4 Tips to Tackle the Tech Clutter
As professional organizers we deal with lots of clutter, but clutter comes in all forms. One type of clutter worth discussing is e-clutter -being digitally disorganized. I’ve rounded up some proven tips for tackling your e-clutter and protecting yourself from viruses.
Do you get vertigo from your heading spinning, trying to keep up with all this technology? I CERTAINLY DO!!! Passwords, cables, computers, phones, etc. I feel like my household could employ a full time IT professional.
In celebration of National Techies Day (who knew there was such a thing?) and Virus Appreciation Day (honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve got the right kind of virus here but let’s just roll with it), let’s tackle our technology.
As professional organizers we deal with lots of clutter, but clutter comes in all forms. One type of clutter worth discussing is e-clutter -being digitally disorganized. I’ve rounded up some proven tips for tackling your e-clutter and protecting yourself from viruses.
1 Declutter Your Screens
After a while, our screens can begin to look like a kitchen counter after the kids just helped you cook. One way to start decluttering is by tossing everything you no longer use or need. Technology quickly becomes outdated or even broken. If you don’t use it, find another home for it (away from your home and life). Once the physical tech clutter is out of mind, you can focus on the digital clutter. Take a look at your desktops, files, social media feeds, and your email inbox. Is it a chaotic mess in there? Get to deleting! Delete what you no longer need, then unsubscribe and unfollow the noise. Next time you open up your device, it’ll be a breath of fresh air.
2 Dealing with passwords
The same process involved with organizing your physical items applies to your electronic technology. Once you have decluttered your e-clutter it’s time to organize it. Think about putting your passwords in one easily accessed location. There are many apps available to keep track of your passwords.
3 Protect Your Digital Self
The reviews are in for the best antivirus protection software of 2018. Make sure your information and accounts are safe!
4 Shop to Organize
Even if technology isn’t your thing, shopping to organize it might just be your new thing! Here are some fun products to help handle with the tangible items lying around that’s associated with all this technology.
This is great to house all of your family’s electronics.
Pro Tip: Get your kids to plug into this nightly to keep the electronics out of their rooms.
This is great not only for travel but for keeping track of all of your cables and adapters on a daily basis. Bonus: just pack it when you are ready to leave on a trip.
Tackling your e-clutter is no different than tackling your physical clutter. Break it down into manageable tasks. Most experts agree that tackling your email inbox is the best place to start. Delete, Defer, Delegate, Do. These are your marching orders! Techies, go attack that email inbox!
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Decorating Your Home This Fall Without Falling into Chaos
If you’re as busy as I am, decorating for all those holidays can become overwhelming, so over the years I’ve developed practices that make these daunting tasks very doable. I hope my lessons learned are helpful to you as we approach one of the busiest times of year!
I absolutely LOVE the later half of the year! It’s like one fun event after another. We go from high school, college and NFL football, to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and College Bowl games, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza and then New Years Eve! It almost feels like there is something to celebrate on a weekly basis in the fall. And being who I am, I embrace the opportunity to turn every one of those occasions into a decorating event.
But if you’re as busy as I am, decorating for all those holidays can become overwhelming, so over the years I’ve developed practices that make these daunting tasks very doable. I hope my lessons learned are helpful to you as we approach one of the busiest times of year!
The Chaos Coordinator of Halloween!
Divide…
If you’re an avid decorator like me, you have multiple areas to “dress up” for the season.
My first piece of advice is to divide.
Around mid-September to the beginning of October I start setting out my fall decorations. I find it best to divide my home into vignettes then tackle those areas piece by piece. I place everything I need for each area in bins labeled for those respective areas. That way I can easily decorate each area with just a few minutes.
And Conquer.
After all of my items are divided into their respective areas, it’s time to conquer the task a little at a time. For example, when I have a little extra time, I’ll take out my Halloween foyer bin and start decorating that particular vignette.
Pro Tip: Include a picture of the decorated area in each storage bin. This way, you can quickly remove the items not needed for this holiday vignette and get to decorating with exactly the elements you need. Decorating from a picture helps take some of the pressure off, and even makes the task easy (and fun) to pass along! Over the years I’ve been able to hand off the foyer, mantle and other simple areas to my children to decorate. It’s fun getting the whole family involved.
Then, Hit Reverse!
When it’s time to return to “normal,” I reverse the process. Taking down the decorations is just as easy when using this method. I can easily un-decorate a little at a time without turning my house upside down in the process. This makes decorating year after year a fun activity rather than a chore.
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Chaos Organizing Hits Texas!
Here it is! The big thing that is actually happening! Chaos Organizing of Texas is born! Read more to hear our story.
Today is National “Talk like a Pirate Day!”
What’s a Pirates favorite letter? R you say? Nope, SEA!!!!
Ok, There’s my attempt at humor. A funny passed along by my teenage son. lol
Did you know my sorority, Tri-Sigma, was a pirate sorority? Ha! It’s really not, but I actually had someone ask me that. The reason? We have a skull and cross bones on our badge and a sailboat is our symbol. While we certainly aren’t a sorority of pirates (which actually sounds fun to me) sisterhood and sorority life is still impacting my present life in such a positive way!
Thanks to our daughters being summer roommates and Tri-Sigma sisters as well, Lisa Clement and I rediscovered our 30 year old college friendship. Like many of my friends, she has followed my journey with Chaos Organizing for the last 5 plus years and had a million questions about what I do and how I do it. We spent a lot of time talking about our kids, husbands, passion for organizing, decorating and helping others, and as true southern ladies, our love for wearing pearls. Seriously! It’s a thing!
We had so much in common. We even own the exact same bed and marble top tables. It was crazy! Lisa lives in Houston, which is a big bummer for me. 5 hours apart from my old/new friend. But she had a brilliant idea that would change everything….You know that gut feeling that something big is happening but you just can’t put your finger on it? Well, I had that feeling and so did Lisa.
Here it is! The big thing that is actually happening! Chaos Organizing of Texas is born! Lisa is not a pirate, loves her family and her pearls and will be a great partner on this next adventure! Please send her a message welcoming her to the team. I know she’d love to hear from you.
A Mom’s Tips for a Back To School Routine
When it was time for my kids to go back to school, I longed for routine and order.
The truth is we all do what we can, the best we can. Some days this means we hit all the targets, and it’s OK. We all have those days. We get it! Well, let me tell you what I learned in those days: I finally realized I needed to apply my classroom management skills to my home. Maybe this idea can help you too!
Back to School! Yes, I’ve said it! The words kids hate at this time of year. While I enjoy the unscheduled days of summer, I find the routines that the school year brings to be calming, although hectic.
With one in college and one starting his junior year, my schedule is a lot freer than it has ever been. That being said, I remember the hustle and bustle of the mornings and evenings with younger children like it was yesterday. It was so hard! I like to think back to the many mornings that went off without a hitch, but who’s kidding?
So many times I ended up with someone in tears on the ride to school because by the time I said, “Get your shoes on!” for the fourteenth time, I was losing it. Some days I was the one in tears on the way to school feeling like a terrible, chaotic mom. How could anyone have a good day if it started that way? I have a degree in early childhood and family studies, for Pete’s sake! I can manage a classroom full of children; what is going wrong here?
I longed for routine and order.
The truth is we all do what we can, the best we can. Some days this means we hit all the targets and our children look as organized as the Von Trapp children with the Captain. Other days it means we look like we are herding cats while trying to juggle chainsaws. It’s OK. We all have those days. We get it!
Well, let me tell you what I learned in those days: I finally realized I needed to apply my classroom management skills to my home. Maybe this idea can help you too!
Routines. Routines were the key to my classroom, and they were certainly key to my family having smooth mornings and evenings. Evening routines were the most important, especially with young children. They thrive on consistency and routines.
Think about your mornings. What could be done in the evening to alleviate stress in the mornings? For my family, this meant laying out clothes and packing lunches the night before.
Here is a sample of our evening routine when my children were young:
Clean up toys
Dinner
Make lunches (Kept in the fridge until the morning)
Get out school clothes
Pack any papers needed in backpacks and put backpacks at the door. (Should be done at homework time.)
Bath/Potty
Pjs
Books
Lights out
Every bit of this can be done with the help of your children. We had approved snack baskets in the fridge and in the pantry for them to make healthy choices. They were able to help make sandwiches too. One child didn’t want bread so she simply rolled up lunchmeat and cheese!
If you don’t want to fight about the clothes every night, get a 5-tiered shelf that hangs on the closet rod. On Sundays put outfits together (1 per shelf), socks and underwear included.
If toys are given a specified home, then clean up is easier. Mom and Dad, you have to supervise this because kids are not a fan of clean up time. They WILL shove things where they don’t belong if you aren’t in there. Sorry, but you all know it’s the truth. 15 minutes should do it if it’s a nightly routine. Clean up to music to make it more fun.
Another suggestion that children will not be a fan of: No electronics during the week. I was not going to fight with my children every night to put away the iPad. Once they had phones, they were plugged in to charge in our main hall at night.
Now that all of this is done at night, the morning routine is easy. (Insert evil laugh) Well, easier than before.
Here is a sample of our morning routine when my children were young:
Breakfast – try to think healthy and protein filled. You can make breakfast muffins on the weekends if needed but kids need a healthy breakfast.
Get dressed – Hair, clothes, shoes and brushed teeth
Put lunch in backpack
Grab backpack
Off to school
That’s much better, right?
Now, here’s the best part. Type your lists on your computer. (Use pictures along with the words for young children who can’t read.) Insert these lists into sheet protectors and hang them on the refrigerator. Tie a dry erase marker to the page. Now, the kids can check off their own “to do” lists so you aren’t having to be responsible for every step. You are the overseer/assistant. The children gain a sense of independence, and you gain some peace. (Each child had his or her own age-appropriate list.)
Unfortunately, I cannot alleviate the stress of homework and projects that come with this time of year, but with these routines, I hope I can help you organize some of the Chaos that going back to school can bring.
Talk to Martha-Carol about organizing your home for back to school today!
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My Work Weekend in Alabama
Reset button set, 2017 can now begin again! Carrie and I shared many new and exciting ideas to bring to our clients! I am most excited about making new goals for Chaos Organizing’s growth and bringing fun and exciting(no eye rolls!) challenges to all of you!
What a wonderful work weekend in Alabama! My friend, Carrie Thayer of Kempt Professional Organizing in Birmingham, AL, and I stayed at the Grand Hotel in Fairhope, Alabama. We spent most of our time on the balcony of our room working with the most relaxing office view, but also took time to enjoy the food and shopping in downtown Fairhope. We indulged in a local favorite, Panini Pete’s for breakfast and can I just say, YUM!
2017 so far has brought shingles(flood stress!), children with bronchitis and an aging dog that is having issues in addition to trying to rebuild our home, so it was truly joyful to get a weekend away to reset and get back on track. (I’m sure you Moms out there understand how much healing a little girl time can bring!) Reset button set, 2017 can now begin again! Carrie and I shared many new and exciting ideas to bring to our clients! I am most excited about making new goals for Chaos Organizing’s growth and bringing fun and exciting(no eye rolls!) challenges to all of you!
Please email me if you have a specific question regarding organizing your space.
