Plan Now: Set up an Emergency Book in 4 Steps

Let's Get Organized - Organizing Favorites to make your life easier!

For Every Minute spent Organizing, an Hour is Earned.
Benjamin Franklin

Outer Organization = Inner Calm
Gretchen Rubin

Out of Clutter, Find Simplicity
Albert Einstein

Organize Your Recipes in 5 Easy Steps

Let's Get Organized: What to do with Odds & Ends You Need to Keep

Simple Ideas to Organize Your Christmas

Let's Get Organized - Junk Drawer

Let's Get Organized - Files & Manuals & Warranties - oh my!

 

Let's Get Organized: Medicine Jars

 Why is it when you're the sickest do they make medicine so hard to get into? 

How am I supposed to rip open packaged pills (seemingly encased in concrete)
with just the strength of my hands?

Plus those bottles and packages are just plain UGLY.

I had some extra spice jars and decided to use them for my most common meds.
Printed up some cute labels on scrapbook paper, punched out the circles
and glued them to the lids.

Obviously if you have kiddos in the house, keep them in a safe place.

Let's Get Organized! Labeling Your Electrical Panel

Linen Closet (aka the black hole) Organization Ideas

 

Quick Pantry Makeover - Find Things Easier & Save Money

Organize it Quick - 5 Steps

 Get your Mess Together & Throw Away Some of it

 Find a Box

 Paint Box

 Label Box

Put Stuff in Box

Start with a big old mess. 

Put it in a pile and discard anything that's old, not needed, outdated, etc. 

I wanted to organize my First Aid stuff and Medicines.

Find a box (the uglier the better - haha) that will hold your stuff. I had these from a thrift shop.

Pare down your stuff before finding the right box size.

Paint the box (a few coats of spray paint).

Label the box.

Design a fun label at Canva.com and print it out on Full Sheet Labels. 

Cut out the shape.

Put stuff in box.

Two cute organized boxes + more room in the drawer.

Happy Organizing!

Love, Steph

Simplifying and Soul Whispers

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates

Focus on being productive instead of busy. Tim Ferris

Never get so busy making a living, that you forget to make a life.

So many of us have busy, busy, busy lives.
Is your typical response to the question of "How are you?" an automatic response of "I'm So Busy."
We are surrounded by a culture that constantly says your life isn't good enough until it has more.
Busy is better. Do more, Work more, Buy more.
MORE, MORE, MORE.

Do you feel that you have so much on your plate that you can't enjoy or appreciate what's happening in the moment? You're always in emergency mode. You know it's too much.
You know you feel overwhelmed. You know you want something better. 

In my old job I use to joke that I lived in the future, because I was always working on projects months away and planning and organizing things for future days. I rarely thought of the current moment, only of future moments. 

In my new career I decided, I wanted to actively embrace a different lifestyle. One that centers around enjoying every day instead of thinking "someday" I'll have more _____? (joy, peace, fun, etc.)
This has inspired my new art piece, When She Simplified Her Life, her Soul Whispered Thank You.

Art available in my Etsy Shop

 Here are 2 things I'm doing to help me bring about a more simplified (and peaceful) life.

 

Get Rid of Stuff & Write Everything Down

Get Rid of Stuff

Too much stuff = stress & mess

Take a fresh look at your stuff - do you love it? If not, make it go bye bye. 

(Someone else will appreciate it.)

Look at your monthly calendar - What's taking up your time? (meetings, committees, 
clubs, projects, appointments, etc.) If you don't love them, start cutting one thing a month.
This also includes all your kid's activities.

Look at what's coming into your Inbox

Organize your inbox - set up folders in your email and create rules so emails go directly into them. This is great for sales, coupons, newsletters, bills. When you're ready to deal with them, they're in one folder waiting for you, instead of clogging up your inbox. Unsubscribe from anything that isn't needed.

Look at your closets, your shelves, your garage, your purse - what needs to stay, what needs to go?

Look at your books, magazines, subscriptions. Are you excited to read them or do you feel stress when you think about them? If it's stress, get rid of them.

Write Everything Down

 We love to fool ourselves that we can remember things but all that does is cause you pressure as you try to remember or, even worse, that horrible feeling when know you've forgotten something.

Every time you have a future appointment, future due date, have to call someone, have to buy something, you're waiting for a response by a certain date, put it in your calendar or To Do List. Once you move it from your brain and put it on paper or electronic reminder, you'll be amazed at how peaceful you'll feel knowing it's in one place (and that's not your already overloaded brain). It's also helpful to write the next day's to-do list before you go to bed so the minute you start to relax, every single thing you need to remember doesn't start swirling around your brain. 

(Also keep a notepad by the bed for anything you forget).

Here's to a more simplified and more lovely life.

Our souls will thank us.

Love, Steph

Win Your Closet Organizing Battle in just 6 Steps (no matter what type of closet)

                           Turn this...................................................................... into this

 

I've always found it fun to to change out my decor each month. 

So I really loved that my new house had a very large hall closet to store all things decorating.
However, it has since morphed into a catch all for everything - all piled on top of each other.
If I ever needed anything, I usually knocked over several other things in the process.

I want to share with you my general plan for organizing closets. This example is for a hall closet, but the steps will work for any closet or storage area. 

Measure the closet and sketch out a general plan for where you'd like things to go. Think about how often you use things and put the regularly used items in a central easy-to-get-to place. Once I did this, then I bought storage bins.
It's important to purchase the storage items you want AFTER you've measured and figured out what will work best for your closet. Don't buy storage first, even if it's super cute. (I know this is sooo hard)

I ended up purchasing these Modular Drawers. I got Medium Tall, but there are all sorts of
sizes to fit your needs. You can get them on Amazon, Ebay, etc.

I only bought a few (haha).

Empty out Everything.
(This is a much easier method than trying to move things around). 

Sort everything into categories (holidays, type of decor, etc.) 

This is also a great time to weed out anything you don't love.

 

Play around with the layout a bit. This part will take the longest as you move things around to get the most out of the space. Start putting your sorted items into bins.

Then label the bins.  
(If you can't quite decide what to label things, just use post it notes until you like the categories.) 

Let me tell you about a FABULOUS website called Canva that allows you to create all sorts of forms and graphics and labels for free. They also have graphics you can buy for only $1.

 I went in and found a cute label, typed up my titles, downloaded it,
printed them on my Full Sheet Labels and then cut them out.

Love, Love, Love this site.

Label all the bins.

Action Steps

Measure & Sketch out Plan
Empty
Sort & Organize
Discard
Put in Bins, etc
Label

Happy Organizing!

Love, Steph

Follow me on Pinterest for lots of organizing and creative ideas.

5 Steps to Organize Your Paperwork

 Paperwork - it never seems to go away. 

Even in our "electronic" world, we are inundated with too much paper. 

In just a few steps, you can learn to organize and manage your paperwork and create a workable system to keep you from constantly searching for or stressing about that piece of paper you need. 

1. Gather Paper

Start the Hunt: Search through drawers, piles on the counter, stuff in your purse, all your nooks and crannies. Gather all your pieces of paper and put them in one ginormous big pile (preferably on an empty table or counter or even the floor). You just need room to sort things.
 

2. Start Sorting

Take each piece of paper and start sorting it into smaller piles. Don't worry too much about final categories at this point - you just want to get them in similar groups. Use post it notes to help you with sorting. As you sort, you'll start seeing patterns and groupings and this will help you determine your final categories.

A few basic Categories to get you Started:

Action

Misc

Projects

Shred

Recycle

Additional Category Ideas: Read, Receipts, Inspiration, Travel/Places to Go, Kids/School, Activities, Work, etc.
Create categories that fit your life. ex: I have ones for Blog Ideas, Art Inspiration, etc.
Don't make too many categories. Just keep them broad.

Too much detail = confusion remembering = lack of incentive to file anything = harder to find things

Misc. is a great catch all for things/categories you're not sure about.  Remember, don't try to over-sort and over-categorize.

3. Create Your Folders and Bins and label them.

Folders for smaller categories and bins for larger categories. ex: I have a large bin for all my travel and adventure brochures and ideas. You can use clear plastic folders, manila folders, cute cloth storage bins...choose something that makes you smile and will be EASY to access.

Note: Also create a larger Waiting Bin - this is the ONE (and only) AREA you will hold your papers as they come into the house before you sort them.

4. Go Through Each Pile

Go through each pile starting from the top. Just touch one paper at a time. Ask yourself... Shred? Recycle? Action? File? Misc? Put them in the corresponding folder or bin.

 

5. Maintenance

So in a perfect world, the moment a piece of paper drifts into our life, we'd immediately take it and file it in its correct location. Sigh! I don't live in that world. Well, only in my little label maker dreams.

In reality, you've got to figure out something that is manageable for you and that you can do easily and regularly. If it's not simple, we won't do it.

Here's my solution:

As paper comes in, only pull out the items you HAVE to RESPOND to (bills, permission slips, etc) and put those items in your Action folder. These items have first priority and because they're in one place, you'll never "accidentally" lose something.

Set up and use the Waiting Bin for all your other papers to hang out until you get to them. If you have to find a piece of paper, it'll be waiting for you there.
 

Take a day once or twice a month (probably when you pay your bills) to handle the rest of the paper in the Waiting Bin by repeating Step 4.

So, if you have to search for something, it will be in one place.

If you want ideas for travel, or inspiration for your home, or projects, 

or things to read, it will be in one place.

More Ideas for Organizing Paper 

5 Steps to Organizing Your Recipes

 

Make Pretty Shred & Recycle Boxes

 

Reduce paper by setting up bills on auto pay and going paperless.

Receipt Folder - place all your receipts in a small expanding folder sorted by month.

 (you can usually get an inexpensive one at the Dollar Store or in the Target dollar bins).  

Shred anything not needed at the end of the year.

Happy Organizing

Love, Steph