Stop Smooshing: Why Overstuffed Spaces Make Organization Harder One of the biggest mistakes people make when organizing has nothing to do with buying the wrong containers or not having enough space. It’s what I call “smooshing.” Smooshing happens when you cram so much into one space that you can no longer easily access what’s inside. […]
Simple Organizing Habits That Save Money Every Month When I first started organizing professionally, I thought I was helping people clear clutter and make their homes easier to manage. What surprised me was how much money people started saving once they got organized. And I’m not talking about extreme budgeting, cutting out every small pleasure,
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How to Create a Laundry System That Actually Works Laundry feels complicated for a lot of people. Not because it actually is, but because we’ve been sold the idea that it needs to be. There are so many products, so many steps, so many “right ways” to do laundry that it starts to feel like
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We talk a lot about decluttering. And yes, that matters. But there’s another piece of this that doesn’t get talked about enough, and that’s systems. Because you can declutter all you want, but if you don’t have systems in place for how things function in your home, the clutter is going to come right back.
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A Simple Shift That Can Change How You See Clutter When it comes to organizing your home, most people think in terms of what they’re tolerating. The piles on the counter, the overstuffed drawers, the things that have slowly blended into the background of daily life. But what if that’s not the most accurate way
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Identifying Physical, Emotional, and Perceived Obstacles to Getting Organized If you’ve ever felt like you can’t get organized no matter how hard you try, it’s easy to assume the problem is time, energy, or motivation. But often, the real issue is much simpler and more complex at the same time. There are things in your
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One of the biggest reasons people struggle to stay organized has nothing to do with motivation, discipline, or even how much stuff they have. It comes down to not knowing what success actually looks like. In this conversation, we highlight a common pattern I see with clients. They start an organizing project with a general
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Every year, it happens. You start with the best intentions. Clear goals. A fresh sense of motivation. Maybe even a full plan for how the year is going to go. And then something interrupts it. Life happens. You get sick, your schedule shifts, something unexpected comes up, or it simply doesn’t go the way you
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How to Reflect, Reset, and Plan for a More Organized Year Most people skip this step. They jump straight into setting goals for the new year without ever looking at what actually happened in the last one. And then they wonder why nothing really changes. A year-end review is what closes that gap. In this
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
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Simple Ways to Reduce Stress and Stay Ahead The holidays have a way of sneaking up on you. One minute it’s fall, the next your calendar is full, your schedule feels tight, and everything starts happening at once. It doesn’t have to feel that way. Start by thinking ahead The biggest shift you can make
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How to Set Up Your Kitchen to Reduce Chaos The kitchen tends to become the center of everything, especially during the holidays. It’s where meals happen, where people gather, and where a lot of the daily back-and-forth takes place. When it’s not set up well, everything feels harder than it needs to be. Think of
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If you want to streamline your holiday, it starts with questioning what you actually feel obligated to do. 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
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Essential Holiday Questions: Ask Better Decluttering Questions This Season A lot of people think decluttering gets easier once you find the “right” method. Usually that means asking some version of the same familiar questions: Do I love it?Do I need it?Do I use it?Does it spark joy? The problem is, those questions are not always
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When Stuff Goes Wrong: How to Stay on Track When Life Disrupts Your Plans Let’s be honest. Things go wrong. Not in a big dramatic way every time, but in all the small, annoying, disruptive ways that stack up and throw everything off. A schedule gets pushed.Something breaks.Your body isn’t cooperating.Plans take longer than expected.You
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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
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How to Complete a Project (Without Leaving It Half Done) Most projects don’t fail because you don’t start. They fail because you don’t finish all the steps. This shows up everywhere. Laundry that gets washed but not folded. A project that gets started but never wrapped up. A system that almost works but keeps breaking
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How to Get Organized: The Steps to Creating Order That Actually Lasts I got a call the other day that perfectly sums up where most people get stuck. “I dumped everything out of five drawers and sorted it into piles… now what?” That moment is where organizing usually breaks down. You’ve started. You’ve made progress.
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Keep just the right stuff with these hints to keep you from relying on excuses when you make decisions. Our decluttering services can help. 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
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How to Get Started Sorting Your Things (The Step Most People Rush Through) Sorting is where organizing actually begins. Not containers. Not labels. Not making it look nice. If you don’t sort well, everything that comes after it is harder than it needs to be. You’ll second-guess decisions, miss duplicates, and end up rearranging instead
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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,
Tips and Challenges Won’t Get or Keep You Organized Read More »
Immerse Yourself in Money: A Practical Way to Shift Your Money Mindset Most people don’t have a money problem. They have a money comfort problem. There’s a lot of fear around money. A lot of uncertainty. And for most of us, very little actual education on how money works or how to make decisions around
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Don’t Budget. Give Your Money a Job. I realized something recently in a couple different conversations. I don’t budget. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized why. Budgeting, for a lot of people, feels heavy. Restrictive. A little defeating if we’re being honest. You set numbers, try to stick to them,
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It’s Time to Relax: Why Taking Real Days Off Actually Matters So… what am I doing here? Today is technically a holiday, and I didn’t mean to be working. I just forgot to block it off. And honestly, that’s exactly why this is worth talking about. When you work for yourself, there’s no built-in stop.
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Does Your Clutter Define You? It might sound like a stretch, but your clutter and your identity are connected. Not in a dramatic, “this defines your worth” kind of way. More in a practical, everyday way. The things you keep around you tend to reflect who you think you are… or who you used to
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What are your favorite things? Can you list them off the top of your head? Do you know where you put them last time you used them? Have you used them at all? Why not? Are you saving them for a special occasion? Or, like Maria in The Sound of Music, are most of your
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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
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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.
3 Easy Ways to Eliminate the Paper That’s in Your Way Read More »
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.
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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.
Redundant Too Much? Read More »
Sometimes what is an obvious clutter breakthrough point and easy for me, is the brilliant idea that you need to have a breakthrough to release your clutter. I talk to people about their clutter all the time. I see patterns in how they talk about their stuff. Mostly, I notice the wrong thinking that is
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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Frazzled is no way to get through the day! An ideal schedule can help you be more productive and boost your energy levels. Feel better at the end of the day. Plus, insulate yourself from bad days — all by creating your ideal schedule. It’s not too good to be true. Simply follow the simple
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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
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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
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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
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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. Our about Miriam Ortiz y Pino can help. While decluttering unused items with my clients a frequently heard complaint is
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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
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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
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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
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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
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