in our homes goes unused consistently. (Source: NAPO.net)

• Getting rid of excess clutter can eliminate 40% of housework in the average home. Who wouldn’t like to have less housework? (Source: National Soap and Detergent Association)

• The average American burns 55 minutes a day looking for things they know they own but cannot find. That’s over 6 hours a week, 28 hours a month or 341 hours a year! Sounds like a problem to me! (Source: Boston Marketing Firm)

• 25% of people with two-car garages don’t park any cars in there and 32% parked only one. Your car is probably your biggest investment outside of your house and instead of putting it the garage you are storing “stuff” in there. (Source: US Department of Energy)

• 23% of adults say they pay bills late (& thus incur fees) because they lose them. Can you afford to throw that money away? (Source: Harris Interactive)

• 80% of household clutter is the result of disorganization, not lack of space. Decluttering and organizing will give you a better living space and a better life.(Source: National Soap and Detergent Association)

Small changes can lead to big results when it comes to organizing your home, your office and your life. Why not try one today?

Organizing Your Summer Vacation

2011-05-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

I have just returned from a weekend trip to Savannah with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop. As the troop leader, it was my responsibility to make all of the arrangements and reservations and then make sure we got where we needed to be when we needed to be there. Doing this with a group of eight 5th grade girls sometime felt like herding cats at times, but I digress.

It’s a trip such as this one or your upcoming vacation that underscores the need to be organized when you travel. I suggest getting a bright colored folder to use for all your travel. For this trip I found a vinyl folder at Wal-Mart with 3-holed prongs in the center and pockets on each flap. One side even had an extra envelope type pocket that was great for storing receipts. The reason I suggest a bright colored folder is that is much easier to find in the depths of your tote bag or on the floor of your car. In this folder you can put all the printouts of confirmations your hotel reservations, flight plans or maps and any other relevant travel information you may need. Having a single place to look for all the details was a life-saver this weekend!

So before you head out on your summer vacation, take a few minutes to organize your travel documents. Then have a great time!

Video Game Invasion

2011-05-25T07:59:00.000-04:00

Is your home overrun by video games – the cases, the discs and cartridges, the game systems themselves and the peripheral equipment? I have a client that whose house seemed overrun by video games. She has a teenage and a preteen son as well as a husband who love to game and in fact own at least 3 gaming systems. It is not an exaggeration when I say hundreds of game cases littered almost every room of the home. When I asked if the boys played all of these games, the answer was an emphatic “No!” What should you do in this situation?

For my client I suggested gathering up all the unused games and systems and taking them to a gaming store, such as GameStop, that buys used games and systems. My client rallied the troops and they took an enormous number of games to the store, making enough money to buy many new games that they had wanted. The bonus for my clients was much fewer green and white plastic boxes floating around, gathering dust and getting broken.

Another option is more philanthropic. Consider donating your used games and systems to local children’s hospitals, abused children’s centers or battered women’s shelters. These types of places are struggling for funding but also need to entertain the children they serve. The Get-Well Gamers Foundation works to bring video games to children’s hospitals. You can also donate your gently used games and gaming consoles to the US Military troops through organizations such as Fun For Our Troops.

So make it a summer project for the kids and do something with all those unused games. Just another step to get past the clutter and get on with your life!

Things I Learned from My Parents

2011-05-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

Me and My Parents - just a few years ago! :-)

Like most kids I never understood the chores and rules my parents gave me. Why did I have to fold the laundry right away (or at all)? Why did I need to go to bed before midnight on a school night? Frequently these felt arbitrary and irrational to my teenage mind.

However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that doing things in a certain order or at a particular time actually does make sense. Hmm, who knew that Mom actually did know what she was talking about? As Marie von Ebner-Eschenback said, “in youth we learn, in age we understand.” Here’s just a few of the revelations of daily household chores that I now truly understand.

Make the Bed Every Day - I admit this one took me a while to embrace. It truly seemed like a non-necessary repetitive task. Then I went to college and lived in a small dorm room. More accurately, I lived on my bed. This is where I slept, studied, ate, watched TV and visited with my friends. After a few weeks at school I realized that I really didn’t want food crumbs and dirt in my sheets. Yuck! That was a turning point in my bed-making revolt.

Now as an adult I don’t use my bed for quite so many activities but I still make it every day. I love having a nicely made bed in my bedroom. It looks finished and clean and it makes my bedroom feel calm which is what your bedroom should be. Consider that your bed is likely the largest single surface in your bedroom. No matter what kind of other chaos is going on in your room, your house or your life, when your bed is made, at least there is one point of calm in all the craziness.

Empty the Trash Can - Taking out the trash is probably one of the most universally despised chores. Let’s face it, it stinks – literally! As a child on the night before trash pickup my dad would hand me a bag and instruct me to empty the small trash cans all over the house. Whining usually ensued at this point.

Now as an adult, having an empty trash can actually makes me smile. Try this experiment. Grab a garbage bag and walk around your house emptying all your small trash cans. Again, like the making bed having an empty trash can will bring a sense of tranquility to your home at least until next candy wrapper gets thrown away.

Hang Up Your Clothes - Sometimes in the middle of doing laundry my mom would have leave to run errand. She would tell me that there were clothes in the dryer that needed to be folded when the buzzer rang. Again, complaining and eye rolling commenced. At the young tender age of 16 I thought it was great if the clothes just made it in the laundry basket!

When I got married and had to launder my husband’s work shirts, I finally realized the genius in dealing with the laundry now. If I didn’t take the shirts out of the basket quickly, they were wrinkled and I had to iron them which is truly one of my least favorite chores. But if I put them on the hangers quickly, there were no wrinkles. The moral of the story is to fold or hang the laundry quickly to save yourself more work later. If you are one of that rare breed that enjoys ironing, feel to ignore my advice and wrinkle to your heart’s content!

Part of my goal in my business, Good Life Organizing, is to help people find ways to simplify their lives, whether it be through decluttering their possessions or finding better ways to complete their daily tasks. If doing these few simple tasks can improve your quality of life, then my job here is done!

Living in a Box

2011-05-14T09:21:00.000-04:00

Do you ever think, "if I only had more space, I would live more comfortably?" This man lives incredibily in a 258 sq. foot apartment. It is so ingenius I wanted to share it with you. (Thanks to Erin Doland of Unclutter.com for sharing this on her blog.)

It reminds me a lot of the paring down experience my parents went through when they moved full time into their RV. Every inch is precious and every space must pull double duty. Every item MUST have a home and be returned there when you are finished with it. If only we would apply this concept to our "normal" size homes, I think we would realize that we have WAY more than we need and simplifying would truly make things better!

Finding the Perfect Purse

2011-05-05T09:19:00.000-04:00

Ladies, I think this may be the eternal quest – finding the perfect purse – that elusive beast that can contain our lipgloss, tissues, keys and various sundries that seem to be required throughout the day while still looking cute and fashionable and sized somewhat smaller than an ocean liner. Not to be smug, but I think I may have found IT!

A few weeks ago I was shopping at Kohl’s, one of my favorite haunts, and I was looking for a small purse for a vacation. I struck out on the small purse but out of the corner of my eye, this beauty caught my eye – a giraffe print bag with a just right handles and just right pockets. The large outside pocket will easily hold my Nook or the iPad and I can even put a large water bottle inside the purse and still zip it shut!

LOVE IT!!

The only thing wrong with it, in my mind at least, was the center of the purse was just one large open space. I generally shy away from big sack-like purses because there is no way to organize and later find my things. Luckily for me and this lovely satchel I had recently found a solution to this problem.

When I attended the National Association of Professional Organizer’s recent national conference and expo, I met a lovely lady name Lyn Marsteller who has designed a dream product for women AND their handbags. The Purse Perfector is a purse organizer that according to the website “adapts to all your purses, handbags and totes for all parts of your life.” This great little organizer packs a wollop for its size.

The Purse Perfector - Large, Black/Berry

Check out all the “stuff” that was in my purse before.

What IS all that stuff?

And now look at all the “stuff” afterwards.

The only things that didn't fit where my sunglasses and receipt enevelope which go in the outstide pocket anyway.

I purchased the large size Purse Perfector because I wanted to be able to fit my large wallet into it, but the slightly smaller size works just as well. I love being able to get my hands on my lip gloss at a moment’s notice, I love the bright colored interior which helps me find it in the bottom of my bag and I love that I can easily move the Purse Perfector from one purse to another.

Everything has a home in my purse

Not that I’m going to do that anytime soon, because I know have the perfect bag inside and out! Can you hear the smile?

Shoes for a Better World

2011-04-22T10:28:00.000-04:00

Here’s a question for you. How many pairs of shoes do you have in your closet - 5, 10, maybe even 50? I am sure there is a wide range of responses out there. But what if your answer to this question was zero? It is staggering to think that in this day and age and with the level of western consumerism that there are people in the world who do not own a pair of shoes, either because of poverty or natural disaster. Big deal you might say, I love to go barefoot. But what if you lived in a regional that had parasites in the soil and by going barefoot you were leaving yourself exposed to sickness? What if you wanted to attend the local school but you had to wear shoes to do so? In essence, a good pair of shoes is invaluable to some people in certain parts of the world. They can change a person’s life.

At the recent National Association for Professional Organizer’s convention in San Diego, I was introduced to one of the most wonderful non-profit organizations I’ve ever come in contact with – Soles4Souls (http://www.soles4souls.org/). Soles4Souls was awarded with the NAPO Organizing Excellence Award in the field of community service. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has been dedicated to distributing new and gently used “shoes to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria” in over 125 countries. To date they have provided over 13 million pairs of schools to people all over the world and currently they are distributing a pair of shoes every 7 seconds!

With millions of people around the world in need of shoes, it is truly disheartening to learn that every year Americans will throw way more than 300 million pairs of shoes. (US Dept. of Interior). With Earth Day, I challenge you to change this statistic. Visit http://www.soles4souls.org/about/locations.html to find local official drop-off locations. At the NAPO conference Soles4Souls Executive Vice President David Graben challenged the NAPO membership to collect 1 million pairs of shoes before our next conference in March 2012. Personally I will be collecting new and gently-used shoes from clients and friends over the next few months and the local NAPO Georgia chapter will be hosting shoe drives in various locations around the state.

Won’t you help make the world a better place – one pair of shoes at a time?

Step Away From the Screen

2011-04-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

Did you know that April 18-24 is National Screen-Free Week? According to the website www.commercialfreechildhood.org/screenfreeweek this “is a national celebration where children, families, schools and communities spend seven days turning off entertainment screen media and turning on life. It’s a time to unplug and play, read, daydream, create, explore and spend more time with family and friends.”

I’m not sure that it would be called a “celebration” in my household but the idea of no screen time sounds idyllic – talking to each other instead of texting from across the room, remembering just what color your child’s eyes are, enjoying the beauty of a spring day. These are all things we miss when we are lost in our iPod, Facebook and NetFlix.

Also think of the time we lose when we get lost in technology. It is an enormous time-suck on our time. Can’t get everything on your to-do list done? Maybe you need to evaluate how much time you are spending on Facebook and Twitter or just surfing the web. Even just unplugging for a small amount of time can gain you some “found” time in your day.

I don’t know that I am going to completely unplug this week but I am certainly going to be more aware of the time I spend in front of the computer and the TV. Maybe I’ll just spend more time in front of another screen – my screen door! Want to join me?

The Ghost in the Closet

2011-03-25T08:01:00.000-04:00

I have a coat. It’s a beautiful silver trench. I love it but I’ve never worn it. It still has the tags attached. I’ve owned it for almost 4 years. Why am I keeping it? If I were my own client, I would strongly encourage me to get rid of the coat. Usually I am so good at getting rid of items I no longer use, want or need but with this coat I have an issue. It has become the ghost in the closet.

This lovely coat came into my life in the spring of 2008 when I went on my semi-annual Girls’ Weekend shopping adventure with all my girlfriends in Pennsylvania. These outings were exciting because we were able to get out of our tiny little town without our children (between the 8 of us there were over 30 kids!), let off a little steam and refuel our wardrobes and our psyches. At the time I had a full-time job as the Executive Director of the Elk County Council on the Arts so my wardrobe was professional but creative. The coat was a perfect fit for that life!

Within a month of that trip my husband accepted a new job in Middle Georgia and I decided to transition back into being a full-time stay-at-home mom in order to help our kids through the transition. So I went from a wardrobe of slacks and heels to yoga pants and flip flops. The coat was no longer a smart wardrobe choice and yet I still moved it to Georgia with all intentions of wearing it.

In the past three years since we moved from Pennsylvania to Georgia, I have become a very active volunteer at my children’s school and started my own business but none of these activities seems conducive to wearing the coat. Many times I have looked at it as I went around the house collecting items for the latest donation run to Goodwill or the local church thrift store. Just recently I looked at it and thought, “Maybe it’s time. No, not yet.”

So what am I waiting for? I’m not really sure. I think the coat is beautiful, yet I haven’t worn it. Is it out of style now or where would I wear it? I feel guilty that I spent money on an item I’ve never worn.

What I’ve decided is that I need to give myself permission to let it go, reclaim that hanger in the closet and forgive myself for the loss of the money, time and friends the coat represents. It is amazing the power one garment can have on a person. Imagine if your home were filled with such powerful talismans. So with a heavy heart, I have taken it off the hanger and put it in my donation bag. I will let it go live another life with someone else and I will be freer for it. This sounds like excessively deep philosophizing for just a coat but remember it’s been the ghost in my closet. I’m ready to say goodbye now.

The Tale of A Weekend Shopping Trip

2011-03-14T08:55:00.000-04:00

This weekend I decided to treat myself to a little shopping trip. After all I had just visited a client who conveniently lived right by a great mall. It turned into a little me time on a beautiful spring day in Middle Georgia. Yay, me!

When I returned home with my new purchases, I had to face my closet and make the decision of where to put those super cute shoes and that sporty little cropped jacket. (To see a glimpse inside my closet, watch this short video ) I have a spot in my closet where I keep extra hangers and I realized that, GASP, I was down to only 3 extra hangers! What’s a girl to do? Easy, practice one in, one out. For every cute new top I needed to hang, I needed to get rid of something. So purge I did, getting rid of a vest I could never figure out what to wear it with, a top I never wore because its high neck felt like it was choking me and another top which was an old favorite but showing its age and needed to be retired. These were all decisions that I felt good about – cute new things in my closet, old things I no longer love in my donation bag.

Just a quick note about my donation bag - I always keep a box or a bag in my closet for cast-offs to be donated. Taking the advice of a fellow organizer I now keep a piece of paper and a pen attached to the bag so every time I drop in a new shirt, I can write it on the paper. Doing this in the moment creates an instant list of everything I will eventually donate. When my bag is full and I take it to the charity, I can now take the donation receipt from the charity, staple it to my list and place it in my tax file for the year. It is a very, very easy way to track those tax-deductible donations, because remember the IRS is now requiring a breakdown of these kinds of donations when claiming them on your taxes.

So the moral of this story is, take a little time for yourself and if it involves cute new clothes, be sure to purge when you merge the new items into your closet. Take time to organize your old clothes for others and in the end, everyone wins!

A Lesson on Organizing by Dr. Seuss

2011-03-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

Schools across the country celebrated the birthday of Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, last week. I was fortunate enough to be volunteering in the library at my children’s school this week on their Dr. Seuss day and was able to read two Dr. Seuss stories to several classes of 4th and 5th graders.

What struck me as I read through the tongue-tying riddles and clever catchphrases was that Dr. Seuss actually provides organization lessons for children (of all ages). In The Cat in the Hat the Cat and his minions Thing One and Thing Two make a complete mess of the children’s home - pots, dresses and fish thrown asunder. Just when the children are in their darkest despair of being caught by their mother for letting a strange feline in the house (an entirely different life lesson!), the Cat returns with his picking-up machine.

“I always pick up all my playthings

And so…

I will show you another

Good trick that I know!”

Then we saw him pick up

All the things that were down.

He picked up the cake,

And the rake, and the gown,

And the milk, and the strings,

And the book, and the dish,

And the fan, and the cup,

And the ship, and the fish.

And he put them away.

Then he said, “That is that.”

And then he was gone

With a tip of his hat.

(Dr. Seuss, The Cat In the Hat, 1957)

Hmmm, can we teach our children to do the same? The key here is that being organized does not mean that your home must be spotless at any given moment. With kids, that is an impossible task! The kids can pull every one of their toys of the toy box if they want. However, when play time is over, there MUST be a clean-up time when all the toys are returned to their homes. You must assign homes for these toys so the kids know exactly where to put them back. Depending on the ages of your children, you may have to assist them, or possibly you can invent your own picking-up machine!

So have fun with your kids!

You love them a lot,

But also teach them to clean

Up all the stuff that they’ve got!

Are You In the Weeds?

2011-02-28T08:18:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had a huge project that has monopolized ALL of your time? Or have you been so sick that you haven’t been able to keep up with your daily responsibilities? When you come out the other end, the list of things that haven’t been done can be huge and overwhelming, so how do you catch up?

First sit down with pen and paper or your computer if you’d rather and do a brain dump, writing down anything and everything that comes to your mind that needs to be done. When you are done, look at your list and prioritize what needs to be done first and foremost. (See my previous blog on to-do lists.) Then just started chipping away at the list. You may find that some items really truly don’t need to be done – life will go on without them.

Most importantly take a deep breath and realize that it will be okay and you will get caught up. We now return you to your regularly scheduled life.

The Secret Word

2011-02-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

We’ve been talking about how to better manage your time through the three step process – Prepare, Pass It On and Prioritize.

Today we arrive at the final step which is Prioritize. In order to implement this step you must learn a super-secret word…. Wait for it… you’ll never believe what it is… I know the suspense it intense…. And the word is “no.”

It’s amazing to think that this simple two letter word can make such a difference in your day. But think of it this way, when you saying “Yes” to tasks that others may give you, it often means you are saying “no” to your own priorities.

When new task presents itself to you, a volunteer job at your children’s school for example, ask yourself "What is the wisest and best use of my time right now and what do I have to remove from my schedule in order to make time for this?" And make a determination on whether you can add that task to your life right now.

Look at your to-do list that you have been creating and decide which tasks are necessary (laundry and grocery shopping are just a fact of life, sorry!) and which ones you truly enjoy or that bless your family or further your business. If they don’t fall into these categories, figure out what you can stop doing them or graciously say no to new project. You need to guard your time as a precious commodity. If you don’t, who will?

Remember the ever-stylish Coco Chanel said (and I am paraphrasing), Every day before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one thing. Apply that philosophy to your to do list – delegate task or just delete it all together. You’ll be happier for it.

So there you have it a three step plan to help you get better control of your time and your tasks.

1. Prepare through planning

2. Pass It on by delegating

3. Prioritize by learning to say No

Good luck! And enjoy your time!

Get It Done Through Delegation

2011-02-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

We’ve been talking about getting control of your time through a three step process of Prepare, Pass It On and Prioritize. Using a calendar or a planner and smart use of a to-do list helped us through the Prepare stage. Now let’s talk about the Pass It On step.

In the Prepare step you decided what you needed to accomplish at any given time. Now look at that list and decide what can be done by other people. In other words, what can you delegate? Women, in particular, tend to try to do it all – work, raise the kids, keep the house, run the errands, etc, etc….. This leads to overwhelm and burn-out.

What types of things can you delegate? Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

• noncreative, repetitive tasks that are done regularly – washing dishes, bookkeeping

• special projects done once or infrequently – planning a trip or researching a new software package

• tasks you aren’t good at or don’t enjoy – These are my FAVORITE things to delegate!

• tasks that zap your energy and time keeping you from more important tasks

In other words, your kids can make their own beds, your husband can stop by store on way home, hire out your ironing to a neighbor (I just made arrangements for a client to have this done and she was over the moon!) and your assistant can make your travel arrangements.

Once you have decided which items on your to-do list can be delegated to others, discuss the job with the person – what your expectations are and what the outcome should be. Provide training as necessary or at least be available to provide guidance as needed. And finally review and evaluate how the person has done, but don’t MICROMANGE!!! For some this is most difficult part of process. To delegate we have to give up control and our sense of perfection and we also have to ask for help, both of which are difficult. You might be great at doing delegating at work but not at home. However, if you can implement it at home as well it can really take a huge chunk out of your to do lists.

A small example of the delegation process is when I decided it was time for my then 7-year old son to make his own bed every day. One day I told him I wanted him to help me make his bed and we walked through the process – pull up the sheets, pull up the blankets, pull of the quilt, put the pillows on top, put your stuffed animals on top. Over the next few weeks we went from him helping me to him doing it himself. The hardest part of the process for me was letting him do it himself and trying to be happy with the final product because the bed made by a 7 year old doesn’t look like a bed out of Pottery Barn kids! I have learned to give up that piece of perfectionism and in doing so I am teaching him to be self-reliant and I have one less thing on my to-do list! Smiles all around (or at least for mom!)!

If you want to get your kids more involved in your daily to-do list, Kathy Peel, The Family Manager, has a great resource for age-appropriate chores - http://dld.bz/MNvW . By the way, Kathy’s website and books are great resources for a busy family.

So the final word on this step, is that you CAN’T do it all nor SHOULD you try to do it all! Delegate, delegate, delegate and pass it on! You’ll feel lighter for it!

Plan It with Your To-Do List

2011-02-11T09:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we talked about the importance of having one calendar or planner to record all of your appointments and obligations. Today I’ll talk a little about the second part of the planning/preparing process (say THAT 3 times fast!) in our time management discussion – the To-Do List.

There are really two kinds of to-do lists – a master to-do list and a daily to-do list. Things that would be on your master to-do list are large scale or long term projects that can be broken down into smaller steps, for instance, painting the living room. As a single to-do, it is overwhelming but when broken down into its smaller components, it’s not so bad. For example, your smaller steps that will eventually migrate to your daily to-do list might be:

1) Visit home store to pick out paint sample

2) Look at paint samples in living room

3) Decide on paint color

4) Review painting supplies and decide if new supplies are needed

5) Visit home store to buy paint and other necessary supplies

6) Decide when you will do the painting and schedule it on your calendar

7) On day of painting, move furniture away from walls getting help as needed

8) Clean walls and woodwork as necessary

9) Lay down drop clothes

10) PAINT!

11) Repeat #10 as necessary

12) Clean & store painting supplies

13) Return furniture to original position

14) Enjoy!

See, it’s not so overwhelming if you can focus on just 1 part of the entire process at a time. Small bites are always more easily digestible than huge gulps!

The second type of to-do list you will utilize is your daily to-do list. This is the list you reference every day (hopefully) to get what needs to be done, done - in other words the tasks of daily life (Buy milk, make doctor’s appointment, send present to sister) in addition to those smaller bites of your master to-do list. That being said your daily to-do list should not be 500 lines long!! That is just too much and you will feel overwhelmed and defeated before you even begin. Productivity experts have various techniques to keep your to-do lists under control. One way is to have no more than 7 items on your list every day. Seven seems to be a magic number; when you go over that, the craziness sets in! Another technique is to use a sticky note for your to-do list. If your list doesn’t fit on the note, the activities can’t fit in your life!

Once you figure out what needs to be done, figure out how long it will take you to do it and schedule in them in your planner. This is a very important part of the process. It allows you to focus on what is important to accomplish today, leaving other items to be done on another day. One easy way to do this is to group like tasks together – spend one hour a day making phone calls, 20 minutes 3x a day checking and responding to email, or plan to run your errands all at one time. This keeps you from having to change gears and it makes you more efficient. One quick note - if things will take two minutes or less to do, consider doing them right away. You waste at least that much time adding them to the list and worrying about them.

I am not saying to pack your day so tight that you don’t have time to take care of emergencies that might come up. Even most strict schedule needs a little flexibility. And a final note, spend 5-15 minutes at the end of each day to plan what you need to accomplish tomorrow – write tomorrow ’s to-do list. That way you can hit the ground running in the morning!

Plan It!

2011-02-10T09:07:00.000-05:00

As I wrote the other day, February is Time Management month. When we struggle with having enough time to do the things we need to accomplish in a day, it’s time to step back and take a look at how we use the time we are given. Remember we all have the same 24 hours!

My 3 step approach to time management is Prepare, Pass It on and Prioritize. Today we’ll talk about the first step – prepare.

The best way to prepare for your day/week/month/year is to plan! You need to plan what you are going to do at any given time. Think of it like this, you wouldn’t take a cross country trip without using your GPS or (gasp!) a road map. So there is no way to think you should proceed in life without a plan.

My number one suggestion in planning is to use a planner or a calendar. And when I say “a planner or calendar” I mean ONE planner/calendar for your entire life. Don’t have one for work and one for your personal life. They are intertwined and need to be together when you plan. If you are a stay-at-home mom and think, I don’t need a calendar/planner. My schedule is simple enough I can keep it in my head. Well, the truth is, you can’t. There is always something that will sneak up on you and you will forget. Be safe and write it down!

Your calendar or planner is where you need to record all of your appointments and obligations. It is also where you are going to schedule (yes, I said schedule) time to accomplish the items on your to-do list. (More on that tomorrow) When you are putting all of your obligations into your planner, be sure to coordinate with your significant others like your spouse, other family members and your co-workers. Often their schedules impact ours. I have to be aware of when my husband has scout meetings and weekend duty so I know how to plan my days.

What kind of planner or calendar you want to use is up to you. You can use a very simple paper calendar or a highly complex electronic planner on your smartphone. The key is finding what is best for you and your life style. Professional Organizer Val Sgro has an assessment tool that helps you determine which type would work for you. Her book Organize Your Family’s Schedule… In No Time has some great ideas on time management for your entire family.

The key is to have a calendar/planner and use it – daily! Keep up with it and it will help you keep up with your time. Tomorrow we’ll talk about the second part of the prepare through planning step – the infamous To-Do list!

February is Time Management Month

2011-02-08T09:18:00.000-05:00

Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a busy executive, we all share one distinct characteristic – we tend struggle with our time management skills. Time management is defined by Wikipedia as “a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals.” That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

The problem is is that time is elusive. It is notoriously hard to keep up with and it gets away from us. I mean, how many times have you been working at your desk and looked at the clock and thought “It’s 5 o’clock already?!?!? Where did my day go?” There never seems to be enough time – time to get our work done, time to spend with our family, time to take care of ourselves.

But consider this:

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."

from Life's Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

So what do these people have that we don’t? They were amazing people with ability to compartmentalize their lives and concentrate on what was important to them. With a few changes to your life you can take back control of your time and maybe, just maybe find more time in your life!

Over the next week I’ll share with you my three pronged approach for taking back control of your time. The three steps are Prepare, Pass it on, and Prioritize. If you can implement these steps, even on a small scale, you can reduce your overwhelm and take back your time!

I’d love to hear about your time management issues.

What Does Organized Mean to You?

2011-02-02T09:03:00.001-05:00

When you hear the word organized what do you think? Do you have images of a Martha Stewart perfect pantry with coordinated containers and space between each can? Or are your thoughts of organization more along the lines of “I just want to be able to find my car keys in the morning”?

What I am discovering the longer I work with clients in tackling their organizational issues is that the word “organized” means different things to everyone. Some people want that picture perfect, magazine cover home, while others just want the daily detritus to be under control. Just last week I have had one client who called me to help with her very disorganized children’s rooms and study area. I expected mass chaos – papers and today everywhere, but what I found a very neat home with a few small problem areas. But the client wants everything in its place and neatly ordered – her idea of organized. Another client is drowning in paper and just wants to be able to find the article or paper when she needs it. She is not concerned with anything matching or look picture perfect. Again, this is HER idea of organized.

People often say to me, as an aside, “I bet your house is super-organized.” Well, you know what, it is organized, but I’m not type-A organized. I know where thing are and my children can easily access and put away what they need. To me, that is organized. That’s not to say that chaos and clutter don’t creep in occasionally (okay, more that occasionally). That’s when I rally the troops and we tackle everything.

I am definitely of the state of mind that “good enough” IS, in fact, good enough. My family neither needs or will they maintain a system where all of our DVDs and video games are categorized and alphabetized. We are happy with two baskets in the entertainment center, one for DVDs and one for Wii games. Things have a home and we have routine/schedule that we stick to for the most part.

Just as everyone has different tastes in food, clothes and music, we all also have our own sense of what organized means to us. So what do being organized look like in your mind? Inquiring minds want to know!

Stop Procrastinating and Just Do It!

2011-01-23T19:19:00.000-05:00

Today I did something I’ve never done before. I made an instructional video. OK, maybe video is a high brow word for the 1:58 long talk I gave in my closet in front of my husband who was taping it with his iPod but this was homework of a sort from my professional organizer friends and I needed to do it before I see them on Tuesday.

As I’ve said before January is Get Organized Month as declared by the National Association of Professional Organizers (http://www.napo.net/ ). The Georgia chapter of NAPO (http://www.napogeorgia.com/) decided to have members make instructional/informative videos on getting organized as our collective GO Month activity. Since January is almost over and we are having our chapter meeting on Tuesday, I figured I better stop procrastinating. Yes, even professional organizers do that too!

I wanted to talk about organizing a closet, just a few quick tip and hints to tame the chaos that rules so many of our closets. First let me say that I love my closet. It is a very big walk in closet that I share with my husband. It is the biggest closet I’ve ever had, by far! My last closet was about 24 inches wide so now I am in heaven with shelves and rods galore! But did I really want to make a video in there? I found lots of reasons to procrastinate – a bad hair day, no batteries for the video camera, the kids making too much noise.

Finally today when we got home from church, something the minister said was ringing in my ears. He finished his sermon saying “In the words of that famous philosopher… (pause for dramatic effect)… Nike, ‘Just Do It!’” Hmm, maybe I should. So I did. I told my husband to grab his iPod and come to the closet with me and we made the video right then. I didn’t practice or anything. I did one take and left it at that. I did a little editing and posted it to the NAPO-GA Youtube and Facebook pages. You can view the finished results here - http://dld.bz/HneT .

Nice story, you may be saying, but what is the point, Andi? I’m glad you asked. First, procrastination gets you nowhere. It just makes your to-do list longer and more overwhelming. Just do it! Next, the actual action is usually never as bad as you think it will be. We often put off doing things, like cleaning out the garage or organizing the junk drawer because we think it will be hard or unpleasant. It is usually never as difficult what we’ve imagined. So just do it! Finally, when you give up your ideal of perfectionism, life is so much simpler. Just let go, laugh and live. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find on the other side!

Organization - Church Style

2011-01-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

As I sat in church on Sunday, I have to admit my mind wandered. How to grow my business was heavy on my mind and I was wondering what I could do at the church that might increase my business. Then it hit me, a church can be one of the most organized places you might encounter, at least in the world where I grew up.

For more than 20 years, my family attended Franklin Presbyterian Church in Franklin, VA and I have very vivid memories of the church kitchen, one of which was eating the leftover communion bread that my grandfather made (YUM!). Every item in that kitchen had a home and the cupboards were completely labeled inside AND out! They had to be. Think of how many different people have to function in the space – ladies of the church, youth groups, scout groups, the pastor when he wants a cup of coffee. You know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen! But if you have a storage system in place, it can work seamlessly no matter who works in the kitchen, assuming that everything is returned where it belongs. About a year and a half ago I returned to my childhood church for my father’s memorial service. Despite the sadness of the occasion, there was a certain comfort in being able to walk into the kitchen and easily being able to find a cup or a serving spoon.

So what’s the lesson here? There are several. Having homes for your items is necessary to eliminate chaos. If you label your storage locations even complete strangers (or your mother-in-law) can find things in your house. Finally, having a well-organized space can be calming, and apparently bring up found memories of church kitchens when you should be paying attention to the sermon!

Getting Organized in the New Year

2011-01-07T16:29:00.001-05:00

January is GO Month! Huh, what’s that?, you might ask. It’s Get Organized Month as sponsored by the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). And it’s no big surprise since a recent study by Harris Interactive and Intermedia showed that getting organized is the number one New Year’s resolution.

That sounds great, doesn’t it? “I’m going to get organized this year” rolls right off your tongue. Dreams of coordinated containers, closet systems and a clean garage may be floating through your head at this very moment. But wait, you say, how do I get from my junked up, cluttered kitchen counter to the vision of organized loveliness I have in my head? Maybe your entire house or office is out of control and the thought of transforming it into a peaceful, organized haven is lovely, but seemingly unattainable.

I’m here to tell you to first, take a deep breath. Second, really think about your vision and whether it fits into your lifestyle. I, too, would love a kitchen that has leapt from the pages of Martha Stewart Living, but I have two children, a very busy husband and a very busy schedule. It’s just not going to happen! I’ve come to terms with that. What I have done is arranged my kitchen and its contents in a way that is conducive for storing and retrieving the things I need as well as making it a place where we like to hang out and live! It’s not perfect but it’s just right for us.

Thirdly, realize that your desk, house, closet, garage, junk drawer didn’t fall into clutter in just one day so don’t expect it to magically change in an hour. So start small. Take 15 minutes to toss the trash from the junk drawer or put all your blouses together in the closet. Little steps when added together make a huge difference!

Finally, remember that this is your New Year’s resolution, not a day’s resolution. Take your time, attack your organizing project a little at a time and if you still need some help or encouragement, engage a friend to be your clutter buddy or even hire a professional organizer. You can find a local professional organizer at http://www.napo.net/ .

Happy New Year and Happy Organizing!

Thank you, Thank you!!

2011-01-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

One year ago today Good Life Organizing came into existence and what a blessed year it’s been! I started this venture as a way to help others, something I’ve always been called to do in one form or another. For many years I worked in the non-profit arts world, fostering artists, making creative opportunities available to the communities and sharing my love of the arts with the world. But about a year and a half ago I needed to make a change after 14 years in that world and almost 2 years as a stay-at-home mom. When I found out that professional organizing was actually a profession, and not just something you saw on TV, I thought “That’s for me!” With the support of my family and friends I began to put the wheels in motion to start my own business, a scary thing to do in such a precarious economic time, and I haven’t regretted it for a minute!

During this past year I have met the most wonderful people – amazing clients, generous and supportive professional organizers and dedicated community business leaders – all of whom have given me the courage and the wherewithal to put one foot in front of the other through the entire process. I have loved every second of the year – from picking a colleague’s brain for great ideas to seeing a client have the A-Ha moment of clarity.

So as I move into the second year of my business, I want to thank everyone who as supported me. It has meant the world to me. Here’s to living the Good Life!

Un-Decorating After the Holidays

2010-12-26T09:30:00.002-05:00

When the holidays are over and life returns to normal, our festive decorations need to come down and be stored until next year. Taking a little time and care now can save you some stress and headache in 11 months when you get out the decorations again!

Before Un-Decorating

Do you like to decorate your home with the same items and in the same way every year but you have a hard time remembering exactly where everything goes? This year, after you are fully decorated, take pictures of your decorations. Store these pictures on your computer or in a file and use them as reference for next year.

Storing For Next Year

Have a plan on how you will store your decorations.

There is an overabundance of holiday related storage items on the market these days. If you are in the market for new storage containers, make sure you know how many decorations you have to store, estimate how much room they will need and then buy with some room grow your collection.

Strands of lights should be wrapped around a piece of cardboard or a store-bought light holder instead of just thrown in a box. This will save you time and headache next year.

When storing your holiday decorations, store like with like. Your categories may be snowmen, Santas, nativity sets and glass ornaments or you might group items by colors or by the rooms where they will be used. Then be sure to clearly label your storage containers.

Have an un-decorating party! Instead of sludging through the chore of un-decking the halls by yourself, invite friends and family over to help with the task and make it a party complete with food and music. The job will be done in no time and then you can celebrate the end of the season’s chores.

Happy New Year!

Decorating For the Holidays - The Organized Way

2010-12-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have already “decked the halls”, festooning your house with greenery, ribbons and wreaths. The Christmas tree twinkles in the corner and the scent of pine fills the air. Idyllic, isn’t it?

Or maybe not. Some people dread decorating for the holidays. Maybe it’s the work to get the items out of the attic or garage, maybe it’s the lack of family enthusiasm when it comes to decorating or maybe you are just so overwhelmed with everything you have to do that nothing about the holidays seems fun.

Here are a few tips that might help make your holiday decorating a little more fun.

Putting up the Decorations

Remove your everyday decorations and knick-knacks to make room for your holiday decorations. Store them temporarily in the boxes you store your holiday decorations in the rest of the year.

Do you like to decorate your home with the same items and in the same way every year but you have a hard time remembering exactly where everything goes? This year, after you are fully decorated, take pictures of your decorations. Store these pictures on your computer or in a file and use them as reference for next year.

When you put out your Christmas decorations, do you have a few lone items that can’t seem to find a home? Don’t let them just live in a box year after year, get rid of them! Donate them to Goodwill or a local women’s shelter. Share the holiday spirit with others and keep your valuable storage space available for the items you truly love!

After the Holidays

When storing your holiday decorations, store like with like. Your categories may be snowmen, Santas, nativity sets and glass ornaments or you might group items by colors or by the rooms where they will be used. Be sure to clearly label your storage containers.

Have a plan on how you will store your decorations. Strands of lights should be wrapped around a piece of cardboard or a store-bought light holder instead of just thrown in a box. This will save you time and headache next year.

There is an overabundance of holiday related storage items on the market these days. If you are in the market for new storage containers, make sure you know how many decorations you have to store, estimate how much room they will need and then buy with some room grow your collection.

Have an un-decorating party! Instead of sludging through the chore of un-decking the halls by yourself, invite friends and family over to help with the task and make it a party complete with food and music. The job will be done in no time and then you can celebrate the end of the season’s chores.

Happy holidays everyone!

Getting Ready for the Holidays

2010-11-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

It always seems as if the holidays always sneak up on us. So whether you are getting ready to host 35 people for a Thanksgiving dinner or if you are preparing for the celebrations of Hanukkah or Christmas, you can get ready early and simplify your work and enjoy the holidays so much more.

Here is the first installment of GLO’s hints for making the holidays merry and bright!

Planning

As we get ready for the holidays, let’s take a minute to remember why we celebrate this time of the year. It’s not about gifts, parties and obligations. It’s a time to give thanks for our many blessings, to celebrate the wonderful miracles of Christmas, Hanukah & Kwanzaa & to celebrate the coming of a brand New Year full of possibilities. Try to keep this in your heart and mind this season to keep things in perspective.

A master family Holiday calendar where all family members can make note of their holiday activities – from the first Holiday marketplace shopping excursion to the New Year’s Day pork and kraut dinner – is a must. If there are conflicts, discuss them early and develop a solution.

The holidays can be extremely busy times. When making your master family Holiday calendar, consider which events are “Must attends” like your daughter’s band concert, which are “Would be nice to attend” like the town Christmas parade and which are “I would rather have a root canal than attend” like your neighbor’s annual open house. If there are events that you can edit out of your schedule with gentle excuses, you will make the holidays more about spending time with the people you love doing things you love to do.

Make your reservations (air travel, hotel, kennel) as early as possible for the best availability and prices.

Gift Giving

Use lists to keep yourself on track – gifts (ideas, to buy or already purchased), to dos, meal ideas and planned menus.

Capture gift ideas whenever they might come to you by keeping a small note book with you at all times or using the notes feature on your phone.

Start early with your gift buying. Buy things you want to gift when you see them. Decide if it is worth saving $10 on that MP3 player when you have to Black Friday crowds and traffic or should you just buy it now and be done with it.

Yummy Stuff

Check your baking supplies now and stock up on flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, spices, etc.

Most cookies and some cookie dough can be frozen up to 1-2 months in advance. Get a jump on your baking now. More information can be found at www.baking911.com/cookies/storage.htm.

Plan a “day after” menu now. Find a couple of good recipes for leftover turkey and mashed potatoes on websites like http://www.allrecipes.com/ and http://www.foodnetwork.com/ .

Happy Holidays!

My Adventure as a Mover - Part III - What I Learned

2010-11-04T07:59:00.000-04:00

Here are some of the things I learned during our great moving adventure from Pennsylvania to Florida:

I learned that I can drive a large truck and it’s kind of fun! I’ve always preferred driving a larger vehicle like a SUV or a van over a car, but this was even better! Well, except for the fact that is very load and bumpy.

I learned that I am not a good packer of large spaces. Don’t get me wrong, I can pack a box like crazy or organize your cd collection but packing furniture onto a moving van is not my forte. My husband and late father make much better spatial decisions than I do.

It is extremely handy to have a boy scout or someone well versed in tying knots to help secure your items in the truck. It is also very useful to have several strong, able-bodies young men around to move things. Everything goes much quicker and your back will feel better in the morning.

If you are keeping a box of mementoes or special china/silver/glassware, slip a note on the item’s significance into each piece or tape it to the bottom so when you are gone others will know why it was important to you. My grandmother did this on several pieces from her china cabinet and it was so nice after she died to be able to pick of a beautiful piece of hand-painted china and to know that it was painted by my great-great Aunt Agnes as a present for my grandparent’s wedding. But not knowing who created the beautifully tatted doily is sad but it now gracing my front hall table anyway!

When we decide to keep something “just in case” or because so-and-so might want it one day, we are making a long-term commitment to stuff and not ourselves. I will tell you that you are more important than “stuff”. Think about that!

I don’t know about your family but mine seems to have a lot of good china and glassware that might get used once a year. Why do we have these beautiful items if they are going to sit in our china cabinets and not see the light of day? I think we should all commit to using our beautiful possessions on a more regular basis. Living the good life is about bringing beauty and peace into your life and your home.

Thanks to everyone for your support and comments as we moved along this journey!

My Adventure as a Mover - Part II - Mice and Vans and Miles, Oh, My!

2010-11-02T11:56:00.000-04:00

My mom rented a 17’ moving truck and things were going swimmingly until we discovered the mice. Yes, Virginia, mice do exist in storage units, despite what the proprietors might lead you to believe. Upon further examination of the unit, we found large holes in the upper edges of the walls where the metal walls come together. I am sure that behind and between these walls runs a mouse superhighway. At first we thought the critters had gutted one of the upholstered chairs because of the large pile of stuffing on the chair. However upon closer inspection, the chair was intact. Apparently the industrious mice had been transporting better quality stuffing from another storage unit and making a nice comfy nest on my mom’s chair. We also discovered 2 large nests in the bottom of a dresser. The nest themselves were not destructive but the droppings and other excretions were disgusting and smelly as where the three mouse carcasses my mother found (lucky her!).

We came to love our latex gloves that protected our hands from mouse poop and 3 years of dust and dirty. It’s very important to stay safe and healthy when you are cleaning and organizing!

We also depended on our industrial sized trash bags and extra boxes. There were many things my parents kept thinking they would use them later in life. If the truth be told, with the exception of their furniture which they couldn’t take in the RV with them, they already had everything they needed for a good life – all the tools, clothes, sundry knick-knacks and appliances that make life lovely. Many of these items could have been parted with years ago but where held onto by my parents for one justified reason or another.

Now in hindsight, my mom realized that much could be disposed of, such as the 500th tool box we’ve found since my dad passed (it’s a bit of an exaggeration but the man did have a think for tools!), the VHS video camera and the tailgate to my dad’s old truck that my mom sold over a year ago! The trick to this process was my mom’s willingness to purge the unnecessary but still holding onto the memories these items evoked. We also had already devised a list of worthy charities in the area to receive the donations – books went to the AAUW book sale, clothes went to Goodwill and furniture household items went to CentrePeace, a wonderful charity which teaches prisoners life skills by refinishing furniture and other items for resale.

We also had a lot of trash and originally didn’t have a plan for this. The storage facility did not have a dumpster we could use so eventually we found a municipal dump that we were able to dispose of our trash.

Then came the fun job of packing the trailer. We had all hands on deck that day (me, mom, my cousin and her husband and my aunt and uncle) which was good because the furniture was heavy and it started to rain as we are loading the trailer. We had to think strategically as we packed because not only did we need to consider weight distribution but also the fact that we were “delivering” to 3 different states! My cousin’s husband, Jeff, was a great asset with his muscles and knot-tying skills. I highly recommend having a trained boy scout or BS Leader whenever you move. They know their knots and can tie up your possessions in no time!

We were able to everything except the mouse-defiled dresser on the 17’ rental truck and we left the storage unit cleaner than we had found it 3 days earlier! The next morning we were off on the 4 day epic driving adventure.

Actually the driving was fairly uneventful, except for arriving in Virginia Beach at rush hour the first night. I got the honor of trying to park the truck at my sister’s house which was fun, but I am proud to announce that I didn’t hit anything or get the truck stuck in the ditch – both major fears!

The next morning we unloaded her half of the truck (yes, she got a majority of the furniture because her roommate just moved out and took the furniture!) very quickly with the help of 2 strong friends! Again a highly recommended idea to get 2-3 strong 20-somethings to help load and unload! That makes it much easier on us older folks!

We continued on with a day and half of driving to Georgia where I live and, oh, my house never looked so good! Eight nights in strange beds really makes you appreciate home! Of course seeing my kids was great too! They were very excited to see what fun things came off the truck and came to live at our house. My son was very excited to look through my dad’s Boy Scout mementoes and my daughter loved the Japanese fan from an exchange student long-ago and the gold jewelry box from my mother. I loved bringing home choice pieces of my family history.

My adventure ended here but my mom and aunt and uncle continued on to Florida to unload the last of the furniture and the boxes. My mom is happy to have her beloved Clores furniture in her bedroom and her glasses and knick-knacks as opposed to the ones left by the previous owners.

I’m pleased to say that we are all happy with the results of this adventure. My sister got new furniture that she desperately needed, I got some great mementoes of my family and my mom now has her possessions under one roof. More importantly, she has gotten rid of a huge annual expense of renting the storage unit.

All in all I think we can call this adventure a huge success!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the things I learned…

My Adventure as a Mover - Part I

2010-11-01T09:53:00.000-04:00

Friday, October 15 found me getting up far too early and taking a series of flights to State College, PA with my mother. It was great to be back up North where we used to live, to see the beautiful fall foliage and to visit with my cousin and her family but that was not the primary reason for this trip. My mom and I were travelling to State College to empty out her storage unit.

When my parent retired about 3 years ago, they sold their brick-and-mortar home and moved entirely into their 5th wheel RV. The plan had been for them travel and work around the country for about 10 years, then “settle” down again in a more traditional home. So they kept a lot of their better furniture as well as mementoes and tools for future use in their future home. Well, life doesn’t always work out as planned, and my father passed away a year ago and my mom has had to readjust to life by herself. Last winter she purchased a house in Florida and now is the time to retrieve her household goods from the rental unit.

Don’t get me wrong, storage units can serve a very useful purpose in certain situations, like my parents’ when it became a holding place during a life transition. My husband and I even rented one about years ago for several months when we decluttered and staged our house for sale, but too often people rent storage units when their possessions overflow their home. That, however, is a lesson for another time.

So my mom and I travelled to Pennsylvania at one of the loveliest times of the year, when the leaves were changing, and visited the long-ago packed storage unit. The plan was to pull everything out of the unit (about 10’x16’) and sort through it all. The categories were things going to 1) my mom’s new home in Florida 2) my sister’s home in Virginia 3) my home in Georgia 4) a local charity and 5) the trash dump. Being blessed with 2 days of gorgeous Central Pennsylvania weather we pulled all but the largest pieces of furniture out and went through all but 1 box that my dad had cleverly wedged into a china cabinet but we weren’t clever enough to get it out without moving large furniture. Oh, Dad, you were a packer extraordinaire!!

More tomorrow…

Fall Into A Cleaner Closet

2010-09-30T07:00:00.004-04:00

Fall seems to have finally arrived here in the south. Temperatures are not so high, the humidity is low and we can finally open our windows and enjoy the cooler air. This is the kind of weather that makes me fondly remember that I actually own shirts with long sleeves and soft, comfortable sweaters. Maybe it’s time for us to get reacquainted!

The coming of fall and the inevitable switching of your wardrobe in your closet is a great time to do a little decluttering of your clothes. Here are a few things to consider when looking over your summer clothes as you put them away and your fall/winter wardrobe as you welcome them to your closet again. For each item, ask yourself a series of questions:

• Do I love it?

• Does it fit?

• Do I really wear it?

If the answer to these questions is “yes”, it’s probably a keeper.

• Is it ripped beyond a quick repair?

• Is it stained?

• Does it not fit well?

• Is it out of date/style?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” it’s time to consider retiring the items to the donation box or the rag bag.

If you are feeling especially ambitious you may want to pull everything out of your closet and put it through this same scrutiny. While you have every out, dust your shelves and the walls and the corners and the baseboards. The dust mites will contribute to the premature breakdown of your clothes.

When you return the clothes to the closet, put like with like. You might want to categorize your clothes by tops, pants, jackets, and dresses or maybe you like your clothes sorted by dressy, work, and casual. You can even further sort by putting like colors together. Keeping similar items close together in the closet will make getting dressed easier in the morning and it might be enlightening to realize that you actually own 6 pair of black slacks!

Another tool that can help you realize how much you actually wear certain items is the backwards hanger. When you switch over your wardrobe, consider putting your hangers on the rack backwards so the open part of the hook is facing you instead of the wall. As you wear and launder you clothes, return them to the hangers but now with the hanger facing the correct direction. After two months look at your closet and see how many hangers are still backwards. This is an indication that you may not love those clothes or have an occasion to wear them. Remember we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time so if we are honest with ourselves we can probably get rid of many things cluttering up our closets.

And as always, when you go shopping for the newest, cutest sweater or pants, consider what you can purge from your closet so it stays manageable – not bursting at the seams! Keep a donation box or bag in your closet so you can quickly discard items when it crosses you mind, not that elusive “someday”!

Happy Fall everyone!

Who Do You Answer To?

2010-09-28T10:25:00.001-04:00

Do you have a list a mile long of things to do but you can’t ever seem to get them done? Do you find yourself procrastinating on your tasks to do something more fun like playing on Facebook or watching the latest episode of Mad Men? Maybe what you need to keep yourself on task is an accountability partner to help get your life organized.

What is an accountability partner, you might ask? Wikipedia defines it as “a person who coaches another person in terms of helping the other person keep a commitment.” How would this work with organizing your home and your life? Say you are trying to do a general de-cluttering of your home, but are having a hard time staying on task. Perhaps you have a friend (local or far away) who is doing something similar. You could be each other’s accountability partners, touching base every so often to see if you are reaching your goals you set for yourself. You can even make it fun.

Mary: Did you clean out your kitchen junk drawer like you planned to do this week?

Sue: No. I didn’t. Life got crazy this week but I know I’ll be able to get to it this weekend.

Mary: What are you going to do to make it happen?

Sue: I’m going to spend 30 minutes working on it this afternoon before the kids get home from school but if I don’t get it done this week, I’ll buy you a bottle of wine.

Mary: Sounds good, I’m going to hold you to that!

So find a friend, set a goal and keep each other accountable. After all, doing tasks that aren’t your favorite (organizing, exercising) are much more fun with a friend! Have fun!

Drugs, Drugs Everywhere!

2010-09-08T16:51:00.000-04:00

When both my father and father-in-law passed away after extended illnesses, one of the things our families had a hard time dealing with was the handling of the leftover prescriptions drugs. We struggled with how to safetly dispose of the large quantities of pills. Luckily with my dad, many of the drugs provided through hospice where taken by the hospice nurse but that didn't take care of everything.

At one time we are told to just flush the extra drugs down the toilet but now we know that it is bad for the environment. Some communties have drug recycling programs which are fantastic resources for even small amounts of controlled substances, like the 3 Vicodin pills you have left over from the last year's dental work. Now the national government has developed a program to help.

From http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/takeback/

On September 25, 2010, DEA will coordinate a collaborative effort with state and local law enforcement agencies to remove potentially dangerous controlled substances from our nation’s medicine cabinets. Collection activities will take place from 10:00 a.m. through 2:00 p.m. at sites established throughout the country. The National Take-Back Day provides an opportunity for the public to surrender expired, unwanted, or unused pharmaceutical controlled substances and other medications for destruction. These drugs are a potential source of supply for illegal use and an unacceptable risk to public health and safety.

This one-day effort is intended to bring national focus to the issue of increasing pharmaceutical controlled substance abuse.

The program is anonymous.

Prescription and over the counter solid dosage medications, i.e. tablets and capsules accepted.
Intra-venous solutions, injectables, and needles will not be accepted.
Illicit substances such as marijuana or methamphetamine are not a part of this initiative.

You can go to https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/NTBI/NTBI-PUB.pub?_flowExecutionKey=_c408352B8-A6E6-8D7D-B22D-42316FBA5589_k8FACB658-9CC8-0455-3025-16641611005D to find a location near you. Middle Georgia readers, collection locations are available in Centerville, Ellaville, Eastmon, Gordon, Thomaston and Milledgeville.

I encourage you to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity and resource.

Keep Your Calendar (Not Your Head) in the Clouds

2010-08-22T12:07:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, tradegy struck at my house! My laptop died. Well, not really, but it does appears as if my power cord died. Buying a new one is not only expensive (although necessary) but it will also take a while to get one and I am NOT patient when it comes to my computer. And this is MY computer. All of my work documents, emails, music files, pictures are on it. I am not worried that I have lost them (I subscribe to Carbonite and have everything backedup to the clouds. See my earlier post of this process), only that temporarily I cannot access them! Because I am preparing for my first business expo this week (Thursday, August 26, from 4-7 PM at Rozar Park in Perry), I need my files! So now my husband is trying to find me a new/old/borrowed/begged power cord.

Then this morning it hit me, I can't see my calendar! My choice is to keep my master calendar electronically on Microsoft Outlook. It works well for me because my husband keeps his master calendar on Outlook as well so we can send each other events and reminders to keep up with each other's schedules.

Now today is Sunday. This is the day I look at my calendar to see what is going on for the week and plan my schedule accordingly, but what is a busy mom to do if she can't see her calendar! Luckily I have been turned on to Google Calendar, thanks to my fellow organizer Monica Premo. Like Carbonite, it is an "in the clouds" product, but unlike Carbonite (or Mozy) it is free. After the initial upload of data to the web, I have set up my Outlook calendar to sync on a very regular basis (several times a day) to my Google Calendar. So after my initial panic this morning, I remembered Google Calendar and went to the shared family computer and was able to access my calendar in a matter of keystrokes. Shewww! I feel better now except for the fact that I now have to share the computer with the other 3 members of my household. Oh, well, it's only temporary, right?

This is just a reminder that in our highly technology based world we need to have backups for our data whether it be our picture files or our electronic calendar. Putting our data securily in the clouds allows us so many options for retreival of the data when things go awry back here on Planet Earth.

Following the Hoarders

2010-08-18T10:08:00.001-04:00

Are you, like millions of other people, fascinated by shows like Hoarders on A&E and Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC? These shows give us a voyeuristic look into the lives of "OTHERS". People, not like us, messy people, people who can't control their impulses, right? Wrong. They are people just like us and they are very brave people who have asked for help and want to work on their issues and their stuff.

Of course, like all reality shows, these shows don't show it all. In the real world houses don't get cleaned up in an hour. And if we were to believe shows like Clean House and Clean Sweep, our houses will end up devoid of stuff and professionally styled! Not so, unfortunately. However, these shows give us all hope that even under the most trying of circumstances, with help and understanding, we can persevere.

One lovely example of this that I just discovered is The Stuff Project: The Purge of 2010. (Thanks, Julie Bestry!) This blog is written by a young woman named Dariane. In her own words she is

spending approximately two months working 10-12 hour days completely cleaning up my childhood home. There’s no professional organizer. There’s no clean-up crew. It’s just me and my family working together to fix this mess we’ve made on our own.

So far she is 10 days in and making remarkable progress. This blog is a fascinating look at the mindset of the "hoarding" family and process Dariane (mostly, but also her family) is going through to make her childhood house a home again. This is the true clean-up story, more so than what is encapsulated in a one-hour TV show. It is real (no hot water in the house), it is gross (spiders, cockroaches, ants, and unicorn poo), and it is inspiring. I wish her and her family so many good things. I can't wait to see how this very personal project unfolds. Join me, won't you?

Setting Your Child Up For Success This School Year

2010-08-03T20:31:00.002-04:00

As the summer break draws to a close, parents and children across Middle Georgia are going through the pre-school rituals of buying backpacks and school supplies and wondering what the new school year will bring. The crazy routine of back-to-school can derail even the most organized, stable household. Taking a little time now can help set your stellar student up for success this school year.

Create Routines

Does your child do his homework as soon as he gets home or does he zone out by watching TV and playing video games before doing his homework? Find what works for your child and stick to it. Morning routines are also important to be sure everyone gets out of the house on time and with a bare minimum of bedlam. The night before lay out clothes, pack the lunch boxes and be sure the backpacks are packed up and ready to go including all completed homework assignments.

Set Up Homework Station

Having a dedicated place for your child to do his homework is an important part of your school routine. It can be a desk in his room or at the kitchen table or even curled up on the couch. A nearby bookcase, cupboard or even a portable bin, should serve as supply store for your child’s work. Stock with any necessary tools such as notebook paper, pens, pencils, crayons, markers and rulers.

Have a Home

When you child comes home from school, does she know where her backpack and lunch box live? They should have regular landing zones. It could be a hook next to the child’s desk in her room or in a cubby by the entry door. Having a consistent place to put these items will make them easier to find and cause fewer headaches during that mad dash out the door in the morning.

Plan It

Students from elementary school to high school are expected to keep track of their assignments and manage their time. One way to do this is to use a planner. When students write down specific homework assignments, they do not have to trust their memories when they get home or spend time phoning classmates to get the assignments. Older students enter upcoming tests and projects so they can budget their time by breaking large assignments into smaller chunks. These are great skills to master at a young age because once the children get into middle and high school, their schedules and work load are much more complicated. As a parent, you should look at the planner regularly so you can help keep your child on task.

By giving your child the tools of organization, you can help them relieve the stress of finding their backpack and knowing when the next test is. When they are not as worried about those kinds of things, they can put their energies into the academics of school and, who knows, they might actually like it!

How Safe is Your Hard Drive?

2010-06-30T12:10:00.001-04:00

What do you have on your computer? Family photos, cute baby videos, documents that took hours or days to create? How would you feel if they all just went away? Terrible, horrified, right? Just like we need to practice responsibility in many areas of our life, we need to be responsible with all of the irreplaceable data on our computers. If you are anything like me, many of your precious memories and most of your hard work is documented on your hard drive. Every week more than 140,000 hard drives crash in this country and the cost to recover your data may run as much as $1,500. You may not be able to keep your hard drive from crashing but you can be prepared to weather the disaster.

So what’s a responsible computer owner to do? You can go the old-fashioned route of backing up your data on an external hard drive or, gasp, CDs (!) but that can be time consuming and has other drawbacks. What happens if, heaven forbid, you have a house fire or a robbery and both your computer and external hard drive are gone for good? So is the information they contain.

Another solution is out there, it’s in the clouds! Cloud computing is what we do everyday when we work on the Internet. Wikipedia defines cloud computing as “Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand.” In the clouds are several secure services that provide backups for your computer, for little to no money. And, trust me, the piece of mind of knowing your special files are safe is worth every penny.

One option is Mozy.com (http://www.mozy.com/) which can store all of your digital files. They have a free account (http://mozy.com/home/free) which can be used to store up to 2 GB of your files and settings. According to their website, that means 250,000 text emails, 200 MP3 files or 300 photos. If 2 GB isn’t enough for you, there is an unlimited plan for $4.95 a month.

Another option in the backup clouds is Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/). Carbonite does not have a free account but it is still very reasonable with their basic plan starting at $54.95 per year. Discounts are available for paying for multiple years up front.

Both products are easy to use. After the initial upload when you can indicate which files you want to backup, the service will automatically upload any changes to existing documents or newly created files on a regular basis. Carbonite checks for changes and backs them up when your computer is idle so it doesn’t slow down your work. You don’t have to do a thing to make the backup happen!

Besides the peace of mind that your files are safely backed-up, there is another advantage to using a cloud backup system. When you get a new computer, using your Mozy or Carbonite account you can easily recover your files and settings to the new computer. How great is that!

So keep your precious digital photos and important documents safe and give yourself some peace of mind -- Backup in the clouds!

Summer - It's All in the Bag!

2010-06-14T17:27:00.002-04:00

Now that school is out for the summer, we are all ready to relax right? I don’t know about you, but at my house things seem just as hectic now as before school got out. Between camps, trips to the pool and tennis lessons we seem to be on the go all the time. Yesterday, when getting my kids ready for the pool, I thought that between the application of sunscreen and gathering of all the “stuff”, going to the pool is almost a time-intensive as preparing playing in the snow!

So how do can we make things a little easier on ourselves? One word – Prepare. Have a go-to bag with basic essentials for lots of different outings. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time you leave the house. A well-supplied bag can go a long way to making the process of getting out the door a little easier. A large canvas tote bag works well for this, especially one with lots of pockets to corral your keys and cell phone and other small sundries.

Next add a generous helping of sunscreen. In my family we always carry the lotion and spray kind as well as a stick for the face. Put them in a large zippered bag which serves two purposes: 1) to keep them from making a mess if one leaks (and you know it will!) and 2) to make it easy to grab and pull out for the frequent applications we all need to be doing (yes, that includes us adults too, not just the kids).

Then add a selection of non-perishable, but yummy and healthy, snacks, again in a zippered bag. Our go-to snacks are almonds, raisins, pretzels and goldfish – things that won’t melt and get too gross when they’ve sat by the pool in sun when it is 100 degrees. You’ve got to keep the energy up when you are out having fun.

Lastly top it all off with a couple of beach towels. Not going to the pool? That’s fine. Beach towels make great picnic blankets, sit-upons, and cover-ups for the child who gets drenched in the fountain and didn’t bring any extra clothes. The possibilities are endless. Towels are easily laundered and really don’t take up much space.

Now your bag is ready to go. On your way out the door, throw in some drinks in an insulated cooler or lunch bag, to keep yourself hydrated in the hot, summer sun. Keep it in a central spot – the hall closet, the laundry room – anywhere where it can be easily stored and restocked. Be sure to restock after each trip. Then if a great pool party suddenly appears on your social calendar, all you need to do is slip on the suit, grab the bag and have a ball!

What's Your Vice?

2010-04-29T22:34:00.011-04:00

Let's admit it. We all have one (at least!) - a vice, a secret, a habit - that contributes to the clutter in our homes. I don't collect knick-knacks or baskets or stamps; I collect books. I have a very soft place in my heart for reading and learning and rarely can I turn down a book from a friend or a great book sale. My dream house will have a large library with floor to ceiling bookcases to house my collection. I truly haven't planned the rest of the house, just the library!

Tomorrow our county library system is holding its annual "old book sale" featuring some 100,000 books to chose from. How easy it is get lost in the rows of tomes and never come out. Last year I came out with a reusable shopping back overflowing with paperbacks. I was in heaven! Then I went back with my kids. Truly a dangerous thing!

But the one thing you have to plan for, regardless of what your vice is, is how you are going to handle the new items you bring into your home. I keep a donation bag going at all times, in which I place the books I've read and do not want to keep. These books will be given to the library to be sold at next year's sale. In one fell swoop, I've declutted my house a little bit and help support a great community resource. Other special books I recycle by passing on to friends. A select group of books, I keep - usually historical fiction about art and archeology (in my past life - pre-GLO- I taught Art Hstory) or truly inspirational works like The Shack.

So, it's okay to have a collection or a tendency to buy a certain category of thing, but don't overbuy/over-accumulate, have a plan and stick to it. If things are coming into your house, other items needs to be leaving it. It's all about flow - flow of possessions, flow of money, flow of space and flow of peace of mind.

So what's your vice? I'll get back to you once I'm done reading my book!

Organizing According to Oprah!

2010-04-26T20:45:00.006-04:00

Is there a topic that Oprah and the folks at O, The Oprah Magazine DON'T cover?!?! In the February, 2010 issue, author Sarah Stebbins interviewed a variety of organizing and health care professionals to find out the top 10 habits of highly organized people. Some of these habits might seem common sense and others not so much but they all give us food for thought.

The Ten Habits of Highly Organized People

1. Walk away from bargains.

2. Make peace with imperfection.

3. Never label anything with "miscellaneous."

4. Schedule regular decluttering sessions.
5. Stick with what works.
6. Create a dump zone.

7. Ask for help.

8. Separate emotions from possessions.

9. Forsee (and avoid) problems.

10. Know where to donate.

These are great tips and ideas. To read the entire article, visit Oprah.com.

If you feel you need help to develop some of these habits but need some help, contact a professional organizer (like me!). Find one in your area by visiting the National Association of Profesional Organizers.

The Master Bedroom - FINALE - Relax and Reward

2010-04-10T21:11:00.000-04:00

Remember that the master bedroom is your special haven from the world.

Set boundaries with the rest of your family. Their possessions belong in their own personal space. Make it a new house rule! It may take some time to re-program their actions but it will happen eventually. Remember that it takes 21-30 days to make or break a habit!!

Patience and perseverance will pay off in the end.

Now relax and enjoy your wonderful master bedroom. You deserve it! Live the Good Life

The Master Bedroom - Part 4 - Does it belong??

2010-04-06T21:17:00.001-04:00

After decluttering the “little” stuff, look around your room and evaluate the furniture and other items that remain. Do they all serve a purpose (i.e. seating, storage, sleeping)? Do you keep exercise equipment or a computer in your bedroom? Why? Is this the only place you can peacefully use them? If so, then it’s probably alright for them to stay. Just be sure they are not a hindrance to your peaceful space. In other words, don’t let your treadmill become a clothes holder as opposed to a piece of exercise equipment.

Also don’t let the entire family use the computer or exercise equipment (or other items) in your room. That is an open invitation for items and objects that truly DO NOT belong in a master bedroom. Isn't there is a better place in the house that they could “live”? Move that family computer to a more central spot in the house. Move the exercise equipment to the garage or a spare room. Truly reconsider how you use your space in your entire home. It’s yours – take it back!

Once you’ve decluttered and made furniture decisions, this would be a great time to give your bedroom a good deep cleaning – wiping down baseboards, vacuuming behind the bed, washing curtains and bedding, and don’t forget to wipe the light fixtures and ceiling fans. Now, it will be a truly clean start.

The Master Bedroom - Part 3 - The PURGE!

2010-03-21T21:21:00.001-04:00

The next step is to declutter the space . Grab an empty laundry basket or two. Quickly look around the room and find items that belong in other places – your children’s clothes and toys, magazines and newspapers if you usually read them on the living room couch, dirty glasses that need to go to the kitchen. Place them in the baskets and when the baskets are full, deliver the items to their proper homes.

Don’t forget the flat surfaces of dressers, nightstands, bookshelves, etc. And get under the furniture too! It’s amazing what you can find under there. Just the other day in helping my daughter reorganize her room, the moving of a dresser netted us a brand new (EMPTY) crafting container, a pad of art paper and a mountain of used Kleenex!! What treasures!

If there is so much clutter in your bedroom that it is overwhelming, take baby steps. Remove 5-10 items a day or set your kitchen counter and see what you can accomplish in 15 minutes. You’ll be amazed at the progress you can make and often, a small amount of progress will inspired you to do more!

Once you’ve tackled the visual clutter, attack your dresser drawers as well as your night tables. (We’ll deal with the closet later!) Go through your dresser drawers with a very critical, almost brutal eye.

Throw out socks and underwear that have holes or are stretched out. If you haven’t worn an item in more than 6 months, it’s probably time to let it go. Set it aside and give it to a charity. (Keeping a charity/giveaway box or bag handy through any organizing project is a must!)

Remember everything you decide to keep will have to have a home so use an editing eye in your purge.

The Master Bedroom - Part 2 - What is your Dream?

2010-03-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

Let’s get started making your master bedroom the beautiful, peaceful place you need it to be. Think about your room. In a perfect room, how would it function? In my dream room, it’s just my bed, a couple of night stands and a beautiful chair for lounging and reading. All my clothes and storage furniture would be in my massively huge closet/dressing room. Back in reality, my real-life master bedroom functions primarily as a bedroom with the requisite bed, nightstands, dresser and additional furniture of an oversized chair and a ottoman. The only thing I probably shouldn’t keep there is my laptop but as I have said before, the master bedroom is a place to escape and I often escape on my computer (while sitting in the big comfy chair).

Does your bedroom do double (or triple) duty as an office, storage place or even eating location? Do you want that to continue? How can you remove the desk, find another home for the “stuff” (more on that later) or eat in the kitchen? These are hard questions you have to ask yourself in order to get the most out of your space. You don’t have to have the master bedroom function ONLY as a bedroom but in the end it will allow you a more peaceful environment to recharge. So think about it!

Let's Start that Spring Cleaning! The Master Bedroom

2010-03-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

Your Master Bedroom is your private haven from the world. It is the place you (and your spouse or partner) can escape from the chaos of your life to relax and recharge. If your Master Bedroom is cluttered and overflowing with stuff (furniture and clutter alike), there is no way it can be the serene sanctuary it needs to be. We all deserve to give this gift of peace to ourselves!

As we move through the house on our Spring Cleaning adventure, you will see a pattern in the process. All organizing projects big and small follow the same ideas.

1) Think. What do you want the space to be and how should it function? Is your bedroom currently multi-tasking as an office, craft space, storage room, exercise room, etc., etc., in addition to being your bedroom? What needs to happen to make the space less ambitious and more functional?

2) Declutter. Get rid of things you don’t need or love. If it belongs in another room, take it there. Throw the trash where it belongs – in the trash. Of course, recycle or donate when you can.

2) Recontainerize. That sounds complicated but it simply means finding proper homes for the items you are keeping. This could mean a bookcase for your collectibles or an under the bed box to store out of season shoes. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Just do what works for you.

3) Plan for the future. Decide how you can keep your space in the great shape it is now. Do you have a plan for keeping the clutter from building back up?

So are you ready to get started? Commit to making your living space (and your relaxing space) a better place to be! You are worth it! You deserve to live the Good Life!

Happy National Procrastination Week!

2010-03-05T21:33:00.000-05:00

Did you know that this is National Procrastination week? Yep, a designated national celebration of the things we put off until 'some other time.' So get off Facebook for 5-10 minutes and tackle a project that you've been avoiding.

Clean out your kitchen junk drawer.

Clean out your freezer - THIS IS MINE!!!

Clean out your purse.

Look under your couch and it's cushions. See what treasures you can find

Organize your sock drawer. Be sure to get rid of those holey socks. Feeling ambitious? Do your underwear drawer, too!

Write that thank you note!!

Call the doctor and make an appointment for your annual checkup. Remember rule #1 is take care of yourself!!!

Go through one shelf on your bookcase. Start a box of books to donate to the local library.

In the immortal words of the famous tennis shoe company, 'JUST DO IT!'"

PAPER - What to save and for how long

2010-02-11T21:46:00.010-05:00

One common demoninator in most homes is an overwhelming amount of paper. We tend to keep all sorts of things, just in case! - notes from school, bills, receipts, newsletters. We might need that information later so we hold on to it.

Lately I've had several people ask me how to handle this situation. I have found a great resource for suggestions on how long to keep certain financial paperwork such as bills, taxes and receipts. Bankrate.com has compiled a fairly comprehensive list that you might find helpful in guiding the purging of your files. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/how-long-to-keep-financial-records.aspx .

Of course, if you are unsure, please contact your financial or tax advisor, as I am neither of those!

Have fun filing!

File Time

2010-02-05T21:38:00.002-05:00

Have you filed your taxes yet? Are your files a mess? I think the reason most people hate tax time (other than having to pay taxes in the first place) is having to find all the necessary paper work needed to file your return.

Here's a couple of hints that might make things easier.

1) If you don't e-file, do it NOW! It is so much easier when the computer asks you the questions and does the math for you. Personally, my husband and I use Turbo Tax, but there are a lot of other software packages out there. Even if you are computer-challenged, you should be able to figure it out! (If you are using Facebook, I have faith you can do your taxes electronically too!). It also saves you money to have your refund (if you are so lucky), direct deposited into your checking or savings account. What a joyous surprise to wake up one morning and have that "extra" money in your account!

2) Make a Taxes file for each year. Every make a folder that says Taxes 2010, or whatever year it is. As the year goes along you can throw necessary paperwork into it, tax-deductible receipts, W-2s, 1090s, etc. Then when tax time does come around, you can just pull out that file and using your computerized tax program to see what else you may need to track down. Once you've finished with your return, you can place a copy of your return and all ancillary paperwork back in the Taxes 2010 file and place it in your filing cabinet. (If you are wondering how long to keep your tax files, you can reference my previous note - PAPER - What to Keep and For How Long?)

3) How to improve your files for next year? Don't be overwhelmed by a pile of paper on your desk, counter, filing cabinet... Take it in baby steps. If your paper is in a couple of tremendous heap, try sorting through it 1 inch at a time. If your files are bulging at the seams, go through them one or two at a time. Then take a break. Your files didn't become a mess overnight, so don't expect them to be perfect overnight. Patience will pay off in the long run.

Happy filing!!

80/20

2010-01-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

Here's another set of numbers for you - 80/20. Did you know that studies indicate that we use only 20% of our belongings 80% of the time? That means 80% of the clothes in your closet are infrequently, rarely (or dare I say, never) worn. 80% of your kitchen gadgets lie unused in the drawer. 80% of your husband's tools (yes, I am going to go there) are gathering dust as I type.

Think about this and try to purge some of your infrequently used 80%. I charge to you get rid of two items from your closet (the shoes you haven't worn in 3 years and the scarf the really belongs to the 80s), two items from your kitchen (what is that strange looking gadget anyway and do you really need 10 old butter containers), two items from the kids room (the broken Spiderman and the skirt that is 3 sizes too small) and two items from your bathrooms (the expired first-aid cream and the frayed washcloth you wouldn't use on your dog). That's 8 items from your 80% and every little bit helps get you closer to a declutter home and the Good Life!

January is Get Organized Month

2010-01-11T22:03:00.003-05:00

Having trouble sticking to those New Year’s resolutions to become better organized? You are not alone. Although just about everyone seems to understand the benefits of being organized, it’s not always easy to figure out just where to start.

Thankfully, there’s Get Organized Month – a national event sponsored by the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) each January that is designed to highlight the benefits of the association and working with NAPO’s professional organizers.

Many people use the start of a new year to think of ways in which they can improve their lives, and becoming more organized can help save time and money, increase productivity, enhance one’s quality of life, and reduce stress. In fact, in its most recent survey, NAPO found that 96 percent of respondents felt that they could save at least some time each day if they were more organized at home and that 91 percent felt they could be more efficient at work if they were better organized. Overall, 71 percent indicated their quality of life would improve with more organization.

Despite these responses, many people feel overwhelmed by the idea of becoming more organized. But in reality, small changes can make a huge difference. If you like to read on the couch, keep a small basket with your reading materials and glasses beside the couch. Keep a supply of stamps and envelopes near where you like to pay your bills. Any time you can save yourself a couple of steps, you've saved yourself time. And that's something we can all use!

http://www.napo.net/