October, 2009

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Media Storage: Yes! I Can Find the CD I Was Looking For!

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Is your media center a huge piece of furniture or a 1”x6” board stretched over two concrete blocks? Either way, you can save time and frustration by creating a system of orderly storage for your media collection.

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If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium…

Sunday, October 25th, 2009
If It's Tuesday

If It's Tuesday

I went to see the movie, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York.  It was my senior trip in high school. The movie was a zany look at travel tours so packed that a person can’t remember which country he is in. At least there was an itinerary, a plan for the week.  Tourists could look at it and tell where they were by what day it was.

Nowadays, families squish lots of activities into a week.  Children have sports, music, and dance classes on top of regular school/church activities.  Some parents have to split up on the weekend in order to ferry several kids to different activities.  Life can get so hectic that it is hard to squeeze in the necessities of providing healthy food and clean clothing.

In the days of June Cleaver, there was more structure to a week’s worth of household chores. Many women were full-time homemakers and could concentrate on just that:  making a home.  Each day had one main purpose:

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Crayons… and Convicted of Clutter

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Have you ever had the experience of being convicted by your own words?  I have!

While preparing for my recent “Clear the Clutter!” workshop, I gathered several drawers of “useful junk” from around my house for a sorting exercise.  I decided to use one of the items to demo the use of 5 Key Questions to determine:  Should it stay or should it go?  I grabbed a box of crayons and began to ask:

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The Odd Couple: Do You Resemble Felix or Oscar?

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

When two people share a living space, there will inevitably be one who values order and neat surroundings more than the other.  The play-turned-sit-com, The Odd Couple, made us laugh at the extreme case of roommates having to adjust to each other’s idiosyncrasies.

Who do you relate to more:  Felix the neat fanatic or Oscar the easygoing slob?  Each character had his strengths and weaknesses.  Oscar could more readily enjoy life and relate to people.  On the other hand, Felix was uber-responsible and made sure that Oscar did not starve or drown in his trash.

Felix was never able to get Oscar to pick up after himself.  Oscar couldn’t convince Felix to get over his cleanliness fetish enough to make room for the humanity and imperfections of others.  Yet, in each episode one partner grew a little by learning from the other.

Often I hear the question, “How can you motivate someone else to get organized?” The two-word answer is a resounding, “YOU can’t!”

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10 Things I Do For My Clients (and it’s not what you think!)

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Perhaps you are under the impression that all organizers do is help people pitch junk, shuffle papers, and make the place look neat. Yes, we do help our clients downsize possessions, develop filing systems, and create adequate and eye-pleasing storage.

However, the results we provide have a much deeper impact on lives both physically and emotionally.

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