How do you feel when you walk through the door to your home? Maybe a better question is: how would you like to feel when you walk into your home? If you feel as if this is it. This is the place you want to be because this is where you can relax, unwind, and feel at peace. Then this post is not for you. You have found your home organizing sweet spot. But if you have a nagging feeling that things aren’t right when you walk through your door into your home then you have not found it. Maybe…
It’s about to be the end of April. Easter has come and gone but yet the Easter baskets linger out in plain sight. Yes. You can plainly see them sitting on the top of this beautiful chicken coop that Nick found in an antiques store in Singapore. What is wrong with this picture? Every time I walk past the chicken coop, I think to myself I should do something with these Easter baskets and yet they linger. Does this ever happen to you? You see something in your house that you know you want to do something with. Every time…
Last week I wrote about the best reason to declutter and organize your home. It is, in case you don’t know, for you. Declutter and organize your home to make it look the way you want it to, to make yourself happy. Often we let things slide because no one else is around to be clean, tidy, and organized for. We ask ourselves ‘why bother?’ and ‘who cares?’. The flip side of this is that if we don’t bother to clean up, tidy, and declutter after ourselves we end up with a home that is so disorganized that we become…
Have you ever scurried around quickly decluttering an area before someone comes over? Why am I asking this? Don’t I already know the answer? Of course! I know you do. Everyone does this, myself included. Yes. Even professional organizers toss things in a drawer, a cupboard, a bag, or a closet from time to time. Doing a quick fix. I think it’s not human to always have everything in place. We do this because we don’t want to be embarrassed by the stuff we have out and about. When I do this, I make a mental (or physical) note to…
Do you have a special person, someone you love with whom you are planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day? This day will be here before you know it. It’s time to get your home (in particular your family room, dining table, and your bedroom) organized. As a professional organizer, I want to teach you how to declutter your bedroom and your family room and dining table so you can have a romantic Valentine’s Day. Are you wondering why I am singling out these three areas? When you invite someone into your home the first room they might relax in is the…
Most professional organizers probably agree that clutter is the result of postponed decision making. So, this thought begs two questions in my mind and, I bet, also in your mind regarding the title of this post. The first question is, what is organized clutter? The second question is, why would a professional organizer think that organized clutter is a step in the right direction? Let’s define organized clutter I did a little research on the term ”organized clutter” and found this article in which professional organizer, Matt Baier, answers the question “Is there such a thing as organized clutter?” One…
Paper is a problem for many people. For some it becomes a source of irritation as it comes in and requires them to make a decision. For others, it is a chore and a frustration because we’ve all been told not to waste paper. It almost seems to multiply overnight. I happen to like paper. I love to write and send nice cards to friends and family. And organizing paper, making sense of the piles is one of the organizing tasks I love to do. As we start the new year let’s create order by reducing the mounds of paper…
Recently I wrote about decluttering Christmas decorations and shared some tips to undertake this task without getting lost in sentiment or guilt. A reader posted a comment asking what to do about the holiday photo cards. Here are my best strategies to help you declutter holiday photo cards. Let’s admit up front that decluttering photos is a difficult process under any circumstance. These holiday photo cards are sometimes even more difficult. Typically, it is a photo of the family. In recent years, I’ve received cards that have a collage of pictures documenting the family’s highlights for the year. It’s so…
Decluttering Christmas decorations can truly difficult. Some decorations were probably gifted, some made by your children, and still others may represent a vacation you took. Having said this, most of your Christmas decorations are probably connected to a memory in some way. When you go to pull out these decorations instead of seeing them as they are we almost always view them through rose-colored lenses. We look past the flaws of their age and see them in the light of the memory they bring to the surface. It is a challenging task to declutter your Christmas decorations without traveling down…
I often have clients reach out to me with this question. They say that they know how to organize. Sorting, recycling, tossing, and even putting things away is not a problem for them. Organizing skills are not a problem for them and so they ask, “why can’t I stay organized?” The answer is simple. Organized is not a destination, it is a state of being. People think that they can organize a space once and that it is done. The fact is that it is never done for more than a day. That is unless you don’t use the space,…
