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Thanks to my guest blogger Bob the Mover for sharing moving tips.
Moving is generally centered around leaving your old home for a new one.
Unfortunately, organizing a move is a long and arduous task involving packing, cleaning, loading, and unloading your belongings. It often can take longer than expected to get through this process.
From time to time, people can get careless after finishing packing; simply assuming their job is done. This leads to simple mistakes that can damage your home.
Whether looking to do it yourself or hire a professional, the tips we give you today will help your move go smoothly.
Without further adieu, let’s get into our top six tips for moving.
1: Choose a Professional Moving Company
First and foremost; the simplest way to have a smooth move is to hire a qualified, professional, and licensed moving company. They’re aware of all the problems and hiccups that are involved in the moving process.
Doing things yourself may lead to careless errors or broken items. The truth is if you break your own items there’s no insurance involved to protect you.
A professional mover is available for all your moving needs and will take care of all your questions and concerns; as well as several you may not even know to exist.
2: Clean Before the Unload
This will help you break down the move into several parts. Preparing your bathroom and bedroom before you unload will let you rest when you’re done.
Check for any pests before dropping your belongings inside the house.
3: Arrange Plans for Unloading
What are you moving and where is it going? Your simple question may have a complex answer.
Can your 10-foot-tall dresser fit up your 8-foot-tall stairs?
Think clearly about your items with sharp edges and where they need to go. Is there enough room or will it scratch your walls?
Where are your entrances? Can your house be accessed through the garage or do you have a separate basement entrance? These are simple things that can help minimize the risk involved in moving.
4: Use Floor Coverings
One of the easiest things to break during a move is your flooring. Carpet, hardwood, tile, and other types of flooring all come with their own pitfalls. Floor coverings will save you from stains, scratches, tears, or other types of damage.
Check with your Professional mover to see if they provide floor coverings for the a move. If going the DIY route, be sure to purchase some sort of floor coverings to avoid damage.
5: Keep the Kids and Pets at Bay
Once you’ve got a lot of the smaller details taken care of, you’re ready to start your move. One way to make things easier for your movers, or yourself, is to keep your kids and pets in a separate area.
A secondary location is preferable if you’ve got a babysitter. An anxious animal may dig up the flooring at your new place. Kids likewise may make a mess or a lot of noise. This will allow the move to go smoothly.
If keeping them at the new location—try to keep them isolated to an area with entertainment available and very little foot traffic.
6: Make Sure You’ve Done Safety Checks
Does your new place have a security system in place? Do all your locks work? Do your windows close tightly? These are all potential risks that can lead to theft.
While it may not be at the forefront of your mind, it’s something to consider as being newly moved makes you an easier target.
Don’t forget to change your locks—the previous owners may have spare keys or given spare keys to their relatives in the past and forgot about it. Changing your locks ensures you’re the only one with a copy of your house key.
Bob the Mover
If you’re looking for a St Catharines moving company, Bob the Mover services the entire Niagara region with the utmost professionalism. Bob the Mover is the 2020 Diamond award-winning reader’s choice best moving company in both the St Catharines ON and Niagara Falls ON regions. Find out more details here (link: https://bobmoveshouses.com/st-catharines-movers/.
Need help with timelines for your move? Work with me to help you get your packing and preparations done on time for your move. in-person or virtually.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, in person and virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home and office. She guides and supports you to manage your time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer?
I believe that having routines helps you to accomplish things using less energy. It automates chores and tasks that need to be done regularly to keep an office or home organized. If one person has routines for the tasks the system works. That person will get burnt out doing all the work. Delegating the work is the key. How do you delegate work that is in someone’s mind?
Checklists
Checklists can be used for many reasons.
- to make a process repeatable
- to clarify a task for another person
- to schedule tasks to be completed at regular intervals
- to reduce what you need to remember
Reproducible
I have many tasks that I do infrequently or that I am learning. I set up a checklist with all steps I need to do so I don’t forget one. The checklist takes the stress out of completing the task. I don’t need to figure out how to do it each time. The checklist will become refined after each use when I realize I left out a step or I have found an easier way to do it.
Some examples are:
Collecting income tax records:
- material needs to be gathered from a number of institutions,
- forms need to be filed,
- receipts need to be organized,
- copies made,
Setting up meetings:
- agendas prepared
- reports requested to be compiled/ submitted ahead of time for the meeting
- meeting notice was sent with the current date, time, location and attachments
- set-up meeting room in-person or virtual
- take meeting minutes
- meeting minutes sent out to attendees
- follow up on items to be completed by participants
Social media posting
- list hyperlinks to social media sites so I don’t need to look them up each time
- record steps on how to post to each site until it becomes easy
- record the date when something was posted
- record the topic that was posted so it is not posted twice
Clarity
How many times have you asked someone to do something and you come back and you are shocked by what they did or didn’t do? Checklists clarify what needs to be done in order to call the task completed. It allows you to delegate work.
Some examples are:
Clean your room – this means something different to each person
- Take the sheets and pillowcases off the bed and put them in the laundry
- Put on clean sheets and pillowcases
- Pick up everything off the floor and put it away
- Dust everything( list the items)
- Vacuum the floor, closet and under the bed
- Empty the garbage can into ……
Filing
- place documents in designated box for filing
- recycle advertising
- shred unimportant documents with personal information on them
- sort the pile alphabetically or by date or category
- file placing new documents in the front, header to the left
Planning an event for your family or at work
- set date, time and place
- send out notice/invitation with date, time, directions, need to know information, RSVP
- start to build a purchasing list
- decide on food and drink- quantities, order or prepare on site
- set up the room – seating, decorations, pens, paper
- clean the location
- have a place for coats
- plan activity- ice breakers, games,
- purchase/shop for items for the event
- set up a timetable for the event
- reminder notice
- post signs showing where to go, the name of the event Developing a checklist is a good way to think through all the steps in a task. Click To Tweet
Avoid mistakes, frustration and embarrassment
Checklists are great for things you do from memory to confirm you have not missed anything. Memory is fallible, especially the busier you get. If you have a checklist you won’t forget to make sure you have enough handouts for your meeting, you have defrosted the meat for supper, you have your passport etc. Sometimes I have a mental checklist I run through before leaving the house, a written checklist is better
How to write a good checklist
In his book, Gawande said a good checklist contains only five to nine items and fits on one page. You might not get your checklist right the first time, so practice using it in the real world, and then refine it as needed.
Checklists can improve performance, help you be more consistent, reduce anxiety and errors. If something you are doing and is hard, complicated, never seems to go right or needs to be delegated try making a checklist for that task. It is a good way to think through all the steps in a task. It only works if you use it before you begin your task.
Need help making a checklist book a 30-minute complimentary virtual organizing appointment. https://mindoverclutter.as.me/virtualorganizingassessment
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer.
Welcome to the new year. I hope you have challenges you conquer, joys you share and fun to revitalize yourself.
I am a naturally organized person. It comes very easily to me. Many people find getting and staying organized difficult. You will enjoy reading my guest blogger’s article on how to become neat by Sophia Perry of Arizona Moving Professionals.
Trust me when I tell you that a messy person can learn to be neat. As a former slob who daily transferred a ginormous pile of semi-dirty clothes from bed (when it’s sleep time) to the work desk, and vice versa, I can tell you, you too can transform. I don’t even know how it used to get to the point of having almost the entire content of my wardrobe on the bed. But it did.
And the story doesn’t end there. The most frustrating thing was the laundry. I wash one round. While it dries, the second is being washed. I still haven’t folded the first one, and the second is drying. Soon there is the third round. And the rest of my wardrobe is now clean but wrinkled beyond recognition, on an armchair waiting for something to happen. And when I finally get around to dealing with those mountains of clothes, I end up with a closet so messy that I don’t even know what clothes I have. I wish I could say these were my greatest issues, but… There were also dishes. Technically, the situation was the same as with the laundry. It’s just that I never managed to empty the dishwasher, so new dirty dishes piled up in the sink, and… Well, you get the picture. However, there is help! Much like the 12-step program, here too, there are steps to take to get on the path of tidiness.
1. Designate a place for each and every item you possess.
After a long day at work, believe me, I understand the tiredness. But don’t drop your pants, key, and shoes wherever you see fit and leave them lying there until you need them again. If you know that shoes belong in the hallway, keys on a peg next to the door, and jeans in the closet, go put them there. Repeat every day. It will start feeling normal. It will become an automatic thing.
2. Eyes on the prize – visualize the outcome and work on the road to get there.
To stay motivated, it’s vital to be realistic. Start small. Set a few attainable goals every day, and cross them off the list once you’ve done them. The crossing off will create a feeling of accomplishment and get you incentivized to keep going. It’s like training yourself. In addition to daily plans, start making weekly and monthly plans as well. Put them up on your fridge, so you remind yourself of what needs doing. It will bring some organization to your life.
Motivation can come unexpectedly. For example, once I heard a motivational speaker, whose name I can’t recollect, say: “If your bed is a mess, your life is a mess.” He explained that it’s his morning routine that makes him successful. He gets up, works out, and makes his bed. Making the bed is a task he completed early in the morning. So he set himself up for success. He already accomplished something. Needless to say, I have made a habit of making my bed every morning now.
Set small goals every day and cross them off the list. It will make you feel like you have accomplished something.
3. Stop with the hoarding.
Stop piling up clutter. Having too many things is what complicates the cleaning process. And not just that, too many items to wipe, move, and dust are downright overwhelming. As Marie Kondo says, and I’m paraphrasing – if it doesn’t make you happy, get rid of it. Also, if you haven’t used it for a long time – get rid of it. If you don’t need it – you’ve guessed it, it goes out. Finally, don’t accumulate sentimental knickknacks. Don’t get attached to things. They are just things. Many have fallen into this trap. If you don’t enjoy, need, or use something, lose it. A messy person can learn to be neat if they learn to declutter mercilessly! I have come to despise ornaments with no purpose, just because they add to the cleaning time. And time is precious.
Moreover, clutter can get in the way of productivity. Therefore, tidying up your workspace is very important. This is especially crucial if you work from home. There are already too many distractors. And several dirty coffee mugs, a mountain of clothes on your chair, and dirty socks on the floor are not helpful. Also, too many things on your desk, such as purposeless ornaments, don’t make for a suitable working environment.
Clutter can get in the way of productivity. Keep your workspace tidy and organized.
4. Simplify cleaning.
How can cleaning be simplified, you wonder? Well, simple. Organize your home so that it’s easier to tidy. Decluttering is one way to do it. But you can do more. For instance, I’ve realized that curtains really make my life difficult. So I got rid of them and replaced them with zebra blinds. They are stylish, modern, and, most importantly, easy to maintain. There is no washing, ironing, or hanging. Just an occasional wipe with a wet cloth and a bit of dusting. Good quality ones are antistatic, so even dusting is optional. Think of the areas in your home that cause you the most headaches, and figure out ways to make them more manageable.
5. It all boils down to making new habits.
Make yourself do something, even the smallest thing, every day. Not every week or every few days, but every single day. The point is to make it a habit to keep your home neat and tidy. If tidiness doesn’t come instinctively, you must train yourself. Basically, repeat until it’s a routine. Every time you leave a room, try to leave it better than you found it. Put a thing or two away. As you cook, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher as soon as you are done with them. Wipe the surface the second you spill something. Don’t let things get really filthy. So big cleaning will be less frequent.
If tidying up doesn’t come instinctively to you, make a habit of it.
A messy person can learn to be neat
Some people call it a creative mess. Some say they can only function in chaos. They claim they can’t find anything if their home is tidy. But is it really true? Or are those excuses? Old habits are hard to break, but a messy person can learn to be neat. It’s essential to change self-image. You are not a slob or a lazy person – you need to purge. Rid yourself of clutter and bad habits. Finally, make positive associations with cleaning. Listen to music or an audiobook. That way, an unpleasant, mundane task will become something more enjoyable.
Let me help you to leave your messy self behind. Book a 30-minute complimentary virtual organizing assessment. https://mindoverclutter.as.me/virtualorganizingassessment
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, in person and virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer?
It’s hard to believe but we are coming to the end of our seventh blog to get off your butt and finally beat procrastination. I hope you’ve been following along and more importantly that you’ve been making progress on at least one of the things you’ve been procrastinating on. We end today with the most critical advice and the main lesson I want you to take away from all this.
Make progress every single day!
Of course, that’s easier said than done. That’s why I’m leaving you today with three simple hacks or strategies to help you. Give them a try and see if you can’t get into the habit of being productive every day instead of procrastinating.
Plan For It
It’s easy to make progress every day when you know exactly what you should be working on next. Make a plan and then decide what you will do each day of the week. Write it down in a planner and adjust daily as needed. In the morning, you can see at a glance what it is you should be doing. Then get to work on it first thing before the day gets away from you. I find it helpful to have my planner sitting right in front of me at my desk, keeping me on track.
Don’t Break The Chain
There’s something to be said about a chain or a streak. Record every day you don’t procrastinate on something. You can mark it on a monthly calendar, or create a chain of sticky notes, stickers, or even one of those paper chains you used to make in school. The goal is simple. Don’t break the chain. Once you have a few days under your belt, you’ll be motivated to go the extra mile and do that one thing you need to do to avoid breaking the streak.
Check In With Yourself
As you progress on the things you know you need to be doing, you should feel your anxiety reduced. Instead, you will feel your confidence go up. Don’t be surprised to feel proud of your accomplishments. Instead, use those feelings to propel you forward to more procrastination free days. Procrastination is a habit. It’s something you learned to do, which means it’s something you can unlearn. Stick with it, make progress every day, and enjoy those feelings of accomplishment.
Make progress every day, and enjoy those feelings of accomplishment. Click To TweetJulie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, in person and virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer.
Something we haven’t talked about yet is that little voice in our head that either encourages us to go do something else – thus procrastinating, or the other one… the critical one… the one that tells us how much we suck because we didn’t get the things done we set out to do. Listen to your inner voices; the negative one, the fun one, change that dialogue and stop procrastination Click To Tweet
Forgiveness
Why is it important to listen to those voices? Because they have an impact on your life both on a conscious and a subconscious level. Let’s start with that negative voice because I think it’s the most destructive of the two in the long run. Back on day one of this seven-day challenge to beat procrastination we talked about the importance of forgiving yourself. To quickly recap, it does you no good to beat yourself up over past procrastination and you should expect to “fail” by procrastinating again here and there. Nobody is perfect. We all have good days and bad days. The important part is to show up and try your best.
Negative Voice
That little negative voice in your head doesn’t help you do that. Become aware of it and when you hear it, defuse it. You can do this by responding to it out loud or in writing (via a journal). Or go up and do something else. Do whatever it takes to silence that voice. A great option is to prove it wrong by doing something productive. Over time that voice will speak up less and less unless you indulge it by paying attention to it and letting it ruin your day.
The Fun Voice
Next, it’s time to tackle the voice in your head that tells you it’s much more fun to do about anything other than what you should be doing. We all have that voice. It’s why we come up with terms like procrasticleaning and procrasticrafting. We can get pretty innovative when it comes to doing anything but the thing we don’t want to work on and that little voice is feeding us suggestions and cheering us on.
The best way to diffuse this particular voice into something more productive is with “yes, and” statements. “Yes, playing video games sounds like a lot of fun and I’m going to play for an hour or so after I get this task done.” Use the suggestions this voice gives you as bribes if they sound like something fun. Ignore them otherwise, or put them off until tomorrow.
Comment on which voice do you listen to most often and why?
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, in person and virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer?
Beating procrastination can be hard. We do well for a few days, but then old habits set back in, or we get frustrated with our lack of apparent progress. Nothing goes fast enough. If you face a small setback at this point, it may be enough to stop working on what you wanted to accomplish in the first place. Thankfully there’s something you can do to greatly improve your chances of success. Accountability.
Procrastinating is a habit and you can get out of it and turn yourself into the motivated and productive version of yourself you want to be. Click To Tweet
Track Your Progress
Start by tracking what you do. You can do this via a simple habit tracker. Use a box for each day of the week and check it off or fill it in when you do the thing you told yourself you would do. Keep tracking until it becomes a habit or until the project is done.
For larger projects that you may or may not work on a daily basis, it helps to write down your goal and then break it into milestones. Record your progress and how much closer you’re inching to each of your goals.
Make Daily To-Do Lists
Write out a list of everything you want to get done for the day. I find it helpful to do this the day before. Play around with how many items you put on that list. You don’t want it to overwhelm you, but you do want to challenge yourself to get more done. The list holds you accountable because you can see in black and white if you procrastinated or not.
Tell Someone About Your Plans
If there’s something you’ve been struggling to get done, tell someone else about your plans to finally tackle it. Call a friend, tell your spouse, or announce it on social media. Encourage the people you’re sharing with to check back with you on how you did. It may be the little extra push you need to stop procrastinating.
Find An Accountability Buddy
Last but not least, find someone else who’s procrastinating and start holding each other accountable. This could be as simple as checking in once in the morning to declare what you each want to get done, and then again at the end of the day to see what happened. Knowing someone else is right there with you can be super motivating.
Give each of these procrastination beating strategies a try and see which ones give you the best results. Like anything else, procrastinating is a habit and you can get out of it and turn yourself into the motivated and productive version of yourself you want to be.
Need help being accountable? Set up a complimentary 30-minute virtual appointment to help you stop procrastinating
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, virtually. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter in your, home, office, mind and time. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer.
You wake up in the morning motivated and ready to tackle whatever it is you’ve been procrastinating on. Or maybe you’re excited about a new project. You drink your coffee, get dressed, and get ready to get to work. Then something happens.
Maybe you open your email, or worse Facebook and get sucked into spending the next few hours on your computer. Or maybe a good friend calls and asks you to go shopping. Or you get an alert that your favourite TV show dropped on Netflix. It doesn’t matter what it is, the point is that there are people and things that will try to distract you into procrastinating. If you let them. 
Strategy – plan the night before
There’s a simple strategy you can use to keep this from happening. It’s to make the important project you’ve been procrastinating on a priority and work on it first thing every morning. The whole process starts the night before. Before you call it a day, sit down and make a simple plan for what you want to get done the next day. Identify the three most important tasks. These will be things that start to move the needle. Maybe they are all focused on one main project, or maybe it’s several things you know you should be getting done.
Write 3 things down
Write these three things down. They don’t have to be anything big. In fact, I find it helpful if they are all items I can take care of in an hour or less. When you get up in the morning or get to your office, look at your list and work on these three most important tasks before you do anything else. Don’t look at the email. Don’t start playing on your phone. If possible don’t even answer the phone or attend meetings before these three tasks are taken care of. Make them your number one priority.
Don’t leave it to the end of the day
This alone will make a huge difference in how your day goes, how productive you are, and it of course keeps you from procrastinating on those projects. Putting them off until the end of the day when you’re too tired to do anything is no longer an option. Stop procrastinating: strategize, write 3 tasks down, complete them first thing in the morning and beware of things that derail your plan. Click To Tweet
Pinpoint what caused you to procrastinate
Aside from that, simply being more aware of what things, devices, and people tempt you to procrastinate is helpful. When you find yourself putting something off, look back and see if you can pinpoint what caused it. Then take action towards preventing it from happening in the future.
If you’re having trouble changing your habits, book a complimentary 30 minute coaching appointment to discuss how to increase your productivity and reduce your procrastination.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. She guides and supports you to be accountable for your time, to complete projects and reach your goals. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Click here to learn more about her online course Create an Organized Home.
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Ready to stop procrastinating and make some progress? Try one of these seven simple hacks to motivate yourself into action. Give them each a try over the coming days and weeks and find the ones that make the biggest difference for you. Whenever you find yourself procrastinating, come back to this list and employ one or several of these hacks. Your productivity will soar. 
Tip #1: Pick Something Small
One of the big reasons we procrastinate is because something feels overwhelming. There’s too much to do, so we choose to forget about it for a little while. It’s a coping mechanism, just not a very productive one. Instead, pick one thing, something small that you can do right now to move you in the right direction. This creates momentum and forces you to take action.
Tip #2: Set A Time And Go
Another hack that works like a charm is to set a timer. Your phone has one built-in, as do most smart watches. Set it for fifteen or twenty minutes and chip away at a task you’ve been procrastinating on. This works just as well for decluttering your closet as it does for filling out those dreaded forms. If twenty minutes feels too long, start with ten and increase your time. Again, the goal is to start and do something.
Tip #3: Bribe Yourself
There’s nothing wrong with bribing yourself if that’s what motivates you. Work on a home organizing project for an hour and then watch an episode of your favourite show. Or promise yourself a walk or dinner out when you finish decluttering the living room. Come up with something that motivates you and go for it. Remind yourself of the prize at the end of the project whenever you’re tempted to put things off for another day.
Tip #4: Find An Accountability Partner
Find someone else who’s either trying to be more productive or beat procrastination themselves. Check in with each other daily. Share what you want to accomplish and what you will get done today. Knowing you have to report to someone else makes you take action. It’s also motivating to see the other person do the same. Try it.
Tip #5: Measure Your Progress
When you’re working on something long-term like organizing your entire home for example, it can be tempting to procrastinate because it doesn’t seem like you’re making much progress. Instead, prove to yourself that you are getting closer and closer by tracking or measuring it. Make a chart, use a spreadsheet, and keep a journal. Find a way to measure your progress and use it to motivate yourself to keep going.
Tip #6: Remind Yourself Of Your Why
There’s a reason you’ve decided to do that thing you keep putting off. Think about why you want to get it done. Is it so you feel less overwhelmed? So you can run around with the kids? So you can find the clothes you actually want to wear? Find out your why. Write it down and then keep it front and center. Look at it every day before you get ready to get to work.
Tip #7: Just Start
I’ve saved the best for last. It’s the easiest but also the most powerful. Hear this. Just get started. That’s right, sometimes all you have to do is just get moving in the right direction. Do something. Do anything. Even if it’s something super small. You get over that initial hump and start to build some momentum.
Comment on the hack that works best for you.
Need some help to get started? Book a 30-minute complimentary virtual appointment and let me help you get started on your mission.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. She guides and supports you to be accountable for your time, to complete projects and reach your goals. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Click here to learn more about her online course Create an Organized Home.
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Are you a procrastinator? Many of us have the tendency to put things off and no matter how often we beat ourselves up over waiting until the last minute to pack for a move, declutter our home, or file our taxes and struggle to get it all done in time, we keep doing it again and again. If you’re ready to finally beat procrastination and get ahead of the game, you’re in the right place.
Forgiveness
Over the course of seven blog posts, I’m going to share my best tips and strategies for overcoming procrastination with you and we start today with – Forgiveness. I know it seems like a strange place to start, but it’s an important first step. Here is why forgiving yourself for procrastination should always be the first step.
There’s nothing you can do about the past except learn from it. Beating yourself up about not following the plan you made for reaching a goal does you no good. Quite the opposite actually. If you stress yourself out and engage in negative self-talk, you make it worse. Those feelings of anxiety will enforce your habit to procrastinate again the next time.
Try to do better
The next time you find yourself procrastinating, tell yourself that it’s okay. It’s not the end of the world. Say it out loud and then promise yourself to try to do better. Trying is the important keyword here. You’re working on mastering new skills and changing a habit. That takes practice, time, and of course failing again and again. It’s part of the learning process.
You may feel frustrated at times about your lack of progress. It’s normal. If you can, tap into that frustration and use it to motivate you. Vow to try again and do better. Look at your mistakes. What caused you to procrastinate this time? Learn from it and you will start to do better. 
Learn from your failings and start again
Maybe there’s a big task and you started strong, chipping away at it a little at a time. Then you missed a day and another. That’s okay. Not great, but okay. You did well for a while. It’s good practice and maybe this particular experience taught you that you can’t allow yourself to skip more than one day on an ongoing project.
There’s always something new to learn whenever we fail at something or slip back into a bad habit. At the very least we figure out that something isn’t working for us. Maybe you do better with three or fewer to-do’s per day. Maybe you need twenty-five so there’s always something to check off. You won’t know until you try.
Forgive yourself for procrastinating so you can move on and practice some more.
If you need help to get back on track with your project try a virtual organizing appointment. Virtual organizing allows me to support your organizing projects by providing planning, coaching and mentoring while both remaining safely at home.
Book a 30 minute complimentary virtual organizing appointment.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. She guides and supports you to be accountable for your time, to complete projects and reach your goals. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Click here to learn more about her online course Create an Organized Home.
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
My guest blogger this month is Bryan Styles. Bryan is a life coach and a freelance writer with a focus on improving the quality of peoples’ lives. He puts all of his efforts and energy into educating people about how to overcome hardships and live a happier life.
We all live different lives, surrounded by different people, interacting with different things. Everything in our environment leaves a mark in the long run. While we can choose who we spend time with, not many people pay attention to the space they live in. It often becomes something we all just get used to, be it due to a lack of finances, or simply a lack of options. The importance of our living environment is immense, and even a few small changes can make a difference in our lives. With that in mind, I would like to give an answer to one question – can organizing your space impact your mental health?
How confined spaces affect our mental health?
I have had a lot of experience living in a cramped-up apartment. Just my girlfriend and me in a single room that was at the same time the living room, the bedroom, and the kitchen, and a small bathroom. At first, everything was fine. I always thought about how there are people who don’t have a roof over their heads or live in much worse conditions. I went with it.
However, after some time, I noticed that I was becoming more and more nervous. The apartment had to be cleaned and organized every day, which always took a lot of time, even though it was such a small space. If you skipped one day, things would start to pile up and soon we would be in a mess that caused even more tension. Living in that apartment felt more like work.
As soon as you start decluttering your space, you will feel how the tension and stress leave your body, piece by piece.
Nevertheless, once we cleaned it up and organized our stuff, I felt like I was a free man. There was this rush of energy and good feelings of having some free space around you.
It is a fact that our environment sets our mood. Organizing your space will impact your mental health, in many good ways. However, the road from clutter to freedom is a difficult one, and it does require a bit of planning and effort.
A few tips on how to get rid of clutter
While I don’t want to turn this article into a “How to clean your apartment” guide, there are a few problems that must be addressed:
- how to deal with a lack of space
- what to do with all the stuff you need, but don’t have enough room for
- how to not go crazy while decluttering your apartment
I want to give you a couple of productive tips and best practices I used a lot.
A small apartment will always be a small apartment
Living in a small apartment is not something you can fix by decluttering. Sure, you will get more space, but the apartment will still be small. It is important to understand this because you will have to make radical changes in order to avoid decluttering your place every few weeks.
The most crucial step in this process is to do extensive research on organizing small apartments or homes. Read articles, follow interior design blogs and vlogs, browse photos online, read interior design and staging magazines, and look for tips about handling the lack of space in your home.
The more research you do, you will start noticing a specific pattern. Living in a small apartment means getting rid of bulky items, and organizing your space in a minimalistic style.
That’s all fine, but I cannot throw my wardrobe to make more space!
Well, yes and no. When I talk about getting rid of bulky items, I understand that some things like closets, the bed, and the table have to stay inside. However, there is one thing you must realize.
You are storing everything in your apartment. Clothes for summer and winter, all of your electronic equipment, everything. While that is normal for a large home, it is virtually impossible to keep a small place organized while keeping everything.
My suggestion is to rent extra storage for bulky items outside of your home. You won’t pay much, but the space you will get will make a huge difference.
People are often overburdened with everything that happens in their lives. Having an organized living space will help remedy that issue.
Keep only the essential furniture and electronics, and move everything else to the unit. When it comes to clothes, you just need to have clean clothes for seven days. Move everything else to a storage unit, and you can pay a visit every week if you want to get new clothes.
Furthermore, if you have a rug, get rid of it. Sell it, donate it, throw it away, just move it out of the house. Cleaning the floor is much easier when there is nothing on it.
It is a bit of an odd strategy, but it works really well if you organize it properly. After some time, you will start enjoying the extra space, and you will start to notice the positive impact it has on both your physical and your mental health.
Do everything with a positive attitude
Making these radical changes will be a difficult decision for some people. We all have a tendency to like patterns in our lives, and making changes often disturbs us.
Nevertheless, there are ways to turn this decluttering process into a fun activity.
Having a positive attitude is the most important part of living our lives.
First of all, you must start with a positive attitude. Have in mind that, once you are done, you will feel a lot better. Second, listen to some music while you work. Music is important for our bodies and our minds. Third, get some help. Ask a friend, a member of the family, or your significant other to help you.
Finally, if you don’t want to do the heavy lifting yourself, you can always hire a professional to help you get organized.
Can organizing your space impact your mental health – YES!
Once you get rid of all the clutter in your apartment, you will feel an instant change. You will have more energy and motivation for anything you want to do. Remember, things are what you make of them. It is all about a positive attitude. And once you have enough space for yourself, you will feel as if you can do anything you set your mind to!Our environment sets our mood. Organizing your space will impact your mental health, in many good ways. Click To Tweet
Virtual organizing allows me to support your organizing projects by providing planning, coaching and mentoring while both remaining safely at home. https://mindoverclutter.ca/virtual-organizing-services/
Book a 30-minute complimentary virtual organizing assessment.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, in person and virtually. She enjoys working with her clients to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She reduces clutter, streamlines processes and manages time to help her clients be more effective in reaching their goals. Julie can coach you to break-free of the physical or emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Click here to learn more about working with a Professional Organizer?
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