I finally reorganized my underwear-and-sock drawer and in about a half hour, a drawer that was a literal source of stress became an easy-to-use source of peace. Why didn’t I do it sooner?
Tagged with: organizing, procrastination, tiny projects
I wrote this post nine years ago (and I’m happy to report that I still go to the dentist twice a year). When I re-read it today, it still rung true, so I thought I’d share it with you again. I’ll add one thing: I certainly hope that working with a professional organizer is more pleasant for you than dental work!
Tagged with: decluttering, dentist, organizing, worth repeating
I published this five years ago and it’s as true now as ever, so I thought it was worth repeating.
It’s not unusual for a new client to ask me what she should do before I arrive at her home for the first time. (Most, but not all, of my clients are women.) Most assume they need to clean up the house.
Tagged with: organizing, organizing questions, worth repeating
I originally wrote this post in 2019 and I’m still embracing vertical storage. So I thought I’d share this simple principle again.
To the extent possible, I love storing things vertically, rather than horizontally. Think about how files are stored in a file cabinet—it’s much easier to access them than a stack of file folders.
Tagged with: organizing, organizing principles, organizing solutions, organizing systems, storage, worth repeating
Adriene is fond of saying “A little goes a long way” when it comes to yoga. I got to thinking that that’s also true of decluttering and organizing.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, decluttering, organizing, pockets of time, yoga, yoga with adriene
One of the tiny projects I included in my November Tiny Projects challenge was putting together a hospital go-bag. My husband had been hospitalized in October and then again in November with heart issues, so I took the time after that second hospitalization to create a go-bag that I could grab in the event of a sudden trip to the hospital.
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Tagged with: 15 minutes, emergencies, emergency preparedness, organizing
Today is my fifth and final tiny project of this challenge. It’s the top drawer of the desk we call our household desk. I declutter it every decade or so. And today when I opened it I realized it was ripe for a tiny project challenge.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clutter, decluttering, desk, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
So when he got home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, together we created a list of items to keep in a bag that I can grab on my way to the emergency room, should this come up again. I’m hoping that this will have the same effect as bringing along an umbrella when it’s threatening to rain: I won’t need it. (In fact, I created a similar bag for my dad several years ago and he hasn’t been hospitalized since!)
Tagged with: 15 minutes, emergencies, emergency preparedness, organizing, tiny projects
When I look around my house, it’s not hard to find tiny projects for this series! Today, I cleaned up an area that had become a dumping area in my home.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I spent 20 minutes on my main office-supply closet. My office is in a spare bedroom. I took the sliding doors off the closet and filled the closet with shelving to store office supplies. Since those supplies are so visible, I don’t let the closet contents get too crazy before decluttering an organizing.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Today I focused on the little drawer in my laptop stand that houses office supplies I want close at hand.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, desk, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Back in May and then again in August, I took on a personal tiny projects challenge, in which I completed five small organizing projects around my house in a week. I did one a day and blogged about it the day I did it. I tried to pick challenges that would take 30 minutes or less. It was amazing what great quality-of-life improvements I was able to make in those small chunks of time.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
It’s the fifth and final day of my Tiny Projects challenge! It’s been fun to look around and identify little projects that pack a punch. Today, I spent a half hour on the Elfa rolling file cart that lives under my desk.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, closets, organizing, paper management, tiny projects
Today, I turned my attention to a tiny challenge that has a big impact: the area of my desk that I look at constantly. I probably view this area of my desk more minutes a day than anything else in my home, except probably my computer monitor.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean desk, closets, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I spent a half hour tidying and organizing one of the closets in my office. My office used to be a bedroom and it has a large closet, whose sliding doors I removed, where I store my office supplies. (If you’re curious, I did a before-and-after of that closet a few years ago in this post.) But the office also has a small reach-in closet, original to the 1908 house. In it, I store two rolling file carts, some archival things, and mostly genealogy-related items.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, closets, organizing, tiny projects
Today I focused on my cluttered computer desktop. I don’t tend to see my desktop—it’s hiding behind the many windows I always have open on my Mac. The only time my cluttered desktop bugs me is when it gets so full it fills the entire desktop on my big external monitor and starts slopping over to my laptop monitor. That happened a little while ago, so I decided to address it in as a tiny project.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, computer desktop, organizing, tiny projects
This morning I spent 15 minutes on a tiny project that’s been on my list forever: my pajamas.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
Back in May, I took on a personal tiny projects challenge, in which I completed five small organizing projects around my house in a week. I did one a day and blogged about it the day I did it. In only about an hour, split up over the course of five days, I was able to make some very nice, life-improving changes.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
On this fifth and last day of my personal tiny projects challenge, I moved out of my office to the living room and spent less than 15 minutes on the end table next to the chair where I watch TV, write postcards to voters (and in doing so practice my hand lettering) and knit.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I focused my attention on my printer stand/snack bar today. In about 20 minutes, I decluttered and tidied this little space and it felt great!
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I focused on my desktop (the top of my actual desk, not my computer desktop). I forgot to set my timer and I was watching Anderson Cooper on Stephen Colbert at the same time, so I don’t know how long it took. But I’m confident it would have taken less than 15 minutes if I’d been focused.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean desk, organizing, tiny projects
It took me twenty minutes this time, but when I finished, I whittled the papers down to one smaller bin. (It’s small multi-purpose bin from The Container Store.)
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I decided to kick off my five tiny-project challenges this week with my scanner stand. It’s a repurposed printer stand (it’s got to be 20 years old) that I use for my ScanSnap S1500M sheetfed scanner and my ScanSnap SV600 contactless scanner. It had become a bit of a dumping ground.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I am spending a lot of time at my desk these days. Since I’m not going into clients’ homes, I’m probably at my desk at least eight hours a day, if not more. Some days I’m staring into the computer and barely looking around. Other days, the disorder jumps out at me. It’s time to do something about it.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I almost always suggest that the client not clean up her home before she meets with me. Piles and messy spots can be revealing.
Tagged with: organizing, organizing questions, worth repeating
To the extent possible I love storing things vertically, rather than horizontally. Think about how files are stored in a file cabinet—it’s much easier to access them than a stack of file folders.
But vertical storage isn’t just for files. I love using the principle all around my house (and with clients).
Tagged with: organizing, organizing principles, organizing solutions, organizing systems, storage
It’s not unusual for a new client to ask me what she should do before I arrive at her home for the first time. Or before I arrive with a team. (And, yes, most—but not all—of my clients are women.) Most assume they need to clean up the house.
I almost always suggest that the client not clean up her home. Piles and messy spots can be revealing. They reveal where the client and/or family naturally tend to put stuff. They reveal the stuff that’s actually in use, typically. They reveal an absence of a working system for handling the mail.
Tagged with: organizing, organizing questions
I had my teeth cleaned today, something I don’t really enjoy. But I do it faithfully every six months. And that’s because I know the pain and fright of slacking off on going to the dentist and then having to go because something’s gone awry in my mouth. For a number of years, when I was younger, I let my fear of the dentist get in the way of my getting regular checkups. Then a tooth broke and I had to face the music. After a root canal and a nasty surgical procedure called “crown lengthening” (I don’t wish that on anyone), all was well again. And, believe me, I haven’t missed an appointment since.
Tagged with: decluttering, dentist, organizing