Blog
In addition to actually doing the organizing, another of Angie’s passions is writing about organizing.
She has been writing a monthly blog on organizing since 2016. Most of the blog posts were also published as monthly newspaper articles in the Kingsport Times-News and Johnson City Press.
To access the blog, you can either:
Click on a category below to see all the blog entries from that category; OR
Scroll the feed of blog entries below
- Apps
- Bathroom
- Business
- Children
- Christmas
- Computer
- Decluttering
- Digital organizing
- Estate planning
- General Organization
- Getting Records Together
- Goals
- Health
- Home Organization
- Kitchen
- Media
- Medical
- Mental clutter
- Minimalism
- Moving
- New Year
- Office
- Organizing Principles
- Paper organizing
- Phone
- Photo Organizing
- Photo organizing
- Preparing for Death
- Purse
- Residential organizing
- Resolutions
- School
- Technology
- Television
- Time Management and Productivity
- Travel
- Working from Home
Comparing Cloud Photo Services
My last article described the basic steps for organizing digital photos. I recommended using cloud photo services for storage but didn’t go into much detail. In this article, my husband Eric and I share our experiences using the 3 biggest cloud photo services to complete 3 commonly performed tasks, and we make recommendations for choosing the service that would best meet your needs.
Organizing Your Digital Photos
Do you know where your digital photos are stored? Are they in multiple locations on multiple devices? Do you know how to find a specific picture when you need it? Do you have a plan for organizing your photos? Read on for some practical ideas and inspiration. Some of these ideas were gleaned from the APPO (Association of Personal Photo Organizers) 2018 Summit, and some are from my own experience. Warning: this is a complicated topic, and these articles will only touch the surface.
Organizing your Printed Photos (Part 2)
This article is the second one on organizing printed photos. I’ve got lots of additional tips to help you get your printed photos in order.
Organizing your Printed Photos
Since I started working as a professional organizer, I have helped a lot of people organize a huge variety of spaces and items. One common denominator of most of them is that their physical photos are a hot mess. It is not unusual for clients to show me a huge stack of boxes or bins full of photos, or even an entire closet. They are usually very overwhelmed and anxious about the sheer volume of photos that need to be organized, they don’t know where to start, and they don’t have a plan for getting it accomplished. They just keep adding to the pile, hoping that “someday” when they retire, are recovering from surgery, get snowed in one winter, etc. they will have time to tackle this huge project. Does this sound familiar? Fear not, readers. I’m here to help you get started! This article will give you a simple plan to get started with organizing your printed photos. My next article will address digital photos.
How to Organize Your Bathroom
How organized is your bathroom? And if the bathroom is such a small room in the house anyway, why should you even care? We all spend the first and last part of every day in the bathroom getting ready for the day or getting ready for bed. The level of organization in your bathroom can make these two time periods either quick, easy, and peaceful or slow, complicated, and stressful. I know that I would definitely prefer the former to the latter, and I’m pretty sure you would too.
Better Organizing=Better Grades
For many students and parents alike, grades are the biggest worry throughout the school year. This worry starts early and continues throughout all grade levels, even into the college years. It can often seem like so much is riding on these scores. So many factors can influence grades, and volumes of research have been done to find the magic formula to produce top marks. When I think back over my school years and those of my children, I am convinced that the most important factor in achieving good grades was simply being organized. While intellect, creativity, and study methods definitely played a part, basic organizing skills were pivotal in achieving good results.
How to Pack Bags for Frequent Activities
Now that we’re in the heart (and heat) of the summer, most of us are really on the move! Not only are we traveling more, but we are likely also headed to the pool, summer camp, rehearsal, sports practice, hiking or biking, and the gym, among others. Most of these activities require you to bring along supplies of some sort. Don’t you hate remembering at the last minute that you need to bring something but you can’t find it? How about arriving for an activity only to find out that you’ve forgotten something essential? Moments like this sure can turn a relaxing summer day into a stressful one quickly. How can you be assured that you will always arrive to these activities on time with everything you need? By planning ahead and organizing, of course! Here are my top suggestions for packing bags for frequent activities:
An Organized and Stress-Free Vacation
We’re finally in the midst of the summer break from school, and all across the country, families are rejoicing. It’s a wonderful time for making family memories. Of course some of the best summer memories are made on vacation. For my family, that usually meant a trip to Myrtle Beach. As a child, I was lucky to not have to worry much about the planning, because my mother pretty much took care of everything. As an adult, it didn’t take long to realize all of the work involved. Great vacations don’t just magically happen. Being organized is always important, but it may be even more important with regards to travel. One careless mistake like forgetting to put your suitcase in the car (me) or forgetting a passport for an international trip (a friend) can ruin a vacation. Here are some of my top tips for traveling.
Traveling (Through Life) Lightly
Whenever I hike, I am always thankful that my backpack is so light. When I travel, I try to apply that same principle when packing my suitcase. If I stuff too many items in my suitcase, I end up lugging a very heavy suitcase everywhere. If I’m flying, I would have to pay an extra fee if the suitcase weight is over the 50 pound limit or I would have had to take two suitcases. I don’t want to face any of those consequences, so I make my selections carefully. When it comes to backpacks or suitcases, I definitely agree with American travel writer Rick Steves’ who describes two kinds of travelers, “those who pack light, and those who wish they had.” What if we evaluated every item in our home just as carefully? What if we were just as discriminating in our choices?
"Container Concept" Helps Us Set Limits
I love containers. I love the variety: boxes, baskets, bins, drawers, crates, jars, folders, tins, and…well, you get the idea. I love all of the different shapes and sizes and colors and textures. The Container Store just might be my favorite store. By the way, I really want a Container Store in the Tri-Cities area (the closest one is in Charlotte, NC), so if you have been wanting to open a store, you have my full support and promise of lots of business. As an organizer, my love of containers should come as no surprise. I do spend quite a bit of time figuring out the perfect container in a situation. But when I use the word “container”, I often mean so much more than just a “receptacle in which something is held or carried”. I am referring to a principle called the container concept.
When the Organizer is Disorganized
Sometimes a story is just too funny to keep to yourself, even if it paints you in a slightly unfavorable light. I had been looking forward to attending my first NAPO (National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals) conference for years. NAPO is an organization of 3,500+ members who are dedicated to helping people and businesses bring order and efficiency to their lives. I have been a member of NAPO from the very beginning, even before I officially launched my business in August, 2016. I had taken online classes, read their daily email discussions, and had corresponded by email and phone with several organizers from all around the US. When I decided to attend the NAPO 2018 conference in Chicago, I just couldn’t wait to finally interact with other list-obsessed people like me.
Reflections on my First NAPO Conference
On a Sunday afternoon at the end of April, I was on a plane headed home. As always, there was a safety video playing with detailed instructions about how to operate your seat belt, the importance of identifying the closest exit (“keeping in mind that the closest exit may be behind you”), and how to find an inflatable lifejacket in the unlikely event of an emergency. Since my husband and I love to travel, I have watched this video and listened to this message countless times. But that day, I was particularly inspired by one of the opening lines of the video. “At Delta, we believe a good trip is not about the destination, but about the people you meet along the way.” I couldn’t agree more.
Are You Ready to Reclaim Your Garage?
Happy spring! I hope you’ve been able to enjoy some time outdoors on the warmer days. Lawn mowing season is in full gear, and many people are working on their vegetable and flower gardens. Or maybe like me, you’re enjoying trips to the Kingsport Farmers Market, where you can enjoy the fruits and vegetables of someone else’s gardening efforts. As you enter your garage for supplies to begin these tasks, odds are that over the fall and winter, your garage has accumulated some clutter and may need some attention.
Organizing in Mexico: A Unique Challenge
Last week I had one of the most unusual and challenging organizational projects ever. I am sharing this experience with you because the principles I learned hold true for any organizing task. My husband Eric and I were in Cozumel, Mexico volunteering on the campus of Ciudad de Angeles (City of Angels), Ciudad de Angeles (https://www.ciudaddeangeles.org/) is a Christian children’s home that provides a permanent home for orphaned, abandoned, abused, and needy children in Mexico. Our family has been involved with Ciudad for about 13 years, and we visit yearly to spend time with the child we sponsor and to help with improvements to the campus. Our “Mexican daughter” isn’t a child anymore; she’s actually now 20 years old and a student at the local university.
Homeless Clutter
When it comes to my job, helping people deal with the clutter in their homes is my bread and butter. Clutter is defined as a collection of things lying about in an untidy mass. Clutter can accumulate anywhere in a home, but what I encounter most often is cluttered surfaces in the common areas of the home like the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms. Sometimes clutter piles up because we simply don’t take the time to put items back in their proper place. Taking a few extra seconds to return items to their home instead of placing them somewhere quickly easily solves that problem. But what if an item has never been assigned a proper location, or home? What do you do with it when you finish using it? More often than not, that item will end up on a kitchen counter, desk, coffee table, or some other surface. When that same outcome occurs frequently, before you know it, the surface is no longer visible or usable.
Book Review: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
From the first time I heard about this book until its publication in English at the beginning of 2018, I had eagerly anticipated reading it. There had been much buzz about it among organizers since it is a topic that is well-known to us. Written by Margareta Magnusson, a Swedish artist and widow who is “somewhere between 80 and 100”, this book details a common practice in Sweden called death cleaning. The title alone is quite an attention grabber. Perhaps you assume that it means cleaning someone’s home after they die. This is, after all, a very common occurrence here in the U.S. The tradition of Swedish death cleaning is an attempt to completely prevent this situation from occurring in the first place.
Organizing Your Purse
I may never find the perfect purse, but if I can get my purse organized and keep it that way, that’s just about as close to perfect as it will ever get for me. If you really want to make a difference in your daily life, spend some time organizing your purse. I guarantee it will simplify your life, save you time, and make you feel like cussing less. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? So, without further ado, here’s my step by step plan for organizing your purse.
My Top Tech Tools for Organizing
This week’s article is a break from the usual topics of decluttering and home organizing. As a lover of technology, I am often amazed at how much I rely on it to keep my life organized. My husband Eric is a computer programmer with Groupon and has always been quick to utilize technology, while I have tended to resist. He may have felt at times like he was dragging me kicking and screaming into the digital age. Although I still tend to utilize notes on index cards for daily reminders, I have mostly transitioned to digital tools for almost everything. In this article, I will highlight my favorite tech tools for organization.
5 Steps to Decluttering Success
One good thing about being stuck inside is that I can focus on anything inside my home that needs to be done. When it comes to organization (my favorite of all activities), I believe the top priority should always be decluttering. Decluttering simply means removing what doesn’t belong in a space. Most of us would agree that we just have way too much stuff. When a space is overloaded with stuff, any efforts to organize that space are wasted. My goal in this article is to give you a practical list of steps that you can use to declutter any area of your home. With this checklist in hand and a little bit of time, you should be able to tackle any space and make significant improvements.
The Many Faces of Clutter
You might have an image in your mind right now that symbolizes your definition of clutter. That image might be similar to this photo of a garage that I recently helped declutter and organize. That’s how most people visualize clutter. But clutter is a much broader concept than just piles of stuff.