Your House In Order

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the dizzying number of passwords we contend with in our day to day life. Everything online requires some kind of password.  Until we reach the day when technology is connected to our bodies and we use biometric identification, we are stuck with passwords. The bad…

In a previous post I wrote about Marie Kondo’s popular book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”  I wrote that it aligns well with recognized organizing principles and can be a valuable resource for people who want to declutter their homes. I also wrote that some of her ideas and techniques may not work for…

There’s been a lot of fuss recently about Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizer.  There have been articles and TV interviews and friends excitedly telling me they’ve been inspired to buy the book.  I admit to feeling curmudgeonly about all this hype for something I’ve been doing for the last seven years.  It’s just professional organizing…

A recent article in the New York Times about the “art of clutter,”  Marie Kondo’s best selling book about the “magic of tidying up,” the Minimalists and the popularity of TV shows about hoarding have continued to raise the profile of  professional organizing in our popular culture. However, increased awareness has spawned some misconceptions about…

Do you ever think about the future you? Do you think about what will make you happy? Do you think about what your personal environment will look like?  Do you think about the kinds of people you want to have in your life? Do you think about who you want to be? I’m not talking…

When I’m not organizing, I like to play with my dog.  By playing, I mean competing in agility, a dog performance sport. The object of dog agility is to complete a sequence of obstacles in the shortest amount of time. The course of jumps, tunnels, and teeter-totters includes turns, changes of direction, and enticing off…

Remember when your teacher said, “Check your answers” before handing in your test?  She knew that no matter how well you think you did, you might have missed something. That’s the power of review. Your office is no different.  You need to periodically evaluate your procedures to make sure your systems are functioning correctly. Ask…

No matter how big or small your office is, you need to make the most effective use of the space you have.  You do that by giving everything a home. We’ve all heard the phrase: “a place for everything and everything in its place.”  It pretty much sums up what organizing is all about.   Once…

OMG! The holidays are looming. I’m still eating Hallowe’en candy and Christmas has been in Costco for weeks. Start working on your holiday greetings now and you can check one thing off your list! When should it go out? There’s a crush of mail around the holidays and your message may be buried. Most people…

This is a question I hear often when working with a new client.  The short answer is, “Yes, you will need to get rid of some of your stuff.  But you will make those decisions for yourself.” We’ve all seen the organizing shows on TV – especially the dramatic hoarding cases – where the emphasis…