decluttering | Claire Kurtz is The Well-Organized Woman

Simple Organizing Tricks That Make A Big Difference

July 13, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Some of the best professional organizer tips are the most simple. They’re the kind of small changes that make such a noticeable difference that an entire home can feel drastically more organized once implemented. Below are some of our favorites.

Hangers: One inexpensive change is to swap out old mismatched hangers for a new set. The change will not only increase the perception of organization, but if you select a thin, slip-free variety it will also help maximize space in the closet.

Like with Like: Instead of storing items anywhere they’ll fit, take the time to group like items together. For example, in your linen closet, designate specific shelves to certain items such as pillows or sheets. This will greatly improve your ability to easily find what you need.

Labels: Organizers love labels because they work. Labels encourage a behavior of putting items back in their designated homes. There is no confusion about where things belong and thus organization is more easily maintained.

The Daily Reset: We often talk about the re-set in terms of an office, but the concept applies to all aspects of one’s life. At the end of the day, take a few moments to put things back, prepare your physical needs for the following day, and generally tidy up. The daily routine will drastically cut down on lost belongings and general disorder.

Counters: Clearing kitchen and bathroom counters of all unnecessary items can drastically reduce visual clutter. For example, if you use the toaster once per month, consider moving it inside a cupboard. The extra counter space will make the room feel cleaner and larger.

Good Luck!
-TWOW

Best Organizing Products for Small Spaces

July 10, 2012 By Claire 2 Comments

Urban living can sometimes mean that space is at a premium. If you are limited on space in certain areas of your home, we’ve got some product recommendations that will help to organize your stuff and keep clutter from getting out of control.

Underwear Drawer: The SKUBB storage box set from Ikea is great for organizing underwear and sock drawers. The variety of sizes allows for simple rearranging, thus letting you to easily move your mittens box to the back and bathing suits to the front when the season changes.

Under the Sink: Purchase a cleaning product caddy and your sprays, powders, and sponges will have a designated home that’s also portable for ease-of-use.

In the Kitchen: The kitchen often has many drawers containing small items. Some of our favorite products for organizing include, the in-drawer spice rack, the expandable bamboo cutlery tray, and the bamboo knife dock.

Under the Bed: An often under utilized space, under the bed can store quite a lot. Rubbermaid lo w profile boxes are perfect for slim items and shoe storage bags can hold all of your out-of-season shoes, thus freeing up room in your closet.

Junk Drawer: Junk drawers can contain such a wide variety of items that it can be difficult to find one storage product that works for everything. We love the Godmorgon stacking trays from Ikea, because they have several space sizes thus accommodating all types of items.

Office Drawers: Organizers with longer compartments for supplies like pens are ideal for office storage. The expandable variety can fit a range of drawer sizes and adjust for your needs.

What are your favorite organizing products for small spaces?

Good Luck!
TWOW

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Wedding Registry: Do’s & Dont’s

July 6, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

The Well-Organized Woman often sees households in which the family has an excess of belongings that originated from the couple’s wedding registry. The items are usually still in their original boxes or stored on top shelves due to their uncommon use. These collections inspired us to develop some WOW tips for creating a registry that won’t leave you with unneeded belongings following the wedding.

Needs vs. Wants: When creating your registry discuss with your significant other what items are truly needed in the household. If you currently have a nice set of dishes, does it make sense to register for a set of fine china that will only be used once per year? Instead, take this opportunity to add items to your list that may not be considered traditional, but will go to good use in your life. Ideas include home improvement items, a computer, a washer/dryer set, or a new mattress.

Mini Dessert Serving Sets & Glass Punch Bowls: For some, wedding registries are an opportunity to stock up on all that Bed Bath & Beyond has to offer, but the reality is many of the more random gifts will go unused. Consider skipping these frivolous items and you will avoid having to donate them in the future.

Forget the Guilt: Some guests will stray from the registry and gift you something that’s not right for your lifestyle. In cases like these, don’t feel guilty about returning the items for credit towards something that you will use. As much as you would like to think Aunt Betty is going to ask to see the vase she bought you next time she’s in town, the likelihood is low.

Alternative Options: In alternative to the typical fine china registry style of earlier generations, there are now many options for receiving contributions towards larger goals, such as honeymoons (honeyfund.com), home purchases (depositagift.com), and investments (giftsofstock.com). Adding one of these to your registry not only helps lower the potential for clutter, but it can also help set you up for the future.

Cull & Donate: After the wedding, review your loot and determine if there are any duplicates either in the gifts or in your current belongings. If you ordered a new set of pots and pans, it likely makes sense to donate or discard the old ones to ensure clutter does not begin to build.

We wish you a happy & organized wedding!
TWOW

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Garage Sales: How to Organize & Run a Successful Sale

July 3, 2012 By Claire 2 Comments

The Well-Organized Woman is a big fan of donating household excess to charity, but if you’re looking to make a bit of money off of the items you’ve culled, garage sales are excellent options. Although the process may seem straightforward, we’ve pulled together several strategies that can help ensure a successful sale.

Research & Plan: Many cities regulate the number, type, and location of signs that you may post around town to advertise your sale. They may also require a permit be pre-purchased in order to host, so make sure to investigate the rules and regulations in advance of your planned date.

While scheduling the sale, there are several things to keep in mind. First, do a bit on online research and see if there are any other neighborhood sales already scheduled that you can join in on. These tend to draw larger crowds and increase your opportunity for sales. Second, take into consideration that holidays, days in which there are large local events scheduled, and vacation season may not be the most ideal times to host your event.

Advertise: The most important thing you can do to drive traffic to your sale is to advertise. For physical signs, choose brightly colored paper and use arrows to indicate directions to your location. Include cross streets on signs that are posted farther out and utilize sales slogans such as, ‘everything must go’ to excite passersby. Additionally, you can make use of online resources, such as craigslist.com, garagesalestracker.com, yardsalesearch.com, garagesale.com, and various social media sites. For smaller communities, newspapers and bulletin boards can also be helpful tools. Generally, advertisements should be posted 1-2 weeks before the sale.

Organize: Prior to the big day, plan to spend some time preparing your goods. Every item should be clean (to a reasonable extent), priced, and bundled with coordinating accessories. It is also helpful to group like-items together, to make shopping easier for your patrons. For example, kitchen items can be placed on one table, while clothes are on another. When pricing items, be thoughtful about the expected deals shoppers intend to find. Unless the item is brand new, the price should be deeply discounted.

Hosts should also prepare for the sale by procuring change, including more one and five dollar bills than you think you will need. It is also smart to have a plan for the cash exchange process. Will one person handle all sales or will several? Will the change be stored in a box, a wallet, or somewhere else? Having answers to these questions ahead of time will save confusion and hassle during the sale.

Display: Just as stores merchandise their products in a fashion that is both pleasing to the eye and easily shoppable, so too should you. While setting up your sale, take time to display your goods in a way that is organized, but also interesting. For example, if you have china or decorative pieces, consider setting them up as a set table thus illustrating to your customers the way the set could look in their home.

With a bit of planning and a lot of organization you are sure to have a profitable sale.

Good Luck!
TWOW

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Time Management: Working From Home

June 27, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

As the popularity of home-based jobs and telecommuting increases, many people find themselves struggling to maintain time management. The flexibility of working from home can have potential difficulties, but with a few basic strategies the arrangement can produce much success.

Establish a Schedule: Setting up time parameters for when you will work and when you be off will help you maintain the necessary mindset for professional activity. If you are able to set your own schedule, attempt to keep the same hours each workday to ensure optimum productivity. Whether you are a morning person or a night owl does not matter; what is important is that you commit to starting and stopping at the same time each day.

Minimize Distractions: Working from home can produce distractions that may otherwise be avoided in an office. Maintaining a space that is dedicated to work can help minimize the possibility of wasted time. If you have an office, excellent, but if not choose a location that is separate from obvious distractions such as t.v., household chores, or kids, etc. Your work area should also be well-stocked with all necessary supplies and electronics.

To Do List: At the beginning of each day, create or update your to do list with the tasks required of you. Tasks can be grouped together in blocks, including phone calls, emails, physical tasks, and needs from others. Grouping items can increase efficiency by having similar tasks completed while you are already in that mindset.

Breaks & Socializing: Working from home can at times be isolating. Scheduling plans for regular social interaction, be it happy hour or a quick lunch break with a friend, can help keep you from becoming too disconnected from the world. It will also ensure other forms of connection, such as social media or personal phone calls, are kept to a minimum during the week.

Timed Activities: Use a timer to ensure you focus on necessary tasks for specific amounts of time. For example, if you have a writing project to complete, set the timer for one hour and commit to dedicating your attention to that sole task. During the pre-set time, ignore emails, set your phone on silent, and let family members know you are off limits.

Everyone has personal tasks that come up during the week. In order to manage the draw to execute these immediately while at home, set aside a specific time each day to make your personal calls, get to an appointment, or handle other needs. If it is not your scheduled personal time, resist the urge to get off track.

By utilizing these strategies you will help to ensure your work-from-home arrangement is mutually beneficial for you and your employer.

Good Luck!
TWOW

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Guest Post: Tips for Cleaning in the Lazy Days of Summer

June 12, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

With the weather warming up, the last thing anyone wants to do is stay inside and do some house cleaning. It seems that once summer hits, everyone’s schedule begins to fill up and all they want to do is to hire the Pressure Washing Katy service. Here are a few quick tips on getting the house clean in no time by THE MAIDS.

Thirty seconds is longer than you think. You can easily maintain trouble spots or reduce pesky clutter by following these cleaning tasks:

Prevent soap scum buildup in your shower with a few quick squirts of daily shower spray.
Swipe the bathroom counter with a disinfectant wipe, clearing it of hairspray, toothpaste and soap scum.
Shake out entryway rugs to rid them of excess dirt and minimize traipsing it throughout your home, if they are not in good condition make sure to get new ones from https://nwrugs.com/blogs/loveofrugs/bring-the-style-of-joanna-gaines-to-your-home.

With two minutes, you can:

Gather stray clutter into a laundry basket. Just be sure to put everything in its proper place at a later time.
Sweep high-traffic areas, like the entryway or bathroom floor.
Spritz the bathroom mirror with glass cleaner and wipe dry with a microfiber cloth.
And at the expense of sounding like your mother, make your bed.
Drop off your carpet at an professional carpet cleaning station near you.

Are you lucky enough to have won a time windfall? Use your five minutes wisely:

Start a load of laundry.
Wash the bathroom floor. Clean-up is simple if you have already swept it during your two-minute hiatus.
Wipe down kitchen counter-tops. You don’t want harmful germs finding their way into your food preparations.
Sort through your pile of mail and toss the junk. Remember to shred and recycle!

Busy lifestyles necessitate taking small, time-efficient steps when it comes to maintaining an orderly and clean house. If you need an extra hand, call THE MAIDS and experience the healthiest, most thorough housecleaning in the industry.

This post was generously written by the folks at THE MAIDS, a trusted and respected residential cleaning service.

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How to Organize Your Car

May 25, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

If you’re an Atlanta resident, it’s likely that you spend much time in your car. Just like in your home, if you do not maintain an organizational strategy things can quickly get out-of-hand. Luckily, we have plenty of experience with helping to organize cars and have devised a simple 4 step strategy for getting things under control.

1. SORT & CLEAN: Remove everything from your car and sort through the items to determine what stays and what should be returned to the home. Ideally, you should keep only the essentials, including things you use on a daily basis and/or may need for emergencies. Clothing, personal items, work materials, and kids stuff should be returned to the home as much as possible. Once everything is out of the car, take some time to do a deep clean. It may be a rare opportunity to clean the carpets, bins, and compartments without the clutter, so take advantage.

2. CONTAIN: One of the keys to maintaining an organized car is to set yourself up for success by purchasing or utilizing certain products. A car size wastebasket will ensure that trash is not stuffed in random places. Bins or crates can be used in the trunk to hold umbrellas, emergency items, and other loose belongings. If you often transport sports equipment consider getting an separate box for these items. Finally, behind the seat pockets can hold items for children to easily access while sitting in back.

3. ORGANIZE: Once you have gotten the necessary organizing products, begin to refill the car with your belongings. As you do so, consider which items you will need to have easy access to and place them in closer spots. These can include change for tolls, tissues, sunglasses, and garage openers. Items with infrequent use can be stored in the trunk, under seats, and in storage compartments. This is also the time to ensure that your driving/car documents are stored together. A plastic lunch bag can easily contain these papers together in your glove compartment.

4. MAINTAIN: Keep your organizational strategy with a few simple maintenance tips. First, make a habit of removing unnecessary items from the car once per week. Choose one day when you know you will use the car, but also have spare time, and commit to clearing everything out upon parking at home. Second, when you’re filling up with gas, take a few moments to toss the trash and clean out the cup holders. Lastly, discuss with family members who also ride in the car the rules for taking items that they brought in with them, out when they leave.

Happy driving!
TWOW

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Shoe Storage & Organization

May 8, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

We often receive questions about the best way to organize and store shoes. While there is no ‘right’ way, there are certain steps that you can take to ensure success when designing your shoe organization strategy.

First, take an assessment of your shoe collection and storage space and ask yourself the following questions.

How many pairs do you have?
What types do you have (heels, flip-flops, flats, large or small sizes)?
How many more do you think you will acquire in the near future?
Do you have a large space or small space for storage?
Is there a dedicated shoe area or will storage need to be creative?
Do you have space for seasonal shoe storage or does everything need to fit in one place?

At this time you should also determine if any shoes can or will be purged before implementation of the new organization strategy. Once you have thoroughly assessed the situation, take a look at our list of favorite storage solutions below and select one that will work for your collection and space.

Our Favorite Shoe Storage Solutions:

The modular shoe organizing system can be scaled up or down depending on needs.
Clear shoe boxes protect shoes from dust and work well on built-in shoe shelves. For easy shoe identification, consider taping a photo of the shoes to the front of the box.
The 30 Pair Overdoor Organizer is great for those with limited space. Place on the back of your closet or bathroom door for discrete and space-saving storage.
Shoe cubbies are excellent for closets that only have room below the hanging racks.
Under-bed chests can be used to store out-of-season shoes in an efficient manner.
The 10 tier (50 pair) rolling rack may be a good solution for those with larger collections and amounts of space.
Boot holders are designed for hanging closet rod storage and help with shape maintenance.

No matter which storage solution you purchase, it’s important to take the time to arrange your shoes in a manner that promotes function and organization. Ideally, shoes that are worn most often should be stored in the most accessible space, front and center. Shoes that are seasonal or rarely worn should be housed in the less accessible spots (back, sides, high, low). If possible, group like shoes together. For example, all flip flops and sandals are on one shelf and all heels are on another. Finally, take care to protect your collection by utilizing accessories like cedar shoe trees, which help to retain shape and minimize odor.

Happy Organizing!
TWOW

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Organizing Your Crafting Area

May 1, 2012 By Claire 1 Comment

A recent trip to Michael’s reminded me of the popularity of crafting. While the hobby can encompass many different specialties, most have one thing in common – the necessity for large amount of supplies, tools, and accessories. Storing these items in an organized fashion can be a challenge, but with the right solutions you can easily create a visually appealing and efficient system.

When beginning the crafting organization process, first do an assessment of what the primary and secondary uses for the space will be. If you have a dedicated crafting room or area this will drastically change your options for organization than if typically craft on the kitchen table.

Next step is to take a general inventory of what items you have. Assess whether each item is actually being used or if it can be donated, re-purposed, or trashed. For instance it is common for crafters to keep every piece of cut ribbon, but they are rarely ever used. Culling these items will help your crafting space stay clutter-free. The other thing to keep in mind while you are reviewing your collection, is to determine if you have a certain types of crafts or tools, etc. that you use more frequently. Selecting final storage locations that are easily accessible for these types items can help to create a more functional system.

Once you have reviewed your collection, it is now time to group things together, like with like. This will tell you what size and type of storage containers you need. When shopping you should also consider if you are the type of crafter than likes to see items at a glance and thus would do well will clear containers, or if you like to be able to hide items when not in use. We have included below some excellent options for common types crafting storage.

Embellishments: parts storage bin units, clear jars, lazy susans & spice racks if using original containers, magnetic containers, interlocking storage cups
Pens, Scissors, tools: mesh desk cups, wall-mounted bins, modular storage cubes,
Scrapbooking Paper: Desktop bins, movable divided holders, wall-mounted magazine racks, filing cabinets with folders organized by the rainbow
Ribbons: paper towel holder, wall-mounted two dowel rack, stacking dispensers
Crafting Storage Systems: wall-mounted peg board system, shoe cubbies
Portable Crafting Storage: multi-drawer cart on wheels, locking portable art bin, gardening bag

If you have a dedicated room, many of the wall-mounted options will be desirable as they give you easy access to your items. For crafters that utilize common space, the portable options will offer more functionality. Once you have selected your storage solution there are still choices to be made. Popular organizing methods include by color, item type, theme, and crafting specialty. No matter your organizing preference, just make sure that your final choice allows you optimum accessibility for the things you determined that you use most frequently. After placing items in their new storage containers, play around with their final location to ensure the system will work for you.

Good luck & Happy Crafting!
TWOW

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Beauty Products: Organization & Storage

April 24, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Last week our blog focused on the medicine cabinet. This week, we’ll discuss another area of the bathroom that can easily become disorganized and out-of control, your beauty product drawer. Just like your medicines, proper storage of your beauty products can ensure safety and longevity. First, we’ll start out with a few basic tips.

1) Keep makeup in a dark, cool, and dry place in order to minimize degradation.
2) Hold to makeup expiration guidelines and you’ll decrease your risk of infection and/or undesirable effects (sunburns from use of expired sunscreen). An easy way to remember when products will expire is to label the product with date it will go bad (see photo). Use this list by Good Housekeeping to determine opened product expiration time-frames.
3) Don’t forget about applicator cleanliness. Just as makeup can harbor dangerous bacteria, so too can your brushes and sponges. Make sure to set aside time every couple of weeks to clean these items with appropriate solutions.

Once you are ready to organize your makeup, we recommend the following strategy. First, remove all products from your storage area or container. Review the contents and determine which to keep (currently in use), trash (expired/empty) or donate (unopened/new products). It’s common for women to stockpile beauty products, particularly freebies from hotels or gift-with-purchases; the problem is that most go permanently unused. Use this organizing process as a chance to clear these types of items out of your storage space.

The next step is to group like items together. Brushes with brushes, face products with face products, and so on. If you have different types of beauty products for different seasons, group them together and consider storing out-of-season items in a less accessible spot. For instance, you may not need your bronzer taking up prime real estate during the summer months when you have a natural glow.

Once you have categorized your collection, determine what type of containing system will work best for you. There is no perfect solution, but popular options include small drawer systems, trays, stacking bins, apothecary jars, chests, and bags for women who frequently travel. Ideally, the storage system should have multiple compartments to house your various categories. After organizing everything in it’s new homes, consider labeling the compartments for easy-returning of items.

This process should ideally be conducted once every 2-3 months to maintain continued organization.

Good Luck!
TWOW

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