Get Your Kids To Help You Organize

Getting your family in the act of organizing can greatly cut down on stress levels. Here are some ways your kids can help you.
HOUSEHOLD JOBS A 5-YEAR-OLD CAN DO
1. Make her own bed every day. It may be a little sloppy at first, but it’ll improve with time!2. Put clothes back in the closet or proper dresser drawer!3.Put toys back in the toy chest!4.Water houseplants!5. Feed the dog, cat or goldfish (if she is reminded)!6. Set the table!7. Clear the table..ONE thing at a time!
SOME HOUSEHOLD JOBS A TEENAGER CAN DO
1.Empty wastebaskets.2.Carry out trash cans.3.Vacuum rugs and floors.4.Clean and sweep the kitchen floor.5.Iron his own clothes and the family napkins and tablecloths. (using real cloth takes a little more effort but is nicer than a paper napkin in this rushed world we live in today as well as an environmental saver!6. Polish silver, brass and copper!7.Carry in wood and lay fires!8.Vacuum the inside of the car!9.Wash the car.10.Check kitchen cabinets for household staples and list them (paper goods, sugar,flour etc) - good practice for life after Mom and Dad’s house!

SPRING CLEANING: Garage

With spring on the way, time to think about cleaning out the garage.Are you using your garage as a storage room?Are you able to drive your car into the garage?Here are some tips to guide you in getting things in order.
1. Start by purging what you no longer need, use or want.
2. Discard anything that is broken
3. Sell or give away what you can
4. Place everything you are keeping in the driveway, grouping items by categories (auto, sports, etc.)
5. Place small items in stackable bins and dangerous or valuable items in bins that lock
6. Hang what you can (garden tools, brooms, folding chairs, bikes, etc.)
7. Put shelves or cabinets up and/or free standing shelving units
8. Make use of rafters by laying sheets of plywood as a floor

Making Tax Paperwork Less Taxing

Paper is the number one problem for my clients and customers. Tax season tends to highlight the flaws in our paper filing systems each year as we scramble to figure out where to find everything we need. Having the right system from the start can make it a lot easier. Knowing what was challenging this year, can make it a lot easier to decide what will work best for storing 2009 papers.
Studies have shown that 80% of the paper that is filed each day is never looked at again. That’s a lot of storage for useless documents! This statistic highlights why it is even more important to establish what you actually need for taxes and household reference.
Let’s start with the basics for a filing system. The first step is figuring out where the paper is going to go. Do you already have multiple file cabinets throughout the house? If you do, then you are going to want to be sure to clear some of them out before you rush to buy another one. Keep a filing cabinet near where you process your paperwork. If it is in the kitchen or dining room, then it might be good to keep either a portable or permanent filing system within quick reach. You are much more likely to deal with filing your papers immediately if the filing system is nearby. If that is not possible, then make it a habit to walk any papers to be filed to the file cabinet the day you work on them. “To File” piles end up being endless abysses of paper that you will end up sorting through for taxes next year. And you will be kicking yourself for not dealing with it sooner!
Once you have established where the files will go there are many ways you can set-up an easy and effective system. First, there are products out there that label your files for you. So all you have to do is drop in the categories. For instance, the Homefile system that sells for $24.95 gives you every major category for household and small business paperwork, including Banking, Insurance, Investments, Medical etc. If you are more into personalizing your files into categories you choose, you should check out Smead Viewable hanging file tabs. These three dimensional file tabs allow you to use a simple color-coding program on the computer to label and print custom tabs that can be viewed from the top as well as the sides. Placing them in a straight line when you attach them to hanging file folders will make finding your files extremely easy.

Remember, as you are creating your files, keep the categories simple. Getting too detailed will make it hard to remember what category you filed something and too broad will make it difficult to track down a paper quickly. If you keep most of your categories focused on what you need to refer back to for everyday financial records, taxes, home and medical, you will find that you really don’t need to keep that much paper.
If you have a lot of hobbies and are finding that you clip every magazine article with a new recipe or every tip you see on gardening, ask yourself how many times you have actually referred back to them once you have filed them. There is a good chance every time you revisit your files you are going down memory lane and seeing paper you didn’t even remember keeping.
Lastly, make sure that you purge your files constantly. If you get a new insurance policy, throw out the old one. Continuing to pile papers into a category that are not current will only make finding the current ones harder. Each year, archive the old paperwork together and remove it from your everyday files. It is a constant shuffle, but worth the time throughout the year. You will thank yourself when you prepare your 2009 taxes!
Kristin Mastromarino is a professional organizer and owner of Livable Solutions Professional Organizing and The Organized Lifestyle retail store in Guilford, CT. (http://www.theorganizedlifestylestore.com/). You can e-mail her your questions at Kristin@livablesolutions.com.

Quick Tips from a Professional Organizer - Meal Planning

I always suggest making a meals ahead of time for the week on Sundays to get a head start on a busy week. If you take the time to store soups, stews, sauces etc., after a tiring day at work you can have great healthy meals at your fingertips.
If you don’t like having the same meals a couple of days in a row, consider making sauces and soups in bulk and freezing them. Pour the liquid in sealed freezer bags with a label and lay them flat in the freezer. You will save room, by avoiding bulky plastic or glass containers. In addition, you can quickly defrost a flat freezer bag under the sink.
With these small changes to your routine, you can make your work days a lot less hectic.

The Fifteen Minute Pick-Up

Taking care of a household is a never-ending job. There are always chores that pile up, messes that get worse with time and millions of other things in life that keep household chores low on your list of priorities. Avoiding regular upkeep on these household tasks will surely allow them to spiral out of control. However, gaining control over household tasks and staying on top of them can be simpler than it seems! Taking fifteen minutes out of your day to spend on these tasks can produce remarkable results with a low sacrifice.
At first you will need to catch up with the clutter, repairs and cleaning that have begun to get out of hand. This means you will have to choose one room per day or even per week that you will spend your fifteen minutes on each day. Anything from getting trash thrown away and clutter organized to changing light bulbs and dusting surfaces. Once you have caught up with the household you can now begin your Fifteen Minute Pick Up! Spend your fifteen minutes each day to get ahead of the game. You can choose to set up a schedule for yourself each week, i.e. Monday is laundry day, Tuesday is dishes, Wednesday is vacuuming, etc. Or you can choose to tackle tasks spontaneously as needed. Either way, by making a habit of taking only 15 minutes out of each day you will get ahead of your household tasks. You may even find you have more time to do the things you truly enjoy now that your household duties are out of the way!

Holiday Decorations -- Collecting and Organizing

The holiday decorating season well underway with Halloween, and I see a lot of my clients failing to utilize the decorations they already have in your house. Especially as the economy forces many of us to maintain tighter budgets, it is important to be even more aware of where we may be wasting money. Over buying decorations and losing them in your house can be a quick way to throw away money.
Over and over again I see people storing an abundance of holiday decorations with no clear system to find them. It is wonderful to be festive every year, but collecting the items and actually displaying the items are two different activities.
It is important to first evaluate what you actually have. Now is a great time to begin pulling out the seasonal items before the rush of the holidays overwhelms you. If you find you are wandering all over the house to uncover all of your holiday treasures, that may be the first signal you need a better system.
As you sort through the items you should note the following:
· Do you have each holiday separated by theme? (i.e. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Easter.)
· Are there broken, torn or damaged items that just got shoved in a box at the end of last season?
· How many items still have price tags and were never used?
· How many decorations haven’t been used in years because they are outdated or don’t fit in with your home’s décor?
Once you have answered these questions you will have a good idea what should be purged and what should be kept.
Creating a system for storage during and after the season will also help you maximize your utility of these items. It is important to choose one area of your home whether it is a closet or a corner of your basement or attic to store your decorations so you always know where to go to find them. Choose containers that are clear or color coded for the holiday to easily find them next season. Stackable lidded containers will work well for most items. There are also specialty storage boxes, and bins on the market for wreathes, ornaments, and fake trees, which will provide the proper protection for off-season storage.
By clearly labeling and storing these items in one area you have much greater success of creating a go to spot when you are ready to decorate. But, it is also important to note, that while it is smart to shop at the end of the season for next year’s decorations, if you find yourself buying more than you use just because of the price tag, you are probably wasting your money and time. In addition, you are making the decorating process much more overwhelming and frustrating when you have too much to find.
Keep it simple this season by prioritizing your favorite pieces, only re-packing what you used in a clearly labeled storage system and limiting the shopping spree for new decorations.
Kristin Mastromarino is a professional organizer at Livable Solutions, LLC (www.livablesolutions.com), owner of The Organized Lifestyle retail store and is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). You can email her your questions at kristin@livablesolutions.com.

When your purse is overflowing it is hard to find what you need. How many times have you dug in your pocketbook to find your phone? This purse organizer gives you easy pockets to line the inside of your purse so finding objects quickly is a breeze. It also helps you transfer your pocket books quickly without having to reorganize everything every time. Visit the Organized Lifesytle Store, http://www.theorganizedlifestylestore.com/ for more information.

Busy Moms Get Organized with the Mom Agenda

Keeping track of schedules when you are a busy mom can be difficult. One of my favorite products to help busy moms is the Mom Agenda. The Mom Agenda creates a simple system to track your own schedule and has rows underneath your schedule to track each of your kids activiites. In one portable place you can know where each of your family members is supposed to be. In addition, there are sections in the back of the Mom Agenda which list birthdays, addresses, help you with party planning and more. The Mom Agenda retails for $39.99 and can be purchased at The Organized Lifestyle Store (http://www.theorganizedlifestylestore.com/). Call for more information at 203-458-7674.

More Spring Cleaning Tips

Simplify your cleaning supplies. Many times I see people with cleaning supplies overflowing under their kitchen sink, filling up a linen closet on the second floor and spilling out into bathrooms. If you pull out all of the cleaning supplies and look at them collectively you can start to see many duplicate items, empty bottles and old supplies that haven’t been touched in years because they were buried in the back pile. Remember too many choices can be just as bad as too few.

My suggestion is just keep the basics. Most houses can be cleaned with window cleaner, a multi-purpose solution, a tub and tile cleaner, bleach, toilet bowl cleaners, dusting polish and a good floor cleaner. Be careful not to fall into the trap of buying all the newest products without throwing out some of the old ones that haven’t worked. Cleaning is so much easier when you only have a few choices to deal with and one central location to grab them. Inventorying supplies is also a cinch because you will quickly see when items are running low. You will save money, space and avoid overbuying items you don’t need.

Easy access to your cleaning supplies will also make it much easier to grab what you need and get the job done. Paring down supplies will allow you to have a kit that you just pull out when you are ready to straighten everything out. Put your most essential supplies in a bucket that you can take from room to room. Make sure your vacuum is not jammed in a closet that makes it so difficult to get out that you never want to use it. Items like mop and broom holders mounted inside a closet, basement or garage wall can also make these items easily accessible and more appealing to use.

Spring cleaning time is here and there is no better time to put these items in order so you can breeze through your responsibilities and begin enjoying the warm weather in your free time.

Spring Cleaning Tips

Many of us fall into the trap of using our free time just to keep up with what is around us. I live in a small apartment by myself and I still find it difficult to keep everything in order! Throw in a family or a spouse that doesn’t care as much about keeping order and you could be saying good bye to your spare time just to get it together each week.

Most people do not have the luxury of hiring a cleaning service. And even those that do can do a great injustice to the house during the time between visits. Being as organized and as simple as possible in your home will help decrease the time and energy you must place on keeping everything clean and dust free.

One of the first things that I suggest is really simplifying your surface areas. The more small knick knacks, picture frames, candles etc. you have taking up your counters, bookshelves and tables the more you are going to have to clean. In addition to creating more surfaces to clean, too many of these types of objects in a space can create visual clutter that detracts your eyes from focusing on the beauty of the pieces.

Rotate your pictures instead of adding a new frame every time you want to show off a new photo. Put away candles that you are not currently burning. Focus on displaying pieces that have meaning and decorative impact on your room not just throwing things up on shelves because there is a space for them. By editing these small things dusting will be much easier and your room will feel more streamlined.