Happy birthday to my daughter Julie today!

When she was packing to go away for two years to serve in the Peace Corp her room needed some serious clutter control. I couldn’t even stand to look in her room as I walked by because it looked like a tornado had hit it.

She said to me (which has become a family joke); “mom, it’s your fault I’m not organized, you never taught me”. I was agog and aghast. Now she is an expert at clutter control, packing and organizing. With all the places she has lived and worked (Albania, Eritrea (Africa), Niger, Nigeria and places in the U.S.) she now has taught me a thing or two about clutter control.

If you are working with your children teaching them how important clutter control is and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere—keep on teaching and working with them, sometimes it just takes a bit longer than we think it should take for them to be organized as we would like them to be.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

I was complaining to myself the other day, “I just can’t lose weight…eating everything I want to eat”. I had to laugh at myself because as long as I am not willing to change my eating habits this statement will be true.

Have you ever complained, “I just can’t get organized”? That may be true—it you are maintaining the same habits without changing the way you deal with clutter control things won’t change.

If you really want to have clutter control in your home and life the first thing to do is to analyze where the problems are. Start slow and work on one place in one room at a time so you don’t get burnt out. By changing the way we see things and working on changing our habits we will soon say, “I am so organized”.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

I had a most delightful time Tuesday talking to a women’s group on time management. If you were to save 5 minutes a day x 7 days in the week that would =35 minutes x 4 weeks that would = 149 minutes which is over 2 hours a month x 52 weeks—that is a savings of over 30 hours in a year.

Wow! What can you do to save 5 minutes a day and end up with over 30 hours a year doing something you want to do?

One thing I do in my home is clutter control. When I use something I put it away when I’m finished so things don’t pile up. I leave a drawer slightly ajar to remind me that something needs to be put away and if I haven’t done it immediately this is a subtle reminder.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

Simplify, simplify, simplify that is our theme for the week. When we have the goal of clutter control in our homes there are many ways to accomplish this.

I had a charming woman who lives in Australia and watches my videos on YouTube leave me the funniest message and I just had to share it:

“My husband is convinced that I buy stuff just so I can buy organizing stuff so it’s all organized, he says I spend more time organizing my craft supplies that using them (which is probably true) but I love to have things neat and know where everything is. STILL it looks like a bomb has hit my craft area because I’m trying to stuff MORE stuff into a space that isn’t big enough, I should purge, I know I should purge (I hear you telling me TO purge) but I just can’t, because I just know the milli-second I get rid of it, I will need it!”
Side view:
Can you relate to this? I certainly can. I buy organizing “stuff” because I know it will help me in my ongoing desire of clutter clearing. This cute box at the top I bought two years ago and it has been waiting for a home. It is collapsible so it wasn’t taking up much room. And now look what I did with it. This drawer has never looked so organized. The front is red and the sides are brown/black.

I love clearing clutter and just organizing in containers within drawers makes things more accessible and easier to find. And it limits the amount of things that can “live” in the drawer.

Looking down at the box:

http://www.marilynbohn.com/images/blogapril27092.jpg

What is your favorite way of clearing clutter? (Press on the word comment and let us know—or if you are the first it will say no comment).

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

I am always amazed at all the free services we can use to help us remember everything we want to remember that can also help with clutter control. I just came across a website called Evernote.com and I signed up to use this service. Whether you are a senior or you have senior moments this may be something you want to check out.

Instead of jotting notes and then misplacing them; send text or images to the site by e-mailing, sending a photo from your cell phone or copying online material into your account. The service stores and catalogs your data. You can save to-do- lists, photos and copies of business cards.

The basic service is free or you can pay only $5.00 a month for a premium account which includes more storage and faster image recognition. I am looking forward to using my account to copy online material so I can find it faster.

Have you ever used a service like this? If so how did it work for you? Did it help with clutter control in your life?

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).