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Organizing and Productivity Books

July 21, 2016/6 Comments/in Organizing Quotes and Inspiration, Organizing Skills/by Ellen

There are lots of books on organizing and productivity. My favorite organizing and productivity books focus on topics that are more than just “how to books.” The topics include content that provide insights into the big picture of organizing and productivity. Some of these focus on what holds you back. These books promote creating new perspectives and new awareness. Here’s a list of my favorite organizing and productivity books.

The Power of Habit

A New York Times best seller, The Power of Habit shares how habits work. The book shares the science of habits. Develop powerful positive routines with this book.

Essentialism

Greg McKeown shares the value of paring down to what is essential to you. In order to say yes to what’s most important, you have to know what to say no to. This book shares a new perspective on how to prioritize.

Organizing from the Inside Out

Julie Morgenstern wrote this book in the early 2000s, at the dawn of organizing. It’s a must read for all who are interested in changing their space. This book outlines simple ways to organize.

ADD Friendly Ways to Organize

Written to address the needs of those who have ADHD, this book shares practical strategies for organizing. Written in collaboration by an organizer and a therapist, ADD friendly strategies start with self – help and move to working with professionals.

More Attention, Less Deficit

Beginning with a review of ADHD symptoms, this book provides extensive suggestions for overcoming every day challenges face by those with ADHD.

Organizing Plain and Simple

This book is a simple reference for all sorts of organizing challenges and practical ways to make a difference in your home or office.

Maybe you are not a reader. Many of these books are offered as audio books. Maybe you like to read several books at a time. Choose a book that sounds interesting and share what resounded with you here.

If you love books as much as I do, you want to organize them too!

Six Simple Solutions to keep you Sane every Season!

Do things seem more complicated than ever? Rather than joy and anticipation, are you feeling overwhelmed at the thought of the new year and all it will bring? Start the year with simple organizing solutions to create order and balance in your life.

Your calendar

Have a great calendar you love! It can be paper or electronic, whichever is most compatible and engaging for you. It should be portable to travel with you and the format should be week or month at a glance. Rules for using your calendar include writing in everything regularly (from doctor appointments to work meetings) reviewing it daily. Add a weekly planning time for you to review what is coming up and adding items from your master list. This is the single most important tool you can have for time management.

Your list

Most people have too much to remember on a daily basis to remember it all without writing it down. Having a list keeps you in the moment, so that you can keep energy and focus on the project you are doing. Keep a spiral notebook or PDA with you at all times, so you can easily jot down notes and lists when the thought occurs. By consolidating all of this in one place you can review and prioritize actions and projects, combine activities and errands and be more productive each day.

Command center for your papers

Create a space for papers that require action. Your command center holds all the very important action papers, including bills and other papers requiring an action. Add a section for papers that will be filed. Each day open your mail at this station, recycle junk mail, shred potential identity theft papers and bring catalogs and magazines to a reading spot. By creating a specific work station for these papers, you are ready to act on them with an hour of weekly administrative time.

A place for everything

Often clutter is the result of items needing a specific “home” or space. Designate that space by deciding where the item is used most often and determine to place it back each and every time. By designating a space, you are also setting a limit to the quantity of the item you can own. For example, all clothes must fit in the master bedroom closet or all laundry products fit on the shelves above the washer. Defining a place for everything helps you save money, ease the stress of looking for items and maintain the order you have created in your home.

Keep it Simple Sweetie

By keeping our projects and routines simple, we can enjoy our lives more fully. Routines like laundry and dinner should be as easy to complete as possible. These are activities that enhance our lives by completion rather than complication. Think of simple ways to create routine for you and your family. Can each family member having their own laundry basket eliminate laundry in the family room? Can dinner be sandwiches and soup? The K.I.S.S. principle makes the difference in our homes and activities.

15 minutes of organizing every day

Every day have 15 minutes of organizing to maintain the systems you have set up. After our busy days, we come home tired from our work, but we still need to get a little organizing completed. What can you do in 15 minutes? Get things back to where they belong, get ready for the next day, get lunches made, get your list together, get paper sorted into your command center and get your sanity back! We all can do anything for 15 minutes, especially, if it adds peace of mind and quality to our lives.

Work on these simple solutions a little each day. Uncomplicated, easy, straightforward and effortless organizing solutions for every season will make this year your best!

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4 Rules for Organized Living

March 8, 2016/4 Comments/in Most Organized Year Ever, Organizing Skills/by Ellen

My own personal mantra has always been “Keep it simple sweetie.”

No matter the situation or the conversation, my life works best when I keep it simple. What happens when it’s not simple? Stress from clutter, frustration from lack of time, or feelings of being overwhelmed are common when life is complicated. A focus on simplicity brings life into balance.

How do you keep it simple?

• Ruthlessly look for ways to cut down on clutter.

Set up a bag to drop in unused items to donate to our local philanthropies every week. Keep a shopping list of only what’s needed. When something new comes into your home, let go of something else. Simplify by letting go of MORE than you think you can.

• Prioritize you and your family’s commitments.

There are lots of “good” things we “should” do. Know what’s most important to you and your family and align your activities with these priorities. Keep up to date on your personal and family calendars to know what your commitments are.
• Know what papers to keep, what to shred and what to recycle. Set up a command center for papers that come in and triage paper daily. It’s a station in your home and office where paper is kept and categorized. Each day you go through paper and file, shred or recycle. Once a week have an administrative time to go through the remaining paper, pay bills, and do what’s needed.

• Host a weekly meeting for you and your family.

Building your team makes your efforts easier. Having everyone talk through upcoming activities and plans makes for good communication. Add time to your personal calendar for your own weekly planning as well where you consolidate information from papers, kids, email and more.
Have simple systems and routines in place to reinforce your new mantra. Your sense of efficiency, productivity and positivity will grow as a result too!

5 Ways to Make Essential Routines More Fun

March 3, 2016/6 Comments/in ADD and ADHD, Organizing Skills/by Ellen

Routines are an essential part of an organized life. The more you do a routine, the easier it becomes. For some of us, routines are tedious. It’s in adding some spark to the mundane, everyday routine that makes it much easier. There are essential routines for all of us: getting stuff back to where it goes, getting ready for bed, and getting ready in the morning. Take a new perspective on these routines with these ways to make routines more fun.

Reset

If the idea of picking up each day and getting stuff back to where it goes is too dull, start by renaming this routine the RESET. A reset is where you get everything back to where it goes. The best time to do this is every evening, right after dinner. Set a timer and you have enough time to RESET for 15 minutes and then you are ready for the next day. Ask your family to partner together to get everyone in on the reset.

Shutdown

You and your kids need to get ready for bed and everyone is tired of hearing all the details. It’s time to start the SHUTDOWN. Explain to your family that when we say, SHUTDOWN, it’s time for you to brush your teeth, get in jammies and start your reading. Keeping it super simple, your family knows each step and you are all ready for bed on time.

Music playlist

Music touches our inner souls. What if you have a playlist for different routines in your home? Just like the Cleanup song for preschool, a pre-set playlist signals the time for everyone to start a morning routine. Morning can be especially rough for some of us and a playlist eliminates the need for talking.

Track it

Use a tracking tool to remind your family about individual tasks that are part of their routines. Make routines a team effort with a tracking tool that rewards everyone for keeping the routines going. Use a visual tracking tool, like adding marble to a jar, for each day you keep the routine. When you reach your short-term goal, and then your longer-term goal, everyone shares in the fun of an ice cream or dance party.

App it

There is always an app for that! Apps make it easy to stay on top of routines with reminders and rewards.

The more fun a routine is, the more unforgettable. Even if you can’t keep your routine daily, you can always get restarted on a routine. Just start back up the next day, morning or evening. Be positive about your routines and successes too.

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A Spa Treatment for your Bathroom

February 16, 2016/3 Comments/in Home Organizing, Organizing Skills/by Ellen

Sometimes it is the little things that matter most! Getting your bathroom and vanity area organized can make a difference in getting out the door on time in the morning and starting the day with a bright outlook! Pamper yourself with these tips for organizing makeup and jewelry. Organizing your bathroom makes it easier to get ready in the morning and get out of the house on time.

Makeup organizing

So many samples and products

We all have products we have purchased that are expensive but we decided not to use. Make a decision – toss, “gift” to a friend, or use the product. If you are still not able to decide due to the expense of the product, date the back of the box, and vow to decide in 6 months. As you are reviewing your products, check the expiration dates. Even if your product has not been opened, the expiration date of one year still applies. Remember, cosmetics have a shelf life due to bacterial growth.

Samples and gift sizes can get out of hand! Keep one container in a guest bath for pampering your guests. Give extra products and samples to college students or teenagers you know. Store the remainder in plastic containers, labeled with the type of product, shampoo, conditioner, lotion or whatever. Also consider giving sample sizes to a women’s shelter or church mission trip.

Divide and conquer

Think of the cosmetics displays and counters in the department store. Categorize the different products by their use. Keep products together for your face, your eyes, your lips, and more. Use the back of your vanity space to store the extra products, using baskets or plastic bins for each of the different types of products. For additional vertical space, retail stores have a shelf addition that will double your space under your counters.

Access for every day

For everyday use, keep just one of each product handy for you to use. Keep them in a container that can be lifted easily from below inside your vanity or in the top center drawer for easy access. Purchase containers that keep each group of products together, with an area for mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow, another area for moisturizer, blush, and face powder, and another area for lip liner and lipstick.

Jewelry

Create a “home” for your jewels

Keep a small tray in the kitchen and on your bathroom vanity to be the “home” for your jewelry when you take off your watch, rings, and bracelets. This way you always know where to find these valuables! I always take my jewelry off as I reach home so as not to damage these doing chores and laundry. Diamonds are hard, but can still chip when hitting the center of the washing machine!

Queens jewels or not

Review your jewelry – are there broken pieces that need repair? Have you lost a stone? Is there a family heirloom that might be refashioned and worn? Keep these out for repair. Also, is it time to part with some of the costume jewelry that is outdated? Donations to worthy causes and mission trips are a wonderful way to share your blessings.

It’s all about access

With your remaining jewels, decide what is everyday jewelry and dress up! Separate these for access and storage. For dress up, store valuables in a locked cabinet if possible. Keep all of it together so you know where it all is, otherwise you can lose individual pieces if stored around your home in various spots. Purchase a small safe or locked file cabinet for a great storage space. Do not store jewelry in your master bedroom – this is the typical spot to check in a robbery. Depending on the quantity of dress up jewels you have, store in boxes from the jewelry store with a label on the outside, or purchase individual leather trays from Hold Everything or clear containers from the Container Store.

For everyday jewelry, store your items as if they were in a jewelry store. There are two ways to do this – store all the rings, bracelets, necklaces separately by category. Or store the items that make a “set” together – a matching ring, bracelet, earrings and necklace in one area. Inexpensive jewelry boxes are available at retail stores and The Container Store to view your jewelry for easy access. Choose what you love, either counter top or inside a drawer, to keep you organized!

You may decide to further your “Spa Treatment” in your bath and include your linen closet, medicine cabinet or other area. Please call me if I can be of assistance!

How to Make Habits Stick

January 14, 2016/6 Comments/in ADD and ADHD, Organizing Skills/by Ellen

Some of us are creatures of great routine and some of us are not. When it’s hard to make habits stick, it’s easy to get discouraged. We label ourselves as unable to create or stick with habits. With ADHD, it’s especially hard to create and stick to habits or routines. Habits are not always about being more disciplined. Habits are about finding ways to incorporate small changes that add up. How do you make habits stick? Here are 5 ways to make habits more consistent in your life.

Find your habit success first

Surprisingly most people don’t know what habits are sticking. Start with that awareness. Do you consistently do any one thing? It can be something so small you don’t recognize it. It can be a personal hygiene routine like brushing your teeth, a family activity like attending church or a time topic like being on time routinely. Once you know one habit is working, it’s a great way to start a new habit.

Start a small actionable habit

Over and over we hear it takes 21 days to create a new habit. Research shows it is actually longer. However, often we are trying to tackle more than one habit at a time. Start with something small and specific that you can accomplish. Find one small part of a new habit you want to create and work just on that small piece.

Hook your habit

Now that you know about a successful habit, it’s time to hook onto this. This means you are doing this new habit just after your existing habit. This way you have the bonus of starting off with success. It’s a powerful way to see change.

Start today

There’s no time like the present. As Nike says, “Just Do It.” Starting today means you are committing to change. End procrastination by saying that today is the day. Start right now.

Hold yourself accountable

There are two sides to creating new habits, both procrastination and perfectionism. We give ourselves the option to just start tomorrow and procrastinate. We give ourselves permission to call it quits because we haven’t done the task perfectly day in and day out. Acknowledge both of these and be committed for a 3 month time. Be accountable with data with apps that help. Announce your intention to your best friend and have them support you in a loving way. Create a chart you check off daily to see progress. If you miss a day, get back on the wagon right away.

How to make habits stick? Try just one of these tricks or tools for at least a month and see what happens!

Smart New Year Resolutions You Can Keep

January 7, 2016/7 Comments/in Organizing Skills/by Ellen

The new year has us thinking about the way we spend our time and our energy. What will we do the same this year and what will we change? What smart New Year resolutions will be easy to keep?

Each year resolutions are made and broken. It’s really about life changes, not resolutions. We want enduring change that we can keep throughout the year. Start off with big picture thinking to shape the changes you want to make. Choose just one tip to begin organizing and simplifying your life. What are some smart new year’s resolutions or new year mantras to choose?

Take time to make a plan.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s important to take the time to stop, step back and to put yourself into planning mode. There is rarely an organizing dilemma that can’t be overcome. Once you acknowledge this, you’re well on your way to conquering whatever project is ahead of you.

Take baby steps.

I love the joke, “how do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time! Break down the problem or problem area into small sequential steps. For example, instead of trying to organize your entire bedroom closet–a very overwhelming task for many people–just start by removing five articles of clothing you no longer wear, and putting them in a Donation Bag. Or, instead of trying to get 8 tasks done on your To Do list, focus on just one or two at a time. Begin with just 15 minutes a day in a small area. Baby steps help you start a project and complete it.

Do it or delegate it.

Recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and work from your strengths. No matter the organizing challenge or routine, there are just some things that we are not going to accomplish. Choose what you are best at and then find someone to assist you as a partner to get started, help along the way or complete the task at hand.

Less is more.

Simplify your life and your schedule to feel balanced and in control. We take on many different roles and tasks that lead to over commitment and stress. The concept of “less is more” extends to our belongings and schedule. We need a place for everything in our home or office and a time for a routine as well. When we prioritize and stay in touch with these priorities, we feel great about ourselves and our homes.

Make this your most organized year ever! Join my newsletter here.

Check Lists I Love!

January 5, 2016/2 Comments/in Organizing Skills/by Ellen

When there are tasks that need to be done over and over, a check list is a great way to get them completed. It’s also a sure way to know that a process or series of tasks gets done too. Check lists are reminders of what needs to be done when.

Gathered from a group of professional organizers and productivity consultants, as well as other contributors, try out one of these check lists to make life easier!

Home maintenance check list by Affordable Handy Man

Sabrina’s Organizing Check Lists

Organizing Boutique Travel Check List

Smart Happy Organized Basement Storage Check List

Emergency preparedness and important papers Check List

Tax preparation

Share your favorite check lists here!

Get Organized Month

January 1, 2016/1 Comment/in Organizing Skills/by Ellen

During Get Organized (GO) Month, the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) professional organizers and productivity specialists help individuals, businesses and schools bring time management, organization, storage solutions and productivity into their lives.

In honor of Get Organized Month, this is a round up of decluttering posts to help you jump start your year of organizing!

Here are the top 3 for 2015.

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