Organizing By The Letter: A IS FOR ACCESSIBLE

A is for accessible!

When deciding the best place to store your items, it is wise to consider how often you need to access them.   If the toaster is used daily, leaving it out or in an easy to get at cupboard would make the most sense.   For me, the coffee pot is the only item that remains on the counter at all times, oh how I love my coffee...that baby never gets put away!

In our home, the toaster only gets used occasionally so it is stored away in our pantry cupboard.  Anything I use frequently is stored in the bottoms of the upper cabinets or the upper half of the lower kitchen cabinets.   Things seldom used in the kitchen in the hardest to access spaces over my head and the occasional use items are stored in the lower cabinets towards the bottom.

The same would apply to your clothes.   The ones you wear year round and everyday would be in the front of your drawers and items like gowns and tiaras, that most of us would wear only occasionally would be stored towards the back of the closet.  Alas, my tiara ...well I have not really had one since I was 4 but if I had one, it would be stored on the top shelf on my closet in a box to protect it.

Accessible storage in most of our homes is hard to find.    Take 10 minutes to look in your kitchen cupboards and think about how you are storing your item...is the coffee close to the pot, are the cups close to the pot?  When was the last time you used that melon-baller, cherry-pitter, and the "what on earth is that for anyway" item?   If you truly cannot remember, or it has only been once in 20 years...perhaps you could  add it to your Salvation Army or Goodwill donation bag!

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Fabulous Ottawa

What a fabulous weekend we had here in Ottawa.   Sunny and lovely!

My family spoiled me all weekend for Mother's Day.   The lawn got mowed, dinners were made, patio furniture shampooed and clean for a new season, laundry got washed, watched a movie with my eldest and her sweetheart - and the best part was - I did not have to ask anyone to do any of it!

I don't know about you but when my home is not clutter filled, it is so much easier for everyone to keep on top of the little messes.  They just seem to know what to do and where to put it when there is not a lot of "stuff" laying around.

This week my plan is to complete my course material for my Lose Clutter - Gain Clarity for Charity event on June 23rd 2012. 
So exciting to raise funds for good causes. Ratanak is a charity that I have been supporting for several years and in their fight to stomp of child trafficking.   This fall we will also holding our second annual Rock The Chains: Freedom Fundraiser in October to raise additional monies for Ratanak .  Stay tuned for more on that later - have a lovely week

EMERGENCY - DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR INFORMATION IS?

One of the things I have been working on over the past few years is keeping a running log of important family information (I actually started writing this blog entry months ago and put it on the back-burner until I had accomplish more of this task myself) .  

If you disappeared tomorrow - would someone be able to walk in and know how to manage your affairs and your family?

A binder, a pretty photo album with pockets to slide 4x 6 cards into, a school notebook, whatever works best for your style would work.  The key is to choose a system and begin compiling all your information into one simple to access area.

I recently began using a new tool called My Life Locker and it is available in book form or in electronic version for both Canadian and US   http://www.mylifelocker.com/About_My_Life_Locker.html .   For me, having a ready made tool saves me brain power and helps me to "just get on with it" and... the good part is, it was developed in my home town - a lucky happenstance!!!

When building your binder, here are a few things you could consider adding

•  a list of phone numbers...doctors, who sees them and what they specialize in.
• a page with banking information - account numbers, what the bank is and the address,
•  investment accounts and contact information
• a page with a running summary of each of the kids medical information - we have some complicated issues in our family so we have surgeries listed, hospitals, specialists and the dates.   Immunizations are also listed*
• a page that lists family members, 
• where the wills can be found 
• life insurance information (Policy #'s Companies, beneficiaries and the value)
• a page with the pets information
• a page with your most important friends - who to call if something tragic were to happen
• your mortgage information
• passwords to all your online accounts
• anything that would be relevant to anyone trying to manage your affairs if you were incapacitated or worse.

Start planning what you will want to leave for your family and loved ones to help them piece together your life.  If you have ever had to manage someones estate, you already know how helpful it would have been to have all the information in one handy document - if you have never had this difficult job, trust me on this....it helps enormously saving both stress and time.

Try taking 10 minutes each day over the next few weeks to start building your Family / Life  information binder.

LOSE CLUTTER - GAIN CLARITY FOR CHARITY

  

Adventures in Organizing presents,   

a one day workshop at Community Life Ottawa.

All proceeds will be donated to two Canadian Charities.  

·        Ratanak International to aid in its fight to stop human trafficking

·        Community Life Ottawa to promote programs for youth and community outreach

Saturday June 23, 10am – 4 pm,
Cost:  $60.00 in advance (includes handouts, lunch and snack) 

Location:   Community Life Ottawa, 2 Beaverbrook Rd, Kanata ON

Please make cheques payable to:   Community Life Ottawa

Mailing Address:  Community Life Ottawa 2 Beaverbrook Road, Kanata ON K2K 1L1 

Minimum of 10 people required for class to run.

During this one day course we will take a look at how to assess our environments, how to make decisions on what to keep, toss, donate, storage systems, tackling the paper monster and how to stop it in its tracks!  We will also look at vision casting and how to ensure our homes are company ready; portray the relaxing, calm, and clutter free environment that we all strive for. 

What you need to bring:

A binder for handouts and note taking, a pencil AND …

Bring a bin of junk you have been meaning to sort through and organize.   This can be your junk drawer, a bin of kids clothing, boxes from the attic, a basket full of papers.   We will dedicate 75 minutes at the end of the day to completing one project for each attendee.

10-12:   

·        What is Organization?  Tools and Tricks, Paperwork Management

12-12:30 Lunch: (provided)

12:30 – 2:30

·        Assessing your environment, Creating an Action Plan, Main   Floor Living, Personal Spaces

2:30 – 2:45 Break (Coffee, Tea and Snack Provided)

2:45 – 4:00

·        Hands On – Work Through Your Clutter/Junk Bins

Professional Organizers In Canada

I have some really interesting classes booked over the next couple of months with POC.

You can never get to much schooling.

Organize Your Life comes to LVS Online!

It has been a fun,  busy year for me and a new term of teaching has just begun at at LVSonline.com

Check out the Organize Your Life class coming up in June.   Registration opens on May 7th for this fast paced organization class and you cannot beat the price at only $30.00 for new students and $24.00 for returning students. Below is a clip from the LVS blog about the course.

Organize Your Life Online Course

December 13th, 2010 lvs

Can you find anything in your home or office in 5 minutes or less? If you can, you are definitely on the organized track and likely are taking this course to fine tune your skills and get some new ideas to make your life more streamlined. Many others, however, struggle to find papers, bills, glasses, keys and a myriad of other items. Many of us have things in our homes, in our closets, on our desks that have not been used in the past 12 months. Of all our belongings, we use 20% of them 80% of the time! Can we consider during this course to let go of some of the 80% of the stuff that we seldom if ever use? This 80% adds substantially to the disorganization in our lives. This 20/80 formula can be applied to the papers in our homes, the files in our drawers, the gadgets in our kitchens, and the clothes in our closets. If we follow this line of thinking further, then we can extrapolate from that that approximately 50% of the items we are storing in our homes are merely clutter!

So many of us are like the majority of the people in North America over run with stuff and struggling to find enough time in our days to manage our schedules and get our tasks completed!
Organize Your Life online class is for anyone interested in finding tools to assist in organizing their homes, their paperwork and their lives.

Organize Your Life by being freed from wasted minutes. Enjoy more time with the tasks in life that give you meaning.  More time with your family, your friends, to take courses, to golf, to read, or to do nothing at all! We will work together to find the necessary minutes in the day to have some fun, rest and relaxation, and yes – fun is a necessity!

 Adventures in Organizing has a new website coming soon.   Check back for some great new new tips, tricks and tools to celebrate life.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

Much like many others in the world, I tend to spend New Years Day refelecting on the year past, where I have been, what I have accomplished and where I want to go in the New Year.
This years successes - spending lots of time playing and enjoying time with my husband, children and friends. 

I finishing writing my LVSonline course, registering for some new classes to take in the January, ensured the house is running pretty much clutter free and completed several Professional Organizer and Home Staging courses.   Life long learning is extremely important to me.

Goals for this year include:

• getting the final details of registering my business completed,
• continuing my education, teaching more organizing classes,
• moving to cash rather than credit for everything humanly possible...keeping my finances as organized as my home - and ensuring I live a debt free existence. 

Most of all my main goal is being the best wife, mother and friend I can be.

Showing kindness to those that are less than lovable and remembering that we are all creatures of God.  He died for even those I find unlovable at time - this is a challenge for me at times and one I have to constantly remind myself of.   I want to be the human being I was created to be.

Tomorrow's project:

•  list of all my expenses each month and determine how much extra I can allot to paying down debt
• set of files for all the 2011 bills
• move all 2010 bills to the back of the cabinet

We do not have a huge amount of debt but it still stresses me out none the less.  I want 2011 to be as stress free, as debt free and as organized as humanly possible.  The choice is up to me, the decisions I make during the year will either help me or hinder me, and I am excited about all the possibilities that lay before me!  As a household we are going to follow the Dave Ramsey program and see what kind of change that creates in our financial freedom.   Want to join along? 

• http://www.daveramsey.com - Get REAL debt help: Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover Plan