The reason I know that creating an organized system has no right way or wrong way is from personal experience. There are alot of books out there that explain why this  method of organizing is superior to another method and THE ANSWER for everyone. I realized that each of these authors had a different approach to organizing and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. This led me to the conclusion that there is no one answer. It is an individual process that can only be defined by me which will in turn lead to a lifestyle change. The organizing process is dependent upon each individual and their learning style along with physical ability and motivation coupled with the space being organized. This creates a customized organizing system that will provide for easy maintenance and sustainability. The process of organizing a space can be broken down into steps that are able to be used in every area. I will not go into those here.

Understanding learning styles goes a long way...

The holidays for me are exciting, I’ve always been enamoured from Thanksgiving through Christmas with all of the sights, sounds and smells. Once the fall decorations go up in late September we didn’t see the actual home decor until after New Year. It was pretty and lifted life up out of the ordinary.

As I’ve been on my own organizing journey as well as accompanied countless others, I started to find myself less thrilled with all of the stuff related to the holidays. It seemed to hit me when I went into a home of a client with loads of bins and boxes of holiday decorations-all holidays. There was another organizing project that I was working on that affected the way I look at the decorations and the holidays now. This particular client had a complete set of very expensive Christmas China along with an extensive collection of expensive holiday decor. The client had been holding on to all of this in hopes of passing it on to her children. Sadly, the children had no...

As I was reaching a milestone birthday, I decided I really wanted to challenge myself. So, 28 days before my birthday I began a quest. I actually gave myself not one but two challenges. These are challenges I would not have been able to entertain prior to living organized. The first challenge was to do 50 pushups and the second challenge was to say 50 prayers/day.

The significance of 50 was related to my birthday. Yep, I turned 50! This is hardly noteworthy because people have milestone birthdays every day. To me, it was a big deal and I wanted to prove to myself that I can do anything that I put my mind to. Saying 50 prayers a day is a lot but I knew that wouldn’t be as hard as the other challenge because I pray every morning anyway. Being a Catholic I knew where to go to say 50 prayers, the Rosary. I pray daily but am not consistent with praying the Rosary. The Rosary is a beautiful way to honor the Virgin Mary. It was a practice or discipline I really wanted to grow in.

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Show of hands, do you make your bed? Well, that’s pretty silly because I can’t see you! What if I told you that making your bed can make you organized and more productive? Do I have your attention?

In a Commencement speech given by U.S. Navy Adm. William McCrave at the University of Texas, he told the graduates, “ if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”

This made me think of the correlation between making your bed and living organized. To live organized is to find order in your life. One of the most basic places to find order is in the start to your day. This one act leads to other good habits. Making the bed changes the entire feel of the room. Who knows, today you make your bed and next you’re putting away the laundry sitting at the foot of the bed. This is really one of those areas that very few people will see. You see it, your mind sees it and this is where the mind shift happens. After all, making your bed is the first step...

I want to share with you how I got caught up in the economy of distraction and how I got myself out of it. It all began with a day recently that I completely accomplished nothing. This was an unexpected gift of FREE time that I wasted! If you own a business then you know there really isn’t free time, there is always something to do. One thing I want to point out is that I coach clients on using their time. You would think I would be able to prevent this myself! It is likely that I missed this because I was too close to the situation. On this particular day, my husband came home and in his very sweet way asked about my day. As I reflected on what I had done that day, I actually couldn’t come up with anything significant. I had spent time social media surfing, looking online for nothing in particular and looking at my 3 email accounts without actually answering them. I had even started the laundry but didn’t finish that either! I was pretty much distracted in every...

When tragedy strikes such as a natural disaster, theft, illness or even death, the last thing you want to worry about is if you can find everything you need. The problem is that most of us don’t want to think about horrible things happening. The reality is that they do happen and death escapes no one.

Are you prepared? This is a great question to start with. With a little preparation and planning you can feel better about the unknown. You may need other family members to take care of you or your affairs and this is going to really be helpful to them. The last thing anyone wants to do in the event of an emergency is to sift through papers. Preparation is the key to making this a little less stressful.

Let’s take a look at how to prepare.

Step 1 is to gather the following:

-Insurance policies & contact info

-Bank accounts & contact info (including investment and retirement)

-list of monthly debts & contact info

-passports

-original social security card

-health...

Living balanced is a topic near and dear to my heart. It is the place I am at my best. It is found in the mind, body and spirit. It took me a long time to figure out why I was struggling with myself and my relationships. The imbalance I had in my mind, body and spirit did not lead me to being my best version of me.

Living balanced does not mean your mind, body and spirit must be divided equal, that might be impossible. Nor does it mean that life is perfect, that too, would be impossible. The point of living in balance is knowing what you need to be the best version of you.

Think of the mind, body and spirit as ratios. There may be times when you are 60% mind, 20% body and 20% spirit. If you are feeling like you are at your best with these ratios then you are living balanced. The problem may come in if you live this way all the time. Tuning into what makes you and then figuring out what makes you better is a great benefit to living balanced. After a period of time living with a focus...

November is a special month to slow down and count your blessings. 

This mindful process helps to make the month even more meaningful.
You can do these by yourself or with your family.

1. A family Gratitude sheet
This is a really great way to get everyone involved and focused on being thankful. By keeping this in a central location in your home everyone gets to share in the gratitude. Don’t forget your out of town guests, they can join in too! When the month is over, the paper goes into the memento keeper for the family scrap book.

Supplies:
A tablet of paper
Pen ( if you have little ones, they can use pictures instead of writing, in which case you will need glue)

2. A gratitude board is a more creative way to display what you are thankful for in picture form. You can choose to build on it as the month progresses or make it all at once. Plan to have it in a place
people can see it.

Supplies needed:
Cork board, dry erase board, poster board or anything else of that size
...

I stumbled into my home office after a week of busy and did a double take. Where did all of this paper come from?  I just did the filing last week! Oh, I don’t have time to tackle this….sound familiar??

Well, this unfortunately moved to the top of the priority list because there were things I needed to take care of in a timely manner if I could only find them!

As a Professional Organizer, I help countless people get their stuff in order and now it would appear I am in need of an Organizer!  I had to be the Organizer for myself because I didn’t have time to get one of my Organizer friends into my mess.

Step 1: Turn on the music, in my case it was a podcast. Listened to this fictional crime story called, Dirty John done by a LA Times reporter.  It was a 6 episode podcast so that gave me plenty of time to get this project done.

Step 2: Eliminate distraction- I had to schedule myself “off” to the rest of the world. FOCUS is the name of the...

There appears to be some unwritten rule that says everyone must use a dresser. I am here to tell you that is just not true. In fact, many people can lead a simpler life if there is no dresser. It actually lessens stress and saves time when there is no dresser to contend with. Seems kind of scandalous, doesn’t it? I have performed my own informal research as a Professional Organizer to come to this conclusion. Let me share this revelation with you…..

Most of the time, the dresser is used for storage on top with very little going in the drawers themselves. Very commonly, if there are items inside the dresser they are rarely worn and I will hear,” Oh, I didn’t know I still had that!” 

For some people, there is an out of sight, out of mind reality. The fear is that putting items in the drawer and closing it will prevent those items from ever being found again.

In some cases, I realized that opening a drawer and closing it was too many steps for...