Organizing Home Tips

This is the hard working day. Make sure no kids are around. Try to save 5-6 hours uninterrupted. Start with anything that’s on the floors, tables, and counters. Pick them up room by room. Toss out unwanted items and put them in the garbage bag. Save the ones that you need in the plastic bins. This will take you 2 hours depending on how messy your house is.

Next step, go though your drawers in the kitchen, home office, and bedrooms. Toss out and keep. This will take you the rest of the day. Organize items by bins and mark them using the marker.

The most important part of the day is to clean and declutter. Remember the main reason the house is messy is because you saved too much stuff. So please don’t feel obligated to save. Don’t touch the paperwork such as bank statements, bills yet, just put them in a large plastic bin. You will sort them out later on.

How many of us feel the same way? Our coffee tables are full of books, magazines, paper cups, and everything else. There are socks underneath the beds and we don’t even dare to open the closet doors. If you have been fed up by the mess in your house. It’s time to take action!

Sometimes it’s harder to get started when there seems to be so much stuff to do. But you can do it! You don’t need to hire a professional organizer. That’s true, you can do it all yourself. Just make sure the children are not around and husband is at work. Give yourself 5 uninterrupted hours to clean, sort, dump, and organize. Then do the same the next day, and the next day…

Day one: this is not your cleaning day, but a day of preparation.

• Get yourself half dozen contractor sized garbage bags
• Markers
• 4-6 Plastic bins (large)
• Cleaning supplies
• Shoe organizers if you don’t already have them (plastic or metal)
• Nice hangers
• Storage bags

Always be sure to put things away when you’re done using them. This will allow you to keep better track and better remember where things are and when you last used them. If they sit out for ages and get placed in a drawer somewhere, they do you very little good.

1. Are you left handed? Organise your closet left to right so you can always see what you are taking out. Keeps your closet organised.

2. Put an empty coloured hanger in to separate different kinds of clothes.

3. For left handers – put the shoes you use the most at the left hand end.

4. Never overfill the closet. Store things in colour coded bags. Code by season.

5. For closets with lamps – put a daylight bulb in.

6. Clean it regularly. Taking the clothes out lets you review what you do and do not want in there.

Article by Cheryl Harrell

There may be cash in your clutter. You have heard the phrase “your trash is someone else’s treasure.” A garage sale is one way to put theory into practice. Attentive marketing of your goods by doing an organized set up of your garage sale is the key to receiving the highest prices.

Sort logically
Sort your discards into logical groupings such as toys, books, tools, seasonal decorations. If customers see a haphazard mix of items, they will quickly leave your garage sale. Garage sale aficionados usually have particular items in mind when they shop and do not want to spend time sifting through unrelated stuff.

Display well
Set up tables and clothing racks to display your wares. Shoppers do not like to bend over and pick through items lying on the ground. If you do not have a clothing rack, improvise by placing a pole between two stepladders. Box your books by subject, spine up, so it is easy for customers to flip through them without making a mess of your display. Label the boxes or use large cards to divide groupings of books.

Highlight Special Collections
Display the glass items separately from your books and craft things to make them more attractive and seem special. Perhaps cover the table with a tablecloth. Make sure glassware is clean. People will be more likely to buy and pay more for wares in pristine condition. Have a separate table for holiday items. Make the display festive and group items in calendar order-Valentine’s Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, etc.

Money Matters and Pricing
Use a fanny pack to hold your money. Unfortunately, dishonest people also frequent garage sales and look for opportunities to steal unattended cash. Have plenty of small bills and quarters to make change. You do not want to lose a sale just because you can’t make change. Price book categories consistently-e.g., paperbacks 50 cents, hardbacks $1. Do the same with DVDs. Sell craft items by the bagful. Label and sell the craft bags for a flat rate. Price everything clearly. Customers do not like to search for someone to ask prices.

Expect to Be Insulted
Expect people to give insulting offers for your things. That is the nature of garage sales. Decide on your goal for your garage sale ahead of time: Do you want to make money or get rid of stuff? You usually will get less for items you sell at a garage sale than you would at an online auction. But you also do not have to go through the hassle of listing, taking photos, and shipping items.

Free Attraction
The word “free” is magic. Have a box of free stuff out front with a large FREE sign on it to attract people to your sale. Include toys to keep children occupied while the parents shop.

Plan What Not to Do with the Leftovers
DO NOT bring anything back into the house. The stuff is in the garage sale because it is time to move on. If you do not get reasonable offers for your more expensive items, you may get more for them as a tax write off for a charitable donation than you would if you take a low ball offer. Call for a pick up by a charitable organization.

The keys to a successful garage sale are organization and a realistic attitude. If you set up your merchandise in an attractive way and greet customers with enthusiasm even when they offer you 10 cents for a $2 item, you will be counting cash instead of hauling away clutter at the end of the sale.

© Copyright 2009 Cheryl Harrell all rights reserved worldwide

Cheryl Harrell is a professional organizer for All Sorted Out, LLC. She sees every organizing project as a puzzle to be solved with simple solutions. You may sign up for her monthly organizing tips at her website, http://organizeatlanta.com/.

Article by John Lavoie

Article by: Jill Borash

As our economy looks to remain on the falling spiral that it is on, discovering means to preserve cash is invariably on all of our brains. Because of that, it is not really likely that you desire to consider expending cash to get your home office organised. It is less complicated to make due with what you have. But what if organizing your home office did not cost you a dime? How? a little of time and some creative juices is all it takes.

Making supplies for your household office means getting creative about items which you usually conceive as rubble. Before you toss any package, jar or container of any kind, ask yourself how you might use that to aid you make coordinated. A shoebox can form a great inbox for your filing. Sturdy cardboard boxes might be cut and stapled together to make a desktop filer. A baby food jar or any other small jar can be great for holding paper clips and elastic bands. A middle-sized sauce jar might be used to hold pens and pencils. Huge rocks may make tremendous bookends. Look at everything which is in your household and ask yourself how you could employ it to aid you in getting organised.

While making all of these items in your household that were junk to assist you in getting your household office coordinated is great, you are emphatically going to want to trim them up. A set of paint and some stencils or sponges may be a fun method to make them appear pretty and to likewise personalize them with your own original imaginative touch. Some good wrapping paper may as well aid in jazzing them up. Attempt to have fun with it and acquire methods to individualize the things you have discovered for organizing your home office.

But what if you need something huge like a bit of furniture to perfect your house office organisation undertaking? You may be able to get something for free or at the very least quite inexpensive on Craigslist, at a garage sale, or at local thrift shops. You might have to do some hunting down to find what you require but it will certainly be cheaper than purchasing it new. Once more, it pays here to get creative with what you find. You may not find just what you are searching for but seek to think of how you might apply what you do discover.

by: Colleen Langenfeld

The thought of closet organizing makes most people groan. But it doesn’t need to be this way! Starting with a messy closet, you can get that closet organized and keep it organized in just 5 minutes a day.

Set a timer and let’s get started!

– Day 1.

Your first 5 minutes will be devoted to staring at the contents of your closet. With pen and paper in hand, jot down what items you haven’t used in years (be honest). You will be throwing or giving these items away. If you can’t bear to toss an item, give some thought as to where the item could go for a new home and a new life.

When your timer goes off, stop. Put the pen and paper on the closet floor and close the door. You’ll be back tomorrow.

– Tomorrow is here!

Continue your closet organizing adventure. Go to your closet and pick up your pen and paper. Keep on creating your list of what in your closet you can get rid of and what items need to find a new home. Use as many 5 minute sessions as necessary on this step. Feel like you’re not getting anywhere? Nonsense! This step makes all the difference down the road when you are maintaining your organized closet.

Simply stated, it will be A LOT easier to keep your closet organized when it only contains what you truly use and is not being used as your personal archive. (In fact, it will probably help you if you can designate one closet or space in your home as a storage container for all those items you need seasonally or for keepsakes. Things you only access occasionally.)

In addition, doing this one step over several days will give you a chance to really think about those items you have collected over the years. You’ll find you’re ready to give or throw away things on Day 5 that you couldn’t bear to part with on Day 1.

– The next step to your closet organizing.

Once you have completed the list of unnecessary items in your closet, grab a couple of boxes and your timer. Set your 5 minutes and, using your list, toss the trash in the trash box and the give-away items in the give-away box. If this takes you more than 5 minutes, stop and continue tomorrow. This step will go fairly quickly, however, if you’ve done a thorough job with your list from Day 1.

– Moving right along.

Now that all the excess stuff is gone from your closet, you can get down to organizing what is left. Use your 5 minutes to genuinely study what’s remaining in your closet.

* Which items do you use everyday?

* Which items can be stored together?

* Which items can be stored on shelves?

* Which items can be stored in drawers?

* Which items should be put in bins?

* Which items simply don’t belong in this closet?

Take notes during this step and use as many 5 minutes as you need. Again, doing this over several days gives you time to consider how you use each item in your closet each day and what type of organizational system will make the most sense for you. You’re aiming for usability here and it may take a bit of trial and error. That’s fine because the end result will be a closet you can easily keep organized without even thinking about it.

– Time to organize your closet.

Using your notes from the previous step, get the supplies you need to organize your closet. Again, take your time with this step, noting what is working and what is not along the way. Tweak as necessary.

* Need more hangars, bins, baskets? Put them on your shopping list for next time you go to the discount store.

* For starters, use whatever organizing supplies you already have including old boxes. It can help to live with your ideas for a week or two to enable you to understand exactly the type of organizing supplies that will serve you the best, so feel free to use temporary containers while you’re at this stage of your closet organizing project.

* OR…if you’re unsure about sizes and shapes of organizing products, buy just a few samples, leave the tags on and try them out. Then return what you don’t need and purchase what you do.

This step can either be completed as part of your normal shopping (requiring no extra trip to the store and keeping within the 5 minute concept) or simply dive in and do one big shopping trip. Your choice.

– Live with it.

There’s no substitute for living with your organizing to see what you’ve accomplished and what you need to change. Use your 5-minutes-a-day to ask yourself what you like and don’t like about your newly organized closet. Take notes and make changes.

– Last step.

This is the maintenance step and it’s easier than you think. For your closet organizing enterprise to give you the results you want, you’ll need to take 5 minutes each day and put things away in your closet where they belong.

But beware. Skip this step for just 7 days and you’ll need to put in 35 minutes to get back on track. Maybe you don’t have 35 minutes to organize your closet, so you don’t do it. It won’t be long before your closet will be in chaos again and you’re using EXTRA time every day just to locate items that should be at your fingertips.

That’s right, you’re going to use the time anyway. Being disorganized is a huge time waster. So stick to your 5 minutes a day, no matter what. It won’t be long until your new habit becomes second nature and you can’t imagine NOT doing a quick tidy-up each day.

All it takes is 5 minutes.

About The Author

Colleen Langenfeld has been parenting for over 26 years and helps other moms enjoy mothering more at http://www.paintedgold.com. Visit her website and get more closet tips at http://www.paintedgold.com/Organize/closet-organizing.html .

We all know having an organized home allows us to spend more time doing the things we want to do. For me it is more time to quilt, for others it may be gardening, exercising, cooking, working on a hobby, or spending more time with family. So how do we go about getting our family organized?

Remember the movie ‘Field of Dreams’? Build it and they will come. It is the same scenario with organizing. Begin by organizing drawers, cupboards, rooms, closets; have designated places for everything–where they will live and sure enough those things will find their way back to their homes. Family members actually like it better when they know where things belong. Label drawers or shelves to make it easier to put things back and to find them later.

Share the responsibilities in the home with everyone. Write out a simple contract with each family member and have them sign it. This gets their commitment and chances are greater that they will follow through with tasks assigned. Put the contracts along with the assigned task in a binder that is labeled and placed on a shelf were everyone can reach it. I don’t like to call them chores because just the name sounds like drudgery.

Keep tasks appropriate to age and capability. Start young teaching organization. Two year olds and even younger can start putting a book on a shelf or a toy in the toy box. By starting young it makes it much easier as it becomes a way of life for them to be organized.

I remember picking raspberries when I was a child. My mother was picking on the other side of the row. It was hot and tiring picking one or two berries at a time and placing them in my bucket tied around my waist. Once in awhile my mom would reach through the row and put a hand full of berries in my bucket. Wow, it was such a great feeling seeing my bucket getting fuller faster that it made me get back to work and work all the faster.

Show children exactly how to do the assigned task. Work along with them until they know what is expected. Once in awhile chip in and help them after they are able to do it on their own. This is a great boost to them and they will reciprocate by helping you stay organized or doing one of your tasks.

Charts are wonderful tools to inspire children and show them not only what needs to be done but they show their progress. Rotate assignments on a weekly basis. There are many charts that can be purchased to chart their progress. Or use a dry erase board; make one out of paper using stickers when a job is completed, or use a magnetic board. Point out what a good job they are doing and how good it feels to be organized.

Make organizing fun, It doesn’t have to be a chore. Make organizing interesting, get everyone’s input and ideas on the best way to do things and use their ideas so they feel a sense of pride and ownership about the way things are done.

Notice where a family member is already organized and build on that strength by praising them. We are all good at doing some thing. By focusing on the positive and encouraging them to become organized, strengths will come out in other areas too without nagging or getting angry.

Motivating family members may be challenging at first, but it is rewarding when you see them putting things away where they belong and it takes much of the frustration out of what could be daily hassles. Not to mention all the time it saves.

About The Author

Marilyn is a creative organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers.She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.

Go to her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips and interesting blogs and helpful articles on organizing.

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Back to school can be a stressful time of year. Families must change from the laid-back summer schedule to the non-stop school and activity calendars that keep moms jumping from one activity to the next without a moment’s rest. Fortunately, today there is help.

GO MOM !NC, a leader in products to help you organize your busy life, provides its latest advice to keep Moms organized as they get their families back-to-school this fall. “Across the nation, busy parents are focused on easing their children into the new school year,” states Molly Gold, founder of GO MOM !NC. “My role as a Family Scheduling Expert is to help Moms focus on how they can better organize themselves to be ready for all that change and be mindful of how their own workload will evolve alongside of their family.”

Want the cliff notes on how you can get organized for Fall 2006? Take a look below:

• Plan Ahead – The only way you can command your time is to consciously map it. Simply put, use a family-oriented planner that enables you to track all family members’ schedules in one place. When you monitor your family schedule, you can then plan how and when to accomplish important back-to-school tasks, such as replacing clothes, purchasing school supplies, and attending back-to-school night. Stock your kids’ homework stations with pencil and paper basics while purchasing classroom items. Take it one step further by creating an emergency project box full of grade appropriate tools that will hold the night before anxiety at bay. Visit Target stores for an ample supply of poster board, report folders, markers, glue sticks, and an assortment of interesting arts and crafts items in small quantities to allow your child’s creativity to shine, one project at a time.

• Plan for Paper – Before you start stacking all those important school papers in a long forgotten corner of your kitchen, or on top of last month’s bills, put your paper trail in place beginning with in/out boxes for each family member. Show everyone where to place their papers and then sort them daily with your planner at hand to note important deadlines and tasks. When setting up your own filing system, check out the new GO MOM!® School Organizer. With monthly pockets for everything from school-related projects and fundraisers, to teacher newsletters and activities rosters, you can’t help but be ready for the first round of parent/teacher conferences at the end of first quarter. If it’s your house that keeps you buried, you’ll find the GO MOM!® Home Organizer to be equally as effective in helping you categorize and sort the most important papers as you manage your family’s busy days.

• Plan to Purge – We all do better with a clean, organized environment. If you haven’t yet gone through everyone’s closets, dressers, and bedrooms while evaluating wardrobes for school, do it as soon as you have your routine in motion. Make room for the year ahead by rounding up all outgrown items, discarding everything that can’t be repaired, both in the toy and clothing departments. For items in good condition, arrange for a charitable donation or enlist your kids’ help and plan a yard sale in late September. Take advantage of your clean slate and give each room a quick cleaning with an all-purpose cleaner like Mr. Clean Extra Power Multi-Surface Cleaner for even the toughest jobs. From scrubbing baseboards to replacing air filters, flipping mattresses and cleaning windows, Fall is a great time to freshen your home and welcome the change of seasons. And for Moms of older kids, enlist their helping hands as you plow through this process. Respect and responsibility for both our possessions and environment are life skills worth teaching.

GO MOM !NC is based in Apex, NC and promotes the use of The GO MOM!® Organizer and GO MOM!® Planner, unique day planner systems for everything that is family. Founder Molly Gold is a 40-year-old mother of three and the creator of the GO MOM!® product line, which will grow this September to include The GO MOM!® Wall Organizer, The GO MOM!® School Organizer, and The GO MOM!® Home Organizer. All products in the GO MOM!® line are produced via license partnership with Mead Westvaco Consumer and Office Products and sold at major retailers nationwide, including Target, Staples, and Office Max.

GO MOM !NC helps mothers make positive mothering a daily reality within the structure GO MOM!® Schedule. Organize. Grow.® Gold is known for her keen insights into Family Scheduling and has been featured both in print and on air media alike and is currently available for media interviews.

Attention busy Moms! The time is now to get both you and your kids organized for an exciting and successful school year ahead. To learn more about how you can stay ahead of the game, go to http://www.gomominc.com.
About The Author

Molly Gold currently serves on Proctor & Gamble’s Mr. Clean Team Expert Panel, Cartoon Network’s Tickle U Advisory Board, and as Family Scheduling Expert at both http://www.BlueSuitMom.com, and http://www.NewBaby.com. Her work has been featured in Parents and Parenting Magazines, Better Homes and Gardens, The Washington Post, ABC’s Good Morning America, and most recently NBC’s Today Show Weekend Edition. Contact her today at http://www.gomominc.com or via publicist Diana Ennen at diana@virtualwordpublishing.com, (954) 971-4025.