Search Results for: clutter

Create a Practical Command Center

June 21, 2017 by Heather Filed Under: Kids & Family Organizing, Organize, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 3 Comments

Today, I’m sharing ideas to Create A Practical Command Center. Since this month is all about kid-friendly organizing in the home I think it’s important to have a place where you can collect everything needed to “take command” of schedules, stuff and tasks for your family!

I’m going to break it down by why, where and what! Not every command center (and there are thousands on Pinterest to choose from!) will have what YOU need.

[bctt tweet=”Get inspired by others but don’t get stuck repeating someone else’s idea of success.” username=”hkpowerstudio”]

Do you need help to Create a Practical Command Center?

Let’s start with your why. Defining the reason you need to create a command center is the first step!

Perhaps you’re losing things or can’t keep track of them, feeling overwhelmed, feeling rushed and you’re juggling too much information!
Mail is tossed everywhere including the kitchen counter, the coffee table, the dining room table or some other horizontal surface which means when you go to pick up, things get misplaced.
You have a hard time getting out the door with everything you and your family need.
Maybe you can’t locate homework or school paperwork & neither you nor your kids know where these things belong.
Do multiple schedules (both parents and kids) have you scrambling, missing appointments or running late?
Always looking for last minute gifts because you missed that party invitation? information for your babysitter or other important items you need regularly.

The next important step in creating a practical command center is knowing what you need to include.

Mail sorting station-which might include trash, recycling bins and shredder-with individual slots for household members
Calendar or schedule-either a traditional paper system or a white/blackboard calendar. Decide what information will be included on this calendar. Maybe it’s just for the kids and family activities (sports, parties, Dr’s Apts, school events etc). Each family member or category can be assigned a color for easy tracking.
Charging Station
Grab & Go Kid Stuff-If you have small children, having extra supplies in a cabinet, ready to go is a great time saver. Include activity books, diapers, bug spray, change of clothes or other essentials for small children.

Bags, backpacks and other gear-if you have the space you can incorporate cubbies, baskets or hooks for storage. This area is for regularly used shoes, bags and purses and is a great place for people to drop items without cluttering up the main part of the house. Something similar can be set up in a closet, with an organizer hanging inside the door. Label each household member’s hook, cubical or shelf. Practice regular weekly to tidying (putting things away, cleaning out bags etc).

Key Hooks
Basic utility items-this can be a drawer or a hanging organizer with things like batteries, pens/pencils, chargers, scissors, notepads, a hammer/screwdriver, tape measure and anything else you use regularly. Identify what you want to keep where so it doesn’t turn into a “Junk drawer”!
Fun stuff-a bulletin board, white/black or magnetic board, or hanging system for artwork and fun messages!

Via Your Home Theater

Lists-to do, grocery or chore charts for parents and kids.
Household Binder-this is a great place for emergency contacts, vital household information (for babysitters etc), schedules, invitations and more! If space is limited you can create a command center in a binder! Just use different tabs for the different information you need to keep track of and keep it in a central location.
Via Thirty Handmade Days

We all have different needs and when you know why you need some sort of command center it will give you insight into what to include. If you look at the list above and you say to yourself that you only need a couple of the items I included as examples then you can focus on creating a system that includes only what you need. Sometimes we get sucked in by other peoples systems because they have shared how great they work (for them) or we think it looks so incredible!

Being specific and simplifying your home management system will set you up for success!

Now that you understand why and what you need for creating a practical command center, let’s identify where this system should be.

Depending on your home and space considerations, here are a few places you might want to put a command center. If you don’t have space to put everything in one spot, that’s okay. Paperwork, mail, electronic’s, your binder or supplies could go in one area and hooks for keys, clothing and gear could go someplace else.

Near the front door
Mudroom
Kitchen
Laundry Room
Hallway or other central location
Closet or niche-including the inside of the door
A simple binder or portable bin (accordion file, file tote etc)

Here are a few tips to help you identify how to install your command center.

Go Vertical to get things up off your counters and on the wall. You can use the side or inside of a cabinet. If you have a lot of shelves, bins etc to hang, create paper templates and tape them up until you’re happy with the arrangement. This will save you patching unnecessary holes!

Hooks-anything from command to fancy decorative hooks
Shelves-floating or brackets, for small lightweight items
Baskets and bins-from shoes to paperwork, corral it in bins

I love to use these clear pockets for small stuff (bug spray, glue, gloves and more!).

Label things and assign lower spaces for small kids, upper spaces for adult stuff you don’t want the kids to get into!

Keep it simple-eliminate un-necessary clutter. Maintain your new system by assigning one day a week for a quick tidy up. Friday’s and Sunday’s are both great days for this 15 min assignment. After a few weeks or month keep it simple and eliminate the unnecessary clutter of items you are not using. Start simple and if the system works, expand upon it and get creative to make it as beautiful as it is practical!

Need additional help identifying why, what and how to create a practical command center? Give me a shout and let’s see how I can help you create a perfect command system for your household!

A cozy and tidy girls room makeover

June 12, 2017 by Heather Filed Under: Kids & Family Organizing, Organize, Organizing Projects, Systems & Techniques Leave a Comment

In this cozy and tidy girls room makeover there were actually two spaces. Our goal was to create boundaries and storage for clothes, homework and personal space for a 13 year old girl. This is something important to every kid going into teen years!

A Cozy and tidy girls room goals::What’s Important? Boundaries, age appropriate space, homework space, easy to maintain systems, room for clothes, comfort, cute, cozy and private.

Organizing can help establish rules, show your kids you trust and value their choices and create age-appropriate systems. This space wasn’t really working all that well and didn’t feel right for her needs as her interests and maturity level change.

This young lady has a really cool space, with a cozy bedroom and open “hangout” and homework area outside her room that she wasn’t really using. It always helps to evaluate how your kids use their rooms. Then you can create “zones” for them to do homework, hangout with friends (if you allow that), read, get dressed and sleep. Her desk, printer, a chair and large dresser where in the space outside her room, which also serves as a cut through to the bathroom and a guest room. Since her room has glass windows instead of walls, privacy is also an important issue! Curtains were ordered to eliminate this problem. With her help, we cleaned out her dresser and closet, the nightstand and small table at the end of her bed and decided what items (less used etc) could be kept in the dresser outside her room.

Her small built in closet cabinets also present a bit of a challenge.We re-arranged the contents to make putting clothes away easier. We moved the sports equipment and the second night stand below out of the room (clutter collectors).

She’s got her own bathroom (lucky girl!) with ample storage and we discussed keeping toiletries in the bathroom, not the bedroom (for the most part). As I organize with kids, I use it as an opportunity to learn why they do what they do and try to guide them to making choices that perhaps they did not realize were available, better or more appropriate? I hesitate to say right or wrong and I always defer to the parents house rules (which I determine before we begin) as well as teaching kids basic sanitary and hygienic systems (like no food in bedrooms?).

By attaching a few command hook inside her cabinet doors we freed shelf and drawer space. Go vertical whenever possible! These hanging pockets and hooks held small accessories she uses regularly, like sunglasses, her wallet, an umbrella etc. We moved shoes from the floor into the closet drawers and accessories like bags and hats to the dresser. We displayed her trophies and ribbons on a shelf above the dresser, rather than crammed in drawers and boxes. Since her desk was not being used in the space outside her room, we moved it to the wall opposite her bed. She now has space to do her homework in her room, on her bed or at her desk.

She’s taken to keeping things organized as much as a pre-teen takes to anything! She continues to come up with her own clever organizing solutions.

Kids love their space and value how great it feels to be organized, which creates lifelong value!

I LOVE to help kids get organized and most of the time they LOVE to be organized! Kids love structure and they love to be heard. When I work with them, I ask a lot of questions and listen so that I can help create systems that will work for them (and their parents). When we learn good organizing systems we are more likely to remain active in creating and maintaining organizing solutions!

Do you need help creating order in your kids rooms this summer? I’d love to work with your family to establish lasting organizing systems your kids will use for a lifetime! Get in touch today for a free Discovery Call.

Curb the Chaos…with a swift kick!

March 6, 2017 by Heather Filed Under: Organize, Organizing Projects, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources, Uncategorized, Wellness & Mindset Leave a Comment

Since we are almost officially into Spring now I’ve heard a lot of people getting the itch to de-clutter and do a nice deep round of spring clean out! As we ease our way out of our winter hibernation mode, this can feel like a lovely time to focus our energy on the home front, creating a sense of order, doing a nice round of deep cleaning and giving a swift kick in the butt to the chaos in our life! Consider this a Healthy dose of Spring home maintenance!

*Note-if your feeling like you need to hire an organizer than try this technique with a small area first to see how it goes. This is more of a “Maintenance” round than a deep organizing or cleaning session.

Here’s a little visualization tool to help you feel your home as you want it to be!

Lets start by closing our eyes, taking a few deep breaths and envisioning how we want our space to look and feel. Are you seeing a light filled space with windows that frame blue skies, puffy white clouds and tree’s and flowers budding out? Do you feel your feet sliding across floors that are clean and clutter free? Are your kitchen counters, sink and table clear of papers and anything else that might stop you from preparing and sharing healthy nurturing meals for your family? Are your clothes (dresser, closet etc) easy to take out and put away, with your go to favorites well cared for and easy to access? I hope you can see your home as a relaxing space that you can enjoy with your family in your down time. If you can envision it with your eyes closed and feel it, then you can totally create it when you open your eyes! If your ready to make this feeling a reality, take a few more deep breaths and set your intention to create this reality in your home.

Great, now lets get started kicking chaos to the curb! Give yourself a few hours for this whole house “once over”. This can be very helpful to do before you deep clean (if that’s a part of your routine).

Curb the chaos anytime your feeling the “urge to purge”! This usually happens to me several times a year and when it does, I try to take advantage of that feeling and go with it!

Before we break it down, get yourself some water, turn on some music, light a candle or diffuse some essential oils to support your energetic work! We will not be focusing on deep cleaning here…we will be focusing on the chaos that you need to kick to the curb! That’s going to be different for each of us, take a mental tally of what that means for you and we can start right at the front door…

Grab a laundry basket or bin to gather things into, for putting away and trash bags for toss and donate items.
Empty your car so it’s ready to take donations that day or have a donation pick up scheduled for the next day. Don’t let things linger where they can be a temptation.
Clear away anything that doesn’t welcome you or serve a function to support your family as you come and go in your daily life. If you keep shoes, bags and keys here, that’s fine, just give them homes (hooks, shelves, a bench, cubbies, baskets etc). If you’ve got a “donation” bin started here, great, we can add to that. Remove anything that doesn’t belong. *Don’t stop now to put it where it goes, put it in your “put away bin”, toss or donate bag-this will keep you moving room to room.
Work your way into your home, from the “front” or whatever main entrance you use, towards the back. Leave out major storage areas like the attic, garage or shed. In this round we focus on living spaces.
Start from the bottom and work your way up, skimming the floors-picking up toys, clothes and anything out of place. Remove clutter from surfaces and sweep the chaos into “put away”, “toss” or “donate” bags/bins. If your not sure where something goes but you know it doesn’t belong in that room, that’ fine. Add it to the put away bin. If trash or donate accumulate rapidly, take them right out to the car or put them by the door and get new bags.
Repeat this process in each room, especially your main living spaces, kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms. As you got into each new room, check to see if anything in the put away bin belongs and put it away:) Chaos need not linger!
Be brutal, be quick, touch each item if you need to and decide if they “spark Joy” as KonMarie has now famously en-sighted:) If not, kick it to the curb!
Once your done with each room, haul your trash and donate out. Scan your put away bin and see what is left. If there are things that don’t have permanent homes, think about why. What category are they? Can they be stored with other like items or someplace you commonly use them? Once everything is put away, thrown away or hauled out for donation, you have officially kicked your chaos to the curb!

Congratulation! How does that feel? Can you see yourself doing a quick version of this several times a week or even daily? They less we let our chaos build up, the less overwhelming it becomes. There will always be chaos in our life. It’s messy, it’s ugly, it drags us down and makes us feel heavy at times, but we don’t have to let it stick around. It’s our choice to curb the chaos in our life and our home. Good luck and reach out if you have any questions about this process!

Being Well means Sleeping Well

February 15, 2017 by Heather Filed Under: Tips & Resources, Wellness & Mindset 1 Comment

Being well means sleeping well and feeling well literally begins with getting a good night sleep.

I know that I generally need 7-8 hours of sleep a night to feel my best.

We each have to listen to our internal clocks to determine the right amount of sleep and the optimal time for sleep.

If you have a hard time adjusting and getting to sleep, do what you can to support your circadian rhythms. This can mean removing electronic’s from near your bed, or even from your bedroom all together. Some people swear by melatonin to help regulate their internal clock but working towards a natural state of relaxation is certainly the most healthy approach.

Creating a peaceful environment to sleep in is very personal. Removing “Clutter” and objects that can keep your mind working overtime will make it easier to unwind when your head hits the pillow.

Imagine entering a room that is painted in a soothing color (whatever that might mean to you!) with calming artwork that evokes peaceful, harmonious rest. Your room smells clean and fresh, you can diffuse lavender oil or use a naturally scented candle to further help you unwind. Maybe the room has a comfortable chair and lamp to read, write in a journal and relax in. There are no piles of clothes on the floor or in corners because you have easily accessible storage for your clothes including drawers, hanging and folding space and a few hooks for a robe, PJ’s or other frequently used clothing. You have space next to your bed for something to drink, one or two books and a lamp but it’s not piled up with books and clutter. Your bed invites you to curl up and sink in, fully supported! The natural daylight filtering in your window helps you rise with the sun, feeling fully rested. When you get up in the morning it is easy to make your bed, not too many pillows, just what you need for the best sleep possible.

Creating a pattern that supports our internal rhythms and helps us to relax might include a cup of warm caffeine-free tea, reading or taking a bath.

We also need to think about what activities keep our minds and bodies in a more active state and stop doing those things at least an hour before bedtime. These activities may include certain kinds of exercise, eating, drinking alcohol and “screentime”. Keeping digital devices at least 10 feet away and/or getting into the practice of putting our phones on “airplane” mode can minimize some of the impact.

What to do when you find yourself waking in the middle of the night, restless, anxious and not able to get back to sleep? For each of us that depends, on our schedule, how much sleep we need, what we have to do the next day. If you need some tips for taming the restless mind check out this great article by Unstuck. The consensus seems to be that laying in bed for hours of restlessness is unhelpful for anyone though, so do what you can to either get back to sleep or get up and get your mind out of the anxiety rut.

I know the practice of napping is something some people swear by but I’ve never been able to nap. I’m just not a napper, wish I was! So that means I need to get that sleep at night because once I’m up, I’m up.

There are so many fascinating studies that illustrate all the ways in which sleep is important for us.

Lack of sleep and fatigue can lead to stress, weight gain, depression, anxiety, heart and other health problems (especially with sleep disorders) and it can be downright dangerous (as in driving and falling asleep etc). Take a few minutes to listen to this excellent TED Talk by Arianne Huffington which reveals Health Research on Sleep deprivation & Sleep disorders

Do you get enough sleep? How many hours does that mean for you?

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Gifts to help you (or someone else!) Get Organized

December 9, 2016 by Heather Filed Under: Uncategorized 2 Comments

Organizing Gifts Galore!

It’s that time of year again – gift-giving time! Not sure what to get the most or least organized on your list? Here is a gift guide that will satisfy every beloved Type-A, Neat Freak, and Minimalist Extraordinaire…and those striving to be!

Labels:: Because everything has a place. Our favorites include a handheld label-maker from brother that allows you to label on-the-go. Jokari also makes erasable labels great for kitchen food containers, crafts bins, you name it. Another great erasable option with a stylish touch are these chalkboard erasable labels from Kitchen Supreme.

Electronics:: Never lose your keys, bike, tablet, even pet again with the Chipolo Item Finder. These Container Store keychain tags sync with your smartphone to help you keep track of your belongings. Stop struggling with adapters and power strips with this handy 4-Port USB Wall Charger, and when it’s time to pack up, keep those cords untangled with a cord taco. Also be sure that those electronics stay clean with an OXO Cleaning Brush. And because organizing is best with background music, consider a subscription to Spotify or Pandora.

Books:: Books are for more than designing your Pin-worthy fantasy bookshelf. Your professional of amateur organizer will have a hard time tearing their eyes from these pages except for the motivational boost to get things spick and span! Check out Brene Brown’s Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Judith Kolberg’s Getting Organized in the Era of Endless: What To Do When Information, Interruption, Work and Stuff are Endless But Time Is Not, Donna Smallin’s Clear the Clutter, Find Happiness: One Minute Tips for Decluttering and Refreshing Your Home and Your Life, and Peter Walsh’s It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff.

Household:: This Tosca Dish Riser is ideal for minimal kitchen organization with clean lines and basic color options. And when moving from kitchen to serving try this lacquered serving tray from the Container Store. Next, get rid of the junk drawer and messy mud room. This reclaimed wood chalkboard from Houzz which makes for a great calendar or note board also features a shelf for holding onto your knick knacks and hooks for hanging jackets and scarves.

Travel + Storage:: Stop them from digging through their bucket bag with a purse organizer from MochiThings which comes in various sizes and colors. Perfect for travel, the Container Store offers different pouch sizes and varieties like these and these, or this great canvas 4-pack from Klein Tools. Expecting to get wet? Try this Dry Spell Floating Pouch!

Planning + Productivity:: Journal and map out your dreams and goals with The Desire Map Planner, a weekly planner that weekly, monthly, and yearly spreads; motivational blurbs, and weekly to-do lists. Or, start from scratch designing your own bullet journal with a class Moleskin journal. And for that daily does of reality take a peak at these #Truthbomb Card Decks from Danielle Laporte.

Rest + Relaxation:: Naturally lift or set the mood for any space with an essential oil diffuser. There are a number of retailers these days, so read reviews and take your pick on Amazon. Prefer incense to oils? Try this 5-piece bundle from Shoyeido.

Stocking Stuffers:: Great things come in small, and often tidy, packages. Stuff the stocking with miniemergency kits that save the day in pinch, a Guard Your ID Roller Stamp that uses encrypted ink to cover up secure information on discarded mail, a portable screen cleaner to take care of smudges on all of our touch-screen devices, MochiThings earphone organizers to keep those cords in check, or a Build Your Own Mantra Cuff to remind them to stay kind, be strong, or maybe even just breathe.