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Does Your Closet Serve You Well?

3/26/2020

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​Do you feel like this?
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This was me about six years ago.  I kept telling myself, “I’ll clean my closet when I have time”. I was busy, tired, and overwhelmed. Managing our six kids, a business, and life.  I knew that I had to STOP and take care of my closet. This had become a place where I tossed stuff until I had time to put it away.  But, it didn’t happen. Not for a long time. I realized that I needed to take the time to declutter and organize.  

I spent one whole day decluttering my closet.  I sorted through my clothes and eliminated everything that I didn’t like, fit, or wear.  Then, I took the things out of my closet that didn’t belong there. And finally, I looked at the way I had it organized and I rearranged the areas that needed it.

I felt AMAZING and RELIEVED after I was done.  So many things that were in my closet went out the door; either to the trash, donation, or back to who it belonged to.  The “less is more” phrase is so true! Less stuff = more freedom. Freedom from the things that don’t serve me. Freedom from the feelings of guilt I had because I “didn’t have time”.  Freedom from the frustration I had when I couldn’t find something that I knew that I had.

Does your closet serve you well, or do you need to take a day and deep dive into your closet?  I would encourage you to set aside a day to tackle your closet. Supplies that I suggest before you begin:
  • Your favorite drink and snack
  • Trash bags
  • Bins, boxes, or bags to go to donation
  • Bin for things that need to be returned to someone else
  • Music or podcast to keep you motivated.  My favorite podcast is Organize 365.  Lisa is a great motivator :)
Know that this will take time, emotional energy, and perseverance.  I want to encourage you to organize your closet while you have the time.  You will feel AMAZING when you are done!
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I’d love to see your before and after photos!

For more inspiration, The Ultimate Closet Design and Organizing Guide.
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Let’s Do it Together!
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We Still Need To Do The Laundry!

3/23/2020

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The laundry will keep coming, no matter what is going on in the world today.  The coronavirus season will either increase or decrease the laundry in your home.   I say this because as our activities change during this season, you may have more time right now to focus on your laundry area.

Some people who are not going into their place of work and working remotely from home may not need to “get dressed for work” and could possibly reduce the amount of laundry that is created during the week.  Others will discover an increase in their family’s laundry because more people are home. 

Whatever your laundry situation is, if you need to work on your laundry area, this may be a good time to jump into this project! Begin by evaluating what your laundry area is being used for. Is it only a laundry area, or is it a multi-purpose area? Has it become a dumping ground for things because you’ve been “too busy” to slow down long enough to create easy to use systems and maintain them?  This season of life that we are all looking at right now may be just what you need to make some changes in your laundry room!
  • Take out the trash - throw out anything that is trash
  • Put things away - this can be a dumping ground, so put things back where they belong
  • Sort through your laundry supplies - eliminate what you don’t use
  • Keep on the supplies that you use - get rid of those products that you "just had to have"
  • Do you laundry - now is the time to get caught up
  • Fold your laundry
  • Put it away! 
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Do you have an easy and functional way to corral the dirty laundry that needs to be washed?  How do you manage the clean laundry? Who does the laundry - is it your or is it a family group effort?  Can the laundry room be simplified?

Some people like to do all their laundry on one day of the week. If this is your preferred way, how do you contain it until it needs to get washed?  We have bins in our laundry room that are designated by color or type. These are the bins that we use in our house: special (hand wash/hang dry), towels/sheets/blankets, colors, whites, and dark colors.  Our family has used the same laundry baskets for 19 years! They just stay in the laundry room. The dirty laundry gets put into the correct basket, and when it is full, it gets washed. I know that a full laundry basket is one load.  

Others like to do laundry throughout the week.  I have done 1-2 loads of laundry every day for years when everyone lived at home.  (This year we are down to 4 out of 8 people). There was no way under the sun that I could do it all in one day.  Now I am able to do laundry just a few days a week. I prefer this method to the all in one day method because I can easily fold the laundry at the end of the day before I go to bed. 

Once the laundry is done, it’s time to fold and put away.  This is where a lot of people stop. They just don’t like to fold and put away laundry.  This leads to piles of clean clothes that sit unfolded - getting wrinkles - and potentially getting mixed up with dirty clothes.  I’ve seen this happen. Then there is so much more laundry to do when you don’t know what’s what.

Creating a simple system is key to making doing your laundry easy. Whoever folds the laundry in our home puts the clean clothes in each person’s assigned spot.  Then, everyone picks up their clean laundry from the laundry room. It’s an easy delivery system for us. 

Maybe you keep laundry baskets in each bedroom, and send them back with clean clothes. Perhaps your family members do their own laundry.  If this is the case, assign each person their day of the week to do their laundry and put it away. My family members now do their own laundry, and I just keep up with the laundry for my husband and myself, sheets, and towels.
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I'm encouraging you to use this season as an opportunity to dig into your laundry room and make changes that will help make it easy!

Figure out what works best for you, and I’d love to see what your laundry room looks like!

Let’s Do it Together!
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Too Busy Is Not An Excuse

3/21/2020

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How many times have we said “I’m too busy” or “I don’t have time” as a reason or excuse for not taking care of household projects?  How many times have we told ourselves “I’ll do ____ when I have time”? We are moving into a period of time that will allow you and me to dive into household projects.  We will have time because the world as we know it is slowing down. This doesn’t mean that everything will come to a screeching halt. However, with the restrictions that are being imposed, we will be at home much more than we have been.

Eating out in restaurants, for example, has been eliminated in many states.  (I do, however, encourage you to continue to order from your favorite restaurant via carry-out.)  Not spending time with family and friends at sporting, music, theater, and social events frees up time that you would be away from home.  You now are given the opportunity to use this time to focus on the various home projects that you have put on the back burner due to being “too busy”.  Here are some ideas of what you can focus on while you are home.
  • Kitchen
  • Laundry room
  • Closets
  • Bathrooms
  • Storage areas
  • Toys & games
  • Kids rooms
  • Paper piles
  • Photos
  • Passion projects
Look at the list and start with the area that will make the biggest impact for YOU.  What area causes you the most stress (and is most cluttered!) that you haven’t been able to focus on because you can never find that block of time to work on it?  This should be the area that you focus on first. 

Declutter, discard, and then organize.  As you tackle this area, you will not only see visible results, you will feel the stress that the disorganization created fade away.  I promise you will have a spring in your step!   


Prioritize the above areas, and work your way around your home while you have the time!  This may be the only time that you are encouraged to stay home! Kind of like a big “time out.”  Embrace this opportunity to deep dive into your home spaces.  

Imagine how you will feel when the restrictions are lifted and your home is organized.  The relief of getting those projects done is priceless.

What area will you focus on first?  Let’s encourage each other. :)

Let’s Do It Together!
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5 Questions to Take the Guesswork Out of Decluttering

7/9/2019

1 Comment

 
De-cluttering can be overwhelming time-consuming. While it’s true de-cluttering can take a lot of time, the results can be life-changing!  Before organizing your space, I like to talk about getting to Ground Zero.  This is the place where all the unnecessary, unwanted, and junk is gone and you are left with the things you love and need.  When you get here you will then be able to begin to organize your spaces. De-cluttering first is key!
You know you need to de-clutter your kitchen, office, spare room, or garage.  You keep looking at the space and walking by it, vowing to get started “tomorrow”.  Tomorrow comes and goes, as do weeks and months. Why haven’t you started? Why do you keep walking by, feeling overwhelmed, guilty, and frustrated?   It may be because you don’t know HOW to start to de-clutter that space. It’s easier to put it off, ignore it, and tell yourself that you will get to it later.  
Here are 5 questions I ask my clients.  Answering these questions will help you to gain clarity and decide if you need to keep the items or not.   Let’s get to it!
  1.  Is this useful to me?  Is this something that we need in our home?  Does it serve a purpose, or is this something that I have used, but an not using anymore?  When you stop to think about it, we go through phases of life, and each phase has things that we have collected at that time, for a reason.  If you moved passed the season for the item, feel free to pass it on to someone else who may be ready to use it.
  2. Do I have something else similar to this that I can use?  I love to use the example of wooden spoons in a kitchen.  How many do you really need?  Sometimes we collect similar items that can be used for the same purpose. For example pressure cooker, crockpot or slow cooker, instant pot, rice cooker.  These four small appliances take up storage space. When is the last time you have you all of them? A solution could be: keep the instant pot because it can be used as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, and rice cooker.  This is one example of streamlining appliances or tools that we have.  
  3. Am I only keeping it because I spent money on it?  This can be a tough one.  Money is something that causes us to hold tightly onto things.  We can’t bear to let something go if we have spent a lot of money on it.  We ignore the fact that we don't use it, it doesn’t fit, it’s broken, we frankly don’t even like it.  But we are bound to keep the item because we spent money on it. I’m giving you permissions, actually, encouraging you to let go of these things!  If it’s not serving you and you won’t use it, why are you using valuable space in your home to store this item? Especially if you can’t even get a refund!  I encourage my clients to let go of the guilt, rehome the item, and chalk it up to a bad purchase decision. You know we have all made them! Toss the item, toss the guilt!
  4. Am I only keeping this item out of obligation?  The gift, the treasure, the things that someone thought you just had to have!  Sentimental gifts are hard. Keeping something because you want to because you have warm feelings about the memory associated with the item.  I am all about saving things! Keeping something that you don’t want or need, because it was a gift is not necessary. Would that person really care if you kept it?  Can you send it on its way to bless someone else? Please lose the guilt of holding onto something out of obligation. This can fall under emotional manipulation. Don’t go there, make your choices, and keep it if you love it.
  5. Am I saving this “Just In Case”?  This is one of my favorite questions to ask. I like to start with a) when is the last time you used it?  (good grief it its been years!) b) do you think Just In Case will be coming for a visit? c) do you know of someone else who has the same item that you could borrow if Just In Case comes to visit?   I also like to add, if you are an FB user and need something for a one time use, ask your friends, someone is bound to have it! 
If you are ready to de-clutter, I would love for you to join the July Weight Loss Challenge!  During this month, we are de-cluttering our homes, and tracking the weight of what we are de-cluttering.  I did this last year and our home lost 822# of STUFF!  Join us in the Organizing Your Chaos FB Group and download the free #JulyWeightLossChallenge Tracker to help you as you declutter your home!  I would love to know how much weight your home will lose :)

Let's Do It Together!

1 Comment

    Monique Horb

    I coach busy, tired, and overwhelmed women who struggle with "winning at work and losing at home".  We work together to transform your life from chaotic to calm.  De-cluttering your home, paper piles, and over-flowing schedule will you the confidence, time an energy to do what God created for you to do. 

    I am a Christian, wife, and mom to six :)  I've struggled with feelings of hopelessness, depression, and overwhelm. I know first-hand that life can be really hard.  I also know that when you have someone walking along side of you, changing things in your life is so much easier.  We all need someone to walk beside us.  Let's Do It Together!

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  • HOME
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  • ABOUT
    • Happy Clients
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    • FAQ
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    • Code of Ethics