A Special Holiday Gift

There is still time to purchase a wonderful gift for that special person in your life who is struggling with organization or life and time management.  A Simpler Life Solutions Gift Certificate is the perfect way to show how much you care about them by bringing calm, order, efficiency and peace of mind to their home, office or life!

The people on your gift list could start the New Year with work or living spaces that are transformed from chaotic to orderly.  We can declutter and organize drawers, cabinets, closets, whole rooms, whole houses, small businesses, home offices, paperwork, cars, student work areas, collections, memorabilia....you name it! 

Or perhaps they could use assistance with handling correspondence, paying bills, putting together a household budget or balancing bank accounts.  There are many ways that Simpler Life Solutions can help them manage their daily tasks!

To purchase a gift certificate today, contact us through the website or send an email directly to info@simplerlifesolutions.com.  We would be glad to discuss the purchase details and offer suggestions on ways we can assist the people on your list.  The certificate can be mailed or provided in an email attachment to you or the recipient.    We look forward to hearing from you!

Turn Holiday Dread into Motivation

Thanksgiving is only three weeks away, which means that Christmas will be here in seven.  For many of us, this realization creates a huge sense of dread.  How can I possibly let anyone see the house looking like this?  How will I make room for all the food, decorations, presents and other holiday stuff when there is already so much clutter?  Why can’t I keep my house organized all the time and eliminate this panic? 

Instead of letting anxiety shut you down, turn the upcoming holidays into motivation to get your house in order.  If you start today and proceed slowly and systematically, you will be ready in plenty of time!  Here are some great tips to simplify the task, and help you keep your home in order year-round.

A.)  Accept the fact that you can’t keep everything.  You don’t need or have room for the clothes you wore when you were ‘thin’, or years of magazines, or three sets of china.  If you don’t love it or use it regularly, you should consider letting go of it.

B.)  Bags, Baskets, Boxes and Bins should be on hand to catch your cast-offs.  Have a large bag for trash, boxes for donations, a bin for recycle, and a basket for papers to shred.  Don’t make piles or handle the items more than once...put them immediately into the appropriate container, and once filled, get them out of the house!

C.)  Contain your possessions in attractive ways that inspire you to keep tidy.  Use a beautiful bowl to catch the mail, car keys and other small items that come in the house each day.  Find file boxes, shoe holders, and other organizing products that match your décor and use them.

D.)  Do it Daily so the clutter doesn’t get out of hand.  Walk through the house with a laundry basket and collect everything that needs to go back to another room.  Go to each of those places and put things where they belong.  If you do this each night before you go to bed, you will wake up to a more orderly house.

E.)  Easy things first and the rest will follow.  Get rid of anything that is outdated, expired, damaged beyond repair, torn, worn out, a duplicate, or that you simply don’t care about.  Donate anything you can that is new or gently used.  You will quickly see progress, and this serves as a great motivator.

F.)  Find a home for everything that is near where it is most often used.  Make sure to return things to that place as soon as you finish with them.  This is the main key to staying organized.  Items that are rarely needed can be stored in further away or less accessible places (garage, attic, basement storage area). 

G.)  Goals should be small so that they are achievable.  Break the big project into smaller tasks so that you can quickly see results and feel a sense of accomplishment.  Aspire to clean out one closet or drawer in the evening.  Tackle a larger space, like the garage, on a weekend.

H.)  Haste makes waste when it comes to shopping.  Think through each potential purchase and ask yourself if you really need it, or just want it.  Buying out of desire is fine for a special treat, but you need to balance your purchases or you end up with too much that you don’t have room for.

Map your course today and get started in the rooms where you will be entertaining or decorating for your celebrations.  Don’t worry about the rest of the house right now!  And remember these wise words from Henry Ford:  "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."

Find organizing containers that make you WANT to use them!

                                    

Reflections

When we lose someone who has made significant changes in the world, especially when they are a peer whose life ended far too soon, it gives us a needed pause for reflection and review of our own existence.  I was faced with such an opportunity last night after hearing that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had passed away.

News accounts and responses from across the globe used these words to describe Jobs:  innovator, visionary, icon, leader, creative genius, amazing human being, dear friend, inspiring mentor, brave, bold, talented, one of humanity’s great lights, a person who defined our time. 

I tend to perceive myself as being quite insignificant in comparison to a person who has done so much and is regarded so highly.  But by doing this, I am failing to recognize that each of us brings our own special gifts and contributions to the world, even if the scope of that world is much narrower than the one Steve Jobs was fortunate to have impacted.  I need to remember that I can strive to achieve my own dreams, pursue my own passions, cherish my family and friends, and live up to the standards I have set for myself in all aspects of my life.  And while many of the descriptors used for Jobs will never apply to me, I can hope that at least some of the individual words will resonate in my small circle of family, friends, associates, clients and acquaintances when they remember me. 

I discovered that Steve Jobs has left us many memorable and inspirational quotes, and this one, from his commencement address to Stanford University in 2005, I particularly love:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. 

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”     

(read the complete text here:  http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html)

These words echo and affirm what I believe to be true, yet in my attempts to live them out I often stumble.  I am going to keep this quote somewhere visible for use each day, both as a reminder and as motivation.  I hope that you will consider doing the same.

Now, I could let parts of that quote segue into a lesson on decluttering and organizing, but I think I prefer to let my blog post end with this:  Thank you for your amazing legacy, Steve Jobs; may you rest in peace.

Avoid school year memorabilia overload!

With the new school year comes the daily flow of papers, homework, tests, projects, report cards, progress reports, annual photos and artwork, as well as calendars, schedules, flyers, contact lists and other papers from school and extracurricular activities.  Multiply all of that by the number of children in the household and you can quickly become buried. 

Whether you are sentimental and keep way too much, or just can’t work your way out from under the piles, don’t wait until the end of the school year to organize this memorabilia.  Get started NOW!  Set guidelines around what to keep, what to toss, what to put things in and where to store them.  You will be in control as the school year goes along instead of leaving an insurmountable project for later!

Some great suggestions to try:

• Immediately toss old homework and things that are out-of-date, irrelevant or damaged.

• Designate a separate container (storage bin, file box, binder) and a place (under bed, closet, cabinet) for keeping the memorabilia for each child.  If it gets too full, sort further!

• Let your kids help with the process.  They are often more realistic about what is worthy of keeping, and it teaches a valuable lesson about decision making and organization.

• Binders, or file boxes with hanging folders, are great for writing assignments, exceptional tests, report cards, or anything flat.  Use dividers to separate categories or school years, and slip special items into sheet protectors.  Bins, boxes and baskets of every type are also readily available.

• Start a scrap book each year for meaningful pictures and mementos of sports and other extracurricular activities.  Fill it as the year progresses.  Let your children decorate the pages.

• For artwork, consider creating a gallery.  Put up several large picture frames and display your favorite current pieces.  Or stretch string along a wall and attach art projects with clips or clothespins.  Swap out the art periodically for newer work, putting the older pieces in your storage box or bin. 

• Take a picture of your child with the pieces you don’t want to save, as a remembrance of what they created and how they looked that school year.  Other ideas:  give artwork to other family members, have photos of the work made into calendars, use it as wrapping paper.

• Three dimensional pieces are awkward and take up more space.  Again, photographs can capture the multiple dimensions of the project and are much easier to keep!  Special pieces can be displayed on a shelf or in a shadow box.   

 

Check out http://www.zazzle.com for personalized binders like this.

Find great boxes like these at The Container Store.

Rubbermaid makes storage bins that are readily available.

Look around for hanging file boxes that match your decor!

Organizing throughout the school year reduces clutter, stress and wasted time, and by saving less items, you add importance to those special pieces you keep!