Amber's Organizing - Tips

How long should I keep my paper? Hopefully, by now, you are starting to shift towards paperless bills, automatic bill payments, and e-statements. If you haven’t tackled one of those yet, I’d encourage you to make it a priority. It saves you a lot of time, you will never be late on a payment and you can always view the statement when it comes in the mail or via email so you stay in touch with your spending. If you are still collecting papers and your files are outdated, I’d like to suggest a few of the following tips for…

Best practices to avoid a full Inbox . How to keep emails at bay. Don’t print emails. It wastes paper and adds clutter to your desk. Instead either put the information onto your calendar or create folders in your email inbox to drag emails into them. Create helpful, relevant folders to file emails if you need to save an email. Don’t go crazy with fifty folders. Keep it to a maximum of 10-15 folders. Look at each email once and then act and decide. The longer you sit on something the longer it lingers as clutter and indecision. If too…

Whether you’re letting go of stuff, clutter, a negative thought, person, or dream, letting go is not easy. For some of us, pitching our old records or childhood doll is easy. For others, dismissing a thought or goal is easy. Keepsakes can be a challenge because they trigger fond memories from the past; that’s why we hang onto them. So how does someone let go? There’s not a simple clear cut answer but there are things we need to consider. What makes it possible, and what are things we can do or believe that will make the task ahead of…

The amount of mail today should be less and less. We have so many online options that give us the power to stop the mail from arriving, cluttering up our tabletop and wasting our time opening it up. To start, go paperless as much as you can, and to figure out which places you need to switch over, start with your current pile of mail. In the current piles, you will find lots of places you should log into and choose e-delivery. You will have to create usernames and passwords on each website but in the end, it will be…

After organizing sessions, I often hear the following… “This was so much better than having a friend help me. We would have never gotten this much done! You were worth every penny, Amber.” “This project would have taken me double maybe even triple the amount of time this took us to organize.” “I never would have finished Amber. I would have given up.” Wouldn’t you agree that you get a better workout with your trainer than working out alone? It’s not much different when we organize. There’s a big difference between organizing with a professional versus on your own or…

A common misconception around the idea of space in our homes is that if we had more space and a bigger home we would have no problems with clutter. Having organized homes over sixteen years, I would argue that a bigger home is not the solution to your space problem. The solution is how you use your space and how much stuff you store. People routinely ask me to help them find space and to give them more space. During our organizing sessions, I assess the type of furniture present, the closet systems inside every closet, and the overall free…

10 Organization Tips for New Moms Expecting a baby? Whether it’s your first child or fifth child, a baby changes everything. They are a huge blessing but also come with a lot of stuff. You can prepare and organize space around the home to make the transition smoother and easier. Finding room for all the baby gear and baby feeding items in the kitchen can be very overwhelming. Here are some practical tips to think through before the baby arrives. Hide rattles, blocks, board books, and other small baby toys in decorative lidded containers under the coffee table or the…

Adding jewelry to an outfit can bring it together and make you look and feel great. Don’t neglect to organize your jewelry. It will pay off when you’re headed out to an event and you will smile when you can grab the perfect necklace or set of earrings to complement it. The first step to organize your jewelry is to pull out all the jewelry boxes and bags that hold your jewelry. I often find it dispersed and saved in many places, pockets, old cardboard boxes, and just regular jewelry boxes. Next, choose a flat service to sort and match up…

Organizing closets and kitchens might seem reasonable and normal but what about our finances? Do we track what we spend and are aware of the money going in and out of our checking accounts? Most people would like to be better informed on their finances and would like to “budget” but for some, it’s a daunting task and a stressful task. Where does one start?  I like to think that knowledge equals freedom. If you know how much money is coming in and where your money is going, then you can make informed decisions to know what you can afford…

15 Clever Tips to Organizing Any Bathroom Only store items in the medicine cabinet that you use on a daily or weekly basis. By shifting excess elsewhere, that should leave you enough room for you what you use most often. Don’t buy a pedestal sink if you can help it. I know some bathrooms are just too small for any other type of sink. But if you can switch a more functional sink base, do so. A slim rolling cart works well in a tight narrow bathroom. How are you using the space underneath your sink? Try stacking drawers to…