Organize Your Life

I have been thinking about what it means to declutter. I’ve also been thinking about what the phrase More than Organized means, and how it evolved into the name of my business. So here is the story.  When I decided to become a Professional Organizer I came up with a whole list of possible business

Stop Sending Christmas Cards! If you are the kind of person who dreads and twists yourself up in knots about sending Christmas cards, stop sending them. It’s that easy. Imagine the time, money, and stress you’ll save! If You Love Sending Christmas Cards, by All Means, Go All Out! Do It Right!  Order ahead. Pick your photo(s). Pick your image. Write your newsletter. Buy the commemorative stamps. Sign “with love” away. I used to

An easy solution for the piles of business card clutter on your desk is to transfer the information to a searchable place. You know, a place where the details can be found quickly and used for good. Before you put the information from the business card into a system, the cards are just messy piles

Keep just the right stuff with these hints to keep you from relying on excuses when you make decisions. One of the most frequently asked questions about pieces of paper I ask my clients is “is it important?” it works like a charm if they know the answer. It either is or it isn’t. Or

We all want a quick fix, but tips and challenges won’t help you get organized, or keep you organized.  Most challenges are designed to create a buzz and get you excited about the process, but not lasting results. Tips and challenges most often fail to tie the reason for them to your big picture wants,

Does it seem impossible to beat holiday stress? So often I hear people complaining about how hectic the holidays are. They stay up late to get it all done. They shop through lunch to buy things to make it easier to cope. They ignore clients, family members and friends — just to do one more

Sometimes not doing something is better than doing it. Busy work is the stuff we do because at some point it seemed like a good idea, and maybe it was for a while. I hear from entrepreneurs about their lack of time and yet when we start to look at where the time goes, it is obvious that it is to busy work. 

It is frustrating to work so hard all the time and feel like you are not making a dent. Wouldn’t it be nice to get twice as much done in half the time? 

You want to get to new, cool ideas that will make you a bunch of money, and you want to not work all hours of the day so you can spend time with your family having fun. So, let’s  look at what can go first.

What does researching have to do with clutter? At my place not much, but for many of my clients, research is a way of life. Or maybe it’s a way of not getting around to making decisions, which is what causes clutter. 

How you research, and make decisions based on the research is the key to eliminating most of the paper clutter I encounter. Can you find the information you have been accumulating when you are ready to act? If not, then having a simple strategy about how you find information when you need it can save you hours of time every month.

The information piles up. Then when you look for it, you think you have found the piece you are looking for and then it’s not the one you thought, so you put it aside, for now, and keep looking, for the one you thought it was. 

What is going on here? Well, you have redundant information, and it is in your way in several places.

Is your clutter a communication issue? Stop the blame and get some perspective. If it feels like your family is not on your side when trying to create an organized home, you may want to look at your own behavior in the situation. Have you asked your family for help? Have you expressed to them

It is easy to keep the money clutter off your desk by defining your money system. A good “how I process my money” system gives a place for all the different kinds of money clutter to go. You might be wondering just how much money clutter is on your desk? The answer is more than

How much time do you spend shifting piles around your home office and from one side of the desk to another? Does your workflow actually take longer to get ready to do something than to actually do the thing? Have you ever spent the whole day “organizing” and have it all feel even more overwhelming

If you want to get and stay organized, you will need to learn how to develop an organizing habit that works. For real success to take hold, you must stop rearranging your things every couple of weeks and make a deeper connection between your things and what you want. Your organizing efforts don’t last because

How to Use a Checklist Do you feel like you could do more if you only had the right tools? You’re not alone. According to a recent study, the average person spends about two hours each day on tasks that could be automated with a checklist. That means there are 40 hours every month where

It is easy to organize bills and mail and to keep the money clutter off your desk once you define your money system. A good “how I process my money” organization system establishes a place for all the different kinds of money clutter to go. What is Money Clutter? You might be wondering just how

Do you want to boost your productivity without adding stress? Making five simple changes can boost your productivity at work. These are easy and actionable steps that anyone can take. You don’t have to be a CEO or an entrepreneur; these tips are for everyone who wants more out of their day-to-day routine. These small

Organizing Round-Up: Pro Tips to Clear Clutter Who doesn’t love tips, hacks, and quick how-tos? More than Organized participated in two top-tip round-ups featuring professional organizers and bloggers around the web. Each collection has unique clear-cluttering tips for your home. 35 Best Tips from Professional Organizers and Bloggers If you’ve been following More than Organized

Would You Like to Trade Time Famine for Time Affluence? Does it seem like there aren’t enough hours in the day? Do you feel you are “starved” for time? Are you ending the day feeling stressed, rushed, overworked, and behind on accomplishments? You may be suffering from a phenomenon known as time famine. Read on

Is Mental Clutter Holding You Back? You know that you could write that business proposal, film script, or best-selling book if you could just lock those ideas down on paper, on your computer, on a napkin. Somewhere. . . But for some reason, you can’t seem to focus enough to sort out your next move.

Want to save time? Make a decision and stick with it. A one-time decision takes stress and choosing time out of the equation. Stop wasting time deciding which shampoo will make your hair prettier.  Don’t worry if the new barbeque sauce will taste better. Stop wondering which app will make you productive. Pick one and

Because time is relative, we need some real ways to save time. It is time to get realistic about time. With only 24 hours in a day, you cannot expect to get 1000 things done well. Real ways to save time rely on having a clear purpose. Figure out what is important and get mental

To let go of unintended clutter you first have to identify it. How much of it is stuff that creeps in? Sometimes it is obvious, the papers on the kitchen counter or the clothes draped over the treadmill. Other times the clutter is well hidden, the batteries stored in several places or the unwatched videos

The real cost of clutter isn’t how much you spent on the item in the first place. Rather it is the complaint, blame, annoyance and overwhelm that occur when the things are in your way. While decluttering unused items with my clients a frequently heard complaint is “but I paid good money for it!” I

Clutter is unmade decisions. Projects are left to linger because you made a choice to do something else. Papers pile up because you think you need them but you aren’t sure. So, you say: “I’ll decide later” and set them aside. Pretty soon all the decisions you didn’t make have spread around the house and

What’s complicated right now? Taking the time to evaluate your stuff and processes might seem like one more thing to do, but can skyrocket your overall productivity. Putting it off will only take more time later. So, think about it, where can you simplify what’s complicated right now? Start there. Have you ever had one

Wishing you could maximize your time doesn’t change anything. Taking some actual steps to change your approach to time will. Get your mindset right and leveraging time gets much easier. It happens to people all the time. You get to the end of the day and think, “I worked hard all day and didn’t get

Squeezing in one more thing never really works out. It’s a time and space thing. Only so much can fit in any given space or time. Adjustments must be made. A little preplanning can help avoid real problems later. Squeezing in one more thing leads to complications. What’s complicated? Actually it is a complex composition

Ever wondered why some people have easy and effortless systems in place and why you don’t? I heard it again just yesterday, a potential client saying they hadn’t had time to set up a system. Was it you? I say you don’t have time not to set up a system. A system is a set

Ridiculous Memory is a cool technique for creating habits. I have been working with my Antidote to Overwhelm clients on developing routines and habits. At the same time I heard reference to improving memory with a technique called ridiculous association. This is a technique I learned as a kid and didn’t even realize it was

If it’s on fire, it seems obvious that that is an urgent situation and requires immediate attention. It can be much harder to know if it’s urgent if it is a task that comes up during your day. How do you know if something is urgent, or if that same thing is merely an interruption

The first system I set up for my entrepreneurial clients is a follow up system. Usually they have been avoiding it, saving it for later, or winging it. They have mixed, alright, I really mean chaotic, results with that. So, I fix it. It is a big mistake to not do the follow up required