It’s not enough to keep yourself organised, many people also have little people and/or a spouse to keep organised too. It’s not an easy job!

Here are a few tips to help you keep everyone in your family organized:

1. Organize yourself first. If you’re disorganized there’s no way you’re going to be able to keep track of anyone else’s itinerary. Use whatever system works best for you; day planner, mobile device, computer calendar or good old fashioned pen and pencil.
2. Create solutions that fit the person’s personality. Some people are detailed and able to follow through, others…not so much. Address the challenge your family member is facing. For example, if your daughter has a good system for organizing her school work but fails to follow through then her challenge is in the follow through. Help her create new habits.
   Additionally, some people like very structured organization while others are more relaxed about it. As long as they can immediately find what they need and mistakes are not made then the system works. For example, one child may keep a calendar on their wall of all their practices, meetings and homework. Another child may keep the information on their iPad and have it send them messages when things are due. Both systems, while very different, can work.
3. Create a central zone. While individual family members may be able to keep track of their own tasks and responsibilities it can be difficult to pull it all together as a family. Many families create a central information zone. You might use a chalk board or dry erase board. You might use a large hanging calendar. One great idea is to create a monthly calendar on a piece of poster board. However, instead of writing on the calendar you use post-its for each day. You can color code the post-its for each family member and write down their schedule. That way everyone can tell at a glance what’s going on for the entire family.
4. Their own space. The entry way of your home is a perfect example of a location where everyone needs their own space. Children come home from school and just dump their stuff on the floor. Your spouse comes home and drops his or her keys on the table. Eventually it all gets muddled together. It’s a mess and things get lost. Create a space for each person. Use a coat rack, shelf or baskets. Label them and teach everyone to put their items in their space. That goes for you and your spouse too. Central mail, keys and charging stations also help ensure items never get lost.

You can embrace this “own space” concept in other rooms too. The laundry room, bathroom and even the living room can each offer storage space for each family member. It helps keep things organized, minimizes lost items and squabbles.

Keeping your family organized is no small task! Organize yourself first. Pay attention to each personality in your family and try to create systems that work for them. Finally, provide space for each family member in key areas of your home.

Take up the challenge to create the order and peace in your home and business that you have been promising yourself all year with the start today of National Organsing Week (NOW).  To help you tackle those piles of papers and mountains of clutter, we are dedicating this week to helping you live and work clutter free with our NOW Solutions. Each day this week, we will share with you How-To’s for the 5 areas you have told us cause you the most frustration. What are those 5 things?

1. Office
2. Kitchen
3. Family members
4. Laundry
5. How to get organised when your schedule is crazy busy

Stay tuned for our first NOW Solution……

With work expectations becoming more about results than the number of physical hours spent at the office, it is to be expected that workplace flexibility will change in response.

At the current pace of technology, the traditional office will become largely redundant within the decade, according to a new survey. With 60% of senior executives believe their office space would shrink rather than grow within the decade and more than half believing the office would become ”only a place of occasional use”.

Are you ready to go to the office at your local coffee shop or library? What would be your office-on-the-go essentials?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/management/coffee-is-ready-and-so-is-a-generations-new-workplace-20110603-1fl0v.html#ixzz1OHXgJYue

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.

Imelda Marcos

Just about everyone has unfinished business…those things that we say we will get around to one day and of course ‘one day’ never comes.

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It could be getting in contact with a friend we haven’t spoken to for ages or fixing the shelves in the laundry.

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Here is a 3 step plan that even the worst procrastinator can follow to get your unfinished business, well, finished.

1. Get all those niggling ‘to do’ things out of your mind and written down on paper. Your brain will thank you because it no longer needs to worry about remembering all those things.
2. Select one unfinished ‘to do’ thing and do it today. Do the same next week and every week for however long it take you to tick off your list.
3. Congratulate yourself on having more energy, a clearer brain and feeling oh so relaxed.

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Whilst it is obviously better to do things when they come up, it is not always possible. So keep a running ‘to do’ list and every six months go through this 3-step plan to re-energise and reconnect.

As for my dirty little secret unfinished business that Katie Clift on radio 96.5FM made me fess up to:  cleaning up my email inbox. I’m sure I have about 4000 read emails just sitting in my inbox. Guess I know what unfinished business I will be cleaning up this week?!

What item do you absolutely, positively have to have in the kitchen?

For me, it is my slide-on silicone pot handle holder!

What is your must have in the kitchen?

It has been a tough couple of weeks here in my home town of Brisbane and in my home state of Queensland with the devastating floods impacting so many lives. I live in a beautiful area on the Brisbane River and I love to walk along the river with my dogs and enjoy the water and I always come away feeling refreshed and revived.  Last week that river was under my house and I was not feeling too refreshed.

The ABC has released amazing “Before & After” images illustrating just how extensive the flooding was. You can view these truly amazing images at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm

I felt I was prepared for the flood but nothing ever really prepares you to see your things out on the footpath waiting for a frontloader to pick it up. I was also unprepared (in a good way) for my wonderful friends and gorgeous strangers who turned up on Friday to help clean up. A process that took three days!

In my work with clients we look at letting go of things and being free to live without clutter and the hold our belongings can sometimes have on us. Before we can let go of things our things though, we need to have flicked a switch in our brains which tells us that the time is right to review how we live and what we carry with us. It is only when we mentally acknowledge that it is ok, can you be truly successful in changing how you live. It is a very different process when a flood (or other natural disaster) comes along and your belongings are damaged or lost. Whether you have a lot or a few belongings, when flood water takes our things from us it is naturally a highly emotional time because we have had no or little say in what belongings we will keep and what can go. Flood water does not discriminate!

So if a loved one has lost belongings please be mindful that their pain is very real because their belongings have value to them and they were not ready to let their things go. This is not the time to discuss or even joke about decluttering or downsizing – this is a time for love and nurture and to let people come to terms with their loss in their own time.

You may be like me and wondering how to clean some things. In the clean up I discovered a photo albums of my Dad (who passed away 9 years ago). It was very important for me to do whatever I could to return these photos to good condition and I found the following information very helpful. For information on how best to clean flood affected homes and to care for photos, go to http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/01/15/3113625.htm?

Flood Fundraising

To play our part in raising funds for flood victims, Successful Living will donate 10% of any services purchased in January and February 2011 to The Flood Relief Appeal to help support the emergency relief efforts. I would also encourage people to make individual donations to the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal by going to: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

The cost of our belongings needs to be measured in not only the money we have spent to buy them but also the time and energy they consume to keep them in our house.  For every item you bring into your home, there is a cost to you in time and energy to maintain that item – whether it be washing, ironing, dusting, washing up, putting away or a combination of these things.  If you are complaining about not having enough time and are always feeling run down, do a quick check in your home because chances are, you simply have too much stuff and are exhausted from maintaining your belongings.

So the next time you consider buying another ‘small’ item or an item on sale, ask yourself do you have the time and the energy to look after that item in your home.  I’m thinking the chances are pretty good that you would rather enjoy a sit down with a great cup of tea than spend more time dusting or moving things around or beating yourself up because you aren’t doing those things and know you should be.