Spring Organizing Made Easy

By Julie Riber 

Spring cleaning can be any easy task for anyone to do if you just have a few basic rules. First, do not try to spring clean your entire home in one day or even one weekend. Spread the process out over a month or two depending on how much you want to accomplish.

Second, write out a plan as far as the goals you would like to accomplish. An example would be to clean out all closets or just yours and the guest closet. List each task separately so that planning the time is easier. Are there tasks that can be accomplished in 30 minutes or less such as wiping out the fridge or washing out the trash can? Those are tasks you could accomplish one evening after dinner or one weekend morning.

Divide the tasks into time frames such as 30 minutes or less, 1-4 hours, or half a day. This too will make it easier to plan your time.

Next, decide what days you will accomplish the bigger projects by putting them into your calendar. If you don't schedule the project, it will never get done. Keep your list handy so when you find you have a little extra time, you can get one or two smaller tasks accomplished. Make sure to award yourself after you have completed a few smaller spring cleaning tasks, or a larger one by buying yourself something you need or having coffee or lunch with a friend.

To keep yourself motivated and not discouraged, start the spring cleaning with a few of the smaller tasks and then move into the larger projects. Remember, a few projects might become interrupted, so plan your schedule to be flexible. An outdoor event might be cancelled due to weather, so can you move your project up a weekend? Spring cleaning is a time for renewal and removing cluttering from the areas you feel need to be revamped. Make it fun and the goals attainable.

Julie Riber has been a professional organizer in the central Ohio area since 2004. She helps organize individuals spaces, time, and lives and she helps businesses streamline processes, increase productivity, and organize their spaces. She is a Golden Circle member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and a board member of the Ohio Chapter of NAPO since 2005. Sign up for her free monthly newsletter with organizing tips. http://www.transformare.net

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Clutter Attracts Clutter

By Julie Riber 

Do you have piles of mail and paper that just seem to get bigger? Clutter attracts more clutter because once you create a pile, it is easy to continue to add to that pile. Once it is too high, you just start a new pile.

So how can you prevent this from happening? One is to take a look at where all the clutter accumulates and decide if that piece of furniture is necessary for that room. I find many little tables in my clients homes that just attract piles. The table is not really needed or missed when it is removed. If the piece of furniture does not have a designated purpose, remove it.

Another way to prevent piles is to go through your mail everyday instead of waiting for a week or more. I usually find mostly junk mail in the piles. Most people separate the important bills and letters and then put the junk mail down. They believe they will look through it later, but they never do. The best item you can purchase is a shredder and have it next to the door you come in with your mail and shred the junk mail as soon as you come in the door. Make yourself do it everyday so that pile does not start. Have one basket or area to stick your bills. If you feel comfortable, try paying some of your bills on line and this will eliminate some of the mail you receive.

Do you have a room that all your miscellaneous items get dumped? It might be a guest room or a seldom used room that gets all the overflow from the family. The items usually have no home or they are not needed any longer but disposal has not occurred yet. Disposal is hard because you either paid too much, you do not have time to take it, you forget to take it, or you do not know where to take the item. Many different charities and groups can use the items you are no longer using and Professional Organizers have a list of those charities.

To stop dumping unused items in that room, ask yourself if you actually need the item or if someone else could use it more often. Have boxes or totes in your garage or near the front door for charities and keep filling and donating the items as they accumulate.

Remember, gifts are given to do with what you want. Do not feel guilty for giving away a gift you no longer need. You are not obligated to keep any gift for any period of time.

Work on one pile at a time of either paper or items. Continue to ask the hard questions and ask if you are unsure of who will take it as a donation.

Julie Riber is a professional organizer in the central Ohio area for over 5 years. She helps organize individuals spaces, time, and lives and she helps businesses streamline processes, increase productivity, and organize their spaces. She is a Golden Circle member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and Immediate Past President of the Ohio Chapter of NAPO. Sign up for her free monthly newsletter with organizing tips. http://www.transformare.net

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A Look Into A Professional Organizer's Home

By Julie Riber 

Over the past 7 years of being a Professional Organizer, I have been asked by many of my clients what my home and office look like. "I bet your house is super organized", they always say. Yes, my home is organized, but it does not look like I live in a magazine. We live in our home and so we might have a newspaper out on the counter or the kitchen table for the afternoon or my son might have his clothes on the floor when he wakes up. It is not about being a neat freak, it is about being able to find the items you need in a reasonable amount of time. Yes, this is something I can do. I know where the items I need are and can obtain them within 5 minutes. Now, five minutes might be too fast for you, so maybe you need to obtain your items within 10 minutes. It is an individual issue. Mail on the counter might not bother you, but dirty clothes on the floor does. Clutter and its limits are individual choices. So when do you know your clutter is a problem?

You should not have to buy something because you cannot find it. This is when you know you need to do something about the clutter in your home. Think about the amount of money you can save by not buying items multiple times. This goes for bills too. I have many clients who spend hundreds of dollars a year on late fees because they cannot find the bill to pay. This again, is when you know clutter has messed up your life and you need to gain control.

My house has a place for everything and many places are labeled for the rest of the family to know where to get items and where to put them back. Do not assume that once you eliminate the clutter in a space and it looks great, that everyone else will know what you did and where to find the items again. De-cluttering is a household affair and labeling just makes it easier for everyone. If mail is the issue, then as soon as the mail comes in the house, eliminate the junk mail. Have a recycle bin or trash can out in your garage or where ever you enter the home. Do not bring junk mail, ads you will never use, or flyers into your home. I find more grocery store ads and flyers in my clients home and most are to stores they never enter. Also, remember that most grocery stores have the current ad in the store as you walk in. Put your bills in a place that will be easy to find, will not attract other clutter, and you have access to anytime. Do not just set it on the counter. That is where they can accidentally get thrown out or lost in a sea of paper.

Take control of your clutter by making sure you need and use the item. If it was purchased on a whim and has been sitting there for years, get rid of it. I live with the items I actually use. For the things I use occasionally, I try to store those in the basement or a top shelf, so they are not taking up space where everyday items can be placed. Every season and holiday, as I put items away, I ask myself if I will be wearing or using that next season. Purging on a regular basis will also keep your clutter under control.

Be proactive when it comes to your space.

Julie Riber has been a professional organizer in the central Ohio area since 2004. She helps organize individuals spaces, time, and lives and she helps businesses streamline processes, increase productivity, and organize their spaces. She is a Golden Circle member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and a board member of the Ohio Chapter of NAPO since 2005. Sign up for her free monthly newsletter with organizing tips. http://www.transformare.net

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Organize Your Room, Get Rid of The Clutter

By Renee Pullman 

Do you use a room in your house until you fill it so full of stuff that you can hardly get around in it? Do you then move on to the next room? Lots of stuff that you never really use cluttered and crowded. Did you know that organizing the room will do wonders for you and you will be able to enjoy the room again.

A well organized room is not just finding things when you want them but it is about making a welcoming room where you can relax and work in comfort and without all the stress that clutter makes. When you set out to organize the room you must identify what you want to do with the room. You must decide what to keep and what to throw out. Given a little time you can get the room they way you want it to be.

What is the purpose of the room, TV, sleeping, games, whatever it is be clear on it's primary purpose. Then make a list of the things you want the room to contain. These things should, of course, support the main purpose of the room. Then position these things at places they make sense in the room.

Get rid of the things in the room that do not support the purpose of the room. Do these things belong in a different room or do you just need to get rid of them. Next position the things that you want to keep strategically in the room. You want to be careful of the things you keep and how you position them, after all you are getting rid of clutter and not laying the grounds to re-clutter the room. Be sure to utilize the storage within the room, drawers, cabinets, closets, etc should be used efficiently and not as catch-alls for accumulating more stuff.

Having your space laid out properly is a very good thing. Be sure to throw away all the junk and sort and organize the rest. Maintain your freshly organized room, whether your room stays organized is all in your hands.

When you organize a room you give it a new life as well as waking something inside you up. I invite you to visit http://deskorganize.net and learn more.

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Be Realistic When Planning Your Organizing

It is important to be realistic when planning your organizing goals that you want to accomplish. Everyone is usually very busy these days with many various responsibilities each day, either with their work or their family or both. I find it extremely helpful to write my daily "To Do" list and try to balance enough time to complete a few organizing goals each day, even if my smaller projects may only require less than an hour in time.

Don't think "all or nothing" when beginning an organizational project. I used to start my day with good expectations and lots of energy planning to spend a couple of uninterrupted hours to completely finish organizing a really large room from top to bottom.

However, many times my plans were somewhat unrealistic because you often times may need to start and stop a project if working on a specific room or section in your home due to other responsibilities, such as preparing lunch or supper for other family members, etc.

For example, today I am planning to finish cleaning and organizing 2 more cabinets in my kitchen, which includes a total of 6 shelves. I also want to clean and organize a large drawer in my kitchen. I would really like to clean the whole inside of my refrigerator too, but realistically I may need to put that project on tomorrow's schedule.

I am planning on making a lot of homemade chili today lunch, in addition to making a large chicken casserole for supper. At least with those two meals, hopefully, I will have some leftovers for the next day, which may save me some time tomorrow.

As I complete my inividual projects today, I will make a check mark of completion on my "To Do" list and I will have a good feeling of accomplishment for the day. It's helpful and optimistic to remember that after you successfully complete each specific project, it should save you time in the future and make it easier to maintain your living area in the home and help you to relax and truly enjoy your environment!

Organizing My House

I have been organizing my house for the past few weeks. I have been trying to accomplish a few hours each day on various projects in different rooms in my home. I routinely feel peaceful and relaxed when my home is neatly organized. It makes it easier to maintain for routine cleaning and it is also easier to find items in your home when you have them in the correct place.

As I am moving along with my work, I am using the following system: one box for donations, a box for any items that I will sell at a future yard sale, a bag for any throw out trash items, and another box for items that need to be properly stored because I want to keep them, but they may not be used on a routine basis.

It was very rewarding and motivating when I completed one area or more in the rooms that I worked on this week. I just ordered a few nice organization books to read. I am really looking forward to continuing with my organization projects.

I have so many items that I have moved out to my garage in a mannerly fashion for when I prepare for a yard sale in the near future. I will be looking forward to blogging about many organization ideas and helpful tips.

10 Baby Steps To Getting and Staying Organized

By Elvie Look 

Do you purchase magazines that talk about ways to get organized? Do you look through them, enjoy the pictures, but do not seem to have the energy to do them? Do you look around your home and wonder "where do I start?" Do you feel the task is over whelming? If you do feel over whelmed, chances are you will do nothing.

So, let's do baby steps. Here are ten small things you can start on that can make a difference, and will give you the feeling of accomplishment, not failure. You don't even have to do these all today. Try doing one step a day for the next ten days:

Paper: seems to mount up and soon get out of control. If you have a paper delivered to your home everyday, plus flyers, plus mail and magazines, this can instantly become clutter. Blitz through your home collecting up all newspapers and magazines and put into your recycling bin. You should keep only current reading material in your magazine rack or basket. I keep one magazine basket in both of my bathrooms, and one in the living room. Rotate your magazines, and put your older issues in a donation bag or into your recycling bin. Collect up all mail, paper receipts, notes, appointment slips, etc. that you have tucked into cupboards, on the counters, your purse, on the table, and put them all in one central location like your desk. You can even organize them into piles - like with like. All your receipts in one pile, bills in another, etc. Just by putting into one central location will eliminate that scattered feeling.

Kitchen Counters: Clean off your kitchen counter top. If you have papers there, collect them all up and take them to your office or your desk. You can deal with them later, but if you have a clean kitchen counter, it will feel and look instantly gratifyingly, clutter free and organized. Take time now to remove everything that does not belong on your kitchen counters, wash up the dishes, scrub the sink and make it shine.

The Floor: is not storage space. Do you have clothes lying around? Go through now picking them up and putting them away in their respective rooms, closets or into the laundry hamper. While you're at it, throw a load of laundry in. If you have clothes that need folding, do that and get them put away.

Toys: If you have children you should get them on board with collecting up toys and putting them into their toy station or play box.

Entrances: Attack your entrances by organizing your foot wear neatly, hanging up all your coats and removing anything that does not belong in this area. If you have sports equipment, homework and backpacks, put them into the rooms they belong.

Home for purged items: Create a bin or box for "donation" and one for "garage sale." Have a place for them. As you clean up and organize, you have a place to store things that you no longer wear or use. This prevents them from accumulating in your closets and becoming clutter in your home.

Start Purging: Now set a goal everyday to be "purge conscious." Getting organized doesn't mean stripping your home of things you love or use. You just need to be conscious of the things you are not using or are outdated, cracked or broken. Make decisions daily and put these trinkets or items into your bins. You still have time to retrieve them if you change your mind and made a mistake. But put them into the bin and just see if you will even miss them. Just by purging one thing everyday will take away the overwhelming feeling and start you on the road to de-cluttering your home and closets. It could be a shirt you never wear, a trinket on the side table that is just collecting dust, or a bowl that has a chip in it.

Bulletin Board: Create a bulletin board to post your messages, appointments, coupons, phone numbers, pictures, receipts, "to do" lists, instructions, etc. Just by making a home for these in one central location removes a lot of clutter.

Stay Organized Organizing Secret: Every activity must have a station. Every thing must have a home. Take a moment to consider what is becoming clutter - most likely it doesn't have a home or activity station. Give consideration to some place you can make a station for that activity. For example, If you con't have a desk or office for doing your bookwork, then it will pile up onto your dining room table. Make a station for this activity, either a nook where you can put a table or desk. Or, a basket with a lid that can store all of supplies like your cheque book, calculator, pens, stapler, bills. If it has a home, it won't become clutter.

Stay Organized Organizing Secret: Make the most of every step. Never walk by dirty dishes on the coffee table, or wrappers, empty pop cans. If you are going by, pick it up and take it with you. If you are going downstairs, take a load of laundry, if you coming upstairs, bring up the folded clothes and put them away.

Elvie Look is an Entrepreneur, Expert Organizer, Cook and Seamstress. She provides organizing solutions, tips, menus and recipes at: http://www.elviesessentials.com

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