“Thank you so much. I think I can rest now. I’ve been stressing since I’ve been in the hospital that you wouldn’t be able to come so thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
J. Cramer
Moving Soon? Get Organized Now
February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Are you waiting until you start packing to get organized? If you do, you’ll make a lot of mistakes and, because you’re stressed, make poor decisions. You have more things than you realize.
First: Stop buying in bulk. Use the food and paper goods you already have. It doesn’t matter if food is on sale if you’re going to throw it out or box it up. See, even if you move yourself, you’re paying in time, energy, and the cost of boxes. Go through the pantry and discard out-of-date items and give to friends food that will spoil during the move.
Second: Every week you should be purging a category (or more depending on how much time you have before the move). Think in terms of categories not rooms. One week everyone is trying on clothes and donating what doesn’t fit, never worn, or just plain don’t like anymore. The next week is toys/hobbies. The next week would be media: books/DVD/games. I find clients can get through their things faster when they work in categories rather than jumping from DVDs to clothes to bathroom items.
Third: Files and Paperwork: Now is the time to get your paperwork down to the essentials. If you don’t know what that is, Google records retention and there are a number of good sites that can help. No use lugging tax returns from 15 years ago.
Fourth: Don’t move what you never unpacked from the last move.
Fifth: This is the perfect time to donate furniture that either won’t work in the new home or you never liked.
Sixth: Find vital records: passports, birth certificates, titles to cars, etc. and put them in a notebook to keep with you.
I recommend buying uniform size boxes rather than trying to save money by getting mismatched boxes from the grocery store, etc. Uniform sized boxes fit better in a moving van. Don’t get boxes that are so big you won’t be able to lift them once they are full.
Get started. Create the Space for a new future.
Organizing Client: Young Teacher
February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Organizing Client: young teacher: Problem areas were master bedroom, child’s room, paperwork
Client’s Fears: 1. Not being able to part with things that brought back memories.
2. Her child would resist letting go so it would be too much of a struggle getting the child’s room organized.
3. Nervous about having someone she doesn’t know in her space and possibly judging her harshly or not understanding
Erin struggled with organization her entire life. It got to the point where it was affecting family relationships. She was very nervous when I arrived and even thought about canceling. Bravely, she let me into her space, showed me around, and shared her story. I painted a picture of what her space could look like and we started organizing a small area of the kitchen and a box of paperwork. Erin learned what papers weren’t necessary to keep so she didn’t worry about shredding most of what was in the box. She said that because I was there to help her focus and be supportive, she was able to make decisions a lot faster. Everyone around her questioned why she was paying someone to do what they would help her do for free. After the next appointment where we completely organized her bedroom, (Erin already bought the necessary supplies and did a great job carrying out the plan for the bathroom before the appointment) she figured out that I was able to help her in ways her relatives and friends could not. She said it was worth the money because her bedroom was organized through a process where she didn’t feel bad about herself or didn’t have to explain why she kept something. In other words, a professional versus friends made a huge difference.
Erin was nervous before every appointment but knew she would feel so much better by the end of the session. She didn’t allow her nerves to get the better of her. As for her daughter, Erin was in for a surprise. We started out deciding on stuffed animals in her daughter’s room because it was the one area she thought her ten-year-old daughter would have the biggest problems with letting go. I suggested adding a shelf to display the stuffed animals she was keeping; however, this would require deciding which animals to put on display. This made it a lot easier for her daughter to let go of two trash bags full of animals because she understood how much more she was going to enjoy the ones she kept. Once that was done, her daughter left on her own and we finished the job. The huge smile on her face when she saw her room organized was a wonderful thank you. Because her play things were well organized, she couldn’t wait to start playing.
I know it’s hard to have someone you don’t know in your home. But if you’ve spent years saying that some day you are going to get organized. The evidence shows you need someone from the outside to give you a plan, focus, and a helping hand.
Displaying Memorabilia
February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Pottery Barn Cubby Organizer
Most of us keep our memorabilia hidden away in trunks and boxes. A lot of the items we save are small: ticket stubs, a note or card, photo, or special keepsake a loved one gave us. Why not bring them out and put them on display not only for your own enjoyment but to share with others. Pottery Barn Cubby Organizer is perfect for organizing and displaying memorabilia. My sister, Barbara, changes out the items seasonally: Christmas, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day. When my sister, Carol, spent a week with Barbara, she brought out photos and remembrances of their childhood. Great idea!
January 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
You were very informative and entertaining. You kept the crowd alive. Thanks so much for being the keynote speaker. We had an awesome time. Nikole Buckley, Pinal Gila Community Child Services
Why I dislike disorganized work spaces
January 13, 2012 By
Your work space is meant to be a place where ideas can percolate and projects get finished. Anything in your space that distracts you from getting things done is clutter. Clutter is annoying and stressful. Who needs that?
Depression During the Holidays
November 27, 2011 By
A lot of people find this time of year overwhelming. Add gift buying, sending Christmas cards, decorating, cooking, and entertaining and it’s too much to an already busy schedule. Julie Fast, author of Getting It Done When You’re Depressed, recommends writing out the steps you need to take to finish a project and include the time you think each task will take. You’ll find things usually take a lot less time than you estimated. She says, “Everything feels impossible if you look at it as a whole instead of as a process with individual steps. In reality, the steps are all that matter, especially when you’re depressed.”
I find women have a really difficult time saying “no” especially at this time of year. Force yourself to say, “Let me think about your request and get back to you.” Give yourself time to think and consider the request. If you make this a habit, you’ll find yourself only taking on the tasks that you have time for and enjoy instead of those that cause more stress and add to your feelings of overwhelm. This applies to all the things you think you need to get done before Christmas. What would be the consequences if you didn’t send out cards this year, or only made one or two types of cookies instead of five or six? What if you used kraft paper to wrap all your gifts instead of three or four different types of wrapping paper? It might be helpful to pick one source for all your Christmas shopping instead of spending so much time going from store to store.
Be careful to finish one project at a time. You will feel better when you finish a task instead of many partially started projects. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart and your home doesn’t need to look like those in the magazines.
Is your family happy? Are you focused on the true meaning of Christmas? Isn’t that enough?
Staying disorganized
November 1, 2011 By
You will stay disorganized if you:
- Spend more time planning rather than doing
- Keep shopping
- Don’t make learning organizing skills a priority
- Make excuses
- Think you have to feel motivated to get organized
- Aren’t willing to change your habits
- Shuffle papers around rather than make decisions
- Over-commit to demands on your time
- Give in to distractions
- Don’t exercise discipline
The only way to get more organized is to spend time getting organized.
courage is not absence of fear
September 23, 2011 By
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” Mark Twain “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” C.S. Lewis A lot of my energy lately has been spent involved in a very difficult situation while serving in a leadership position in a volunteer organization in which bravery is one of its tenants. Because the difficulty is so, well difficult, people are sitting by the sidelines and haven’t come to the defense of their friends with proven character. Speaking up when there is injustice will make you very uncomfortable; but why live a life of ease?
In the present difficulty, I’ve been extremely disappointed but not surprised that I’ve not seen courage from the adult men in leadership or mentoring positions. As C.S. Lewis said, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.” I’ve seen a great deal of courage in one particular young man, however. I think he’s learned that fear won’t get you very far but courage will take you a long way.
August 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I would like to shout from the rooftops what a wonderful job Nancy Nemitz did in helping me organize my kindergarten classroom. I was given two evenings to set up and decorate the classroom. Before Nancy arrived, I was in a complete panic. After five minutes of Nancy being in the classroom, we had an organized plan of attack. We laid out the room, organized the shelves, put my filing system in place, and wrote a to-do list for the next few days. It is such a relief knowing everything has a logical home. I recommend Nancy’s organizing services for all teachers! Thank you, Nancy. Sarah Dight
