that’s Connor under the Christmas tree

If you’re like me, you’ll use the after-Christmas sales to stock up on gift wrap, cards, etc. and get HUGE discounts.

You can get your cards at definitely 50% off; in some cases you can get an even bigger discount.

This is a great time to evaluate what you DO have so that you don’t just rush out and get more later this year when you do already have enough.

Quickly count your unused Christmas cards, gift tags, gift bags, etc. and write down the numbers on either a post-it note or index card. Store it with your supplies so you don’t have to wonder where that piece of paper is.

Here’s how I store mine

And here’s a post on my Christmas decoration storage

Happy organising

This is the ONE question I get asked by clients more than any other question.

Marcia, I want to get organised but it’s all so overwhelming.

Where on earth do I start?

There are different ways to approach this question but before we even start with the practical aspects, you need to do this:

First of all, relax and take a deep breath

Then get your mind in the right space.

Realise that this is a process and that you will not have a totally organised home in one hour, despite what you saw on Oprah last week.

Remember the home makeover shows have TONS of organizers and stylists behind the scenes making the space look beautiful. You only have you (or if you’re really blessed, a friend or family member to help you).

Now that we’ve got that part settled, let’s talk practical.

1. Start with the area of your home or life that bothers you the most.

If you can’t bear to choose clothes every morning because your wardrobe is too cluttered, then that’s probably a good place to start. The benefit of choosing this area is that when you feel overwhelmed by the rest of the house you can go to this one space, look at it and feel inspired.

2. Decide what you want to have happen in that space.

Do you only want clothes in your wardrobe, or do you want shoes and handbags in there too? If you’re not sure what you want (as with anything else in life), it’s easier to let your standards and boundaries slip and in this case, before you know it, you may have a disorganised space once again.

3. Declutter

You can’t organise clutter. Get rid of everything that shouldn’t be there. You may need to move some things to other rooms and some things may need to move right out of your house!

4. Organise what’s left according to your personality and style

Not everybody is a minimalist. Some of us need to surround ourselves with our treasures. It’s all okay.

Your system works as long as you can find what you’re looking for relatively quickly (within a minute).

5. Maintain.

Last but not least, do a quick, 5-minute maintenance session in each major space every week so that your space remains organised.

Now that you’ve read my tips, where do you think YOU should start?

Leave your answer in the comments to hold yourself accountable and get you motivated.

P.S. This product will help you get your whole house organised in just 12 weeks

I really need some motivation – in your opinion, which is the easiest room to start organizing?

Lisa from Alabaster, Alabama (USA)

I wonder if you’ll agree with my answer:

I say start with the room that bothers you the most.

Why?

• most people have higher motivation for this room than for any other
• you’ll instantly feel better when that room is done
• you’ll have momentum to organise the rest of your home

With the Organise your Home ecourse, we do just that – tackle one room at a time until your whole home is organised and you’re a happy camper again.

Usually people see big results even after week 1.

Just one of your ideas has been worth the price of the e-course alone! Everyone in the family is so excited by it.

Thank you so much – this has really been money well spent, and I really look forward to the rest of your emails every week!

Fran Kerrigan
Hartford, WI

Did you know what the two New Year’s Resolutions/ goals are that are on almost everyone’s lists?

1. Lose weight
2. Get organised

Judging from the parking lot at the gym, number one is a whole lot more popular at the moment

It also happens to be one of my goals for the year. Granted, I don’t have a huge amount to lost but I am small-framed so every kilo shows quickly.

There are a couple of things I’m doing that seem to be working for me and I thought I’d also share them with you:

1. Decide on an exercise programme ahead of time

I also like a bit of “go with the flow” spontaneity but that just doesn’t go with a weight loss regime.

I checked the gym’s schedule of classes (I only do group workouts) and decided which ones I’d do every week.

One less reason to procrastinate exercising.

2. Make yourself accountable to as many people as possible

I’ve told everyone in my team at work that I intend going to the gym every Monday and Wednesday and that they have the right to check in with me every Tuesday and Thursday to see if I’ve been.

Also, at the end of each class, I tell a couple of the regulars, “see you on Wednesday” so that there’s additional accountability.

3. Set yourself up for success

When I get home from work I change out of my work clothes and straight into my gym clothes. I’ve found that when I’m dressed the part I’m less likely to try and skip the workout.

4. Organise your eating

Every week I decide in advance what I’ll have for breakfast, lunch and supper so I’m less likely to snack on just anything.

I’m by no means perfect but I know I eat a lot less of the wrong foods by planning my meals.

5. Pack your “out of the house” food

It’s good to know what you’re going to eat as in number 4 but when you’re starving and it’ll take 30 minutes to find a healthy meal, you’re more likely to simply grab a bag of crisps and a Coke.

Again, I pre-pack cereals, etc. for the entire week and every night while preparing supper, I empty out my lunch bag and repack with food for the following day.

So far so good.

I’ve only been doing this for two weeks this year but from previous years’ experience, I know this system works well for me.

The one thing I need to stop doing is…

Buying chocolate. I keep saying I’ll only have one little block but so far that’s not working so no more!

What do you do to set yourself up for success with your weight loss and fitness goals? And what do you need to stop doing?

I am soooo not a fan of the baking mess although I do love to bake.

Actually, it’s the eating part of the baking I really love

So to avoid the kitchen looking like this every time I feel like baking something…

I measure out 3 sets of ingredients.

I then label the outside of the containers with masking tape so I know which container has which dry ingredients.

It’s not very difficult because I usually only bake muffins and these oatmeal cookies.

Then when I feel the urge to bake, all I do is get one of these containers, add the wet ingredients and load the dough onto the baking trays.

Baking then takes about 10 minutes so saves me LOTS of time and best of all, NO MESS!

What are your best baking tips?

P.S. I was all done with Christmas baking but then on Christmas Eve I found these Cowboy cookies on Bakerella’s site. They made me absolutely DROOL so I rushed home from work and got baking. And they’re delicious.

That could explain the extra weight I’m carrying…

As with almost anything though, I can’t seem to follow a recipe exactly as is so I’ve changed it a bit to suit our household (I weed out ingredients I’m not likely to have in my pantry).

P.P.S. Why is it that when you go into a homeware store you suddenly see the CUTEST baking utensils that, until that very moment, you didn’t know you absolutely had to have? You’ll be happy to know I was very strong and bravely walked out the store.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend that you dump things anywhere.

As my friend Suzanne says, “don’t put it down; put it away”.

But we all know what it’s like sometimes – you walk in the house and there’s a screaming baby or two wanting your attention, the phone’s ringing, supper’s burning, etc.

So I suggest that you have just one place to dump things in your home.

Let me explain.

Instead of having papers in your entrance hall, lounge, study, bedroom and kitchen, rather dump all the papers in a basket on your entrance hall table.

Instead of having clean clothes (that have to make their way to the wardrobes) in the lounge, on the dining room and kitchen tables and in the bathrooms, have it only in one place – the kitchen table (I’m just using examples here).

This is my dumping ground for books – my bedside table.

When I can’t decide if I want to read something now or later, it goes here. If I start a book and am not sure if I’m going to finish it (I don’t finish everything I start; life’s too short to read bad books!), it goes here.

So this is what the bedside table looked like a few weeks ago. I also don’t mind confessing there are four (!) books on getting babies to sleep in that pile.

and at the sight of a neat bedside table again, Connor says “yes Mummy!”

Do you have places to dump your stuff?

What do you tend to dump and not put away? Clothes, shoes, paper? Share

I’ve decided to do Project 365 this year where you take one photo a day.

As you know, I do like baby steps

I’ve already posted my first 9 days and there are some organising pics but if you do want to subscribe and you only want to see the organising pics, then click on the word organising under LABELS.

Here’s the new blog – http://marcia-project365.blogspot.com

Is anyone else doing this photo project?

Marci @OvercomingBusy.com has left a new comment on your post “You ask, I’ll answer“:  

Here are my suggestions for temporary paper storage:

If you’re a visual person who has to SEE things in order to remember to do them, then I’d suggest a vertical organiser.

Look in the corner of my work desk and you’ll see an example in action. It’s that ugly brown thing.

You could also use a buddy drawer system like this one with clearly labelled drawers as to what’s inside. This works great for a bill-paying system. Make sure you go through those drawers regularly though.

or last but not least, you could use a tickler file system similar to this… but you’ve got to make sure you actually check those folders regularly. This will not work well if you’re an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person

How I store my paper temporarily:

I’m all about simple so I try not to overcomplicate things.

The type of paper applicable to our situation is typically a water and lights or telephone bill. I mark down the due date and amount due in my daily planner (and in Outlook – I hate unnecessary interest charges due to disorganisation) and then toss the bills in my “to file” pile in the study.

Once I pay by internet banking, I note down the date on the actual bill and when I do my filing, I file (but I only keep 3 months’ worth except for the water and lights bill because we have a very disorganised service provider).

That is it – couldn’t be shorter and sweeter

So, how do you store paper for a short time?

This is a pic of the ice from my freezer after I finally got around to defrosting it.

Life is too short to do nothing but clean.

However we have to live in a safe, pleasant, hygienic environment and so clean we must.

Here are my tips on how to clean quicker and more efficiently:

Declutter your stuff
Once you’ve decluttered you automatically have 32% less to clean as there’s no dusting of trinkets, lifting things to dust underneath them, etc. Organise your home will help you get your entire home decluttered in no time.

Gather the troops
Every member of the household can and should participate. If there are 10 tasks to do daily and 2 people participate, the cleaning gets done quicker AND you’re teaching the kids valuable life lessons.

Remember it’s better to have the help than to have everything perfect. E.g. Don’t fuss about small things like the way the towels are folded. Better to have the help folding the laundry than to have perfectly folded towels

I will say that I do fold the towels in the guest bathroom so they’re pretty but if they’re out of sight, I don’t mind how they’re folded.

Make lists
It helps to clarify expectations when other people are participating.

Since we’re talking about laundry, let’s say once the laundry is dry, there are 4 steps left:

• take laundry off washing line
• putting clothes pegs in bag and into cupboard
• fold laundry
• clothes that don’t need ironing go straight to the respective bedrooms

When everyone understands this, there’s no more arguing because clothes are left all over the house.

Have routines
Routines set your household running like a well-oiled machine. If you do a load of laundry every day, you get better at it and it’s a quick job to load the machine and get it going every day.

Now, am I the only one who buys a new teflon non-stick pan every couple of months?

I swear I go through these like crazy.

Can you see the scratches?

Please share your favourite tips that make cleaning a breeze.

This has got to be my absolute favourite time of year:

• I get to start a new daily planner – is there anything better than the smell of clean notepaper?!
• I personalise it with all my lists and forms and make it completely user-friendly for me
• I start new notebooks for my coaching notes, household and business to-do lists
• and I go wild with decluttering

It just so happens that January is Get Organised Month so there really is no better time to get and stay organised.



If you’re thinking of getting organised this month, here’s how you can help orphans in Mozambique at the same time.

I’m donating 25% of all January sales of the Organise your Home e-course to this orphanage. Click and read how grateful these boys are for things we (me!) take for granted, like stationery and school surplies.

It is humbling!

I really want to send them a nice chunk of change  so if you’ve ever thought about getting the Organise your Home e-course, let me encourage you to get it this month so you can help them out.

To sweeten the deal, I’m giving you all 10% off the current purchase price. Simply use the coupon code MOZAMBIQUE at the checkout.

Happy New Year, everybody. Help me make those boys happy.