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OCT: Organize Chaos Today!

You know the clever acronym YOLO? It means You Only Live Once…

Calendar graphic displaying the month of OCTBy now, you’re probably hip to our series of catchy phrases encouraging decluttering inspired by the month’s abbreviation. This OCT, spend 30 minutes each week organizing chaos using the mantra organize chaos today.

Organize Chaos Today!
• Tame whatever physical craziness is crowding you
• Categorize any objects cluttering your surfaces
• Return items, no longer in use, to their “home”

• Toss anything you don’t need
• Take items to a donation center

Common chaotic areas are:
• cars (interior and trunk space)
• backpacks and gym bags
• kitchen counters and desk areas
  which might be the dining room table 😉

Make October an Organized Month!
Don’t be confined by OUR definition for October…Let us know if you like any of these acronyms better — follow the link to VOTE!:
Organize Categories Together
Organize — Categorize — Toss
Only Categorize Treasures
Insert Your Own Creative Idea

LIKE us on FB for organizing inspiration from Joy In Your Space.

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SEPT: Schedule Everyone’s Plans Together!

SEPT calendar graphic

You know the clever acronym FOMO? It’s the Fear Of Missing Out.

We’re continuing our own version of catchy phrases to encourage decluttering based on September’s abbreviation.

With the start of school, use SEPT to re-evaluate your schedule, priorities and time (even if you’re not a student or living with someone in school.)

Schedule Everyone’s Plans Together 

• Decide together what the new September bedtime is…grown-ups too!
• See every potential trap when plotting a large project and making plans.
• Consider how school-zone traffic may lengthen your travel.
• Be mindful of upcoming holidays — plan backward for deadlines.

And possibly most important, select a calendar that works for you. Paper, electronic, shared…we don’t care. As our favorite ADHD doctor, Ari Tuckman, always says: if you’re keeping all you have to do in your head, you’re not doing enough to fill your life.

Fill YOURS with joy and consider your time, energy and priorities to make September a successful month!

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Treasure What You Keep

When we are hired for a move, our clients describe everything they want to get rid of. Instead, we direct the conversation to what they want to take WITH them. You and I know, they will have to part with things to fit in a smaller floor plan. We keep the conversation positive. We focus on what they treasure. This allows them to enjoy being in the world of the “keepers.”

• What do you want to keep?

• What keeps you feeling nourished in your space?

• What objects keep you feeling connected to family and friends?


Helping people decide what makes their new place feel like home — regardless of its size — ensures that our clients:

• downsize with integrity to their life’s passions,

honor the discovery process of what they love not what they will leave behind.

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AUG: Anything Unused Goes!

Have you heard of BOGO? What about FOMO or YOLO?

These acronyms are clever and catchy:
BOGO: Buy One, Get One is an advertising phrase that pushes purchasing for the promise of more.

FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out is a phenomenon of refusing to commit to plans because of what you might miss.

calendar showing AUGEver heard of AUG? Other than being the abbreviated version of this month, it is my attempt to cleverly encourage de-cluttering during August. AUG stands for Anything Unused Goes! You can apply this term to any cluttered area of your home, office or car.

AUG is so flexible an acronym, I invite you to get creative with the different ways you can use it to clear unused, useless and unworthy things from your life, space, and storage areas.

• In your closet, you can customize it to Anything Ugly Goes. Get creative and Abolish Unattractive Garments! Whatever phrase you use, the concept is to adopt an approach of streamlining your belongings.

• If you are a collector, of teapots or chess games, you can change it to Anything Unworthy Goes. With collections we sometimes forget to consider the value of individual pieces because we get overly concerned with the size of the collection…but this is “BOGO” thinking rather than keeping quality in mind. I want to suggest you use the rest of this month to decide if an item warrants display space — or if it deserves a spot on the donation or resale pile.

• Apply Abandon Unused Gadgets to electronics. With today’s technology, things become obsolete faster than ever before. Chargers, cords, ports and storage devices may not be up to date and therefore become UNUSABLE. Don’t let these useless devices clutter your work space…YOLO!

How do you decide worth or usefulness? Please don’t decide worth solely by how much you spent or invested in something. Real worth is defined by how valuable is it to you today. Decide how necessary your stuff is to your life and how worthy of the space it’s taking up in your home, car, or office.

Lots of folks confuse usefulness with an item’s ability to still be useful without considering if that item is of use to them. Today, there are so many ways to donate, repurpose, and recycle things. Don’t hold onto things that clutter YOUR life. Let Anything Unused Go!


Click here for my organizing advice on NAPO’s Philadelphia blog.NAPO GPC blog site

LIKE us on FB for organizing inspiration from Joy In Your Space.

Sign-up to receive NAPO’s organizing advice from Joy and Kelly’s colleagues.

Stay tuned every month for clever monthly themes to help you declutter.

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Celebrate Interdependence!

We just celebrated our nation’s independence. We are grateful to live as free citizens; we value liberty! But an overly independent attitude can get in the way of success…and true freedom.

Let’s liberate ourselves from the crutch of independence and embrace interdependence.

 

Interdependence is being mutually reliant on others. To us, it is the healthiest and most positive way to accomplish everything in life. Interdependence values asking for help and offering assistance where you are able. We all want to be strong. We each have strengths, positive traits and healthy habits…but when we don’t have people around us to model better living, healthier habits or stronger traits, we can only survive, not thrive.And we want everyone to THRIVE! The path to success shouldn’t be a lonely road nor one we walk aloneReach out. Ask for help. 

We ask for help all the time:

• from family: When Kelly has a heavy work week, Joy makes us Friday night dinner. 

• from friends: We share our Costco shopping list with friends who will routinely pick up bulk grocery items when out in K of P.

• in our business: If anything has to do with numbers, we turn to our accounting experts; math is not our strength.

from tech guru’s (aka: Kelly’s kids): anything electronic gets asked of Joy’s grand-kids who are tech savvy and pretty patient teachers. 

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You Deserve a Yummy Closet!

 

 

 

 

Yummy isn’t just for dessert…

• when clothes are arranged just so,
• when favorite outfits are assembled,
• when exercise gear is easy to reach,
that’s delicious!
This summer let’s explore:
— what we’re wearing
— how we’re wearing it
— and ask if we should be wearing it.
Treat Yourself!
• Get winter and spring items off the floor and properly stored for the next season.
• Delight in knowing everything in your closet fits, flatters and is ready to wear.

• Invite us to transform your drawers, shelves and hanging rods into an oasis of easy summer dressing.

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Why Curate Your Stuff?

Question: Why Curate?

At a recent client walkthrough, Joy and I suggested a family curate their collection of furniture, kids’ toys, fine musical instruments and artwork yet-to-hang.

They loved the idea. What struck me was not how willingly they agreed. They did, after all, hire Joy In Your Space to learn how to live with less stuff! What impressed me, was how much they appreciated approaching their belongings with this museum-quality word.

They preferred curate over the usual decluttering terms: winnow, purge, and cull. We talked about how transformative “curating” would be for them.

Here’s why:

This one word made their decluttering job — which had felt overwhelming and burdensome — into an easy and fun exploration of their taste and family values.

They were excited to:
    • carefully select those toys most precious to their children.

    • examine each instrument and decide how to make the guitars
more accessible so they’re played more often.

    • assess which household artwork spoke to them.

    • and finally determine which kid “masterpieces” were most iconic
of that kid’s creativity and developmental progress.

Their home won’t feel like a museum when their done…they have 3 small children! But they will live with their favorite things, be able to find what they need and they won’t trip over clutter anymore.

Everything will have it’s place, and everyone will enjoy their space.

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Let Us Know What To Share

Please vote on the following topics and let us know what interests you.
Once we have your ranked responses we’ll share expert advice to ease stress and add JOY to your life:

Click here to vote.

• Bridging the ADHD Communication Gap
Communication can be difficult. When one partner is neuro-typical and the other is not, mutual understanding can be a challenge! Have smoother conversations and gain deeper empathy.

• What Lies Do We Tell Ourselves and Others?
We all lie sometimes. From ADHD expert, Dr. Ari Tuckman, we’ll share how good intentions can backfire. When we lie, our self esteem and our relationships suffer a price.

• Conquer Your E-mail Overwhelm

There is a debate about whether to file or use search capabilities.
Based on your preference,
 how do you build a reliable recall system?

• Empower Grieving People to Organize with Joy 
Death and loss are powerfully emotional events…which makes releasing
inherited clutter painful to let go. Holding on to too much of our past can
crowd our “now” and our “future.”


Joy and Kelly

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We’re Back from Conference

Ready to free you from the pressure of too little time and too much stuff.

We are excited to:

• enhance your living spaces
• teach you how to be more productive
• show you how to spend less time looking for things
• afford you more time with family and friends!

Stay tuned for lots of conference inspired tips, expert connections made and stories of how we stepped out of our comfort zones to bring you cutting edge ideas for organizing life.