“A body at rest remains at rest and a body in motion remains in motion… unless acted upon by an outside force.
It’s important to remember and anticipate that there can and will be outside forces in life that will occasionally stop or significantly slow down your ‘motion’, (a personal or family illness, crisis, or even a season of extra stress from multitudes of sources that causes you to flounder from your normal routines). Once life has settled down again, you only need a different type of outside force to START moving once more.
It is a sincere JOY for me to come alongside my clients as a positive ‘force‘ to get them started in the right direction and help keep them moving and motivated with personalized action plans, encouragement & accountability.
Perhaps you’re currently feeling completely overwhelmed by your clutter & mounting personal organizing goals?? Or, maybe there is a space or two in your home that simply needs a fresh set of objective eyes to to bring to its fullest organized potential?
Maybe having an organizing buddy, cheerleader and coach that could encourage you one-on-one would be just the solution you need to achieve the success you need and deserve – to allow you to live a more peaceful life you LOVE with more time and energy to fully and freely participate in activities and hobbies you enjoy!
Would you like to work with a Professional home organizer based near Atlanta, Georgia?
We currently serve clients in the surrounding metro area as well as Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Peachtree City, Fayetteville, Newnan and expanding!
Contact Heidi to learn more about how to get organized with our professional organizer services.Operation Organization by Heidi provides customized organizing solutions to ‘cure’ your unique clutter challenge / condition.
When striving to achieve organization in any space, it’s important to find a place or ‘home’ for each and every item you own. If there is not a designated space for things to go, they’ll immediately turn into clutter. I’ve said before that clutter is magnetic. It just takes one or two ‘homeless’ items lying around, and more nearly always tends to gather there as well.
It is especially important to find ‘a place for everything’ when living in a small space, because items that are out of place are always ‘in your face.’ There’s just no hiding the visual clutter.
The first step is to truly accept and embrace the storage you actually have currently and then begin setting up visual boundaries in addition to a few limiting containers for your things to ‘live’.
Take a tour around your home – Make note of where clutter regularly builds up and what items are the usual suspects of landing there. When your tour is finished, begin making action plans of where ‘homeless’ items could potentially live, rather than always landing in any random location.
Assigning specific places for things will save time you’re likely currently loosing while looking around for them. This will also grant you a general sense of peace, knowing important things will be there when you need and want them.
Never can find your keys, wallet and/or purse?
– Designate a specific place for them. A simple solution could be as simple as a few cleverly mounted hooks:
Paper is a # 1 culprit for cluttering up counter tops.
Toys and children’s belongings are also regular offenders in main living areas.
-Set up small ‘zones’ in specific areas of your home to house these things. Then, only allow what will fit in that space to be stored there.
There has always been a designated place for a few toys to be stored in the main living areas of our home. Here’s a peek of the ‘toy zone’ in our living room:
{only toys that fit in this corner may ‘live’ in our living room}
We currently live in a 2 story home. While most toys ‘live’ upstairs in bed rooms, I know my kiddos would much rather play where everyone else is on the main level. I’m fine with allowing a limited amount of toys to be in the living room/family room – as long as there is an ‘out of the way’ place for them to be put away between play sessions. Once these 3 baskets are full, the expectation is that some toys must be put away upstairs before new ones are stored here. (that big one is actually a bit fuller than I’d prefer – but that’s how it *really* looks during rest time today) 😉
We’re preparing to move to a new home in the next few months, and I’ve got a little something like this in mind to house ‘living room toys’ in an even more concealed manner:
Both paper and toy clutter will likely require minor daily maintenance to keep on top of, but again – this ‘defining the space’ is just a first step….
Living in a small space means you must be ever more diligent to ‘keep only what is truly useful and beautiful’ as well as what actually fits in the space you have available.
Though you may have a beautiful collection of shoes and/or purses, only keep what you can reasonably and adequately store within a designated {and limited} space. Consider an under-the-bed storage bin or an over-the-door organizer to hold extras that are not being used.
When these places/spaces are full, that is a visual boundary to remind you that you need to let go of some of these items before purchasing or collecting any more.
If you simply adore the hobby of scrap-booking, crafting, or preparing an artfully packaged gift, you have to be very aware about how much space you realistically have to stow the physical materials that all these activities require. Set up a limited space where they will belong as well as limiting containers that will fit comfortably into that space. Then, don’t purchase any more than will fit there:
A shared family bathroom can be quite difficult to keep tidy when considering all the items used by multiple people each end every day. – I love this idea by a thrifty and clever homeschooling mom of four:
Assign a uniform sized personal care container for each family member to hold necessary bathroom gear. If there is not space for these containers within the bathroom (inside a cabinet, closet or constructed open shelving). A bathroom caddy could be created for each family member to keep in bedrooms and toted to the bathroom – just like life in the dorms:
It’s important to understand that just assigning things a ‘home’ does not automatically guarantee they’ll always be there (that’s whole other discipline to developing an organized lifestyle), but knowing you have a space and place for your things is certainly a step in the right direction.
Are there areas in your home or office that could use some designated storage planning ?
We are in the midst of a series of articles featuring tips and solutions for Organizing in Small Spaces.
The introductory article highlighted a few simple ways to create more space in small living areas. One of those points included being on the lookout for shelving opportunities.
Shelving is one of the best ways you can make add a power punch of storage without forsaking much square footage for living. A few lucky home owners have lovely built-in wall storage, but with a little creativity, even a home with no built-ins can achieve the same look with bookcases or constructed shelving.
In the Living Room or Den:
Get brave and creative with furniture placement. Save those walls for some shelves!
Line an entire wall with bookcases…
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Even a half wall of shelving offers a lot of storage…
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Notice how in all the above images, at least a portion of furniture is in front of the bookcase?
Shelves can be utilized to stow books & magazines, decorative items, media collections, special mementos, games, photos/photo albums, or even toys.
Create the option of a visual barrier if you wish, by suspending a curtain from wall-to-wall.
Added shelving in the kitchen doesn’t need to be all about function.
Use shelving to showcase some of your favorite decor items along with commonly used kitchen items like cookbooks and cake stands to produce some instant eye appeal:
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In the Bathroom:
Bathrooms are notorious spaces to be short on storage.
Added shelving in otherwise wasted space near a toilet is a perfect option to stow towels, toiletry gear plus a few decorative items:
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There is often ample space above a toilet perfect for open shelving to house cosmetics and/or hair products.
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Over-the-door shelving is a perfect solution to house overstock products.
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In the Laundry Room:
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Need a hand in bringing more organization to your small space?
