Organize to Revitalize Blog: Yours, Mine and Ours: Tips to Communicate with Your Blended Family and Stay Organized

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Connecting, collaborating and consolidating with a blended family can be a challenge! Check out my guest blog post on Organize to Revitalize

Yours, Mine, and Ours: Tips on How to Communicate With Your Blended Family and Stay Organized

http://dallisonlee.com/blog/2013/02/05/yours-mine-and-ours-tips-on-how-to-communicate-with-your-blended-family-and-stay-organized/

Plentiful Powerful Productivity= Success

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productivity

 

Powerful productivity come when we create an environment that works with our strengths.  Improve your effectiveness and efficiency with these tips.

  • Your planner is the visual guide to your productivity.  Use it like a map, writing in what your destination is for your day, your week and longer.  When you write tasks and projects into your planner, you are making yourself accountable and breaking the job into smaller, manageable pieces.
  • Use paper management skills to go from overwhelmed to in control.  Break down the flood of paper by eliminating first what is junk and recycle this.  Create a command center where you drop recycling in and separate the paper into actions. Your command center should be at the spot where paper comes to you and you drop it in a pile. Create a fun and inviting command center using color!  Not sure what decisions to make about paper?  Be brutal and just keep what you absolutely need to work on, not maybe, someday projects.
  • Turn overwhelming email into 10 in your inbox by taking time three times a day to sort and clear email. Color code  your email and important email stands out.  Designate a power period to work on email that needs lengthy responses and relates to projects.  Your paper and email folders should be named the same to keep consistent and find what you need.
  • Add routines to your week to consolidate activities. Even grocery shopping is less stressful if you tack it on to an existing weekly activity.
  • Too much to do and too much on the brain? Use a notebook to capture your lists, dating the top of the list.  Then choose 3 – 7 tasks to do that day.
  • Use technology to help you increase your productivity.  Turn off alarms, email, texting and more when you really want to focus on a project.

What success tips do you have for plentiful productivity?

 

More ideas on powerful productivity here!

Double Up

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 What makes you spring into action? For me, I will be assured of starting and finishing a project when I double up.

  • I link two activities back to back that I love.  (Or at least love one of them!) I will file when I watch foodtv.
  • I will support a cause when I add in another team member that I work well with. I have joined committees and become a board member because it was fun, easy and rewarding to be a valuable team member.
  • No one wants to be left in the kitchen alone. My DH and I partner to unload the dishwasher, fold the sheets, and make dinner. You can create all different partners in your family to get this done.
  • Double up dinner recipes!  Freeze part of the recipe for another week.

What is one way you get the little stuff done? What organizing strategy works best for you?

Less IS more!

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Over and over we hear this phrase.  What does it really mean?

  • Less mail is less overwhelming. Take 5 minutes every day to recycle and review your mail. Keep what remains in your command center to work on during admin time.
  • Less to do means you are doing what you love. Our biggest burdens are our time commitments. We say yes and then feel completely overwhelmed.  Commit to less to do and feel the serenity.
  • Less stuff is less to take care of and more energy to do what we love.  Is your stuff becoming a burden? Its time to let it go and have less in your space.

For me I am using this mantra every week to decide how much time and energy I use in projects, with people and my own stuff.  It shapes how I think and what I do.  My goal this year is to do less and accomplish more. 

What do you want to do less of or have less of and feel more energy?

Find great ideas on Houzz.com

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It is always important to have a vision when you are organizing. It might be you are looking for a space that is decluttered or a space that is brimming with organizing products.  Take a look on Houzz.com and see what you find!

You can find my professional profile at http://www.houzz.com/pro/edelap.

Get Organizing Month IKEA Event on January 19

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YOU ARE INVITED!

Free Workshops at IKEA Houston offer Organization Tips for New Year

Reduce clutter with the help of National Association of Professional Organizers

 

January is officially “Get Organized Month!” To celebrate, IKEA Houston is partnering with National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) and Houston-area vendors to host free organization workshops and offer donation drop-off locations to help you clear the clutter.

 

WHEN: Saturday, January 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

WHERE: IKEA Houston (I-10 and Antoine)

WHAT: Enjoy complimentary one-hour workshops offering post-holiday organizing tips and win fun prizes while you watch! NAPO’s professional organizers and an IKEA Houston visual merchandiser and blogger will lead interactive demonstrations about creatively reducing clutter and utilizing storage spaces to the fullest.

 Workshop Schedule:

• 11:30 a.m.: “Junk Drawer Diaries” with Neitra Blair

• 12:30 p.m.: “The 5 S’s and You—Streamlining Your Space (and Life)” with Alynn Blakemore

• 1:30 p.m.: “From Piles to Smiles: Making Paper Disappear!” with Certified Professional Organizer and Family Manager Coach Ellen Delap

• 2:30 p.m.: “Getting Organized with Technology” with Janice Simon

• 3:30 p.m.: Meet the Blogger; DIY workshop with Ashley Rose of SugarandCloth.com

• 4:30 p.m.: DIY Workshop with Genna Riggins, IKEA Visual Merchandiser

RSVP: Workshops are free, so sign up for as many as you’d like! To RSVP and learn more, visit www.inspiringlifeathome.com/getorganized. Please RSVP and use my name! I love that IKEA will know who is sending attendees their way!

 

Recycle, Shred and Donate:

Donate and recycle books, old furniture, computers and clothes and bring documents for FREE shredding! Friends of the Houston Public Library, Houston Computer Recycling, Houston Furniture Bank and Salvation Army will be onsite to available to collect books, computers, furniture and clothes, and Southern Shred will be on site to shred your personal documents.

 

Hope to see you there!

– IKEA + NAPO

Organizing Tools: Plastic Storage

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All too often I find that people view organizing as “I just need more bins!”  Sorry to say, this is not the real solution! However, great bins do make a great tool for organizing.

  • Use clear plastic, consistent size bins for your organizing.  Consistent sizes are shoebox size, medium size, and 66 quart size. Consistent sizes helsp to can stack bins, easily.  With consistent sizes you can move them around your home and office where needed and interchange their uses. 
  • Color code the bins for specific storage.  We all love the green and red bins for Christmas and the orange bins for Halloween. You can extend this concept to pink for spring and Easter, a color for each person in your home, or a color for the attic or basement.
  • Label 2 sidese and the top of the bins. Even with clear bins, it is more visual.  A bin “index” can help too!

Image courtesy of Rubbermaid. Its the new Rubbermaid Clever Store!

NAPO Get Organized Month: Have your scheduled your Power Period today?

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Have you scheduled your Power Period today?

Check out my blog post for the National Association of Professional Organizers Get Organized Month!

www.napo.net

http://napogetorganized.com/2013/01/04/have-you-scheduled-your-power-period-today/

Organize Your Closet

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closet organizing

 

Our closets are our best friends and our worst enemies. We all would agree we never have enough storage in our homes. What exactly is in that tiny area? So many different items – shoes, clothes, keepsakes, small gifts, and even more. Use these tips to organize your closet ad personally design your best use for this space!

Hangers, hangers everywhere
The first step to a more visually appealing closet is to use multipurpose hangers for your wardrobe. Available inexpensively, choose slim line hangers . You will find these hangers add uniformity and a visual sense of order. And remember, when you remove an item from the hanger, take the hanger off the shelf, and store it nearby for the garment to return!

Evaluate then donate
A major source of closet problems is clutter. By honestly evaluating the need and use of the items in your closet, you will find space galore! Place a sturdy handle bag in your closet to place clothes or items that are too old, too small or large, or just “not you” to donate to a worthy cause. Each time you take a blouse off a hanger and it does not work, place it in the bag! If you have professional wardrobe items, you can donate these to Dress for Success!

Use your space most effectively
Do you see white wall above, below or around the items in your closet? If so, there are many options to maximize the space in your closet. Double rods double your space! Use a shoe organizer to convert the back of your closet door to hidden extra space. It can be used for scarves, jewelry or other items.

Time to containerize
Looking for a certain pair of shoes? Are your scarves wadded up in a drawer, hard to find? Clear containers with labels are the way to go! Different shapes and sizes can be used to maximize your space.

Daily routine
This is the Organized You – your evening routine to help you keep organized! Everyone needs a daily organization time, time to put away items and to get items prepared for the next day. When you put off organizing daily, it becomes a major chore. Unfortunately, your mother was right about this!

 

Struggling with organizing? Join my monthly newsletter and get a burst of organizing and productivity ideas.

Organizing Tools: Your Calendar/Planner

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There is nothing more important for organizing our time than a great calendar/planner.   You can use this tool to incorporate planning as well.  The strategy of not only recording dates can be the key to making your life more organized and less stressful. 

  • Choose a calendar/planner that works for you.  It’s a calendar/planner that makes it easy to record dates at any time.  It also helps you view time the way you think about time, at a month at a time, throughout  a week, or just in a long string.   Your calendar can be as simple as a yellow pad, very exact like Franklin Covey planners, or with technology on your smart phone.
  • Create a habit of recording dates as soon as possible.  There are always lots of dates swirling n your head for you and your family. By entering these on your calendar/planner  asap, you won’t have to remember them, there will be fewer conflicts of dates and activities, and you will start to grasp a greater sense of due dates and upcoming events. 
  • Refer to your calendar/planner diligently. How often? At least in the morning and evening, but also throughout the day to keep you on track with appointments and projects.
  • Use your calendar as planner for big and little tasks. Breaking down big projects with your own time line, creating accountability dates to complete a project, and adding in baby steps makes your planner a strategy to get things done.
  • Post a family calendar for your kids and partner to add dates.  Keeping everyone in the loop and keeping everyone communicating keeps your family organized. 
  • Have a weekly review to get ahead of the game. Once a week, make a date with your calendar to look ahead, see what is coming, prioritize and get in gear.

 Using a calendar/planner eliminates the mental clutter of remembering dates and times and helps you focus on completion of a project.  The more you use your calendar/planner, the more indispensible it will be!

Image courtesy of The Container Store www.containerstore.com