April 20th, 2009

Plan it Out Thursday: The Bedroom

I know; it’s not Thurs­day. But, I started this project LAST Thurs­day and because it it a mas­sive one, I gave myself a week to com­plete it all. So look for the update to this post on Thurs­day, April 23, 2009.

Before I get to the video, let me explain exactly what the prob­lem is with our bed­room. We moved to this apart­ment in April 2008. It is the nicest place we have ever lived and the only place that I really ever felt like call­ing home for longer than six months. So, when we moved, I vowed that I would unpack fully and dec­o­rate, and keep it clean and pre­sentable. Of course, life does not under­stand these kinds of promises. We never fully unpacked and while I clean, it has never been the way that I want.

My bed­room is the messi­est and the most embar­rass­ing place in the whole place. I never let any­one in my bed­room and when I usu­ally start clean­ing it, I am so over­whelmed by the mess that I give up.

But not this time. I decided on Thurs­day of last week that I was going to tackle my bed­room once and for all and make sure that I declut­ter and make it com­fort­able. I wanted to doc­u­ment the process partly because I wanted my hus­band to see just how much work needed to be done and partly because I really wanted to see the difference.

The video below will show you what our room looked like 40 min­utes into the clean­ing process. It is not a pretty site but it will be.

February 4th, 2009

Plan It Out Thursday: An Interview with Professional Organizer Krista Colvin

ETA: The give­away has been postponed.

If you have been scour­ing the inter­net for infor­ma­tion on how to get orga­nized, then you have prob­a­bly come across my spe­cial guest, Krista Colvin- lifestyl­ist; orga­niz­ing maven; and media per­son­al­ity. She is the brain behind The SHE­bang, Orga­nize in Style, and The O Myth (BlogTalk Radio)- all great tools for help­ing every­one take con­trol of their lives.

A Lit­tle Background

I first met Krista at The Inte­grated Mother Net­work, when I fran­ti­cally called on my fel­low moth­ers to help me get it together. Krista was a calm­ing voice in a very tur­bu­lant storm and cau­tioned me, with warm but stern word, to “Slow Down!” It was then that I real­ized that she was some­one who could def­i­nitely help. Not only is she chock-full of resources, and funny, she was gen­er­ous enough to offer some cool deals to my read­ers.(see below the inter­view for details).

In this inter­view, Krista tells us what it means to be orga­nized and gives every­one (even men) insight into what it takes to “get it together.”

MOTR: What does it mean to be orga­nized?
Krista: Your “things” have a place to call their own! That makes find­ing + putting things away soooo much easier.

MOTR: Orga­niz­ing always seems like a daunt­ing task What is the best way for one to get started orga­niz­ing his/her home?
Krista: Start on a small and emo­tion­ally low risk project. Then work your way up to more emo­tion­ally charged areas. A kitchen pantry is a great exam­ple. It’s sim­ple to sort, purge and put back together. The emo­tional risk is low because no one is attached to expired food. Your clothes closet and child­hood keep­sakes… well those are filled with emo­tions and are best dealt with after tack­ling a project or two!

MOTR: In gen­eral, who do you believe is bet­ter at orga­ni­za­tion? Men or women?
Krista: Wow, I’ve never been asked this before! Hmmmm, a loaded ques­tion and I don’t even have a strong opin­ion on it! I’m going with “Depends on the indi­vid­ual”… how’s that for a polit­i­cally cor­rect, good-for-nothin’ answer

MOTR: A friend told me that she is very orga­nized at work, but her house is a mess. Why do you think it is so dif­fi­cult for us to orga­nize our lives both in and out of the home?
Krista: I see this a lot. First cut your­self some slack because a girl can only han­dle so much . You need to be able to chill some­where right? It’s dif­fi­cult to main­tain the whole she­bang… we are busy liv­ing life. I have 10 items that if knocked out each month help you stay on top of it. It’s avail­able via an email I send out to my newslet­ter peeps.

MOTR: What item do you think is the most impor­tant tool needed to orga­nize one’s life?
Krista: A plan! I believe you can do it all… just not in one day.

MOTR: What five items would you feel lost with­out?
Krista: Lip­stick, wed­ding ring, iPhone, glasses, coffee.

MOTR: The econ­omy has every­one in a pinch. How can you make orga­ni­za­tion inex­pen­sive?
Krista: I’m amazed at how many unused orga­niz­ing prod­ucts clients have lay­ing around! Also peek in your cup­boards because so many items can serve a dual pur­pose. A ceramic bowl or the crys­tal dish you received for a wed­ding gift can be used to house your keys + sun­glasses. I sug­gest gath­er­ing these up in one locale to assess what you already have. Then pick the best prod­uct for the job.

Plus… you’ll be amazed how much space you really have once you purge all those “not so loved” items from your draw­ers, clos­ets, and cup­boards. So workin’ with what you’ve got is by far the least expen­sive way to get it together!

MOTR: I know that break­ing big­ger things down into smaller jobs is bet­ter at times because it is less over­whelm­ing, but some­times it is hard to do that when every­thing is a mess. Is it more effec­tive to tackle one prob­lem at a time or to try and orga­nize every­thing all at once?
Krista: Oooh girl­friend… one thing at a time! Truly you can do it all… just not in the next 5 hours. You can tackle an entire kitchen at once but not the kitchen, the pantry, the linen closet, the mas­ter bath­room. You’ll wind up feel­ing Over­whelmed (yes with a cap­i­tal O) and want to just curl up and take a nap in the nest you created.

MOTR: I have to ask because I really am try­ing to con­vince my hus­band that we can afford to do this. What are your thoughts on hir­ing a house­keeper?
Krista: I’m ALL about hir­ing some­one to help you keep your space clean… ain’t nothin’ wrong with call­ing in the ladies. A man WOULD never hes­i­tate to hire help… so why do we. Per­son­ally I hired ‘the ladies’ because it was way less expen­sive than couple’s ther­apy… and girl­friend you KNOW what I’m talkin’ about!

MOTR: I am try­ing to teach my daugh­ter to be orga­nized now while she is young. Do you have any tips for teach­ing chil­dren (as young as 2) to be orga­nized?
Krista: Ded­i­cate a home for their items– for example:

• Bunny + Blanky sleep here and you can find them when you want to nap.

• If you spill some­thing here is the place the rags are in… then they can help clean up.

• Sippy cups live in this drawer… Bring me one and I’ll hook you up with some juice!

Wow– how’s that for a start­ing point? Before I get to the Give­away, I have to say “thank you so much, Krista, for agree­ing to do this inter­view and for your patience (I am really turn­ing into a goober).“

January 29th, 2009

Plan It Out Thursday: Making Lists

Nor­mally I would post this at Mid­night, but I have a pinched nerve and it is very dif­fi­cult for me to sit at the com­puter. Well, bet­ter late than never.

Are you ready to Plan it Out? If you aren’t sure what this is all about, check out my expla­na­tion from last week. And when you decide to join, please add your name and link to your Plan It Out Thurs­day post to  Mr. Linky below. If you add your link and DO NOT write a post about your plan, I will delete it because while I am all for link love, I can’t stand when peo­ple don’t fol­low directions!

Let’s talk about lists. I like to write things down and with the explo­sion of dig­i­tal orga­niz­ers, I find that I am always on the look out for ways to com­bine writ­ten lists with dig­i­tal ones. When it comes to keep­ing orga­nized, I love my PDA. I have a PalmPi­lot and it keeps my cal­en­dar, con­tacts, and to do’s all together and handy. How­ever, I recently dis­cov­ered a great new dig­i­tal tool that I love. It is called SPRINGPAD, an online note­book great from orga­niz­ing every­thing from recipes, to play-dates. I only wish that I could sync it with my PDA somehow.

I use Spring­Pad for every­thing. I have cre­ated sev­eral pads so that I can orga­nize all areas of my life. Take a look below to see what I mean. And then head over to SpringPad’s Demo so that you can see it in action.

Do you make lists? What are your favorites list-makers to help you keep orga­nize? Write your Plan It Out Thurs­day post and then add it to Mr. Linky below.