By Carmen Coker Even if you don’t feel you have the time, money, motivation, or inclination to get organized, there are plenty of low-effort, big-win strategies for banishing clutter, saving time, and being productive. Part 1: Shopping Clutter starts at the store. You buy something you don’t need or even truly like … something you might …
7 Simple Steps to Keep Your Bathroom Spick and Span
August 24, 2012By Naomi Cook In preparing my thoughts for this posting about organizing the bathroom, I started to realize that the steps sounded vaguely familiar to my last posting about organizing the pantry in 7 Simple Steps to a Picture Perfect Pantry. Hmmm…that makes this a bit easier to write for me, but what’s in it for …
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How to Minimize Home Office Distractions
August 16, 2012By Monica Friel Working from home certainly has its benefits, but it is not without its fair share of pitfalls. The average person only focuses on work for 11 minutes before being distracted. So how do we combat the never-ending call of household projects, screaming children, visiting neighbors, etc.? There is no way to avoid all …
Tips for Organizing Medical Files
August 10, 2012Keep critical paperwork together and easily searchable. By Joshua Zerkel Files related to you and your family’s health are important documents and should be effectively organized. The first thing to do in organizing the paperwork you receive from your doctors or insurance company is to separate it into categories. One category would be actual diagnoses or …
5 Simple Ways to Declutter Your Home Now
August 3, 2012By Carmen Coker When it comes to tidying up your home, organizing and decluttering aimlessly isn’t enough. It’s essential to organize with one goal in mind, and that is to create a sanctuary where you and your family can easily live, work, and play for years to come. Here are the top five residential “trouble spots” …
7 Simple Steps to a Picture Perfect Pantry
July 27, 2012By Naomi Cook Has the inside of your pantry become like the Bermuda Triangle? Have you ever looked for something, say a cake mix for your child, who just told you at 9pm that there is a bake sale tomorrow morning and she needs 3 dozen cupcakes? Have you sworn you had several mixes…scoured the …
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Organizing a Yard Sale
July 20, 2012By Monica Friel One great way to help you get rid of that clutter that lingers is to plan a yard sale. Sometimes it’s hard to donate items when you don’t know where they’re going and if they will really be used. It’s easier to get rid of things when you know your items are …
Choosing the Right Tools for Going Paperless
July 13, 2012By Joshua Zerkel Paper takes a lot of space to store, and especially if you’re used to searching for documents on your computer, rifling through paper piles and digging into file cabinets can seem practically archaic! Many people have been asking me lately to help them go paperless – that is, reduce the amount of paper …
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The Moments That Make You Disorganized: Common Clutter Traps To Avoid
July 6, 2012By Carmen Coker If you are trying to get organized, close your eyes for just a minute and imagine the moments that make you disorganized. Think through the last day, week, month, or even year(s) of your life … and you’ll see them there, as obvious as the big pile of clutter on your desk. While …
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Tips for Creating a New Filing System
June 29, 2012Trust your intuition when organizing your papers. By Joshua Zerkel One of the most frequent questions I get from clients who are organizing their offices is what to call their new filing categories. The truth is, there is no one right way to create a category structure for a filing system. Filing, whether on the computer …
When Lists Don’t Work
June 22, 2012Generally speaking, a list is a good thing because… When you write a list, it helps you focus. When you follow a list, it keeps you on track and moving toward list completion. And when you cross off list items, you feel productive. And yet, despite proven results and positive qualities, lists don’t always work …
4 Tips for Easier Emailing
June 15, 2012A few simple strategies will make processing your email a snap! By Joshua Zerkel Do you feel like email has taken over your life? Well, you’re not alone. In a study by Information Week, over 75% of the people surveyed said that email is essential to their lives—and an additional 15% say they’d rather lose their …
Organizing a Staycation
June 8, 2012By Naomi Cook With today’s gas prices and flight costs rising, taking a simple summer vacation has gotten to be a lot more expensive. Add in paying for meals and entertainment and say goodbye to even more of your hard earned money. Oy vey…what a headache! Why not forgo all that stress, save some money, and …
4 Ways to Spend Less Time Processing Paper
May 25, 2012Being a Certified Professional Organizer, I actually enjoy working with paper – I know, I’m strange! Even so, I don’t want to spend too much time on it; like you, I have many other tasks on my to-do list. One of my big goals for 2012 is to reduce the amount of paper that I have …
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Check Off Those Summer Organizing To-Do’s – Here’s How
May 18, 2012By Carmen Coker The weather is great, you’re feeling energized from all that extra solar energy you’ve been absorbing and you’ve got some extra time off. Now is the perfect time to tackle one of those big organizing projects you’ve been wishfully thinking of. First, let’s review a few tips that will help you to get …
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Two Strategies for Stemming the Tide of Email- Learn to master your email, instead of letting your email master you.
May 4, 2012By Joshua Zerkel Are you feeling overwhelmed by your email inbox? You are not alone. Email is complicated because it is an interruptive medium. If you leave the door open for email all day long—i.e., if you have email programs open in front of you, or your phone alerts you every time a new message comes …
Time-Wasting Habits – and How to Break Them
April 25, 2012By Carmen Coker When tackling a cluttered lifestyle, sometimes it’s not what you need to “get” that will help, it’s what you need to “get rid of.” Here are three common time-wasters – and actions steps that will help you to get them out of your daily routine so that you can enjoy a clutter-free, stress-free …
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Teaching Children to be Organized
April 13, 2012“Give a Man a Fish, Feed Him For a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, Feed Him For a Lifetime.” This Chinese proverb explains the importance of education and in turn the value of responsibility and accountability for one’s self. Kids learn by example when it comes to actions. Walking, talking, laughing and more…Have you …
How to Stop Procrastinating
March 30, 2012By Carmen Coker I find that, when it comes to organization, getting started is half the battle. If you’re procrastinating on an organizing project, the key to pushing past the procrastination is to find out what motivates you. Know your motivators before a wave of procrastination hits, and you’ll be prepared to deal with it — …
51 Ways to Get Organized Now
February 17, 2012By Carmen Coker Are you ready to get your life more organized? To help you get a jump start, I’ve put together a list of 51 easy and quick ways to get organized and feel more balanced today. Please don’t let this number overwhelm you – you don’t have to do all 51 at once! Read …
