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Spices

I cook a lot and as a result I have accumulated A LOT of spices - many of which I rarely use.  The other day I set out to tackle my spice cabinet.  While I chose to do a layered shelf, in doing some research I just discovered this glorious drawer organizer, which looks like the solution I have been looking for!  How do you organize your spices?

Link to buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lynk-Professional-430411DS-Organizer-Metallic/dp/B07PGQL462/

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The Junk Drawer

Well, I must admit, I have always had a junk drawer in our kitchen.  And until recently I had a SECOND junk drawer in our bedroom. These two drawers were the catchall for anything and everything that didn't have a "place".  And truly it comes down to organizing other parts of your home to make spots for these miscellaneous items.  For instance, we now have a family electronics cabinet so that all of those miscellaneous junk drawer chargers now have a "place".  There are some things that will be hard to find a place for, but I have faith that you can do it!

First, take everything out of the junk drawer.  Second, start sorting it.  What can go somewhere else?   What can be thrown away?  Third, give it a purpose.  What do I want this drawer to be?  Honestly there should be no "catchall" drawer or junk drawer if you follow the organizing philosophy of "everything having a place".  Once you have given your drawer a purpose, we recommend getting one of these drawer organizers to help better keep it organized moving forward:

https://www.amazon.com/Poeland-Organizer-Storage-Bedroom-Bathroom/dp/B07ZPT72H1/

If you need any help or tips on this further, please reach out!  We would love to help you.

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Jewelry Storage

I used to have two drawers stuffed with my earrings, necklaces and rings.  Do you know what happened?  I never wore jewelry.  It was too much of a burden to find the other earring in a pair, or untangle a long necklace.  After recognizing this hang up, I took to amazon to find the perfect jewelry box.  Here it is:

I can clearly see and find any piece of jewelry I am interested in wearing now.  In addition to being the perfect Tiffany blue, it also has adjustable spacers for the two lower drawers for more customization.  Not crazy about the blue?  No worries, it also comes in pink, gray, and tan.  Here’s the link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088NVXM1Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Hat Storage

I recently ran into a dilemma in my son's room with his baseball hats.  He doesn't have a lot of wall space inside the closet to hang them there on hooks, and his closets have folding doors (eliminating the back of the doors as an option).  Lo and behold, I came across this brilliant hat storage idea from one of my childhood favorites, Bob Vila!  Share with us how you store your hats? Here’s the solution I came up with for my son’s hats:

Here are some of the alternate options we came across depending on your storage space:

The Cap Rack:

Fancy Wall Storage, West Elm:

Sports Cap Bag, Amazon:

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Stay the Course

Yesterday my tiredness almost got the best of me.  I was exhausted, had just finished folding the laundry, and had the onerous task of putting everything away.  In my haste, I shoved one of my shirts on top of my Marie-Kondo’d file cabinet folded shirts.  I started to walk away. Then I stopped, turned around, and told myself ‘no’.  I was not going to derail the hours of organizing I had done just for one shirt.  Because if I put one shirt in there like that, more shirts would soon fall prey to the same fate.  I summoned the energy to put my clothes away like they should be, and that makes all the difference.  Even on the tough days, we must persevere in keeping things neat, no matter how burdensome it feels.  Stay strong my organized friends!

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Everything needs a place.

How many times have you fallen victim to the junk drawer?  Life is busy, stuff gets in the way, but you want it out of the way, right?  So you throw it in the junk drawer.  It is hard to restrain ourselves from taking the easy way out.  But once you acknowledge that you are taking the easy way out by throwing that unknown charger in the junk drawer, the better you will be able to keep your life organized.  If it doesn’t have a place, you are more likely to toss it where it doesn’t belong.  Work to give your belongings a designated place that makes sense for how you use them.  Contact us today for a free consultation!

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Paradox of Choice

"Projects can seem overwhelming because of the sheer number of choices. Studies show that when people are presented with too many possibilities, they can become paralyzed, a phenomenon known in social science circles as the paradox of choice. Carnegie Mellon economist George Loewenstein, who studies consumer behavior, explains that people do nothing because they're afraid of doing the wrong thing.......The key to meeting long term goals is to break them into short term steps that are easier to accomplish"

(Source: RealSimple Magazine)

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When you get more organized you can do a lot more with a lot less.

Anonymous

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“…Preparing for the worst - arming yourself for a huge battle. But that notion allows negativity to define you. Rather, I work to maintain an unwaveringly extra-positive self-image. Even when my contract wasn’t renewed on SNL last year, I remained 100 percent confident in my abilities. One decision on someone else’s part, whether they’re affirming or rejecting you, is ultimately minor. You are the constant, and your own opinion of yourself is what matters most.”

Jenny Slate (from December 2011 Real Simple Magazine’s “Life Lessons” Segment)

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Numerous studies have shown that your environment affects your productivity, and that even something as simple as color can influence your memory or creativity.

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"7 Things Highly Productive People Do" - Inc. Magazine Online

Here are his tips for staying productive:

Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.

Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women). 

Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.

Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.

Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead. 

Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day. 

Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours."

Full article: http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html

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We live in an age where a thousand things vie for our attention, to the point that sometimes, basic daily tasks—whether they be chores or tasks as seemingly simple as eating or sleeping—can fall by the wayside.

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Things break down, whether due to accidents, negligence, or just plain wear and tear. Instead of shelling out for an expensive repair or replacement, though, you can often fix the problem yourself for much less.

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There's no better feeling than checking something off your to-do list. Done! Finished! Mission accomplished! Yet it's so easy to let a whole day or week go by without knocking one task off your list.

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For those of you in need of some inspiration for your upcoming presentations (despite how boring the topic may be for some of your work related presentations) here's a helpful article on how to spice up the slideshow...Thx WorkAwesome