 The second biggest task in moving your entire household is unpacking. And by second, I don’t mean it’s less effort, just that it comes after the packing. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve moved but one thing I know: I long for everything to be in its placed and organized in as short a time as possible. Here are some tips I used that just might work for you:
1.Unbox before organizing* Take as much out of boxes as you can before you start putting things away. You’ll need to visualize everything in each category that you want to store together and, if by chance you discovered some duplicates, you can address them before storing 3 bottles of window cleaner. 2.Assess available storage space Your things might no longer fit in the same room or general area that they were stored in at your previous home. This is painfully true if you’re downsizing. I used to always store garbage bags under the kitchen sink – in every house. This one? The plumbing takes up half the under-sink storage. Where’s the next most logical place where they will fit? In my case it’s the pantry, even though that’s 3 more steps away from the garbage can. We’re still getting used to it. 3.Mimic prior storage systems If it worked effectively in the past, then go ahead and put your pots and pans in the same space relative to the range. Just because you now have more kitchen storage doesn’t mean you should upset a system that’s working. 4.Re-think categories I used to keep cleaning supplies distributed to the place where they were used: tile cleaner in each of the bathrooms to increase the chance that it will actually be used by teenagers. And the bulk of other cleaning products under the kitchen sink. Since that’s no longer available due to size constraints, it’s natural to store all cleaning products in one central location. So, I minimized duplicates and put them in a linen closet just off the kitchen. It actually gives me a better set up in some respects. Be flexible. 5.Take your time This isn’t a race. I know I was anxious to get everything put away and rid myself of boxes. But I’m glad I took time to think things through. Had I rushed, I know I would be frustrated but likely too stubborn or lazy to take the time to rework a couple spaces to accommodate everything the best way. On the other hand, if it’s just not getting done, create time in your schedule for unpacking just like you would for a meeting or appointment. 6.Rearrange if it doesn’t work If you find yourself looking in the wrong spot for something time after time, ask yourself whether that isn’t a more logical place to store it. If your kids are constantly asking where something is because they genuinely can’t find it, then you should look for a more logical home for that item(s). 7.Recycle As you unpack, break down your boxes to save space. That also makes it easier to dispose of them. Most communities have cardboard recycling or check your local FreeCycle or social media for others looking for boxes. And when you’re done, remember to thank your prior self for all the decluttering you did before moving! *If you bought moving insurance and you find damage while unpacking, stop and take photos of the box, unboxing, and the damage. Include photos of the item prior to damage, if available. Then submit a claim to your moving insurer if the value (combined) of all damages exceed the deductible. Until next time! Mrg Simon Professional Organizer Certified Kon Mari Consultant (605- 595-3766 mrg.simon@designed2stick.com
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4/3/2023 0 Comments Packing tips for a Smooth Move This month’s blog post is very personal because I’m in the middle of a cross country move from South Dakota to Texas. Since I’ve been married, we’ve moved nine time and I’ve got a system down to make life easier on you ... and your movers (whether that’s you or someone else).
1. Create a Packing Kit. Gather everything you need to pack: tape, plastic on a roll, scissor, tape measure, black marker, red/pink marker, multi-tool, FRAGILE stickers, and a notebook or clipboard. Keep all those items together in your tool box and you’ll save yourself the repeated frustration of trying to figure out where the marker or tape is at. It’s wise to also buy blank newsprint paper and bubble wrap to cushion your belongings. 2. Consider buying insurance. If you’re having a commercial business do your move, ask about the insurance they offer: basic and replacement value are usually the options. Or if you’re doing it yourself, check with your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance agent. The important thing to know is that only the full market replacement value will reimburse you at a level equivalent to your cost to replace the item. Otherwise, the carrier’s liability is limited, sometimes to $100 per item/box. If you insure your move, check the fine print: you will be required to do an inventory and identify any objects/boxes with a value over $100. This is required if you want to make a claim. 3. Inventory your items. Regardless of whether you’re insuring your move, consider creating an inventory of your possessions now that you can update every time you move. It’s a great tool for keeping track of your belongings, and for use in homeowner’s or renter’s insurance claims. Give your insurance agent a copy because without that, theft of an expensive electric bike, for example, will not be covered without proof of ownership and value. Make a simple spreadsheet to number each item, provide a description and comments (such as FRAGILE or ID numbers), and where each item goes in your home. You can create separate sheets for unboxable things like furniture, highly valuable things like collectibles, art and jewelry, and things typically kept in storage. (Be sure to include any off-site storage, too.) 4. Get boxes. These can get expensive if you have to buy all of them, so make friends with staff at your local grocery store. The bakery, floral, and wine departments have very good boxes, in uniform sizes, and they get shipments every day and they’re consistent sizes. If you don’t rescue them, the store will bale them and pay someone to take them off their hands. However, be prepared to buy specialty boxes for specific items, like art work and wardrobes. The better things are boxed up, the easier it will be to load up. 5. Label on top and side. You want to be able to tell at a glance what is in a box, and your mover needs to know, too. On the top and one side of the box, write the contents of your box, and the room where you want it put when they are delivering your goods. If boxes are stacked, you’ll be able to read what’s in them, as well as if you’re carrying a box you’ll be able to read from the top of the box. Resist the urge to just put everything in the garage – your goods can get damaged by heat and cold, as well as pests. Save yourself a second trip and deliver to the room where your items will live. 6. Fragile and heavy items. Do yourself a favor and buy the orange “FRAGILE” stickers (I got mine at Office Max – no affiliation). I apply mine so part of the sticker is on the top of the box and part on the side – just to cover my bases. Make sure that if you’re keeping an inventory, you note which items were marked fragile or heavy. 7. Organize the contents. Make sure that everything you put into the box belongs in the same room. With the exception of towels and pillows that you might use for padding, filling a box with things from various rooms will create more work for you unpacking. Do yourself a favor and keep each room separately boxed. Use blank newsprint or bubble wrap to keep items from rubbing against each other as the moving truck bounces down the highway. It may seem over the top, but you’ll have virtually no breakage if you follow this tip. It might seem like there are a lot of excess steps, but if you want your belongings to arrive safely or (heaven forbit) if you need to make an insurance claim, you’ll be glad you followed these steps. Trust the voice of experience and organization and you’ll have a smooth move! Wish me luck, friends, I'm into the final stretch this week! For the last time, goodbye from South Dakota! Mrg Simon Professional Organizer KonMari Certified Consultant mrg.simon@designed2stick.com  The work-from-home trend is here to stay, whether it’s full-time or only occasional. That means you need a space to function in a way that supports your vision for your working future. That might be spending more time with family, snagging a promotion, or starting your own business. Your vision should be uppermost in your mind as you design and tidy your workspace at home.
1.Designate a room or space that accommodates your needs. If you are fortunate enough to have a separate room for your office, make sure that other functions don’t overwhelm the space, such as work out equipment, for example. You want as few distractions as possible. If you don’t have a spare room, designate a specific place in your dining room or living room – wherever you can find room – and claim it for your own. Just be sure that at the end of the day, you can put it away or conceal it so you can set clear boundaries between your business and personal time. 2.Gather all supplies in one space. Marie Kondo stresses the importance of keeping like items together, both for ease of finding them and putting them away. If you have office supplies scattered about the house, consolidate them in one basket or container so they are at the ready when you need them. This will minimize distractions and increase your productivity. And you want to maximize your productivity so you can enjoy your time at home! 3.Make your office joyful. Just because it’s an office, doesn’t mean that it has to be all work. Your space should have something(s) in it that speaks to you, inspires you, and helps you recall your vision for you home office. Maybe it’s a picture of a trout fisher or skiing with family and friends – things you will have more time to do when you manage your home office time efficiently. Whether you have a designated space or designated room for your office, your time will be spent more effectively when you follow these tips. Then you can enjoy your time in your home office because it will align with your vision for your work’s future. With a joyful heart, Mrg Based on “Tidying the Home Office,” by KonMari Media Inc. on KonMari.com, last accessed March 6, 2023. 2/9/2023 0 Comments Finding Joy To find joy and meaning in your life, it’s important to know joy when you feel it, see it, taste it, smell it, and touch it. In the KonMari Method,® Marie Kondo teaches that joy is the standard that should govern your life, from determining what clothing to keep and what to dispose of, to choosing to take a vacation and shopping for groceries. But what exactly is “joy?”
Joy is more than a fleeting happy moment, it goes deeper. At its core it’s a feeling. It’s the feeling you get when you discover a long-lost picture of your child feeding geese by hand at the state capitol all those years ago. It’s the way you feel when you slip into your most comfortable pair of jeans. Joy comes from a deeply personal place in your soul and your body reacts positively to the sensation. Consider those jeans. What if you put them on and they were too tight? What if your ex saw you when you were wearing them? Would you still feel confident and comfortable, or would you be embarrassed and self-conscious? Instantly, you know whether those jeans bring you joy. The more you ask yourself these questions, the better you will become at figuring out what brings you joy. Hone your radar and you will begin to notice those things that bring you a sense of calm, relaxation, thrill, and personal connection. 1/11/2023 0 Comments 4 Easy Steps to Get Organized! With the holidays behind us and a brand new year ahead of us, it seems logical that January should be "National Get Organized Month." Most of us – even professional organizers – have something in their home or office they’d like to have decluttered or better organized. These cold winter days are a perfect time to tackle a new project with a few tips and tricks.
1. Be clear on what you want. Don’t just go out and start buying bins, boxes and baskets to organize things. First, determine why you want to tackle this project. Is it simply to tidy up or is it to, for example, have a mudroom that functions to make your family’s comings and goings more efficient? If you set aside the time to clean the mudroom, you’ll have a clean mudroom. For the time being. But if you’re looking for a space that supports your family’s efficiency coming and going, you’ll have to do things differently if you want a different, long-lasting result. 2. Be clear on what functions to keep. In the act of decluttering, we seek out those things that support our vision and bring us joy, and discard those that aren’t up to the task. Likewise, your space can only serve a limited number of functions well. That mudroom is a great place for coats, hats, boots and backpacks. But if your kids are stashing iPads and other handheld devices there, that is a dangerous place to store electronics and it’s inconvenient, too. How about the dog bowls, leashes, and dog food? It is a logical place with room for that function? If not, find a better suited place for pet supplies. 3. Make it easy to keep it tidy. To the extent possible, store things where you use them – that makes it easy to put items away when you’re done using them. You wouldn’t store bedsheets in the kitchen, but you might store them in a linen closet near the bedrooms or in the bedroom closet so they’re handy when it’s time to change sheets. 4. Enjoy a job well done. Once you’ve decluttered, organized, and aligned functions of your space, you should take time to appreciate the new-found efficiency of your space. That enjoyment or little reward is what reinforces your new behavior and will, over time, create positive habits that support your vision for what you want. Once it’s a habit, you and your family can ‘automatically’ keep your space tidy and save time for activities you’d rather be doing. With joy, Mrg Simon Professional Organizer Certified KonMari(r) Consultant mrg.simon@designed2stick.com 605-929-1493  As a professional organizer, I help all sorts of people take control of the physical items that are overwhelming them in their homes and offices so they can find the joy in their surroundings. Equally important for a well-rounded, organized life is managing your time. We all know time management doesn’t just happen automatically, and most systems focus on efficient use of your time while ignoring whether your career and life is meeting your needs for connection and satisfaction. Focusing solely on productivity and efficiency overlooks the larger picture of organizing your life for meaning in exchange for divvying up your busy day-to-day lives.
To achieve satisfaction and even joy in your life – both personally and professionally – requires a deliberate and intentional effort. Establishing a written roadmap for your year, your months, and your weeks is vital to realizing your ultimate vision for your life. What is the point of being more organized and having more time in your life if you don’t use that time to bring more joy into your life? I’ve developed an annual planning system that helps me get the most out of my life so I can look back on each year with a sense of accomplishment and look forward to the next year of adventures of all kinds. It’s based on the concept of a “bullet journal,” but skips the rules, symbols, and artistic flair throughout that make it feel like just more work. My planner is flexible and useful in more ways than I can count. The basic concept is that your days, weeks, months and years can fly by at the speed of light and if you have taken time to thoughtfully map out that time, it will be well spent and full of memories. My planner is called My Intentional Year: Organizing My Life for Joy and MeaningSM and it depends first on writing down your intentions, commitments, appointments and other events, either electronically or manually in a journal of some sort. For maximum fun and historic value, I use a journal (Leuchtturm brand 1917 or a Moleskin brand 5” x 8.25” with at least 200 pages, available in local bookstores and on Amazon.com) because I do like to draw and use decorative lettering in my book to keep it interesting and to focus my attention. You should use it in whatever way works best for you. I have four areas of focus, five if you count the creative and inspiring bonus material. 1.Your Intention and Vision. As you start each year, you should do so with intention. Establish a theme for your year to keep you inspired month after month. Write your theme on your opening pages to keep it top of mind. For example, in 2022 I adopted the theme “Celebrate more!” At the end of each month, I identified my “wins” and celebrated them. Like a metaphorical pan on the back. Then, at the end of the year, I list them all and demonstrate to myself just how much I have accomplished. That really helps to stave off the end-of-year burnout when I wonder just what I got done in the last 12 months. The beginning of the year is also the perfect place to write down your vision for what you intend to accomplish in your life, on a professional and personal level for the calendar year, including specific goals. Then, be sure to check in with it throughout the year to see how you’re doing at achieving your vision for this year. 2.Future Log. Next, I take a broad look at big events I anticipate throughout the year. I create what’s called a “future log” by bullet journal aficionados. It’s a space to write down each month of the upcoming year (February – January) and identify any special things going on during each month. I use mine to record birthdays and anniversaries, annual events and holidays, and I leave space for future appointments that extend beyond the months laid out in my journal. 3.Monthly Calendar. Next, for those who are into stress relief through drawing, I have a cover page for the month which I often use to establish my decorative theme for the month. Then, I reproduce the calendar for the month as the next page(s) – I usually use a 2-page spread. I like to write on the calendar the recurring activities and one-offs that are on the docket for the month. I also embellish this page to echo the theme for the month (optional). I find it makes my life a little less pedestrian to have my own designs reflecting back at me as I check my calendar while booking new appointments. 4.Weekly layouts. Finally, the meat of My Intentional Year is the weekly spreads. What works best for me is to organize them Monday through Sunday, with the weekend days sharing a space to make for 6 even areas to record my daily commitments and activities. It takes a little getting used to but for me, it mirrors the way I plan my life: my work week first and then my weekends are separate. My weekly spreads are where I intersperse inspiration quotes and drawings. If I know it’s going to be a tough month motivationally speaking, I will find inspirational quotes to hand letter and use cheery colors to decorate them with colored pencils. Then onto where the “bullet” part of the bullet journal got its name. Next to each entry on individual days, there are coded boxes to represent tasks that are started, completed, canceled, moot or rescheduled, along with symbols for appointments and meetings, events, urgent items, email, call, to buy, and just plain notes. These are all items that are fair game for your daily entries, but all those symbols took up more RAM than I had available in my brain. Some days it’s all I have to just jot down a few scribbles. 5.Bonus Material. The real secret sauce for My Intentional Year is in the separate lists that I make to keep track of specific things in my life. In my first journal, I even made a List of Lists! Over the course of a month or a year, there are so many things that you could keep track of such as client numbers, depositions taken, trials conducted, CLEs attended, books you’ve read, movies you’ve watched, exercise log, gratitude pages – the list goes on and on. One I find particularly useful is “The Last Time I ...” where I can record the last time the bar dues were paid, the certificate of compliance was filed, the mandatory training was completed, employee reviews were conducted, or things like when furnace filter was changed, the windows were washed, the car had an oil change ... you get the idea. I even leave room for journaling at the end of each month just in case I want to record some specific thoughts about that month’s happenings. The steps I have summarized might seem like a lot of work. Why not just use a regular planner? Because it won’t prompt you to reach back and look at your goals and your vision. It won’t give you time to pause and think about what brings meaning to your career and your life, and give you more control over what you do instead of letting things just happen to you. Your personal and professional satisfaction is key to making your life at home and at work enjoyable every day. With such high rates of depression and uncertainty these days, we must be proactive, deliberate, and intentional if we’re going to make this next year count! Organize your year for joy and meaning with the “My Intentional Year” approach to planning. P.S. I am creating a focus group to follow the 2023 Intentional YearSM process, complete with printouts for the entire year and occasional Zoom classes to discuss the process, your successes, and your suggestions. If you’d like to be part of this focus group, email or call me before December 15, 2023. Please use the phrase “Focus Group” in your email subject line. Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer 605-929-1493 mrg.simon@designed2stick.com  As the holidays approach, I’d like to focus on an often-overlooked category of organization: hosting holiday guests, including overnight guests. November and December are when we gather more frequently indoors and for longer periods of time.
If you have guests coming over and haven’t done a whole-house tidying, there are ways to quickly declutter your home to spruce up your surroundings and make guests most comfortable. Marie Kondo has four quick tips that will put you and your guests at ease. 1. Do a “Joy Check.” In her tidying tips, Kondo puts joy at the center of everything – it’s a guiding principle that will serve you well in so many situations. Stand at your door and observe the shared spaces with the fresh eyes of a newcomer, going room by room to objectively evaluate whether the things you’ve piled up or thrown in a basket really do bring you joy. If you’re unsure, take time to reflect on whether these items pass the “Joy Check.” If they don’t, thank them and let them go. 2. Decide Where Things Belong. On your journey through your spaces, you likely found some things around the house that didn’t have a home. Seize this opportunity to decide where each item belongs, and make sure your other family members know so they can find things and put them away after use. TV remotes can go in a tray on the coffee table, mail goes in your “pending” box on your desk, coats go in the closet. To maintain all the tidying you do, everyone must know exactly where everything belongs. 3. Keep a Neat Kitchen. The kitchen is the hub of the home and a natural gathering space for guests. Before they arrive, declutter your counters of all the relatively small things that distract from your kitchen and its counterspace. Find a new home for your toaster, your dish soap, and your teapot. Once you’ve done that, wipe down the counters (and spot check the backsplash and cabinets). Then, keep the area around the sink clean – it’s the focus of the room and you’ll have a tidy kitchen that you and your guests can enjoy. 4. Tidy the Guest Bedroom. The holidays can be unpredictable and even if you don’t think you’ll be needing your guest room, it should be ready for guests at a moment’s notice. Do a serious “joy check” around the room and closet. Rather than using it as a room to store seasonal items, creating a welcoming, tranquil, and private space for them will make them feel right at home. Recall your best relaxing hotel or spa experience and try to recreate the feel, the scent, the appearance, and the function of the room. Consider having an arrival basket with tea, snacks, phone charger, and wifi password. Provide crisp sheets and an extra comforter, and stock items for them that they may have forgotten such as toothpaste, cotton swabs or a hair dryer. Collect travel size items and put them in a basket in the bathroom that they can easily find. These four tips can be easily done in just an hour or two. Once you’ve crossed these off your to-do list, you’ll have a tidy home that both you and your guests can enjoy throughout the season. Happy Thanksgiving to all! This article is based on blog posts by KonMari Media Inc. entitled “How to Tidy Before Hosting Guests” and “Fall Tidying Challenge: The Guest Room,” available at konmari.com. Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer 605-929-1493 mrg.simon@designed2stick.com  Halloween has become a huge holiday for home decorations. In fact, each year Americans spend more than half a billion dollars – over $500,000,000 – just on costumes for their pets. And that means a lot of people also are accumulating a lot of home decorations. When November 1 rolls around, you want a strategy for organizing all of those spooky items.
Years ago, we concerned ourselves with primarily Christmas for seasonal décor, and we planned storage for a tree (perhaps), ornaments, lighting, and other decorations in a deliberate way. It’s time to do the same for Halloween. Before you start to take down any electricity-using items, first check to make certain they are still in good working order. Anything broken or ripped beyond repair should be released right now before it takes up valuable space in your garage, attic, or basement. My rule of thumb for lights is if more than 30-50% of the bulbs are burned out, toss them and buy new ones (shoot for post-Halloween clearance sales or early holiday sales next July or August when they first hit the shelves and your selection is best). For all other interior and exterior décor and costumes, consider yourself a year down the road: Will you be excited to put out these decorations, or is it time to toss them? The belief that all your possessions should bring you joy applies to holiday decorations just as much as the items that are out and enjoyed daily. Does each item serve a purpose or bring a smile to your face? If so, keep it! If not, either pass it along, donate it, or toss it. Worn out items that are out of style should be donated or tossed. When undecorating, I recommend that you gather all the outdoor items in one area and all the indoor items in another. After you’ve decluttered your stash of Halloween-themed things, go through and sort each group into categories of items. Costumes and makeup in one pile, indoor lights in another, window décor in a third, and so on. Once you see what you have, compare it to the storage containers you have available? Are they all in good condition with lids that fit? If not, toss them and get new ones. Figure out what needs to be in a watertight container, if any. Once you’ve done this you’ll know how much you have to store, and that is when you should buy storage containers. It’s always nice when everything matches, but there’s no need to buy new if the existing containers work. Finally, label all your containers, unless they’re clear and their contents are obvious. You don’t need to invest in a label maker – a good Sharpie® pen will do just fine. For convenience, label in the same place on (upper left corner, for example) each container and be sure that side is facing out when you are putting them away. You might have a use for some items for other occasions (such as pumpkins for Thanksgiving or costumes for school plays), and this tip will help you locate the desired item quickly. If possible, store all the Halloween décor in the same location in your home or garage. If not possible, then separate them according to whether they’re used inside or outside. Then store the outdoor items in the garage (or other space) to free up valuable real estate in your home for the indoor decorations. Your future self will thank you next October when you pull out your decorations to celebrate another Halloween. And with Christmas coming, think of how much of this decluttering you can do on the front end of the holiday and how it will help you estimate your storage needs for these holiday decorations. The same principles apply to your decluttering and organizing: Your decorations should be a source of delight and in good working condition. It will make decorating and undecorating a joy! Wishing you a happy Halloween, Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer  The urge to get organized can be strong in the fall. September is a great month to tackle your kitchen, well before the holidays stretch you to your limit. Tidying your kitchen now lets you be thoughtful about what you want for your upcoming holidays in terms of the functionality of this hardest working room in the house. For some, tidying the kitchen might seem like a monumental task, but when broken down into manageable steps, it can be a rewarding process that sets you up for success on a daily basis as well as on special occasions.
Step 1: Tools for eating. Remove from your cabinets and drawers those things that facilitate eating: plates, bowls, flatware, glasses, serving ware, tablecloths, placemats, and food storage containers of all kinds. Place them in categories of like things. Then get brutally honest. How much of this do you need to find joy when serving food to your family and guests? If you frequently do dishes, maybe you can get by on fewer than a dozen of each plate, salad plate, cup, saucer, juice glass, drinking glass and wine/beer glasses. If you frequently entertain large groups or have a large family, then keep what you need to serve them, but no more. The real estate in your kitchen is precious and it should only be used for those things it makes you happy to use. If you have a cabinet full of coffee mugs, you probably regularly only use a couple of them. Keep those and a couple others if needed, and let the rest go. The found space will serve you well when it’s time to reorganize. Put aside all of the items you are letting go of for donation or discard. Step 2: Tools for cooking. Clear your counters and make room on your dining room table. It’s time to empty your cabinets of everything you use to prepare and make food. As you take things out of the cabinets and drawers, group them together by category. Pots, pans and lids in one area, cutting boards in another. Keep going until you have crock pots, waffle irons, mixers and other gadgets all out in the open and grouped by category. Then, go through each category and look for duplicates, worn out or broken items, and things that don’t get used much, if at all. You may be surprised to learn that you have 6 rubber scrapers and 3 garlic presses. Do you need them all? If so, great! Now they’re all in one place. If not, pick the garlic press that works the best and is easiest to clean and put the others in a discard/donate box. This will free up space when it’s time to organize and put away everything. When you’re done going through everything, assess whether you need to replace any worn out or lost items that you regularly use. Step 3: Food. Now is the time to go through your pantry, spice drawer, refrigerator, freezer, and any other place you keep edibles to identify anything that has expired or has passed its “use by” date. When it comes to spices and extracts, most sources say that they lose their flavor after 2-4 years. The only exceptions are salt and pure vanilla. If you can’t find a date and don’t recall when you bought it, toss it out. Check expiration dates on everything, from baking staples, canned goods, prepackaged sides and meals to salad dressings, mayo, and sour cream. Don’t buy replacements unless you have an immediate need for an item. If your food suffers freezer burn, toss it out because it’s unlikely to be salvageable no matter how long you cook it in the crock pot or pressure cooker. Add to your shopping list of only those things you have an immediate need to replace. Once your kitchen items have been sorted, focus storage and organization on the ease of cleaning and putting away, not on the ease of finding it (although they can be the same). Before you put anything back into your cabinets, reevaluate where the best location is for each item. Typically, heavy plates and bowls go near the dishwasher for ease in both unloading and setting the table. Pots and pans can logically go near the stovetop if there’s room; if not, again, think of where it’s easiest to put away all of them in one general area. If you don’t bake on a regular basis, maybe your baking pans and mixers can go in the cabinet above the refrigerator or a similar out of the way spot. You’ve got the idea: keep like things together and put them away in a spot that maximizes your effective use of limited storage space and ease of putting them away. This makes maintaining an organized kitchen easier for everyone. Not that there’s any perfect system. I’ve tried to keep the toaster near the breakfast and coffee station, but somehow, it’s usually left out on the counter when breakfast is over. Take your wins where you can! Your final step is to rehome, reuse, donate, or discard the surplus items that didn’t make the cut. Don’t let them set out in boxes for a week, get them out of your home as soon as possible. That way you – or other family members – won’t be tempted to take back a tacky mug, and you’ll begin to enjoy your freshly tidied kitchen even sooner. And you’ll know exactly what you have so you don’t purchase duplicates in anticipation of the coming holidays. I have confidence that by following these steps, you can achieve the organized kitchen of your dreams! If, however, you would like assistance in tackling your kitchen project, don’t hesitate to contact me at 605-929-1493 or mrg.simon@designed2stick.com. Mrg Simon 8/16/2022 0 Comments Coasting into autumn Today, I want you to know that it’s completely acceptable to let slide those last couple summer projects, whatever they are. There are only a couple weeks left of summer and I’m here to encourage you to enjoy them, rather than try to clean out this, organize that, go here and pick up more stuff. Go to that end of summer festival, go for a bike ride, or take a hike. It’s okay to just “coast.”
Instead of trying to do it all, find a blank page in your journal or a random piece of paper. Then, every time you think “I should be doing ...” write down that thought. Each time a “should” or “ought to” comes to mind, just write it down. Don’t do it, just write it down. Scrub the floor? Organize the pantry? Go through all the camping supplies? Get my office in tip-top shape? Keep adding to your list until Labor Day. (You may have to give in to things like laundry grocery shopping, or buying school supplies – just the basics.) And don’t just limit your list to the drudgery of day-to-day living. Include fun things you’d like to do, places near and far that you’d like to visit. Those things shouldn’t be lost in the business of running a household. Your home should serve you, not the other way around. And part of that is giving space for the things that bring you joy to blossom, like making plans to finally visit the Grand Canyon or Arches National Parks or maybe even a local landmark you’ve always wondered about but never took the time to visit. I hope your list is full of a wide variety of things you “should” do. Then, once we’re solidly into September, that’s when I encourage you to go over your list. Are there some things that aren’t nearly as important now or that have just resolved themselves entirely? Great! Then assess the rest of the list you have left and prioritize your tasks. Plan out your autumn, the rest of the year, the school year, whatever block of time makes sense to you at your current stage of life. There’s nothing magical about getting everything done before school starts or summer ends. Evaluate what works best for you. So please, take a moment. Breathe deeply. Enjoy what’s left of August and coast right on into autumn! Soak it in! Mrg PS. When you're ready to tackle your big projects this fall, give me a call and I'll lend a helping hand and objective eye to keep your projects on track! |
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