How to organise (4) - how to declutter

De-cluttering is the FIRST step to an organised home. And my personal favourite step :)

Why the first step?

Because you can't organise clutter. You've got to get rid of it first.

What is clutter?
1. anything you don't love
2. anything you don't use
3. any mess/ disorder/ confusion

Ask yourself, does this make me feel at peace? No? Then it's probably clutter.

The key to an organised home is making regular de-cluttering time.

It doesn't have to be a huge chunk of time - once the space is organised, five minutes once a week is enough. For example, while you're waiting for the kettle to boil, quickly check your kitchen cupboards and drawers.

It's all about BABY STEPS.

Next time
Organising according to your personality

What does it mean to be organised?

It's probably easier to explain what organised is not!

Neat is not necessarily organised.

I have seen some very neat but disorganised workspaces. Everything looks good on the surface, but watch the scrambling when you ask for a specific file!

Lining up all your pencils just so means that you like your pencils all in a row, not necessarily that you're organised.

I think people confuse the looking good factor with being organised because when things look good, it's gives the same feeling that being organised gives you.

I've also seen people who work with piles but they can locate whatever they want very quickly. However, when these people get overwhelmed by the piles of paper, then it's time to go through them and reorganize.

Personally, when I'm working, I spread out a lot so I don't work in a very neat fashion. But I'm organised because all that spread-out paper relates to only my current project.

My definition of organised is being able to find something in a minute or less.

This is always my aim both personally, and when I work with clients. I want to create a system, working with their personalities, where they can find something within a minute or less.

So my question to you is this - can you find what you're looking for quickly? Are you neat, organised or both?

Control the paper clutter

Does this picture look familiar?

Or maybe all that paper is on your desk or kitchen counter tops?

I love my lists as much as the next paper-loving person! But all that paper piles up so quickly and judging from all the emails I get, I'm not the only one.

Guess what I do now?

I laminated my monthly and weekly lists, and I write on them with a dry erase marker so I can keep re-using them.

This tip definitely works for me.

You can use this tip for anything you use often, from travel checklists to master to-do lists to monthly event planning lists.

Read more paper-controlling ideas here.

How do you keep the paper under control?

How to organise (3) - what's your vision?

We’ve already covered that you should start with the area of your home or life that bothers you the most.

After you know which area to start in, decide what you want to have happen in that space.

In other words, what is your vision?

What do I mean when I say you need to have a vision?

Well, if it’s your family room that needs organising, decide what the purpose of that room is.

1. Do you want an entertainment area?
2. Do the kids need a play area?
3. Do you use a portion of the room as an office area?

In this example, you need three distinct zones and everything else must go!

In the picture of the kitchen drawer above, what is the purpose for that drawer?

It's to store dish towels, cloths and sponges, and nothing else. Everything else like cutlery or other junk that doesn’t belong, needs to go.

Your action plan
1. Decide on your vision for the room you've chosen
2. Go around and remove everything else that doesn't belong

See? It's totally doable :)

Next time
How to de-clutter

6 secrets to digital photo bliss

reprinted from Organise It - a weekly ezine by Marcia Francois

One of the things I tackled this week was sorting out our photos from our Cape Town trip nearly 3 weeks ago. You can see the results on our travel blog.

Photos are one of those things that can quickly overwhelm you if you don’t have a system.

Before you know it, you have thousands of photos on your computer and no idea where to start.

If this is you, make one folder titled Before _____ (today’s date) and start working backwards, just 15 minutes a day. Once you start, the momentum will easily carry you forward.

Then, from now onwards, do the following steps and you’ll never be behind again.

1. Download after every major photo-taking session

It’s far easier to sort through 50 rather than 500 photos. However, if you take photos daily, you might want to do this once a week.

2. Name the folder

For our trip, I named it Cape Town – Nov 2007. Because of this blog, I also have folders called Paper, Kitchen, Baskets, etc.

It is easy to do a search and find what you’re looking for later if you describe the photos first.

3. Delete the duds immediately

Scroll through each photo and delete any blurry, non-flattering or “iffy” photos immediately. When you postpone making decisions, it leads to clutter.

4. Select the photos you want to print

Make a new folder and call it TO PRINT.

When you come across GORGEOUS photos, copy them to this separate folder. Note I said COPY – you don’t want to accidentally delete the good ones. I only print the GORGEOUS photos, which means I don't even print 10% of the photos we take.

At least once a month when you run errands, cut and paste the photos from your TO PRINT folder onto a disc and drop it off at your nearest photo developing store. I’m not sure if I’m just old-fashioned but I don’t hear of too many South Africans using online photo facilities (Let me know if I'm wrong!)

5. Compress and crop photos

If you want to send some photos to friends and family, it is good manners to compress them first (to around 50KB) before emailing them.

Bonus for bloggers

Take a few minutes to compress and crop any photos you intend to blog. If you want to really save time, you could then upload the photos to your blog and save the drafts. Then all you have to do is type the text and publish! This explains why I have so many items in drafts!

6. Back up your photos to a disc

Every so often I do a back-up every month (or sooner if I feel the computer slowing down).
You definitely don’t want to lose any precious memories so back up regularly.

Hopefully these tips will help our US friends with Thanksgiving photos and definitely for all of us over the next month with all the other holidays.

Keeping your junk drawer organised

Just because it’s a junk drawer doesn’t mean it has to be disorganised!

Have a space for everything
Make this as general or as specific as you like.

Small stuff together, big things together, children’s things together, etc.

Use lots of dividers!
You can use an old cutlery tray, the bottoms of cereal boxes, etc.

Clear it out regularly
I like to put a bit of masking tape in the corner with the date when I last organised the drawer. This will also help if you have unidentified keys – you know if you’ve had them there for 6 months that you probably won’t use them ever again, so you can throw away.

This is what works for me.

How do you organise your junk drawer?

How to organise (2) - start with your worse area

This is going to be a brief how to organise tutorial answering the question "Where do I start?"

I thought it would be fun if you joined in and worked on something that's bugging you in your own home.

Start with the area of your home or life that bothers you the most.

If you can't bear to choose clothes every morning because your wardrobe is too cluttered, then your wardrobe is a good place to start.

If you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, and you constantly feel overwhelmed, then maybe you need to start working on your time.

If you don’t even feel like going into your kitchen, then you know that’s where you need to start.

The point is that it differs from person to person and also according to your situation.

Why do I say this?

1. You will be most motivated if you tackle your worst room first.

2. You tend to get results quicker.

3. Once you start, it becomes easier. And it’s kind of addictive once you get organised in one area.

4. You gain momentum!

Let me know in the comments if you're playing along and which area of your home or life you want to tackle first.

Over to you…

Next time

Your vision for your space

Marcia interviews the Organizing Junkie

Hello all

I did a quick telephone interview on Thursday evening (South African time) with our favourite Organizing Junkie, Laura, who was so quick that she's already posted about it here.

Listen to the live audio streaming here...



We spoke about organising from a stay-at-home mom's perspective and chatted about...

1. organising according to your children's personalities
2. the ONE thing everybody must do to start the organising journey
3. how she and her husband deal with their different organising styles :)
4. how to recognise a Canadian through their accent!
5. and a lot more

Yet it's only 18 minutes long because we are organised, people :)

By the way, please excuse me - I had NO IDEA I said "you know" so much!

Enjoy :)

P.S. If you want to download and listen later, the link is here

10-minute clutter hacks - OFFICE

Don't you wish you had more time to finally organise your office?

Sorry to disappoint you but opportunities rarely come along gift-wrapped in HUGE chunks of 2 or 3 hours :)

So what's the next best thing?

Using up the little bits of time you do find!

What are some of the things you can do in your home or work office in 10 minutes?

1. throw away all the dry markers and pens that don't work
2. tidy your desk
3. declutter a pile of paper
4. file a pile of paper
5. conquer your email
6. make a list of office supplies you need to buy
7. pay some bills
8. weed through a file
9. organise your library books
10. declutter your bookshelf

What other tasks can you do in your office in 10 minutes?

3 questions that will reduce your clutter by 50%

Flylady says you can't organise clutter and I absolutely agree with that statement.

One of the mistakes we all make is we try to organise the stuff in our home by buying storage containers, moving it around from room to room, and arranging it differently within the room.

I want to propose a different approach:

Before you even bring it into your home, ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. can I afford it?
2. do I need it?
3. where will it go?

I've been asking myself, "where will it go?" for years now and just this ONE question has stopped me from many an impulse purchase. It's definitely working for me.

Write these 3 questions on a post-it note and stick it in your wallet.

If you have a clutter problem, next time you're at the shops, make sure you ask yourself these 3 questions before you buy anything. And if you've bought some things recently and you don't have the money or the space for them, return them!

Which other questions can you add to this list?