September 8, 2010

More and more women today are work at home moms. Balancing both running a household and a business can sometimes feel like a juggling act. Even as a Professional Organizer and always being good at time management. I can’t help but remember back when I started my own work at home journey how overwhelmed I felt trying to balance both worlds. But over time and a lot of trial and error I discovered that it is possible to do both. Here are some suggestions that will hopefully help you balance being a work at home mom.

• Take the time to research and invest in a good planner. Tweak it to meet your needs.
• Spend time on the weekend planning the upcoming week.
• Identify your time wasters and get rid of them or at least cut them down
  • Keep a log for one week of all your activities. You might just discover that you spend more time than you thought watching TV, surfing the net etc. Those are all extra hours you thought you didn’t have to invest in your business or home.
• Having check lists for various things such as cleaning, business tasks etc. are very helpful when it came to planning your day and week.
• Menu planning and cooking ahead is a huge time and sanity saver.
• Have  daily routines in place and stick to them. However don’t have a schedule so rigid that you are a slave to it, allow for flexibility.
• Don’t force yourself to get up earlier or stay up later. Know when you are at your peak and use that extra time to work on your business.
• Make sure to schedule time for yourself everyday even if it’s just 10 minutes.

At the end of the day the most important thing to remember is that you are a mom first and your kids will only be kids for a certain amount of time. Remember to take time everyday and just play.

September 6, 2010

I work from home. While it’s a blessing to our family, for me to be able to be here for our five kids, it also comes with it’s own set of challenges.

Working from home means I’m here all the time, but working from home also means that I’m, um, HERE ALL THE TIME. Spending anywhere from 3 to 8 hours per day in my home office necessitates that there be some sort of order or, dare I say, organization in my day. Otherwise I’d lose my mind. I have a calendar, a work schedule, filing systems, tracking systems and billing systems.  Although things don’t always go as planned, these systems and schedules keep me on task, most of the time.

Life in the office (or life in general) will never be perfect. There will always be some sort of variable thrown into my day to test me and keep me on my toes. Whether it be the child who forgot their gym clothes, a husband who calls unexpectedly for lunch date (which I love!) or a 6 yr old who needs me to come RIGHT NOW and see what he built using legos, Lincoln logs and scotch tape.

It’s easy to get so caught up in what I’m doing that I lose sight of why I’m doing it.  I continue to organize my work and schedule, and my days so that I can have the priviledge of being there when my little girl needs a hug or when my 6 yr old needs an audience or on those rare occassions when my teenagers “just want to talk”.

I don’t organize just for the sake of a clean closet or a pretty calendar. I do it so I can be there for those people who are important to me at the times when it’s important to them.

Those things aren’t a disruption to my daily work schedule. They are the benefits of my job!

As I look around me, I realize that things here are pretty great. I could wish for a spacious office with walls painted in a calming sea blue colors, hardwood floors, oodles of storage space, matching storage boxes & file folders and an endless supply of paperclips. But would it really matter? Probably not, but today’s my birthday…. And a girl can dream, right?

September 3, 2010

It’s hard to believe its September already…where did summer run off to? The weather is changing, kids are starting school again, and yes it’s time to start thinking about the holidays (ahhh!).  Ok now that I have completely stressed you out, let me offer some encouragement. The start of a new school year brings new opportunities. Now is the time to get a system set up to help you keep track of the paperwork that comes with school. 

I home school my kids, I will be homeschooling two this year, which is a bit overwhelming when I think about it in a broad sense.  I have to keep track of everyone’s work, make sure they are progressing and keep a toddler busy and out of their way. With no help from Mr. TV…he’s a distraction. So I sat down and thought about how I’m going to accomplish all of this, and honestly my head hurt! I know there are a lot of families that face the same dilemma and have no problem at all. Me, I start to panic just thinking about how the whole thing will work.

This year I set up one of those plastic drawer sets, you can buy them at Target. It has three drawers, just perfect for my kids. It’s not very big it fits easily under my computer desk, so it’s out of the way, which is another plus. Each child has their own drawer, and all of their things for school go in their drawer, nothing else! We all know how other things can get crammed in there when we are in a hurry to clean up. Resist the urge! My kids also think it’s neat that they have their own drawer.

So once again, let me encourage you, you can do it! Even if you just pick one thing you want to keep organized this year, do it and stick to it! Let me throw this question out there: Homeschoolers or not, what is the hardest thing to keep organized during the school year?

September 1, 2010

It is a well documented fact that kids do better when there is structure and routines in their daily lives. That being said, I often have moms tell me that they have a hard time and get very frustrated when it comes to getting their kids to follow them. Due to the fact that it turns into a power struggle and therefore they completely give up with trying to enforce them. Implementing routines and having your kids follow them doesn’t have to be frustrating. Here are some quick tips to end the power struggle.

• Repetition and consistency is key. For a while you might sound like a broken record but eventually it will become part of their everyday life just like brushing their teeth.
• Make sure you have systems in place so that your child knows and understands what is expected of them. Be very specific however make sure it is age appropriate and easy to understand.
• Have the child take responsibility for their daily task by making them a list they can check off. Use pictures for younger children.
• Be generous with praise. Everybody likes to be acknowledged for a job well done.
• Model the behavior you want them to follow. Don’t expect them to keep their room clean, if the rest of the house looks like a bomb went off.
• The most important tip I can share with you is this. Lower your expectations don’t expect perfection and stay calm. Remember at the end of the day they are still children who need our guidance and love everyday whether or not they follow routines and power struggles accomplish squat.

Jennifer Ascher
Professional Organizer
Organizing Without Limits
Professional Organizing Company in Oakland County,MI
Website: http://www.organizingwithoutlimits.com/

August 30, 2010

I got an opportunity to interview Sabrina Soto, host of HGTV shows Get It Sold and Real Estate Intervention.  Watch the interview and make sure to go to http://www.ilovegain.com/scent_sational_fun.do to enter the Home Scent-ervention contest!

In the interview she will answer my questions about affordable ways to make your house looking great, even using items you already own!

August 24, 2010

We’ve had A problem in our house for a while.  My husband likes to have framed pictures on the wall, and yet does not know how to hang them.  I have screws in the wall and some of the frame are precariously perched on top of the screw.  Not only does it leave huge holes in the wall, the pictures tend to fall.  As evidenced by this picture, sometimes they fall hard.  The glass in the frame broke, the baseboard got worked, and it’s going to cost us a bit of money to fix both. 

A little while ago I was contacted by 3M and asked if I wanted to check out some of their new adhesive products.  I said of course, cause who could use some more organizational products!  I received in the mail a huge box full of products! 

My husband who we’ll call “the Organized Dad” because he’s very seriously WAY more organized than I am, decided that he didn’t like our “bucket o’ controllers” and make quick work of all the products.  He placed the bucket on the wall for the various cables, used the set of 4 hooks for the Wii remotes and hung individual hooks for each of the Wii wheels.  He also used hooks for the Xbox and PS3 remotes, and then for the Guitar Hero guitars he used the picture hanging strips. 

The hooks were very easy to install.  You place the velcro type strips to the back of the hook, and place it on the wall.  Once you press and hold the plastic down for 30 seconds and then give it an hour to “set” it can hold a LOT!  After he was done organizing all of our game systems, my desk got an overhaul as well. 

 I took my headset and placed a hook on my wall to keep that in a handy and convenient location.  Then I placed the picture hanging strips on the back of an expanding file folder and placed all of my folders inside for bills, receipts, cards, etc in there.  I love that I have everything I need within arms reach. 

And what about all those frames that were falling off of our walls?  They are now using the Command products and haven’t even budged, even when the dog and kids are running into the walls.  The really great thing is that when we want to change the way the wall is set up, removing the adhesive is even easier than installing it.  You pull the tab at the bottom down and it comes off the wall quickly and cleanly!  I may even be able to put my Spackle away for a very long time! 

If you want to get things off the ground and out of drawers, these products are a great alternative, and a great way to get organized!

*Disclosure – 3M gave me a package of their various products to facilitate my review.  The images though are of how we actually used the products, and we couldn’t be happier about the setup!

June 30, 2010

Our friends had a 14′ pool just sitting in their basement.  My husband told them that we would gladly take it off of their hands.  Cue to how my routine got throw out the window today….

I started out great, got my backups for work done, took a shower and got Maddie ready for swimming lessons.  We had left the hose in the new pool because it needs a whole lot of water to fill all the way up.  On the way to dropping my husband off at work, he was worrying about the pool saying that he hadn’t flattend out the bottom before starting to fill it up.  I thought how much could that really do?  Boy was I WRONG.

Now Maddie and I are are walking in from her swimming lessons and she wants to go play in her new pool.  I know, the girl can NOT get enough of water.  I am offiically calling it that she will be an Olympic swimmer when she is older.  She runs outside and I notice that the pool is spilling over (even though it’s not full yet).  I go to check out the situation, and see the problem.  The bottom isn’t flat so it isn’t letting the sides of the pool rise like they should.  Dang… Trevor was right (again).  Now I have to try and drain most of what is already in the pool so I can lift it up enough to pull the bottom so it’s more flat.  I’m sure if I drained more it would have gone easier, but nope, I wanted to do it the hard way. 

After about 30-50 minutes of hard labor (dang water is HEAVY), I finally got the bottom mostly flat, and started to fill up the pool once again.  Maddie was happy, I was spent, and the floor didn’t get mopped once again.

I did clean the downstairs bathroom toilet though!  Not the whole bathroom, just the toilet.  That counts, right?

Lesson learned to avoid lengthy and laborious tasks… read the instructions BEFORE you fill the pool.

June 21, 2010

You have stuff, you have closets, you like to store some of your stuff in your closets.  It’s a crazy concept, I know.  What happens though when you have more stuff than you have closet space?  It’s time to purge and organize.  I have a drawer in my kitchen that I am constantly filling up, and then taking it all out and going through it, and then I fill it up again, and start the whole vicious cycle all over again.  You know the saying, your group is only as good as it’s worst person.  The same goes for room organization.  A room is only as organized as it’s storage space (typically the closets)

Take a few minutes today and analyze the storage space in your home.  Here are some key points to getting the most out of your storage space…

1. Make sure the storage space matches the function of the room.  We store clothing & toys in my daughter’s and son’s cloesets, extra cables and office supplies in my husband’s office; workout equipment, coats and shoes in the downstairs closet, etc.  We used to store the exercise equipment in my husbands office, but it was a pain for me to go upstairs and find the right equipment to bring downstairs every day.  So we moved the equipment.  Matching the closet storage with the function of the room prevents extra trips around the house and can be a great time saver.

2. Limit the space to only a few categories or big items at a time.  Limiting the items that go into the space will seriously help when you have to quickly put things away.  If the closet is filled to the brim with other things, then when it comes time to put things away that actually go in the space, they may no longer have a spot in the closet!

3. Purge, purge, purge…when you have too much stuff, it’s time to get rid of some of it.  Good rule of thumb.  If you can’t find a good spot to keep it, you probably don’t need it.  If you really valued the item it would have a good home.

Find out what is going on in your closets and make your storage more functional today.

June 14, 2010

Here is an inteview with HGTV Home Designer Libby Langdon & Home Tech Organizer David Gregg! I hope you enjoy it!

June 3, 2010

Everyone has a place to work.  Whether you actually work from home, or if you just handle the work of running a house, you have a spot to handle it.  You may have an actual office, or just a desk in the kitchen (like me!).  What happens though, when this area becomes cluttered?  It becomes frustrating to work in the space, and so you bleed.  Now you have files on the kitchen table, or the coffee table, and it’s no longer contained and organized.  Now you need to cut through the clutter on your desk so it can become functional again, and you can stop bleeding.

First, stop the bleeding.  You are going to need to first address the wound.  Take the items that have bled into other areas of the house and put them away or discard what is no longer necessary.  Find something to serve as your inbox and start sorting through the items that have bled.

Now that you have stopped the bleeding, you’ll need to clean & disinfect the wound.  Get to work on the area that has lost it’s usefulness.  Throw out the trash, cateorize all of your things, and then re-organize your space.  Make it functional!  Ask yourself what the current function of the office is.  Do you pay bills there?  Is it where everyone comes to use te computer?  Find out what you mainly use the area for and create places for the items you need to accomplish those tasks.  Now spray down the desk, clean & dust the equipment, and vacuum around the desk.

Lastly you should dress the wound.  Make your space pretty and a place you like to work.  Add some photos of the family, or a plant, or anything you want to make the area a fun place to be.

So get some first aid, and stop bleeding!