General

Since my son Jack was 6 months old, we had enjoyed an endless stream of solid all-night sleeps, save for the occasional cold or sickness. However, just before his 3rd birthday, he started waking up again in the middle of the night and creating, let’s be honest, a houseful of angry zombies. After stumbling our way through for over a month and only watching things progress further downhill, I called on the amazing Sleep Consultant that I had used when he was younger and, lo and behold, a few quick tips later, we were back on track to a full nights sleep!

It got me to thinking about what I like to call my “Personnel Tool Kit” – the people I call on whenever I feel I need an outside hand, or just perspective.  It also made me think that, for many people, I’m likely a part of their Tool Kit – Over the past 6 years I’ve worked with several of my clients more than once, whether it’s just keeping them on track with day to day business operations, helping them purge and settle in after a new move, helping relocate their parents, etc.

So, who’s in your Personnel Tool Kit? Who do you call on when things feel out of control?  Or are you the type of person that feels you shouldn’t be calling anyone?? (If you are, stop being that person).

Here’s a few people in my Personnel Tool Kit:

1. Sleep Consultant. Shan Roth of Jammytime Sleep Solutions helped us create some better sleep habits and was a great sounding board for realistic solutions. And, when it came down it the question really was, how much is a good night’s sleep worth to me? (the answer, in case you’re wondering, is A LOT).
2. House Cleaners.  The busier we are, the less time we want to spend on cleaning. We use it sparingly, but I know others that use it on a weekly basis and it is a life saver!
3. Accountant. Accountants, especially for incorporated businesses like mine can be pricey but they are worth every cent of my precious time as I’d rather be out making money than wasting valuable hours trying to understand a language that is fairly foreign to me.
4. Marketing Experts. When it comes to the development of my marketing campaigns, my business model structure, or my website, it was clear that I needed someone with a better understanding than me to create what was needed.  Although my background gives me a solid foundation for what is needed, it’s the execution part I always seemed to fall short on, and that’s where my businesses has truly benefited.  And you also get the opportunity to work with amazing artists like this who create awesome logos like this:
5. IT Consultants. After suffering through years of painful IT management (and I use that term loosely) on my own, I met with an independent IT consultant who took 3 hours to do what had literally been taking me years to accomplish.

It is so important to me that I use the right people so I can maximize my time on the things that I love (like my family) and also things that I love AND make me money (I’m one of the lucky few whose job fits into both of those categories).  And it also makes sense to trust experts – it’s not that we’re not capable of doing some of these things on our own. It’s just that the right people are dedicated to their craft and learning the best possible way of doing things (and also introducing you to to a few new ideas you never would have known about, if not for them).

Bottom line – Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Full disclosure. When I was growing up it was not uncommon for my Mom to call my room a ‘pigsty’. Whenever a client shows me their messy child’s room, I often offer up this tidbit as a way of sharing some hope. After all, if the girl with a pigsty for a room could grow up to be an Organizer for a living, there’s hope for us all!

Here’s some of the mistakes you can avoid and move from mess to success in your child’s room:

Mistake #1: Too much stuff

I know it seems annoyingly simple, but it’s the truth. If their room is filled with books and toys, it’s no wonder they have a hard time keeping things tidy. As I tell parents all the time “Your kids mess is equal to: a) the amount of stuff they have and b) your rules about how and when to clean it up.”

Let’s look at books. Even if they love to read, limit their bookshelf to no more than 20 books. If you want to keep more, they can be stored on a bookshelf in another room – They don’t ALL need to be in their room. Same thing with toys – A few choice toys (we let our son choose 2 toys he can take to his bedroom every night) – and the rest are stored someplace else. Anyway, you get the picture. The formula is simple: Less stuff = Less mess!

Mistake #2: Too much storage

This often goes hand-in-hand with mistake #1 but it does make a big difference. If you have a book shelf, a dresser, a nightstand and a toy box, it stands to reason they will all pile up with stuff. Keep the storage to a minimum and remember that kids love to have open space to play. Here is a great example of a kids room we re-organized: He has a toy shelf, a book shelf, a large dresser and a nightstand.

In order to ensure a more organized space, we replaced the 8 square storage unit with a 4 square one and got rid of the extra bookshelf.  We did keep the dresser, but put it in the corner of the room where the bed was and moved the bed by the window. It opened up the space and immediately felt cleaner and more organized.

Mistake #3: Not setting a good example*

I have been in houses where clients have walked me through their disorganized space to show me their messy child’s room.  As I’ve come to realize since I had a child, living in some temporary chaos is normal, but if you’re never taking the time to put things way or get organized yourself, you can’t expect your child to do it either.

And understand that good organizational skills aren’t always intuitive – often they have to be taught.  So when you tell them to clean their room, outline what that means:  Throw trash in the garbage, set aside items to donate or sell and make sure everything they own fits in the storage items provided.

(*It should be noted that this was NOT the case in my house. My Mom was an incredible housekeeper and took pride in a clean and organized home. I believe this is why, once I got my own place, I was exactly the same way and eventually found my calling as a Professional Organizer.)

Most of us are guilty of over buying stuff for our kids – we want them to have more than what we had, which is ok until it drives you to the point of insanity. Be generous, but reasonable and always remember that ‘stuff’ will never take the place of our time and attention. So if you want to be generous, be generous with that.

I’ve been a Professional Organizer for over 5 years now and I couldn’t even begin to count all of the closets that I’ve made over. Master bedroom, kids room, front closet, mud room – You name it, I’ve organized it. And I typically organize all closets the same way, save for a few minor adjustments depending on the family and their routines.

However, when my latest client came to me and told me that she had been diagnosed with ADHD and needed help with her closet, I knew immediately I wanted to tackle it in a unique way.

Normally, we organize all closets in the same manner and it looks something like this:

We sort by colour and style hanging all ‘like’ items together. But to someone with ADHD, I can understand how a closet like this could be overwhelming.

After talking with my client, she mentioned it could take her over half an hour sometimes just to make a decision about what to wear in the morning and get dressed. Her casual clothes were mixed in with her dress clothes, she wasn’t sure what actually fit her properly, she had clothes in multiple closets, etc.

We decided the best way to get her organized was to bundle clothes by outfit, not style.

The process started by having her trying on EVERYTHING. We went methodically through her wardrobe pairing pants with several tops and, when we hit on something we liked, we took a picture of it.

If the clothes didn’t fit, weren’t flattering, or were just plain wore out, we set them aside, either for trash or donation.

Once we had gone through all of the clothes, we hung everything up in the pairings, securing it with a hairband, like this:

Pants were hung on different hangers so they could be used as a bit of a marker.

The end result was that ALL of her clothes were hung in the same closet and matching outfits were now easy to identify based on their hairband grouping!

For homework, I asked her to upload all of the pictures of the outfits to online photo printing site like londondrugs.com which allows you to simply upload your pictures into a book making tool and it will create a photo book without you having to do any of the formatting.

But, to honest, the absolute BEST part of this process was watching my clients confidence soar with every piece of clothing that she tried on – She began focusing on the outfits that flattered her and caring less and less about what didn’t look good or didn’t fit because she began to understand that it wasn’t her body that wasn’t working for her, it was the clothes. Plus, she was on a complete high as it felt like she’d just gone on a major shopping spree. Now that she had so many outfit possibilities, it felt like we had tripled her wardrobe!

I can see how something like this would work for a lot of other clients, not just those with ADHD and I suspect I’ll be using this technique more and more in the future.

Over the past 4 years, I have seen a noticeable increase in the number of clients with an overabundance of storage products…. Most of which are being used the wrong way.

If you’ve read my blog before, you know that the number one mistake clients make is buying products BEFORE they sort and purge. And why wouldn’t you? The storage containers are the fun part! But if they don’t have a specific purpose, they’re more likely to hinder your organization.

This is a job we did a couple of years ago. We got rid of more than 6 storage units in ONE space. Here is the space before:

And here is an ‘After’ shot:

Although some work remains (they want to put in new flooring and get a new desk), the amount of space remaining is obviously significant.

And they were storing a ton of items they didn’t really use or need just because they had the space for it. Take the storage away, and the stuff went a long with it.

Here’s another example, albeit somewhat less dramatic. These shelves were in their under stairs storage when they moved in. They began piling items on top without giving any thought to what they should be used for. After a quick sort and purge, we were able to remove one of the shelves to create more wall storage space and organize the shelving according to category.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting about kids rooms and you’ll see the difference that using the right amount of storage can make.

So, before you buy the shelves or the bins or the baskets, PURGE. You’ll not only save yourself money, but may actually find you already have exactly what you need.

It had been over 2 1/2 years since my Mom had passed away and I found myself still in a state of denial. Coming to terms with the loss of someone so special seemed impossible and I kept waiting for her to return. It just didn’t seem possible that we could be here on this earth without  her.

After sharing this with a client (who just happened to be a psychologist) she said something life changing: “It sounds to me like you need to organize your grief.” Although the concept may seem abstract for some, it made total sense to me the minute I heard it.

My grief was like a cluttered house – I would stumble into everywhere and it would overwhelm and paralyze me. I needed to find a way to contain it to honour my Mother’s life and stop focusing on the fact that she was gone.

Days later, not by coincidence, I’m sure, I came across this article on Facebook. 

After reading it, I realized that I was looking for a way to honour and remember my Mom in my own way. Between that and the words “Organize your grief” ringing in my head, I came up with a way to do just that.

I wanted a place that I could visit her, sense her, but it needed to be a place that I felt comfortable with and didn’t have to travel to get to. She needed a presence in my house and in my life so I came up with the idea of ‘Grandma’s Chair’. I would put it somewhere in the house that we could all see it and enjoy it and it would give us a place to ‘visit’ her whenever we wanted.

So off I went, testing out chair after chair to find the one that brought the biggest sense of peace and comfort, just like she used to do.

And so I found the chair.

And then I added this quilt.

She had started this quilt for me before she died and one of her dearest friends finished it for me, because she got too sick to finish it. It was given to me after she died and is one of my most precious treasures.

So it’s there, to wrap me up in the hugs that every daughter still needs from their Mom.

And every week, my son Jack and I buy fresh flowers. We say we’re buying them for Grandma, but they’re for us too. Fresh flowers have a way of reminding you about the beauty of living things.

In a way that I wasn’t able to do so before, I have found a way to “organize my grief” and finally, after almost 3 years, acknowledge that she is gone from this physical world. Acceptance was not an easy place to get to but in letting go of wanting her to be with us in the physical world, I am finding ways to connect with her in her new one.

It’s a far cry from what I wanted, but it helps. Acceptance is never easy, but knowing there is a place that I can go to find her and feel her has been very healing for me.

… And, I didn’t do quite as good of a job as I wanted to. Like all experiments, I started off the assignment totally gung-ho! I was just going to clean it and keep it clean – how hard could that be? As it turns out, harder than I thought. They say it takes 21 days to change a habit – apparently I didn’t make it 21 days as my habits have not really changed. I did keep the bedroom neat and the bed made for about 2 weeks and, in that time, some cool things happened. On the first day of the experiment, a friend of mine was cleaning out her closet and gave me a bunch of clothes that didn’t fit anymore. I felt like this was prime example of ‘make space in your life so better things can enter’. Score 1 for me! I also noticed that my husband and I seemed less tense and more relaxed – coincidence? We’d have to wait and see if keeping the room clean and organized would continue that trend. And then we had a morning where we slept in and I felt I just couldn’t spare 30 seconds to make the bed. And then another morning passed and another…. and soon, old habits had returned. And I thought “I can’t write a blog about this. I failed! What kind of an organizer am I?” And then I remembered that I tell my clients all the time: Changing habits does not happen over night. You need to continue to do as much as you can, when you can and soon it will become easier. And stop expecting yourself to be perfect. So I will give myself a break, but will continue to aim for a tidy and neat Master Bedroom because who knows what it will bring?