No longer do you need to have donations piling up, Amazon has made donating simple! All you need to do is add gently used clothing and small household goods to your Amazon shipping box and then visit GiveBackBox.com. With your free shipping label, UPS or USPS will deliver the box to the nearest GoodWill.
Not only is this an excellent way to recycle that ubiquitous Amazon box, but it will save you time in getting your donations out the door!
Check out my ideas in InStyle Magazine on how to organize your bathroom counters! These suggestions work for more than just perfumes!
Paper clutter can pile up quickly. If filing isn’t your thing, I might recommend Continue reading
It always amazes me how much stuff can fit into one small space! Â This closet houses all the music, movement, and P.E. equipment for a private preschool. And while we all might have moved past bean bags and rhythm sticks there are things we can definitely learn about organizing by going back to the basics! 
{Avoid the Tuck and Stash} The biggest problem with this closet Continue reading
Looking for an easy, inexpensive, organized approach to keeping track of your information no matter where you are? Â I love Continue reading
I have been asked repeatedly to write about the best way to store photos, both digital and print. The amount of options are daunting however with a few expert opinions I hope to offer you some ideas on how to store and archive your photos.
The Rule of Two (Plus One) Ken Watson from All about Digital Photos Continue reading
I was in the process of writing a blog post on organizing the laundry room when I found an excellent article that covered everything I wanted to say with pretty pictures! Britanny Blum was spot on with her 5 Dirty Secrets to organizing a laundry room; including a work space, drying area, and cleaning supply storage. My only note to add would be that organizing is personal, so what might look good on pinterest may not work for your family. Consider habits, realistic use, and time before implementing a new system.
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did!
~Kristin
Whether you have a small space or a luxurious large laundry room , it is still hard to stay organized and get work done. Â Below are my 5 dirty secrets to keeping your laundry room functional and organized.
____________________________________________________________________
A few of my favorite laundry rooms:
1. Work Surface is important as that is what you can you can use to fold laundry and sort after it is cleaned. Since I currently have a small laundry room, I have to carry my clothes to my room and sort on my bed. A nice table / work surface in any laundry room will add to the ease of folding. Plus, you can put the clean clothes right back in the bins of who they belong to and they can come pick their own clean clothes up from the laundry room and put back in their own drawers.
This work surface can…
View original post 631 more words
When organizing a pantry I like to start with a clean slate, meaning no food past its expiration date. I know it still might be edible but I want my clients to have such confidence in their newly organized space that they don’t have to think about expired food. Â However, I don’t want to be wasteful so here are a few ways to use expired food for non-edible purposes.
{Photo Credit: McCormick Spices}
{Photo Credit: wikipedia.org}
One of the things we organizers are frequently accused of is trying to throw away important items. However, I would like to counter that we organizers want you to have information that you need, readily available, and pertinent to the situation. This is especially true for Executive offices. And one of the most helpful ways to organize that information is by creating a reference library.
Most executives that I have worked with tend to 1) have large amounts of information at their disposal and 2) have very little knowledge of what or where specific items are kept. Most tend to form piles on the floor/desk/cabinet and hope that they will be able to retrieve it when necessary. Continue reading
Clear some clutter and properly dispose of your prescription drugs at this year’s National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, Saturday April 26th from 10am – 2pm.  This is a great opportunity to rid your medicine cabinet of expired drugs, unused prescriptions, and give you the ability to environmentally dispose of these substances. Â
Visit the DEA website to find a drop-off location near you.
{Photo Credit: dreamfarm.com}
I am not a product person but I love it when a system comes along that makes life easier. Membo, which stands for reMEMBer to dO it, is a great product that helps you determine if a job has been done. Its especially useful in multiple person households, no more asking if someone has fed the dog. Continue reading
Weeds entangled, deprived of nutrients, in a cold and hostile environment yet this beauty can still shine. Â I believe so many times we let our circumstances determine how we respond. Yet, imagine if we could react like this flower. Â Letting growth occur in those discouraging times. Imagine how beautiful we could shine if instead of refusing change, we grow with it.
Let’s hear it for the sunshine!
Disclaimer: This photo was taken after an afternoon of weeding, and believe me, a lot of growth occurred.
What do you do when you realize that the space you are expected to be the most productive is actually distracting you from getting work done? Â Whether at a desk at home or a cubicle at the office, an organized work space can make a huge impact on how quickly you accomplish your to do list! Instead of a distracting desk create an efficient work station with these three simple techniques.
Don’t use Paper as your Reminder. A lot of times, people use paper to help them remember to do something.  Instead, create a calendar based to-do list and then either file or discard the paper. This way you are not distracted by the pile on your desk and can think about the task at hand instead of everything on your to do list.
Hide the Electronics. The Wall Street Journal reports that workers are interrupted once every 3 minutes, either electronically or by others. And once distracted it takes 23 minutes for a worker to return to an original task. The solution, hide the electronics for a dedicated period of time. Â Let others know that you will be offline and give yourself time to get work done. Â And for those with small children try to incorporate this time into a daily nap/quiet time or even after bedtime.
Filing is fun! Filing is another way to remove the distraction of an ominous paper pile. Done appropriately, a filing system can be a huge benefit to any home or office. Using a categorical color-coded system makes information retrieval and storage easy; you can finally say goodbye to the pile and remove the distraction of looking for lost documents!
These are just a few suggestions on how to create a distraction free space, for more on office organization check out my organizing tips in Strategy Magazine.
I love comments so please let me know your solutions for a distraction free desk!
I love tax time, it is the perfect motivator for organizing your documents and receipts! Take this time to do a little Spring cleaning in your filing system by organizing your historical documents.
One of the main issues Continue reading
Ever repeated the location for something so many times you just want to scream the next time someone mentions the words “Where is…”? Or have you had to explain how a process works repeatedly? I love using pictures to explain. It saves time, energy, and can make it so much easier for other people to understand where items belong or how the process works.
{Photo Credit: marthastewart.com}
Today I want to curl up by a fire under a comfy blanket while sipping a warm beverage and reading a book. And just in case others Continue reading
{Photo Credit: sheknows.com}
Want a quick way to force yourself to organize a space? Continue reading
I love this commercial, showcasing life in reverse for amazing Olympic athletes.  Don’t you wish you had this ability to see what steps you might need to take to get you where you want to be? Continue reading
Wouldn’t it be nice if children were born having organizational skills? Your infant would fold their own laundry and set their timely sleeping/eating schedule to be the same everyday. While they aren’t born that way, I believe that most children can benefit from being taught organizational skills. Here are a few sneaky ways to help the whole family enjoy learning organizing habits.
{Photo Credit: thegospelcoalition.org}
{Photo Credit: http://www.health.com}
As Christmas winds down I prepare for my busiest month of the year. For many people, the new year brings a resolve to become more organized. For that reason, January is deemed “Get Organized” Month by the National Association of Professional Organizers. During the month, I will be covering new topics, including No More To Do Lists!; How to Organize your Desktop: electronic filing organization; and Is it possible to be organized with children? Continue reading
Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
God Bless!
When I mention what I do for a living, I get varying degrees of reactions; the never-heard-of-such-a-profession, the I-need-you-immediately, and the most common response, I-could-totally-do-your-job. Continue reading
You might say a beautiful ornament, yes, but perfect? Its perfection comes in the ability to collapse flat for easy storage.
Where as the average Christmas ornament requires lots of space and special containers, this ball becomes nothing but a very small stack of papers. To a professional organizer like me, easy storage is perfection!
I’ve recently had several conversations about the circumstances for hiring a professional organizer and found that Jessika Toothman’s article answers most of the big questions; what a professional offers, why the need, and how you would profit from their services.
At the very end of the article Jessika notes that she did not even know that professional organizing was a career but after researching this article she found that many people could benefit from the services an organizer offers.
Check out some of the benefits she lists …
{Benefits at Home}
“Professional organizers can help around the home in loads of ways. They can:
Managing all the information that a small business generates can be overwhelming. And despite the constant push to go paperless, we aren’t at that point in our information structure to be able to go without a way to manage documents.
I’ve seen lots of different paper management techniques (alphabetical, numerical, alpha-numerical, binders, folders, etc). And although each company is unique, I have found that a customized, color-coded, categorical filing system works best for most small businesses.
Here are a few ways that I recommend setting up your filing system…
Organize Professionally 