The Functional Organizer, LLC

Getting Kids Organized at Home

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:07:36 +0000

Getting Kids Organized at Home. Here are a few simple tips and strategies to help your kids become more organized at home.

1. Have a permanent place for your in-season outerwear, footwear and backpack. Have mom or dad install some hooks, cubbies, or racks near the door, so you can easily grab what you need on your way out the door. This will keep the floor clutter near the entrance to a minimum.

2. Zone Out. One of the biggest rules of organizing is to create zones for everything. Start with the idea of a Kindergarten class room. A zone for reading, a zone for arts and crafts, a zone for building blocks, a zone for playing games, a zone for puppets/acting. Now transfer that thought process to your kids rooms and rec rooms.

3. Box it. Label it. Store it. Small toys are a lot of fun when we can find them easily and no pieces are missing. If your child loves blocks, place them all in a clear bin. With a piece of masking tape and a sharpie, label the bin “Blocks”. Store heavier bins on the floor or the bottom of an easily accessible child sized shelf which is safely attached to the wall.

4. Finish what you started. If your child pulls out the blocks and starts playing with them, be sure they put them back in the bin and return them to their zone before they go onto the next thing. This helps them focus on one thing at a time, while feeling a sense of accomplishment. It also keeps the floor clear, and prevents random toys from becoming lost or broken.

5. Review your toy inventory twice a year: Donate unused items and toss broken items. Birthdays and the Holiday Season are times when the toy inventory reaches overload. A couple weeks prior to these big events, help your child purge the toys they are not using anymore. They will feel good when you tell them other little boys and girls who don’t have anything will enjoy these toys.

6. Keep sports equipment in one place at ground level. In your garage, basement or shed, wall mount a cargo net from your old car to hold basketballs, footballs and soccer balls. Use a large round plastic tub to store baseball, hockey, and lacrosse gear . The easier it is to access, the more likely they will use it and put it back again.

7. Closets: Find your clothes quickly and easily. If you have two bars/shelves in your closet, use one for tops/dresses and the other for bottoms. Be sure bars/shelves are at the appropriate height, so kids can learn to make some choices on what they want to wear. Review and purge twice a year, so it is easy for your child to hang and find the clothes they love to wear.

8. The Hand me down system. Place the best gently worn clothes in clear bins labeled by gender/age group and place the next couple years on the upper shelf of your child’s closet. Store the rest in a dry place for easy access in the future. When the youngest child has grown out the clothes, donate or hand them down to family or friends.

9. The Family Calendar: Dance, Baseball, Soccer, oh my! Sports, classes, and events are what make up your child’s life. They will always be going somewhere and until they start driving, so they will need help getting from A to B. Make a color coded family calendar on two white boards consisting of the current month and the next month. Have your child pick the color they want. Write in all the events for each family member. Now a schedule/plan has been created and we know where everybody is on each day.

10. Creating Solid Positive Habits. Everything we do is based on habit, either good or bad. Are there one or two things around the house you would love to see your child do daily and/or weekly Making their bed in the morning, picking up their bedroom floor, sweeping the kitchen floor, putting things back where they found them Discuss what things are expected of your child on a daily/weekly basis. Let them create a few of their own. Use an 8” x 11” white board to display a Habit Chart in a central location, so they can “see” what they should be working on for the day/week. Creating solid positive habits will help your child avoid procrastination and understand the value of time.

11 Easy Steps to Tackle Paper Organizing Quickly

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:07:12 +0000

Items needed: cardboard box, manilla folders, pencil, file storage

Turn on your favorite music. Ready. Set. Focus.
Place all paper and mail from table into a cardboard box. Now table is clear.
Do a quick sort of all paper in one pile and all mail in another. No time to review contents. Just sort. Your box should now be empty.
Now go through the paper quickly making three piles: Keep, Recycle & Shred. Toss the Recycle pile away as soon as you finish the quick sort. Place Shred pile in empty box and label the box “shred”.
Now go through your mail quickly making three new piles: Keep, Recycle & Shred. Toss the Recycle pile away as soon as you finish the quick sort. Place Shred pile in box labeled “shred”.
Now only two small piles should remain: Keep Paper & Keep Mail.
Keep Paper – Grab 3 manilla folders and label them: Needs Review, Needs Filing, Needs Action. Place all Keep Paper contents into these folders by category.
Keep Mail – Grab 4 manilla folders and label them: Needs Review, Needs Filing, Needs Action, Bills Urgent. Place all Keep Mail contents into these folders by category.
Place these folders in a organized fashion near the spot where you drop your mail and papers on a daily basis. This will vary based on personality. Some like a plastic or metal file organizer in plain view. Others revert to concealing folders in cabinet drawers or placing a small metal filing cabinet under a table with a sliding curtain in front of it. Get creative or go to a store and pick up a cost effective organizer or a nice wooden piece that will fit your folders comfortably.
Maintain this area for 5 minutes each day by reviewing, purging, adding and filing, and your paper clutter will be a thing of the past.
Celebrate!

The Junk Drawer

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:05:29 +0000

What can you do in 20 minutes? Let’s organize that junk drawer. It’s time to find that favorite pen and other items which were gobbled up long ago. Do a quick sort, an honest purge, and if possible use existing organizing trays. Now you’ll have an organized drawer before you measure and shop for that permanent organizing solution.

BEFORE

AFTER

5 Reasons Why the Sea of Papers on Our Kitchen Table are Now a Priority.

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:16:14 +0000

1. Lost keys, rendering us late for work and/or appointments.
2. Lost bills, adding late fees to credit cards.
3. Lost medical/dental notices, causing us to miss them altogether.
4. Lost tax documents, allowing us to procrastinate until April 15th.
5. Additional daily stress, as we keep telling ourselves, “I’ll get to that later.”

Got Adult ADHD? Get Organized!

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 13:02:47 +0000

One of the hallmarks of adult ADHD is disorganization. These five tips help you track dates, tasks, and paperwork.

By Heather Hatfield
WebMD The Magazine

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

Some of the hallmarks of adult ADHD include forgetfulness, distractibility, chronic lateness, and general disorganization. This can make life miserable for you — and the people who live and work with you.

But ADHD coach Nancy Ratey, EdM, author of The Disorganized Mind: Coaching Your ADHD Brain to Take Control of Your Time, Tasks, and Talents, offers adults living with ADHD five tips to help them organize their lives.

Recommended Related to ADD-ADHD

ADHD: An Update on Diagnosis and Treatment for Kids

At age 4, Jeremiah Ryans routinely refused to wait in line at the water fountain at his summer day camp. Sometimes he’d get so cranky he would hit his classmates. But an alarm bell went off when he grabbed a pair of children’s scissors and cut his teacher’s hair. Just a kid being a kid — or extreme behavior that may need medical help? The answer isn’t clear-cut, and it’s different for every family. “He was on the verge of being expelled from day care,” remembers his mother, Mimi, of Columbia,…

Read the ADHD: An Update on Diagnosis and Treatment for Kids article > >

1. Create a family calendar. Put the calendar in the kitchen and make everyone take part, even those who don’t have ADHD. A simple color-coded calendar — each person can pick his or her favorite color — can help you avoid overbooking, and family members can offer friendly reminders when an appointment is looming. Talk about the week’s schedule on Sunday evening during dinner, so you have a reasonable time frame that you have to process — instead of larger chunks of time that are too much to bite off at once.

2. Clean out the clutter. If you have ADHD, chances are that at the core of your disorder is clutter. Everything you own — from a 10-year-old magazine to your wedding album — holds the same level of emotional value, and you feel you need to keep it all. Once a month, mark a Saturday afternoon on your calendar and dedicate three hours to chipping away at the mess. That’s just enough time to make a difference without overwhelming you.

3. Label your life. Once you’ve decluttered, it’s time to get organized. Ratey suggests you assign all your important “life items”– like your keys, your wallet, and your mail — a home. With a good organizing system, you’ll be able to put your hands on something fast when you need it. Color-coding is also key to being organized. Use color-coded labels in your filing cabinet, for instance.

4. Use to-do lists. Write your to-do list for the next day before you go to bed at night. Use four simple “buckets” to keep your to-dos manageable: calls, emails, tasks, and errands. The hallmark of any good to-do list is length: the shorter the better, says Ratey. People who compile lists with dozens of projects tend to jump from one to the next without finishing anything.

5. Take time. Time every aspect of your day for one week, suggests Ratey. An activity log can help you realize when your ADHD takes over and where you need to make improvements. A simple trick like wearing a watch that beeps on the hour keeps you aware of time and moving in the right direction.

Workshop in Longmeadow, MA

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:42:50 +0000

On Wednesday, May 23rd at 6:30pm, I’ll be hosting an interactive Workshop titled “From Clutter to Clarity” at the Richard Salter Storrs Library, 693 Longmeadow St, Longmeadow, MA 01106. Learn how to organize anything by understanding, planning and asking. This event is free and open to the public.

Workshop Tonight

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:45:15 +0000

Tonight at 6:30pm, I’ll be hosting a workshop titled “From Clutter to Clarity” at the East Longmeadow Public Library. Learn how to organize anything by understanding, planning, and asking. This event is free and open to the public. http://eastlongmeadowlibrary.org/

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 6:30pm East Longmeadow Public Library • 60 Center Sq • East Longmeadow, MA 01028

80/20 Rule

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:17:54 +0000

According to the National Association of Professional Organizers, 80% of the stuff we keep we never use. Take the time to remove some of that unused stuff, so you can find the other 20%.

Everyone Has A Choice

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:06:32 +0000

The choice to continue struggling daily looking for things you know you own, but can’t find, making us late for events. This choice is time consuming, expensive, and stressful. The alternative is choosing to make a plan, clear out the things you don’t use and enjoy your space. This choice will make you feel good, continue to save you money, and allow you to quickly find the things you need on a daily basis. What choice will you make?

Meskimen’s Law

The Functional Organizer, LLC — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:51:08 +0000

“There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over again.”