For most of the years I spent in Corporate America before starting my organizing business, I worked in Information Technology. One of my favorite managers from that time taught me an important lesson: when you automate a mess, it’s still a mess. I think it’s easy for people to look at boxes and bags of old photos and negatives and realize that they have an organizing project on their hands. But what about the thousands of photos that are on…
Read more →I never thought I would be writing a blog post on garbage bags. But life is strange that way. A few years after moving into our current home, we decided to get a new garbage can for the kitchen. At that time, our local supermarket packed groceries in plastic bags with handles. I brought one of those bags along to Bed Bath and Beyond so that I could find a garbage can whose size would allow me to use these plastic…
Read more →One of the great conveniences of the 21st Century is not having to go to the bank to deposit a check. If you have a smart phone, you can deposit your checks using your bank’s app. But what do you do with a check after you’ve deposited it? And if you decide to hold on to your deposited checks, how do you keep track of which checks you’ve already deposited and which still need to be deposited? I took a…
Read more →In my nearly 16 years as a Professional Organizer, I have heard two statements uttered in almost every client session: “I was looking for that!” and “I’d forgotten I had that!” A quick search of my blog reveals that I wrote about “I was looking for that” in this post. The bottom line: when you come across something that you had previously been unable to find, relocate that item to the place where you were originally looking. In your mind,…
Read more →When I’m helping clients downsize their clothes, I often hear the question, “How many of these should I own?” The answer is always, “It depends on how often you do your laundry”. For example, if you do your laundry every week, you need 8 pairs of underwear. If you do it every two weeks, you need 15 pairs of underwear. I discovered the downside of that answer earlier this year when I forgot to throw my socks in the laundry….
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