Clear Spaces

Five Steps To Getting It Together For The School Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 21:19:00 +0000

The school year has started fast and furiously. If you feel like you’ve been hit by a whirlwind and are already behind, there are five steps that you can take to gain control.

Develop a nighttime routine. Everyone needs a set bedtime - adults and kids. After a few days of adhering to a set bedtime you brain will be trained to get ready for sleep. Sleep is essential to our health and wellbeing. Don’t believe me? Check out this article on the psychological effects of sleep deprivation. The bottom line is a sleep-deprived brain doesn’t work. Once you establish your bedtime, work backwards to give yourself a few minutes to prepare for the next day and have 15 to 30 minutes of quiet non-technical, non-screen activity. Establishing a routine helps you tackle repetitive and important tasks without a whole lot of energy and effort. Prepare by checking the next day’s calendar and picking out outfits and accessories. Set bags and anything else that needs to leave with your family by the door. To slow down before heading off to bed try reading, writing, meditating, a warm bath, coloring, knitting, or some other quiet activity.

Develop a morning routine. Having a set wakeup time will, over a short period of time, make it easier to wake up on time. To encourage the habit of getting out of bed, set up something to look forward to – like a cup of coffee that was scheduled to be ready with the delay brew function on your coffee maker. Record a motivating phrase and use it as the alarm sound on your cell phone. Need more motivation? Try the Sonic Boom alarm clock. Allow enough time in the morning to have breakfast and review the day’s activities with your family. By breakfast, I mean something with nutrition rather than a fast fix of sugar. Hard-boiled eggs, cheese sticks, and peanut butter on whole grain bread are fast and portable if your appetite doesn’t spring to life first thing in the morning. A benefit from reviewing the day’s events with your family is that everyone starts off with the same information and everyone is more likely to successfully remember. Waking up 15 minutes before your children do provides some time to tend to a few chores. Tasks like emptying the dishwasher and folding a load of clothes are essential to running the household as smoothly as possible and tackling them first thing in the morning starts the day on a positive note.

After school, children need some outside time and a nutritious snack. Play is serious business. Actually adults need outside play time too. Unstructured time outside helps promote movement, curiosity, imagination, creativity, and a host of other benefits. Nature has healing properties; so say a number of studies. Plan periods of unstructured time so they happen. Nutritious snacks are important to sustaining blood sugar and focus. Plan ahead and create a snack drawer in the fridge so folks can help themselves when they are peckish.

Set up a productive homework environment. What works depends on your child’s age and nature. Generally speaking, younger children often work well at the kitchen table and older children often prefer the solitude of their own rooms. Talk with your child to see if she has a preference. If she doesn’t, experiment. Regardless of where your child works, make sure that supplies are organized and handy. If your child works at the kitchen table, try putting the needed supplies in a caddy so it’s easy to set up and clean up the homework spot. Keep in mind that most students need a few supplies. Stockpiling supplies creates storage and access problems plus it makes it harder to keep things in order. Keep the work area as uncluttered as possible. Store completed units of study in a desktop file so that the student’s binder holds only the current topics. Storing the completed work makes for a lighter backpack. The desktop filebox helps keep students focused on the current subjects while keeping material available for comprehensive exams.

While we’re on the subject of completed work, let’s cover the work that becomes memorabilia for the parents: the art project, the A+ paper, the worksheet with the glowing teacher’s feedback, etc. Have a special place to show off these items, but keep the display fresh. After a short period of time either recycle the work or store it as memorabilia. Only keep items that really show off your child’s personality, nature and creativity. A worksheet will not do that; however, an essay might. Take pictures of 3-D projects like sculptures because the picture is easier to store than the object itself. Be careful how much you store. Consider if you stored just 10 things for each grade, including kindergarten, you will have 130 pages by high school graduation.

Two important tools every student needs are a planner and a clock. Planners help students keep track of homework assignments and also help them develop their time management skills. Time management is an essential life skill, and a clock is critical to developing it. However, one of the tools students often lack is a clock that is easily visible from where they work. The best clock for helping students develop an internal sense of time is the analog clock. The analog clock displays time passing. There is a sense of the amount of time that has passed as well as the amount of time remaining. Digital clocks display the present moment.

While tools are important to a student’s success, creating a comfortable, uncluttered environment for your child is very important. Clutter is not only unsightly it’s distracting. Help your child succeed by minimizing distractions.

Distractions can be internal too. Despite our best efforts at optimizing our environment and health, focus can be challenging. It may seem paradoxical, but fidgeting may help increase focus. Sitting on an exercise ball instead of a chair provides minute movements that may engage focus and – bonus - strengthen core muscles. Creating and listening to a playlist of music that the student likes but does not get to engrossed in, is another useful strategy.

A strategy that will save parents a lot of last minute changes of plans is to update the family calendar right away with the school and sports calendars. Make time to do this. Knowing what is happening in your child’s life gives you the ability to be proactive and supportive. If you use an electronic calendar, you may be able to important your school’s calendar into your calendar. Importing a calendar saves you lots of time from entering events individually – that is one of the strong points of an electronic calendar. If you are getting started with an electronic calendar, Cozi and Google calendars are easy to understand. If you prefer paper calendars but loathe entering recurring events, the WeekDate calendar is for you. The unique design of the WeekDate calendar means recurring events only have to be entered once (plus they are darn cute calendars). If possible, find out when important school projects are due and when tests are scheduled. This knowledge can help you support your child’s academic efforts. Inquiries about the status of your child’s homework can be supportive if the phrasing is neutral and upbeat. Saying something like “I notice you have an exam coming up. How do you plan on preparing for it?” is more supportive than saying “Have you studied for that test yet?” The former is more likely to get an honest answer than the latter, which may be met with a silent eye roll.

Keeping things together for the school year means developing some structure, routines and acting proactively. The strategies laid out here will help you not only survive the school year, but thrive. You’ll be developing healthy habits for yourself and your family. Organization is a great tool for living the life you want to live. If organization has been elusive for you, consider hiring a professional organizer to help you develop systems that will work for you and the support needed to implement them.

Six Steps To Wrap Up The School Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 11:25:00 +0000

The last bell of the school year – is there a sweeter sound for any child? Thoughts of staying up late, swimming, adventures with friends, ice cream cones and cleaning out the school backpack beckon. Well, maybe cleaning out the backpack is not high on the list of fun things to do during the summer. But it is important and done with the right attitude it can be fun for both you and you child.

Organizing Students’ Summer Homework

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 23 May 2014 17:49:00 +0000

School’s out for summer! Students across the country are looking forward to ten weeks of playing, sleeping late and doing summer homework. What? Summer homework!? Many schools are adopting the idea of assigning reading and math work to do over the summer in order to keep students’ minds engaged and sharp. The work is to be turned in on the first day of the new school year. The question is: how do you meet the student’s expectation of an unstructured summer with the school’s requirement to complete the assignments? Answer: plan with the student how to create just enough structure to complete the homework but provide plenty of unstructured time for relaxing.

Five Clutter Creating Things To Eliminate

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 May 2014 12:40:00 +0000

Simplify the task of getting organized by minimizing what needs to be managed and organized. Eliminate these five things and you’ll significantly decrease the input of stuff into your life.

Five Steps To Declutter And Organize Your Garage

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 03 May 2014 16:24:00 +0000

One of the ironies of the garage is that it is designed to hold a car (or two or more) yet in many homes the garage holds everything but the car. Unfortunately the items stored in the garage are typically worth far less than the cars they are replacing. It’s time to take back the garage and make it an organized place to protect the expensive cars and equipment -- and maybe even enjoy.

Five Steps To Organize Your Tax Preparation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 04:55:00 +0000

According to H&R Block, 20 – 25% of Americans wait until the last two weeks before the April 15 deadline to do their taxes. If you’re part of the last-minute crowd, let’s talk about how you can organize your tax preparation to minimize your stress and get the job done.

How Do I Find And Work With A Professional Organizer?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:05:00 +0000

Professional organizing is a relatively new profession, and as such it may be difficult to know where to start and what to expect when you want to work with an organizer. You might have seen professional organizers work on TV. Please bear in mind that the TV programs do not show the numerous behind-the-scenes helpers. It is difficult to get a sense of what the true timeline is for an organizing project when the entire process is compressed in an hour-long segment. There's also the cost. The TV shows have sponsors who provide goods and services. Your organizing project will take longer than an hour, will be manned by you and your organizer (and perhaps her organizer crew if she has one), and you will pay the cost of the services and the tools. But of course, you probably knew all of that. How do you get started in finding the right person to create the order you want? These guidelines should help.

Five Guidelines When Your Significant Other Is Disorganized

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:37:00 +0000

If you're struggling with your partner's disorganization, it might be tempting to jump in and throw out the clutter and organize his or her stuff. Your partner will see what organization looks like and will be inspired to maintain it plus you will reap the benefits of having a tidy space - except it doesn't work that way. Your partner will be angry because you threw something that was important (you didn't think so, but it was her/his stuff and therefore her/his call), your partner may very well feel devalued by your efforts, and that new organizing system may be confusing and difficult to maintain because your partner did not participate in it's creation. In short: don't go there. If your partner's disorganization is an issue, then it's important to address it in a respectful way.

Fiive Steps To Building Your Organizing Mojo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 21:31:00 +0000

There are five steps for building your organizing mojo. Actually these steps are more like principles that provide the framework for organizing your life to increase order, calm, productivity and purpose.

The Sharpest (read: Most Productive) Tool in the Shed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 04:52:00 +0000

Guest Post by Susan Brennan

I was recently preparing dinner for myself and I realized that the process was going slower than
normal. I was getting frustrated because the tomatoes weren’t dicing nicely, and even the
avocado wasn’t slicing well.
Read more »

A Plan To Rectify Christmas Procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 17:16:00 +0000

Celebrators of Christmas: if you find yourself without gifts, without decorations, without an idea of what to serve at the holiday dinner, without a plan, and a bit (maybe a lot) stressed out, take a minute to read this.

Take a deep breath and ponder these things.

· There still is some time, but not a lot of time, before Christmas.

· Adjust the scope of your plans to fit the time that you have.

· Write everything down so you don’t add on the stress of trying to remember things.

Five Steps To Bidding Adieu To The Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:39:00 +0000

1) Get in the right frame of mind. After all of the excitement and activities of the holiday, the idea of putting things away can be a little dispiriting. Breathe some life into this project by giving yourself a deadline for putting things away and reframe the task - make the job part of the celebration with music, cookies and family involvement. Take pictures of each decorated area and put the pictures in the holiday notebook.

Holiday Cards - Party On

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 21:52:00 +0000

It’s fun to receive holiday cards. Their color and cheer add to the holiday spirit. And I love having tangible correspondence that connects me to friends and family in ways that social media can’t. But sending out cards – well that can be a task - a dreaded task at that. For a lot of people the shear volume of the work involved in sending out cards causes them to procrastinate. Rather than get caught up in the dread, let’s look at how sending cards can be more approachable by improving motivation and simplifying the process.

Getting Ready For The Holidays In Five Steps (Without Pulling Out Your Hair)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:26:00 +0000

In 2011 USA Today asked people “Which best fits your holiday emotional state?” Not surprisingly, 27% of the respondents reported they feel stressed during the holiday. There are many sources of stress during the holidays. Undoubtedly some of the stress comes from the sheer volume of things to do during a relatively short period of time. The house has to be gotten ready; the menus have to be written, shopped for and prepared; the social calendar managed; and the gifts gotten and wrapped – just to name a few of the extra concerns that come with the season. Managing the holiday load will help you manage the stress, and you can do it in five steps.

Five Steps To End Crowded Closets – Steps Four and Five

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 11:01:00 +0000

Your wardrobe and accessories have been purged so that what remains projects your personal style and brand beautifully. You’ve compared your closet space to the volume of your wardrobe and picked up some tools to maximize the use of available space. Now it’s time to place items in your closet and discuss maintaining the order in your closet.

Five Steps To End Crowded Closets – Steps Two and Three

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 06:14:00 +0000

In step one the clothes that fit you, flatter you and convey your personal message were identified as the ones to keep. Charities, online selling and consignment shops are happy to take the clothes that do not compliment you. Now that you have distilled your wardrobe to a fashion concentrate, it’s time to analyze your space and storage needs and get the appropriate tools to increase the efficiency of space usage.

Five Steps To Ending Crowded Closets - Step One

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 03:22:00 +0000

Does the chill in the air have you looking for your sweaters and your heavier clothes? What are you going to do with those summer tank tops and shorts? This month’s 1380 Clutter Challenge will help you - we are going to end crowded closets with five steps.

Step one: have a fashion show! Put on some upbeat music and maybe pour yourself a glass a wine. For the next few hours you’re going to work the runway.

Five Steps To A More Organized Desk - Steps Four and Five

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 00:29:00 +0000

The first three steps of organizing your desk entailed setting up your action system and sorting through the piles. If you feel like it took along time to go through your papers, keep this thought in mind: a one-inch stack of paper contains about 50 sheets of paper and that can translate into 50 separate decisions. Congratulate your self on your tenacity for sticking with the job.

Step 4: Review your new to-dos and put things away. After a sorting session review everything that you wrote down on your master list.

Five Steps To A More Organized Desk - Step Three

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 04:40:00 +0000

Steps one and two focused on evaluating your current organizing systems and setting up an action system for handling the paper that is currently coming across the desk. I like to implement an organizing system as early as possible. If we started going through the stacks of paper before setting up a new organizing system, the new paperwork will end up in a stack as well - further delaying a vision of a clean desk. Now that the action system is in place it's time to hit the stacks.

Step 3: Gather your tools and sort! Now we’re going to dig into those stacks and drawers.

Clear Spaces on 1380 The Woman - The Clutter Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:36:00 +0000

I'm excited to announce that I will be on the Let's Talk Shop show with Dawn Meadows Dixon and Teach Tigue at 9:45 AM every fourth Thursday of the month. Just turn your radio dial to 1380 AM. Did you know that 1380 is the only woman-talk radio station in the area? Probably the country!
Read more »

Five Steps To A More Organized Desk - Steps One And Two

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:19:00 +0000

Somewhere under the paper, the letters, and the electronic accessories there’s a desktop just earning to be productive. In five steps you can be reunited with your desktop and be a whole lot more productive and focused. Although there aren’t many steps, this project will take time – the amount of time depends on the depth of your stacks. It’s time well invested because not only will you have a lovely vista for cranking out work, but also you’ll be developing habits that will have you increasingly more organized.

Organize Your Storm Safety Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:18:00 +0000

This has been a rough week, starting with the F5 tornado in Oklahoma. Dangerous weather can affect anyone, anywhere. Please take a few minutes this weekend to invest in your safety. Organize a plan to stay safe in a storm.

Think about where you can go in dangerous weather. The safest place is underground but your home or office may not have a basement. In that case look for a windowless, interior room or closet on the lowest level of the structure. Regardless of where you shelter - basement or interior closet - make sure that there isn't something large and heavy on the floors above you. Only in cartoons do people survive having a piano land on top of them.

Put babies in their car seats. Put your pets in their carriers or on a leash when you take them into the shelter. A frightened pet can be unpredictable.

Keep a battery operated weather band radio with spare batteries handy. When the weather gets nasty make sure it is on. Do not rely on the storm sirens to alert you. I have been in more than one tornado when the storm sirens did not go on. Weather band radios are readily available in grocery and hardware stores. Silent Call has alert systems for the deaf.

Smart phone owners can download the free Red Cross app. I downloaded it when it first became available, and I have been very pleased with it. The app provides storm alerts and has an amazing amount of information about storm safety. You can find the app at the Red Cross' website page on tornado safety.

Keep at least one flashlight with spare batteries handy. Do not rely on candles for light because they can start a fire.

Create a communication plan. After the storm who will you contact to let them know if you are safe? Who will contact you? What will you do if there is no communication?

Organize a first aid kit. If you haven't done this, now is a good time to put one together. If you have a first aid kit, now is a good time to check its contents to ensure everything you need is fresh and packed. The Red Cross has helpful information about creating a kit.

Be safe. Organize your plan today. Just a few minutes spent in preparation might save your life. If you have some sage advice on storm safety - please share!

A Person I Care About Hoards

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:25:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks I have received many calls from people looking for help for a relative or friend who hoards. In addition to help cleaning out their loved one’s home, the callers are often looking for some way to process what is happening in their loved ones’ lives. I thought it would useful to write a bit about these calls to help others who find themselves in this situation.

From the perspective of the callers, the clutter is worthless and the piles are fire hazards. They wonder how their loved ones can live this way. They think that throwing out the clutter is the answer – but why don’t their loved ones see that?

The loved ones who are hoarding have a different perspective. Their collections are useful, interesting and valuable. The problem is not the stuff. The problem is other people feel they have the right to tell them what to do with their stuff.

The situations are painful, frustrating, and scary – for both the callers and their loved ones. However, I can only address the needs of the person who calls me; it would be unethical and deleterious for me to work in a home without the homeowner’s prior knowledge and consent. It is news that rarely surprises the caller, but typically is met with resignation. There is hope if the caller is willing to do some work on his own.

1) Acknowledge what you are feeling and get support for you. Isolation often accompanies hoarding, not only for the person who is hoarding, but also for his relatives and friends. Hoarding is not a “water cooler” topic. But there are other people in similar situations who understand what you are going through, and that can be comforting. The website Children of Hoarders is a very good resource. If you are in the St. Louis area, the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute provides support for family and friends.

2) Maintain your cool and be respectful of the person who is hoarding. Each of you has different perspectives. Suspend the temptation to declare a “right” and a “wrong” in this situation because it will lead you to a dead end. The likelihood of progress is far greater if you can act with empathy. Understandably, this may be hard to do. What you feel is legitimate and that is why I start with getting support for what you are going through.

3) Educate yourself. The International OCD Foundation’ s website contains a wealth of information and it has an excellent infographic that you can download. The Institute for Challenging Disorganization has a variety of informational downloads. The books Digging Out by Michael A. Tompkins Ph.D and Tamara L. Hartl, Ph.D. and Buried in Treasures by David F. Tolin, Ph.D., Randy O. Frost, Ph.D. and Gail Steketee, Ph.D. are excellent resources.

4) Prepare for the long-term. Hoarding behaviors do not go away in a week, a month or a year. This may be a life-long struggle.

5) Turn the conversation from throwing things away to making the environment safer and more comfortable your loved one. If you focus on throwing things away, then you are discounting your loved one’s perspective that his things are valuable. Can you agree not to block the door or to keep items off of the stove? Agree upon a goal together. You might consider these small steps. But it can be a big step for your loved one to agree to partner with you to take action.

Your loved one may not be ready to work with you. You cannot rush the process. There may be some emotional groundwork that needs to be worked on first, which is why it’s important to get support for what you are experiencing.

The temptation may be go into the loved one’s home and clean it out. Not only will your loved one continue to acquire items to fill his home, but in all likelihood you will seriously damage your relationship with him. Please take a step back, take a deep breath and proceed with care and respect for both of you. You are not alone.

Get Organized St. Louis

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:30:00 +0000

The early-bird registration deadline is fast approaching for St. Louis' inaugural organizing expo event: Get Organized St. Louis. I am excited to be part of the five-speaker lineup. The topics range from managing your home and financial papers, decluttering and organizing your basement and garage, productivity and time management, and productivity with ADD. After the presentations come to the question and answer session where you can ask a professional organizer your burning organizing questions. Additionally, we are very happy to have vendors' row featuring the companies that provide the goods and services that complement your organizing projects. Get Organized St. Louis is sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers and will be at St. Charles Community College from 8 AM to 12:30 on March 23. You can get more information at http://www.napostl.com/about/2013-napo-st-louis-expo. Aloha! Be there!

Shred Day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:35:00 +0000

It's tax season. A lot of people combine file cabinet clean-out with tax preparation. If you are one of those people, or if you need an excuse to clean out your files, I have good news: the days of free shred events are upon us.

Before we jump to where you can get your papers shredded for free, let's talk about what to shred. There are three guiding principles that I follow for shredding:

If the information can be used to steal from me or it can be used to steal my identity, then shredding is a must.
If the information is confidential, then shredding is a must.
When in doubt, shred.

Examples of information that is covered by the first principle include: anything with your social security number, anything that contains investment, credit card, and bank account numbers, copies of your old passports or driver's license, old credit reports, credit card and loan offers, and anything with passwords.

Examples of information that is covered by the second principle are old medical records, old phone lists, old legal papers, transcripts, resumes, and anything that would embarrass me if someone else found it.

Typically, I don't feel the need to shred anything that can be easily obtained by the public. For instance, I don't shred the address labels on my magazines or non-financial junk mail (I do shred the credit card offers).

I collect items to shred in cardboard boxes. Printer paper and banker's boxes are the right size for easy handling and I can just leave them with the shredder.

Grab your calendar and record the upcoming free shred days. Usually shredding is limited to one box, but sometimes you can shred up to three boxes.

04/06/13 9 AM - noon Scott Credit Union at 1100 Beltline Road in Collinsville, IL

04/06/13 8:30 AM - 1 PM Eagle Bank at 1052 Kirkwood Road in Kirkwood, MO

04/13/13 9 AM - noon First Community Credit Union at 4566 Lemay Ferry in St. Louis, MO

04/13/13 9 AM - noon First Community Credit Union at 2651 Old Muegge Road in St. Charles, MO

04/13/13 9 AM - noon First Community Credit Union at 801 Lincoln in Fairview Heights, IL

04/13/13 9 AM - noon First Community Credit Union at 17151 Chesterfield Airport Road in Chesterfield, MO

04/20/13 9 AM - noon Ameriprise Financial at 825 Maryville Center Dr in Creve Coeur, MO

04/20/13 9 AM - noon Coldwell Banker Gundaker at 6235 Mid-Rivers Mall Drive in St. Peters, MO

04/20/13 9 AM - noon St. Vincent Community Center at 7335 St. Charles Rock Road in St. Louis, MO

04/20/13 8 AM - noon Galleria parking lot (BBB event) in Richmond Heights, MO

04/27/13 9 AM - noon Vantage Credit Union at 4020 Fee Fee Road in Bridgeton, MO

04/27/13 10 AM - 1 PM Neighbors Credit Union at 6300 Lindbergh Blvd. in St. Louis, MO

04/27/13 9 AM - noon West Community Credit Union at 2345 S. Brentwood Blvd. in Brentwood, MO

05/04/13 9 AM - noon American Eagle Credit Union at 1075 N. US Highway 67 in Florissant, MO

05/04/13 9 AM - noon American Eagle Credit Union at 3805 Union in St. Louis, MO

05/04/13 9 AM - noon American Eagle Credit Union at 2175 Barrett Station Road in Des Peres, MO

05/04/13 9 AM - noon American Eagle Credit Union at 1334 Jeffco Blvd. in Arnold, MO

05/04/13 9 AM - noon Eagle Credit Union at 3944 Vogel Rd in Arnold, MO