Not that I’m not always honest. I am.

But there are a lot of things that go unsaid on this blog.

Today I feel like talking a little about one of those things.

I’ve wanted to close down this blog many, many times.

MANY.

It often feels like I’m not good enough to do this. And by this I mean run this little organising blog.

Do you know I’ve been blogging for 6 years?

Gasp!

I know, almost a lifetime in blog years.

And there are TONS of organising blogs who not only have thousands and thousands of readers but also tons of comments. Who have been going for a year or two.

It makes me cringe, to be honest.

They post the same stuff I do (well, similar) and each post gets upwards of 50 comments. Not 4 comments like my posts get.

It frustrates me to no end.

I said I was being 100% honest, right?

By the way, I appreciate those 4 comments like nothing on earth.

I’m posting this for two reasons:

1. I read something on a blog over the last week where the lady said similar things to what I’m saying – she does all the right stuff and still doesn’t have the blogging success.

This was a total different blogging style, by the way.

When I read that I thought, “wow, I’m not alone. There are other people that feel like I do”

That encouraged me to keep going so I’m hoping if there’s someone else reading who feels the same way, it will encourage you too.

2. Something struck me about that lady, and about me.

People gave her advice about what to do to have her blog be a success and she was doing it.

I’ve paid at least two blogging coaches generous sums of money to get advice on my blog. And of course, you know I implemented all of it.

But her blog is not yet a success (in her words, not mine) and by my standards, neither is mine.

So what is the problem?

I can only think of one thing.

Maybe we both need to do one change and test results, another change and do results, and so on.

Maybe what works for the masses won’t work for us because we’re different.

Maybe we need a slower and more measured approach.

It’s like with my time management clients.

Often people will say to me – “but I know what all the experts say and I’m trying to do it, and still I feel like I never have enough time”

What I do isn’t magic.

But we do totally focus in on that person and I understand in a lot of detail what their style is, what works, what doesn’t work and how we can start to fix it.

There are methods I use with one client that will absolutely not work with another, not because of the system or the principle, but because that person is different and needs things tweaked for their style.

Maybe you’re also frustrated because it seems like there are people who have more things on the go having an easier time of it than you are?

Maybe you wonder why it is that you can’t cope with things others can?

You are different – that’s why. And you need a different way of looking at things, not a cookie-cutter approach.

Here’s what I wrote last week:

If you need help getting your life and time back on track so you can just breathe again, let me help you.

I was in exactly your position years ago and I know the desperation and frustration you feel.

Do you ever feel like your life doesn’t fit into the mould of how things “should” work?

If you blog, is your blog where you think it should be?

Hello all

I’m doing some spring cleaning on the blog. Yes, we are already knee-deep into spring but better late than never, right?

1. Please let me know if your usual feed/ links aren’t working properly because I removed the redirect so all the posts should now say organisingqueen.com/blahblahblah
2. I’ve made only half a feed publish through to the readers so that hopefully you will decide to click through and engage with me more. I know it’s easier to read from email/ reader but it’s very lonely if I hear only from one or two people.
3. Speaking of comments, to those of you who do comment, a big, big THANK YOU! When I reply (I reply to 95% of comments within the comments), do you get it coming through to your email?
I had a plug-in installed so that I could answer in the comments and it would email those people directly but Julia, you said you didn’t the ones from the system. Is that still the case? Do I need to pay someone to fix it again?

4. Do you all know how to comment? I had some feedback that the comment form was hard to find. At the bottom of every post you’ll see something like this:

Posted in intentional living | 3 comments

If you click on the link “3 comments” it will bring up an empty box to write your lovely words.

5. Do you ever click around the blog to look for things or do you just read the current post?

6. Then last but not least, and I’m almost scared to ask this question (a blogger I read asked a similar question a few months ago and people were mostly positive and constructive but boy oh boy, there were lots of very blunt comments – I told her I’d have had a nice cry ) but I’ll use my word of the year and exercise some COURAGE…

What kind of changes would you like to see on the blog that will enable you to find things better?

If you’re a techno-wizard and you have ideas in mind or links to blogs that show what you mean (because really, all I do is know how to write a bit – everything else about blogging is a big mystery to me), leave me a note in the comments.

Well, it’s the end of October and I’ve posted 25 out of an intended 31 times.

The emergency gall bladder removal threw me off and then while at home recovering I missed another day.

I’m going to be honest.

When I looked at the stats, deep inside I want to make up the days and post the answers to the other 6 questions.

However, I really miss posting in my spontaneous, loosey-goosey way.

I took some pics of the Most Gigantic Laptop Bag ever, told the girl she was going on my blog (!) and then I remembered, “oh right, I’m doing 31 days”.

So I can look at this in one of two ways:

I failed at posting 31 days OR I was 80% successful at my goal.

I’m choosing the latter option.

I’m intentionally going to be okay with the imperfection and let myself off the hook.

Hope that’s okay with you because it’s okay with me.

So here is our last question for the month…

Laura-Kim says
I battle with my grocery cupboard and repack it once a month cos it never feels right :-/ I would love to see how you organise yours!

Your wish is my command!

BIG disclaimer

I would normally do a quick tidy but I was lazy and so these are (very clearly) the “before” pic. I do usually tidy quickly on the weekends. I mentioned before that there are too many people working inside my cupboards for them to stay tidy.

Moving on.

I have four shelves.

Right on the top, from left, Dion’s snacks and then cereals. It always seems excessive to me but some of us like lots of variety.

Next shelf – biscuits, baby snacks and teas/ coffees

This is the main food shelf – cans on left, then legumes, rices, noodles and pasta, packets of soup, sauce, etc, and then spreads.

Did you notice I’m the only one who seems to fill the rice containers??? Those rice labels are circles punched with a circle punch, handwritten (no fancy fonts!) and stuck on with Prestik.

I’m all about the easy organising. Although seeing these pics does make me want to attack this cupboard.

The last shelf has my snacks on the left, some sweets and things at the back and a bottle of Coke (we keep only for visitors as we don’t drink soda) and then baking things.

Close-up of the 3rd shelf.

Things that work for me in this space

1. Everything has a place.
2. When I pack away the weekly grocery shop, I do a quick tidy. It takes 5 minutes because it’s a weekly task.
3. Labels

Please click through and share your favourite grocery cupboard/ pantry organising tips.

PS I nominated myself for the SA blog awards and I would appreciate a vote if you’re so inclined.

Thank you.

When you take off just one day from reading blogs and your previously empty reader goes to 120 unread items, you know it’s time to start decluttering.

Well, that’s how I know it’s time to start decluttering.

The thing is…

I typically have a problem letting go. I’d say that on the scale of 1 – 10, where 1 is terrible and 10 is great, I’m about a 3.

• What if they post something super-awesome and I miss it?
• What if there’s the PERFECT organising tip and I don’t see it?
• What if there’s the best crafty idea ever?
• What if I just miss out?

(clearly I think too much)

But I’m going to set myself mini goals.

I already started. From 116 subscriptions I’m already down to 98.

I’m telling myself that somehow, somewhere, if something is meant to find its way back to me (!), I’ll either see it featured on a blog I still read or on Pinterest.

How’s that for positive self-talk?

So how good are you at letting go?

And more importantly, how many do you have in your reader?

If you normally read my blog in a reader, click through and come on over.

Organising Queen has had a makeover.

As with any makeover, there’s a story…

I got another blog redesigned on blogger and wanted the same designer to do this one but she doesn’t do WordPress so I said, “no problem, do the designing of the little bits and pieces and I’ll get someone to add it on later”

Not such a little problem.

My usual person has been moving and whatnot so has been unavailable and eventually I begged and begged some more and the lovely Jayme (who is a rockstar mom also with twins) agreed to do it for me.

(thank you to all the others who also offered to do the work)

What do you think?

What should I move around? How can I make things easier for you to find?

BTW, what is the difference between tags and categories, and when do you use one vs the other? (in blogger, it’s so easy – there’s one thing, and it’s called labels)

Okay, so I’ve decided to organise things a bit more on the blog.

I’m leaning very heavily toward having a specific topic for each day of the work week, with Sat and Sun off unless I have some “burning issues” things to post

How does this look?

M – inspiring space (to showcase something I found on the internet or a reader’s organised space, big or small)
T – something on purposeful and intentional time management (the simplify your life posts would fall under this category)
W – proper article (like on decluttering your computer, organising photos, overcoming procrastination, lists you should be using, etc)
T – question to hear from you (like do you wear a watch? how many bins do you have, etc. – I must admit, these are my favourite because I get to hear from so many of you)
F – inspiration in action – this is all about me (how I store ribbons, organise my car keys, my bedside table, Pampers box, etc)

These ideas are written in PENCIL in my notebook. Which means they can change!

I would love to hear from you – what other ideas do you have? What would you like to read about on the blog?

Also, this will only start properly in a few weeks once my guest bloggers have completed the Simplify your Life ecourse.

Today, Dion and I celebrate 16 years of marriage.

I can’t believe it either but we were very, very young when we married

And yes, Will and Kate chose a good day to get married!

We didn’t do anything special besides drive back home from our holiday but tomorrow we are going on a proper date while our nanny babysits.

***********************

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to meet a blogger!

I’ve had it on my life list for years and years to meet 10 bloggers in my lifetime. This is number 3.

My first was Ali and then there was Suzanne who met up with me in Scotland and now Laura.

Who will be next?

I travelled all the way to Sabie and Laura travelled all the way from Mozambique.

She told me I officially have the record of her furthest lunch date.

I am strangely pleased by this.

Laura and I had a long, three-hour lunch and we spoke a lot.

I’ve been mulling over something she said yesterday. I’m paraphrasing but basically the internet is making us all lazy.

We read about cooking instead of cooking and baking, read about organising instead of just organising, read about reading instead of picking up a book and doing it, and so on.

It’s really given me pause and I’m challenging myself along with you to actually take action this weekend.

Instead of trawling tens of blogs, pick something actionable to do and just go do it (read, cook, organise, whatever).

***********************

And then last but not least, this little blog was featured among some very good blogs over here

Hi all

Hope you had a fabulous Easter weekend…

Some quick bloggy housekeeping:

1. I’ve finally put a search box on the left sidebar <——— (go on, try it – type handbags, office organising, etc. and you should find what you’re looking for)
2. I also have categories on the right sidebar ——> (can anyone tell me what the difference is between categories and tags? I have no idea what the correct labelling mechanism is……….I’m organised but not a techno “guru” – sorry )

 Happy Tuesday… and look out for a post this afternoon on saving money.

P.S. What do you want to read more of? Less of? Tell me!

Last week we spoke about decluttering all those f-r-e-e downloads (including mine!) and all the email. I always try to play along with you so I also decluttered some downloads (4 MP3 audios and 5 PDF e-books).

How did you do?

I must also apologise – I forgot to mention that as part of the Office Organising Bundle, you get Conquer your Email which will definitely help you if email’s your problem.

So how do you know if email’s a problem?

The quick answer is if you spend more than 30 minutes a day on email … but why don’t you take the assessment below this article.

90% of people waste an extra hour a day on email that they don’t have to. That hour translates to SIX WEEKS a year. You read that right – six weeks!

Now onto the rest of the computer decluttering.

Photos

Now that we’ve all gone digital, it’s so easy to snap, snap, snap and then snap some more.

Download pictures regularly, delete the bad ones there and then, and save the rest to CD or DVD regularly to fr.ee up some space on your computer.

I only print beautiful shots (because printing is so expensive here) so if I wouldn’t want to print it, I don’t keep it on my computer. If I want to use pics on the blog, I compress them immediately so that they take up 50KB as opposed to 1MB. And I name them meaningfully so I can find them afterwards with just a few clicks.

Blogs

How many blogs are you following in your Google Reader, Bloglines or other feed reader?

Do you know how long you take to read all of those blogs every day? Take some time to go through your feeds and declutter those you tend to skim over, especially if you do this 3 or more times every week.

Get to know your comfort number. Mine is around 42 – 45 and I know when I start adding more and more blogs without deleting any, I start feeling more and more overwhelmed at the sight of all those unread items!

My coaching challenge to you

1. Print out this post.
2. Tackle one of these sections every week until they’re all done.
3. Let me know when you do them.

Happy Organising.



Hi all

I don’t think I’ve ever been away from the blog as long as this before but I have two very good reasons:

Motherhood is the most rewarding, challenging, frustrating, crazy thing I’ve ever done and the twins thing? It’s seriously kicking my butt! But I’m getting there and finally seeing some light. They’ll be 10 weeks old tomorrow but as their paediatrician says, they’re only actually two weeks old because they were 8 weeks prem!

We are settling into a bit of a routine. I almost hesitate to type that because it’s a bit of a “two steps forward, one step back” business around here. Do you know what I mean?

I’m not sure what happened to the guest blogger I was meant to have for 6 weeks but now that I’m a mother, I understand that life just happens a lot of the time and sometimes survival is all you can hope for. Jenny, I hope you’re okay.

However, I had a session with my accountability partner and friend, Beth Dargis, on Friday and I’m putting blogging back onto my to-do list

So check back later this week for some more posts.

• How have you all been doing?
• What have you been up to?
• And if you care to, please share your best advice for getting through the first 6 weeks!