Spring Cleaning Tips

Spring Cleaning Tips

1. Carry all of your cleaning supplies in a cleaning bucket from room to room to save steps.
2. Use a hand held hair dryer to blow the dust out of silk or dried floral arrangements.
3. Scrub stains, burns etc from counters, pans, cabinets, plastic, decks, granite etc. using our goodbye detergent scrubbers. There are specific scrubbers that work well for different surfaces.
4. Before cleaning, declutter each room, one at a time by purging then sorting into piles labeled (keep, toss, donate, sell). Next, organize what is left to keep, using organizing products to keep things neat & orderly for easy cleaning.
5. Pop moist sponges in microwave for 20 seconds or dishwasher to kill germs.
6. Clean windows before the days get hot and not on a sunny day which causes streaks by drying immediately. Clean windows with
pure rubbing alcohol or 1/2 white vinegar & 1/2 water in a spray bottle, using newspaper to prevent lint.
7. Purge clothing that no longer fit and those that you have not worn in the past year. Bring to consignment shops or goodwill, saving cotton t-shirts for rags. Clean & pack away winter clothes, using our canvas bags with cedar blocks for wool & silk to prevent moths from chewing holes.
8. Take all bedding off to launder, storing winter blankets (in bags with cedar blocks if wool). Vacuum bed for dust mites.
9. Clean out refrigerator and freezer, temporarily placing fresh foods in cooler. Compost all non meat foods if applicable, disposing of the remainder. Scrub down refrigerator and freezer with caldrea all purpose cleansers and place open box of baking soda on shelf in refrigerator to absorb odors. Place a plastic lazy susan on one or more shelves in refrigerator to find jars of condiments easily.

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

Streamlining the Morning Routine to Save Time

Do you find that you are running out the door frantic in the mornings trying not to be late or forget anything important? Here are some ways that you can combat the morning stress.
1. Empty your bags/briefcase as soon as you walk in the door at night and prepare them for the next day. Having a landing station for mail and other items that must enter and leave the house will help.
2. Put everything you will need for appointments, work or errands in the car the night before so you are packed and ready to go.
3. Know what you are wearing the next day before you go to bed. Pick out every detail from the outfit to the accessories and have them ready to go. When you are tired in the morning it is much easier to not have to think, but just follow a thought out plan.
4. Prepare lunches for the kids or work the night before. Grabbing food in the morning can seem like it will only take a minute or two, but a minute can turn into ten. You are more likely to opt for unhealthy take-out and spend more money on food when you already have the supplies to make a healthy meal from home.
5. Be consistent when you go to bed. Ensure that your bedtime will allow you enough sleep to wake up easily the next morning. The more you push the snooze button the greater the chance you will be stressed getting out the door in the morning.
6. Try to get gas or run errands that will affect your morning on your way home. There is nothing worse than running late and realizing your gas tank is empty. Taking the extra five minutes to fill your tank at night will relieve some pressure in the morning.
7. Create a good morning routine with your family. Be sure that the showers are not full when your small window to get out the door on time requires you to be in it. Everyone should know what time they must be up and follow the plan to prevent waiting (and arguing!) in the early morning hours.
8. Build in time to relax a little in the morning. If you are rushing around you will spend the rest of the day feeling that stress. Make sure you allow yourself enough time to wake up, enjoy that cup of coffee, check out the weather, or accomplish that one thing you forgot to do to prevent you from falling behind schedule.

Preventing the Paper Pile from E-mail

Do you find that e-mail is just another way for your paper to grow each day? This could be because you are too quick to print out every e-mail or attachment that is sent to you. Here are some tips to deal with e-mail more efficiently and preventthe paper pile up.
1. Immediately delete e-mails that are junk, spam or un-important.
2. Create folders within your e-mail program for frequently used topics to get them out of your inbox. For instance, “Family”, “John”, “Project X”.
3. Place e-mails in these folders for quick retrieval and searchability when you are looking to work on the project or refer back to the person.
4. Only print e-mails that require your immediate action or are necessary for a reminder. If you print every one you will start to become inundated with paper and lose track of important ones.
5. If you print e-mails have a designated folder on your desk related to the general topics of the e-mail. That way you can pull the folder when you need it quickly and easily.
6. Only keep the e-mails you must act in your immediate inbox. Otherwise your inbox will get just as confusing as a paper pile.
7. Immediately download pictures, documents etc. attached in emails to your computer. Then you can delete the e-mail and place items in their proper location on your computer. For instance, photos in your photo folders or a work document in the work folder on your desktop.
8. Use search tools like Google Desktop www.google.com to quickly find e-mails through keyword searches. You will find this much quicker for retrieval than sorting through papers when you need to get your hands on a document.
With these quick implementations you will save money on ink and paper, help the environment and feel a little less frantic looking for correspondence.

5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Closet

1. Hang items in color coded order
2. Use all of the same type of hanger (I reccommend wooden or non-slip felt hangers)
3. Maximize the shelf space above your bar with dividers, bins or extra shelving.
4. Always add a second rod to at least half your closet. Closet doublers can be an easy way to accomplish this with no tools.
5. Purge, Purge, Purge. Always make sure what you have in the closet is what you enjoy wearing and actually fits you.
For more closet organization products and ideas visit The Organized Lifestyle Store www.theorganizedlifestylestore.com

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.

5 Ways to Become More Efficient

1. Set your top 5 goals for the day at the beginning of everyday.
2. Don’t let meaningless interuptions derail you from completing those goals.
3. Multi-tasking is not always more efficient. Don’t interupt yourself constantly while trying to complete a task. It is better to hold off on the temptation to check the e-mail that just came in and finish what you started.
4. Do not try to achieve the world each day. Prioritize what is most important and put your energies into those items first. You will probably find you have extra time if you focus.
5. Schedule items you didn’t get to in a block of free time on your upcoming schedule. By mapping out your time you will be able to get more done and be more efficient in how you get it done.