June, 2012 | Claire Kurtz is The Well-Organized Woman

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

Sentimental Clutter: How to Manage, Store, and Let Go

June 22, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Photos, kids’ artwork, and cards are all examples of items that can build up in numbers to the point that much of your storage space is dedicated to their housing. While these items can be physical representations of treasured memories, they are in their essence just sentimental clutter. Whether this clutter is inherited or created over the years, with a few basic rules you can keep things under control.

Choose One, Not Many
When working with clients, we often come upon large collections of cards, ticket stubs, and letters. For this type of excess clutter, we recommend selecting one or two (depending on your collection’s size) particularly meaningful items to keep and toss the rest. For example, if you have 100’s of cards from birthdays, anniversaries, etc., toss the ones that are simply signed or auto-generated (digital Christmas cards) and keep those that have thoughtful inscriptions. When you have occasion to receive new cards, keep this process in mind before adding the new ones to storage.

Gift & Donate
The inheritance of family heirlooms or estate items can sometimes cause recipients to feel guilty about the misfit of the item into their current life, space, or style. Instead of accepting the item only to dread its storage, consider offering it to another family member who may treasure it more. If it’s not wanted by anyone else, a charity donation may allow the item to be of use to someone in need. Think of this not as a dishonor to the item’s gifter, but a blessing for the new recipient.

Preservation
Over time, many sentimental items, such as photos and journals, can start to deteriorate. While having the original may be ideal, creating a digital image or copy is definitely better for long-term preservation and clutter-free storage. Services like Gophoto.com will turn hard-copy photos into digital files, traditional scanners are great for uploading paper documents, and your digital camera can capture the image of things like kids stuffed animals and other delicate items.

Display/Use
If your ideal space for storing sentimental clutter is in a box, in the back of the basement, it probably isn’t as important to you than you think. If this sounds familiar, dedicate some time to sort through the items. Choose those that are actually meaningful and find a spot for them on display or a use for them in your daily life. The rest can be donated, sold, gifted, or tossed. If you would like to store some items in a box, make sure it is waterproof, sealed, and limited in size. In order to not grow beyond the chosen size box, maintain a strategy of removing one item before adding a new one.

Dealing with sentimental clutter can be emotionally exhausting. As a general rule of thumb, we suggest taking small amounts of time to sort and make decisions, so as not to overwhelm yourself. Having a friend or someone who is not emotionally invested in the items help can ensure that final decisions are rational. They can also be excellent at handling the business side of things (selling/donating), which can be especially taxing.

Good Luck!
TWOW

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Storage Units: When to Keep and When to Let Go

June 15, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Storage units can sometimes be a necessity, but often they sit untouched for years. Not only does this allow for unnecessary clutter to build, but it can also be a drain on your bank account. Taking the time to review and cull the contents can save you money each month and help you break free from the physical commitment of storing items you rarely, if ever, use.

If you decide to organize your storage unit we recommend the following strategy. Set aside a day, or two depending on how big your unit is, and commit to using the time to thoroughly review your belongings. Once the date has been set, secure a few things to assist you in the process, including a friend, some gloves, a dolly, and a trash bin or truck to haul off the items you chose to cull. If you do not have access to a truck, there are companies you can pay to pick up the storage contents, but remember to book this ahead of time.

Start the project by going through each item, front to back. The contents will then be placed in one of 4 categories, including storage unit, home/alternate storage location, donation/sell, and trash. While reviewing the contents, make critical decisions regarding the item’s need, value, and frequency of use. If you haven’t used the item in years, much less thought about it, culling is likely the best option. If the item’s value has been far out weighed by the cost to store it in the unit, it’s time to toss. This is a particularly common issue overlooked by storage unit renters. If what you are storing could easily be sold and replaced for cheaper than one year of rental fees, it probably makes sense to let it go. After sorting through everything, load the donations/sale items, trash, and moving items into the truck. Review what’s left and make one more culling pass to ensure you’re only keeping the bare minimum.

The final step is to reassess your need for a storage unit. If you were able to cull most of the contents, perhaps you could move the remaining belongings elsewhere (home = free storage) or downgrade to a smaller unit. Often times, downgrading alone can save you hundreds of dollars a year. If you decide to keep a unit, replace the items in an organized fashion, grouping like with like. It’s also important to ensure that delicate or fragile items are stored in a manner that protects them. Space bags, mothballs, and locking, waterproof bins are great for protecting such items. If using cardboard boxes, write detailed content descriptions on the outside of the box for easy accessibility.

In general, we recommend conducting this process twice yearly to ensure unnecessary items are not held onto indefinitely.

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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Recipe Organization: Controlling the Clutter & Increasing Efficiency

June 8, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

One of the major organizational challenges my clients face during the week is finding and/or taking the time to prepare a meal at home. And when I do, it’s as if I (re)discover for the first time how wonderful it tastes and feels to eat homemade cooking – not to mention the cost savings per person on just one meal!

Though cooking at home comes with so many positives, there is one negative that comes to mind that. I’m talking about the clutter of all of those recipes you collect. These days, there are so many places where you can find a way to make a meal for yourself and your family, be it through cookbooks, a trusted friend or a recipe website. And with each of these comes a piece of paper with ingredients, directions and notes for next time you make it.

While it’s wonderful to build a collection of meals and experiences, it’s often hard to keep them all in one place – I know I’ve found myself searching for a needed recipe the moment before I’m heading to the grocery store, and if I can’t find it online again, it’s lost!

The simplest way to keep track of paper recipes is to contain this potential clutter in one folder in one place in your home. Though it may seem counterintuitive to keep your recipes in your paper office files, you’ll be more likely to locate them given that ‘like is with like’. Try to alphabetize by name of dish so you won’t have to flip through the stack for too long!

If you want to take it one step further – you can also add additional folders to a hanging file separated by type of meat or type of dish. But again, only if you have the energy and organizational style to do so.

If you are a little more technologically savvy, most recipe websites, like allrecipes.com, have digital recipe boxes where you can store your favorite recipes with notes. Taking the time after you’ve prepared the dish to store the recipe online will give you the freedom to recycle the paper and cut down on physical clutter completely. Tastebook.com is a fabulous idea for compiling all of your random paper receipes into a digital and nicely bound book with photos. I also love the idea of using Pinterest to find and organize recipes. If you find a great recipe on another site, simply pin the photo to a board and you’ll have a photographic collection that is easy to access anywhere. Feel free to label boards by type of dish for additional organization. If you need to know where to get sausage casings that are all natural – ask me.

As you can see, just a few simple changes can help you take that one step towards a little less clutter in your house. Bravo to you for taking the time and care to cook at home. I’m sure your wallet and body thanks you.

Enjoy!
-TWOW

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Getting There on Time: The Secret to Punctuality

June 5, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Much of the work I do is focused on helping clients manage their space and belongings in a more efficient way. However, personal organization, including time management, can be just as important. One thing we as aspiring organized people forget to lump into the time management category is actually getting places on time. In fact, this can be one of the greatest organizational challenges people face on a daily basis.

I myself struggle with being punctual now and then, but I do believe it is extremely important to put your efforts towards arriving to events, appointments, and outings with friends on time. It gives the right impression to colleagues, clients, and pals that you respect their time and take them and yourself seriously. For your children, modeling punctuality instills a healthy respect for structure and routine, thus setting them up for success in the future.

Easier said than done, I know. Sometimes, the odds of public transportation, traffic or your never-ending to-do list simply keep you from making the punctuality grade. And that is okay now and then, as I said before. Things happen! However, there are a few tricks we can each use in our day-to-day lives to increase our on-time factor and decrease the self-created factors the keep us from getting where we need to be.

The most helpful advice I can give is to work backward. This is a tip I’ve recommended before in previous posts. Think about when you need to arrive to pick up your children or to meet your girlfriends for evening drinks. From there, allocate your time based on one-two hour increments backward from the time you need to LEAVE to get there, RATHER than the time you need to BE THERE. For example: To meet your girlfriends across town by 6:30pm, you should leave your house by 5:45. Give yourself one hour to get dressed and touch up your makeup and hair, starting at 4:45. If your day starts at 7:45, that gives you 9 hours to take care of your work, chores, etc. Your half-way point is 12:30pm. Also, don’t forget to build in a few breaks for lunch, personal tasks, and brief moments of me-time.

If you are a person on the go, use the alarm function on your phone to signal the end of one of your 2 hour time increments. When the alarm sounds, move on to the next task – unless you are on a roll of course! If you’re a person who sits in front of the computer all day, use your calendar as a to-do list, so that you are always aware of the time you’ve given yourself to complete necessary tasks. Build travel time (and potential traffic delays) into that plan to set yourself up for successfully arriving to your desination on time.

As you can see, I believe that managing the time in your day will help you to view getting places on time as another ‘to-do’, rather than optional. By adopting a few of these suggestions, you too can work towards the goal of getting there on time. You’ll be surprised at how gratifying it feels to arrive at the right time and your friends, family and colleagues will appreciate it too.

Good luck!
TWOW

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