A Systematic Approach To Organizing Your Space

Posted by Laura on July 8, 2010 · 8 Comments

What a treat today to have guest poster Sherrie Kruger, of Serene Journey (and the creator of the new printable list site ListBean), here today. Sherri writes such a beautiful blog about simplicity and enjoying life to it’s fullest and I’m so thrilled to have her visit and share such a great post with us. Welcome Sherrie!

When you look around your home what do you see? Not much out of the ordinary right? Some furniture, some plates and cups in the sink, and a terribly dated figurine sitting on a table. What? How did that get there?

When you’ve lived with something for so long you tend not to see it after a while. It’s only when you start to really *look* at the things you have in your space that you see what’s actually there. This isn’t limited to clutter either. After a hard, critical look at your space you may notice little jobs or tasks that still aren’t complete and you swore you get around to it “soon”.

Organizing a space or tying up loose ends is best accomplished by taking a systematic approach and I’ll walk through how to do just that.

1. Visualize. Take a couple of minutes to look at the space you have and imagine what you would like that space to look like. This is important because later when you’re debating whether or not to keep an item you can easily refer back to this visualization and ask yourself: “Does this item add to the vision I had for this room?” Have a pencil and some paper on hand and jot down some notes about what you would like to do in each room, what are the lighting requirements? And what are the shelving and storage requirements?

2. Be ruthless. This is easiest if you tackle each room individually. Look around and write down: what doesn’t belong, what you are no longer in love with, what space isn’t being used to its full potential. Is there something that is dying for a storage solution that you just haven’t got around to yet? And what are the nagging to-do items that just never seem to get done? Take a critical look at your space putting aside any feelings of guilt and try not to become overwhelmed, you will get it all done a little bit at a time.

3. Start. When you start is up to you. Be realistic with the time you allocate to decluttering and orgainizing your space. You likely won’t be able to finish it all in one go, truth is most people don’t. But rest assured that once you get your space(s) decluttered and organized it’ll be much easier to maintain and reset if need be. If you are feeling overwhelmed pick a small room or a small section of a larger room and focus on getting that area done to completion.

Other tips for effective deculttering and organizing:

Get other people in your home on board. Change isn’t usually welcomed at the best of times so getting buy in from others when it’s forced will not be easy. Talk to the rest of your family and find out what they want to see in a space and what they’re willing to part with. Compromise is key here.

Make it as fun as it can be. Trying to organize and part with items you’re emotionally attached to can be stressful and let’s face it, it’s not much fun. Turn on some tunes, set the timer and do things in small bursts. Take plenty of breaks.

Congratulate yourself. When you’re done (even a small space) spend a bit of time admiring your accomplishment. Reward yourself with some down time, a BBQ in the backyard, a meal out with the family or curling up with a good book.

Although the thought of organizing your space may send shivers up your spine, I can assure you you’ll feel better once you’ve started and have made even a little bit of progress. To help get you started check out the declutter room by room checklist on Listbean. Start small, get tough with yourself and enjoy.

What doesn’t belong in one of your spaces that you can purge today?

The above is a guest post from Sherri who writes at Serene Journey and Zen Family Habits. She’s a mom of two young boys and recently launched Listbean, a free site full of pre-populated and fully customizable checklists.

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first image credit: Svadilfari

second image credit: MASolari

Filed under Clutter Control, Guest Bloggers · Tagged with organize

Kitchen Organization for Healthy Eating

Posted by Laura on July 22, 2009 · 18 Comments

I’m so excited about Guest Post Thursday going on here this summer. Today I am thrilled to have Laura from Heavenly Homemakers visiting. I love Laura’s blog because when I’m reading her posts it always feels like I’m sitting right there in her kitchen with her chatting away with a cup of tea. Her post here today is no exception. I’ve learned so much about homemaking from reading Laura’s blog and her inspiration is a huge factor in why I’ve been able to step out of my fearful box and try some new things in the kitchen lately, like pie crust from scratch and canning. Thanks Laura!

guest-post

I LOVE cooking. Love it. If you’ve ever spent much time at my place, you know that I’m one of those gals who makes almost everything from scratch. It helps us to eat healthier…it saves money…I know exactly what is in our food…

Oh, and if I do say so myself…our homemade-from-scratch food tastes really, really delicious. (Judging by the incredible amount my husband and four boys can put away…I think they like my cooking.)

Here are some questions I often get from my blog readers:

Are you in the kitchen ALL the time? How do you get all of this done? How do you keep up with all the dishes?

I am in the kitchen a lot…but I don’t live in there. (See, like right now I’m on the computer in the living room instead. :) ) Cooking from scratch does take time…but here are some things I do to make my work simpler:

I plan our menus!!! I can not be efficient in the kitchen without a plan for the week. Menu plans are a must for me. Yay for Org Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday!

I cook simple meals…simple foods. I rarely cook anything that requires complicated steps or hard-to-work-with ingredients. Meat, potatoes, rice, beans, veggies, fruits, grains, eggs, milk…it’s all just basic food put together into different yummy meals.

I wash dishes as I go. I really do dirty up a lot of dishes in a day…but I try (try) to keep up with them by washing them as I cook. I have a dishwasher. I have boys old enough to help. I have ten minutes here and there to knock more out of the pile. I love having clean countertops.

I think ahead, plan ahead, cook ahead. This is one of my biggest cooking helps. I look at my menu plan and know what I’ll need for the upcoming week. If I can, I spend time on Friday night and Saturday cooking and baking for the week ahead. I’ll make up a double batch of tortillas, cook chicken for broth, bake four loaves of bread, brown several pounds of hamburger meat, cook rice, put together burritoes for the freezer, or any other foods that will make the week ahead run more smoothly. THEN, during the week…it’s like having convenience foods in the fridge or freezer!

and here’s one of my favorite ways to stay organized and ahead in the kitchen:

I make tomorrow’s breakfast while I’m cooking tonight’s dinner. This doesn’t always work (like, I’m not going to scramble tomorrow’s eggs at 6:00 tonight…yuck), but if we’re having muffins for breakfast, I’ll mix them up and bake them while I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner. In the morning, I’ll re-warm them in the oven for a few minutes, or just serve them as is. Or, if I’m making biscuits tomorrow morning, I’ll mix the flour and buttermilk so they can soak overnight…and then just finish them up the next morning. I often make a double batch of waffles, let them cool, then freeze them. Then we have convenient, toaster waffles whenever we need them. LOVE it.

Those are some of the things I do to keep myself organized and sane during the busy weeks of school work, computer work, laundry, and you know…Chutes and Ladders.

What are some of your best ways of staying organized while you’re cooking? Do you feel like you spend hours in your kitchen?

Filed under Guest Bloggers, Kitchen · Tagged with Kitchen, menus, organize

Makeup Expiration Dates

Posted by Laura on July 8, 2009 · 19 Comments

Okay ladies let’s start with our makeup. The goal is to create an organized space for your makeup so that the products you love can be found easily and quickly.

The first step is to throw out all the makeup you own that has gone beyond its expiration date. In order to avoid infection it’s a good idea to routinely weed through your makeup to discard what is outdated. How do you know how long you’ve had it though is a good question and one that can be quickly remedied in the future by simply marking the date of purchase with a Sharpie on the back of the item.

Abbie from the Organizing Life blog has a great post on When to Toss That Makeup. She lists the expiration dates on most commonly used beauty products which you’ll find very helpful as you’re going through your stuff.

Also while you’re at it, toss anything that you just don’t like and looks hideous on you. You know you’re never going to wear it so why wait until it expires, save yourself the trouble and throw it out now.

I’m not a big makeup wearer myself but I do have a favorite brand I love which has alleviated the need for me to experiment with anything else. Thankfully this helps keep my supply to a minimum (wish I could say the same for my hair products). I just took a quick picture of my makeup drawer though and it looks like it could still use a little tweaking nonetheless.

Don’t forget to take your before picture and also I’d love to see how many products you were able to part with.

Let the purging begin!

Filed under Bathroom, Monthly Round-up · Tagged with organize, product

Organizing School Papers and Kid’s Artwork

Posted by Laura on June 30, 2009 · 21 Comments

School just ended for us last week so yesterday and today we have been going through the piles of paper that came home with the kids on the last day. I’ve written about my process before and that system is pretty much the same one we used again this year. If you are also inundated with school paper piles, here are some of my previous links that might help you:

Organizing all that school clutter

Organizing keepsakes with memory binders and totes

Taming the school clutter….again

image courtesy of Zen

Looks like some of my organizing buddies are doing the same thing. Check out these great ideas:

School Time Papers @Complete Organizing Solutions

School Papers – Simple Steps to Decrease the Clutter @Organize with Sandy

Budding Artists – Taming Your Children’s Art Clutter @A Fresh Start

I also came across some unique ideas for showcasing your child’s artwork. These would make such great grandparent gifts.

Children’s Artwork Necklace ~ I just absolutely love this idea and only $9.00!

Tikatok ~ where kids write, illustrate and publish their own books. What a great keepsake!

For even more ideas here is a short video from Monkey See. I love this site and got totally sucked in the other day watching a whole series on how to work with curly hair, it was very cool :)

Video ~ Organize Artwork

Have you tackled the school paper pile yet?

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Rounding up our vehicles

Posted by Laura on June 29, 2009 · 12 Comments

Updated to add: The winner is Brenda at Savin’ It Up!

Whew this month fly by, didn’t it?! I do hope that some of you were able to tackle your vehicles this month and hopefully the changes you’ve made will take some stress out of traveling for you.

To participate in this month’s organizing round-up all you have to do is link up below to a post on your site telling us about how you organized your vehicle. Don’t forget to include your before and after pictures. Remember to use the direct link to your round-up post and not to your homepage. That’s helpful for those of us who might not get a chance to take a peek at your post until later. Also, as a courtesy, if you are going to participate please be kind and link back to this post within your post.