Archive for the ‘Home Organisation’ Category
Top 5 Organising Solutions – It’s National Organising Week 2011
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?
- Office
- Kitchen
- Family members
- Laundry
- How to get organised when your schedule is crazy busy
Stay tuned for our first NOW Solution……
Funny for the Day
I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.
Imelda Marcos
What Item Do You Absolutely Positively Have to Have?
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?
Creating Family Routines – How to Get Back on Track
- Research shows us that kids whose families who have a routine do better in school and are more socially confident. Especially given the trauma some children will have faced with the floods, having a routine will also provide a sense of security that at least some things haven’t changed. Have a look at your family routine and tweak it where necessary or create a new one if you don’t already have one.
- What are the two things you want to achieve this year as a family? It could be taking a family holiday, eating 5 out of 7 dinner meals together each week, or the kids picking up after themselves. As a family, write down the steps you need to take to achieve your family goals and everyone sign off on it. Then post these goals and steps where you can all see them and start to tick off the steps as you achieve them.
- Leave room for fun and creativity. We all obviously need fun and the chance to let our hair down so go have a play in the park or do face painting at home on each other or go to a theme park. Be spontaneous and enjoy.
Clear Your Clutter & Help Qld’s Flood Victims
If you are like many others, one of your New Year’s goal was to get organised. Life certainly can get busy and all too often we lose sight of our resolutions and fall back into old patterns. So if you have been putting off getting organised at home or work then now is the time to make a change once and for all and clear your clutter, get organised and enjoy the peace and calm only an organised life can bring.Brisbane Flood 2011
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
Counting the Cost of Our Belongings
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.
Reduce Your Holiday & Travel Clutter
For those of us who go on holidays and enjoy family trips away from home, we inevitably find that a lot of knick-knacks and souvenirs from our travels worm their way into our home until we suddenly find ourselves inundated by things which we don’t need, but which we can’t bring ourselves to get rid of.
The most drastic solution to avoiding holiday clutter is to not bring back any holiday souvenirs at all. But for most of us that’s unrealistic and unlikely to happen. Here are 5 tips to help you keep your holiday souvenirs from cluttering your home:
- Take digital photographs and delete unwanted photos each night of your holiday. This way you bring back only great pictures that are great reminders of the places you’ve been to. And photos don’t take up much space.
- If you want a little piece of your travels to comeback home with you, why not try to keep that “little” piece truly little. There are more than enough souvenirs which are small enough to fit into the palm of your hands and which won’t take up too much room in your house. Instead of buying a lot of cheaper souvenirs, invest in a quality piece that best represents the fun of your travels. This could be a carving, a snow globe, a figurine, etc.
- Send yourself beautiful postcards from wherever you go, and then when you get home, pin them up on a large corkboard that takes up space only on the wall and is a great visual reminder of your holiday.
- Fridge magnets are another great idea of a visual reminder of your holidays and you can contain them to one place in your house.
- Use your souvenirs as a practical storage item. For example, a tall wooden giraffe I bought in Africa is a reminder of my trip to Africa and doubles as a place to hang my necklaces and helps me keep the clutter down.
So when you go on holiday, remember you want to bring home with you the peace and fun of your holiday and not a suitcase of things that will clutter your home and destroy your calm and relaxed state.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 
I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed 2010 and that your Christmas day is full of love and gratitude.
For me, I am grateful for my family who continue to support and encourage me and are my greatest cheerleaders. And I am so very thankful for my friends and all the laughs we’ve enjoyed and for sharing the ups and downs of life. Both the good times and bad times are better when shared.
Wishing you a 2011 full of all the best things in life. Here’s to lots of laughs in the year ahead
Car Games for Kids (And the Adults)
Holidays usually means we will be spending more time in the car driving greater distances to visit family and friends or to go away on holidays. Here are our tips to avoid the inevitable “Are we there yet?” cries from the backseat.- Create a bag for each child with new fun things like books, games and comics.
- Pack energy bars, fruit, poppers and water.
- Create a music folder on your ipod of music that both you and your kids love. After all, there are only so many times you can listen to The Wiggles!
- Collect together a great range of car games to keep the kids entertained. Here are a couple of our favourite car games:
- Car Bingo – create cards with pictures of items that the kids need to look for. If you are heading to the sea, make up a bingo card with pictures of palm trees, the sea, sand, surfboard, etc. If you are heading to the country, make a bingo card with pictures of cows, sheep, tractors, ute, shed, etc.
- Noughts and crosses – plain paper and a coloured pencil is all your kids need to play this fun game.
- Hangman – once again, plain paper and coloured pencils are all you need to test you and your kids knowledge of words.
- Cars and License Plates – have your kids write down all the different brands and types of cars. They can also do this for license plates, noting the different States.
- Alphabet Game – starting with the letter A, one child names something they can see that starts with the letter A. The next child then names something they see that starts with the letter B. And so on through the alphabet. Remember to have your turn too!
- Colour Game – each person chooses a colour and then on your count, each child looks for as many passing cars in their colour. When you call stop, the child with the most points wins.
- Drawing – have plain paper and coloured pencils so your kids can draw.
Keeping the kids entertained on car journeys can be a challenge however with a little bit of planning and organisation, you will find that your car trip can be fun and enjoyable.
Narelle regularly appears in press and on radio with time management & organising tips & solutions:
