7 Habits of Highly Organized People

7 Habits of Highly Organized People

I was not born with a natural bent toward organization.   I’ve more often identified myself as a more right-brained creative type.  However, I’ve always enjoyed the pursuits and observed the positive effects of organization since childhood.  I have found that maintaining a truly consistent organized lifestyle takes a lot of  intentional effort, discipline, and practice to achieve.  But, it’s WORTH it!
Beginning my own family has probably afforded me the greatest opportunity to observe a few of the biggest benefits of managing a simplified and organized home and life:  
  1. To find things when I need them {quickly}.
  2. To feel as though I’m being a good steward with my time.
  3. To have a general sense of peace and calm.
  4. To view my home as a haven of rest that I enjoy living in and opening up to others.
As I’ve grown in my knowledge and understanding of organization through real life experience, and intentional education over the years, I’ve observed there are a few habits that have helped me maintain an organized lifestyle:

7 Habits of Hightly Organized People : Awesome Article by Peachtree City, Georgia Professional Organizer. www.operationorganizationbyheidi.com

1.  Write Everything Down:
FREE your mind.  Rather than trying to rely on your memory to recall when that appointment is/was, the name of the movie or book you’d like to check out next, or recall the phone number or address of that new friend or business contact – WRITE it down. I’ve learned to always carry a small pocket notebook with me to record various things throughout the day.  Then, when I’m given some random bit of information that I know would be helpful to recall later, or if I’m struck with a personal bright idea I just jot it down quickly and return to my day as planned.  Later, I’ll ‘download’ these various notes to a more long term list or calendar.
2.  Keep Flat Surfaces Clear:
{coastal kitchen image source: kitchenisms.com}
 Clutter is magnetic.  As soon as you place one random item on a counter-top, dining table, or work space, it will only attract more.  Establish counter-tops as ‘no dumping’ grounds unless a particular item is used in that space every day (Like a coffee maker on the kitchen counter).  
 
3. Find ‘A Place for Everything’
{organized drawer photos courtesy of ‘hello my dear blog‘}
 Eliminate the idea of a “junk drawer” where random items are tossed.  Instead, create a defined space (with small containers or dividers) for all the little ‘extras’. One of the reasons most of my clients struggle with clutter build-up is simply because there is not a clear place where things belong.  Assign specific ‘homes’ for every single item.  ‘Homeless’ items will instantly turn into clutter.  It’s also helpful to have designated spaces for your things so you can actually find them when you need them rather than wasting time searching or money buying duplicates.  Find a specific place for loose change, keys, remote controls, office supplies, or even sunscreen. Do your children struggle with keeping their rooms clean?  Help them find ‘homes’ for their toys/belongings as well. 

4.  Never Leave a Room Empty Handed

Let’s face facts: there will always be something that needs to be returned somewhere else.
When heading to a new room in the house, glance around to see if there is something out of place {a coffee cup, piece of mail, toy, or rogue sock}you could gather up with you to relocate on your way.

5.  File, Don’t Pile
{image via BHG.com}
Set up a command central or mail sorting system somewhere in your home.  This space will serve to corral all the bills, mail, and other paper related information that comes in daily. Set aside a specific time each week to respond to and file documents where necessary.  
{*note* a command central could even be set up in something as small as a simple file box}

6. Purge & Declutter Often

How many ________ does a person really need
Strive to keep what you consider to be truly beautiful and/or useful  in your home.
If you have limited storage it’s especially important to not consistently accumulate more than will need to be stowed.  Implement the ‘One In, One Out Rule‘.  When you purchase something new for yourself or your home, or when a  family member is given gifts on special occasions; make an effort to remove a similar item you already own.  Resolve to declutter the common living areas of your home every evening (perhaps a few times a day if you’re living with small children).
7.  Make a Plan

{FREE PRINTABLE Daily Plan Courtesy of The Project Girl}
Sometimes you just need to tell yourself what to do in order to stay on track.  Systems and routines save the day!  Keeping a variety of running lists will serve as an external reminder of what needs to be done and when. You’ll be granted a peace of mind knowing there is a plan to conquer all that needs to be done and feel the satisfaction of success when you’re able to check off items they are completed as well!

Everyone in your family will appreciate having a menu plan in place:

{FREE PRINTABLE Menu Plan courtesy of  The Project Girl}

A cleaning checklist will help keep the appearance of your home serene and welcoming:

{FREE PRINTABLE courtesy of: evelyn kate designs}

A family calendar will help show an ‘at a glance’ view of who needs to be where and when:

(Calender via ScriptureArt}


These habits are by no means a magic solution, but making an effort to adopt a few will surely aid to set you in motion as well as help maintain your organizational goals.

Motivation is what gets you started, Habit Keeps you Going. Operation Organization by Heidi: Professional Organizer Peachtree City, Newnan, Senoia, Fayetteville.
* * * * * * * * * * 

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.  

 Call: 770-847-0329 or Email: OperationOrganizationByHeidi@gmail.com to learn more.

Ease Morning Madness with Routine Charts for Kids

Ease Morning Madness with Routine Charts for Kids

Most child development experts agree that children thrive with and desire structured routine in their day-to-day lives.

Taking the time to organize a few built in routines through your day will prove to provide stability and comfort for your child. Regular routines build a sense of structure as well as help to establish healthy living, good habits and also provides some sense of personal control which contributes to good behavior.

Mornings tend to be particularly chaotic time for families.  

Whether you are a working parent that needs to be out the door by a certain time each day, or you are are a stay at home parent of multiple school aged children that need to get ready for school, having a morning routine will help everyone be aware what needs to be done and start their day off right.

Creating a Morning Routine Chart for each of your children will help keep them on track with the tasks at hand.  Rather than spending time and energy repeatedly nagging reminding your child what else they need to complete to prepare for their day, simply get out the charts and tell them to get started. 

Children (particularly non-reading preschoolers) are usually very visually oriented .
A simple chart with photos will be all they need to complete a few age appropriate tasks to start their day:

Here’s a few ideas:

 
{*free printable* Modern Toddler Chore Chart by Dandee Designs}

{*free printable* Kid’s Morning Routine Flash Cards  by Living Locurto}
{Get Ready for School Printable}

For even MORE great chart ideas, take a moment to visit HandiPoints.com

Organizing School Gear

Organizing School Gear

It’s Back to School Time!

Take a few moments to create a launch pad near whatever door your school aged children will be using most often to house {and catch}  all their school related gear! 

It’s important to designate a space for all school related items {like shoes, coats, bags, homework & papers} that kids bring in and out of the house each an every day.

If all their gear has a specific ‘home’ there is less chance clutter will begin to collect, and they’ll know where to find their things rather that setting you all into a frantic search when it’s time to head out the door each day.

Working on this project together with your children is a wonderful opportunity to teach your them where their things will belong as well as instilling a life lesson of the positive results of being organized.

Consider giving each of your school aged children a personalized folder, Wall File, bin or basket to house important papers, assignments, and reminders (this way you’ll know where to find them for review as well!).  

Sooner or later, outdoor wear will need to have a ‘home’ nearby as well.  This coat closet {featured on Martha Stewart.com} s packed with some amazing solutions to utilize every ounce of it’s small space:

Not only is there a place for hanging coats, but lower level shelving creates a space for shoes and baskets to be stowed.  Baskets could hold miscellaneous outdoor extras like hats, gloves and scarves.  Add a few long hooks on the inside of a closet door to create a space for large bags & backpacks!

This backpack storage rack can be also installed on a door or wall. and will hold up to 8 items weighing up to 8 pounds each. The design of this storage racks stretches and self-adjusts to fit various door heights.

No coat closet?

A system with built-in coat rack, cubbies, shelves and bench is just the sort of storage and seating solution needed to create an organized entryway that not only looks attractive, but functionally provides a space to catch kids school stuff as well.

{Samantha Entry Way Collection Via Pottery Barn}

A simple wall coat rack is also an easy and cost effective solution to house coats and backpacks on a wall nearby whichever door kids bring school gear through:

Or, install a wall coat rack for bags and coats beside a closet with an over-the-door shoe storage option like this beauty from Pure Style Home.

There’s truly ‘a space for everything’ within this DIY $324 Mudroom featured at Better Homes and Gardens:

Which option would work best in your home?

Contact me if you need help with some creative storage solutions for school gear in your space.

Organizing & Archiving Digital Photos

Organizing & Archiving Digital Photos

I personally place really high value on family photos.  I love preserving memories of our family history that we can look back on year after year.

I once enjoyed spending my leisure time with the hobby of creating personalized artistic handmade scrapbooks to collect these precious memories.  As our young children have grown more busy and active, I lacked more and more time and space in our home to create. I steadily got more and more behind in producing these type of albums.  Also, it was becoming less and less appealing to spend my precious leisure time with this type of hobby.

I recently discovered I had become about 2 years behind on getting photos some type of book.  It was time to find a solution.  Now, I realize I could just print the photos and slap them into any old album off the shelf, but I still love the idea of creative presentation of photos.

 I decided to go completely digital in creating personalized family photo albums.  This would save a LOT of my limited time (and much needed energy), would not take up any space at all, and I could still be creative in the presentation of my photo books!

Thankfully, we got our first digital camera right around the time our first child was born.  So, even though I’m behind on getting photos into albums, all our most current family photos are completely organized in digital files.

Because I’ve been diligent at regularly downloading and storing my photos in digital files, it won’t take too long before I’m all caught up in producing albums (even if it’s just one small step at a time).

Here’s a peek at my process:


Every 2-4 weeks I set aside time to upload and edit photos with PICASA (a  free photo sharing & editing software from Google).

Other digital photo filing/sharing options are:
&

is another digital photo editing program.

I prefer PICASA, because once photos are saved , files are also automatically created and saved to a photo file on my hard drive for easy retrieval to upload to other sources like my Facebook wall, our family blog or to print.

Save files numerically by date, followed with a brief description of the event for easy reference and retrieval:    

(YEAR/ MONTH/ DATE/EVENT)

For example, I titled the file for this years Fourth of July celebration photos as:

2011/07/04/FireworksMN

This is an ideal method as your computer will automatically save your files in chronological order.

While making handmade albums, I would only print out enough physical photos to put into albums only when I knew I’d have time to create – I usually completed 2-4 pages at a time. There are many available storage options to organize already printed photos.  If you’d like some personalized suggestions on how to get started, contact me!

If you’re like some of my clients, you’ve got files and files of photos saved on your computer with no distinct system.  Your first step will be to create a new habit of labeling your files in a numerical system I just mentioned.  You can also begin to re-name existing photo files to create a more efficient system moving forward.

 I’ve been taking small steps to slowly ‘Eat My Elephant‘ in hopes of getting caught up on my photo books:

After all photos have been uploaded and edited in Picasa, and automatically saved in numerical order to our hard drive, I begin uploading the BEST photos into Shutterfly albums.  It’s up to you how you choose to create these albums (one for every season, special events and/or holidays, individual vacations etc.)  I’ve chosen to create annual family year books to chronicle one whole year of our family events.  The nice thing about creating digital albums is that I can also have multiple albums printed to give to each child or even extended family!





I plan into my day/week time to work on uploading these photos.
(usually one or two afternoons a week for 30-60 minutes while my children have nap/rest time).

Once all desired photos are saved in Shutterfly, I then begin my favorite task – the creating!  Once again, I intentionally plan ahead to MAKE time in my weekly schedule to do work on it even if it’s just 30 minutes at a time. It’s SO simple and FAST to create digital albums through a service like Shutterfly!  Once my creating time is up, I simply save my project as it is and log out until next time.  No messy clean up, and no dragging a bunch of supplies out the next time I’m ready to work on it!

I’m super excited about the new ‘Custom Path’ option as it allows for even more opportunities for personalized flair but still with the ultra simple application:

Creating digital albums has proven to save me so much time because I’m able to eliminate several other time consuming tasks that were part of the hand made process.  In the long run, I believe I’m probably also saving money on printing physical photos, products and materials like paper, stickers, and embellishments that I once had to purchase regularly to create handmade albums compared to the total price to print and ship a digital album. 


Before, I’d also have to complete several other time-consuming tasks in order to complete an album:

1) Upload and order photos to be printed to another location across town, while then having to wait for them to be prepared.   
2) Find time to pick them up.  
3) Spend time shopping for materials to create albums.   
4) Spend time getting materials to create organized to use.   
5) Spent a LOT of time in the creating process  – lots of cutting, measuring, pasting etc.   
6) Spend a considerable amount of time putting everything away after each and every creating session since I didn’t have my own creative space.

This is just my personal preference.  I’m sure many people ENJOY the process of creating beautifully tailored and personalized hand-made albums.  For me, it was beginning to feel like a chore, rather than a hobby.  Making the decision to go completely digital in my photo organizing and archiving was just one small way I could make an effort to de-clutter my life and time while still maintaining a little creative and personalized artistic flair in the presentation and preservation of our family memories.

Perhaps one day I’ll return to the art of creating handmade albums when/if I find myself with more leisure time or, perhaps if I’m granted the luxury of a dedicated creative space to organize all my tools and supplies like Leah’s:

{source: scrapbooketc.com}

Time will tell… 🙂

Happy Organized Memory Making!

*Disclaimer*  I was not rewarded or compensated for any products or services listed in this article.  
All opinions are my own from personal experience and use.

Eating An Elephant

Eating An Elephant

image by sean gallo

Have you ever been faced with a project or task that seemed impossible to visualize complete?  Perhaps like considering the outrageous goal of eating an entire elephant?

Maybe you have several large projects looming.

When faced with an elephant sized task, the first step is often the hardest – just START.

Start somewhere, anywhere and focus on small steps (or bites) forward after that.

Keep moving.  Once you’ve begun, continue working.  Eventually, it will become more logical to formulate a plan of action on how you’ll continue once you’ve got a little momentum behind you,(while still focusing on those small steps).

Starting small and moving small is key to helping you from feeling overwhelmed and giving up. 

Maybe there is a room in your home that is in complete chaos and you’ve no idea where to begin?  Simply choose a corner, a shelf, or even a pile and begin sorting and purging items from what is truly useful and beautiful from what is trash or no longer represents you or the present goals you have in your life.  

Decide beforehand how much time you realistically have to devote to your task each and every day even if it’s only 15 minutes.  Work that amount of time, and walk away until the next day.  Even if you feel you’ve barely scratched the surface, it’s still progress.  

Next week, I’ll share a bit about how I’ve currently dealt with my own ‘Elephant’ project of  editing/sorting/and cataloging our family photos.

What is your current ‘Elephant’? 

Go ahead and take that first bite!

Contact me if you need a little boost.

PLAN to have FUN {with kids} this Summer!

PLAN to have FUN {with kids} this Summer!

Have your kids uttered the dreaded words, “I’m Bored!” yet?

Need a little help and inspiration to put some summer fun plans into ACTION?

 Check out these links!

1) The Confident Mom created this fantastic Summer Calendar Package:


click here to learn more!

2)  A treasure trove of ideas: 101 Ways to Embrace Summer

3)  Think like a summer camp director and consider creating a theme for each week to follow with your kids at home.  This idea is sure to ‘help add structure, keep play fresh and learn some fun new things at the same time.’

4) Multiple Moms shared some of their favorite projects/activities & crafts via: Positively Splendid’s Summer Survival Guide

5) Create Your Own Summertime Activities Bucket List (there are free printables to download!)

6)  Learn how a weekly schedule can add just enough structure and comfortable rhythm to your lazy days of summer.



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