You have to love Blogland as my friend Laura calls it. I can sit here in my office and find friends all over the world who are reading this. Welcome to my lastest discovery – we have friends in South Africa! You might want to take a look at Marcia’s blog from the other side, and other end of the world.
Meanwhile, many of us who consider ourselves reasonably well organized – maybe not you but maybe someone you know – still have a corner of our lives that remains the Last Organizing Frontier. I have one cupboard in the kitchen that defies organization. It’s going down next week. There, I’ve made a public statement. Stay tuned for the oh – so – revealing pictures.
Strategy for the really tough stuff: schedule, subdivide into bites, conquer.
What’s your last frontier?
Archive for Home Organizing – Page 6
Still trying to get that seasonal clear out completed? Hop over to Dim Sum Mom and hear how she accomplished it for a family of six: that would be Mom and Dad, son and triplets!
The weather is chilly, the snow is threatening and winter is looming in the shape of a big, grey, cold cloud. I promised last week that I would report on the success of Bob McGee’s (CHFI, Toronto) coat drive from last weekend. Toronto has proven once again it is a city with lots of heart and closets with lightening potential. Over 10,000 coats were collected which will be distributed to children where needed. Here’s a picture of the truck loads. Way to go TO!
OK folks, time to clear out the closets. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find as many unused coats in your closets as possible. Think of the space you could free up! Think of the warmth you could pass on to someone else!
Bob McGee from Toronto’s CHFI FM radio station is, for the 5th year, collecting coats for children this weekend. Here is the link to the details where you can drop off the coats.
http://www.chfi.com/events/more.jsp?content=20081020_142107_26440
Let’s make this a challenge. I’d like to see how many coats this blog can send out to Bob and friends to help keep the kids warm. Add your comments and tell me how many coats you are send up. I’ll report the tally on Monday.
OK folks, time to clear out the closets. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find as many unused coats in your closets as possible. Think of the space you could free up! Think of the warmth you could pass on to someone else!
Bob McGee from Toronto’s CHFI FM radio station is, for the 5th year, collecting coats for children this weekend. Here is the link to the details where you can drop off the coats.
http://www.chfi.com/events/more.jsp?content=20081020_142107_26440
Let’s make this a challenge. I’d like to see how many coats this blog can send out to Bob and friends to help keep the kids warm. Add your comments and tell me how many coats you are send up. I’ll report the tally on Monday.
Like many families, yours may have a box of ever-ready dress up clothes. You may, in fact, have already been through the box with your children in preparation for this year’s Hallowe’en costumes.
Why not take the time to clear it out and purge the clutter from the box. Grab a big bag and clear out any clothes that don’t fit, are torn too much even for dress up, haven’t seen the light of day for five years or generally don’t seem to belong there anymore. Make room for the new costume pieces added this year and those great cast-aways from your wardrobe that the kids want to keep for dress up.
You’ve made the decision to get rid of it, you’ve blocked the time and arranged for the children to be elsewhere. You’re looking at a pile of toys in the basement that haven’t been touched by the kids for months/years/decades and can’t decide what to do with it. You’d be surprised how common this situation is. Many of my clients have tried valiently to sort through a pile of unwanted goods and become overwhelmed with the process.
Try this: move the goods to a different location. If the toys are in the basement, pile them all into a laundry hamper and put them in the middle of the living room/kitchen/backyard. Group them into similar objects. Notice how your perspective changes?
Changing the location of the goods changes the perspective for your brain and grouping by like objects demonstrates the quantity of goods you have collected. Changing perspective helps your brain to look at the goods differently and boosts the Keep, Give Away, Throw Out decision making process.
Start small. If you empty the basement into the living room you are committed for a weekend. You might not make it and then you’d be frustrated with the stuff in the living room. Try a couple of laundry hampers worth first. Success? Great. Celebrate and either schedule your next session or try a couple more hampers.
It’s back to school time. If you have children in elementary school who stay at the school for lunch, you have likely had at least on lunch bag go missing.
Today’s tip is so simple and often repeated it will soon be wearing as thin as the nylon on my own favourite lunch bag. But it works:
Write your child’s name on the Outside of the lunch bag.
Even if your own son or daughter can’t remember to pick it up or doesn’t notice it got left behind, chances are pretty good someone else will and the bag will make it back to the owner.
We all have dishes, pots and perhaps many other items in our homes that we used seldom if ever. In this case, the client rarely if ever served fondu and now that her children were away at university, it seemed even less likely she would ever use it. The client was not interested in a garage sale and the pot contained enough sentimental value, that she wanted to find a new home where it would be used.
Sound familiar?
A helpful approach to shedding these objects is to ask yourself a) how often do I use it? b) how easily can I replace it or borrow another one if and when I do need it.
Ask around family or friends to see if anyone else would like a fondu pot or if they have family heading off to university or setting up a home that might like one. If they already have one, ask if you could borrow it from time to time.
This question came from a client who had just replaced her glasses. She was eager to see her old glasses put to good use.
Most reputable opticians (in Canada) collect their client’s unwanted eye glasses to send to communities overseas for use by individuals who otherwise would not have access to eye glasses. Ask your optician directly if they participate in such a program or for redirection to another optical store that does.
