40 Secrets. Your Organizing Consultants OF A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER

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1 Your Organizing Consultants 40 Secrets OF A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER My years as a professional organizer have taught me plenty. Here are 40 of my tried and true organizing tips! Anna Sicalides, CPO Owner, Your Organizing Consultants

Try to keep drawers for a single category of items or activities. For example, napkins with place mats can go together with candles or napkin rings. 3.

2 40 Secrets OF A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER Clean up clutter, reduce mess and stress, and love your home again! 1. Drawer Organizers: When you contain items in containers within a drawer, your drawer will remain organized longer and it will take less time to reorganize the drawer when that time comes. 2. Try to keep drawers for a single category of items or activities. For example, napkins with place mats can go together with candles or napkin rings. 3. Slide-out drawers for pantries and cabinets: These are the best! When you add these to your cabinets and closets, you make your space so much more efficient. When you pull them out you can see everything. Imagine never having to get on the floor to find a pot or cleaning product. Perfect uses: kitchens, pantries, bathrooms, and craft rooms. You can also readapt furniture by adding slide outs. 4. Donation location: Have a bag or box in a location so that when you find things around your house that need to be donated, you can easily put them in the box. Spots that have worked for my clients are bedroom closets, mudroom, and garage. 5. Keep your flat surfaces clean: The goal would be that you can clean up the surfaces of your main areas in less than 15 minutes daily. This means having systems to deal with what usually gathers on these surfaces. 6. Go vertical: Look up! If you can add a tall piece of storage 2

Cut the perfectionism. There is such a thing as good enough. 40 Secrets furniture, shelves, bookcases, cubbies, or hooks, you can greatly increase your storage space. 7.

3 Cut the perfectionism. There is such a thing as good enough. 40 Secrets furniture, shelves, bookcases, cubbies, or hooks, you can greatly increase your storage space. 7. Keep your seasonal things together: Keep skis and shovels together. Keep your gardening things together, close to the pool stuff that you use in the summer. 8. For holiday items: Put each holiday in it s own storage container. If you are a big Thanksgiving fan, put your table linens and platters together with your paper turkeys in one bin. This way you clear your daily living spaces of unnecessary clutter. 9. Each room in your house should serve one function. If you have a room with more than one use, create zones where each use is assigned. 10. Put things away after you use them so you will not waste time looking for them the next time you need them. 11. Buy furniture that serves more than one function a storage ottoman, a coffee table with shelves or drawers, an end table with storage beneath. 12. Keep things that you use all of the time at arms reach things that aren t accessed as often can go higher and lower. 13. Use the backs of your doors. Think shoes, pantry items, cleaning products, first aid, belts, tights, scarves, gloves and hats. 14. Eliminate duplicates. The kitchen, bathroom, and office supplies are great places to find duplicates. 15. If you don t have a home office, you need one, even if it is in a closet or a bookshelf. Life is so much better when you can access all the things that belong in an office. 16. Use a cloud-based calendar and make different colors for every family member. Everyone can enter their own events. 17. Review, when your junk drawer is a mess. Reorganize, and return things to where they belong. Many home libraries contain books that are irrelevant, or VHS tapes that your kids watched in the 80 s. Pantries are a gold mine for this sort of thing. 18. Categorize and use containers in your refrigerator to avoid having to purge it. 19. Buy one-color linens for your bedrooms and baths. White, cream, and neutrals makes it easy to launder and put away. 20. One junk drawer per floor in a house MAXIMUM. 3

4 Think of organizing as an INVESTMENT. If you can reframe it, you can make it more fun. Click to schedule a session with Anna! 21. Corral all of your gift cards, free passes and rarely used membership cards in one place. My clients have goldmines of itunes and Starbucks cards. 22. Use one type of storage container, square or rectangular only. 23. Keep your keys, glasses, and wallets in the SAME place. Then you will be able to find them ALWAYS. 24. Avoid buying something just because it is a great deal if you don t need it. Unlike wine, most things do not improve with age. 25. Cut the perfectionism. There is such a thing as being good enough. 26. Cut the procrastination. Just start in one corner and work your way around. 27. Start with the low hanging fruit. When you look at a problem area, what do you see that you know what to do with right away? This is your low hanging fruit and it will make you feel better. 28. Never file or label anything miscellaneous. Find a category that is as close as possible. 29. If you have a disorganized person in your home and don t want to fight it anymore, give them a space that they can leave anyway they want (where you can close the door). This way the main areas of your home remain neat. 30. Create regular days to do things grocery shopping, laundry, errands Even if you can t stick to it, have a structure that you can follow, even if it is not perfect. 31. Outsource: Now, there is so much that you can outsource grocery delivery, concierges, virtual assistants (appointment scheduling, shopping), housekeepers for a day or two a week. 32. Make sure that your regular home maintenance vendors (gutter cleaner, lawn maintenance person, pool company, carpet cleaners) are in touch regularly so that you don t have to manage everything. 33. Attach tasks to each other. For instance, on trash day, clear out the refrigerator. 34. When you are organizing, stick to one space. If you go from space to space without finishing it, you will become frustrated. 4

35. Only keep the things that really matter to you. You can also make photo books of things that you don t need or want, but that have sentimental value. 36.

5 35. Only keep the things that really matter to you. You can also make photo books of things that you don t need or want, but that have sentimental value. 36. Corral all of your bathroom items in bins with labels. 37. Think of organizing as an INVESTMENT. If you reframe it, you can make it more fun. 38. Lazy Susans are great for cabinets and shelves. They are great in lower cabinets since you can spin and see what is on them. 39. Food storage containers match them up and toss unmatched! (Although small, unmatched containers can be useful as drawer organizers.) 40. Make appointments once a year. If you get a haircut every month, schedule the whole year. You may have to change a date once in a while, but you won t have to pull out your planner every time you go. For more great organizing tips, visit and check back often for new organizing ideas. Or, schedule a consultation with Your Organizing Consultants, for a truly customized approach for your organizing needs. Your Organizing Consultants Anna@yourorganizingconsultants.com/

by Carolyn Cannon 1. Paper Work

by Carolyn Cannon 1. Paper Work Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.